There are two basic errors that have historically been made on the question of the relationship of the party to the mass movement: the error of downgrading the role of the party to a mere agitator and propagandist which does not play a day to day leading role in the mass struggle and guide the revolutionary process, and the error of substituting the party for the mass movement, which implies neglecting the role of the masses. Parallel errors are the feeling that attention to the question of party building is misplaced since the mass struggle and loose organizational forms are adequate to deal with the problems of mass work and, the opposite error of, obsession with building “the party,” the unwillingness to do anything until “the party is built” and the feeling that the revolution will be right around the corner once we have “the party.” The first type of problem, that of organizational looseness and the lack of appreciation of the power of disciplined revolutionary forms, plagued us in the 1960’s. In the 1970’s events have swung to the opposite extreme. Now almost everyone seems obsessed with “building the party”; even to the extent of neglecting popular struggles. The optimism of new converts, the feeling that the revolution will be easy once we have “built the party” is pervasive. What in fact happens is that groups like the Communist League, the Revolutionary Union and the October League recruit a few people and change their names, becoming more arrogant, sectarian: and dogmatic in the process, since they are convinced that they are now the revolutionary vanguard. Not wanting to be left behind each group in turn announces that now is the time to build a party and proceeds to intensify its level of dogmatism and sectarianism, falling victim to the magic-like belief that if the word “party” is in their names, and if their internal unity is high enough, then suddenly the working class will accept their leadership. The rationalism and idealism of the whole enterprise is sad.
The party building enthusiasts confuse the need to have a democratic centralist organization which has sufficient experience in mass struggle, and which most revolutionaries recognize as having sufficient experience to develop scientifically valid lines, and which the working class and other oppressed groups have come to respect as the leading force in mass struggle, with the objective conditions of the creation of such an organization. As such they are guilty of a serious subjectivist error of letting their own subjective needs substitute for the historical possibilities of the movement. The fact is in the U.S. in the 1970’s no Marxist tendency has come anywhere close to having sufficient experiences in the working class struggle to serve as a sufficient basis for a scientific determination of lines, and no Marxist tendency has come anywhere close to winning the confidence of large segments of the working class and other oppressed people. Likewise, honest Marxist forces are is disarray and tend to support more or less the full range of tendencies. A pre-party period has never more clearly existed anywhere than in the U.S. today. The dogmatists refusal to see this merely reflects their own subjectivism. But allowing themselves to be ruled by subjective feelings rather than by the objective requirements of the movement fans all the ultra-left dogmatism and sectarianism of the current period. The subjective notion that the CLP, the RCP or the OL are the party grants license to issue pronouncements with the authority that “the party” has earned by its vanguard status, and to excommunicate others out of the legitimate revolutionary movement as “anti-party forces.”
One wonders if the obsessive party building enthusiasts have an understanding of what a Marxist-Leninist party really is, or whether they maintain a Christian like messianic conception that knowing the truth and having the right name will produce salvation? The party building obsession tends to use leadership in a peculiar way. Leadership tends to mean “having, the correct line,” “being correct” as in the expression “line decides everything.” The analogue with the Chinese Communist Party, that started with ten or so members and came to power within twenty-five years, is frequently made. In this conception of leadership, the correct line is derived from Peking Review or from one or another leader’s/grouplet’s reading of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, etc.
Lenin was of two minds on the question of the role of the relation between consciousness and spontaneity;
Class political consciousness can be brought to the workers only from without, that is only from outside the economic struggle, from outside the sphere of relations between workers and employers. (Lenin, What Is To Be Done?, 1902)
. . . the economic struggle, the struggle for immediate and direct improvement of conditions, is alone capable of rousing the most backward strata of the exploited masses, gives them a real education and transforms them – during a revolutionary epoch – into an army of political fighters within the space of a few months. (Lenin, Lecture on the 1905 Revolution, 1906)
[summing of the experiences of 1905-1907] All classes come out into the open. All programmatical and tactical views are tested by the action of the masses. The strike struggle has no parallel anywhere in the world in extent and acuteness. The economic strike grows into the political strike, and the later into insurrection. The relations between the proletariat, as the leaders, and the vacillating, unstable peasantry, as the led, are tested in practice. The Soviet form of organization is born in spontaneous development of the struggle. (Lenin, Left-Wing Communism, 1920)
As the above questions show those that cite only the 1902 work, a product of the struggle against the very real errors of those who were anti-theory, tailed the working class and who did not understand the need for a vanguard party, represents only one side of Lenin’s position on the relationship between the party and the working class. The dogmatists typically see this one side and reject the role of the working class in giving birth to revolutionary struggles and validating revolutionary theory. It is true that a vanguard party is necessary, but this party and its line grow up in a continuous two way interaction between the organization and the masses of workers. It is not, as the dogmatists seem to have it, that first a party of ex-intellectuals is created which develops the correct line and only then do they bring the truth to the masses who then rise up. Not only can no group of ex-intellectuals, no matter how much theory they understand come up with a correct line isolated from the struggles of the working class, but even if they were able to, it would have no meaning to the working class until it was validated in their own experience and in their own lives through their own struggles. A party is not separate from the class as many dogmatists suggest. It is composed mainly of advanced workers guided by a theory which emerges in the course of working class struggles. The party and the working class struggle feed on each other, neither is a prior condition for the other’s success. Each are equally necessary conditions for the growth and success of the other. “We would do well to not only study What Is To Be Done, but also Lenin’s later writings such as Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder. It is indeed flattering to us, as intellectuals/ex-students to think that we can by ourselves develop a revolutionary theory which we can then bring to the masses who will see its truth and then in short order go into motion (the strategy of the CLP/RW). But in the real world, it just doesn’t work. Pre-formulated theories and strategies almost never electrify the masses. There are no shortcuts. Only protracted struggle and full integration or fusion with the working class can produce a scientific theory that can truly electrify the masses.
It is the masses and not the party that makes a revolution and institutes socialism. It seems that ultra-leftists tend to forget this. The party is merely the leadership of the working class. Unless the working class and other oppressed groups and progressive people accept the party as their leader, unless they have learned through years of their own experience to respect it, an alleged party is merely a political party and not the party of the working class. Before a party can guide the revolutionary process or lead the workers to socialism, first it must come to be accepted by the workers and others as their party. Only then, once there is unity between the working class and other oppressed people and a Marxist-Leninist organization with Leninist strategy, will the two forces come to shape each other. The organization and theory of the party will come to express the “mass line” of articulating and expressing the interests of the workers – which means change in the party from what it used to be, and that the working class will become class conscious and understand the need for revolutionary organization and strategy. The party cannot bring about socialism separated from the masses of people. Socialism can not be imposed on the working class even if it is in their interests, socialism by definition means Worker’s power, and this, of course, means the working class in alliance with others, seizing control over their own lives. No party can do this for the working class, the class must do it for itself. The role of the party is merely to inspire and guide this process.
To integrate itself with the working class means that it must win the respect of the workers by participating successfully in all the struggles of the class, i.e., it must effectively fight the battle for reforms. It must provide successful strike strategy, force, the government to grant more democratic rights to workers, to grant higher unemployment benefits, to abolish discrimination against women and minorities, etc. Once it has won leadership of the daily struggles of workers it is in a position to convince the masses of workers of the need for a qualitative transformation in society and to successfully guide that struggle. It can not win leadership by haranguing against reformism from the sidelines of mass struggles.
The strategy and lines of a Marxist-Leninist party in the U.S. must come out of its own study and practice in the U.S. While much can be learned from the experiences of the Russians, Chinese, Cubans, Vietnamese, etc., no party can mechanically accept the solutions adopted by any of these parties, nor can it mechanically accept their leadership today. Since the 1950’s there has been no center to the world Communist movement. The Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Albanians and many other parties publicly affirm this reality. Every Party must arrive at its analysis and line on the basis of its own study and practice and can not wait until Moscow, Peking, Havana, etc., issues a proclamation. The fact that so many “revolutionaries” don’t know what to make of a situation until they read Peking Review is a sad comment on the state of the left. The errors of the flunkyism towards the Soviet Union of the 1940rs and 1950’s are being repeated all over again with results at least as disastrous as the early experience. “China’s little helpers” have gone even farther than the mechanical appliers of the Soviet line ever did by denouncing revolutionary regimes, e.g., Cuba and Angola.
The world Marxist-Leninist movement is multi-centered and will remain so until the revolution has triumphed throughout the entire world. The American M-L movement must respect and learn from all the other parties – the Soviets, Cubans, Vietnamese, Chinese, Albanians, etc. It is not our job to either publicly criticize or imitate any of them. We must refuse to fully side with either the Soviet Union or China, doing what we can to restore some measure of unity to the world M-L movement, and not letting battles between the two leading socialist countries disrupt the unity of the U.S. left.
Unity is the Left’s greatest weapon. Solidarity is the basis of working class strength. These elementary facts must not be forgotten. Standing together we cannot be beaten, fractionated we can not win.
There are three distinctive degrees of working together which must be recognized, in turn appropriate for relations among Marxist-Leninists; between Marxist-Leninists and left and center social democratic groups which are in good part based, or have the real potential of being based, in the working class; and between socialist groups with a real or potential working class basis and other progressive forces primarily of a petty bourgeois nature.
The theory of the Popular Front as endorsed by the Comintern’s 7th World Congress maintains that the united front of working class organizations should establish a principled unity of action program with non-working class organizations in pursuit of common goals against the bloc of forces organized by monopoly capital. This notion of Popular Front has since 1934 remained an essential idea within both the pro-Soviet and pro-Chinese Communist movements. It is an essential part of the Maoist idea of an alliance of four classes in the Third World countries and three classes in the advanced capitalist countries, and it is an essential part of the Soviet Marxist idea of anti-monopoly coalitions. It should be remembered that the Chinese Communist Party came to power as part of a Popular Front containing a number of progressive bourgeois parties which continue to exist in China today. The propensity of European Maoists to achieve unity of action with anti-C.P. groups should also be noted. The differences between the two approaches has to do with the focus of the unity of the Popular Front, the role of the Communist Party within it, and the expectations for how much such a front can accomplish (total socialist transformation according to the Italian Party, or mere tactical gains in the case of more revolutionary tendencies). It is important to understand that although the idea of the Popular Front was first developed in response to the fascist offensive against the working class, it was put forth and it has been maintained not as a defensive strategy, as is often claimed by those that oppose it, but rather as an offensive strategy for advancing the progressive and Communist movements.
The notion of the united front has been a prominent notion in Marxist-Leninist theory since the Bolshevik Revolution. The Bolsheviks themselves initially came to power in a united front with the Left-Social Revolutionaries.’ A united front means unity of action among those parties and organizations based in the working class and reflective (in however a distorted manner) of working class interests. This has meant socialist and communist unions, parties and youth organizations co-operating on projects which they can agree on in pursuit of distinctively working class goals. A united front is of necessity tighter than a popular front because its class basis, and hence political unity, is greater. In the Comintern’s 1934 statement on Popular Fronts, the united front is seen as playing the leading role within the Popular Front. Within the united front the various parties and organizations remain free to offer comradely and principled criticism of each other, i.e., they are not required to suppress discussion of their disagreements, but such discussion of disagreements must be subordinated to what the parties have in common – joint action towards an important working class goal.
In the 1928-1934 period in the history of the international Communist movement, another conception of what the united front means was predominant. This conception has continued to be discussed and occasionally manifests itself in the position of one or another small group. In this period the notion of “united front from above” or a coalition of working class organizations, was counterposed to the notion of “united, front from below” which meant getting the rank and file supporters of non-Communist led organizations to work with the Communist Party, i.e., to transfer their allegiance “from their social democratic “mis-leaders ”to the Communist Party. What the R.C.P. calls the “united front” is actually the notion of a “popular front from below” i.e., the idea that various classes such as the petty bourgeoisie will follow the leadership of the working class as manifested in the R.C.P. The notion of united front from below amounts to: the same thing as unprincipled recruiting from social democratic organizations, and as such provokes counter reactions and considerable sectarianism.
The theory of united front from below failed to comprehend that workers support social-democratic leadership because they still believe in it, rather than because they are deceived. Such workers resent unprincipled attacks on people who they themselves have elected and support. The abysmal failure of the united front from below strategy, which undermined working class unity, and tended to isolate the Communist movement bore its fruit in facilitating the rise of Fascism, The world communist movement correctly summed it up in 1934 as an ultra-left-strategy.
The idea of the united front from below was replaced by the notion of a “united front from above and below” to distinguish it from the straw man stereotype of “united front from above” used as a boogey man by proponents of the 1928-1934 “third period line.” The “united front from above and below” or simply, the united front, meant that organizational coalitions on the basis of unity of action among working class organizations had to be formed, but that these should not be simply agreements between leaders. United fronts should also involve workers of all tendencies at all levels of their organizations and in all activities. Communist workers should go out of their way to establish and maintain friendly relations with Social Democratic workers, building the unity necessary for joint action as well as for eventual development of unity (into a single party) as social democrats realize the mistakes in their analysis.
The notions of united front and popular front have their greatest relevance for large mass based parties, but nevertheless are relevant for smaller groups, like those in America, that are based in popular struggles, Petty bourgeois and non-revolutionary ideas are reflected among progressive forces here and now as much as where the parties are massive. Many different groups have played important roles in many popular struggles, especially in the anti-war, student, anti-racist and anti-sexist and, increasingly, in the working class movement. Thus popular fronts based on the principle of unity of action with anti-imperialist pacifist or liberal democratic groups opposed to U.S. intervention, with Black nationalist or liberal groups such as the NAACP, with women’s groups such as NOW, with trade union liberals such as Miller or Sadlowski are important tools in waging and winning mass struggles, advancing the cause of the working class and building both a popular movement and a revolutionary party. The Communists should strive to provide leadership (winning confidence, not impose themselves) in these struggles by the wisdom of their analysis, their dedication and hard work, and the manner in which they conduct themselves. Popular front strategy, which puts Communists in the middle of mass struggles and gives them the opportunity to win the confidence of ;he masses, is far more effective then the self-righteous sectarianism that separates and isolates from the mainstream of popular struggles.
Likewise, united front (“from above and below”) strategy can be expected to play an increasingly important role as the presence of the left in the labor movement grows. Working with the Communist Party, NAM, and the center social democratic tendency that is bound to develop in the working class movement, is important in waging and winning working class struggles, making the struggles waged more meaningful and central to the concerns of the working class, and giving Marxist-Leninist’s the opportunity to win the respect and confidence of workers.
The progressive caucuses in American unions such as Sadlowski’s in the USW or Miller’s in the United Mine Workers could legitimately be interpreted as implying either united front or popular front tactics (depending on whether they are considered to be essentially social democratic working class forces or essential petty bourgeois progressive forces). Since such movements make no claim to be socialist and seem to be initiated and supported by progressive union leadership and intellectuals, more than manifesting a spontaneous rank and file rebellion, they should probably be treated with popular front tactics, thus implying less unity of analysis and action then would fitting them under a united front strategy. United front tactics and strategy would be appropriate with a rank and file movement led by NAM or the CP with which we would have considerably greater unity of analysis, and hence of action.
The general justification for the theory of the popular and united fronts is articulated better by Mao Tse-tung than perhaps anyone else. In his important essay On Contradiction, written three years after the Seventh Comintern Congress that adopted the popular front strategy, to elaborate on its meaning for the struggle of the Chinese, Mao articulated the centrality of the notion of principle contradiction, i.e., the idea that at any given time there is one primary enemy which implies that all forces which are in opposition to the “principle aspect of the primary contradiction” must unite to overcome it. For Mao in 1937 this meant a popular front with the Kuomintang and a coalition with U.S., French and British imperialists, as well as working to win over the rich peasants, small shopkeepers, intellectuals, national bourgeoisies, arid even the comprador bourgeoisies tied to British, French and American interests, in order to strike the death blow against Japanese imperialism. The great power of the Comintern notion as articulated by Mao in his On Contradiction was demonstrated in first the defeat of the Japanese, then in the defeat of the Kuomintang, and finally in the triumph of proletarian power as each of principle aspects of the principle contradiction was in turn isolated and destroyed under the leadership of the Communist Party which utilized popular and united front tactics every step of the way. Mao, as did the Comintern, insisted that for united and popular front tactics to work in; advancing the long term (as opposed to just the immediate struggles) the separate identity of the Communist Party had to be maintained (which includes, when appropriate, the maintenance of its own army). It must also be stressed that popular and united front tactics do not mean the liquidation of organizational and military independence, nor do they mean the suppression of all political differences, propaganda and recruitment.
The third type of unity is most relevant in a pre-party period such as that in the United States in the 1970’s. It is a central problem when no one Marxist organization has assumed leadership (which means being recognized as leaders by the working class) of working class struggles. When no group has demonstrated that their analysis, strategy and program is correct through their practice. When no party has emerged from the mass struggles of the working class, revolutionary Marxist forces of necessity will always be divided among many different small groups, differing on the full range Of issues which have traditionally been issues of contention in the international communist movement (as well as on personal and organizational rivalries, jealousies, resentments and fears characteristic of sectarian groups). When there has been insufficient practice to provide the basis to know which of the competing analyses and strategies is correct, when obviously sincere and hard working Communists rooted in working class and progressive struggles find themselves scattered among many small groups and tendencies, when none pf the various competing small Marxist-Leninist groups are leading many working class struggles, when no one is growing rapidly within the working class because of the leadership they are providing, then it is clearly a “pre-party” period. By “pre-party period” is meant a period in which the working class does not have a vanguard organization which is actually leading its struggles. What is meant by a vanguard is an organization which has gained the respect and confidence of the workers and actually provides guidance which Workers accept en masse. It makes absolutely no difference if various groups declare themselves to be the vanguard, and even if one of the self-declared vanguard groups in fact has a correct analysis. No one can be the vanguard or leading force (by definition) until that group is recognized as such by the working class and actually is providing the leadership in its real struggles (not just to a few minor actions that the “vanguard” defines as the true struggles).
In such a pre-party period revolutionary cadre who will for the most part all be in the working class party once the struggles of the working class give birth to it, are scattered among a wide range of competing organizations and tendencies. In such a period a wide range of differing competing organizations and strategies is not only inevitable (since no one has the practice on which to scientifically show that one line or another is valid), but also a good thing in that is provides a diversity of valid experiences which can be summed up, and facilitates the development of viable strategies by the trial and error method of competition among strategies. As one group, or more likely a few groups, beings to take off has increasing success in recruiting workers, leading struggles and modifying its positions in the course of growth, while the rest of the groups remain stagnant and isolated, this will provide the basis on which to judge the correctness of the lines of various groups. If all serious revolutionaries were united in one centralized organization in a pre-party period this could well prove to be a major hindrance and block the development of a revolutionary movement since only one analysis and strategy could be tried out at a time, and thus very likely much valuable time wasted, before a correct strategy was hit on. With many competing groups, however, each trying different things at the same time, it is more likely that one will hit on successful practice, and then that the dedicated cadre in other organizations will take note and pressure for organizational mergers, or if this fails, defect to the pre-party group that is actually developing itself into the party, i.e., is in fact coming to be regarded as a leading force by the working class itself. Thus it is very important to gauge the objective conditions which determine if it is a pre-party period or not. The question of forming a single party must then involve much more than subjective readiness to submit to a single democratic centralism. Because none of us has the practical basis to say that our line is correct and that the others are wrong, because obviously sincere and dedicated revolutionaries are in a wide variety of organizations, and because most of us will find ourselves in the same organization one day, we must strive for a higher degree of unity among our various groups, than need be the case in either popular or united front tactics. Since the unity of our analysis (the principles of dialectical materialism, historical materialism, class struggle, surplus value, dictatorship of the proletariat and Leninist organizational forms) is so much greater than with center social democratic or petty bourgeois progressive forces, our unity of action can and should be at a much higher level than with center social democratic and petty bourgeois groups. Our mutual disagreements must be subordinated to our common purpose, with the understanding and humility that any of us could be right, and that we mostly all will eventually merge on the basis of who sever practice eventually proves the most successful. Until the working class itself decides the issues dividing us all of our experiences are more or less equally valid. We must respect each other’s practice and strategies until the working class decides otherwise.
We should strive to support each other’s work in coalitions, e.g., in the antiwar movement, women’s movement, anti-racist struggles and in plant and area wide working class actions. Rather than undermining each others efforts and competing with one another for support we should either respect each other’s places of strength, lending support to other group’s struggles so that we can all better know how a given strategy works out when given a fair chance, or work out tight unity of action programs for a given plant, area or industry as experiments in how a given strategy works out. Polemics should be comradely and supportive, truly designed to persuade rather than destroy, and should be limited to forms such as journals, whose focus is on hard core members of organizations. When talking and working with workers the strong points of one’s own analysis and strategy should be emphasized, and the alleged weaknesses and failings of other groups should either not be discussed (since it gives rise to bewilderment and disunity on the part of workers) and a drawing back from all Marxists or presented in comradely and humble terms. When twenty groups spend half of their time attacking the others the results are the same as a multi-faceted fight of twenty gladiators where only one could come out of the ring alive – mutual destruction.
The history of pre-party periods and sectarianism, however, shows that any attempt to build unity, before establishing a firm working class base as reasonable as it seems, is a pipe dream. The petty bourgeois social basis of tiny sectarian grouplets in pre-party periods necessarily drives each group into mutual antagonism to the others. The theme “line decides everything” is used to-justify the rationalistic, arrogant and mutually contradictory claims that each tiny group is THE party. The competitive individualism and intellectual expertise of the ex-student cadre of these sects combines with the futility of their practice to reinforce ultra-leftism. Each of the grouplets independently comes to the conclusion that it alone has the revolutionary truth, and will therefore necessarily grow to become the leadership of the working class, in spite of the “temporary reverses” and short term failures to assume leadership of working class struggles. Their Chiliastic faith tends to immunize from the futility of their efforts and the fratricidal competition among the groups. Thus, however desirable it might be, it is unlikely that very many groups or individuals within them will see the mistake of-their ways and work for a tight unity among all revolutionary forces in a pre-party period before the working class goes into motion. Nevertheless, because it is the most desirable course it must be fought for. If enough of us try there is a real chance that enough unity can be created to have a real effect in actually developing a revolutionary organization.
The most likely scenario is that once two or three groups distance themselves from the rest on the basis of leading mass struggles then these two or three groups will realize the necessity of working tightly together, while preserving their organizational autonomy until such time as it is really clear which line is correct (at which time they would merge into one). The final merger might not actually occur until, or even after, a revolution. In the meantime the minority of revolutionary groups, tendencies and individuals that see the importance of unity should form a revolutionary center which has a good chance of being the locus for the development of the party, or at least one of the two or three groups which may eventually merge into the party. The importance of tight unity among revolutionary forces becomes all the greater as we grow in size and centrality to the working class struggle. The needs of the working class for centralized and coordinated leadership does not allow of organizational rivalries which can wreck struggles. The increasing working class composition of our organizations will thus necessarily force us together in ever greater solidarity until eventually full organizational unity is achieved.
Perhaps the most central fact Marxist-Leninists in the advanced capitalist countries must face is our almost total failure to successfully lead a revolution in a developed capitalist country (Czechoslovakia can be considered to be the sole exception). Our failure almost becomes an embarrassment in contrast to (1) our very impressive and continuing victories in leading struggles which transform themselves into socialist revolutions in Third World countries, and (2) our theory which argues for the central revolutionary role of the industrial proletariat which has always been strongest in the most developed capitalist countries.
The Comintern in the 1920’s developed a revolutionary analysis and strategy which has successfully guided the Chinese, Vietnamese, Cambodian, and Laotian revolutions. This analysis has been most helpful in the development of liberation movements in Guinea-Bissau, Angola and Mozambique as well as the struggles of many other movements in the Arab world, Black Africa, Latin America and South and South Eastern Asia. The theories of the four class alliance against imperialism and its domestic allies together with the companion two stage theory of revolution (new democratic, then socialist), both under the leadership of the Communist Party, has inspired Third World revolutionaries to build national liberation fronts which have been able to mobilize the broad masses of their people (of virtually all classes) behind a revolutionary struggle which develops into socialism. In good part our failure in the advanced countries can be seen as a result of our inability to develop a comparable approach there. Unlike, as in the Third World, we have not normally been able to capture the enthusiasm of all segments of the masses of people and mobilize them behind the proletariat to make a socialist revolution. While in many countries such as France, Finland, Italy and perhaps Greece, Spain, Portugal and Iceland we have been able to win hegemony in the industrial working class, we have been (except in Czechoslovakia) unable to break through to gain the support among the majority of the politically active masses of people which is necessary to make a successful revolution against the capitalist class – a class which has a virtual monopoly on weapons, the media, money, communications, transportation, etc. It should be noted that the period of greatest growth of most of the European parties was in the period of anti-fascist resistance when they were able to use national oppression to mobilize wide segments of the population. The electoral strength of the Communist and left social democratic parties in the above European countries tends to stabilize at around 25-30% of the total (except in Italy where increasingly reformist policies have resulted in a growing share of the vote), while revolutionary crises such as Portugal 1975 and France 1968 produce as much popular mobilization (primarily among the petty bourgeoisie, lumpen and marginal workers) against revolutionary transformation as the revolutionaries do for it (in the working class). The growth of the Marxist-Leninist movement in the advanced capitalist countries has apparently reached a barrier. In part our failure can be attributed to the fact that a serious enough crisis has yet to develop in European society, but in part our failure must be attributed to our inability to mobilize the petty bourgeoisie behind a revolutionary program since there have been major and prolonged crises in the last sixty years which were not taken advantage of. If we are to take advantage of a crisis to make a revolution (crises such as the great depression of the 1930’s or the war induced crises of 1917-1921 and 1944-1948) we must be able to mobilize the whole people behind the leadership of the working class.
While the key and leading role in any revolution (whether in the Third World or in the advanced capitalist countries) must be played by the working class, to maintain in either part of the world that this class can make the revolution essentially by itself is to deny it the vanguard role that Marxist-Leninists have traditionally seen it playing. This mistake, whether in the Third World or in the advanced countries, has been traditionally an error made by those Lenin called “Left-Wing Communists”.
Lenin’s argument that Communists must appeal to all segments of the people including the petty bourgeoisie was meant to apply both to Third World countries that had not yet achieved a democratic revolution and to the most advanced capitalist countries with parliamentary forms:
It cannot be too strongly-maintained that this is still not Social Democracy, that the Social-Democrat’s ideal should not be the trade union secretary, but the tribune of the people, who is able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression, no matter where it appears, no matter what stratum or class of people it affects; who is able to generalize all these manifestations and produce a single picture of police violence and capitalist exploitation; who is able to take advantage of every event, however small, in order to set forth before all his socialist convictions and his democratic demands, in order to clarify for all and everyone the world-historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat. . . . We must ’go among all classes of the population’ as theoreticians, as propagandists, as agitators, and as organisers. . . . The principle thing, of course, is propaganda and agitation among all strata of the people. The work of the West-European Social Democrat is in this respect facilitated by the public meetings and rallies which all are free to attend, and by the fact that in parliament he addresses the representatives of all classes. We have neither a parliament nor freedom of assembly; nevertheless, we are able to arrange meetings of workers who desire to listen to a Social Democrat. We must also find ways and means of calling meetings of representatives of all social classes that desire to listen to a democrat; for he is no Social-Democrat who forgets in practice that ’the Communists support every revolutionary movement’, that we are obliged for that reason to expound and emphasize general democratic tasks before the whole people, without for a moment concealing our Socialist convictions. He is no Social-Democrat who forgets in practice his obligation to be ahead of all in raising, accentuating, and solving every general democratic question. (Lenin, What Is To Be Done?) (Emphasis is Lenin’s.)
This is not, of course, to claim, that the petty bourgeoisie has an equal interest in socialism with the working class, or that an equal amount of time ought to be given to working with this class, but only, as with a revolutionary solution to the national question which can succeed in making national minorities allies of the proletariat in the decisive struggle against capital, we must also offer a revolutionary solution to the petty bourgeoisie in order to turn this class into allies as well. Lenin certainly realized the vacillating nature of the petty bourgeoisie (see Left-Wing Communism, section 8), but he also understood that a revolution cannot take place until “the historically effective forces of all classes – positively of all the classes of the given society without exception – are aligned in such a way that everything has matured for the decisive battle,” and goes on to argue that a successful revolution can occur only when the vacillating petty bourgeois movements and leadership have ”sufficiently disgraced themselves through their practical bankruptcy” and are thus ready to follow proletarian leadership. (Left-Wing Communism, Section 10)
The basic point is, that even if, in the abstract, it would be better for the proletariat to make a pure socialist revolution without compromising and maneuvering, in the real world it is necessary for that class to have allies among national minorities, the peasantry or small farmers and the urban petty bourgeoisie if it is to succeed in its historical mission. Even where a working class represents 80% of the total population it has never been able to mobilize more than about half of its members to give even token support to revolutionary leadership because of the pervasive influence of religion, bourgeois nationalism, cynicism, petty bourgeois strivings, drugs, etc. In addition the proletariat must contend with the bourgeoisie’s virtual monopoly of the media, the schools, the army, the police, money, etc. If the petty bourgeoisie stands firmly with the capitalist class, even if it represents only 20% of the population, this is adequate to smash a revolutionary movement which has substantial support in the working class. The petty bourgeoisie not only can be mobilized to be the front line fighters of the bourgeoisie, but its considerable influence, both formally in popular organizations and informally through friendship networks, with wide segments of the working class, is often used to neutralize or win over to reaction millions of working people (remember over a million German workers belonged to the NAZI party). Winning over the petty bourgeoisie as a class has historically been and will remain as necessary to achieve a proletarian revolution as winning national minorities.
The international Communist movement once before made the nearly fatal mistake of not understanding the dual (vacillating) nature of the petty bourgeoisie and that segment of the working class [the right and center social-democrats) under its influence. Directing its appeal almost exclusively to the working class and in practice rejecting outreach to these groups, the “Third Period” of the Comintern (1928-1934) facilitated the growth of fascist movements throughout the advanced capitalist countries by isolating itself in a sectarian fashion from those it should have been reaching out to and mobilizing behind working class leadership. The 7th Comintern Congress held in 1935 analyzed these serious ultra left mistakes and developed a corrective policy encapsulated in the Congress reports of Georgi Dimitrov:
“In its agitation fascism, desirous of winning these masses to its own side, tries to set the mass of working people in town and countryside against the revolutionary proletariat, frightening the petty bourgeoisie with the bogey of the “Red peril.” We must turn this weapon against those who wield it and show the working peasants, artisans and intellectuals whence the real danger threatens. We must show concretely who it is that piles the burden of taxes and imposts onto the peasant and squeezes usurious interest out of him; who it is that, while owning the best land and every form of wealth, drives the peasant and his family from their plot of land and dooms them to unemployment and poverty. We must explain concretely, patiently and persistently who it is that ruins the artisans and handicraftsmen with taxes, imposts, high rents, and competition impossible for them to withstand; who ..... it is that throws into the street and deprives of employment the wide masses of the working intelligentsia. (G. Dimitrov, For the Unity of the Working ..Class Against Fascism)
The international Marxist-Leninist movement thus set itself the task from which neither the Chinese nor Soviet leaning parties have wavered, of attempting to win the petty bourgeoisie to proletarian leadership against their greater enemy – the monopoly corporations. The program outlined by the 7th Congress was designed as much more than a temporary expedient to stop the growth of fascism in Europe in the 1930’s, but rather as the outline of a general strategy meant to have validity until the total collapse of capitalism. Fascism was seen as a necessary outgrowth of decaying capitalism which would always tend to come to power in crisis situations unless its popular base, the petty bourgeoisie could be won by the proletariat. Dimitrov goes on to argue that American Marxist-Leninists should organize a Farmers-Workers Party which would direct itself against the “banks, trusts, and monopolies, against the principle enemies of the people” which must defend “the interests of members of the liberal professions, small businessmen and artisans” (Dimitrov, For the Unity of the Working Class...). The 7th Comintern Congress did not confuse the Popular Front, which included petty bourgeois organizations, with the united front of working class organizations which was designed to provide the leadership to the Popular Front. The point is that the interests of the proletariat required it to mobilize (not appease) the petty bourgeoisie behind an anti-monopoly front as a necessary condition for making a socialist revolution.
The petty bourgeoisie’s most fundamental division is between its “old” and “new” sectors, i.e., the self-employed, independent small businessmen, professionals, and small farmers on the one side, and the employed professionals, scientists, and lower level management personnel on the other. Traditionally the old petty bourgeoisie was so large compared to employed professionals and lower management that it was identified, as the petty bourgeoisie. The rapid growth of corporations both in the cities and on the land over the last 100 years has, however, driven almost all of the old independent small businessmen and farmers bankrupt, forcing them to sell out to the corporations which now produce, and sell; most everything made and sold in the advanced capitalist countries. The growth and consolidation of monopoly capitalism, on the other hand, has produced the rapid expansion of a new petty bourgeoisie of scientists, university teachers, professional state workers (e.g., social workers), architects, accountants, writers, lower level managers, etc., who do not have fundamental control of corporate policies. In many ways the class interests of these two basic segments of the petty bourgeoisie are identical, but in some important ways they diverge.
Both segments of the petty bourgeoisie have the same dual antagonism to the corporate capitalist class on the one side and to the revolutionary working class on the other. While the old petty bourgeoisie’s antagonism to monopoly capitalism was based on the economic competition between them, which was being won by the more efficient monopoly capitalists who were driving them into the proletariat, the new petty bourgeoisie’s antagonism is based on their lack of fundamental control over the conditions of their labor and the uses of their “product” (or “service”). Scientists are not really able to determine what kind of research they will do or how their work will be used because of corporate funding and direction of their work; university teachers are under great pressure to mass produce students without raising fundamental criticisms of the way things are; social workers are forced to act like policemen; architects are made to design monstrosities rather than socially useful buildings; engineers are required to design cars which fall apart and factories that pollute, etc. Although faulty as general analysis, it is useful to examine Serge Malle’s, Essays on the New Working Class, Andre Gorz’, Strategy for Labor and Thorstein Veblen’s, Engineers and the Price System, in this context. The “new working class” of which these authors speak, however, must be realistically considered a new petty bourgeoisie. These authors suggest that this group can play a leading role in the revolutionary process, but clearly their claims must be discounted, as this group is unlikely to play any revolutionary role at all unless it follows the leadership of the working class.
There is continuing pressure on the new petty bourgeoisie to “proletarianize” the conditions of its labor (in a fashion analogous to the pressure on the old petty bourgeoisie). The teaching load of college professors and class sizes go up, architects and engineers are subjected to .increasing productivity-demands, social workers must take on higher Case loads, etc. It should be noted that the material privileges of the new petty bourgeoisie have been exaggerated, the average income of employed professionals in recent years has averaged only about 30% more than that of skilled workers (comparing males only to eliminate the effect of sexism). It is also true, especially since the occurrence of a surplus of college graduates which developed in the early 1970’s, that there has been considerable downward pressure on the salaries of the new petty bourgeoisie.
While the new petty bourgeoisie has fundamental antagonisms with the capitalist class that controls and pressures them, it is not initially in as desperate a situation vis-a-vis this class as is the independent petty bourgeoisie who are about to go bankrupt (except of course for those engineers and teachers, etc., who are being laid off or can’t find work). This sector of the petty bourgeoisie continues to grow (although not as rapidly as before) while the old petty bourgeoisie continues to shrink. On the other hand the antagonism of the old petty bourgeoisie to the working class is far more intense than is that of the new petty bourgeoisie. As the violently anti-union efforts of small growers in California and small farmers in Northern Italy after World War I, as well as the strongly anti-union efforts of small businessmen almost everywhere^ show* this class is very badly hurt by unionization, which results in wage increases which this sector can only meet at the cost of profits (it can not, like monopoly businesses, pass on the Wage increases to consumers by increasing prices). This class periodically becomes violently hostile to the Communists and Socialists it sees as trying to take away the little property they have. The fact that the new petty bourgeoisie has already been “socialized” i.e., has no private property and does not directly depend on profits to survive makes a fundamental difference in their attitude about both unions and the socialization of private business (although not of course about the preservation of their own relative privileges vis-a-vis the working class). Unionization and the improvement in the conditions of workers do not adversely affect the new petty bourgeoisie (so long as they can maintain their pay differentials, which, by the way, are often geared to the increases in union settlements). Proposals for the nationalization of enterprises and the expansion of social services, and the public sector in general, not only do not hurt the new petty bourgeoisie but positively help it by increasing its job opportunities in working for the state, raising its prestige and status by elevating the importance of the socialized sector and expanding funds available for scientific research, medicine, etc., from which it benefits. These differences between the old and new petty bourgeoisies have major implications for how these groups respond to appeals from the revolutionary left and the monopoly capitalists in a crisis situation where they are forced to side with one side or the other.
To an extent, the new petty bourgeoisie still maintains its ideal of a “third path” between monopoly capitalism and proletarian socialism as manifested in such phenomena as the “small is beautiful” trend, fighting for secure tenure for teachers and other professions and generally trying to increase job autonomy, minimize interference from administrators and owners etc., on the one hand, while preserving privileges vis-a-vis workers on the other. The general strike of professional porkers in Sweden a few years ago, Whose goal was to restore the traditional pay differential with manual workers, is an important example of this latter point, as have been the various doctors strikes’ around the world. , But the ideals of the new petty bourgeoisie are in the last analysis as much a fraud as the old Jeffersonian ideal of the old petty bourgeoisie because of the insatiable drive for greater and greater productivity and control demanded by capital. The new petty bourgeoisie, like the old, is faced in the final analysis with having to side with either the monopoly capitalists or the revolutionary proletariat. Because of the significant difference, in the conditions of work of the new petty bourgeoisie, which considerably weakens this class’s traditional hostility to the proletariat in crisis situations, we can expect it to have a considerably greater likelihood of siding with the Working class which need offer much less of a threat to its immediate interests than the monopoly capitalists.
It is of course true that the goal of a socialist revolution is to begin the transformation to a communist society in which the division of labor between mental and manual work will be abolished, and thus that in the long run there can be no preservation of the privileges of the new petty bourgeoisie. But this is the long term goal of socialist revolution, not the immediate prospect. Just as the Cuban, Russian, Chinese, Vietnamese, etc., revolutions held out the promise of full and socially useful employment in fulfilling a great historical task, and only a gradual withering away of their material privileges, to their intellectuals and professionals, there is no reason that revolutions in the West will not do the same. Such an alternative may well prove to be far more attractive than the “proletarianization” offered them by the monopoly capitalists in a crisis situation. (It is unlikely, of course, that this class will move as a class in anything but a vacillating way until a revolutionary crisis forces it to choose between the two viable options.)
While the traditional opposition of the old petty bourgeoisie, because of its nature as property owners, has always been exerted against the socialization of property by a socialist revolution which would expropriate its property (e.g., the opposition of the Kulaks to collectivization in the Soviet Union), the new petty bourgeoisie has no interest in opposing full socialization by a fully socialist revolution, since it owns no productive property and, in fact in the short run, stands to gain by the increasing opportunities socialization provides, e.g., more scientific research, creative architecture and construction, efficient cars, more money for medicine, etc. The two segments of this class can thus be expected to diverge politically at the stage of the revolutionary transformation which moves from anti-big and middle capitalism, which socialize only medium and large businesses (which is in the interest of the independent petty bourgeoisie and employed bourgeoisie), to full socialization (which is only in the interests of the employed section of the petty bourgeoisie). It is not until the third phase of a revolutionary transformation, the transition to full communism, which implies the abolition of all privilege and division between mental and manual labor, that the new petty bourgeoisie’s interests diverge from those of the proletariat. This is the current stage of development in both the Soviet Union and China. The struggle between the new petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat and peasantry has been manifested in both the Chinese Cultural Revolution and in the trend towards “revisionism” (or as the Chinese say the movement towards the “restoration of capitalism”) in the Soviet Union. The bureaucrats in the party, industries and state want to maintain and secure their privileges vis-a-vis the working masses and thus they resist the movement from socialism to communism, while the working masses demand progress which entails the elimination of all privileges inherent in a socialist (as opposed to communist) form of social organization. Thus what was a contradiction among the people at both the stage of the original revolution against the bourgeoisie and imperialism, as well as at the stage of full socialization, has recently, in both China and the Soviet Union, become the primary contradiction within the society. But for us to treat what has become the primary contradiction in revolutionary transformations two stages more advanced than ours as a contradiction between the people and the enemy is to make the same mistake as those left-adventurists in China and Vietnam made who treated the national bourgeoisie in their countries as part of the enemy.
The current approach to winning over the petty bourgeoisie lies not in “appeasing” them or in limiting changes so as not to offend them, but in mobilizing them to fight against monopoly capital. It would indeed be a mistake to move slowly, so as not to offend the petty bourgeoisie, since the petty bourgeoisie is already (in a crisis situation) quite offended by the transgressions on its interests on the part of monopoly capital, and is looking for answers. Unless the left moves decisively in providing leadership to the petty bourgeoisie, this class will look elsewhere. Temporizing only gives time to the bourgeoisie to develop its forces. The petty bourgeoisie has, if only in a self-destructive way in twentieth century fascist movements, proven its ability to support what it thinks are dramatic and sudden changes, providing it believes them in its interest. It is not inherently conservative by nature (conservative means conserving the status quo of monopoly capitalism), and thus there is no need to limit changes to appease this class. What is necessary in order to win leadership in this class is to move decisively against monopoly capital, while guaranteeing the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. Monopoly capitalism is already reducing the power, privilege and authority of this class; what the proletariat must do to win leadership of the petty bourgeoisie is to hold out the real promise of drastically reducing the power, privilege and authority of the monopoly capitalists, and then decisively carry through with the promise. In the concrete this means that a revolutionary movement must guarantee the short run preservation of small farms and businesses and promise (and live up to its promise) to promote only voluntary collectivization through education and example, while expropriating the banks and corporations, thus alleviating the financial pressure on small enterprises. It also means that the Revolutionary movement must hold out the prospect of secure and rewarding employment for professionals while promising the end of the abusive prostitution of the professionals to the profit seeking goals of capital. Further it means guaranteeing that only gradually over the course of a generation or two will they lose their privileges as the condition of everyone is greatly improved (i.e., that rather than them sinking to the level of the current proletariat, that the condition of the proletariat will be brought up). After all is it really so bad to do some physical labor under socialist conditions? The model of the Chinese promise to the Chinese national bourgeoisie, that if they supported the national democratic revolution their wealth would not be confiscated, should be studied. It is sufficient, and actually socially necessary, that the division of labor be only gradually abolished (a sudden abolition would produce total social disruption), and thus there need be no false fear generated among the new petty bourgeoisie that their position will be destroyed overnight.