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| (notes for this file:) this document is part of "How to Build the Party of the Future" | ||||
How to Build the Party of the Future -- Chapter 3
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Contents: TIP: Clicking on any of the paragraph numbers
--------- along the left margin
will take you back and forth
between the body of the article
and the table of contents.
paragraph
number chapters sections subheads
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6 Chapter 3 -- Communist Organization
in the Modern World
13 External and Internal War
18 We are not alone
22 Most decisive sector is the most advanced
27 3a. Less is More
37 3b. The fundamental form
of communist organization
52 Volatility
56 A Cauldron
61 Communist Convergence
63 3c. Do communists work with squishy liberals ?
68 3d. Reformism and Sectarianism
as disease and addiction
75 3e. The blindfold, the fog and the dragon
82 3f. Cooperation, competition,
communication and transparency
100 Appendix: Ben's 19 Points
on the Party of the Future
|
| Comrades and friends, |
| Before beginning, I should point out that I am hardly an expert on the subjects I will discuss. Especially in this installment, in which I will be discussing theories of organization--my qualification are few. I worked for about 15 years in and around the Marxist-Leninist Party (USA), a fairly hard-core group which dissolved in 1993. During this period I established, within the party, a (fairly well-deserved) reputation as being unable to organize my way out of a wet paper bag. |
| I will need your help in correcting and revising these remarks so that they are sharper, stronger and more accurate. |
| This caveat being expressed, I will continue. |
Communist Organization in the Modern World |
| How are the struggling workers and peoples of the world to combine and coordinate their efforts to hasten the overthrow of bourgeois rule and create a society without oppression, injustice or exploitation ? |
| What are the organizational forms by which the struggles of isolated, atomized individuals can unite to create a fire which cannot be extinguished? |
| This question has been greatly mystified. Hopefully my remarks here will not add to the confusion. |
| One key to making this question simple is to keep in mind what this organization is for. Communist organization exists for the purpose of waging war. Not just any kind of war. Class war. And (in the coming era in which the power of the mass media will be falling into the hands of the masses) information war. |
| War deals with contradictions. Communist organization aims to deal with the contradictions of the entire world. Our tasks are nothing less than to reflect, refine and redeem the contradictions of the entire world. |
| Our organization is for the purpose of waging war against the bourgeoisie; to overthrow bourgeois rule in every nation and territory on earth and to create an economy and political system of immense power with the ability to satisfy the basic and advanced requirements of everyone who is human. |
| For our purposes we can classify all the warfare we will wage into two categories: external and internal. |
| We wage external war against the bourgeoisie. We wage internal war against ourselves. In all circumstances and at all times we wage war on the external and internal fronts simultaneously. Both of these struggles draw strength from one another. Both of these struggles would collapse if not connected to the other. But what is ultimately decisive is the war on the internal front. |
| Steven Covey, again, places matters in a clear perspective. Private victory preceeds public victory. The struggle to resolve our internal contradictions is the fundamental source of our strength. Until we make progress on the internal front our struggles on the external front will mainly serve to illuminate for us our weaknesses. |
| Our strength on the external front can be concieved as being directly proportional to the degree of our success in waging the war on the internal front. |
| Waging successful war to resolve our internal contractions is a mammoth task. But we are not alone. We have five billion people to help us. They are speaking to us. If we listen to them, if we open our hearts and minds and receive their signals, they will guide us. These signals do not come from outer space but are the material reflections of millions and billions of impulses that originate in the concrete actions of individuals engaged in the struggle for their material interests. We know this as the class struggle. Our organization exists for the purpose of helping us to receive and concentrate these material signals so that we may act on them (ie: to tune into and participate in the class struggle). |
| The workers and peoples of the world will instruct us to exercise the confidence that comes from humility and the discipline that comes from science and use these abilities to lift "the sword in the stone"--to harness the immense and fantastic power of the coming revolution in communications so that we may step-by-step strengthen their connection to us and function as the vehicle of their dreams, their aspirations and their passion. |
| The peoples of the world will link up with us and help us wage our internal struggle. And our form of organization must be one that serves the purpose of making our internal contradictions transparent to them for this purpose. |
| Our internal struggle is directed against the "internal enemy" within our ranks and ourselves. This internal enemy is the influence of bourgeois ideology. Bourgeois ideology exists in our consciousness in the form of ideas and exists in our actions in the form of opportunist tactics or strategy which undermine the fundamental principles which must guide us. |
| Bourgeois ideology exists in all of us but it exists in some of us more than others. Paradoxically, the struggle against bourgeois ideology assumes the greatest importance not amongst those of us who are influenced by it the most--but rather amongst those of us are influenced by it the least--the section which is most free of its influence. This is a key concept. Failure to grasp this concept leads to the bankruptcy and death of any serious motion to transform the world. Those of us influenced by bourgeois ideology the least represent the advanced sector with the greatest ability, the greatest freedom of action (freedom in the sense of being least mired in and most free from entangling contradictions) to serve as a vehicle for the aspirations of the masses. |
| Those of us who are at the core of this struggle therefore carry with us the greatest responsibility, have the greatest need for humility, the greatest need to be guided by science and the greatest need to be open to the strivings and passion of the masses. |
| Communist organization exists for us -- so that we might connect to the masses and allow them to guide us in resolving our internal contradictions. Communist organization therefore serves above all as a machine to help us wage war on the internal front to resolve our contradictions so that our actions in the world can be powerful and serve the material interests of the masses. |
| All conceptions of progress in the modern world fundamentally boil down to only two. There is the perspective of what can be accomplished within the confines of bourgeois rule. And there is the perspective of overthrowing bourgeois rule and creating a world run by and for the workers and the majority of humanity. |
| The fundamental characteristic required of communist organization--is that it remain loyal to the second of these perspectives. The history of the last 150 years has shown, however, that this is easier to talk about than to do. History proves that circumstances will always arise in which the bourgeoisie (and various strata tied to it) will "assist" communist organizations if only they will shift their fundamental outlook from the second of these perspectives to the first. |
| This "assistance" creates an enormous pressure and constitutes an enormous corrupting force. One vehicle of this corrupting pressure--are well-intentioned individuals who find themselves, for various reasons, attracted to the cause of the workers and oppressed--but who carry with them a vast amount of bourgeois ideology. |
| The workers' movement welcomes such people. No one is born with a proletarian outlook. Activists who become communists--do so thru a process of breaking with bourgeois conceptions. But communist organization, as we shall see, is faced with the task, above all, of maintaining a class stand independent of bourgeois conceptions--of maintaining a clear boundary between proletarian and bourgeois ideas. |
| This boundary must not be merely an ideological boundary--but an organizational one. There must be a clear boundary between organizations composed of workers and activists loyal to the proletarian outlook (what I will call here "homogeneous" organizations), and organizations consisting of activists with a broader spectrum of ideologies (ie: "heterogenous" organizations). It is not the case that the homogeneous (ie: communist) organizations must be composed of individuals monolithic in their views on every question. (This is a myth to which many subscribe--but it is a myth that is going to be smashed.) But the communist organizations must maintain their character as organizations resistant to the penetration and influence of bourgeois ideas. |
| The central guiding principle of a communist organization--is to maintain its communist character--to resist the enormous pressure of dilution by activists who have not overcome bourgeois views and prejudices. The principle here is that "less is more". |
| Rather than give an example of "less is more" from the political sphere (the great betrayal of 1914, etc, or hundreds of similar examples) I will give one from the sphere of engineering. U.S. imperialism, in 1939, embarked on a crash program to separate the U235 isotope of uranium from the more common U238 isotope. A degree in physics is not necessary to understand the operational principle involved in "less is more": concentration (ie: an increase in density, bringing together in close proximity) into a critical mass of the active (ie: in this case, fissionable) element so that the release of energy from the individual constituent parts is not dissipated but can be captured--to catalyze the release of greater energy--in a self-sustaining chain-reaction -- in which quantity is transformed into quality which in turn is transformed back into quantity. |
| As far as building a weapon, it turned out that only a few pounds of U235 uranium was more powerful than any amount of uranium in which the isotopes were not segregated. I assert that the power of communist organization which maintains its integrity (as compared to that which does not) is comparable to this example. If we wish to become a powerful weapon in the hands of the workers and peoples of the world, if we wish to create a machine that has the ability to understand and change the world--to influence and earn the allegiance of hundreds of millions--we must understand the principle that "less is more". |
| U.S. imperialism was able to separate the isotopes of uranium thru something of an engineering miracle. I assert that we can, using the fruits of the communications revolution, perform a bigger miracle: we can enlist the aid of the masses to help us create communist organization with the ability to maintain its internal integrity. And, in turn, such an organization will become a weapon in the hands of the masses--more powerful than nuclear weapons. |
of communist organization |
| The form of communist organization (which will give birth to communist groups and parties just as galactic clouds give birth to stars) was described by Chris Buford on December 27: |
|
| I assert that networks such as Chris describes are the necessary, sufficient and inevitable form of communist organization--which will both: |
|
| Such a network would be both an arena of combat between trends and a clearinghouse of cooperation among participants. Such a network could develop to include, within itself, the culture and traditions of civilized polemical warfare--which would emerge as both: |
|
| Such networks (composed of both individuals and organizations) would not necessarily themselves originate as being either communist or even organizations -- but might begin as a forum for discussion in which, over time, agreements are concluded (for example): |
|
| The tendency of such a network might be to: |
|
| Such developments will probably be made inevitable by the communications revolution. All organization is concerned with the question of who communicates what to whom. With a modern communications infrastructure (which enormously facilitates many-to-many communication) the structure of effective organizations begins to assume the form of a network. |
| Furthermore, the "more disciplined parties or pressure groups" that Chris describes as working within such a communist (or marxist) network may themselves adopt similar structures internally in a recursive (some might say fractal) manner. (But this is another subject we will postpone for now.) |
| Such a network might also catalyze the development of groups which are oriented along reformist lines. This is not necessarily such a bad thing as long as there is segregation such that the communinist organizations successfully resist reformist influence (and the pressure to degenerate into reformist groups themselves) and maintain their fundamental character. This would help to create conditions favorable to the radicalization of the reformist groups. |
| It cannot be predicted (nor is it the main issue anyhow) whether it is 95% or 5% of the resources of the network than end up on the side of communism or the side of reformism. We are talking of a very dynamic situation here, in which the tendency of the network is to constantly absorb new energy and material and eject "waste matter" (in the form of elements or sections which are inseparably bound to reformist practice). |
| The volatility of such a form of organization was alluded to, again by Chris Buford, on March 1: |
|
| I am not sufficiently familar with Trotsky's views to know if this is a fair characterization of his concept of inner-party democracy (I am not impressed in any event with Trotsky's long history of trying to blur the distinctions between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks). But Chris (whether or not he was referring to a network form of organization) is bringing up an interesting point concerning the stability of such an arrangement as I am describing. In its internal dynamics, such an arrangement would be characterized by a very rapid "metabolism" in which trends, groups and organizations might tend to be created and destroyed as rapidly as bubbles of steam in a pan of boiling water. But in relation to its tasks--such an arrangement might be quite stable. Consider what may be an apt analogy: the thoughts in a man's mind may be very dynamic in relation to one another (as different points of view are considered) and one view may enjoy temporary hegemony over other views. But if the man is guided by the correct principles, such processes are merely methods of understanding the world and preparing oneself to change it. |
| The struggle for influence between the various trends in such a network would at certain times be more intense than others. One of the main factors governing the intensity of the struggle within the network--would be the intensity of the class struggle outside the network. The class struggle in society at large would be somewhat analogous to an external source of heat which would accelerate the various processes of decomposition and recombination inside the network--which can be considered analogous to a large cauldron, sitting on the fire of the external class struggle. |
| In such an "information-dense" environment, sectarian formations would melt down like a lump of butter in a hot iron skillet. Sectarianism as a phenomena cannot exist in a information-dense environment. Sectarianism requires, for its survival, the more-or-less intact operation of various rationalizations (assumptions, mythologies and secular religions) for non-cooperation (or unprincipled manuevering) with other trends. Sectarianism within trends requires the isolation of the activists at base of each trend from information which would contradict (and ultimately smash-up) the particular belief system which justifies the particular sectarian practice of each particular sectarian trend. |
| The heat from the external class struggle would also accelerate, within this information-dense environment, the exposure of the true nature of the various reformist lines, which in other circumstances can more easily pass themselves off as "revolutionary" via the widespread practice of obfuscation and various intellectual somersaults. |
| Hence, in summary, the heat of the class struggle applied to such an information-dense environment, would tend to melt down both the rigidities of sectarianism and the protective camoflauge of reformism and free all existing revolutionary (and pseudo-revolutionary) energies to align themselves (ie: self-organize) along their "natural" axis. And the natural axis is the axis between reformist and revolutionary politics and ideology. |
| The net (no pun intended) result of all this would be the tendency for an increasingly clear polarization between reformist and revolutionary poles of attraction. What this would mean is that the long-term trend (under the pressure of the masses) would be for the eventual coalescence and merger of all active revolutionary forces and a sufficient resolution of all artificial boundaries which impede this process. Hence this process may lead to the formation of a single communist "super-trend" which might still have myriad, seething internal contradictions--but which would be united in the essential points of theory and practice--and in opposition to reformist ideology and practice. |
with squishy liberals ? |
| It is on the basis of a relentless and determined internal war against opportunist conceptions and influence (within our ranks and circle of influence) that we aquire the ability to distinguish between, on the one hand, compromises which favor the interests of the proletariat and, on the other hand, compromises which favor the interests of the bourgeoisie. |
| Do we work with liberals and others who are influenced by and promote bourgeois ideology ? Yes. We do so on the basis of maintaining the class independence of our ideology. It is the successful war we wage on the internal front that allows us to engage in work with the many and varied strata who are under the influence of bourgeois ideology (and who promote it in various ways) without this influence corrupting our own conceptions of our guiding principles and catalyzing our degeneration into reformist playthings in the hands of the bourgeoisie. |
| Reformism as a political trend is known by many names. Regardless of the names it is called, as a trend it is not focused primarily on securing reforms. Reforms are better secured by revolutionary forms of struggle which are centered on drawing the masses into motion and raising their consciousness. Rather, reformism is focused on securing those reforms which it defines as "possible". The problem with this definition is that "possible" always turns out to mean "acceptable to the ruling class". The entire outlook of the reformist political trend is to operate within the confines (and according to the methods) of what the bourgeoisie considers acceptable and never challenge bourgeois interests in a fundamental way. |
| The history of communist collaboration with reformists is a history of the communists ending up as the tail to the reformist dog. This happened here in the U.S. in the 1930's. The CPUSA, a mass party of militant struggle, degenerated under the influence of the Seventh Congress of the Comintern in 1935, and ended up the tail of Roosevelt's Democratic Party coalition. The CPUSA's independent work and independent positions, built up from many years of arduous struggle--were liquidated over a period of years as a result of Stalin's attempts to do a deal with the Western imperialists (and demonstrate to them that communists were no longer a threat) in the vain hope that they might put a leash on Hitler. |
as disease and addiction |
| We are going to hear a great deal about reformism and sectarianism. Probably a good deal more than many of us would like. That's too bad. Life's tough. Tougher if you're stupid. We are going to hear about these two diseases in the same way that an alcoholic goes to an AA meeting and hears about the perils of alcoholism. We are going to hear a lot that is scientific (and a lot that is nonsense) about these diseases because this is part of the process of separating truth from myth. We are going to hear about these two diseases again and again because we are going to have to understand them just as well (if not better) than a recovering alcoholic must understand alcoholism if he is to have a chance to stay clean and sober. |
| These two diseases have proven to be devastating to would-be revolutionary organizations. These diseases have a materialist basis. We must eventually go into this in depth. The materialist basis for reformism is well known. Lenin made this clear in "The Collapse of the Second International". Reformism is based, ultimately, on a series of favors, handouts, influence and support from the bourgeoisie. Less well known is that sectarianism also has a materialist basis in the conditions under which would-be revolutionary organizations must compete against one another to survive. And we will go into this also. |
| The communication revolution is going to bring, in its wake, a change in the environment. There are many "revolutionary" organizations that have been built upon one or the other (or both) of these diseases. Most of these organizations will, in the period ahead, either collapse or be forced to attempt to change their ways in order to survive. |
| We are going to make the internal war--the struggle against opportunism--uppermost in our consciousness and the foundation of our organizational structure. And those (whether 5% or 95%) who cannot handle this ? Well they can stand on the sidelines if they choose. Maybe they can help us in small ways (we need all the help we can get). Or--they can choose to howl at the moon. It doesn't make any difference. |
| There was an old saying popular in the organization to which (before it collapsed) I used to belong: "Hatred of opportunism is the beginning of all wisdom". We will take this principle to the masses. It is something they will need to know in order to understand their own struggles and in order to assist us in waging our own internal struggle. |
| We will fight these diseases both as phenomena with a materialist basis and as diseases based, on an individual level, on mechanisms of denial. We will fight these diseases in an organized, scientific, methodical way. We will fight these diseases within our ranks and within our circle of influence. But we will not fight these diseases in isolation from our other work. Rather, we will find methods to link the fight against opportunism to our fights to assist (and when possible, lead) the masses in their struggles. |
| I am a great believer in visual imagery. The human visual cortex occupies a huge portion of the surface of the brain and I believe it should be used to the max. The visual metaphor that follows may be corny (in drawing upon outdated and overused feudal imagery) but, like an advertizing jingle that you just can't get out of your head (no matter how hard you try), it should be easy to remember. |
| Our mission is to slay a fierce and powerful dragon. The dragon is protected by a thick fog which it can see thru but which we cannot. This is, unfortunately, not the end of our handicaps. In addition to this we are wearing a blindfold. |
| Our task is to rip off the blindfold and learn to navigate thru the blinding fog. The dragon is intelligent, experienced and confident. Fortunately, at hand is the sword in the stone. Once we learn how to lift this sword and wield it with skill, humility, discipline, science and courage, we will find that it confers upon us the mantle of invincibility. |
| What are the elements in this metaphor ? The dragon, of course, is bourgeois rule. The thick, blinding fog is the influence of reformism, which represents the disorienting ideology of our class enemy. The blindfold is the practice of sectarianism (the tendency to turn Marxism into a religion), which we must struggle to understand, not as if it represented some kind of stupidity, but as an intelligent and logical application of the tactics of "information isolation" used to defend the existence of bankrupt cults which must compete against one another for the warm living bodies of the activists who fund their staffs and central newspapers. |
| Tearing off the blindfold will be child's play compared to learning to navigate thru the blinding, choking fog, but it will represent an act of great courage. |
| And the sword in the stone, of course, is the coming revolution in many-to-many interactive communications. This sword is waiting for us. All of human history has been preparation for this moment to arrive. Once we learn to pick up this sword, we will (in the best tradition of all classic legends) become one with it. It will connect us with all of oppressed, struggling humanity and with the strivings and passion of past, present and future generations. Once we have this sword firmly in our hands, no force on earth will be able to withstand our warfare. |
communication and transparency |
| We are about to board a time machine and journey thru past forms of communist organization. This will not in any way pretend to be an in-depth study but is rather a quick survey. We will briefly touch upon a few highlights of: |
|
| As we journey on our fast-moving time-machine, I would like to point out for readers what I believe will be three recurrent and interwoven themes--and which I believe are particularly important to keep an eye on: |
|
| The concepts of cooperation and competition are very much in the business news today as modern corporations in the high-tech sector are learning to see themselves as participants in rapidly evolving ecosystems composed of rapidly shifting systems of alliances and partial alliances. Within this sector, corporations are learning to team up with their enemies in the struggle for market-share against new and old enemies alike. No corporation is an island. All products and technologies require, for their success, coordination and alignment with the standards, products, technologies and tactics of vast systems of independent and semi-independent economic players and agents. |
| These phenomena are manifested with great urgency in the high-tech sectors where changing combinations of hardware/software/communications/media standards and methods have created the phrase "internet time" to describe a frenzied development often and repeatedly compared to "dog years" (ie: one year of "internet time" is comparable to seven years of ordinary development in any other industry). |
| The idea, however, of independent entities simultaneously cooperating with (and competing against) one another as part of a larger ecosystem--is not confined to the business world. The concepts involved, of complexity, self-organization, adaptive systems, chaotic attractors, bottom-up organization, emergent behavior, nonlinear processes, fitness plateaus and so on--are derived from the study of natural systems and have great applicability to all human endeavors--including proletarian and communist organization. |
| For example, we can understand reformism as being equal to unprincipled cooperation -- in which opportunism is not openly fought -- and which leads to the domination of bourgeois tactics, strategy and ideology in the proletarian movement and causes the proletarian movement to become--captive to, subordinate to and harmless to--bourgeois interests. |
| Similarly, we can understand sectarianism as being equal to unprincipled competition between proletarian trends--as a form of corruption in which the success, growth or survival of a particular trend is placed above (and in opposition to) the interest of the proletarian movement as a whole. |
| The opposite of unprincipled cooperation is principled cooperation. The same goes with competition. By raising our consciousness on the nature and typical features of principled and unprincipled varieties of cooperation and competition--we will give ourselves the theoretical tools to bring communist organization into the modern world. |
| The communications revolution will become the means by which the masses can assist us in sorting out principled from unprincipled forms of cooperation and competion between and among trends. This assistance from the masses will be decisive. This is one reason the communications revolution will lead to a transformation of the "left ecosystem" and create an environment in which sectarianism will be doomed and reformism will become an endangered species. |
| And this leads us to discussion of the fourth concept that is key to understanding how a system of proletarian trends will interact with one another: |
|
| The term "transparency" is derived from financial markets. It connotes a system in which investors have access to the basic facts which relate to the likely success or failure of their investments. In a world in which the masses have access to many-to-many interactive communications--they will have access to the basic facts concerning the principled or unprincipled behavior of the trends which they support or in which they invest their life's energy. The guiding theme of the system of communist organizations which is bound to emerge--is transparency. Transparency is going to hit the left and it will hit with a vengeance. The striving for transparency, as we define it today, has always existed, from the European revolutions of 1848 until today. What is different today is that the coming revolution in many-to-many interactive communications is going to lead to a change in the environment and immensely more favorable conditions. The ecosystem is about to be transformed. No political trend will have the ability to escape transparency. As decade rolls after decade, the coming revolution in communications will release vast and ever increasing quantities of oxygen onto the fires of the class struggle. And, as dawn must follow the dark night, this will lead to a political explosion of stellar magnitude. |
| With this said, it is time to embark on our great adventure. Our team of vigilent commandoes has commandered a "rock'n roll time machine" from one of the "golden oldies" radio stations and our skilled technicians have converted it into a communist time machine, capable of taking us back more than a century ... |
| (to be continued) |
|
on the Party of the Future |
| I have included the following as potentially of interest to M-I readers. It describes how various organizations which consider themselves communist--could engage in an open "information community"--that would create conditions for both cooperation and competition with one another--in ways that were beneficial to the working class and the cause of communism. It was written as part of a process of summation of the incorrect organizational conceptions that led to the collapse of the Marxist-Leninist Party, USA (MLP) and includes suggestions about how various groups of supporters of the former MLP could relate to one another in a very confused situation. |
| The following link leads to an excerpt from "Joseph in Wonderland" (March 10, 1994) that was described in that article as "scattered thoughts" in preparation for an article (never written) under the title below. Numbering of the 19 points and the text are as in the original--but the section heads were added two and a half years later. This excerpt is now part of "Anti-Joseph and the S.O.M.E. Hypothesis" and can be found by clicking the link below: |
|
Democracy Rooted in Scientific Culture |
| References to the "xmlp trend" are descriptions of the remnants of the MLP which voted to dissolve itself in November 1993. When the MLP broke up--about two-thirds of its activists fell into passivity or demoralization about the prospects and usefulness, in the current period, of organized revolutionary work. Most of the remaining activists are still engaged in active revolutionary work (althou, in my view, such work is seriously flawed by a sectarian spirit) with the following two organizations: |