Ideology

[blindpig]

The importance of a mass movement
Originally published: Red Flag on February 4, 2024 by Sandra Bloodworth (more by Red Flag) | (Posted Feb 08, 2024)

This is a revised version of a 2019 article, “Strike, rally, occupy: building a mass movement”. It has been updated for the 2024 Red Flag campus supplement.

Mass protests change people. The act of collectively standing together pushes aside the powerlessness we experience in everyday life, builds confidence and generates a sense of strength.

This experience lies at the heart of all famous movements against tyranny and oppression, all social action which has won radical reforms or ended wars. Protests are not just some strategy to pressure politicians to grant our demands, even though at times they do. They are essential if fundamental social change is to be achieved.

Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin summed up a process which he observed during mass strikes across the Russian empire more than 100 years ago:

The masses, which have… often been ignored and even despised by superficial observers, enter the political arena as active combatants. These masses are learning in practice… are taking their first tentative steps, feeling their way, defining their objectives, testing themselves.

That is, they were learning that they could run the world themselves and that they didn’t have to just put up with the rich and powerful running society in their own interests.

We glimpsed very tentative beginnings of this process in the weekly marches of tens of thousands and other protests in solidarity with Gaza around Australia. A minority have been shocked into passionate activity by Israel’s genocidal war. It is important to recognise what makes such developments precious.

Demonstrations are really a form of a “people’s assembly” in which participants can debate and discuss politics, strategy and tactics, and strengthen their collective resolve. Public spaces we have sat in or walked across, never exchanging more than a glance or a smile with others, are transformed by demonstrations. Now, the space is ours. Others gather around, considering whether to join in, whether to spill into the streets and march.

As the famous art critic and novelist John Berger put it in a 1968 essay:

A mass demonstration distinguishes itself from other mass crowds because it congregates in public to create its function… It is an assembly which challenges what is given by the mere fact of its coming together… By demonstrating, [the protesters] manifest a greater freedom and independence—a greater creativity… than they can ever achieve individually or collectively when pursuing their regular lives. In their regular pursuits they only modify circumstances; by demonstrating, they symbolically oppose their very existence to circumstances.

At protests, people browse information stalls, some of which raise many issues, not just the issue about which the protest has been called. People read leaflets, buy radical papers and books they’ve never encountered before and which both confirm and challenge many of the ideas they bring with them. Their political horizons are broadened.

At the end of 2023 and into this year, smaller protests spiralled out from the confidence generated at the central weekly marches against Israel’s war. Hundreds rallied at local council meetings, demanding they pass motions of solidarity with Gaza and fly the Palestinian flag. Local suburban rallies, pickets of arms suppliers to Israel and of Israeli ships at the wharves attracted hundreds. Banners, stickers and posters have appeared around city streets in numbers not seen for years.

A new generation of university students has rejuvenated Students for Palestine, which was originally formed in previous Israeli wars on Gaza. They have mobilised large, lively protests with fresh energy. Teenage organisers of high school walk outs in November demolished in a few scathing sentences the insults hurled at them by school principals, politicians and the media.

“I’ve learned a lot coming here, meeting people and standing up with others for justice”, one of them said; another that she learned more being at the strike rally for two hours than “in an entire semester of history”. “Kids in Gaza can’t go to school and haven’t been able to for weeks”, a student from Pascoe Vale Girls’ School said.

Missing one afternoon seems very unimportant when you think about that.

As individuals, many of them probably instinctively drew conclusions about Israel’s terror. But the big protests created an incentive to get together. This then built their confidence to defy the principals, and then to confront the media’s hostile questioning.

No amount of respectful lobbying of MPs or petitioning of the UN can demonstrate so clearly how society operates. The students discovered, and demonstrated to others, that democracy, free speech and the right to protest are really only meant for those who go along with whatever barbarity our governments enact or support.

Such grassroots protests pose the questions: whose democracy? Whose order? They ask of others: help us disrupt the “order” that entrenches the power of the already powerful.

Disrupting business as usual through protests can build a sense of power by participants taking back some control over circumstances that are normally beyond our control. Disruption says: this movement is one worth taking risks for. Defying those who wield authority in this hideous system enhances democracy and free speech.

The activity of organising rallies, sit-ins, media appearances, strikes and much more promotes debate. It helps to clarify political issues, reveals the truth about our society and shows what the mainstream political parties really stand for. And activists able to inspire wider layers to rebel and build an ever expanding and powerful movement emerge as leaders—leaders with genuine courage and conviction, unlike our purported “leaders” in parliament, who do only what’s best for their careers.

Yet, as Vincent Bevins, author of If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, argues: “It should be obvious that humans do not spontaneously adopt the correct response to a given set of injustices”. So the debates such movements generate are vital.

Socialists want to win more people, especially leading activists, to an anti-capitalist perspective; one recognising that the root cause of pretty much every problem in the world is that society is divided by class and organised to enrich a minority at the expense of the majority. We publish our ideas in Red Flag and hold public meetings while organising beside other activists so our perspectives can be tested in practice.

Ultimately, workers’ strikes are the most powerful protest. Trade unions can challenge the right of capitalists to exploit us, to dominate us, to make profits—the very basis of this society. They can inspire others even more than even large demonstrations. Mass demonstrations of striking workers embody power, not just symbolically, but in reality.

Workers have been ground down by four decades of attacks that have led to increased wealth inequality and degraded public services. Unions are weakened by defeats and the policies of their leaders, who spend most of their time sucking up to the powerful and the politicians, rather than fighting them. But workers can at times be convinced to act even when their own leaders refuse to.

A vital aspect of the art of politics is learning how to link the vitality of student and other street protests with workers’ power. A movement of radical militancy, one noted for supporting every oppressed group and opposing attacks on democratic and union rights can, in the right circumstances, convince workers to take a stand.

Writing in a jail cell in early 1915 after being imprisoned for anti-war activity, Rosa Luxemburg, a Polish revolutionary socialist, argued that the world faced a choice: socialism or barbarism.

Her words about World War One strike a chord today as we witness the atrocities in Gaza enabled by Western imperialist powers—and while leaders of the trade union movement refuse to lift a finger to end the bloodshed despite so many trade union members wanting to take anti-war action.

Imperialism’s “bloody sword of genocide has brutally tilted the scale toward the abyss of misery”. “But”, she went on,

we are not lost, and we will be victorious if we have not unlearned how to learn. And if the present leaders of the working class… do not understand how to learn, then they will go under to make room for people capable of dealing with a new world.

If Luxemburg is to be proven right, these fundamental aspects of mass movements and of how people become capable of challenging capitalism is of vital importance.

https://mronline.org/2024/02/08/the-imp ... -movement/

Theory>Labor> Mass Movement. One damn thing after another....

[blindpig]

Results of 2023 of the newspaper "Proryvist"
No. 2/90.II.2024

Dear authors and readers!

The year 2023 has ended, and it’s time to take stock of the newspaper’s work. This report is coming out later than usual, because within our organization there are some changes in the work that are coming up, which will be discussed below, including in terms of the year’s results.

The year turned out to be eventful, just like the previous two. The situation in the world is rapidly changing; well-known processes related to the war and the aggravation of the international situation continue within the country. Young people are looking for answers to questions posed by political and economic practice and current Russian market reality. Judging by the reaction of readers and the frequency of visits to the website of the Proryvist newspaper, they received meaningful answers to some significant questions, as evidenced by letters to the editor.

At the beginning of last year, it was noted that the new situation had led to an increase in the number of supporters of the concept of scientific centralism and to a turning point in the issue of attracting personnel. At the same time, 70 articles were published in the newspaper last year - the same number as in 2022. That is, the increase in the number of supporters, with the stable work of the already established team of authors, did not entail an immediate proportional increase in the volume of published materials. But don't rush to conclusions.

Some time must pass from the moment a young person recognizes the concept of scientific centralism to the acquisition of the necessary scientific and theoretical knowledge and skills of a writer. For some, the time costs will be greater, for others less, especially since all of our supporters have to spend a lot of effort on ensuring personal “economic security.”

However, the past year also revealed “dizziness from success.” Some of our comrades, who have already published a certain number of articles in Proryv and Proryvist, on the one hand, considered themselves masters not only of propaganda and agitation, but also of organization. It seemed to them that they already had the moral right to set tasks for the entire communist movement, without having yet shown anything in the matter of building their own party of Lenin-Stalin quality. But, on the other hand, they deliberately allowed “raw materials” to be posted on our pages.

The listed facts make it necessary to make some changes in the approaches to organizing the work of the team of the online newspaper “Proryvist”.

I. The purpose of the newspaper and the work procedure of the authors
What was the original intent of the newspaper? A group of supporters of the magazine “Proryv” got together and organized the publication independently of the editors of the magazine. The format quite quickly evolved towards the newspaper as a monthly publication, albeit an online one, which was supposed to complement Proryv.

Every Marxist who publishes a newspaper is guided by the victorious experience of Lenin’s Iskra. Even in 2016, we understood that there was no upsurge in the labor movement, that the proletarian masses did not expect their own newspaper from intellectual revolutionaries, and so on, on the pages of which they would find scientifically based and popularly presented answers to the most important questions of history and modernity. However, the format of our newspaper still sought to correspond to a certain embryonic state, if not of a mass publication, but of a popular one. Many of our articles were written for the most inexperienced reader, there were also leaflets, appeals on certain protest events, etc., i.e., in the future, “Proryvist” aimed to become a Marxist newspaper in the classical sense of an “agent” of combining theory and the labor movement: “ Newspaper — not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, but also a collective organizer .” This intention should not be written off; the newspaper should still strive for this.

The chosen format gave rise to a number of somewhat simplified organizational and pedagogical methods of working with the asset, which, together with other factors, led to deformed ideas about the state and achievements of our breakthrough community, its strengths, capabilities and immediate tasks.

For me, as the editor-in-chief, a bias gradually manifested itself towards caring about the final product of the publication: the relevance and thematic breadth of materials, the frequency of publication of articles, the degree of accessibility of submission, and so on. Especially after the publication of a number of more or less fundamental works on the theory. There was a feeling that the main thing had already been said, all that remained was to replicate our position, maintain the level of propaganda on current events, and the job was done.

Now it has become clear that the growth of the influence of the newspaper is not and cannot be associated with the growth in the number of readers alone, that because of this, a number of our supporters and comrades are getting ahead of themselves in the struggle for mass popularity, without paying due attention to their scientific and theoretical training.

The problem was insufficient understanding of our practice and insufficiently consistent implementation of the breakthrough slogan for the formation of the backbone of personnel for the Party of Scientific Centralism.

The time has come to somewhat transform our work, to bring propaganda and organizational practice into line with theoretical ideas. From here, a number of recommendations are offered to authors.

Having just become acquainted with the newspaper, the reader may be puzzled: “Why am I reading this, wouldn’t it be better to send out these recommendations to the team of authors?”

I repeat, Proryvist is not a bourgeois newspaper whose task is to sell material in the interests of the customer and please the public. Our newspaper is not a platform for discussions, publications of “lone Marxists,” discussions of recent events, complaints and lamentations, and the like. And we are not even a purely scientific publication, whose task is to issue scientific truths that in themselves supposedly will change the world for the better. We have a communist publication based on the experience of Leninism, and we must not only conduct theoretical work, but also organize the party and the class, that is, educate, lead, involve, captivate, and inspire the proletariat . At this stage, to educate, lead, involve, captivate, inspire, first of all, those of our readers who have resolutely taken up the study of theory in order to join the team of breakthroughs. Therefore, we need to talk to the reader and talk openly, frankly, including about our work.

So what is the purpose of our newspaper? We write articles on the theory and practice of Marxism-Leninism, publish historiographical and current political materials with the aim of forming personnel for the party . The fulfillment of this goal has two inseparable sides: the development of theory and the education of Marxists. Based on our understanding of the objective requirements for the quality of the party and the historical tasks facing it, the development of theory is the leading aspect. Being dialectical materialists, we cannot tear theory away from everything objective.

All other tasks, such as reaching wide sections of the proletariat with propaganda and agitation, exposing the ills of capitalism, exposing bourgeois propaganda, supporting socialist states and the like, are secondary and derivative. Unlike numerous modern political, economic, art history “talk shows”, blogger gatherings, where authors and invited experts effortlessly and irresponsibly express their personal, often paid opinions and reasoning on current events, based on personal experience and diplomas, our newspaper is obliged to enrich the reader, first of all, with dialectical-materialist methodology, both in its philosophical and applied form, when the reader sees all the analytics, deduction and induction, the synthesis of opposites in the logic of our authors.

We must strive to ensure that the face and main value of the newspaper is represented by a set of useful articles from the point of view of self-education on the most important issues of methodology, applied theory and social practice of Marxism-Leninism . Such publications require the most rigorous editing. That is, one should strive to ensure that the editor himself does not correct or add anything to them, but only sends them for revision if, in general, the author’s direction of thought is correct, but the execution of the material is insufficient. Our authors should strive to actively educate themselves so that such articles appear more and more often. In the meantime, apart from our materials published in the “ Breakthrough Minimum ”, there are no such articles.

It is desirable that the second most important and most numerous genre in the newspaper should be abstracts and reviews . An essay is one of the main ways to consolidate and deepen self-education. First of all, the works of the classics of Marxism-Leninism are subject to review, and other well-known and popular works of both a theoretical, political and artistic nature are subject to reviews. Good examples of the second are the recent works of E. Safina on the “Pomegranate Bracelet,” M. Severova and Bronislav on “The Gadfly,” and some reviews of the brochure “Reasons for the Restoration of Capitalism in the USSR.”

The task of abstracts and reviews is not only to promote Marxism and self-education, but also, most importantly, to grow the authors themselves.

The light genre of notes and propaganda notes , i.e. publications based on personal experience, articles, essays, comments with political, philosophical content or reports about certain events, also has a place on the pages of the newspaper. But it is the most secondary, it only adds vitality to the publication and in some cases represents feedback from readers.

Articles on the most significant events and processes in politics should be published in the most precise formulations so that they serve as a guide for our supporters. On the most important and “hot” topics, you should not publish a cascade of similar articles from different authors. It is better for authors to add relevance to abstracts, summaries or research articles on theory by revealing the essence of certain current events.

The meaning of these recommendations is to change the proportions between the volume of publications on current and fundamental problems of Marxism in favor of the latter. The reader should see the authors' work on the works of the classics of Marxism, especially on issues of positive presentation of issues of diamatics and criticism of political economy. Those who undertake to cover current problems without proving the sufficiency of their scientific and theoretical training cannot be considered reliable breakthroughs.

II. Controls
At the moment, several people are working directly on the publication of articles: the editor-in-chief, who is responsible for the content, and comrades who are mainly engaged in technical work. The editorial board, as a collective body that manages the publication, in this sense exists nominally. To be a member of the editorial board or a candidate in fact means recognition for a person of how authoritative he is in our comradely circle.

Therefore, in order to streamline and normalize the activities, the editorial office was abolished . In this case, naturally, there remains an editor, that is, a person who is entirely responsible for the content of the newspaper’s materials, as well as a proofreader responsible for grammar, and a technical secretary who deals with the cash register, correspondence of printed books and other issues. In the future, in case of appropriate redistribution of the editorial work itself, the number of editors may be increased. At the same time, on the information page about the newspaper, instead of the editorial staff, a list of regular authors is published.

To resolve issues of technical development, managing the cash register, and other things, an executive commission was created, which included the most reliable and passionate comrades.

Thus, adjustments in the work and format of the newspaper will allow, firstly , to improve the quality of materials, secondly , to enhance the rigor and harmony of propaganda, and thirdly , to direct and improve the process of self-education and training of personnel.

A. Redin
02/10/2024

https://prorivists.org/here-now2024/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

Bolshevise the Communist Parties of capitalist countries by eliminating social democratic traditions
OSIP PIANITSKY 14.Oct.23 Bolshevization

This article was originally published in two parts by The Communist International, central organ of the Third International or Communist International, in its numbers 3 and 4, corresponding to June and July 1932.

The XI Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (CE of the Communist International) verified that the sections of the Communist International of the capitalist countries were lagging behind in relation to the development of the revolutionary worker and peasant movement. One year has passed since this assembly. It is a sufficient period to examine your results. Has this delay been overcome?[/iu]



Bolshevise the Communist Parties of capitalist countries by eliminating social democratic traditions *

Lecture given before the meeting of teachers who teach the principles of Party organization in international communist schools.


Introduction

The XI Plenary Session of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (CE of the Communist International) verified that the sections of the Communist International of the capitalist countries were lagging behind in relation to the development of the revolutionary worker and peasant movement. One year has passed since this assembly. It is a sufficient period to examine your results. Has this delay been overcome?

The last three quarters of 1931 and the first quarter of 1932 have marked a serious worsening of the situation of the working masses, the workers, the poor and middle peasants. The socialist parties, the social democrats and the union bureaucrats, who are still followed by significant masses of workers and employees, have long since fully aligned themselves with the ranks of the bourgeoisie and daily betray the interests of the working class. In this period, the development of the worker and peasant movement not only has not declined anywhere, but has even increased in a certain number of countries (Spain, Poland, Czechoslovakia, China, Japan, India, North America, France). However, in the main imperialist countries (England, the United States of America, France and Germany) the communist parties are lagging behind to an extent as great as before the XI Plenary Session of the EC of the lC. Each country has its objective reasons for this delay. This does not mean in any way that the subjective factor, the inability to take advantage of the discontent of the great masses – determined by the lowering of the standard of living; unemployment; hunger; tax burdens; the action of the social democrats, the socialist parties and the union bureaucrats – does not have a huge part in this delay.



How can we explain this inability to extract the working masses from the social democratic and socialist parties, from the reformists; and to group, organize and retain in our ranks those who have moved to the communist parties and the revolutionary trade union movement of the capitalist countries?



Mainly because the reformist and social democratic traditions are still deeply rooted in all areas of the activity of the communist parties, the red unions and the union oppositions. Comparing the methods of work among the masses, the forms of organization, the appreciation of the situation and the corresponding tactics of the Bolsheviks and the Social Democrats, we will later prove that the sections of the Communist International in the capitalist countries took a lot from their birth. , and they take not a little today from the practice of the social democrats.







The Bolsheviks and reformism

Opportunism and the adaptation of Western socialist parties at the time of the pre-war Second International

The autocracy and the clique of agrarian feudals were the owners of power in Tsarist Russia. Not only the situation of the workers but also that of the peasants was unsustainable. The entire petty bourgeoisie, and even the nascent liberal bourgeoisie, was dissatisfied with the autocracy; hence the broad participation of intellectuals and students in the revolutionary movement of 1905 against absolutism. As the events of 1905 confirmed, Russia was marching towards bourgeois-democratic revolution. In this regard,
Lenin wrote in March 1905:



The objective evolution of things has placed the Russian proletariat before the problem of a bourgeois-democratic transformation. This problem is raised before the entire people, even before the petty-bourgeois and peasant masses; Without this transformation, the development, however small it may be, of an independent class organization for a socialist revolution is inconceivable. [1]



In 1890 the main foreign countries had already crossed this period of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. The bourgeois-democratic revolutions, carried out by the proletariat and the petty bourgeoisie, had been carried out under the aegis of the bourgeoisie in the absence of a revolutionary workers' party.



The socialist and social democratic parties, which in 1890 already existed as mass parties in the main foreign countries, had already adapted to the existing regime and legislation. Before the world war, the political struggle carried out by the social democratic parties was a struggle for reforms, in the field of social legislation and for universal suffrage. And furthermore, this fight was essentially carried out through the electoral ballot.



If they did not verbally renounce socialism, the final object of the proletariat's struggle, in fact they did not undertake anything practical to prepare and fight revolutionary battles; for educating the cadres necessary for this purpose; give party organizations a revolutionary orientation; break bourgeois legality in the course of the struggle, etc. The entire orientation of the social democratic and socialist parties essentially tended to obtain, through universal, equal and secret electoral suffrage, the majority in Parliament, with the aim of "then establishing socialism." The same attempts at adaptation, which the Bolshevik party fought violently, found their expression in Russia also among the Menshevik liquidators (as well as in Trotsky), who described the Stolypin regime as a bourgeois regime and tried to adapt to it, moving to active legal and fighting for reforms, like the socialist parties of Western Europe. The Mensheviks did not take into account that the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution remained unresolved after the 1905 revolution.



In the West, the unions had voluntarily reduced themselves to the role of auxiliary organizations of the great working masses and to the exclusive defense of the immediate economic interests of the working class, an important thing is true; However, they did not even assign themselves the task of the collapse of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.



Everything regarding "pure" politics was abandoned to the political party. They had no other objective than to conclude collective contracts and trigger economic strikes. The role of workers' cooperatives was even more reformist. The unions were sometimes even in disagreement with the social democratic parties over the establishment of revolutionary holidays and the launching of political strikes; The cooperatives were also at odds with the unions, which asked for their help in periods of economic strikes. For this reason the foreign social democratic and socialist parties welcomed Bernstein's revision of the fundamental principles of Marxism with great tolerance, without even dreaming of making the split; although some social democratic parties adopted resolutions against the opportunists, the revisionists and the reformists. In reality, almost all the action of the social democratic parties and the workers' organizations they led was practically saturated with Bernsteinism.



Something else was happening in Tsarist Russia. During 1890, in all cities and especially in the industrial centers of the former tsarist empire, social democratic groups and organizations existed parallel to the populist groups. Within the latter, various antagonistic currents manifested themselves from the beginning of their existence: the "economists"; the members of the Bund , supporters of the latter and of national and cultural autonomy; and the revolutionary social democrats. Thus, the social democratic swamp swayed from one side to the other. The social democratic newspaper Iskra , which the revolutionary social democrats published with Lenin at its head, combated from the first moment all deviations from Marxism in general and "economism" in particular.



Lenin and the revolutionary Iskraists , after obtaining a majority at the Second Congress of the Party – where the name of Bolsheviks was born – continued in their subsequent action the revolutionary social democratic policy of the old Iskra . The Bolshevik Party led by Lenin forged Bolshevik strategy and tactics, methods of mass action and principles of party organization through a tireless struggle against Menshevism, the liquidators, the Otsovists [2] , the conciliators and all deviations from the general line of the Party. And all in the name of the advent, maintenance and reinforcement of the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution; in the revolutionary struggle against the tsarist autocracy; in the incessant struggle against the liberal bourgeoisie that made pacts with the tsarist autocracy and strove to make the Russian revolution take "the Prussian path"; in the fight against the entire capitalist regime and; in all stages of the bourgeois-democratic revolution. In Russia, the Bolsheviks did not, like the communist parties of the capitalist countries, have to free themselves from ancient reformist and opportunist traditions rooted in tactics, organizational principles and methods of action. On the other hand, to assimilate them, the Bolsheviks carefully studied the lessons of the bourgeois-democratic revolutions and the role played in these revolutions by the liberal bourgeoisie. Thus, they rejected everything that was harmful in the theory, program and practical work of the social democratic parties of the West and the mass workers' organizations; taking everything that was good in them.







What were the conditions in Tsarist Russia and abroad at the time when, on the one hand, the Bolshevik party and, on the other, the social democratic parties of the West were organized?

Until 1905 there was no legal party in Tsarist Russia. The liberal bourgeoisie itself had to publish its organ Osvobojdenie ( The Emancipation ) abroad in Stuttgart. Social democratic parties had freedom of action abroad until the war, for the entire existence of the mass labor movement (with rare temporary exceptions, such as the law against socialists in Germany). In the main capitalist countries (France, Germany, England, the United States, Czechoslovakia and others) communist parties existed more or less legally. It is these parties that I am going to talk about. It is they who I will oppose and who I will compare with the Bolshevik party of the former Tsarist Russia.



Before 1905, legal mass unions did not exist in Russia. Those created after 1905 by the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Bolsheviks and Mensheviks) vegetated until 1912. The Mensheviks strove to give the unions they created a character and functions analogous to those of the unions of the West. And if they could not achieve it, it was only thanks to the tireless struggle that the Bolsheviks maintained against these attempts in the mass workers' organizations. The Menshevik liquidators tried, in the period of reaction, to replace the unions with the Party. During the war and until the February revolution, unions were banned or placed under such conditions of police surveillance that they could not function normally. In the main foreign countries (England, the United States or Italy) the unions preceded the organization of social democratic parties. In France the union movement was imbued with a type of unionism that wanted to ignore political parties. In some countries (England, Belgium, Sweden) unions adhered collectively to labor parties, so much so that it can be said that some parties were formed by unions. Even in Germany the trade union movement is older than the independent political labor parties. In 1860-1870, unions in different workers' centers (typographers, cigar makers in Berlin) appeared and functioned before the workers' education circles, from which two workers' parties were born in Germany: the Lasallians and the Eisenachists, who separated from the progressive party. bourgeois to later form the German Social Democratic Party. Workers' strikes were carried out outside of political parties, especially in the 1860s-1870s. To get an idea of ​​the attitude of one of the most active workers' political parties of this time towards strikes, I will cite a very characteristic resolution of the Hamburg congress held in 1868 by the Universal Workers' Association (a political party led by Lasalle, already his death by Schweitzer). By 3,417 votes the congress voted not for the leadership of the strikes, but only for a favorable attitude toward them. Despite the vagueness of this formula, there were 2,583 votes in favor of rejecting it. The congress rejected the proposal to call a German workers' congress to establish a trade union confederation. It is clear that some socialists, and in particular the First International led by Marx and Engels, exerted a great influence on the nascent unions and on the development of the strikes. But it is a fact that at this time the political parties did not organize strikes, nor did they direct the union organizations. Later, when the emergency law against the socialists was enacted, the German unions were, however, less punished than the social democratic political party. The impetuous development of capitalism strengthened the union movement despite persecution. In these circumstances the unions could not help but increase their independence.



The social democratic parliamentary faction, which was in charge of the functions of the Central Committee, did not direct the economic struggle of the proletariat but was concerned with parliamentary politics. So from the first moment of the existence of the social democratic parties and the union organizations, the latter tended towards independence.



On the other hand, in Tsarist Russia the Bolshevik organizations directed both the economic struggle and the political struggle.



Abroad, the functions were distributed in this way between the union organizations and the social democratic parties: the parties carried out pure politics and the unions took care of the economic struggle.



It should be noted that some communist parties in certain capitalist countries do not even now consider it their duty to take care of the leadership of the economic struggle; They entrust it entirely to the union opposition or to the red unions. In this way, these social democratic traditions were transmitted to the communist parties.



In countries where communist parties already organize strikes and deal with the trade union movement, manifestations of sectarianism are also observed. It is through great difficulties that the communist parties free themselves from these deviations.







Bolshevik forms and social democratic forms of Party organization

Until 1905 there were no election campaigns in Tsarist Russia. In any case, neither peasants nor workers participated in the elections of the Zemstvos or urban municipalities. They were deprived of the right to vote. After 1905, in connection with the calling of elections to the State Duma, special conditions were developed for the workers, special divisions were created for them and they voted for workshops and factories.



The illegal status of all parties in tsarist Russia until 1905, the lack of electoral campaigns and at the same time (and this is essential) the correct position of the Bolsheviks on the question of party organization - recruitment in factories and workshops, creation of circles of general and political instruction – are the particular features of the formation of the Bolshevik party in tsarist Russia. The illegal situation of the Party, in addition to the causes already indicated, pushed it to create party groups in companies because it was easier and more comfortable to do the work there. The construction of the party of the Bolsheviks began in the factories, which gave brilliant results both in the years of reaction and after the February revolution and particularly during the October uprising of 1917, the civil war and the great construction of socialism.



During the reaction, after 1908 – when the local committees and leadership of the Party (the CC) were sometimes dismissed – the base however remained in the factories and the small cells continued the action. After the February revolution, the elections of the soviets of workers' deputies were also carried out by factories and workshops. It is interesting to note the fact that in the elections for the city and neighborhood dumas and for the Constituent Assembly – which after the February and October revolutions were held by place of residence of the voters – the Bolshevik party won the same successes despite not having neighborhood organizations and having concentrated all the agitation in the companies and in the barracks. The cells, neighborhood committees and local committees carried out the electoral campaign, without creating special neighborhood organizations for the elections. The basic organizations of the Bolshevik Party were always in the workplaces of the party members.



However, abroad the situation was completely different. Elections there were carried out by constituencies, by the place of residence of the voters, instead of in factories. The main task that the socialist parties set themselves was to organize the electoral campaign well and fight through the electoral ballot. That is why the Party organized its members by place of residence, to be able to group them more easily to carry out the electoral campaign in the corresponding electoral constituencies.



But it cannot be said that the social democratic parties have not been linked to the factories. They were linked through union organizations led by members of the social democratic party. Although the unions were not organized on the basis of companies, they had their union managers, their collectors, etc. in them. Thanks to these union collectors and managers – who were mostly social democrats – the parties were linked to the union organizations and through them to the companies.



When the Communist Parties appeared [3] , they created their organizations based on the social democratic model. And this despite the fact that the communist parties from the moment of their founding established completely different objectives from the social democratic objectives. The objectives of the communist parties were, and continue to be, the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the conquest of power by the proletariat; while during the war international social democracy supported the bourgeoisie and became its main social support after it. And yet the communist parties built their organization like social democracy, based on the electoral constituencies, on the places of residence of the members of the Party and the voters. To this we must add that the communists did not have their union organizations and where they were created they did not have, and still do not have, a solid organizational link with the companies. In this way the communist parties in capitalist countries have been organized without a constant organizational link with companies. Here is the biggest mistake that has been made in the construction of communist parties and which must be clearly pointed out by the professors who teach in higher schools. The communist parties with different tasks, however, built the party organization in the same way as the social democrats. If social democracy is linked to companies through unions, the communist parties did not have such a link. Not even the communist parties that have great influence among the red unions, such as the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia or the Communist Party of France, have this connection. From their birth, the communist parties adopted the organizational forms of the social democratic parties because the Bolshevik forms and methods of Party construction were unknown to them. However, during the war and immediately after it, in many countries factory workers trained revolutionary delegates in their midst – in Germany these delegates played a great role in the course of the strikes during the war; They elected factory committees, for example the ShapstuartIn England; and they even sent representatives to the Soviets. In this way they were able to convince themselves of the advantages of organizing workers by their workplaces instead of organizing by homes. But once the revolutionary wave passed, social democratic traditions predominated over the forms of organization that were closest to the Bolshevik forms of work in companies. This is the main cause that explains why the communist parties – especially the neighborhood organizations, the Party's base, the revolutionary trade union organizations and the cadres who assume the bulk of the revolutionary and party work – then renounced almost Bolshevik methods. of work in companies and not finding sufficient resistance from the Party leadership, they currently oppose the application of these methods, despite the fact that they have already demonstrated their superiority over social democratic methods.



The lack of organization in factories is strongly reflected in the work of the communist parties, as demonstrated by the example of 1923 in Germany. The Party did not take advantage of the revolutionary situation not only due to the lack of true leadership, but also due to the lack of a broad and solid bond with the factory workers.

In 1923 German social democracy weakened, its numbers decreased enormously. In 1922, the reformist union organizations had nine million members, 7,895,065 in the Confederation of Labor and the rest in the civil servants' unions; In 1923 there were no more than three million left. The apparatus of the reformist unions had disintegrated and could no longer remunerate its officials. The German Communist Party could then have conquered power if it had had a revolutionary leadership, if it had carried out a true struggle against the social democratic party and the reformists; if it had been strongly linked to companies; if I had known what the workers in the factories and workshops wanted; if he had known how to mobilize them using the revolutionary tactics of the united front in the fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat instead of the Brandlerian united front with the social democratic "left" of Saxony and its Zeigner government. The conference called in 1923 by the opportunist Brandlerian leadership to decide the question of whether or not to unleash action was composed mainly of Party officials, heads of cooperatives and unions; among which there were quite a few right-wing opportunists like Brandler, Talheimer, Walcher, detached from the masses, who did not know the mood or will of the working masses. And it was that conference that decided not to take action!







Business and street cells

In tsarist Russia the cells (or the individual Bolsheviks in those factories and workshops where there were no cells) took advantage of all the abuses that took place in the company: the brutality of the foremen, the intentional errors in the payment of wages, the fines, the refusal of the company's administration to pay compensation for work accidents, among others, for oral agitation in the workplaces themselves, for their flyers, at lightning rallies at the door and in the yard the factory, in the assemblies of sympathetic and revolutionary workers.



The Bolsheviks knew how to link the abuses of the companies with the autocratic regime, since the workers experienced firsthand the whip of the tsarist mercenaries, prisons and exile for their protests and strikes against the bosses. At the same time, in the agitation carried out by the cells of the Party, autocracy was linked to the capitalist regime and that is why the Bolsheviks, from the beginning of the development of the labor movement, linked economic demands with political demands, the economic struggle with political struggle. When the mood in the factories was favorable to a strike, the Bolshevik cell took the lead of the movement. The strikes spread from one section to another, from one workshop to another, and under the influence and direction of the Bolshevik party organizations, these movements in many cases took the form of street actions, thus converting economic strikes into political struggle.



In the history of the labor movement of Tsarist Russia, cases are not rare in which an isolated strike in one company became a factory strike in an entire city and also spread to other cities. All these strikes, despite the clandestine work of the Bolsheviks, demanded on their part and on the part of the revolutionary workers an enormous number of victims, but in the struggle, in daily action, new cadres continually emerged who continued the battle, inspired by the example of fallen victims. In this way the Bolshevik cells became organizers of the mass struggle, directing the economic and political struggles.



At the Third Congress of the Communist International, in 1921, the first theses on the construction of communist parties in capitalist countries were accepted, but until 1924 the communist parties remained deaf to these decisions.



Currently all communist parties have factory and workshop cells, however the vast majority – especially in legal communist parties – do not actually work in companies. Social democratic traditions regarding party structure became so deeply rooted in the ranks of communist parties that they weigh on militants even when they apply Bolshevik forms of organization. Business cells already exist in many factories, but they are still far from modifying their work methods. They deal with Party issues, participate in the re-election campaigns of factory committees, sometimes even publish factory newspapers, but they do not deal with company issues, they do not carry out individual agitation in the companies, at the exit of factories, on the tram, on the subway, on trains during the trip to and from work places. The cells rarely organize participation in the assemblies called by the factory workers' committees, where the social democrats and reformists speak, and where it is possible to point out and demonstrate their betrayals more than elsewhere. The company cells do not direct or control the work of the communists in the factory union committees led by the reformists. They leave the red committees of the companies without direction and that is why in most cases they do not work better than the reformist committees. The most important campaigns of the Party and the unions are not carried out by the Party committees after having been discussed in the company cells. Even municipal, provincial and legislative elections, which occur quite frequently, are not carried out through business cells, but rather through street cells. All this leads to the factory cells finding out about the strike declarations in the sections of the factory, and even the entire factory where they work, only after they have started. And in cases where it is the company cells, the union opposition groups or the red unions that prepare the strikes, once the strike committees are elected, the union cells and groups abandon the leadership and cease to exist as an organization. It is evident that the reformists take advantage of this situation.



This can be said about the majority of cells that exist in the factories of capitalist countries. This does not mean that there are not also some cells that work perfectly, demonstrating that the system of business cells is superior to the social democratic organizational structure of the Party. But these cells unfortunately constitute the minority. The vast majority of company cells do not work or, in the best of cases, work poorly. Until today, it is also common that not all party members who work in the company are part of the cell.



The Bolshevik party knew only one form of grassroots organization: the company cell, the office cell, the barracks cell, etc. Taking into consideration the existing conditions abroad, the Communist International was forced to also introduce another supplementary form of organization: street cells. The street cells were intended for the women of the house, small artisans, among others. These cells had to carry out communist activity in the places of habitation. Unemployed Party members must also belong to the street cells, until they find employment. It is not possible to force an unemployed communist to go to the factory where he previously worked to attend a meeting of the cell (if the cell exists) when he does not even have the necessary means to pay for the trip to the factory. The street cells have specific tasks: visiting homes, distributing flyers, contributing during election campaigns, helping the work of the factory cells from outside.



In large cities abroad it often happens that the worker who works in the city center lives very far away, outside the city, and often in a small surrounding town that is a few kilometers away. At night, and also on holidays, Party members who live far from the places where they work must be used by the neighborhood committees for Party work in the neighborhood where they live. However, the main work of these Party members must be carried out in the business cells.



However, instead of making the street cell only an auxiliary organization, the communist parties adopted it precisely as their main form of organization. They began by organizing street cells and they did it in such a way that 80 percent, and sometimes even more, of the party members actually belong to these cells.



In other words, the communists found the loophole through which they strove to push through the old forms of organization, the antiquated form of organization based on the domicile of Party members. And all the struggle carried out for five years by the organizational section of the Executive Committee of the Communist International for the communist parties to review the composition of their street cells, separating from them those who work in companies, led to nothing.



If we take the data of the German Communist Party we will see that at the end of December 1931 it had 1,983 company cells and 6,196 street cells; Due to the number of its members it can be said that they are considerable, but very inactive.



In other cases, in order not to organize the cells in the companies, they began by organizing the so-called concentration groups: they bring together the communists who work in different factories and create a group that must carry out the work in those companies. This form of organization is very widespread in England, but it does not provide the same results that business cells would have provided.



In France, cells were created in the following way: to 1 or 2 factory workers, 14 or 16 Party members who did not work in the factory were added. And they call that a business cell! To these 14 or 16 Party members, in most cases it seems trivial to take care of the small things in the workplace; That is why the cells take care of everything, except what concerns the company.







The difficulties of the work of communist cells in the companies of capitalist countries and the methods to overcome them

It is clear that activity in companies encounters great difficulties that should not go unnoticed by those who teach the principles of Party organization.



In Tsarist Russia the Bolshevik Party and its cells were illegal. When the Party came out of illegality, its cells did too.



Abroad the issue is completely different. The parties work legally in the main capitalist countries, however their cells must work clandestinely.



Unfortunately, they cannot work without being discovered. The bosses and their spies monitor and identify the revolutionary workers and fire them from the company, without provoking protest from the reformist union organizations. On the contrary, it is often the latter who initiate the dismissals of communists.



Because, as a general rule, communists carry out very little activity in companies, when they are fired the workers do not rise to their defense (there are also, of course, contrary cases). Under these conditions, the factory and workshop cells in most cases do nothing or their members are fired by the companies for carrying out the slightest activity, due to their inability to hide their even insignificant work.



There are equally frequent cases in which communists are fired from companies even when they have done nothing except join the Communist Party. Professors at international communist universities must take these difficulties into account and indicate to students – when analyzing the question of work in legal communist parties – how these cells can and should organize their work. And it is precisely in that domain where the Bolshevik experience of illegal work in factories during the tsarist era can be applied, which gave such brilliant results. This should not seem like an insignificant detail. The communist parties, due to lack of capacity in their conspiratorial work, suffer enormously from the loss of communists and revolutionary workers due to dismissals.



To certain communists it may seem, and actually does seem, somewhat strange that social democrats, nationalists and members of other parties can openly reveal themselves as such and that they, despite the fact that the communist party is legal, must conceal their adherence to it. Does this concealment represent cowardice? Or is it perhaps right-wing opportunism? Nothing of that. It would be cowardice and opportunism if the members of the cell or some individual communists feared and avoided speaking against
the reformists and social democrats in the workers' assemblies of the factory, when they propose accepting the reduction in the standard of living of the workers or approving layoffs. ; or if they voted for the proposals of the social democrats and reformists, etc. Unfortunately there were similar cases. But it is in no way necessary to go around the factory shouting that you are a communist, and even more so when this is not always accompanied by communist work.



You can and should carry out truly communist work by linking the Party's slogans with the daily struggle in the company, without saying that you are a member of the party or the cell. For this object, convenient forms can always be found. Can't we say, for example: "I read this or that news today" or "a worker from our factory, or from the neighboring factory, told me this...", etc. In a word, everything must be explained in accordance with the spirit of the decisions of the cell and the Party, but in a simple way, without shouting and even "innocently." Even in cases where, at the request of the cell, someone intervenes in the general assembly of the company's workers, it is not always absolutely necessary to declare that one is speaking on its behalf. The fundamental thing is that their speeches are inspired by the decisions of the cell and that the proposals are prepared and approved by the cell's bureau . The other cell members and sympathizers must not only vote for the proposals made by the comrade designated by the cell, but must also agitate among the workers in favor of these proposals. In illegal parties the situation is different. There, both the Party and the cells share that same character, but unfortunately also in the illegal parties the activity of the cell is very poorly hidden.



There is still another great difficulty of which it is necessary to take note and emphasize it during teaching.



In tsarist Russia the regulations and internal regime in factories were relatively weak compared to the situation that exists in companies in large capitalist countries. Especially in relation to today, after the capitalist rationalization that exhausts the worker has been carried out and the chain work system has been implemented.



Before the fall of tsarism, the bourgeoisie paid workers very poorly; But they carried out such an energetic fight against the rigor of the internal regulations in the companies that manufacturers in general had to renounce the work and exploitation methods inspired by Taylorism . That facilitated the Party's work in companies.



Furthermore, the factory workers, regardless of the socialist party [4] to which they belonged, united with the Bolsheviks in the economic and political struggle (strikes, demonstrations and even insurrections). However, this does not mean in any way that the Bolshevik party followed the trend and disguised Bolshevik principles in companies. On the contrary, in the factories, in the workshops, as well as in the illegal press and in manifestos, the Bolsheviks carried out a fierce campaign against the Mensheviks, the liquidators, the Trotskyists, the socialist revolutionaries, the populist socialists, among others.



The Bolsheviks demonstrated the justice and superiority of their action over that of the other parties by their convincing agitation; for his arguments during controversies with members of other parties; for their timely and well-founded proposals; for his knowledge of the situation of company workers; for their work methods; for its way of attracting workers to participate in the solution of various problems; for the meticulous preparation of the fight; for their methods of organization. That is why the Bolshevik Party managed to establish in the factories the united front from below with the workers of all tendencies throughout the history of the Russian labor movement, even when the Mensheviks reproached the Bolsheviks for "playing at strikes" in 1912-1914. and even under Kerensky, when the Bolsheviks in August 1917 organized a General Strike against the Moscow Government Assembly, in which the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries played the leading role; and then in the days of October 1917, when the Bolsheviks organized the insurrection against the bourgeoisie, the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries.



Some of these favorable conditions are missing from today's communist parties. Thus, for example, they have to simultaneously carry out the economic struggle – and not only the economic struggle – against the social democrats, against the reformist unions, against the fascists, against the yellows, against everyone. All of them are with the bosses. A minimum of carelessness at work – from both the communists and the members of the union opposition and the red unions – is enough for them to be kicked out of the factory or workshop. This requires them to apply work methods that contribute to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat with maximum benefits with a minimum of losses. These methods can only be Bolshevik methods.



The communists must and are obliged to overcome all difficulties. The more difficulties there are, the more scrupulous and tenacious the communist work must be carried out in the factory and in all places where employed and unemployed workers are found.



Both the methods and the content of the work must be Bolshevik. It is necessary by system to convince and demonstrate with examples and convincing arguments, not with insults, those who think differently, especially the social democratic and reformist workers. It is essential to systematically unmask social democracy and the reformists through facts and in a popular way, but without forgetting at the same time the fascists and in general all the parties contrary to which the workers still follow.



But agitation is not enough. It is necessary to organize the struggle, to demonstrate to the workers that the communists are capable of organizing it and paralyzing the maneuvers of social democracy and the reformists. This can be achieved through the application of Bolshevik methods of work and organization, but not by applying them mechanically but in relation to the concrete situation. At the present time, when the situation of workers in all capitalist countries has worsened in an incredible way; when millions of workers are without employment; When all the consequences of the economic and financial crisis – to which are added the expenses for the preparation of the imperialist war and the aggression against the USSR – are unloaded on the workers, the communist parties have the possibility and the duty to overcome all the difficulties and improve your work.







The recruitment of members and the fluctuation of Party membership

How is recruitment carried out in communist parties? The Bolsheviks recruit and recruit revolutionary workers in companies. Only after taking power did the Bolsheviks organize recruitment weeks, that is, specific campaigns for recruiting members; which were also carried out in companies. Before the October Revolution, the Bolsheviks recruited on the basis of daily work. New adherents were initiated into the work of the Party and followed political circles.



How do communist parties in capitalist countries carry out recruitment to date? Recruitment takes place at rallies, in large popular assemblies, sometimes in the street (as in the case of England). A speaker spoke very eloquently, enthused the worker listener and he submitted an application to join the Party. Suppose that it also indicates his address. However, our party organizations have never rushed, nor do they now rush, to immediately link up with these comrades, to visit them at their homes to find out in which factory they work and to include them in the Party organization, in the factory cell or in the nearest street. Before the Party organizations decide to carry out this work, a large part of the applicants have had time to disappear: change their address, go to another city or cool their enthusiasm for joining the communist organization.



Precisely because entry into the party is not carried out in the companies and based on the work of the party cell, but rather through the creation around it of a nucleus of active workers without a party who stand out in daily work, especially during strikes and demonstrations where our cell must recruit new members, precisely why those we have already attracted leave. I could cite completely surprising figures that characterize the fluctuation of the numbers of the communist parties.



In January 1930, the German Communist Party (PCA) had 133,000 contributors, according to its data. During 1930, 143,000 new members joined, so that in 1931 the total number of Party members must have been 276,000, but at the end of December 1930 the PCA only had 180,000 members. That is to say, during the course of 1930 the PCA lost 95,000 members. In 1931, the organizational section of the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EC of the CI), according to PCA statistics, gave the figure of 210,000 new members; But those who left the Party are as many as those in 1930. Would all these members leave the Party if the communist organizations worked well, if they took care of the new members, if they made them participate in the work of the Party, if they were provided with appropriate literature, if circles were created where new members could study? If those possibilities had arisen, would those who left it be outside the Party? I do not think so.



At a time when workers and employees are laid off en masse, the recruitment of members must be carried out
especially among those who work in large companies in the fundamental branches of production. It is absolutely necessary to take care of Party members in these companies and branches of production, especially those who have recently joined. We must study with them the many issues of the daily politics of the Party. They must be helped to prepare, to examine the speeches intended to be delivered at the public assemblies of the factory and in the oral agitation among the workers. They must be provided with the necessary documentation for the fight against the social democrats, the reformists, the national socialists (fascists), the Government, etc. A similar work must also be carried out with the active Party members, with those who carry out the Party's work in the unions, among the unemployed and within the reformist organizations. If this work were carried out, the number of withdrawals between old and new members would decrease.



The fact that thousands and thousands of workers join the communist parties and revolutionary trade union organizations shows that they agree with the slogans, tactics and program of the communist parties and mass organizations. But the inner life and activity of local organizations do not satisfy the revolutionary workers and that is why a large part of the new entrants leave. For the professors of the international communist universities, as well as for the militants and cadres who must deal with the work of the party, matters relating to recruiting and retaining new members are far from indifferent. It is necessary to dedicate deep attention to them. It is urgent to analyze this issue. It is possible that the teachers have taken into account the phenomena that I indicate. I only say that I base it on practice, on practical results. And in this field it is seen that until now the communist parties have not known how to educate the cadres essential for a rational construction of the Party organization.







Party committees, internal democracy, discipline, management methods, self-criticism, democratic centralism and the question of cadres

Take party committees as an example. When the Bolsheviks were building their party, during the tsarist regime and after its fall, the party committees were collective bodies. All its members participated in the decisions of general issues and each of its members also had their own specific functions.



The provincial and local committees of the party dealt with and decided all issues related to the economic and political struggle of the proletariat, staying within the framework of the decisions of the Congresses, the plenary sessions of the Central Committee (CC) of the party and its directives, the Central Organ and Lenin's instructions. They were not satisfied with trying and giving instructions on how to apply the resolutions and their directives in the provinces and cities, but they were also in charge of organizing the implementation of these resolutions, applying them and popularizing them. They devoted special attention to the neighborhood committees, which were directly linked to the business cells. They ensured that in all party organizations, especially in the cells, the decisions of the party, the directives of the party committees, were examined, their own decisions were adopted and the methods for their implementation were established. They ensured that internal democracy was not violated in the party organizations, but that at the same time the strictest discipline was observed. Issues were debated before decisions were made. But once these decisions were adopted, they had to be applied without discussion by all members of the party, even by those who had spoken and voted against their adoption. This, of course, did not prevent subjecting the party committees to severe criticism, after making decisions, as well as enduring self-criticism on the part of the party committees, etc. But criticism and self-criticism led to management's work methods being improved, strategy and tactics being scrupulously worked out, and mistakes made being corrected. The leadership of the party, the provincial committees and the local committees were not only concerned with “pure” politics. They dealt with programmatic, tactical and organizational issues. They did not separate political issues from organizational issues, the adoption of decisions with their implementation. In most cases it was a fair, lively, revolutionary, Bolshevik leadership. That is why the difference between the ideological influence on the masses and their really organized forces was not great.



The situation in the communist parties of capitalist countries is completely different. Local party committees often do not exist there and if they do exist, in the best of cases, only the secretary works, sometimes paid and often without receiving any salary for his work. And local committees exist only as appendages to the secretary without functioning regularly as collective bodies.



It frequently happens that where local committees exist, those who report in plenary sessions are the secretaries and everything they propose is accepted because the party committees (that is, its members) are not aware of the party's affairs. Such neighborhood or local committees naturally cannot organize the work of the cells, nor exercise fair direction. It is necessary to devote deep attention to the local organs of the party, especially those at the base.



There are frequent cases in which the decisions of the congresses and the Central Committees of the parties of the capitalist countries are not discussed in the business and street cells; nor in the party groups organized in the places of residence and which still exist in considerable numbers. These decisions are only discussed among the active militants of the cities and neighborhoods and the matter ends there.



The directives of the CC and the regional committees rarely reach the cells, they remain stuck in the neighborhood committees. While, for example, directives concerning the conduct of mass campaigns should be transmitted mainly to the cells because they are precisely the ones that have direct contact with the masses. Cells and domicile groups are generally passive. They do not live the active life that the conditions of the current moment demand. These are also social-democratic remnants. These party organizations only come alive on the eve of electoral campaigns. That is why there are frequent cases in which internal democracy and Bolshevik discipline are lacking within party organizations. In such a situation it is not surprising that the decisions of the congresses, the directives of the IC and the CCs remain unfulfilled. We have, for example, the resolutions of the congresses of the IC, of ​​the various parties, of the various plenary sessions of the EC of the IC and of the CCs on the transfer of the center of gravity of the activity of the party and the unions to companies, on the improvement of the work of the grassroots bodies of the party and trade union organizations, especially in companies, etc.



It is evident that the cause of the absence of Bolshevik methods in the work of the party must be sought in the false conception of the leading cadres of the party (center, region, province and in part also the neighborhood).



But instead there is wholesale "self-criticism." Strikes are openly criticized when it is necessary to reorganize work during the march and without speeches. It is criticized during the conduct of campaigns, when it is necessary – by modifying the methods and content of the work – to better organize the party forces to broaden and deepen the campaign. They criticize themselves vigorously even after the strikes and campaigns have ended, but after self-criticism they repeat the old mistakes during the following strikes and campaigns. Such cases are frequent.



Democratic centralism was applied in the Bolshevik party, even during tsarism and when the party was illegal. The party organizations did not wait for the instructions of the CC, the regional, provincial or local committee. They acted without waiting for decisions, according to local conditions and in accordance with events, staying within the framework of the party's general decisions and directives. The initiative of local party organizations and cells was encouraged. If the comrades in Odessa, Moscow, Baku or Tiflis had always waited for the directives of the CC, the regional committees, etc., which, during the years of reaction and during the war sometimes did not even exist due to the arrests, what would have happened then? The Bolsheviks would not have been able to conquer the working masses or exert any influence on them. The provincial and local committees edited the necessary calls or flyers on their own initiative when the case required it.



In many communist parties there is unfortunately an ultra-centralism, especially in the legal parties. The CC must provide flyers to local organizations, the CC must speak out beforehand on the events so that they are awakened in the localities. There is no responsibility that each party organization must have to be able to act at any time, regardless of the fact of having directives or not, based on the decisions of the party and the IC And even in cases in which the center gives the directives corresponding, generally do not reach the mass of party members, since there is not sufficient control on the part of the higher bodies over compliance with the directives. We must fight against this and during teaching focus attention on this aspect of the problem.



In the Bolshevik Party, the provincial work of the party was carried out in the factories and workshops through the cells. The link with the masses, their leadership through the business cells and the communist fractions in the mass organizations was living. The party press, literature, verbal and written agitation were addressed to the masses. Due to the fact that the Bolshevik party of the former Tsarist Russia was illegal until the February revolution, the center (Central Committee) and the localities (neighborhood, local, regional committees) did not have fixed premises, did not have and could not have permanent premises, necessary for a still minimally developed apparatus. That is why the center of gravity of the work of the party (and not only of the party, but also of the work of legal and illegal unions) had naturally moved to the factories and workshops. This situation in the work of the party also continued in the period from February to October 1917, when the Bolshevik Party became a legal party that carried out enormous mass work, while the apparatus of the CC, the regional and provincial committees It was very small. The action was carried out based above all on the neighborhood committees, the neighborhood sub-committees, and the factory cells.



In the parties of capitalist countries the question of the party apparatus is posed differently: legal communist parties have at their disposal sufficient premises where they can easily locate their officials.



In the CC, in the regional and provincial committees, the main forces of the apparatus are concentrated (the agitation organization section, the union commission, the women's commission, the parliamentary commission, the peasant commission, etc.). While the neighborhood committees and cells are left orphaned. Many neighborhood committees in industrial centers – not to mention the cells – do not even have a paid secretary. The neighborhood committees must receive "everything" from the center. This hinders the initiative of the local party organizations.



The Executive Committee of the Communist International tenaciously fights against this state of affairs. This struggle is all the more necessary because it is not just a question of purely external legal and illegal organizational conditions. No, it is about undertaking action among the masses, maintaining a regular, intimate and permanent connection with them. Forms of organization must be subject to this objective: serve the masses and not the other way around.



Furthermore, in the majority of legal communist parties in capitalist countries, the link with the masses and with the leadership of the cells is conventional and is carried out through circulars. The press, literature, written and oral agitation is abstract, in most cases it does not correspond to the concrete situation. This happens because, due to the conditions characterized above, there are no adequate cadres capable of acting directly on the spot and in living contact with the masses.



This situation therefore raises the question of the paintings. In the Bolshevik party, cadres were forged in practical work among the masses. They learned in the course of the action how to react to issues related to working-class life. They not only knew the life and thoughts of the workers, but they also knew how to respond to the workers, they knew how to organize the struggle,
indicating the solution to them. That is why the Bolshevik party had such great influence among the masses, even in the time of tsarism, such firm authority among the working class.



The senior and middle management of the communist parties in capitalist countries are made up in most cases of revolutionary elements from the social democratic parties. Most of the time the old working methods, the social democratic methods, still persist in them. Many of them have not yet let go of social democratic traditions. And likewise a considerable part of the new young cadres, who life pushed forward in some communist parties in recent years, are still inexperienced. They do not know how to work independently and concretely. And due to the excessive centralization of management ("everything" must come from the center!) they do not have the possibility of educating themselves to be able to lead independently, with full and concrete initiative in local work.

(Continued on following post)


Texto completo en: https://elcomunista.nuevaradio.org/bolc ... nistas-de/

[blindpig]

(Continued from previous post.)

The communist factions and their relations with the Party committees

Evidently it was easier for the Bolsheviks than for the communist parties of the capitalist countries to establish normal relations between the communist factions and the party committees.



The party organizations actually carried out multifaceted work: they led the economic struggle, organized unions and cooperatives, constituted all kinds of workers' organizations that had the possibility of existing during the tsarist regime, from 1905 until the war. That is why the party organizations were a recognized authority in the eyes of the militants of all the organizations, the vast majority of whom were party members and sympathizers. This situation was completely natural and no one was opposed to this state of affairs.



After the seizure of power, some tendencies appeared to replace party organs in certain communist fractions of the soviets. But this was a short-lived phenomenon. Before and especially after the seizure of power, the relations in the Bolshevik party between its organizations and the communist fractions (or with individual communists) of the mass workers' organizations without a party were posed as follows: Party organizations decide important issues and communist fractions, as well as isolated militants without exception, ensure the realization of these decisions in non-party organizations. The communist fractions themselves are the ones that establish the methods for carrying out these decisions. In their daily activities they are completely independent. They can and must display the initiative for their work within non-party organizations and bodies. The communist fractions of the governing bodies of non-party organizations must not only report on their work to the conferences and congresses that elected them but also to the party committees.



Before and even immediately after the October Revolution, when the non-party mass organizations were still influenced by the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries, the Bolsheviks made each position conquered a basis for the conquest of the entire organization of the neighborhood, of the city. , the region or the entire country. The Bolsheviks who demonstrated how to work better than others, how to prepare matters better, how to direct, coordinate and organize the working masses better. That is why they managed to eliminate the Mensheviks, the revolutionary socialists and all the "socialist" and populist parties from all mass workers' organizations.



In the communist parties of capitalist countries the situation is different because they have still preserved social democratic traditions, frequently mixed with sectarian conceptions. Unions and other mass proletarian organizations, as we have indicated above, appeared in the main capitalist countries long before the social democratic parties were established and were consolidated within the working class as independent organizations, directors of their economic struggle.



That is why the members of the social democratic parties who were at the head of the mass proletarian organizations had a certain independence. The social democratic parties not only did not fight this independence, but they themselves propagated the theory of equivalence and equal rights between the trade union movement and the social democratic parties, proclaiming the neutrality of the unions. As we will indicate later, only the Bolshevik party was an exception.



A series of cases can be cited from the German social democratic movement that will allow us to verify that the decisions of the congresses of the trade union organizations differed from the decisions of the congresses of the Social Democratic Party. Even if it was nothing more than the question of the General Strike of 1905. And this happened despite the fact that the same social democrats who knew very well the party's point of view participated in the trade union congress. The same case occurred with the celebration of May 1. The social democratic parties of Central Europe before the war celebrated May 1 precisely on the day corresponding to the date; while the "free" social democratic unions sabotaged the May 1 party to prevent the union funds from having to compensate workers who were fired by the companies due to their participation in the workers' party. The unions proposed postponing the May 1 celebration until the first Sunday of that month.



These abnormal relations existing between the social democratic parties and the unions before the war [5] are intolerable in a Bolshevik party, since they do not allow the unity of leadership of the revolutionary labor movement to be realized in all its aspects. But the communist parties of the capitalist countries have inherited these relations from the social democratic parties.



The abnormal relations between the parties and the communist fractions of the unions and the proletarian mass organizations in general have two starting points: sometimes the party committees replace the mass organizations, dismissing the elected secretaries, appointing others; They openly publish in the press: “we propose to the red unions to proceed in this or that way”; That is, they do what not even the communist party of the USSR does. The decisions of the CC of the Communist Party of the USSR, or of the local party committees, are made internally through the communist factions of the party members who work in this or that non-party organization.



Another cause of these abnormal relations is the fact that some members of the communist party work on their own, without taking into consideration the directives of the party organs and without subordinating themselves to them. There are cases, such as in France, in which the party organs consider that they must do absolutely everything: replace the Red Aid, the unions, the cooperatives, the sports organizations and that they alone can carry out the functions of these organizations. . This is absolutely false. Even if the leadership of many communist parties were a hundred times better than they actually are, they would not be able to work for all these organizations.



On the other hand, this is completely superfluous because both the CC and the local party organizations must only draw the line, control its implementation, direct the communist fractions and the isolated members of the party and carry out their directives in the mass workers' organizations by through the communist factions or the isolated members of the party (if there is no faction), but without working for them or in their place.

It seems pointless to me to explain in more detail how these abnormal relations between the party, the unions and the mass organizations prevent the party from expanding its contact with the masses and prevent it from truly consolidating within it.



In countries where red unions exist, there are parallel union organizations of other trends in the same branches of production. However, the red unions rarely manage to conquer entire organizations or more or less considerable groups of members of the union organizations of the other trends.



The union opposition of the reformist unions quite frequently manages to obtain a majority in the local reformist union sections; However, the communist parties and the union oppositions do not make them a point of support for their work with a view to extending their influence over the other sections of the same union or the sections of other unions, entering with the sections conquered by the union opposition. on the local union council.



This can only be explained by the fact that the opposition union sections themselves frequently slide towards reformist positions. The same can be said of many factory red committees. This happens because they are not assured of direction and the essential help for their work.







The press

The press of the Bolshevik Party, both in the illegal period and today, makes its decisions as an interpreter of the party's opinion. She mobilizes, organizes and educates the working masses. The party press cannot be separated from the party committees.

Abroad, the social democratic parties elected the editors of the party's newspapers at their congresses. There were cases in which the CC could not do anything against the newspaper: the newspaper had one line and the CC another. That happened in Germany with the Vorwerts and the same in Italy with the Avanti .

The communist parties naturally abandoned these "excellent" traditions, but that "independent" press that the social democrats had before the war has left deep marks on the communist parties. Although it cannot be said that the editors are appointed by the Congresses or are independent of the CC or the committees of the communist party, the CC and the party committees constantly deal very little with the press. Many times the press works on one side and the CC and the party committees on the other. The line of the CC and the party committees often differs from the line of the newspapers, and it is not because the CC, the party committees or the editorial office want it that way.



The German Communist Party has 38 newspapers. If these 38 newspapers had fair and rational management, they could exert a much greater influence than they actually do on the working masses.



From 1912 to 1914 the Bolshevik Party owned only one legal newspaper, Pravda . And what feats Pravda was accomplishing in Russia then! What invaluable help that newspaper brought to local militants, despite the fact that Pravda could not say everything it wanted due to censorship! Pravda spoke about the most important and serious issues in popular language, understandable even to the least educated workers, and devoted much space to workers' chronicles from factories and workshops.



In the countries to which I have referred, newspapers are legal, they can say more or less everything necessary to express and carry out the party line. The newspapers, like the mass workers' organizations, are the channels through which the communist parties can and must exert their influence on the workers, through which they can and must win over the workers. But you have to know how to use and direct the party newspapers.



The daily and legal communist press of many countries is not distinguished by popular exposition, nor by the topicality of its topics, nor by the brevity of its articles. The newspapers are full of articles written in the language of theses, instead of making a brief and popular exposition of the main current tasks. The press is guilty of the fact that the active militants, all the members of the party and the revolutionary workers are not provided with arguments for the fight against the social democratic parties, the reformist unions, the fascist parties and others whom the workers still follow.



The party press must not only draw the fundamental line, provide concrete facts about the betrayals of the social democrats and reformists, about the demagoguery of the fascists, but it must indicate how these facts should be used. In
most communist newspapers there is no workers' chronicle from the factories. There is no space for these things in the party press.



Not all communist parties have recognized the important role played by the party press. The teaching staff of international schools must pay special attention to the press in their work with students. Many students, after having studied in the party's international schools, become editors of the party's press; but it is not evident that they have contributed anything new, nor that they have contributed to a renewal of the party press, nor that they have broken with social democratic traditions in this domain.







The agitation

Currently, the capitalist world is going through a deep industrial crisis, an agrarian crisis, it is suffering financial losses and there is also an imperialist war in the Far East, which threatens to spread to other countries. All this not only affects the workers and poor peasants, but also the petty bourgeoisie of the city (employees, officials, etc.).



At the present time it is easier for communist agitation to penetrate these masses than during the "flowering" of stabilization. Unfortunately the agitation of the communist parties is abstract. The same can be said of the agitation done through newspapers, manifestos, as well as oral agitation. If an emergency decree ( Notverordnung ) is promulgated in Germany, which deeply affects every worker, lowers wages or increases taxes, etc., instead of analyzing the decree minutely point by point so that the masses understand and It is demonstrated how much each worker will have to pay to the treasury, in what proportion salaries will be reduced... instead of doing that, it is preferred to simply write: We protest against the emergency decree! We demand that a strike be held against this decree!



How did the Bolsheviks agitate then and now? Did the Bolsheviks carry out agitation in this way? The strength of the Bolsheviks consisted precisely in the fact that they spoke out on every issue: on the reduction of salaries, even by a cent; about the inconveniences of latrines; over factory windows; about the lack of boiled water for tea; about fines; about the quality of the products in the factory pantry; etc The Bolsheviks debated these issues to the point of drawing political deductions from them.



See the strikes that took place in southern Russia in 1903. The Bolsheviks knew how to transform this movement of economic strikes, provoked by the agents of Zubatov, Sehaevich and company, into a colossal political movement throughout southern Russia. Many communist parties still do not know how to properly organize agitation work. The fellow leaders, editors, propagandists, among others, think that from the moment in which they understand and orient themselves in the face of events, it means that the same thing also happens to the workers. And this is how they approach social democratic workers. Instead of taking every act of betrayal, no matter how small; indicate the place and date on which the betrayal was consummated; summon witnesses; mention exactly the date on which social democratic and reformist leaders had conversations with ministers and manufacturers, betraying the interests of the working class; patiently explain all these facts to the social democratic and reformist workers; Instead of doing that our colleagues fill their mouths saying: social fascists and union bureaucrats. And that's it.



They think that from the moment the nickname "social fascists" and "union bureaucrats" have been called, all workers must understand the meaning given to these insulting nicknames and must believe that these leaders deserve them. This only serves to alienate from us the honest workers who are members of the social democratic parties and the reformist unions, since they do not consider themselves social fascists or union bureaucrats.



Shouldn't the problem of agitation occupy an important place in the teaching methods of the Party's international schools? See Lenin's articles in 1917 on this matter.



Take for example the accusation leveled against the Bolshevik Party of being in the pay of German imperialism. It would seem that against such an accusation, such an insinuation, it would be enough to simply reply: miserable scoundrels, we do not want to speak to you, we consider it useless to justify ourselves to you; Think what you want, we will continue on our way . Surely many communist parties would have acted this way, considering that our "dignity" would be diminished by refuting such dastardly accusations. On the other hand, what was Lenin's attitude? First of all, he began by saying who Alexinsky was and remembered all the base actions committed by Alexinsky in France and how in that country he had been expelled from a meeting for being a liar and a forger. Alexinsky returned to Russia. The Central Executive Committee (CEC) – made up of Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionaries – told him: we will not accept you until you have rehabilitated yourself. In July 1917 Alexinsky began a slander campaign in the press against the Bolsheviks, accusing them of working for the Germans and being paid by them. Lenin then painted Alexinsky in all the beauty of him. He actually painted him just as he was. And after making known the moral aspect of it and, consequently, having annihilated it, Lenin went on to examine the position of the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries on that matter. The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries knew that the Bolsheviks were accused of espionage and Zeretelli*** had telephoned all the newspapers so that they would not publish that vile forged document [6].. After that Lenin contributed a third fact. This slanderous document was known to the Provisional Government, which did not arrest any of the accused even though it had known about the document since June. So the Provisional Government did not believe in this slander against the Bolsheviks either. Lenin squeezed the matter well, explained all the facts in a very popular style and immediately moved on to the next question: who is at the head of the government? Kerensky? No. The Central Executive Committee? No. There is another power: that of the soldiery. It is the soldiery that has looted our printing press. Was this looting sanctioned by the provisional government? No. Did the Central Executive Committee decide it? No. Then there is another power, and that power is that of the military band. Do you know who is behind that military band? The constitutional democrats, the Cadets. And the next day in another article, quoting the words of the populist socialist Tchakovsky in the CEC, Lenin demonstrates that the constitutional democrats and the imperialists of the West make common cause, that the imperialists do not want to give money except to the constitutional democrats. Lenin started with Alexinsky and ended with power, due to his class character. He did not insult, he did not say that our dignity is lowered by denying infamous accusations, but he demonstrated that these were insinuations and falsehoods that were first circulated by a yellow newspaper and were later picked up and propagated by the provisional government and the entire bourgeois press, Menshevik, populist and revolutionary socialist. Thanks to such an understandable and popular agitation, the Bolsheviks were not only able to repel the attack of the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Constitutional Democrats in such a difficult period for the former, but they also carried out extensive agitation for three months against all the parties that existed then and mainly against the social democrats, the Mensheviks and the social revolutionaries, who still had influence over broad masses of workers, peasants and soldiers. To this end, the Bolsheviks knew how to take advantage of the behavior and deceptions of these parties in all the questions raised by life. On the eve of the October revolution millions of workers, peasants and soldiers were attracted to the movement. During the days of October the Bolsheviks already had the entire working class behind them, the majority of the soldiers and even the peasants were already marching behind the Bolshevik slogans about land and peace.



Do the communist parties of the capitalist countries agitate in this way? The social democrats have betrayed the working class so many times in all countries that the astonishment of the workers of the Soviet Union is perfectly understandable when they ask: what are foreign workers made of? The Social Democrats betray their interests daily, we see it from here, but the workers abroad still vote for the Social Democrats and are in their party.



This happens because many communist parties do not know how to agitate; not even in a situation as favorable for them as the current one, created by the global agrarian and industrial crisis.



A detailed, patient and persuasive criticism on the part of the communist parties is essential, especially because despite their multiple betrayals, social democratic leaders always find new ways for their demagogic maneuvers.



The German Social Democrats participated with all their forces in the application of the extraordinary decrees. They helped loot employed and unemployed workers. Now they present in the Reichstag a whole series of demagogic draft laws on reducing unemployment, on improving relief for the unemployed, on reducing rents, etc., but at the same time they vote against the communists in the Reichstag - the social democratic votes and the communists form the majority, after the departure of the national socialists – they make the Reichstag holidays enacted without indicating the date of its convocation, without discussing their own draft laws and, of course, without dealing with the fraction's proposals communist. In these circumstances, the task of the communist parties is to catch the social democratic charlatans in flagrante delicto and unmask with evidence in hand each of their maneuvers, each treacherous step they take.



The Bolshevik party, before and after the seizure of power, knew how to educate its members in this way and give such indications and directives that they all knew how to strike their blows in the same direction, wherever they worked, whatever work they did or wherever they were. And the local party organs often received directives only through the press.



The Bolshevik Party achieved all this thanks to the implementation of the methods and content of work we talked about earlier. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the majority of communist parties in capitalist countries. There are not rare cases in which party members strike their blows in completely different directions.







The events of the day, the tactics, the slogans, the theory of the "lesser evil" and the United Front

Before the October Revolution, the Mensheviks mocked the Bolsheviks because they regularly placed the question of the day's events on the agenda of their meetings. However, without an exact analysis of the situation and without determining the political moment, it is very difficult to establish tactics.



Developing a fair tactic for a given situation and knowing how to skillfully apply that tactic is a great art. Possessing this art means facilitating the struggle and contributing to the conquest of the masses. A no less important art consists of knowing how to choose and propose appropriately the slogans appropriate to the situation and needs of the moment. Nowadays, no one can deny that the Bolsheviks knew how to masterfully analyze the events in progress, develop fair tactics and launch precise and timely slogans that found echo and were taken up by the masses. Lenin mocked the Bolsheviks who relied on yesterday's tactics without understanding that it no longer corresponded to the next stage or to the new modified conditions*.



This ability to analyze "current events", the situation created, and thus be able to determine the correct tactics to follow is what is commonly lacking in the communist parties of capitalist countries. And this despite the fact that the Communist International, contrary to what happened under the Second International, frequently decides and sets the tasks of its sections.



If some communist parties interpreted the fall of a ministry as a "political crisis"; others, however, considered the provisional refusal of parliament to examine current issues as the establishment of the fascist dictatorship and therefore launched the fight against fascism as their main slogan, weakening the fight against social democracy. And when the error is corrected then the fight is carried out exclusively against social democracy and the fascists disappear from the horizon. The slogans tend to be incoherent, since sometimes some are launched related only to internal issues and other times anti-war slogans are launched, but without organic link with internal political issues. Unfortunately, such incoherent slogans are not only projected against issues of "high politics" but also in the economic struggle, where they are no less harmful. It is necessary to study with attention and thoroughness the particularities of the situation, observe the changes taking place and the trends of their development, study how the workers react to events, examine the preparations and work of the enemies - the social democrats, the fascists, among others – and the tactics they employ.



Only by carrying out this analysis, this study of current events, can the correct tactics be determined, specific and timely slogans can be launched, and the agitation can be given the indispensable content and the appropriate tone. Current issues must be discussed and clarified frequently and widely in the party press so that when analyzing the situation; refute the arguments and agitation of adversaries; as well as discovering their plans and schemes serves to arm, educate and prepare the members of the party for the fight. With that same objective, it is also necessary to raise and discuss current issues and the tasks of the party in the cells and assemblies of the organization.



These discussions will allow party members to assimilate both the tactics and the political line; orient yourself to current problems; provide arguments for controversy and agitation in companies, in unions, among unemployed workers, in the streets. Just as they will encourage the cells and local organizations of the party.



Social democratic parties and reformist unions have operated in recent years through the theory of the "lesser evil." The reformists advise the workers to accept the reduction in salaries by 8%, instead of the 12% that the bosses "demand", but not without
prior agreement between them and the reformists. Then they proclaim this “conquest” of 4% in favor of the workers as a victory. The social democrats support the most infamous laws, burden the workers with heavy contributions and lower salaries, pretexting that the government and the bourgeoisie intended to demand even higher costs from the workers. And they present this as a victory for the workers. They propose voting for Hindenburg – whom they attacked during the 1925 elections as reactionary and monarchist – presenting the issue in this way: Hindenburg is a “lesser evil” compared to Hitler.



The Russian Mensheviks also used the theory of the "lesser evil." During the elections to the Second State Duma, the Mensheviks invited people to vote for the party of constitutional democrats under the pretext that Russia was threatened by the danger of the black reaction. The Bolsheviks vigorously fought the position of the Mensheviks and convinced the revolutionary electors to vote for revolutionary candidates, demonstrating to them that the Mensheviks before, during and after the 1905 revolution supported the liberal bourgeoisie. Just as today the social democratic parties support their bourgeoisie on all issues. The Mensheviks were against the hegemony of the proletariat in the bourgeois-democratic revolution. Their cries about the danger of black reaction were nothing more than a maneuver to divert the working class from the right revolutionary path.



The communist parties have not managed to unmask the maneuvers that social democracy carries out through its theory of the "lesser evil" by applying the same methods that the Bolsheviks applied to unmask the Menshevik maneuver on the occasion of the reactionary threat of the Black Hundreds. And as long as this deception of social democracy is not clearly explained to the masses, it will be difficult to free the workers from its influence.



The working masses aspire to unity. Now, in various countries there are many cases in which the covert agents of the bourgeoisie use slogans about unity to better deceive the workers.



The social democratic parties also launch the slogan of unity. The renegade Trotsky comes to his aid by proposing the "bloc" of the communists with the social democrats. For that he cites the Bolsheviks and Lenin.



I have tried to demonstrate above how the Bolsheviks established the united front from below, in the factories and workshops.



There were cases in the history of Bolshevism when the tactics of the united front were applied from below and from above, simultaneously,
but only in the course of an effective struggle. This occurred in 1905. During the strikes, demonstrations, pogroms and uprisings in Moscow. Federation and relations committees were created in the course of common action. Common manifestos were published. The united front that emerged from below in the practical struggle of the masses forced the Menshevik leaders to join the struggle led by the Bolsheviks.



What was the situation during the Kornilov days in 1917? The renegade Trotsky wants to deceive the communists on this question. At the end of August 1917, Kerensky – not without the consent of the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Mensheviks – invited Kornilov to appear with reliable troops to dominate Bolshevik Petrograd. Kornilov responded to the call, but before reaching Petersburg he demanded that all power be handed over to him. The workers and soldiers who still followed the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries understood that Kornilov, upon taking power, would surely hang not only the Bolsheviks but also them. Under pressure from the masses, the Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries were forced to join the struggle led by the Bolsheviks. The Mensheviks and the Socialist Revolutionaries had to give weapons to the workers of Petrograd to carry out this struggle. That was a "block" in the course of the struggle and only in the course of the struggle against Kornilov. But even during the fight against Kornilov the Bolsheviks did not cease their campaign against the Mensheviks, the Socialist Revolutionaries and the Provisional Government; who, due to their betrayal of the interests of the workers, soldiers and peasants, led the country to the Kornilov uprising and hesitated between supporting Kornilov or fighting against him.



Can this situation be compared with the situation in Germany? How can one deduce from the events that accompanied the Kornilov putsch the need to form a "bloc" with German social democracy for the fight against fascism, when social democracy does nothing but help the fascists and the bourgeoisie? The Social Democratic Police Minister of Prussia dissolved the Red Front association because it was fighting against the fascists, however at the same time it tolerated and protected the fascist barracks from the assault squads. The social democratic police always take the side of the fascists to massacre the workers every time they answer the fascists.



The communists will not be fooled by the fact that Hindenburg has "dissolved" the fascist assault squads on the eve of the Prussian elections. If the assault squads were formally disbanded, this was done without destroying their organization and without
doing them any harm. The purpose of this "dissolution" was to give the social democrats the possibility of deceiving the voters and winning them over to their side thanks to the apparent fight against fascism.



In the application of the united front tactic many mistakes have been and are being made in almost all communist parties, however it must be added that there are also examples of a fair application of the united front: the miners' struggle led by the party communist and red unions in North Bohemia, Czechoslovakia. We must avoid mistakes and succeed at all costs in establishing with justice and energy a Bolshevik united front of struggle from below in the factories.







Legal and illegal work. The use of legal possibilities

The Bolshevik party, being entirely illegal in tsarist Russia, also knew how to make extensive use of legal possibilities.



Starting in 1905, legal weeklies, magazines or more solid collections appeared incessantly – even in the years of the darkest reaction – in the various regions of the immense territory of Russia. Not to mention Pravda , the daily organ of the Bolshevik party, which played such an enormous role in the unification of the Bolshevik party, in the fight against tsarism and the bourgeoisie, in the fight against the Mensheviks, the liquidationists, the Trotskyists and conciliators , etc.



Parallel to the legal press, the party's illegal newspapers and manifestos also appeared.



The illegal Bolshevik party used all the legal congresses of the different societies: doctors, cooperators, teachers, etc., to intervene and push through the demands inspired by the Bolshevik program. The party works in all legal workers' societies: in unions, in cooperatives, in recreational societies, in educational societies and in other similar organizations. The Bolshevik party even used the legal workers' organizations created by the police – those of Zubatov and Gapon during the events of 1905 – in order to remove the workers from the influence of police officers and police ambushes, which They were fully achieved thanks to the unmasking of the machinations of the police in the very assemblies of these organizations.



The successes achieved by the actions of the Bolsheviks can be realized by observing that the police priest Gapon was forced, in order not to unmask himself as a police agent and under pressure from
the working masses, to include in his program the most important demands. of the minimum program of the Bolshevik party.



It must be recognized that not only the illegal communist parties did not know how to use legal possibilities; But, even more strangely, the legal communist parties also failed to successfully apply illegal work methods, despite the fact that they have many more resources than the illegal communist parties.



When the legal communist press is temporarily banned or when the authorities prohibit writing about the extraordinary decrees directed against the working class – decrees that currently fall as if they came from a cornucopia – or about the murders of participants in the demonstrations, among others issues, the legal communist parties fail to widely disseminate in the factories and workshops the illegal newspapers and manifestos in which the issues that cannot be written about in the permitted newspapers are raised.



The same is noted regarding the prohibition of public assemblies and demonstrations. Holding assemblies and rallies under another banner or denomination are possible and indispensable things; suddenly call demonstrations in working-class neighborhoods, after thorough preparation and despite prohibitions.



The authorities and police ban newspapers at various periods; They prohibit the calling of workers' assemblies and demonstrations at the most critical moments for them. For this reason, the communist parties are keenly interested in the workers not only knowing what the public powers want to silence, but also expressing their protest against the government measures under the leadership of the communist party.



Only in this way will the communist parties be able to conquer and lead the masses. With the absence of business cells, it will become much more difficult to work and maintain links with them when legal communist parties are forced to become illegal.







1. Current tasks.
1.1 Communist and union work in companies

On what point should attention be concentrated in the party schools? At all costs, about work in companies. Without work in companies it is impossible to win over the majority of the working class and therefore it is impossible to successfully fight for the dictatorship of the proletariat. This is the essential.



But work in companies acquires an extraordinary meaning in relation to the approaching imperialist war, which means first of all the destruction of the legal revolutionary labor movement, the communist organizations and the legal red unions.



Under these conditions, work in companies becomes more important than ever, it is almost the only means, the only possibility of linking with the masses of workers in the factories and workshops, of influencing them and directing their actions. Furthermore, during the war almost all companies will switch to the production of war elements to supply the imperialist armies of their countries or others and more than ever the fight against war will have to be carried out in companies.



Working in companies is difficult. Now during the strike all the revolutionary workers are fired. The task is to penetrate the workplaces at all costs and by all means, under a different banner if necessary, but we must penetrate the companies to carry out communist work there.



The agitation must be popular, as the Bolsheviks did before the war and in the period from February to October 1917. The parties of the main capitalist countries are momentarily legal, they have their press, they can call meetings. The agitation must acquire another character, developing at work, at the exit from work, at tram stops and subway stations, everywhere where workers and employees work and where they gather. We must form cadres of militants who speak clearly and briefly, give them information, instruct them and send them to the streets, factories and workshops to carry out the agitation. Is this possible? Completely. It is necessary that the students understand and know how to organize this work themselves when they return to militancy in their respective parties.







1.2 Strikes

How to prepare for strikes? How to direct them and how to raise demands? These are not so easy questions. In the majority of communist parties, red unions and union oppositions these are questions that very rarely find a happy solution. Until recently, many communist parties raised only the demands of the maximum program and neglected the immediate demands.



Currently they reason in the following way: we are going to raise only the immediate demands, without linking them with politics and with the maximum program, because when we launched the political demands the workers did not pay attention to us, they did not follow us and the work was going badly. We know from experience that the Bolsheviks always linked politics with the economy and vice versa. I know of cases, which refer to the year 1905, in which the Bolsheviks unleashed a political strike by launching slogans of an economic nature and vice versa.



Preparing well for strikes is a difficult task. Both in the organization and carrying out of the strikes and in the objectives pursued by the social democrats and reformists on the one hand, and the Bolsheviks on the other, there was a great difference. The Bolsheviks gathered data on the situation of the workers in the factories and workshops, and separately carried out propaganda work for the workers in order to explain their situation. After having completed the preparatory work (examination of all the details of the strike by the cell together with the most active revolutionaries without a party), it was declared, the demands were launched and the strike committee was elected, which brought together the workers and raised before them the questions related to it. In those cases in which the strike committee and the most active revolutionaries were arrested, another committee was created in the same way. There were no collective bargaining contracts. If strikes arose unexpectedly, due to the worsening of working conditions, due to accidents or due to lack of protective devices to protect oneself from the danger of the machines, etc., then the Bolsheviks of the factory or workshop put themselves at the head of the strike. movement, formulating demands, among other things. In this way, strikes were prepared from below in the companies and even in cases where the strikes spread from one factory to another, or from one city to another, they did not occur spontaneously either. The party, city, district and cell organizations discussed methods of expanding the movement. By declaring strikes, the Bolsheviks pursued two objectives: firstly, to improve the material and cultural situation of the workers through them and, secondly, a broader objective, that of attracting large masses of workers to the struggle for the overthrow of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat.



The social democrats and reformists, since the unions were created, dedicated themselves to centralizing strikes in such a way that the members of the factory and workshop unions could not go on strike without the authorization of their union organization. And if they started the strike without that authorization and the
union leadership (its president) did not sanction it, the strike was declared "wild" and no material aid was provided; But in the case of sanctioning the strike, it was the union commission that assumed its leadership and the strikers had nothing to do, except perhaps to send strike pickets to the workplaces if that was necessary. As the reformist unions became stronger, they began to sign long-term collective bargaining contracts with the employers' societies, and strikes arose rarely during the time the contracts were in force. Strikes, sometimes very important, broke out when collective contracts were due to be renewed. Then those who directed the strikes were the Central Committees of the respective union organizations. The strikers were at best used to form the pickets.



The reformist unions, when leading the economic struggle (before the war they carried out strikes), are guided solely by the idea of ​​improving the material and cultural situation of the working class without worrying about the fight against the entire bourgeois system.



The communist parties, when leading the union opposition and the red unions – which almost always exist parallel to the reformist unions and do not gather broad masses – in most cases do not apply the Bolshevik methods of preparing strikes in companies. , but the social democratic and reformist methods; who limit themselves to preparation from their offices without frequently knowing the mood of the workers. That is why until now the workers regularly do not respond to the strike calls of the red unions and the union opposition, or it happens that precisely the workers of those factories and workshops that had not been counted on at all go on strike.



In the party's International schools, students must also learn how to prepare, carry out and lead strikes.







1.3 The fight against the reformists and social democratic parties

It is necessary to unmask social democracy and the reformists. Make known what they say and what they do. This must be done every day, in every article in the party press, in manifestos, in verbal agitation.



It is necessary to monitor the social democratic and reformist press; and we must respond immediately to their agitation, to their manifestos. We must react in a popular and intelligent way. Every article, every speech by social democrats and reformists can provide material to
communist propagandists and agitators for their interventions against them. Only in this way can we unmask social democracy; In any other way it is unlikely to be achieved. When unmasking the social democrats and reformists, one should not ignore the other parties and organizations that have or seek to obtain influence over the working class (Catholics, fascists, among others).



Social democratic parties apply various methods in different countries to carry out their main role of social support for the bourgeoisie.



In England, until the last election, the Labor party openly played that role while in power. Then, upon realizing that the working masses were leaving disillusioned with his politics, since he saw that a danger threatened him from that side, he sacrificed his leaders and joined the "opposition."



In France, after the war the socialist party did not participate in the government. Sometimes, before the elections, they even vote in parliament against this or that law, knowing that the government will still obtain the majority. In fact, the social democratic party of France is a faithful servant and supporter of French warlike imperialism.



Not to mention German social democracy. She is virtuous in the art of deceiving the masses and is the most skillful party in the Second International when it comes to maneuvering.



The communist parties must, as the Bolsheviks did in Russia, foresee the maneuvers of social democracy and denounce them to the masses. They are unmasked when the social democrats have already managed to carry out their maneuvers and deceive the workers. The communist parties, the red unions, all the revolutionary mass organizations must tirelessly unmask the social democrats and the reformists because without removing the workers from their influence the communist parties will not be able to conquer the majority of the working class, without which they cannot It is possible to successfully fight against the bourgeoisie.



The communist parties must carry out an energetic and constant fight against the fascists, who take advantage of the betrayals of social democracy and the reformists, as well as the errors and weaknesses of the communist parties, to extend their influence among the petty bourgeoisie and penetrate through their slogans. demagogic, sometimes even with communist slogans, among the unemployed workers.







1.4 About unemployment

We are in the presence of colossal unemployment. In fact, no one outside the communist parties really cares about the unemployed. And when workers without jobs could really be organized, and it was easy to do so based on the defense of their daily interests, the communist parties did not know how to use that situation. Very few communists work in the companies since most of them are expelled from the companies. It is difficult to carry out action in companies. But why is work not organized among the unemployed, in the labor exchanges, in the night shelters, in the lines where they wait to receive a piece of bread and soup?



Among the unemployed there are a huge number of party members and members of revolutionary unions. Is it difficult to organize work among the unemployed through them?



In Czechoslovakia and Poland, the organizations of the unemployed managed to mobilize significant masses and exert pressure on the municipalities, which is why they managed to get the unemployed subsidized.



In North America the unemployed do not receive any subsidies, neither from the State nor from companies. The unemployed are forced to resort to philanthropic help. They are evicted en masse from their homes. During the years 1930-1931 in New York alone, 352,469 families were evicted.



This is a great field of action for revolutionary and communist organizations, however they use these conditions to a minimal degree. Now it creates a closed organization of the unemployed, now it is reduced only to the organization of demonstrations, forgetting that it is necessary to create soup kitchens for the unemployed, that it is necessary to organize a movement capable of preventing the eviction of the unemployed from their homes and demanding until they achieve subsidies for the unemployed, etc.







The causes of the backwardness of the communist parties and the revolutionary unions in the face of the revolutionary worker and peasant movement

In my report I have tried to demonstrate the difference between the tactics, organization, methods, content of work and
final objectives of the Bolsheviks with respect to the social democrats; as well as the causes that motivated this difference.



We, who work in the Executive Committee of the Communist International (EC of the CI) have had the opportunity to hear opinions stating that the old Bolshevik experience, especially its method of work in factories, is not suitable for the communist parties. of the capitalist countries. The practice of recent years has refuted that view. Where Bolshevik work methods were applied, where there was flexibility in tactics and work in companies, the results were excellent.



In Poland, don't the mass worker and peasant movement, the intensification of the struggle, the leading role of the Polish Communist Party in that struggle and in that movement demonstrate the advantages of Bolshevik methods over social democratic methods? That is because the revolutionary proletariat of Poland, the old Social Democratic Party – the current Communist Party – despite its errors has fought alongside the Bolshevik party of Russia. They adopted Bolshevik methods of work, therefore they did not separate from the Polish proletariat despite the enormous fascist terror.



The communist parties, the red unions and the union opposition of the capitalist countries that have not yet freed themselves from social democratic traditions, have not adopted, do not apply or poorly apply Bolshevik work methods and their forms of organization; They do not give the work a Bolshevik content and that is why they delay the revolutionary events with respect to the revolutionary labor movement and cannot crystallize their growing political influence through the organization. For example, 4 to 5 million votes are obtained, but it is not possible to organize resistance to the bosses' offensive against salaries.



This delay is inevitable until the communist parties, the red unions and the trade union opposition do not free themselves from social democratic traditions and replace them in all domains of their political work and daily practice, assimilating the true Bolshevik experience.







The preparation of cadres and teaching methods in party schools

Under current conditions the question of cadres acquires enormous importance for the communist parties, for the red unions and for the union opposition. One of the figures of no small importance in forging revolutionary cadres are the international schools of the Party.



The question of the education provided is therefore of current importance, because the need for theoretically prepared cadres who know how to coordinate theoretical preparation with practical work experience is extremely great in the sections of the Communist International (CI). This need not only has not decreased in recent years, but on the contrary has increased; because the influx of sufficiently qualified cadres has been very small. Those cadres that the communist parties of the capitalist countries need can be provided by the party's international schools.



Some of them have been around for quite some time; but until now the CI has not yet obtained from them the cadres that communist action needs. Better said, when after finishing the courses the students of the Party's international schools return to their respective countries, they know, and possibly well, the main works of Marx, Lenin, Stalin, and in some countries those students, upon returning, are even placed in the head of the party. However, the communist parties to date have not obtained from the international schools of the party comrades capable of applying the notions of Marxism and Leninism in practice in accordance with local conditions and of organizing and directing mass work, which It is precisely more indispensable for the communist parties at the present time. Until today, these did not receive the militants who could really help them reorganize the parties, the red unions and the union opposition on the basis of work in the companies.



What are the causes? Here it is: students study the construction of the party in the Soviet Union, that is, the forms of organization that cannot be fully applied in their countries until after the proletariat has taken power. Furthermore, the party construction of the Soviet Union is studied by them only superficially. They do not study with due attention what they should above all study, namely: the methods of work among the masses; their mobilization methods; the differentiated way in which the tactic is applied to reach the different layers of workers; mass agitation and its forms of organization; the relationship between communist fractions (especially in mass organizations without a party at the base) and the cells and committees of the corresponding party; the work of non-party grassroots organizations and the role of communist fractions in them; the direction and control of the party cells and committees over the work of the communist factions; the work of the party cells and works committees in factories and workshops, etc. They do not study or assimilate that experience that is related to the period before the conquest of power by the working class; that is, the Bolshevik experience in the era of tsarism and Kerensky, the latter from February to October 1917.



And yet that experience is what our sister parties need most.



It is precisely in this experience where one finds moments analogous to the situation of the communist parties of capitalist countries at the present time; but there are also moments that differ in specific points. This is why I have devoted part of my report to the difference between the situation of the Bolshevik party under tsarism, on the one hand, and the situation of the communist parties in the capitalist countries, on the other.



The fact that the communist parties do not receive the students they need at the end of the party's international schools shows that education is evidently not related to the particularities of each party, to the particularities of its development, its traditions and traditions.



The task of the international schools of the party is to help students to assimilate and understand the Bolshevik experience, both in what concerns the organization of the party, as well as in all the work of the party; in a way that allows them to apply that experience in the conditions of their own country. These conditions are not the same in all countries: if you take the conditions of Germany you will see that they differ from the French conditions and even more from the conditions of England and no less from the conditions of the USA. Each country has its labor movement. , its history, its traditions, its party structure and its labor organizations. When teaching by groups of countries you have to take that into consideration.



It is necessary to note that the necessary and concrete materials about each country – which correspond to its situation, which characterize its conditions – will be received by the teachers from the same students who take part in the practical work of their respective communist parties.



The international schools of the party must help the communist parties and the revolutionary trade union movements to forge true Bolshevik cadres.







–.–.–.–.–.–.–

1 Lenin, “The revolutionary democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasants”, in Complete Works , Volume VI, Russian edition. The citations in number correspond to The Communist International and/or Osip Piatnitsky.

2 Otsovistas : those who are in line, followers.

3 In some countries it was the result of splits; In others, such as Czechoslovakia and France, the majority of the Social Democratic Party decided to join the Communist International and the minority had to organize itself into its own Social Democratic Party.

4 After 1905, the Black Hundreds gangs were formed, led by tsarism, who penetrated the ranks of the railway workers, mainly among the employees. However, they had no influence among the workers and employees of the factories.

5 After the war between the social democratic parties and their unions, unanimity and absolute concord reign in the work of betrayal of the interests of the working class of each country (O. Piatnitsky).

6 In the popular [populist] newspaper Givoie Slovo, number 51, May 18, 1917, Petrograd, a statement by Alexinsky and Pankratov was published in which, on the basis of the depositions of the sub-officer Ermolenko during the state interrogation Major and the counterespionage service on May 28, 1927, accused the Bolsheviks of having received money from the German General Staff to carry out anti-war agitation.

7 As an example, we can remember the proposal of Kamenev and Bogdanov to boycott the elections to the third State Duma, just as the first one was boycotted on behalf of the Bolsheviks (O. Piatnitsky).





* This article was originally published in two parts by The Communist International , central organ of the Third International or Communist International, in its numbers 3 and 4, corresponding to June and July 1932. All notes with an asterisk correspond to El Comunista Magazine .

** In French in the original. Bureau, in Spanish. The term is presented in the text under the meaning of the leading body of a political organization.

*** Refers to Irakli Tsereteli (1881-1959).

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Google Translator

[blindpig]

About law and order
No. 2/90.II.2024

I
At a certain, very early stage in the development of society, the need arises to cover as a general rule the acts of production, distribution and exchange of products that are repeated every day and to ensure that the individual is subject to the general conditions of production and exchange. This rule, first expressed in custom, then becomes law. Along with the law, it is necessary that bodies arise that are entrusted with its implementation...

Engels

Law is a system of generally binding rules (laws) established, operating in a certain territory and secured by coercive power. Conscious or unconscious violation of them is forcibly punished, up to deprivation of liberty or life. To maintain law and order, there are so-called law enforcement agencies.

This is roughly what is written in any law textbook. However, such general words, of course, are not capable of satisfying the scientific curiosity of a conscientious researcher who wants to know the essence of the subject, and not the bourgeois academic definitions formulated by unscrupulous professors.

In reality, law is the will of the ruling class, elevated to law and based on state violence. It follows that bourgeois law enforcement agencies could more accurately be called bodies protecting the right of exploiters to suppress the will of the exploited. This, however, does not negate the possibility of repression of individual businessmen and their henchmen, because the state (and therefore the prison, police, courts) defends the interests of the entire class, and not its individual representatives. Therefore, it is not surprising that there are repressions against individual capitalists who “did not fit into the market,” since they are carried out both in the interests of strengthening the power of the capitalist class and for the purpose of competition within it. It is worth noting that those “pushed away from the trough” usually do not lose heart, but strive with all their might to regain lost influence and power, taking advantage, on the one hand, of the gullibility of periodically indignant people, on the other hand, the support of foreign capitalists interested in weakening a foreign policy competitor by organizing his “rear” of demonstrations and protests (“color revolutions”).

Therefore, the pre-communist law enforcement system is an instrument for protecting masters, firstly, from other masters, that is, external and internal competitors for political and economic power, and secondly, from their sometimes rebellious and protesting slaves. As already noted, often both options are implemented simultaneously and interconnectedly, since exploitative competitors, knowing about the people’s social science illiteracy, try to use mass discontent in their own, selfish interests. The results of the clash depend mainly on the political and manipulative skill of each of the warring parties. The persecution of unorganized thieves, maniacs, in other words, the forceful suppression of lone criminals is a side function of the law enforcement system, the content of which comes down to maintaining the dominance of order and legality in the state. Thus, the law enforcement system strives to preserve bourgeois social relations within the framework of at least apparent harmony and stability, to protect them from spontaneously or purposefully breaking through streams of discontent and “capitalist civilization.”

Unfortunately, the above provisions are not obvious to everyone who calls themselves communists. Fortunately, the rapidly developing world situation gives us a large number of examples in which the functions of the law enforcement system emerge quite clearly. Therefore, it is worth separately touching upon such relevant and indicative events, on the example of which the functions of the law enforcement system could be demonstrated very clearly and easily, events, the analysis of which would reveal the reasons that provoke law enforcement agencies to arrest certain citizens.

Thus, one of the brightest and loudest political events of the new decade was the storming of the Capitol, which took place at the very beginning of 2021, an assault during which Trump supporters, seeking to review the results of what they considered to be a dishonest election, broke into the US Congress. The rebellion, as is known, was suppressed. The unsuccessful attempt was followed by repression and long trials, some of which are still not completed [1]. The scale of the repression and the severity of some sentences may surprise someone new to the American prison system. For example, the most unlucky were the leaders of the far-right Proud Boys movement, which, according to the media, was the “protagonist” of the assault: Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison, Ethan Nordean to 18, and Joseph Biggs to 17. In total, at the time of writing, about a thousand people were arrested.

The reason for such mass arrests was the fact that as a result of the assault, significant damage was caused to the democratic image of the American government, and, consequently, to the political, economic and cultural influence of the United States on the world. Capitalism rests largely on the enormous social science ignorance of the masses, one of the sources of which is the almost nationwide faith in democratic institutions and procedures. Massive falsifications, high-profile scandals and the subsequent January assault cast serious doubt on long-standing and deeply rooted dogmas. In addition, it turned out that senseless petty-bourgeois riots, Maidans and Tahrirs, which are so actively breaking out all over the planet (and provoked by the United States), are possible in the very “stronghold of democracy and freedom”, that state institutions are just a façade, supported by security agencies. It is beneficial for American oligarchs, like any other, to preserve democratic illusions among the masses, and therefore incidents that expose them cause their furious resistance. At the same time, the protesters themselves (regardless of which bourgeois party they support) are victims not so much of the oligarchs and their political lackeys, but of their own ignorance in the field of social science. Their belief in free democratic elections is a consequence of a policy of deliberate stupidity, the obstruction of which is punishable by prison terms and “public” (disseminated in the purchased media) censure.

However, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean the situation is no better. Mass protests of 2023-2024 (despite the fact that such protests occur constantly in the capitalist world, within the framework of the article, as already mentioned, the most relevant and significant events will be considered), occurring in such capitalistically developed countries of the “civilized” world, like France [2] and Germany [3], also forced law enforcement agencies to begin to aggressively instill democracy and freedom among the protesters, because declining incomes and bourgeois instability forced them (the protesters) to forget about those democratic procedures (and the principles that illuminate them), active supporters which they have been for years and decades:

“In France, a nationwide strike against raising the retirement age continues; in total, about 240 protests took place against the backdrop of strikes. According to the country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs, more than 1 million people took part in the protest, and the police detained more than 450 people dissatisfied with the reform.”

Germany is not far behind:

“10 thousand farmers arrived in Berlin with 5 thousand tractors during the largest protest of agricultural workers against the abolition of tax breaks on diesel fuel and some other government measures, which, according to protesters, worsen their situation. The German government called on protesters to negotiate and promised to listen to farmers' grievances.

The reason for the protests was the German government's plan to cancel tax breaks on agricultural diesel fuel. Farmer protests have been going on for about a week and are taking place in different cities of the country.”

As in America, the cause of indignation was not the understanding of the need for scientific rejection of the market and capitalist system, but personal, individual (or family) instability and the desire for abstract justice (for example, in the form of slogans “For fair elections!”, “All power to the people!” ", "Down with the government!"). The petty-bourgeois element in developed countries, which in normal times calmly “tolerates” the distribution of part of colonial super-incomes into their wallets (let the periodically heard slogans “about the need to abandon the colonial past” not mislead the reader, because it is impossible to destroy interstate parasitism without destroying capitalism) , in times of crisis, begins to doubt the competence of the officials they have chosen (or passively allowed) into leadership positions, which sometimes leads to mass protest demonstrations.

However, the ruling class does not sit idly by all this time, but gradually increases the salaries of representatives of law enforcement agencies, rightly expecting that such a measure should fully “pay off” in the future. Therefore, it is not surprising that in moments of spontaneous protests, the rioting masses encounter organized resistance from law enforcement officers in the form, for example, of democratic tear gas fired at skeptics who dare to doubt either the legitimacy of popularly elected “political managers” or the correctness of the political course they have chosen. The law enforcement system, being an organ for the protection of economic domination, quite naturally considers people forced by capitalist poverty to go out on peaceful demonstrations and demand to share part of the profits as criminals who violate “sacred” state laws and deserve severe punishment for this. At the same time, the names of the main “heroes of the occasion,” the oligarchs, are often not mentioned by protesters for two reasons: either due to a misunderstanding of the relationship between the base and the superstructure, or for reasons of banal security: you want to live! So individual ministers and deputies become “scapegoats,” while the power of the real masters, who turned their companies into “hereditary neo-monarchies,” remains unshakable. The demand for the resignation of the government and the implementation of new, “fair” reforms is the maximum that philistine thinking that ignores Marxism is capable of.

Sometimes in a crowd of European protesters, angry phrases full of surprise can be heard: “After all, you, the police, must protect us, the common people!” The naivety of such statements will not surprise a competent Marxist, because it is no secret to him that law enforcement agencies are a well-paid “team” of the ruling class, protecting their “monopoly princes” from the people’s wrath, and therefore there is no “protection of the common people” " out of the question. In addition, the salaries of law enforcement officers consist of taxes paid to the state not only by powerful corporations, but also by the short-sighted proletarian masses themselves. At the same time, we should not forget that the amount of money remaining with the proletarian after paying taxes is simply the amount that he needs for survival and reproduction, in other words, to maintain the mechanism of generational change in a stable state. The proletariat is left exactly as much as the “laws of capitalist life” require. Fantasies that the proletarian is free to dispose of his money are an invention of liberal economists who are in ignorance of the real laws of social development.

In passing, we note that all the demands made by the protesters (protest leaders from among activists and politicians) often do not go beyond the framework of bourgeois economic demands (increasing wages, lowering the retirement age, etc.). The same political slogans that are occasionally put forward by the most radical participants in demonstrations/rallies/strikes bear the stamp of the same bourgeoisism and opportunism, which is a consequence of illiteracy in the field of Marxism. French, German and other “left-wing” political activists, ignoring the experience of the Bolsheviks, take to the streets with petty-bourgeois slogans, without bringing communism one step closer. Some of them stand for abstract justice, others for improving their own lives. And only one thing really unites them - indifference to the truth, ignoring the victorious practice of Bolshevism.

Often such protests turn into a hot phase, peaceful demonstrations transform into pogroms. In this context, it is worth noting the following: destroying store windows or attacking the police has nothing to do with improving the quality of life. By distracting people from understanding the real cause of the current situation, pogroms mislead protesters and those who sympathize with them, as if the destruction of individual objects of urban space can somehow solve the problems. In fact, by destroying the streets, setting fire to vehicles, attacking law enforcement officers, protesters are distracted from understanding the true cause of poverty (and other “deadly sins” of private property) and, as a result, from the revolutionary reorganization of society, replacing Leninism with Pugachevism. This substitution is very beneficial to those in power, who can use the anger of the people for their own selfish purposes: destruction and venting of anger is a therapeutic remedy that temporarily calms the raw nerves of the unfortunate proletarian. Thus, the translation of peaceful indignation into pogroms is a purposeful policy to lead the working masses away from the scientific solution of the problem. And not the least role in this “performance” is played by provocateurs, either sent by law enforcement agencies, or who became such through their own stupidity.

Socio-political circumstances vary from country to country, the essence of the protests remains the same - an anti-capitalist rebellion, senseless and merciless. Hatred becomes an end in itself, the mind fades into the background and third plans, the eyes are covered with a veil of anger. As a result, the destroyed urban landscape does not contribute to higher wages, especially proactive and active protesters are arrested, while social relations remain unharmed: the tyranny of the bourgeoisie continues.

They may also say: “Ordinary people are being arrested for telling the truth! The truth is scary to those in power, so those who risk spreading this truth are actively repressed.” Of course, exploiters are afraid of the truth. However, one should not generalize, because various political activists, trade unionists and other “public figures” are not its propagandists. As mentioned above, the only thing they are good at is putting forward populist left-wing slogans that promise gullible protesters “rivers of milk and jelly banks,” slogans that sometimes find support in the hearts of the dissatisfied, capable of developing into something more than a peaceful demonstration that , in turn, forces law enforcement officers to use force.

Such a bourgeois-limited form of struggle is confined within its own framework. Years of exploitation give way to days of revenge, after which the most active are demonstrably punished. Multiple trade unions (and, consequently, the workers included in them), deprived of control from the scientific center in the person of the Communist Party, represent an ordinary market subject, patiently begging for alms from their unfair, but still master. When patience runs out, people take to the streets (in our case, under the control of trade unions or opportunist parties) and slogans begin to sound about the resignation of an unjustified president, prime minister, chancellor for... another president, prime minister, chancellor, different from the previous one is often only by the timbre of his voice and appearance. If the strength of the demonstrators is small, then the protests stop. If the forces are impressive, then their desires are reluctantly, but satisfied: a new, promising “political manager” takes over the post, who in most cases also fails to cope with his duties, forcing the trade unions to re-organize rallies and demonstrations, bringing several elderly ( since the previous “meeting of the dissatisfied”), but still “thirst for justice” workers. This is the cycle of democracy in nature.

To complete the picture, it is worth turning to the domestic experience of repression by the law enforcement system. Thus, in 2022, Kirill Ukraintsev, an activist of the “Herald of the Storm originals” and concurrently the chairman of the “Courier” trade union, was detained, after which the entire leftist public woke up and stood up in defense of a fellow revolutionary, seeking to free the unfortunate man from the clutches of the persecutors of freedom. As Kommersant reports:

“Investigative authorities detained the head of the Courier trade union, Kirill Ukraintsev. He was charged in a criminal case with repeated violations of the procedure for holding rallies (Article 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). Since 2020, the union has been coordinating strikes by Delivery Club couriers due to non-payment of wages to food delivery workers and challenging the sanctions imposed on them.

From the materials it follows that a criminal case has been initiated against Kirill Ukraintsev under Art. 212.1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation (on repeated violations of the procedure for holding rallies).

The reason was the publication on his page on the social network “VKontakte” of a “call for employees of courier delivery services” to take part in a mass event on October 30, 2020” [4].

The left, ignoring the theory of Marxism, was outraged by the repressive policies of law enforcement agencies, seeing Kirill’s arrest as a “wake-up call” for Russian communists (some even saw this as evidence of Russian fascism). The fact that Ukraintsev was engaged in trade unionism and economism, and not Marxism, of course, did not outrage them. In fact, the incident with Ukraintsev (like the events in France and Germany) does not go beyond the ordinary bourgeois-democratic confrontation between two “economic entities”: the activist was arrested not for being a communist, but for “offending” "Delivery Club", acting not as a political opponent of capitalism, but as an economic competitor to a separate campaign.

Communists, in all such examples, must see the mistakes made by protesters and protesters who are illiterate in Marxism, and understand that real Marxists in modern conditions must engage in self-education in its various forms , so that in the future, with the help of the created party of scientific centralism, they can direct the energy of protest not to the petty bourgeois rebellion, but towards communist creation . Therefore, any political and civil activities deprived of leadership from the Communist Party will only lead to tactical or strategic defeats, arrests and other forms of repressive policies that leave capitalism unharmed.

Another example proving that the law enforcement system is a tool for suppressing competitors is the high-profile arrests of large millionaire bloggers [5], which occurred during 2023 (and are still ongoing). Eg:

“The Moscow prosecutor’s office reported on March 7 that blogger Lerchek (Valeria Chekalina) and her husband Artem Chekalin were charged with tax evasion. According to the investigation, from July 2020 to July 2022, Chekalina used a simplified taxation system with an allowable income limit of 150 million rubles. in year. At the same time, the income from the sale of fitness marathons that they conduct with their spouse significantly exceeded this amount. In order not to switch to a general taxation system, Valeria Chekalina attracted her husband and relatives as accomplices. Thus, as follows from the report of the Investigative Committee, the blogger managed to evade paying taxes in the amount of more than 300 million rubles.”

“A criminal case has been opened against blogger Elena Blinovskaya for tax evasion and money laundering on a particularly large scale.

According to the investigation, Blinovskaya, providing information services via the Internet, using a business “fragmentation” scheme, underestimated the income received and did not pay value added tax and personal income tax for the period 2019-2021 for a total amount of over 918 million rubles.” .

“The Investigative Committee opened a criminal case against blogger Alexandra Mitroshina. The case is related to tax evasion on a particularly large scale: in the amount of more than 120 million rubles. The blogger faces up to three years in prison.”

Some citizens mistakenly saw in the activities of Russian law enforcement agencies a desire to achieve the truth, to punish swindlers who profit from the stupidity and naivety of people. However, are repressions against large bloggers who break the law really (almost all entrepreneurs strive to find a loophole in the law or evade taxes, but the incident with bloggers became very famous due to their “media weight”), a desire to restore trampled justice, to punish scammers who have made fortunes by deceiving gullible “service consumers”? No matter how it is! In fact, the Russian state, like any bourgeois state (especially one in a war situation), is looking for all possible ways to increase budget revenues. Therefore, it is natural that the young and still insufficiently “researched” (not from a scientific, but from a bourgeois-EGONOMIC point of view) industry of the so-called information business is increasingly attracting the attention of tax services. In addition, holding such events is often accompanied by approval among the “deep” Russian people, who receive inner spiritual peace from the news of the arrest of a popular swindler, which can favorably affect ratings of public agreement with the country’s political course.

All these and many other examples from the modern political life of mankind prove: the law enforcement system within the framework of the “civilization” of private property is an instrument of political and economic struggle of social classes and groups for their dominance, a tool that helps to effectively fight political and economic competitors. No desire for truth and justice, no impulse to protect society; only a banal, pragmatic struggle for survival, a struggle accompanied by populist slogans about the need for national unity in the face of social cataclysms, slogans about the importance of “stability” as opposed to chaos.

II
Violence is only a brief episode in the history of communism, generated by the need to overcome the norms of class society.

Podguzov

An alternative to the bourgeois law enforcement system is the communist law enforcement system. As a birthmark of the “civilization” of private property, the law enforcement system is used by communists to protect the revolution from the various reactionary activities of anti-communists. The existence of such a coercive apparatus is necessary so that the young communist state has the opportunity to ensure internal order not only by word (persuasion), but also by deed (coercion).

In form, communist and capitalist law enforcement systems are similar - they protect the ruling system, but in content their difference is absolute: communist - protects the construction of communism, that is, a society organized according to known scientific laws, while capitalist - is used to maintain society in a market state chaos, agony and ignorance. Communist - strives to maintain stability in the process of healing people and society, while capitalist - does everything to protect the right of slave owners to exploit and suppress slaves. While under communism the law enforcement system is a forced and temporary tool for the struggle of communist scientists (able to adequately reflect the objective needs of progress) against the consequences of the “civilization” of private property, under capitalism it is a well-funded means of suppressing the will of economic, political and ideological opponents, a means , fulfilling the subjective desires of the masters, and therefore in no way correlated with objective necessity.

For the first time in the history of law enforcement agencies, the communist government is highlighting not coercion, but persuasion . The forceful suppression of dissent becomes subordinate to the construction of communism. The more success Marxists achieve in improving the lives of working people, the more authority they gain among those initially dissenting:

“The period of construction of socialism is the period when violence, for the first time in the history of mankind, ceases to play a decisive role in the preservation of the formation” (Podguzov “ Does the party need a leader? ”).

At the same time, it would be a mistake to think that the priority given by the Communists to persuasion will lead to a sharp rejection of coercion. On the contrary, coercion in the hands of communists will turn into an effective means of combating aggressive forms of ignorance, becoming a scientifically strict and fair instrument that protects progress. For party, state and other leaders, the rule should be taken as an axiom: the greater the amount of responsibility a person bears, the greater the punishment that overtakes him in the event of an unconscious mistake or conscious sabotage - a rule that is practically incompatible with capitalist sloppiness (of course, some capitalist leaders may exhibit “ miracles of integrity,” however, we cannot call such an approach widespread among the bourgeoisie). In other words, often under capitalism, nepotism is encouraged among bureaucrats and big managers [6], corruption flourishes [7] [8], and people turn a blind eye to carelessness [9], while under communism there is an active and irreconcilable struggle against such manifestations of bourgeoisism from the outside. law enforcement agencies led by the party (where there is no sabotage and sabotage). Take, for example, the “Shakhtinsky Affair”, “The Industrial Party Affair” or the “Moscow Trials” (not counting the very construction of communism and the destruction of commodity-money relations). At first glance, all these were typical acts of political competition. However, in reality these were acts of class struggle, the forced use of violence against enemies who did not want to know the truth.

Unfortunately, the “civilization” of private property will leave behind a legacy of thousands of incorrigible philistines, spiritually crippled people (including opportunists) who are interfering with the construction of communism, and therefore doomed to permanent violations of law and order. It is against these incorrigible representatives of the reactionary camp that the communist state of the future must apply, as necessary, the most brutal measures: an implacable and incorrigible enemy must fear the communists.

Revolutionary processes will gradually contribute to the improvement of morals, but millennia of savagery cannot be destroyed in a couple of decades of reason. But the ratio of persuasion and coercion will change as communism is built, therefore, in different historical conditions, it is necessary to take into account those tactical features that the communist law enforcement system will be forced to use: various historical circumstances may force communists to change legislation, change approaches to violators of law and order, etc. In the activities of communist law enforcement agencies, what is important is the situational nature, the specificity of historical circumstances that force them to “maneuver with violence.”

And only one thing will remain unchanged under any circumstances - the methodology of thinking that will guide Marxists in their decisions: only the universal diamatic methodology is the tool that allows the only correct decision to be made in various situations. If there is constant hesitation and doubt in the activities of Marxists, it means that science has not been studied sufficiently by these cadres.

In order not to find themselves in a situation of tossing and turning in the future, in order to be ready to make the right decisions, modern Marxists now need to spend all their free time not on leftist activities, thoughtless entertainment or bourgeois leisure, but on purposeful, constant and conscientious self-education and self-education , the success of which is proven should become scientific journalism . Communists of the present need to conscientiously study the experience of their predecessors in order to clearly understand the prospects and ways of developing the law enforcement system after the revolution. The works of Lenin, Stalin and Vyshinsky should be a good help in this, which will allow us to deepen our knowledge of the peculiarities of such policies in the past in order to increase the effectiveness of such policies in the future.

Bronislav
02/15/2024

NOTES
1.https://ria.ru/20240107/arest-1920003613.html
2.https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5888291
3.https://ria.ru/20240109/protesty-1920375585.html
4.https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/5328587
5.The most famous: 1) https://www.rbc.ru/society/07/03/2023/6 ... eed9a21e81 ; 2) https://lenta.ru/news/2023/04/27/blinaaa/ ; 3) https://www.forbes.ru/society/486429-sk ... mitrosinoj ;
6.Examples: 1) https://www.rbc.ru/politics/18/05/2018/ ... be816380de ; 2) https://www.rbc.ru/politics/02/02/2023/ ... 42045f7e35 ; 3) https://www.rbc.ru/business/13/12/2021/ ... 2c41308098
7.Let us turn, for example, to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia: “... US Secretary of Defense Johnson (1949), being a broker for a number of large corporations, became involved in fraudulent schemes related to military orders. For bribes, he secured orders worth tens of millions of dollars to large monopolies. Member of the US House of Representatives Casey, Admiral Halsey, Chairman of the Municipality of New York Morris and other businessmen, as well as senior government officials of the state apparatus in 1948-49 purchased a batch of tankers from the War Department as “military surplus” for 100 thousand dollars, selling them then, with the help of a bribe to the same military department for 3 million 250 thousand dollars. In 1949, the chairman of the congressional commission to investigate “un-American activities,” Thomas, was exposed as a bribe-taker and embezzler of public funds. After some time, another chairman of this commission, Wood, was caught in the same fraud. Persons who directly surrounded Truman during his presidency - his adjutant Vaughan and others - were involved in fraudulent tricks, smuggling, speculation and bribery. In France in 1950, abuses and bribery of a number of major government officials, in particular the Minister of the Interior Jules Mock, were exposed. All these crimes, as a rule, remain unpunished.”
8.Kalinin V.D. Iceberg Corruption. - M.: Politizdat, 1979 - 110 P.
9.https://www.rbc.ru/business/15/08/2023/ ... 1da11c7842

https://prorivists.org/90_lawandorder/

Google Translator

[blindpig]

To Be a Socialist One Must Be an Anti-Imperialist
Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on FEBRUARY 22, 2024
J. Sykes



Since the writing of The Communist Manifesto and the founding of the First International, proletarian internationalism has been a cornerstone of scientific socialism, and is a pillar of Marxism-Leninism. Today, in the era of imperialism, putting genuine proletarian internationalism into practice demands that we be consistent anti-imperialists.

Beyond any moral questions, there are two obvious, material reasons for this proletarian internationalist, anti-imperialist unity. On the one hand every dollar that goes to imperialist war is a dollar that could have been spent on people’s needs at home. But even more importantly, every blow struck against imperialism weakens the monopoly capitalist class here.

What imperialism is and what it is not

First, let’s be clear on what imperialism means. Understanding the link between imperialism and monopoly capitalism is essential. Indeed, imperialism and monopoly capitalism aren’t just linked, they’re synonymous. Failing to understand this, some people think any kind of big country is an empire and that any empire is imperialist, from ancient Rome to socialist China. But this is an idealist and metaphysical view. In other words, this view fails to look at how imperialism develops historically, according to definite material processes. It should be obvious that the Roman Empire and the U.S. empire are qualitatively different.

If we look at imperialism historically, we have to understand its relationship to the dominant socio-economic system. V.I. Lenin developed the scientific analysis of imperialism in his book Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism, to help the working-class movement understand the demands that this new historical stage of capitalism placed on the socialist movement. In “Imperialism and the Split in Socialism,” Lenin writes, “Imperialism is a specific historical stage of capitalism. Its specific character is threefold: imperialism is monopoly capitalism; parasitic, or decaying capitalism; moribund capitalism. The supplanting of free competition by monopoly is the fundamental economic feature, the quintessence of imperialism.”

Lenin goes on to explain that imperialism, as monopoly capitalism, has five principal characteristics:

“Monopoly manifests itself in five principal forms: (1) cartels, syndicates and trusts—the concentration of production has reached a degree which gives rise to these monopolistic associations of capitalists; (2) the monopolistic position of the big banks—three, four or five giant banks manipulate the whole economic life of America, France, Germany; (3) seizure of the sources of raw material by the trusts and the financial oligarchy (finance capital is monopoly industrial capital merged with bank capital); (4) the (economic) partition of the world by the international cartels has begun. There are already over one hundred such international cartels, which command the entire world market and divide it “amicably” among themselves—until war redivides it. The export of capital, as distinct from the export of commodities under non-monopoly capitalism, is a highly characteristic phenomenon and is closely linked with the economic and territorial-political partition of the world; (5) the territorial partition of the world (colonies) is completed.”

This is the historical materialist view of imperialism as it exists today. Thus, Lenin points out that “Imperialism, as the highest stage of capitalism in America and Europe, and later in Asia, took final shape in the period 1898–1914. The Spanish-American War (1898), the Anglo-Boer War (1899–1902), the Russo-Japanese War (1904–05) and the economic crisis in Europe in 1900 are the chief historical landmarks in the new era of world history.” The rise of imperialism in the U.S. led to the colonization of foreign territories and contributed to the development of oppressed nations within the borders of the U.S., such as the Chicano Nation in the Southwest, the African American Nation in the Black Belt South, and the Hawaiian Nation.

Dialectically, the era of imperialism has led to the development of four fundamental contradictions operating on a world-scale: the contradiction between labor and capital, the contradictions between the imperialists among themselves, the contradiction between the imperialists and the movements for national liberation, and, following the Bolshevik revolution in 1917, the contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems.

It is important to note that some people choose to ignore the historical connection between the development of monopoly capitalism and imperialism. They argue that countries like China are imperialist, because they engage in foreign trade. Looking at the difference between the foreign policy of China and the imperialist countries will help us understand what imperialism is in practice, and what it isn’t. Basically, what these people fail to understand is that imperialism is fundamentally exploitative, extractive and violent.

Imperialism relies upon predatory loans, structural adjustment programs, unequal trade agreements, privatization and liberalization, to ensure that it can extract as much profit from its colonies and neocolonies as possible. Capital is exported to the underdeveloped countries in order to exploit cheap labor. By locking these oppressed nations and peoples into a permanent state of underdevelopment it is able to achieve a higher rate of exploitation than it can otherwise. This super-exploitation allows the imperialist powers to prop themselves up with these super-profits, using them as a kind of life-support, to prolong the existence of the capitalist system far beyond its natural lifespan.

This inevitably leads to the sharpening of the contradictions between the imperialists themselves and the contradiction between the imperialists and the movements for national liberation. For this reason, the imperialists must back all of this up with military force. For the U.S., this includes a network of military bases, spanning the world, and its military alliances, like NATO, which it dominates. It will not hesitate to intervene militarily, or to arm and fund its proxies, such as Ukraine and Israel. It will stage coups and assassinate leaders. There is no price in human bloodshed and suffering that is too high to protect U.S. hegemony and imperialist super-profits.

China’s foreign policy in the developing world is nothing like this. It is neither exploitative nor extractive and is based on equal and mutually beneficial trade agreements. It is also fundamentally peaceful. The countries that benefit from trade and development from China are not locked into underdevelopment by China. Nor are they targeted for Chinese military intervention, or coups. On the contrary, China provides an alternative to imperialist underdevelopment that many countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America are glad to take.

China doesn’t do this because the Chinese are nice and the imperialists aren’t. The imperialists are violent, exploitative and extractive because they must be. The imperialist system is governed by laws, laws inherent to capitalism. China behaves differently because these are laws from which the working class has freed itself in the socialist countries. Socialism, and China in particular, is thus a counterbalance to imperialism in the world. This counterbalance causes the contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems to sharpen, leading to a constant barrage of anti-China propaganda and increasing aggression from the U.S. towards China.

Imperialism and war

Beyond this question of what imperialism is and what it isn’t, there is further confusion about what it means to be consistently anti-imperialist in relation to the question of war. Because monopoly capitalism relies upon military intervention, that is, upon war, to further its aims, progressive people everywhere rightly oppose imperialist war. But it is possible to make a very dangerous error here.

There is a pacifist trend in the anti-war movement that originates in the ideology of the petite bourgeoisie. These people oppose all war, regardless of who is fighting and for what. They see the violence of the imperialists and the violence of the oppressed as equally bad. These are the kind of people who, in the face of Zionist apartheid in Palestine and the U.S.-backed genocide in Gaza, demand first and foremost the movement’s condemnation of Hamas. They demand peace, condemning both the reactionary violence of the oppressor and the revolutionary violence of the oppressed. There is a material basis for this kind of thinking. The petite bourgeoisie is a class stuck between a rock and a hard place. They are driven down by the monopoly capitalist class, but they also benefit from the exploitation of labor and support the capitalist system. By taking this pacifist approach, they wash their hands of the whole conflict, and try to cling to the status quo.

On the other hand, there are also social-democrats who turn a blind eye towards imperialism. These people believe that “socialism” can be built within the framework of monopoly capitalism, despite the super-exploitation of the oppressed peoples of the rest of the world. This is why the representatives of this ideology tend to lend their support to the U.S. wars for empire, while they clamor for “socialism” at home. They see “socialism” as social programs under capitalism, like Medicare, public works projects, the postal service, and fire departments. Their “socialism” doesn’t challenge the power of the monopoly capitalists but would merely regulate it. Based on the so-called “Nordic model,” this kind of “socialism” is really just imperialism dressed in red—they advocate socialism in words, but imperialist in deeds. This is what Lenin called “social-imperialism.” These reformists argue for class collaboration, denying that the contradiction between the working class and the capitalist class is fundamentally antagonistic. And so, these “socialists” don’t understand that the starting point of socialism is the seizure of political power by the working class.

Some of these social democrats are the “progressive except for Palestine” variety. They support progressive reforms that would help working and oppressed people, but when it comes to foreign policy, especially in regard to support for Israel, they hold social-chauvinist and downight reactionary positions. Right now, as Israel continues to wage a genocidal war against the Palestinian people, these so called “socialists” have nothing but praise for Zionism and the Israeli apartheid state, and nothing but scorn and condemnation for principled anti-imperialists who stand in solidarity for the unified Palestinian Resistance.

We must be absolutely clear: victory for the resistance in Palestine is a victory for working and oppressed people everywhere, and that victory is coming closer every day. History will remember the Israeli state together with apartheid South Africa, as a stain on history and a mark of shame to everyone who ever supported it. As PFLP leader Leila Khaled once put it, “The supreme objective of the Palestinian liberation movement is the total liberation of Palestine, the dismantlement of the Zionist state apparatus, and the construction of a socialist society in which both Arabs and Jews can live in peace and harmony.” When that day comes, not only will the Palestinian people be liberated from oppression, but a mighty blow will be struck against the monopoly capitalist class in the U.S. that relies on the Zionist state to maintain its hegemony in the Middle East.

Social-chauvinist thinking isn’t a new problem, but it must be addressed again. Indeed, Lenin fought these tendencies in the Second International. Lenin argued that true proletarian internationalism means that socialists should support the defeat of their own imperialist governments in their wars of domination and plunder. Lenin put it simply, saying, “During a reactionary war a revolutionary class cannot but desire the defeat of its government.” During World War I, Lenin fought against those in the socialist movement who called for a “class truce” during the inter-imperialist war.

Some “socialists” even supported “defense of the fatherland” wrongly identifying the interests of the working class with the national interests of the capitalist ruling class. In his 1915 essay “The Defeat of One’s Own Government in the Imperialist War” Lenin takes to task those “socialists” like Karl Kautsky in Germany and Leon Trotsky in Russia who opposed the slogan of revolutionary defeatism, that is, the call for the defeat of one’s own imperialist government and the demand to transform the reactionary inter-imperialist war into a revolutionary, civil war. In his 1916 article, “Opportunism and the Collapse of the Second International,” Lenin further attacks these social-chauvinists, saying, “War is often useful in exposing what is rotten…”

But imperialist war is only one side of the equation. The reality is that some wars are unjust and others are just. Mao Zedong put it this way in his book, On Protracted War.

“History shows that wars are divided into two kinds, just and unjust. All wars that are progressive are just, and all wars that impede progress are unjust. We Communists oppose all unjust wars that impede progress, but we do not oppose progressive, just wars. Not only do we Communists not oppose just wars; we actively participate in them. As for unjust wars, World War I is an instance in which both sides fought for imperialist interests; therefore, the Communists of the whole world firmly opposed that war. The way to oppose a war of this kind is to do everything possible to prevent it before it breaks out and, once it breaks out, to oppose war with war, to oppose unjust war with just war, whenever possible.”

The wars carried out by the imperialists for hegemony, to divide and redivide the world, and to protect their super-profits, are unjust. They sacrifice the lives of millions for the sake of profit, to make sure the lines on the graph go up, and that the vaults of the shareholders are filled to the brim. This is why the U.S. gives billions in military aid to its proxies, like Israel, to maintain its foothold in the Middle East. No matter the war crimes or atrocities, the U.S. is always ready with its checkbook. These wars impede progress.

On the other hand, wars that oppose imperialism, that fight for national liberation from foreign capital and their domestic lackeys, are progressive, just wars. From Palestine to the Philippines, people are fighting tooth and nail to throw off the yoke of imperialism and colonialism, to achieve national liberation, independence, and dignity. These wars are just and should be supported.

During World War II, in “The Role of the Chinese Communist Party in the National War,” Mao put it like this:

“The specific content of patriotism is determined by historical conditions. There is the ‘patriotism’ of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler, and there is our patriotism. Communists must resolutely oppose the ‘patriotism’ of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler. The Communists of Japan and Germany are defeatists with regard to the wars being waged by their countries. To bring about the defeat of the Japanese aggressors and of Hitler by every possible means is in the interests of the Japanese and the German people, and the more complete the defeat the better…. For the wars launched by the Japanese aggressors and Hitler are harming the people at home as well as the people of the world.”

Because the anti-imperialist struggle is the strategic ally of the working class movement, Mao explains, “in wars of national liberation patriotism is applied internationalism.”

During World War II, the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union transformed the nature of that war. The war began in 1939 as an inter-imperialist war for the redivision of the world between the imperialist powers, but once the Soviet Union came under attack in June of 1941, it was no longer correct to regard the war as a purely inter-imperialist war. The contradiction between the imperialist and socialist systems came to the forefront, leading communists to join in the effort to defeat Nazi Germany, the main danger to the USSR. Furthermore, communist-led resistance movements, particularly in China, Yugoslavia and Albania, were waging just wars for liberation against imperialist occupation.

Friends and enemies

At the core of all this lies an important point, that Mao summed up well: “We should support whatever the enemy opposes and oppose whatever the enemy supports.” Who is the enemy? The imperialist, monopoly capitalist class. Who does the enemy oppose? Everyone fighting against oppression and for liberation, and everyone who challenges their hegemony. Who does the enemy support? Anyone who will serve their interests, who will help them in their drive for domination and exploitation.

Stalin makes this crystal clear in his 1924 book, The Foundations of Leninism, when he says, “The revolutionary character of a national movement under the conditions of imperialist oppression does not necessarily presuppose the existence of proletarian elements in the movement, the existence of a revolutionary or a republican programme of the movement, the existence of a democratic basis of the movement.”

Stalin gives the example of Amanullah Khan in Afghanistan: “The struggle that the Emir of Afghanistan is waging for the independence of Afghanistan is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the monarchist views of the Emir and his associates, for it weakens, disintegrates and undermines imperialism.”

To clarify this point, Stalin contrasts the nationalist movement in Egypt to the Labor Party in Britain. He writes “the struggle that the Egyptians merchants and bourgeois intellectuals are waging for the independence of Egypt is objectively a revolutionary struggle, despite the bourgeois origin and bourgeois title of the leaders of Egyptian national movement, despite the fact that they are opposed to socialism; whereas the struggle that the British ‘Labor’ Government is waging to preserve Egypt’s dependent position is for the same reason a reactionary struggle, despite the proletarian origin and the proletarian title of the members of the government, despite the fact that they are ‘for’ socialism.”

This may seem strange to some people, but the reason for this is simple. The monopoly capitalist class that is oppressing, in Stalin’s example, the Egyptian independence movement, is the very same monopoly capitalist class that is exploiting the British working class. Their defeat by the Egyptian independence movement weakens them, helping the British working class to overthrow them. There is a strategic alliance that is possible here, even among classes with different interests, because they share this common enemy.

U.S. imperialism is in a state of prolonged and inevitable decline. Since the historic defeat of U.S. imperialism in Vietnam, the United States has grown more and more desperate. Like a cornered beast, it lashes out everywhere. For all of its snarling, biting and clawing, it accomplishes little at great cost. Its place of dominance in the imperialist system, established at the end of World War II, is slipping away. The labor movement is seeing an upsurge, the national liberation struggles are advancing, and the socialist countries are gaining strength. U.S imperialism fights on many fronts, and each defeat it faces is a victory for the working class here and around the world. Everyone who wants socialism should celebrate every blow struck against the imperialist, monopoly capitalist class.

https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/02/ ... perialist/

[blindpig]

Is There a Future for the Left?

…the Left narrative, no matter how accurate and intellectually powerful it may be, cannot expect to catch the imagination of the citizenry without including a vision for a real alternative future. Moreover, working-class institutions need to be reinstituted for the enhancement of class consciousness and authentic socialist parties need to be rediscovered for the Left narrative to become politically effective. Social movements are important, but their actions rarely have lasting effects. Only political parties can succeed in forging the Left narrative into the policy agenda and turn it into a programmatic plan for social change. Understandably enough, this is quite a tall order, but the Left needs to win once again the hearts and minds of the laboring classes. But it needs the necessary political agencies and cultural instruments to do so. It cannot accomplish it on intellectual grounds alone, especially with the politics of identity acting as a spearhead for social transformation... The Communist Manifesto would have remained just a mere political document if it wasn’t for the existence of radical political parties across the globe to embrace it as their guide and vision for the emancipation of the working class from the yoke of capital. The Left has a Great Story to Share About Alternatives to Capitalism-- But Sucks at Telling It, CJ Polychroniou (Common Dreams)

Shorn of the academic jargon, Polychroniou’s conclusion to his Common Dreams article gets a lot right about the failings of the US and European left and the road back to relevance.

It is true that today the left’s unstated action model is a plethora of focused, but single-issue social movements. However, that model has enjoyed, at best, limited success in the US since single-issue activism won big gains in the anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights era of the 1960s and 1970s. One of the movements effectively complemented a bloody defeat of US Cold War aggression and the other completed the formal constitutional promise of full-citizenship rights for Blacks, women, and other minorities.

But substantial, larger, associated issues remain unresolved. US imperialism continues unabated with ever-more casualties and injustices; the inequalities suffered by oppressed groups remain intact, with a token stratum of those groups allowed through the door of privilege, even to elite status, but with most lagging far behind.

Social movements have focused on specific policies (NAFTA, tax structure, minimum wage, healthcare, immigration reform), emerging trends (globalization, “neoliberalism”), gross inequality (Occupy), changes in governance (Arab spring, police reform), environmental degradation (fracking), or US foreign intervention among many other identifiable wrongs, all of which burn brightly in the beginning, then unfortunately just as quickly fade, as protest confronts the glacial, fractured electoral system.

It is also true that most of the left operates and acts without any overarching program of reform or revolution. The majority of US leftists, for example, enthusiastically, reluctantly, or by default rely upon the Democratic Party and electoral politics to drive broad, systemic change. They may hope that their issues will be embraced by the party’s policy makers, they may struggle with the party’s entrenched leaders for a suitable program, or they may simply defer to the Democrats out of desperation. DSA, a self-described ‘democratic’ socialist party, is very far from cutting the umbilical cord with the Democrats. While the Green Party expends impressive effort to achieve ballot status, it brings a hodge-podge of candidates to the ballot, seldom aligned with any kind of common program or larger goal. And the small Marxist parties have failed to impact the labor movement or pressure reform movements from the left, as last did the US Communist Party of Gus Hall’s era when anti-Communist repression was far more intense than today and the word “socialism” was then a term of abuse.

But it is not just a program that is missing, but a vision as well.

‘Anti-capitalism’ is not a vision, but a defiance; it expresses hostility and resistance, but not rejection. It gives us no alternative to capitalism. Most of the US left counts itself as anti-capitalist, but one can only guess at what that might mean.

Some are more specific: they are anti-neoliberal capitalism, anti-disaster capitalism, anti-racial capitalism, or perhaps anti-monopoly capitalism. But, by implication, are they for some other kind of capitalism? Do they pine for the era before neoliberalism? Do they imagine capitalism without racism? Do they wish to turn the clock back to the stage before monopoly capitalism? An imagined time when capitalism did not spawn disasters?

These are not political visions, they’re mere fantasies!

The dominant alternative vision to capitalism until the collapse of real-existing-socialism in the late-twentieth century was Marxist socialism. From the rise of mass socialist parties in the final decades of the nineteenth century, the vision sketched by Marx and his followers dominated the hopes of ‘anti-capitalist’ working people. Whatever else the early Marxist militants meant by socialism, they agreed that socialism should end the exploitation of workers by capitalists; they envisioned ending capitalism once and for all and not merely managing it or buffering its worse aspects.

With the birth of real-existing-socialism, creating, shaping, and developing the vision proved to be a lengthy, often messy process, as though serious onlookers would expect it to be otherwise. Previously rare or unheard-of levels of economic, cultural, and human growth were achieved. Enormous sacrifices were made. And internal and external enemies were met.

Some leaders rose to meet challenges, some failed to do so. Mistakes were plentiful, as were acts of unparalleled heroism. The costs of change and of development were enormous, which any thoughtful observer would concede in a life-and-death struggle against capitalism. Ultimately, those living in the lands where socialism was won, no matter how briefly or for how long, must weigh the sacrifices against the gains made, and discount the judgment of smug, privileged foreign critics.

Ironically, Polychroniou, who correctly steers the left away from aimlessly drifting in the political maelstrom of left-wing faddism and unmoored posturing, paints a picture of real-existing-socialism so without merit or achievement as to turn anyone away from the socialist alternative.

Polychroniou, like his sometime collaborator, Noam Chomsky, often shows an impressive critical eye toward the failings of the capitalist system and of imperialism, but follows unfailingly the conventional, stereotypic Cold War demonization of real-existing-socialism; he cannot even credit twentieth-century socialism with being ‘real,’ calling it “actually-existing-socialism.” Like Chomsky, Polychroniou mistrusts the mainstream media at every turn, recognizing its obedience to the ruling class, but accepts everything it sells about the ruling class’s arch-enemy: the real-existing-socialism of the last century.

As a result, Polychroniou’s often perceptive comments are diminished, lost before disdain for a project that he believes has proven, in reality, to be an unmitigated disaster. According to Polychroniou, “actually existing socialism” was “undemocratic,” undermining its “social, cultural, and economic achievements…” “Workers had no say in economic decisions… [T]he rulers possessed no wealth and had no private property of their own but made all of the decisions for the rest of society. The USSR was at best a ‘deformed workers’ state’.” [my emphasis]

Polychroniou sees this ‘deformation’ as a huge impediment to the achievement of socialism. Consequently, he is surprised that its disappearance did not bring on a flowering-- a revival-- of interest and commitment to socialism. “Instead of feeling liberated by the collapse of ‘actually existing socialism’ the western Left felt a loss of identity and entered a long period of intellectual confusion and political paralysis.” In other words, the Western Left suffered malaise, lost its bearings, and floundered at a time when Polychroniou thought his “real” socialism was within reach.

Surely this bizarre psychologistic explanation of the failure of a Left unburdened by the legacy of Communism is as unsatisfying as Polychroniou’s comic strip characterization of over 70 years of real-existing-socialism. As he concedes, the so-called Western Left found its opportunity to fulfill its promise of a different alternative. But the promise collapsed before it got started, degenerating into scholastic quarrels over truth, identity, and forms of governance.

Still Polychroniou recognizes the urgent need for a Left political party -- a class-based organization of those committed to a common road to social change-- to serve as the vehicle for a program and a vision. In his words, “[The] Left needs to win once again the hearts and minds of the laboring classes.” In his judgment, systemic change must be realized through the political party. However, he surely knows that the idea that radical political ideas can be realized through centrist parties has long been discredited, though far too many radical organizers continue to pursue that dead end in the US and Europe.

It must be acknowledged that the popular idea that a Left political party can be constituted by addition, simply bringing all the various social movements together, is equally flawed, relying on the magical thinking that ideological proximity or contiguity is the same thing as the organic unity necessary for party-building.

Similarly, the seductive idea that a political party can be constructed around the mere fact that it is new and different from the failed, bankrupt center-left parties of Europe and the US has been proven wrong by the corruption or decline of Europe’s new wave. From the German Greens to Spain’s Podemos, Italy’s Five Star, or Greece's SYRIZA, the promise of a shiny new toy filling the political vacuum left by a dying center-left is decidedly broken.

Without a distinctive vision, without a concrete program, with only a pledge for more “democracy,” all of the new wave disappointed its idealistic followers, leaving many disgusted and disenchanted with political action.

To his credit Polychroniou is critical of this trend. In a September, 2023 article (Endgame for Syriza, The Unbearable Lightness of the Greek Left) in Common Dreams, he chronicles the rise and fall of Greece’s SYRIZA party, a new-wave, self-styled radical party that actually grasped the brass ring of political power in 2015, but soon capitulated to capital without a fight. Since SYRIZA’s fall from its former heights, Polychroniou ponders its future.

“The answer to that mystery,” he says, “was revealed during the leadership election that was held just this past Sunday [September 24, 2023] when party members elected a gay, liberal, former Goldman Sachs trader, shipping investor, and political neophyte Stefanos Kasselakis to head the once radical left-wing Syriza party.” The once “radical” SYRIZA has devolved into a nondescript liberal party of the center/center right (as has the German Greens).

But he concludes his insightful essay on SYRIZA’s rapid decline with this bizarre note: “Under Kasselakis, Syriza will cease having affinity to leftist politics in any form or shape, which means that Greece will now be left with a Leninist-Stalinist Communist Party as the only large-scale organized political force fighting for the interest of the working class.” [my emphasis]

Is the idea of the KKE-- the Greek Marxist-Leninist party “fighting for the interest of the working class” which he dismissively refers-- so distasteful to Polychroniou as to rule it out-of-hand? Would Greek working people be better off if the KKE were not fighting for their interests? Is the fourth largest political party in Greece declared “untouchable” by Polychroniou? Is he apologizing because Greece actually has a committed fighter for the interests of its working class?

Polychroniou’s dismissal comes with no logic and no evidence. It is simply the deeply entrenched, unexamined anti-Communism that he shares with so many middle-strata, academic and intellectual leftists of his and past generations. Despite KKE’s long history of contesting capitalism and imperialism, its unwavering, heroic resistance to fascism, and its persistent promotion of a Greek society free of exploitation, Polychroniou and others of his ilk can find no circumstances in which they could even conditionally support “the only large-scale organized political force fighting for the interest of the working class” in Greece.

Surely, this is the epitome of blind, foolish, and counterproductive anti-Communism.

It is ironic that the KKE pointed out-- long before 2015 and Polychroniou-- that SYRIZA would not and could not answer the challenges facing Greece in the throes of crisis. At the time, intellectuals like Polychroniou, dismissed KKE’s assessment and charged it with sectarianism for refusing to join in coalition with the now admittedly discredited SYRIZA.

*****
It is, however, a good thing that Polychroniou and others are reexamining the tactics and strategies of the European and US Left in the twenty-first century. It is difficult to reconcile the occurrence of economic catastrophes unseen since the Great Depression, numerous tragic and bloody wars of aggression and domination, and social and political crises with the lack of significant social change or revolution over the last quarter-century. The title of Vincent Bevins’s recent book, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution, captures the dilemma well. Arguably more people have been motivated to protest existing conditions than ever before, but no revolutionary change has ensued. Why?

The question, or one very much like it, is taken up by Anton Jäger and Arthur Borriello in their recent book, The Populist Moment: The Left After the Great Recession. Both books are the subject of a critical review in the 8 February 2024 issue of The London Review of Books (A Circular Motion, James Butler).

Certainly, the failure of the Left and the current numerous fractures on the Left deserve serious retrospection and assessment. The way forward could well come from such study. But it will falter if poisoned from the onset with mindless anti-Communism. It will be prone to the same limiting calls to individualism, to identity, and the vacuous, vague, but always heralded cry for more “democracy.” A challenge to capitalism will require more than virtue-signaling.

Surely, the lessons of a century of social upheaval, confrontation, and revolution animated by working-class organizations cannot be cavalierly dismissed. The role of Communists and Communist Parties was decisive in colossal social change in the twentieth century. Might they be decisive again?

Greg Godels
zzsblogml@gmail.com

http://zzs-blg.blogspot.com/2024/02/is- ... -left.html

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Red Books Day celebrations underway, organized by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) in Chennai

176 years since the Communist Manifesto was published, socialists around the world celebrate “Red Books Day”
Originally published: Peoples Dispatch on February 22, 2024 (more by Peoples Dispatch) | (Posted Feb 26, 2024)

February 21 marked 176 years since the publication of the Communist Manifesto, and socialists around the world marked the date by celebrating the Manifesto and all “Red Books” that shaped the world.

Throughout India, socialists celebrated the 176th anniversary of the publication of the Communist Manifesto. In Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, Communist Party of India (Marxist) Kerala State Secretary MV Govindan gave an opening speech and read from the book “Leninism and the Approach to Indian Revolution” by EMS Namboodiripad, the first Chief Minister of Kerala and former General Secretary of the CPI(M). The event was organized by Chintha Publishers and the Purogamana Kalaa Saahitya Sangham (Progressive Association of Arts and Letters).

The Student Federation of India (SFI) at the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) in Hyderabad celebrated Red Books Day by reading out the Communist Manifesto in multiple languages. SFI EFLU also collaborated with Nava Telengana Publishers and the Young Socialist Artists to set up a literature and art stall for students.

Dozens of additional events were organized throughout India by youth, students, and members of communist parties. Mayday bookstore in New Delhi, which is run by left publisher LeftWord Books, also held a Red Books Day celebration with a reading of the Manifesto in seven different languages, a poetry reading in solidarity with Palestine, and musical and dance performances.

João Pedro Stedile of the National Board of the Landless Rural Workers’ Movement of Brazil (MST) wrote on X in celebration of Red Books Day as a day “when fighters from all over the world celebrate the works that help us think and transform the world.” Stedile was attending a meeting with the Popular Committees of Struggle and the MST, in partnership with the publisher Editora Expressão Popular, editions of the Communist Manifesto and “What is Revolution” by Marxist sociologist Florestan Fernandes were distributed.


In Casa de las Americas, in Havana, Cuba, the International Union of Left Publishers held a panel presentation on the book “Allende: The Popular Government,” which compiles the program of Allende’s Popular Unity coalition, speeches by Allende, and a letter that Chilean revolutionary Gladys Marín wrote in exile. Representatives from other left publishers participated in the panel, such as Carlos Bellé of Expressão Popular in Brazil, Ana Maldonado of Editorial Estrella Roja in Venezuela, and Francisco Farina of Editorial El Colectivo in Argentina.

During the panel, Maldonado commented that “the coordination of publishing networks is an expression that offers alternatives in the face of the dilemmas of humanity. It is, also, a proposal to build continental strategies for unity, with core values around banners of struggle such as anti-imperialism, anti-colonialism, anti-fascism, anti-racism, among others.”

In the United States, the People’s Forum in New York City organized a celebration of the life and legacy of Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian-born communist leader in both the United States and United Kingdom. In anticipation of the day, 1804 Books, the socialist publishing house affiliated with the People’s Forum, released a new book on Jones entitled “A Fighting Dream: The Political Writings of Claudia Jones.”

Luis Albán, ex-guerilla fighter of the FARC-EP (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia—People’s Army), and now a representative in the Colombian Congress as part of the Commons Party (Comunes), said of the Communist Manifesto’s publication: “For the whole world, it was a big contribution about how it’s necessary to advance in the study of society to transform it.”

https://mronline.org/2024/02/26/176-yea ... books-day/

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The Struggle for Women’s Emancipation Will Always Be Worth It: The Twelfth Newsletter (2024)

8 March was not always International Women’s Day, nor has such a day always existed. This date became fixed to our calendars through decades of struggle – led by communist women.
MARCH 21, 2024



Dear friends,

Greetings from the desk of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research.

8 March was not always International Women’s Day, nor has there always been any such day at all. The idea emerged from the Socialist International (also known as the Second International), where Clara Zetkin of the German Social Democratic Party and others fought from 1889 to hold a day to celebrate working women’s lives and struggles. Zetkin, alongside Alexandra Kollontai of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, sustained a struggle with their comrades to recognise the role of working women and the role of domestic labour in the creation of social wealth. In a context in which women across the North Atlantic states did not have the right to vote, these women intervened in a debate that was taking place among delegates of the Socialist International over whether men and women workers must be united under the banner of socialism to fight against their shared experience of exploitation or whether women should stay home.

In 1908, the women’s section of the Socialist Party of America held a mass rally in Chicago on 3 May to celebrate Woman’s Day. The following year, on 28 February 1909, this expanded to National Woman’s Day, held across the US. At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women, held in Copenhagen in 1910, a resolution was finally passed for all sections of the Socialist International to organise Women’s Day celebrations that would take place the following year. Socialist women organised public events in Austria, Denmark, Germany, and Switzerland on 19 March 1911 to commemorate the March Revolution of 1848 in Germany. In 1912, Europeans celebrated Women’s Day on 12 May, and in 1913, Russian women marked the date on 8 March. In 1917, women workers in Russia organised a mass strike and demonstrations for ‘bread and peace’ on 8 March, which sparked the wider struggles that led to the Russian Revolution. At the Communist Women’s Second International Conference in 1921, 8 March was officially chosen as the date for annual celebrations of International Working Women’s Day. That is how the date became a fixture on the international calendar of struggles.



In 1945, communist women from around the world formed the Women’s International Democratic Federation (WIDF), a body that was instrumental in establishing International Women’s Day. In 1972, Freda Brown from Australia’s WIDF section and the Communist Party of Australia wrote to the United Nations (UN) to propose that it hold an International Women’s Year and that it advance the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. Pushed by WIDF, Helvi Sipilä, a Finnish diplomat and the first woman to hold the position of UN assistant secretary-general (at a time when 97% of senior positions were held by men) seconded the proposal for the International Women’s Year, which was accepted in 1972 and held in 1975. In 1977, the United Nations passed a resolution to hold a Day for Women’s Rights and International Peace, which is now known as International Women’s Day and held on 8 March.



Each March, Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research honours this tradition by publishing a text that highlights an important woman in our struggle, such as Kanak Mukherjee (1921–2005) of India, Nela Martínez Espinosa (1912–2004) of Ecuador, and Josie Mpama (1903–1979) of South Africa. This year, we celebrate International Women’s Day (though perhaps International Working Women’s Month would be better) with the publication of dossier no. 74, Interrupted Emancipation: Women and Work in East Germany, produced in collaboration with the Zetkin Forum for Social Research and International Research Centre DDR (IFDDR). We have published two previous studies with IFDDR, one on the economic history of the German Democratic Republic (DDR) and the other on healthcare in the DDR. The Zetkin Forum is our partner on the European continent, named after both Clara Zetkin (1857–1933), whose work contributed to the creation of International Working Women’s Day, and her son Maxim Zetkin (1883–1965), a surgeon who helped build the new healthcare system in the Soviet Union, fought as part of the International Brigades in defence of the Spanish Republic (1931–1939), and became a leading physician in the DDR.

Interrupted Emancipation traces the struggles of socialist women in East Germany in various women’s platforms and within the state structures themselves. These women – such as Katharina ‘Käthe’ Kern, Hilde Benjamin, Lykke Aresin, Helga E. Hörz, Grete Groh-Kummerlöw, and Herta Kuhrig – fought to build an egalitarian legal order, develop socialist policies for childcare and eldercare, and bring women into leadership positions in both economic and political institutions. These programmes were not designed merely to improve the welfare and wellbeing of women, but also to transform social life, social hierarchies, and social consciousness. As Hilde Benjamin, the DDR’s minister of justice from 1953 to 1967, explained, it was essential that laws not only provide a framework to guarantee and enforce social rights, but that they also ‘achieve further progress in the development of socialist consciousness’.



Women entered the workforce in large numbers, fought for better family planning (including abortions), and demanded the dignity that they deserved. Interrupted Emancipations teaches us how so much was achieved in such a short time (a mere forty years). Leaders like Helga Hörz argued for women’s entry into the workforce not merely to enhance their incomes, but to ensure the possibility of women’s participation in public life. However, changes did not take place at the speed required. In December 1961, the politburo of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) condemned the ‘fact that a totally insufficient percentage of women and girls exercise middle and managerial functions’, blaming, in part, ‘the underestimation of the role of women in socialist society that still exists among many – especially men, including leading party, state, economic, and trade union functionaries’. To transform this reality, women set up committees in workplaces as well as housewives’ brigades to build mass struggles that fought to win society over to women’s emancipation.

The destruction of the DDR in the 1990s and its incorporation into West Germany led to the erosion of the gains socialist women had made. Today, in Germany, these socialist policies no longer remain, nor do mass struggles retain the level of vitality that they achieved in the four decades of the DDR. That is why the dossier is called Interrupted Emancipation, perhaps a reflection of the authors’ hope and conviction that this dynamic can be brought back to life.



Gisela Steineckert was one of the women who benefitted from the transformations that took place in the DDR, where she became a celebrated writer and worked to develop the cultural sector. In her poem ‘In the Evening’, she asks, is the struggle worth it? Without much pause, she answers: ‘the heart of the dreamer is always overly full’. The necessity of a better world is a sufficient answer.

In the evening, our dreams rest their heads against the moon,
asking with a deep sigh if the struggle is even worth it.
Everyone knows someone who suffers, suffers more than anyone should.
Oh, and the heart of the dreamer is always overly full.

In the evening the mockers come, a smile on their lips.
Belittle our every asset, turn pounds into chips.
They like to come at us with their lines, no one’s spared it.
Oh, and they advise us: Nothing was worth it.

In the evening, the sceptics come with creased faces,
leaf through old letters, don’t trust our words.
They stay away from it all, age ahead of their time.
Oh, and their pain and suffering are sublime.

In the evening, the fighters take off their boots,
eat dinner with relish, hammer three nails into the roof.
They want to contend with half a book, fall asleep at the end of a line,
amid captured weapons, next to red wine.[/b]

Warmly,

Vijay

https://thetricontinental.org/newslette ... omens-day/

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Proletarian Internationalism:
The Disconnect of the Western Left

AGONAS
MAR 20, 2024


Photo: Markus Spiske/Pexels

Proletarian Internationalism stands as a cornerstone principle in socialist theory, rooted in the understanding that capitalism systematically exploits and oppresses the global working class. Advocating for a unified struggle against capitalist exploitation and imperialism, internationalism recognizes the interconnectedness of the modern world, necessitating a global approach to addressing social, economic, and environmental issues.

Within the Western left, particularly in affluent countries, there has been a noticeable detachment from the principles of internationalism. This detachment is evident in responses to real-time crises such as those in Palestine, Syria, Sudan, Congo, and Haiti. Rather than viewing these struggles as connected to the broader fight against Western imperialism and exploitation, the Western left's response has often been fragmented and inconsistent.

Marxists argue that the interests of the working class transcend national borders and emphasize that only through international solidarity can the proletariat achieve liberation from capitalist oppression. Proletarian internationalism recognizes that workers of all nations share a common adversary in the capitalist class.

The First International Workingmen's Association (IWA), founded in 1864, acknowledged the international nature of the working class struggle. Its objective was to unite workers across borders to enhance their bargaining power and political influence.

Proletarian internationalism, as articulated by Vladimir Lenin and Rosa Luxemburg during the Second International, analyzed how wars between capitalist states were propelled by competition for markets and resources, fueled by militarism and national prejudices. Their resolution called for working-class efforts to prevent war and ultimately abolish the capitalist system to achieve lasting peace.

The Russian Revolution of November 7, 1917, where the Bolsheviks seized power, catalyzed liberation movements worldwide, notably in Africa. In 1919, Egypt witnessed widespread resistance against British colonial rule following news of the Bolshevik victory.

Furthermore, from 1960 onward, the Soviet Union supported various Marxist African struggles, providing political backing, weaponry, and military training, notably aiding the People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) in their resistance against Portuguese colonization.

African leaders such as Kwame Nkrumah and Frantz Fanon expanded Marxist theory in their independence movements, while activists in the United States like The Black Panther Party, influenced by International Marxist thought, viewed the Russian Revolution as a symbol of resistance against racial discrimination and economic exploitation.

Atomization refers to the process of breaking down collective identities and solidarity into isolated individuals or small, fragmented groups. In the neoliberal framework, individuals are encouraged to pursue their own self-interest, leading to competition and isolation rather than solidarity and cooperation against the common oppressor.

Neoliberalism exacerbates divisions, turning social struggles into isolated battles for recognition and representation. Instead of addressing the root causes of oppression, neoliberal policies often offer superficial solutions that fail to challenge the underlying structures of power and inequality.

Spiritual bypassing within the class struggle occurs when individuals or groups disregard or minimize issues such as racism in the pursuit of purely economic goals. This approach fails to recognize the intersecting nature of oppression and often dismisses the lived experiences of marginalized communities.

Lenin addressed this issue in his critique of economism within the Marxist movement, particularly in his work "What Is to Be Done?" He argued against reducing the class struggle to merely economic demands, emphasizing the importance of addressing all forms of oppression, including national and racial discrimination.

Lenin stressed the need for the proletariat to unite with oppressed and marginalized groups in a broader struggle against capitalism and all forms of oppression. He argued for the unity of the proletariat with oppressed groups, recognizing the interconnected nature of class struggle and social oppression, but not at the expense of causing harm.

"Unity is a great thing and a great slogan. But what the workers' cause needs is the unity of Marxists, not unity between Marxists, and opponents and distorters of Marxism. And we must ask everyone who talks about unity: unity with whom? With the liquidators? If so, we have nothing to do with each other."
-Vladimir Lenin

Living in the imperial core, there is a tendency to judge socialist movements abroad through a narrow lens of Western values and standards, often failing to appreciate the unique historical, cultural, and socio-economic contexts in which these movements operate.

The detachment of the Western left from the working class leaves it disconnected from the material conditions and struggles of the working class within their own countries, prioritizing abstract ideological debates over concrete solidarity with socialist movements abroad.

Working towards internationalism requires building genuine solidarity based on mutual respect, understanding, and a shared struggle against capitalism and oppression. This involves actively supporting and amplifying the voices of socialist movements in the Global South, as well as challenging Western hegemony within the imperial core.

https://agonas.substack.com/p/proletari ... ationalism