Text coloring decodes as follows:
Black: | Ken Ellis |
Red: | Marx, Engels, and Lenin. |
Green: | Press report, etc. |
Blue: | Correspondent, adversary, SLP-related |
Purple: | Unreliable Info |
Brown: | Inaccurate quote, but true to intent |
... "Paul spoke very well - a slight indication of the universal strike dream in it, which nonsense Guesde has retained from his anarchist days - (whenever we are in a position to try the universal strike, we shall be able to get what we want for the mere asking for it, without the roundabout way of the universal strike)." ...
In a 17 June 1879 letter to Bernstein, Engels was even more precise: "So one can speak of a workers' movement here only to the extent that strikes take place which, victorious or otherwise, do not advance the movement by one single step."
In January of 1873, Marx satirized anarchist thinking in a short article entitled "Indifference to Politics". If the anarchists had been sincere, according to Marx, they would probably have expressed themselves in the following manner (NW 153, pp. 95-6):
""If the political
struggle of the working class assumes violent forms, if the workers
substitute their revolutionary dictatorship for the dictatorship
of the bourgeois class, they are committing the terrible crime
of lese-principle {crime
against principle},
for to satisfy their own base everyday needs and crush the resistance
of the bourgeoisie, instead of laying down arms and abolishing
the State they are giving it a revolutionary and transient form.
The workers should not form individual unions for each trade,
since they thereby perpetuate the division of social labour found
in bourgeois society. This division which disunites the workers
is really the basis of their present servitude.
""In a word, the workers should fold their
arms and not waste their time in political and economic movements.
These movements can only bring them immediate results. Like truly
religious people, scornful of everyday needs, they should cry,
full of faith: 'May our class be crucified, may our race perish,
but may the eternal principles remain unstained!' They should,
like pious Christians, believe in the words of the priest, despise
earthly blessings and think only of earning Paradise. For Paradise
read THE ABOLITION OF SOCIETY, which will one day arrive in some
small corner of the world, no one knows how or by whose efforts,
and the mystification will be exactly the same.
""Until this famous abolition of society arrives,
the working class must behave decently, like a flock of well-fed
sheep, leave the government in peace, fear the police, respect
the laws, and provide cannon fodder without complaining.
""In practical everyday life the workers must
be most obedient servants of the State, but inside themselves
they must protest energetically against its existence, and show
their profound theoretical disdain for it by purchasing and reading
literary treatises on the abolition of the State. They must moreover
take good care not to offer any resistance to the capitalist order
apart from holding forth on the society of the future in which
the odious order will have ceased to exist!"
"No one would deny that if the apostles of indifference
to politics were to express themselves in such a clear manner,
the working class would soon tell them where to go and would feel
highly offended by these bourgeois doctrinaires and displaced
gentlefolk who are stupid or naive enough to forbid them every
real method of struggle because all the arms to fight with must
be taken from existing society, and because the inevitable conditions
of this struggle do not unfortunately fit in with the idealist
fantasies that these doctors of social science have deified
under the name of Liberty, Autonomy and Anarchy."
Some of that obviously could have been written about the modern SLP and its anarchist-utopian program. In a letter to Sorge in October of 1891, Engels remarked about the concealed anarchists recruiting among attendees at the Erfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic Labor Party (LTA, p. 237):
"Everything went off very well in Erfurt. I shall send you the official minutes as soon as they are published. Bebel says the speeches were badly garbled in the news reports. Instead of making accusations, the opposition of the presumptuous Berliners was at once placed in the prisoner's dock itself. They behaved with miserable cowardice, and now they must work outside the party if they want to accomplish anything. Quite beyond doubt there are police elements among them, and another section consists of concealed anarchists, who want to do secret recruiting among our people. The rest of them are jackasses: bumptious students, unsuccessful candidates, and would-be great men of all sorts. All in all, less than two hundred strong. . . . We have the satisfaction of seeing the Marxian critique win all along the line. Even the last trace of Lassalleanism has been removed." ...
In a March, 1894 letter to Pablo Iglesias in Madrid, Engels again pointed out the close connections between anarchists, police, and bourgeoisie (MEW 39, p. 229):
... "With regard to the anarchists, they are probably in the process of committing suicide. These violent attacks, this series of attacks which are senseless, and, when all is said and done, are paid for and provoked by the police, must finally open the eyes of the bourgeois to the true character of this propaganda of fools and police spies. Even the bourgeoisie will find in time that it is absurd to pay the police, and through the police the anarchists, so that the anarchists can blow up those same bourgeois who pay them. And even if we now risk suffering under a bourgeois reaction, in the long run we will win, because this time we can show to everyone that between us and the anarchists there is a chasm." ...
In an 1873 article entitled "The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International", Marx, Engels, and Paul Lafargue (Marx's son-in-law) wrote about Bakunin's desire to make the local organizations, or "Sections" of the International Workingmen's Association, autonomous (NW 153, pp. 119-21):
"This same man {Bakunin} who in 1870 preaches to the Russians
passive, blind obedience to orders coming from above and from
an anonymous committee; who declares that jesuitical discipline
is the sine qua non of victory, the only thing capable
of defeating the formidable centralisation of the State - not
just the Russian State but any State; who proclaims a communism
more authoritarian than the most primitive communism - this same
man, in 1871, weaves a separatist and disorganising movement into
the fabric of the International under the pretext of combating
the authoritarianism and centralisation of the German Communists,
of introducing autonomy of the sections, a free federation of
autonomous groups, and of making the International what it should
be: the image of future society.
...
"While granting the fullest freedom to the movements
and aspirations of the working class in various countries, the
International had nevertheless succeeded in uniting it into a
single whole and making the ruling classes and their governments
feel for the first time the cosmopolitan power of the proletariat.
The ruling classes and the governments recognised this fact by
concentrating their attacks on the executive body of our whole
organisation, the General Council. These attacks became increasingly
intense after the fall of the Commune. And this was the moment
that the Alliancists chose to declare open war on the General
Council themselves! They claimed that its influence, a powerful
weapon in the hands of the International, was but a weapon directed
against the International itself. According to them, the General
Council's domineering tendencies had prevailed over the autonomy
of the sections and the national federations. The only way of
saving autonomy was to decapitate the International.
"Indeed the men of the Alliance realised that if
they did not seize this decisive moment, it would be all up with
their plans for the secret direction of the proletarian movement
of which Bakunin's hundred international brothers had dreamed.
Their invective wakened approving echoes in the police press of
all countries.
"Their resounding phrases about autonomy and free
federation, in a word, war-cries against the General Council,
were thus nothing but a manoeuvre to conceal their true purpose
- to disorganise the International and by doing so subordinate
it to the secret, hierarchic and autocratic rule of the Alliance.
"Autonomy of the sections, free federation of the
autonomous groups, anti-authoritarianism, anarchy - these were
convenient phrases for a society of the "declassed",
of "down-and-outs" "with no career or prospects",
conspiring within the International to subject it to a secret
dictatorship and impose upon it the programme of M. Bakunin! "
The Party's inspiration for the autonomy of its sections seems to have come straight from Bakunin's ideas for the autonomy of the sections of the First International. After the anarchists took over the Party in 1889, the Workmen's Advocate printed the NEC's comment that "The constitution grants the sections full autonomy." (See Appendix 2.)
In some of his letters to Americans, Engels complained about SLP sectarianism. Marx wrote philosophically about sectarianism in a November 1871 letter to Friedrich Bolte in New York, which also included a short history and statement of purpose of the First International (MESC, pp. 253-4):
... "The International
was founded in order to replace the socialist or semi-socialist
sects by a really militant organisation of the working class.
The original Rules and the Inaugural Address show this at a glance.
On the other hand the International could not have stood its ground
if the course of history had not already smashed sectarianism.
The development of socialist sectarianism and that of the real
working class movement always stand in inverse proportion to each
other. Sects are (historically) justified so long as the working
class is not yet ripe for an independent historical movement.
As soon as it has attained this maturity all sects are essentially
reactionary. But the features displayed by history everywhere
are repeated in the history of the International. Antiquated aspects
attempt to re-establish and to assert themselves within the newly
acquired form.
"And the history of the International was a continual
struggle of the General Council
against the sects and amateur experiments, which sought to assert
themselves within the International against the real movement
of the working class. This struggle was conducted at the Congresses,
but to a far greater extent in private negotiations between the
General Council and individual sections.
"Since in Paris, the Proudhonists (Mutualists) were
co-founders of the Association, they naturally held the reins
there for the first few years. Later, of course, collectivist,
positivist, etc., groups arose there in opposition to them.
"In Germany, the Lassalle clique. I myself corresponded
with the notorious Schweitzer for two years and proved to him
irrefutably that Lassalle's organisation was a mere sectarian
organisation and, as such, hostile to the organisation of the
real workers' movement propagated by the International.
He had his "reasons" for not understanding.
"At the end of 1868 the Russian Bakunin joined the
International with the aim of forming inside it a second
International called "Alliance de la Democratie Socialiste",
with himself as leader. He - a man devoid of all theoretical
knowledge - claimed to represent the scientific propaganda
of the International in that separate body, and wanted to make
such propaganda the special function of that second International
within the International.
"His programme was a hash superficially scraped
together from the Right and from the Left - equality of classes(!),
abolition of the right of inheritance as the starting
point of the social movement (St. Simonist nonsense), atheism
as a dogma dictated to the members, etc., and as the main
dogma (Proudhonist): abstention from political action.
"This puerile myth found favour (and still has a
certain hold) in Italy and Spain, where the material conditions
for the workers' movement are as yet little developed, and among
a few vain, ambitious, and empty doctrinaires in the French-speaking
part of Switzerland and in Belgium.
"To Mr. Bakunin his doctrine (the rubbish he borrowed
from Proudhon, St. Simon, and others) was and is a secondary matter
- merely a means to his personal self-assertion. Though a non-entity
as a theoretician he is in his element as an intriguer."
Has history come around once again to smash sectarianism? Marx and Engels also advised against sectarianism in their 1848 "Communist Manifesto" (MESW I, pp. 119-20):
"The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.
"In what relation do the
Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
"The Communists do not form a separate party opposed
to other working-class parties.
"They have no interests separate and apart from
those of the proletariat as a whole.
"They do not set up any sectarian principles of
their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.
"The Communists are distinguished from the other
working-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles
of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out
and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat,
independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of
development which the struggle of the working class against the
bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent
the interests of the movement as a whole."
To "shape and mould the proletarian movement" is precisely what the SLP has tried to do through its SIU program, adherence to which is a condition of Party membership. To create a sect that would be dedicated to a utopian program, and could be relied upon to not cooperate with other parties, and to not rally behind workers' interests, would meet bourgeois goals rather nicely. In a letter to Schweitzer in October 1868, Marx wrote more about sectarianism (MESC, p. 201):
"He {Lassalle} overlooked the fact that conditions in Germany
and England were different. He overlooked the lessons of the bas
empire {Second Empire}
with regard
to universal suffrage in France. Moreover, like everyone who maintains
that he has a panacea for the sufferings of the masses in his
pocket, he gave his agitation from the outset a religious and
sectarian character. Every sect is in fact religious. Furthermore,
just because he was the founder of a sect, he denied all natural
connection with the earlier working class movement both inside
Germany and abroad. He fell into the same mistake as Proudhon:
instead of looking among the genuine elements of the class movement
for the real basis of his agitation, he wanted to prescribe the
course to be followed by this movement according to a certain
doctrinaire recipe.
"Most of what I am now saying, post factum, I had
already told Lassalle in 1862, when he came to London and urged
me to place myself with him at the head of the new movement.
"You yourself have personally experienced the contradiction
between the movement of a sect and the movement of a class. The
sect sees its raison d'être
{reason for being} and
its point of honor not in what it has in common with the
class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes
it from the movement."
And, what is the 'particular shibboleth' of the SLP but its own SIU program? A great deal of information in Marx's letter still pertains to the SLP. In the "Critical-Utopian Socialism and Communism" chapter toward the end of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party" (MESW I, pp. 134-6), additional passages closely descriptive of the SLP can be recognized.
According to
the SLP, 'Socialism = Communism = classless and stateless
society, technologically advanced countries allegedly requiring no political transition period to reach. Since all modern countries
have state apparatuses, that proves that no country enjoys socialism.'
'A
workers' state is inconceivable, so every state is a capitalist state, even those that pretend to be socialist. Hence, in the presence
of all of these capitalist states, there is no
socialism anywhere.'
'The
predominant form of production and exchange in the technologically
advanced countries corresponds to capitalism, and the class struggle
between wage-workers and unemployed versus the capitalist class
will someday
lead to revolution.'
'Since
the socialist revolution will happen first in the advanced countries, then the struggles
that go on in the colonies cannot possibly be socialist in nature, because socialism follows
capitalism, not feudalism or colonialism. Whatever happens in
the colonies cannot affect prospects for revolution in advanced
countries. Therefore, anything
occurring in the colonies is irrelevant to the interests of the
workers in the advanced capitalist countries.'
Having defined 'scientific socialism' and 'scientific
communism' to be one and
the same thing, i.e., classless and stateless society, SLP leaders concluded that 'Socialism or communism in the alleged
socialist countries cannot possibly exist, since obviously the
state and classes still exist in those countries, and the level
of economic development there corresponds only to a low level
of capitalism, or even to feudalism.
Only the
American economy and few others can support socialism, so the claims of some
states as having had socialist revolutions are
incorrect or fraudulent, so therefore are not worth supporting
in the least.'
'There
is no reason for oppressed workers in the colonies to fight for national independence or take state power, because,
by doing
so (i.e., by using the capitalist state), they will
only end up being exploited by their own national bourgeoisie
and will thus get absolutely nowhere. The only hope for the oppressed people in the colonies is to wait for American workers to have their SIU
revolution first,
who will then provide the colonies with machinery to modernize
their primitive tools of production. Then the workers in the colonies can organize their own
Industrial Unions and liberate themselves at their own pace.'
'Whatever
the workers in the colonies do,
they should
not resist their oppressors, due to the inevitable failure of
such efforts. Rather than try and fail, it is far better not to
try at all, and thus not fail.'
'Three
superpowers - America, China, and Russia - were battling each
other for hegemony over Vietnam, allowing the Vietnamese no chances whatsoever to win a struggle against
the combined might of all three. Because of their low state of economic development, it didn't matter who won, or if the superpowers
simply pulled out and went home, because the Vietnamese would only go on being
exploited by one of the superpowers or by their own national bourgeoisie as oppressively as ever.
Since it didn't matter which ruling class won, all American aid, assistance and demonstrations
against the war
were a total waste of time, for, what with the comparatively low level of
economic development, the Vietnamese were automatically condemned
to suffer the fate of class division, the state, and capitalist exploitation.'
Such was the sentence of slavery
that the SLP handed down to the Vietnamese, 'an irrevocable enslavement
to their capitalist, feudal or imperialist ruling classes until
some day their productive forces evolve to the point where they
can organize themselves into Socialist Industrial Unions, and leap into the classless and stateless
administration
of things.'
By redefining socialism to mean ONLY classless
and stateless society, and
by asserting that 'the
USA has the necessary level of technology to leap into classless and stateless
society', they
were then able to falsely conclude that: 'Socialism was possible for the USA, but
not for Russia.'
'If
the Soviet state owned and controlled the means of production
in the old Soviet Union, and if all state ownership can only be capitalist state ownership; then
Russia's
Communist Party must have comprised a new capitalist class.' A corollary of this perspective
is: 'The
party of the proletariat, upon coming to power, turns its back on the proletariat and
becomes its new oppressor. That is why De Leon warned of the menace of a mere political victory of the working class party. Without the SIU having
been organized to step in and lock out the capitalists and establish
the Industrial Union administration of production when the state
and parties are abolished, the capitalist state would continue
to oppress workers.' Additionally,
'If any country
has an alleged socialist revolution, it must immediately abolish
its state in order to prove that it has indeed had a true socialist
revolution.'
'There
were two theories of revolution:
an economic
theory for advanced countries, to come true in the future, and
a bad, political scenario that materialized in the past. In other words 1):
A Marxist-De Leonist theory of
revolution in technologically advanced countries - economic rather
than political' - and, 2): 'An obsolete
Marxist theory for individual
backward countries, political rather than economic,
complete with transition periods, dictatorships of the proletariat over the middle classes, and oppressive state apparatuses.'
'Technologically
advanced countries should not follow the Marxist model of revolution for underdeveloped countries.'
'Because
of advances in the tool of production,
political
solutions are no longer necessary in technologically
advanced countries.
The form into which workers should organize so as to avoid using the state or any kind of political solution was discovered by De
Leon. Political
solutions
yesterday, classless and stateless Industrialism today. The Marxist theory
of the state was as good as what could have been gotten in the
bad old days of underdevelopment, but nowadays the form into which
we can organize ourselves to put aside antique political solutions to modern problems has at last been
discovered by De Leon. All we have to do is organize into Socialist
Industrial Unions, dismantle the state when the Party is elected,
and proceed to classless and stateless paradise.'
In an attempt to antidote the kind of 'economic determinist' label that the foregoing analysis might
conjure up, members were encouraged to read Engels' letter to
J. Bloch of September 1890, in which historical materialism was somewhat differentiated from economic determinism. It was hoped that the mere reading
of that letter would be sufficient to make members aware of the
issue, and, by so doing, would enable members to better deny the
charge of them being economic
determinists.
My old SLP membership application
blank asked, "Do you realize that all
the other political parties, and factions thereof, are necessarily the instruments
of capitalist interests?" In
order to agree to such a statement,
new members must either be somewhat naive, with no previous political
experience, or anxious to belong to something, or maybe anything,
and/or willing to lie to join it. One or more of the above must
have been my own reason for signing, as I had to have compromised
my principles when I agreed to that statement with no personal
knowledge of its veracity. If any of the members who inducted
me had pinned me down to find out if I truly agreed with that
statement, the truth might
have come out that I really had no personal knowledge; but since
a 'yes' seemed to have been what the Party had wanted applicants to respond with, I must
have written 'yes' precisely so that I could become a
member.
The SLP could not have survived with its present
program for so long unless the membership was
very weak in theoretical matters. For a relatively small fee,
members have had the satisfaction of belonging to a revolutionary organization. They are entitled by membership to
know things that outsiders will perhaps never know. While I was
in the Party, what we were entitled to know was little
more exciting than: 1) our laziness would be frowned upon by the
Party hierarchy if we didn't participate in their marketing plans to distribute ever more leaflets, literature and bring
in new members; 2) feeble
explanations of why the Party was
on a gradual decline; 3) well after something real had happened
in the Party, and was over and done with, we may
have been entitled to read a one-sided report
about it in a letter
to the membership, an NEC Report, or a Convention Report.
There are many in the field who pay their dues, distribute leaflets,
attend Section
meetings and functions, and would generally like things to
go smoothly in the Party. They neither make trouble, look for
trouble, nor do they want to have anything to do with trouble.
Some of these members have even worked at the National Office. With this portion of the membership, I have little
quarrel, except that they probably have maintained a poor understanding
of social theory and should therefore take the time to bone up
on it before committing to a program for change, for fear of their
ideas being too
far out of touch with reality
to do anyone any good.
Many members are very protective of the Party, and think that 'forces are bent on the destruction of
the only hope for humanity'. To any sign of those destructive forces,
as indicated to them by their instincts, or by the National Office, they give a wide berth. They continue
to maintain the illusion that 'A conspiracy of silence and calumniation
has been directed against the Party program for change to ensure
that it will never be heard by the majority, who will be saved by it. Without knowledge of the Party program,
workers will probably make
the mistake
of seeking political
solutions
to the social ills that plague us, and will thus be condemned to suffer under the eternal oppression of the state.'
Some members may find it easy to think that
they are the
last of a dying breed of 'true socialists' who are keeping the
torch lit for a time in the future
when workers are expected to finally accept the teachings of the SLP, at which time their educational and organizational mission would begin in earnest; but, in the
meantime, they carry on with the leafletting, picnics, banquets and Section
meetings. They continue to
follow all of the rules
of the Party and keep internal matters
a big secret. They fail to
understand that the secrecy has been designed to prevent the kind
of communication that has the potential to break the
stranglehold of ignorance in their ranks.
Members were supposed to be united by their
mutual desire to change society, but the bureaucratic Party structure and the SIU program
could never appeal to very many. To have spent so much energy
taking quotes out of context and redefining basic concepts such
as proletarian
dictatorship implies nothing
less than an intent to justify a worthless program. The rubbish created by falsifiers
has been knowingly perpetuated by bureaucratic scoundrels, and in many cases unwittingly adopted by rank-and-file
members who are deficient in theory.
When A.P. falsified the meaning of anarchism by accusing it of wanting to abolish the state with
nothing to take its place,
I wonder if any members protested the fact that this
was not really the program
of anarchism, for what the
anarchists really wanted was to replace the state with an administration of things, very much like the SIU.
Or were they so apathetic that they didn't care what kind of false philosophy A.P. attached to anarchism?
On the other hand, how extensive was the philosophical anarchist element in the Party
who didn't care much about Marxism, but
instead were so happy with the SIU program
that they didn't care if it was supported by lies?
If this philosophical
anarchist element did exist,
were they afraid to admit that they were anarchists?
Did they draw new members into the Party
with full knowledge that it had an
anarchist
program? Did they knowingly
lie if they described the program
of the Party as being 'socialist'?
Upon some members becoming informed of the true state of affairs, a natural reaction for some
may be to become mute, as though nothing happened. To admit to
having been deceived, or to have been unconscious enough to have
allowed themselves to have been fooled would be inconceivable,
too large an insult to their egos, and too much of an undesirable
dose of consciousness to allow themselves to consider. In
order to be of use to society, some think that they must be infallible,
and ready for whatever the revolution
might bring. After all, they have been telling themselves for
so long that they were the only
hope for mankind, and that
'the working
class will eventually look
to them for
the guidance that only they will be able to provide in
a revolutionary crisis'.
To doubt their roles on a fundamental level would be an admission
of weakness that a revolutionary could never admit to. There may be others
who will be thrown into a state of denial
over having been used by liars to help
them distribute lies. Will their paralysis
forever prevent them from co-operating to throw out the lies?
During the few years I stayed with the Party, and as frustrating was the scenario that unfolded
before me, I stuck with the situation for as long as I could because
I had a certain amount of faith that most members were basically
honest workers and progressives who were attracted to the Party for one reason or another, but who never really
studied Marxism deeply enough. They merely accepted
a plausible Party
line about the nature of socialism and
revolution that happened
to sound 'just
right' to a constituency
that has had a little time to 'dabble' in
revolution, but not enough time nor interest to
actually compare revolutionary theories.
Having reread the letters that were sent to
me by the handful of members I regularly corresponded with, I
can easily vouch for the basic honesty of
that segment of the membership. There is no question that at least
the members I corresponded with had no intention of paralyzing or sabotaging
progressive
movements. Neither were they
at the center of Party
activities, cynically doing
the intellectual
work, keeping the People publication going, while knowing that what the Party stood for was but a miserable caricature of socialism. Rather, they were in the rank-and-file, doing
the marketing, taking pride in belonging to what they
honestly believed to be an organization that had something positive
to offer to the lower classes, many times worrying about the decline
of the Party, sometimes grumbling about the monotony
of the work, most of the time willing to discuss problems that arose, and many times coming up
with innovative ideas.
The concentration of power into the hands of
the National
Office enabled a division
of labor between the intellectuals and the rank and file members.
In the Party's
intellectual hierarchy, the
NO exercised a practical monopoly control over questions of revolutionary theory, while the membership had insufficient understanding of, dialog about,
or control over, the theories and methods that
the NO preached, ordained,
or upheld to be suitable for
the membership to endlessly practice.
After undertaking this analysis of the SLP program and ideology, how could I have had faith that the
Party that I belonged to could come to an
understanding of its role and regroup behind a higher principle? How could I have maintained a faith that the
Party's followers were basically honest progressive
people who could pick up the pieces and put them together in a
far more coherent pattern than before? My own experience told
me that there were honest
progressives in the Party who had little to lose by helping
the Party to correct its
mistakes, and that it was worth my while to stick
with them to see if I could get the word
to them. What choice did I have if other parties had problems
of their own that were just as bad as those of the SLP? I wasn't about to attach myself to a different
party, what with the possibility that I would get just as disappointed
in the new one as I did with the old one.
I mention this in some detail due to the fact
that, because I became critical of Party ideology while still in it, I was
then accused of having
collaborated or joined some other party for the purpose of de-stabilizing
the SLP. My accusers charged me with being some kind of saboteur
or spy in order to salvage what might have been left of their
own self-respect. They had no yardstick of their own with which
to determine the point at which the Party's own filthy lies and sordid record
of falsifications could produce
members like myself who would educate themselves
and try to point
out the lies to the rest
of the members.
What qualifies
the Party as one of bourgeois interests is that
its leadership butchered many aspects of radical thought and history
that could help improve the development of consciousness in the lower classes, and it prevented civilized discussion within the Party
on those very subjects. In my experience, my associates
at the NO didn't have a single good excuse for
blocking the discussion of the Party's outrageous lies. Their adherence to the policy of silencing dissent within their ranks - instead of breaking
with that policy - indicated an interest in preserving
the dominance of their own muddled ideological line, and of their own dominance
in general. Instead of joining in the struggle to find a feasible
program of social change, they did little more than perpetuate
the fraud and worthlessness
of the anarcho-syndicalist
SIU, a program
that they had to support publicly, but, in less public circumstances,
were sufficiently critical of to suggest changing into an 'organ of state power'.
I had no axe to grind about anarchism
or any other kind of 'ism' when I got to know the SLP in 1972. It was socialism I was interested in,
and the Party called itself 'Socialist',
and not an Anarchist
Labor Party. If it had wanted to be anarchist,
it should have called itself anarchist, instead of lying about its ideology. Because of the vile and sneaky methods
the anarchists used to gather the naive around their
cause, they certainly also gave anarchism a bad name, if anarchism
ever had a good name. Anarchists should have the right
to espouse their philosophy as they see fit, but when they do so
under the auspices of socialist
ideology that they knowingly
contradict, then they move out of the category of honest ideologues (if anarchists
ever deserved that description) and into the category of willful
deceivers.
While thinking about my experiences, I sometimes
became hyper-critical, as this old draft to a correspondent will
show:
'If there was an element in the Party that was capable of being outraged, then they
might have been outraged over the fact that the intellectuals of the NO knew that the Party program
was based on lies, but they refused to take part in informing the membership, and here are two possible
reasons: 1) they willingly joined the swindle,
recognizing it as such and naturally had to keep it a secret, or 2) they weren't part of the swindle to begin with, but later became aware of it, and then realized that it was easy enough to
milk it to their own benefit, and for that reason
kept it a secret.
'The bureaucrats
develop an arrogance and a haughtiness and would like to create
an aura around themselves as if they alone had been appointed
to carry on the De
Leonist tradition. Those
at the bottom of the hierarchy who come around to an understanding
of the true state of affairs and who wish to communicate its sordidness to the rest of the membership
will get to be treated as though they were just there to be exploited,
or as though they barely exist. Because they don't have any power
of their own, they might as well be condemned to stay in that
condition forever. If they didn't have the smarts to join in with
the scam and enjoy the corruption, they should
be a slave until they do get the smarts. If unwilling to join
the present scam, then, with any luck, they may get the
smarts to discover some other scam they can run on some other
suckers.'
While paying lip service to democracy
in the Party, the intellectuals
think that they have the same right to determine its ideology that religious fanatics have to determine
how a woman should control her body. Who but very sinister or
cynical elements would try to get others to believe in what they
themselves know to be nothing but a farce?
I remember how naive I was when I first joined,
and if it hadn't been for the same people whom I now criticize,
but who urged me to study and educate myself,
then it's anyone's guess as to how long I would have remained
a pseudo-socialist myself, spreading lies
without much enthusiasm. I remain appreciative of those who pointed
out that I had a lot to learn, and I thank them for that, for
I was definitely open to any kind of information that would have
made a better student out of me, and I am still of that frame
of mind.
After having
gone through quite a bit of agony in the Party,
I began associating what was happening with dialectical processes. I saw the Party's falsifications
of Marxism and history as negations
thereof, and it occurred to me that the Party
had to start negating those negations
if it wanted to evolve into something viable. In order to do
this, channels
of information would have
to open up so that any sensitive subject could
be openly
discussed. The members must
be very sick by now of the historical trend of the Party getting smaller and smaller, while the problems
that surround workers continue to multiply.
The technique has to be an old one. Falsify history and the views
of the founders of socialism, and then make up a whole new philosophy, politics
and solution to take the
place of the original
theories. Hand down fraud as immutable
truth. Discourage
study of anything other than Party-approved literature, and encourage distribution and marketing of Party propaganda.
Maintain a bureaucratic organizational structure to ensure that
only the designated fraud is disseminated, censor any attempts
to spread the word if members discover it,
and give them no alternative but to quit or be expelled
if they don't like it.
If there are reactionaries who want to keep
workers at each other's throats, one way to keep them divided
is to spread all kinds of invalid ideas and propaganda and let workers fight over the phony ideas
forever after. With all of the resources at their disposal, they
could create a new party every week, and with scarce opportunities
to make the rich richer, they could have opportunists fighting
for the pleasure of leading bands of deceived dogmatists for many
a year. The first book by one of the famous defectors from the
CIA reveals that this was precisely one of the tricks that was
played in Latin America. They actually created parties with revolutionary
sounding names that were used by the governments to disrupt, co-opt,
and spy on other progressives.
From what Engels
had indicated in January 1887 (see Appendix 1), the old SLP platform was worthy of his approval, but near
the end of 1889, the anarchists toppled the socialists
in a palace coup. In spite of initial optimism over getting rid
of the Rosenberg clique, Engels didn't regard the results of the
coup as much of an improvement.
Were this book to be freely circulated among the membership, the following reactions
are conceivable:
Some members would welcome a lot of nagging
questions being answered. Some might become inspired to further study Party history.
Some would not be satisfied with anything less than the truth about the role of the SLP,
and would not be so easily fooled in the future.
Some might continue to look upon the SIU as the only hope for humanity
and will continue to want to propagate it.
Some might recognize that the SIU has little
basis in Marxism and might want to stop misrepresenting
it as having much in common with Marxism. Some might even want to change the Party's name to something more attuned to the anarchist element of their philosophy.
Some might portray themselves as the true defenders of 'Marxism-De Leonism'
and denounce all critics of their dogma
as police
agents bent on destroying the only hope for humanity. They might regard any criticism of
their dogma as the greatest of blasphemy, and as
anathema to their cause. They might want to do whatever they
could to prevent other members from becoming more aware of problems and contradictions.
Some who have been close to the scene of the
ongoing crimes
against consciousness may
initially try to suppress knowledge of this book, but failing
that, they may sniff the wind for a sense of direction, and, wishing
to be on the winning side, may want to take the course of least
resistance and drift with the consensus. Rather than wanting to get to the
root of the problems, they might agree that 'perhaps a few internal
problems existed ', and most
likely would want to find a middle-of-the-road compromise, and then quickly extinguish
any controversy that might embarrass them. If they had been in
the Party
bureaucracy, they could turn
out to be quite antagonistic to efforts to raise consciousness.
Some may display a willingness to compromise
with previous
positions by converting to
a more 'Marxist' position, possibly by proposing to
make state
organizations out of the SIUs,
or by supporting a shorter
work-week, as though that
could satisfy anyone who was outraged by the lies.
Or, since they might not be above pretending to be outraged, they
might suggest some inadequate means of dealing with the Party's dishonesty, or may instead want to fault the same old fall-guys, or otherwise fail to call for a full investigation, and quickly concern themselves with
just getting
back to a normal state of affairs.
If there is a group of SLP intellectuals who find that it impossible to suppress
knowledge of this book, but who disagree with
many aspects of its criticisms, they may decide to apply their
prodigious talents to nit-picking the book apart, seizing upon details
they could dwell upon to try to discredit
it. They may be quite willing to divert
the Party's
attention away from the main
criticisms of the old
leaders' falsifications of Marxism
by not mentioning them at all, and instead engage in a biting criticism of its alleged flaws. They may want
to search Party
records to dig up matters
of detail to prove that I was wrong or inaccurate on this
or that point, and then concentrate Party consciousness on my errors to invalidate
the rest of it. They would applaud the
level of democracy already within the Party,
but would insist upon editing any theoretical journal
that the rank-and-file might propose in order to discuss theoretical matters.
They might also want to claim
that this book was nothing more than an exercise in the 'nit-picking-to-death'
of Party
literature. They might want to describe A.P.'s pamphlets
as popularizations
of Marxism that could never be faulted except for the difficulty
entailed in compacting a tremendous amount of theoretical material
in a small space in order to reach a greater market, and which
could never approach the depth of analysis that a very long book
could encompass. My criticisms
of A.P. and De Leon might be denigrated
as cowardly
attacks upon
dead people who can no longer defend themselves. Wishing that history was dead, they may very
conveniently forget that Marx and Engels continued to criticize
Lassalleanism far beyond Lassalle's death in 1864. Considering
the weakness of the membership in theoretical affairs, and the
willingness of some of them to want to keep on supporting
the old dogma, the smoke screen
that the intellectuals might be willing to put up
just might be sufficient to drown out
any support for the kinds of changes that this book suggests.
Some might say that I have been too rough on
the Party, that they mean well, but, because they
are ignorant, they innocently
bumble their way toward the revolution. The Party has such an
innocuous program, so harmless to anyone, so, why treat them like
criminals if they would never harm a flea? To this, I would say that a party is not a union, nor is it like any other less-political workers' organization. What a party is supposed to be doing
at this stage of the struggle for influence in the state is raising consciousness, instead of lowering it.
A union can be forgiven to a certain extent
for making mistakes, but a Party leadership
that willingly and knowingly lies about
theory, or simply allows the lies to be
perpetuated generation after generation, must be
criticized without let-up, so that everyone becomes aware that
the SLP, and other parties as well, pretend
to speak
for the interests of the
lower classes, but are just
looking for suckers who can be roped into supporting programs
of folly, deceit and status quo, given the impossibility of doing
anything about property.*
* A reading of Marx "On America and the Civil War" shows that slavery remained an unresolved issue
from the founding of the USA in the 1700's, and that the South
attacked the North to try to retain slavery by dictatorship, for
the South had become increasingly fearful that its diminishing
pro-slavery majority in the Senate would soon be lost, and that
slavery would be banned by law.
Southerners were willing to smash the Union of States and fight
to their death to preserve and extend as immoral a form of ownership
as slavery, so people today would probably be willing to die ten
times over to preserve all of the 'moral' forms of property ownership.
While willing to ban slavery, the North was unwilling to impose
dismantlement of the Southern plantations in order
to provide the freed slaves with their promised 40 acres and a mule, even though the vanquished South could not have
resisted such an imposition.
Other opportunists would probably do exactly
what the Party
intellectuals continue to
do, for what the Party has to offer may still fetch a price,
just like so many other ideologies that are worthless to workers.
They would probably like us to not be too hard on them, for they
are entrepreneurs who have marketing considerations on their mind, and little else. Criticisms of
their product are not welcome, for it might interfere
with its future marketability.
We all know how easily we are fooled by lies
and tricks. But, has anyone asked if any of us are willing to
be led by truth? How financially rewarding can telling the truth be, when so much else is based upon
lies and makes so much money? Would any leader want any more than
to convert to 'a more plausible system of fraud than what the
next guy is willing to dish out'? Can progressive people defraud
their way to a better world, or is a better world something that
will come about only when progressives devote themselves to finding facts and looking for truth,
no matter how difficult the chore, or the sacrifice involved?
The rubbish that passes for progressive thought may continue to
attract a following as long as the situation is as yet quiet,
and the majority of the people can still get by, or can be bought
off. Near the end of his 1880 "Development of Socialism From Utopia
to Science", Engels
wrote about a basic theoretical point of societal control (MESW III, p. 148):
"It is, therefore, the law of division of labour that lies at the basis of the division into classes. But this does not prevent this division into classes from being carried out by means of violence and robbery, trickery and fraud. It does not prevent the ruling class, once having the upper hand, from consolidating its power at the expense of the working class, from turning its social leadership into an intensified exploitation of the masses."
This is the
stage that society has been in for too long, and though it may
not be possible to eliminate the 'violence and robbery' any too soon, one step we can take is to at least
do what we can to stop the 'trickery and fraud'
that some
leaders perpetrated on us.
But when such a thing as a change in
a Party depends for its success upon members
accepting and acting on truth, then,
for truth to be the only impetus to change, may
very well be asking too much. The SLP
just might choose to allow
the world to deteriorate
a lot further before any of them allow a little doubt to creep
into their minds as to the appropriateness of their present path.
If we, for once, lived in the kind of world
in which it was possible for people to stop pretending they were
something that they were not, then the SLP
might collectively declare that the jig was up, and would figure
out a way to honorably put an end to their fraud.
But, perhaps there is not a trace of hope that reason
could at all prevail in the world at present, not even in ostensible
socialist circles, proving in itself how worthless socialism,
anarchism, communism
and state
ownership are for the lower
classes.
There may be some who will say that I wrote
this book to wreck the Party, to
smash 'society's
hope' into a thousand pieces so that it will scatter before the wind. But how could such
a charge be reconciled with the fact that I urge unity
of members around the project of undoing
the anarchy,
bureaucracy, censorship, fraud, secrecy, cults of personality,
states of denial, and sectarianism
which so fetter the Party, if it really
wants to be a political party. To the charge that this book was written
to wreck the Party, one could
just as easily make the opposite argument that the alleged Party cannot prevent certain collapse without a drastic
intervention of truth-seeking. In its present dress, the Party can do little better than to wreck
the workers' movement, to mire it into
a stasis, to inspire workers with little more than destructive impulses. 'Destroy the state and replace it with the administration of things, and all will be well.' Bureaucracy, censorship, secrecy, cults of personality,
states of denial and sectarianism
were the shoddy tools that the workers were provided for their
revolutionary
quest.
How could any book bring a movement to
its knees? It is only the members of a party that could possibly
affect it one way or the other. For all anyone can tell about
the result of this alleged attack on the alleged Party, it could just as likely rejuvenate itself to defend and promote anarcho-syndicalism with a thousand times greater determination than
what it exhibits now. It is all up to the members. I
am content to have had my say about what they promote.
In retrospect, and provided that one can create
the time in one's life to investigate a party, the SLP turned out to be the best teacher of Marxism imaginable, provided that one approaches what
they promote with a jaundiced eye and suspects that
the very opposite is the actual truth. Then
one can read their 'literature' and do whatever is necessary to prove
or disprove their theses, and in so doing, develop a real perspective
on what socialism is, was, and what it might have been, had history
been kinder to it. We can therefore thank a teacher like A.P.,
who probably has proteges in other movements and parties, that
other people can go on to investigate in their own movements.
For students of social change, the SLP
is a good place to get totally frustrated when just starting out.
To overcome the frustration is truly in the interest of the workers,
and truly a growth experience; and to overcome one's frustration
in one's own organization while still in it is doubtlessly worth
more than trying to do it from the outside.
If the attitude
of SLP bureaucrats remains purely obstructionist, one way for honest members
to avoid the misfortune of watching helplessly while an intractable
NO expels Section
after Section, or member after member, who possibly
become outraged by the lies and want
to open up
some discussion, would be
to withhold acting on their outrage or otherwise keeping cool
until they accumulate the mutual support that would ensure that
whatever they decide most needs their attention actually receives
it. Teaching the NO to serve the Party
instead of dominating
it may not be an easy task,
given their past obstructions of freedom of speech.
But, the Party could force an opening up of its internal channels of
communication with a theoretical journal in which any relevant topic could be
discussed. Potentially, the Party
could open up a computer
network for that purpose,
a move that many other organizations have accomplished with good
results. Whatever members do, their first act should be that of
creating the mechanism for a full, uncensored discussion of any subject they desire, without possibility of
retribution from an angry NO,
NEC, Subcommittee,
Convention, or any other powerful faction of the Party.
If the Commune and
the First
International were examples
of more democratic models, an organization that expresses
lower class interests will not saddle members with bureaucracies that conspire in secrecy
to deprive members from directly participating in decisions that affect them. It will not micromanage the lives of its members, tell them
what they can join or participate in, tell them with whom they
can associate, etc. By making unions, parties
and other organizations responsible to no one but members, examples
can be created and experiences learned from. Confidence could
be gained in building organizations to challenge the dominance
of the upper class ideology of unbridled competition.
It may soon be time for a movement to evolve which is not afraid of the truth,
is truly representative of the interests of the lower classes,
and does not allow a pack of opportunists to make a career out
of forcing
ideas upon members. The new
organization would utilize present democratic
provisions of free
speech and association to
work for the education of its members in the ways of opportunism,
as much as in feasible ways of abolishing class distinctions. What the lower classes need now is a movement
in which any one person would be proud to be a member, a movement
that uses democracy to promote even more democracy,
and promotes social solutions in the context of existing democracies.
While beginning
to write this book in 1992, I had no idea that I would at any
time find myself breaking with Lenin, Engels or Marx; but that
I did, and precisely on the subject of 'taking away the property of the rich'. Instead, our most pressing need is
to build a movement that will work to reduce hours of labor as the most effective means of solving social
problems on a fundamental level.
Capitalism - the economic system described by
Marx as a real
social revolution - is a
great engine of social progress, mostly because of its ability
to liberate
people from work, and the
producers from their products, painful as that may be to so many
people, myself included. To harness this great engine of social
progress, instead of trying to demolish it out of hand,
to put it to work in the interests of the lower classes, and allow
people the free
time with which they can
develop their talents and abilities, is a goal
for a portion of society that cannot stand for so many needs to
go unfulfilled, and for so much ignorance and brutality to prevail.
We should be flexible enough to be able to reject
old methods when history proves them to be useless, and then go
back in history if necessary to figure out what would be the most
fruitful tactics to apply to the growing problem of unemployment.
'Nobody cares' seems to be what's on people's minds nowadays,
and while children run wild in the streets, and we can barely
keep our wits together due to having to work 40 or more hours per week, all too little is the time left for
us to care for others, our communities, our loved
ones, etc. I could only expect that one of the effects of reducing work-hours would be for a portion of us to have
more time to care, and, with this massive input of care, for many more social programs to be put in place,
for crime to drop, for people to start getting over their sense
of powerlessness, etc.
In his 1864 "Inaugural Address of the Working Men's
International Association",
Marx was unequivocal in his support of reducing hours of labor (MESW
II, p. 16):
... "This struggle about the legal restriction of the hours of labour raged the more fiercely since, apart from frightened avarice, it told indeed upon the great contest between the blind rule of the supply and demand laws which form the political economy of the middle class, and social production controlled by social foresight, which forms the political economy of the working class. Hence the Ten Hours' Bill was not only a great practical success; it was the victory of a principle; it was the first time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class succumbed to the political economy of the working class." ...
We will have
to contemplate our future and determine if our fate is to enrich
the upper classes at our own expense, or to intervene. The latter
course will require replacing the unrestrained competition that
constitutes the political economy of the upper classes with the
political economy of the lower classes - the abolition of competition over diminishing numbers of long-hour
opportunities to make the rich richer than their wildest dreams.
To debate the debatable, and in order to reach
a consensus, we need a forum
in which arguments can be made and heard by anyone who wants to
take part in the discussion, and in which we can have some cool,
unemotional, fact-based arguments. Computer conferences may be a perfect way of solving the problems of
organizing
ideas, and of making valuable information
accessible. The unreserved
freedom of
speech that can be achieved
in that medium may enable us to solve the theoretical or practical
problems of the structure of the forum
in which organizations of the lower classes may fully discuss
strategy and tactics. A memory bank of everything that is submitted
to it, and a full index to the ideas is technologically feasible.
The Internet can become a great asset to the lower
classes in helping develop a real dialogue, but the Internet as yet falls short of reaching many
who would benefit by self-expression. A weekly printout of submissions, organized
and categorized in a newspaper format, could serve for a while
to bring the forum to those who are still far removed from
access to technology. With the passage of time, and with the accompanying
cheapening of Internet technologies, old-fashioned hard-copy formats
may never enter the picture. Secrecy would be of zero importance
in free speech electronic mediums, since the intentions
of the movement are entirely peaceful toward
all. It wants little more than for everyone to be able to earn
a living for as long as human labor is still essential to productive
processes.