The counter-revolutionary dictatorship of revolutionary principles

Revolutionary principles are general and abstract deductions from the real, historical, concrete, revolutionary struggle.

For example, in my analysis of proletarian revolutions, I have deducted that without autonomy(1), both individual and collective, proletarians cannot consciously lead their own revolutionary movement. Without autonomy, that movement becomes alien from them, even if that movement is the result of their own activity. If proletarian activity has no base on individual and collective autonomy, then proletarians will create organisations that will reproduce the division between planners and executors, leaders and base militants, etc., and eventually the initiative of that movement will be monopolized by a bureocracy of bosses.

So, proletarian autonomy becomes a principle for revolutionary activity.

But what does this mean? That every concret activity of the revolutionaries must be deducted from the abstract principle of proletarian autonomy.

There's a lot of people who thinks that way. That our every-day activity must be deducted from revolutionary principles. Or, in a least sectarian fashion, that our every-day activity must have these principles as an ideal, and we should adapt our activity to match this ideal.

I believe this relationship between principles and activity is the cause of great deal of frustation, desperation, and eventually opportunism, sectarianism, and burnout(2) in the revolutionary meele.

What should be the role of principles? Principles should not be considered as "commandments" for our every-day activity, they should be considered as "guidelines" to think about our activity in the greater picture (the long-term effect of our every-day activity in order to create a revolutionary movement for a free society).

Our point of departure in every-day practical activity are not our revolutionary principles, ideas, ideology, programme etc. Is activity itself. Activity as it really is, not as it "shoud be", or as we want it to be.

If we know that proletarian revolution that leads to a communist/anarchist society can only be possible as a result of conscious revolutionary activity of the exploited masses of the whole world, then our main objective as revolutionary individuals and groups, is to help to create that mass revolutionary movement.

This, of course, can only be done interacting with the rest of the masses. But how and when should we interact with them in order to fulfill this objective? The answer to this question defines our revolutionary strategy.

Can we really define our revolutionary strategy as a mere logical deduction of our principles, regardless of our historical context? Yes, but it will be an inadequate strategy to that historical context. It will lead almost certainly to an sterile activity, an activity that will be progressive(3) or revolutionary only by accident.

Our strategy, then, must be a result of an analysis of the historical context (both objective and subjective). An analysis that tell us what is the real, concrete, social activity of the exploited masses today on current capitalism (therefore, an analysis of current capitalism must precede the analysis of the activity of the exploited masses, because capitalism is the totality that contains the exploited masses and their activity).

Having this analysis of current proletarian activity, then revolutionary proletarians can define an adequate(4) strategy to create a revolutionary movement in interaction with the rest of proletarians. That is, interaction with a proletarian movement that is not -yet- revolutionary, but reformist (In reformism I include pseudo-revolutionary individuals and groups, such as radical leftists/syndicalists who understand post-capitalist society as a capitalism run by the working class -or their vanguard party-).

Proletarian movement is a result of proletarian activity. And proletarian activity, in their collective aspect, is defined by cooperation. Proletarians are forced to cooperate in the production process, and they are also forced to cooperate to fight against capitalism in a broad sense (proletarian reformism also fights against capitalism, only that doesn't want abolition of capitalism, but a "better" capitalism to proletariat). So, there are various forms of cooperation, from alienated cooperation (cooperation for alienation) to revolutionary cooperation (cooperation for freedom of humanity and self-realisation of individuals).

We obviously prefer the latter, but we all know -or should know- that current forms of cooperation are closer to alienation than to revolution. So, our analysis of proletarian activity must tell us which forms of proletarian cooperation we encounter, and our activity must seek to strenghten their progressive aspects (because even the most alienated human activity seeks to fulfill a human need) and overcome their negative aspects, that is, to accelerate the transition from alienated cooperation to revolutionary cooperation.

So, our strategy and therefore our every-day activity is defined by our analysis of the real cooperation processes in real proletarian movement, not by a logical deduction of revolutionary principles. One more level of complexity: every-day activity is the only field when we prove the revolutionary correctness of our strategy. An incorrect analysis of our context (logicaly incorrect or logically-correct but with insufficient data) will lead to a wrong strategy. So our strategy cannot be defined once and for all, but it has to be re-defined when we learn from every-day activity that something is wrong in it.

What is the role or revolutionary principles in all of this? To help us to elaborate hypothesis of revolutionary strategies adequated to our current situation.

Revolutionary principles are general deductions from the experience of *previous* revolutionary movements. They contain a legacy of wisdom from past revolutionary movements. But even revolutionary wisdom can be wrong. Because what it could be revolutionary in one context is no longer revolutionary in another context. That's the practical reason why we must not deduct our activity from principles; because those if those principles need improvement, we will not see this because we will take them as axioms, and we will explain failure by superficial motives. That way we stablish a dictatorship of principles over our activity. This doens't only lead to failure, but a psycological fixation on this principles, a neurotic identification with them. So, if they're criticized, we take it as an attack to our persons. This identification of ourselves (or I should say our Self) with a set of ideas is the psycological base of sectarianism. And sectarinism will lead not only to isolate from those who don't think like us, but to a crippled perception of reality, in our analysis of reality we will "filter" those elements that prove our principles wrong (or no longer right).

I'll finish with a practical example to ilustrate the difference between an activity dictated by principles and an activity that puts principles in their right place.

There is a strike in a factory. Workers are discontent with their union officials. They have created their own strike committes, but the direction of strike is not on the hands of all workers, but on the hands of opposition to current union officials (let's say, leftist activists that seek to "take the power" of the union).

1) A very "principis" but sectarian way to intervene in that strike would be to practically abstain from this strike because it doesn't purely adapt to the principle of proletarian autonomy. That way reformists would have free way to keep the strike's direction in their hands, and the mass of the workers will probably see to groups who behave like this as idiots who, instead of participate of the organising and winning of the strike, they only dedicate to abstract calls for "proletarian autonomy" and to question every initiative of the strikers' representatives. And workers, even in a conservative way, would be right, because they are not blinded by a psycological depende of abstract principles. The workers' "common sense", even if in a reactionary way, will let them see that practical reformism is more progressive that abstract revolutionarism. By abstract revolutionarism I refer to a constant call for revolutionary activity disregarding the social context and a dogmatic anti-reformist attitude that doesn't recognize the progressive aspects of reformist activity for the development of proletarian autonomy and class conciousness.

2) Another way to intervene in that strike without abandoning the principle of proletarian autonomy begins by an objective evaluation of the subjectivity of the majority of workers. Is autonomy in them strong enough to dispense all representation? In other words, do the workers have developed the majority of abilities needed to self-direct the strike?
a) If the answer is yes, then our activity must center in the making of proposals for more efficient and participative forms of struggle and cooperation for struggle than the current ones (always taking into account the subjectivity of workers). Reformists elements most likely will oppose to those proposals. Then, if we have the support of the workers (the majority of them or even an important minority) it will be fully justified to lead a political struggle against the reformists, because there is a more progressive alternative to their direction and they are against it, being an obstacle to the struggle.
b) If the answer is no, it's highly unlikely that all the abilities needed to self-direction and weren't developed before the strike, will develop during the strike. Unless this miracle happens, that will mean that the reformists' direction of struggle will be the most progressive option available, given the context. This means that, in formal contradiction with the principle of proletarian autonomy, we must support the reformist direction of strike from an independent and critical stance (because if we support it acritically, we would be adding to the worker's conservatism). This support is, of course, conditioned to the progress of the strike. As long as the current direction is -in its practice, not only in its speach- the more progressive option available, we'll suport it in its possitive aspects and criticize it in its negative/limited aspects (and this public critique must *always* be followed by a viable proposal to correct these negative aspects).
At the same time, we must make clear to the mass of the workers that they need to develop the abilities to lead their own struggle. But this can only be possible if we know which these abilities are, we have learned them ourselves (equally or better than the reformists), and we are able to teach them. If that is not the case, we should have a lower profile about criticizing the reformist direction in public. Because, with all the reason in the world -although in a conservative way-, workers who trusts in reformist leaders experienced on strikes will regard us as upstarts if we make silly remarks that put in evidence our lack of experience(5). So, if we are unexperienced, our first priority is to learn.

In short:

Proletarian struggles such as the strike mentioned before may end in victory or defeat. However, from a proletarian-revolutionary point of view, the important thing about today's struggles is that the experience they provide help the proletarians to seek and appropiate the practical and theorical elements they need to develop their abilities to struggle against capital, lead that struggle themselves, and relate their own particular struggle with the general struggle of the rest of proletarians in their country and in the whole world.

Revolutionary activity in a reformist context must not be anti-reformist nor reformist. Therefore, it must not be ruled by revolutionary principles nor abandon them. Revolutionary activity must direct itself to improve the form and the content of cooperation that proletarians develop in their struggles. That means that revolutionary activity must adequate (not adapt) to the current level of development of proletarian cooperation, to help it develops further. Revolutionary principles' role is to help us think an strategy to help the movement to advance one step ahead from where it is now. Strategies must not be developed from a logical deduction of principles.

In other words, the revolutionary principles tell us what do we need to get to our final objectives (communist/anarchist society). But before taking this to every-day activity first we need to know where we stand. The creative adequation of our activity to our principles and our present situation is what gives birth to our strategy that, in turn, will be submitted to practical corroboration in our every-day activity.

Footnotes

1 I consider autonomy not only as independence from an "outsider", but as conscious self-determination in life. There is material autonomy, physical autonomy, mental autonomy, psycological autonomy. Of course, there are objective material limits to our individual and collective autonomy (the economy, the police), but many limits to our autonomy are subjective ones. We must think for ourselves to have mental autonomy, for example.

2 I conceive opportunism as abandoning all principles in the sake of an activity that leads to inmediate success.
I conceive sectarianism as "all activity that doesn't adapt to principles is opportunist!". So there are two choices: 1) limit to theory and propaganda, refuse all work in reformist meele (and in a reformist context, this means refuse all work), and blaming the masses for their stupidity, becoming more and more inward and self-centered. 2) to kid ourselves and believe everything we do is revolutionary because we do it with revolutionary intentions, or we do it under the flag of a revolutionary programme or a revolutionary ideology, or we do it from a self-appointed revolutionary organisation.
I consider burnout as abandon of all militant activity (both practical and theorical).

3 When I say progressive activity, I do not mean reformist activity (though reformist activity can be progressive depending on the context). I mean an activity that if not revolutionary in itself, is definitely a step in that direction.

4 "Adequate" doesn't mean "adapted". If we adapt to what we want to change, then we won't change it. To adequate is to change what we can change now, to endure what we cannot change now, and have the wisdom to distinguish between both.

5 Imagine an apprentice critizicing how an expert worker makes the job in their first day in the factory... This empirical consciousness developed by proletarians on their every-day activity, reactionary as it can be (because is developed under capitalist exploitation), is still superior to the lack of empirical consciousness of "ideologized" individuals. Revolutionary proletarians must not oppose to the empirical consciousness of non-revolutionary proletarians. On the contrary, we must support its progressive aspects, keeping what it has of rational (rational acording to the real objective and subjective situation of the proletariat) and critizicing what it has of irrational. The mission of revolutionary action and propaganda is to help to create a revolutionary proletarian consciousness out of the reformist proletarian "common sense". Of course this includes the intellectual development of proletarians, and we wouldn't be in position to help this development if we don't carry it in ourselves first.