shock horror, union hack promoting the distinct separation of politics and actual class struggle.
the critique of the classical revolutionary organisation
posi: have you seen this thread? http://libcom.org/forums/thought/revolutionary-organisation
I'm sorry Posi, but it appears as though you have constructed (or re-iterated) a straw-man argument. You have claimed that 'revolutionary organization' consists of:
Quote:
"a membership organization whose boundary is set more or less rigidly by the points in its political program rather than by its relation to the social struggle."
and
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The organisation - whether anarchist or marxist - will require some sort of discipline in relation to this political program, as well as, perhaps, in relation to ad hoc organisational decisions, and probably some involvement in 'practical' political activity as well. Whether on the 'level of ideas' or in person (as if the former didn't invovle the latter)
Really, here you have said nothing. You have stated that a 'revolutionary organization' will need to be organized (which is redundant), around political lines (which is also redundant given the word "revolutionary"), will require discipline (redundant as "organization" implies discipline), will involve practical political activity (redundant: "revolutionary" implies this), and that this will take place on the 'level of ideas' or in person (redundant: for "revolutionary" implies at least a theory, if not an ideology - and hence ideas; and "revolutionary organization" implies people, obviously). So I fail to see what you are actually saying...
But despite your failure to articulate an argument, I feel I grasp the gist of what you are getting at. If I may speak for what I believe you are trying to say, it seems as though your critique is centered around the difficulties associated with organizing a revolutionary group of individuals. Correct? Furthermore, it appears as though your entire critique is summed up in your own lines:
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At its strongest, this critique asserts that the classical revolutionary organiastion is either impotent to achieve positive change or actually harmful for the class struggle.
Yet you have provided no argument for why "classical revolutionary organization" would be impotent, or harmful. You have merely claimed it to be so, within the context of these supposed critiques. Furthermore, you ignore the basic logical assumption that revolutionaries in the present age will not (nor have they) confined themselves to "classical" organization.
And finally, it is basic radical leftist theory that the people themselves will be engaged in the revolution (namely, the proletariat). Hence there can be no separation between "politics" and "actual class struggle" as they become one and the same through action. It's called "revolutionary action."
- August
I read through those texts by Hal Draper, but it seems to me that he isn't at all criticial of the "classical revolutionary organisation"; he just disagrees with most of his fellow leftists about what is the best way of creating such organisations.
Here are some more critical texts:
Pannekoek (1936): Party and Working Class
Camatte (1969): On organisation
I agree with Felix frost.
And I would add:
Henk Canne-Meijer: The Rise of a New Labour Movement
http://www.kurasje.org/arkiv/1300f.htm
At the end of this text you get the position of the 'German Dutch' Left or Council Communist tradition of the 30's concerning the question of organizing and functioning of revolutionary groups.
Antieverything wrote:
The thread that Catch posted is a good read...I think it gets to the heart of what Posi was trying to get at....also, it is funny that Devrim never responded since it was about his statements in the first place!
Which one? Can you give me a link, please?
Devrim
http://libcom.org/forums/thought/revolutionary-organisation
Quote:
The party came up on: this thread about RAAN, but no-one yet squeezed Devrim's conception of it out of him, so I figure a new thread might do that. Devrim's said he's "for the party" on several threads before, but at this point I've not worked out what this means other than being in favour of formalised international co-ordination of communist groups - does it go further than that?
hello everyone! all this amazingly flourished language posi has presented us with sounds so fantasticaly confusing that i think we missed the point of his argument. Posi, If you want an answer to your question, I suggest you zoom as far out on your web browser as possible and look at all these posts simultaniously. The libertarian argument is obviously correct. The "revolutionary organization" must recognize its own position to the revolution. And unless I am completely missing the gist of your question, the evidence lies in this post. Most, if not all, of us here are educated people. I am currently pursuing a professional degree (unfortunately at a private university and incurring a great deal of debt to do so) and I may safely assume many of the posters here have, or are pursuing, a higher education as well. in any upcoming revolution we would of course be the "organizERS", the ones WRITING the pamphlets and giving the speeches. But the vast majority of the revolution would just be the average Joe (or Jane) who was lucky to finish high school and now works his (or her) ass off in order to feed and clothe himself (or herself). They simply dont have the education nessecary to understand and debate the finer points of "marxist-lenonist revolution" or "democratic interim socialism" let alone the fact that only a few thousand people (of 6 billion) even know what Parecon is and even less than that truly understand it and even less than that advocate it. Context and relationships are incredibly important just as much so as the initial ideals that started everything in the first place.
They simply dont have the education nessecary to understand and debate the finer points ...quote wrote:
this is not without mention that after the revolution, education will be the highest priority of society and nessecary for teh survival of an eventualy anarcho-communist society.
dammit, I just lost a fairly long post.
Catch and AntiEverything - I've read the thread now - perhaps you could say what you think's useful about it? Don't see much in there myself....
AugustWest - I think you've missed the point. I did go into that in more length in the post I just lost but... I'm not making an argument against the revolutionary organisation. I'm saying that such an argument exists, and that I want this thread to be about setting it out and analysing it. I just start by defining how I see the conclusions. If I do argue for a conclusion, I will provide reasons.
My definition is not redundant. An organisation being revolutionary does not necessarily depend on its formal programme being what defines organisational boundaies. e.g. workers' councils in Hungary, or the First International. While of course revolutionaries engage in activity, they do not necessarily engage in activity as an organisation, which is the point at hand. For example, groups around journals like Revolutionary History or whatever have activity informed by the political ideas generated by the journals, but nonetheless do not engage in activity as an organisation. Levels of discipline vary tremendously - some libertarians argue for such a light touch that it only amounts to agreeing with the organisation's basis of unity - hardly discipline at all. Others, on the other hand, require no disagreement in public. Whether leadership extends beyond "the leadership of ideas" is also contested. I have heard AF (UK) comrades argue that it shouldn't, and that is what Brinton/Solidarity appear to have thought as well.
And obviously politics and class struggle are not seperate. The point is that some organisations - it seems - tend to be smaller and more concerned with ideology, whereas others are larger and more concerned with (imperfect) day to day solutions. You know that as well as I do. The thread is partly about how to relate to this fact.
Thanks to Felix and kurasje for the links - that's what I'm looking for and more of similar would be good. Will try to read them properly and post a response when I can. I agree that Draper is still basically a Bolshevik, that is clear. What I'm interested in is that his critique of the trad rev organisation, and his proposal for alternative forms of organisation a) are unusually clear and b) that his proposal could be seen as the final conclusion of tendencies in the 'libertarian' arguments.
non proprietry wotsit wrote:
hello everyone! all this amazingly flourished language posi has presented us with sounds so fantasticaly confusing that i think we missed the point of his argument.
I don't have the words.
Tony Benn said that there are too many socialist parties; not enough socialists.
Who could disagree?
Sectarian behaviour amounts to a betrayal of the working class.
It is important to always work with everyone and with every group with whom you agree in even the most broadest of senses. That does mean making compromises. That may not be pleasant - but if you're looking for a pleasant process for revolution, you're in the wrong game. If you aren't big enough to compromise, you've really no business being in politics at all.
In particular - anarchists, most of the non-ancient Leninists, leftist social democrats and radical liberals - are today all divided by such small differences as to make any refusal for close co-operation - sectarian.
Whether amongst anarchists or marxists, the defining organisational assumption for roughly the past century has been the need to build a more or less disciplined organisation along political lines. Simultaneously, the 'libertarian' tradition among both those groups, and in communist and radical politics in general, has also maintained a critique of the classical 'revolutionary organisation' - defined in one way or another. At its strongest, this critique asserts that the classical revolutionary organiastion is either impotent to achieve positive change or actually harmful for the class struggle.
By "classical revolutionary organisation", I suppose I mean something like how Hal Draper defines the 'sect': "a membership organization whose boundary is set more or less rigidly by the points in its political program rather than by its relation to the social struggle." (The bit in italics obviously 'begs the question' - we can ignore it for now, you see what I mean.) The organisation - whether anarchist or marxist - will require some sort of discipline in relation to this political program, as well as, perhaps, in relation to ad hoc organisational decisions, and probably some involvement in 'practical' political activity as well. Whether on the 'level of ideas' or in person (as if the former didn't invovle the latter)
This critique is often held in a milder form. For example, opposition to 'democratic centralism', or to the practice of secret decisions binding organisation members. Or, rather than formal, the response may be political: i.e. the sort of circumspection about the capacity for leadership of the revolutionary organisation displayed by early International Socialists (http://www.martinshaw.org/is.htm) or by Solidarity. I don't know enough about the European councilists to say what their view was, but my understanding is that they were more 'libertarian' in the sense I am suggesting that the tradition of the Italian left, "left communism", etc. Then there is the version I've come across most recently, by Hal Draper in his later writings - links below - which seeks to restrict politically exclusive organisations to writing, editing and publishing.
While I suspect that some version of the critique is held by a large number of posters here (perhaps with the notable exception of the self-described 'left communists'), there is very little clarity (as far as I'm aware) on the lines of argument for, within and against it.
Here are a few readings:
The Alternative to the Micro-Sect - Draper
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1971/alt/alt.htm
Anatomy of the Micro-Sect - Draper
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/1973/xx/microsect.htm
Response to The Alternative to the Micro Sect - M Thomas from AWL
http://www.workersliberty.org/node/1206
Sam Moss - The Impotence of the Revolutionary Group
http://www.lettersjournal.org/moss.html
I don't know of anything really explicit from the councilist tradition - just suggestive stuff like Suicide for Socialism. And I don't know what the anarchist 'classics' in this respect are either, though my impression is that between Kropotkin and Makhno, there's barely any distinctive anarchist position at all. I'm aware of the debates between Malatesta and supporters of the Platform, though frankly they're not very helpful. Anyway - I'd appreciate links to essays from either of these traditions, and others.
Apart from soliciting information on councilist and anarchist perspectives, I'd like others' thoughts on the Draper/AWL debate, above. I don't know the history well enough to be sure who's right, though I'm reading up on it again at the moment.
As for my own position... tentatively, at the moment, I think it makes sense that there should be a fit between the boundaries of the organisation and what it is for. i.e. if you want to increase militant activity, you should have an organisation that unites people on the basis of militancy. If you want to promote a political line, it makes sense to have an organsiation whose boundaries are defined by those politics. Mixing those things up seems to result in the people united around ideology adopting positions which they are (basically always, as far as I can see) unqualified to adopt in relation to mass struggle, and militants being divided on ground of fairly abstract political beliefs or (more likely) their connection to cultural streams or personal loyalties. Or, even more likely, just looking at the mess of the 'revolutionary organisations' in exasperation and giving up.