Bourgeois and Proletarian Organization

Für die Betriebsorganisationen by Franz Wilhelm Seiwert

Short text from the KAPD Berlin about the importance of "form of organization" in the proletarian revolution. This criticizes the well known axiom: "Revolution is not a question of organization” and proceeds to show the necessity of revolutionary action through newer forms of organization by critiquing the old bourgeois forms of organization. First published in "Kommunistische Arbeiter-Zeitung", Organ of the KAPD, 11th year, 1930, No. 47. Translated by me

Submitted by Indo_Ansh on September 21, 2024

The argument that forms of organization must be adapted to the respective era of development is very often countered by the seemingly logical and common saying: Revolution is not a “question of organization”. This phrase largely stems from the concern for the existence of an existing organization defended by the proponents of this last thesis and refers in the general discussions to the trade unions as well as to all the political parties, which at the same time document with this confession that they themselves pay homage to this principle and apply it practically within their own party. Needless to say, the tendency of such a “standpoint” is exactly the same as the assertion that certain views must not be shaken, that a discussion of them would already contradict the “standpoint” once adopted. However, a revolutionary who defends a “point of view” in this way can never have arrived at it on the basis of a critical examination of the factors that determine this point of view, but has a “point of view”, no matter what else happens. Despite all historical warnings and events, he insists on his “standpoint”, which is valid for him for all time, and defends it all the more as the very organization and organizational principle he defends proves to be increasingly useless, petrifies and becomes a tool of counter-revolution. He becomes the most ardent defender of the point of view that has already been half uprooted and refuted by history, and so one hears today more often than ever it is not always easy to say whether it is obstinacy or despair in view of the attitude of the trade unions and parliamentary parties: “The revolution is not a question of organization.” Of course, an organization is a prerequisite. But the form would not really matter. If not, the necessary organizational changes could also be made within the old organizations. In any case, it would be unwise and short-sighted to break up all existing organizations in order to build new ones.

This home-baked logic in itself characterizes the reactionary petty bourgeoisie; once such a “standpoint” has been adopted, it is difficult to refute. As a rule, the advocates of such a principle also follow their own logic, or rather: the logic of their standpoint, and end up in the ranks of the counter-revolution, not only organizationally, but of course also politically. Among them are the organizational machinists of the reactionary trade unions and parliamentary parties. They push a seemingly harmless organizational question to the fore in order to defend a reactionary principle: Such a dogma, fixed for all time as the standpoint of an organization, excludes all intellectual and principled life within that organization. Within such an organization, everyone can only be an object. From this follows quite naturally the division of labour between the “representatives” resulting from the structure of this organization. This organization forces people to be submissive. Since the political stance is not dependent on pious wishes and petty-bourgeois ideals, but the iron historical facts, the class struggles within society force decisions. However, since the owners of the organization have different economic and social interests from the objects of the organization, the whole body is exposed to ever more severe crises in the increasingly intense struggles between the proletariat and capital. In every struggle, in the entire political stance that corresponds to the interests of the professional leadership, the latter increasingly sets itself in strict opposition to the interests of the proletariat, which has been hurled into the social abyss by bourgeois society. This crisis of capital, which is being transferred to the organizations that have arisen under capitalism, and which must also intensify as it intensifies, has in reality raised the question of whether the revolution is an organizational question or not, and will no longer allow it to disappear from the agenda. Even if the petty-bourgeois organizational bureaucracy does not fit into the “standpoint ”.

What is an organization? An organization is an association for the common pursuit of a common goal by common means. Organization therefore only makes sense if there is agreement in principle with regard to tactics and goal. If opposites in principle arise, the formal organizational break must also follow the breaking of the previous agreement in principle. If it is to be avoided, the fundamental contradictions must be set aside. The latter, however, result in turn from the respective class position of the various class strata united in the organization. The Class Will crystallizing in the brains is the ideological reflection of the social process that is taking place as a result of the economic collapse. The mental grasp of revolutionary necessities, their propagation, and the struggle to overcome the tactics that history has long since marked as harmful and anti-class, is the logical result of a revolutionary ideology. It is the revolutionary process in the positive, in the creative revolutionary sense.

In the period of the last capitalist crisis, reformism and revolutionary class struggle are mutually exclusive. They are irreconcilable opposites, since reformism becomes the mortal enemy of the proletariat and, in order to be able to assert itself politically, openly takes the side of the counter-revolution, the whining about the “preservation” of an organization means in practice practical help for the counter-revolution, because the organizational structures shaken by the crisis due to the intensifying class antagonisms could only be saved at the expense of revolutionary knowledge, ultimately only at the price of the suicide of the proletarian class.

Organization without intellectual activity is the hallmark of bourgeois organization. The bourgeois organization is the bourgeois class state in miniature. The ruling class within the organization “looks after” the “interests” of the dominated. The age of reformism, of unfolding capitalism, did not present the proletariat with practical revolutionary tasks; capitalism fulfilled its social functions poorly. The working class struggled for elbow room within capitalism as a class; its struggle for emancipation within the bourgeois world was, from a historical perspective, revolutionary in the bourgeois sense. But it was not aimed at overthrowing the capitalist system. The question of capitalism and communism was not on the agenda. The struggle of the proletariat for social reforms, for political concessions, was not directed against the bourgeois class state as such, but for the transformation of the bourgeois class state without shaking the capitalist order in principle. Consequently, organization and tactics also had to be bourgeois. In order to push through possible demands within the framework of unfolding capitalism, “pressure” from below was sufficient. The “weight” of the masses was enough. Sufficient were the masses that could be thrown into the fray as objects, sufficient were the much-vaunted discipline and unity. The demands made in each case made no demands on the creative power of the proletariat but were addressed to the bourgeoisie for fulfillment. The capitalist division of labour brought with it the ever-increasing political and organizational dependence of the organization on the leadership, which was conditioned by the intellectual lack of autonomy of the proletariat. The organization became the property of the leadership. However, this fact only had a practical effect when capitalism experienced its twilight and world war broke out. The proletariat was faced with a different task as a class. The proletarian revolution cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie, communism cannot be introduced by the leaders. The mental and physical strength to overthrow the old and create the new must come from the masses themselves. The class boundary does not run where the last worker stands, and the first capitalist begins but is drawn by the class knowledge slowly born in the class struggles and revolutionary experiences. The revolutionary, the creative principle breaks the old organizational shells and barriers and stands in the struggle against the old world. Thus the new organization with the new content is already born in the revolutionary process. The proletariat recognizes that it is not enough to “want” something, but that action must come first. This action, in turn, is not merely a display of personal courage, but first and foremost the elaboration of the programmatic and tactical path, the realization of the conditions and tasks to be solved in the revolution on the basis of the conditions of the revolution. Those who “want” the revolution must want it for themselves. The ability to seize the right moment in the revolution, in revolutionary struggles, to successfully exploit conquered positions, to keep one's head up in apparent or actual confusion and to act unwaveringly and confidently cannot be “learned” but arises from the respective theoretical stage of the proletariat. The respective Class Consciousness! A communist is not someone who wears a Soviet star on every jacket, but someone who thinks in a revolutionary way. Who always thinks only of the revolution and demands the highest of himself. Who does not shy away from any question but realizes that anyone who wants to be something practical must know what he wants to do. Whoever is content with a commitment to revolution and tries to replace everything else with shouting remains, despite his personal courage, a petty bourgeois, an object in the hands of those who are superior to him.

The revolutionary Class Will born of revolutionary knowledge, which writes a new world on its program, separates itself from bourgeois ideology like fire and water; the flaring up creative Class Consciousness of the revolutionary proletariat is naturally directed against bourgeois ideology. Bourgeois ideology is the content of the old workers' organizations. The old good mole history confronts the reformist forces with reformist impossibilities. In order to preserve themselves, they must side with the capitalist class in the period of the most bitter class struggle in order to save capital and create the conditions for reformist politics. Must march together with the enemies of the proletariat against the proletariat and are condemned to open the eyes of even the stupidest proletarian. In the unspeakable agony and suffering of the exploited class, revolutionary class consciousness creates new forms as weapons against class betrayal. Revolutionary Class Will creates new organizations for struggle and construction at the same time. Between two fronts, however, stand the worshippers of the old barracks, which have long since become guillotines for the proletariat, and affirm that the revolution is not a question of organization. They assert their revolutionary sentiments and do not realize that they themselves are the living proof of stock reactionary petrification. The revolutionary proletariat, however, has no reason to make a distinction between white and “red” apostles of the counter-revolution; it has understood that the difficult work of its own liberation cannot be taken from it, from anyone, that it must accomplish its task entirely on its own. It has given itself the organizational forms in the AAU and KAPD and will continue the struggle with these weapons until victory.

Comments

westartfromhere

2 months 2 weeks ago

Submitted by westartfromhere on September 23, 2024

Should Class Will and Class Consciousness be capitalised in the text?

Submitted by Substance Enjoyer on September 23, 2024

westartfromhere wrote: Should Class Will and Class Consciousness be capitalised in the text?

Really shows the KAPD's fetish of "class consciousness" as a metric of struggle, something shared by social democrats and Stalinists.

Substance Enjoyer

2 months 2 weeks ago

Submitted by Substance Enjoyer on September 24, 2024

[A] revolutionary who defends a “point of view” in this way can never have arrived at it on the basis of a critical examination of the factors that determine this point of view, but has a “point of view”, no matter what else happens. Despite all historical warnings and events, he insists on his “standpoint”, which is valid for him for all time.

This is what I mean when I said councilists shared an anti-dogmatic attitude with Stalinists. This attack on the "standpoint" amounts to creative Marxism. They confirm this by describing their vision of the revolutionary will: "It is the revolutionary process in the **positive**, in the **creative** revolutionary sense." And then they say:

Such a dogma, fixed for all time as the standpoint of an organization, excludes all intellectual and principled life within that organization. Within such an organization, everyone can only be an object.

This is but an attack on the party programme as the foundation in favour of a vague lively unity of "revolutionary subjects" carrying their "class will". They should indeed be an object insofar as they exist not in themselves but only for the Party.

What is an organization? An organization is an association for the common pursuit of a common goal by common means. Organization therefore only makes sense if there is agreement in principle with regard to tactics and goal.

Yeah, from a human standpoint, but this isn't implicit in formal intransigent targets. Only a humanitarian devolved vision can conceive of the Party as a hodgepodge collection of individuals.

The bourgeois organization is the bourgeois class state in miniature.

And the dictatorship of the proletariat is the formal bourgeois class state in reverse.

The struggle of the proletariat for social reforms, for political concessions, was not directed against the bourgeois class state as such, but for the transformation of the bourgeois class state without shaking the capitalist order in principle.

As if the problem with the opportunism of Kautsky and the German social democracy, for instance, was lacking concern with principle.

The organization became the property of the leadership.

KAPD counterposes to this "autonomy of the proletarians". Then the organization would be property of "autonomous proletarians" (who would never move beyond that level), and not of itself. The Party is itself the class independence of the proletariat, and the other interpretations of that autonomy are worthless.

The proletarian revolution cannot be carried out by the bourgeoisie, communism cannot be introduced by the leaders.

Again, leaders are understood as rulers attempting to tame the "class will". But insofar as the struggle measures class will, class will's obstacles are not that which tries to tame a creative energy but that is upheld, but that which is held down is the bourgeois.

The mental and physical strength to overthrow the old and create the new must come from the masses themselves.

The task is not "to overthrow the old and create the new", - something more resembling the visions of the socialists mocked by Marx and Engels in The German Ideology and Poverty of Philosophy - but to derive in the conditions of the old its annihilation which is undertaken instead with the barbaric passions of reduction.

The class boundary does not run where the last worker stands, and the first capitalist begins but is drawn by the class knowledge slowly born in the class struggles...

In class society, all knowledge is class knowledge (knowledge of the bourgeois intellectual, of the literate peasant, or of the fascist or social-democratic party....), and nor is it borne from the "experience" of the class struggles, but from critical exposition of their realities.

The revolutionary, the creative principle...

The revolutionary task is not the creative principle, but the destructive revenge. Creative principles of future societies, "cookbooks of the future", those "Comtist receipts" of discovering "new orders", was mocked by Marx. To be revolutionary is to incite a full shift, which is to say, a precise negation, and to be radical is to cut at the root. The task of proletarian dictatorship is to suppress, not to ensure positive creations, values, principles.

"Action must come first"; first a priori, or merely first above desires? And action as the fulfilment of those desires, or something surrogate? Isn't the elaboration of the programmatic and tactical path already present in the programme? If action is "the realization of the conditions ... to be solved in the revolution on the basis of the conditions of the revolution" (what if the conditions of the present aren't revolutionary conditions? What if action isn't necessary and doesn't complete those tasks?), can action be entirely equated with revolutionary action? The true proletarian formula understands that doctrine must come first, or nothing can be understood. A good definition of adventurism is the following: action above doctrine. This is another of Mattick's errors, who thought the doctrine had to be already entirely active and could be tied only to revolutionary action.

Those who “want” the revolution must want it for themselves.

For themselves as civil human or as members of their class? Do they also belong to nothing but themselves? Not then even to the Revolution?

The ability ... to act unwaveringly and confidently cannot be “learned” but arises from the respective theoretical stage of the proletariat.

As if everything and every exact operation is "discovered" in endless action. That unwavering path is nothing but to know with what world-historical force one acts with, not those operations.

A communist is not someone who wears a Soviet star on every jacket, but someone who thinks in a revolutionary way.

Action comes first, but also thinking comes first? According to the KAPD, "thinking in a revolutionary way" can only arise at a stage of development of experience. It doesn't matter what one thinks, one's ideas. One's absolutist fealty to the formal goals and what happens to be organised by that learning on the path matters.

Who always thinks only of the revolution and demands the highest of himself.

Demands the highest, not of himself, but of the Revolution, since to think only of the revolution one cannot think of oneself (and therefore not also of oneself as distinct from the Party).

The revolutionary Class Will born of revolutionary knowledge ... writes a new world on its program...

It does not do so. It is enough to destroy the existing order, not enscribe all the future operations and realisations which are already inevitable.

The old good mole history confronts the reformist forces with reformist impossibilities.

It is not history which Marx referred to as the old mole, but the revolution and its party, in the soils of reactionary history. History does not confront anyone with anything.

...condemned to open the eyes of even the stupidest proletarian...

The eyes of every proletarian and every proletarian civil individual opened? I think not.

Between two fronts, however, stand the worshippers of the old barracks, which have long since become guillotines for the proletariat...

Is there also a guillotine for the bourgeois, or is that too partyist?

The revolutionary proletariat, however, has no reason to make a distinction between white and “red” apostles of the counter-revolution...

Of course one has reason to distinguish between heretics and blasphemers.

Submitted by Indo_Ansh on September 24, 2024

Substance Enjoyer,

The KAPD recognised not only the positive and creative side of Marxism but also it's destructive side as mentioned in "Der Marxism als Kulturtradition" in KAZ, 1929, No. 10. You complain about anti-dogmatism and use it to the compare to the Stalinists but namecalling doesn't concerns us. Don't you forget that, according to both Marx and Engels in their critique of Heinzen, Communism is not a set of principles but a instead proceeds from facts which the KAPD stressed on by stating that their theory is created out of class struggle in KAZ, 1925, No. 24

You dabblings about the Party don't concern me at all. As for the Proletarian Dictatorship, it can never bee a bourgeois state in any form bcoz of the latter's existence as a form of capitalist social relations which can't be tamed but only destroyed.

You about the question of action and consciousness. The revolutionary crises itself produces a faltering reality which reinforces the revolutionary class consciousness of the proletariat and pushes it into action. This what the KAPD meant when they said that "Action must come first" and not the struggle for reforms. You talk about present conditions being revolutionary but you forget about the increasing assimilation of the proletariat in bourgeois patterns which again can only be shattered in times of crises. For the KAPD, action and doctrine exists side by side insofar as spontaneity and organization exists side by side and I like how conveniently you only quote a part of the text bcoz it suits your interpretation. The KAPD mentions quite well that action exists through programme: "This action, in turn, is not merely a display of personal courage, but first and foremost the elaboration of the programmatic and tactical path, the realization of the conditions and tasks to be solved in the revolution on the basis of the conditions of the revolution."

You talk of the KAPD's insistence on Creative Principle as a "cookbook of the future". Either you have to be f*cking dumb to think that or you did that deliberately. Creative Principles itself rests on the basis that there we can't predict the exact future of our path but instead have to discover it through class struggle.

"Demands the highest of himself". It asserts to the view that the task of revolutionaries is to develop their own self-consciousness, their own radical subjectivity, at the same time as they assault the obstacles to its development in others.

Your should consider re-reading this text without your bordigist cretinism. Maybe it'll help you to grasp what the KAPD wanted to convey

Submitted by Substance Enjoyer on September 24, 2024

You complain about anti-dogmatism and use it to the compare to the Stalinists but namecalling doesn't concerns us.

Namecalling? You and the Stalinists have been caught at the same game.

Don't you forget that, according to both Marx and Engels in their critique of Heinzen, Communism is not a set of principles but a instead proceeds from facts...

Indeed. The Marxist dogmatism is not a dogmatism of principles.

As for the Proletarian Dictatorship, it can never bee a bourgeois state...

Yeah, not a bourgeois state, but formally equivalent to a capitalist state in the sense that the proletariat is ruling class and the bourgeoisie the oppressed class.

For the KAPD, action and doctrine exists side by side insofar as spontaneity and organization exists side by side...

Doctrine inevitably precedes action.

"Demands the highest of himself". It asserts to the view that the task of revolutionaries is to develop their own self-consciousness, their own radical subjectivity, at the same time as they assault the obstacles to its development in others.

Why does a revolutionary need radical subjectivity if the Party suffices?

Submitted by Indo_Ansh on September 25, 2024

Substance Enjoyer,

As I said. Your abstract comparisons doesn't concern us at all. Even I can compare you to Kautsky who was being "Dogmatic" by quoting Marx and Engels in the Mass Action Debate but as I said such comparisons are not feasible.

You talk of a "Marxist Dogmatism" in contrast to a "Dogmatism of Principles". But Dogmatism is itself a tendency that proceeds from fixed principles. As I have said that what mattered was the method of proceeding from facts which the KAPD incorporated by basing it's theory on the class struggle and hence the requirement for a newer forms of organization due to the developing new struggles of the workers, namely Mass Action

About the Bourgeois State. Capitalism is an assimilating force. It doesn't matter which class is governing, one always gets entrapped in the ghostly movement of social relations which you cannot control otherwise you would be preaching an extreme subjectivism

"Doctrine inevitably precedes action". Doesn't it sound like imposing a fixed political doubling on action itself?? Infact you complained about "cookbooks of the future" but you yourself ascribe doctrine this role of the cookbook. Trying to force the proletariat into a narrow framework from the very begining justifies the KAPD's statement here that "The bourgeois organization is the bourgeois state in miniature". Both have a Universal Will standing above and against under whose framework the grassroots must work i.e. the development of the Old Workers' Movement is nothing but the development of the Bourgeois State in miniature

Why does the revolutionary need subjectivity? Subjectivity and Class Consciousness is not something outside of us as Immanent Critique shows. An immanent social critique must show that its object, the social whole of which it is a part, is not a unitary whole. It should be able to show the contradictory essence of the phenomenon, the difference in unity, theoretically reconstruct it at conceptual level and thus show the possibility of the self-movement and the self-development of the phenomenon at hand. Thus the fact that consciousness is not something outside us but something within us but not as a unitary whole which the KAPD grasped successfully

westartfromhere

2 months ago

Submitted by westartfromhere on October 1, 2024

No criticism of the content of your comments, Indo_Ansh, but merely a point on translation from German to English:

Phrases such as proletarian dictatorship, bourgeois state... should not be capitalised as proper nouns.

For example, Communism is the title of certain forms of bourgeois governance, such as the regime of the USSR. In lower case, communism is, as is written, "the riddle of history solved, and it knows itself to be this solution."