The Pretension of "Class Consciousness"

According to this conception radical intellectuals who have the material comfort afforded by capitalism which allows them to spend their time thinking about grand social questions are uniquely equipped to instill in, or teach the victims of capitalism the correct answers to those questions. Lenin explicitly said that workers' struggles at the point of production for daily bread would only lead to involvement in trade union struggles, rather than revolutionary movements, which thus needed to be built under the leadership of "intellectuals from the propertied classes".

Isn't this just accepting the sort of retroactive construction of Leninism as what Lenin actually said, and not looking at what he actually wrote. What is to be done? is after all not a handbook on building a "communist party"(a bit of an anachronism in this context) but a critique against a specific tendency within the movement at that time and a way to mend the disunity in the movement. He also never said as a general rule that "professional revolutionaries" should come from the intellectual class, in fact he says the opposite and that these people should come from the working-class(I think he cites August Bebel as an example), and being an active trade unionist is not contradictory to this form of organizing.

I also think it is undeniable that in 1902 the average factory did not have access to books or things in general to read about workers' struggle and socialism, or society in general. What Lenin is proposing is basically that those who want to organize the working-class be ready to fully commit themselves to do everything they can to spread the struggle of the workers, against the bosses and state. His opposition at the time was instead arguing that workers don't care about far-off labor struggles or what the state is doing, they really only care about the direct and economic struggle. This quote is very good I think,

The “economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government”, about which you make as much fuss as if you had discovered a new America, is being waged in all parts of Russia, even the most remote, by the workers themselves who have heard about strikes, but who have heard almost nothing about socialism. The “activity” you want to stimulate among us workers, by advancing concrete demands that promise palpable results, we are already displaying and in our everyday, limited trade union work we put forward these concrete demands, very often without any assistance whatever from the intellectuals. But such activity is not enough for us; we are not children to be fed on the thin gruel of “economic” politics alone; we want to know everything that others know, we want to learn the details of all aspects of political life and to take part actively in every single political event. In order that we may do this, the intellectuals must talk to us less of what we already know. and tell us more about what we do not yet know and what we can never learn from our factory and “economic” experience, namely, political knowledge. You intellectuals can acquire this knowledge, and it is your duty to bring it to us in a hundred- and a thousand-fold greater measure than you have done up to now; and you must bring it to us, not only in the form of discussions, pamphlets, and articles (which very often — pardon our frankness — are rather dull), but precisely in the form of vivid exposures of what our government and our governing classes are doing at this very moment in all spheres of life.

This quote I think speaks to my experiences at least.

Intellectuals receive benefits from the system to toe it's ideological line while the system will only distribute benefits to it's victims in so far as it's victims organize to fight the system. The idea of a stagnant "economism" which Lenin criticized and upon which those he criticized focused ignores the trans-formative capacity of struggle. Supposedly economism, according to it's critics (Lenin) and it's advocates, would prioritize trade union demands and activity above wider social questions.2 Despite this, the most basic trade union struggles involve workers directly in the fight for their future and thus introduce them further to the concept and reality of class struggle.

I think this part makes a mistake that maoists like JMP also do: confusing economism with economic struggle. Lenin was beyond impressed with the economic struggle of the workers, he reiterates multiple times in What is to be done? that the working-class is already much more advanced than the social-democrats, while the workers are quickly becoming organized in much more "mature" ways(putting forward concrete lists of demands, having patience when it comes to riots, forming workers' organisations, etc) while the social-democrats were unable to interact with this movement because of their own inexperience and failure of class consciousness among the party members. This failure of class consciousness among the party members, the capitulation to spontaneity, is "economism". Economism does not come from the working-class carrying out economic struggle but from the intellectuals in the party.

If we look at the situation in Russia at the time, was Lenin wrong in saying that one of the main tasks for the labor movement should be to attack Czarism and to fight for democratic rights?

I would also be curious to know what you think of the book One step forward, two steps backwards by Lenin. In this books he explicitly says that intellectuals are more often than not fit for party work, they often reject basic discipline and fail to work together since they are used to "fighting" on an individual level, while workers being schooled in the advanced co-operation of the factory system and economic struggle are perfect for party work and therefore should be the majority of the party and its deciding bodies.

The class struggle is the process by which capitalism's victims learn to fight for themselves and learn how to exorcise and take power. The "conscious" distinction elevates the simple status of political alignment with radical ideas to that of the natural right to the throne of radical movements. "Consciousness" is a collective process, it is not simply present in some individuals and not in others. How "conscious" can you and I be while most of the over victims of capitalism the world over have not utilized their collective power to produce new lessons and examples?

I don't think this part is wrong, consciousness is still built on struggle and you can not really learn to struggle(political or trade unionist) from books, only by actually doing it. But actually thinking about what this struggle entails, what social-relations are present in society, how the workplace is structured, how the composition of the working-class changes, evaluate your own struggles and so on are still core parts to develop this collective struggle. Lenin did not say that it should be intellectuals or people from the middle-class always doing this part(which I think is shown by him in the footnotes pointing towards working-class theoreticians from his time) but if we are being harsh, most socialist theoreticians were middle-class or even aristocrats. De Leon, Engels, Karl Marx, Kropotkin, Bakunin, and so on. This is also why I think political education on a mass-scale has been so present in the worker's movement. Workers want knowledge on politics and society but are to some extent(more then than now) structurally excluded from it by the current state. Therefore worker's with the help of people like Marx and Engels built educational centers, workplace libraries, party-schools, publications and study groups.

Pannekoek also writes this in his text The Social-democratic party school in Berlin,

Can the school attain its end? It may seem difficult to train in half a year those men who have simply passed through the elementary school, to train them sufficiently in such deep scientific theories. Still, it must not be forgotten that they have passed through the school of life, and therefore the theory of that life is easily taken up by them. Then it is possible that socialist workingmen well acquainted with the practical side of life and with the labor movement, should have a good understanding of the fundamental ideas of socialistic theory. The first half year of the school has shown this. A foundation for the further study of classical and current literature has been laid; but farther study is of course necessary. It is clearly understood in the German party that not enough can be done through this Institute alone. Everywhere committees are springing up, mostly from unions and party branches, whose object is to provide lectures, courses and lessons for the workingmen. Interest in theory, in the theoretical question is awaking everywhere; libraries are being founded and lecturers provided. In this way the German working class is preparing itself for the hard battle of the future; and the hardest task it will have to accomplish, is to be well armed.

Also I recommend this shorter text by Hal Draper on WITBD that tries to remove Lenin from "leninism" by actually putting Lenin into his context and not the narrative that stalinists and so on try to push.

"Consciousness" merely means "awareness" It's one thing to say that, in order to achieve socialism, the proletariat must be aware of its situation and consciously organise to overcome it, and another to say that this awareness can come about only if it is injected into the proletariat from above by a body that sits outside proletariat in general.

There's nothing vanguardist in the idea of "class consciousness" or "false consciousness" in and of themselves. See this video:
http://www.theoryandpractice.org.uk/video/why-dont-people-revolt

Intellectuals are members of the bourgeoisie, or "capitalists", who receive some of the proceeds extracted from workers (surplus value) in exchange for disseminating the system's ideology. Thus they are all members of the "propertied classes".

This is garbled. And you don't say what you actually mean by an "intellectual". A capitalist is someone who makes their living through returns to capital invested, nothing more, nothing less. If you're getting paid to write articles etc, and have no other independent means of income, you're selling your labour-power, you're a wage labourer. You do know that work in the university is becoming increasingly precarious? Hence the recent strikes...

Plenty of types of worker, NHS nurses for example, don't create value themselves but recieve value that has been created in other parts of the economy. Are you going to argue that nurses are members of the propertied classes?

The collective practice of struggle produces the collective theory that is made up of observations from that experience and vice versa.

Well, partially. But to think that consciousness appears automatically, without people actually discussing and creating texts etc (Intelectualising?) seems as dubious as the idea that theory has to be inserted from the outside.

Ivysyn

"Garbled" is not a synonym for "statement I don't like".

I said "garbled" because that passage seems to mix and confuse different categories.

Depends for what purpose you are being paid.

No it doesn't. A capitalist is someone who makes there living from returns from invested capital, nothing more and nothing less. If I get paid by a university to write "A primer in neo-classical economics" this does not make me a capitalist. I can only be a capitalist by making a living from returns from invested capital. That's why I said the passage is garbled.

Is your impression that theorizing takes place outside of struggle?

In capitalist society there is no place that is outside of the class struggle.

You say that I'm treating Leninism as what Lenin said, rather than what he wrote. I'm not sure what the difference is suppose to be between these two things. You don't seem to know what Lenin wrote about this issue because in What Is To Be Done Lenin specifically says that socialist consciousness comes from the "intellectuals of the propertied classes", not the workers themselves. This is both what Lenin said and what he wrote because they are the same exact thing in the context of examining the theories laid out a century ago by a specific intellectual on paper. Here you should have made use of the citation I provided, as already in the notes I cited WITBD as the source for my claim. You can read the book for yourself and see where Lenin says exactly this. The quote you provided calls on intellectuals to educate workers;

I think you are still reading the pamphlet wrong. The fact that middle-class people historically played an important part in developing "scientific socialism" is indisputable. What class did Blanqui, Marx, Engels, Kropotkin and Bakunin belong to? This is Lenin's point but he is not making a general political principle out of it as you seem to imply. He never says that professional revolutionaries are exclusively from the middle-class. Did you read the Hal Draper text linked?

Ivysyn

Fine, so why is someone who gets a share of surplus value produced in order to disseminate the ideology of the world system not a capitalist, simply because they don't invest capital themselves necessarily? Because those people certainly exist.

This goes back to one of the things I thought was confused in your text, you seemed to be conflating non-productive labour and surplus extraction. Not all wage workers add new value to the economy, the distinction between productive (types of work that add new value into the economy) and non-productive labour (types of work that do not add new value into the economy) is an important one to understand.

A worker in the non-productive sectors (insurance, banking, armed forces, state health sector, teaching etc.) definitely is not a capitalist, because they have to sell their labour-power to a capitalist in order to survive. But all workers in the non-productive sector *are* getting a share of surplus value created in other parts of the economy (though perhaps this is not the best way to put it).

The *only* criteria for being a capitalist is that you can survive solely through returns on invested capital. It has nothing to do with ideological or political beliefs or activities. In fact it is entirely possible to be both a capitalist and a communist - Engels and William Morris as obvious examples..

ComradeEmma wrote:

What is to be done? is after all not a handbook on building a "communist party"(a bit of an anachronism in this context) but a critique against a specific tendency within the movement at that time and a way to mend the disunity in the movement. He also never said as a general rule that "professional revolutionaries" should come from the intellectual class, in fact he says the opposite and that these people should come from the working-class ...

Really? In the book "What to Do?" from 1902 [Russian: 'Sctho Delatj?' schto: what, delatj: to do] Lenin clearly outline that the source of the revolutionary politics and program is mainly the task of an intelligentsia from the higher classes:

Lenin: "We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc.[2] The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals." ["What is to be Done?", part II, The Spontaneity of the Masses and the Consciousness of the Social-Democrats]

When workers with intellectual capacity expressed support of the party line advocated by Lenin he advised these workers to leave their occupation and work places to be professional party members. This was part of the same method where the masses was to be informed, guided and led by a social force outside the proletariat "... by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals". The outcome of this method was to create a political force loyal to its own apparatus outside the proletarian masses.

This was based upon a fundamental distrust, disbelief and suspiciousness against the working class itself. The distrust was based in the social class character of the intelligentsia which in Russia represented a national struggle to develop the economy in a country which was backward despite huge factories in the main cities. A double task where the masses not really understood how important it was they and only they were in charge instead of delegating the power autumn 1917 to an elitist party.

Why did Lenin promote a method of the few leading the many which made the Bolshevik party to destroy the free elections to workers and popular councils (soviets), unions, factory committees and other presumed mass organisations? Why did he hold that the working class population should be guided and led by an organisation based upon strict internal discipline as if the revolutionary struggle was a military struggle? Because he claimed the working class historically was a reformist class which only was capable of trade-union consciousness and therefore had to be led by a vanguard party. He believed that the last class in history capable of developing a revolutionary struggle by the own forces was the bourgeoisie, not the proletarian masses. The working class according to Lenin therefore had to be led by an intelligentsia from the upper classes who came "down" from the top to the masses with a messianic idea that the masses are to be governed by the few in the class struggle against capitalism. The few was to be found in a presumed communist party. Not only that: the same party suppose to lead the masses into the struggle was also to be in charge of the revolution because if this did not happen the revolution would fail.

Lenin's idea was inspired by the Jacobins in the French revolutions including hard core elitists in Russia during the last half of the 19th century such as Peter Tkachev and Peter Chaadaev. A political vanguard, a Leader party with a Leadership and a cult Leader on the top of this apparatus became in charge of the society and the economy. By this the party and state elite became a class of state-capitalists only answering to itself.

The idea was that only this could secure the interests of the masses in a party state understood as a party dictatorship as if a party dictatorship understood the interests of the masses better than the masses themselves. If the party was not in charge of the economy and its economic surplus, the police, the military and other institutions would the whole revolution lose its momentum, fail and open the gate for a counter-revolution. The consequence of this society was not that the ruling elite from day one took steps to alienate the democratic rights of the masses and putting itself in charge of the big and semi-big corporations. By this had the party elite in its party state in reality established itself as a ruling class.

The following quotes tell us something more about the end station of the ruling state elite which I hold is nothing than state-fascism:

Lenin, 1919: "When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party and, as you have heard, a united socialist front is proposed, we say, "Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position because it is the party that has won, in the course of decades, the position of vanguard of the entire factory and industrial proletariat." https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1919/aug/05.htm

Lenin, 1920: "But the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be exercised through an organisation embracing the whole of that class, because in all capitalist countries (and not only over here, in one of the most backward) the proletariat is still so divided, so degraded, and so corrupted in parts (by imperialism in some countries) that an organisation taking in the whole proletariat cannot directly exercise proletarian dictatorship. It can be exercised only by a vanguard…" https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/dec/30.htm

Lenin: "The irrefutable experience of history has shown that... the dictatorship of individual persons was very often the vehicle, the channel of the dictatorship of the revolutionary classes". "Large-scale machine industry - which is the material productive source and foundation of socialism - calls for absolute and strict unity of will...

How can strict unity of will be ensured? By thousands subordinating their will to the will of one." "Unquestioning submission to a single will is absolutely necessary for the success of labour processes that are based on large-scale machine industry . . . Today the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the masses unquestioningly obey the single will of the leaders of the labour process." (V.I.Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. VII, pages 332-333, 340-342)

Trotsky: "To our program will we add the following: we must fight the ideological confusion of the elements of the opposition who are not aware and do not mind to reject all 'militarization of the economy' and not only reject 'the method of appointment', which has been the dominating up to now, but all appointments. This means in fact a rejection of the leading role of the party in relation to the masses who have no party." (V.I.Lenin, januari 21, 1921, Selected Works, Vol IX, page 57)

Trotsky: "They have come out with dangerous slogans. They have made a fetish of democratic principles. They have placed the workers right to elect representatives above the party. As if the party was not entitled to assert its dictatorship even if that dictatorship temporarily clashed with the passing moods of the workers' democracy!" (Trotsky, Party Congress, 8-16 March 1921.)

*

Read more here, especially how the party- and state elite took over the means of production and its surplus by managing to block and stop workers and employees to rule the big and semi-big corporations:

https://libcom.org/library/the-bolsheviks-and-workers-control-solidarity-group

Socialism must and can only be a council workers and popular power without any party and state power. We say to the masses: 'Don't vote on us - vote on yourself collectively'.

The class struggle is international because there are no strategic progressive national solutions.

Björn-Olav Kvidal,
Stockholm