30.10.1997

Democratic or bureaucratic centralism?

Mark Fischer concludes his reply to Richard Brenner of Workers Power

In the first part of my reply (Weekly Worker October 23), I showed how comrade Brenner’s understanding of ‘Leninist’ discipline was motivated by the outlook of a sect leader, concerned above all to preserve the interests of his group, not serve the wider movement.

Thus, in contradistinction to Richard’s absurd implication that Lenin blithely advocates “the subordination of the minority to the majority” - meaning the gagging of the public expression of the views of the minority - I underlined that discipline for Lenin was something very different:

“We have outlined our views on the importance and the meaning of discipline in the workers’ party many times. Unity of action, freedom of discussion and criticisms - this is our definition” (VI Lenin, ‘Freedom to criticise and unity of action’ CW Vol 10, Moscow 1977, pp442-443).

Re-reading Richard’s piece, I am struck by the fact that what the comrade is describing is more like the discipline of a faction, not a party discipline even in embryonic form. A faction, Lenin points out, “is an organisation ... united, not by its place of work, language or other objective conditions, but by a particular platform of views” (VI Lenin CW Vol 17, Moscow 1977, p265).

The parameters of a faction are thus much narrower than those of a party, an organisation representing the advanced part of the class itself and thus containing within itself, in a relationship of dialectical contradiction and unity, the myriad experiences, levels of struggle and political interpretations of this layer. Thus for example, there is Lenin’s treatment of the ultra-left Bolsheviks headed by Bogdanov during the period of tsarist reaction after 1907.

After a sharp - and open, it should be emphasised - battle within the Bolshevik faction, these comrades were expelled (from the faction, not the Party) by the June 1909 conference of the expanded editorial board of the Bolshevik publication Proletary for their continued political adherence to an abstentionist orientation that would have reduced the party to a sect.

Yet in justifying this move Lenin was careful to distinguish between the discipline of the party and that of a faction, or “section”. Here is what he says:

“In our party Bolshevism is represented by the Bolshevik section. But a section is not a party. A party can contain a whole gamut of opinions and shades of opinion, the extremes of which may be sharply contradictory ... This is not the case within a section. A section in a party is a group of like-minded persons formed for the purpose primarily of influencing the party in a definite direction, for the purpose of securing acceptance for their principles in the purest form. For this, real unanimity of opinion is necessary” (VI Lenin, ‘Report on the conference of the extended editorial board of Proletary’ CW Vol 15, p430).

I say that comrade Brenner’s prescriptions are “more like” a factional discipline, but it is clear from this quote that the resemblance is actually superficial. WP is quite clearly not characterised by a “real unanimity of opinion”, as has been evidenced by its flip-flops on fundamental theoretical questions. Thus, it has what can only be described as a bureaucratic centralist regime in which minority opinions are in effect gagged: the characteristic structural attribute of a sect - Richard’s assurances about the cacophony of internal debate inside his group notwithstanding.

Thus we see that Richard’s “greatest weakness” is actually the failing he accuses us of - a fundamental misunderstanding of the key contemporary question, the party question. There is obviously no dialectical link between how he sees the WP grouplet of today and the future mass working class party I am sure he is sincere in fighting for. As I ended my last piece against him, a sect method can produce nothing other than a sect.

In contrast, our approach to these questions - of disciplined openness, of freedom of discussion leading to unity in action - is fully in the tradition of Leninism, and I reiterate my challenge to comrade Brenner or any other to show how it is not.

However, in the absence of anything substantive to challenge our organisation with, Richard is reduced to making some pitifully frail points against us. First, he suggests that we glibly refer to the revolutionary party as the “highest level of proletarian organisation”, presumably indicating a certain fetishisation of the CPGB form.

Certainly, we believe the formation of the CPGB in 1920 was the highest organisational achievement of the working class in Britain so far - how can this be disputed? But yes, we believe that a revolutionary international - as Richard points out - is a higher form (and, it might be added, a world proletarian government higher still).

But Richard has a point to prove, no matter what the facts are shouting at him. Thus he contrasts WP’s internationalist project, the League for Revolutionary Communist International, with the CPGB’s ‘national socialism’, evidence for which he sees in our advice to our “Australian co-thinkers” to move en bloc to Britain.

Of course, the points I have made about WP domestically apply equally to its tiny groups of franchised co-thinkers around the globe. A sect internationalised does not take the world’s working class closer by one millimetre to the world party of revolution we have to reforge, comrade.

Then there is the specific charge over Australia. Well - yes, comrade - genuine internationalists believe that where a communist happens to find themselves is an entirely secondary question. We have applied this principle soberly and in a proper form, as our organisation has grown and consolidated - after all, there was a time when we had to insist that comrades in Britain moved to London to be effectively developed. Clearly, this has changed as we have grown.

It is incumbent on us as revolutionaries at all times, but particularly in this period of defeat and dispersal, to learn from the highest experience available. Thus, taking into account who they were, their links with the class, their prospects for success, the close cultural links between the two nations, we advised our “co-thinkers” in Australia to move to Britain to learn our politics at the highest level then available.

Brenner really is on a hiding to nothing when he accuses this organisation of being ‘national socialist’. I presume the ‘nation’ he would have in mind is Britain. In fact, we are actually far more of a ‘Turkish’ organisation.

At a certain stage of our development, future leading members of the Leninist trend in the Party served their apprenticeship with the Communist Party of Turkey - Iscinin Sesi - including illegal work in Turkey itself. In terms of its levels of discipline, its money raising, its approach to political intervention, our organisation is stamped with its determination from the 1970s/80s to learn from the highest revolutionary experience then available - that of the movement in Turkey. Of course, this sometimes has negative as well as positive features. Nevertheless, I think it is infinitely preferable to the dull culture of philistine Labourism that marks so much of the rest of the truly ‘national’ left in this country, Richard’s dozy organisation included.

I will end with Richard’s implications about the democracy in our own organisation. He cites evidence from “two people who split” from us in August 1993 to suggest that the “accusation of bureaucratic centralism” is best thrown back against us.

Of course, I have already made the point that it is exquisitely ironic that Richard quotes from the booklet, Problems of communist organisation, to make this charge. As I noted in last week’s paper, “He is drawing on material that we - not our puny and unserious opposition, who quickly evaporated into private life - openly published.”

But what about the substance of the charges? The specific features of our organisation he draws attention to have certainly been true. Delegates to conferences (we have never held a congress, the highest body of a genuine party) have been appointed and - no - we do not have an annual conference as a matter of course.

But then, if Richard had read Problems ... for something more than cheap polemic dung to throw at us, perhaps he could have taken cognizance of the replies we made to our opposition in this open polemic.

I can do not better than directly quote from Jack Conrad’s reply to these “two people”:

“Regular (in most legal communist parties, biennial) congresses and central committee elections are essential for an organisation that has won the advanced section of workers, has become part of the working class and thus operates throughout the country ... It is necessary in such a Party to regularly bring together elected delegates because of the different views that result from different experiences, conditions and levels of the ongoing class struggle ... In our organisation it is possible to bring together all comrades within one meeting room ... once a month and allow a general airing and sorting out of views. Also in our organisation most members meet together in weekly seminars and work on a day-to-day basis in the closest proximity. That is why ... the emphasis of the PCC is on monthly membership aggregates, not annual conferences” (Jack Conrad Problems of communist organisation London 1993, pp21-22).

What about this question of appointment from above? Of course, this is true. Our organisation has developed from a very small nucleus and has used democracy not as a toy, but as a conscious weapon to build the Party. But again, Richard fails to mention a pertinent fact: invitation has been inclusive, not exclusive. We have used it to bring non-members, representatives of fraternal and friendly organisations into our debates. No member of the organisation has ever been bureaucratically excluded from participation in these democratic forums of the Party.

So there is no need for defensiveness from any comrade about this aspect of our organisational development. On the contrary, the fact that Richard Brenner mouthes the arguments of this particular opposition is instructive.

Against the real, concrete democracy of our living organisation, these comrades proposed bureaucratic procedure and formalism. We were able to quote Comintern back at them with quite devastating effect:

“Formal democracy by itself cannot rid the workers’ movement of either bureaucratic or anarchist tendencies because these in actual fact result from this type of democracy. All attempts to achieve the centralisation of the organisation and a strong leadership will be unsuccessful as long as we practise formal democracy” (Alan Adler [ed] Theses, resolutions and manifestos of the first four congresses of the Third International London 1980, p236).

Likewise, Richard’s position reeks of formalism. He ‘proves’ WP’s thriving democratism by reference to its constitutional norms. As I remember, comrade, Stalin and Bukaharin did something similar in the Soviet Union at the height of the purges. In both cases, I remain a tad on the sceptical side.