30.10.2008
Succumbing to reformism
John Robinson writes a comradely criticism of Mike Macnair's book
Mike Macnair’s recently published Revolutionary strategy and the challenge of left unity requires critical comment. I write as a supporter of the Japan Revolutionary Communist League.
The essential message of comrade Mike is that soviet power is not the way forward. The way forward, he maintains, is through the winning of a majority in society for the idea that “democratic republic” can be achieved.
Comrade Mike’s rejection of the possibility of winning power through soviets is based on his view that Lenin and the Bolsheviks “militarised their party and created a top-down bureaucratic regime” (p117). Further, that this in turn led to a development of an “open bureaucratic tyranny” (p146).
As opposed to the concept of soviets opening up the road to working class power, Mike sees as a model that of the “centre tendency” of Kautsky’s pre-1914 German Social Democratic Party. Indeed, he entitles his third chapter: ‘The revolutionary strategy of the centre’. Here he writes that “... this tendency has a major historical achievement to its credit ... it led to the building of the mass socialist workers’ parties of the late 19th and early 20th centuries” (p32). These parties were able to create cooperatives, educational institutions and so on (p53).
A number of points need to be made here. Firstly about soviet power and secondly about comrade Mike’s model based on the centre tendency in Kautsky’s party.
It needs to be recalled that Lenin led the Russian Revolution in a backward peasant country. He led it on the assumption and understanding that the Russian Revolution would be followed by a communist revolution in Germany based on soviets. This would ensure that the backward Russian economy would be rapidly built up with the help of German technicians and machinery. Further, since Germany was a major industrial nation, any widespread building of German soviets would lead to the mass communist consciousness foreseen by Marx and Engels (see below). This in turn would lead to a situation in which any “bureaucratic regime” could have been prevented from developing. The great tragedy in the period following 1917 is that no Leninist vanguard party had been built in Germany.
Dual power
The possibility of soviet power arises from dual power situations. Dual power situations arise when working class organisations exercise partial control of a country at the same time as the capitalist state exercises partial control. Such was the case in Russia in 1917, in Britain in 1926 (councils of action were the British soviets) and in France in 1968.
Dual power situations are important for the following reason. The essence of a communist revolution is the smashing of the capitalist state machine (armed forces, police, etc) and its replacement by a workers’ state machine capable of smashing counterrevolution. This task can only be undertaken by a working class that has been able to change itself and achieve what Marx and Engels call a “mass communist consciousness” during the course of the revolution.
They state: “... for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew” (K Marx, F Engels The German ideology London 1974, p95).
Here it should be emphasised that the only reliable way that mass communist consciousness can be achieved is through the working class creating its own soviets. It is through soviets that a workers’ state machine can be created.
Comrade Mike correctly states that what will be needed is a government that has the ability to make decisions. Further, that in order for such a government to be formed a Marxist party must first be built. But the essential point here is that any genuine Marxist party must have an understanding of the need for the working class to achieve mass communist consciousness.
I would suggest that the Japan Revolutionary Communist League possesses this understanding. The JRCL starts from the need to fight for the regeneration of the working class movement on class struggle lines. In the course of this fight the JRCL builds itself. This is known as “movement tactics - organising tactics”. When the time comes for the Japanese working class to create its soviets the JRCL will be firmly in the lead.
Democracy
Comrade Mike places great emphasis on what he terms “extreme democracy”. Thus, “Communists can only take power when we have won majority support for working class rule through extreme democracy” (p130).
It is necessary here to state that there can be no all-round democracy - let alone any extreme form - during and immediately after a communist revolution. Communist revolution involves civil war leading to the dictatorship of the proletariat. As Lenin has pointed out in his Proletarian revolution and the renegade Kautsky, the highest form of democracy for the working class is soviet power. In contrast to this there has to be a robust dictatorship by the working class against the overthrown capitalist class and their hangers-on in the middle class.
It is clear that comrade Mike fails to understand the absolutely counterrevolutionary nature of the capitalist state. Thus he writes: “When we have a [parliamentary] majority we will form a government and implement the whole minimum programme; if necessary, the possession of a majority will give us the legitimacy to coerce the capitalist, pro-capitalist and petty bourgeois minority. Implementing the whole minimum programme will prevent the state in the future serving as an instrument of the capitalist class and allow the class struggle to progress on terrain more favourable to the working class” (p57).
Here it is necessary to state that comrade Mike’s approach to the nature of the state includes a false estimation of the nature of parliament. Parliament basically wields no real power in Britain. It is a sort of Punch and Judy show designed to fool workers into believing that by putting a cross against a name every so often they thereby have a say in how the country is to be run.
Power in Britain is held by what is sometimes referred to as ‘state within a state’. This includes the privy council, the higher civil service, the armed forces general staff, industrialists, landowners and representatives of the major banks.
Comrade Mike, in the lines quoted above, makes plain his belief that a parliamentary majority would be able to prevent the state machine from being used against the working class. But this is dangerous nonsense. The British capitalist class, with its history of brutal oppression (especially in its empire), would never relinquish its tight grip on its police and armed forces. It should be understood that the capitalist state machine would be unlikely to tolerate any genuine communist organisation that threatened its very existence.
Note what has happened in Japan. When the Japan Revolutionary Communist League began to gain serious support in the working class the state responded by repression. Since 1970 no less than 78 comrades have been assassinated by the secret police. The JRCL has therefore had to adopt a semi-illegal existence. It cannot, for example, put up candidates in parliamentary or local government elections.
It needs to be stated that comrade Mike has adopted the ‘structural reformist’ approach of the Italian Communist Party and similar organisations. In simpler language he has succumbed to reformism.
A number of references are made in the book to Trotsky. Therefore brief comment is necessary. Trotsky undoubtedly had political weaknesses, although mention of these is outside the scope of this article. Nevertheless, it should be recognised that he saw clearly the absolutely counterrevolutionary nature of Stalinism. He saw that the internal problems facing Russia could be resolved only by the spread of communist revolutions on a world scale. He correctly raised the question of ‘world revolution or socialism in one country’. It is a pity that comrade Mike never thought to raise this point.
Mike correctly points out that if a communist revolution took place in a single country it would be in danger of blockade or military intervention from other (capitalist) states. This therefore makes necessary the building of a world communist movement. Unfortunately Mike is unable to say how such a movement can be built.
It would certainly seem that the one of the few communist organisations to take seriously the task of building a world movement is the Japan Revolutionary Communist League. The JRCL undertakes this task mainly through its attempts to build a worldwide anti-war movement. Here it needs to be emphasised that an anti-war movement led by communists must necessarily be a revolutionary movement. It is not too difficult for communists to convince people that war is endemic to capitalism and that in order to eliminate wars it is necessary to overthrow capitalism. It can be said that this strategy has to date met with modest but significant successes.
Marxist philosophy
This brief article has been written in the belief that no organisation is capable of leading a communist revolution unless it is firmly based on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism). It is a matter of regret that the CPGB has not focussed adequate attention to this vital question. It is therefore necessary to raise this question, however briefly.
Materialists start from the premise that all thought is a reflection, however distorted, of a material world which has objective existence independent of human consciousness. The adjective ‘dialectical’ implies the self-movement of the material world, which of course contains human society and its self-movement.
In contrast to materialists, those influenced by bourgeois ideology start - often unconsciously - from the premise that material reality represents a projection of thought.
Those who are unable to free themselves from bourgeois methods of thought often start from the belief that by projecting their own thought onto the world they can thereby change it. In contrast to this, dialectical materialists start from the objective contradictions of the material world in such a way as to develop these contradictions in the desired direction.
Very relevant to this question is a statement by Trotsky: “Scientific socialism (Marxism) is the conscious expression of the unconscious historical process; namely, the instinctive and elemental drive of the proletariat to reconstruct society on communist beginnings” (L Trotsky In defence of Marxism New York 1975, p129).
Note that the “unconscious historical processes” referred to by Trotsky above must include the struggles of the working class which result in the creation of soviets and dual power situations. What is important here is that when the working class creates soviets and dual power situations it does so without realising the significance of what it has done. Also that it has objectively raised the question of state power. It must be a central aspect of Marxist philosophy that the working class acts first and thinks about what it has done afterwards.
Hopefully the above will become clearer if reference is made to the events in France in 1968. Here the greatest general strike in history took place, involving at least 10 million workers.
The strike started with a relatively small number of workers in protest against the brutal treatment of students by the police. This was perceived by a second lot of workers who then decided to join in. A further section of workers, seeing this movement, decided to follow. The whole movement snowballed until 10 million had joined, thus creating the objective conditions for communist revolution. What was lacking was “the conscious expression of the unconscious historical processes”, implying a vanguard party capable of overcoming the resistance of the Stalinist and social democratic traitors who betrayed this massive movement.
Note that this great movement of the working class was not brought about by the spread of ideas, as those unable to break from bourgeois methods of thought might well maintain. It becomes clear that only through an understanding of the materialist philosophical outlook can communist revolution be understood.
Conversely, those unable to rid themselves of bourgeois ideology, which is endemic to capitalism, will be unable to build a Communist Party firmly based on Marxism. For bourgeois ideology constitutes a method of class rule.
If what has been written above causes CPGB comrades to pay more attention to Marxist philosophy, then its writing will have been worthwhile.
