Letter from a Provincial Comrade
We received a letter from a provincial comrade raising issues that seem fundamental to us for understanding revolutionary activity. Below, we reproduce its essence, followed by our clarification.
... I also want to share my thoughts on points in your regroupment platform with which I am not, strictly speaking, in disagreement—since that would imply having fixed and definitive ideas—but which I find very inadequate from the perspective of a serious analysis.
First, the way the bureaucratic phenomenon is addressed. On page 9, you write: "It is certain that no statute can protect the revolutionary organization from bureaucratic degeneration." For my part, I believe that bureaucratic degeneration depends neither on statutes, nor on the power ambitions of one or several individuals, nor even on the existence of a directive-type organization, but rather is determined by a given balance of forces. In plain terms, it seems to me that bureaucracy is not a cause but a product, an expression of the objective necessities of a given situation. Thus, bureaucracy is not the cause of the degeneration of the USSR, or, to be more severe, of the abortion of the proletarian revolution in Russia, but rather the expression of the inevitably counter-revolutionary nature of the Russian state after the defeat of the workers' movement in Europe (and especially in Germany).
Thus, when you write on page 3: "This is how, in Russia, the Bolshevik Party, brought to power by the collapse of Tsarism, provided a significant portion of the leading cadres of the first state bureaucratic capitalism," I remain perplexed. I must say that I belong to the generation marked by May 1968, and for a time, I shouted, somewhat recklessly: "Kronstadt, those nasty Bolsheviks!" Fortunately, I have since evolved a bit. Certainly, Kronstadt is condemnable, but that’s not the point. From what I have read of Lenin, I noted that as early as 1918, he said: as long as the Russian revolution is not supported by revolutions in European (highly industrialized) countries, we have nothing to do but wait and, if possible, assist, an expectation that, economically, given the development of the civil war, can only translate into state capitalist measures. At no point did Lenin claim to build socialism in an isolated Russia. If I say this, it is certainly not out of Leninism—on the contrary, I deplore Leninism, not regarding Kronstadt, but rather concerning his theses in What Is to Be Done? (the injection of revolutionary consciousness by professionals—see the analyses by Barrot and Guillaume in Spartacus). But returning to that sentence in the platform where the rise of the Bolshevik Party ("brought to power by the collapse of Tsarism") is presented as the story of a fallback solution for capital in Russia; here too, I remain perplexed because I consider (and this is not a moral or ideological value judgment) that in 1917, the Bolshevik Party was an integral part of the workers' movement, even if, and this is certain, it was full of flaws. But it seems difficult to me to present it, so summarily, as a party destined to inevitably implement state capitalism, even though it was, by force of circumstances, as I mentioned earlier, the instrument through which state capitalism was applied. To find answers to these issues, it seems to me that one would need to study what else the Bolshevik Party could have done in the situation at the time (isolation, very low industrial level, minority working class, etc.) or, better yet, what was there to do?
But there’s more: on page 8, the Bolsheviks (and by extension neo-Bolsheviks) are presented as inevitable gravediggers. Here again, I am not satisfied, not because I want to defend Leninists—that should be clear, I hope—but because the question arises whether it is solely the directive nature of an organization, prone to bureaucratic degeneration, that makes it the last bastion of capital, or whether this is due to the theoretical weaknesses of the "communist" political program (of this or that organization), weaknesses that automatically translate into strategy and tactics (this is, by the way, the basis of Gorter’s response to Lenin). It seems to me, in fact, that bureaucracy is not the cause but the product of a deviation, deformation, or denaturing of the communist revolutionary project.
This is why I believe that the clear affirmation of the communist revolutionary project is the fundamental thing for all those determined to engage in the struggle for communism, and that this takes precedence even over the glorification of the virtues of self-management (perhaps I am mistaken, as the latter only makes sense insofar as it enables the destruction of capitalist production relations: for me—once again, I am not asserting anything, I am raising questions—self-management is not an end but a means, because it does not seem inconceivable to me that there could be a capitalist system where workers manage their own exploitation, their own misery). If I say this, it is because I am aware (and I don’t think I am overestimating) of the formidable defensive and recuperative power of capital. This is why I remain wary of the platform’s scruples about any bureaucratic danger (delegation of activity, specialization, dirigisme, etc.), as I see in this a misplaced aestheticism of a Jansenist character, that is, one that aims at demonstrating a purely formal excellence. I must add that I aspire to this as much as you do, and these are undoubtedly indispensable for establishing communist social relations, but I also believe that there is no need to fear dirigisme, for example, if it enables actions, provided it is underpinned and reproduces an authentically communist program or project and does not defuse the revolutionary aspirations of the proletariat in the name of specious interests (and I am aware that there is then a danger, that of voluntarist substitutionism). If I say this, it is because I am convinced that those who engage in the communist struggle will, at some point, have to get their hands dirty (even a fascist, a democrat, or a poor fool of a cop who must be killed—let’s not kid ourselves—is, before being a bastard, a victim of bourgeois ideology), and this all the more so as there will be attempts at manipulation and provocation by capital... If I say this, it is because it seems to me that there should be no hesitation in resorting to extreme measures (e.g., denying freedom of expression to Stalinists, etc.), in the name of some libertarian or other morality.
GLAT’s Clarification
The essential question posed by your letter can be summarized as follows: "What leads a revolutionary organization to play a counter-revolutionary role?"
To this, you respond: "On one hand, historical circumstances; on the other, the theoretical weakness of the program." Let us set aside the first factor for now, which, in any case, must be independent of the revolutionary organization as such. In any event, different organizations placed in identical circumstances have reacted differently—it is therefore important to clarify the source and nature of these differences.
But what should be understood by "theoretical weakness of the program"? Such a phrase lends itself to two very different interpretations:
A purely idealist interpretation (the revolutionaries did not understand the true nature of the revolutionary process);
An interpretation consistent with historical materialism: the so-called revolutionaries found themselves, in relation to the proletariat, in a situation that prevented them from contributing to the revolutionary process.
It goes without saying that, for us, only the second interpretation is valid. It is therefore a matter of defining the revolutionary process and deducing the nature of the contribution that organized revolutionaries might be able to make to it.
In our view, the revolutionary process is defined by the substitution of existing social relations with new (so-called "communist") relations, characterized by the takeover by the currently exploited class—the proletariat—of the conditions of social life. Moreover, we believe—departing in this from the most widespread opinion among those who claim Marxism today—that while the overthrow of capitalist production relations can ultimately only take the form of a violent social crisis, it nevertheless presupposes the prior emergence of new social relations within the very class destined to generalize them to society as a whole. In other words, it seems to us impossible that a proletariat strictly confined to the kind of social relations that fully correspond to capitalist domination, stripped of all autonomy and initiative, capable only of responding like a disciplined army to the directives of a general staff of professional revolutionaries, could ever do anything other than produce and reproduce endlessly the capitalist relations in which it is trapped.
No doubt some theorists will argue that capitalist production relations are destined to collapse purely mechanically, without any active intervention by the proletariat, and that the latter will then find in historical necessity the ability to establish communism without having been prepared for it in the least. Without delving into the details of the argument, which would require lengthy developments, let us say that this kind of theory seems to us to be a figment of the imagination, unsupported by anything in the historical movement of capitalism. On the contrary, it seems to us that the crisis of production relations only reflects the growing inability of the capitalist class to maintain its domination over the proletariat and, ultimately, the maturation within the proletariat of the objective conditions that lead to the abolition of classes and exploitation. This, in our view, is the only correct interpretation of the well-known definition of communism as the real movement of the proletariat and not as a project invented by more or less brilliant thinkers.
To avoid any misunderstanding, let us clarify that by the formation of new social relations within the proletariat, we do not mean any participation by proletarians in the capitalist management of production, let alone some kind of self-management of misery in a capitalism hypothetically rid of capitalists. Let us leave such nonsense to the preachers of the CFDT. For us, it is not at all about self-management, and we have not used this term in our platform. It can only be about the proletariat taking control of the one activity that does not entirely escape it, namely its own struggle against the exploitation imposed on it by the very functioning of capitalist society.
This analysis further implies that it is not about claiming fixed, once-and-for-all determined relations, but rather relations that are always in motion, that emerge, develop, regress, disappear, or change form according to the vicissitudes of the class struggle. One could object that non-capitalist, or even anti-capitalist, social relations cannot coexist with capitalist production relations. Certainly, it is not a matter of denying that relations between classes are determined unequivocally by the existing production relations—in this case, capitalist relations. It is precisely this determination that excludes the gradual transition to communism as a completed system of production relations and makes a violent upheaval of the social order necessary to pave the way for new production relations. But it does not follow that the relations within the exploited class itself are perfectly determined by the existing production relations. This is not the case precisely because this class—the proletariat—is the bearer of new production relations capable of replacing the old ones. To say that the proletariat has a historical role to play is either an empty phrase for Sunday speeches or necessarily implies that the proletariat is capable of producing not only surplus value but also new production relations and thus new social relations. The proof of this assertion is provided by the entire history of the workers' movement, which shows precisely—to the great dismay of the counter-revolutionary theories of Kautsky and Lenin—that the proletariat periodically generates specifically anti-capitalist forms of organization and fights for objectives that are its own and that no external organization has suggested to it.
No leadership—and no theorist—urged the Parisian proletariat to launch an assault on the bourgeois state in 1848 or to dismantle it in 1871. No inventor patented the soviet or the workers' council. It was at the initiative of the rank and file that shop stewards emerged in Britain, just as—closer to us—the action committees of May 1968 appeared.
It was from the depths of the working class that the movement for shortening the workday began in the last century, which spared humanity an imminent demographic catastrophe. It was also there that the struggle for wage increases started, which, by raising the value of labor power, forced capitalism to accelerate its evolution and brought it to the point where the establishment of new production relations becomes objectively possible.
But what conditions this possibility is not simply a certain degree of perfection in production techniques. It is, once again, the existence of a class capable of collectively appropriating the conditions of social life, a capacity that can only be demonstrated in the course of the struggle against the exploiters.
This is often referred to as raising the level of consciousness. If this expression is correctly interpreted, it means precisely what we call here the "formation of new social relations." Unfortunately, consciousness is generally understood in a purely idealist sense, as an intellectual schema existing in the minds of proletarians, fed, of course, by the speculations of professional thinkers. We therefore prefer to emphasize that it is indeed about relations established within a given society, based on the material factors that determine the social being of individuals and, consequently, their consciousness. This presentation has the particular advantage of putting "theory" in its place, which is modest: one factor among others, and certainly one of the least important, in the proletariat’s learning of its role as the dominant class.
This, according to us, is what defines communism. It progresses to the exact extent that a more or less significant fraction of the proletariat becomes capable of leading its struggle against capital. It regresses to the extent that the proletariat merely serves as a maneuvering mass in struggles pitting different capitalist factions against each other—even if they represent diametrically opposed interests, such as those of private capital and state capital.
There is therefore no "communist program" in the purely idealist sense of the term, as a project existing in the consciousness of militants. There is only a real movement, in which militants are or are not participants.
Being revolutionary, under these conditions, is to contribute, in one’s modest way, to making one’s class capable of fulfilling its historical task, to help this or that fraction of the proletariat with which one is in contact to take charge of leading its struggles, to clarify the objectives and nature of the real movement, and not to contribute to obscuring them.
How on earth could one hope to achieve such objectives by maneuvering to make the proletariat accept a leadership separate from it, labeled revolutionary for the sake of the cause? It is obvious that such a policy is inherently trapped in an insurmountable contradiction. One does not extinguish a fire by pouring oil on it, nor does one help the proletariat rid itself of the dictatorship of capital by imposing a substitute dictatorship on it, even one animated by an ardent desire to see communism flourish across the globe.
This position has absolutely nothing to do with moral or aesthetic concerns, which are entirely foreign to us. It is precisely about real effectiveness. For it is not effective to expend one’s efforts in an action that can only lead to results contrary to those desired.
The touchstone of revolutionary activity is therefore the recognition, in theory and practice, of the proletariat’s hegemony, to the exclusion of any kind of separate leadership. Applying this criterion to the practical questions raised at the end of your letter, we find that the issue is not at all, for revolutionaries, whether to accept or refuse to get their hands dirty. The question is not "Should we massacre cops, silence Stalinists, etc.?" but rather: "Who will decide on such actions, and who will undertake them?" According to us, it is inconceivable that these should be professional revolutionaries—for then we are dealing with a state separate from the proletariat ("the state is armed bands") and the old filth has merely changed color. On the other hand, it is entirely conceivable that the proletariat, exercising its dictatorship, might resort to such measures, and it goes without saying that conscious revolutionaries would not shy away from the share of responsibility that might fall to them in carrying them out.
Similarly, if one wants to judge Bolshevism—as it existed historically or as it might still exist in the future—there is no need to lament the fate of Kronstadt or to search in the writings of Lenin or his followers for passages that reveal their misunderstanding of communism. History will judge us by our actions, not by our consciousness or intentions. In the case of the Bolsheviks, the actions leave no room for doubt: before, during, and after the revolutionary crisis, all the party’s activity aimed at securing exclusive leadership of the movement, opposing—by cannon fire if necessary—any attempt by the proletariat to organize itself as a dominant class. These are not “flaws” but indeed counter-revolutionary activity—according to the materialist definition given above—which absolutely precludes seeing the Bolshevik Party as an "integral part of the workers' movement"—unless one wishes to extend this label to social-patriots and unionists who also cooperate in the subjugation of the working class to capitalist exploitation.
That said, it is obvious that no organization has the power to create from scratch the objective conditions necessary for it to play a real role. It is not, for example, because today’s Trotskyists mimic every detail of the Bolshevik model that they will be granted entry into the paradise of state capitalism. We fully agree that bureaucracy, as a social formation, is the product of a historical situation, not its cause. We have never said otherwise. At most, we have sought to specify the characteristics that made certain organizations more apt than others to play the role that historical evolution offered them.
But possibility does not imply obligation. The bourgeoisie, too, is the product of historical necessity. Does it follow that revolutionaries have a duty to integrate into it and help it ensure its domination over society? Or are they not rather supposed to fight it, regardless of the circumstances, even if the balance of forces is such that no immediate success is in sight?
Saying that "there was nothing else to do" is therefore not an argument worthy of a revolutionary. There is always something else to do besides becoming the instrument of capitalism’s survival. And even if all possibility of action had disappeared, it would certainly be better to do nothing at all than to serve the counter-revolution in the name of realism, that poor excuse of the eternal saviors of exploitation.