The Party’s Preparation for the Revolution Lies in its Organic Nature (Pt. 2)

6. The lessons of counter‑revolutions

The historical events of the period 1919-1926 do not only mark the defeat of the revolutionary movement, but also the rebirth of the party from the ashes of the Third International. They are events whose most profound causes are not to be sought either in the betrayals or in the loyalty to the revolution of brilliant and illustrious men, but rather in the objective determinations of history. Just as the causes of the defeat of the revolutionary forces were objective, since in Europe the situation was falsely revolutionary and the uncertain and changing behaviour of the European communist parties and the International were effects, not causes, of the deflection of the curve of class potential, so the causes which determined the struggle of the Left against Stalinism were also objective. It was in the course of this struggle, and due to historical determinations and certainly not due to individuals, that the positions were selected which, from that point on, would form the fundamental framework for the party destined to lead the next revolutionary wave against the capitalist powers; and it is for this reason that all of the party’s theses continually refer to this struggle and to these positions, because it is here that it is possible to find the answer to every question, away from personal politicking, in relation to the entire revolutionary tradition.

Only the Left kept theory intact and it is only in this theory that the premise for the re-emergence of the revolutionary movement is crystallized, but all of this is inseparable from the fact that only the Left denounced from the outset the first tactical deviations as the first symptoms of a new opportunism which would eventually become fully manifest. The conclusion drawn by the party is that every tactic which is “elastic and manipulated” cannot but have a disastrous and ruinous outcome for the revolution.

The Left was the first to warn that from the moment the Russian state started to deviate, by subjecting the CPSU and the International to itself, it would open an ever widening gulf between the interests of the global proletariat and those of the Russian state. It was alone in asserting that this would begin a counter-revolutionary process, and it remained alone in understanding that the formal party would have to be born again to remain in keeping with the historic party, contrary to all the other schools which maintained and still maintain that it is possible to halt the degeneration of a “workers’” party and State from within.

It is for this reason that the transmission of this uncorrupted tradition, away from these degenerations, can only be done using, in the most faithful way possible, the lessons of the class battle conducted by the Left in the years after 1919; a battle that was interrupted, above all, by the bond of dependency on a centre that was degenerating. By making continual reference to the sequence of events which invalidated the Third International, and to all the critical positions that the Left upheld in order to ward off the danger of a new opportunism, one is obliged to draw lessons that have to be considered absolutely “sacred”, not so much because we claim to have discovered in them recipes for success, but because they constitute “severe warnings” to defend ourselves from the dangers and the weaknesses into which revolutionary forces have fallen on many occasions and into which every organisation is susceptible to falling again. The party must keep these fundamental lessons intact and maintain, as its never-to-be-forgotten heritage, the correct theoretical diagnoses and historical predictions made by the Left about the new opportunistic dangers as they slowly took shape in the early years of the life of the new International. Included in this heritage is a clear Marxist thesis of fundamental importance; one which has been affirmed by the Left in all of its polemics against the degeneration of Moscow: that the party is at the same time both a factor and a product of historical development, and is thus not surrounded by impregnable walls, but rather feels the effects of its own action carried out towards the outside.

In the space of a few years the Russian Communist Party and the International, which had led the glorious October Revolution and had made the global bourgeoisie tremble with fear, had fallen into an abyss so deep that the very possibility of even maintaining a tenuous organizational thread to pass on the correct positions and the correct revolutionary tradition was entrusted to just a small number of militants. Despite this, over the entire course of the extremely counter-revolutionary period which commenced with Stalinism’s victory, the historical direction of the rebirth of the party and the maintenance of organizational party relationships has always been that of preparing the true party for the historical period in which the proletariat will return to the vanguard of history, in the absolute conviction that the next revolutionary assault would undoubtedly fail as well if the indispensable organ of the revolution, the party, were lacking. Such a party cannot be improvised, nor propelled into existence by spontaneous suggestions and movements, but can only be the result of a long and difficult work of maintaining intact the link uniting uncorrupted theory to revolutionary action. This tremendous historical respite and the profound awareness of preparing the actual, efficiently functioning organ of the revolution must always be present in the party, even if a profound gulf still separates us from the revolutionary era.

In the “Lyons Theses”, which draw up the balance-sheet of the struggle against Stalinism, are posited, despite the extremely negative outcome as regards the immediate effects of this struggle, the fundamental principles concerning what the party’s activity should be at all times and in all the situations, and these fundamental principles must be considered sacred not just for today’s party, but also for tomorrow’s, in particular because they derive from those causes which then worked in the favour of the counter-revolution, but which could work in future historical conditions to the advantage of the revolution. From these sacred lessons we have learned that at all times and in all situations the party’s activity must never be limited to the conservation of the purity of theoretical principles or of the organizational group, nor to the achievement of immediate successes at any cost. It must always combine the defence of fundamental programmatic postulates, even when so-called new factors bring any of them into question, with the assurance of the continuity of the organization, of its efficient functioning and of its defence against objectives that are extraneous to the interests of the revolution; and it must combine this with active participation in every proletarian struggle, even those arising from partial and limited interests, always encouraging their development, but also always bringing to the fore the connection of each struggle with the final revolutionary aims; never presenting any conquests obtained with the method of the class struggle as final destinations, but rather as bridges of passage to the indispensable struggle to come. The supreme aim of all this activity is to prepare the subjective conditions that will allow the proletariat to profit from the objective possibilities that history will present, so as to emerge from the struggle as the victor, not as the vanquished.

It is in adhering to this complex vision of the party’s activity that it is possible to keep the party itself on the correct revolutionary path, removed from all bluster and inconclusive activism which claims, with its own willpower, to create the objective conditions for the revolution, not understanding that those conditions are a product of history and consequently mistaking it for its own willpower; and equally, outside of all spontaneism which devalues all of the subjective preparatory activity of the party, claiming that the clarity and the efficiency of the party’s orientation are a product of the action of the masses and not a quality of the party, which the party must know how to acquire before the explosion of the revolution, on pain of the defeat of the revolution itself.

7. Relationship between principles, programme and tactics

The degeneration of the communist movement in the 1920s confirmed in a decisive manner that the only way to pose the tactical problem while staying true to revolutionary principles is the one defended by the Left since the early days of the Third International: there is a close connection between programmatic guidelines and tactical rules and therefore the study of the situation must be understood only as a supplementary element in resolving tactical problems. The party, in its consciousness and critical experience, must predict how situations may develop and define the tactical possibilities corresponding to them, while the contrasting method of waiting for situations in order to directly experience and be influenced by them is typical of the opportunist method. The system of tactical standards must thus be built with the specific purpose of establishing under what conditions the intervention of the party and its activity is in tune with the final revolutionary objective. It is a practical and organizational necessity, and not the desire to theorize and schematize the complexity of social movements, which imposes on the party the need to establish the terms and limits of its own action. For those who overestimate the general movement and those who deny the primary role of the party, this method appears to restrict its freedom of action, whereas on the contrary it alone can assure the organic unity of the party itself and therefore the fundamental condition for the victory of the revolution.

For this reason it is necessary that the entire party endorse this system of tactical norms which must be binding on all. To this end it must be studied and applied, where possible, so that the whole party is ready to make use of it when the anticipated historical conditions arise. One cannot however accept the idea that the party, in developing its tactical plans, is “immune from criticism”, for by this much more meandering path we would be returning to the theorization of waiting for situations in order to be conditioned by them, in other words returning to tactical freedom. By proceeding from the correct theory and the correct evaluation of the historical phase, without which the party itself would not exist, we are bound to arrive at the correct tactics, which, in permeating the entire organization, also assure the organic nature and compactness of the party.

We have never supported the view that the party, as a conscious organ, is free to deduce any and every tactical implication from its principles, nor have we ever sought the guarantee of the coordination of methods with revolutionary objectives in the revolutionary nature of the party, or in the contribution of eminent and gifted men with a good grounding in Marxism, because this disregards the repercussions that the party’s own actions have on the party itself. From the historical struggle of the Left against emerging Stalinism, and from the balance-sheet of this struggle, we have instead concluded that it is only by knowing how to act in the field of tactics and energetically closing off any false paths with precise and respected standards of action, that the party guarantees itself against degenerations, never simply by resorting to theoretical credos and administrative sanctions. Thus our aversion to the approach of tactical freedom leads to the denial of such freedom for our own party, too, in the sense that the party itself cannot enforce improvised tactics whose significance and correlation with the final revolutionary objective have not permeated the entire organization. The voluntary element in the party consists in the possibility of deciding to apply its tactical plan at the moment when the revolutionary forces will be at their most effective; and therein lies its supremacy vis-a-vis the enemy, for it is impossible for any other organization to know the effects of its own actions on the development of the situation. Here is why, in order to realize its revolutionary potential, the party must be ready for action long before the anticipated historic events become reality, and herein lies the importance of preparing for such tasks, even if the activity takes place in dark and dreary times like these, when it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that the meaning and importance of the activity being carried out is with a view to the triumph of the revolution.

Today it is not a matter of elaborating something new, because in the party’s tradition, in its texts and theses, each element of our tactical plan is amply foreseen and explained. It is therefore a matter of organizing the party’s work in such a way that the entire organization can acquire the elements of tactics, as comprehensively as possible, and practice them through propaganda and the social struggle in all areas of the party’s activity. This task might seem of little account, but it is so important that without its appropriate development today the revolution of tomorrow would not be possible, because the party cannot be improvised when revolutions break out. The general guidelines on tactics that the party will apply in all countries must take into account the practical experiences of the opportunist crises, and the struggles led by the Left against the revisionism of the Second International and against the progressive deviation of the Third; from which the conclusion has been drawn that it is not possible to maintain the integrity of the programmatic positions, of the practical experience and of the organizational structure of the party if the latter applies a tactic which, even in its purely formal positions, includes attitudes and watchwords acceptable to opportunist political movements. From this derives the fundamental notion, on which the whole party’s tactical plan is based, according to which our political praxis rejects manoeuvres, combinations and blocs which traditionally take shape on the basis of postulates and slogans common to several parties. This fundamental concept regarding the field of tactics has an essentially historical value, that is to say it cannot be put under discussion with contingent evaluations, and it distinguishes the party precisely in the same way that its original vision of the period that capitalist society is currently traversing distinguishes it; a period increasingly characterized not by a return to the democratic-liberal forms of the pre-fascist period, but by monstrous, totalitarian state entities, the ruthless expression of economic concentration.

8. Against political struggle within the party

Another sacred lesson that derives from the struggle of the Left against Stalinism in the 1920s is that the preparation of the party for the execution of its revolutionary tasks must take place by means of an internal operational method that rules out, on principle, the criterion of political struggle. In fact the party is characterized, apart from by its unique theoretical and programmatic principles, by precise tactical and organizational frontiers, whose annulment would bring about the annulment of the party itself. Another fundamental concept therefore applies: the party is in a continuous struggle against an external enemy, which it cannot expect to defeat by convincing it of the justice of our revolutionary principles, because the solution to the problem of the revolution solely depends on a question of force. However, the same method cannot be used for the internal work of preparation for the execution of revolutionary tasks, because this has as its aim not the destruction of an enemy but the collective acquisition of the correct positions. In this work, not only the method of political struggle is deadly, but so too is that of administrative pressure: more than sufficient proof of this is provided by the methods employed by the Moscow Executive in the 1920s against parties which had succumbed to grave political errors, but which were subjected to methods of “ideological terror” and “administrative pressure” which constituted an erroneous application and, in the end, a complete falsification of the correct principles of centralization and discipline. This method was applied by the Moscow Executive against all the parties of the International, but particularly against the Italian party in the years after 1923, by seriously abusing the spectre of fractionalism and the constant threat to expel the Left current artificially accused of preparing a split; and all this with the aim of ensuring that dangerous centrist errors prevailed in the politics of the International.

We have deduced from the disastrous and bankrupt balance-sheet of this method that when we draw from the invariant doctrine the conclusion that the revolutionary victory of the working class can only be achieved with the class party and its dictatorship; when, on the basis of Marx’s words we maintain that without a revolutionary and communist party, the proletariat may be a class for bourgeois science, but it is not for us and Marx himself; then the conclusion to be deduced is that, in order to achieve victory, it will be necessary to have a party, worthy at the same time of both characteristics, those of historical party (as regards its content) and formal party (as regards its form, which acts as physical force and praxis of a decisive part of the fighting proletariat); this means that the apparent contradiction must be resolved in the reality of action and history. Every effort should therefore be devoted to achieving such a result and not to the ridiculous struggles between groups that claim to possess the only and exclusive notion of the correct methods and correct positions. That is why it is no longer possible to be in perfect order with regard to the historical party while not giving a damn about the formal party: because our historical task today is not one of elaborating revolutionary theory, which we possess in full, but rather converting that theory into the flesh and blood of the contingent and formal party. Only through such activity is it possible to realize the fundamental condition that will enable the party to take advantage of the objective opportunities that history offers, so that the party emerges from the clash as the victor, and not as the vanquished.

9. Conclusions

Historical experience and in particular the sequence of events relating to the degeneration of the Third International have taught us that it is a serious error to consider the party as a result that has been attained once and for all, because every organism can degenerate. The vehicle of the degeneration of the Third International was the insufficient coherence between tactics and programmatic guidelines and from then on it was by means of this vehicle that the degeneration of the party could occur. This element is much more insidious and difficult to identify than the open repudiation of principles, because it might very well be reconciled with a formal respect for these principles. For this reason it is indispensable to boldly signal the dangers that the Left warned about and denounced in the face of Moscow’s degeneration in order to prevent the same dangers which led to the degeneration of the Third International from playing the same ill-fated role again. Guarantees against opportunism are not just relevant to the past, but must be present and real in party life at all times. After all, there exist no serious disadvantages in an exaggerated preoccupation with the opportunist danger because, even if this is the product of the cogitations of individual militants and not the real reflection of something that is not working, it will certainly not do the party the least harm, whereas, on the contrary, the danger for the party is extremely serious if the disease spreads before someone, somewhere, dares to raise the alarm. These, too, are lessons we should not forget, which derive from the Left’s struggle in the 1920s, and which lead us to conclude, now as then, that criticism in the absence of error is not one thousandth as harmful as error without criticism. This is certainly not to exalt freedom of thought and criticism in the party as the right of every individual, but is rather to establish the physiological functioning and working of a revolutionary party.

The Left was politicised against in this way: the Left says that the International is mistaken, but because the International cannot make mistakes, the Left that is wrong. The Left by contrast did not expect anyone to recognise its reasons, but it insisted the question be posed very differently: the Left says that the International is mistaken, but for the following reasons related to the issue raised we demonstrate instead that it is the Left that is mistaken, and it is this that proves that the International has not committed errors. The Left was also accused of continuously suspecting the International’s leaders of opportunism, which did not deflect it from denouncing the dangerous errors. But if the Left expected something other than the usual cries of “look who is accusing the International of opportunism and undoubtedly deserves to be crucified”, hoping instead for a serious demonstration of guarantees that might serve to separate opportunist practices from revolutionary action, it hoped in vain.

Despite the generous attempts by the Left to save the International from the new and even more fetid opportunism, within a few years the latter was completely triumphant. The conclusion we have drawn from this is that there are no rules or recipes for preventing the party from relapsing into opportunist crises. There is however the experience of the Left’s struggle, which allows us to specify a few conditions of the party’s organic life, whose realization must be our unstinting task:

     1) We rule out that the activity of the party may lead to the setting up of fractions which compete for control of the party. As we rule out the setting up of fractions at the periphery for the “conquest” of the party’s centre, so we rule out that the centre conceives of its function as entirely directed towards “maintenance” of the leadership of the party.
Since it is fruitless and absurd, as well as extremely dangerous, to claim that the party is mysteriously guaranteed against every relapse or tendency to relapse into opportunism, we must admit the possibility of the formation of fractions to protect the party from serious dangers and to defend its programmatic integrity, and that this might lead to splits, not however for the infantile reason of lack of repressive energy on the part of the centre, but in the damnable eventuality of the failure of the party and its subjection to counter-revolutionary influences. Therefore the question of fractions should not be posed from a moral point of view. “Is there a single example in history of a comrade who has organized a fraction for the fun of it?” asked the Left, when it was accused of fractionalism at the fourth Enlarged Executive of the International. “No – it replied – such a case has never arisen and, to be able to say that it is a bourgeois manoeuvre to infiltrate the party, you need to supply the evidence. Experience proves, on the contrary, that opportunism always penetrates our ranks behind the mask of unity”. The genesis of a fraction indicates that there is something not right in the party and to cure the illness there is no alternative but to address the causes and these causes always reside in the party’s ideological and political errors. Therefore the way to prevent, and to cure, the illness which appears with the symptoms of fractionalism is to refine and to clarify the correct positions of principle and tactics.

     2) For the same reasons we do not see fractions, as such, as the disease that has to be fought always and everywhere; we do not consider unity at any cost to be a benefit in itself. The maintenance of the unity of the party is certainly a benefit to be safeguarded, and we must fear the loss of even the smallest part of our slender forces as we would the loss of an eye, but this is inseparable from the maintenance of the correct positions in all areas, because the danger of bourgeois influence on the class party historically presents itself as an insidious infiltration exerting a uniform demagogy and working as a dictatorship from on high.

     3) The work of the entire party must be directed towards obtaining a homogenous organization, without diverse groupings within it. This is an end towards which the entire party is required to work and it is achievable on condition that all the ideological, tactical and organizational questions are correctly posited and resolved. For this reason it would be a mistake to adopt the formula of absolute obedience in executing orders from on high when they concern the party’s internal relations between the central executive and the periphery. In fact the orders emanating from the centre are not the point of departure, but the result of the functioning of the movement as a collective. Consequently there is no mechanical discipline which is any good as far as the carrying out of orders and higher instructions “whatever they may be” is concerned; there is a set of orders and instructions corresponding to the true origins of the movement which can guarantee maximum discipline, that is to say, uniform action by the entire organization, while there are other directives that may compromise organizational solidity. The question of discipline and internal relations between periphery and centre thus consists in delineating the duties of the executive organs, something which must be done by the entire party, although certainly not in the democratic sense of the mandate that the periphery confers on the centre, but in the dialectical sense that takes into account the tradition, the preparation, and the material continuity in the thinking and the action of the movement.

The maintenance of the correct method of internal working is nevertheless inseparable from the way in which the party behaves towards the world outside. Internal relations themselves would therefore be destined to degenerate if the party should deviate even partially from its tasks, the most important of which we recapitulate as follows:

     1) The party must defend and affirm to the utmost degree the clarity and continuity of the communist doctrine, refusing to acknowledge proclamations of principle that are in contrast, even partially, to its fundamental theoretical principles.

     2) The party must, in every historical situation, openly proclaim the entire content of its programme with regard to economic, social and political accomplishments and above all as concerns the question of power, its conquest by armed force, and its exercise through dictatorship.

     3) The party must adopt a strict organizational rigour, in the sense that it will not consent to increasing its size by means of compromises with other groups, large or small or, worse still, by doing deals, in order to win rank and file adherents, by making concessions to alleged bosses and leaders.

     4) The party must struggle for a clear historical understanding of the basic antagonism that underlies the struggle; it claims the initiative in the attack on an entire world of structures and traditions and summons the masses to the offensive struggle, not one of defence against the so-called dangers of losing alleged advantages and improvements conquered within the capitalist world.

     5) The party rejects the entire range of tactical expedients which were advocated on the pretext that they accelerated the crystallization of the support of large layers of the masses around the revolutionary programme. These expedients are the political compromise, the alliance with other parties, the united political front, and the various formulas in which the State is used as a surrogate for the dictatorship of the proletariat. The party recognizes in the use of these tactical means one of the principal historical conditions for the dissolution of the proletarian movement and it considers those who deplore the opportunist plague of the Stalinist movement while at the same time advocating the same tactical paraphernalia to be even more dangerous than the Stalinists themselves.