The Classic Marxist Perspective of the Party and the Trade‑Unions Pt.3

With Lenin a long period of doctrinal systematisation begins, in part rendered necessary by the appearance at the heart of Second International, and particularly within German Social Democracy, of Bernsteinian revisionism, in part by the struggle for the establishment of the class party in Russia.

In the article On Strikes (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 4, pp. 310‑319), written in late 1899, Lenin examines the question of workers’ struggles, paraphrasing almost verbatim Marx and Engels’ classic texts on the subject. It must be noted – and we are counting on being able to show, at the very least, that for over a century, from 1848, that is, from the Communist Manifesto, to now, the great revolutionary leaders and the Communist Party have always confirmed and reaffirmed the same doctrinal principles, pursued the same aims, and envisaged the use of the same means – that Lenin deals with the problem by drawing explicitly, in everything and in all respects, on Marxism, as later on the Communist Left would do in Italy.

The text, having examined the conditions under which labor takes place within the capitalist mode of production, continues as follows: «Under capitalist economy, therefore, the mass of the people work for a wage for other persons, working not for themselves but for employers, in exchange for wages. It is understandable that the employers always try to reduce wages; the less they give the workers, the greater their profit. The workers try to get the highest possible wage (…) Between employers and workers, therefore, a constant struggle over wages is taking place (…) But can a single worker conduct this struggle on their own? (…) For the worker It becomes impossible to fight alone against the employer (…) And so the workers (…) begin a desperate struggle. Recognizing that each of them, if isolated, is completely powerless and menaced by the danger of perishing under the yoke of capital, the workers begin to revolt together against their employers. The workers’ strikes have begun.

«In all countries the wrath of the workers first took the form of isolated revolts. In all countries these isolated revolts gave rise, on the one hand, to more or less peaceful strikes, and on the one, to the general struggle of the working class for its emancipation. Strikes, therefore, always instill fear in the capitalists, because they start to undermine their supremacy. A German workers’ song says of the working class, “All wheels stand still if your mighty arm wills it».

«Every strike suggests very forcibly to the workers the idea of socialism, of the struggle of the whole of the working class for emancipation from the oppression of capital (…) A strike teaches workers to understand where the strength of the employers lies, and where the strength of the workers lies, it teaches them to think not just about their own employer and own immediate workmates, but about the employers as a whole, about the class of capitalists as a whole and the class of workers as a whole (…) A strike, moreover, opens workers’ eyes not only to the nature of the capitalists, but of the government and of the law as well (…) The workers begin to understand that laws are made in the interests of the rich alone (…) This is the reason why socialists call strikes “a school of war,” a school in which the workers learn to make war on their enemies for the liberation of the people as a whole and of all workers from the yoke of officials and from the yoke of capital.

«“A school of war” is, however, not war itself (…) Strikes are one of the ways in which the working class struggles for its emancipation, but they are not the only way (…) The workers, therefore, cannot, under any circumstances, confine themselves to strike actions and strike associations. Secondly, strikes can only be successful where workers are sufficiently class-conscious, where they are able to select an opportune moment for striking, where they know how to put forward their demands, and where they have connections with socialists and are able to procure leaflets and pamphlets through them (…)

«This is a task that the socialists and class-conscious workers must undertake jointly by organising a socialist working-class party for this purpose (…) When all class-conscious workers become socialists, i.e., when they strive for this emancipation, when they unite throughout the whole country in order to spread socialism among the workers, in order to teach the workers all the means of struggle against their enemies, when they build up a socialist workers’ party that struggles for the emancipation of the people as a whole from government oppression and for the emancipation of all working people from the yoke of capital – only then will the working class become an integral part of that great movement of the workers of all countries that unites all workers and raises the red banner inscribed with the words: “Workers of all countries, unite!”».

The text, of fundamental political education, plain, simple and without pretension, as is Lenin’s style, clarifies very well the central point of the question, namely that strikes and “strike associations” – trade unions – are not enough, and the wave of workers’ struggles need to solidify into the party of “conscious” workers, and consciousness of all the workers. This concept will be repeated again and again, in a thousand forms, in a thousand circumstances, especially as the formation of the party in Russia draws nearer in the struggle against economism and spontaneism.

In 1902 Lenin wrote the article The Draft of a New Law on Strikes, (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 6, pp. 217‑226), interesting for its “topicality”, in which, analyzing a “liberal” measure by the Tsarist government, he lays into the “legal Marxists”, not only of Russia and that time, but of all countries and of all times, exposing the tactics of “legalization” of trade unions by the State and the prostration of opportunists before the “statesmanship” which, under pressure from economic laws and the industrialists themselves, has been forced to admit, through the mouth of its minister of finance, that, “Actually, however, every strike (of course if not accompanied by violence) is a purely economic phenomenon, which is quite natural and in no way jeopardises public law and order. In these cases law and order should be maintained in the same way as during popular festivities, celebrations, performances, and like occasions”. Lenin forecasts today’s ‘news’, shameful and imbecilic, with ‘the news’ back then, and comments:

«This is the language of genuine Manchester Liberals, who proclaim that the struggle between capital and labour is a purely natural phenomenon, who with remarkable frankness put on a par “trade in commodities” and “trade in labour” (elsewhere in the memorandum), demand non‑interference by the State, and assign to this State the role of night (and day) watchman”. Lenin, then, takes head‑on the “legal Marxist” (in Russia, Struve) who takes pleasure in this and who calls on the workers for “restraint” to “increase the significance” of “legal” agitation:

«Mr. Struve tells us, among other things, that the new draft is an expression of “statesmanship” (…) No, Mr. Struve. It was not “statesmanship” that advanced the new strike Bill, but the manufacturers. This Bill has appeared, not because the State “recognised” the basic principles of civil law (the bourgeois “liberty and equality” of employers and workers), but because the abolition of criminal liability for participation in strikes has become advantageous to the manufacturers”. (Bear in mind the current laws on “just cause” in individual dismissals). In conclusion Lenin urges the workers not to “restrain” their demands, “but to pose them with greater force”:

«Against the debt the government owes to the people, they want to pay you one kopek in every hundred rubles. Use payment of this kopek to demand in louder and louder terms the whole sum, to completely discredit the government and prepare our forces to deliver a decisive blow at it».

By 1902, the struggle against economism was already in full swing, and Lenin, in his famous What is to be Done?, written between the fall of 1901 and February 1902, in the section Bowing to Spontaneity (Lenin Collected Works, vol. 5, p. 378 et seq.) returns with unparalleled polemical vigor to the question of the party and trade unions, referencing some typical attitudes of economism, taken from the Rabochaya Mysl:

«“The virility of the working-class movement is due to the fact that the workers themselves are at last taking their fate into their own hands, and out of the hands of the leaders”. ‘It was announced that “the economic basis of the movement is eclipsed by the effort never to forget the political ideal,” and that the watchword of the workers’ movement was “Fight for economic conditions” (!), or, still better, “The workers for the workers.” It was declared that strike funds “are more valuable to the movement than a hundred other organizations”. Catchwords like: We must concentrate, not on the “cream” of the workers, but on the “average,” mass worker; “Politics always obediently follows economics”, etc., etc., became the fashion, and exercised an irresistible influence upon the masses of the youth who were attracted to the movement, but who, in the majority of cases, were acquainted only with such fragments of Marxism as were expounded in legally appearing publications.

«Consciousness was completely overwhelmed by spontaneity – the spontaneity of the “Social-Democrats” who repeated Mr. V. V.’s “ideas”, the spontaneity of those workers who were carried away by the arguments that a kopek added to a ruble was worth more than socialism or politics, and that they must “fight, knowing that they are fighting not for some future generation, but for themselves and their children”. Phrases like these have always been a favorite weapon of the West‑European bourgeois, who, in their hatred for socialism, strove (like the German “Sozial-Politiker” Hirsch) to transplant English trade-unionism to their native soil and to preach to the workers that by engaging in the purely trade union struggle they would be fighting for themselves and for their children, and not for some future generations with some future socialism. And now the “V. V.s of Russian Social-Democracy” have set about repeating these bourgeois phrases (…) This shows (something the Rabocheye Dyelo cannot understand at all) that all worship of the spontaneity of the working-class movement, all belittling of the role of “the conscious element,” of the role of Social-Democracy, means, quite irrespective of whether the belittler wants to or not, strengthening the influence of the bourgeois ideology over the workers» (italics are Lenin’s).

Lenin, after having quoted a long passage by K. Kautsky criticizing the draft program of the Austrian Social Democratic Party, in which must be highlighted the famous passage, often quoted by Lenin in his other writings, and perfectly adhering to the most uncompromising Marxist orthodoxy, namely: “Thus, socialist consciousness is something introduced into the proletarian class struggle from without [von Aussen Hineingetragenes] and not something that arose within it spontaneously [urwüchsig]”, continues thus: “There is much talk of spontaneity. But the spontaneous development of the working-class movement leads to its subordination to the bourgeois ideology (…) for the spontaneous working-class movement is trade-unionism (…) and trade-unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers by the bourgeoisie. Hence, our task, the task of Social-Democracy, is to combat spontaneity, to divert the working-class movement from this spontaneous, trade-unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy”.

The primary importance of the party, and at the same time its function as the leader of the struggling proletarian masses, is reiterated here once again. We come across the need for this again, also in What is to be Done? along with another aspect of the question, that is the delicate matter of whether trade unions should be party organizations or not. Lenin points out, to begin with, that “The political struggle of Social-Democracy is far more extensive and complex than the economic struggle of the workers against the employers and the government. Similarly (and indeed for that reason), the organisation of the revolutionary Social-Democratic Party must inevitably be of a different kind than the organisations of the workers designed for this struggle. A workers’ organisation must in the first place be a trade organisation; secondly, it must be as broad as possible; and thirdly, it must be as little clandestine as conditions will allow (here, and further on, of course, I have only absolutist Russia in mind). On the other hand, the organisation of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who make revolutionary activity their profession (for which reason I speak of organisation of revolutionaries, meaning revolutionary Social-Democrats). In view of this common feature of the members of such an organisation, all distinctions as between workers and intellectuals, and certainly distinctions of trade and profession, must be utterly obliterated.”

These concepts are found as such in old and recent texts of the Italian Left, standing as formidable evidence of the identity of revolutionary thought and action.

Lenin now explains how the “free” West differs from autocratic Russia: “In countries where political liberty exists the distinction between a trade union and a political organisation is clear enough, as is the distinction between trade unions and Social-Democracy. The relation of the latter to the former will naturally vary in each country according to historical, legal, and other conditions – it may be more or less close, complex, etc. (in our opinion it should be as close and simple as possible); but there can be no question of trade union organisations being identical with the Social-Democratic Party organisations in free countries”.

Lenin’s solution is peremptory, leaving no room for interpretation: the party must be completely distinct from the class and from its trade union and political organizations where the conditions of the class struggle are “free” to unfold without “despotic” hindrances, etc., but it can coincide where “as in Russia, the yoke of the autocracy appears at first glance to obliterate all distinctions between the Social-Democratic organisation and the workers’ associations”. “Still others will be carried away, perhaps,” comments Lenin, already an expert connoisseur of opportunism, “by the seductive idea of showing the world a new example of “close and organic contact with the proletarian struggle” – contact between the trade union and the Social Democratic movements”.

«Unfortunately – he reiterates – some go beyond that and envisage the complete fusion of Social-Democracy with trade-unionism”. Instead, “The workers’ organisations for the economic struggle should be trade union organisations. Every Social-Democratic worker should as far as possible assist and actively work in these organisations. That is true. But it is certainly not in our interest to demand that only Social-Democrats should be eligible for membership in the “trade” unions, since that would only narrow the scope of our influence upon the masses. Let every worker who understands the need to unite for the struggle against the employers and the government join the trade unions. The very aim of the trade unions would be unattainable if they failed to unite all who have attained at least this elementary degree of understanding, if they were not very broad organisations. The broader these organisations, the broader will be our influence over them – an influence due, not only to the “spontaneous” development of the economic struggle but also to the direct and conscious effort of the socialist trade union members to influence their comrades (…) Professional organizations can be most useful not only in developing and consolidating the economic struggle, but they also offer valuable help for political agitation and revolutionary organization».

Lenin writes in Russian; but during that historical period Russian is the international language of the world proletariat. Syndicalist deviations in Europe and the West are no different or less pernicious than “spontaneist” ones. After the bloody repressions that followed the fall of the Paris Commune, for nearly a decade the workers’ movement was more or less disorganized, and the slow recovery began with the first timid workers’ associations, from which, via a selection process involving bitter political clashes, the socialist party would later re‑emerge. However, it is precisely between the end of the last century and the early years of the 20th century, during the resurgence of union organization and the succession of strikes in various categories, that the groupings that emerged from the multiple splits between 1880 and 1882 will radicalize their initial positions.

Revolutionary syndicalism would expand and come to dominate the French labor movement. Its characteristics can be reduced to just one: freeing the workers’ movement from the nefarious influence of politics, liberating it from its class party; what matters is a powerful workers’ union organization that through the expropriatory general strike will replace the bourgeoisie and regulate economic organization. Twenty‑five years in advance of Ordinovism, workers’ control is preached by one of the agitators, Fernand Pelloutier. And already Lenin writes: «In the early sixties, the Stackelberg Commission, which revised factory and artisan regulations, proposed that factory courts elected from among the workers and the employers be set up and that some freedom of organisation be granted the workers» (Lenin Collected Works, vol 6, p. 218).

In the three previous instalments (nos. 10, 14, 16, of Il Programma) it was shown how the problem of the relation between class party and workers’ unions had been considered as invariant by Marx, Engels and Lenin, and how the same line – immutable as a matter of principle – had been followed since before the 1914‑18 war by the Left in Italy.

In Italy there also “appeared the false syndicalist Left” (see Storia della Sinistra Comunista, edited by our party, volume I, p. 34 et seq.), which manifested itself at the April 1904 Congress in Bologna and exited from the party in July 1907, founding the Italian Syndicalist Union. However, within the party, reformist trade-unionism/syndicalism, which was just as workerist and spontaneist as avowed syndicalism, would enucleate itself, declaring through Rigola’s mouth at the party’s 10th Congress in Florence that “the economic organizations can no longer be dependent on the Socialist Party”.

The party’s Intransigent Fraction, although not completely in line with orthodox Marxism, expressed well, as voiced by Lazzari, the proper relationship between the party and the trade union: “We must have every respect for the immediate interests dealt with by the Confederation of Labor, but we are the Socialist Party, and the viewpoint we have to take, to guide us in our actions, must be such as to leave no possibility of subordinating our great conceptual interests to the various transitory necessities which on a daily basis, for the defense and protection of the immediate interests of the workers, may also be necessary”; thus: “one program, one principle, one method, one discipline, which must bind us all”.

The far left of the Socialist Party would specify the function of the party and of the trade unions in the article Partito Socialista e organizzazione operaia (op. cit, p. 193), which appeared in Avanti! on 30‑1‑1913: «The trade organizations represent the first step in the development of the class consciousness which prepares the proletariat for socialism. They recruit all the workers who without yet being socialist want to improve their conditions. The duty of the socialist party is to make every effort to support the economic organization of the masses. An equally elementary and urgent duty is to see to it that, alongside the organization of the workers in the trade unions, intense socialist propaganda is carried out so that the solidarity of the exploited as a whole, the aspiration for total emancipation from all chains, is felt by the masses to be ever more pressing, and that which today is the bold dream of a small vanguard becomes tomorrow the conscious desire of the masses».