[GM10] Bases of Party Action in the Field of Proletarian Economic Struggles Pt. 7
12. — OUR CLASSIC THESES
For proletarians, the question of choice of methods of action means choice of the means that are considered most suitable for the defense of their conditions or for achieving economic improvements. From this point of view the law of least effort applies, that is, the masses tend to choose those methods that lead or appear to lead to the greatest result with the least expenditure of energy. For the masses, therefore, there is no scale of values of methods of struggle, and the claim that, for example, a strike with maybe armed pickets is qualitatively superior to a peaceful demonstration or a simple petition is meaningless. One must always remember that what drives the masses to action are material needs and not ideas, and therefore they judge by results and not by aesthetic or abstract considerations.
Even the urge to take up arms and pose the question of power does not appear to the proletariat to be qualitatively different from the economic strike: this decision is made out of necessity when all other methods prove inadequate in practice.
In this sense, there are no formal canons valid for every situation and every category of workers, and in order to be able to give the right practical directives in every situation, it is necessary for the Party, in addition to maintaining the course already charted, to carefully study concrete cases.
The Communist Party, on the other hand, being an organ that encompasses the experience of past struggles and the ability to foresee the future development of the class struggle, knows that the choice of one or the other method of action is relevant, both for the immediate result of the struggle and for its final outcome. The superiority of our direction lies in the fact that we know that capitalism is incapable of securing humane living conditions for the proletariat and that the struggle in defense of bread leads to the clash with the capitalist State apparatus because only with the overthrow of this apparatus will there be an end to exploitation and class privileges.
That is why the Party represents the historical consciousness of the class, because it knows the right path to its emancipation. Our entire theoretical heritage consists in the description of this path and the means of not losing the course, which, as experience accumulates, is increasingly studied and specified.
This was clearly expressed in the 1848 Manifesto:
«The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that would-be universal reformer. They merely express, in general terms, actual relations springing from an existing class struggle, from a historical movement going on under our very eyes».
Therefore the Party, which knows the actual movement and foresees future developments, which knows that the movements of the masses are dominated by necessity, does not derive its practical directives for action from moral or abstract considerations, but from a careful examination of situations. Communists are not distinguished because they always and in every case call for general mobilization of the proletariat or for insurrection, but because they always show workers that the final outcome of the struggle must be the overthrow of capitalism.
This is not inconsistent with supporting actions and demands limited even to a single company, or giving the order to retreat in given situations. The work of the trade union organs of the Party is not to set general actions against partial actions or final aims against immediate claims, but to show how these are connected, that is, how the struggle of one factory or category succeeds best if it is conducted together with the other factories or categories, and how all achievements are always ephemeral until the working class has taken the means of production out of the hands of the capitalists.
In its choice of means of action, the Party indicates to the masses those that stand on the path leading to the Revolution, while all other political formations recommend methods that weaken them, demoralize them, divert them from this path. While all other parties either deny or try to use the economic struggle of the workers for their own political ends (e.g. to win a government seat), the ultimate aims of the Communist Party, the organ of the working class, coincide with the defense of working-class conditions. Therefore, the Party has an interest in the economic struggle being pushed to the utmost degree, and in the course of this struggle it strives always to make the general interests of the class prevail over the particular ones, to show how all achievements are ephemeral until the regime of wage labor is abolished, and that only by communist methods can even the most limited struggle be effectively waged.
Point I of the Theses of Rome (March 1922) states:
«The Communist Party, political party of the proletarian class, presents itself in its action as a collectivity operating with a unitary approach. The initial motives which lead the elements and groups of this collectivity to incorporate themselves into an organism with a unitary action are the immediate interests of groups of the working class, arising out of their economic conditions. The essential characteristic of the Communist Party’s function is utilization of the energies incorporated in this way for the attainment of objectives which are common to the entire working class and situated at the culmination of all its struggles; objectives which thus transcend – by integrating them – the interests of single groups, and such immediate and contingent aims as the working class may propose».
Point 8 makes clear how the Party is strengthened in the course of workers’ struggles:
«By displaying the maximum continuity in upholding a programme, and in the life of its leading hierarchy (apart from individual replacement of disloyal or worn out leaders), the party will also perform the maximum of effective and useful work in winning the proletariat to the cause of revolutionary struggle. This is not simply a question of exerting a didactic effect upon the masses; and even less is it a desire to exhibit an intrinsically pure and perfect party. It is rather a question of achieving the maximum yield in the real process whereby – as will be seen better below – through the systematic work of propaganda, proselytism and above all active participation in social struggles, the action of an ever increasing number of workers is caused to shift from the terrain of partial and immediate interests to the organic and unitary terrain of the struggle for the communist revolution. For only when a similar continuity exists is it possible, not merely to overcome the proletariat’s mistrustful hesitations with respect to the party, but rapidly and effectively to channel and incorporate the new energies gained into a common thought and action, thus creating that unity of movement which is an indispensable revolutionary condition».
The Party therefore
«transports a vanguard of the proletariat from the terrain of partial, spontaneous movements provoked by the interests of groups on to the terrain of general proletarian action; and which does not achieve this by rejecting those elemental movements, but accomplishes their integration and transcendence through living experiences, by pushing for their realization, taking active part in them, and following them attentively throughout their development» (point 11).
The Party at that time had influence over a considerable part of the proletariat, and yet it never promoted actions of communist or Party-influenced workers separate from the remaining mass of the proletariat.
«The Communist Party – seeing it as its primary interest to avoid splits in the unions and other economic organs, so long as their leadership remains in the hands of other parties and political currents – will not enjoin its members to comport themselves, in the field of execution of movements led by such organisms, in contrast with the latter’s directives as regards action, though they must express the most open criticism of the action itself and the work of the leaders» (point 14).
One of the indispensable prerequisites of revolutionary action is that the proletarian army be united; therefore, the party has always endeavored, then as now, to safeguard proletarian unity by combating all tendencies which, even as a reaction to the betrayal of union bureaucrats, lead to the division and fragmentation of proletarian masses.
The Communist Party is not the only party that appeals to the proletariat; therefore within the class organizations of the workers our line will always have to clash with contrary lines which, until the eve of the revolution, will always prevail. In most cases we must thus submit to the initiative of the opponents, not being able, not only to give exclusive practical directives, but not even to counterpose the trade union bureaucrats with alternative watchwords: the workers would not follow us or would follow us only to a small degree, demoralization would result, and the front of struggle would be broken. Not even in 1922 was the Party so strong as to be able to choose the ground and time of action; therefore, in the Theses of Rome the problem of the behavior of the party’s trade union organs in the face of proletarian actions conducted by our opponents is carefully studied:
« (…) Communists taking part in struggles in proletarian economic organisms led by socialists, syndicalists or anarchists will not refuse to follow their actions unless the masses as a whole, in a spontaneous movement, should rebel against it. But they will demonstrate how this action, at a certain point in its development, was rendered impotent or utopian because of the incorrect method of the leaders, whereas with the communist method better results would have been achieved, serving the aims of the general revolutionary movement. In their polemics the communists will always distinguish between leaders and masses, leaving the former all responsibility for their errors and faults; moreover, they will not omit to denounce with equal vigour the activity of those leaders who, albeit with sincere revolutionary feelings, propose dangerous and incorrect tactics» (point 19).
«If it is an essential aim of the Communist Party to win ground among the proletariat by increasing its strength and influence at the expense of proletarian political parties and currents with which it disagrees, this aim must be achieved by taking part in the reality of the proletarian struggle upon a terrain which can be simultaneously one of common action and of mutual conflict – always on condition that the programmatic and organizational physiognomy of the party is never compromised» (point 20).
«Having examined the situation, an assessment needs to be made of the party forces and the relation between these and those of enemy movements. Above all, it is necessary to take care to assess the degree of support the party could expect from the proletariat if the latter undertook an action or engaged in a struggle. This means forming a precise idea of the repercussions and spontaneous actions which the economic situation produces among the masses, and of the possibility of developing these actions, as a result of the initiatives of the Communist Party and the attitude of the other parties» (point 27).
The influence of the opportunist parties within the proletariat is also due to the fact that they agitate issues that are felt by the exploited masses because they correspond to their real needs (e.g., housing for workers); or rather: these parties, in order to maintain influence in the proletariat, are forced to take up, in words, certain demands corresponding to the needs of the workers. However, they always do so in a distorted way, making the achievement of these goals conditional on the maintenance of the social order, spreading the illusion that they can be achieved and maintained without overthrowing capitalism, and proposing ineffective forms of action that lead to weakening rather than strengthening the struggle. Therefore, the Party must in such cases not deny the demands themselves (as other parties have been forced to agitate them), but push the struggle as far as possible, showing that only communists know how to lead it:
«On the other hand, the Communist Party does not disregard the undeniable fact that the demands around which the left bloc focuses its agitation attract the interest of the masses and, in their formulation, often correspond to their real requirements. The Communist Party will not uphold the superficial thesis that such concessions should be rejected on the grounds that only the final and total revolutionary conquest merits the sacrifices of the proletariat. There would be no sense in proclaiming this since the only result would be that the proletariat would be sure to go behind the democrats and social-democrats and end up enslaved to them. The Communist Party will thus call upon the workers to accept the left’s concessions as an experiment but emphasize in its propaganda its pessimistic forecast as to that experiment’s outcome, and the necessity for the proletariat, if it is not to be ruined by this venture, not to stake its organisational and political independence upon it. The Communist Party will the masses to demand of the social-democratic parties – who guarantee the possibility of the promises of the bourgeois left being achieved – that they honour their commitments, and, with its independent and incessant criticism, it will prepare to reap the harvest of the negative outcome of such experiments by showing how the entire bourgeoisie is in fact arrayed in a united front against the revolutionary proletariat and how those parties which call themselves workers’ parties, but which support the coalition with part of the bourgeoisie, are merely its accomplices and agents» (point 35).
«The demands put forward by the left parties, and especially by the social-democrats, are often of a sort that it is appropriate to urge the proletariat to move directly to implement them; since if a struggle did get underway the inadequacy of the means by which the social- democrats proposed to arrive at a programme of benefits for the proletariat would at once become apparent. The Communist Party would then highlight those same demands, making them more specific, and raise them as a banner of struggle for the whole of the proletariat, urging the latter to compel the parties which talk of such demands purely for opportunist reasons to demonstrate their commitment to winning them. Whether these are economic demands or of a political nature, the Communist Party will propose them as the objectives of a coalition of trade-union organisms (…) The trade-union united front, understood in this way, offers the possibility of combined actions by the whole of the working class from which the communist method can only emerge victorious, it being the only method susceptible of lending the unitary movement of the proletariat real substance, free from any co‐responsibility for the activity of parties which express their verbal support for the proletariat’s cause merely out of opportunism, and with counter-revolutionary intentions» (point 36).
«In other cases, however, immediate and pressing demands of the working class, whether for conquest or for defence, find the left and social-democratic parties indifferent. Not having at its disposal sufficient forces to call the masses directly to those conquests, because of the influence upon them of the social-democrats, the Communist Party – avoiding offering any alliance to the social-democrats, indeed proclaiming that they betray even the contingent and immediate interests of the workers – in formulating these objectives of proletarian struggle will invoke a proletarian united front realised on the trade union terrain for their attainment. The implementation of this front will find at their posts the communist militants in the unions; but at the same time it will leave the party the possibility of intervening when the struggle takes a further development, against which the social democrats will inevitably come out – and at times the syndicalists and anarchists too. On the other hand, the refusal of the other proletarian parties to implement a trade-union united front for these objectives will be utilised by the Communist Party to strike down their influence – not merely with criticism and propaganda which shows how what is involved is real complicity with the bourgeoisie, but above all by participating in the front line in those partial actions of the proletariat which the situation will not fail to provoke, by doing so on the basis of those precise strong points for which the party had proposed the trade union united front of all local organisations and all categories, and by drawing from this a concrete demonstration that the social-democratic leaders by opposing the extension of activity are preparing its defeat. Naturally, the Communist Party will not limit itself to this task of pinning the responsibility for an incorrect tactic on the other parties; but with extreme caution and tight discipline it will study whether the moment has not arrived to overcome the resistance of the counterrevolutionaries, when in the course of the action a situation is produced among the masses such that they would follow a call to action of the Communist Party against any resistance. An initiative of this kind can only be a central one, and it is never admissible for it to be taken locally by organisms of the Communist Party or trade unions controlled by the communists» (point 40).
«It will not always be possible for a general movement initiated by the Communist Party for an attempt to overturn bourgeois power to be announced as having this open objective. The directive to engage the struggle may (other than in the case of an exceptional precipitation of revolutionary situations stirring the proletariat) refer to strong points which are something less than the conquest of proletarian power, but which are in part only to be realized through this supreme victory – even though the masses merely see them as immediate and vital demands: objectives which to a limited extent, insofar as they can be realized by a government which is not yet that of the proletarian dictatorship, leave open the possibility of halting the action at a certain point which leaves the level of organization and combativity of the masses intact, if it appears to be impossible to continue the struggle to the end without compromising, through the outcome, the conditions for resuming it effectively in subsequent situations» (point 42).
«It is not even to be excluded that the Communist Party may find it opportune to give the word for an action directly even though it knows that there is no question of arriving at the supreme revolutionary conquest, but only of waging a battle from which the enemy will emerge with his prestige and his organization damaged, and the proletariat materially and morally strengthened. In such a case, the party will call the masses to struggle by formulating a series of objectives which may either be the actual ones to be achieved, or appear more limited than those which the party proposes to achieve if the struggle is crowned with success. Such objectives, above all in the party’s plan of action, must be arranged in progression, so that the attainment of each of them constitutes a position of possible reinforcement through a halt on the path towards successive struggles. It is necessary to avoid as far as possible the desperate tactic of launching oneself into struggle in conditions such that only the supreme triumph of the revolution constitutes the favourable alternative, while in the opposite event there is a certainty of defeat and dispersal of the proletarian forces for a period impossible to foresee. Partial objectives are thus indispensable to maintain safe control over the action, and to formulate them does not conflict with criticism of their specific economic and social content, insofar as the masses might welcome them not as opportunities for struggle which are a means and a preliminary to the final victory, but as ends of intrinsic value with which to be satisfied once they have been won. Naturally, it is always a delicate and terrible problem to fix these goals and limits to action; it is through the exercise of its experience and the selection of its leaders that the party tempers itself for this supreme responsibility» (point 43).
Finally, the theses on the tactical activity of the party conclude thus:
«It is not theoretical preconceptions or ethical and aesthetic preoccupations that dictate the tactics of the Communist Party; its entire tactics are dictated solely by the real appropriateness of the means to the end and to the reality of the historical process, applying that dialectical synthesis of doctrine and action which is the patrimony of a movement destined to play the lead role in an immense social renewal, the commander of the great revolutionary war» (point 47).
It’s clear from the Theses that the party, in the field of proletarian struggles never took a secessionist attitude, even if these were (as in most cases) directed by other parties and even if the formulation of demands and choice of means didn’t correspond to our aims.
Does this mean that the party is subject to the directives of opportunists? No! As is well explained in the theses, the discipline in action, the united march of the entire working class, with the Communists in the forefront, is accompanied by the fiercest criticism of the union leaders and the way they conduct action.
Underlying this attitude, which to an idealist or a religious person would appear contradictory, is the consideration obvious to us that, as is said in the Theses, the opportunists proclaim agitations on the basis of the real needs of the masses for the sole purpose of maintaining their influence on them and do not intend at all to put into practice even the watchwords they formulate. From this we deduce that it is the piecards who are under pressure from the proletarian masses and that the best way to prove that they are traitors is to push through the struggles they themselves proclaim, with formulations that misrepresent or conceal the real proletarian needs.
Another consideration of the utmost importance is that, while all other parties tend to divide the class, always putting their own particular church or organization interests first, the Communist Party has an interest in ensuring that the working class marches united at all times and under all circumstances, because this is one of the indispensable conditions for the revolutionary struggle to succeed. In 1921 the communists separated from the reformists and founded the Communist Party of Italy; but the workers directed by the communists didn’t separate at all from the mass of the proletariat; this was done instead in Germany by the KPD and was a fatal mistake that led to the defeat of the revolution and the destruction of the party.
Therefore the party aims in every case to safeguard this unity: even if momentarily the proletarian masses are led on the road of reformism, legalitarian action, etc, they must march united: in this way they learn and train themselves for when they finally embark on the right course. Every worker must be imbued with the idea that they move as one.
The opportunists, on the other hand, do everything possible so that from the actions they themselves are compelled to proclaim will result a demoralization and for the workers a distrust of their own strength, and they try in every way to make them forget the necessity of marching as one. Therefore it would not be at all conducive to the future development of the class struggle if, perhaps as a bona fide reaction to the betrayal of the union piecards, a tendency to fractionism, to the proliferation of closed and separate groups and clusters, even if combative or even “revolutionary”, were to appear within the proletariat.
Communists therefore never break up an action of proletarian struggle, but they push the struggle to the depths, denounce the bogus motives that the piecards tack on to it, and try wherever possible to go beyond the directives they give.
We note that in the Theses consideration is given to the possibility of communists refusing to follow an action called by socialist or anarchist union leaders, only in the event that “the masses as a whole, in a spontaneous movement, should rebel against it”. In other words, communist workers never separate themselves in action from the mass of the proletariat. This is not inconsistent with denouncing to the proletariat the inadequacy or dangerousness of certain methods of action or the illusory character of certain demands.