The Function of the Center in the Tradition of the Left Pt. 2

Part 3

Introduction

When the Left saw fractionism and insubordination tearing the International apart, it didn’t draw the conclusion that improved organisational mechanisms or a stronger centre which was better at repressing the autonomist aspirations of the individual sections was needed. Instead it learnt the lesson that the splits, lack of discipline and resistance to orders were due to tactical norms not having been properly articulated due to a lack of consistency in the party’s methods of action, and due to the increasingly shapeless form the organisation was assuming by way of fusions, filterings and infiltrations of other parties, etc, etc.

The Left’s thesis was that unless the essential preconditions for any kind of organization were re-established on a firm basis, then no amount of ingenuity would establish a strong and disciplined organisational structure, or a strong world centre of proletarian action.

Chapter 1 – The ’Model’ Organisation

The work of the party requires organs, instruments of centralisation, of co-ordination and of policy; these instruments, mechanisms, etc, are the expression of real demands that arise as a result of its activity. It is the party’s action which needs a suitable structure and which provides the impulse, the urge, to build it, to realise it. This isn’t, on the other hand, a specific structural type that can be imposed on living reality and shape the party as though it were distinct from its activity. To claim that the party, in order to consider itself as such, must possess at every moment of its existence a specific structure, particular organs, etc, is to fall back into the most abstract, anti-Marxist voluntarism. It’s not just us saying this, all our theses say it, and Lenin does as well, when he’s not being misread by philistines searching for sure-fire recipes for success. Because, as we’ve already said, presupposing an ‘organisational model’ necessarily brings in its wake another, even more serious, departure from sound materialism: it leads to recognising in the existence or achievement of this structural type the ‘guarantee’ that the party is pursuing the ‘correct revolutionary policy’. Our classic sequence is turned on its head and organisational structure ends up as the guarantor of tactics, programme and even principles.

66 – General Guiding Principles, 1949

The correct functioning relationship between the central and peripheral organs of the movement isn’t based on constitutional schemas but on the entire dialectical unfolding of the historical struggle of the working class against capitalism.

Chapter 2 – ‘Guarantees’

Arranged in date order from 1922 to 1970, the quotations in this chapter follow a continuous line in the communist conception of organisational questions. According to this line the centralised and disciplined organisation of the party is based not on democratic consultation of majority opinion, and less still on the edicts of leaders or group of leaders, but instead on the clarity and continuous clarification of its line on doctrine, principles, programme, aims and on the ever deeper acquisition of these positions by the organisation. It is based, as a consequence, on the demarcation of clear tactical norms, which all members of the organisation need to be aware of along with a clear understanding of all of their possible implications. The work of organisation-building is therefore an indispensable task whose constant aim is to render clear and unequivocal, to the whole organisation, the historical patrimony of experiences and dynamic balance sheets of which the existing organisation is but the current expression. If there exists homogeneity within, and the acceptance by all members, of the theoretical, programmatic and tactical foundations, then there will also necessarily exist, as a result, homogeneity within the realm of organisational discipline; namely, a general and spontaneous obedience to orders issued by the centre.

In the absence of such homogeneity, attempts to resolve differences by applying disciplinary pressure, compelling obedience to the centre’s orders, or through a strong central organ capable of forcing its decisions on the periphery will be entirely in vain. It will be necessary instead to rebuild the homogeneous base by sculpting and honing the party’s doctrinal, programmatic and tactical lines in the light of our tradition. Now this isn’t the same as saying, ‘the party should have no central organs with absolute and non-negotiable powers’; it means that the ensuring that the orders of the centre are obeyed rests not on the latter’s capacity to punish the disobedient, but on it operating in such a way that there are no disobedient people; and such a situation is obtained not by organisational sanctions but through continuous ongoing work on the part of the entire organisation to integrate its doctrinal, programmatic and tactical bases.

[…]

It is a cheap shot against the Left to state that having theoretical, programmatic and tactical homogeneity in place doesn’t automatically lead to centralised organisation. The organisation has to be built, for sure, but it needs to be supported on the foundations we looked at earlier. And then the building of the organisation becomes a purely technical matter; a logical consequence in terms of the acquisition of practical instruments that serve to coordinate, harmonise and direct the party’s activity. We will have need of an operational central organ which plans and issues instructions; we will need people to take responsibility for various areas of party activity; we will need a centralised and efficient communications network; we will need hundreds of operational instruments, and setting them up won’t be easy. Certainly! But it will all be for nought unless it rests on the aforementioned basis. But woe betides us if it is ever thought that these formal instruments bestow an ultimate guarantee of the good functioning of the party and of its internal discipline. It is a matter of technical instruments that the party has to use in order to act in a co-ordinated and centralised manner; but these absolutely do not guarantee the actions themselves, or centralisation, or discipline.

70 – Theses of the P.C.d’I on the Tactics of the C.I. at the IVth Congress, 1922

The authority and prestige of the centre, which relies on psychological factors rather than material sanctions, depends entirely on the clarity, firmness and continuity of the programmatic proclamations and methods of struggle. The assurance that the proletarian international is able to form a centre of effective unitary action rests solely on this.

A robust organisation can arise only on the sound basis that its organisational norms provide; by assuring each individual that these norms will be applied impartially, rebellions and desertions are reduced to a minimum. The organisational statutes, no less than the ideology and the tactical norms, need to impart a sense of unity and continuity.

82 – Supplementary Theses… (Milan Theses), 1966

7 – […] Within the revolutionary party, as it moves inexorably towards victory, obeying orders is spontaneous and total but not blind or compulsory. In fact, centralised discipline, as illustrated in the theses and associated supporting documentation, is equivalent to a perfect harmony between the duties and actions of the base and those of the centre, and the bureaucratic practices of an anti-Marxist voluntarism are no substitute for this.

Chapter 3 – Currents and Fractions

93 – The Left’s Theses at the 3rd Congress of the P.C.d’I (Lyon Theses), 1926

II, 5 – Another aspect of the watchword “Bolshevisation” is entrusting the guarantee of the party’s effectiveness to centralised discipline and a strict prohibition of fractionism.

The final court of appeal for all controversial questions is the international central organ, with hegemony being attributed, if not hierarchically, at least politically, to the Russian Communist Party.

Such a guarantee doesn’t actually exist, and the whole approach to the problem is inadequate… 

Chapter 4 – Ideological Terror and Organisational Pressure

[T]he role of party members, leaders and hierarchies. The latter are bound to exist as technical instruments to coordinate and direct the party’s work as a whole, but their existence does not guarantee the party against errors and deviations. Consequently, when mistakes and deviations occur, they won’t be resolved by judging what people have done, by selecting better people, or by swapping one set of people for another set of people. The solution lies in the collective organ of the party making an honest and rational attempt to reconnect with the historical line which the mistake or deviation caused to be broken. The men can remain the same (unless they are traitors) as long as the party organ gets back on track.

[…] The Left doesn’t view the party as a colony of human microbes. The Left believes the party should apply an organic, functional approach to allocating the various technical roles to its members, including that of the central role of leadership which, whether it is one person or more than one person, cannot be expected to provide an absolute guarantee that the party will remain on the correct path…

Chapter 5 – Political Struggle within the Party

The fact that at certain times a variety of answers can present themselves to the same question, with militants taking up different positions in a search for a solution, cannot induce us to forget the shared heritage on which the Party rests, and to which any and all answers must be bound. Thus the solution to a problem that the centre of the Party decides to apply should not come about as the expression of balances of power between different groups within the Party and of the prevalence of one over the other, but due to its compliance with the line laid down by doctrine, by the programme, and by the tactics of the Party, and this loyalty to the common tradition must be demanded for any formulation of any problem. The solution to the issues that assail the Party thus becomes delegated to a collective work carried out on a united foundation that everybody accepts and is thus susceptible to an objective and rational study.

Towards the centre there must be a total obedience and executive discipline, not insofar as it is the expression of a majority of individual viewpoints, but insofar as it proves to be along the lines of this continuity…

Part 4

Chapter 1 – The Party Structure

Since 1952 it has been based on the existence of a centre which issues instructions to the whole of the network in the form of “organisational circulars”; on frequent liaison between the centre and the various parts of the organisation engaged in various aspects of party work; on feedback from the territorial sections, groups and individual militants to the centre; and on periodic meetings of the whole of the organisation in order to take stock, via detailed reports, of the party work carried out, in both the theoretical and the practical fields, over a given period of time. The extensive material from these periodic meetings is published in the party press and forms an object of study and of further elaboration in the local and regional meetings

[…] Evidently as the party’s tasks intensify, and become more complicated, further instruments of co-ordination and centralisation will be required. As the number of party members increases along with the complexity of the tasks, militants will need to be screened more and more; there will have to be an ever greater specification of functions, of the appropriate organs to carry out those functions, and of the men who are allocated to those various organs. But this is something that happens organically, not voluntaristically; it is determined not by anyone’s volition but by the extent to which the party’s tasks have developed. The differentiated organs that the party possesses at any time should be the result of functional necessities arising from the party’s activity, not derived from an organisational scheme plucked from thin air, and considered necessary merely because it corresponds to an idea of a perfect party or perfect mechanism that exists in somebody’s head.

Chapter 2 – The ”Phases” of Party Development

If the party maintains this continuity, this dialectical connection between the various tasks and functions that make up its organic life, the organization develops, diversifies, and gives itself a structure not because someone wills it, but due to the needs which arise from the carrying out, the extension, and the ever increasing complexity of Party activity. New organs are created because the party’s functions become increasingly complicated and require an appropriate structure for their needs; because the activity of the party requires the right tools to help it operate as best it can in all fields. They are not created for the childish reason that one day someone thinks it’s time to finally give an organised structure to the Party and decides, in his little head, to come up with a model of organization…

Chapter 4 – Democratic Centralism and Organic Centralism

The movement’s theoretical cornerstones have to be made clearer and clearer, its tactical lines have to be honed more and more and, in the light of the common principals, common tactics and examination of the situations in which the Party finds it has to act, complex problems regarding practical action have to be resolved and the most efficient organisational tools to co-ordinate the party’s activity as a whole have to be found. What is more, we have to work towards acquiring the entire practical and theoretical patrimony of the movement and transmit it to new generations of militants. None of this takes place by means of confrontations and congresses or consultations to solicit opinions; it occurs as a result of a rational and scientific search for solutions, it being clearly understood that whatever they are they mustn’t transgress the boundaries the party has set itself in all fields.

On this basis, even the mistakes which a particular party organ, including the ‘central’ organ, may make in the course of providing a solution to a given problem doesn’t entail that the individuals concerned have to be condemned or replaced, but rather a common search for what caused the mistake, in the light of our doctrine and our tactical norms…

135 – Introduction to the ‘Post 1945 Theses’ – 1970

Organisation, same as discipline, isn’t a point of departure but a point of arrival; it has no need of statutory codification and disciplinary regulation; it recognises no contradiction between the ‘base’ and the ‘summit’; it excludes the rigid barriers of a division of labour inherited from the capitalist regime not because leaders’ and ‘experts’ in specific areas aren’t needed, but because these are, and necessarily have to be, committed (in the same way as the most ‘lowly’ of its militants, only more so) to a program, a doctrine and to a clear and unequivocal definition of tactical norms shared by the entire party, known to each of its members, publicly affirmed and above all expressed in practice in full view of the class as whole. And just as leaders and experts are necessary, they are likewise dispensable as soon as they cease to fulfil the role which, via natural selection rather than by phony head counts, the party had entrusted to them; or when, worse still, they deviate from the path marked out for all to follow. A party of this type (as ours tends to be and tries to become, without however making any anti-historical claim to ‘purity’ or ‘perfection’) doesn’t adapt its entire internal life, its development, its—let’s just say it—hierarchy of technical functions to fit in with whimsical decisions made on the spur of the moment or decreed by a majority; it grows and is strengthened by the dynamics of the class struggle in general, and by its own interventions within it in particular; it creates, without prefiguring them, its instruments of battle, its ‘organs’, at all levels; it doesn’t need—except in pathological cases—to expel after ‘due process’ those who no longer feel like following the common, unchanging road, because it must be capable of getting rid of them in the same way a healthy organism spontaneously eliminates its waste matter…