Denying the Work of the Communist Party in Workers’ Struggles Means Retarding the Expansion of Proletarian Organization and Abandoning It to Bourgeois and Petty-Bourgeois Ideologies

From Il Partito Comunista nos. 76 & 77 (December 1980–January 1981)

The necessity of the proletariat’s class struggle in defense of its material conditions is not an original discovery of Marxism. Indeed, several bourgeois theorists before Marx observed this necessity. Its enunciation is part of our doctrinal heritage in the sense that it constitutes a physical, empirical fact. It is a simple description of a reality that takes place before everyone’s eyes, which does not need to be discovered or invented.

Our theory explains social relations and the economic laws that determine them. Our program defines the objectives which the proletariat must achieve for its final emancipation. Our tactics define the means—the practical course—by which the proletarian class must take to achieve the goals set by the program.

We reject defining our body of knowledge as an “ideology.” Our theory is a scientific theory that has been established after a series of historical experimental verifications. It is the only one capable of providing an explanation of economic and social reality. It is still valid, as its laws are confirmed by facts. A theory cannot be subject to revision or updating. It is either valid en bloc or must be rejected en bloc. The program includes measures to be implemented to remove obstacles to the achievement of communist goals: the end of wage exploitation, the liberation of humanity from the bondage of want, and classless society. These obstacles—the private ownership of the means of production, the state political power of the bourgeoisie—today remain standing a thousand times stronger than yesterday. Our program is nothing but their negation: first the overthrow of the bourgeois state and proletarian dictatorship, then the socialization of the means of production.

Following from these tactics is the range of possible means for the achievement of our ends. This range has become increasingly narrow. Means that might have seemed suitable in the past—such as participation in elections and parliaments—have proved lethal for communists. In the course of living historical experience, tactics become increasingly precise in the sense of excluding those avenues that practice has shown to be unsuitable or harmful.

Precisely because our positions do not come from the realm of ideas, but constitute a scientific doctrine, our ultimate aims do not negate the daily struggle in which wage earners must engage to defend themselves against exploitation. Our political objectives do not entail the overcoming of the economic struggle, but, indeed, its maximum extension and its bursting into revolutionary struggle. The idealist tendency, petit-bourgeois in origin, considers the economic struggle as a temporary phase, a necessary evil to be overcome when the masses attain “political consciousness.” This consciousness would first be acquired through a denial of the crude struggle for needs, counterposed to the exalted struggle for ideas.

Revolutionary communist consciousness already exists, impersonally and objective, in the historical theory, methods, and traditions of Marxism.

This consciousness can not be acquired spontaneously by the proletariat through its defensive struggle. Rather, it is the fruit of the living experience of a century of struggle and will not be acquired on the basis of the limited, local experience of factory or trade. The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848 after decades of struggle by the English, French, and German proletariat, after the Vienna Uprising, after the Paris Riots, after the German Civil War. The necessity of proletarian dictatorship was realized following the bloody experience of the Paris Commune of 1871.

This consciousness can be possessed collectively only by a body that transcends the limits of individuals, generations, and localities, that is, by the Party. The proletariat, says Lenin, can only receive this consciousness from outside. It is only to trade-unionism, that is, the consciousness of the need to organize in defense of its material conditions within existing social conditions by extracting wage improvements, reforms, and laws to protect wage labor, the proletarian can come spontaneously.

But economic struggle in itself does not affect the causes that generate exploitation and cannot break out of the framework of the bourgeois social order. In its imperialist phase, capitalism not only admits of economic struggle, but also anticipates it as a given and seeks to control it through its regime unions. By itself, the realization of the need to defend against exploitation can lead to movement in the direction of mitigating this exploitation, but not to removing its causes. The original contribution of communists is that, starting from this material fact, they want to eliminate forever the causes that generate exploitation and class oppression, and dedicate themselves to the revolutionary preparation of the proletariat. That is why the Communist Party organization must be separated from proletarian economic organizations.

Anarcho-syndicalist tendencies admit the necessity of the proletariat’s attack on the bourgeois state, but deny the necessity of a “special” organization separate from workers’ associations. They maintain that economic struggle will,  at any given moment, spontaneously evolve into insurrectional struggle against the bourgeois state. They deny not so much the Communist Party but the very concept of a Party.

Even if they refuse to admit it, they nevertheless constitute a definite party: the anarcho-syndicalist party. This party has its own vision of class struggle and its own program.

Economist and corporatist tendencies are characterized not so much by the rejection of the concept of the Party as by the rejection of politics in general. They argue that workers’ associations—in order to be autonomous from parties that would like to instrumentalize them—must be apolitical. They argue that workers have to think about the struggle with the bosses and should not be involved in politics.

This tendency starts from the absurd pretense of safeguarding the unity of the working class by simply denying the existence of political currents within economic organs. In this way, they relegate workers’ associations to dealing only with questions of the firm or industry without seeing their connection to political and social reality.

To deny the free movement of political tendencies in proletarian organizations is tantamount to saying that the proletarian class should not have its own political program or its own vision of social relations: the workers attend to the economic struggle, the intellectual petty bourgeoisie concerns itself with politics.

Economism is a very definite political position that stands in the way of a minority of proletarians securing themselves on the terrain of revolution.

Intellectualoid tendencies argue that workers must not fight for their material needs, but…for “communism” or for more general “political” goals.

Anarcho-syndicalists argue that communist workers must not have their own separate organization. Economists argue that within proletarian organizations there must not be political confrontation. We communists, while we are staunch defenders of the open character of economic organs, do not wish by this to argue that there is no talk of politics in them. On the contrary, we are for the free movement and clash of political tendencies precisely because we have an interest in exposing our class line, which, in being the description of the course the proletariat must necessarily take, is the only one that can find confirmation in the direct experience of the masses.

Our strenuous defense of the open character of proletarian economic organizations starts from the realization that it is only on the ground of the defense of living and working conditions that the proletarian class is objectively united. This and only this can be the basis for enlisting the proletarian army. Neither proletarian defense nor offense can ever disregard this objective premise.

The various tendencies—not the overtly bourgeois ones, but those that admit of proletarian class struggle—represent the possible strategic orientations according to which the proletarian army can move.

Let us not adopt the childish method of exorcising tendencies opposed to our own by denying them the right to exist. On the contrary, we think it good that they express themselves as fully and freely as possible, that they circulate and clash with the greatest freedom in the proletarian milieu. We entrust the evidence of facts with the task of exposing the correct course and of dismissing the others.

In this sense, we are for maximum proletarian unity in the field of action and maximum division on the terrain of political conceptions.

To us, class struggle and political confrontation between parties are separate, standing on two different planes. We don’t mean this in the trivial sense that movement is the prerogative of trade unions and that political struggle is the prerogative of parties; letting workers think about strikes, intellectuals think about politics. While we defend the open character to all proletarians of economic organs and the broadest unity in action, we also argue that proletarians themselves must freely discuss general political issues, freely divide, freely clash.

We have not forgotten that Capital was written not for university professors but for the working class, in a language that was as accessible as possible to proletarians—few of whom at the time could read—and that the International Workingmen’s Association officially thanked Karl Marx for clarifying the causes and mechanisms of class oppression. We have not forgotten that in the early 1900s in Russia—as Trotsky recounts—proletarians competed for copies of Capital and tore them apart so they could read them at the same time.

Precisely because we have confidence in the physical and intellectual energies of the proletariat, we communists do not fecklessly stoop to extol the spontaneity or simplicity of the masses. Instead, we want to elevate them to revolutionary consciousness.

* * *

Economic struggle is an objective fact arising from the contradictions of the capitalist mode of production. No reforms, no concessions, no special laws, nor any police operations can eliminate it as long as private ownership of the means of production and wage labor remain.

After an initial phase in which the bourgeoisie absolutely denied workers’ struggle and organization, it was then forced to tolerate it. Then, under fascism, it attempted to give it a framework in its own legal system with the creation of labor organizations under direct state control.

During the period of the First International, the proletariat was still a tiny minority of the population. The nascent proletarian movement was developing in a direct and open clash with bourgeois legality: strikes and street demonstrations were prohibited. Worker and peasant demonstrations almost always took on the appearance of riots; looting, clashes with the police and army, mass arrests, shootings, deaths, and injuries. Workers always—even for the most limited claims—faced the state in its true essence as a repressive apparatus, with its militias and courts deployed in defense of property. Any assertion of demands led to a clash with the state because the state always responded with police repression, leaving no room for anything but mass action. Striking or participating in demonstrations could result in years or life in prison.

In the second phase, that of the development of the great socialist parties of the Second International, the bourgeoisie could no longer contain the movements of a proletariat—greatly increased in numbers—by purely police methods. Simultaneously, it had greatly increased its profits and could make concessions by bribing certain layers of workers.

Here rose the objective terrain for the development of reformism and trade-unionism that would result in the degeneration and passage into the bourgeois camp of the parties of the Second International.

Police methods alone would have brought an increasingly numerous and concentrated proletariat to the field of open confrontation. Hence, the bourgeoisie were more shrewd and combined repression with the haranguing of social-democratic leaders who channeled workers’ struggles toward partial gains within the framework of the bourgeois social order.

Because of the changed economic and political situation, worker struggles resulted in demands for reforms, wage improvements, and the amelioration of working conditions. These were no longer steps toward the assault on bourgeois power for the complete destruction of all forms of private property and exploitation. Rather, they were ends in themselves, perfectly compatible with a booming capitalist economy.

The economic movement of the masses proceeds firmly in this direction under the leadership of the reformist leaders of the big social democratic parties and the big class unions.

Of course, street clashes, shootings, and arrests did not cease, but there was a noticeable improvement in proletarian living conditions. This was fertile ground for democratic, pacifist, and legalitarian puffery.

Revolutionary political organizations no longer coincided with workers’ associations and became progressively isolated. They were reduced to small groups or factions within the parties of the Second International.

The movement of the masses was then driven onto the terrain of reformism and class collaboration, even to the support of the respective bourgeoisies in the imperialist war. Being a communist revolutionary then meant not following the masses onto this ground, but sharply distinguishing oneself to safeguard the prospect of revolution. This was done by Lenin, the Italian Communist Left, and a few others who declared war on war while the proletarian masses were led to the slaughter under their respective national flags.

The welding together of the revolutionary program and the spontaneous motion of the masses was realized in the revolutionary wave of 1917-23. This was not because one adapted to the other. It was because in that brief historical window the goals which the masses were moving toward could only be pursued with the realization of the revolutionary program.

The example of Russia is crystal clear: the exploited masses wanted an end to the war and the estates of the great landed proprietors. But neither peace nor land could be obtained without either an insurrection which would overthrow the bourgeois state and the formation of a workers’ and peasants’ militia.

The preparation of the Bolsheviks—not improvised, but done over decades of extremely hard trials and with iron discipline—was precisely this: readying themselves for revolution on the theoretical, programmatic, tactical, organizational, and military levels. The masses were with them in one of those very rare moments when action and consciousness, spontaneous movement and revolutionary organization became one and the same, coalescing to form a formidable army that routed the defending adversary.

Fascism, an expression of the modern capitalism of banks and monopolies, brought together the two methods of reform and that of open police repression. It realized the old reformist dream of juridically regimenting labor struggles and labor organizations by bourgeois legislation. The novelty it introduced is precisely the creation of state unions with compulsory membership by workers. These unions defended workers economically, even going so far as to call strikes, but they did so on the condition that the economic struggle never affected the national interest.

The trade union confederations that arose after World War II, although formally open to join and not legally subservient to the state, follow the fascist policy: open and avowed submission to the state. Economic struggle, yes, but only to the extent that this is compatible with the performance of the capitalist economy. This means fighting for wage and regulatory improvements when the economy is booming, controlling the working class to endure layoffs and increased exploitation when the economy is in crisis, and collaborating with the state for patriotic mobilization in the event of war.

In an economic crisis, we are in a period when workers’ demands become incompatible with the stability of the regime. Yesterday, it was a purely economic claim to demand wage increases or reduced working hours. Today, simply fighting to prevent aggravations from labor, to abolish overtime, to prevent layoffs, or to reduce working hours takes on an increasingly subversive flavor because these demands, compatible yesterday, clash with the bourgeois plan to dump the crisis on the shoulders of the proletariat. That is why we see the state, all parties, all unions, and all institutions arrayed in the defense of the national economy, against proletarian needs.

In this sense, today, economic struggle tends to become political because proletarians who want to move in defense of their needs are forced to acknowledge that:

1) the official trade unions are on the side of the bosses and the state

2) in order to struggle, it is necessary for workers to form their own organizations, independent of the state, bourgeois political parties, and regime unions.

The question then becomes exquisitely political not only because class demands would endanger the social order, but also because it is clear that the state defends its unions in every way. The state primarily does this by granting them the right to exclusive representation of labor. This means that workers’ organizations that spontaneously arise are de facto illegal, unless they submit to the state (as Solidarnosc has done). It also means that it is forbidden for all individual bosses, all corporate management, whether publicly-traded or privately-held, to enter into agreements of any kind with spontaneous workers’ associations that act outside the control of official trade unions.

This also means that, today, it is not enough to tell workers that one must fight against the bosses. One must also say that in order to fight against the bosses, they must free themselves of policing by regime unions and resurrect real class organizations. But even this is not enough. It must also be said that the resurgence of class organizations can never take place “freely,” but only in fierce struggle against the state, all the parties and unions that support it.

In this respect, the demands which yesterday perfectly fit into a trade-unionist policy take on a political character. This is not a result of inherent characteristics, but in relation to the changed situation in which the bourgeoisie—their room for maneuver shrinking and no longer able to make concessions—will soon have to openly resort to force by denouncing all those who struggle for housing or jobs as subversive and anti-social elements.

However, if economic struggles take on a distinctly political character, this does not mean that the nature of class economic organizations changes. The objective determinations that drive the proletariat to struggle and organize are always the same, even in moments of the most acute revolutionary struggle, and are material, not ideal, in character.

Economic organization, therefore, even in the rare moments when it is guided by genuinely classist politics, always retains its objective limitations. This renders it an organ suitable only for defense, not offense.

A revolution is not the “beau geste” of a handful of desperate people nor is it the uprising of crowds on a “big day.” All the experiments were performed in Italy. From the ridiculous Mazzinian efforts, to individual terrorism (which then reached the flattering result of killing Umberto I), from the action of bands of anarchists (who, in the Matese mountains, declared the monarchy deposed and private property abolished). From the peasant revolts to the Palermo uprising of 1866, to the great proletarian uprisings of 1893 and 1898 that simultaneously affected a large part of the national territory. From the agitations against the Libyan War, from the Red Week of 1914, to the armed occupation of factories in 1920; from the strikes of ’43 to the half-insurrection following the assassination attempt on Togliatti in ’48.

In Italy, there existed a party that identified itself with workers’ associations and which only proletarians could join. The Italian Workers’ Party, 30,000 strong, with a wide influence on the proletariat of Lombardy, Piedmont, and Liguria, was the first autonomous organization of the Italian proletariat that finally separated itself from the bourgeois left and the radical petty bourgeoisie. This party was, in practice, no more than an association of leagues. It claimed to be disinterested in general politics and was only concerned with proletarian struggles. In 1886, it was outlawed on charges of preparing for insurrection, its organization was virtually destroyed in a major police raid, and its remnants later merged into the future Socialist Party. The same fate befell the organization of anarchists—numerous and scattered throughout Italy—after 1888.

The history of these attempts is well-preserved in the police archives, which passed seamlessly from the Bourbons to the Savoy, to Fascism, to the democratic republic. Governments, parties, institutions pass by, but the essence of the state, the “seasoned detective” who knows everything about everyone, who has learned his lesson and knows when to cane and when to dress as a lamb, remains. No change of government, no uprising has made him leave his post.

The poor fools of today, who know nothing about nothing and claim with their stupid improvisations to “attack the state,” should reflect that, one by one, all their approaches have been tried.  Much more determined men, much more numerous, fierce, and exasperated masses, have failed there.

History has shown that in order to bring down the capitalist regime and to lead workers’ struggles in this direction, a dedicated organization specially created and prepared for this purpose is needed. This organization is called the Communist Party, an organization that treasures past experience so as not to repeat old mistakes, which can foresee situations and not be surprised. It is an organization which is able to resist repression because it does not feel that it has “spaces to defend” in this society. A Party that has a precise and proven plan in which the daily proletarian struggles, the assault on bourgeois power, and the political and economic measures to be taken after the overthrow of the bourgeoisie are framed. A Party that knows how to lead proletarian organizations not on the terrain of ephemeral partial achievements, but toward the final abolition of the exploitation of wage labor. A Party such as the Bolshevik Party tended to be, the Third International, or the Communist Party of Italy of 1921, which, we can proudly say, was defeated not by the fascist repressions which it resisted and to which it responded, but by the betrayal first of the socialists and then of the Stalinists. The proletariat lacks this today, and, without it, all the strikes, demonstrations, and riots in this world may come, but the power of the bourgeoisie will not suffer even the slightest cosmetic damage. Those who say they want to bring down this infamous regime must therefore be consistent and accept the instruments necessary for this purpose.