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Class Struggles and
the Revolutionary
Party
1964
Second Chapter
THE WORKERS'
STRUGGLE
AND THE
REVOLUTIONARY PARTY
The Workers'
Coalition
The Working Class'
Political Struggle
The Party of the
Workers' Struggle
Wage Struggles
Strike Struggles
The Two Aspects of
Workers' Spontaneity
Consciousness'
Embryonic Form
The Influence of
Bourgeois Ideology
How the Party Fights
Spontaneity
The Strike: A School
of War
The Strike: A
Natural Economic
Phenomenon
The Proletariat's
Natural Superiority
The Strike: A
Proletarian Tool
The Interconnection
of Strikes
Strike Statistics
Radicalizing the
Struggles
The Trade-Union
Issue
The Third Period of
Lenin's Theorization
The Social Violence
of Democracy
More Democracy, More
Violence
The "School of
Communism"
The Struggle for
Revolutionary
Influence in the
Trade Unions
Revolutionary Work
in Reactionary Trade
Unions
The Workers'
Coalition
We have already
said that the
production relations-distribution
relations
coincidence
illustrates the life
of the capitalist
social formation in
its class struggles,
in the political and
ideological aspects
that these struggles
take on as a
reflection of the
historically
determined
production relations
and their inherent
distribution
relations. Marxism
reaches these
conclusions, as
we've seen, by
applying its
scientific criteria.
But Marxism would
remain mere
scientific
formulation, valid
as it is, if the
science developed
were not a science
of the revolution,
i.e., if it were not
a science of action.
Only when science
becomes strategy
does it appear as
the solution to all
the problems that
the capitalist
socio-economic
formation poses. We
have already
observed how Lenin
was the main author
of this process of
developing the
science into
strategy.
Now let us observe
how this process
occurs in a specific,
crucial, basic field
of social relations:
in the field of
capital-wage, in the
class struggle
inherent in this
relationship. Marx
already provided all
the particularities
of the class
struggle between
capital and wage. It
is necessary to keep
them in mind because
Lenin develops them
consistently
throughout his
thirty-year
theorization with a
scientific
faithfulness that
demonstrates the
scientific method's
continuity between "teacher"
and "pupil" in
analyzing social
phenomena.
Marx writes: "Large-scale
industry
concentrates a crowd
of people who don't
know each other
together in a single
place. Competition
divides their
interests. But the
maintenance of wages,
this common interest
which they have
against their boss,
unites them in a
common thought of
resistance-coalition.
Thus, the workers'
coalition always has
a two-fold aim: that
of stopping
competition among
the workers, so that
they can carry on
general competition
with the capitalist.
If the first aim of
resistance was
merely the
maintenance of wages,
coalitions, at first
isolated, constitute
themselves into
groups as the
capitalists in their
turn unite for the
purpose of
repression, and in
the face of always-united
capital, the
maintenance of the
association becomes
more necessary to
them than that of
wages. Once it has
reached this point,
the association
takes on a political
character... Do not
say that social
movement excludes
political movement.
There is never a
political movement
which is not at the
same time social. it
is only in an order
of things in which
there are no more
classes and class
antagonisms that
social evolutions
will cease to be
political
revolutions. Until
that day on the eve
of every general
subversion of
society, the last
word of social
science will always
be: battle or death,
bloody struggle or
nothing. The issue
is inevitably raised
this way."
This terse statement
contains the Marxist
complete view of the
wage struggle
between capitalists
and workers and of
the first associated,
trade-union form of
association that
this struggle takes
on at a certain
stage in its
development. It is
useful to insist on
this point because
the development of
the trade unions
itself, with all of
the problems that it
also poses to the
revolutionary party,
should never cause
one to forget this
elementary and
purely scientific
truth.
The wage is the
price of a commodity
that, as such, is
subject to the
market and
competition. Marx
explains that it is
competition that
"divides their
interests", i.e. the
people who sell this
commodity as well as
those who purchase
it. However, as the
capitalists-purchasers
are increasingly
united, the
proletarians-sellers
must create a
coalition to "stop
competition among
the workers, so that
they can carry on
general competition
with the capitalist."
This basic truth,
that describes the
competition's
movement of a
commodity that is
unique because it is
the only one that
adds surplus-value
to its own value,
can appear obvious
due to the long
experience that wage
struggles have now
generalized
throughout the world.
The obviousness,
however, is only
apparent. In reality,
just as this truth
had value as a
scientific discovery
for Marx who made it,
likewise, it has
value as the defense
of a scientific
milestone for us. It
would seem to be an
accepted idea, and
yet it is not.
Indeed, it is enough
to go to Marx's
consequential
conclusion, that
every political
movement is a social
movement to
immediately realize
that what seemed to
have been
assimilated has not
been at all. It
shows how something
taken for granted
and seen as obvious
merely hides
incomprehension and
confusion. Seeing
only the economic
law behind the
workers' coalition
and overlooking its
political
consequence means
not understanding
Marx. It means
remaining on the
threshold of the
science, staying
tied to the flattest
economism, to the
most vulgar "pure"
economics. Even the
bourgeois economists
discovered the
economic law of the
workers' coalition.
Marx, on the other
hand, discovered the
political movement
in it, that is, the
objective process
through which the
class struggle
becomes
consciousness,
becomes party.
Top
The Working Class'
Political Struggle
In autumn 1895,
Lenin wrote the
Explanation of the
Law on Fines Imposed
on Factory Workers.
In this essay, he
deals with an aspect
of the workers'
struggle in Russia.
This writing is
important in many
ways, but here we
will underline one
of its central
theses that clearly
demonstrates Lenin's
complete
understanding of
Marx's lesson. It
also shows how he
could not lapse,
while analyzing an
aspect of the class
struggle, into the
objectivism that he
razes in the "Struve-like
Marxists".
"Fines are not
imposed to
compensate for
damage," Lenin
writes, "but to
establish
discipline, i.e., to
secure subordination
of the workers to
the employer, to
force the workers to
follow the
employer's orders,
to obey him during
working hours. "
Lenin thoroughly
discusses the
political aspect of
the workers'
struggle in the
Draft and
Explanation of a
Programme for the
Social-Democratic
Party which he wrote
in prison in 1896,
when he began
preparations for the
book The Development
of Capitalism in
Russia. Under point
B of the Program, he
writes:
"The struggle of the
Russian working
class for its
emancipation is a
political struggle,
and its first aim is
to achieve political
liberty."
While in the
Explanation he
comments that:
"What is meant by
these words: the
struggle of the
working class is a
political struggle?
They mean that the
working class cannot
fight for its
emancipation without
securing influence
over affairs of
State, over the
administration of
the State, over the
issue of laws. The
need for such
influence has long
been understood by
the Russian
capitalists, and we
have shown how they
have been able,
despite all sorts of
prohibitions
contained in the
police laws, to find
thousands of ways of
influencing the
State authority, and
how this authority
serves the interests
of the capitalist
class."
One could cite
hundreds of passages
in which Lenin
explains and
develops the concept
of the Russian
working class'
political struggle
and points out the
practical tasks that
it sets out. However,
in order to fully
understand these
tasks, they must be
framed in the
revolutionary
strategy that Lenin
develops for Russia.
For the time being,
we are most
interested in seeing
the typical,
universal aspects of
this strategy and,
on the other hand,
in considering its
particular aspects
in as far as they
demonstrate the
extreme theoretical
an political
coherence of Lenin's
Marxist thought. He
continually connects
the former to the
latter, derives the
latter from the
former, and in the
latter finds
confirmation of the
former.
Top
The Party of the
Workers' Struggle
At the end of
1899, during his
deportation, Lenin
wrote his essay On
Strikes. In I924,
this was published
for the first time
in the journal
Proletarskazia
Revolutsia.
Lenin was supposed
to write three
articles for the
journal Rabociaia
Gazeta on this topic.
Only the first was
found in the
archives, and it has
not been possible to
establish if the
other two were
actually written. It
is truly a shame
that no one knows
whether or not Lenin
continued with the
organic development
that he announced in
the first article.
Not so much because
his theorization can
be considered
incomplete (Lenin
developed his theses
at various times and
in various articles),
but because On
Strikes can be
considered Marxism's
first systematic
handling of the
workers' struggles.
Even if the first
article is complete,
it is likely that
the other,
subsequent articles
would have given us
interesting material
to reconstruct all
of Lenin's thought
during that period
and to closely
connect it to the
theses on the party
set forth in What Is
to Be Done?
The fact that
Lenin's thought is
often analyzed or
declaimed in pieces
is symptomatic of
and almost
demonstrates the
failure to
assimilate Marxism's
scientific method by
those who claim to
support it or to
dispute it from
various positions. A
typical example
concerns What Is to
Be Done?, a text
that has already
produced rivers of
ink and filled
library bookshelves.
The Leninist concept
of the party is
extracted through a
series of quotations
from a text that,
isolated this way,
is subjected to a
judgement that has
nothing scientific
about it, even in
the way it is
presented. Now, it
is practically
childish to study an
issue, a thesis, a
complete theory
regarding a series
of social phenomena
in this way.
We think that we
have demonstrated
that What Is to Be
Done? is already in
Capitals scientific
method; it is
already in The
Development of
Capitalism in Russia.
We can add that,
again according to
our scientific
criteria, What Is To
Be Done? is already
in On Strikes, just
as the political
struggle lies within
the economic
struggle, and the
Leninist concept of
the party includes
the Leninist concept
of the classes'
struggles and the
working class'
struggle.
The Marxist view of
social relations
cannot, under any
circumstances,
regard those
relations as
isolated, except in
scientific
abstraction.
Similarly, the
Leninist concept of
the party cannot be
taken individually
unless it is done as
a scientific
abstraction. just
as, in practice, the
Leninist concept of
the party cannot be
understood except in
relation to the
experience of the
workers' struggle,
likewise, in theory,
the Leninist concept
of the party cannot
be fully understood
except in relation
to the Leninist view
of the workers'
struggle that is one
of its inseparable
component parts.
By the same token,
the concept of the
party is no
aprioristic truth in
What Is to Be Done?
Rather, it results
from the definitions
of "spontaneity" and
"trade-unionism",
that is, of "certain
features" (certain,
and not all, as
Lenin will explain)
produced by the
historical
experience of the
workers' struggle.
If we then choose to
follow Lenin's ideas
as they develop step
by step, something
that is not usually
ever done, we cannot
fail to realize the
fundamental
importance of the
stage in which the
concept of the
workers' struggle is
developed within the
framework of the
concept of the
party. Within this
same process, in
this continual and
consistent
confirmation and
development of
Marx's thought, the
workers' struggle
and the political
struggle merge
perfectly in the
concept of the
party, just as they
did in Marx. But, if
Lenin were to
reestablish and
continue Marx, there
had to be a
historical reason.
This was, in fact,
the separation
performed by the
Second International
between the economic
and political forms
of the classes'
struggle in general,
and the working
class' struggle in
particular. This was
indeed a theoretical
separation because
in practice, the
political influence
in the economic
struggle is an
objective reality.
Each economic
struggle is a
political struggle,
and the workers'
struggle itself,
left to its own
spontaneity, ends up
bearing the brunt of
the other classes'
political influence.
It is in the field
of all the classes'
interrelations, that
is, in politics, in
the State, that the
working class can
reach political
consciousness, i.e.,
have its own policy.
But it is through
the economic
struggle that the
working class
reaches the field of
politics, and not
vice-versa because
every economic
struggle has a
political content.
It is a movement in
social relations; it
is a dynamic in
class relations, and
it affects the
interrelations
between all the
classes, the sphere
of the State.
Basically, Marxism's
revision took place
in the practical
sphere of the
relationship between
economic and
political struggle
because the classes'
struggle always
affects this
relationship. Each
class tends to
change this
relationship to its
own advantage, and
every political
movement must always
be traced back to
the base of class
interests.
Top
Wage Struggles
For Lenin,
returning to Marx
and re-establishing
Marx's science as
the working class'
political
consciousness
through the party
did not mean
conducting an
abstract battle to
defend abstract
principles. Nor was
it a battle against
a revision of ideas.
Rather, it was a
concrete struggle, a
political struggle
especially within
the working class,
to counteract all
the political
influences that the
other classes
established and
continually
establish in the
course of the
workers' struggles.
The wage struggle is
an objective
phenomenon. It is
the social
relation's mode of
existence within the
process of
capitalist
production and the
inherent
distribution
relations. The
solution, the social
outlet for this
struggle is, however,
a subjective
phenomenon. It
depends on the
consciousness of the
struggle itself; it
depends on the
degree to which the
science has been
circulated in the
classes; it depends
on the action that
each class is able
to develop; that is,
it depends on each
class' political
action. This is the
sphere of the
revolutionary
party's struggle.
And, the fact that
What Is to Be Done?,
A Step Forward, and
other writings
concentrate this
struggle within the
party itself means
that the struggle
has to be resolved
and won within the
party in order to be
brought to and won
within the class.
But let us examine
how all these
concepts are
expressed clearly in
the essay On Strikes.
Lenin starts by
asking himself a
question: "How can
the origin and
spread of strikes"
that "in Russia have
become
extraordinarily
frequent be
explained?"
This is Lenin's
approach to this
problem, as a true
materialist and not
as an economicistic
spontaneist: "When
there were only a
few big factories in
Russia there were
few strikes..." He
then asks himself. "Why
is it that large-scale
factory production
always leads to
strikes? It is
because capitalism
must necessary lead
to a struggle of the
workers against the
employers, and when
production is on a
large scale the
struggle of
necessity takes on
the form of strikes."
Lenin follows Marx's
framework faithfully
and develops it
accordingly. The
workers' struggle is
brought about by
capitalism, and with
large-scale
production, this
struggle, "of
necessity takes on
the form of strikes".
This thesis must be
underlined. It is
the outcome of an
analysis of the
"factual material"
from experience that
leads to discover a
now "generalized", "necessary"
form of the workers'
struggle within
large-scale
production, that is,
the strike. Later we
will see the
importance that
strikes have in the
Leninist view of the
economic and
political struggles
and their particular
interconnection.
Top
Strike Struggles
We follow Lenin
again to see how he
reaches the concept
of "strike struggle".
Lenin starts with
the illustration of
Marx's theory. "Capitalism,"
he writes, "is the
name given to that
social system under
which the land,
factories,
implements, etc.
belong to a small
number of landed
proprietors and
capitalists."
The workers have to
sell their labor-power.
The employers try to
reduce wages while
the workers try to
get the highest
possible wage. "A
constant struggle is,
therefore, going on
between employers
and workers over
wages..." The
employer is free to
buy the labor-power
at a lower price,
just as the worker
is free to go to
work where the pay
is better. "The
worker always
bargains with the
employer, fights
with him over the
wages."
But "is it possible
for a single worker
to wage a struggle
by himself The
number of working
people is increasing,
peasants are being
ruined and flee from
the countryside to
the town or the
factory... In the
cities there are
increasing numbers
of unemployed and in
the villages there
are more and more
beggars; those who
are hungry drive
wages down lower and
lower. It becomes
impossible for the
worker to fight
against the employer
by himself... The
individual worker
becomes absolutely
powerless in face of
the capitalist...
Even under slavery
or serfdom there was
never any oppression
of the working
people as terrible
as that under
capitalism when the
workers cannot put
up a resistance or
cannot win the
protection of laws
that restrict the
arbitrary actions of
the employers." To
keep from reaching
extreme conditions,
the workers begin a
"desperate" struggle;
they rise up
together.
"Workers' strikes
begin. At first the
workers often fail
to realize what they
are trying to
achieve, lacking
consciousness of the
wherefore of their
action; they simply
smash the machines
and destroy the
factories... In all
countries the wrath
of the workers first
took the form of
isolated revolts...
[which] gave rise to
more or less
peaceful strikes, on
the one hand, and to
the all-sided
struggle of the
working class for
its emancipation, on
the other. What
significance have
strikes (or
stoppages) for the
struggle of the
working class?"
After having
illustrated the
historical process
through which the
wage struggle
becomes a strike
struggle, Lenin
tries to define the
meaning that strikes
have taken on in the
workers' struggle.
If the worker's wage,
therefore, is the
outcome of a
purchase-and-sale
contract, "the
workers are
compelled to
organize strikes
either to prevent
the employers from
reducing wages or to
obtain higher wages.
it is a fact that in
every country with a
capitalist system
there are strikes of
workers... As
capitalism develops,
as big factories are
more rapidly opened,
as the petty
capitalists are more
and more ousted by
the big capitalists,
the more urgent
becomes the need for
the joint resistance
of the workers,
because unemployment
increases,
competition sharpens
between the
capitalists who
strive to produce
their wares at the
cheapest (to do
which they have to
pay the workers as
little as possible),
and the fluctuations
of industry become
more accentuated and
crises more acute."
Before continuing to
read Lenin, we
should stop briefly
on the theses that
he presented and
that can be called
the fundamental
bases of the Marxist
and Leninist theory
on trade unions,
that is the theory
that deals with a
specific aspect of
the social relations.
In this field as
well, the science-social
reality relationship
fully substantiates
the concept of the
workers' struggle.
This struggle is
viewed with a
materialist
criterion. in its
objectivity, in the
"need" to struggle
for wages. The
entire social
reality in which
Lenin frames this
struggle is
important to
scientific knowledge
of this economic law.
The wage as the
price of a commodity,
is not only seen at
the final stage of
the market, but it
is seen throughout
the socio-economic
process that
determines the
market itself.
"Those who are
hungry drive wages
down," says Lenin,
and the hungry
people include the
two-fold phenomenon
of the cities'
growing unemployment
and the
countryside's
growing poverty.
This phenomenon,
moreover, is in turn
an aspect of small
farmers’ ruin and
their flight to the
city to increase the
labor-power market.
This historical
process makes an
isolated wage
struggle impossible
and a workers'
coalition necessary
not only to carry on
"general competition
with the capitalist",
but, above all, to
resist the
capitalist, to
restrict his
arbitrary actions.
We see, therefore,
how the same wage
struggle in Lenin is,
on the one hand, the
product of the
relations between
all the classes and,
on the other,
because of this
characteristic, a
political struggle.
Undoubtedly, the
wage struggle cannot
be an isolated
social relation, but
it is closely
connected with the
other social
relations (development
of capitalism in the
countryside, the
peasants' ruin,
growing poverty of
some groups of
peasants, etc.).
This becomes truer
the more this
interdependence
operates in
capitalism’s
development. Lenin
points out a series
of relations that
define it clearly:
1) the more
capitalism develops,
the more big
factories increase;
2) the more big
capitalists increase,
the more vigorously
small capitalists
are eliminated,
competition between
capitalists
increases, lower
wages are paid,
workers become
unemployed, industry
fluctuates, and
there are crises;
3) therefore, the
more capitalism
develops, the more
immediate becomes
the need for the
workers to be united
in their resistance.
The fact that this
need is the result
of capitalist
development and not
of class
consciousness, is
confirmed by the
historical
experience of all
capitalist countries
in which the
beginning of strikes
- that is, on the
one hand, of a new
form of wage
struggle, and, on
the other, of the
working class' multi-form
struggle - is also
the beginning of a
desperate struggle
in which the workers
"lack consciousness
of the wherefore of
their action".
This is the "
typical " aspect,
the one that is
shared by all
capitalist countries,
in the beginning of
the workers strike
struggle. In Lenin’s
view, we can define
this as a political
aspect. The lack of
consciousness, the
so-called "pure"
spontaneity, the "need"
to revolt provoked
by a concrete
experience, is
ultimately the
objective basis, the
embryonic form of
the workers'
political
consciousness. If
the revolutionary
party, the higher
form of political
consciousness'
organization, were
unable to fight and
eliminate the other
classes' political
influence over the
working class; if it
were unable to bring
the class back to a
primary awareness of
its social condition;
if it were unable to
trace the class
back, in
capitalism’s
situations of
crisis, to this
condition of
political revolt and
to raise it to a
condition of social
revolution, the
party would have no
historical reason to
exist.
If the working class
is the only
revolutionary class
in capitalist
society, it is not
only because it can
potentially reach
the science, but,
especially, because
the revolutionary
potential lies in
its own social
condition. If
Marxism and Lenin,
in What Is to Be
Done?, say that the
proletariat's
spontaneity is trade-unionist,
this is because the
proletariat is
subjected to the
political influence
of the other classes
(especially the
bourgeoisie and
petty bourgeoisie)
and not because the
proletariat is in
and of itself trade-unionist.
If we read What Is
to Be Done?
carefully, we can
see how the Leninist
concept of the party
arises from the
international
proletariat's entire
historical
experience of
spontaneity-trade
unionism.
Top
The Two Aspects
Of Workers'
Spontaneity
"But there is a
difference between
spontaneity and
spontaneity," Lenin
writes in Chapter II
of What Is to Be
Done? Even between
1860 and 1880 (but
also in the first
half of the century),
Russia experienced
strikes accompanied
by "spontaneous"
destruction of
machines and
equipment. Compared
with these "revolts",
the strikes that
occurred after 1890
could even be called
"conscious" - such
was the importance
of the progress that
the workers'
movement made in the
meantime. Ultimately,
this demonstrates
that "the
spontaneous element"
is nothing other
than "consciousness
in an embryonic form".
Further ahead, Lenin
writes:
"It is often said:
the working class
gravitates
spontaneously
towards socialism.
This is perfectly
true in the sense
that the socialist
theory defines the
causes of the misery
of the working class
more profoundly and
precisely than any
other theory. For
that reason, workers
are able to
assimilate it so
easily, provided,
however, that this
theory does not step
aside for
spontaneity and
provided it
subordinates
spontaneity to
itself..
The working class
gravitates
spontaneously
towards socialism,
but bourgeois
ideology - which is
the most widespread
(and constantly
revived in myriad
forms) - still
remains the ideology
that, above all
others,
spontaneously
imposes itself on
the workers ... But
why, the reader will
ask, does the
spontaneous movement,
the movement that
follows the line of
least resistance,
lead to the
predominance of
bourgeois ideology?
For this simple
reason: bourgeois
ideology is far
older than the
socialist, it is
more fully developed
in all of its
aspects, and because
it has immeasurably
greater means of
circulation at its
command."
We could quote other
passages on the
topic, but we feel
it adequate to pause
on this last central
point, on this
"simple reason" that
Lenin so clearly
expresses. Moreover,
this comes after be
mentions the fact
that ideological
predominance can
also belong to other
classes in countries
that are not highly
capitalist. "... But
the spontaneous
development of the
workers' movement,"
he writes, "leads to
subordinating it to
bourgeois ideology...
[not to fight
spontaneity] is the
same as giving
socialism up... as
leaving the field to
die Struves and
Prokopovichs who
direct the workers'
movement "along the
line of least
resistance", i.e.,
along the line of
bourgeois trade-unionism,
or to the Zubatovs
who direct it along
clerical-police
ideology lines."
Top
Consciousness
Embryonic Form
Why, then, in
Russia, doesn't the
spontaneous
development of the
workers' movement
necessary lead to
bourgeois trade-unionism?
Why may it also be
directed along
clerical-police
ideology lines?
The answer lies in
the "simple reason"
that bourgeois
ideology in Russia
does not yet have
the history, the
full development,
the command of the
means of circulation
that it does in more
capitalistically
developed and more
bourgeois countries.
Naturally,
capitalism's
development and the
international
connections give
bourgeois ideology
in Russia the same
advantages that
characterize its
predominance in
other countries. But
the party cannot
just stand by and
watch this process.
The party must have
scientific awareness
of the relationship
between workers'
spontaneity and
bourgeois ideology;
it must be aware of
the historical
factors that
determine the
process through
which bourgeois
ideology " remains
the ideology that,
above all others,
spontaneously
imposes itself on
the workers".
The party's task is
to oppose bourgeois
ideology's
predominance. It can
only do this in its
class sphere, within
the working class,
i.e., in the only
social sphere with a
contradiction
between the
superstructure (bourgeois
ideology) and the
structure (labor
power); in the only
social sphere with a
contradiction
between those who
sell their labor
power and the
ideology that is not
their own because it
belongs to the
labor-power
purchasers. The
party fights
bourgeois ideology
in its form as the
ideology of a class
that dominates the
class it exploits,
that is, in the form
of the workers'
spontaneity. It
fights and can fight
it because "ultimately,
the spontaneous
element is nothing
other than
consciousness in an
embryonic form",
i.e., the embryonic
form of scientific
consciousness. This
spontaneous element,
left to its
spontaneity, left to
its, mechanical
development, can do
nothing more than
fall under the
influence of die
most widespread,
oldest, most fully
developed ideology,
that is, bourgeois
ideology.
And when Lenin says
ideology, he is
clearly not saying
science. Socialist
theory "defines the
causes more
profoundly and
precisely," that is
to say, it is a
science. Bourgeois
ideology "is more
fully developed in
all of its aspects,"
that is to say, it
is ideology, a
developed and
perfected tool of
predominance,
leadership, of
hegemony of one
class over the
others; of rule over
reality, but not a
tool for precise
knowledge of reality.
If Marxism has won
in the sphere of
precise knowledge of
reality and allowed
for the rise of the
revolutionary party,
in the social sphere
of the working class
not only Marxism has
not won, but it must
fight its entire
battle against
spontaneity, against
the form in which
bourgeois ideology
influences the
working class.
Top
The Influence of
Bourgeois Ideology
In other words,
Marxism, the party,
has already defeated
bourgeois ideology
in the social sphere
of the class, in the
sphere of culture. (Lenin
quotes, approving,
Kautskys famous
passage: "Modern
socialist
consciousness can
arise only on the
basis of profound
scientific knowledge.
Indeed, modern
economic science is
as much a condition
for socialist
production as, say,
modern technology,
and the proletariat
can create neither
one nor the other,
no matter how much
it may desire to do
so. Both arise out
of the modern social
process. The
vehicles of science
are not the
proletariat, but the
bourgeois
intelligentsia: it
was in the minds of
some members of this
stratum that modern
socialism originated,
and it was they who
communicated it to
the more
intellectually
developed
proletarians who, in
their turn,
introduced it into
the proletarian
class struggle where
conditions make that
possible. Thus,
socialist
consciousness is
something introduced
into the proletarian
class struggle from
without, and not
something that arose
within it
spontaneously")
Marxism has
demonstrated that
bourgeois ideology
is the culture of
the ruling class,
thus revealing its
mystifying character,
and has ultimately
proved that it is an
"ideology" and not a
science. However
Marxism must still
defeat bourgeois
ideology within the
working class. This
is the party's
historical task.
But how can the
party fight an
ideology that is
older, more
widespread, more
developed in all of
its aspects, more
refined and varied,
constantly revived
in myriad forms, and,
in short, more
mystified? How can
it fight an ideology
with enormous
advantages over the
science, over
Marxism, precisely
because of these
traits, because it
is a tool of
influence, because
it is a tool to
create a common
meaning, because it
is a foundation for
all the prejudices
and habits that fill
the working class,
as Lenin will
discuss in The State
and Revolution?
The mechanist, who
reduces the Marxist
principle of the
superstructure's
derivation from
historically
determined
production relations
to a positivistic
formula; he who does
not see how much of
Marx and Lenin's
work is dedicated to
studying and solving
this question, will
not even raise it.
On the other hand,
the question is not
even raised by those
who believe they
have solved the
problem by
pronouncing a "reversal
of practice" in
which "will" is a
mere conceptual
category, something
that may not be
scientifically
defined, that has no
relationship with
the structure it "wants
to overthrow" and
can't therefore be
scientifically
subject to analysis
and verification
using the
materialist
criterion. Will
remains "pure" will,
a mystified and
eclectic definition
of an opportunist
practice that is
such because it is
not directed by the
consciousness of
one's own role, but
rather by a pseudo-consciousness.
If we then look
carefully, we are
faced with two of
the various forms of
bourgeois ideology,
with two classic
forms of spontaneity.
The essence of the
first or second form
is the lack of an
actual struggle
against bourgeois
ideology in the
social sphere where
it must historically
be fought, that is
within the working
class. And this
means "leaving the
field to the Struves
and Prokopovichs".
We mentioned a first
and second form of
bourgeois ideology,
because it is not
enough to know that
one must fight
against bourgeois
ideology within the
working class, but
one must know how,
in what way, and why
it is necessary to
fight.
Top
How the Party
Fights Spontaneity
Lenin will
illustrate how, in
what way, and why
the battle against
bourgeois ideology
must be fought in
all of his
theorization of the
workers' struggle "through
strikes" and in all
his revolutionary
political action "through
the party".
Let us continue
reading his essay On
Strikes: "However,
strikes, which arise
out of the very
nature of capitalist
society, signify the
beginning of the
working-class
struggle against
that system of
society."
Isolated, the
workers "remain
veritable slaves";
by fighting together,
"they become human
beings". Why?
Because: "Every
strike reminds the
workers that their
position is not
hopeless, that they
are not alone...
In normal, peaceful
times, the worker
does his job without
a murmur, he doesn't
contradict the
employer; he doesn't
discuss his
condition.
In times of strikes
he states his
demands in a loud
voice... he doesn't
think of himself and
his wages alone, he
thinks of all his
workmates... Every
strike brings
thoughts of
socialism very
forcibly to the
workers' mind. It
has often happened
that before a big
strike the workers
of a certain factory...
knew hardly anything
and scarcely ever
thought about
socialism; but after
the strike... more
and more workers
become socialists."
It is clear how
Lenin "materialistically"
shows us the process
that "through
strikes" leads the
workers' struggle
above and beyond the
wage struggle that
deterministically
gave birth to it and
from which it can
never be separated
(as Lenin himself
will demonstrate in
the analysis of the
interconnection
between economic
strike and political
strike). He also
shows us how this
process is reflected
in the specific s
here of bourgeois
ideology's influence
and in the struggle
against it, i.e., in
the specific sphere
of development of
political
consciousness as a
historical form of
circulation of the
science, of Marxism.
This process itself
marks "the beginning
of the working-class
struggle" against
the capitalist
system. The form it
manifests itself
leads the individual
worker, who had no
knowledge of and
didn't think of
socialism - i.e.,
who knew and thought
of ideas that are
part of bourgeois
ideology - to think
about his condition;
to think about the
other workers'
conditions, to think
not only of himself
or his own wage.
A strike is an
objective form of
social life that
necessary reflects
itself in the
individual's
subjective life. A
strike is a fact, a
reality, a new form
of life for social
relations, a "Mont
Blanc of factual
material". only
after it has been a
concrete fact can it
"bring thoughts...
very forcibly", and
only because the
concrete fact
originates "out of
the very nature of
capitalist society"
can it bring this
idea and allow the
worker to become a
human being, to
discuss his
condition and that
of others. In other
words, this fact
allows man to
develop "consciousness
in an embryonic form",
to develop within
himself the
science's embryo,
the embryo of the
scientific criteria
of knowledge of what
is real.
Within this
materialist process
of consciousness
development lies the
objective
possibility for
Marxist science's
circulation. In this
sense, Marxist
science is
introduced to the
working class from
the outside; it
merges completely
with the spontaneous
creation of the
embryo of
consciousness
spontaneously
generated in the
workers' struggle by
social relations, by
the constant and
inevitable struggle
for wages that has
become "necessarily
a struggle through
strikes".
The struggle against
bourgeois ideology,
therefore, has a
material process to
work on and in which
it can verify itself.
It is no longer a
struggle between
ideas, a struggle of
will, a struggle of
persuasion. Rather,
it is the will to
carry on this
struggle; the will
not to "step aside
for spontaneity";
the will to submit
the party’s exact,
scientific idea of
the social process'
spontaneity in which
it must operate, to
the process itself,
to reality itself.
The scientific idea,
the will to apply it
properly, the
organizational tool
suited to this
purpose: this is
what the party must
"fully develop in
all of its aspects".
This is the party's
permanent and
necessary task,
because it must
always be aware of
how and in what way
it must and can
conduct the struggle
against bourgeois
ideology within the
working class; how
and in what way it
can and must free
socialist
consciousness'
spontaneous
assimilation of the
obstacle that is
bourgeois ideology.
Once it has
scientifically known
the objective law
that regulates the
process in which the
workers' political
consciousness
develops
materialistically,
the party must
constantly and
necessarily know the
"particular forms"
that allow or
prevent this process
in a given, specific
situation. It must
know all of the
various forms in
which the Struves
and Zubatovs
manifest themselves,
not so much in their
theoretical and
external expression,
but in their
practical one within
the working class.
The party must know
what the worker
thinks and how what
he thinks is
determined by what
he does in any given
situation.
The party must know
"how" and "when" the
worker can think of
his own social
condition and the
condition of his and
the other classes;
how and when the
movement of social
relations can very
forcibly bring the
idea of socialism to
the worker; how and
when the party must
intervene in an
carry on this
process in the most
fully-developed way
possible. This is
the role of
propaganda and
agitation that the
party fulfills. But,
in order for
propaganda and
agitation to be "fully
developed in all of
their aspects", so
that they are not
propaganda and
agitation of "ideas"
but instead a
conscious factor in
a materialist
process of creation,
the party must
analyze and know all
the elements in this
process, the forms
in which they
manifest themselves,
and the new forms in
which they can
manifest themselves.
This is why the
party's struggle is
a bitter, hard one
ridden with hurdles.
This is why it is a
struggle in which
will is not enough;
this is why a
scientific will is
needed. It is a
struggle in which
the idea of a "reversal
of practice" is not
enough. Instead,
exact knowledge of
the practice's
entire dialectical
process is necessary.
The propaganda of an
idea is not
sufficient in this
struggle, rather the
action must be
determined that
reaches the idea
from reality and
reality from the
idea.
Lenin gave the party
the scientific tools
it needs for this
action. The struggle
for wages "through
strikes" is no
longer an "idea"
that the party has
of this struggle.
instead, it is a
material process to
be analyzed as a
"natural historical
process" - using all
of Marxism's
scientific criteria
- from which the
ideas arise and in
which the party
operates and
verifies.
Further ahead we
will see how Lenin
developed the tool
of analysis of
strikes and how he
applied the
scientific analysis
criteria to define
the "strike
statistics".
For the time being,
we will limit
ourselves to
continue the reading
of On Strikes to
find another
important statement.
Top
The Strike: A
School of War
"A strike,
moreover, opens the
eyes of the workers
to the nature, not
only of the
capitalists, but of
the government and
the laws as well."
Government officials
tell the workers
that they are
worried about their
fate, and the
workers, who "have
no contacts with
government officials"
directly, often
believe them. But,
in the struggle:
"The workers begin
to understand that
laws are made in the
interests of the
rich alone; that
government officials
protect those
interests... this is
the reason that...
strikes [are] a "school
of war"... A "school
of war" is, however,
not war itself. When
strikes are
widespread among the
workers, some of the
workers including
some socialist)
begin to believe
that the working
class can confine
itself to strikes...
some think it is
sufficient to
organize a general
strike... It is a
mistaken idea.
Strikes are one of
the ways in which
the working class
struggles for its
emancipation, but
they are not the
only way; and if the
workers do not turn
their attention to
other means of
conducting the
struggle, they will
slow down the growth
and the successes of
the working class."
For successful
strikes, "funds are
needed" to support
the workers. "All
that is necessary is
a hitch in the
affairs of industry...
and the factory
owners will even
deliberately cause
strikes, because it
is to their
advantage to cease
work for a time and
to deplete the
workers' funds. The
workers, therefore,
cannot 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... There
are still very few
such workers in
Russia, and every
effort must be
exerted to increase
their number. This
is a task that the
socialists and the
class-conscious
workers must
undertake jointly by
organizing a
socialist working-class
party for this
purpose."
Thirdly, strikes
"show the workers
that the government
is their enemy...
only a socialist
workers' party can
carry on this
struggle by
spreading among the
workers a true
conception of the
government and of
the working-class
cause".
"When all class-conscious
workers become
socialists..." the
working class "will
become an integral
part" of the
socialist movement.
The struggle for
wages through
strikes has become,
in Lenin's analysis,
a school of war
which is not yet,
however, the working-class
"war itself". Rather,
this struggle
becomes the war to
the extent that the
party - an
organization of
Marxist and class-conscious
workers spreads "a
true conception"
about the social and
political nature of
the capitalist
system among the
workers and brings
the strike to a
strategy of its own.
In the "school of
war", the working
class not only
understands its
relationship with
capitalists, but
also its
relationship with
the State. That is,
it understands what
all class
relationships are as
well as all the
classes'
interrelations, the
sphere of politics
and the State. But
only the party can
teach the working
class that strikes
are one of the
struggle's tools but
not the only one.
Moreover, only the
party can teach that
the strike strategy
is part of the
revolutionary
strategy and not the
revolution's entire
strategy as "some of
the workers (including
some socialist)
begin to believe"
without realizing "that
strikes are only one
means of struggle,
only one aspect of
the working-class
movement".
Top
The Strike: A
Natural Economic
Phenomenon
Three years
later, Lenin, in his
article "On a Draft
Law on Strikes",
published 'n the
September 1st, I902
issue of Iskra, said
more. He wrote that:
"The working-class
movement has become
so vast that strikes
have truly become a
natural economic
phenomenon"."
At this time, Lenin
gave his
theorization of the
party a systematic
character. It is
symptomatic that his
scientific handing
runs parallel to
analyzing and
formulating the
problems of the
workers' struggle
and of the agrarian
question, within the
general framework of
studying and
defining all the
factors in the
revolutionary
strategy.
In May, 1901, the
article "where Is It
Necessary to Begin?"
appeared in Iskra.
This article already
raised the issues
that would be
developed later in
What Is to Be Done?,
published in March,
1902, but begun in
May, 1901 at the
same time as the
first nine chapters
of The Agrarian
Question and Marxist
Tactics. These were
drafted between June
and September of
1901, while chapters
10, 11 and 12 were
written in the fall
of 1907.
Given this
interdependency of
the topics studied,
the analysis of the
1902 workers'
struggle is of
special relevance.
Lenin, having
studied the draft of
a new law on strike,
immediately writes:
"Considering a
strike as if it were
a crime provokes
overzealous
interference by the
police. This
interference is more
damaging than useful,
and creates more
problems and
headaches for the
employers than
relief…
[Therefore, in the
draft]... one hears
the voice of an
entire stratum of
employers who are in
contact with
productive labor...
the tradesman's
nickel liberalism is
much more important
than the State
official's dime
liberalism... The
police don't
investigate the
reasons for the
strike. Rather, they
only deal with
blocking it, and to
do this, they use
one of two methods:
either force the
workers... to go
back to work, or
order the employers
to make concessions...
The workers'
struggle has taken
on such tenacious
forms, that the
police State's
intervention has
begun to be truly
damaging. This
intervention not
only damages the
workers (who have
never been anything
but damaged by it),
but also the
employers themselves,
for whom the police
intervened in the
first place... Even
some employers have
started to realize
that the European
class-struggle forms
are preferable to
the Asian-like
arbitrary will of
the police." Having
identified the cause
(the strike that has
become a natural
economic phenomenon),
Lenin describes its
effects on other
classes (employers
who propose new
regulations for
strikes; the czarist
bureaucracy's
intervention that
begins to be
damaging) and
everything that
these classes begin
to think and
understand.
But what should the
party's attitude be
towards the
reactions this new
"natural economic
phenomenon", i.e.
the strike, has
produced? Lenin is
clear on this issue
as well:
"In its number and
compactness lies the
proletariat's
strength, that
increases with the
process of economic
development itself.
At the same time,
this process only
increases the
disparity and
division of
interests between
the petty and great
bourgeoisie. In
order to be able to
evaluate this
"natural"
superiority of
proletariat's,
social-democracy
must carefully
follow all the
clashes of interest
between the ruling
classes. It must use
them, not only to
gain an advantage
for this or that
group of the working
class, but also to
enlighten the entire
working class, to
draw useful
teachings from each
new sociopolitical
episode.
The poetical
advantage for the
workers in changing
the law as the
liberal employers
proposed is too
obvious to make it
worth a lengthy
discussion. It is an
unmistakable
concession to a
growing strength...
The Ministry of the
Employers' new step
also offers us
another useful
teaching: the need
to know how to use
any liberalism in
practice - even if
it is nickel
liberalism. At the
same time, it
teaches us to still
remain alert so that
this liberalism
doesn't corrupt the
masses of people
with its false
approach to the
problems"
For Lenin, the party
must know how to use
any nickel
liberalism that
openly conflicts
with the czarist
bureaucracy's dime
liberalism. However.
it must also prevent
the employers'
concession to the
workers' growing
strength from
becoming a weapon of
corruption. The
lesson that Lenin
teaches us is,
ultimately, that:
the practical
advantage that the
workers gain from a
concession made by
the capitalists to
the growing strength
of the workers'
struggle is obvious,
and the party's
attention should not
halt on it. Rather,
it should focus its
attention on the
advantage that the
capitalists think
they will gain from
it. The practical
advantage for the
proletariat is the
result of its
natural superiority
determined by the
number and
compactness that
increase with the
process of economic
development itself.
But the party's
political advantage
comes from analyzing
the clashes of
interest within the
ruling classes and,
therefore, in this
light, from
evaluating the
weight that the
proletariat's
natural superiority,
can have in the
revolutionary
strategy of the
classes' struggles.
Top
The Proletariat's
Natural Superiority
The idea of the
"natural superiority"
of the proletariat
is a scientific
evaluation that has
nothing to do with
the evolutionary-gradualistic
view of the classes'
development. This
evaluation commands
the party's full
attention; it tests
the extent to which
the science has been
assimilated, and
measures the ability
to develop a
strategy that
corresponds to the
development and
contradiction of all
the social forces.
"In its number and
compactness lies the
proletariat's
strength," Lenin
says.
The proletarian "quantity"
"increases with the
process of economic
development itself".
This phenomenon can
be recognized by
analyzing economic
development itself.
We therefore have an
initial objective-statistical
element that
indicates the
proletariat's
quantitative
strength. This
latter constitutes
the first material
factor of the
proletariat's
superiority over the
other classes, and
in particular over
great and petty
bourgeoisie. These
two, along with the
proletariat, are the
social forces
produced by
capitalist
development.
The elimination of
pre-capitalist
social forces is
part of the nature
of capitalist
development.
Consequently, the
quantitative social
result of this
process must be
based on capitalist
society's essential
classes: the
bourgeoisie and
proletariat.
The second factor of
the proletariat's
natural superiority
is its compactness.
This is another
material factor
determined by
capitalist economic
development that, as
Lenin has already
explained,
necessarily leads to
large-scale
production, to the
concentration of
large proletarian
masses in big
factories, and to
the necessary
development of wage
struggle into strike
struggle. This
provides us with a
second objective-statistical
element that results
from the analysis of
capitalist
production's
concentration and
centralization.
Thus, the
proletariat's number
and compactness are
two statistically
definable elements
of the social
relations. We will
have a proletariat
comprised of a given
number of people,
and we will have a
given number of
capitalist companies
with a given number
of wage workers.
Finally, these
companies will have
to be classified
according to their
number of employees.
But evaluating the
proletariat's
strength requires a
second series of
judgments: it must
be evaluated in
relation to the
other classes, and
this relationship
must initially be
studied in a
statistical-economic
context.
The level of
proletarization in a
given capitalist
society must come
forth from this
examination as must
the level of
proletarian
concentration-compactness
with respect to the
urban and rural
great and petty
bourgeoisie’s
disparity and
fractionation.
This evaluation will
provide us with
working-class
percentage indices
to compare with the
other classes and
social strata. More
important, it will
provide us with
indices of the
proletariat’s
concentration in a
given country's
economic production
process. Since the
proletariat's
"natural superiority"
is not an absolute
figure but rather
the result of a
series of
relationships with
all the other social
forces, we can
evaluate this given
society by
considering the
level of
proletarization and
that of proletarian
concentration. That
is, we must evaluate
this society by
considering both
phenomena and not
just the first.
This is what Russian
Marxists did when
they analyzed the
features of
industrial
development in
Russia and the
ensuing
proletarization. In
their opinion, the
fact that the small
and young Russian
proletariat - which
numbered merely
1,691,ooo units in
factories and
workshops in 1905 -
was concentrated in
large firms was a
factor that
strengthened
"natural superiority"
in contrast with
Russia's low
absolute
proletarization
level.
However, by
scientifically
evaluating the
proletariat's
"natural superiority",
Lenin's party can
assign the Russian
proletariat a
crucial role in the
strategy of the
international
revolution. It can
do this because the
evaluation of
proletarian
compactness is
strictly determined
by the assessment of
the other classes'
disparity and
fractionation of
interests, in
particular between
the great and petty
bourgeoisie.
This is the point
where the evaluation
of the proletariat's
"natural superiority"
becomes a precise
scientific
evaluation that can
direct action. In
fact, it started
with analyzing
objective-statistical
data to translate
the tensions, the
exertion of effort,
and the rupture
between the classes
into quantitative
terms.
Only now does the
classes'
sociological
evaluation become a
political evaluation,
i.e., an evaluation
of the classes'
strength in their
interrelations, and
of the factors that
halt, slow, or
increase potential
strength.
Obviously, this
holds as much for
the proletariat as
it does for the
bourgeoisie, both
great and petty. It
holds at any level
of capitalism's
development and is
particularly valid
in the current,
imperialist stage in
which the
proletariat's number
and concentrations
have reached
gigantic dimension.
So, based on these
dimensions that
provide the
proletariat with an
objective basis,
never before
witnessed in the
history of mankind,
for its "natural
superiority", the
pressure of
bourgeois ideology
on the working class
also takes on
gigantic dimensions.
That is, this
pressure takes on
dimensions that are
adequate for what
bourgeois ideology
must contain.
Opportunism exalts
the concept of "proletarian
unity" as never
before, and it has
even raised it to
mythic dimensions
with the most
refined and
elaborate forms.
Decades of
ideological pressure
on the working class
have made each
individual worker a
prisoner of this
myth. This is the
most counter-revolutionary
myth that bourgeois
ideology has
developed over the
centuries.
First of all, it
should be pointed
out that the concept
of "unity" itself is
opportunist and
ideological, and not
a scientific concept.
This concept that
bourgeois ideology
developed mystifies
reality into an
abstract, unitary
view that is better
suited to keeping
the capitalist
economy's real
interests intact.
Lenin explains that
while the process of
economic development
itself increases the
proletariat's number
and compactness, at
the same time, the
disparity and
fractionation of
interests between
great and petty
bourgeoisie also
increases. The
proletariat may only
take advantage of
its "natural
superiority" if it
is able to use die
other classes'
"natural disparity"
to "independently"
carry on its
revolutionary
strategy against all
the classes until it
reaches the stage of
the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
This stage is the
natural outcome of
the proletariat's
superior,
independent,
scientific class
struggle.
Only under these
circumstances, that
become reality
through the
revolutionary
party's leading
role, is the
proletariat strong,
superior, compact
because the
bourgeoisie, both
great and petty, is
divided and
fractionated.
It is obvious that
this Leninist view
has nothing to do
with the bourgeois
myth of workers'
unity. Instead, it
is based on specific
concepts of quantity,
compactness,
strength, disparity,
and fractionation.
In reality, the
mystification of
workers' unity is an
attempt to unify the
disparity and
fractionation of all
the bourgeois class'
interests. Even if
workers' unity does
not prevent the
futility of this
opportunist attempt
of bourgeois
ideology,
nonetheless, it
represents a
temporary solution.
Workers' unity under
opportunist policy
will alternatively
fall into the
strategy of great
and petty-bourgeois
reformist tendencies;
or it will be big
capital's tool for
trade-unionist
operations to
attenuate the social
and political
consequences of
capitalism's
development and the
ensuing clashes of
interests between
the great and petty
bourgeoisie; or it
will be a tool for
democratic
operations in which
the petty
bourgeoisie uses the
united proletariat
to defend its own
interests against
big capital; or,
finally, it will be
a tool for the
fascist attempt to
mediate the various
classes' conflicting
interests through
the State.
In all these cases,
what is essential is
that the
proletariat's
political unity,
that is, class
uniformity in the
relationship with
the capitalist State,
is indispensable to
avoid worsening the
bourgeois strata's
fractionation of
interests. One must
never forget that
these interests can
only become
irreconcilable when
the proletariat
aggravates them with
its independent
strategy; otherwise,
they always find
temporary mediations
- at the
proletariat's
expense.
This happens firstly
in the wage struggle,
i.e., at the
economic source of
the conflicting
interests between
those who subdivide
the workers' surplus-value.
With its natural
superiority, with
its strength and
compactness, the
proletariat can
aggravate and
exasperate the
disparity of
interests between
big and small
capitalist
production through
its wage struggle.
It can greatly
accelerate the
process of
capitalist
concentration and
provoke a giant
crisis in all fields
of small capitalist
production where the
organic composition
of capital can't
withstand a single
labor-power price
determined on the
labor-power market
by a quantitative
and compact wage
struggle. And lasdy,
through the party,
the proletariat can
take advantage of
the permanent crisis
of interests within
the bourgeois camp
in order to carry on
its revolutionary
struggle for power.
When the proletariat
is compact in
strategy, the
clashes of interests
within the great and
petty bourgeoisie
will tend towards
the greatest
political
exasperation. That
is, they will tend
towards the greatest
struggle to impress
the most
advantageous
direction for each
conflicting
bourgeois stratum on
the State body
responsible for
mediating these
conflicts.
inevitably, as
history shows us,
this will bring the
State apparatus
itself into crisis,
and this, from the
proletarian point of
view, means that the
first fine against
the proletariat
weakens, becomes
disorganized and
inefficient.
In terms of
political
exasperation,
whether these
bourgeois conflicts
of interests appear
as fascism or anti-fascism,
totalitarianism or
democracy, Zubatov
or Struve, is a
problem that
concerns defining
the particularity of
the historical time
in which the
contrast arises.
Undoubtedly, the
party must define
this Particularity,
but, most of all, it
must assess the
conflicting forces;
the degree to which
they annul each
other; the time when
they can be
temporarily mediated,
and continually
relate the
evaluation of
bourgeois forces to
that of proletarian
strength. Comparing
forces is the key to
the revolutionary
party's strategy- On
this base the party
faces the united
workers' myth and
the reality of
proletarian unity as
a tool in the bands
of bourgeois strata
for mediating their
conflicting
interests.
Corroding this tool,
decomposing the
proletarian forces
that it uses,
recomposing them in
the proletariat's
independent strategy
- this is the
party's permanent
task. Only when the
bourgeois forces are
weakened because the
revolutionary party
has deprived them of
the sustain Of the
workers' forces, can
the party rely on
the proletariat's
natural superiority
in the face of the
bourgeois forces.
The latter, having
lost their
proletarian
contingents,
inevitably clash and
open the way to a
crisis of
disintegration that
leaves the
proletariat as the
only compact force.
Top
The Strike: A
Proletarian Tool
On January
22nd,1917, at a
meeting of young
workers in Zurich,
Lenin gave a "Lecture
on the 1905
Revolution". Here,
he illustrated the
strike's role in
that revolution. In
1905, he said, a
colossal country
with a population of
I30 millions, "dormant
Russia", changed
into a Russia with a
revolutionary
proletariat and a
revolutionary people.
What methods and
ways made this
transformation
possible?
"The principal
factor in this
transformation was
the mass strike. The
peculiarity of the
Russian revolution
is that it was a
bourgeois-democratic
revolution... since
its immediate aim...
was a democratic
republic... At the
same time, the
Russian revolution
was also a
proletarian
revolution; not in
the sense that the
proletariat was the
leading force, the
vanguard of the
movement but also in
the sense that a
specifically
proletarian weapon
of struggle - the
strike - was the
principal means of
bringing the masses
into motion and the
most characteristic
phenomenon in the
wave-like rise of
decisive events. The
Russian revolution
was the first,
though certainly not
the last, great
revolution in
history in which the
mass political
strike played an
extraordinarily
important part. It
may even be said
that the events of
the Russian
revolution and the
sequence of its
political forms
cannot be understood
without a study of
the strike
statistics to
disclose the basis
of these events and
this sequence of
forms."
Then Lenin provides
some statistical
data that make it
possible to evaluate
"the real, objective
basis of the whole
movement". For this
purpose, he uses the
general statistical
conclusions that he
had reached in his
1910 essay Strike
Statistics in Russia.
But we will discuss
this later.
"The average annual
number of strikers
in Russia during the
ten years preceding
the revolution was
43,000, which means
430,000 for the
decade. In January
1905, the first
month of the
revolution, the
number of strikers
was 440,000 In other
words, there were
more strikers in one
month than in the
whole of the
preceding decade! In
no capitalist
country in the world,
not even in the most
advanced countries
like England, the
United States of
America, or Germany,
has there been
anything to match
the tremendous
Russian strike
movement of 1905.
The total number of
strikers was 2,8oo,ooo,
more than two times
the number of
factory workers in
the country! This,
of course, doesn't
prove that the urban
factory workers of
Russia were more
educated, or
stronger, or more
adapted to the
struggle than their
brothers in Western
Europe. The very
opposite is true."
And here, Lenin
repeats the concept
that - as we shall
see - he had already
expressed seven
years earlier, but
this time, he
expands on it.
"But it does show
how great the
dormant energy of
the proletariat can
be. It shows that in
a revolutionary
epoch - I say this
without the
slightest
exaggeration, on the
basis of the most
accurate data of
Russian history -
the proletariat can
generate fighting
energy a hundred
times greater than
in ordinary,
peaceful times. It
shows that up to
1905 mankind did not
yet know what a
great, what a
tremendous exertion
of effort the
proletariat is, and
will be, capable of
in a fight for
really great aims,
and one waged in a
really revolutionary
manner! "
Top
The
Interconnection of
Strikes
By following
Lenin, we now begin
to understand how
the strike, "the
specifically
proletarian weapon"
was the "principal
means of bringing
the masses into
motion", for waking
dormant Russia, and
how a socially
bourgeois-democratic
revolution was
proletarian because
of its tools of
struggle. The
proletarian exertion
of effort, i.e., the
fullest and most
independent use of
the working class'
energies in society,
in a "really
revolutionary"
manner; the class
tension brought to
its breaking point:
this is the
mechanism that shook
Russian society,
this is the
mechanism that can
shake any capitalist
society to the
extent of the
specific weight of
the classes'
energies.
"The history of the
Russian revolution,"
Lenin writes, "shows
that it was the
vanguard, the finest
elements of the wage-workers,
that fought with the
greatest tenacity
and the greatest
devotion. The larger
the mills and
factories involved,
the more stubborn
were the strikes,
and the more often
did they recur
during the year. The
bigger the city, the
more important was
the part the
proletariat played
in the struggle.
Three big cities, St-
Petersburg, Riga and
Warsaw, which have
the largest and most
class-conscious
working-class
element, show an
immeasurably greater
number of strikers,
in relation to all
workers, than any
other city, and, of
course, much greater
than the rural
districts."
The vanguard role of
the proletariat of
the most important
cities' large
factories becomes
critical here, as it
is the moving force
behind the
revolution - a
specific trait in
the Marxist
conception of class
struggle that is
antithetical to the
bourgeois concept of
workers' unity.
"The finest elements
of the working class,"
Lenin continues, "marched
in the forefront,
giving leadership to
the hesitant,
rousing the dormant
and encouraging the
weak.
A distinctive
feature was the
manner in which
economic strikes
were interwoven with
political strikes
during the
revolution. There
can be no doubt that
only this very close
linkup of the two
forms of strike gave
the movement its
great power. The
broad masses of the
exploited could not
have been drawn into
the revolutionary
movement had they
not been given daily
examples of how the
wage-workers in the
various industries
were forcing the
capitalists to grant
immediate, direct
improvements in
their conditions.
This struggle imbued
the masses of the
Russian people with
a new spirit. Only
then did the old
serf-ridden,
sluggish,
patriarchal, pious
and obedient Russia
cast out the old
Adam; only then did
the Russian people
obtain a really
democratic and
really revolutionary
education."
The interconnection
between political
and economic strikes,
Lenin explains, was
entirely original
because it was the
outcome of the
proletarian
vanguard's struggle
that led the class
and the exploited
masses into a
general struggle.
This was the result
of the proletariat's
independent energy
and not of the
proletariat's giving
in before the semi-proletarian
and non-proletarian
exploited masses.
"The real education
of the masses can
never be separated
from their
independent
political, and
especially
revolutionary,
struggle. Only
struggle educates
the exploited class;
only struggle
discloses to it the
magnitude of its own
power, widens its
horizon, enhances
its abilities,
clarifies its mind,
forges its win."
This pedagogic
function of the
struggle acts both
within the class as
well as towards the
exploited masses. It
teaches socialism to
the class and
democracy to the
exploited masses.
Precisely because it
is the expression of
the predominant
proletarian energy,
it has the
opportunity to use
the "democracy" that
it taught to the
non-proletarian
masses as the moving
force behind a
revolutionary
strategy that leads
to the abolition of
democracy and to the
dictatorship of the
proletariat. This
pedagogic function
is the essence of
the interconnection
between the economic
and political
strikes.
This particular kind
of struggle marks a
step forward for the
proletarian force;
it indicates that
this force has only
been used from a
class point of view;
it highlights that
the proletariat's
pressure has
profoundly affected
the exploited, non-proletarian
masses' political
struggle and has
forced them to adopt
the proletarian "weapons":
strikes.
Can this be defined
an alliance between
the proletariat and
the intermediate
strata, as the
opportunists invent
in Lenin's thought?
only counterfeiters
could affirm this.
The terms "alliance"
and "hegemony" have
been mystified by
their pens and
practice. They have
been filled with
such counter-revolutionary
content that it is
even necessary to
make philological
clarifications.
For the opportunists,
"alliance" is a
concept borrowed
from bourgeois
diplomacy. For them,
"hegemony" is a
concept taken from
bourgeois idealist
philosophy.
Consequently,
affiance and
hegemony are two
concepts that
express the
capitalist need to
organize a
contradictory,
chaotic, unbalanced,
social and political
reality in breadth
and depth,
internationally and
domestically, and to
organize it for
defense and attack
purposes, because
defense and attack
characterize all the
cycles of conflicts
of interests.
So, in this sense,
alliance and
hegemony are
concepts that do not
fall within
Marxism's scientific
rigor. Marxism has
used them
historically, as it
has many others,
especially in the
language of
political agitation,
as conventional
terms that could
approximate
translations of
scientific analysis.
It has used them as
terms that could
politically define
some stages of the
revolutionary
struggle preceding
the dictatorship of
the proletariat.
Only counterfeiters
could hide the class,
dictatorial content
that substantiates
the Leninist concept
of "workers' and
peasants' affiance"
or "proletariat's
and colonial peoples'
alliance". Only
hardened
opportunists could
ignore the concrete,
material,
statistically
recognizable value
of the proletariat's
strength in
establishing a "hegemonic
pedagogy" towards
semi-proletarian,
sub-proletarian, and
petty-bourgeois
strata, that is,
towards strata that
capitalist
development creates
as disintegrated and
divided social dust:
the hegemonic role
of force before that
of ideas.
Marxism faces this
social magma, from
which the
proletariat's
quantitative
development derives,
because Marxism acts
on tendencies. In
this sense, Marxism
uses the concept of
alliance and
hegemony as
political tools in
an entire process of
proletarization in
which the
proletariat's
strength develops to
multiply itself
The fact is that the
opportunists or the
mechanists, for whom
the proletariat
becomes a conceptual
category that serves
the former for
diplomatic alliance
schemes and the
latter for confining
the class in a
deterministic limbo,
do not even think
that the proletariat
is the outcome of a
process of
proletarization. In
its regard, the
party must face many
problems that it
faces with the
exploited masses.
The manner in which
Lenin handles the
relationship between
metal and textile
workers in 1905 is
highly instructive:
"The textile workers,
who in 1905 were two-and-a-half
times more numerous
than the
metalworkers, are
the most backward
and worst-paid body...
It follows quite
obviously that the
economic struggle,
the struggle for
immediate and direct
improvement of
conditions, is alone
capable of rousing
the most backward
strata of the
exploited masses,
gives them a real
education and
transforms them -
during a
revolutionary period
- into an army of
political fighters
within the space of
a few months."
Top
Strike Statistics
Already in 1902
Lenin had said that
strikes had become a
"natural economic
phenomenon". This
affirmation is more
than a generic
statement about a
tendency the forms
of the workers'
struggle take on in
large-scale
capitalist
production. It
contains something
more important,
i.e., the discovery
of an objective law
that regulates wage
struggles at a given
level of the
productive forces'
development.
As with all
objective laws, this
is also defined
after analyzing a
series of socio-economic
facts. Materialist
criteria find
concrete application
in this analysis
while, on the other
hand, the movement
of social relations,
the struggle, the "economic
phenomenon" can be
studied and defined
as a "natural
phenomenon". This "economic
phenomenon" would in
fact risk being
described and
defined using merely
idealistic criteria
if it were
impossible to reduce
it to its material
essence.
And here again. the
legend of a
voluntarist Lenin is
shattered. Lenin
does riot create
subjective
categories - such as
trends and struggles
subordinated to a
political will -
which do not exist
or are irrelevant in
reality. He does not
subjectively invent
traits for the
workers' struggle
that better fit his
concept of the
party. Lenin does
not limit himself to
recording the
workers' struggles
and to exalting
strikes: he does
much more.
He analyzes these
strikes
scientifically,
ultimately leaving
the subjective view
of strikes behind.
Strikes are a
"natural economic
phenomenon", and,
therefore, should be
studied as part of
nature, as part of
capitalist society's
nature.
No Marxist, either
right or left-wing,
had done this before.
It is enough to
mention the
international
discussion caused by
the 1905 events on
general and mass
strikes to see this.
Instead, for Lenin,
the I905 experience
is a formidable
accumulation of
concrete facts. And,
with regard to these
facts, it is finally
possible to apply
the scientific
principles that he
had fruitfully
formulated and
applied when
analyzing
capitalism's
development in
Russia in contrast
with the populists.
This experience had
also allowed him to
define the concept
of objective law in
analyzing the 1902
strikes. At the end
of 1910, Lenin wrote
his long essay
Strike Statistics in
Russia for the
magazine Mysl.
He began his essay
with an opinion on
the Ministry of
Commerce and
Industry's
publications
concerning the
statistics on
factory workers'
strikes in the
decade 1895-1904 and
the years 1905-1908.
Lenin wrote: "The
material collected
in these
publications is so
rich and precious
that it will take a
great deal of time
to study thoroughly
and analyze
competletely."
As he had already
done for the Zemstvo
agrarian statistics,
Lenin studied this "rich
and precious"
material and
analyzed the data
from bourgeois
statistics using
Marxist methodology,
and applying and
perfecting tools
that he derived from
the scientific
principles.
In the essay in
question, Lenin
wants to circulate
the "preliminary
results of an
attempt at a more
detailed analysis."
"First of all," he
writes, "the fact
that strikes in
Russia in 1905-I907
were a phenomenon
that the world had
never seen before is
entirely certified."
To prove this, he
compiles a table on
the number of
strikes by thousands,
years, and countries.
The years included
range from 1895 to
1909, and the
countries are. in
order, Russia, the
USA, Germany, and
France.
Against a maximum
reached in I905 Of
2,863,000 strikers
in Russia, we have a
maximum of 66o,ooo
strikers in the USA.
"The 1905-1907 three-year
period is
exceptional. The
minimum number of
strikers in Russia
during these three
years surpasses the
maximum reached by
the world's most
capitalist countries."
In fact, the three-year
minimum is 740,000
strikers in 1907.
Should therefore
Lenin shout the
"natural superiority"
of Russian strikes?
Should he proclaim a
Russian "particularity"
that legitimates a "national"
path, as all the
opportunists who
today run about
seeking
particularities,
even in the
Constitutions, feel
justified to do?
Here is Lenin's
"universal" answer:
"Certainly, this
does not mean that
Russian workers are
more advanced and
stronger than in the
West. It does mean,
however, that
mankind did not know
until then what kind
of energy the
industrial
proletariat is
capable of
developing in this
field. The
particularity of the
historical course of
events is that the
approximate measure
of this ability
first appeared in a
backward country
that is still
experiencing a
bourgeois revolution."
On the other hand,
in Lenin's
statistical analysis,
the average number
of Russian strikers
between 1895-1904
was 43,ooo. After
the exceptional
three-year period,
there were 176,ooo
in i908 and 64,000
in 1909.
In his statistics on
strikes, Lenin above
all seeks the "typical"
aspect of the
proletarian struggle
- the class' "energy".
Indeed, the
particularity does
not be in the energy
expressed by the
Russian workers, but
in the historical
course that allowed
a backward country's
workers to show "the
approximate measure"
of the industrial
proletariat's
potential energy.
The search for the
historical causes
that determined the
fact that it was the
Russian proletariat
that demonstrated
the international
proletariat's energy
potential is the
search for the
particularities of
the Russian
situation.
But it is not so
much this aspect
that Lenin
highlights. Rather,
he underlines the
typical aspect of
the industrial
proletariat's energy
potential in the
strike struggle. It
is particular that
this potential shows
up in Russia before
anywhere else. If a
given energy was
produced in Russia
by a given
proletarian force,
we finally have a
material element
that can be
statistically
identified. This
allows us to obtain
an energy
quantitative
coefficient in
relation to the
quantity of
proletarian force
employed.
Obviously, we only
obtain quantitative
data that only make
quantitative
assessments possible,
but this is the
first objective
evaluation factor
needed to
scientifically
analyze social
phenomena such as
the workers' strike
struggles.
Lenin analyzes other
statistical data
that make it
possible to
scientifically
analyze Russian
strikes and that
provide us with
another method for
reaching a
quantitative
evaluation of a
tension stage in the
capital-wage
relationship.
He analyzes the
damages (commodities
not produced)
incurred by Russian
industry as a result
of the strikes. This
analysis covers the
industry as a whole
and the sub-division
of the strikers into
four fundamental
industrial areas: A)
metalworkers, B)
textile workers, C)
printers, carpenters,
tanners, chemists,
and D) mineral and
foodstuff workers.
In the decade
between 1895-1904,
the damages suffered
amounted to
10,400,000 rubles
altogether; in 1905,
they totaled
127,3oo,ooo rubles;
in i906, 3I,200,000;
in 1907, 15,000,000,
and in i9o8, 5,8oo,ooo.
Between I905 and
I907, the value of
commodities not
produced increased
to I 73,5oo,ooo
rubles. The damages
the workers suffered
due to pay lost
during strikes (calculated
based on the various
industries' average
daily wage), in the
decade between
1895-1904 totaled
1,597,ooo rubles;
17,541,000 in 1905;
3,820,000 in 1906;
1,815,000 in I 907,
and 451,000 in 1908.
During the three
years between
1905-1907, the
workers suffered
damages of 23,2oo,ooo
rubles, that is,
more than 14 times
the previous decade
s total losses.
Lenin provides a
second table on the
"Average damage (in
rubles) incurred by
industrial workers
as a result of
strikes", where he
disproves the
official statistical
calculations. Once
again, this pertains
to the decade
between i8951904 and
the years 1905,
1906, I 907, and
1908.
While considering
the enormous
differences in wages
between the workers
in the various
industries, Lenin's
more detailed
calculation
distinguishes
workers according to
industrial groups A,
B, C, D, and makes
it possible to
determine that:
"A metalworker (group
A) incurred 3 o
rubles in damages as
a result of the
strikes in 1905,
that is, three-times
the average, and
more than 10 times
the average damages
suffered by a
mineral or
foodstuffs worker (group
D).
The conclusion that
we reached above,
that is, that
towards the end of
I905 the
metalworkers
exhausted their
strength in this
kind of struggle, is
vigorously confirmed
in the table in
question: in group
A, the damages
between 1905; and
1906 decreased 8
times, while it
dropped 3-4 times in
the other groups."
And here we see how
Lenin's Marxist lens
carefully dissects
the generic data of
official statistics
on the damages
suffered by
industrial workers.
The government
statistics
calculated an
average 10-copec
undifferentiated
damage for each
industrial worker
per year during the
first decade; 10
rubles in I905; 2 in
i9o6, and 1 ruble in
1907. On the
contrary, Lenin's
study shows true
adherence to the
class' reality, to
its internal
problems, to its
internal differences,
to its internal
subdivision into
vanguard and
rearguard. Thus, the
statistics on the
damages suffered by
the workers were
also useful to
review the working
class' forces.
Mentioning these
statistical data is
of great interest
here, not so much to
historical purposes,
but rather because
we can reconstruct
Lenin's statistical
methodology and draw
all the general
indications that
make it useful for
the revolutionary
party's present
tasks.
The party should be
able to analyze
every workers'
struggle and every
strike movement with
Lenin's statistical
methodology.
Lenin calculates the
damages industry
suffered for
commodities that
were not produced
(173,5oo,ooo rubles)
and the damages
incurred by the
workers for wages
not received
(23,200,000 rubles).
The ratio is about
7,5 to 1 which
allows us to make an
approximate and
quantitative
evaluation of the
class conflict. By
calculating the
surplus-value rate
and the rate of
profit, and by
calculating the
total of the
unrealized profit in
monetary terms, we
could have a ratio
that is undoubtedly
inferior to 7,5 to
1, and is perhaps
closer to 1 to 1.
Nonetheless, this
ratio would show us
exactly how much
capital was
destroyed by the
struggle.
How much energy did
the proletariat use
in this struggle?
How much energy is
the proletariat
capable of? To
answer these
questions, it is
necessary to go
back, after
analyzing the
damages incurred, to
Lenin's analysis on
the strike days:
"To understand how,
in Russia, with a
relatively small
number of factory
and workshop workers
compared to Western
Europe, the number
of strikers could be
so high, one must
take repeated
strikes into account."
Thereafter, Lenin
provides a table
with the usual sub-division
by years and (a)
percentage of the
strikers in relation
to the overall
number of workers,
(b) percentage of
the cases of
repeated strikes in
relation to the
overall number of
strikes.
Lenin writes: "These
figures show us that
the three-year
period between
1905-I907, which was
exceptional in terms
of the total number
of strikers, also
distinguishes itself
with the frequency
of repeated strikes
and the high
percentage of
strikers in relation
to the total number
of workers."
Indeed, in I 905
percentage (a)
reaches a peak of
163.8% and
percentage (b) a
peak of 85-5%. But
Lenin does not stop
with these two
percentages; he also
compiles, with the
usual sub-division
by years, a third
percentage that we
could define (c).
This is the "percentage
of strikers in the
plants in which
strikes broke out,
in relation to the
overafi number of
workers." In 1905,
dús percentage was
6o%.
The relation between
percentages (a),
(b), and (e)
demonstrates a "wavy"
strike movement with
a decrease in the
number of strikers
compared to 1905:
the decrease in the
number of strikers
is lower between
1906 and 1907 than
between 1905 and
1906.
Lenin searches for
the reasons behind
this oscillations by
analyzing the more
and less
industrialized
governorates, and
their alternatine
movement: some
governorates entered
the struggle one
year after its start,
some others re-entered
the struggle after a
pause.
He studies "this
phenomenon critical
to understanding the
historical course of
events," and he
describes it in
detail, sector by
sector, month by
month because "the
period of one year
is too long to study
the "wavy" character
of the strike
movement. From a
statistical point of
view, we now have
the right to say
that in the
I905-1907 three-year
period, each month
counted one year.
Over these three
years, the workers'
movement lived for
thirty years.
There was not a
single month in 1905
in which the number
of strikers dropped
below the minimum
for the 1895-1904
decade. But, 19o6
and 1907 only had
two such months per
year. Unfortunately,
the official
statistics do not
have adequately
considered monthly
data or data for the
individual
governorates. Thus,
we are forced to
completely
recalculate many
tables."
Lenin recalculates
the tables by
quarter and
subdivides the three-year
period's strikes
into economic and
political ones,
i.e., he keeps in
mind - as he writes
in his 1912 article
"Economic Strike and
Political Strike" -
that "it was life,
the creator of
particular forms in
the strike movement,
that made it
necessary to
introduce this
subdivision. The
combination of
economic and
political strikes is
one of the main
traits of this
particularity."
Each year is divided
into four quarters,
and the quarters in
which the "greatest
increase in the wave"
occurs are enclosed
in a rectangle. The
quarters with the "greatest
increase in the wave"
coincide with
crucial political
events that Lenin
lists scrupulously
and that find
confirmation in the
statistics on
political strikes.
In this three-year
period Lenin finds a
rule, that is: "the
increase in the wave
of strikes marks
critical points,
turning points, for
the country's entire
social and political
evolution. The
statistics on
strikes clearly show
us the main moving
force behind this
evolution. This does
not mean at all that
the form of the
movement in question
is the only one or
the highest one...
It does mean, though,
that we are faced
with the statistical
picture (undoubtedly
an incomplete one)
of a class movement
which was the
mainspring in
determining the
events' general
direction. The other
classes' movement
gathers around this
center, follows it,
is directed or
determined by it (positively
or negatively) -
their movement
depends on it."
Top
Radicalizing the
Struggles
The rule that
Lenin draws out of
his analysis of the
three year period
demonstrates the
intimate, counter-revolutionary
essence of
opportunist policy.
It also shows the
concrete aim this
sets in preventing
the proletariat from
becoming the main
moving force in
capitalist society's
critical points, in
its turning points.
It is no accident
that opportunists of
all leanings reject
the rule that makes
it possible for the
proletariat to be
the main moving
force in every
social and political
event.
They oppose Lenin's
affirmation, which
is based on
scrupulously
analyzed facts.
Lenin himself says
so in his May 31st,
1912 article "Economic
Strike and Political
Strike".
"If the liberals (and
the liquidators)
tell the workers,
you are strong when
"society"
sympathizes with you,
the Marxist talks to
the workers
differently: "society"
sympathizes with you
when you are strong.
Society, in this
case, must be
understood as all of
the population's
democratic strata:
petty bourgeoisie,
peasants,
intellectuals in
close contact with
the workers' life,
office workers,
ere..."
Lenin gives us a
concrete example in
another passage in
the essay on strike
statistics when he
reviews the failure
of the struggle for
the 8-hour working
day:
"There can be no
doubt that the
demand for an 8-hour
working day pushed
away many bourgeois
elements who could
sympathize with
different workers'
aspirations...
The liberal point of
view reveals itself
in considering the
unity of economic
and political
struggle as a "weak
side of the movement".
Marxism, on the
contrary, sees a
weakness in this
unity's inadequacy,
in the insufficient
number of
participants in
economic strikes. By
finding out the
three-year period's
"general law" - the
movement gains
strength when the
economic struggle
gains strength -
statistics clearly
confirm that the
Marxist point of
view is correct.
This "general law"
is logically
connected to the
essential
characteristics of
any capitalist
society: it always
has strata that are
so backward they can
only be awoken with
an extreme flare-up
of the movement. And,
the backward strata
can only be brought
to the struggle by
economic demands."
With finely-honed
precision, this
passage also shows
another dialectical
Marxist thesis that
radically denies
opportunist practice.
Capitalist society,
Lenin says, will
always have backward
strata, heavy
rearguards of the
working class. To
bring them into
political struggle,
the party must
extend the economic
struggle to the
utmost; it must
start with these
groups' economic
claims to raise them
up.
Consequently, does
the existence of
these backward
strata justify the
opportunist alibi
according to which,
since there are more
backward sectors,
the class can't and
shouldn't develop
more advanced
struggles? Certainly
not. The opportunist
alibi does nothing
more than theorizing
capitalism's need to
maintain large
proletarian and semi-proletarian
sectors in a
backward situation
and to politically
unite the class
vanguards with the
more backward
sectors on the base
of the latter, i.e.,
on the terrain where
bourgeois ideology
has its strongest
and most massive
influence.
The class vanguards
are pushed into
backward positions
where they can be
controlled and
annulled - through
the bourgeois myth
of workers' unity
that capitalism's
agents developed and
utilized within the
workers' movement.
What is an effect of
opportunist policy
is instead presented
as a cause which, in
this mystified
version, justifies
all of the class'
defeats and its
economic and
political
subjugation to the
capitalist system.
This justification
upholds the myth to
the point that it
becomes another
component of such "common
sense" as is the
vulgarization of
bourgeois ideology
within the working
class.
The true dialectic
is overturned into
sophism. In his
analysis, Lenin
shows us that the
backward strata can
be brought forward
and awoken "only by
an extreme flare-up"
in the struggle. The
more acute the
battle - and it may
become more acute
only when it manages
to unsettle the
economic roots of
class relations -
the vaster it
becomes to embrace
the entire class.
It is this
struggle's acuteness
and vastness that
then brings the
class' most backward
strata to political
consciousness and
makes the economic
struggle a political
one. In this
dialectical process,
the proletariat,
with all of its
energy, even that
from the most
backward strata,
takes on a
predominant role -
even in a bourgeois-democratic
revolution. Even in
this kind of
revolution, such as
in 1905, can the
proletariat have a
non-subordinate
role, provided it
maintains all of its
independence,
provided it uses all
of its energy and
demonstrates all of
its strength.
Its energy and
strength lie in the
basic conflict
between capital and
wage. The
proletariat must
appeal to this
conflict and its
elementary nature.
What seemed to be
the "weakness" and "backwardness"
of a large part of
the class becomes,
instead, the entire
class' strength, its
inexhaustible
reserve of unused "energy"
that can be thrown
violently onto the
scales of class
relations. This is
the task of the
party and its
proletarian vanguard,
and this task can
only be fulfilled to
the extent that
their use of "energy"
and their "exertion
of effort" manage to
"awaken" the entire
class.
Thus, the party's
strength and that of
the proletarian
vanguard is
multiplied by the
miracle of
multiplying the
forces that each
historical
revolutionary period
witnesses and that
the opportunists
will never
understand, even if
they tenaciously
oppose it.
If this is valid
during a bourgeois-democratic
revolution, it is a
thousand times more
valid in the present
stage in which
proletarian
revolutions come
onto history's
agenda. Lenin taught
us to assess all the
proletariat's
strength
dialectically, also
and above all what
does not appear on
the surface because
it has never been
used and recognized
by the enemy classes
and counter-revolutionary
opportunists.
The party must,
however, be fully
aware of this
strength. It must
know how much
potential energy it
can call up; it must
know two other
features of the
proletarian "energy":
"tenacity" and "wideness".
Lenin establishes an
average of strike
days per striker and
provides us with a
first "tenacity"
index.
"The tenacity of the
struggle illustrated
by these figures,"
he says, "reached
its peak in 1905...
It should be noted
that, Western
European strikes are
far superior in
terms of tenacity in
the struggle. In the
five-year period
between 1894-1898,
the number of strike
days for each
striker was 10,3 in
Italy, I2,1 in
Austria, I4,3 in
France, and 34,2 in
England.
If we consider
strictly political
strikes separately,
(for Russia) we have
the following
figures: I905, 7
days per striker;
1906, 1,5; 1907, 1.
The economic strikes
are always
distinguished by a
longer-lasting
struggle."
Keeping in mind the
strikes' varying
tenacity over the
years, we can
conclude that the
number of strikers
is insufficient to
precisely establish
a comparative
picture of the
movement's wideness
in different years.
On the other hand,
the strike days
provide an exact
index. Having
established a "wideness
index" with
statistical data on
the strike days,
Lenin continues:
"This way, the
wideness of the
movement,
established
precisely, in 1905
alone surpasses the
total wideness of
the movement in the
entire previous
decade by more than
11 times.
In other words, in
1905, the wideness
of the movement
surpassed the
average annual
movement's wideness
in the previous
decade by 115 times.
This ratio shows us
how nearsighted the
people are who can
too often be met in
the official
scientists'
environment (and not
only). They consider
the pace of social
and political
development that
characterizes the
so-called "peaceful",
"organic", "evolutionary"
times to be a rule
that always holds;
to be an index of
modern mankind's
potential speed of
development. In
reality, the "development"
pace in these so-called
"organic" times, is
the index of
greatest stagnation,
of the greatest
obstacles to
development."
According to Lenin,
the pace of social
and political
development - that
is, in the case Of
1905, capitalism's
social development
in the cities and
countryside, and the
development of the
bourgeois-democratic
republic - is
determined by the
proletariat's
strength. As opposed
to those who see
capitalism's
development as a
process during which
the proletariat is
defenseless and
passive, Lenin sees
it as a stage of
history in which the
proletariat is a
propelling force, a
dynamic class that
compels the weak
bourgeoisie to carry
on its economic
development, to
accelerate the
social
differentiation in
the cities and
countryside, and to
create an ever-more
numerous proletariat.
In this process, the
working class
becomes a pivot
around which the
movement of social
strata gathers, the
same strata that
economic development
destines to
proletarization. The
working class
becomes a social and
political force that
the bourgeoisie will
never again be able
to crush as it did
in the nineteenth-century's
revolutions. It
becomes a force that
can defend itself
and accelerate the "second
revolution", the
socialist revolution.
The proletariat,
therefore, is not a
passive factor in
capitalist
accumulation. Its
economic and
political struggle,
far from slowing
accumulation - as
the opportunist, who
reasons from the "accumulating"
class' point of view
believes becomes a
powerful impulse to
accumulation; a
shove to quicken the
pace of capitalist
accumulation that is
thereby forced to
devour all the pre-capitalist
economic forms and,
in particular, rent.
Lenin provides us
with an example of
how a Marxist views
the issue of the
pace of social and
political
development:
"In terms of the
struggle between
workers and
employers, the
official statistics
on the outcomes of
strikes are highly
instructive...
The general
conclusion that must
be drawn here is,
first of all, that,
the higher the
movement's strength,
the greater the
workers' successes.
The most
advantageous year
for them was 1905,
the year in which
the strike
movement's impetus
was at its peak."
This holds for the
first, second, and
fourth quarter of
the year. The third
quarter, however,
was a period of
decline in the
number of strikers.
"With the slackening
of pressure comes
the employers'
victory: 59,000
strikers lost and
only 45,000 won. The
percentage of losing
strikers was 35.6%,
that is, more than
in 1906. This means
that "that general
sympathizing
atmosphere" towards
the workers in 1905
which the liberals
speak of so much as
the main cause for
the workers'
victories... did not
prevent their defeat
at all when they
released their
pressure."
Here, Lenin
addresses the issue
of the greatest use
of the proletariat's
energy. To
understand how this
problem comes up, it
is necessary to
follow its
development and
establish some
essential traits
that emerge from
analyzing the strike
statistics.
First of all: in
Russia, the
metalworkers were
the most advanced
sector of the
proletariat.
In 1905, out of 100
factory workers,
there were 160
strikers, but, in
the same year, there
were 320 strikers
out of 100
metalworkers.
Keeping in mind the
frequency of
repeated strikes and
the high percentage
of strikers in
relation to the
total number of
workers (another
feature of the three
year period), the
number of
metalworker strikers
exceeds the number
of workers three-fold.
Second of all: this
demonstrates that
large-scale
industry's
proletariat provided
the greatest energy
to the movement.
"If the energy and
tenacity of the
strike struggle (here
we only speak of
this kind of
struggle) had been
the same throughout
Russia as it was in
the districts of St.
Petersburg and
Warsaw, the total
number of strikers
would have been two
times higher... the
workers could only
appreciate half of
their strength in
this field since
they only used half
of it. The workers
who were spread
throughout the
villages and in
relatively small
urban and industrial
centers, despite
they constituted
half of the total
number of workers,
provided 40% Of the
total number of
strikers between
i895-I904 and only
25-3o% between
I905-I907. The
metalworkers were
better prepared than
the others by the
decade preceding
1905. Almost half
struck during this
decade (117,000 out
of 252,000). Since
they were the most
prepared, they were
the vanguard also in
I905."
Thirdly: the
relation between the
class energy and its
use is, therefore,
the relation between
the class vanguard
and rearguard.
Specifically, in
Russia's case, this
relation is between
metalworkers and
textile workers who
made up
approximately 40% of
the factory and
workshop workers.
"The relation
between metal and
textile workers is
the characteristic
relation that exists
between the vanguard
and the large masses.
To stir the large
masses, the vanguard
had to invest such a
colossal amount of
energy at the start
of the movement that
it was then
relatively weakened
at the height of the
movement itself. It
is obvious that such
irregularity in the
movement denotes a
certain waste of
forces due to their
disunity, to their
inadequate
concentration."
Lenin used the tool
of strike statistics
not only to evaluate
the proletarian
force, but
especially to
discover the way in
which this force can
be used best and
wasted least.
Top
The Trade-Union
Issue
After the
October revolution,
Lenin actively dealt
with the trade-union
issue. Obviously,
this issue was never
excluded from his
theoretical
development and
political activity,
even when the
workers' struggle
objectively
surpassed the trade-union
forms and took on
political ones of
struggle for power.
Even in his war-time
and revolutionary-period
writings, Lenin did
not overlook
studying the forms
of the workers' "strike
struggle" and the
issue of the
relationship between
these forms and the
party's action.
But, during that
stage of the class
struggle, the main
point in the working
class-party
relationship
presented itself at
a more advanced
level of the
revolutionary
strategy, that is,
at the beginning of
the international
proletarian
revolution and the
dictatorship of the
proletariat in
Russia.
The course of the
classes' struggles
in Russia and the
world quickly
matured the factors
of the workers'
struggle-party
relationship, and
also the dynamic of
this relationship
during previous
decades,
particularly
characterized by
capitalism's
relatively peaceful
development. The
workers' "strike
struggle" became the
workers' struggle
through Soviets and
the dictatorship.
But, the fact that
the workers'
struggle reached his
political maturity
as struggle for
power does not mean
that it finally
outgrew the forms
that we can define
as "trade-union"
forms. Even the "qualitative
leap" in the workers'
struggle and in its
relationship with
the party is a
contradictory,
dialectical process
marked by extreme
contrasts, by
extreme lacerations,
by profound
imbalances. The
course of the
international
revolution will
serve as the example.
Consequently, the "qualitative
leap" includes a
series of forms of
workers' struggle, "old"
and "new" forms
whose basic and
general tendency,
however, is made up
of capitalism’s
crisis and the
objective
possibility that the
crisis resolve
itself in the
revolutionary break-up
of capitalism's
political and
economic order.
Therefore, even the
"trade-union" forms
of the workers'
struggle can have a
short-term
revolutionary
perspective and can,
in the capitalist
crisis, constitute a
powerful starting
point for a process
of forming
revolutionary
consciousness, a
condition necessary
to move to more
advanced political
forms on the road
towards the assault
to power.
In the situation
opened by the
imperialist war and
the October
revolution, Lenin's
theorization covers
the entire process
of the classes'
struggle and the
various forms that
they take on. It
also magnificently
frames all of these
aspects in the
international
revolution's only
general strategy.
Lenin does not
remain a prisoner of
the formula. Rather,
he penetrates to the
substance, analyzes
it, connects it to
the strategy s
general movement. He
considers the
Soviets and the
trade unions. In the
former he sees both
the factors that can
be developed into
the pillars of the
dictatorship of the
proletariat as well
as the factors that
can be used by petty-bourgeois
democracy's counter-revolution.
In the latter he
sees both the class
momentum that can
make trade unions a
"school of war" for
the social war that
has begun, as well
as the traits that
make them a social
organization for
labor aristocracy
and opportunist
bureaucracy.
For Lenin, there is
a resolving factor
in this process. It
is the revolutionary
party and its
correct strategy
that allows the
fighting tendencies
to prevail in the
Soviets and trade
unions, thus leading
the working class
onto the road to the
revolution.
Top
The Third Period
of Lenin's
Theorization
Some Anglo-Saxon
historians have
interpreted Lenin's
position as a
contradiction that
is only resolved by
temporary pragmatism.
They feel that Lenin
would once again
deal with trade
unions and champion
revolutionary work
within reformist
trade unions only
after realizing that
the Soviets or
Councils had failed
in Europe.
This opinion may
seem valid, but, as
with any opinion
based essentially on
a political
position's formal
aspects, it is
superficial. That
the Soviets had a
fundamental and
critical role in
Lenin's concept of
the revolution and
the dictatorship of
the proletariat is
no mystery. The
State and Revolution
is crystalline on
this point. Lenin
did not invent the
Soviets, but they
arose as more
advanced proletarian
organizational and
struggle forms. For
these reasons, Lenin
outlines that even
more advanced forms
will be expressed by
the socialist
revolution in Europe,
and, in particular,
in Germany. However,
this does not cause
Lenin to forget the
trade unions and the
traditional form of
union organization.
Indeed, even when
his attention is
focused on the
Soviet, he never
ceases to study the
trade union issue,
to study "how" and "when"
under those
circumstances, the
class' economic
struggle can raise
itself to
revolutionary
political
consciousness and
struggle.
For Lenin, this is
the essential, and
this remains the
constant throughout
his writings on the
workers' struggle
and the class-party
relationship.
From this point of
view, some of his
1919-1022 writings
on the trade-union
issue are exemplary.
"The Trade Unions'
Tasks During the
Dictatorship of the
Proletariat" (Report
at the Second All-Russia
Trade Union Congress,
January 20th, 1919),
"Trade Unions and
the Economic Crisis
in Capitalist
Countries" (Speech
at the Fourth All-Russia
Textile Workers
Congress, February
6th, 1921), "The
Role and Functions
of the Trade Unions
under the New
Economic Policy" (January
12, 1922), and "Should
Revolutionaries Work
in Reactionary Trade
Unions" (written in
May, I920 and
included as Chapter
6 in Left-Wing
Communism, an
Infantile Disorder),
represent the
complete body of
Marxist development
and revolutionary
strategy on the
trade-union issue.
To face the problems
that the workers'
struggle raises in a
revolutionary stage,
these works cannot
be overlooked.
They represent the
mature development
of Lenin's thought
on the trade-union
issue, the most
consequent
development of the
works Lenin wrote in
what we could define
as the first period
(On Strikes, etc.)
and second period (Strike
Statistics, etc.).
From a general point
of view, this third
period could be seen
as a theoretical-political
synthesis of the
first period (abstraction)
and second one (analysis).
However, to see it
thus, one must keep
the clear
limitations of such
a format in mind
along with the
unavoidable
distortions that it
produces when
reconstructing
Leninist thought
fully.
If we use this
format, it is, above
all, to the purpose
of closely
connecting Lenin's
theorization with
the course of the
class struggle.
Consequently, it
becomes legitimate
to define a "third
period" marked by
theoretical-political
synthesis that
corresponds to a
historical phase
that raised the
workers' struggle to
a struggle for the
dictatorship of the
proletariat.
Not even in this
case do we have a "qualitative
leap" that can
represent an
overcoming of the
past in Lenin's
thought. Leaps of
this kind are
foreign to his solid,
scientific and
Marxist background.
In the third period,
the laws on the
workers' struggle
pronounced in
scientific
abstraction and
verified by
analyzing Russian "particularities"
find their universal
formulation (analysis
and definition of
imperialism;
analysis and
definition of labor
aristocracy;
historical analysis
of opportunism in
the trade-union
field). This new,
higher analytic
verification (since
it derives from a
broader field of
social facts and
class struggles)
makes the Bolshevik
tactic (that is,
precisely the
synthesis of theory-abstraction-analysis
and policy' action)
universally valid:
it becomes the
International's
trade-union tactic.
Top
The Social
Violence of
Democracy
We have already
said that we find
the historical-political
synthesis of the
Leninist view of
trade unions in the
third period. What
are the fundamental
theses that can be
inferred by
carefully studying
the 19I9-I922
writings? What are
the universally
valid theses for a
Leninist framing of
the trade-union
issue? In what way
are these theses an
integral part of the
class party's
revolutionary
strategy?
Let us start with
the first thesis
that concerns the
slogan of trade
unions' independence
(or neutrality), the
slogan criticized
and combated by
Lenin since his
struggle against the
"economist" tendency.
Lenin tells us that
this slogan, "must
not only be examined
from the trade-union
point of view,"
because it is also
wrong "from a
theoretical point of
view":
"The brutal,
treacherous killing
of Liebknecht and
Luxemburg is not
only the most tragic
and dramatic event
in the revolution
starting in Germany,
it also sheds an
extraordinarily
brilliant fight on
the way in which the
present struggle's
problems are
addressed..."
"We have heard,
precisely, and
especially, from
Germany, for example,
speeches about much-praised
democracy, on the
slogan for democracy
in general, and for
the independence of
the working class
from State power.
These slogans, which,
at first sight may
seem independent of
each other, are, in
reality, closely
connected.
They are closely
connected because
they demonstrate how
strong petty-bourgeois
prejudices are, even
now, in spite of the
proletariat's
immense class-struggle
experience...
If we remember just
the ABCs of
political economics
as we assimilated
them from Marx's
Capital, how can one
speak of democracy
in general, how can
one speak of
independence?"
Lenin rightly
reconnects the
concept of democracy
and trade-union
neutrality to a
common root. In
essence, trade-union
neutrality is only a
variation, applied
to a specific area
of social life, of
bourgeois democracy.
And Lenin wishes to
demonstrate exactly
that "democracy"
mean s "more
violence". This
thesis is essential
and develops the On
Strikes essay's
thesis, since the
abstraction (On
Strikes) of the
struggle to "decrease
or increase" wages
always takes shape
in a "socio-economic
formation" with
specific political
institutions. There
is no wage struggle
taken out of society
and the State
political
institutions that
society forms.
In this sense, the
Leninist strategy of
the Russian
proletariat's
struggle for
democracy is a
condition for
accelerating the
movement of the
classes' social and
political violence
and to prepare a
free and "democratic"
field for the
development of
social tensions and
rupture between the
classes.
Lenin's Marxism
demolishes this
precise point in the
opportunists' "democratic"
reformism, the
opportunists who see
democracy as
pacifism instead of
the contrary.
Unfortunately, the
German workers'
movement, lacking a
Leninist party, was
not able to learn
from this formidable
thesis of Lenin's
which should,
instead, have been
one of the pivot
points of the German
revolution. The
highly democratic
Weimar Republic was,
for many years, a
giant accumulation
of social violence.
The working class, a
prisoner of "democracy",
was impotent to use
violence's "deposits
of accumulation".
When capitalism used
them fully, "democracy's"
violence led to the
tragic, Nazi
epilogue.
Top
More Democracy,
More Violence
A petty-bourgeois,
anti-fascist
democrat will object
that this is what
happened in Germany,
capitalism with
Prussian military
roots, etc. However,
Lenin's thesis has
universal validity,
is not limited to
Germany, and
indicates an
objective law that
regulates the "violent"
content of democracy:
"The closer the
political forms
approach to
democracy, such as
in France, the more
quickly civil war
can break out from a
case such as the
Dreyfus affair. The
more liberal
America's democracy
is with the
proletariat, the
internationalists,
and even simple
pacifists, the more
quickly can cases of
lynching occur and
the flames of civil
war spark.
The importance of
all this is even
more clear, for us,
now that the first
week of bourgeois
freedom, of
democracy in Germany
has brought with it
the most furious
explosion of civil
war, much more acute
than it is here,
much more desperate.
So, it is not the
propaganda or theory
but rather the facts
of civil war that
will become
increasingly
overwhelming as
Western European
States' democracy is
old and ancient.
These facts strike
the most backward,
obtuse minds."
Who knows if this
statement, made on
January 20, 1919
after two years of
civil war in Russia,
will strike minds
even more blunted by
the democratic-opportunist
mystification!
Lenin says clearly
that the first "democratic"
week in Germany
demonstrated an
acuteness of civil
war much higher than
three years of
revolution in Russia
did. There is enough
to bewilder the most
obtuse minds of
those who depicted
history according to
their democratic
ideology and who
built a series of
sophisms around it
called "the
democratic path to
socialism"!
And yet, the facts
have proved Lenin to
be right. Based on
these facts, he was
able to establish
his thesis. The
older and more
ancient the
democracy, the more
overwhelming becomes
social violence and
the more it educates
the proletariat.
Social violence is
the outcome of class
antagonism. It is
not simply a "domestic"
product, but also an
"international" one
since old democracy
is the political
expression of the
old capitalism which
has now become
imperialism.
Therefore, violence
is exercised in the
relationship between
the capitalist and
working classes. The
more capitalism
manages to
subordinate the
proletariat, the
more it develops its
violence and
predominance.
Whether the forms of
this violence are
more or less open
depends on the level
of the working class'
resistance,
independence, and
offensive. The
German, French, and
American situations
that Lenin analyzed
reflect a variety of
the different
working classes'
levels of resistance,
of independence, and
offensive. They also
show a diversity of
imperialist
positions within the
respective
capitalisms:
consequently, we
will have different
"political"
solutions and
different evolutions
of the "democratic
forms" following the
immediate post-war
crisis.
This variety of
political solutions
will be further
confirmation of
Lenin's thesis on
the equation
democracy = violence.
But, in the thesis
he presents, what
are the effects on
trade-unions in a
situation marked by
the flare-up of
class struggle? What
are the effects
brought about in the
relationship that
both Marxism and
Lenin have always
affirmed - see the
concept of
indissolubility
between economic and
political strike;
see the opinion on "trade-unionist
policy" in What Is
to Be Done? etc. -
between trade-unions
and politics in the
new imperialist
stage? What are the
effects, then, in
the new imperialist
stage in which
Marx's statement, "every
economic struggle is
a political struggle"
must refer to a
content of political
struggle that can no
longer be either "trade-unionist
policy" or reformist
spontaneity?
Top
The "School of
Communism"
Lenin faces this
issue and defines
its solution in what
we may list as a
second thesis:
"The trade union
movement, as such,
is having to undergo
a particularly
abrupt change. The
ideologists of the
bourgeoisie...
endeavored to make
the economic
struggle, which is
the basis of the
trade union movement,
independent of the
political struggle.
But now, precisely
now, especially
after the political
revolution, which
has transferred
power to the
proletariat, the
time has come for
the trade unions, as
the broadest
organization of the
proletariat on a
class scale, to play
a very great role,
to take the center
of the political
stage, to become, in
a sense, the chief
political organ."
In outlining these
new political tasks
that trade unions
must undertake under
the dictatorship of
the proletariat,
Lenin develops his
theory of trade
unions as a "school
of war" into a
theory of trade
unions as a "school
of communism".
Now, under the
dictatorship of the
proletariat, the
trade unions are a "school
of communism"
because they
organize the workers'
masses as
extensively as
possible.
The proletarian
State is the State
of political
management of the
entire class. In
this sense, the
trade unions are "turned
into State", they
are State.
Lenin goes on to
affirm that the
class will be
educated, not by
books "but by its
own practical work
of movement,"
because "only when
it elaborates forms
which will enable
all working people
to adapt themselves
easily to the work
of governing the
State is the
socialist revolution
bound to be lasting."
This new description
of trade unions
under the
dictatorship of the
proletariat - their
new political role -
provides us with a
fundamental Leninist
view of the
relationship between
consciousness-class
and science-social
relations. From the
"school of war"
concept, we reach
the "school of
communism" concept.
reach this when the
relationships'
solution becomes
primarily political,
when, with the
course of the class
struggle (the
factual material)
and the
corresponding
poetical experience
(the science), the
economic struggle
that substantiates
the trade-union
movement expresses
the utmost political
solution.
Trade-union
organization during
this stage changes
qualitatively in the
sense that it can no
longer be an
organizational form
of the economicist
spontaneity that
tends towards
compromise in the
wage struggle. just
as trade unions
become a counter-revolutionary
tool to defend
capitalism for the
reformists, for the
revolutionaries they
become a mass
organization to be
used in the
socialist revolution.
The trade-union
issue takes on
qualitatively new
political aspects on
both sides, and its
correct framing
becomes crucial for
one or the other
class' victory.
Lenin says that
under the
dictatorship of the
Russian proletariat,
"it is inevitable
that trade unions
are turned into
State...".
"Perhaps we have
already managed to
forget, occasionally,
the times in which
we only dealt with
these questions in
theoretical
discussions." Here
is the role of
practice. The "school
of communism" is
such also because it
belongs to the class
majority.
"The trade unions
have never embraced
more than one fifth
of the wage-workers
in capitalist
society, even under
the most favorable
circumstances, even
in the most advanced
countries, after
decades and
sometimes even
centuries of
development of
bourgeois-democratic
civilization and
culture. Only a
small upper section
were members..."
"We can already say
we have done far
better than the men
who made the French
Revolution, which
was defeated by an
alliance of
monarchical and
backward countries.
The French
Revolution, in the
form of the power of
the lower ranks of
the bourgeoisie of
that time, held on
for a year only, and
did not at once
evoke a similar
movement in other
countries.
Nevertheless, it did
so much for the
bourgeoisie, for the
bourgeois democracy...
We have done much
better. What was
done in a year for
the development of
the bourgeois
democracy at that
time, we have done
on a far larger
scale for the new
proletarian regime
in about the same
time. And we have
done it so
successfully that
already now the
movement in Russia,
whose beginning was
due to a special set
of circumstances
rather than any
merit of ours, to
special conditions
that put Russia
between two
imperialist giants
of the modern
civilized world -
that the effect of
this movement and
the victory of the
Soviet system during
the past year has
been to make the
movement
international. The
Communist
International has
been founded..."
If Lenin's view of
the role of trade
unions in Russia is
by now clear to us,
we still must
examine what role he
assigns to the trade
unions in capitalist
countries.
Top
The Struggle for
Revolutionary
Influence in the
Trade Unions
In the analysis
of the relationship
between trade unions
and capitalist
countries' economic
crisis, we can find
what we may define
as Lenin's third
thesis.
Lenin holds that the
European working
class, whose labor
aristocracy received
a "fair part of the
[imperialist]
profits", is
reawaking,
apparently as the
result of the
economic crisis.
However, at the same
time he thinks that
Europe does not have
"a party that can gw-de
the revolutionary
proletariat as
happened during the
Russian revolution...
It has not existed
for decades, and,
therefore, no one
fears it."
But, capitalism "knows
that if capitalists
did not have the
trade unions in
their hands through
some leaders who
call themselves
socialists, but who,
in realty carry out
the capitalists'
policy, capitalism's
entire framework
would collapse. "This
is the reason why:
"The struggle to
influence trade
unions has ignited
around the world.
Currently, in all
civilized States,
they gather millions
of workers, and on
them does all this
internal work depend,
invisible to first
sight. The fate of
the capitalist
States is inevitably
decided in relation
to the developing
economic crisis."
From the European
events, and mainly
from those in
Germany, Lenin draws
an important lesson.
The party has not
existed for decades
- as, in contrast,
it did in Russia and
cannot be
established in a
short period of
time, not even
during a crisis.
Building the party
demands decades of
preparation, testing,
selection,
verification of
analyses and actions,
as the history of
the Bolshevik model
teaches. Under no
circumstances can
the Marxist
revolutionary party
be the result of
improvisation,
enthusiasm, of the
wave of maximalist
radicalization
induced by the
crisis. The party of
the revolution
prepares over the
long decades of the
counter-revolution,
just as the
Bolshevik party in
the imperialist war
prepared itself over
the long decades of
capitalism's
peaceful stage. No
country in Europe
experienced a
similar process of
party development.
For Lenin, this is a
matter of fact, and
he says so clearly
when he affirms that
the party "has not
existed for decades,
and no one fears it".
It has certainly
existed for years,
however, and this
confirms his thesis.
As a result,
capitalism’s crisis
will not affect the
party so much as it
will the trade
unions. Thus, from a
strategic point of
view, it becomes
extremely important
- even if this is
invisible at first
glance - to know who
will influence the
trade unions, what
outcome the struggle
to politically
influence the trade
unions will have.
The counter-revolutionary
or revolutionary
political outcome to
the crisis depends
on this influence
because the outcome
- as opposed to
Russia - will not be
determined by the
party, at least
during this first
stage, but above all,
by the trade unions.
The trade unions,
consequently, can
objectively
determine this
political outcome,
they can play this
great role. Have
they perhaps changed
their nature?
Obviously not. But
they can perform a
role that surpasses
their nature. In
Lenin's thought, it
is the very concept
of the social nature
of a dialectical
organ.
He always sees the
movement, the
classes' struggle,
the movement of
social relations,
the dynamic factors
of social life, and
never sees the
abstractions
statically as formal
definitions. For him,
scientific
abstraction is
always determinate
abstraction, a
hypothesis to be
verified.
Lenin is not a
schematic nominalist:
if, for example, the
trade unions can, in
general, be defined
as trade-unionist,
it is schematic, and
therefore wrong,
incorrect, to say
that they are trade
unionist in all of
their aspects.
They can be a "school
of war", a "school
of communism", etc.
and they can be the
social sphere of the
struggle for
political influence,
for example in
Germany.
This is the third
important lesson
that Lenin infers
from Germany's
"factual material",
after the lesson of
the strikes in
Russia and that Of
1905. How Lenin
clothes the
abstraction of "economic
struggle-political
struggle" from
Marx's Poverty of
philosophy in "flesh
and blood" is highly
instructive. It is
also significant how
he reconnects to
this abstraction
historically,
precisely,
politically in the
framework of a
concrete
investigation into
the organizational
forms of the
European proletarian
revolution's moving
forces.
Top
Revolutionary
Work in Reactionary
Trade Unions
The lesson of
Germany's "factual
material" is
theorized in the
sixth chapter of
Left-wing Communism,
"Should
Revolutionaries Work
in Reactionary Trade
Unions?", written in
May, I920, i.e., the
year before Lenin's
analysis of the
capitalist crisis-trade
unions relationship.
Lenin writes:
"The trade unions
were a tremendous
step forward for the
working class in the
early days of
capitalist
development,
inasmuch as they
marked a transition
from the workers'
disunity and
helplessness to the
rudiments of class
organization..."
"The trade unions
inevitably began to
reveal certain [Lenin
underlines "certain"
and not "all", since
trade unions also
contain the
proletariat, the
only class that is
truly revolutionary]
reactionary features..."
when "... the
highest form of
class organization
began to take shape...",
i.e., the
revolutionary party.
"However, the
development of the
proletariat did not,
and could not,
proceed anywhere in
the world [therefore,
not even in Russia,
even with the
Soviets] otherwise
than through the
trade unions,
through reciprocal
action between them
and the party of the
working class."
"In the sense
mentioned above, a
certain "reactionism"
in the trade unions
is inevitable under
the dictatorship of
the proletariat. It
would be egregious
folly to fear this "reactionism"
or to try to evade
or leap over it, for
it would mean
fearing that
function of the
proletarian vanguard
which consists in
training, educating,
enlightening and
drawing into the new
life the most
backward strata and
masses of the
working class and
peasantry...
In countries more
advanced than Russia,
a certain
reactionism in the
trade unions has
been and was bound
to be manifested in
a far greater
measure than in our
country... In the
West, a craft-union,
narrow-minded,
selfish, case-hardened,
covetous, and petty-bourgeois
"labor aristocracy",
imperialist-minded,
and imperialist-corrupted,
has developed into a
much stronger
section than in our
country."
Consequently, the
struggle against
Western trade-union
leaders "is
incomparably more
difficult than the
struggle against our
Mensheviks."
In Western Europe, "which
is imbued with most
deeply rooted
legalistic,
constitutionalist,
and bourgeois-democratic
prejudices," it is
more difficult to
wrest workers from
the influence of the
Jouhaux and Legiens
who "are nothing but
Zubatovs, differing
from our Zubatov
only in their
European garb and
polish ".
Here, Lenin reaches
the heart of what we
highlight as his
fourth thesis. For
Lenin, trade-union
leaders now carry
out a repressive
function as special
policemen, as "European"
Zubatovs. Democracy
has developed this
typically fascist
function within
itself. The trade-union
leaders'
subordination to the
capitalist system,
as identified by
Lenin, is
subordination in the
highest degree. From
this point of view,
the subsequent
development of
imperialism and the
subordination of
trade-union leaders
did nothing other
than confirm this
trait and this kind
of trade-union
integration into the
bourgeois State
apparatus. This kind
of integration,
however, is
precisely what Lenin
investigates, and
through this
investigation he
affirms the trade
unions' two-fold
aspect and the
contradiction
between "integrated"
leaders and the
unionized working
masses that can be
influenced in a
revolutionary sense.
Considering the
trade unions'
integration
differently,
basically means
conceiving of the
entire working class,
or at least a large
part of it, as "integrated"
into the system. It
also means not
understanding the
primary role that
Lenin assigns to
revolutionary
struggle within the
trade unions to
wrest the masses
from the influence
of the "integrated"
bureaucracy. In
spite of the
struggle's extreme
difficulties ("the
leaders of
opportunism will
resort to... the
police and the
courts to keep
Communists out of
the trade unions,"
Lenin reminds us),
it is still the
first condition to
win political power
because "until the
struggle has reached
a certain stage, and
this "certain stage"
will be different in
different countries
and circumstances,"
there won't be any
possibility for the
dictatorship of the
proletariat to make
its revolutionary
appearance.
"We are waging a
struggle against the
"labor aristocracy"
in the name of the
masses of the
workers and in order
to win them over to
our side..." We
mustn't "forget this
most elementary and
most self-evident
truth. The "theory"
that Communists
should not work in
reactionary trade
unions reveals with
the utmost clarity
the frivolous
attitude of the "Left"
Communists towards
the question of
influencing the "masses"."
To influence the
masses, one must "absolutely
work wherever the
masses are to be
found", that is, in
the trade unions
where "millions of
workers in Great
Britain, France, and
Germany are for the
first time passing
from a complete lack
of organization to
the elementary,
lowest, simplest,
and most easily
comprehensible form
of organization..."
Even this "most
elementary and most
self-evident truth"
has often been
forgotten. The
revolutionary party,
the higher form of
organization, can
only develop fully
when the class' most
backward sections
have passed through
the most elementary
form of organization:
that is, when they
have passed from
complete
disorganization to
organization. The
fact that this kind
of elementary
organization lies in
the hands of counter-revolutionaries
and reactionaries
does not exclude the
need for trade-union
organization and its
necessary function,
even in the
imperialist age.
This fact raises the
issue of the
struggle that the
revolutionary party
must carry out to
exercise its
influence and to
spread socialist
consciousness even
when the class is
passing from
disorganization to
elementary
organization. It is
a serious,
opportunist mistake
to think that the
party can only work
on the vanguard
elements of the "elementarily"
organized working
masses. That is, to
think that the party
can only take action
at a more advanced
stage in the class
organization process,
means distorting the
party's role.
As long as the class'
elementary forms of
organization are the
trade unions - and
different, permanent
organizational forms
have not arisen in
history - the
Marxist
revolutionary party
must work on the
class, even when it
is passing from
disorganization to
elementary
organization. In
fact, during this
particular stage,
the party must begin
training its
militants, building
channels for its "influence"
and its
strengthening.
Lenin outlines this
task clearly:
"To refuse to work
in the reactionary
trade unions means
leaving the
insufficiently
developed or
backward masses of
workers under the
influence of the
reactionary leaders,
the agents of the
bourgeoisie, the
labor aristocrats or
"workers" who have
become completely
bourgeois... The
task devolving on
Communists is to
convince the
backward elements,
to work among them,
and not to fence
themselves off from
them with artificial
and childishly "Left"
slogans."
In essence, Lenin is
not so much trying
to set out a trade-union
tactic here as much
as he is underlying
the main principles
of the Marxist view
of socialist
consciousness
development in the
working class. That
is, he is
underlining the
principles that
govern the
relationship between
science (the party)
and class (economic
struggle). Once
Marxism has
scientifically
analyzed this
relationship, it is
obvious that the
class will only
reach consciousness
and the party
through economic
struggle and this
latter's elementary
organizational forms.
To conceive of the
revolutionary
party's complete
development process
outside of this
relationship means
falling into
spontaneism and
raising the class
struggle's
spontaneity to an
elementary
organizational form.
In other words, it
means entrusting the
party's development
to subjectivity,
spontaneity, chance,
to the unexpected,
to the cycles of the
labor-power market.
In 1922, in another
passage, Lenin
returns to this
issue:
"On the other hand,"
he writes, "it is
obvious that the
final goal of the
strike struggle
under capitalism is
the destruction of
the State apparatus,
the destruction of a
given class State
power."
It is significant
fact that Lenin
identifies the class
struggle's ("strike
struggle") outcome,
in the destruction
of the capitalist
State apparatus.
This economic
mechanism, the wage
struggle (which is
trade-unionist not
because it is in
itself, but because
of the political
outlet that trade-unionism
as bourgeois
influence gives it),
is the basis of
class struggle. The
economic wage
struggle is, in and
of itself, the only
potentially
revolutionary ,contradiction,
and it is, therefore,
revolutionary in
itself.
Lenin says that the
worker only reaches
reformism
spontaneously, but
that with
consciousness, he
reaches the
revolution. But the
economic struggle's
spontaneity and
revolutionary
consciousness are
not two separate and
independent moments
of class struggle.
They are, instead,
moments of one ,same,
tormented process in
which consciousness
organized into the
party fights to free
the economic
struggle's
spontaneity from the
bourgeois influence
of reformism. And,
inasmuch as the
party succeeds, it
introduces
consciousness into
the economic
struggle, it raises
it to a political
one, and makes it a
powerful battering
ram to destroy the
State bulwark.
"The final goal to
be reached through
strikes" becomes, at
this point, the main
pivot in the Marxist
party's
revolutionary
strategy.
The workers'
struggle-party
relationship finds
its practical
solution in this
goal, and it finds
it more rigorously
the more it welds
science and action,
consciousness and
reality together
throughout its
stages.
The Leninist concept
of the party, at
this historical
point of arrival,
has ultimately
demonstrated its
universal validity.
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