At 14:41 11/12/97 -0400, Ricardo wrote:
>No, What Is to Be Done? is Lenin's most original political text;
>indeed it is the foundation of Bolshevism: the working class
>movement does not have a revolutionary consciousness of its own; left
>to itself, such movement will never develop beyond trade-union
>consciousness. A marxist consciousness can only be brought
>from the outside by a centralized party.
>
>What worries marxists about this text is that Lenin is right.
>Luxemburg is wrong. A centralized party, like the Bolshevik Party,
>which claims to have a "true" understanding of the interests of the
>working class, is a must. The workers themselves are incapable of
>marxist consciousness, incapable of knowing their "real" interests.
_________
I have just finished reading Althusser's autobiography, *The Future Lasts a
Long Time*. It is an amagingly frank piece of writing--most frank book I
have ever read. Anybody interested in Althusser must read this book. I was
going to share his comments on Sartre and other philosophers, but given the
topic being discussed here, I'm going to share a few passages where
Althusser comments on the defeat of the 68 movement and the role of the Party:
"Apart from a few rare exceptions, workers did not go to the Sorbonne
because the Party, which alone had the authority, did not call on them to
do so. Such a call might have been appropriate had the Party not thoroughly
mistrusted the 'leftist' revolt of the student masses, but rather seized
the opportunity, the 'chance' as Machiavelli describes it, to initiate and
sustain with all its power and organizational might (above all that of the
CGT which had remained faithful since the split of 1948) a strong mass
movement capable of attracting not just the working class but large
sections of the petite bourgeoisie too, which would have had the strength
and the resolve to open the way objectively to a siezure of power and to a
revolutionary politics. It is generally known that Lenin wrote, with
reference to the Dreyfus affair which never gave rise to a mass uprisings
or to the building of barricades, that the unrest at the time could have
produced a real revolution in France if the Workers' Party had not remained
aloof from what was happening? In his blind obsession with the notion of
'class against class', Guesde believed that the Dreyfus Affair was a purely
'bourgeois' affair which had nothing to do with the class struggle of the
workers. It is true that in 1968 only Paris was really involved in what was
happening; the provinces to a lesser extent. Is it possible to create a
revolution in the capital alone (of six million inhabitants) in a country
with a population of over sixty million?
Yet, in May and June 1968, a lot of workers in a lot of factories believed
that revolution was possible, expected it, and were simply waiting for the
Party to give its order to bring it about. Everyone knows what happened.
The Party, which, as usual, utterly failed to grasp what was happening and
was also terrified by the mass movements which it claimed were controlled
by leftists (and whose fault was that?), did everything it could in the
very violent battles taking place to prevent a coming together of the
student battalions and the fervent masses of workers who were conducting
the longest strike action ever in world history. The Party even went so far
as to organise separate marches. Furthermore, it ORGANISED the defeat of
this mass movement by forcing the CGT (in fact, given the organic links
between the two bodies, force was scarcely necessary)to sit down in order
to negotiate a peaceful economic settlement and, when the Renault workers
declined the offer, to postpone it for a while. They also refused all
contact with Mendes at Charlety, when Gaullist authority had all but
disappeared, ministers had abandoned their ministries, the bourgeois were
leaving the cities and going abroad, taking their money with them. I will
give just one example: the French were unable to change their francs into
lire, because the Italians would no longer take francs, as THEY WERE
WORTHLESS. Lenin repeated on umpteen occasions that, when your opponent
really believes the game is up, when things are finished at the top, and
the masses are going on the offensive in the streets, then not only is
revolution 'on the cards' but a REVOLUTIONARY SITUATION actually exists.
Out of fear of masses and fear of losing control (reflecting its permanent
obsession with the primacy of organization over popular movements), the
Party did all it could to break the popular movement and channel into
straightforward economic negotiations. In doing this, it no doubt wanted at
the same time to respect the apprehension of the Soviet Union (it did not
need to give explict orders!) which, as part of its global strategy,
preferred the conservative security represented by Dr Gaulle to the
unpredictable nature of a mass revolutionary movement. What the Soviet
Union feared was that such a revolutionary movement might have served as a
pretext for political and even military intervention on the part of the USA
(not altogether far fethched as a possibility), a threat which the USSR
could not have challenged.In this respect it demostrated just how
effectively it could use its power to organise things and impose the
appropriate political and ideological discipline. 'The precise moment, the
opportunity' (Lenin) 'have to be seized with both hands' (Machiavelli,
Lenin, Trotsky, Mao), since they may only last a few hours. Once they had
gone, and with them the chance to change the course of history in a
revolutionary manner, .... It was all over. ...those who took part in this
popular movement were without doubt routed, above all because of the
conservative instincts of the Party machine when confronted with a
spontaneous uprising of the masses, .... But when revolt ends in defeat
without workers being massacred, it is not necessarily a good thing for the
working class which has no martyrs to mourn or commemorate. The leftists,
who understood these things, believed they could 'exploit' the few deaths
they had suffered, such as that of the unfortunate Overney, a militant
associated with LA CAUSE DU PEUPLE. I remember what I kept saying to the
people around me on the day his impressive and moving funeral took place
(two million people carrying flags attended the ceremony in silence, though
the Party and the CGT were absent): 'IT ISN'T OVERNEY THEY ARE BURYING
TODAY BUT THE POLITICS OF LEFTISM.' Events were very quickly to prove me
right. (pp. 229-232)
