8. The Party

During the prerevolutionary epoch, the epoch of comparatively peaceful development, when the parties affiliated to the Second International dominated the labour movement and the parliamentary forms of struggle were looked upon as the chief forms— during that epoch our Party had not, nay it could not have, such a profound and decisive significance as it came to have later during the revolutionary struggles. Kautsky, in his defence of the Second International against various attacks, has declared that the parties composing the Second International were instruments of peace and not of war, and that they were, therefore, not in a position, while the great war lasted, to embark on any serious activity during the period of the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat. This is quite true. But what does it imply? It implies that the parties affiliated to the Second International are not adapted to the revolutionary struggle of the proletariat, that they are not fighting organisations capable of leading the proletariat to the seizure of power; they are merely an electoral apparatus, good for parliamentary election campaigns, and appropriate for the parliamentary struggle. This is why, under the aegis of the Second International, the most important political organisation representing the political aspirations of the proletariat was not a party, but a parliamentary fraction. The party, in those days, was no more than an appendage, a servant, of the parliamentary fraction. It can readily be understood that, in such circumstances, and under such a leadership, a party of the kind just described is incapable of preparing the proletariat for the revolution.

But with the advent of a new period, the situation is entirely changed. The new period is one of open class war, a period of revolutionary action on the part of the proletariat, a period of proletarian revolution, a period during which definite preparations are made for the overthrow of imperialism and for the seizure of power by the proletariat. This period sets the proletariat new tasks. One of the first of these is to reorganise the Party work, renewing it and revolutionising it in every way; to educate the workers in the revolutionary struggle for power; to rally the reserves and prepare them for the fight; to seek alliances with the proletariat of neighbouring lands; to create firm ties between the proletariat and the movements for independence in colonial and vassal countries; and so on, and so forth. To rely, for the accomplishment of these tasks, upon the old social-democratic parties, is to doom oneself to despair and defeat. In view of these tasks, to remain under the leadership of such parties is to consent to march forward unarmed into the coming battle.

Hence the need for the creation of a new party, a revolutionary fighting party, bold enough to lead the proletariat forward into the struggle for the seizure of power, experienced enough to find a solution for all the complications arising out of the revolutionary situation, and flexible enough to be able to steer the revolutionary barque safely through the shoals.

Without such a party it is useless to dream of overthrowing imperialism and installing the dictatorship of the proletariat.

This new party is the Party of Leninism.

What are the characteristics of this new Party?

First of all the Party should be the vanguard of the working class. Its membership should comprise the pick of the working class. It should embody the experience of the finest stalwarts, their revolutionary spirit, their unbounded devotion to the cause of the proletariat. But in order to be an effective vanguard, the Party must be armed with a revolutionary theory, with a knowledge of the laws of the movement, of the laws of revolution. Lacking this, the Party is not fit to rally the proletariat for the fight, or to take over the functions of leadership. The Party is no true Party if it limits its activities to a mere registration of the sufferings and thoughts of the proletarian masses, if it is content to be dragged along in the wake of the “spontaneous movement” of the masses, if it cannot overcome the inertia and the political indifference of the masses, if it cannot rise superior to the transient interests of the proletariat, if it is incapable of inspiring the masses with a proletarian class consciousness. The Party should march at the head of the working class, it should see farther than the latter, it should lead the proletariat, and not lag in the rear. The parties affiliated to the Second International, the advocates of “hvostism” or “tailism” [see above, p. 96], are the fuglemen of bourgeois policy. Their leadership condemns the proletariat to becoming a tool in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Only a party which is conscious of its function as vanguard of the proletariat, which feels itself able to inspire the masses with a proletarian class consciousness, only such a party can lead the workers out of the narrow path of trade unionism and consolidate them into an independent political force. Such a party is the political leader of the working class.

I outlined above some of the difficulties of the proletarian class struggle, and some of the complications arising therefrom; I spoke of strategy and tactics, of reserves and of manoeuvring, of offensive warfare and of retreat. The circumstances arising from the proletarian class struggle are just as complicated, if not more so, than were those arising out of the great war. Who can find a way out of the labyrinth of these complexities? Who is competent to guide the millionfold masses of the proletariat? No army can venture forth to battle without an experienced general staff to direct its actions. If it tries to dispense with a general staff it is foredoomed to defeat. To a greater extent, if possible, does this apply in the case of the proletariat. It, too, must possess a general staff if it is to avoid being handed over to the tender mercies of its enemies. Where shall we find such a general staff? In the revolutionary party of the proletariat. -The working class without a revolutionary party is an army without a general staff. Our Party is the war staff of the proletarian army.

But the Party must not content itself with being the vanguard. It must also be a division of the class army, an intimate part of the working class, striking deep roots into the very life of that class. The distinction between the vanguard and the mass of the working class, the distinction between Party members and the non-Party masses, will not disappear so long as classes still continue to exist, so long as elements from other classes come to swell the ranks of the proletariat, and so long as the working class as a whole is not in a position to raise itself to the level attained by the vanguard. On the other hand, the Party would forfeit its position as a Party if this distinction were to lead to its severance from the masses, if the Party were to shut itself up in an ivory tower and thereby effectively cut itself loose from the non-Party masses. The Party cannot be the leader of the working class unless it keeps the closest contact with the non- Party masses, unless there is an alliance between the Party and the non-Party masses, unless the masses accept the Party leadership, unless the Party possesses both moral and political authority among the masses. Our Party has recently added two hundred thousand new working-class members to its ranks. The remarkable thing about these new members is that they have not for the most part entered the Party on their own initiative, but have been sent by their non-Party fellow-workers, who took an active hand in proposing the new members, and without whose approval no new members would have been admitted. This points to the fact that the broad masses of non-Party workers look upon the Party as their Party, a Party which is near and dear to them, a Party in whose development and strengthening they are personally interested, a Party to whose leadership they cheerfully confide their destiny. It is hardly necessary to point out that were it not for these invisible moral threads binding the masses to the Party, the latter could not have become the mainspring of the working-class movement. The Party is an inalienable portion of the working class. Lenin, in his One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward, writes:

We are the Party of the working class. Consequently, nearly the whole of that class (in times of war and of civil war, the whole of that class) should work under the guidance of our Party, should create the closest contacts with our Party. But we should be guilty of “hvostism” and “Maniloffskyism” were we to believe that, under capitalism, all or nearly all the workers will become class-conscious and will be prepared to share the activities of the vanguard, the socialist party. No reasonable socialist has ever believed that, under capitalism, even the trade unions (more primitive organisations and therefore more accessible to the backward strata of the working class) can succeed in enrolling all or nearly all the members of the working class. We should be deceiving ourselves and closing our eyes to the immensity of our task were we to belittle the difficulties ahead of us, were we to overlook the distinction between the vanguard and the masses which are attracted towards it, were we to forget that the perennial duty of the vanguard is to raise ever wider strata of the proletariat to its own level. (Works, Russian edition, vol. v., pp. 350-351.)

The Party is not only the vanguard of the working class. If the Party is to function as the genuine leader in the class struggle it must likewise be the organised detachment of the working class. Under the bourgeois regime, the tasks confronting the Party are manifold and of the utmost importance. The Party has to guide the proletariat in its struggle, and has to do so, everywhere, under extraordinarily difficult conditions; it has to lead the proletariat to assume the offensive when events warrant an attack, and it has to withdraw the proletariat from the onslaught upon the foe when retreat is indicated; it has to instil into the minds of the masses of unorganised workers a sense of discipline, of method in the fight, to inspire them with the spirit of organisation and steadfastness. But the Party will not acquit itself of these tasks unless it is itself an embodiment of discipline and organisation, unless it is in very truth the organised detachment of the working class. Lacking this, the Party is in no condition to act as the leader of the millionfold proletarian masses. The Party is the organised detachment of the working class.

The concept of the Party as being an organised whole was formulated by Lenin in the first paragraph of our Party constitution. Here the Party is described as “the sum of all the organisations”, and the Party members as “members of one of the Party organisations’. The mensheviks, who opposed this formula as early as 1903, proposed a “system” of “individual membership “of the Party. Any university professor or under-graduate, any “sympathiser”, any striker, who was willing to give the Party support, was to be entitled to become a member of the Party, even though he did not belong, and did not wish to belong, to any local group of the Party. It is obvious that had this system been adopted, the Party would have become full of professors, students, and the like, would have become sloppy, formless, disorganised, would have been swamped in a sea of “sympathisers”, while the line of demarcation between Party and class would have become blurred and the task of raising the unorganised masses to the level of the vanguard would have been whistled down the wind. Under such an “opportunist” system, our Party could not have fulfilled its mission as organiser of the working class during the period of our revolution.

Quoting once more from Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward:

If we accept Martoff’s outlook, the Party frontiers are to be left undefined, so that “every striker” may “declare himself to be a member of the Party”. What is to be gained by this vagueness of outline? It will merely lead to a widespread assumption of the name “Party member”’. Where it is mischievous, is that it tends to blur the fundamental distinction between Party and class. (Works, Russian edition, vol. v., p. 356.)

The Party is, however, not only the sum of all the Party organisations. It is likewise the centre of unity for all these organisations, the formal concentration point for the united whole, possessing higher and lower organs of leadership, having power to subordinate the minority to the majority, to pass resolutions and make practical decisions whose carrying out is binding upon all members. In the absence of such conditions, the Party could not function as an organised whole capable of methodical and organised guidance of the proletariat in the class struggle. To quote once more from Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Backward:

In days gone by, our Party was not a formally organised whole, but the sum of individual groups. Consequently, these groups could exercise no more than an ideological influence one upon the other. To-day we have become an organised Party: and organisation signifies the establishment of power, signifies the transformation of the authority of ideas into the authority of power, signifies the subordination of the lower constituents of the Party to the higher. (Works, Russian edition, vol. v., p. 442.)

The principle of subordinating the minority to the majority, the centralisation of the Party leadership, has often been attacked by unstable elements as the embodiment of bureaucracy, of formalism, and the like. We need hardly point out that the methodical work of the Party as a whole and the guidance of the class struggle would be impracticable on any other terms. Leninism is, from the organisational point of view, the putting of this principle into practice. Lenin nicknamed the opposition to this principle “Russian nihilism” and “aristocratic anarchism”, and he declared that these should be laughed out of court. Here is what he has to say about the matter in his One Step Forward: This aristocratic anarchism is peculiar to the Russian nihilist. In his eyes, the Party organisation appears as a monstrous “factory”. The subjection of the part to the whole, of the minority to the majority, seems to him a “slavery”; . . . the apportionment of Party work from and through the Party centre drags from him tragi-comic wails about the transformation of men into “machines”; . . . the very mention of Party rules elicits a grimace, and the remark that we can quite well do without rules. . . . It is abundantly clear that behind these complaints concerning bureaucracy there lurks a spirit of discontent with the composition of the central organism, a complaint that it is, as it were, a fig leaf... . You are a bureaucrat because you have been elected to this or that post by the congress and against my will; you are a formalist because you act in accordance with congress decisions and against my consent; you act mechanically because you follow the decisions of the majority and reck little of my approval or my desire to be coopted; you are an autocrat because you will not hand over power and authority into the hands of our dear and trusted comrades. . . . (Works, Russian edition, vol. v., pp. 462 and 438.)

The Party, as we have seen, is the organised detachment of the working class. But it is not the only organisation of the working class. The proletariat has fashioned a number of other organisations without which it could not wage war upon capitalism: trade unions, cooperatives, workshop committees, parliamentary labour parties, women’s associations, a labour press, educational leagues, Youth societies, revolutionary fighting units (when the struggle assumes an active form), delegate councils or soviets (as soon as the proletariat has seized power), and so on. As often as not, these are non-party organisations, and only a certain proportion of them are linked up with the Party or constitute a ramification of the Party. Under special conditions, every one of these organisations is necessary; for, lacking them, it would be impossible to consolidate the class positions of the proletariat in the various spheres of the struggle, and to make of the proletariat a force capable of replacing the capitalist order by a socialist order. But how can unity of command be achieved in the presence of such a diversity of organisations? How are we to guarantee that their multiplicity will not lead to confusion and disagreement in the guidance of the struggle? Some may contend that these organisations function only within a special sphere of activity, and that therefore they cannot hinder one another. Maybe so. But they must all direct their activities towards the same goal, for each of them serves the same class, the proletariat. It may well be asked, who decides upon the direction, the general direction all these organisations shall take? Where is the central unit of organisation which, because of its past experience, is not only capable of determining the line of activities these manifold organisations should take, but likewise wields sufficient authority to induce these organisations to keep within the prescribed lines in order to achieve unity of command and to avoid any possibility of confusion?

This central unit of organisation is the Party.

The Party possesses all the necessary qualifications. It is the rallying point for the best elements of the working class, elements which are intimately connected with the non-Party organisations of the proletariat and are very often the leading spirit in these organisations. As rallying point for these elements of the working class, it is the best school for the training of leaders who shall be capable of guiding all the forms of organisation thrown up in the course of the working-class struggle. Further, the Party, as the best school for the training of leaders, and the most experienced and authoritative of working-class organisations, is specially fitted for the work of centralising the leadership of the proletarian struggle and for converting each and every non-Party organisation of the working class into an auxiliary corps and into a means for linking up the working class as a whole with the Party. The Party is the highest form of the class organisation of the proletariat.

But this does not mean that the non-Party organisations should be formally subject to the Party. All that is requisite is that the Party members who belong to these organisations Should use their influence and all their arts of persuasion to bring these non-Party organisations into the closest proximity to the Party, and to lead them to place themselves of their own free will under the political guidance of the Party.

It is from this point of view that Lenin describes the Party as “the highest form of class organisation of the workers”, whose political leadership should be exercised over all the other forms of proletarian organisation. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 141.)

The opportunists’ theory of “independence” and of “neutrality’ in respect of the non-Party organisations, the theory which gives rise to” independent’ members of parliament, to “unattached” journalists, to “strait-laced” trade unionists, and to “embourgeoised” cooperators, is, in the light of all these considerations, seen to be quite incompatible with the theory and practice of Leninism.

The Party is the highest form of proletarian organisation. The Party is the nucleus of leadership within the working class and among the organisations created by the workers. But the Party must not be looked upon as an end in itself, as a self-sufficing force. The Party is not only the highest form of proletarian class unity, it is also an instrument in the hands of the proletariat for the establishment of the dictatorship, and for consolidating and elaborating that dictatorship after the seizure of power. The Party could not attain so notable a position, it could not soar above all the other organisations of the working class, were it not that the proletariat is faced with the problem of the conquest of power, were it not for the existence of imperialism, for the inevitability of wars, for the advent of crises. All these circumstances make it imperative for the proletariat to concentrate its forces, to unite the threads of the revolutionary movement at one central point in order to overthrow the bourgeoisie and instal the dictatorship of the proletariat. The proletariat has need of the Party as its general staff if the struggle for power is to be crowned with victory. It is plain that without a Party capable of mustering around it the mass organisations of the proletariat and of centralising the management of the movement during the course of the struggle, the Russian proletariat could not have established its revolutionary dictatorship. Moreover, the Party is not only indispensable to the proletariat for the establishment of the dictatorship. It becomes even more necessary after the seizure of power in order to maintain the dictatorship of the proletariat, to consolidate and to enlarge it with a view to inaugurating a completely socialised order. In his book on Left-Wing Communism Lenin observes:

Beyond question, almost every one knows by this time that the bolsheviks would not have been able to hold power for two-and-a-half years, nor even for two-and-a-half months, had there not been the strictest possible discipline, a truly iron discipline, within the Party; nor would they have been able to hold power without the whole-hearted support of the entire mass of the working class, or at any rate the full support of all the members of the working class who are class-conscious, sincere, devoted, influential, and competent to lead those who are comparatively backward or attract them into the forward movement. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 117.)

What do “consolidate” and “enlarge” signify in relation to the dictatorship of the proletariat? They mean that the proletarian masses must be imbued with the spirit of discipline and organisation; that the proletarian masses must be inoculated against the harmful influence of the petty bourgeoisie, must be prevented from acquiring petty-bourgeois habits and customs; that the organisational activities of the proletariat must be utilised in order to educate and transform the mentality of the petty bourgeoisie; that the proletarian masses must be taught to help themselves, to cultivate their own strength, so that, in the course of time, class may be abolished and the conditions be prepared for the inauguration of socialist production. None of this is possible, however, unless there exists a Party which has been rendered strong by its solidarity and its discipline. To quote again from Lenin’s Left- Wing Communism:

The dictatorship of the proletariat is a hard-fought fight against the forces and traditions of the old society; a fight that is both bloody and unbloody, both violent and passive, both military and economic, both educational and administrative. The power of habit, ingrained in millions and tens of millions, is a terrible power. Without the Party, a party of iron which has been tempered in the struggle, a party that enjoys the confidence of all the straightforward members of the working class, a party able to understand and to influence the psychology of the masses, success in such a struggle would be impossible. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 136.)

The proletariat needs the Party for the establishment and for the maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Party is an instrument for the dictatorship of the proletariat.

It follows from this that as soon as class has been abolished, as soon as the dictatorship of the proletariat has been done away with, the Party likewise will have fulfilled its function and can be allowed to disappear.

The establishment and the maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat is impossible without a Party which has been steeled in the school of solidarity and discipline. But an iron discipline is unthinkable without unity of will, without whole-hearted and unconditional unity of action on the part of the members. Of course this does not exclude the possibility of a conflict of opinion arising within the ranks of the Party. Quite otherwise. An iron discipline, far from excluding criticism and conflict of opinion, presupposes that such struggles will arise. Neither should we suppose that the discipline is “blind”. On the contrary. Discipline does not exclude, but, rather, presupposes, the existence of conscious and voluntary submission; for only a conscious discipline can ever become a discipline of iron. But when a difference of opinion has been thoroughly thrashed out, when criticism has had its say, and when a decision has been made, then unity of will and of action on the part of all our members is the indispensable condition without which unity and discipline are impossible. In Lenin’s The Conditions of Admission into the Communist International, we read:

During the present epoch of intense civil warfare, the Communist Party can accomplish its task only on condition that it is highly centralised, that it is dominated by an iron discipline which is quasi-military in its severity, that it is guided by a group of comrades at the centre, enjoying the confidence of the rank and file members, endowed with authority, and possessing wide executive powers.

This is what Party discipline should be like during the struggle for the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Even more appropriate are the above-quoted words when we consider the condition of affairs after the inauguration of the dictatorship. We read in Lenin’s Left-Wing Communism:

He who weakens, no matter how little, the iron discipline of the Party of the proletariat (especially during the period of dictatorship), effectually helps the bourgeoisie against the proletariat. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., p. 136.)

It follows from this that the existence of fractions within the Party is directly inimical to unity and discipline. Obviously such fractions can only lead to the setting up of several centres of direction. The existence of several centres means a lack of one general controlling body; it means division of purpose, divided will; it means a weakening and an undermining of discipline, a weakening and an undermining of the dictatorship. The Parties affiliated to the Second International can allow themselves the luxury of fractions; they are actively antagonistic to the dictatorship of the proletariat, they do not want to lead the workers to the conquest of power, and they can follow the custom of the liberals in the matter of fraction-building. For them an iron discipline is not necessary. But the parties affiliated to the Communist International cannot afford themselves any such luxury, for they organise their activities with a view to the establishment and to the consolidation of the dictatorship of the proletariat. They have no time to waste on such “liberal” devices. The Party constitutes a unity of wills which is incompatible with any setting up of fractions and any division of power.

Hence Lenin’s explanation of the “danger of setting up fractions within the Party. It is dangerous from the outlook of Party unity and from the outlook of the unity of will among the vanguard of the proletariat. Unity is an essential prerequisite for the successful maintenance of the dictatorship of the proletariat.” A special resolution concerning Party unity confirmed and strengthened this idea, That is why Lenin demanded “the complete abolition of all fractions” within the Party. He further demanded the “immediate disbanding of all groups without exception and irrespective of the platform on which they have come together”, on pain of “instant and unconditional expulsion from the Party”, (See the resolution “On the Unity of the Party”, passed by the Tenth Party Congress.)

The origin of all fraction-building within the Party is opportunism. The proletariat is not a sharply circumscribed class. A constant stream of recruits from the peasantry, from the petty bourgeoisie, from the intelligentsia, flows into its ranks. In the course of the development of capitalism, these people have become proletarianised. Simultaneously with this influx, a change is taking place in the upper strata of the proletariat, among trade-union leaders, members of parliament and the like, who have been corrupted by the bourgeoisie, bribed with a share of the high profits made by colonial exploitation. In the preface to his book on Imperialism, Lenin expresses himself as follows:

These bourgeois-minded workers, this “labour aristocracy”, petty-bourgeois in its manner of life, in its income, and in its ideology, are the main strength of the Second International, and, here and now, are the most dependable social (not military) supporters of the bourgeoisie. These persons are veritable agents of the bourgeoisie, active for the bourgeoisie in the ranks of the workers, the touts of the capitalist class, the modern protagonists of jingoism and reform. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., pp. 248-249.)

These petty-bourgeois groups crowd into the Party by one means or another, and bring with them a spirit of vacillation and opportunism, of disintegration and mistrust. They are mainly responsible for the creation of fractions within the Party, for the falling away of members, for disorganisation in our ranks, and for the endeavour to break up the Party from within. To do battle against imperialism with such “allies” as these is to lay oneself open to attack from two sides at once. If we are to wage successful warfare against imperialism we needs must clear all such persons out of the Party and must conduct a ruthless fight against them.

The assumption that such persons can be won over by moral suasion within the Party, within the framework of one and the same Party, is an unsound and dangerous theory. It is a theory which dooms the Party to paralysis and chronic illness, threatens to hand it over bag and baggage to a policy of opportunism, which would rob the proletariat of its revolutionary Party and deprive it of its best weapon in the fight against imperialism. Our Party could not have led the workers to power and to the inauguration of the dictatorship of the proletariat, it would not have emerged from the civil war as the conqueror, if it had kept all the Martoffs, Dans, Potresoffs, and Axelrods among its members. If our Party has succeeded in creating unity within its ranks, and has welded its membership into a coherent whole, it is because it has shaken itself free from opportunism, has purged itself of the mensheviks and of all those who would fain relinquish the gains of the revolution. The proletarian parties must expel the opportunist and reformist elements, all the socialists who have an imperialist and jingoist bias, all the socialists who are infected with patriotism and pacificism, they must expel all such if they hope to develop and strengthen in the course of the struggle. The more drastic the purge, the more likelihood is there of a strong and influential Party arising. Lenin tells us in his Lying Speeches about Freedom:

With reformists and mensheviks in our ranks, we cannot hope to lead the revolutionary proletariat to victory, or to preserve the gains of victory. This is fundamental. Moreover it has been confirmed by recent experiences in Russia and in Hungary. . . . In Russia we have many times pulled through a difficult situation which, had there been mensheviks, reformists, or petty-bourgeois democrats in our ranks, would have meant the overthrow of the Soviet regime. . . . The opinion is current that the Italian proletariat will soon enter upon a definitive struggle with the Italian bourgeoisie as to which is to become the governing power in Italy. In such circumstances it is essential that the mensheviks, the reformists, and the followers of Turati should be cleared out of the Party. Nay more, even communists should be removed from positions of responsibility if these comrades show any inclination to vacillate or to make common cause with the reformists. . . . On the eve of a revolution, and during the bitterest hours of the battle, the slightest hesitation within the ranks of the Party may ruin everything, may scotch the revolution, may pluck power from the hands of the workers before the spoils of victory are fully secured and while the proletariat is still subject to furious attack If hesitant leaders withdraw at such a time, their action tends to strengthen rather than to weaken the Party. In fact the whole of the workers’ movement and the revolution gain thereby. (Works, Russian edition, vol. xvii., pp. 372-373.)