Marx Reloaded: A Film by Jason Barker

Marx Reloaded, A Film by Jason Barker: Review and Commentary
Thomas Riggins

Jason Barker's film, Marx Reloaded, was released in 2011. It is 52 minutes long and is now available for viewing on the internet. It was interesting to watch but it did not have a lot to do with Marx except superficially. If Marx was reloaded it was with blanks.

The film presents a series of talking heads many of whom have no grasp of what Marx and Marxism are all about and who engage in flights of "postmodern'' speculation as to the meaning of Marxism today. There are a few exceptions that I will note. There are also a few non-Marxist supporters of capitalism who don't see any future for Marx. There are no representatives from contemporary labor movements or political parties which are part of the ongoing Marxist tradition.

The question addressed is if Marx's critique of capitalism is valid for our time. If the critique is valid then what comes next? Is Communism going to make a return? Is it coming back to replace the capitalist system?

The film opens with an animation of Marx meeting Trotsky and Trotsky undertaking to enlighten Marx as to the significance of Marxism today. Trotsky will attempt to guide Marx to an understanding of how ideology works in society. Quite the tail wagging the dog.

The film then begins by asking how economists today explain the greatest capitalist
crisis since the great depression of the 1930s. The answers we get are not very telling. Now the talking heads take over.

First up is the late former chief economist of the Deutsche Bank, Norbert Walter (1944-1912) who says that we [bankers] made mistakes. E.g., in the USA people could get mortgages at 110% of the value of their houses. The banks made money cheaply available, people borrowed too much and they couldn't pay back what they owed. Later in the film he tells us that Marx's ideas about getting rid of capitalism by abolishing a society based on commodity production for profit would create a world that people would not want to live in as that would lead to the abolishment of "the universal medium of money" which "turns everything around us into commodities" and "money is an essential medium for civilization, for peaceful coexistence and the organization of complex societies." This begs the question as communism is a complex society based on production for human needs not commodities for profit. Mr. Walter must have forgotten about the two world wars that almost destroyed European civilization in the last century when he opined that "peaceful coexistence" is one of the benefits of a money economy.

Next up is Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, and author of "Taming The Trade Unions", who tells us the crisis was caused by inflation due to governments printing too much money. That is all we hear from him.

On a more general level of the problems of capitalism and the meaning of Marx's writing the film interviews several people identified as philosophers, political philosophers, theorists, critics, etc. Some are well known to the academic community although their grasp of Marxism may be questionable. We now hear from Antonio Negri, co-author of "Empire", an expert on Spinoza, and a founder of Italian Autonomism, and "Worker's Power" (Potere Operaio) an ultra-left formation in Italy with a secret armed wing. Negri tells us that the capitalists [neo-liberals] cannot pay the workers the price of their labor [which doesn't even make sense in Marxist terms-- a wage is the price paid for labor-- he should at least be talking about the value of their labor-power not the price] and that they remain in power and are able to wage wars around the world only as long as the working class remains quiescent  due to high wages. But as we see the capitalists can't do that so Marx is still relevant.

This line of thought is taken up by the film which now asks does Marx's theory of exploitation hold today or is the way capitalists make their profits changing? The answers are sought from more talking heads without any clear explanation having been given as to what Marx's theory of exploitation is. What is clear is that with a few exceptions, which I will note, none of the answers given in this part of film are dealing with Marx's theory.

The philosopher Slavoj Zizek is now up to bat (what film on "Marxism" would be complete without this latter day Eugen Dühring). He is described as the "leader" of a new movement to revive Marxist and Communist thinking. He revives Marx by proclaiming that the classical notion of exploitation [left unexplained] no longer works due to the knowledge explosion-- he does not tell us why this is so. However, it has something to do with computers because we need them to communicate with each other and so we have pay "rent" to Bill gates because he owns part of our mental substance. I am tempted to think that in professor Zizek's case Mr. Gates  is a slumlord. Finally we are told that we need a redefinition of the "proletariat" because the "proletariat" is larger than the working class. Zizek also notes that the unemployed today demonstrate because they want jobs-- "please exploit us in the normal way" they are saying to the capitalists. I think he strikes out as the "leader" of a new "Marxist" movement. He will appear again later.

Antonio Negri now reappears. Capitalism, he says, has evolved in ways Marx could not have predicted. Exploitation is not only of factory workers but of workers throughout society. You can't start a revolution with the factory workers-- you need them but also all the other workers too [I think Marx could have predicted this, in fact he already knew it.] You need the other workers, Negri says, because they are the "most" exploited. What can that mean? The examples he gives is of research and cinema workers and the like because they produce more value. None of this makes sense because the Marxist concept of "value," "surplus value," "labor power" and "exploitation" are never brought up in the film. If they were none of the things these talking heads and intellectual will o the wisps are saying would make sense anyway only the viewers would at least understand why.

Herfried Munkler now makes his appearance. Dr. Munkler, co-editor of the Complete Works of Marx and Engels and a professor at Humbolt University, in contrast to those who have appeared before, actually knows a thing or two about Marxism although in its Social Democratic deformation. His concern is not limited to discussing the plight of working people in the West but focuses on the exploitation of working people in the so-called Third World where working conditions are subhuman and wages are ridiculously low in comparison to the advanced capitalist countries. Here it is obvious that Marxist ideas are relevant and that capitalism is being abusive.

Michael Hardt, Antonio Negri's collaborator on the book "Empire" (not worth the read)
now appears to bring us back from the Third World to the the First to tell us the economy is now centered on "immaterial" and "immeasurable" products-- that is, on "ideas" not on "objects" like old fashioned commodities such as cars, refrigerators, toasters-- the products of industrial manufacturing. Economics is about relationships and intangible assets [not, coal, oil or natural gas]. He is listed as a literary critic and political philosopher, at least he talks about political philosophy like a literary critic.

Now is the time for Jacques Ranciere, the co-author with Louis Althusser of "Reading Capital" (although his part was left out of the English version). He is noted for an educational theory which says a person can be a teacher without knowing anything about the subject he is going to teach; a view welcomed by not a few teachers. Ranciere makes three appearances in the film and manages to say nothing of importance in any of them.  Here he tells us many societies have had exploitation without "explosions" so we can't draw from exploitation the logic of an end to exploitation. Economic exploitation is not the dominant factor in all social struggle. Ranciere seems oblivious to the Marxist view that, as Engels says, in the last analysis all major social struggles in class based societies have economic exploitation at their root. Each society and its economic formation needs to be individually studied. There have certainly been "explosions" over exploitation in all societies that have distinct social classes despite Ranciere's contrary assertions.

The film now takes up a new subject. We are told that to understand capitalism we must delve into the the "mystic realm" of the COMMODITY.  It is certainly true that without an understanding of the origin and role of commodities we will not understand our economic system which is based on the production and exchange of commodities. Marx devotes the first chapter of "Das Kapital" to the commodity. It is a difficult chapter but once grasped the rest of the volumes of Das Kapital will be easily understood.

The film however does not deal with Marx's scientific analysis of commodities but skips to the last section of the chapter which is entitled "The Fetishism of Commodities." Without an understanding of the preceding sections it is easy to misunderstand this last section and, true to form, both the film's narrator and all of the talking heads in this part of the film completely miss the point and fail to grasp Marx's ideas concerning commodity fetishism.

To make a long story short, Marx's point is that the laws of the capitalist system are not  products of  nature as, say, are the laws of gravity or of aerodynamics but they are the result of human activity. Commodities and their relations are created by human beings and human beings can abolish them. Yet, because we are ignorant of the laws of economics we think of commodities as natural, as things which , although created by us, assume an existence independent of us and go to a market whose laws we are subject to and must conform to. This is similar to the creation of religions or "primitive" belief systems where a person creates a fetish and then bows down to it and thinks it has power over him and he must subject himself to its demands and will. The capitalist market appears as the natural form of economic exchange and there is no alternative to it.  It is not true that there is no alternative and humans can abolish capitalism and rid themselves of subjection to the laws of commodity production and create an economic world which serves human needs and one where human needs do not take second place to the need to exchange commodities at a profit. None of this is addressed in this part of the film. Instead we get baloney. This is because the talking heads are in the grips of the very fetishism Marx warns us about.

Norman Bolz (media theorist): "The theory of commodity fetishism is Marx's most important discovery." It isn't. Marx's most important discovery is the distinction between the value of labor and that of labor-power which is the basis of the labor theory of value and of his analysis of capitalism. It is, however, one of the most important consequences of that discovery.

Bolz continues by saying Marx's theory reveals a secret as to why capitalism today "functions so well" [!!!]. The secret is "that goods in the capitalist market place satisfy more than simple needs  they also convey a spiritual surplus value and this value is the real reason for the purchase." This is complete and utter nonsense.

Peter Sloterdijk (philosopher [but not a very good one]) is not so definite. He says the theory is probably "the important part of Marxist doctrine." This is because "Marx is among those who discovered the fact that things live."  He goes on to say, Walter Benjamin "discovered the structural similarity between human commodities [?] and commodities as objects." He thus "universalized the category of prostitution." While there may be a relationship between fetishism and prostitution on some level, I don't think this is what Marx was getting at. "Prositution is always present when a beautiful thing feigns life and tries to seduce passersby with an offer."  I think professor Sloterdijk should reread Marx's chapter on commodities.

Finally, here is Famonn Butler"s (policy analyst) take: he says it's human psychology to want things-- the economy is neutral-- it just produces what people want.  Well then, that's it. Capitalism just produces what people want. Then why are there so many adverts all over the place? Do we need to be constantly reminded about what we want?

The film now turns to Marxism and Ecology-- only by now Marxism has been unloaded rather than  reloaded. Zizek is now taking about  "Communism" in the sense what we have in "common"-- the Earth as our "common substance" and we have to manage it together. He makes no proposal about how to do that. Michael Hart is also back talking about the "common" in "Communism" and how different that is from both the "Communism" found in the Soviet Union (derived from Marx incidentally) and also the "Communism"  of American Anti-Communism [evidently he doesn't approve of either kind of "Communism"].

Herfried Munkler points out that Marx "applies exploitation not only to human labor but to the limited resources of nature. He says that if the exploitation of nature continues nature will be destroyed." Munkler thinks that we can reduce the exploitation of nature under capitalism and have common ownership of the Earth without  a Marxist society. But this is just social democratic optimism as befits anyone affiliated with the SPD in Germany. He gives no program. But at least he brings up an all important issue; the destruction of the environment under capitalism today.

John Gray weighs in with the observation that international capitalism develops in ways impossible to predict and impossible to control (revealing that he is completely under the sway of the fetishism of commodities). He says the "New Leninists" [we have not met any "Leninists" in this film-- nor will we] and "Greens" are correct about the fact that "human action" has destabilized the environment but they are "deluded" in thinking human action can restabilize it. It doesn't occur to him that it is not humans qua humans that are destructive but only humans under the sway of particular sorts of economic and social relations. Even if humans could get together as a global collective, which he says will never happen, they could not restabilize the environment. Doom and gloom is all we can expect.

The film now asks if the current economic crisis was caused by an under regulated banking system. Is the only solution now and in the future to have state regulated economic systems? The film suggests we look back into history for solutions. I should note here that people who look  to the past for solutions to present day problems are usually seen to be reactionaries.

Be that as it may, we return to Norbert Bolz who likes the fact that in the 19th century banks issued their own scripts which functioned as money. You could take it to another bank and redeem it in coin of the realm-- if the other bank trusted it! This system would make all the banks very aware of the true value of the scripts and bad banks would be exposed. He thinks this is a really good idea and I suppose there were no banking crises in the 19th century, except there were.

John Gray rightly thinks this idea is nuts because state monopoly capital [not his term] has become so evolved and complicated since the 19th century and this has happened as a result of the close interconnection between capitalism and state power-- there is no going back. But is there going forward?

Why is it that the state rushes in to save capitalism all the time? Is it possible, the film now asks, that these crises, like the one we are in right now, which broke out in 2007, are not side effects of capitalism but essential to its very existence?

Herfried Munkler tells us that Marx thought that crises would lead to the downfall of capitalism but since his day capitalism has gone through many crises and has "rejuvenated itself." He mentions Joseph Schumpeter's theory of crises as periods of "creative destruction." "Capitalism," Munkler concludes, "doesn't age. Instead crisis is its Fountain of Youth."  This from the co-editor of the Collected Works is rather strange. Marx thought the internal contradictions would eventually bring about capitalism's collapse (or the mutual destruction of the contending classes within the system) but there was no time table and he argued that capitalism had at its disposal many tools to stave off immediate collapse but it would eventually prove dysfunctional as had the economic forms (slavery, feudalism,) that preceded it. Schumpeters "creative destruction" (destruction of the lives of workers and the majority of the population and creative of wealth for the so-called 1%-- the capitalists) is no refutation of Marx's theories.

The "theorist" Alberto Toscano, one of the very few interviewed who seems to have his head in the right place, points out that capitalism, whatever its ultimate fate, is responsible for creating a gigantic surplus population that it does not know what to do with. He mentions the book "The Planet of Slums" by Mike Davis and talks about  the "surplus humanity" that capitalism has on its hands because its technological advances have made the number of workers it needs redundant. This is the "reserve army of labor" that Marx wrote about-- but now it is no longer a "reserve" it is just a surplus of human beings that are socially unneeded piling up in the slums of the world with nowhere to go. The "creative destruction" they may eventually bring about capitalism may have a hard time dealing with. Only the Chinese, with a non-capitalist economic system, seem to have been able to cope with the massive poverty in the rural areas  of their country (and of course Cuba and Vietnam and a few others with non-capitalist economies, and now Venezuela, are beginning to follow suit).

Finally, the film asks what sense is there in believing another world, other than capitalism, is possible. TINA-- There is No Alternative was Ms. Thatcher's motto-- was she correct? Can a Communist alternative emerge after the experiences of the past century?

  Antonio Negri says there is only capitalism so we must fight the bosses as the bosses fight us. This seems to be an eternal struggle-- there is only the movement Bernstein thought and so it seems  does Negri-- at least in this film-- it is difficult to get just what he means so I may be incorrect here. He tells us what we all know-- Russia didn't have "Communism" it had "socialism." What is socialism? It is a way to manage capitalism, just like liberalism is. How would Communism come about? It "comes into being through a relation between transformations of reality and the will or decision to do it or to build it." After this bit of balderdash  he leaves us with the admonition to junk the old Communist Manifesto  and to write a new one-- he is not , however, the man to do it.

Nina Power, feminist philosopher, has more regard for the Communist Manifesto, and says it has continuing power to influence people. She is surely correct.

Zizek writes off the 20th century "communist" states, Social Democracy, the idea of local councils, collectives, Soviets (which first popped up in the 1905 Russian Revolution) and their latter day reincarnations. What's left? He tells us he likes the idea that "A communist society is one in which each person could dwell in his own stupidity." Zizek is already doing that so he should be happy. He says he got that idea from reading Frederick Jameson. He thinks it would be great if Communism turned out to be like a Bruegel painting. Whenever I hear Zizek expostulating it brings to mind what Karl Marx said about Jeremy Bentham i.e., "in no time and in no country has the most homespun common-place ever strutted about in so self-satisfied a way." At least Bentham did not resort to pseudo-Hegelian verbiage.

Micha Brumlik (professor of education at the Goethe University of Frankfurt am Main) maintains that after the 20th century we have the right to know what Communism is going to be like-- it has to be democratic to be supported. There will be a big fight over that, I fear, as different concepts of "democracy" will be put forth. But he is right to demand a politically active civil society not divorced from a democratic political system. He thinks that Hardt and Negri's  unclear views on the "the multitude" will never get that concept up and running or have any practical outcome.

Jacques Ranciere leaves us with the view that while Marx wanted a "classless society" what we really need is what he calls an "emancipatory society." This is one "in which each has an equal share." This has a vague utopian sound to it-- a throwback to pre-Marxist French socialist thinking. Marxist logic, he tells us, is to prepare for the future, but he believes "instead that the idea of emancipation is really tied to a sort of appearance in the here and now of those we call the 'have-nots' and of those who make their presence felt through their capacity to think, to intervene politically  and to prove themselves capable of organizing economic production." Ayn Rand would like this-- the have-nots and their masters-- only for Ranciere they would be good masters. This is a latter day reincarnation of Plato's Republic.

Ranciere goes on to criticize Negri. "Negri thinks capitalism produces communism [in the film Negri appears to think capitalism is here for the long run and must always be struggled against-- or if communism comes about it will be through the triumph of the will-- few of the people in this film are logically coherent]. In reality, capitalism only produces its own form of communism. But this is not the communism of everyone's capacity. There are those who say 'Look at what capitalism does. The idea of communism can't be so bad.' But I don't think those people are involved in constructing the idea of real equality today." What is this rambling discourse suppose to mean?

The last pronouncement I will consider comes from Peter Sloterdijk, who tells us that "People must join together to forge alliances against the lethal. They must provide mutual security and offer each other communities of solidarity on a planetary scale [sounds like an advert for NATO]. Because for the first time collective self destruction is possible. [Is he referring to the bomb? climate change?] Before we say 'communism' we must understand the principle of 'immunism' [a new -ism to worry about] or the principle of our mutual insurance which is the most profound motive of solidarity."

This is the sum and substance of the movie. Some of these thinkers are better than they have appeared in this movie-- but not by much. I don't think this film has reloaded Marx-- quite the contrary. I think it completely fails to present what Marxism is all about and its past accomplishments and future possibilities. No film can hope to present Marxism to the public without at the same time dealing with the real life problems of the union and working class movements and issues in the Third World. As I pointed out at the beginning of this review this film completely ignores working class leaders and the leaders of political movements inspired by Marxism and confines itself to interviewing intellectual talking heads who, quite frankly, often don't know what they are talking about. You can find this movie on You Tube complete with subtitles. It is 52 minutes long, and once you have watched it I think you will agree with my assessment.

Lessons and Conclusions from Lenin's "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder

Thomas Riggins

In the last chapter, the tenth, of his 1920 book "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin looks back over the previous nine chapters and then draws several conclusions about the then current state of the world struggle for socialism and also predicts some future developments. Let us see how accurate he was from our point of view some 93 years later.

He begins by looking at the Russian Revolution of 1905 and remarking that two lessons can be drawn from it. First that the industrial working class (the proletariat) has far more power and influence in society  than its actual numbers would suggest. It does not have to be a majority of the population in order to lead the population in a revolutionary direction. By waging economic and political strikes it can start an armed uprising aimed at the ruling class. Granted that 1905 was premature, but the tactics developed then paid off in 1917. Second, the creation of Soviets in 1905 was the beginning of a new way to organize the masses and to lead a mass struggle against capitalism.

 I think we can give Lenin high marks here. Even though only at the beginning of a new revolutionary upsurge, due to the on going crisis of world capitalism, we can already see the working class more and more organizing both economically and politically to lead the struggle against the rule of the banks and financial and industrial oligarchs.  "Soviets" is a Russian word, so whether you want to use it  or the term "worker's councils" or "the occupy movement" organizations similar to these will have to be eventually set up as the bourgeois governments lose control of the economy and working people have to take it over and direct it towards serving the needs of the people.

Having said that, we must admit that Lenin's optimism about the near future in his own day was completely wrong. He thought it was clear that bourgeois parliamentary types of government were clearly on the decline and would be replaced throughout the world by Soviet type governments. That trend, after the rise of fascism, World War II, and the Cold War, is no longer discernible in the early 21st century.

Lenin was convinced that "communism"-- i.e., revolutionary Marxism was on the ascent  in the working class movement against its two  main enemies "Menshevism" (by which he meant nationalism and opportunism under whatever forms in different countries) on the one hand, and ultra-leftism ("Left-Wing" communism) on the other.

After a hectic century of struggle we currently have five "communist" countries in which both those currents have been nominally overcome (at least as openly argued for positions). In the rest of the developed world Menshevism is alive and well as a popular option in the working  class movement and "revolutionary" Marxism, where it exists at all, is a very small fraction of the working class (although in some countries it is growing and radicalizing thousands of workers in response to the calls for "austerity" in response to the general crisis of capitalism). "Ultra-leftism" has been reduced to small cult-like extremist groups on the fringes of the anti-capitalist struggle with little or no influence within the working class.

The Second International (which Lenin thought "virtually dead") is alive and kicking while the Third International, which Lenin held was winning the dual between the Internationals "on a world-wide scale"- is, as they say, "history." Lenin was blinded by the stunning successes of the Bolshevik revolution and its positive reception by the international working class. The founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, just two years after his book on left-wing communism came out would seem to have justified all this optimism.

What else did Lenin think was on the agenda for the near future, or at least the not very distant future? Well, he thought the international working class was ripe to be led towards the construction of "a world Soviet republic." This is a pipe dream today vis a vis the near future. However, the preconditions for such a republic remain exactly as Lenin stated them.

There are, he said, two FUNDAMENTAL principles of communism that parties have to work towards-- one is Soviet power (i.e., working people actually meeting in councils and taking political and economic power as a result; the other is "the dictatorship of the proletariat"-- an infelicitous  expression these days-- but this only means that the working people once in power will not allow the bourgeoisie to engage in active opposition to the worker's new government.

Lenin thought the establishment of these two fundamental principles on a world wide basis was the historic task of the working class  in his day. As it turned out it was all the working class could do to keep itself from being crushed by fascism and economic depression and it failed to live up to the expectations Lenin mistakenly, as it tuned out, had had for it.

He thought the "chief thing" necessary for the struggle he saw coming had already been achieved by the time he wrote LWC. The chief thing was that internationally the vanguard of the working class had been won over to the need for proletarian dictatorship and the establishment of the Soviet system and was "against bourgeois democracy." Let us grant that Lenin was correct about this (although I have my doubts). Even so this "vanguard" was not able to pull off the NEXT step in the struggle--i.e., "the search after forms of the TRANSITION or the APPROACH to the proletarian revolution." It was unable to convince the majority of the working masses to follow its lead and remained a militant contingent of the working masses but not THE vanguard (except in a theoretical sense).

Lenin was well aware of the necessity of winning over the majority as he said, "Victory cannot be won with a vanguard alone." And the broad masses of the people cannot be won over by agitation and  propaganda "alone." No, "the fundamental law of all great revolutions" is that "the masses must have their own political experience."

Well, in the U.S. and Europe they have had plenty of time to gather this experience and unless they are suffering from some type of attention deficit disorder (ADD) we can only hypothesize some failure on the part of the socialist leadership (opportunism, nationalism) OR, dispute the horrendous world upheavals that have rent the world in the last ninety years, the three crucial constellations of social forces have not come together which portend the outbreak of a world wide revolutionary movement  such as Lenin expected in his time.

ADD is not to be taken seriously (only about 2.5% of the world's population, plus or minus a few percentage points, appear to suffer from ADD according to many experts) so what are the three social conditions that have to be in action? Lenin says that millions and tens of millions of people must be on the move and ready for progressive revolutionary leadership to change the system.

 If this is the case then revolutionary Marxists must find (1) ALL the hostile bourgeois class forces usually united against the workers are embroiled in internecine struggles among themselves and have so weakened themselves they can no longer effectively oppose the workers ; (2) the petty bourgeois democrats (Mensheviks of whatever stripe) and their parties have so discredited themselves politically that the workers no longer have faith in them and will not vote for them; (3) the working people are becoming more and more determined, as the struggle continues, to support revolutionary forces dedicated to over throwing the bourgeoisie and creating  a workers government.

All three conditions must hold and if they do "revolution is indeed ripe", and if the Marxists have correctly understood that these conditions are in fact present and they act on them at the RIGHT MOMENT, then "victory is assured." This is a tall order indeed! I can see why "victories" are few and far between, especially considering the fact that Marxist leaders in many countries they already "controlled" were blind to the fact that they were the ones their "own" workers had lost faith in. Well, as Lenin pointed out earlier, it is not a crime to err, but it is not to learn from the error and correct it. The five "Leninist" states still standing have their work cut out for them.

Here is another important conclusion that Lenin draws looking back over the history of the socialist movement and adapting it to the struggle he sees coming. That is, that since the really class conscious vanguard can be numbered in the thousands, while a revolutionary upsurge is to be measured by the activity of millions who are not at a high level of class consciousness but reacting to oppressive conditions in an almost instinctive manner, the vanguard must be able to master all forms of revolutionary struggle-- both legal and illegal-- and be ready to correctly act under rapidly changing conditions.

It is relatively easy to act in a revolutionary manner once the pot of discontent has boiled over, Lenin points out; the really difficult time for the class conscious Marxist is to know how to behave in times that are not revolutionary, are indeed relatively calm and peaceful and revolution looks to be a far off possibility, or no possibility at all,  and the bourgeoisie is seemingly benign or even when it is behaving in a reactionary manner does not seem about to lose control of the state.

In these situations when conditions for "direct, open really mass and really revolutionary struggle DO NOT YET EXIST" it is the task of the revolutionary Marxist not to lose sight of the revolutionary ends even when the masses of working people "are incapable of immediately appreciating the need for revolutionary methods of action."  Lenin says in these conditions the main task for socialists in both America and Western Europe [nowadays we might as well include the whole capitalist world] is to find a way to lead the oppressed classes "to the real, decisive and revolutionary struggle." I think if Lenin were around today he would see this as the real task  of 21st Century socialism. The problem is, to figure out how to do this without falling into the traps of opportunism (Menshevism) on the one hand, and/or being too focused on national peculiarities and interests at the cost of not maintaining an international outlook on the other.

Lenin understood this problem and stipulated that Marxists must actively engage with the political struggles in their own countries but in a NEW way completely different from the usual way of working in the union movement and in political movements influenced by the traditional (and opportunist) left. They must propagate Marxist theory to the masses with leaflets and meetings and work not only with the advanced industrial workers but also get involved with "the unorganized and downtrodden poor" and their election work should NOT be aimed at winning elections per se ("to 'get seats' in parliament") but to educate and inform the masses about what Marxism is all about, they should "try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilize the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people."

 This may have to be done within the rules of the bourgeoisie but the Marxists will always keep to their own slogans and advocate Marxist solutions and not water down their positions to curry favor with the opportunists and their followers. Lenin says this is a very hard job to do, "and extremely difficult in America" but nevertheless "it can and must be done." Well, this is the message of the 1920s to us and to the 2020s: is it still appropriate or is it out of date and ready for the ash heap?

One must note, in considering this question, that the tactics put forth by Lenin were based on the historical conditions that he found himself in and his interpretation of what they portended. Here is the context as he understood it.  The masses were on the rise everywhere as a result of colossal destruction inflicted upon the people by the savage world wide war waged by imperialism from 1914 to 1918 "for the sole purpose of deciding whether the British or the German robbers should plunder the largest number of countries." Social "sparks" were flying every where and revolutions could flare up at any moment and the Marxists had to be ready and able to take advantage of them.

The Russian Revolution had shook the world and the bourgeoisie was "terrified of Bolshevism" and over reacting to the perceived threat to such an extent they were actually helping Bolshevism grow in popularity with the working class. Lenin refers to the Palmer raids when the American bourgeoisie had "completely lost its head" and arrested thousands and thousands of people suspected of being Bolsheviks. This could only help the cause he thought because it helped to get "the masses interested in the essence and significance of Bolshevism."

But this revolutionary fervor was tamped down, a great economic depression gripped the world leading to another explosion of a world wide imperialist war (1939-1945) , followed by revolutionary upheavals which were countered by a resurgent imperialism led by the U.S. in the form of the "Cold War." McCarthyism was a revival of the Palmer "red scare" and definitely showed how the bourgeoisie could "lose its head"-- but (pace Lenin) did not "help the cause" by moving the working class to become more interested in Marxism. Finally the "Cold War" eventuated in the demise of the Soviet Union and east European socialism. So, looking at the world of today, we have to decide if the tactics Lenin put forth in the 1920s are still the best guide to action in the struggle to overthrow capitalism. Are there any after shocks from the Russian Revolution still to come?  What tactics could be better?

Lenin himself was not unmindful of the fact that the capitalist countries would gang up on Russia and do all in their power to crush "Bolshevism"; he just did not think it was possible for them to do it. He tells us that the bourgeoisie thinks of practically only one thing when it hears the word "Bolshevism": "insurrection, violence, and terror; it therefore  strives to prepare itself for resistance and opposition primarily in this field." This sounds familiar.

 He even thinks they may succeed for a time in putting down the Marxist "contagion" (their favorite word) by violence and the killing of "hundreds, thousands, and hundreds of thousands" of revolutionary Marxists (as they have already done in India, Hungary and Germany-- [and were about to do in China])-- but these are only the actions "of all historically doomed classes." Lenin is a little too cavalier here, I fear, and certainly underestimated the future death toll inflicted on the worker's movement by the capitalists-- especially their Nazi incarnation which cost about 25 million Soviet lives alone.

At any rate Lenin thinks they will fail to eliminate revolutionary Marxism because the "contagion" is too wide spread and has infected every aspect of the capitalist organism-- its social, political, economic, educational, and moral institutions-- Marxist ideas are every where and the corruption and exploitation of capitalism can no longer be hidden from the masses who must, eventually, overthrow it. "Life," he says, " will assert itself." Today, when the bourgeoisie is busily destroying the planet itself and threatening the existence of billions of people these views of Lenin remind us how far we still have to go to rid the earth of the exploiters and to educate masses of people in the fight against "the frenzied ravings of the bourgeoisie."

In his day Lenin thought that only ONE THING was preventing the victory of the socialist movement from rapidly coming about-- is it the same thing that is holding it back in our time as well?-- "namely, the universal and through awareness" on the part of all revolutionary Marxists dedicated to the achievement of socialism "in all countries of the necessity to display the utmost FLEXIBILITY in their tactics." This is something that from Lenin's day to the present most Marxists have failed to learn how to put into practice.

Finally, Lenin explains why the leading Marxists of the pre-World War I Second International (Kautsky, Otto Bauer, and Plekhanov to name just a few of the better known) fell into opportunism and took the capitalist road ( if I may use that expression). It was their lack of flexibility and inability to properly understand dialectics. "The principal reason for their bankruptcy was that they were hypnotized by a definite form of growth of the working-class movement and socialism, forgot all about the one-sidedness of that form, were afraid to see the break-up which objective conditions made inevitable and continued to repeat simple and, at first glance, incontestable axioms that had been learned by rote…."

In other words, they did not appreciate the revolutionary environment created by the war and its aftermath and attempted to impose bourgeois political legitimacy and parliamentary democracy on the socialist movement which they had learned in the post 1848 struggle of the working class to organize itself and develop its consciousness. By failing to ally with the new revolutionary consciousness (such as manifested by the Soviets and revolutionary worker's councils) they ended up on the side of the bourgeoisie and against the workers. At least this seems to me to be his position.

Considering the situation to be as he described it, Lenin held that the two trends within the socialist movement, he called them Right doctrinairism (opportunism) and Left doctrinairism (ultra-leftism), had to be opposed but that the Right was far more dangerous than the Left (which was new and experience would soon correct).  Today the ultra-left is confined to fringe groups or to groups that thrive in countries with an under developed working class due to backward economic conditions, while almost all of the major political parties following the dispensation of the Second International are completely controlled by opportunist non revolutionary cadre that are running dogs (another useful expression from another context) of the dominate forces of finance and industrial capital.

 Those remaining socialist parties and groups which consider themselves "Leninist" in orientation will find Lenin's book on "Left-Wing" Communism still a meaningful tool to use in the struggles of the 21st century as will others who are struggling with the problems of organizing the working people to take political and economic action to liberate themselves and humanity at large from the scourge of capitalism.

Lenin on "Left-Wing" Communism in Great Britain

Thomas Riggins

There was no Communist Party in Great Britain when Lenin wrote "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder [LWC]  (the Communist Party of Great Britain was founded a few months later at the end of July 1920). Nevertheless, Lenin devoted chapter nine of the aforementioned book to discussing the problems of ultra-leftism in Britain. It is not my intention to rehash all the political fights of 1920 surrounding the formation of the CPGB discussed in  LWC, instead I will highlight those insights from Lenin that pertain to general principles of Marxism and that are arguably relevant to the struggle for socialism in the early 21st century.

Lenin begins this chapter with a discussion of an article written by Willie Gallacher (1881-1963) published in the  "The Workers' Dreadnought" (a publication of one of the groups which were in the process of founding the CPGB) which was full enthusiasm for communism, the Russian Revolution, and the future of the working class in Britain. It also rejected cooperation with the Labour Party and working in the Parliament and the author did not want to cooperate with those who did.

Lenin praised Gallacher's article [he later refers to it as "a letter to the editor"] for expressing the mood, or the temper, of the masses and explained it was just these type of young workers, represented by the author, who would be the future of socialism and who should be supported in all their efforts to build a revolutionary socialist party in Britain. Nevertheless, he does not want them to commit the same errors that the early Bolsheviks made, and that the German party made with respect to ultra-leftism.

The future CPGB would be a formation composed of the coming together of at least four different socialist groups. To build a mass party it would be necessary to work with many other groups of workers at differing levels of class consciousness. Lenin stress that the CPGB, as should be the case with all Marxist parties, has to base its activities on SCIENTIFIC PRINCIPLES: and science, Lenin says, requires two things.

 First, a knowledge of what is happening in other countries, capitalist countries, and an analysis of the similarities and differences with your own country and how revolutionaries in those countries have coped with their own conditions. Second, a knowledge of your own country and ALL the groups, classes, parties, etc., and their positions and relationships. The policy adopted, in order to have the greatest number of supporters and best chance of wining, "should not be determined only by the desires and views, by the degree of class-consciousness and the militancy of one group or party alone."

The focus of all this fuss about cooperating and compromising with the bourgeoisie was the Labour Party. The leaders of the Labour Party were considered by the radical workers as sell outs and "social patriots" who would govern in the interests of the capitalists not the workers whom they ostensibly represented and led. Lenin agrees with this and then states "it does not at all follow that to support them means treachery to the revolution; what does follow is that, in the interests of the revolution, working-class revolutionaries should give these gentleman a certain amount of parliamentary support." But why does this follow? Why give any support to false leaders who pose as progressives and really do the dirty work of the enemy? What can Lenin be thinking of?

We must consider what was going on in Britain in the 1920s. The Labour Party was growing and the two main governing parties (the Liberals and the Conservatives) were beginning to panic. The Leader of the Liberals, Lloyd George, proposed a coalition with the Conservatives to stop the Labour Party. [Imagine a time in the US when the Republicans and Democrats unite to stop the Green Party!].

Meanwhile many Liberals are jumping ship and going over to the Labour Party. Lenin says that what is happening is that the liberal bourgeoisie is abandoning the traditional two party system by which the liberal and conservative capitalists alternate in ruling the government and exploiting the workers; a system "which has been hallowed by centuries of experience and has been extremely advantageous to the exploiters…."

The British leaders of the revolutionary workers, the very leaders of the future CPGB saw what was going on and even admitted the majority of workers were supporting the Labour Party saying, as did Sylvia Pankhurst (1882-1960) one of the founders of the CPGB, that "the majority of the British working class has not yet emerged" from the way of thinking represented by the Labour Party.

Even knowing this she said: "The Communist Party must not compromise…. The Communist Party must keep its doctrine pure, and its independence of reformism inviolate: its mission is to lead the way, without stopping or turning, by the direct road to the communist revolution." Shades of Blanqui!

Lenin is a firm believer that the working class learns by doing. If the workers believe in such a party or such and such an idea, which is wrong and will not emancipate them, they must go through the experience of living and working with these false ideas until they learn from experience that they must abandon these wrong approaches.

Meanwhile the revolutionary Marxists will have been working along with the workers and supporting their efforts but also explaining why their views will not succeed and why Marxism provides a better alternative. This is the only way to win over the working people to the revolutionary Marxist point of view. This is why we must work in the reactionary institutions of the bourgeoisie.

 "To act otherwise would mean hampering the cause of the revolution, since revolution is impossible without a change in the views of the majority of the working class, a change brought about by the political experience of the masses, never by propaganda alone."

We come now to Lenin's famous formulation of The Fundamental Law of Revolution. Lenin says this law applies to all revolutions which means many of the revolts, insurrections, and coups that historians like to call "revolutions" are not revolutions at all. The Law states: "for a revolution to take place it is not enough for exploited and oppressed masses to realize the impossibility of living in the old way, and demand changes; for a revolution it is essential that the exploiters should not be able to live and rule in the old way. It is only when the "LOWER CLASSES" DO NOT WANT to live in the old way and the "upper classes" CANNOT CARRY ON IN THE OLD WAY that the revolution can triumph."

Two obvious conclusions Lenin draws, with respect to an anti-capitalist revolution, are, first,  the majority of the working class (or at a minimum the majority of the politically active class conscious workers [this is "iffy" a majority of these may still be too small]) must fully understand the need for a revolution and be willing to take up arms if necessary to carry it out; second, the government of the ruling class must be undergoing a crisis which brings the masses of people, even those "hitherto apathetic," into a movement that so weakens it (the government) that the revolutionary elements can "rapidly overthrow it".  The revolution will not be a tea party.

Lenin thought the two conditions mentioned above were fast developing in Great Britain, but they did not in fact come about. Nevertheless, Lenin's advice in general as to how the Marxists in Great Britain should behave still makes sense even in our own day, and it is not restricted to any particular country. Briefly he says that unless we want to risk being seen as "mere wind bags"  and  a party that represents only a group and not the masses of the revolutionary working class ["revolutionary" is the key word to understand in this context] we must get the MASSES to follow our party.

To do this we must help the working class achieve the maximum of class consciousness and this means working in the political world in which we and they find ourselves and helping them to understand, by their own experiences, that no solutions of bourgeois politics can solve their problems and the only way forward for their class is by supporting a revolutionary Marxist party.

How would this practically be done? Extrapolating from the conditions of Lenin's day to the present time, and using the experience of the 2012 US elections, I suggest the following edited comment from Lenin: We would take part in the election campaign, we would hand out leaflets in favor of Marxism and explaining what's wrong with capitalism, and where we are not running our own candidates we would urge support for the candidate most favorable to the workers and who had the most support from the union movement and we would urge the defeat of all reactionary, ultra-right and anti-labor, anti-progressive candidates.

Lenin's actual advice to the British Marxists was: "We would take part in the election campaign, distribute leaflets agitating for communism, and in ALL constituencies where we have no candidates, we would urge the electors TO VOTE FOR THE LABOUR CANDIDATE AND AGAINST THE BOURGEOIS CANDIDATE." Others may have a better revision of this quote than what I have proposed above, but I have tried to factor in specifically US conditions (both major parties are bourgeois, the ultra-right poses a clear and present danger, the labor movement is under attack, among others).

As Lenin maintained that each country had an unique historical configuration of its own regarding the class struggle and the relations between the classes and parties making it up, it was therefore the task of Marxists to learn "to apply the general and basic principles" of Marxism to their own situation in order to "study, discover, and predict" the proper course of action. It is with this conclusion that he ends this chapter of LWC.

Lenin on Marxism and Bourgeois Democracy by Thomas Riggins

In chapter seven of "'Left-Wing' Communism an Infantile Disorder" Lenin addresses himself to the ultra-left claim that socialists should no longer work with or be members of bourgeois parliaments. This may not be a very pressing issue for American (i.e., U.S.) socialists and it seems settled as far as other countries are concerned (as a result of widespread agreement with Lenin's views) but in Lenin's day there were many so-called Left socialists who supported boycotting all bourgeois electoral work. Lenin thought this totally incorrect.

The ultra-Left's position was that bourgeois democracy was historically and politically obsolete; the wave of the future was advancing worker's democracy in the form of Soviets and so all Marxist socialists must only work to build that future. Lenin's response to this is philosophically interesting and rooted in his reading of Hegel and his understanding of the latter's historicism.

Lenin had made a profound study of Hegel's Logic while in exile (among other of the German's works) and could not but have been impressed by the following passage in Hegel's introduction to his "Lectures on the Philosophy of History" (even though he thought Hegel had been completely antiquated with respect to most of his views on history by the work of Marx and Engels.) But the following Hegelian passage, I believe, still had meaning for him, and for us today as well.

 Hegel wrote that he wished to call his students "attention to the important difference between a conception, a principle, a truth limited to an ABSTRACT form and its determinate application and concrete development." An example would be that "all men are created equal" was an abstract truth, the civil war was a determinate application-- as was the later civil rights movement. That application is still working itself out.

Grasping that Hegelian principle we can understand Lenin when he agrees with the ultra-left that indeed bourgeois democracy IS historically obsolete.  Lenin says this is true in a "propaganda sense."  Capitalism has also been obsolete for over a hundred years, he says, it is obsolete today in that we know its contradictions, that it doesn't work and cannot feed the people and insure their future and we know that socialism is the answer and the only future available if humanity is not to perish but this ABSTRACT truth, from the point of view of world history, does not mean that its determinate application, its concrete development will not require "a very long and persistent struggle ON THE BASIS of capitalism"

Lenin says world history is measured in decades, indeed he could have said centuries (Napoleon saw the Sphinx looking down on him from 40 centuries): whether the concrete development reaches fruition now or a century from now is something indifferent to world history. Lenin was mistaken in seeing the revolutionary era of his day as the fruition of the social ideal just as we are wrong to see the globalization of the capitalist world market as the refutation of the social ideal which from the point of view of world history may be ushered in by a new revolutionary era which may even now be at the heart of the current world capitalist
breakdown and may take place in a decade or in 20 decades. For this "very reason," Lenin says, "it is a glaring theoretical error to apply the yardstick of world history to practical politics."

So, while in a technical sense the ultra-left is correct about the historical "obsolescence" of bourgeois democracy, the real question is, is bourgeois democracy politically obsolete? The answer to that is a resounding "NO!" The masses of working people participate in bourgeois elections and think in terms of bourgeois constitutionality and for Marxists to ignore that fact and refuse to engage in political work where the masses are is the height of irresponsibility. This mistake that is raising its head again in 1920 was already refuted and abandoned in 1918 by the German socialists. Both Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, "outstanding political leaders" opposed it in Germany and subsequent events have proven them to be correct.

Those parties today (1920) that are again bringing up this erroneous theory should
study the history of Marxism on this issue and admit their mistake. This is a most important principle for Lenin. When a mistake is made it cannot be papered over, ignored, denied, or explained away. How a party treats its mistakes is one of the best ways of judging how serious it is about its duty towards its CLASS and towards WORKING PEOPLE in general. A party that fails to admit and rectify publicly its mistakes is NOT a party of the masses.

The mistake of the ultra-lefts is failing to recognize what is obsolete from the point of view of Marxism-- from OUR point of view is NOT obsolete from the point of view of the masses. Granted then that we must work within the framework of bourgeois democracy so that we can influence the masses, Lenin stresses that we must not SINK TO THE LEVEL OF THE MASSES. The working people must be told "the bitter truth." That truth, which we are duty bound to tell the people, is that their allegiance to bourgeois democracy is nothing more than a "prejudice." Even so, we must also act politically with regard to the ACTUAL class consciousness of the working masses (not the class consciousness of the Marxist elements): if we don't, Lenin says we risk turning into "windbags."

Here I must mention an issue that was important to Lenin but is no longer applicable at the present time. One of reasons he was upset by the ultra-lefts is that some of them were in leadership positions within fraternal communist parties which were members of the Communist International (Third International). Lenin was convinced that his position on bourgeois democracy was correct and had been successfully applied in Russia and it was also the position of the International, which, he said "must work out its tactics internationally (not as narrow or exclusively national tactics, but as international tactics)…," and the rejection of his views by some members of the International amounted to abandoning the concept of internationalism even while giving lip service to it.

Today, of course, we have to be concerned with internationalism but there is no "International" to oversee and direct a unified program subscribed to by all the active Marxist parties. In fact, national tactics take a leading role everywhere. There are some regional groupings of Marxist parties as well some groupings based on particular ideological interpretations of Marxism, and some "go-it-alone" parties. This reflects the fragmented and ideological confusion that reigns on the left and is a major reason why more international meetings and conferences should be held with a view to creating some kind of consensus around international issues and how the national struggles in each country can relate to the movement  towards creating the conditions or preconditions for an international unified fight back against capitalism.

Another issue addressed by Lenin in this chapter is the relation between legal and illegal activities by the worker's party. All worker's parties are faced with this issue and all engage in some form of illegal activity. In the U.S. Marxist parties, for example, although they were legal parties, still engaged in illegal activities such as sit ins and illegal demonstrations during the civil rights movement , and various forms of civil disobedience in anti-war protests and marches. Lenin thought that as capitalism begins to breakdown and the workers become more militant the bourgeois state would crack down ever harder on the working class violating its own standards of legality.

As an example of ruthless persecution of working people he gives the example of the United States ("the example of America is edifying enough"). He has reference to the Palmer Raids and the espionage acts. It is also edifying to see the Obama administration dust off these old laws from ninety years ago to try and shut down whistle blowers and journalists (think of Wiki leaks). Socialist parties should be prepared to face savage persecution by the state as the class struggle intensifies. Paper tiger parties today will be treated as real tigers tomorrow if they effectively lead the workers in the struggle against capitalism.

Lenin stresses that before Marxists even think about repudiating working within bourgeois democracy there must be a revolutionary situation in which the majority of working people have lost faith in the bourgeoisie and are willing and able to advance towards the seizure of power and the establishment of a socialist state. People can talk revolution all they like and advocate revolutionary tactics all they want but "without a revolutionary mood among the masses, and without conditions facilitating the growth of this mood, revolutionary tactics will never develop into action."

Certainly in the U.S. there is no mass revolutionary mood [yet] and none on the immediate horizon and this must be taken into account by the left (as it has been in the pages of Political Affairs and other socialist publications- albeit with some confusion between tactics and strategy among those who have not kept their eyes on the prize). In Europe and other areas of the world the situation is different and various degrees of the "revolutionary mood" are rapidly advancing as the glacial melting of global capitalism speeds up a pace.

Lenin further notes that "it is very easy to show one's 'revolutionary' temper merely by hurling abuse at parliamentary opportunism" [i.e., bourgeois democracy] but tactics "must be based on a sober and strictly objective appraisal of ALL the class forces in a particular state (and of the states that surround it, and of all states the world over) as well as of the experience of revolutionary movements." A tall order, I should think, with many opportunities for error: all the more reason for more international conferences and even the creation of a new International.

So, the upshot of this discussion is that Marxists must work within bourgeois democratic institutions and it is childish to attack parties and socialist leaders who do so. The only justified criticism, Lenin says, is against those leaders "who are unable --- and still more against those who are UNWILLING --- to utilise the structures of bourgeois democracy … in a revolutionary and communist manner." The question that remains is: What constitutes a revolutionary and communist manner in the 21st Century?

Lenin on "Reactionary" Trade Unions: Chapter Six of "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder by Thomas Riggins

One of the most difficult questions facing any socialist movement is its relation to the trade unions. Modern day trade unionism is an integral part of the capitalist system. It functions to further the interests of working people within capitalism by trying to get their commodity (labor power) paid for at the highest price possible in relation to its value. This price can be measured in wages as well as benefits wrested from the capitalist class by means of negotiations, demonstrations, work stoppages, sit ins, and strikes. Under capitalism unions qua unions are not revolutionary organizations. Some unions and union members are in fact even reactionary. In the U.S. for example about 40% of unionized workers voted for the Republican reactionary Mitt Romney in the 2012 general election.

In chapter six of his work "Left-Wing" Communism an Infantile Disorder, Lenin address himself to the relation Marxists should have with the capitalist trade union movement. He refers to the trade unions under capitalism as "reactionary" because he was writing in a revolutionary period in which socialist as well as capitalist oriented trade unions both existed. This is not that time so I shall dispense with the term "reactionary" except in direct quotations.

At the beginning of this chapter Lenin notes that the ultra-Left in Germany consider it very revolutionary to condemn the German unions as compromising, nationalistic, and counter-revolutionary and that no communists should have anything to do with them. Lenin intends to give reasons why he thinks these ideas are wrong and are just a lot of "empty phrases."

Lenin will first make remarks about the situation in Russia. He does so to remind us
what the purpose of this work is --i.e., to apply "to Western Europe whatever is universally practicable, significant and relevant in the history and present-day tactics of Bolshevism." We may not find as many things today, ninety years later and in non-revolutionary conditions (but growing pre-revolutionary movements are afoot in the anti-austerity struggle and the fightback against the banks), as people in Lenin's day found but there still are some practicable ideas in Lenin's work.

One such idea is that as the struggle today intensifies Marxist parties will start to grow into larger and larger mass parties (as happened to the Bolsheviks after 1917) and many of the new members will be "careerists and charlatans" out to feather their own nests with no real dedication to the workers. Lenin says they only "deserve to be shot"-a la the Chinese Communist Party's response to extremely corrupt officials. This may be a little too "proactive" for our sensibilities these days, but we should be aware of such people and kick them out of the movement and warn the workers about them. If conditions become more revolutionary we can expect the working people to handle these types as they see fit.

Another point made by Lenin is really not so relevant in the current situation, but should still be mentioned in case the working class actually finds itself exercising state power in the future. That is the relation of the worker's party to the institutions of the state. We must not look at the state as some kind of independent institution that all political parties share in and whose main departments are headed now by one party, now another or a combination of parties. The bourgeoisie is an unnecessary parasitical exploiting class with no useful role to play in modern society except to oppress working people and exploit them. This class will no longer have a role to play in the political life of a state controlled by workers so no state institution will make any political or organizational decisions without consulting with and taking guidance from the worker's party.

With respect to the trade unions, Lenin says that the party "relies directly" upon them. Trade unions are formally non-party organizations but the party, in Russia (and presumably in any future worker's  state), actually controls the leadership positions in all the unions and the unions carry out the party line. There are millions of workers only a relatively small number of whom (the most class conscious) are members of the party. The trade unions are the vehicle by which the party keeps in touch with the working masses and keeps the class unified in its struggle to defeat the bourgeoisie and build socialism. Under capitalism the unions are not typically led by leaders committed to building socialism and thus the unions function to uphold bourgeois rule despite their struggles for better pay and working conditions.
Marxists should be in the union movement and hopefully get themselves elected to leadership positions by the rank and file. Marxists union members should be carrying on socialist education and agitation and explaining to workers why they will never be secure in their lives, jobs, or pensions under capitalism.

There are two main positions that the Marxists should push that will differentiate them from the opportunistic and pragmatic labor leaders. The first is to fight against the view that bourgeois democracy is the only form of democracy that should be supported. Direct worker's democracy, in whatever form it takes (worker's councils, soviets, etc.), should be the ideal. The second idea to fight is that the union movement should be politically "independent." In Russia that would have amounted to the workers having unions independent from workers political power running the state. In our pre-revolutionary situation the unions should support and be affiliated with political parties having a pro-working class agenda. An intellectually mature working class will have its own political party or parties reflecting working class values and led by working people themselves. In the U.S., I repeat, it is absolutely scandalous that forty percent of unionized workers vote Republican in general elections.

However, it is not sufficient just to maintain contact with the workers and the people in general through the trade unions. Lenin says that other types of non-party organizations have to be set up and institutions developed whose membership consists of workers and petty bourgeois elements who are not members of the party. In the West these organizations have been give the uncharitable name of "front groups" by the bourgeoisie. Their real purpose, according to Lenin, is to allow the party to understand the "temper" of the people and "to come closer to them, meet their requirements" and "promote the best among them" to leadership positions. This is a thoroughly democratic way for the people and the party to interact for the common interests of the working class and its allies.

In Russia all of this party work was carried out by means of the Soviets which Lenin
says are a form of democratic expression far superior to anything created by bourgeois democracy. While making these remarks Lenin also mentions exactly what type of workers rule is involved in the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" (DP). The DP is not a dictatorship of all the working people, or a dictatorship of workers and peasants. In Russia it is "a dictatorship of the urban proletariat" and the DP is meant to lead the agricultural population (a backward majority) towards supporting the rule of the urban working class. It has as one of its main functions to lead the mass of poor peasants  and to wage "a systematic struggle against the rich, bourgeois, exploiting and profiteering peasantry, etc." In the West of the 21st Century such a DP has no existential basis and would not make a good role model for the type of workers democracy required to establish socialism.

In Lenin's day such a DP was what was required. The Russian Marxists had arrived at these ideas after 25 years of intense struggle against the Russian feudalists and bourgeoisie and from their point of view the ultra-left antics of some German "Communists" and others of pitting "leaders" against the "masses" and advocating abandoning the trade union movement and also other forms of legal struggle sounded like "ridiculous and childish nonsense."

Lenin admitted that the old bourgeois craft unions and distinctions between workers are a legacy left to socialism by capitalism and that the trade unions too are riddled with bourgeois attitudes and prejudices. But he said this is the material we have to work with and it will take years and years of work to develop the industrial unions of the future which will represent whole industries  and lead to the abolition of the division of labor between people. This goal is the goal of fully developed Communism and in1920 only the first baby steps were being taken. Lenin warned that, "To attempt in practice, today, to anticipate this future result of a fully developed, fully comprehensive and mature communism would be like trying to teach higher mathematics to a child of four." This warning was another in the species of not trying to skip stages and prematurely try to bring about remote future possibilities. Perhaps all the errors of Soviet collectivization and also of the Great Leap Forward could have been prevented had Lenin's views been taken seriously.

Lenin here seems to reject the whole idea of "social engineering" and the idea of creating the "the new Soviet man." He says we have to build socialism with the type of people "bequeathed" to us by the capitalist system and not try to build it "with human material specially prepared by us." If Lenin's successors had followed this advice they would have been much more tolerant of the frailties of human nature and open to different ideas and notions of how to go about building on the foundations of socialism created under his direction. They could have avoided the paranoia and purges of the 1930s and 40s.

Reflecting again on the trade unions, Lenin remarks that they evolved out of the primitive isolation and disunity of the early working class and were an essential form of working class organization that developed to unify and unite workers and give to them class consciousness. Now it is the Communist Party which is the highest form of working class organization and which expresses the highest level of class consciousness and the trade union movement, born as it was under capitalist conditions has revealed that, compared to the revolutionary class conscious workers, it has backward tendencies related to narrow minded craft interests.

Lenin uses the term "Communist" in relation to the Party in a way which leads me to think he didn't really believe Communist parties had arrived at a stage of development where they deserved to be called "Communist." He says "the Party will not merit the name until it learns to weld the leaders into one indivisible whole with the class and the masses." I don't think that ever happened in the Soviet Union but the reasons for this failure to weld an indivisible whole are to complex to discuss here."

At any rate, whatever the limitations displayed by the trade union movement this movement was indispensable for the development of the working class and every capitalist country has produced trade unions which represent the interests of the working people in the economic contest with the capitalists. The unions will be necessary in the transfer of the management of the economic life of socialist countries to the working class, not to the separate unions, and eventually to all working people. For this reason Lenin calls the unions a "school of communism" that will be the training ground for workers in the building of socialism.

Nevertheless at the present time there are many backward attitudes and ideas floating about in the ranks of the trade unions and many of these attitudes will remain even if working people eventually gain state power. How should we deal them both now and in the future. Repression was not an option favored by Lenin. He says these backward attitudes are INEVITABLE considering the historical context in which the unions were formed. Not to understand this is to show complete ignorance of the role of the party. It would be "folly" to either evade this problem or try to "leap over it" [even a great leap won't work]. The role of the party is to educate and enlighten the backwardness that living under capitalism will inevitably imprint on large sections of the working people. The Party's job is to win the support of the masses and to maintain and extend that support through education and example. Obviously shooting people or sending them to the Gulag is not a good way to carry out that assignment. It will take many years of patient work and struggle to carry out that mission. Presumably the party that fails in this mission will not be around in the long run.

Paradoxically, Lenin thinks the labor leadership in the more advanced countries of the West are more opportunist and play upon the credulity of the workers than those in backward Russia. This is because Russia was going through a real revolutionary awakening and the the vast majority of the workers chose to follow the Bolshevik wing of the Marxist movement rather than the Menshevik wing which was opportunistic and social chauvinist. Lenin is particularly vitriolic when he refers to the Western labor leaders calling them "the craft-union, narrow-minded, selfish, case-hardened, covetous, and petty-bourgeois 'labour aristocracy,' imperialist-minded and imperialist-corrupted" leadership. This type of leadership has to be fought against and completely driven out of the trades union movement. Marxist trade unionists still have that daunting task before them.

Taking all this under consideration, Lenin warns that the attempt of Marxists to assume political power "should not be made" until the majority of workers are firm supporters of the Party. This stage in the struggle will vary "in different countries and in different circumstances; it can be correctly gauged only by thoughtful, experienced and knowledgeable political leaders of the proletariat in each particular country." It s thus still, it seems, the primary mission of Marxists to educate the working people and remind them that, while it is necessary to work in bourgeois trade unions, and to contest bourgeois elections (to hold off the right and protect the interests of the working class) these forms of bourgeois democracy are not a solution to the problems of exploitation, unemployment, and preventing war, and must be replaced with real democratic institutions based on working class political power. The faux democracy of the West is part of the problem, not part of the solution leading to human liberation from capital.

It is of course the case, Lenin says, that Marxists uphold the interests of the working people AGAINST the opportunistic labor bureaucrats ("the 'Labour Aristocracy'"). This is "an elementary and most self-evident truth." The ultra-left's error is to think that because some unions, or even most unions, in the West have a pro-capitalist  top  leadership that Marxists should abandon the trade unions and create ARTIFICIAL organizations to compete with them. This is infantile. The only way to help the workers better understand what the issues are is for Marxists to work in the labor movement with them and expose those "agents of the bourgeoisie in the working class movement."  Lenin particularly likes Daniel De Leon 's (the leader of the now moribund Socialist Labor Party) formulation: "labour lieutenants of the capitalist class."

Lenin maintains that Marxists cannot leave the backward workers to the mercy of these capitalist labor leaders or under the influence of those workers Engels described as having "become completely bourgeois." Lenin's reference is to a letter Engels sent to Marx in 1858 in reference to British workers. I'm going to quote it because, with a few slight adjustments, Engels' observations hold true for many workers  today in the West.

Engels wrote to Marx from Manchester on October 7, 1858 that, in effect labor leadership could move to the right, because "the English proletariat is actually becoming more and more bourgeois, so that this most bourgeois of all nations is apparently aiming ultimately at the possession of a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat ALONGSIDE the bourgeoisie. For a nation which exploits the whole world this is of course to a certain extent justifiable. The only thing that would help here would be a few thoroughly bad years…." Well, the bad years are once again upon us, I hope we can make the best use of them.

With regard to the trade union movement, Lenin finds the ultra-left "Marxists" to be acting in a "frivolous" manner with regard to mass work. Their "ridiculous 'theory'" of not wanting to work in the union movement betrays a fundamental principle of mass organization which is  to WORK WHEREVER THE MASSES ARE TO BE FOUND. Marxists have a duty to work in the union movement and educate the workers by exposing the baseness and class collaborationist nature of the pro-capitalist labor leaders. The nature of this type of work has to be fine tuned and take into consideration the specific features of the working class and its history in each country but it cannot be ignored.

It is particularly childish of the "Left opposition" to demand brand new unions be set up with but one requirement for membership: accepting the Soviet system and the dictatorship of the proletariat. Lenin says that the Communists have been running Soviet Russia for almost three years and it would be ruinous for them to make such a demand on Russian workers for union membership. "The task," he says, facing Marxists "is to CONVINCE the backward elements, to work AMONG them, and not FENCE THEMSELVES OFF from them with artificial and childishly 'Left' slogans."

Not only should Marxists work in the trade union movement, but In fact Lenin even favored Marxists, following the idea of being where the masses were, joining the Black Hundreds (the Russian KKK of the time) so as to win the backward workers and peasants away from the organization. I cannot, however, envision Leftists in the U.S. flocking to the Tea Party Movement to enlighten its working class members and win them away from the reactionary Republican party (however correct that tactic might be).

So much then for Lenin's views on the relation that a Marxist party should have with the trade union movement. I will next examine his views about working in bourgeois parliaments.

Lenin on the Role of a Marxist Party in Relation to the People: Chapter Five of 'Left Wing' Communism an Infantile Disorder by Thomas Riggins

Lenin in 1920 made an analysis of the political conditions in Germany after the failure of  the Communist (Spartacus League) uprising in 1918.  The Communists had split into two rival factions. The issues facing the German Marxists were somewhat analogous to those facing the Marxist movements today especially in the industrial world.

This fact makes many of Lenin's observations of the conditions in Germany relevant to the struggles of today both in advanced  capitalist countries such as the U.S. (where Marxist political groupings barely make a blip on the radar screen), Europe (where Marxist parties offer viable alternatives to the status quo and have  elected representatives in parliaments, local government, and sometimes as ministers in bourgeois governments (perhaps a dubious tactic), and other areas of the world as well;  there is a world Marxist presence that is growing and maturing in face of the continuing decline and slow collapse of global capitalism.

The setting for this chapter is Lenin's reaction to reading a pamphlet put out by opponents within the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) to the tactics taken by the leadership (a familiar scenario): "The Split in the Communist Party of Germany (The Spartacist League)".

The basic position of the opposition is that the KPD leaders are opportunists for seeking to work in a coalition with the Independent Social-Democratic Party of Germany (USPD). This tactic would later be known as the United Front.  This tactic is opposed by the opposition because it is demanding that the KPD stand for the creation of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat and so must reject ALL compromises with other left groups and parties and abandon parliamentarianism (elections)  as well as working in the established trade unions . The KPD alone can lead the struggle and should create a new big revolutionary union under the slogan "Get out of the trade unions!"

The opposition claims there are now two communist parties in Germany: the opportunist KPD "a party of leaders" and the opposition "a mass party." Lenin finds these views to be "rubbish" and "'Left-wing childishness." He then to proceeds to examine the whole issue of "the masses" versus "the leaders."

The "masses" are divided into "classes" and we can make only very general statements about "classes" and there are always individual cases within a given class which the generalized statement will not cover. We should be provisional and not dogmatic.

In general, politically speaking, classes are led by political parties "at least in present day civilized countries" and the political leaders of a party are usually the most experienced and influential representatives of the class that any particular party represents. Lenin says this is elementary but nevertheless there seem to be some "present day civilized countries" in which the masses and the classes are not congruent -- especially where working people do not have highly developed class consciousness; i.e., in the United States, for example, most workers identify with two über-parties neither of which represent  the real interests of the working class.

In Europe, until recently (he means until the systemic breakdown of European culture and civilization called World War I) people were used to legal political parties and stable governments (at least in the "advanced" countries) and their political leaders were freely elected at conventions or party congresses.

With the outbreak of war and revolution parties and leaders found themselves proscribed or forced to combine illegal activities with legal activities. Some leaders had to go underground, open legal party congresses could not be held or had to be held abroad. In this era of turmoil some socialists and communists began to feel uncomfortable and to complain about undemocratic leadership and a separation of the leaders from the "masses." Lenin thinks it is this confusion in the heads of those communists who have themselves little experience of the conditions of functioning underground that has led to the ultra-'Leftism' he calls an "infantile disorder." Unfortunately, this disorder has begun to spread into more experienced cadres in parties that also have experienced conditions of illegality.

But in some parties, Lenin says, there really is a divergence between the leaders and the led. What accounts for this? The answer is to be found in the writings of Marx and Engels in the period 1852 to 1892 on the political developments in Britain. As the working class began to develop politically there "emerged", Lenin says, "a semi-petty-bourgeois, opportunist 'labour aristocracy'." These were those British labor leaders that went along with the bourgeoisie, compromising demands, and collaborating with the class enemy for narrow sectarian interests of their own craft or union and not working for the good of the whole class as a class.

In Lenin's day this phenomenon reappeared in the Second International where opportunist leaders (Lenin calls them "traitors") worked for their own craft and became separated from the great mass of the working class-- "the lowest paid workers." Lenin says, "The revolutionary proletariat cannot be victorious unless this evil is combated, unless the opportunist, social-traitor leaders are exposed, discredited and expelled." This advice is not, I think, limited to the "revolutionary proletariat." In general militant trade unionists  should keep in mind the needs of the working class as a whole and not distant themselves from supporting the struggles of other unions, non-union workers, and the lowest paid, nor should they be afraid to speak out when they see their own leaders engage in opportunist deal making with the bosses that may weaken the labor movement as a whole (sweet heart deals, no strike pledges, etc.)

The mark of Left Wing Communism (LWC) is, according to Lenin, when one advocates impossible to achieve goals in a given particular situation, bucks party discipline, and drives wedges between the masses and their leaders. LWC is the flip side of opportunism and class collaboration in that they both hamper the unity of the workers in the struggle against capital. Lenin was particularly incensed by those who claimed to be against leaders "in principle." These very representatives of LWC were themselves claiming leadership positions within the working class.

Lenin quotes one such ultra-leftist who wrote, "The working class cannot destroy the
the bourgeois state without destroying bourgeois democracy, and it cannot destroy
bourgeois democracy without destroying parties." Lenin says this type of muddle-headed "Marxism" is all to prevalent amongst people claiming to be Marxists who have never studied or tried to come to grips with Marxist theory. Merely calling oneself a Marxist had become a "fashion" in Lenin's day (it's not that fashionable now when even sympathy for some aspects of Keynesianism make you a "socialist.")

The idea of abolishing the party as part of the struggle against capital is ludicrous and would aid and abet the bourgeoisie. Lenin says, "From the standpoint of communism, reputation of the Party principle means attempting to leap from the eve of capitalism's collapse, not to the lower or intermediate phase of communism, but to the higher." [I amended this quote by leaving out "in Germany" after "collapse" because I think this quote has a wider sense (Sinn)].

Parties represent the interests of classes and even after the working class comes to power it as a class and other classes as well will remain "for years" and so will leaders. The working class cannot establish socialism by just abolishing the LANDLORDS and CAPITALISTS, these classes will be easily gotten rid of (!) after a revolution-- but the PETTY-BOURGEOISIE must also be abolished and Lenin says "they CANNOT BE OUSTED or crushed: we MUST LEARN TO LIVE WITH THEM." It will take a long era of re-education to transform this class and eventually absorb it into the class conscious working class-- a process that will be "prolonged, slow, and cautious." These unheeded words go a long way in explaining the many problems that arose in both the USSR and China with respect to the peasantry.

Lenin is referring not only to small business but basically to the peasantry. Advanced industrialized countries really don't have a peasant problem anymore (in this sense China is far from a really advanced country despite it phenomenal economic advances) but they do have small businesses and workers who own property (houses primarily) and/or are self-employed giving them a stake in the current economic system which Marxists seek to replace.

This petty-bourgeois element, especially where there is a large peasant component, "surround the proletariat on every side with a petty-bourgeois atmosphere, which permeates and corrupts the proletariat and constantly causes among the proletariat relapses into petty-bourgeois spinelessness, disunity, individualism [the Libertarian disease and Ayn Randian brain cancer are examples], and alternating moods of exaltation and dejection."

To overcome all this the workers need a party of their own with the "strictest centralisation and discipline." Without a Marxist party of this type the working class cannot carry out its PRINCIPAL ROLE  and mission which is ORGANISATIONAL -- i.e., creating the necessary structures for the creation of socialism and educating the masses to that end.

I must admit, looking at the conditions we have today it seems almost impossible to meet the requirements set by Lenin to carry on a successful revolution against capitalism. "The force of habit," he writes, " in millions and tens of millions is a most formidable force. Without a party of iron that has been tempered in the struggle, a party enjoying the confidence of all honest people in the class in question [the working class] , a party capable of watching and influencing the mood of the masses, such a struggle cannot be waged successfully." Anyone who weakens such a party, or questions its "iron will" (or doesn't lead in its formation one might add) is objectively an ally of the bourgeoisie and against the working people.

Where do we find such a party today? In the entire Western Hemisphere only the Cuban party comes to mind. There are other parties, of course, earnestly strugglingto become such parties in different countries of the hemisphere and we can only hope they achieve the confidence of the workers Lenin seems to require. The Eastern Hemisphere shows mixed results and I have no wish to try and judge which ones are doing what. But it should be noted that the movement contra austerity in some European countries may excellerate the creation of such parties where they do not yet exist and reinforce already existing militant parties.

 This pretty much concludes what Lenin has to say about the relation of the party and its leaders have to the working masses and the errors about this relationship frequently mouthed by the ultra-left. A future article will try to explicate Lenin's views concerning Marxists and "reactionary" trade unions.