The proletariat tends to oppose its own Gemeinwesen, the human being, to the capitalist one, the oppressive state. It has to expropriate this being to realize this real opposition. It can only do so if it organizes in a party. This is the representation of its being, its prefiguration. The whole life of the class, thus the party, is dominated by the movement for the appropriation of this being. Here the consciousness of the mission of the proletariat is expressed specifically as the appropriation of human nature.
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The party thus represents the Gemeinwesen. It cannot be defined by bureaucratic rules, but only by its existence, and the party's existence is its programme, the prefiguration of communist society, of the liberated and conscious human species.
The corollary is that the revolution is not a question of forms of organization. It depends on the programme. Only one proved, that the party form is the one most suited to represent and to defend the programme. The organizational rules in this case are not adopted from bourgeois society, but derive from the vision of future society, as we shall show.
Marx derived the orginality of the party from the proletariat's struggle. From the start the proletariat manifested itself an a new Gemeinwesen, it manifested the goal it tended to - a society without private property but with property of the species instead...
An important characteristic of the party is derived from that, from the fact that it is the prefiguration of the person and communist society, it is the mediating base of all knowledge for the proletarian, i.e. for the person refusing the bourgeois Gemeinwesen and accepting the proletarian one. The knowledge of the party integrates all that of past centuries (religion, art, philosophy, science). Marxism is not only a scientific theory (among so many others!), but incorporates science and uses its revolutionary arms of foresight and transformation to achieve the goal revolution. The party is an organ of foresight, if not, it is discredited.
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Marx specified the life of the party after stating this:
"The 'League', like the Societe des Saisons in Paris(f) and like a hundred other societies, was only an episode in the history of the party, which is growing everywhere spontaneously (naturwuchsig) from the soil of modern society." (44)The formation of the organization is a product of the antagonisms of this society. If the class has been beaten, if its organ of struggle has lost its revolutionary character by rejecting the programme, or if it has been destroyed during an armed struggle, a new organization will reappear spontaneously, the social contracts will lead to an explosion on the historical scene; the party will reappear.
The party is not just this differential notion then, this organization whose life somehow depends on the class struggle. What is the integral notion?
"I have also tried to clear up a misunderstanding that when I refer to the party I mean an organization which died eight years ago, or an editorial board which broke up twelve years ago. When I refer to the party I do so in an historical sense." (45)i.e. the prefiguration of future society, prefiguration of future man, the human being which is the real Gemeinwesen of man.
It is the attachment to this being which appears to be negated in the periods of counter-revolution (just as the revolution now seems to be a Utopia to everyone) that allows us to resist.
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What occurs in periods of revolution, as in those of retreat, is the continuity of our being, the affirmation of our 'programme-party' in its historical sense.
We can now specify the life of the party.
1 . Phase of sects.
2 . Development of the party in 1840-8.
3 . Period of retreat beginning in 1850. It was preferable to dissolve the league because of what we have just said and because the moment for the party to seize power had not then arrived. The class had been beaten.
"If, then, we have been beaten, we have nothing else to do but to begin again from the beginning. And, fortunately, the probably very short interval of rest which is allowed us between the close of the first and the beginning of the second act of the movement, gives us time for a very necessary piece of work: the study of the causes that necessitated both the latter outbreak and its defeat, causes that are not to be sought for in the accidental efforts, talents, faults, errors, or treacheries of some of the leaders, but in the general social state and conditions of existence of each of the convulsed nations." (50) This is also true for the involution that manifested itself in 1926; hence Trotsky's error in believing that one could reconstruct an international. This involution revealed to us all the errors revealed by Engels. Instead of a logical study and a balance sheet which would have allowed for the preparation for another revolutionary rise, one tried, to find the cause of the defeat in the betrayals of leaders, Stalin's crimes, the passivity of the masses, the incorrect application of slogans (cf. e.g. Trotsky's criticism of the German movement of the 1930's). Only we posed the problem correctly and we stated that we have been beaten but...4 . Reconstruction of the movement which accelerated with the 1857 crisis. Marx and Engels studied fundamentally the reasons for the defeat. Their leaving the league did not mean their acceptance of the defeat, on the contrary, they tried to find out if the revolution could not break out elsewhere, in India or China, and come to radicalize the proletariat's struggle in the West. Lenin held the same position, which is also ours.
1864: foundation of the IWMA which took place in a period of rising of the proletarian movement, only the conditions were not altogether favourable. However, the proletariat tended to supercede sectarianism and supported this international organization. Also there was the anarchist danger, for if the movement were to be taken over by anarchists, it would run the risk simply of being reduced to lower types of struggle. This is why Marx and Engels believed the foundation of the IWMA to be necessary.
l871: the proletariat took power. The characteristics of the Commune will be analysed in a study of the French workers' movement and on the military question. In any case, the class was beaten internationally.
In the new period after 1871, as in that after 1850, action was above all theoretical work. In 1851 Engels wrote to Marx:
"What use will be the entire gossip and drivel of the whole of the émigré rabble made at your expense when you will reply to it with your Economy?" (51) On November 24th, 1871, Marx wrote to De Paepe: "I have already told you in London that I have often asked myself whether the time has come for me to withdraw from the General Council. The more the association develops, the more time is lost, and finally I do have to complete Capital once and for all." (52) The workers had to be given their means of struggle.5 . Marx drew up a fresh balance sheet in 1871 and specified the conditions for struggle. He specified the link between human will and action, that the party-programme was produced at a given moment of the human struggle, that the proletarian, organization could only develop with a certain level of class struggle, i.e. the class had to gain its programme. Put another way, the party does not form by the direct will of men. It is recreated in determinate periods. It was a matter of knowing how the revolutionaries could prepare the best conditions for the return of the party onto the stage of history. All this was explained in Marx's speech of September 25th, 1871:
"…the great success which had hitherto crowned its (the IWMA's) efforts was due to circumstances over which the members themselves had no control. The foundation of the International itself was the result of these circumstances, and by no means due to the efforts of the men engaged in it. It was not the work of any set of clever politicians; all the politicians in the world could not have created the situation and circumstances requisite for the success of the International. The International had not put forth any particular creed. Its task was to organize the forces of labour and link the various working men's movements and combine them. The circumstances which had given such a great development to the association were the conditions under which the work people were more and more oppressed throughout the world, and this was the secret of success.(…) But before such a change (socialism) could be effected a proletarian dictature would become necessary, and the first condition of that was a proletarian army. The working classes would have to conquer the right to emancipate themselves on the battlefield. The task of the International was to organize and combine the forces of labour for the coming struggle." (53) 6 . 1871-1889: the period of the reconstruction of the movement which ended in the foundation of the Second International which was a little 'forced'. Actually it was supported above all by the possibilists and various reformists. Engels accepted its foundation to prevent the world movement from falling into their hands (cf. the Engels-Lafargue and the Marx-Engels-Sorge and others correspondence).The programme underwent practical proof in 1889 and was reinforced. The Commune of 1871 had allowed the specification of the theory of the state. The cycle of the proletarian movement was thus terminated; no social phenomenon could again 'question' Marxism. There remained only the hypothesis of a non-catastrophic evolution of society, thus of a peaceful revolution. The 1914 war showed the absurdity of all that.
The reformist vision could only be imposed because of the development of imperialism which created contradictions after a while from the colonized countries. Only the groups remaining on the basis of the international programme assured the continuity of the human being = party-programme.
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The function of the party derives from the struggle in contemporary society and from the description of communist society.
First, the organization of workers, organization of force and the use of violence.
"The political movement of the working class has as its ultimate object, of course, the conquest of political power for this class, and this naturally requires a previous organization of the working class developed up to a certain point and arising precisely from its economic struggles.
"On the other hand, however, every movement in which the working class comes out as a class against the ruling classes and tries to coerce them by pressure from without is a political movement. For instance, the attempt in a particular factory or when in a particular trade to force a shorter working day out of individual capitalists by strikes, etc. is a purely economic movement. On the other hand, the movement to force through an eight hour etc. law, is a political movement. And in this way out of the separate economic movements of the workers there grows up everywhere a political movement, that is to say, a movement of the class, with the object of enforcing its interests in a general form, in a form possessing general, socially coercive force. While these movements presuppose a certain degree of previous organization, they are in turn equally a means for developing this organization.
"where the working class is not yet far enough advanced in its organization to undertake a decisive campaign against the collective power, i.e., the political power of the ruling classes, it must at any rate be trained, for this by continual agitation against this power and by a hostile attitude toward the policies of the ruling classes. Otherwise it remains a plaything in their hands..." (54) The party thus allows the organization of the class. After it will become the subject of the dictatorship of the proletariat: "1. The aim of the association is the overthrow of all privileged classes and their subjugation to the dictatorship of the proletariat, which will carry through the permanent revolution until the realization of communism, the ultimate form of organization of the human family. 2. Towards the realization of this goal the association will form a bond of solidarity between all tendencies of the revolutionary communist party, while, in accordance with the principle of republican brotherhood, it dispenses with all national restrictions." (55) It is this dictatorship which allows the destruction of the bourgeois state and which impels the social formation (cf. Engels in Anti-Duhring). This dictatorship is historically necessary and thus 'free'. Here we have to say that we are not for just any dictatorship and that this dictatorship is a means. We have to see against whom the dictatorship must be enforced, against what, in whose and in what name.One can say from this point of view that only the reactionary dictatorships, which wish to maintain a class oppression, are authoritarian because they are rejected by man (being unnecessary to his development and because they absorb the Gemeinwesen to exploit it). The revolutionary dictatorship is not authoritarian because it is accepted by man as a liberation while this new Gemeinwesen will have an increasing tendency to identify itself with the human existence, and so disappears as a phenomenon outside people. Lenin said that the dictatorship of the proletariat was that of the immense majority over the minority, unlike that of the bourgeois class. Marx also showed inCapital that the latter also becomes evermore the dictatorship of capital, thus itself developing outside the class.
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Given that the party is the prefiguration of communist society, it cannot adopt a mechanism, a life principle, an organization, linked to bourgeois society. It has to realize the destruction of this society.
1. Refusal of the democratic mechanism. Our position is: organic centralism.
2. Anti-individualism. The party realizes the anticipation of the social brain. All knowledge is mediated by the party as is all action. The militant does not have to seek the truth; this is afforded him by the party (truth in the social domain, in other fields one can come to it after the revolution and only then).
Tendency to realize social man.
3. Refusal of any form of mercantilism and careerism. The relationship between comrades, their manifestation, must be inspired by the comments by Marx on James Mill's book: all activity, all manifestation, must be the affirmation of human joy by communication with the other and, hero, with future society.
4. Abolition to social antagonisms linked to classes. There are only communist militants in the party. Practically this means the unity of the party around place of living and not place of work.
5. The party has to be the dissolution of the enigmas and must know itself to be so. It must present itself as the harbour for the proletarian, the place he affirms his human nature so that he is able to mobilise all his strength against the class enemy.
One must specify these characteristics because they make clearer the party's function; they allow one to have an integral view of it.
The party is this impersonal force above generations, it represents the human species, the human existence which has finally been found. It is the consciousness of the species. It can only manifest itself under certain conditions. In a revolutionary situation there can be the overturning of praxis which is the overthrow of all past and present human development. The party decides to seize power. The destruction of bourgeois society ends human prehistory. Then everything converges. It is the culminating point of the theory by the exact prediction of the favourable moment for action (insurrection is an art). The two phenomena are summed up, it is the consciousness of action which appeared, consciousness before action.
From the 1974 afterward:
Let us return to the question of the party to state that at this time the formal party to be was seen as having to be the party community, i.e. by definition it could only be the realization of the historical need which then was defined as being that of the proletariat, realizing the human community. Put another way, the distinction between historical and formal party ought to have tended to lose all meaning. But such a statement implied the rejection of all discussions, often lively ones, on forms of organization and the need for leaders in them. The supporters of organization at any price, on the other hand, saw the debate as a choice between formal and historical party. Hence the strange 'specification' that Bordiga believed he had to make in Considerations on the party's organic activity when the general situation is historically unfavourable, the title alone institutionalizing the difference between historical and formal party and making any supercession impossible. One also must say that since 1963 the same organization considered itself to be a party that really existed, hence the expression 'organic activity of the party' in a clear context. The "specification was thesis 12:
"This distinction existed in Marx and Engels and they had the duty to infer from it disdain for belonging to any formal party as they were, with their work, on the line of the historical party. Thus no militant today can however conclude from this that he has the right to choose to be in line with the 'historical party' and to ridicule the formal party. It is not that Marx and Engels were supermen of a type and race unlike all others,,but one must understand that their proposition has a dialectical and historical meaning. " Marx said: party in the historical meaning, in the historical sense, and formal or ephemeral party. The first notion contains a continuity and hence we derived our characteristic of the invariance of the doctrine from the time Marx formulated it, not a genius invention, but as a result of human evolution. But the two concepts are not in metaphysical opposition and it would be foolish to express it with the little catechism, cold shoulder the formal party and go instead for the historical one."When we deduce from the invariant doctrine the conclusion that the revolutionary victory of the working class can only be won with the class party and its dictatorship, and, guided by Marx's works, we state that before the revolutionary and communist party, perhaps the proletariat was a class for bourgeois science, but not for Marx and us; the conclusion to be deduced from it is that victory requires a party deserving simultaneously the title of historical and formal party, i.e. the victory requires that the reality of action and history have resolved the apparent contradiction, and that it has dominated a long and difficult past, between the historical party, thus as to the content (historical, invariant programme) and contingent party, thus as to the form which acts as force and physical practice of a decisive part of the proletariat in struggle.
"The synthetic mise au point of the doctrinal question must also be applied, to the historical stages before our own."
One can clearly see from all the above text that the entire basis of the question was removed, all that remained was by definition the justification for the existence of the small organization whose majority wished to call a party at any price (and at the beginning of 1965, when these theses were published, they succeeded) while before for Bordiga and always for us, the party could only be in a distant future.
(also in the afterward, from a letter to Bordiga):The specifications on the party community are vital for understanding the historical and formal party. The two are not opposites, nor have we interposed these two terms to oppose them, but, on the contrary, to interpose the historical continuity, to show that it was integral while our enemies saw only the differentials. That is why prior to knowing Marx's terminology, we spoke of integral (historical), and differential (formal) party. The party arises historically, i.e. integrally, because it expresses the totality of the communist programme. But the class struggle made the party afterwards not always to succeed in supporting the whole of the programme and to allow itself to be limited to replies offered to situations posed by the class struggle while it had contingent tasks to accomplish (that was possible when there was still the possibility of progressive emancipation, but that is no longer so now capitalism has fully developed). Thus the present party form can only be historical. Now this is the community which is the prefiguration of communist society; its essential task is to unite the working class which will again be set in motion by the crisis of capital leading to the revolution. Afterwards the party (reappropriation of the human being) will unify the species: abolition of classes. This is all in Marx's so-called philsophical works.
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