The role of “the party,” “cadre” or “vanguard” plays a large part in contemporary Left discussion. Marxism teaches that the revolution against capitalism and the socialist reconstruction of the old world can be accomplished only through conscious, collective action by the workers themselves. Revolution is not a goal in itself. Revolution is an instrument. The goal is building a socialist classless society, the self-emancipation of the working class, and self-emancipation of all the exploited, by building a classless society without exploitation, without oppression.
For almost a century Leninist groups, have been trying to build vanguard parties that would “lead” the working class to power. For its part when the working class has moved to challenge capitalism it has steadfastly ignored its would-be leaders. Rather than relying on a 'revolutionary' party they knew it was task of working people, through the organisations they would themselves create, to open the gateway to a new and better society.
The so-called revolutionary left is in crisis. Their organisations are small and without connection with the class many genuinely wish to liberate. This situation appears unlikely to change in the near future. Yet class struggle continues to take place on both a global and a local scale.
Socialism can’t be created by decree or by force by a minority. It can only be implemented by the majority of the people taking over the economy (taking over their workplaces and communities) and reorganising them as they see fit. Without said process and everyday content, socialism has no meaning but empty slogans.
We are against leaders who have the power to compel simply because they are leaders - but quite happy to have people responsible for others if they are a) accountable to them, b) chosen by them, and c) and recallable at any time.
A leader may say “all that our organisation has gained is because of me”. But it is not so. Whenever a movement wins better houses, or cheaper water and electricity, or prevents an eviction, this is not because of leaders. It is because of the strength of our numbers – as the workers and the poor, the great majority of the people of the world. It is not because a leader persuades the government to be nice, but because the actions of our mass movements force the government to give back some of what the bosses have taken from us. It is not because the leader knows how to get houses or electricity, but because a mass movement is united .
Leaders, indeed, will sometimes pretend that they know best and that the movement depends on them. But they can do this only by holding knowledge and power for themselves, keeping them away from the masses. This is why it is important to try to make our organisations as democratic as possible. If we rely on one leader, or a group of leaders for our victories, we are putting ourselves in a vulnerable position because we can easily be betrayed which can have devastating consequences.
The workers and the poor have nothing to gain and everything to lose by relying on leaders and governments. And we have nothing to lose and everything to gain by relying on ourselves, collectively. We are all leaders.
The Socialist Party is not Leninist, Trotskyist or Maoist, but plain simple revolutionaries. We do not intend to lead the masses towards a free and classless society because we are a part of the masses ourselves and adhere faithfully to the motto of the First International: “The emancipation of the workers is an act of the workers themselves.” If the masses wait for a revolutionary vanguard to lead them to the classless society or the free society, they will neither be free nor classless. There is enough evidence in support of the foregoing statement.
The term “dictatorship of the proletariat” was first employed by Marx in 1875 in a private document, and then popularised in the 1917 Russian Revolution. Many Marxists rightly think it a very unfortunate phrase, because no matter how many lengthy explanations are given concerning its true meaning, it lends itself to the interpretation that socialists stand for dictatorship. But that is not what Marx had in mind at all.
He was talking of the necessity for a victorious labor government during the transition period to resolutely destroy the old privileged positions and suppress all activities aimed at restoring the old order. In this sociological sense, he labelled the regime a “dictatorship”; not to signify minority rule in the manner of Robespierre’s Jacobin dictatorship in the eighteenth century French revolution, or Cromwell’s dictatorship in the seventeenth century English revolution, but only in the sense that it was still class rule.
Rosa Luxemburg defined the proletarian dictatorship in her essays on the Russian Revolution:
“Socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism. It begins at the very moment of the seizure of power by the socialist party. It is the same thing as the dictatorship of the proletariat. This dictatorship consists in the manner of applying democracy, not in its elimination; in energetic, resolute attacks upon the well-entrenched rights and economic relationships of capitalist society, without which a socialist transformation cannot be accomplished. But this dictatorship must be the work of the class and not of a little leading minority in the name of the class—that is, it must proceed step by step out of the active participation of the masses; it must be under their direct influence, subjected to the control of complete public activity; it must arise out of the growing political training of the mass of the people.”
Lenin assumed power in 1917 within a few years any libertarian content was discarded in Russia and the dictatorship became one not of a class but of a small group, with the Communist Party remaining the only one on the scene and all other parties suppressed and destroyed, and democracy eliminated from the inner councils of this one existing party as well.
Everyone knows that throughout its history the capitalist class has been represented in most countries by two or more political organizations except in periods of dictatorial suppression. This is explained by the fact that the various subdivisions of the class have different and sometimes even conflicting interests that demand special political consideration and expression. In the United States, for example, some capitalist groups, in highly advanced or favoured industries, are free-traders. In France, Italy and Germany, the capitalists to this very day continue to be represented by anywhere from four to six different political parties, which voice either special group or sectional interests, or different programmatic solutions to meet the needs of the class.
It is irrelevant in this connection to point out, as some do, that the formal democracy under capitalism has very restricted meaning and is robbed of its essence by the concentration of power and wealth in the hands of a privileged few who are able to manipulate the political mechanism in their own interests and corrupt the legislators to do their bidding. This is all very interesting and true. But socialists have traditionally insisted that the answer to the corruption and bowdlerization of democracy under capitalism is not to throw out democracy altogether and place their fate in the hands of a few saviors, but to eliminate the social parasitism of capitalism so as to be able to extend, to broaden, to ensure a genuine popular democracy, first for the working people, and eventually for all mankind.
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