Leaders Need Followers

“But somebody has to lead," is the astonished declaration members of the Socialist Party invariably hear from those when we tell them there will be no leaders in socialism. The attitude of the Socialist Party toward leaders and the following of leaders seems to create a great deal of mental anguish for many of our fellow-workers. The leadership idea has cursed the working class movement from the beginning. At an earlier period those supporting the ideas had motives of benevolence, its later supporters have also benevolent motives—but the benevolence is directed towards themselves. They make stepping stones of their followers so to reach their own comfort and security.

What distinguishes the Socialist Party from the Labour Party and the host of leftist parties is our realisation that there are no short and easy cuts to socialism. No politician can help us: if we are going to improve things we will not do so by following professional politicians or leaders of any kind. We are going to have to act for ourselves to organise ourselves democratically to bring about a society geared to serving human needs, not profits. Only a party whose members understand and want socialism can work to that end and the growth of such a party cannot proceed faster than the work of spreading socialist knowledge. It is not new leaders that are needed, but a new system.

The media invariably preach the slogan of “Follow your leader" When these “leaders” sell out their followers the excuse is made that they were "bad” leaders. The simple fact is that wherever people accept “leaders” such acceptance always provides the conditions for selling out. Encouraging the following of leaders it is helping to sell out the workers, no matter who those leaders may be. Such is the lesson. "Trust and ye shall be betrayed.” The workers have still a fair road to travel before they will get rid of the superstition of "Leadership" or the dope of "good" and "bad" leaders. Workers haven't yet seen the possibility of a world without masters. The successful shepherd thinks like his sheep. So it happens that the "leader" can only lead where he is likely to be followed. Hence, so far is the leader from being in advance of the crowd, which he is only the reflection of its collective ignorance.

The Socialist Party objects to leadership because we see it as one of the biggest obstacles to the spread of socialist ideas. A leader can only offer to lead where he is likely to be followed. He is not really in advance of his followers because if he stops leading them in the direction they think is the best open to them they will soon desert him for another who will. People who are easily persuaded to think one way by a powerful personality can usually be persuaded by a more powerful one to change their minds.

Rosa Luxemburg explains, “the understanding by the mass of its tasks and instruments is an indispensable condition for Socialist revolutionary action—just as formerly the ignorance of the mass was an indispensable condition for the revolutionary action of the ruling classes. As a result, the difference between “leaders” and the "majority trotting along behind” is abolished (in the Socialist movement). The relation between the mass and the leaders is destroyed. ”

It is often asserted by the geniuses of the Left and other misleaders of the working class, that the worker to-day, and in the future, require the assistance and guidance of educated, intellectuals, both to direct their agitation and energies now, and to manipulate affairs. The workers, therefore, should not endeavour to obtain control of the political machinery themselves, but should place the professional politicians in that position of command and control and obey orders

According to your typical Trotskyist every political upheaval, every wave of strikes, would have resulted in the revolution but for the fact that workers lacked “revolutionary leadership.” The revolution is always round the corner. It is obvious that there is something lacking in a working class that is continually side-tracked. It is precisely because the workers lack socialist knowledge that reformist leaders rise to power. If the workers’ leaders do not represent the interests of workers, they do certainly reflect the outlook of the workers. When they do acquire Socialist understanding, the workers will not require leaders—revolutionary or otherwise. Unsound on basic theory, religious in their approach to historic development and arrogant in their contempt for the workers’ thinking capacity, Trotskyists believe that the intellectual few can lead the great mass of ignorant workers to socialism. But their concept of revolution is based on getting control of the political machinery without a mandate for socialism. They possess little recognition that only by patient discussion and argument can workers be persuaded to get rid of their ideas of dependence on a wages system and the institution of buying and selling and that society is run by a force outside of themselves. Leaders become identified with the ruling class—their interests are identical and in opposition to the working class, which can never be free, even in thought, while it submits to leaders.

Trotskyism simply reproduces and institutionalises existing capitalist power relations inside a supposedly 'revolutionary' organisation: between leaders and led, order givers and order takers; between specialists and acquiescent and largely powerless party workers. Even if such leaders on the Left wanted to introduce a socialist system they couldn't; they haven't the mandate and never seek it.

Despite the frustrated cravings of those wanting the "quick way" to socialism by the "right leaders", there is still no safeguard except the working class knowledge and understanding which makes them superfluous. They pray for "good" leaders, but there is no such animal. The leaders we are asked to support, and sometimes choose between, are a myth, created and maintained by--leaders. They are poor examples of honesty, integrity, even of humanity. They are not interested in truth, justice, or any of the grand notions they spout about. They exist, have always existed, will always exist, for one purpose only: to line their own pockets and empty yours. They are parasites on the social body, unwanted, unnecessary and destructive. To follow leaders is to hand over your heart on a platter, with knife and fork attached. It is an admission of defeat, acceptance that you are inadequate, in and of yourself. It is an act of submission and indeed an act of cowardice unworthy of the human animal.

To refuse to follow leaders is a liberating step, one which the working class has yet to take. When we realise that the post-scarcity world can be run very efficiently and healthily by democratic co-operation, that our own lives would be vastly better without states, governments, police, and all the trappings of leadership, we will collectively be in a position to make that step. And then we will see a revolution unprecedented in history.

One thing dreaded by the ruling class is an informed organised working class without leaders. The Socialist Party’s task is to make socialism clear to the workers, and we shall persevere with that task until the game is up for leaders—until there is no one to lead, until the “rank and file” are ready to go forward of themselves. The need for knowledge, lest we are duped, is constantly forced upon us.

You will find no “Great Men” in the S.P.G.B. The parts that its members play are varied, but no attempt is made to measure one against the other—the keynote is a co-operative effort, as it will be in socialist society. One of our objections to the existence of “Very Important Persons” is that it presupposes that some persons are accounted of little importance. We are a band of ordinary folk, but each is as unimportant (and therefore each is as important) as the other, whether chosen for speaker, secretary, organiser or election candidate. In working out his or her emancipation, the worker must study the conditions that surround and oppress them. He or she must look to "great principles." and not to "Great Men" in their struggles.

 Leaders come and go, but capitalism will go on until the very people who support and admire the leaders come to understand the social system they live under. The leaders always say that they stand for a world of peace and human dignity. But only when the system which needs the leaders is gone will their empty and cynical words become reality. Socialist ideas are not acquired merely by the experience of hardships and tragedy under capitalism. They must be propagated and learned. So long as the workers do not comprehend the necessity and meaning of a revolutionary social change they will have no choice but to leave their fate in the hands of "leaders." With the development of class-conciousness will come the realisation that they, the workers themselves, must take control of society. The Socialist Party has no leaders and argues that the only possible basis for a truly democratic society in which things are produced for need rather than profit, is the voluntary cooperation of free and independent individuals. Each of us can be our own leader. The greatest command is that over oneself.

The Socialist Party is the only political party in this country which insists that its membership understands and supports the principles of socialism. The Socialist Party is without leaders; it is a democratic party whose members cooperate and participate in the work of socialist propaganda in equal standing. Workers who despair of the apparently endless procession of cynical, futile leaders and candidates for leadership should consider the proposition that the alternative is not to switch their support from one leader to another but to join the socialist movement.