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Developing class consciousness:
from the ALP to the revolutionary party
[Extract from Section III of the resolution The Labor
Party and the Crisis of Australian Capitalism,
adopted at the fourth national conference of the Socialist Workers
Party (forerunner of the Democratic Socialist Party), January 24-28,
1976, and published in Towards a Socialist Australia: How the labor
movement can fight back, Documents of the Socialist Workers Party,
Pathfinder Press, Sydney, 1977, pp. 81-132. This excerpt pp. 110-119.]
Introduction
By Bob Gould
The Peter Boyle-Paperclayman response to my recent post on the
Green Left Weekly discussion list Socialists
and labour parties, demystified a bit,
is getting more hysterical, incoherent, and also untruthful in a number
of matters. I will respond to several of these factual inaccuracies in
a later post. However, it strikes me as potentially very useful to post
the following extract from one of the DSP leadership’s own documents,
from the period before they made their great change to the current
Third Period orientation towards the labour movement, which they have
prosecuted in various ways since 1984-85.
This extract has some stylistic weaknesses, which go with the
territory, so to speak, notably its overly pontifical tone. This
stylistic idiosyncrasy comes initially from Cannon and the US-SWP, and
is a kind of imitation of Comrade Trotsky on a bad day — a style old
hands in the revolutionary movement are familiar with.
Despite these stylistic weaknesses, however, it was a pretty
useful
document, because it canvassed all the contradictions inherent in the
grip of Social Democracy on the labour movement and the working class
in Australia. It is directed at the tasks faced by socialists in trying
to prosecute the socialist struggle in a principled way in the
conditions of the Australian labour movement. In the subsequent 30
years or so, the labour movement has shifted to the right,
quantitatively, but not qualitatively. In this sense all the objective
features of the grip of Laborism on the workers movement addressed in
this document still exist. The movement has shifted to the right, but
nevertheless the structural grip of Laborism on the working class is
basically intact.
The DSP, like the whole far left, is now dramatically weaker
than
the far left in 1977, when the document was written. The disappearance
of the Communist Party of Australia, which was far the largest current
of the far left in 1977 (and, to a lesser extent, the dramatic decline
of the Socialist Labour League, which was also influential then),
hasn’t led to any qualitative, or even significant numerical, increase
in size of the other groups.
I’m reliably informed that this document was written by D.H.
who is
still a significant leader in the DSP, with significant input from the
DSP national secretary, the late Jim Percy, who took the initiative for
the writing of the document. When the DSP made its turn, pragmatically,
away from this orientation to the workers movement, it was driven by
the rise of the Nuclear Disarmament Party. This turn away from the
orientation outlined in the document, was justified by a yabber-yabber
"reinterpretation" of Lenin, in which the argument that the central
thing about Lenin’s book Left Wing Communism and the struggle
conducted by Lenin and the Bolsheviks to orient small communist
organisations to the broad labor movement, was no longer important. The
new account held that the central thrust of Leninism related to the
ideology of political parties, and that therefore, any tactical
orientation to mass workers organisations was a deviation. This
"rereading" of Lenin to justify a fundamentally sectarian orientation
in conflict with the actual practice of the Bolsheviks and the
Comintern in the 1920s, is the DSP leadership’s major claim to a
significant "development" of Marxist theory.
In fact, Left Wing Communism and Trotsky and Lenin’s
speeches
at the relevant Comintern congress address in detail the question of
the subjective ideology of political parties, in tension with the
sociology of mass labour organisations, and the document here is a
pretty well straight reproduction of this dialectical approach of the
Bolsheviks. It stands in stark contrast to the current strategic
orientation of Peter Boyle and Co, of which we’ve had a vintage
expression in the past few days, which essentially involves what Lenin
tartly dubbed “scolding scoundrels”, as a substitute for strategy. It's
pretty clear that the DSP leadership’s 1984-85 "rereading" of Lenin was
a pragmatic falsification to justify a tactical turn, and that this
major break from the method of the Bolsheviks has become substantially
worse as the self-indulgent family atmosphere in the DSP increases.
I make this challenge to John Percy, Doug Lorimer, Peter Boyle
and
Paperclayman: please explain in detail the specific faults of the
analysis presented in this document, as you now reject it. Address the
document concretely.
Developing class consciousness:
from the ALP to the revolutionary party
The Australian Labor Party: an obstacle to social change
The Australian Labor Party is the mass party of the Australian
working class and represents both its strengths and weaknesses. With
its formation the working class took a big step forward towards
breaking with the political parties of the bourgeoisie. Today, however,
the ALP is an obstacle to the further progress of the working class.
But because it does represent today the political
consciousness of
the Australian working class and because we strive to represent that
consciousness in the future, orientation to the ALP is the axis of our
work.
Dual nature of the ALP
The ALP, like its counterparts in Germany, Britain, Canada,
New
Zealand etc, is a thoroughly contradictory phenomenon. Even the phrases
by which Marxists commonly refer to it are contradictory: “Social
Democratic labour party” or “bourgeois workers party”.
The ALP is a labour party, that is, the mass party of the
Australian
working class. In its origins, composition and organisation it is the
party of the trade unions. As a class party, it represents an historic
advance for the Australian proletariat.
It is the only political mass organisation of the Australian
working
class. As the present expression of the political class consciousness
of the working class it represents the elementary understanding that
parallel to the economic struggle of the trade unions a political
struggle must be conducted against the parties of the bosses.
At the same time, the ALP is a Social Democratic party. There
is
nothing whatsoever progressive about this aspect of the ALP. On the
contrary, the Social Democratic program and leadership of the party are
an obstacle to the development of revolutionary consciousness in the
Australian proletariat. Social Democratic reformism is not a necessary
stage in the development of working class consciousness or even a
detour on the road to the revolutionary party: it is a barricade across
the road, which prevents further progress.
The program and leadership of the ALP are in contradiction
with the
composition of the party. In its composition the ALP is a proletarian
organisation, based on the trade unions. Such independent organisation
of the class to fight for its interests is progressive. But from its
beginning, the party has had a purely parliamentary and
class-collaborationist perspective. This reformist outlook means that
the ALP cannot satisfactorily defend even the immediate interests of
the working class, to say nothing of its historical goals. This
contradiction is summed up in the phrase “bourgeois workers party”: the
ALP is working-class in its composition, but bourgeois in its program.
The ALP is the party of the Australian trade unions. But it is
the
party of the unions as they are, not as they ought to be. It is the
party of unions, which at the present time come much closer to being
“secondary instruments of imperialist capitalism for the subordination
and disciplining of workers and for obstructing the revolution” than
“instruments of the revolutionary movement of the proletariat”. To put
it another way, the ALP is based on the organised working class, but
does not represent it: what it represents is the union bureaucracy.
Social Democracy is a petty-bourgeois ideology grafted on to
the
workers’ movement. Reflecting the unrealisable dreams of the petty
bourgeoisie and the labour aristocracy, which are caught in the middle
of the conflict between capital and labour, Social Democracy preaches a
class-collaborationist utopia in which the irreconcilable conflict
between capitalists and workers is compromised and harmonised — under
the direction, naturally, of the petty-bourgeois politicians of the
Social Democracy. The ALP leaders, like the union bureaucrats, do not
see themselves as champions of the working-class in its battles with
the employers. They see themselves as mediators of the conflict.
The ALP is thus in a state of perpetual tension between the
contradictory poles of its dual nature. On the one hand, it is based on
the organised working class and has the allegiance of the overwhelming
majority of the class; on the other it serves the bourgeoisie.
Principled opposition and tactical flexibility
Our approach to the ALP is conditioned by this contradiction.
Firstly, we are clear that the Labor Party is not our party because it
is not the party that can bring about socialism. Here is how James P.
Cannon put the matter when discussing the British Labor Party, and his
comments apply equally to the ALP:
"But then the question is raised — the fact that the question
is raised shows some confusion on the question of the labour party —
comrades ask: ‘Well, what is the British Labour Party?’ If we judge it
by its composition alone, we must say it is a ‘workers’ party’ for it
is squarely based on the trade union movement of Great Britain. But
this designation ‘workers’ party’ must be put in quotation marks as
soon as we examine the program and the practice of the party. To be
sure, the formal program and the holiday speeches mutter something
about socialism, but in practice the British Labor Party is the
governing party of British imperialism. It is the strongest pillar
holding up this shaky edifice. That makes it a bourgeois party in the
essence of the matter, doesn’t it? And since 1914, haven’t we always
considered the Social Democratic parties of Europe as bourgeois
parties? And haven’t we characterised Stalinism as an agency of world
imperialism?
"Our fundamental attitude towards such parties is the same
as our
attitude toward a bourgeois party of the classical type — that is, an
attitude of irreconcilable opposition." (See Summary Speech on
Election Policy by James P. Cannon in Aspects of Socialist
Election Policy [New York: SWP National Education Department
Education for Socialists bulletin, March 1971], p 30.)
So our attitude to the ALP is the same as it is to the
Stalinists or
any other opponent tendency: they are obstacles that will have to be
overcome on the road to building the mass revolutionary party. But
unlike the Stalinist parties in this country, the ALP has a progressive
aspect — its mass working-class base. This fact does not alter our goal
of removing the ALP as an obstacle to the socialist revolution, but it
dictates a different set of tactics to accomplish that goal. To quote
Cannon again:
“But the composition of such parties gives them a certain
distinctive character which enables, and even requires, us to make a
different tactical approach to them. If they are composed of workers,
and even more, if they are based on the trade unions and subject to
their control, we offer to make a united front with them for a concrete
struggle against the capitalists, or even join them under certain
conditions, with the aim of promoting our program of ‘class against
class’.”
Cannon goes on to define what our approach would be to such a
party if it developed in the US:
“We would oppose such a ‘bourgeois workers’ party’ as
ruthlessly as any other bourgeois party, but our tactical approach
would be different. We would most likely join such a party — if we have
the strength in the unions they couldn’t keep us out — and under
certain conditions we would give its candidates critical support in
elections. But ‘critical support’ of a reformist labour party must be
correctly understood. It does not mean reconciliation with reformism.
Critical support means opposition. It does not mean support with
criticism in quotation marks, but rather criticism with support in
quotation marks.” (p 31.)
So our orientation to the ALP aims to exploit the
contradictions
within it in order to clear the party out of our way. We intervene in
the ALP in order to sharpen the conflict between the working-class base
on the one side and the bourgeois program and petty-bourgeois
leadership on the other. Our aim is to make the contradiction between
the party’s base and program blindingly clear to the ranks of the
working class, which is another way of saying that we have to expose
the ALP leaders as the craven servants of capital that they are.
None of this implies a sectarian attitude towards the ALP. On
the
contrary, the slightest hint of sectarianism could cut us off from the
ranks of the party whom we want to reach. Our uncompromising criticisms
of the ALP’s rotten program and treacherous leadership are always
presented in the context of our support to the ALP as a party of the
working people in opposition to the bosses.
The two sides of our orientation are not contradictions which
somehow have to be made to coexist, but logical corollaries. It is
precisely its bourgeois program that prevents the ALP from really
defending the class interests of the proletariat against the bosses.
Our tactical approach towards the ALP can take a multitude of
forms
and depends only on what is most effective. We can carry out fraction
work within the party. We can seek to involve elements of the party or
the party as a whole in united front-type activity, eg the antiwar
movement. We can at times urge people to join the ALP and urge the
strengthening of its union base. Any combination of tactics is
acceptable providing we maintain our programmatic independence.
Trotsky summarised our approach to work with a labour party
when
discussing the American Socialist Workers Party and US labour party:
“In relation to the labour party in all stages of its development the
SWP occupies a critical position, supports the progressive tendencies
against the reactionary, and at the same time irreconcilably criticises
the half-way character of these progressive tendencies.” (See The
Program of the Labour Party by Leon Trotsky in The Transitional
Program for Socialist Revolution, p 242.)
In general our method of exploiting the contradiction between
the
base and the program of the ALP is to demand that the ALP leaders act
as most workers still believe them to be — their representatives. We
demand that the ALP act like a working-class party by defending
working-class interests. The aim is not only to persuade the ranks that
a particular proposal is desirable, but to put the onus on the ALP (and
the union) leadership for failing to carry it out. Thus, for example,
after the dismissal of the Labor government, we did not — like the CPA
and the “Trotskyist” sects — call for a general strike in the abstract
or demand that the workers down tools because we told them to; we
demanded that the ALP and the unions call a general strike.
Virtually any demand which is in the interest of the working
class
or other oppressed layers and which seems reasonable to the masses can
serve the purpose of exposing the ALP leadership and sharpening the
contradictions within the party. It is not necessary to catalogue such
demands here; our draft program contains numerous such examples.
Labor to Power! For a workers government!
There is another important weapon in the arsenal that
revolutionary
Marxists have developed for use against mass reformist parties in the
working-class movement. This is the demand that such parties take state
power and for a workers or workers and farmers government.
This tactic is not at all the same as merely calling on the
reformist party to take over the government of the capitalist state. In
1917, the Bolsheviks were able to expose the ultimately pro-capitalist
programs of the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries by calling on
them to “take the power” even though reformists already headed the
Provisional Government. The Bolshevik demand meant: break with the
capitalist state and form a government based upon your majority in the
Soviets. The Bolsheviks raised this demand because they realised that
in order to form a government based on the Soviets, the reformists
would have had to contradict their programmatic allegiance to the
bourgeois state.
What the Bolsheviks' demand would have created if the
Mensheviks and
Social Revolutionaries had yielded to it has been referred to in the
Trotskyist movement as a workers and peasants' government or workers’
government depending on the class composition of the country concerned.
Such a government is neither a capitalist government nor the
dictatorship of the proletariat, but an extremely unstable and
short-lived phenomenon that can arise when the capitalist state has
been severely weakened but not destroyed and the workers and their
allies have not yet, for whatever reason, established a dictatorship of
the proletariat. Such a government is independent of the bourgeoisie
and will therefore be overthrown by the capitalists at the first
opportunity if it does not first abolish the power of the capitalists
by establishing a workers state. The importance of the demand for a
workers government for us at the present time lies in its
propagandistic and agitational use. Trotsky explained this in the Transitional
Program:
“The central task of the Fourth International consists in freeing
the proletariat from the old leadership, whose conservatism is in
complete contradiction to the catastrophic eruptions of disintegrating
capitalism and represents the chief obstacle to historical progress.
The chief accusation which the Fourth International advances against
the traditional organisations of the proletariat is the fact that they
do not wish to tear themselves away from the political semi-corpse of
the bourgeoisie. Under these conditions the demand, systematically
addressed to the old leadership: ‘Break with the bourgeoisie, take the
power!’ is an extremely important weapon for exposing the treacherous
character of the parties and organisations of the Second, Third and
Amsterdam Internationals.” (The Transitional Program for Socialist
Revolution, p. 94.)
And further:
“The agitation around the slogan of a workers’-farmers’
government preserves under all conditions a tremendously educational
value. And not accidentally. This generalised slogan proceeds entirely
along the line of the political development of our epoch (the
bankruptcy and decomposition of the old bourgeois parties, the downfall
of democracy, the growth of fascism, the accelerated drive of the
workers toward more active and aggressive politics). Each of the
transitional demands should, therefore, lead to one and the same
political conclusion: the workers need to break with all traditional
parties of the bourgeoisie in order, jointly with the farmers, to
establish their own power.” (p. 95.)
The development of the class struggle in Australia has not yet
produced soviets, which would considerably simplify the task of
presenting the demand for a workers’ government. Nevertheless, we have
developed slogans which express the same essence as the Bolsheviks’
demand that the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries “take the power”.
Naturally, the best opportunity for the present to advance such slogans
is provided during election campaigns, when the question of government
is foremost in the minds of workers and the other oppressed.
Election tactics
In the 1972 and 1974 elections, we put forward the slogan,
“Vote
ALP! Fight for Socialist Policies!” This was a concrete expression in
the given context of the slogan “For a Workers Government”. It meant:
for government by the mass party of the working class, but one not
committed to the bourgeois program of the ALP — a government
independent of the bourgeoisie.
By using this tactic of critical support we are using Lenin’s
method: “Support them in order to force them to take office so that the
masses will learn by experience the futility and treachery of their
program, and get through with them.”
In 1975, the growth of our organisation and the development of
its
cadres made it possible for us to advance the same idea in a more
concrete — and therefore more effective — form. By running our own
candidates, we could pose more directly to the ranks of the
working-class base of the ALP and its bourgeois program. By putting
forward our own candidates on a clear program of transitional demands,
while calling unmistakably for the return of a Labor government, we
gave workers the opportunity and encouragement to oppose the
reactionary policies of the ALP without abandoning the one progressive
aspect of the ALP, its character as the mass party of the working class
in opposition to the parties of the bosses.
We think that Trotsky expressed this correct approach of a
small
formation towards the mass Labour Party in his discussions on the
Independent Labour Party in Britain in 1935. Trotsky was asked:
“Question: Was the ILP correct in running as many
candidates as possible in the recent General Elections, even at the
risk of splitting the vote?
“Answer: Yes. It would have been foolish of the ILP
to have
sacrificed its political program in the interests of so-called unity,
to allow the Labour Party to monopolise the platform, as the Communist
Party did. We do not know our strength unless we test it. There is
always a risk of splitting and losing deposits, but such risks must be
taken. Otherwise we boycott ourselves.” (See Once Again the ILP: An
Interview with Leon Trotsky in Writings of Leon Trotsky
(1935-1936) [New York: Pathfinder Press, 1970], p. 69.)
The revolutionary thrust of our election campaign strategy can
be
highlighted by contrasting it to that of the CPA, which managed to be
opportunist and sectarian simultaneously. The CPA campaign was
opportunist because it put forward no real programmatic differences
with the ALP. It was sectarian because putting forward its own
candidates without expressing political differences could only mean:
“Vote for our candidate over the ALP’s because he or she represents our
organisation instead of theirs; we are better than the ALP but we won’t
tell you why.”
Trotsky also pointed out that we run in elections against the
Labor
Party not to expose this or that individual candidate who is
particularly reactionary but to expose the party as a whole. There is
no fundamental distinction between different shades of Social Democrat.
Nor do we urge a vote for Labor on the basis of some or another aspect
of its program:
“Revolutionists never give critical support to reformism on the
assumption that reformism, in power, could satisfy the fundamental
needs of the workers. It is possible, of course, that a Labour
government could introduce a few mild temporary reforms. It is also
possible that the League [of Nations] could postpone a military
conflict about secondary issues — just as a cartel can eliminate
secondary economic crises only to reproduce them on a large scale. So
the League can eliminate small episodic conflicts only to generalise
them into world war.
“Thus, both economic and military crises will only return
with an
added explosive force so long as capitalism remains. And we know that
Social Democracy cannot abolish capitalism.
“No, in war as in peace, the ILP must say to the workers:
‘The
Labour Party will deceive you and betray you, but you do not believe
us. Very well, we will go through your experiences with you but in no
case do we identify ourselves with the Labour Party program’” (p 70).
Some have argued that the ALP is already exposed and to run in
elections only gives credibility to parliamentary democracy. In these
circumstances we should urge a boycott, they say. Trotsky’s answer was:
“It is argued that the Labour Party already stands exposed by
its past deeds in power and its present reactionary platform. For
example, by its decision at Brighton. For us — yes! But not for the
masses, the eight million who voted Labour. It is a great danger for
revolutionists who attach to much importance to conference decisions.
We use such evidence in our propaganda — but it cannot be presented
beyond the power of our own press. One cannot shout louder than the
strength of his own throat ...
“As a general statement of principle, a revolutionary party
has
the right to boycott parliament only when it has the capacity to
overthrow it, that is, when it can replace parliamentary action by
general strike and insurrection, by direct struggle for power. In
Britain the masses have yet no confidence in the ILP. The ILP is
therefore too weak to break the parliamentary machine and must continue
to use it. As for a partial boycott, such as the ILP sought to operate,
it was unreal. At this stage of British politics it would be
interpreted by the working class as a certain contempt for them: this
is particularly true in Britain where parliamentary traditions are
still so strong.” (p. 70.)
Of course, in running in elections we in no way fall prey to
the
trap of the Social Democrats who see parliament as the decisive arena
of struggle and the way to win reforms for the working class. We take
our stand along the lines of the resolution of the Second Congress of
the Comintern on The Communist Attitude to Parliamentary Reformism:
“In face of imperialist devastation, plunder, violation,
robbery and ruin, parliamentary reforms, devoid of system, of
consistency and of definite plan, have lost all practical significance
for the working masses ...
“Parliament at present can in no way serve as the arena of
struggle
for reform, or for improving the lot of the working people, as it was
at certain periods of the preceding epoch. The centre of gravity of
political life at present has been completely and finally transferred
beyond the limits of Parliament.” (See Aspects of Socialist
Election Policy, p. 5.)
Any candidates who are successful in election contests will
act as
“scouting parties” for the working class and use the parliamentary
bodies as a forum to propagate the ideas and demands of socialism.
Where and when we run our own candidates in the future will depend on
our strength, the gains that can be made, and considerations of a
similar nature. The growth of our organisation will increasingly make
it possible for us to run our own candidates and thus pose concretely
our program against the program of the ALP.
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