(en) US, Workers Solidarity Alliance, Ideas &Action, The Revolutionary Party Is An Oxymoron By Steven Fake

The campaign of socialist Kshama Sawant for the Seattle City Council continues to attract 
excitement on the left for her strong showing. A Counterpunch contributor recently called 
it a ?highly significant? development. I wish her well of course. A socialist threat in 
the city of Microsoft, Amazon, and Starbucks is indeed heart warming. Hopefully the 
publicity will introduce some new people to socialism. But electoral campaigns are not a 
promising strategy for systemic change. ---- As a native of Reading, PA, one of only three 
cities in the country that were once controlled by socialists (the others being 
Bridgeport, CT and Milwaukee, WI), I can appreciate the genuine positive policy 
implications (The Historical Review of Berks County noted in 1965 that ?the Socialists 
should be remembered for having given Reading the best municipal government it has had 
within the lifetime of any Reading citizen today?) and hopeful symbolism involved.
 
It?s a bit like the emotions stirred up by electing the first black president. History, 
however, forces us to cast a skeptical eye on this route.
 
The idea of the revolutionary party goes back to Marx. Opposition to this conception of 
the path to socialism from Bakunin created one of the foundational splits of the 
anarchist-Marxist rivalry that has endured for generations since. Charged partisan 
score-keeping of these two factions of socialism is not particularly edifying in general, 
but on this question Bakunin is clearly validated by history.
 
The party strategy was first exemplified by the Social Democratic Party in Marx?s 
homeland, Germany. The strength of European workers? movements showcased the strengths and 
limitations of the method. On the one hand, workers were able establish genuine social 
welfare states that made the Nordic countries the envy of the world ? but that marked the 
limit of their achievements. The ruling class remained.
 
The reasons were always clear. If the party operates within the the existing political 
system it will stall within the structures of managed democracy controlled by big 
business. Its politicians will be corrupted or they will not be (re)elected. The mistake 
is in believing that mere popularity with the public is sufficient to win under such a 
system. By engaging in the electoral battle, one is naively perpetuating the illusion that 
the political structure is essentially democratic.
 
Even if a party manages to achieve success while subverting the established political 
system, results are unlikely to improve. A party by definition seeks to install itself in 
power. Its aim is not ? upon marching into the palace vacated by the old rulers ? to 
reformulate governance so that power is distributed throughout society, i.e. to establish 
democracy, for that would be organizational suicide. Thus seeking to obtain socialist 
democracy through a party is a non sequitur.
 
Still, the party idea has never died, though its appeal has happily diminished somewhat in 
the last two decades. Paul Le Blanc, at a talk given in London in May, tells us that ?The 
possibilities now exist for the coming together of the kind of revolutionary party that 
Lenin spoke of.?
 
A parenthetical note on Lenin. Le Blanc assures us that ?Lenin was concerned in all of his 
political thinking and activity with the question of what must be done ? actually, in the 
real world ? for the workers to take power.? The assertion is demonstrably false. It is 
hard to think of a misreading of history that has done more damage, given that it caused 
generations of revolutionaries the world over to follow a false star towards authoritarianism.
 
Returning to the party strategy for achieving socialism, Le Blanc says ?The responsibility 
of any revolutionary group worth its salt will be to help create the preconditions 
necessary for the emergence of [a mass revolutionary] party.? Le Blanc is a member of the 
ISO, one of the two largest revolutionary groups in the U.S. (the other being the IWW) and 
an organization which takes as a given the beliefs expressed here by Le Blanc. So clearly 
the old notion of Marx is still popular, despite its track record.
 
The alternate danger is to leave a vacuum while disavowing power, which is sure to be 
filled by the unscrupulous. This was unfortunately what transpired when Zapata and his 
forces seized Mexico City and, after taking some iconic photos, simply returned south to 
their homes. It was an action that bestowed great honor upon him. This was no typical 
power-hungry charlatan. Unlike Villa, he refused to even sit in the presidential chair.
 
Contrast that with Lenin. Having just  seized power in Russia, Trotsky recounts that he 
smiled and said ?The transition from the state of illegality, being driven in every 
direction, to power?is too rough. It makes one dizzy,? and crossed himself.
 
Zapata was not dizzy with power. But subsequent events in Mexico would prove that 
leadership uninterested in power was not enough ? more was needed: a vision of democracy.
 
Filling the vacuum is a difficulty confronting not just Zapata but every activist. If a 
party is not needed, organization surely is. Institutionalizing protest in a democratic 
manner is the great challenge before us. It is the problem being tackled, successfully or 
not, by Occupy and the World Social Forum, by dissidents in Puerta del Sol, Tahrir, 
Syntagma, and Taksim.
 
Links at: http://ideasandaction.info/2013/09/the-revolutionary-party-is-an-oxymoron/