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WSWS : History : 2005 SEP/WSWS Summer School

Lecture three: The origins of Bolshevism and What Is To Be Done?

Part 5

By David North
10 September 2005

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This is the fifth part of the lecture “The Origins of Bolshevism and What Is To Be Done?” delivered by World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board Chairman David North at the Socialist Equality Party/WSWS summer school held August 14 to August 20, 2005 in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The lecture is being posted in seven installments. Parts 1, 2, 3 and 4 were posted September 6-9.

This is the third lecture that was given at the school. The first, entitled “The Russian Revolution and the unresolved historical problems of the 20th century” was posted in four parts, from August 29 to September 1. The second, entitled “Marxism versus revisionism on the eve of the twentieth century,” was posted in three parts on September 2, 4 and 5. These lectures were also authored by David North.

These passages have been denounced again and again as the quintessential expression of Bolshevik “elitism” wherein, moreover, lie the germs of its future totalitarian evolution. In a book entitled The Seeds of Evil, Robin Blick, an ex-Trotskyist, refers to the last sentence quoted above (in which Lenin speaks of the “trade unionist striving to come under the wing of the bourgeoisie”) as “an absolutely extraordinary formulation for someone usually so concerned to be seen defending Marxist ‘orthodoxy’, and certainly equaling in its audacity any of the revisions of Marxism then being undertaken by the German Social Democrat Eduard Bernstein... what Marx and Engels never did was to expound in their writings a worked-out doctrine of political élitism and organizational manipulation.”[16]

This argument is developed more substantially in the very well known work by the academic philosopher, Leszek Kolakowski, entitled Main Currents of Marxism, a three-volume work originally published in 1978. He dismisses as a “novelty” Lenin’s assertion that the spontaneous workers’ movement cannot develop a socialist ideology, and that it must therefore have a bourgeois ideology. Even more disturbing, according to Kolakowski, is the inference that the workers’ movement must assume a bourgeois character if it is not led by a socialist party. “This is supplemented by a second inference: the working class movement in the true sense of the term, i.e., a political revolutionary movement, is defined not by being a movement of workers but by possessing the right ideology, i.e., the Marxist one, which is ‘proletarian’ by definition. In other words, the class composition of a revolutionary party has no significance in defining its class character.”[17]

Kolakowski continues with a few snide and cynical comments, mocking the claim that the party “knows what is in the ‘historical’ interest of the proletariat and what the latter’s authentic consciousness ought to be at any particular moment, although its empirical consciousness will generally be found lagging behind.”[18] Remarks of this sort are supposed by their author to be incredibly clever, exposing the absurd conceit of a small political party that its program articulates the interests of the working class, even if the mass of workers do not agree with, or even understand that program. But arguments of this sort appear clever only as long as one does not bother to think too carefully about them.

If Kolakowski’s argument is correct, what need is there for any political party, whether of the working class or, for that matter, the bourgeoisie? After all, is it not the case that all political parties and their leaders claim to speak in the name of and articulate the interests of broader social communities? If one takes the history of the bourgeoisie, its interests as a class have been identified, defined, and articulated by political parties—whose leaders were not infrequently compelled to work in opposition, as a small minority faction and even in illegality, until they won over their class, or at least the most critical elements within it, to the perspective and program for which they fought.

Puritanism existed as a religious-political tendency in England for a half-century before it emerged as the dominant tendency within the rising bourgeoisie and secured, under the leadership of Cromwell, the victory of the Revolution over the Stuart monarchy. One hundred and fifty years later, the Jacobin Party of politicized Rousseauists emerged out of the bitter factional fights within the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie between 1789 and 1792 as the leadership of the French Revolution. No less pertinent examples could be given from American history, from the pre-Revolutionary period up until the present time.

Policies which express the “objective” interests of a class—that is, which identify and programmatically formulate the means of establishing the conditions required for the advancement of a particular class’ political, social and economic interests—may not be recognized by a majority, or even any substantial section of a class at any given point. The abolition of slavery, as history was to conclusively demonstrate, certainly led to the consolidation of the American national state and a vast acceleration of the industrial and economic growth of capitalism. And yet, the political vanguard of the fight against slavery, the abolitionists, were compelled to wage a bitter struggle that spanned several decades against powerful resistance within the bourgeoisie of the Northern states which opposed and feared a confrontation with the South. The small number of abolitionists understood far better than the vast majority of Northern businessmen, merchants, farmers, and, for that matter, urban workers what was in the best interests of the long-term development of the American national state and northern capitalism. Of course, the abolitionists of the early nineteenth century did not explain their program and actions is such explicit class terms. But this does not change the fact that they expressed, in the language appropriate to their times, the interests of the rising Northern bourgeoisie as perceived by the most politically far-sighted sections of that class.

A more recent example of a political party defining and fighting for the objective interests of the bourgeoisie in opposition to large portions of that class is the Democratic Party under Roosevelt. He represented that faction within the American bourgeoisie—most definitely a minority—that became convinced that the salvation of capitalism in the United States was not possible without major social reforms, which entailed considerable concessions to the working class.

Let me also point out that the ruling elites employ the services of hundreds of thousands of specialists in politics, sociology, economics, international affairs, etc., to help them understand what their objective interests are. Even though it is, for reasons I will explain, far easier for the average bourgeois to perceive where his true interests lie than for the average worker, the formulation of ruling class policy can never be merely a direct reflection of what the “average” American businessman, or even the “average” multi-millionaire corporate executive, thinks.

Kolakowski’s claim that Lenin’s conception of the relation between the socialist party and the development of consciousness had no foundation in Marxism requires that he simply ignore what Marx and Engels actually wrote on this subject. In The Holy Family, written in 1844, they explained that in the formulation of the socialist program:

“It is not a question of what this or that proletarian, or even the whole proletariat, at the moment regards as its aim. It is a question of what the proletariat is, and what, in accordance with this being, it will historically be compelled to do. Its aim and historical action are visibly and irrevocably foreshadowed in its own life situation as well as in the whole organization of bourgeois society today.”[19]

In another book attacking What Is To Be Done?, the above-quoted passage is cited—but not, as in the case of Kolakowski, to discredit only Lenin. The position of British historian Neil Harding is that Lenin was, in fact, an orthodox Marxist. The conceptions advanced in What Is To Be Done? were based on what Marx himself had written in The Holy Family. Therefore, according to Harding, “The privileged role allotted to the socialist intelligentsia in organizing and articulating the grievances of the proletariat and leading their political struggle, far from being a Leninist deviation from Marxism, is central to the arrogance of Marxism as a whole. Marx (and all subsequent Marxists) had to assert that he had a more profound awareness of the long-term interests and objectives of the proletariat than any proletarian, or group of proletarians could themselves possess.” [20]

While Kolakowski maintains that Lenin revised Marx, and Harding insists that Lenin based himself on Marx, their denunciation of What Is To Be Done? proceeds from a rejection of the claim that socialist class consciousness needs to be brought into the working class by a political party, and that any party can claim that its program represents the objective interests of the working class. The Marxist affirmation of objective truth is derived from an infatuation with science, the belief that the world is, in an objective sense, both knowable and law-bound, “and that the systematic, generalized (or ‘objective’) knowledge of science was privileged over the ‘subjective’ knowledge conveyed by immediate experience.”[21] Harding attacks the Marxist conception that objective truth is something that should be considered apart from, and even opposed to, the results derived from a canvass of public opinion. Harding writes:

“Leninism is wholly a child of Marxism in respect to the basic foundations of its theory of the party. It bases itself on a similar claim to a special sort of knowledge and a similar arrogant contention that the proletarian cause cannot be discovered merely by taking a poll among workers.”[22]

Armed with the fashionable post-modernist jargon so beloved by contemporary ex-leftist academics—in which scientific knowledge is redefined as merely a “privileged” mode of discourse which has managed, for reasons wholly unrelated to the intrinsic quality of its content, to assert its preeminence over other less culturally-favored forms of expression—Harding rejects what he refers to as “the shadowy notion of historical imminence” to which both Marx and Lenin subscribed; that is, the notion “that thorough study of the development of society would disclose certain general tendencies which, once established and dominant, propelled men to act in given ways.”[23]

To be continued

Notes:
[16] London: Steyne Publications, 1995, p. 17.
[17] London: Oxford University Press, 1978, pp. 389-90.
[18] Ibid, p. 390.
[19] Collected Works Volume 4 (New York: International Publishers, 1975), p. 37.
[20] Leninism (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 1996), p. 34.
[21] Ibid, p. 173.
[22] Ibid, p. 174.
[23] Ibid, p. 172.

See Also:
Socialist Equality Party and WSWS hold summer school in US
[29 August 2005]
Lecture one: The Russian Revolution and the unresolved historical problems of the 20th century
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4
Lecture two: Marxism versus revisionism on the eve of the twentieth century
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Lecture Three: The origins of Bolshevism and What Is To Be Done?
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4 Part 6 Part 7