The Bourgeois Electoral Model vs. Leading the Masses to Remake the World --RW\/OR ONLINE\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n<\/p>
From \"Democracy: More Than Ever We Can and Must Do Better Than \r\nThat\" <\/p>\r\nThe Bourgeois Electoral Model vs. Leading the Masses to Remake the \r\nWorld\r\n
by Bob Avakian<\/p>\r\n
Revolutionary Worker #1249, August 15, 2004<\/em>, posted at http:\/\/rwor.org<\/p>\r\n <\/p>\r\n RCP Chairman Avakian's polemical essay takes head on key arguments and \r\nquestions that have been raised in opposition to the overall historical \r\nexperience of socialist states in the world. He defends the crucial essence of \r\nthat historic experience from attack, and, in doing so, brings new insights into \r\nlearning from the achievements of the proletariat in power, as well as the \r\nmistakes, to carry forward with communist revolution in today's world.<\/p>\r\n In various excerpts in this series, he examines the experience of the \r\ndictatorship of the proletariat in the Soviet Union under Lenin and Stalin and \r\nChina under Mao and draws out lessons for the future. He discusses why the \r\nproletariat needs a vanguard party and a specific kind of state, the \r\ndictatorship of the proletariat, in order to carry out this rule and carry \r\nforward the all-around transformation of society and the world. He examines how \r\nthe masses rule, and the complexities and contradictions involved in that--all \r\nof which has origins in underlying economic and social factors in socialist \r\nsocieties and in the world as a whole, which only the continuing proletarian \r\nrevolution can uproot and transform. He also explains how the proletarian \r\nconcept of freedom is different from bourgeois notions of electoral \r\ndemocracy.<\/p>\r\n Chairman Avakian's article originally appeared in the international journal \r\nA World To Win <\/i><\/b>in 1992. It is a critique of the document \"On Proletarian \r\nDemocracy\" by the CRC--a Marxist-Leninist formation in India whose main \r\nleader, K. Venu, launched an attack in 1990-91 on Leninism, Maoism, and the \r\ndictatorship of the proletariat and later abandoned revolution. What is at stake \r\nin this argument over the dictatorship of the proletariat is nothing less than \r\nthe right of the proletariat to rise up in revolution and establish their own \r\nrule, and carry through the long revolutionary transformation of society until \r\nthe abolition of classes, communism, is achieved. Without the hope of that \r\npath--and the leadership to take it--the masses would be left, as Bob Avakian \r\nwrote in his article \"under the domination of an economic system of capitalist \r\nexploitation and a corresponding political system where, as Marx put it, they \r\nhave the opportunity to choose, every so many years, which set of exploiters \r\nwill rule over and oppress them.\"<\/p>\r\n The entire article by Bob Avakian is on line at rwor.org.<\/p><\/div>\r\n In the two excerpts featured in this issue1, ( RW <\/i><\/b>#1249) Avakian continues on the \r\ntheme of the vanguard communist party--contrasting how elections in bourgeois \r\nsociety trap the masses in a dead end exercise that atomizes the individual in a \r\nprocess to perpetuate the status-quo vs. the liberating role of a genuine \r\ncommunist vanguard in leading the masses to remake the world; and he discusses \r\ndemocratic centralism and the crucial role of two-line struggle in keeping the \r\nparty on the revolutionary road.<\/p>\r\n The party must not rely on its position of authority, it must rely on the \r\nmasses; but that does not mean it should degenerate into acting like any old \r\nsocial-democratic party, tailing the masses and reducing its role to the \r\nframework and confines of bourgeois-democratic politicking for votes, abdicating \r\nits responsibility to act as a vanguard and actually lead <\/i>the masses in \r\nrevolution.<\/i><\/p><\/i>\r\n <\/i>That the CRC document's vision of the functioning of the \"proletarian \r\ndemocratic system\" is in reality not qualitatively different from a classical \r\nbourgeois-democratic system should be clear by now. Its \"model\", where the \r\ncommunist party's \"right to govern\" is \"strictly based on the electoral support \r\ngained by its platform just like any other platform\", would, at best, translate \r\ninto a situation where rival power centres, coalesced around different \r\nplatforms, would compete for the votes of the masses. The result of this (again, \r\nat best) would be some sort of \"coalition\" government, in which \"socialists\" and \r\n\"communists\" of various kinds would be involved together with representatives of \r\nvarious other, more openly bourgeois and petit-bourgeois, \"democratic\" trends, \r\nand in which the fundamental interests of the masses would be \"compromised away\" \r\nand no radical transformation of society would be carried out (and any attempt \r\nat this would be quickly and ruthlessly suppressed by this \"coalition\" \r\ngovernment). Hasn't there been enough--indeed far too much!--experience, all \r\nover the world, to graphically illustrate this?2<\/p>\r\n The notion that somehow this kind of electoral process will result in the \r\nexpression of the \"political will\" of the masses can only elicit a cynical snort \r\nof laughter from anyone who is at all familiar with this kind of electoral \r\nprocess and who is not suffering from \"political amnesia\"; it is a notion that \r\ncould be believed only by people who take bourgeois democracy more seriously \r\nthan the bourgeoisie itself does--who have not learned, or have \"unlearned\", \r\nthat such democracy, with its electoral process, is an instrument that serves \r\nthe exercise of dictatorship by the bourgeoisie over the masses. This does not \r\nmean that there is no legitimate role for elections in socialist society, but \r\nsuch a role must be based on the recognition that the formal process of \r\nelections cannot represent the highest or most essential expression of the \r\n\"political will\" of the masses; that elections can only be a subordinate part of \r\nthe overall process through which that \"political will\" is expressed; that \r\nelections, like everything else in class society, will be conditioned and shaped \r\nby the fundamental class relations; and that in socialist society elections must \r\nreflect and serve the exercise of political power by the proletariat, with the \r\nleading role of its party.<\/p>\r\n In contrast to this, the following characterization of the role of elections \r\nin bourgeois society applies as well to the (bourgeois) democratic electoral \r\nprocess the CRC document envisions for its version of \"socialist\" society and \r\nits \"proletarian democratic system\":<\/p>\r\n \"This very electoral process itself tends to cover over the basic class \r\nrelations--and class antagonisms--in society, and serves to give formal, \r\ninstitutionalized expression to the political participation of atomized \r\nindividuals in the perpetuation of the status quo. This process not only reduces \r\npeople to isolated individuals but at the same time reduces them to a passive \r\nposition politically and defines the essence of politics as such atomized \r\npassivity--as each person, individually, in isolation from everyone else, giving \r\nhis\/her approval to this or that option, all of which options have been \r\nformulated and presented by an active power standing above these atomized masses \r\nof `citizens'.<\/i>\" (Avakian, Democracy,<\/i>p. 70, emphasis in original)<\/p>\r\n Throughout the CRC document we find many references to the \"political will\" \r\nof the people or of the proletariat. But nowhere in this document is there the \r\nunderstanding--in fact this understanding has been repudiated--that there is no \r\nway of realizing, and more than that no way of even determining, the \"political \r\nwill\" of the proletariat and the masses except <\/i>through the leading role \r\nof the party--through its practice of the mass line and its application of a \r\ncommunist ideological and political line overall.<\/p>\r\n In fact, as we have seen, the CRC document consistently poses the vanguard \r\nrole of the party against <\/i>the conscious activism of the masses. This is \r\nunmistakably clear in its claim that, once the standing army has been abolished \r\nand replaced by the arming of the whole people, and once the party and its \r\n\"vanguard role\" have been reduced to a matter of the party competing for \r\nelectoral votes on the basis of its platform (\"just like any other platform\"), \r\nthen \"unlike in the hitherto practised forms of the dictatorship of the \r\nproletariat,<\/i> in the new political structure, the people wielding the real \r\npower in their own hands, also with the arms in their hands, will be playing a \r\nvery active role in the whole political life of the society, thereby being the \r\nbest guarantee against restoration and also ensuring the best conditions for \r\nseizing back power if restoration takes place\". (par. 10.9, emphasis added)<\/p>\r\n This is a most amazing statement! How, for example, could people familiar \r\nwith the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution argue that the masses in China \r\nwere not \"playing a very active role in the whole political life of the \r\nsociety\"--both in general and specifically in combating revisionism and \r\ncapitalist restoration? If we contrast the Cultural Revolution with the recent \r\n(bourgeois) \"democratic upsurges\" in China, we can say, without the slightest \r\nhesitation, that the conscious activism, the class-conscious revolutionary \r\ninitiative, of the masses of Chinese people was expressed \"a million times more\" \r\nin the Cultural Revolution. And this has everything to do with the fact that in \r\nthe Cultural Revolution the masses had the leadership of a communist vanguard, \r\nwhile the recent struggle has not had that leadership.3 In this recent struggle there were positive factors \r\nand progressive, even revolutionary, forces taking part--there were open \r\nexpressions of respect for Mao and support for Mao's line, there were contrasts \r\nexplicitly drawn between Mao and his revolutionary followers on the one hand and \r\nthe corrupt revisionist rulers of today on the other hand. But, with all that, \r\nin an overall sense, the forces and lines that occupied the leading position \r\nwithin the mass upsurge represented the interests of the bourgeoisie.<\/p>\r\n Here it is worth repeating the following on the role of the Leninist party \r\nand its relation to the masses, which applies after the seizure of power and \r\nthroughout the socialist transition period as much as it does to the struggle \r\nfor the seizure of power:<\/p>\r\n \"Lenin forged and applied these principles by leaping beyond what had \r\npreviously been worked out by Marx or Engels and further by rupturing with \r\nconventional wisdom and practice in the Marxist movement, but he did so from the \r\nfoundation of basic Marxist principle, by adhering to its basic methodology and \r\nentirely consistent with its revolutionary, critical spirit. To raise in \r\nopposition to these principles the experience of the Paris Commune, which was \r\ndefeated--in part, if only secondarily, because of the lack of a Leninist-type \r\nparty--or the Second International, which degenerated into an outright \r\ninstrument of imperialism, is thinking turned inside-out and facing backwards, \r\nto put it mildly. To argue that the degeneration of the Russian Revolution can \r\nbe traced to the very nature and role of the Leninist party itself is first of \r\nall contrary to the facts and an evasion of the fundamental problems besides. \r\nLenin's argument in What Is To Be Done?<\/i>--that the more highly organized \r\nand centralized the party was, the more it was a real vanguard organization of \r\nrevolutionaries, the greater would be the role and initiative of the masses in \r\nrevolutionary struggle--was powerfully demonstrated in the Russian Revolution \r\nitself and has been in all proletarian revolutions. Nowhere has such a \r\nrevolution been made without such a party and nowhere has the lack of such a \r\nparty contributed to unleashing the initiative of masses of the oppressed in \r\nconscious revolutionary struggle.<\/i>And,...to argue that a vanguard, \r\nLeninist party may degenerate, may turn into an oppressive apparatus over the \r\nmasses, and therefore it is better not to have such a party, only amounts to \r\narguing that there should be no revolution in the first place; this will not \r\neliminate the contradictions that make such a party necessary, the material and \r\nideological conditions that must be transformed, with the leadership of such a \r\nparty, in order to abolish class distinctions and therewith, finally, the need \r\nfor a vanguard party.\" (Avakian, For a Harvest of Dragons,<\/i>Chicago: RCP \r\nPublications, 1983, p. 84, emphasis in original)<\/p>\r\nDemocratic Centralism, Two-Line Struggle and Keeping the Vanguard on the \r\nRevolutionary Road \r\n The CRC document proceeds with its discussion of the party, taking up \"the \r\nprinciple of democratic centralism, evolved and implemented by Lenin\" as the \r\norganizational principle for communist parties. (see par. 11.2) The CRC document \r\nupholds democratic centralism, in theory, on the one hand, but, on the other \r\nhand, proceeds to argue that its implementation in practice eventually was \r\nturned into an orientation of overemphasizing centralism, virtually to the \r\nexclusion of democracy (this was the case, according to the document, especially \r\nafter factions were outlawed in the Bolshevik Party and then this was made into \r\na principle that has been generally adhered to by communist parties). Not only \r\nwas this given theoretical expression in the \"the whole concept of the \r\nmonolithic communist Party, propounded by Stalin and solidified during the whole \r\nComintern period and afterwards\" (par. 11.4); but even \"Mao's attempts to \r\ndevelop the two-line struggle within the party\" as a \"step to re-establish the \r\nstyle of functioning of democratic centralism practised by Lenin, in a more \r\nsystematic manner\" did not really bring any fundamental improvement, because Mao \r\nwould not break with the orientation set, first, with the outlawing of factions \r\nand then with the whole experience of Stalin's leadership in the Soviet Union \r\nand the Comintern. Thus, \"in effect the two- line struggle etc. were only some \r\nminor steps at rectification within the overall framework established earlier\". \r\n(see par. 11.5) In opposition to this, the CRC document argues, what is needed \r\nis, \"A thorough re-examination of the concept and role of the communist party in \r\nthe historical process of building socialism and communism.\" (par. 11.7)<\/p>\r\n We have seen to a considerable extent already what this CRC document's basic \r\nnotion is of the concept and role of the communist party, but it is worth \r\nexamining how, under the title \"Demystification of the Communist Party\", the \r\ndocument lays out a relativist and pragmatic line on this question. This begins \r\nwith the statement that, \"The Communist Party's role of being the vanguard of \r\nthe proletariat is to be tested and proved in the course of the historical \r\nprocess\" and that only when a communist party \"realizes that it is always \r\nsubject to the test of historical reality, can it come down to the complexities \r\nof reality. Then only can it realize that no authority has been bestowed upon it \r\neither by the working class and the people or by history.\" (par. 12.1) The \r\ndocument then goes on to discuss \"the qualitative distinction between the party \r\nleading a revolution to seize power and the party with monopoly in power\": in \r\nthe former case \"the party is compelled by the very context to be self-critical \r\nand continuously correct and develop its line and practice in order to mobilise \r\nthe masses for revolution\"; while \"in the second case, the pressure of \r\ncircumstances operate in the opposite direction\". (par. 12.1)<\/p>\r\n The CRC document has touched on some real and profound questions here, and it \r\nmight seem to be handling them in a correct, dialectical way. But, \r\nunfortunately, once again this is not the case. First of all, it must be pointed \r\nout that, while a party that is not in power does face the necessity to be self- \r\ncritical and to apply the mass line and thereby constantly develop its line and \r\nits ability \"to mobilise the masses for revolution\", this will exert itself as a \r\ncompulsion on the party only so long as it remains a revolutionary party, \r\nonly so long as it maintains an orientation of leading the masses to overthrow \r\nthe old order and carry forward the revolutionary struggle toward the goal of \r\ncommunism.<\/i>In other words, at any point, the party, rather than engaging in \r\nself-criticism and critically summing up and developing its line and practice in \r\na more revolutionary direction, can do just the opposite--it can abandon the \r\nrevolutionary road and thereby eliminate the need to be self-critical and to \r\ncontinually correct and develop its line and practice in order to mobilize the \r\nmasses for revolution.<\/p>\r\n This is hardly a frivolous or minor point. The CRC document has overlooked \r\nhere the very real and powerful pulls that are exerted on parties faced with the \r\ntask of leading the struggle for the overthrow of the old order--pulls to give \r\nup on that struggle and to degenerate into revisionist, reformist parties. \r\nHistorical experience indicates that resisting these pulls and remaining on the \r\nrevolutionary road is extremely difficult and requires arduous struggle.<\/p>\r\n On the other hand, for parties in power, while it is true that there is a \r\nreal pull in the direction the CRC document indicates--in the direction of not \r\nsystematically applying the mass line and critically summing up their line and \r\npractice--it is not the case that such parties are almost bound to degenerate \r\nonce they come to power (and especially if they have a \"monopoly in power\", as \r\nthe CRC documents puts it). In the one case, as in the other, what the CRC \r\ndocument leaves out of the equation- -or, at a minimum, fails to focus on as \r\ndecisive--is precisely the ideological struggle within the party over the \r\ncardinal questions of line, including most fundamentally the question of what is \r\nthe final goal for which the party is aiming--and indeed which must define its \r\nvery purposes as a party-- and <\/i>how do the more immediate objectives and \r\npolicies of the party link up with and serve that final goal?<\/p>\r\n It is hardly coincidental that the CRC document downgrades the importance of \r\ntwo-line struggle within the party, declaring Mao's major contribution on this \r\nto be a limited and flawed contribution. In fact, in insisting on the decisive \r\nimportance of the struggle within the party between the two lines of Marxism and \r\nrevisionism--and the two roads of socialism and capitalism--Mao indicated a key \r\nmeans for combating the tendency of the party--in particular a party in \r\npower--to degenerate into a revisionist party. And an important part of the \r\nbasis on which Mao made this contribution was precisely his criticism of the \r\nundialectical notion of a \"monolithic party\" (see, for example, Mao's comment \r\nthat, \"To talk all the time about monolithic unity, and not to talk about \r\nstruggle, is not Marxist-Leninist\"--in Mao's \"Talks at Chengtu\", Mao Tse-tung \r\nUnrehearsed: Talks and Letters: 1956-71,<\/i>edited by Stuart Schram, London: \r\nPenguin Books, p. 107).<\/p>\r\n Mao recognized that, objectively, there would be different tendencies within \r\nthe party--reflecting different forces, ultimately different class \r\ninterests--within society as a whole, and that the unity of the party could only \r\nbe relative and not absolute, would not be static but dynamic, developing \r\nthrough a process of unity-struggle-unity. But what is essential to grasp--and \r\nwhat shows the essential difference between Mao's line and that of the CRC \r\ndocument--is that Mao did not pose the necessity for struggle within the party \r\nagainst <\/i>the need for the party to be firmly united around one line \r\n<\/i>and on that basis <\/i>play the--institutionalized--leading role in \r\nsocialist society, until the achievement of communism.4<\/p>\r\n Mao did not approach the question of struggle within the party from the \r\nstandpoint of bourgeois factionalism or petit-bourgeois anarchism. Mao \r\nrecognized that, in a society marked by class contradiction and class struggle, \r\norganized factions within the party would inevitably mean bourgeois \r\nfactionalism. Such factions would disrupt not only the unity of action of the \r\nparty but also its unity of will; they would not only undermine the party's \r\nability to lead the masses but also--and what is basic in being able to lead \r\nthem--to learn from them. Factions disrupt not only the chain of command \r\n<\/i>of the party; they also, and even more fundamentally, disrupt its chain of \r\nknowledge <\/i>--the flow of ideas from the masses, through the basic levels \r\nof the party, to the party leadership. In short, they disrupt the ability of the \r\nparty to play its role as the vanguard of the proletariat in its revolutionary \r\nstruggle, before and after the seizure of power.<\/p>\r\n All this is why Mao, while emphasizing the need for and decisive importance \r\nof two-line struggle within the party, also insisted on the three principles: \r\npractise Marxism, not revisionism; unite, don't split; be open and aboveboard, \r\ndon't intrigue and conspire. And this is why Mao insisted that, while the \r\nCommunist Party itself must be continually revolutionized, at the same time the \r\nParty must exercise leadership in everything.<\/p>\r\n Mao's line is aimed at keeping the party on the revolutionary road and \r\nstrengthening its role as the revolutionary vanguard. In opposition to this, the \r\nCRC document's line would reduce the party to a reformist party, a party mired \r\nin relativism, tailing the masses and tailoring its line to adapt principle to \r\nimmediate circumstances. This is revealed in the CRC document's statement that, \r\n\"The proletarian class interest itself, under a given condition, is very much \r\nrelative, changing according to the changing reality, though the ultimate \r\ninterest of the working class, of building communism remains as a long term \r\ngoal.\" (par. 12.1) This is fundamentally wrong: the proletarian class \r\ninterest <\/i>does not change in the way the CRC document argues; particular \r\ntactics, or even strategies, particular policies, even programs, may change in \r\nthis way, but the class interest <\/i>of the proletariat does not.<\/p>\r\n The difference here might seem merely semantic--since the CRC document does \r\nsay that \"communism remains as a long term goal\"--but in separating this \r\nlong-term goal from the \"proletarian class interest itself, under a given \r\ncondition\" and declaring the latter to be \"very much relative\", the CRC document \r\nopens the door to allowing that anything--any particular policy, etc.--can be in \r\nthe interests of the proletariat, so long as it is accompanied by some general \r\nstatement about the final aim of communism. The CRC document's formulation on \r\nclass interest is a \"two-into-one\" formulation: it eclectically combines the \r\nclass interest <\/i>of the proletariat with particular policies, etc., at any \r\ngiven time. The correct, dialectical understanding is that the class interest of \r\nthe proletariat does not change, but at any given time it can be expressed in \r\nspecific policies, etc., which can and do change.<\/p>\r\n The point, once again, is that, in any given situation and at all times, \r\neverything--all policies, programs, strategies, tactics--must proceed with the \r\nfinal aim of communism as the guiding principle and must serve--not only in word \r\nbut in deed--as a part of the bridge leading from the present to the communist \r\nfuture. There is a fundamental identity between the interests of the \r\nproletariat at any given point and its overall interests in achieving communism, \r\nand this identity must be reflected in the unity between the policies of the \r\nparty at any given time and the basic line of carrying forward the revolutionary \r\nstruggle to achieve communism.<\/i>It is this unity the CRC document would break \r\nwith its eclectics, its relativism and pragmatism.<\/p>\r\n Given its overall viewpoint, it is not surprising that the CRC document does \r\nnot see the need for a communist party whose principles of organization are \r\nconsistent with and are an expression of the revolutionary aims and ideology of \r\nthe proletariat and which enable the party to play its vanguard role throughout \r\nthe long and unprecedented struggle against a powerful and desperate class \r\nenemy--an enemy whose desperation and determination to defeat the proletarian \r\nrevolution become all the greater when it has been overthrown and can recognize \r\nthe threat of its historical extinction. The party envisioned in the CRC \r\ndocument is not so much \"demystified\" as it is \"de- revolutionized\". And this is \r\nconsistent with the non-revolutionary, social-democratic notion of \"socialism \r\nand communism\" that, unfortunately, characterizes this CRC document from \r\nbeginning to end.<\/p>\r\n FOOTNOTES:<\/p>\r\n 1This series began with several segments on \r\nthe Paris Commune of 1871. Marx hailed the Commune as the first historical \r\nexperience of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In these excerpts ( RW \r\n<\/i># 1241, 1242, & 1243) Bob Avakian takes \r\non the argument of the CRC--which essentially upholds only the Commune as a \r\nlegitimate exercise of the dictatorship of the proletariat and pits the \r\nCommune's experience--which was very important, but brief and initial--against \r\nthe entire historical experience of the dictatorship of the proletariat in \r\nsocialist society beginning with the October 1917 Soviet Revolution.<\/p>\r\n RW <\/i># 1244 featured an excerpt \"On the Events of the 1980s \r\nand 1990s in the Former Soviet Bloc and China.\"<\/p>\r\n RW <\/i>#1245 began a series of excerpts from a section on assessing the \r\nhistorical experience of the proletariat in power. In the first selection \"Centralization, \r\nDecentralization and the Withering Away of the State,\" in opposition to the \r\nidea that centralization is bad and decentralization is good, Chairman Avakian \r\ndiscusses how the withering away of the state involves drawing the broad masses \r\n(and ultimately the people as a whole) into the administration of society--on \r\nboth <\/i>the central and local levels--as part of the whole struggle to \r\novercome the division between mental and manual labour and all oppressive \r\ndivisions of labour and related inequalities in society overall.<\/p>\r\n In RW <\/i>#1247 \"If the \r\nVanguard Doesn't Lead, Who Will?\" discusses the necessity of the vanguard \r\nparty playing a leading role in socialist society and what kind of party the \r\nvanguard needs to be.<\/p>[Return \r\nto article] \r\n 2 Among the debacles suffered by socialist \r\nand communist parties that have fallen into bourgeois parliamentarism and\/or \r\nfocused their efforts on involvement in governments of \"coalition\" with various \r\nbourgeois forces, perhaps the most dramatic and tragic is the experience of the \r\nIndonesian Communist Party in the mid-1960s. This involved the massacre of \r\nhundreds of thousands of communists (and other Indonesian people), the \r\ndecimation of a powerful communist party, at the hands of the reactionaries. \r\nLeading up to this, the Indonesian Party had increasingly made the focus of its \r\nwork parliamentary and other forms of legal struggle; it had increasingly relied \r\non its parliamentary successes and its positions in a coalition government \r\n(headed by the bourgeois nationalist Sukarno); and it was consequently \r\nunprepared for the counter- revolutionary coup d'etat carried out by the \r\nIndonesian military (led by Suharto) with not only the backing and back-stage \r\ndirection but also the active participation of the U.S. CIA. (see \"Historical \r\nDocument: Self-Criticism by the Indonesian Communist Party, 1966\", in \r\nRevolution,<\/i>No. 55, Winter\/Spring 1987)<\/p>\r\n Although the Sukarno government did not, of course, represent the \r\ndictatorship of the proletariat, still there is an analogy between the situation \r\nof the Indonesian Communist Party in that \"nationalist\" government and the \r\nposition that a communist party would be in if it tried to implement the line \r\nadvocated by the CRC document on how a party should operate under the \r\ndictatorship of the proletariat. As noted, such a party would in effect find \r\nitself in a \"coalition\" government in which the party would not be able to \r\nexercise sole leadership--in fact, it would not really be able to exercise \r\nleadership at all. The party, and the revolutionary masses generally, would be \r\nextremely vulnerable to a reactionary coup d'etat (and massacres that would \r\naccompany it). Here, once more, it is crucial to recognize that, even leaving \r\nout the overthrown ruling class, the \"whole people\", under the conditions of \r\nsocialist society, means many different classes--including newborn bourgeois \r\nforces--and \"the arming of the whole people\" would in reality mean the \r\ndevelopment of many different armed camps among the people, including armed \r\nforces effectively under the command of bourgeois counterrevolutionary \r\nleadership.<\/p>[Return \r\nto article] \r\n 3 Further, it should be noted that the great \r\nunleashing of the masses in the GPCR was possible, too, because it took place \r\nunder the dictatorship of the proletariat, while the 1989 events were suppressed \r\nby a bourgeois <\/i>state, a bourgeois dictatorship.<\/p>[Return \r\nto article] \r\n 4 In a talk, \"On Democratic Centralism\", in \r\n1962, Mao says that \"secret factions\" must be prohibited, but, \"We are not \r\nafraid of open opposition groups, we are only afraid of secret opposition \r\ngroups.\" ( Mao Tse-tung Unrehearsed,<\/i>p. 183) In reading the whole passage \r\nin which these statements appear and taking the whole spirit of Mao's remarks, \r\nit seems clear that he is stressing a certain basic orientation of welcoming \r\nideological struggle, if it is conducted in an open and aboveboard way; and when \r\nhe talks about not fearing opposition groups that are not secret, he means \r\nsomething different from organized factions, with their own internal unity and \r\ndiscipline, operating within the Communist Party in opposition to the line and \r\ndiscipline of the Party. Rather, it seems he is talking about groups of people \r\nwho will coalesce, less formally, to put forward a position on particular \r\nquestions. Mao stresses that, \"All leading members within the Party must promote \r\ndemocracy and let people speak out\". (ibid) At the same time, he stresses that \r\nthis must be on the basis that Party members \"observe Party discipline, the \r\nminority must obey the majority, and the whole Party should obey the Centre\". \r\n(ibid) In other words, discipline must be observed and unity must be \r\npreserved--the discipline and unity of the Party, not of factions--this is what \r\npeople must uphold, even when they may be dissenting from the prevailing Party \r\nline or a particular Party policy. Thus, Mao says: \"as long as they do not break \r\ndiscipline, as long as they are not carrying on any secret factional activities, \r\nwe should always allow them to speak and even if they should say the wrong \r\nthings we should not punish them. If people say the wrong things they can be \r\ncriticized, but we should use reason to convince them.\"(ibid)<\/p>\r\n All this is related to another crucial principle that Mao emphasizes: \"Very \r\noften the ideas of the minority will prove to be correct. History abounds with \r\nsuch instances. In the beginning truth is not in the hands of the majority of \r\npeople, but in the hands of a minority.\" (ibid) But, again, the grasping of the \r\ntruth and winning people to the truth will not be served--it will be \r\nundermined--by the existence of factions within the Party. And for this reason, \r\nthe practice of the Chinese Communist Party, under Mao's leadership, was to \r\nstrive for a situation in which there was lively, vigorous debate and \r\nideological struggle throughout the Party (and in society generally) but not to \r\nallow organized factions within the Party (at least not in any full-blown, \r\ninstitutionalized and \"permanent\" way).<\/p>\r\n The basic fact is that organized factions will lead to factionalism--they \r\nwill lead to a situation where those adhering to these factions put the line and \r\n\"unity\" of their faction above those of the party. In certain exceptional cases, \r\nwhen the leadership of the party has been captured by opportunist elements who \r\nimpose a counterrevolutionary line but it is not correct to simply and \r\nimmediately abandon the party to such leadership and attempt to form a new \r\nparty, it may then be necessary to organize a revolutionary <\/i>faction in \r\norder to carry out the fight to defeat the opportunist line and leadership and \r\nre-establish the party on a revolutionary basis. But after a certain period of \r\ntime, this struggle must be resolved one way or the other--either in the triumph \r\nof the revolutionary line and the re-establishment of the party on a \r\nrevolutionary basis or in the complete triumph of the opportunist leadership and \r\nline--and in the latter case it is then necessary to break with such a party and \r\nto build a new party on the basis of revolutionary principles, of an MLM line, \r\nideologically, politically, and organizationally.<\/p>[Return \r\nto article] <\/div>\r\n <\/p>\r\n
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<\/div>\r\n\n","contact":"","link":"www.rwor.org","address":"","phone":"","parent_id":0,"mime_type":"text\/html","summary":"Bob Avakian on Elections","numcomment":1,"fileurl":"\/uploads\/2004\/08\/the_bourgeois_electoral_model_vs__leading_the_masses_to_remake_the_world_--rw-or_online.htm","filesize":"36.0 kibibytes","article_url":"\/news\/2004\/08\/115432.php"},"attachments":[],"comments":[{"id":115467,"heading":"Yeah, this really shows the way.","article":"Yes indeed. Let's forget about freely elected socialist officials and instead place ourselves under the control of the RCP central committee, which in turn takes its orders from Bob Avakian, the cut-rate Amercan Stalin\/Mao. I'd follow those people anywhere, even over a cliff if that was part of the new 5 year plan.\r\n By the way, did you notice the somewhat backhanded endorsement of Stalin?","author":"Oppressed Worker","parent_id":115432,"mime_type":"text\/plain","created":"2004-08-13 13:48:58","modified":"2004-08-13 13:48:58","fileurl":""}]}