Rise of the working class
Source: Labor College lecture
First published: Labor College Review, 1986
Transcription, mark-up: Steve Painter
A working class revolution differs from all previous revolutions for a number of reasons.
The working class revolution is the first to be carried out by the lowest social class in society, a class that has little economic power and little social wealth. We can compare the rise of the bourgeois against the feudal system. The bourgeoisie was economically dominant by the time it sought political control of society.
The workers revolution is the first revolution aimed at a consciously planned overthrow of existing society. That is, it does not seek to return to a previous era, like the slave, nor does it seek to merely legalise its political domination of society in a situation where an economic transfer of power has already taken place, as had occurred in England in the seventeenth century and in France in the eighteenth century.
Like other revolutions, the working class revolution grows out of class antagonisms, but the workers’ revolution does not stop at the revolutionary seizure of power. It continues for decades, overthrowing all existing human relationships and brings the whole working class into self-activity, and when classes begin to disappear it extends this process to all members of society.
Unlike previous revolutions that have taken place within national frameworks, the proletarian revolution can only conclude with the construction of a worldwide classless society. A workers’ revolution will remain in danger so long as the class struggle internationally has not dealt a mortal blow to international capital.
Thus the proletarian revolution is an international process and as such it does not proceed in a uniform manner. As Lenin put it, the imperialist chain breaks at its weakest link. The flow of the class struggle is uneven, reflecting the uneven and combined development internationally and within particular countries.
Thus, in Russia large pockets of industrial development using the most modern mass production methods co-existed with agricultural practices that had not changed for many centuries.
Lenin’s theory of the party took account of all the peculiarities of proletarian revolution.
Lenin understood, as did Marx, that there was nothing automatic, spontaneous or inevitable about the fall of capitalism through the construction of a socialist society because workers’ revolution requires not only the maturing of objective factors (social crisis, depression, etc) but also the maturing of subjective factors.
These subjective factor include the level of class awareness, organisation and combativity of the working class.
Lenin’s theories are the science of the subjective. If the subjective factors are not present, the workers’ revolution will not succeed and capitalism will survive.
Although Marx remarked that the dominant ideology in any society was the ideology of its ruling class, this is not static. The first revolts by the oppressed will, however, make use of the ideas and formulae of the exploiting class. The first rebellions of the rising capitalist class were over religious doctrine and freedoms, as religion was the dominant ideology of feudal rule. Likewise early worker revolts demanded essentially bourgeois rights.
As capitalism goes into crisis, the more the class struggle intensifies, the more the oppressed begin to free themselves from the ideas of the ruling class. Class consciousness can and does develop out of the class struggle in spite of, and against, the ideology of the ruling class.
It is only in revolution itself that the vast majority of the oppressed can liberate themselves from the ideology of the ruling class.
Ideological control by the ruling class is not simply exercised by education, television and the press but continually flows from the daily reality of working class life, as everything is produced and judged for its profitability.
Under capitalism, the commodity seems to be determining human relations and human labour is seen solely as a disposable commodity. Also, the alienating and increasing division of labour isolates workers and produces all sorts of mystifications. Only in a revolutionary situation of mass activity outside the confines of alienated labour can this deep ideological control be really broken.
Although political class consciousness can develop fully only during a revolution, it can only do so if it has begun to develop before the revolution. That is, a revolutionary party will not simply appear when the revolutionary crisis appears.
Lenin’s theory distinguishes three requirements for effective revolutionary organisation:
The working class in itself — in others words the mass of workers.
That part of the class that is already engaging in more than sporadic struggles — the advanced, or militant, workers.
The revolutionary organisation in which workers and intellectuals engage in revolutionary activity based on a Marxist program.
Lenin in fact distinguishes between the working class in itself, which is an objective description regardless of the consciousness of the workers and the class for itself. In the course of revolutionary struggle the class moves from being a class in itself to a class for itself — that is it develops full awareness of itself and the tasks that confront it.
It is only because objectively there is a revolutionary class that periodically is obliged to wage revolutionary class struggle that the concept of a revolutionary vanguard party has any scientific meaning at all.
All revolutionary activity that does not relate to the class struggle leads at best to the nucleus of a party but not to a revolutionary party. If such “party building” continues without reference to the real class struggle — for example by withdrawing members from trade union work in the working class and conscripting them for the party bureaucracy or as sellers of newspapers, a real danger exists that such a nucleus will degenerate into sectariarism and idealism.
For such an organization, short-term advantage to the “party” becomes the dominant motivation at the expense of further developing the class struggle.
Once detached from the working class, a sect begins to develop theories to justify abstention from the class struggle, to condemn consistent work in the trade unions as syndicalist or a concession to spontaneity.
Lenin put it thus: “Correct revolutionary theory … assumes final shape only in close connection with the practical activity of a truly mass and truly revolutionary movement.”
This is not to deny that theoretical development can take place in relative isolation, such as Marx working on Das Capital in the British Museum, but such theory can only acquire a correct and final form when it is bound to the collective struggles of the working class. Membership of a revolutionary organisation is not itself enough to provide this bond.
A close connection to the practical activity of the class is necessary. Even this must be qualified, for the practical activities of the masses may be purely reformist.
Rvolutionaries in such circumstance swim against the current, for it is only when the masses themselves are revolutionary that revolutionary theory is fully realised. Marx observed that when ideas grip the masses they acquire a material force.
The category of advanced workers arises because the working class is not homogenous. It developed historically, but unevenly. The class did not simply appear, it emerged as capitalism developed, nor has it ceased developing, in fact it is growing today.
Some workers today come from generations of workers, others are the children of peasants, some work in large factories, others in small workshops and offices with their less-developed class awareness. Some live in cities, others in towns and villages. Some have strong trade union traditions others none. Some are in states barely emerging from colonialism others are isolated because of religion, colour or culture. Such divisions are inevitable result of the actual history of the class and its development.
The categories of the mass of the working class, the advanced workers and the revolutionary party listed above are the political expression of this stratification of the class. For these forces to be united the elementary class struggle must grow over into a revolutionary class struggle.
However, neither the broad masses nor the advanced workers can themselves overcome the historical divisions of the class or the uneven development of class awareness that this has produced.
Elementary class awareness and organisation was going on long before Marxism developed. In Australia this enabled the working class to establish trade unions and the Labor Party in the near-complete absence of Marxism in Australia in the 1890s.
These developments came from actions in defence of wages and conditions. The experience of these actions enabled a development and an advance of consciousness sufficient for the formation of a political party created by the working class, namely the Labor Party.
After each struggle a residue is left in the form of an ongoing organisation. In fact, however, most workers are active only during the struggle. When it ends they retire to private life, that is, the everyday struggle to exist. The vanguard, or advanced, workers do not totally retire, they do not leave the frontline. They build on the gains made by consolidating the union, establishing a press. They give form to what is continuous in working class struggle, as opposed to the discontinuous and spontaneous mass movement.
The advanced workers are driven to conscious organisation and growing class awareness not through a theoretical or intellectual grasp of the social whole but from practical knowledge gained in the struggle.
This enriches action to some extent, but it is far inferior to the effectiveness of a scientific global consciousness, ie a whole theoretical understanding of the world class struggle. This level of comprehension is essential if the fight to bring down international capitalism is to succeed. This is not an abstract point, for capital has no borders. The interests of even one corporation may extend over several continents and the actions of the corporation in one country may have little or nothing to do with the actual course of events in that country.
With this understanding, the revolutionary party can consolidate experience and enrich the advanced workers with higher levels of class consciousness, provided it is able to establish ties to the class struggle, ie provided it does not shrink from the difficult business of verifying theory in practice.
A true theory divorced from human practice is nonsense, as is a perfect program that cannot be related to the existing level of consciousness in the working class.
Conversely “revolutionary practice” that is not founded on a scientific theory cannot advance the class struggle beyond the level of trade union militancy, or less frequently as individualist ultraleft actions that take no account of the existing level of workers’ awareness.
This is not to suggest that theoretical work, research and debate is not required outside of the actual day to day course of the class struggle.
To summarise, the revolutionary working class party is built through merging the consciousness of the revolutionary nuclei with that of the advanced workers.
A pre-revolutionary situation arises when the actions of the broad masses and the advanced workers merge.
The possibility of a revolutionary conquest of power develops from a merging of actions by the vanguard workers and the mass of workers with the consciousness of the vanguard workers and the revolutionary layers (organised in the revolutionary party).
There must, however. be enough sufficiently advanced workers to sweep the broader layers of workers into action around objectives that challenge the continued existence of bourgeois society.
Such objectives usually spring from transitional demands that can be supported by the existing level of consciousness of the workers, but which, in the struggle to realise these demands, throws the workers into conflicts far beyond the scope and dimension of the demand itself into areas that question bourgeois society itself and the powers and prerogatives of the capitalists.
Although advanced workers must be trained in the propagation of these transitional demands it is the revolutionary organisation alone that is capable of working out a comprehensive program of transitional demands that correspond to the objective conditions as well as the subjective needs of the broadest layers of workers.
A successful workers revolution is only possible if all these factors are combined.
The history of revolutions in the era of imperialism has shown that the revolutionary party is not merely preferable but an absolutely essential feature if the working class is to seize power even where, as in the case of Chile (1970-73), it is a majority of society.
Lenin first laid out his theory of the revolutionary party in his 1902 book What is to be Done. He argued against the “economists”, who insisted that the workers confine themselves to struggle for immediate economic demands.
Lenin argued that the workers left to their own devices cannot develop awareness beyond the level of trade union thinking. That is, they do not on the basis of their daily experience develop a theory of revolutionary change. This must be introduced to the working class through the practice of revolutionaries in the class aimed at winning the advanced workers to its leadership.
Such revolutionaries organised into revolutionary parties cannot substitute themselves for the masses. They must win a majority of the working class, although this is usually only possible at the height of a revolutionary struggle. The Bolshevik under Lenin only won majority working class support in September 1917, less than two months prior to the seizure of power in early November.
Critics of the Lennist party have often counterposed the necessity for the construction of a revolutionary vanguard organisation to spontaneous outbursts by the mass of workers, but no contradiction is involved. The party helps the outburst, extends it, completes it and permits it to triumph by concentrating all its energy at the decisive moment on the overthrow of the political and economic power of capital.
To be in a position to do this, the party must have roots in the class.
To know accurately the mood of the class and to be able to influence it the party must be capable of patiently listening to the workers and learning from them.
This is the lesson that so many socialist sects ignore, and this is why the concept of democratic centralism is so important. It does not simply refer to the nature of internal party life usually summed up as the fullest democratic discussion within the party and total unity in carrying out party decisions.
Democratic centralism, within the party rests upon the reality that within the class there will be debate and division and if the party is to win and extend its influence in the class, such differences will reflect themselves in the party.
The way the party or the would-be revolutionary party resolves these problems is in many ways an acid test of its potential. Such problems can only be resolved as they were in the Bolshevik Party of Lenin, by means of debate, discussion and argument on the whole theoretical-practical level without interference, bogus authority or bureaucratic close-down.
It is only with this understanding that the party can provide leadership that will win authority among the workers. Authority must be won by the party nucleus, it cannot simply be assumed.
Flowing from this as well is the need for the revolutionary party to tolerate factions organised along political lines.
The ferment, confusion and division within the class cannot be resolved within the party except by these divisions being crystalised and clarified in the party in a way that does not happen spontaneously in the class.
Only in this way can a correct course of action be charted that encompasses the interests of the entire proletariat.
To say otherwise is to claim that the leaderships of such parties are infallible. Indeed this is precisely the claim that Stalin made for himself.
Despite the distortions of Stalinism, the fact remains that factions and argument were part of Bolshevik Party life until the rise of the soviet bureaucracy headed by Stalin. Indeed, on many occasions Lenin found himself in a minority in the party — for example, in April 1917, in the debate about peace with Germany and in the trade union debates of 1920-21.
In most instances Lenin was able to demonstrate by argument and by the course of the class struggle the correctness of his view. If real argument and discussion had not been possible, as is inconceivable in most of the sects in Australia today, could one be sure that Lenin’s correct views (as it turned out) would have won the day?
The democratic component of democratic centralism is therefore not abstract but a vital necessity for the working class. Australia is no exception. A revolutionary workers’ party must be built.
Despite the fate of the Leninist party in the USSR and the caricature of Leninist party life that Stalinism brought us, there remains no other form of organization, be it reformist, syndicalist or anarchist, that has ever won a revolution.
What is to be Done, V.I. Lenin
The urgent tasks of our movement, V.I. Lenin
What is revolutionary leadership, Cliff Slaughter
The Leninist theory of organisation, Ernest Mandel
Class consciousness and the Leninist party, Ernest Mandel
Considerations on Western Marxism, Perry Anderson