In light of the Bolshevik Tendency’s position that the ideological basis of its ’party’ is the “desire for unity” and that basic analysis, strategy and tactics can only be formulated ’within the context of a Party’, we turn with curiousity to its conception of the ’pre-party’ organization. The Bolshevik Tendency informs us that the basis of unity of this organization is to be agreement on “...opposition to economism and on the principal contradictions...” (p.46). The organization springing from this ’unity’ “...is given the task of building the Party...” (p.46) and is to
...mobilize itself to achieve the following:
1) The Unity of Marxist-Leninists
2) The establishment of a correct strategy and tactics for the Canadian Revolution.
3) The putting forward of a correct program of propaganda and agitation, and the carrying out of that program.
These tasks are necessary to build the Party. Ibid. p.46
The special importance of such an organization is also brought forward by our ’theoreticians’:
...we would like to note that both workplace practice and the refinement and elaboration of political line will be urgent tasks of a democratic centralist organization. Some comrades do not realize that, far from minimizing the importance of these tasks, our position will work to strengthen their importance. Building the Party will give both tasks fuller meaning and enable both line and workplace practice to be tested properly. Ibid. p.46.
’Some comrades’ may indeed have trouble ’realizing’ that after our ’Bolsheviks’ long harangue against workplace practice and elaboration of political line prior to the Party, after their bold minimizing ’the importance of these tasks’ in the ’absence of a Party’, after stating time and again that these tasks can only be fulfilled ’within the context of a Party’, some comrades may indeed have trouble understanding that these tasks can now, according to our ’Bolsheviks’, be ’tested properly’ outside the Party, in the process of ’building the Party’, that is, within the ’pre-party organization’. “We would like to note” that this is the most brazen opportunism, to, in the course of their argument, contradict not only the principles of Marxism-Leninism, but their own formulations as well. What is at the root of this ’inconsistency’? Surely our ’Bolsheviks’ were not arguing a ’complete’ opportunist line simply for the purpose of crossing themselves up. Surely they have some definite aim in mind.
Throughout its article, the Bolshevik Tendency has ’inadvertently’ interchanged its notion of the ’party’ with ’a democratic centralist organization’, i.e. the ’pre-party’. In fact, the points of unity of the two are virtually indistinguishable. The ’party’ can be built only when ’Marxist-Leninists’ agree on the principal contradictions in Canada and the world, on the correct strategy and ’tactical approach’. The ’pre-party’ is formed when ’Marxist-Leninists’ agree on the principal contradictions. From this ’unity’ the ’pre-party’ is to “put forward” strategy and tactics. But this is sheer sophistry. Strategy and tactics are determined on the basis of concrete analysis which would answer the question of principal contradiction. Once the principal contradiction is determined, basic strategy and tactics follow directly. The Bolshevik Tendency poses this integral process as having two separate phases only so it can draw some distinction between the ’pre-party’ and the ’party’ itself. Our ’Bolsheviks’ ’pre-party’ organization is in actuality the self-same ’party’ it is proposing. What are our ’Bolsheviks’ doing then? They are searching desperately for a means to create the equivalent of the CCM(ML) so as to pass directly into their equivalent of the CPC(ML). Although the entire argument put forward by the Bolshevik Tendency is that nothing can be done without the ’party’ – exactly the rationale used by the CPC(ML) – it cannot follow that path openly. To declare oneself a ’party’ at this stage would be, after all, ’premature’. It is forced to call instead for a ’pre-party’, an intermediate stage, along with all the other eager opportunist ’party-builders’ across the country. It is only in this way that our ’Bolsheviks’ can hope to rally some forces. And of course, they must make allowance for such things as political line and workplace practice, at least to give the impression that their ’pre-party’ will give “fuller meaning” and proper “testing”. It is with this bundle of contradictions that our ’Bolsheviks’ hope to lure a section of the movement behind itself, ’Bolshevize’them, and turn their opportunism into an organized, material force.
The Bolshevik Tendency recommends that we make “a thorough study of the Bolshevik Party” and places special emphasis on the Iskra organization as the prototype of their own ’pre-party’. Here is their rendition of history:
The first Congress of the Social-Democratic Labour Party failed to establish the Party, and so essentially there was no party but instead a tendency which was called Social-Democracy. (Today the same tendency is called Marxism-Leninism). In response to this situation, Lenin and others formed a ’pre-party’ organization around the All-Russian Newspaper Iskra and proceeded to use this newspaper as the means of: uniting Social-Democrats; putting forward correct strategy and tactics for the Revolution; organizing propaganda and agitation. These established the base on which the Party was built. Ibid. p.46.
Since the history of the Iskra organization is extremely important for our conception of the ’pre-party’ question, and since it has been raised throughout the movement, we will take up our ’Bolsheviks’ recommendation and quote the following explanation at length:
The Russian Iskra organization...united Iskra supporters operating inside Russia. In the early period of its existence (February 1900-January 1902) the Russian Iskra organization had not yet taken shape as an organized entity. The groups of Iskra supporters and ’agents’...were not at first united by any kind of centre operating in Russia, and maintained direct relations with the Iskra Editorial Board. But as Iskra’s influence increased, its Russian organization more and more became the hub of the Russian Social-Democratic movement; there was a considerable increase in the volume of practical work carried out by the Iskraists... All this required the formation of an ail-Russian centre of the Iskra supporters activity, and the formation of a Russian Iskra organization.
V.I. Lenin gives the date of the founding of the Russian Iskra organization as January 1902, when a congress of Iskra supporters working in Russia was held in Samara...
The Russian Iskra organization played a prominent role in restoring actual unity in the RSDLP. With its members most active participation, an Organizing Committee was formed in November 1902 to prepare and convene the Second Congress... The Russian Iskra organization handed over its contacts and Iskra literature to the Organizing Committee; it also placed at the Committee’s disposal Iskra supporters sent to work in Russia. At the same time, the Russian Iskra organization was not merged in the Organizing Committee, but was preserved until the Second Congress...chiefly for the purpose of influencing the Organizing Committee, which included unstable and opportunist elements... Footnote #70 V.I. Lenin CW Vol.6 p.547-48.
It should be clear from this that Lenin did not, contrary to our ’Bolsheviks’ rendition, ’respond’ to the failure of the First Congress to establish ongoing Party organization and work by forming a ’pre-party’ organization around the newspaper and then proceed to use it as a means for developing correct strategy, and so on. If fact, the Iskra organization proceeded from the exact opposite direction. The newspaper was established first, around well developed Marxist-Leninist views on the principal contradiction, strategy and tactics of the Russian revolution, Party-building, tasks before the movement, status of other political parties and so on. The Iskra organization was not formed on the basis of good intentions, on the “desire for unity” after the fashion of our opportunist ’Bolsheviks’, but was a product of two years of winning the principled sections of the movement to a definite theoretical, political and organizational line. On the other hand, it should be equally clear that the Iskra organization was not ’given the task of building the Party’, did not assume that this task rested in its own hands alone. The purpose of the Iskra was to win the movement to consistent communist principles, to establish an ideologically united communist trend within the movement, clearly demarcated from the Economist and other opportunist trends. It did this by waging a consistent and principled battle against opportunism on the crucial questions facing the movement and by taking up the organizational tasks of the movement. But it did not declare itself the ’pre-party’, the sole basis for forming a truly communist Party. There were opportunists in the Russian movement who also did not understand these facts, and attempted to distort the actual development of the principled trend:
“Note for Comrade Martov’s benefit the term ’Iskra-ist implies the follower of a trend and not a member of a circle... There were three Iskra-ist circles (in relation to the Party) at the Congress: the Emancipation of Labour Group, the Iskpa editorial board, and the Iskra organization. Two of these three circles had the good sense to dissolve themselves; the third did not display enough Party spirit to do so, and was dissolved by the Congress. The broadest of the Iskra-ist circles, the Iskra organization (which included the editorial board and the Emancipation of Labour group), had sixteen members present at the Congress in all, of whom only eleven were entitled to vote. Iskra-ists by trend on the other hand, not by membership in any Iskra ’circle’ numbered... twenty-seven, with thirty-three votes. Hence, less than half of the Iskra-ists at the Congress belonged to the Iskra-ist circles. V.I. Lenin One Step Forward, Two Steps Back CW Vol. 7 p.344.
Iskra was not established as a ’pre-party’ which ’united Marxist-Leninists’ and then declared itself the Party. The Iskra trend evolved a transitional organization which, along with the other circles and groups, dissolved itself in order to create the Party. The Iskra trend did not unite into an organization and then go about developing ’basic ideology and strategy’. The Iskra organization was united around basic ideology and strategy that had been formulated as a condition for its existence.
All that our ’Bolsheviks’ have proven is that they have no intention of joining in the common effort to create a truly Marxist-Leninist Party, but instead are aiming for a ’party’ after their own mould. They have proven that in fact their conception of Marxism-Leninism is a social-democratic one (“Today the same tendency is called Marxism-Leninism”), entirely reformist, based in the petty bourgeoisie, anti-Party, and embellished with their own peculiar ’Left’ catch-phrasing. They will no doubt build a ’bridge’, but one that no one would want to cross.