Organization and
Spontaneity
The following article was written by the Chicago Revolutionary
Network. It has been edited for publication.
After rereading and discussing the Red & Black Notes
pamphlet, "Organization and Spontaneity," and considering our recent
article "Spontaneous vs. Planned Revolutionary Acts in the Coming
International, Working Class, Real Socialist Revolution," we think
that spontaneous revolutionary acts and planned revolutionary actions
are flip-sides of the same, absolutely necessary revolutionary coin.
As we said in our article, mentioned Above, during the summer of
1917 in Russia, in a period of a balance of power between the
capitalist (Menshevik) government and the rebellious working class,
the revolutionary Russian working class began to spontaneously take
over factories and plants; literally kicking out the capitalist
bosses, if they had not left already, which were revolutionary acts.
The workers set up revolutionary factory committees, which were mass
democratically organized, to plan and carry out production, which
were also revolutionary acts. So, what started off to be spontaneous
by the revolutionary workers, seizing one factory or plant, became
more of a planned thing within that factory or plant. But this
initial spontaneity became a revolutionary factory committee movement
throughout the Russian working class as factories and plants were
seized within repeated regularity. Russian workers also set up
revolutionary Soviets - councils - in the working class districts to
deal with the enormous economic crisis in the places in which they
lived. It seems to us that the Bolshevik Party (BP) of Lenin gauged
that it would be easier to take over or control the Soviets than the
revolutionary factory committees, so they advocated the slogan "All
Power to the Soviets," which when acted upon ushered in the October
1917 Revolution with such promise to the revolutionary aspirations of
the international working class.
Regardless of motivation, which is particularly slippery terrain
to speculate on, the actual history of the Bolshevik Party of Lenin
was that the BP bureaucratically took control of the Soviets in late
1917 and early 1918, which is consistent with Lenin's theory that
"The Party must rule for [over - Chirevnet] the working
class." Thus the BP gained a fulcrum of power in the new oppressive
state that the BP was constructing: State capitalist, not real
socialist, which would have smashed/abolished the state and wage
slavery. Meanwhile the revolutionary factory movement planned to
organize an all-Russian revolutionary factory committee congress to
coordinate worker-run production nationally. The BP countered with
power in the workplaces for the capitalist-orientated trade unions,
which the BP controlled, and the BP of Lenin did win out there, and
the revolutionary factory committee movement was historic-tragically
shut down. This led later to the infamous state capitalist "one-man
management" and the BP dictatorship over the working class in the
workplace and society at large; a world historic defeat which the
international working class is still recovering from.
What we draw from the above is that during a revolutionary
situation the working class can be perceptive enough to engage in
spontaneously revolutionary acts, chiefly the taking over of the
workplaces, organize them mass democratically and carry out planned
production accordingly, with the aim of coordinating/organizing
production nationally - now we would say internationally!
We think/feel that the chief danger to the revolutionary,
international working class in the coming international working class
spontaneously/planned real socialist revolution is political parties
- or organizations acting like political parties: hijacking the
Revolution and rebuilding dictatorships over the international
working class, and organizing state capitalist society globally.
On a final psychological note, we want to affirm that spontaneous
revolutionary acts also contain within them an inherently
organizational nature, whereas planned revolutionary acts also,
obviously contain an inherently organizational nature; not just one
or the other.
So, the coming international working class real socialism
revolution will probably be spontaneous at first, gathering
widespread international momentum, but appropriately organized, and
after overthrowing capitalism with its capitalist ruling classes, it
will increasingly pass over to more planning to achieve a
classless/stateless society globally with revolutionary acts, both
spontaneous and planned.
July, 2003
Reply by Red & Black
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