As We Don’t See It
1.‘Throughout the world’ means
exactly what it says. It does not mean everywhere except
Social-Democratic Sweden, Castro's Cuba, Tito’s Yugoslavia, Israel's
kibbutzim or Sekou Toure’s Guinea. 'Throughout the world’ includes
pre-Stalinist, Stalinist and post-Stalinist Russia, Ben Bella's and
Boumedienne’s Algeria and the Peoples Republics of Uzbekistan and
North Vietnam. Everywhere also includes Albania (and China).
Our comments about contemporary society apply to all these
countries just as much as to the USA or to Britain (under either
Labour or Conservative governments). When we talk of privileged
minorities who 'control the means of production’ and who 'use the
whole machinery of the state' to maintain themselves in power we are
making a universal critique to which, at the moment, we can see no
exceptions.
IT FOLLOWS that we don't regard any of these countries as
socialist and that we don't act as if we had lurking suspicions that
they might be something other than what they are: hierarchically
structured class societies based on wage slavery and exploitation.
Their identification with socialism - even as deformed variants - is
a slander against the very concept of socialism (abortions, after
all, share some of the attributes of their parents). It is moreover a
source of endless mystification and confusion, It also follows from
this basic assessment that we do not support China against Russia, or
Russia against China (or alternatively the one and then the other),
that we do not carry NLF flags on demonstrations (the enemies of our
enemies are not necessarily our friends), and that we refrain from
joining sundry choruses demanding more East-West trade, more Summit
Conferences or more ping-pong diplomacy.
In every country of the world the rulers oppress the ruled and
persecute genuine revolutionaries. In every country the main enemy of
the people is their own ruling class. This alone can provide the
basis of a genuine internationalism of the oppressed.
2. Socialism cannot be equated with the
'coming to power of parties claiming to represent the working class'.
Political power is a fraud if working people do not take over and
retain power in production, If they achieve such power, the
organs exerting it (Workers Councils) will take and implement all the
necessary political decisions, IT FOLLOWS that we don't advocate the
formation of 'better' or 'more revolutionary' political parties whose
function would remain the 'capture of state power'. The
Party's power may grow out of the barrel of a gun, The power
of the working class grows out of its management of the
economy and of society as a whole.
Socialism cannot be equated with such measures as the
'nationalisation of the means of production'. These may help the
rulers of various class societies to rationalise their system of
exploitation and solve their own problems. We refuse to choose
between options defined by our class enemies. IT FOLLOWS that we
don't urge nationalisation (or anything else for that matter) on
governments of either 'right' or 'left',
Section II implies that modern capitalism can further
develop the means of production. At a cost, it can improve living
standards. But neither of these has any socialist content. Anyone who
wants three square meals a day and the prospect of endless employment
can find them in any well -run gaol. IT FOLLOWS that we don't
denounce capitalism primarily on the basis of its inadequacies in
these fields. Socialism, for us, is not about transistors for the
prisoners. It is about the destruction of the industrial prison
itself. It is not only about more bread, but about who runs the
bakery.
The section finally emphasises the multiple methods whereby the
system perpetuates itself. By mentioning propaganda as well as
policemen, schools as well as prisons, traditional values
and traditional morality as well as traditional methods of
physical coercion, the section stresses an important obstacle to the
achievement of a free society, namely the fact that the vast majority
of the exploited and the manipulated have internalised and largely
accepted the system's norms and values (for example such concepts as
hierarchy, the division of society into order -givers and order
-takers, wage labour, and the polarity of sexual roles) and consider
them intrinsically rational. Because of all this IT FOLLOWS that we
reject as incomplete ( and hence inadequate) notions which attribute
the perpetuation of the system solely to police repression or to the
'betrayals' of various political or trade union leaders.
A crisis of values and an increased questioning of authority
relations are, however, developing features of contemporary society.
The growth of these crises is one of the preconditions for socialist
revolution. Socialism will only be possible when the majority of
people understand the need for social change, become aware of their
ability to transform society, decide to exert their collective power
to this end, and know with what they wantto replace the present
system.. IT FOLLOWS that we reject analyses (such as those of every
variety of leninist or trostskyist) who define the main crisis of
modern society as a 'crisis of leadership'. They are all generals in
search of an army, for whom recruitment figures are the main
yardstick of success. For us revolutionary change is a question of
consciousness: the consciousness that would make generals redundant.
3. When we refer to the 'traditional
parties of the left' we don't only have in mind the social-democratic
and 'communist' parties. Parties of this type have administered,
administer and will continue to administer exploitative class
societies. Under the title of 'traditional parties of the left' we
also include the trad revs (traditional revolutionaries), i.e. the
various leninist, trotskyist and maoid sects who are the carriers of
state capitalist ideology and the embryonic nuclei of repressive,
state-capitalist power.
These groups are prefigurations of alternative types of
exploitation. Their critiques of the social-democratic, 'stalmist' or
'revisionist' left may appear virulent enough, but they never deal
with fundamentals (such as the structure of decision-making, the
locus of real power, the primacy of the Party, the existence of
hierarchy, the maximisation of surplus value, the perpetuation of
wage labour, and inequality). This is no accident and flows from the
fact that they themselves accept these fundamentals. Bourgeois
ideology is far more widespread than many revolutionaries believe and
has in fact deeply permeated their thinking. In this sense Marx's
statement about 'the dominant ideas of each epoch being the ideas of
its ruling class' is far more true than Marx could ever have
anticipated.
As far as authoritarian class society (and the
libertarian-socialist alternative) is concerned the trad revs are
part of the problem, not part of the solution. Those who
subscribe to social-democratic or Bolshevik ideology are themselves
either the victims of the prevailing mystification (and attempts
should be made to demystify them), or they are the conscious
exponents and future beneficiaries of a new form of class rule (and
should be ruthlessly exposed). In either case IT FOLLOWS that there
is nothing 'sectarian' in systematically proclaiming our opposition
to what they stand for. Not to do so would be tantamount to
suppressing our critique of half of the prevailing social order. It
would mean to participate in the general mystification of traditional
politics (where one thinks one thing and says another) and to deny
the very basis of our independent political existence.
4.Because the traditional parties cannot be
'reformed', 'captured', or converted into instruments of working
class emancipation - and because we are reluctant to indulge in
double-talk and double-think - IT FOLLOWS that we do not indulge in
such activities as 'critically supporting' the Labour Party at
election time, calling for 'Labour to Power' between elections, and
generally participating in sowing illusions, the better at a later
date to 'take people through the experience' of seeing through them.
The Labour and Communist parties may be marginally superior to the
Conservative Party in driving private capitalism along the road to
state capitalism. The trad revs would certainly prove superior to
both. But we are not called upon to make any choice of this kind: it
is not the role of revolutionaries to be the midwives of new forms of
exploitation. IT FOLLOWS that we would rather fight for what
we want (even if we don't immediately get it) than fight for what we
don't want ... and get it.
The trade union bureaucracy is an essential component of
developing state capitalist societies. The trade union leaders
neither 'betray' nor 'sell out' when they manipulate working class
struggles and seek to use them for their own ends. They are not
'traitors' when they seek to increase their material rewards or to
lessen the frequency with which they have to submit to election -
they are acting logically and according to their own interests, which
just happen to be different from those of working people. IT FOLLOWS
that we do not urge people to elect 'better' leaders, to
'democratise' the unions or to create new ones, which under the
circumstances of today would suffer exactly the same fate as the old
ones. All these are 'non-issues' about which only those who have
failed to grasp the real root of the problem can get worked up.
The real need is to concentrate on the positive task of
building the alternative (both in people's minds and in reality)
namely autonomous job organisations, linked to others in the
same industry and elsewhere, and controlled from below. Sooner or
later such organisations will either enter into conflict with the
existing outfits claiming to 'represent' the working class (and it
would be premature at this stage to define the possible forms of this
conflict), or they will bypass the old organisations altogether.
5. This section differentiates our concept
of socialism from most of those prevailing today. Socialism, for us,
is not just a question of economic reorganisation from which other
benefits will 'inevitably' follow, without consciously being
fought for. It is a total vision of a completely different
society. Such a vision is linked to the total critique of
capitalism we have previously referred to.
Social-democrats and Bolsheviks denounce equality as 'utopian',
'petty-bourgeois', or 'anarchist'. They dismiss the advocacy of
freedom as 'abstract', and reciprocal recognition as 'liberal
humanism'. They will concede that the radical transformation of all
social relations is a valid ultimate objective, but cannot see it as
an essential, immediate ingredient of the very process of meaningful
change.
When we talk of 'man's positive self-consciousness' and of 'his
understanding of his environment and of himself' we mean the gradual
discarding of all myths and of all types of false consciousness
(religion, nationalism patriarchal attitudes, the belief in the
rationality of hierarchy, etc.). The pre-condition of human freedom
is the understanding of all that limits it.
Positive self-consciousness implies the gradual breakdown of that
state of chronic schizophrenia in which - through conditioning and
other mechanisms -most people succeed in carrying mutually
incompatible ideas in their heads. It means accepting coherence, and
perceiving the relation of means and ends. It means exposing those
who organise conferences about 'workers control' ... addressed by
union officials elected for life. It means patiently explaining the
incompatibilities of 'people' 5 capitalism', 'parliamentary
socialism', 'christian communism', 'anarcho-zionism', ‘Party-led’
‘workers councils’, and other such rubbish. It means understanding
that a non-manipulative society cannot be achieved by manipulative
means or a classless society through hierarchical structures. This
attempt at both gaining insight and at imparting it will be difficult
and prolonged. It will doubtless be dismissed as 'intellectual
theorising' by every 'voluntarist' or 'activist' tendency, eager for
short cuts to the promised land and more concerned with movement than
with direction.
Because we think people can and should understand what they are
doing, IT FOLLOWS that we reject many of the approaches so common in
the movement today. In practice this means avoiding the use of
revolutionary myths and the resort to manipulated confrontations,
intended to raise consciousness. Underlying both of these is the
usually unformulated assumption that people cannot understand social
reality and act rationally on their own behalf.
Linked to our rejection of revolutionary myths is our rejection of
readymade political labels. We want no gods, not even those of the
marxist or anarchist pantheons. We live in neither the Petrograd of
1917 nor the Barcelona of 1936. We are ourselves: the product
of the disintegration of traditional politics, in an advanced
industrial country, in the second half of the 20th century. It is to
the problems and conflicts of that.society that we must apply
ourselves.
Although we consider ourselves part of the 'libertarian left' we
differ from most strands of the 'cultural' or 'political'
underground. We have nothing in common, for instance, with those
petty entrepreneurs, now thriving on the general confusion, who
simultaneously promote such commodities as oriental mysticism, black
magic, the drug cult, sexual exploitation (masquerading as sexual
liberation) - seasoning it all with big chunks of populist mythology.
Their dissemination of myths and their advocacy of 'non-sectarian
politics' do not prevent them from taking up, in practice, many
reactionary stances. In fact, they ensure it. Under the mindless
slogan of 'Support for people in struggle', these tendencies advocate
support for various nationalisms (today always reactionary) such as
those of both IRAs and of all the NLFs.
Other strands, calling themselves libertarian marxist', suffer
from middle class feelings of guilt which make them prone to
workeritis. Despite this, their practice is both reformist and
substitutionist. For instance, when they (correctly) support
struggles for limited objectives, such as those of squatters or
Claimants' Unions, they often fail to stress the revolutionary
implications of such collective direct action. Historically, direct
action has often clashed with the reformist nature of the objectives
pursued. Again, such tendencies support the IRAs and NLFs and refrain
from criticizing the Cuban, North Vietnamese or Chinese regimes.
Having rejected the Party, they nevertheless share with leninism a
bourgeois concept of consciousness.
Because we think our politics should be coherent we also reject
the approach of others in the libertarian movement who place their
whole emphasis on personal liberation or who seek individual
solutions to what are social problems. We dissociate ourselves from
those who equate the violence of the oppressor with the violence of
the oppressed (in a condemnation of 'all violence'), and from those
who place the rights of strikers on the picket line on the same
footing as the right of scabs to blackleg (in an abstract defence of
'freedom as such'). Similarly, anarcho-catholicism and anarcho-maoism
are internally incoherent outlooks, incompatible with revolutionary
self-activity.
We feel that there should be some relation between our vision of
socialism and what we do here and now. IT FOLLOWS that we seek as
from now, and starting with those closest to us, to puncture some of
the more widely held political myths. These are not confined to the
'right' - with its belief that hierarchy and inequality are of the
essence of the human condition. We consider it irrational (and/or
dishonest) that those who talk most of the masses (and of the
capacity of the working class to create a new society) should have
the least confidence in people's ability to dispense with leaders. We
also consider it irrational that the most radical advocates of
'genuine social change' should incorporate in their own ideas,
programmes and organisational prescriptions so many of the values,
priorities and models they claim to oppose.
6. When we say that socialist society will
be 'built from below', we mean just that. We do not mean
'initiated from above and then endorsed from below'. Nor do we mean
'planned from above and later checked from below'. We mean there
should be no separation between organs of decision and organs of
execution. This is why we advocate workers' 'management' of
production, and avoid the ambiguous demand for workers' 'control'.
(The differences - both theoretical and historical - between the two
are outlined in the introduction to our book on 'The Bolsheviks
and Workers Control: 1917-1921')
We deny the revolutionary organisation any specific prerogative in
the post-revolutionary period, or in the building of the new society.
Its main function in this period will be to stress the primacy of the
Workers Councils (and of bodies based on them) as instruments of
decisional authority, and to struggle against all those who would
seek to lessen or to bypass this authority - or to vest power
elsewhere. Unlike others on the left who dismiss thinking about the
new society as 'preoccupation with the cookshops of the future' we
have outlined our ideas about a possible structure of such a society
in some detail in our pamphlet on The Workers Councils
7. This section is perhaps the most
important and least understood of the whole statement. It is the key
to how we view our practical work. It defines yardsticks with
which we can approach everyday political life and rationally use our
mental and physical resources. It explains why we consider certain
questions significant while others are dismissed as 'non-issues'.
Within the limits of our own coherence, it explains the content of
our paper.
Because we do not consider them of particular relevance to the
attitudes and aptitudes we seek to develop, we do not get worked up
about such matters as parliamentary or trade union elections (getting
others to do things for one), the Common Market or the convertibility
crisis (partisan involvement in the problems of the rulers is of no
help to the ruled), or about the struggle in Ireland or various
putches in Africa ('taking sides' in struggles waged under the
domination of a totally reactionary false consciousness). We cannot
ignore these events without ignoring a portion of reality but we can
at least avoid endowing them with a relevance to socialism they do
not possess. Conversely we think the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 and
the French events of May 1968 were deeply significant (for they were
struggles against the bureaucracy, and attempts at self-management in
both Eastern and Western contexts).
These yardsticks also help clarify our attitude to various
industrial disputes. While most are a challenge to the employer, some
have a deeper socialist content than others. Why for instance are
'unofficial' actions on conditions of work, waged under the close
control of the rank and file, usually of deeper significance than
'official' actions on questions of wages, run from afar by the union
bureaucrats? In terms of the development of socialist consciousness
how a struggle is waged and what it is about are of
fundamental importance. Socialism, after all, is about who
takes the decisions. We believe this needs stressing, in
practice, from now.
In our accounts of disputes our guideline is that one cannot tidy
up reality, and that more is gained by honestly analysing real
difficulties than by living in a mythical world, where one takes
one's wishes for reality. IT FOLLOWS that we seek to avoid the
'triumphalist' (in reality manipulatory) tone that mars so much of
the industrial reporting and so many of the 'interventions' of the
trad revs.
Finally the emphasis in Section VII on self-activity, and its
warning about the harmful effects of manipulation, substitutionism or
reliance on others to do things for one have deeper implications, of
relevance to our own organisation.
8. We are not pacifists. We have no
illusions about what we are up against. In all class societies,
institutional violence weighs heavily and constantly on the
oppressed. Moreover the rulers of such societies have always resorted
to more explicit physical repression when their power and privileges
were really threatened. Against repression by the ruling class we
endorse the people's right to self-defence, by whatever means may be
appropriate.
The power of the rulers feeds on the indecision and confusion of
the ruled. Their power will only be overcome if confronted with ours:
the power of a conscious and self-reliant majority, knowing what it
wants and determined to get it. In modern industrial societies the
power of such a majority will lie where thousands congregate daily,
to sell their labour power in the production of goods and services.
Socialism cannot be the result of a putsch, of the capture of some
Palace, or of the blowing up of some Party or Police Headquarters,
carried out 'on behalf of the people' or 'to galvanise the masses'.
If unsuccessful, all that such actions do is to create martyrs and
myths - and to provoke intensified repression. If 'successful', they
would only substitute one ruling minority for another, i.e. bring
about a new form of exploitative society. Nor can socialism be
introduced by organisations themselves structured according to
authoritarian, hierarchical, bureaucratic or semi-military patterns.
All that such organisations have instituted (and, if 'successful',
are likely to continue instituting) are societies in their own image.
The social revolution is no Party matter. It will be the
action of the immense majority, acting in the interests of the
immense majority. The failures of social-democracy and of Bolshevism
are the failure of a whole concept of politics, a concept according
to which the oppressed could entrust their liberation to others than
themselves. This lesson is gradually entering mass consciousness and
preparing the ground for a genuinely libertarian revolution.
9. Because we reject Lenin's concept that
the working class can only develop a trade union (or reformist)
consciousness IT FOLLOWS that we reject the leninist prescription
that socialist consciousness has to be brought to the people from the
outside, or injected into the movement by political specialists: the
professional revolutionaries. It further follows that we cannot
behave as if we held such beliefs.
Mass consciousness, however, is never a theoretical consciousness,
derived individually through the study of books. In modern industrial
societies socialist consciousness springs from the real conditions of
social life. These societies generate the conditions for an adequate
consciousness. On the other hand, because they are class societies,
they usually inhibit accession to that consciousness. Here lies both
the dilemma and the challenge confronting modern revolutionaries.
There is a role for conscious revolutionaries. Firstly
through personal involvement, in one's own life and where possible at
one's own place of work. (Here the main danger lies in 'prolier than
thou' attitudes, which lead people either to believe that there is
little they can do if they are not industrial workers, or to pretend
to be what they are not,in the false belief that the only relevant
areas of struggle are in relation to industry.) Secondly, by
assisting others in struggle, by providing them with help or
information they are denied. (Here the main danger lies in the
offering of 'interested help', where recruitment of the militant to
the 'revolutionary' organisation is as much an objective of the
'help' as is his victory in the struggle in which he is involved.)
Finally, by pointing out and explaining the deep (but often
hidden) relations between the socialist objective and what people are
driven to do, through their own experiences and needs. (This is what
we mean when we say revolutionaries should help make 'explicit' the
'implicitly' socialist content of many modern struggles.)
10. This section should differentiate
SOLIDARITY from the traditional type of political organisation. We
are not a leadership and do not aspire to be one. Because we do not
want to lead or manipulate others, we have no use for hierarchy or
for manipulatory mechanisms within our own ranks. Because we believe
in the autonomy - ideological and organisational -of the working
class, we cannot deny groups such autonomy within the Solidarity
movement itself. On the contrary, we should seek to encourage it.
On the other hand we certainly wish to influence others and to
disseminate SOLIDARITY ideas (not just any ideas) as widely as
possible. This requires the co-ordinated activity of people or
groups, individually capable of self-activity and of finding their
own level of involvement and their own areas of work. The instruments
of such co-ordination should be flexible and vary according to the
purpose for which co-ordination is required.
We do not reject organisation as necessarily implying bureaucracy,
If we held such views there would be no socialist perspective
whatsoever. On the contrary, we hold that organisations whose
mechanisms (and their implications) are understood by all can alone
provide the framework for democratic decision-making. There are no
institutional guarantees against the bureaucratisation of
revolutionary groups. The only guarantee is the perpetual awareness
and self-mobilisation o£ their members, We are aware, however,
of the danger of revolutionary groups becoming 'ends in themselves'.
In the past, loyalties to groups have often superseded loyalties to
ideas. Our prime commitment is to the social revolution - not to any
particular political group, not even to SOLIDARITY. Our
organisational structure should certainly reflect the need for mutual
assistance and support. But we have no other ulterior
objectives, aspirations or ambitions. We therefore do not structure
ourselves as if we had.
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