Contents "The internationalist proletarian" n.12
THE OPPORTUNISM OF YESTERDAY'S AND TODAY'S "BARBARISTS"
How to untangle the mess
For the present work we will begin with the article published by the spontaneist organization Grupo Barbaria and entitled "Capitalist Catastrophe and Revolutionary Theory".
That article claims to be aimed at "making explicit the general scheme that presides over our [Grupo Barbaria's] conception of the revolutionary process and that is already germinating from the contradictions of capitalism" and, for that purpose, it is based "on what was developed by an important text of the Italian left in 1951, Theory and Action in Marxist doctrine".
The conclusion of the article of the Grupo Barbaria, allegedly derived from the Party text of 1951, is that neither the actual existence of a formal Party nor the intervention of the communists in the organisms of immediate struggle (class union) is possible:
- "And it makes no sense that, as revolutionaries and communists, we permanently bang our heads against the wall of capital." (Grupo Barbaria).
- "Hence the absurdity to proclaim oneself a formal party without a movement of the proletariat to constitute itself as a class for itself." (Grupo Barbaria).
- "What does seem decisive to us is the critique of the idea that in every time and moment it is possible to be an active factor in transforming History, whether in the intermediate organisms that are subjected to the logic of capital (such as the labor unions or the apparatuses that participate in the electoral contest), or with the attempt to create them ex novo through the impulse of organized minorities. They are an empty effort, worthy of Sisyphus." (Grupo Barbaria).
Trite and long-refuted positions
The conclusions of the Grupo Barbaria are the umpteenth formulation of positions that Marxism has refuted since its beginnings and forever. They are the positions of anarchism: negation of labor union action and equating it to parliamentarism, negation of the function of the Party, etc.
Frankly, if it is sometimes useful to expose the errors contained in these positions, we would find to do so other sources that present them in a more genuine and coherent way. But there is a reason that moves us to continue with this analysis.
What is the opportunist core of the Grupo Barbaria
The reason is the tergiversation made by this group of the positions held by the "Italian" Communist Left in defense of Marxism; a defense that it carried with complete continuity and coherence throughout the cycle as a faction within the Italian Socialist Party, as leadership of the CP of Italy and then as a majority in the opposition, later as the Internationalist Communist Party and as the International Communist Party. The distortion is of such magnitude and otherwise so recurrent, that it is worthwhile to stop and analyze it.
The Party met other "barbarists" precisely in the period in which Theory and Action in the Marxist Doctrine was written. Despite the different nuance in the name, we will see that we are dealing with the same basic substance. To the refutation of yesterday's "barbarists" the Party dedicated in 1953 the series of texts: "The Batrachomyomachia", "Squawk of praxis" and "Dance of puppets: from consciousness to culture".
As we said at the time: "It is clear that it would not be worthwhile to follow these fools, if they were not accompanied by the pretension of being the last development and modern expression of Marxism; and, even more, of being the presentation of Marxism, from which the resumption against the degenerations, induced in the world movement by the predominance, even outside its borders, of the Moscow State and party bureaucracy, should start. It is even more worrisome when things of the kind, and even with greater confusion of terms and theses, are launched by pretended followers and coherent continuers of the left oppositions, which 30 years ago decided to fight against the first symptoms of Stalinist opportunism." (Squawk of Praxis, 1953).
Theory and Action in Marxist Doctrine (1951)
The Party, then called the Internationalist Communist Party, held a general meeting in Rome on April 1st, 1951. The content of that meeting was published in the Internal Bulletin, No. 1, on September 10th, 1951 with the title "Theory and action in the Marxist doctrine" consisting of two parts "I- The inversion of praxis in the Marxist Theory" and "II- Revolutionary Party and economic action".
From this simple material fact, without even needing to start reading, it is evident that the comrades who held these meetings, who wrote, published and distributed this text were part of a formal Party and that in no way was their intention, nor their position, nor their practice to claim that the formal Party should not exist, even at a time of maximum depression as was the year 1951.
From this point on, shame on anyone who attempts to stammer out one more word trying to derive from the content of this text - or any other Party text - the impossibility of the existence of the formal Party even in times of complete domination by the counterrevolution.
Breaking anonymity, sign of opportunism
This text we have been talking about is published in the Grupo Barbaria website with the following title: "Amadeo Bordiga: theory and action in the Marxist doctrine" in the section of texts whose authorship is attributed to him. It is not the only Party text that suffers in the web page of the Grupo Barbaria and in its articles this personification with name and surname.
This same obsession of publishing Party texts with the author's name and surname is shared by the Grupo Barbaria - and it is no coincidence - with the degenerate center of the former party that published them through the Iskra publisher and that came to participate in the aberrant Amadeo Bordiga Foundation.
With what right and intention does the Grupo Barbaria publish this Party text, giving an author's name and surname?
If the comrades who published the original text had considered it the product of an individual author, if they had considered it convenient to publish it with a signature, if they had wanted it to be republished associating it to a name and surname, they would have done it from the very beginning. But they did not. Contrary to what the Grupo Barbaria would wish and what is convenient for them, not only this report but all those that followed appeared anonymously, not as documents of individuals but as Party texts.
Why does the Grupo Barbaria personify the texts?
The answer is simple. To distort the content of the texts and try to make them say the opposite of what the comrades who wrote and published them stood for, they need to tear the texts out of their context, to degrade them from Party texts to documents of individuals.
How else could the Grupo Barbaria sustain its anti-Party position based on these… Party texts?
As an example, the Grupo Barbaria states: "Basically, as Bordiga developed extensively during the 50s and 60s of the twentieth century, this contradiction between productive forces and social relations of production expresses a clash between two modes of production: one that loses more and more social energy, capitalism, and another that advances in the dissolution of the old, communism" (Grupo Barbaria). Let's see where our "barbarists" can find any text from the 50's and 60's of the 20th century signed by Bordiga! Here the personification serves them to introduce a variant of the theory of decadence and of a reformist gradualism worthy of Gramsci... precisely the position that the text Theory and Action in Marxist doctrine mercilessly demolishes (see below point 1 in the Summary)!
The iconification of leaders of Marxism is not a new phenomenon but a regular trait of opportunism. Lenin explains it well at the beginning of "The State and the Revolution": “What is now happening to Marx's theory has, in the course of history, happened repeatedly to the theories of revolutionary thinkers and leaders of oppressed classes fighting for emancipation. During the lifetime of great revolutionaries, the oppressing classes constantly hounded them, received their theories with the most savage malice, the most furious hatred and the most unscrupulous campaigns of lies and slander. After their death, attempts are made to convert them into harmless icons, to canonize them, so to say, and to hallow their names to a certain extent for the “consolation” of the oppressed classes and with the object of duping the latter, while at the same time robbing the revolutionary theory of its substance, blunting its revolutionary edge and vulgarizing it. (…) All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don't laugh!). (…) In these circumstances, in view of the unprecedently wide-spread distortion of Marxism, our prime task is to re-establish what Marx really taught on the subject of the state.” (State and Revolution, Lenin, 1917).
A representative of the Italian Communist Left had to warn that Lenin would not escape the same fate: “At the beginning of The State and the Revolution Lenin himself says that it is fatal that the great revolutionary pioneers are falsified: as has happened with Marx and his best adherents. Will Lenin himself escape this fate? Certainly not (...).” (Lenin on the path of revolution, Prometeo, 1924).
The same militant was subjected to the method of personalization of the collective and impersonal positions that he defended, on that occasion by Bukharin, in the last intervention within the Enlarged Executive of the International: “One rejoices in repeating: "Bordiga's system, Bordiga's theory, Bordiga's metaphysics", and one pretends that I am completely alone, that I am exposing here only my own ideas and my personal critique. They want to present my position as if it were strictly personal (...) I represent here the positions defended by a group within the communist movement (...) It is not, then, exclusively personal ideas that I defend here, but those of a whole group.” (Speech at the VI Enlarged Executive, 1926).
The same comrade wrote in a letter in 1964: "So no more names and myths made of names. It is therefore regrettable that comrades are not educated to understand that it is not a decent point of view to say: 'Amadeo thinks like this'." (letter of November 25th, 1964).
And that same comrade, as an anonymous Party militant, participated in the warning contained in the Milan Theses (1966) of the existing tendency within the Party to reproduce the same mechanism: “6.- Another regular and constant trait of the opportunist phenomenon, as it was generated in the Second International and as it triumphs today after the even worse ruin of the Third, is that of combining the worst degeneration of the principles of the party to an ostentatious admiration for the classic texts, for the dictation and the work of great masters and great leaders. Constant characteristic of the hypocrisy of the petty bourgeois is the servile applause for the power of the victorious leader, for the greatness of the texts of illustrious authors, for the eloquence of the fecund orator, when in the application they descend to the most despicable and contradictory degenerations. Therefore, a body of theses is worthless if those who embrace them with literary enthusiasm do not succeed later in practical action in understanding the spirit and respecting it and want to mask the transgression with a more accentuated, but platonic adherence to theoretical texts.”
The Milan Theses (1966) end with this lapidary passage: "The current effort of our party in its difficult task is to free itself forever from the treacherous thrust that seemed to emanate from illustrious men, and from the despicable function of fabricating, to achieve its objectives and its victories, a stupid notoriety and publicity for other personal names. The party should not lack in any of its meanders the decision and the courage to fight for a similar result, true anticipation of the history and the society of tomorrow".
Also the closing of the 1965 Considerations is clear in this respect: "The transmission of this non-deformed tradition, with the efforts to make real a new international party organization without historical pauses, organizationally cannot be based on the election of very qualified men or very informed of the historical doctrine, but organically it cannot but use in the most faithful way the line between the group action with which it manifested itself 40 years ago, and the present line. The new movement cannot hope for supermen or to have the Messiah, but it must be based on the revival of what may have been preserved over a long period of time, and preservation cannot be limited to the teaching of theses and the search for documents, but it also makes use of living tools that form an old guard and that rely on giving an uncorrupted and powerful slogan to a young guard. This is launched towards new revolutions, which perhaps should not have to wait more than a decade from now for action on the plane of the historical scene; the party and the revolution are not at all interested in the names of the one or the other."
Can anyone, acting honestly, publish Theory and Action in Marxist Doctrine (1951) or any other Party text that has appeared anonymously, associating with it the name and surname of its supposed author?
The Considerations and Theses of 1965 and 1966
The Considerations and Theses of 1965 and 1966 contain the balance and, at the same time, the antidote against the degeneration that subsequently developed within the Party, as an effect of the prolonged weight of the counterrevolution.
The Party lacked in the following years the energy to apply them. We will have the opportunity to delve into this process when we deal with those who simultaneously label us as "syndicalists" and "generically theorists", a curious combination that exposes the labeler and reveals its real position then and now: abandonment of labor union work, interclassist activism and revision of the fundamental positions of the Party.
The Considerations and Theses of 1965 and 1966 are simultaneously directed against the activist current that wanted to reintroduce democratic centralism in the Party, as well as the mystical-humanistic-spontaneist tendency that also left the Party after their publication to create the magazine "Invariance".
This second tendency can be seen in some articles appearing in the Party newspaper of the time (il Programma comunista) such as "The Death Penalty", "The dissolution of bourgeois sexual morality..." and "Origin and function of the Party form". It is impossible not to see the moralistic, mystical, humanistic and spontaneist content of these articles, which sometimes manifests itself openly, sometimes it hides a little and only shows its head, and other times it remains crouched between lines and ambiguities. It is equally impossible not to see in the Considerations and Theses of 1965 and 1966 a precise and even literal refutation of the mystical-humanistic-spontaneist positions of that current, which coincides in time with the material departure of the Party by the members of the same current.
Tenacity and resurgence of Proudhonism
We spend some time on all this because precisely this mystical-humanistic-spontaneist current and its main representative (Jacques Camatte) are the real theoretical source of the Grupo Barbaria and, like this current, they have to resort to all kinds of tricks and twists to cover up the fact that their positions are totally contrary to those of the Party texts in which they are trying to fish.
Like the current spontaneists of the Grupo Barbaria who see the beginning of a revolutionary process in the misnamed "Arab Springs" or in the Spanish 15-M (!) and in the movements of the petty bourgeoisie everywhere, also that spontaneist current saw in May '68 the "opening of a new revolutionary phase", "the emergence of communism", a "total rejection of the society of capital, the appeal to an affirmation of men, a launching towards another type of society" and blamed the Party and, of course, comrade Bordiga, for not having recognized the emergence of the revolution. Fifty years later, it is clear which assessment was the correct one, without this being enough for our spontaneists to stop seeing emerging revolutions in every bubbling of the boiling water of the petty bourgeoisie.
This humanistoid mysticism is condensed in the metaphysical explanation that the Grupo Barbaria gives of itself: “Each time throughout history that the exploited classes have risen up, they have carried along the same barbarism, the same (sic) human community against the exploitation. Barbaria is a place that resides in memory (sic). It is there where the millenarian history of our class (sic) is kept, from the primitive communities to the worldwide human community.” (Barbaria?, Grupo Barbaria).
The rejection to the integration in the present capitalist society in putrefaction is a vital integral part of our position as a Party, but the Party has never said that the proletarian class was "millenary" nor that all the preceding revolutionary classes posed "the same human community": only with capitalism and the birth of the modern proletariat a class is born whose historical mission is the abolition of all classes, culminating a millenary arc that goes from primitive communism to higher communism. Whoever speaks of a "millenary proletariat" is a moralistic humanist who camouflages his essence under the wrapping of the word "proletariat" which in his mouth means any oppressed class in history, including the revolutionary bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie against feudalism.
The position of the "barbarists" of today is the same as those of yesterday: proudhonism. The Party can give them the same answer: "The whole conception of class struggles is reduced to an uninterrupted battle against a single enemy: exploitation. The monster is always it, the victims in revolt change: slaves, serfs, wage-earners, etc. Here we are in full Philosophie de la misére a la Proudhon. Swill buried in 1847, something unsuspectable in 1848." (The Batrachomyomachia, 1953).
This is not a license in its presentation: "it is a path that began since the first human rose up against power and exploitation" (France, Greece, United Kingdom... proletarians of the whole world, let's burn capitalism!, Grupo Barbaria). By means of this complete blurring of the characters of the proletariat, which encompasses everything anybody wants and more, they arrive untainted at the crassest interclassism: "all these revolts and struggles can come to look each other in the eye, as part of the same project, of the same human need (...) all the struggles are part of the same struggle and all are necessary to continue fighting" (France, Greece, United Kingdom... proletarians of the whole world, let's burn capitalism!, Grupo Barbaria).
It is clear that, for this humanist, moralist and interclassist approach in which "all struggles" and "all revolts" (regardless of the class that carries them forward and the class interests that are defended) are "human" and are part of the same struggle millennia ago as today, the Communist Party is something very uncomfortable so the better that it does not exist.
These are not new conclusions either: “It is proven that they travel the historical road backwards, by the fact that if they diverge on the date of death of the 'party' (which causes them horror, inasmuch as there are, as they say, Heads and Leaders), they all agree on the thesis that the party is becoming progressively less and less necessary to the class. In substance they are people who, as soon as you scratch them, reveal their idealism, moralism, individualism and sanctity of the person, and all they have understood of the Russian issue is that a dishonest gang thirsty for domination and luxury has tripped up the proletariat, with the aim of insinuating to it that it had need of these two sinister instruments: a government and a political party, moreover centralized, and which have stifled autonomy, supreme obsession of anyone who has grown up in the crass bourgeois mentality survived under the empty attitudes of... existential refractory.
Because the exact thesis is precisely the opposite: The working class, more and more, in its long historical course towards revolution, needs its political party!" (Squawk of Praxis, 1953).
Summary of the Rome meeting of April 1951
There is another curious aspect of the way Grupo Barbaria publishes the text. It is in fact a collage of the original publication. Thus, the items of the Summary, the Report ("relazione" in Italian, erroneously translated as "relation") and the Appendix are reordered.
If, instead of scattering its constituent points, the Summary is published in full and in order (as it was published in 1953 in the booklet "Sul Filo del Tempo" together with fundamental texts such as "The Corpse Still Walks"), the mentioned Summary refutes by itself the conclusions that the Grupo Barbaria tries to draw from our fundamental text. We reproduce below the text of the Summary, highlighting in bold the main points subject to misrepresentation by the anti-labor union spontaneism:
“1. Against the disordered situation in which ideology, organization and revolutionary action are in, it is a false remedy to count on an inevitable and gradual decadence of capitalism that would have already begun and at the bottom of which would await the proletarian revolution. The curve of capitalism has no descending branch.
- The second historical and international opportunist crisis, with the collapse of the Third International, derives from intermediatism, a conception that sought to place transitional general political objectives between the bourgeois dictatorship and the proletarian dictatorship. It is an erroneous position that which, in order to avoid intermediatism, renounces the particular economic demands of the proletarian groups.
- Correct Marxist praxis affirms that the consciousness of the individual, and even that of the mass, follows action, and that action follows the impulse of economic interest. Only in the class party does consciousness and in certain phases the decision of action precede the class clash. But such a possibility is organically inseparable from the molecular interplay of the initial physical and economic impulses.
- According to all the traditions of Marxism and of the Italian and international Left, the work and struggle within the proletarian associations is one of the indispensable conditions for the success of the revolutionary struggle, together with the pressure of the productive forces against the relations of production, and the correct theoretical, organizational and tactical continuity of the political party.
- In the several phases of the bourgeois trajectory (revolutionary, reformist, counter-revolutionary), the dynamics of trade union action underwent profound changes (interdiction, tolerance, submission); but this does not alter the fact that it is organically indispensable to have among the mass of proletarians and the minority within the party an additional layer of organizations that are politically neutral in principle, but constitutionally accessible only to the workers, and that organizations of this type must re-emerge in the phase in which the revolution is approaching.”
The Summary is sufficient to make it clear that the work and struggle within the proletarian economic associations (class unions) is one of the indispensable conditions for the success of the revolutionary struggle, together with the pressure of the productive forces against the relations of production and the correct theoretical, organizational and tactical continuity of the... Party. This continuity requires the existence of this organism, of the formal Party, long before the moment in which the polarization of the classes in struggle takes place. Its existence is, in reality and according to the text, a condition of this polarization.
These are the same positions that our current has always defended, with complete continuity: “Above all, it is evident that the proletariat would not be mature enough to face the extremely difficult problems of its dictatorship if the indispensable organ for solving them, the party, had not long before begun to establish the body of its doctrines and experiences. (…)
The international communist movement must be composed not only of those who are firmly convinced of the need for revolution, who are willing to fight for it at any cost, but also of those who are determined to move on the revolutionary terrain even if the difficulties of the struggle indicate that the goal is steeper and more distant. In the moment of acute revolutionary crisis, acting on the solid foundation of our international organization, we will polarize around us the elements that are still undecided today, and we will prevail over the social-democratic parties of all shades. If revolutionary possibilities are less immediate, we will not, even for a moment, run the risk of being distracted from weaving our network of preparation and retreating to the solution of other contingent problems, which would only benefit the bourgeoisie.” (Party and class action, 1921).
It also follows from the Summary that, despite the dynamics of integration of the trade union apparatus into the networks of the bourgeois State, organizations of this type (class unions not integrated into the State) must re-emerge in the phase of approaching the revolution.
The Summary resolves the absurd syllogism in which the Grupo Barbaria entangles itself to justify its anti-Party position: the class struggle is not possible without the Party but the Party can only emerge from the class struggle. The false dilemma resolves itself with the affirmation: "Only in the class party the consciousness and - in certain phases - the decision of action precedes the class clash. But such a possibility is organically inseparable from the molecular play of the initial physical and economic impulses."
In its opportunist reading of this paragraph, the Grupo Barbaria (as does also N+1, its other source of inspiration besides J. Camatte) deduces that the party can only exist in those moments (or phases) in which the decision of action precedes the class clash. This when they do not directly affirm that "will and consciousness can never precede action" (Grupo Barbaria), that is to say, the negation without further ado of the inversion of praxis and of the very function of the Party.
But neither one thing nor the other is what this fundamental Party text states, written precisely at a time when the class clash was conspicuous by its absence. The text claims that only in the Party (as an impersonal and collective organ) consciousness is the starting point. The text adds that, in certain phases, the decision of the Party action precedes and influences the class clash. These are the moments of revolutionary effervescence in which the Party can lead the movement along the path of revolutionary action. These moments are not determined by the will of individuals or organizations but by the molecular play of the initial physical and economic impulses. It is essential to note that this locution "and – in certain phases –" is added to this second consideration and not to the first. There would be no sense in this precision with respect to the second if both were on the same plane.
The solution to the enigma indecipherable for the Grupo Barbaria is evident for those who are not burdened with spontaneist prejudices. The indispensable conditions for the success of the revolutionary struggle are: 1) the work and struggle within the proletarian economic associations (class unions), 2) the pressure of the productive forces against the relations of production and 3) the correct theoretical, organizational and tactical continuity of the Party. If one of these is missing, revolutionary success is not viable.
This Party must carry forward a correct theoretical, organizational and tactical continuity, as well as work and struggle within the proletarian economic associations. Now, up to this point we have two of the three conditions and these two alone do not determine a revolutionary situation. The third is missing. Only when the three conditions concur do we have a revolutionary situation and the decision of the Party's action entails and guides the revolutionary class clash.
If the first two conditions are missing and only the third is present, we do not have a revolutionary situation and the experience of numerous failures shows that when the time comes it is too late to improvise these two conditions because continuity and work correspond to processes that are not accidental or sporadic but to preparation processes that must precede the situation in which the results must be put into action with multiplied historical potential.
Lyon Theses (1926)
The content of "Theory and Action in the Marxist Doctrine" synthetically collects the content of the positions defended by the Left in its struggle against the degeneration of the International.
Let us read again two important passages of the Lyon Theses of 1926, which not only "are a point of arrival, if they are observed on the perspective of the six years of history lived (since the successive years were years of death) by the III International: they are a starting point if they are observed in the light of our independent existence first as a current and then as a party, but above all in the light of the future perspectives of the proletarian revolutionary movement" (The continuity of action of the party on the thread of the tradition of the Left, Milan meeting, December 24th-25th, 1966).
The first passage states:"The activity of the party cannot and should not be limited only to the preservation of the purity of the theoretical principles and the purity of the organizational complex, or only to the achievement at all costs of immediate successes and numerical popularity. It must ALWAYS and in all situations involve the following three points:
- a) the defense and precision, in relation to the new groups of facts that present themselves, of the fundamental programmatic postulates, that is, of the theoretical consciousness of the working class movement;
- b) the assurance of the continuity of the organizational complex of the party and its efficiency, and its defense against the infections of foreign influences opposed to the revolutionary interest of the proletariat;
- c) the active participation in all the struggles of the working class, even in those raised by partial and limited interests, to encourage their development, but constantly bringing to them the factor of the link with the final revolutionary objectives and presenting the conquests of the class struggle as ways of access to the indispensable future struggles, denouncing the danger of accommodating with partial achievements, considered as points of arrival, and of sacrificing to them the conditions of the class activity and combativeness of the proletariat, such as the autonomy and independence of its ideology and of its organizations, in the first rank of which is the party.
The supreme objective of this complex activity of the Party is to PREPARE the subjective conditions for the preparation of the proletariat in order to put it in a position to take advantage of the objective revolutionary possibilities that history will present, as soon as they arise, so that it will emerge victorious from the struggle, and not defeated." (Lyon Theses, I-General matters, 3.- Action and tactics of the Party, 1926).
The second passage states: "There are situations which, as a consequence of the relations of force, are objectively unfavorable for the revolution (although they may be less distant than others in time, since historical evolution - as Marxism teaches - presents very different speeds) in which wanting to be at all costs mass and majority parties, wanting to have at all costs a predominant political influence, can only be achieved by renouncing communist principles and methods, and by pursuing a social-democratic and petty-bourgeois policy.
It must be said loud and clear that, in certain past, present and future situations, the proletariat has been, is and will be for the most part, necessarily, in a non-revolutionary position, of inertia and of collaboration with the enemy, depending on the case: but that, in spite of everything, the proletariat remains always and everywhere the potentially revolutionary class and depository of the revenge of the revolution, as long as there exists in its midst the communist party which, without ever renouncing all the possibilities of asserting itself and of manifesting itself in a coherent manner, knows how to avoid the ways which appear easier for the purposes of immediate popularity, but which would divert it, the party, from its task and would deprive the proletariat of the indispensable foothold of its resumption." (Lyon Theses, I-General matters, 3.- Action and tactics of the Party, 1926).
The lesson is deep and has historical reach, but it is simple to understand for those who are not imbued with spontaneist prejudices: 1) there are unfavorable situations in which the Party cannot have a mass influence without renouncing to be such a Party; 2) in these situations, the mass of the proletariat can be in a position not only not revolutionary but of inertia and collaboration with the ruling class; 3) but there is an element whose existence is the indispensable foothold of the resumption of the class struggle of the proletariat: the Communist Party; 4) this Party must never renounce all the possibilities of asserting itself in a coherent manner but it must avoid the easier ways that would disfigure it as such.
If the existence of the Party is an indispensable foothold for the resumption of the class struggle, it is clear, it is a necessary ingredient of it. And it is also clear that it must pre-exist this resumption that it is not a Party kept in formol but one that does not renounce to all the possibilities of asserting itself in a coherent way, even if this is possible only in a limited way. Another matter is that its growth and capacity to influence the situation in a revolutionary sense is indissolubly linked to the very development of this struggle and to the material conditions, to the pressure of the productive forces.
As part of the struggle against the degeneration of the International, our current fought precisely against the position that a situation of progressive crisis of capitalism would be necessary for the formation of communist parties:
“It is clear that if our party is a factor of events, it is at the same time their product. Even if we succeed in having a truly revolutionary party: In what sense are events reflected in this party? In the sense that the number of our supporters grows and our influence on the masses increases when the crisis of capitalism generates a favorable situation. If at a given moment, the conjuncture becomes unfavorable for us, it is possible that our forces will drop quantitatively, but we must not allow our ideology to be affected, and it is not only our tradition and our organization that must remain intact, but also the political line. If we believe that, in order to prepare the parties for their revolutionary task, we must rely on a situation of progressive crisis of capitalism, we create for ourselves a scheme of completely mistaken perspectives, because, then we estimate that it is necessary, for the consolidation of our party, a period of long and progressive capitalist crisis: but when we get there, the economic situation will have to do us the favor of remaining revolutionary for some time yet to allow us to go into action. If the crisis deepens after a period of uncertain conjuncture, we will be unable to exploit it. Because our parties, as a consequence of our mistaken way of seeing things, will inevitably find themselves submerged in confusion, bewilderment and impotence.” (Speech at the VI Enlarged Executive, 1926).
In short, if someone has read Party and class (1921), Party and class action (1921), the Rome Theses of 1922 or the Lyon Theses of 1926 and has come to the conclusion that these Party texts defend the non-existence of the formal Party in historically unfavorable situations, this person has a serious problem of reading comprehension or is an intentional falsifier of their content.
Characteristic theses (1951)
In December of the same year in which "Theory and Action in the Marxist Doctrine" was published, a general meeting was held in Florence, the content of which was later published under the title Characteristic Theses. As their name indicates, these Theses are fundamental and characteristic of our current, of the Party.
We reproduce here a brief selection of the part related to the possibility or not of the existence of the formal Party in the periods of maximum depression, unfavorable and passivity of the working class, on the one hand, and of the intervention of the Party in the organs of immediate struggle on the other:
"I.6. (...) While considering the labor union as an organ by itself insufficient for the revolution, Marxism considers it, however, an INDISPENSABLE organ for the mobilization of the class on the political and revolutionary plane, achieved with the presence and penetration of the Communist Party in the economic class organizations. In the difficult phases of the formation of the economic associations, the associations which comprise only proletarians and to which these adhere spontaneously, but without the obligation to profess given political, religious and social opinions, are considered as suitable for the task of the party. Such character is lost in confessional and compulsory membership associations, or in those which have become an integral part of the State.
I.7.- The party never adopts the method of forming partial economic organizations comprising only workers who accept the principles and leadership of the communist party. (...) It is the task of the party, in unfavorable periods and periods of passivity of the proletarian class, to foresee the forms and encourage the appearance of organizations with economic objectives for the immediate struggle, which may even assume totally new aspects in the future, after the well-known types of corporation, industrial union, company council, etc. The party always encourages those forms of organization which facilitate contact and common action among the workers of various localities and of different professions, rejecting closed forms. (...)
I V.4.- Today, in the fullness of the depression, in spite of the fact that the possibilities of action are greatly restricted, the party, following the revolutionary tradition, does not intend, however, to break the historical line of the preparation of a future large-scale resumption of the class movement, which will make its own the results of all past experiences. From the restriction of practical activity does not derive the renunciation of revolutionary postulates. The party acknowledges that the restriction of certain sectors is quantitatively accentuated, but it does not thereby change the whole of the elements of its activity, nor does it expressly renounce them.
IV.8.- The party, in spite of the reduced number of its adherents, determined by the clearly counterrevolutionary conditions, does not cease the proselytism and the propaganda of its principles in all oral or written forms, although its meetings have few participants and its press, limited diffusion. (…)”.
Back to the 1965 Considerations
With a typically opportunist method, the Grupo Barbaria takes specific terms of the Party to give them a different meaning, taking them out of their natural context, to adorn themselves with a depth of analysis whose conclusions are betrayed.
It is not something new or that can surprise us, Stalinism triumphed over the Marxist current by appropriating Marxist terms and publishing the complete works of Marx, Engels and Lenin in all languages.
An example is that of the concepts of "ionization" or "polarization" of the social molecules. This concept appears in point 6 of the Considerations on the organic activity of the Party when the situation is historically unfavorable of 1965 and is quoted in the article of the Grupo Barbaria, but without mentioning the source.
In fact, it would be enough to read the title of the text in question to see its complete contradiction with the positions of the Grupo Barbaria since it clearly deals with the activity of the formal Party in a historically unfavorable situation. This is the reason why the Grupo Barbaria is very cautious to say from which text it takes the quotation. But how can one use this text and even quote point 6 in its entirety while concealing what is said immediately below in points 7 and 8 of the same text?
“7.- What are, in this unfavorable period, the consequences on the internal organic dynamics of the party? We have always said, in all the texts indicated above, that the party cannot but suffer from the characters of the real situation that surrounds it. Therefore, the great proletarian parties that exist are necessarily and manifestly opportunist.
A fundamental thesis of the Left is that OUR PARTY MUST NOT RENOUNCE TO RESIST DESPITE OF THIS but must survive and transmit the flame along the historical "thread of time". It is clear that it will be a small party, not by our desire or choice, but by ineluctable necessity. (...) (…)
8.- Since the degenerating character of the social complex is concentrated in the falsification and destruction of theory and sane doctrine, it is clear that the small party of today has a preeminent character of restoration of the principles of doctrinal value, and unfortunately lacks the favorable background in which Lenin fulfilled it after the disaster of the first war. Yet, not for this reason can we erect a barrier between theory and practical action, because after a certain limit we will self-destruct together with all our bases of principle. We vindicate, therefore, all forms of activity suitable to favorable moments, insofar as the real relations of force allow them.” (Considerations on the organic activity of the Party when the situation is historically unfavorable, 1965).
And a little further on, dedicated to the "camattians" and the "barbarists" of today, the position of the Party is clarified as to a crucial point also highly manipulated by these currents: "12.- Historical Party and formal party. (...) No current militant can infer from this the right to a choice: to have the papers in order with the "Historical Party" and to disengage from the formal party. (...)" (Considerations on the organic activity of the Party when the situation is historically unfavorable, 1965).
The "easy way" and petty bourgeois laziness
At the beginning of this article we have seen how the Group Barbaria affirmed: "And it makes no sense that, as revolutionaries and communists, we permanently bang our heads against the wall of capital." (Grupo Barbaria). This is a declaration of principles, an authentic confession of its true approach: the revolution will fall from the sky.
The Party established a precise diagnosis for this type of reasoning that is worth remembering: "A fundamental characteristic of the phenomenon that Lenin, with a term admitted by Marx and Engels, called, treating it with red-hot iron, opportunism, lies in the preference for a shorter, more comfortable and less arduous way, as opposed to that longer, more uncomfortable and full of difficulties, the only one on which the full convergence between the affirmation of our principles and programs, that is, of our maximum objectives, and the development of the immediate practical action carried out in the real situation of the moment, can be accomplished; (...) This verification obtained in the arc of an immense historical scale (...) leads us to the admonition that the party should avoid any decision or choice that could be dictated by the desire to obtain good results with less work or sacrifice. A similar impulse may seem innocent, but it expresses the lazy mood of the petty bourgeois and obeys the suggestion of the capitalist basilar norm of obtaining maximum profit with minimum costs." (Milan Theses, 1966).
Continuity of the Party's positions
The position of the Party has always consisted in defending at the same time that the revolution is not the product of a mere act of will and that there are no mechanical recipes to unleash it, that this does not imply the renunciation of the existence of the formal Party and all the forms of coherent manifestation of it that the situation allows, that the existence of the Party is an indispensable condition for the resumption of the struggle in a revolutionary direction, together with the resurgence of a stratum of organizations of struggle of the labor union type not integrated in the apparatus of the bourgeois State in which the Party has been able to gain an appreciable influence as well as the material contradiction generated by the pressure of the productive forces.
The continuity and coherence of the positions of the Party is unbreakable and without fissures through the different Theses and Fundamental Texts. As stated in a 1958 Party text: "Formulas and terms can be falsified by traitors and by morons, but their use is always a compass when it is continuous and concordant".
After all the above, it is clear that the position of our current, of the Party and also, if wished, that of comrade Bordiga (who certainly played a fundamental role in the redaction of these Theses, although they are not "his" writings but anonymous Party texts, expression of an impersonal and organic movement, by decision of all those involved), has nothing to do with the conclusions that the Grupo Barbaria tries to draw from the biased reading of the Party's texts.
The true political DNA of the Grupo Barbaria in terms of organization is synthesized by themselves in the other article we have referred to: "Proletarian autonomy. The leadership of the struggle is of the proletarians themselves, outside and against any organization that pretends to frame us. We fight independently, for ourselves" (France, Greece, United Kingdom... proletarians all over the world, let's burn capitalism!, Grupo Barbaria).
This is the answer to "Party and Class" back in 1921: "This makes the meaning of the fundamental truth clearer: the party is only a part of the class. Anyone who, looking at the fixed and abstract image of society, distinguishes a zone there, the class, and within it a small nucleus, the party, would easily fall into the consideration that all the part of the class, often the majority, that remains outside the party, could have greater weight, greater rights. But as soon as one thinks that in that large remaining mass, individuals do not yet have class consciousness and will, that they live for their own selfishness, for their category, for their local region, or for the nation, it becomes clear that to ensure the collective action of the class in historical movement, an organization that inspires, strengthens, leads, and FRAMES —this is the word— it is necessary and it becomes clear that the party is indeed the vital nucleus, without which there would be no reason to consider the remaining mass as a bundle of forces." (Party and Class, 1921)
Anyone who really thinks, as the Grupo Barbaria claims to think, that "the leadership of the struggle belongs to the proletarians themselves", should be asked a question that is self-evident: why don't you dissolve yourselves and let the "proletarians themselves" be led "independently" and "by themselves"?
If the Grupo Barbaria had a minimum of political honesty it would say: we are against all the political positions of the Italian Communist Left and we are against all that has been specifically defended and written by A. Bordiga (with his signature or without it), we are all that that comrade fought against during his whole life. But this would prevent them from playing the role of confusion and distortion of Marxism and the Left to wrap their mystical-moralist-humanistic positions on the one hand and their spontaneist-anti-unionist-anti-party positions on the other.
So, we do not want to delude anyone that this act of political honesty can be expected.