The government shutdown continues, with neither side speaking to each other. This is to say that the leaders of the Democratic Party are not speaking to Trump or to any other leader of the Republican Party. Not that any other leader of the Republican Party has anything to say about the shutdown, as Trump listens only to people who tell him precisely that which he wants to hear.
Now the press is reporting that the ”White House has invited moderate Democratic members of the House of Representatives to the White House to negotiate a deal to end the shutdown”. If we are to believe the press, and there are ”moderate democrats”, then there must be radical democrats, and such radicals are clearly not welcome in the White House.
Of course, there is no such thing as a moderate democrat, never mind a radical democrat. There are just democrats. Further, Nancy Pelosi, a democrat, is the Speaker of the House, and the democratic members of the House will vote the way she tells them to vote. Any and all ”moderate democrats” who accept the invitation to go to the White House, will do so only at the behest of Nancy Pelosi. As she is dead set opposed to the wall, this meeting is not about to happen. It is just an example of the stooges of Trump attempting to shift the blame for the government shutdown onto the shoulders of the Democrats.
In other news, the Brexit deal may collapse, and Elizabeth May is frantic to avoid such a disaster. She is afraid it may trigger an end to the United Kingdom, which is to say that Northern Ireland may separate and rejoin Ireland. As Northern Ireland is merely a colony of Great Britain, the sooner they achieve their independence, the better.
That same lady is careful not to say that her big concern is that such a collapse could also trigger an end to Great Britain, in that Scotland and Wales could also go their separate ways. Then England would be alone in supporting the richest welfare cases in the world, the royal family. As a staunch supporter of the monarchy, no doubt this is a big concern of Mays.
The press also reports that Trump is giving consideration to pulling out of Nato, possibly because the Premier of Russia, Putin, ”advised” him to do so.
It is strange, but significant, that the press has recently made no mention of the White House Resistance, or of the fact that the federal government will run out of money on February 8, a mere three weeks away. At that date the government will reach their debt limit, and unless the Congress, meaning the House of Representatives, raises the debt ceiling yet again, the government will effectively go broke.
Yet that same press quite cheerfully reports that the shutdown could last until the end of February, long after the government is scheduled to go broke. At the same time, they ignore the White House Resistance, which has vowed to stop Trump, ”one way of another”. Perhaps the press thinks that the right wing radical faction has lost interest. If so, the latest threat of Trump, that of pulling out of Nato, is sure to capture their attention. Every staunch supporter of imperialism swears by Nato. Every belly crawling boot licker of the bourgeoisie, of which there is no shortage, is sure to rise up in protest.
I have chosen these current news reports as examples of news items which concern working people , as such people pay careful attention to the news. That is a fact, just as it is a fact that the news is presented from a bourgeois viewpoint, along with opinions by loyal servants of the bourgeoisie, which can easily be confused by many members of the working class as facts themselves.
It is a popular misconception among members of the ”left”, which is to say socialists and those who consider themselves to be Marxists, that working people are only concerned with wages, living and working conditions. Such is hardly the case. Yet the literature the left produces for working people is mainly focused on precisely those items.
The situation we are facing can hardly be called new and different. In fact, Lenin faced precisely these challenges in Czarist Russia, and criticized them in his book, What Is To Be Done? It is a difficult work to understand, so perhaps a brief history lesson is in order. I say brief, as history lessons can be very boring, but in this case, perhaps essential.
In 1898 Russia, Lenin and several other middle class intellectuals, Marxists one and all, got together and formed the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, the RSDLP. The name was carefully chosen, as to stress the fact that all socialists are also democrats.
Shortly after the party was formed, it was faced with deep differences within the party. In response to these different opinions, Lenin wrote a major work, What Is To Be Done? We are faced with the same differences today, which is one reason the work is so important.
Several years later the RSDLP split, with the majority, led by Lenin, becoming the Bolshevik Party, and the minority becoming the Menshevik Party, because bolsh means majority and mensh means minority in Russian. It was only after the Russian revolution, which brought about a dramatic change in circumstances, that the name of the party was changed accordingly, to the Communist Party. The main thing is that Social Democrat, Bolshevik and Communist all refers to Marxists. So in reading that book, it is best to read Social Democrat as Marxist or Communist.
To return to the book, perhaps it would be best to read some of the Russian names with their English translations, or at least I found that helpful. With that in mind:
Rabochoye Dyelom means Workers Cause
Rabochoye Mysl means Workers Newspaper
Iskra means Spark
Narodnaya Volya means Peoples Will
Credo mean Beliefs
Zarya means Surprise
As Lenin pointed out, there was a vocal faction within the party who thought that ”Social Democracy must change from a party of the social revolution into a democratic party of social reform”. We can repeat that by Social Democracy he was referring to Marxism.
He went on to say that ”The very conception, ‘ultimate aim’, was declared to be unsound, and the idea of the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat was absolutely rejected. It was denied that there is any difference in principle between liberalism and socialism. The theory of the class struggle was rejected on the grounds that it could not be applied to a strictly democratic society…the demand for a definite change from revolutionary Social Democracy to bourgeois social reformism was accompanied by a no less definite turn towards bourgeois criticism of all the fundamental ideas of Marxism”.
The members of the Social Democratic party who wanted to change the party from a revolutionary Marxist party to a liberal party of social reform eventually split from the party. They formed the opportunist Menshevik party, and fought the revolutionary Marxist Bolshevik party.
We should add, for the sake of those who are new to the revolutionary movement, that opportunist merely means devoid of principle. There is no shortage of such people in the modern day movement, those who claim to be Marxist or socialists or communists, but are merely liberals masquerading as revolutionaries.
Lenin goes on to say that ”the reward for this utter humiliation and self degradation of socialism in the face of the whole world, for the corruption of the socialist consciousness of the working class – the only basis that can guarantee our victory – the reward for this is imposing plans for paltry reforms, so paltry in fact that much more has been obtained from bourgeois governments!”
A spontaneous revolutionary movement is now sweeping the world, as countless people rise up, not aware of precisely what they are doing. This is in stark contrast to the Marxists, the intellectuals, the people who know precisely what is happening, those who are also referred to as conscious people. It is up to such people, conscious people, Marxists, to lead the revolutionary movement, to give it direction, to ensure the overthrow of capitalism, the creation of socialism and the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. That dictatorship is necessary as it is the only way to crush the desperate and determined resistance of the bourgeoisie, whose resistance will be increased ten fold after the revolution, after they are removed from power. They will go to any length to regain their ”paradise lost”, stoop to any level, as they have in Russia and China, where they are once again in power.
In contrast to the Marxists there are a great many people who claim to be Marxists but embrace the beliefs of the Mensheviks. As Lenin phrased it, the belief of the Mensheviks is to ”let the workers carry on the economic struggle (it would be more correct to say the trade union struggle, because the latter also embraces specifically labor politics) and let the Marxian intelligentsia merge with the liberals for the political struggle”.
This peculiar belief of the Mensheviks is referred to as Economism, and is quite prevalent in society today, among members of the left. This peculiar belief is accompanied by a no less peculiar state of mind among our Economists, a fear of publicity. They want people to take them at their word. When they say they are Marxists or Marxist Leninists, they expect us to believe them because they say it is true. They tend to be quite shy, and do not appreciate anyone questioning their beliefs.
As Lenin pointed out, ”the majority of the Economists quite sincerely disapprove (and by the very nature of economism must disapprove) of all theoretical controversies, factional disagreements, of broad political questions, of schemes for organizing revolutionaries…”
That was the muddle that Lenin faced in Russia before the revolution, and that is the muddle we face now. His solution was, first of all, to resume the theoretical work. He felt that the successful growth of the movement was impossible, without the theoretical work. It was also necessary to combat the lies and distortion of the Mensheviks, which was corrupting the working class. He went on to advise that the Marxists should actively counteract the confusion and vacillation prevailing in practical work, and should expose and repudiate every conscious or unconscious attempt to degrade the Marxist program and tactics.
That is also our task now, and I will be the first to admit that what we have here is a tall order, but what is the alternative? Lenin provides an answer which leaves no room for any misunderstanding: ”Without a revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary motion”. He goes on to say that the importance of theory is important for three reasons, the first of which is that ”our Party is only in the process of formation, its features are but just becoming outlined, and it has not yet completely settled its accounts with other tendencies in revolutionary thought which tend to divert the movement from the proper path…what at first sight appears to be an ‘unimportant’ mistake may give rise to most deplorable consequences…The fate of Russian Social Democracy for many, many years to come may be determined by the strengthening of one or the other ‘shade’ ”.
That was true in early twentieth century Russia, and it is true in America today.
The second reason is that ”the Social Democratic movement is essentially an international movement…a movement that is starting in a young country can be successful only on the condition that it assimilates the experience of other countries…a reserve of theoretical forces and political (as well as revolutionary) experience is required to fulfill this task”.
We can learn a great deal from the experience of the Russian revolution, especially as it so closely resembles our own approaching revolution.
The third reason is that ”the national tasks of Russian Social Democracy are such as have never confronted any other socialist party in the world…the role of vanguard can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by an advanced theory”.
That was the advice of Lenin in the early twentieth century, to the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, of which Lenin was the leader. At that time the Russian working class was in the vanguard of the international revolutionary movement. In fact, the 1917 November Russian revolution was successful, but only because the working people followed the revolutionary theories of Marx and Lenin.
It may be objected that the overthrow of the Czar, in the spring of 1917, happened even without the leadership of Lenin and the other Marxists. That is true, but only because Lenin and all the other Marxists had been thrown in prison and either killed or exiled. The Czar was overthrown as a result of a spontaneous uprising of the people. This created a political vacuum, which gave the capitalists the chance to set up a democratic republic, under the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, of course. This became known as the Karensky regime. The Mensheviks, the self proclaimed Marxists, gave this capitalist regime their full support. That is the Menshevik, or Economist, idea of a successful revolution.
It should come as no great surprise to anyone that Lenin and the other Marxists were of a different opinion. They considered this a betrayal of socialism, as indeed it was. In response, Lenin wrote another masterpiece, State and Revolution, which will be the subject of my next article. For the moment, suffice it to say that as a result of this, the Russian revolution of 1917 was carried through to socialism and the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat. I mention this in an attempt to persuade people of the importance of the revolutionary theories of Marx and Lenin.
To return to the current situation in America, the American working class is now in the vanguard of the international working class movement. The approaching revolution in the United States (America) will certainly spread to other parts of North America, and very likely South America.
That is a heavy burden, but I have no doubt the American workers will rise to the occasion. They have done it before, and they will do it again. They are a proud people, with a proud history of revolution. The only thing lacking now is the leaders.
That is where we come in. As Marxists, conscious people, it is up to us to lead the working class movement, to bring to the working class the awareness of itself as a class, with interests which are diametrically opposed to the interests of the capitalists, of the necessity of revolution and the subsequent Dictatorship Of the Proletariat.
At the same time, we can expect opposition from the capitalists and their servants, the belly crawling boot lickers within the working class, including those who claim to be socialists or Marxists. We have got to distinguish ourselves from those people and form a proper Communist Party at the same time. The success of the approaching revolution depends on this. Failure is not an option. The working class, and not just of America, is counting on us.
Revolution is also taking place in other parts of the world. In Asia, the working people of Hong Kong are also in the vanguard, defying the Chinese authorities, those who have embraced capitalism. In Europe, the people of France are taking part in a movement referred to as the Yellow Vest protest. They too are leading the revolutionary motion, and deserve our support.
No doubt most of the people who have recently become politically active are gravitating to socialist parties, or at least parties which claim to be socialist. Many such people are sure to find themselves disillusioned to find that these so called socialist parties are merely parties of social reform. The natural response is to explain to the leaders of these ”socialist” parties the error of their ways.
Invariably, the response of these Economists, masquerading as socialists, is to resort to anger. As Lenin pointed out, they want no part of criticism. If the newly created politically conscious people are capable of persuading the leaders of any ”socialist” party to become Marxists, to call for revolution and the Dictatorship Of the Proletariat, more power to them. Good luck with that. It is not about to happen. The leaders of such ”socialist” parties are liberals, social reformers masquerading as Marxists, and deeply entrenched. They are not about to respond to sweet reason. They have heard it all before, and are set in their ways. Trying to impress them with logic is similar to throwing water at a duck.
The alternative is to take part in the formation of a revolutionary Communist Party. This can be done, but only by intellectuals. Whether these intellectuals are members of the working class, current or former members of the middle class, it matters not. Bear in mind that both Marx and Lenin were members of the middle class. The obstacles they faced were far greater than the obstacles we face. They turned their backs on a comfortable middle class existence and chose to do the principled thing. We too can choose to do the principled thing and build upon their work, or we can choose to do the easy thing.
To proceed with our study of What Is To Be Done?, Lenin provides a rather lengthy quote of Engels, to the effect that there are three forms of the great struggle Social Democracy is waging, political, economic and theoretical. He stresses that the theoretical struggle is every bit as important as the political and economic struggle. This is not something our modern day Economists, would be socialists, want to hear.
Lenin goes on to say that the ”spontaneous element” represents ”nothing more nor less than consciousness in an embryonic form…there could not yet be Social Democratic consciousness among the workers. This consciousness could only be brought to them from without… the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able to develop only trade union consciousness..The theory of socialism, however, grew out of the philosophic, historical and economic theories that were elaborated by the educated representatives of the propertied classes, the intellectuals. According to their social status, the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia.” (italics by Lenin). We could add that Lenin too was a middle class intellectual, a lawyer by training.
The fact that Lenin placed such importance on the raising of the level of consciousness of the working class, to that of Marxists, stands in stark contrast to that of the Economists. As Lenin phrased it, ”people appeared – and even Social Democratic organs – who were prepared to regard short comings as a virtue, who even tried to invent a theoretical basis for slavish cringing before spontaneity.” (italics by Lenin)
Now those ”Social Democratic organs”, which bow down to spontaneity, are the rule and not the exception.
Lenin also had a few words to say concerning ideology. ”Since there can be no talk of an independent ideology being developed by the masses of the workers in the process of their movement, the only choice is : either bourgeois or socialist ideology. …to belittle socialist ideology in any way, to deviate from it in the slightest degree means strengthening bourgeois ideology…for the spontaneous labor movement is pure and simple trade unionism…and trade unionism means the ideological enslavement of the workers to the bourgeoisie. …the task of Social Democracy is to combat spontaneity, to divert the labor movement from its spontaneous, trade unionist strivings to go under the wing of the bourgeoisie, and to bring it under the wing of revolutionary Social Democracy….The working class spontaneously gravitates towards socialism, but the more widespread (and continuously revived in the most diverse forms) bourgeois ideology spontaneously imposes itself upon the working class still more. (All italics by Lenin)
In my opinion Lenin sums this up quite nicely when he says ”The Social Democrats ideal should not be a trade union secretary but a tribune of the people, able to react to every manifestation of tyranny and oppression…he must be able to take advantage of every petty event in order to explain his socialist convictions and his Social Democratic demands to all, in order to explain to all and everyone the world historic significance of the struggle for the emancipation of the proletariat.” (all italics by Lenin)
I most sincerely hope that gives the reader some idea of the importance of What Is To Be Done? I have done my best to present the most urgent, most pressing tasks now facing Marxists. As the revolution could break out any day now, there is no time to waste. I just hope this inspires the reader to conduct a careful study of this book.
In fraternal comradeship
Gerald McIsaac
Gerald McIsaac Science Project 