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Create a Mass Party!

Cliff Connolly critiques CounterPower’s vision of the “party of autonomy” and offers an alternative vision of the mass party. 

In Praise of Communism by Ronald Paris, sourced from here.

The US left is at a critical juncture where the structure and focus of our organizations will soon be decided. On the one hand, we positively have ongoing processes of cohesion in play with DSA chapters collaborating on writing a national platform and far-flung sects coming together under the banner of Marxist Center. On the other hand, we have many comrades across ideological lines who still echo opposition to the idea of a tightly structured national organization. Central to this contradiction is the question of the party: should socialists strive to build an independent political party, and if so, what should that look like? CounterPower has put forth one possible answer in their article Create Two, Three, Many Parties of Autonomy! They are dedicated organizers and we should all be glad to have them in our midst. However, their strategy of eschewing the mass party model and encouraging the spontaneous formation of multiple “parties of autonomy”, and counting on these disparate groups to unite into an “area of the party”, is unworkable in the long term.

Their argument for the many parties strategy rests on a number of errors—historical misrepresentation (no, CPUSA was not a party of autonomy), uncritical acceptance of failed models (Autonomia Operaia gives us more negative lessons than positive ones), an over-reliance on spontaneity (movements have to be built intentionally), an aversion to leadership (no, it doesn’t automatically create unaccountable bureaucracy), and a confusion of terms (putting anarchist and Marxist vocab words together does not solve the contradictions between them). We will explore each of these points in greater detail. There is also an implicit assumption of false dichotomies built into the many parties line—either we build parties of autonomy or slip into sectarianism, either parties of autonomy or dogmatism, either parties of autonomy or top-down bureaucracy. There is a kernel of truth present here; we certainly don’t want a dictatorship of paid staffers. However, parties of autonomy are not a solution to this problem — in some ways, they would exacerbate the problem.

This was initially written in response to CounterPower’s original essay in 2019, but has since been amended to include dialogue with the updated version published in 2020. The differences between the two are significant and raise new concerns about the many parties model. The most interesting addition in the update concerns the role of cadre — highly trained organizers dedicated full-time to party activity. While we agree wholeheartedly on the necessity of these professional revolutionaries, there is a difference of emphasis that merits debate. This issue will be explored in greater detail below.

That CounterPower started this conversation on the party question is a gift to the whole of the US left—it must be addressed for our organizations to move forward. While many of us vehemently disagree with their conclusions, we should be grateful for their company. After examining each piece of their argument for the many parties model and taking note of its shortcomings, we will investigate a viable alternative—a mass party of organizers built on the principles of struggle, pluralism, and democratic discipline. 

Historical Clarification

There are a number of historical errors throughout CounterPower’s article. By this we are not referring to a difference of opinion about a certain historical figure’s thought process or the motivations behind a particular decision, but rather factual inaccuracies. This in itself does not mean the thesis of the article is automatically false, but it does betray a dependency on unfounded assumptions. First, there is the assertion that the Russian soviets arose organically without being built by socialists, at which point the Bolsheviks joined them and worked harmoniously with other autonomous parties in this “area of the party” to link the soviets to other sites of struggle. Second, there is the quotation from Mao Zedong’s 1957 Hundred Flowers speech, which CounterPower uses to bolster their argument for parties of autonomy. Finally, we are led to believe that both the FAI and the Alabama chapter of the Communist Party USA are exemplars of the many parties model. 

We will begin with the relationship between the Bolsheviks and the soviets. Here is CounterPower’s characterization:

“The organized interventions of a revolutionary party thus take place ‘in the middle,’ as mediations between the micropolitical and macropolitical. This has been a distinguishing feature of successful revolutionary parties, as in the example of the Russian Revolution of 1917, when clusters of Bolshevik party activists concentrated in workplaces, recognizing that the participatory councils (soviets) emerging from grassroots proletarian struggles embodied the nucleus of an alternative social system. Thus the party’s organization at the point of production enabled revolutionaries first to link workplace struggles against exploitation with the struggle against imperialism, and then to link the emergent councils with the insurrectionary struggle to establish a system of territorial counterpower”.

On the contrary, it is of utmost importance to recognize that the soviets, factory committees, and militias that formed the backbone of the Russian revolution were built intentionally by socialists. While different factions in the Russian Social Democratic Workers’ Party eventually split into separate organizations as the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, both groups were instrumental in the creation of these mass organizations. They did not emerge organically from economic struggles with bosses and feudal landlords like some of the trade unions and peasant associations, but instead were the product of a socialist intervention in economic struggles which emphasized the need for political organization. This strategy, commonly referred to as the “merger formula”, was theorized by Marx and Engels, popularized by the German socialist party leader Karl Kautsky, and accepted by Russian socialists of all stripes (most notably Lenin).1

The Bolsheviks did not merely help workers build their fighting organizations. They also competed with political rivals for leadership in them. Beyond their efforts that we would call “base-building” today, the Bolsheviks also invested significant resources into propaganda efforts and electoral contests. The struggle for elected majorities in the soviets in 1917 was pursued in tandem with a strategy of running campaigns for municipal offices and the Constituent Assembly (the bourgeois parliament of the Provisional Government), and it worked. The Bolshevik candidates for the assembly were able to publicly oppose the policies of the Provisional Government, while the elected deputies in the soviets were able to win over the working class to the task of seizing political power. These electoral efforts were instrumental in establishing a democratic mandate for the October Revolution.2 Consider these words from leading Bolshevik (and later leading opposition member purged by Stalin) Alexander Shliapnikov, in 1920:

The Russian Communist Party (RKP), as the history of the preceding years indicates, is the only revolutionary party of the Working Class, leading class war and civil war in the name of Communism. The R.K.P. unifying the more conscious and decisive part of the Proletariat around the Revolutionary Communist Program of action and drawing to the Communist banner the more leading elements of the rural poor, must concentrate all higher leadership of communist construction and the general direction of policy of the country.

Clearly, the Bolsheviks did not consider themselves a “party of autonomy” working side by side with the Menshevik reformists in a broad “area of the party”. Nor did they simply fuse with organic economic struggles in the trade unions. The reality couldn’t be further from CounterPower’s insinuations: the Bolsheviks were a party of political organizers who started as a minority and slowly won over sections of the working class through diligent mass work and bitter struggle with the other parties of the day. By engaging in this process, they eventually took on a mass character and became capable of leading social revolution. The lesson to learn from the Bolsheviks is this: we must win political hegemony in whatever independent organs of proletarian power that we help build, using every available means, including running opposition candidates in bourgeois elections to expose broader sections of the class to our ideas.

Now we will consider Mao’s echoing of the old Chinese proverb “Let a hundred flowers blossom, let a hundred schools of thought contend.” This line of poetry is used by CounterPower to demonstrate the need for dozens of independent communist grouplets to form and collaborate on the task of social revolution. They attribute the quote to Mao, but is this how he used it? The short answer is no. It comes from a speech he gave in March 1957 at the Chinese Communist Party’s National Conference on Propaganda Work. It is true that he called for a hundred schools of thought to contend, but this was in the context of winning unaligned intellectuals over to the party’s socialist ideals. He gave a thoughtful and nuanced analysis of how the party could accept criticism from the broader population without sacrificing their legitimacy as the ruling organization of the country:

Ours is a great Party, a glorious Party, a correct Party. This must be affirmed as a fact. But we still have shortcomings, and this, too, must be affirmed as a fact…Will it undermine our Party’s prestige if we criticize our own subjectivism, bureaucracy and sectarianism? I think not. On the contrary, it will serve to enhance the Party’s prestige. This was borne out by the rectification movement during the anti-Japanese war. It enhanced the prestige of our Party, of our Party comrades and our veteran cadres, and it also enabled the new cadres to make great progress. Which of the two was afraid of criticism, the Communist Party or the Kuomintang? The Kuomintang. It prohibited criticism, but that did not save it from final defeat. The Communist Party does not fear criticism because we are Marxists, the truth is on our side, and the basic masses, the workers and peasants, are on our side.

Clearly, in March 1957 Mao was concerned with building a mass party, not opening space for a loose collaboration between multiple parties aimed at building socialism. Unfortunately, the Chinese Communist Party was underprepared for the criticism they would soon face and reversed the Hundred Flowers Campaign. By July of that same year, the Anti-Rightist Campaign brought a series of purges underway, which got so out of control that Mao had to restrain his subordinates from excess killing. Perhaps Chinese conditions in 1957 were different enough from American conditions in 2020 that this was acceptable, or perhaps Mao the statesman should not be looked to for inspiration as much as Mao the general or Mao the revolutionary. It is beyond the purview of this article to answer that question. What is certain CounterPower draws the wrong lesson out of Mao’s 1957 speech.

Demonstration from the Hundred Flowers Movement

After quoting Mao, CounterPower moves on to claim that the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI) is in practice a party of autonomy working within the “area of the party” of Spain’s National Confederation of Labour (CNT). Although the idea of “parties of autonomy” was not formulated until forty years after FAI’s founding, there may be a kernel of truth to this claim. For example, if FAI formed a loose coalition with CNT organizers and worked with them on shared projects, this argument could make sense. The reality, however, is that FAI is essentially a hard-line anarchist faction within CNT that has consistently fought for political hegemony within the broader organization and even purged ideological rivals like Ángel Pestaña. Perhaps they were right to do so; it is outside the scope of this article to pass judgment on the internal political conflicts of the CNT. 

Despite CounterPower’s framing of the FAI as an independent anarcho-communist organization with an “organic link” to the CNT, they are an explicitly anarchist faction struggling to dominate the politics of the Spanish labor movement. They act as a pressure group within the confederation to make CNT adhere to what they perceive as purely anarchist theory and praxis without deviation. This is not a “symbiotic relationship”, it is realpolitik under a black flag. Roberto Bordiga’s window dressing cannot give us a clear understanding of Spanish labor politics; historians like José Peirats and Paul Preston would be better suited to aid this investigation. 

In the updated version of their essay, CounterPower cites the Alabama chapter of CPUSA as a historical example that serves to “elucidate the role and function of a party of autonomy”. This could not be further from the truth. Similar to the FAI, the party of autonomy model would not even be theorized until fifty years after the Alabama chapter’s founding. CPUSA was a mass party with local chapters all over the country for at least the first half of the twentieth century. The Alabama chapter in particular was the result of discussions on “the Negro question” at the Sixth World Congress of the Communist International, after which the Central Committee of CPUSA chose Birmingham as a headquarters for its foothold in the South.3 Its success in organizing rural and urban communities in the deep south of the 1920s is proof that the mass party model can be adapted to regional conditions and accountable to local rank and file members. Describing this centralized party model as a “party of autonomy” is categorically false.

Spontaneity vs. Base-Building

Now that the historical context of CounterPower’s narrative has been clarified, we should examine the contradiction between their ideological commitment to spontaneity theory on the one hand, and their practical commitment to base-building on the other. Does the working class organically form explicitly political fighting organizations, or is a socialist intervention required for this to occur? This is a never-ending debate between Marxists and anarchists, despite the pile of evidence pointing to the latter. Some would argue that this debate is pointless at the present moment, and these differences are best put aside until the workers’ movement has grown. We would reply: “First, comradely debate in no way hampers unity of action. We can continue base-building efforts while disagreeing on political questions, and it is only through debate that we might one day get on the same page. Second, simply by engaging in the act of base-building with us, you are agreeing with our point in practice while denying it in theory.” How is this possible?

Our comrades in CounterPower are the perfect example. They admit the masses will not come to accept communist ideas on their own:

From strike committees to workers’ councils, tenant unions to neighborhood assemblies, the disparate forms of organized autonomy that arise in the midst of a protracted revolutionary struggle will not automatically fuse with communist politics to create a cohesive system of counterpower.

Yet they don’t address where these councils and unions come from. The reader gets the sense that these organizations simply pop up during times of crisis, as workers get frustrated with bourgeois politics and independently come to the conclusion that they need to organize against their boss or landlord. This may be true in a minority of cases, but most proletarian fighting organizations come from the same source as the Russian soviets: dedicated socialist base-builders. Who built Amazonians United? Who built Autonomous Tenant Union Network? Who built UE, ILWU, and the original CIO? In every case, the answer is: workers and intellectuals who read Marx, became socialists, and decided to organize.

Our responsibilities go beyond just founding these mass organizations; we have to compete for hegemony within them as well. If we neglect this crucial aspect of organizing due to a fetishization of the autonomy of the masses, reformists and even reactionaries will gladly fill the gap. In the case of something like workers’ councils, we cannot have any illusions that they provide anything beyond a means of representation for political tendencies within the movement. This is precisely why the Bolsheviks competed so vigorously with the reformist Mensheviks and populist Social Revolutionaries for elected majorities in the soviets. In fact, the Bolsheviks only adopted their famous slogan “All Power to the Soviets” after they had secured elected majorities in them.4 We only need to look at the difference between the Soviet Republics established in Russia and the brutally crushed Soviet Republic of Bavaria to understand the limitations of the model. Without influence from committed revolutionaries, mass organizations can be rallied to the banner of class-collaboration (as the Russian soviets were before Bolshevik intervention) or adventurism (as in the case of Bavaria).5

CounterPower’s overestimation of proletarian spontaneity has practical consequences for its members. In his recent article In Defense of Revolution and the Insurrectionary Commune, Atlee McFellin analyzed the November 2020 election and drew parallels between it and the situation which produced the Paris Commune. Fearing that elections may never take place again, McFellin argued against any participation in electoral efforts (including, but not limited to the creation of a political party independent from the Democrats). What was proposed instead? “Self-defense forces, solidarity kitchens, and everything else that is required to repel fascist assaults”. In other words, anything but a class-independent party capable of coordinating the struggle for socialism across different political, economic, and social fronts. Rather than face the reality of the radical left’s current irrelevance in national politics and the labor movement, and chart a course to resolve this, comrade McFellin called for the construction of insurrectionary communes as a response to the consolidation of ruling class interests under Joe Biden. Whether the working class has the spontaneous energy necessary for this task remains to be seen;  if it does, we would be ill-advised to hold our breath in anticipation but should wince at the inevitable brutal consequences if such adventurism bears fruit.

While in theory, CounterPower glosses over the role of communists in building workers’ organizations, in practice they are engaged in precisely this work. Rather than relying on the spontaneous initiative of the masses, they actively build tenant and labor unions, political education circles, and other necessary vehicles of class struggle. In fact, they do it remarkably well. This is what makes the claim that communists must “fuse with grassroots organizations” after they appear rather than actively building them in the first place so bizarre. Ultimately, our task as communists is to build mass organizations of class struggle, and then rally the most active participants within them to a mass communist party. By uniting in one party, we can direct the efforts of thousands of organizers according to a commonly agreed upon plan, which is an absolute necessity for the workers’ movement to grow. 

The Role of Cadre

The discussion of cadre organizers is given new attention in CounterPower’s update to their original essay. It mostly focuses on the role these committed party members play in shaping revolutionary strategy and connecting it to active proletarian struggles. As seen in my Cosmonaut article Revolutionary Discipline and Sobriety, those of us who favor the mass party model are in complete agreement with CounterPower on the importance of cadre:

Any collective project, whether a revolutionary labor union or a church’s food pantry, will expect a higher degree of involvement from its core organizers than from its regular members. Not everyone has the time or the technical skills needed to bottom-line such endeavors, and those who do have a responsibility to step up to the plate. These small groups, or cadre, are the powerhouse of the class. Taking direction from the masses they live and labor with, cadre members should focus their lives on facilitating the self-emancipation of the proletariat.

CounterPower rightly points out that these dedicated full-timers are a prerequisite for the development of robust internal political education, external agitation, and consistent recruitment to mass work projects. Key to the every-day functioning of these cadre groups is the organizational center to which they are accountable (and preferably subject to democratic discipline by the whole membership of the organization). While the mass party shares the party of autonomy’s commitment to a common political platform and program, the main difference between the two models is one of scope. Whereas the “area of the party” is composed of diffuse autonomous organizations with separate and often contradictory programs, the local chapters of the mass party work together on a common, democratically agreed-upon plan. As the experience of the Alabama chapter of CPUSA shows, this does not mean the plan cannot be adapted to meet local concerns. 

CPUSA demo in the south

In fact, the mass party model historically proves more capable of achieving its aims than any other method of party organization, whether it is compared to the bourgeois fund-raising parties that dominate US politics or the Italian autonomist model revived by CounterPower. This will be elaborated below in our examination of the Autonomia Operaia movement. For now, suffice it to say that while we agree with our autonomist comrades on the importance of cadre, the mass party model is best suited to coordinate their efforts.

Precision of Terms

Further complicating the problems of CounterPower’s revolutionary strategy is an incoherent collection of opaque and often contradictory terms. Few throughout history have tried to synthesize the theories of the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxemburg, Bordiga, and Malatesta, mostly because it makes no sense to do so. This blend of anarchist shibboleths (affinity groups, autonomy fetishism, Bookchin references) and communist vocabulary (party cadre, collective discipline, professional revolutionaries) is neither an oversight nor the product of genuine cross-ideological left unity. CounterPower is a Marxist organization with a niche ideology informed mainly by the experience of the Italian Autonomia Operaia movement. The fact that they mask this behind an appeal to every possible leftist tendency is frankly dishonest, and makes their writing difficult to follow. Since all these ideas have been presented to us as complementary and harmonious, we must investigate the contradictions between them in order to get a clearer picture. 

First, we should consider their framing of the ideas of Luxemburg:

In contrast to a bourgeois party, Rosa Luxemburg identified that a revolutionary party of autonomy ‘is not a party that wants to rise to power over the mass of workers or through them.’ Rather, it ‘is only the most conscious, purposeful part of the proletariat, which points the entire broad mass of the working class toward its historical tasks at every step”

The primary issue with this framing is that Rosa Luxemburg did not write or speak about “a revolutionary party of autonomy” at any point in her political career. She was a member of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) for most of her life before its left-wing split into the USPD and then Spartacist League (later renamed the Communist Party of Germany, or KPD). Both organizations were mass parties who explicitly intended to lead the working class to overthrow the existing political order and form a new proletarian government in Germany, headed by elected party officials. Her point about the party being an instrument that puts the working class in power was perfectly in line with the existing Marxist orthodoxy. Consider this quote from the SPD’s leading theorist Karl Kautsky for comparison:

The socialists no longer have the task of freely inventing a new society but rather uncovering its elements in existing society. No more do they have to bring salvation from its misery to the proletariat from above, but rather they have to support its class struggle through increasing its insight and promoting its economic and political organizations and in so doing bring about as quickly as possible the day when the proletariat will be able to save itself. The task of Social Democracy is to make the class struggle of the proletariat aware of its aim and capable of choosing the best means to attain this aim.6

Luxemburg and Kautsky both demonstrate the function of the mass party: cohering the most militant and forward-thinking section of the working class into one organization and giving it the tools to win political power. If the party is not “outside or above the revolutionary process”, as CounterPower puts it, then it is coming to power through class leadership. “Providing the boldest elements in decision-making organs” is just a milder way of phrasing “winning political hegemony in the movement.” While it is right to be skeptical of potential opportunists and wary of inadvertently creating an unaccountable bureaucracy, CounterPower overcorrects by trying to avoid the question of leadership altogether. No amount of out-of-context quotes from historical revolutionaries can paper over that deficiency. 

After painting an anarchist portrait of Rosa Luxemburg, CounterPower then calls upon the theoretical authority of actual anarchist Errico Malatesta:

We anarchists can all say that we are of the same party, if by the word ‘party’ we mean all who are on the same side, that is, who share the same general aspirations and who, in one way or another, struggle for the same ends against common adversaries and enemies. But this does not mean it is possible—or even desirable—for all of us to be gathered into one specific association. There are too many differences of environment and conditions of struggle; too many possible ways of action to choose among, and also too many differences of temperament and personal incompatibilities for a General Union, if taken seriously, not to become, instead of a means for coordinating and reviewing the efforts of all, an obstacle to individual activity and perhaps also a cause of more bitter internal strife.7

This is a markedly different approach to organization from the mass party model of Kautsky, Luxemburg, Lenin, et al. It is certainly more in line with the autonomists’ “area of the party” theory, but are the assumptions it is based on sound? The experience of the Bolshevik party securing state power and defending the proletariat from white terror, the Communist Party of Vietnam’s triumph over colonialism, the continued resistance to neoliberal imperialism in Cuba, and other achievements of the mass party model seem to indicate otherwise. Petty personal disputes and geographic distance are no excuse to abandon unified efforts to build socialism. If we take a scientific approach and compare the results of party-building trials throughout history to the results of those like Malatesta who deny the party’s role, the pattern is self-evident. 

Lessons of History

CounterPower’s essay does an excellent job of considering the experiences of a vast number of different historical communist groups. Unfortunately, they do so without an ounce of reflection or criticism. They ask us to look at rival groups with opposing political strategies and conclude that both were right, regardless of whether either group actually achieved its aims. They mention the experience of many parties and movements—the KAPD in Germany, Autonomia Operaia in Italy, the MIR in Chile, the FMLN-FDR in El Salvador, the URNG in Guatemala, the HBDH in Turkey and Kurdistan, and more. We’re given the impression that each of these groups consciously agreed with the autonomists’ many parties model, and that each of these groups were successful enough to teach us mainly positive lessons to emulate. Upon closer inspection, it turns out this is not at all the case. For the sake of brevity, we will look at three examples.

Let us begin with the Communist Workers’ Party of Germany (KAPD). This party could be accurately described as a sect based on its low membership, extreme sectarianism, and history of splits. Its complicated lineage is as follows—its members began in the SPD, then split into the ISD, which then joined the USPD, which then split into the KPD, and then finally split from there into the left-communist KAPD. It functionally existed for about two years before splitting again into separate factions. It was quite literally a split of a split of a split that ended up splitting. It had around 43,000 members at its height in 1921, which was minuscule compared to the hundreds of thousands of workers in the mass parties (and that number immediately declined after the factional split in 1922). 

The roots of the KAPD’s separation from the KPD lie in the events of the Ruhr Uprising. In 1920, a right-wing coalition of military officers and monarchists attempted to overthrow the bourgeois-democratic government of Germany. In response, the government called for a general strike, which the workers’ parties heeded. In the Ruhr valley, these parties took the strike a step further by forming Red Army units and engaging right-wing forces in open combat. However, these socialist militias were divided between three different parties and could not coordinate their efforts as well as their enemies who had the benefit of a clear leadership structure. The uprising was ultimately crushed when the bourgeois government made a deal with the right-wing putsch leaders and sent their forces to slaughter the workers of the Ruhr. 

What lessons did the left-communists learn from this? From their perspective, KPD leaders had given up on the struggle by agreeing to disband Red Army units after the fighting looked to be in the enemy’s favor. Because of this, a split was necessary so the workers could be led by the true communist militants that would see things through to the end. In other words, the already divided proletariat needed a fourth party to further complicate the coordination of future actions. Two years later, this fourth party would then split into two factions. Lenin had this to say about the KAPD:

Let the ‘Lefts’ put themselves to a practical test on a national and international scale. Let them try to prepare for (and then implement) the dictatorship of the proletariat, without a rigorously centralised party with iron discipline, without the ability to become masters of every sphere, every branch, and every variety of political and cultural work. Practical experience will soon teach them.8

Unfortunately, Lenin was overly optimistic. Rather than having time to learn from their mistakes, the divided forces of the working class were brutally crushed by the united forces of the right. The Nazis rose to power, and fascism reigned until the Soviets took Berlin in 1945. This does not mean there is nothing we can learn from the KAPD—quite the opposite is true. There may be some diamonds in the rough, but most of the lessons we can learn from the left-communists of Germany are examples of what not to do. Fortunately, in the updated version of their essay, CounterPower scrubbed any mention of the KAPD. Whether this was due to a genuine reassessment of their example or simple editorial limitations, the new version is much stronger without the ill-fated German sectarians. 

Despite their positive appraisal of the KAPD, CounterPower is not a left-communist sect. They are autonomists, and in order to understand their answer to the party question we must take stock of their movement forebears. Autonomia Operaia was a workers’ movement in Italy during the period known as the “Years of Lead”. This period lasted from the late 1960s to the late 1980s, and was marked by violent clashes between right and left-wing paramilitary forces. It is worth noting that much of this violence was either planned, supplied, or encouraged by the CIA and its “Operation Gladio”, although that is not relevant to our discussion here. Autonomia Operaia was mainly active from ‘76 to ‘78, and was made up of many smaller socialist groups including Potere Operaio, Gruppo Gramsci, and Lotta Continua. Each group was strongly opposed to unifying into one party, preferring instead to maintain their autonomy and pursue different tactics to work towards their shared goal of social revolution. 

Autonomia Operaia demo

In the end, this worked out in much the same way as it did for the sectarians in Germany decades earlier. Thousands of militants were arrested, hundreds fled the country, many were killed, and most of those who remained dissolved into terrorist groups like the Red Brigades and parliamentary parties like Democrazia Proletaria. Neither the autonomist terrorists nor the autonomist politicians were able to move beyond the failures of the earlier autonomist movement. In retrospect, the autonomists ended up replicating the sect form (albeit with some anarchist-influenced language) and suffered the familiar consequences of this organizing technique. It is worth noting that after misappropriating numerous mass parties (the Alabama chapter of CPUSA, the Bolsheviks, Rosa Luxemburg’s KPD) as successful examples of the “parties of autonomy” model, CounterPower leaves out any mention of Autonomia Operaia in the updated version of its essay. This is somewhat understandable as the movement collapsed within two years and failed to achieve its aims, but it is still dishonest. If failures are glossed over rather than rigorously examined, we are doomed to walk blindly into past mistakes. In this regard, CounterPower’s update to their essay does more to obfuscate the party question than answer it.

That said, Autonomia Operaia activists had valid criticisms of the Communist Party of Italy and could have created an alternative to lead the proletariat to victory. This is the positive lesson we can learn from them: when the “official” communist party of the nation abandons its principles, it can sometimes be worthwhile to build an alternative organization. However, they chose instead to create a loose collective of semi-aligned communist clusters which failed to coordinate their actions and create meaningful change. Had they taken on the arduous task of debating long-term strategy and forging programmatic unity, things may have turned out differently. This is the primary lesson we should learn from the Italian autonomists: a proletarian victory requires structure, democratic discipline, and unity of action. 

Although not directly influenced by Autonomia’s answer to the party question, the FMLN-FDR of El Salvador could be theorized as an example of an “area of the party”. As CounterPower pointed out in their essay, this network was composed of five revolutionary parties and a number of mass organizations and civil society institutions who worked together in loose cooperation towards revolution. It ultimately failed, and CounterPower makes two interesting claims about its dissolution: that the failure was due primarily to the popular front reformism of the PCS (one of the five member parties) and that its downfall does not tarnish its status as a positive example of the area of the party in action. These claims do not fare well under the spotlight of historical scrutiny, particularly when shined on the brutal internecine violence that destroyed any semblance of unity within the movement by 1983. 

CounterPower’s assessment of the FMLN identifies the PCS (Communist Party of El Salvador) as the weakest link in the chain, and the FPL (Farabundo Martí Liberation People’s Forces) as the strongest. In many ways, this is true, as the popular front strategy of the official communist parties has consistently ended in disaster the world over and the FPL was the most powerful and trusted party in El Salvador for a time. However, this is not the whole picture. Genuine political disagreements were often buried or papered over to maintain an artificial unity, and the ensuing tension was bound to boil over. While our autonomist comrades say the FMLN established a harmonious “mechanism of communication, coordination, and cooperation among the various politico-military organizations”, the reality is far grimmer. In its disagreement with other parties advocating negotiations with the Salvadoran government, the FPL resorted to gruesome assassinations to enforce its will on the rest of the FMLN. In April of 1983, FPL cadre Rogelio Bazzaglia murdered pro-negotiation leader Ana Maria with an ice pick, stabbing her 83 times. Although there was an attempt to blame the CIA or another party within FMLN, when presented concrete evidence of Bazzaglia’s guilt, FPL leader Salvador Cayetano Carpio promptly wrote a suicide note and shot himself in the head. With its most trusted leaders either disgraced, dead, or both, the FMLN lost steam after many members left the network in disgust. Along with this exodus of valuable cadre went all the legitimacy of the anti-negotiation faction, and so by 1989 even successful military offensives could do nothing more than bring the Salvadoran government to the negotiation table.9 The revolutionary potential of the FMLN died with Ana Maria, and her murder demonstrates how the “area of the party” approach only ends up recreating the problems of the sect form.

The Marxist Center

The US communist movement is essentially home to three different camps regarding the party question. Those who wish to see the movement divided into bureaucratic sects (with the belief that their particular sect is the One True Party) are on the right. Those who wish to see the movement divided into loosely aligned autonomist sects (with the beliefs outlined in CounterPower’s writing) are on the left. Those of us in the center are advocating a qualitative break with the sect form: the foundation of a mass party of organizers. This idea is often associated with a number of inaccurate claims—for instance, we are frequently lumped in with those who wish to replicate the worst aspects of the DSA model, where anyone can join the organization at any time for any reason without even committing to Marxist politics. We are also often accused of wanting to create a dogmatic bureaucracy of staunch Marxist-Leninists who will run the party as they see fit without input from membership. Neither of these claims are true.

In fact, what we desire is a party made and run by the masses themselves. Years of labor-intensive organizing will be necessary to make this happen, as the masses cannot be reached and welcomed into the socialist movement any other way. Tenant and workplace unions, unemployed councils, harm reduction efforts, solidarity networks, and other forms of “mass organizations” (in addition to independent electoral efforts) must be formed and rallied around a common political pole. In order for this pole to exist in the first place, the organizers engaged in mass work must debate and discuss until they articulate and agree on a comprehensive political program. In order for these debates and discussions to produce a clear program, the organizers have to see themselves as part of a common organization aimed at a shared goal. When each of these elements fall into place, something completely unique to the US left will be born: a mass party committed to praxis, programmatic unity, and democratic discipline.

By praxis, we understand a long-term commitment to building, growing, and maintaining the kinds of mass organizations detailed above. By programmatic unity, we mean collective acceptance of a comprehensive set of answers to long-term strategic questions, forged in an extended process of comradely debate and compromise. Ideally, this would take the form of a minimum-maximum program like those laid out and critiqued by Marx, Engels, and others in the first two Internationals.10 The minimum demands are structural reforms that communicate to the working class exactly how our efforts will improve their lives and empower them at the political level. Demands like guaranteed healthcare and housing, eliminating the Electoral College, Senate, and Supreme Court, disbanding the police and forming workers’ militias, ensuring union representation, and more would bring supporters into the fold and give us access to valuable comrades and organizers. They are chosen in such a way that when every demand is met, the proletariat has seized political power from the bourgeoisie and becomes the governing class of society. 

With this done, the new workers’ government can focus on fulfilling the maximum demands, epitomized as communism, which would eradicate the last vestiges of capitalism and transition to a socialist mode of production. Establishing unity on long-term questions of strategy is far superior to enforcing a “party-line” on day-to-day issues and theoretical minutiae. It allows us to collaborate and exert the greatest possible combined strength of the working class in its diverse struggles without splitting over short-term tactical disagreements like “should we partner with this NGO on this tenant organizing project?” or subcultural arguments like “who was in the wrong at Kronstadt?” It also does not require agreement on “tendency” labels (such as Marxist-Leninist, anarchist, left-communist, etc). As our organizations grow, the need for a commonly accepted program will only increase. Finally, by democratic discipline, we refer to the old axiom “diversity of opinion, unity of action”.

These three principles are absolutely essential for the functioning of an effective and battle-ready proletarian party. As we have seen, the organizational forms of sectarians and autonomists (like the KAPD and Autonomia Operaia respectively) crumble under pressure whereas mass parties regularly weather brutal repression. No better example of this can be found in US history than that of the Alabama chapter of the CPUSA:

The fact is, the CP and its auxiliaries in Alabama did have a considerable following, some of whom devoured Marxist literature and dreamed of a socialist world. But to be a Communist, an ILD member, or an SCU militant was to face the possibility of imprisonment, beatings, kidnapping, and even death. And yet the Party survived, and at times thrived, in this thoroughly racist, racially divided, and repressive social world.11

While other cases of this phenomenon (the Russian Communist Party, the Chinese Communist Party, and others) have been historically prone to corruption, preventative measures can be taken to ensure the party retains its mass character even after smashing the state and beginning socialist reconstruction. The most immediate step in this process is the collaborative drafting of and universal agreement on a party-wide Code of Conduct. This will facilitate the development of a comradely culture that balances rigorous critique and debate with an environment of pluralism and interpersonal care. In addition to understanding how to have a one-on-one organizing conversation, we should also strive to be well-versed in skills like listening, openly sharing feelings, assuming good faith in arguments, making sincere apologies, and offering support to comrades struggling with personal issues. None of these can be learned by accident in the alienated social spaces created by capitalism, so we must make a deliberate effort to establish these norms in our organization. 

Another would be taking seriously the moral dimensions of Fidelismo’s contribution to Marxism. In stark contrast with both Stalin’s iron fist and Allende’s naive pacifism, Fidel Castro’s leadership of the Cuban revolution combined violent insurrection against the state with peaceful political maneuvering in the revolutionary movement. Over the course of protracted struggle on both fronts, the July 26th Movement was able to defeat the state militarily and construct a democratic mandate for political hegemony. Because Fidel and his comrades took the ethical implications of revolutionary struggle seriously, they were able to achieve victory without recourse to war crimes against the enemy or lethal violence against political competitors within the movement.12 This commitment to moral conduct during violent struggle did not stop them from winning the war. In fact, it allowed them to win the peace. This strategy allowed Cuba to begin building socialism after national liberation without the deadly internecine conflicts that plagued other revolutionary movements (notably including the FMLN). It is crucial that we embrace this legacy by constructing an ethic of revolution for our time. More steps beyond these will of course be necessary, and their exact nature will become clear as we work towards the realization of a comradely culture together.

Perhaps the strongest indicator of the need for a mass party is the fact that the most advanced sections of the US labor movement are already calling for the establishment of a workers’ party. In its recent pamphlet Them and Us Unionism, United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America (UE) wrote:

Throughout our history, UE has held that workers need our own political party. In the 1990s, UE worked with a number of other unions to found the Labor Party, under the slogan ‘The Bosses Have Two Parties, We Need One of Our Own.’ Although the Labor Party experiment was ultimately unsuccessful, UE members and locals have been active in numerous other efforts to promote independent, pro-worker alternatives to the two major parties.13

Other labor unions like ILWU and the Teamsters have produced leading organizers who share UE’s commitment to independent worker politics. People like Clarence Thomas, who helped organize the Juneteenth port shutdown on the West Coast earlier this year in solidarity with the George Floyd uprising, Chris Silvera, who chairs the National Black Caucus in the Teamsters, and many more can be found among them. These influential voices of the labor movement have united in Labor and Community for an Independent Party, stating:

We must build democratically run coalitions that bring together the stakeholders in labor and the communities of the oppressed, so that they have a decisive say in formulating their demands and mapping out a strategy. Most important, we need to put an end to the monopoly of political power by the Democrats and Republicans. The labor movement and the leaders of the Latino and Black struggles need to break with their reliance on the Democratic Party and build their own mass-based independent working-class political party.

While it is certainly possible that these efforts could lead to the establishment of a reformist labor party, it is precisely this possibility that behooves us to get involved. Any union that recognizes the need for independent proletarian political action outside the shop floor can be considered “advanced” compared to business unions aligned with the Democratic Party, and relationships with them should be built as part of a communist intervention in the labor movement. As Marxists, we have a duty not only to organize our class but to bring theoretical clarity to its most active champions. If we continue building strong proletarian fighting organizations and elaborate our vision in a comprehensive program, we will be positioned to guide labor and community leaders of all stripes to the creation of a truly communist political party.

Ultimately, the disparate sects within Marxist Center and the local chapters of the DSA must form tighter bonds and consider internal reforms that would allow us to build the party our class requires. In doing so, we should seek to unite as many far-flung collectives and mass work projects as we can in order to become a true threat to bourgeois hegemony. While staying divided in a loose federation may seem like a viable model to some, history shows that it is not. The autonomists and anarchists in our ranks are dedicated organizers doing valuable work, and we should be grateful for that. However, we would be doing ourselves and them a disservice if we did not offer a comradely critique of their organizational models. 

Communists will always find strength in unity.

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Lenin and Art by Lunacharsky

In honor of Lenin on the anniversary of his death, we publish this short essay by Lunacharsky on Lenin’s views regarding art. This text was originally published in “Khudozhnik i Zritel” (Artist and Audience), issues 2-3, March-April 1924, and has been translated by Reuben Woolley. Introduction by Cliff Connolly. The original source of the translation can be found here.

Lunacharsky, third from left, with Lenin, 1920

In the days following Lenin’s death in late January 1924, the Soviet Union was flooded with artistic and literary works commemorating the fallen revolutionary. In his poem The Komsomol Song, Mayakovsky wrote the now-famous words: “Lenin lived, Lenin lives, Lenin is to live forever.” The city of Petrograd was renamed in Lenin’s honor, and the new Leningrad Gublit published a propaganda broadsheet with the poem A Drop of Ilych’s Blood. As the verses suggested, the departed leader continued to give inspiration to millions even in death; a drop of his blood in every communist’s veins. This was the environment that gave birth to the following work from Lunacharsky. 

People were hungry for reminiscence to soothe their loss, and Lunacharsky delivered. A longtime Bolshevik and accomplished writer, he was made head of the People’s Commissariat for Education after the October 1917 revolution. In this position, he helped establish the Bolshoi Drama Theatre, protected historic cultural sites, oversaw public art exhibitions and experiments, and facilitated a drastic increase in Russia’s literacy rate. He had a unique perspective on Lenin, being sometimes in agreement with and other times in opposition to the latter’s policy ideas (although the disagreements were always comradely in nature). He also frequently served as an intermediary between Lenin and the art world, often taking measures to safeguard artistic institutions that Lenin was harshly critical of. 

One such institution was that of Proletkult, a federated collective of avant-garde artists working mainly in drama, literature, and the visual arts. Over half a million members participated in its studios, clubs, and factory circles. The controversial organization sought to prefigure a purely proletarian culture untainted by capitalism, and produce works that would reflect this aesthetic. While Lunacharsky was a huge proponent and succeeded in acquiring state funding for Proletkult projects, others took issue with its founding ethos. Lenin in particular was concerned that it amounted to no more than a group of “bourgeois intellectuals” trying to create a culture from thin air and impose it on the working class. 

Throughout this memoir of his time with Lenin, Lunacharsky paints a picture of a man with a passionate yet strangely distant relationship to art. Lenin loves music, but “it upsets him.” Lenin loves art history, but cannot devote enough time to it to form an opinion. Lenin has trouble funding an opulent theatre when there are run-down schools but refuses to close it. On matters of sculpture, Lenin defers to the judgment of others and then is elated to hear their learned conclusions match his insufficiently educated opinion. Overall, this is totally in line with the character of a disciplined revolutionary who avoids speaking on topics he hasn’t thoroughly investigated. The resulting quirks are entertaining and were precisely what a nation in mourning needed in the wake of a popular leader’s death. 

It’s worth noting that the author did not originally intend this piece for publication, and didn’t bother editing closely after writing the piece essentially in note-form. The tone and pacing is somewhat strange in the original Russian, and this is exacerbated by its translation into another language. While not a perfect piece of prose, it still holds a great deal of merit and is well worth a read. Thanks to Lunachasky’s written memories, we know Lenin truly lived. In reading these words almost a hundred years after they were written, we see that Lenin lives. In our daily work as communist militants and organizers, we ensure that Lenin is to live forever.

Lenin and Art by Anatoly Lunacharksy (1924)

Lenin had very little time during his life to devote any concerted attention to art, and so he had always considered himself profane on the subject; he disliked making statements about art, as he always found dilettantism alien and hateful. His tastes, nevertheless, were strongly defined. He loved the Russian classics, realism in literature, portraiture, and so on.

Back in 1905, during the first revolution, he once had to spend the night at the flat of comrade D. I. Leshchenko, where, as it happened, there was a complete collection of Knackfuss’ publications, dedicated to the world’s greatest artists. The next morning, Vladimir Ilyich said to me: “What an engaging topic the history of art is. There is so much work here for a communist to do. I couldn’t get to sleep until morning, and spent the whole time looking through book after book. It tormented me to realize that I have not had the time to work at all with art, and will never have such time in the future.” I remember these words of Ilyich’s extremely distinctly.

I had to meet with him several times after the revolution to take part in various juries on artistic matters. In one such case, for example, I remember him calling for me, then he, Kamenev and I went to an exhibition of designs for statues to replace the figure of Alexander III, which had been torn from its luxurious plinth besides the temple of Christ the Savior. Vladimir Ilyich surveyed all of the statues with a strongly critical eye. He didn’t like a single one. He stood particularly intrigued in front of a design of the futurist school, but when asked for his opinion, said: “I can’t understand anything here, ask Lunacharsky.” Upon hearing me state that I could not see a single worthy piece, he looked elated, and said: “my, I thought that you were going to put any old futuristic scarecrow up there.”

Another time, the question at hand was a memorial for Karl Marx. The renowned sculptor M.1 showed particular obstinacy in the matter. He presented a design for a grand statue: “Karl Marx, standing atop four elephants.” Such an unexpected subject struck us all as bizarre, Vladimir Ilyich very much included. The artist began reworking his memorial, eventually doing so three times, not wishing to relinquish his victory in the competition on any grounds whatsoever. When the jury, under my chairmanship, finally rejected his design and settled on a collective piece by a group under the leadership of Aleshin, sculptor M. burst into the office of Vladimir Ilyich and complained to him directly. Vladimir Ilyich took his complaint to heart, and called me directly to summon a new jury. He said that he would come personally to view the Aleshin design alongside the design of sculptor M. And so he came. The Aleshin design was found to be perfectly satisfactory, sculptor M.’s design was rejected.

At the 1st of May celebration of the same year, in the same place that the construction of the Marx memorial had been proposed, the Aleshin group built a small-scale model of their piece. Vladimir Ilyich travelled there especially. He walked around the memorial several times, asked how large it was going to be, and eventually gave his approval, but not before saying: “Anatoly Vasilievich [Lunacharsky – trans.], instruct the artist specifically that the head must come out similar enough, that one gets the same impression of Karl Marx that one would get from his best portraits; the likeness here is somewhat diminished.”

Back in 1918 Vladimir Ilyich called me and said that we must propel art forwards as an agitational material, and with this in mind he laid out two projects. Firstly, in his opinion, we had to decorate buildings, fences, and other such places where there are usually posters with grand revolutionary slogans. He immediately suggested some such slogans himself.

This project was taken up wholeheartedly by comrade Brikhnichev, when he was in charge of the Gomel Department for People’s Education. I later saw that Gomel was absolutely covered in such slogans, all containing worthy ideas. Every single mirror in one grand old restaurant in particular, which had by then been transformed into an educational institute, was now covered in aphorisms penned by comrade Brikhnichev.  

In Moscow and Petrograd, not only did this not catch on in such a grandiose manner, but not even according to Ilyich’s initial vision.

The second project concerned the placement of temporary alabaster statues of great revolutionaries on an unusually large scale, across both Petersburg and Moscow. Both cities responded eagerly to my suggestion that they put Ilyich’s idea into practice, suggesting even that each statue should have a ceremonial opening with a speech about the revolutionary in question, and that underneath each statue they would place explanatory plaques. Vladimir Ilyich termed this “monumental propaganda.”

In Petrograd this “monumental propaganda” was relatively successful. The first such statue was of Radishchev, designed by Leonid Shervud. A copy of it was erected in Moscow. Unfortunately, the Petrograd statue broke and was not replaced. Generally speaking, the majority of the wonderful Petersburg statues didn’t hold out, on account of their brittle material, but I remember some fine figures: busts of Garibaldi, Shevchenko, Dobroliubov, Herzen, and several others. Left-deviationist statues came out worse. For example, upon the unveiling of a cubist rendition of the head of Perovskaya, some just recoiled in shock, and Z. Lilina demanded in no uncertain terms that the statue be taken down immediately. I remember just as clearly that many found the statue of Chernyshevsky exceedingly ornate. Best of all was the statue of Lassale. This work, erected outside the former city Duma, remains there to this day. It’s like it was cut from bronze. The full-size statue of Marx, made by the sculptor Matveev, was also extremely successful. Sadly, it broke and has been replaced in the same spot – that is, next to the Smolny Institute – by a bronze bust of Marx in a more or less regular style, without Matveev’s original sculptural rendering. 

In Moscow, where the statues could be seen at once by Vladimir Ilyich, they were not such a success. Marx and Engels were depicted in some sort of basin and earned themselves the nickname “the bearded swimmers”. The Sculptor K.2, however, managed to outdo everyone. For a long time, people and horses, walking and driving down Myasnitskaya, would glance fearfully at some enraged figure, who had been boarded up out of precaution. This was the respected artist’s depiction of Bakunin. If I’m not mistaken, the statue was immediately destroyed by anarchists upon its unveiling; despite all their progressiveness, they didn’t wish to suffer such harsh sculptural “mockery” of their great leader’s memory.

Generally speaking, there were very few successful statues in Moscow. Arguably better than most was the statue of the poet Nikitin. I don’t know if Vladimir Ilyich looked at them in any detail, but either way he told me, with some dissatisfaction, that nothing had come of monumental propaganda. I responded with reference to the experience in Petrograd and the report of Zinoviev. Vladimir Ilyich shook his head doubtfully and said “what, you’re telling me that every single talent gathered themselves in Petrograd, and Moscow is entirely worthless?” Indeed, I couldn’t explain to him such a strange occurrence.

He was distinctly doubtful of the memorial plaque for Konenkov. He didn’t consider it very convincing. Konenkov himself, incidentally, called this work his “imaginary-realist plaque”, not without a touch of sardonicism. I also remember the artist Altman gifting Vladimir Ilyich a bas-relief depicting Khalturin. Vladimir Ilyich liked the bas-relief very much, but he asked me, did this work not strike me as futuristic? His opinions regarding futurism were entirely negative. I wasn’t present for his conversation in Vkhutemas, whose accommodation he once visited, if I’m not mistaken because some young relative of his was living there.3 I was later told of the long conversation between him and, of course, the left-wing ‘Vkhutemastsy’. Vladimir Ilyich wrote them off, laughing a little condescendingly, but then stated that he wouldn’t personally take up the task of talking seriously on such matters, as he felt himself to be insufficiently competent. The youths themselves he found to be very nice, and their communist disposition pleased him.

Vladimir Ilyich rarely managed to enjoy art during the final period of his life. He went to the theatre a few times, seemingly exclusively the Khudozhestvenny, which he valued very highly. Plays in that theatre would invariably leave a wonderful impression on him.

Vladimir Ilyich had a strong love for music, but it would upset him. At one point I had impressive concerts arranged in my apartment. Shalyapin sang, Meichik,  Romanovsky, the Stradivarius quartet, Kusevitsky on the contrabass and several others all played. I invited Vladimir Ilyich repeatedly, but he was always busy. One time he said to me directly: “of course it’s wonderful to listen to music, but you know, it upsets me. I somehow find it hard to bear.” I remember that comrade Tsiurupa, who managed to get Vladimir Ilyich to come twice to his home concerts with that same pianist Romanovsky, also told me that Vladimir Ilyich had enjoyed the music very much, but was visibly agitated. 

I will add that Vladimir Ilyich was very irritated by the Bolshoi Theatre. I had to indicate to him several times that the Bolshoi cost us comparatively little, but nevertheless, at his insistence, its grant was reduced. Vladimir Ilyich was led in this by two considerations. One of them he admitted upfront: “I find it uncomfortable,” he said, “that we sustain such a luxurious theatre for great amounts of money, when we lack the resources to sustain even the simplest of village schools”. The other consideration was elaborated when I disputed his attack on the Bolshoi Theatre during a meeting. I pointed out the theatre’s undeniable cultural significance. Upon hearing this, Vladimir Ilyich wryly squinted at me, and said: “But regardless, it is a remnant of landlord culture, no one could possibly argue otherwise.”4

This is not to say that Vladimir Ilyich was entirely inimical to the culture of the past. He found the entire pompous-gentry tone of opera to be specifically landlord-like. On the whole he valued the visual art of the past, especially Russian realism (including, for example, the Peredvizhniki), very highly indeed.

1920 Bolshevik poster, reads “Citizens, preserve monuments of art”

Thus ends the factual information that I am able to offer the reader from my memories of Ilyich. But I will remind you that Vladimir Ilyich at no point used his aesthetic sympathies or antipathies to form any of his most fundamental ideas.

Comrades with an interest in art will remember the address to the Central Committee on questions of art which was quite sharply directed against futurism. I am no more familiar with this topic than others are, but I think it was one in which Vladimir Ilyich saw himself as having a genuine and serious contribution to make.5

At the same time, and entirely mistakenly, Vladimir Ilyich considered me not quite a supporter of futurism, but not quite entirely pandering to his own view either, and probably as a result he did not consult me before the publication of the Central Committee rescript, through which he intended to correct my stance.

Vladimir Ilyich also diverged from me quite sharply in relation to Proletkult. On one occasion, he even strongly scolded me. I’ll state first of all that Vladimir Ilyich absolutely did not deny the significance of workers’ circles for the production of writers and artists from a proletarian background, and promoted their national unification as a desirable aim, but he was very afraid of the feeble attempts of Proletkult to produce alongside this a proletarian science, as well as proletarian culture on a much larger scale. This, firstly, seemed to him a completely untimely task for which they lacked the capabilities; secondly, he thought that such ideas, which were of course still underdeveloped, distanced the proletariat from study, and from embracing the fundamentals of already-developed science and culture; thirdly, Vladimir Ilyich was evidently nervous to make sure that there was not, stirring in Proletkult, the beginnings of some kind of political heresy. He was considerably displeased, for example, with the large role played in Proletkult at the time by A. A. Bogdanov.

During the time of the Proletkult congress, which I believe was in 1920, he instructed me to travel there and state, in no uncertain terms, that Proletkult should be placed under the leadership of Narkompros, consider itself a Narkompros organisation, and so on. In short, Vladimir Ilyich wanted us to pull Proletkult in line with the state, at the same time as he took measures to pull it in line with the party. The speech that I gave at the congress I then made sure to edit in an evasive and appeasing manner. It didn’t seem right for me to come in with some sort of attack, upsetting the workers who had decided to gather together. This speech was shown to Vladimir Ilyich in an even softer revision. He called me to his office, and gave me a good dressing down. Later, Proletkult was restructured in accordance with Vladimir Ilyich’s orders. I repeat, he never so much as thought of its abolishment. On the contrary, he had great sympathy for its purely artistic aims.

The new artistic and literary formations that came into being during the revolution, for the most part, evaded Vladimir Ilyich’s attention. He simply had no time to devote to them. All the same, I can say that he definitely did not appreciate Mayakovsky’s 150,000,000. He found the book to be overly flowery and pretentious. One can’t help but regret that he was no longer able to pass judgement on the other, more insightful transformations in revolutionary literature that came later.

Everyone is well aware of the enormous interest Vladimir Ilyich had in cinematography.

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Revolutionary Discipline and Sobriety

Cliff Connolly argues for a culture of sobriety within our organizations, drawing from the example of Austrian Socialism.  

Soviet anti-alcohol poster

“The revolution demands concentration, increase of forces. From the masses, from individuals. It cannot tolerate orgiastic conditions… The proletariat is a rising class. It doesn’t need intoxication as a narcotic or a stimulus. Intoxication as little by sexual exaggeration as by alcohol. It must not and shall not forget, forget the shame, the filth, the savagery of capitalism. It receives the strongest urge to fight from a class situation, from the communist ideal. It needs clarity, clarity and again clarity.” -V.I. Lenin1

After a long period of stagnation and defeat, the workers’ movement in the United States has found renewed energy in the process of base building. Labor revolts in behemoths of capital like Amazon and Target provide inspiration to many in unorganized sectors, and a new wave of tenant union formations following the COVID-19 economic crash give many socialists hope for the future. More visibly, the spectacular uprising in the wake of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s deaths pushed the demand for police abolition into the mainstream. Whether all this dissident energy will be marshaled to victory or sunk back into the swamp remains to be seen. To ensure the best outcome, it is crucial for the working class to build cultural institutions to reinforce its political ones. In my previous essay in this series, I wrote about some of the forms these institutions could take. Now I will argue that special care should be taken in the foundation of their internal character. This should of course be democratically determined by the masses themselves, but communists should encourage the values most suited for a robust popular movement.

Whereas bourgeois culture provides temporary relief from alienation through escapist media, dimly lit bars, and readily available opioids, proletarian culture should seek to transcend alienation through community. Creating media that is genuinely social and opening up spaces for neighbors and co-workers to fraternize will be an important part of this process. Without a focus on healthy socialization, however, combatting alienation could easily take a toll on the physical and mental well-being of our organizers and community members. This is the necessity of revolutionary sobriety.

How can we accurately analyze the political and economic trends of our time, and respond to them strategically, if we can’t even think straight? How can our neighbors overcome the precariousness of proletarian life if our social spaces are designed to induce numbness rather than inspire hope? Drugs and alcohol are a distraction from serious organizing at best and a plague on our communities at worst. The reality, however, is that they do exist, and the allure of intoxication is strong. This cannot be ignored or willed away through calls for simple abstinence. The only solution is to develop strong bonds between base building cadre and members of the class, and encourage healthy living by setting a positive example. Communists should act as champions of the proletariat, and this requires a higher degree of discipline than working at an NGO or canvassing for progressive electoral candidates. Sober cadre will organize healthy communities, which will in turn produce capable comrades to further the interests of the class. 

This is not a new idea; Marxists throughout history have used it to build powerful movements, while others have ignored it to their own peril. In the early twentieth century, the Austrian Social Democratic Workers’ Party didn’t restrict their organizing to bread and butter issues like housing and healthcare. They built communal facilities for socialization, and an immense system of educational and cultural organizations. These efforts were focused on building the capacity of workers to take charge of society, with sport and sobriety being watchwords of the day. The Socialist Workers’ Sports International, for instance, wrote in its core principles, “Workers’ sport must fight against alcohol, which is an enemy of socialist society”. The resulting success led to their capital becoming known as as “Red Vienna”.2

 Decades later in the United States, the heroic efforts of the Black Panther Party were defeated in large part due to the massive (and FBI directed) influx of drugs into black communities. While the Panthers took significant steps to address the problem of addiction among the masses, their internal culture was far too lenient toward drug abuse. Grave consequences followed; police used drug charges to recruit members as snitches, and prominent leaders like Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver eventually became addicts themselves. Newton disbanded the Party after an embezzlement scandal, befriended Jim Jones, and was killed by a crack dealer in 1989. Cleaver raped multiple women, became a Mormon and joined the Republican Party before finally succumbing to his crack addiction in 1998. Perhaps these men still would have betrayed their cause even had they been sober, but the drugs certainly didn’t help. Regardless, revolutionary sobriety was necessary for a strong socialist movement to develop, and many Panthers knew it. In 1968, Shirley Williams wrote The Black Child’s Pledge to set a standard for the youth to emulate. It reads: “I pledge to develop my mind and body to the greatest extent possible. I will learn all that I can in order to give my best to my People in their struggle for liberation. I will keep myself physically fit, building a strong body free from drugs and other substances which weaken me and make me less capable of protecting myself, my family and my Black brothers and sisters”.3 We can only speculate what may have changed if the party’s leadership had followed the example their comrade Williams laid out.

We see similar mistakes being made today in a socialist milieu that is opposite to the Black Panthers in almost every meaningful way. The mostly white Hipster Left, centered in gentrified Brooklyn, has none of the Panthers’ strengths and an even worse weakness for drugs. Its followers are personally dull and practically useless. While the phenomenon is mostly confined to petit-bourgeois circles, it will pose a significant danger to serious socialist organizing if tolerated in our movement. 

The monumental task we face as communists in the twenty-first century is multifaceted: we must create order out of chaos for a class with scarcely any political, economic, or social organization. The cultural component cannot be ignored, and it must properly address the failures of both past socialist attempts and present bourgeois decay. Humanity deserves a world where happiness and fulfillment are attainable through our collective labor; drugs and alcohol are no substitute for the real joys of life. Furthermore, they pose a clear and present danger to the momentum of any major political force. It is for these reasons that we will explore the merits of revolutionary sobriety. 

E. Bor, text reads: “WE WILL OVERCOME!” with “ALCOHOLISM” on the snake, 1985.

The Science of Substance Abuse

The hegemonic narrative about substance abuse goes something like this: an individual starts using drugs, the drugs make them feel good, so they do more drugs, and after a certain threshold of use is reached the individual becomes physically addicted to the chemical hooks within the drugs. At this point, they are an addict who requires either treatment in a rehab center or psychological torture in a prison cell depending on who you ask. Both of these approaches to solving the problem rely on the assumption that addiction is caused by drugs. This assumption not only prevents us from treating substance abuse, it also narrows the problem to encompass only those who develop a “physical” or “chemical” dependency on drugs. Completely left out of the equation are the millions of people who rely on alcohol, opioids, and other psychoactive substances to complete regular tasks such as going to work or spending time with family. This fatal narrative is based on a series of experiments from the mid-twentieth century in which laboratory rats were placed alone in an empty cage and given access to two water bottles- one infused with morphine, the other plain water. In almost every case, the rat would prefer the morphine water and die from an overdose within a couple of weeks. These experiments were sensationalized by the media and received by the public as definitive proof that addiction is caused by drugs. Neoliberal politicians used this hysteria to increase police budgets and expand the prison system in an effort to “get the drugs off the streets”.

Now we must ask the obvious question- why would a lonely rat in an empty cage not make use of the only source of happiness in its environment? Why would human beings living in economic poverty, political disenfranchisement, and social alienation not do the same? Here we find an alternative narrative that frames substance abuse as a collective issue rather than an individual one. In the late 1970’s, Canadian psychologist Bruce Alexander hypothesized that drug addiction is caused primarily by living conditions rather than the chemical properties of the drugs themselves. To test this, he and his colleagues began a new series of experiments on lab rats centered around a large housing colony they dubbed ‘Rat Park’. Rat Park was 200 times larger than a standard lab rat cage and contained 16–20 rats of both sexes at any given time, as well as food, toys, and space for mating. Four groups were tested: one who lived in isolated cages for the 80-day duration of the experiment, one who lived in Rat Park, one who were weaned in cages and then transferred to Rat Park after 65 days, and one who were weaned in Rat Park and then transferred to cages after 65 days. Each group was given access to regular tap water and sweetened morphine water. As expected, the caged rats overwhelmingly preferred the morphine while the community of Rat Park overwhelmingly preferred the plain water. Alexander noted that when he added Naloxone (which negates the effects of opioids) to the morphine water, the rats of Rat Park began to drink it, presumably for the sweeter taste.4

The Rat Park experiments received little media attention and subsequently lost their funding within a few years. Although initially ignored, they quietly demolished the foundation of ‘common sense’ about substance abuse. Addiction is the product of alienation rather than drugs, and the presence of drugs in a healthy social environment does not breed substance abuse. Further experiments broadened the horizons for this new strain of thought. In 2008, a study by Marcello Solinas and his colleagues sought to find out whether enriched environments can be used to curb substance abuse. The scientists first injected mice in standard laboratory environments with cocaine until they had developed addiction-related behaviors and then transferred them to an enriched environment similar to Rat Park. After 30 days, they found that environmental enrichment eliminated both behavioral sensitization and conditioned place preference to cocaine in the experimental group of mice. The results with the control group were perhaps even more insightful:

“Whereas environmental enrichment eliminates addiction-related behaviors, 30 days of social isolation, a negative environmental condition for social animals such as rodents, led to an exacerbation of behavioral sensitization…In addition, because social isolation is a form of chronic stress, these results also suggest that environmental enrichment may act as a functional opposite of stress.”5

A follow-up study by Solinas and colleagues published in 2009 attempted to prove that enriched environment was not only effective treatment for substance abuse, but also powerful preventative medicine. An experimental group of mice were raised in an enriched environment, and a control group was raised in standard laboratory conditions. Upon reaching adulthood, both groups were placed in standard environments and subjected to trials of cocaine injections for the duration of the experiment. The mice raised in the enriched environment showed signs that the rewarding effects of cocaine were blunted compared to the control group. This protection against the abuse-related effects of cocaine was caused by a reduced activation of striatal neurons and dramatic changes in the neuronal adaptations normally associated with the drug’s use. In short, the results proved the study’s hypothesis that positive experiences in childhood and adolescence decrease an individual’s sensitivity to drugs and vulnerability to addiction.6

These studies are by no means exhaustive, but they demonstrate that the hegemonic narrative about substance abuse is extremely flawed. Rather than reifying this account, communists should commit to developing a scientific analysis of our communities’ drug problems to find a solution. Few sources emphasize the social dimension of medicine better than Dr. Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara’s speech to the Cuban militia in 1960:

“The task of educating and feeding youngsters, the task of educating the army, the task of distributing the lands of the former absentee landlords to those who laboured every day upon that same land without receiving its benefits, are accomplishments of social medicine. The principle upon which the fight against disease should be based is the creation of a robust body; but not the creation of a robust body by the artistic work of a doctor upon a weak organism; rather, the creation of a robust body with the work of the whole collectivity, upon the entire social collectivity.”7

Now we must leave the laboratory conditions behind and look to our surroundings for opportunities to emulate the Cubans’ success in combating social ills.

Healthy Masses

Substance dependence in all its forms is a symptom of the alienation inherent to the capitalist mode of production. Students lean on adderall as an academic crutch, rural workers use painkillers as a substitute for dying community bonds, and millions rely on alcohol to relieve the crushing stress of being alone in the wilderness of the “free” market. The United States consumes over 80% of the world’s opioids despite making up less than 5% of the global population. Stagnant wages, the financial crisis cycle, scarce social programs, and the decline of manufacturing towns all combine to drain the lifeblood of civil society. A country that once brimmed with social clubs, community sports leagues, and neighborhood outings now has little to offer anyone outside the churches and universities (in many cases, even these lack the resources to bring their constituents together). As the social bonds between neighbors wither, more people than ever before are turning to drugs and alcohol as a coping mechanism. Capitalists- from big pharmaceutical shareholders to petite bourgeois liquor store owners- are happy to supply the poison. 

As communists, we are committed to emancipating humanity from the horrors of class warfare. While multi-billion dollar conglomerates are outsourcing entire industries, gutting welfare programs, and raking in profits from the ensuing misery, 158,000 people are dying every year from drug and alcohol abuse. As always, the proletariat bears the brunt of this assault. We cannot stand idly by while these atrocities decimate our class. Revolution cannot be made by masses racked with illness; this social disease must be treated at the social level.

The isolation of addiction can only be overcome through community and interdependence. In order to handle substance abuse among the workers who form our bases of support, civil society must be resuscitated with the vigor of communism. Red sports leagues, gym clubs, youth groups, scholarly circles, hobby meet-ups, artistic collaborations, health check-ins, and similar associations will afford the opportunity of togetherness to all. The conditions which drive people to chemical dependence (financial issues, mental health crises, etc) are much easier to conquer with a tight support network. This culture of mutual care will cement the class bonds necessary for our struggle, and keep comrades engaged between periods of intense political activity.

Perhaps the easiest way for organizers to gather their collaborators outside of formal meetings is to establish “Dues Night” as a regular social event. It serves the dual purpose of collecting resources for common use and forming ties between comrades who might otherwise never get to know each other. This space would give everyone a chance to share good food, swap stories, make plans to see that movie Twitter won’t shut up about, and generally walk away feeling closer to the people they depend on to achieve victory. No matter what form these social institutions take, they should generally require the active participation of all involved. Playing basketball will always be more engaging than watching a documentary, for instance, and will create tighter circles of friendship.

It is in these communal spaces that we have the best chance to encourage healthy living among those we intend to build a new world with. By setting a positive example of sobriety, physical fitness, and intellectual study, we put ourselves in a position to improve the lives of everyone around us. Much of our identity is determined by who we surround ourselves with, so it follows that being surrounded with outstanding comrades will raise one’s life to its highest potential. We cannot expect everyone to follow our lead, and we certainly cannot try to force our habits on others. That said, there is power in setting the course to a better future, and many will be inspired to emulate the habits of those they see organizing the leaders of tomorrow. While nobody is perfect, communists should strive to be true paragons of working-class militancy. Achieving that goal could very well spell the difference between willfully empowered and politically crippled masses. The social body of the proletariat is intentionally wracked with drug-induced illness by our class enemies, and this can only be reversed with intention by the champions of our class.

Sober Cadres

Being a revolutionary necessitates being out of step with the norms of bourgeois society. Making the commitment to fight for a communist future makes us alien in many ways to the vast majority of our peers, just as joining a military or a missionary group would. These commitments require a high degree of discipline to fulfill, and individuals who completely subordinate their personal interests to a higher cause are rare. Those who do cannot expect to enjoy all the material comforts of an ordinary life, but they often find a higher level of fulfillment. The temporary “joys” of the capitalist superstructure are hollow and often fully detrimental to the individual’s long-term health and happiness. As the hydralike stress of precarious proletarian existence piles up, it can be tempting to find relief in the most convenient places- binge TV, pill mills, liquor bottles, junk food, and other empty promises of consumer culture. When we make these poor decisions, we should avoid blaming ourselves and instead ask who these decisions serve- ourselves, or the multi-billion dollar corporations that our class enemies built around them?

Changing the world is an immense task; clear heads and healthy bodies are needed. This point is aptly illustrated in Julius Deutsch’s contribution to the Czechoslovakian workers’ temperance journal Der Weckruf circa 1936: “As a soldier for socialism and a fighter for freedom and peace, the worker athlete requires first and foremost the inner strength necessary to persist in the difficult struggles of our time. Clarity and sobriety, discipline and levelheadedness, holy enthusiasm and a will to make sacrifices: these are the qualities that form the socialist struggle. Does it need any proof that such qualities can only prosper in minds not clouded by alcohol?”8

Ho Chi Minh, Vo Nguyen Giap, and cadre members in study.

Serious work requires a serious approach, and a level of professionalism is required for revolutionary organizers to get the job done. Not the vapid professionalism of HR departments and cubicle farms, but a new professionalism unique to the working class. Comrades should treat themselves and each other with respect, not out of fear for some taskmaster’s reprisal, but out of a common desire to accomplish the tasks of the day. Meetings should start on time. Dues should be collected on a regular schedule. Individuals falling behind on their work should be checked on and assisted if the need arises. Core members of organizing projects should spend their free time in activities that will restore their energy and build their capabilities, not drain and erode them. These habits will prove to be major advantages in our fight against alcoholic police officers, coked-out real estate developers, and disorganized business owners. 

Any collective project, whether a revolutionary labor union or a church’s food pantry, will expect a higher degree of involvement from its core organizers than from its regular members. Not everyone has the time or the technical skills needed to bottom-line such endeavors, and those who do have a responsibility to step up to the plate. These small groups, or cadre, are the powerhouse of the class. Taking direction from the masses they live and labor with, cadre members should focus their lives on facilitating the self-emancipation of the proletariat. In doing so, they must hold themselves to a standard worthy of the valiant people they serve. Building on the victories and sacrifices of the past, today we see indigenous struggles for socialism across South America, labor resistance to Amazon throughout the global north, Black leadership in the fight for police and prison abolition in the United States, and more. Honoring the sacrifices of those involved means exercising discipline in our personal lives to become the best organizers we can possibly be. 

Sobriety is only one requirement among many in this respect, but a critical one. It’s possible to drink a night away, wake up the next morning, collect oneself, and tackle important problems with the help of a competent team. But it’s not feasible to perform at one’s best in that situation, nor does it come with the satisfaction and confidence of a fully collected life. Why be the weakest link in a chain of dedicated organizers in exchange for fleeting relief from an otherwise unfulfilled existence? Only those who accept the misery of life under capitalism as permanent turn to drugs and alcohol to mitigate their feelings of hopelessness. Revolutionaries refuse to admit defeat in the face of alienation, and spit on the snake oil remedies offered to them by the bourgeoisie. That said, no one can be a revolutionary alone, and many who commit to the work of communism will come to our movement carrying the burdens of addiction and ill-health. Overcoming these afflictions will be a protracted process, and we should do everything possible to support our partners undertaking this important work. 

Most people on the left already identify addiction as a physical ailment and treat it as such, but it’s important to remember that the urge to numb oneself in the first place is a symptom of the social disease inherent to capitalist culture. Taking this attitude towards drug use will enable us to build strong cadres without shunning new comrades eager to join the cause who happen to suffer from momentary urges, lingering habits, or serious dependency. There is no drug on earth stronger than an empowered community. Those who combine their struggle against addiction with the fight for socialism can be valuable allies, and should be encouraged to join our ranks. Their commitment to the cause in both their organizing work and their personal lives will serve as a shining example for others.

There are many disciplines beyond sobriety that communists should uphold. Equally important for our physical and mental health is daily exercise and a balanced diet. These positive habits will help us work and feel our best, and blaze the trail for our friends and neighbors to join in. Our comrade CLR Gainz was right to point out that in order to take the reigns of society, the proletariat needs not just metaphorical but physical strength. As they said in their most recent article: “Strength training is not only a significant means of becoming healthier but, by reorganizing the composition of bodies to make them less fat to more muscle, also represents the physical manifestation of a disciplined person.”9 This area of self-development is especially neglected among those in the North American left, which should be remedied as soon as possible.

A dynamic reading regimen, much more common than workout routines in our ranks, is imperative as well. Without a thorough study, we cannot understand the world around us, much less change it. Reading is only the first step in learning, however. Our grasp of complex topics becomes even tighter when we explore them through writing, and tighter still when we share our knowledge with others in person and engage in Socratic dialogue. Inquiry of history, political theory, science, and other fields is enhanced through collective effort just as much as practical organizing. Our individual studies should be undertaken for the express purpose of teaching and learning from our comrades. In sharing knowledge, we develop deeper bonds and broader wit.

John Reed’s account of the October Revolution has the words “revolutionary discipline” on everyone’s lips, from Lenin, to the sailors, to the red guards, to the commissars leading the charge on the Winter Palace. It was the slogan which kept everything running smoothly that night; passes were checked, prisoners were treated decently, and imperial finery was expropriated by the people of Petrograd rather than looted by individuals. In the end, little to no blood was spilled until the reactionary Junkers took up arms against the people of Moscow. That the proletariat could take hold of all political, economic, and social power in Russia’s urban centers in such an orderly fashion is remarkable. The Bolsheviks built the internal culture of self-regulation that produced these admirable feats, and we must follow their example today. This discipline guides organizers to make the best decisions in moments when prolonged study is not possible, and the coworkers, neighbors, and comrades who follow them all benefit. 

Historic Success: Austrian Marxists

“I don’t consider the fight against alcoholism necessary because it harms the health of the individual, but because it harms the workers’ movement by demoralizing, corrupting, and bourgeoisifying many good workers who could be great representatives of the workers’ movement otherwise. Anyone has the right to harm his own health if he considers the indulgence in certain pleasures worth it; but nobody has the right to encourage indulging in pleasures that hamper the development of the workers’ movement by rendering thousands of good comrades incapable of doing their duty” -Otto Bauer 

The short-lived Austrian socialist movement was one of the most deeply rooted of the 20th century. From its landslide electoral victory in 1919 until its tragic defeat by fascist forces in 1934, the Austro-Marxists transformed their capital city of Vienna into a workers’ paradise. They combined the typical benefits of a welfare state with an expansive system of socialized cultural institutions, all built on the foundation of a mass labor movement. With far more favorable conditions than the Bolsheviks (who were in the midst of a destructive civil war), the Austrians built what may have been the most advanced proletarian municipality in human history. Basic subsistence needs were met, union membership guaranteed, public transportation provided, comfortable housing furnished, universal health care and education maintained by the state, and all of this was protected by a network of workers’ militias. That the militia leaders eventually made poor strategic decisions that ceded ground to the fascists does not change the robust character of the rank and file.

Photo of the Austrian Workers’ League for Sport and Body Culture

It was precisely for this reason that SDAP (Social Democratic Party of Austria) valued sobriety and forged close bonds with the temperance movement. A worker plagued with a debilitating illness cannot contribute to the common defense. While an alcoholic may be able to perform the bare minimum tasks required of them at work, they are less useful on the frontline of a street brawl with fascists. Moreover, a drinking worker does not have the clear head required for strategic thinking and adds little to meetings while causing interruptions and dragging out deliberations. This was as true in the early twentieth century as it is today, although we now have even larger problems with the opioid crisis digging its claws ever deeper into our class. 

The Austro-Marxists understood that bolstering the social health of the proletariat was a prerequisite for continuing militancy, and embarked on a bold push towards that end. While addressing the underlying economic causes of ill health with social programs, they also organized cultural institutions to promote sport and sobriety. The Workers’ League for Sport and Body Culture in Austria (ASKÖ) and the Workers’ Temperance League (AAB) both attracted mass participation, improved the health of the Austrian working class, and provided strong recruits to the socialist militias under the Republican Schutzbund. 

Thousands of worker-athletes taking to the streets to fight for socialism is a sight hard to imagine for some of us today, but our history shows it to be possible. By committing to the welfare of the social body, and recognizing substance abuse as its antithesis, the SDAP built a powerful legacy. We would do well to learn from their positive example.

Contemporary Mistakes: The Hipster Left

When most people think of socialist heroes, we imagine the brave organizing of Rosa Luxemburg, the militant internationalism of Che Guevara, or the lifelong dedication of Alexandra Kollontai. Unfortunately, there is a small minority who believe that tomorrow’s red champions will be the libertine intellectuals writing poetry and smoking angel dust in the gentrified hell that is Brooklyn, NYC. There we find a strange clique of upper middle-class art types who flit between orgies, Whole Foods, and DSA meetings, genuinely believing themselves to be socialists. Personalities such as Rachel Rabbit White, Katherine Krueger, and the Chapo Trap House boys dominate the scene, each encouraging their cohorts to further deranged and privileged behavior. For an example of this debauchery masquerading as political struggle, we will examine Kaitlin Phillips’ aptly named profile of the scene The ‘Hooker Laureate’ of the Dirtbag Left.10

Reading through the article, it’s hard not to cringe when remembering that these people claim to fight for working-class liberation. In a borough that was once filled with drugs as a pretext for police harassment of the mostly black community, the new (mostly white) residents have the gall to equate buying PCP for their parties with community care. We find this party filled with the likes of ‘nitrate anarchists’, ‘sex cult’ enthusiasts, Oyster (you know, the girl from the ‘human-centipede four-way’), and one of Rachel’s friends who gave us this gem: “‘We’re going to overthrow capitalism. Although the form to sign up is kind of complicated.’ Someone else nods, ‘I’m a dumb Marxist bitch.’” The fact that these people represent themselves to the world as having common cause with those of us on the front lines of labor and tenant struggles is infuriating. Their activities discredit the movement despite their distance from any real organizing, mainly due to the long reach their money buys them on the internet.

Communists oriented towards concrete struggle should work to stifle the spread of these philistines’ ideas. It is no great sacrifice to exchange the ketamine plates and poetry readings of Brooklyn hipsters for union meetings and picket lines. Anyone claiming the red banner as their own should remember the words of the founding mother of Bolshevism, Nadezhda Krupskaya: “We should try to link our personal lives with the cause for which we struggle, with the cause of building communism…This is not asceticism. On the contrary, the fact of this merging, the fact that the common cause of all working people becomes a personal matter, makes personal life richer.”11 Disciplining one’s private life to the needs of one’s community heralds both fulfillment and efficacy, without forfeiting joy.

The coming communist dawn

A Sober, Socialist Future

The ultimate test of a person’s character is not found in their philosophical leanings, but in their class allegiance. It lives in the realm of practice, not theory. What sets communists apart from the rest of the left in practice is our commitment to actions that build the capacities of our class. No sacrifice in the name of this historic mission is too great, no discipline too much to ask. I appeal to this spirit of dedication within all my comrades when I advocate for strong, sober cadres of organizers to lead our push towards world revolution. Billions of our people suffer while trillions of dollars are made from their misery; each bottle of pills putting a paycheck in the capitalists’ pocket and a worker’s body in the grave. We must marshall our class to rebuild civil society from the ground up, providing hope and community where alienation was once the rule. Without taking responsibility for the mental and physical well-being of ourselves and our neighbors, we cannot hope to radically re-organize society before climate change does it for us.

The Austrian Marxists’ legacy gives us a blueprint for future struggle. By prioritizing the health of our communities, we can turn them into powerful fighting forces for socialism. The best available scientific evidence demonstrates that physical and mental well-being are both improved by sober living, active exercise, and communal bonds. While tragic mistakes led to many Austrian Marxists being butchered by the fascists, we can ensure their work was not in vain by carrying it on today. We cannot allow elements like the Hipster Left to expand their influence from socialites and internet dwellers to the broader movement. Although they have no concrete connection to the working class, their wealth affords them serious reach and the corroding effects of this should not be underestimated. Their encouragement of moral abandon and drug use would further devastate neighborhoods already immobilized and divided, effectively carrying on the work of the FBI’s Cointelpro initiatives. In contrast, our mission is to heal and unify our communities. This is how we will build political legitimacy and ultimately establish a democratic mandate for socialism.

It should be clear that a disciplined mind and body are of utmost importance for anyone worthy of calling themselves a communist. There is no savior coming from heaven or earth to aid the working class in its struggle for emancipation. We must take the reigns of power to build a future free from climate catastrophe, exploitation, and oppression. We strive towards a future where humanity can find joy in its daily endeavors rather than separating life into periods of alienated labor and drug-induced numbness. With clarity as the watchword of the day, determined comrades building thriving communities will pave the road to a better world.

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The fight for a better end of the world

Join our round table where we listen to on-the-ground reports from our writers and comrades of the protests around the country, how they were organized, and how the police and the NGO-industrial complex have responded to them. Robert, Cliff, Alex, Ahmed, and Remi discuss the possibilities for this movement, and where we go from here. There are decades were we fuck around and weeks where we find out.

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Culture Beyond Capital: Art, Authenticity, and the 21st Century Workers’ Movement

The course of the twentieth century has seen art and culture become increasingly subsumed into the logic of capital. A crucial element of a base-building strategy must be to foster an alternative proletarian culture outside the sphere of commodity production for the cultural enrichment and self-expression of workers, argues Cliff Connolly.

“The culture of the proletariat struggling to free itself is a class culture, sharply defined, and based on strife. We must bear in mind that the struggle is one for an ideal: that of the culture of brotherhood and complete freedom; of victory over the individualism which cripples human beings; and of a communal life based not on compulsion and the need of man to herd together for mere self-preservation, as it was in the past, but on a free and natural merging of personalities into super-personal entities.”

-Anatoly Lunacharsky, 1918

Capitalism allowed the creation of great cultural works that never would have been possible under previous modes of production. However, it has outlived its role as champion of the humanities and now serves only to smother the working artist. Authentic artistic expression can only be practiced by those free from its shackles. Artists in every medium are subject to soft censorship from their corporate benefactors and contractual obligations to produce particular content. While this enables them to share their creations with a mass audience, it compromises their integrity and precludes them from freely developing their ideas. Many regard “authenticity of expression” as a measure of originality, but this view does not hold up to close investigation. Completely original and unique ideas untainted by the input of others do not exist. No one is entirely isolated and unaffected by their environment. The self is created socially; it can only be found in and expressed with others. Thus, a certain degree of conformity with the ideas of others is not an automatic indicator of inauthenticity. It is not, as John Merrill puts it, “individual authenticity“1 being sacrificed to conform with capital, but social authenticity. 

The legal protection of “intellectual property” is another means by which capital stifles artistic expression. The internet is filled with creative and innovative new takes on existing film series, video games, and other works that will never find an audience due to copyright. While some may claim that this serves to protect the artist’s work from adulteration, it in fact serves to ensure the property owner’s ability to profit from merchandise and advertising. This creates an artistic environment in which large corporations like Disney can buy legal rights to an idea such as the Star Wars series, declare forty years of literature noncanonical, and sue any artist who attempts to write the next great Star Wars book or film without their approval. With all artistic expression made subservient to the profit-mongering of a few capitalists, how are working people to find their voice? Socialization of artistic expression must be realized for the vast majority of humanity, the working class, to live freely and authentically together. 

The music of Ariana Grande, for example, can be liked or disliked, but by no means can it be considered authentic once the property relations wrapped up in it are considered. While it is the author’s opinion that Grande’s incredible talent is beyond reproach, the music is tailored to and marketed at a specific audience and thus confined within certain norms. There is a safe formula that will reliably produce revenue for the media conglomerate with rights to the music and all income it generates. Experimentation would inevitably decrease Republic Records’s revenue, affecting the financial health of its parent company Vivendi (founded in 1853 by Napoleon III, currently worth roughly 34 billion dollars). This dynamic exists everywhere that art is chained to capital.

Authentic art, then, can only be found in artists who either lack access to capital or consciously struggle against its control. Although it may be tempting for the class reductionist to assert that authenticity is only possible for those alienated from capital, this is not reflected in reality. There are those who have access to private funding but do not allow it to control their artistic decision-making. A prime example of such artists is those found among the creators of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day pitched their low-budget pilot to many networks and ultimately signed with the one that ceded them full creative freedom. In an interview filmed shortly after the show’s second season, McElhenney explained: “I wanted to lay out exactly what it is that was gonna happen if they bought the show. The only way that we’ll do it is if I’m the showrunner and executive producer, Glenn and Charlie are executive producers, and we write the show and we act in the show and you can’t change the cast. So, I wasn’t really sure what anybody’s response was gonna be, and a couple networks’ responses was: get out.” After successfully negotiating terms with FX, they went on to garner a cult following and are now approaching their fourteenth season. 

It is of utmost importance for communists to understand the value of nurturing artistic authenticity both for healthy socialization and as a propaganda tool in societies dominated by the Frankenstein popular culture of capitalism. This process can help build healthy, independent proletarian communities where disparate groups of alienated individuals were once estranged from each other. Agitating against the domination of art by capital, in addition to its domination of people, can bring the working class together in a common struggle against artificial, meagre life within the confines of property relations. Genuine collaborative spectacle can replace premeditated celebrity beefs and manufactured romantic comedies in the minds of workers. We cannot fall prey to the pessimistic lament of the Frankfurt School, insisting that the workers have been conquered by the culture industry of capital and are no longer capable of revolution. Numerous acts of heroism from mutinous soldiers in Vietnam, the Black Panthers, and countless others demonstrate a continued commitment to revolution. Nor can we accept the Situationist assertion that the workers can simply use detournement and elaborate pranks to overthrow the bourgeoisie through spectacle alone. Were that the case, Eric Andre would have seized power and legalized ranch by now. The way forward is concrete political organizing coupled with a conscious effort to foster an alternative proletarian culture. Progress towards one task will advance our work in the other. 

A historic example of this phenomenon can be found in the early Soviet Union. In the aftermath of the Russian revolution, theatre became mass media in a way never before seen. Once reserved for the well-to-do, it was brought to the streets of Petrograd and Moscow before being exported all over the country. The stage became a place of both recreation and political struggle for workers and peasants who had been excluded from artistic pursuits under the old order. Millions of people whose only option for an aesthetic experience had been the church finally had access to expressive activity. In his introduction to Three Soviet Plays (1966), Michael Glenny writes: 

“This explosion of activity began with the revolution, as being virtually the only media for addressing large numbers of people simultaneously. The theatre also moved out of doors to deliver the revolutionary message to vast crowds who had never seen any kind of dramatic performance. The methods used were inevitably crude, but they were highly effective as a means of democratizing the theatre and of awakening a taste for drama and spectacle among the masses. Life was often hard and drab, but there was always the theatre, now available to all.”

The new Soviet government made a conscious effort to change the role of art in civil society, and found massive success. What had been a decadent ornament of the ruling class became a powerful instrument of the people. The masses of Russia, spread across eight million square miles and alienated from one another for centuries, were now forming a common community. 

The revolutionary left in the United States once had mass cultural institutions to augment its political organizations too. In 1929, writers at the New Masses newspaper formed the first John Reed Club: “The purpose of the Club is to bring closer all creative workers; to maintain contact with the American revolutionary labor movement. Discussions, literary evenings, and exhibits will be organized.” This is not an obsolete historical footnote, but a strong example for us to follow in present circumstances. Our artists can and should be rallied around a common program to promote proletarian cultural development.

New Masses, Volume 3, No. 1, May 1927

Communists today have to grapple with the task of promoting authentic proletarian culture just as the Bolsheviks did. However, we must remember that a new culture cannot be forced into existence without the participation of the masses we strive to serve. A healthy atmosphere of artistic experimentation must be fostered so the people can work out for themselves what their culture will look like. While we cannot prescribe a dry regimen of artistic pursuits to achieve this, we can take inspiration from working class artists exploring their craft today. The Chicago-based collective Neo-Futurist Theater provides an interesting example. Their mission is to create “theater that is a fusion of sport, poetry and living-newspaper. Non-illusory, interactive performance that conveys our experiences and ideas as directly and honestly as possible. Work that embraces those unreached or unmoved by conventional theater– inspiring them to thought, feeling and action.” Fellow traveler and playwright Kevin Michael Wesson envisions how this style of theater can be utilized by the workers’ movement: 

“It is within the proletariat’s budget, interest, and future to make performing art honest and authentic[…]If the same feeling can be evoked in a $50,000 budget, three hour[…]play, as a zero budget two-minute[…]play, what is the point of capital if only to starve the honest artist?”2

These artists show us how innovation can compensate for a lack of funds in developing alternative proletarian culture. 

In overcoming the limitations of capital and intellectual property, we should remember the lessons of the 20th century. The restrictions that previous socialists put on themselves must be avoided if a healthy culture is to be built. Censorship is a dangerous tool that is best employed with a light hand. Only the most heinous organs of reaction should be suppressed, and even then as a last resort. Open debate is always preferable to censorship in the realm of ideas; in the realm of action, other strategies are necessary. History shows the consequences that come with the bureaucratization of art: stifled creativity, conformity to official genre requirements, and state persecution of artists guilty of deviating from the norm. Recounting the demise of the free Soviet theatre, Michael Glenny writes:

“To circumscribe the writers’ freedom even further, Zhdanov defined the official doctrine of ‘Socialist Realism’ at the first Congress of Soviet Writers in 1934. From now on they were required to write nothing but stereotyped pieces on a few officially approved themes.” 

Many great socialist artists were harassed, arrested, and even pushed to suicide by the Stalinist bureaucracy. In addition to the loss of life and freedom, these tragic instances were the beginning of the end for authentic proletarian culture in the Soviet Union. The proletariat today cannot lose sight of those mistakes; we must vigilantly guard our movement from their repetition.

Perhaps the most impactful tool in the communists’ belt for cultural development is education. Lunachasky’s insight is again worth noting:

“We must never lose sight of the fact that the chief aim of education is the knowledge of the various forms of human culture, which, in its turn, includes all forms of mental and manual activity. The artistic and physical education must be the fitting completion of the technical. There must be educational freedom and freedom in the school. We hope to see the birth of an art completely in touch with the emotions of the modern world: of an art that will lead us to further conquests for liberty.”

Workers taking education into their own hands is nothing new in the United States — our movement has a long history of organizing workers’ night schools and party education centers. Moreover, these institutions were often on the cutting edge of progressive pedagogy for their time- with the New York Workers School being a prime example. According to Richard H. Rovere, 

“By…1938, the Workers School had developed its own pedagogic method, forsaking the traditional academic format of lecture and recitation for a variation of the Socratic method in which short lectures were made with a view to posing of key questions for joint discussion by students. This teaching method, borrowed from a small set of elite liberal arts colleges in the New England region, was intended to shift the responsibility for learning to the students themselves.”3

This example should be exciting to anyone committed to the project of socialist base-building. The infrastructure and resources required to put such a school together are minimal, and certainly within the realm of possibility in the near future. A hundred or so dues-paying members of workers’ and tenants’ unions could easily find the money, location, and staff to host a weekly lesson or two. The American working class speaks countless languages that should be learned by organizers, our history should be taught to fill in the omissions in public school textbooks, and the finer points of Marxist theory should be made easily understandable to those of us who can’t afford a graduate degree. These tasks cannot be accomplished without a strong communist focus on education. Moreover, these schools will inevitably bring together budding proletarian artists and give them a space for collaboration and experimentation.

Whether it be red theater in the streets, workers’ night schools, or unionized cafes with domino tables and 99 cent coffee, new spaces for healthy socialization among workers must be created. It is in these spaces that communists can advocate our ideas and organize our institutions. Our dual task is to nurture an alternative proletarian culture and a democratic proletarian party. Achieving these aims will lay the foundation for a new century of class struggle that will shine brighter than the last.