Thoughts for the New Year

IN 2013

 The people express their power in elections. On election day, the working class is sovereign; they can impose their will by electing their representatives. On this one day, they are the masters. But woe to them if they do not choose the right representatives. People mistakenly think how easy it will be to put the right name into the ballot box to put a cross next to. They forget what deep inner revolution must take place in the minds and consciousness of the working class. Socialist MPs will be delegates, bound by mandate, they are sent simply to express the opinions of the workers' groups who sent them. Workers must themselves make history, or else history will be made by others for them. Of course, they cannot build without taking the circumstances into account. Without working class action, nothing happens; and the act of changing society is something very different and much greater than depositing a vote in a ballot box every five years. A new world cannot be created that easily and the Socialist Party has always fully recognised this. We also acknowledge that a clear conception of aims, ways and means will be acquired by the working class only during the process of revolution. But those who now believe that all one has to do is to wait for revolutionary action, because then economic necessity will teach the workers how to act correctly, are victims of an illusion. Communist society requires communist individuals, united through conscious social organisation. A revolution spirit in the working class is necessary. Socialist consciousness is not just the product of economic relations, but is also the cause of change in those relations. A revolution simultaneously involves a profound upheaval in the masses thinking, it creates the conditions for this, and is itself conditioned by it. Marxism has two parts: people are a product of circumstances, but people in turn modifies those circumstances. People are only the agent of economic needs; but these needs can only be changed thanks to their activity. Together they form a complete theory but what part must be emphasised changes according to the circumstances.

Certainly workers will learn quickly and act forcefully in revolutionary times but there will be a section who will say the "most capable leaders", the "best brains", and the "great men of action" should take charge. As Luxemburg pointed out part of the problem to achieve socialism is derived from the belief in leaders. In Berlin the Left leadership failed to lead and the workers were defeated. For Luxemburg this was further proof that the German workers were not ready for revolution; her comments were later paraphrased as "...the leaders were in conference, in conference, in conference. No, these masses were not ready for the seizure of power, or their initiative would have discovered others to stand at their head, and their first revolutionary act would have been to compel the leaders to stop their interminable conferences."

Otto Ruhl went further and declared dependency on the political party was the problem. Not just this party or that party, but all parties. But the Socialist Party would exempt itself from such critcism as it's conception of what a political party should be differs fundamentally from those that have existed.

Pannekoek explained "The function of a revolutionary party lies in propagating clear understanding in advance, so that throughout the masses there will be elements who know what must be done and who are capable of judging the situation for themselves. And in the course of revolution the party has to raise the programme, slogans and directives which the spontaneously acting masses recognise as correct because they find that they express their own aims in their most adequate form and hence achieve greater clarity of purpose; it is thus that the party comes to lead the struggle. So long as the masses remain inactive, this may appear to be an unrewarding tactic; but clarity of principle has an implicit effect on many who at first hold back, and revolution reveals its active power of giving a definite direction to the struggle. If, on the other hand, it has been attempted to assemble a large party by watering down principles, forming alliances and making concessions, then this enables confused elements to gain influence in times of revolution without the masses being able to see through their inadequacy."

Propaganda can be a thankless task during a period of political inactivity and apathy but clarity of principle will count powerfully in the inevitable periods of struggle. Opportunism waters down principles at such times with reformist demands instead of revolutionising ideas which is the prerequisite for gaining power.

"Let us develop new principles for the world out of its own principles. Let us not say to it 'Cease your nonsensical struggles, we will give you something real to fight for.' Let us simply show the world what it is really fighting for, and this is something the world must come to know, whether it wishes it or not. The reform of consciousness consists only in the world becoming aware of its own consciousness, awakening it from vague dreams of itself and showing it what its true activity is...Then it will be seen that the world has long been dreaming of things that it only needs to become aware of in order to possess them in reality."  Karl Marx to Ruge, 1843

The world is in constant flux, new changing and different impressions enter the mind which do not fit in with the old image. There then begins a process of rebuilding, out of parts of old ideas and those new experiences. Old notions are replaced by new ones, new ideas emerge. Not every member of a class or group is affected in the same way and at the same time but all the different individual lives are linked in diverse ways. New ideas arise from two sources: present reality and ideas transmitted from the past, the combination of the real material world of the present with the ideologies of the past (ideals and beliefs) determine man's mind and thus his deeds, and therefore, the future. The result -  revolutionary transformations, by which lagging minds are drawn along and are themselves revolutionized. A single individual worker is powerless; only as part of his class, connected by their habit of working and fighting together can they get power. They must see the truth that once they are  united they can produce abundance and liberate society from misery and want. This is part of the education necessary to bring mankind from class exploitation and misery into communism itself.  

"Critical communism does not manufacture revolutions, it does not prepare insurrections, it does not furnish arms for revolts. It mingles with the proletarian movement, but it sees and supports the movement in the full intelligence of the connection which it has, which it can have, and which it must have, with all the relations of social life as a whole. In a word it is not a seminary in which superior officers of the proletarian revolution are trained, but it is neither more nor less than the consciousness of this revolution and especially the consciousness of its difficulties." wrote  Antonio Labriola "In Memory of the Communist Manifesto", from his Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History.