This is a signed article first published (in Norwegian) on the webpage of “Revolusjonært Kommunistisk Forbund”. We keep our websites open to revolutionary Marxist debate. Signed articles express the author’s own point of view.
- How to prevent counter-revolutionaries from gaining power in the party and the state after the revolution?
- How to ensure that the leadership of the Communist Party is controlled by the membership and not the other way around?
- How to ensure an effective organization of the Communist Party/the party-widening organization so that a large, strong and effective Communist Party can be created?
These are the issues that will be discussed in this article. I will discuss these challenges primarily through studying the contradiction between two communist organizational principles that I will call the “council model” and “collective leadership”. I will start by explaining the two different communist principles.
By Reidar Knutsen
The council model
The council model originates from the Paris Commune. The Paris Commune was established through a revolution on 18 March 1871 and lasted until 28 May of the same year. Despite its short duration of only 72 days, this revolution has had a great impact on the labor movement (including the communists) ever since. This was the first time the working class had tried to make a revolution. For a short time they also succeeded, and with that the first workers’ state in history was established.
The Paris Commune consisted of a majority of Blanquists and a minority of Proudhonists 1. The Blanquists were followers of Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805–1881). Blanqui and his followers believed that the revolution had to be made by a relatively small, highly organized and secret conspiracy through a coup d’état. “Blanquism” has been used by reactionaries and reformists (such as Bernstein) as a slur against Marx and the Communists, but in reality Marx and Engels criticized Blanquism as a flawed method of revolution 2 . Later, this criticism was deepened in Marxism, among other things through Mao’s contributions regarding the importance of involving the masses in the revolution.
The minority, the Proudhonists, were followers of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865) – also known as “the father of anarchism” 3. The prodhonists and the communists share a view of a goal of a stateless society, but have a rather different view of how to get there. While the communists focus to a greater extent on the working class, and values and traditions from this class such as solidarity and collective strength (which have their roots in the fact that the working class, in contrast to the petty bourgeoisie, individualistic way of life works and fights in collectives), prodhonism is a petty-bourgeois ideology that focuses on the freedom of the individual and is anti-authoritarian from such a petty-bourgeois point of view.
The relationship between the Proudhonists and the Communists resembles the relationship between Proudhon and Marx. In the beginning it was friendship and inspiration they drew from each other, but eventually it developed into a rather bitter struggle for hegemony in the First International at the initiative of French and English workers Annual congresses were held: London 1865, Geneva 1866, Lausanne 1867, Brussels 1868, Basel 1869, London 1871, The Hague 1872, Geneva 1873 and Philadelphia 1876. The International was characterized by conflicts between Marxists and anarchists.)).
Engels on how to ensure that the state is the servant of the people
In a preface to Marx’s text “The Civil War in France”, which Engels wrote on the 20th anniversary of the Paris Commune (18 March 1891), Engels writes about how society had created bodies with the state at the top to look after its common interests, and how special interests in the state and its organs went from being society’s servants to its masters. This is a general tendency in the state, regardless of which class the state serves. Especially today, where we see how the counter-revolution has won, precisely because special interests in the state and its organs (including the party) have lifted themselves up as rulers of society in de former socialist countries (Soviet Union, China etc.) it is easy to see how Engels’ theory in this field has subsequently been confirmed. Engels believes the Paris Commune found a remedy for this:
Against this transformation of the state and the state organs from being society’s servants to being its masters – a transformation that has so far been unavoidable in any state, the Municipality used two infallible means. In elections with universal suffrage, it first filled all positions within the administration, judiciary and education in such a way that those entitled to vote could recall those elected at any time. And secondly, it paid for all positions, high and low, only the wages that other workers received. The highest salary it paid at all was 6,000 francs, which also included the bound mandates of delegates to representative assemblies. This put an end to office-seekers and strivers.
We see that the Paris municipality had two important measures to solve this problem:
- All positions in the state were elected, and that those entitled to vote could recall the elected at any time
- Wages were equal to normal worker wages
The experiences of the Soviet Union
Although Lenin argued for following this experience from the Paris Commune in the Soviet Union, out of necessity, they departed from this. In short, the problems in the Soviet Union were rooted in the need for educated labour, and the low availability of this labour. In order to prevent qualified labor from moving out of the country, it was necessary to increase wages. For our part, in a high-tech imperialist country with a highly educated working class, there is good reason to believe that our opportunities to follow these two principles from the Paris Commune are greater than they were before.
The Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) worked to combat the bureaucratic tendencies that eventually led to degeneration and the establishment of a new class that ruled through the exploitation of the working class. CPSU built on the experiences of the Paris Commune. In CPSU’s program from 1919, one can read the following:
Only the Soviet organisation of the state enabled the proletarian revolution to smash at once and radically destroy the old bourgeois bureaucratic and juridical state apparatus. However, the inadequate cultural level of the broad masses, the lack of necessary experience in administrative affairs among the workers, appointed by the masses to occupy responsible posts, the necessity to hurriedly and under difficult conditions appoint specialists of the old school and the diversion of the most educated stratum of the urban workers to military work brought about a partial revival of bureaucracy within the Soviet apparatus.
- The Communist Party of the Soviet Union, while conducting a most determined struggle against bureaucratic tendencies, advocates the following measures for the complete elimination of this evil:
- The obligatory participation of every member of the Soviet in definite work connected with the administration of the state.
- Consecutive rotation in this work so that every member is able to acquire experience in all branches of administration.
The entire toiling population to be gradually drawn into the work of state administration.
The complete and all-sided application of all these measures, which represent further progress along the path taken by the Paris Commune, and the simplification of the functions of administration, with the raising of the cultural level of the toilers, will lead towards the abolition of the state power.4
Here we also see how the party itself explains why the two principles from Engels were not followed in the Soviet Union. However, we see that the party wanted to build on the model from the Paris Commune, but added 3 new elements in the fight to secure the state as servants of the people and not against it. In total, when we combine it with Engel’s summary of the principles from the Paris Commune, we can see 5 principles to counteract the establishment of a new ruling class:
- All positions in the state must be elected, and on an imperative mandate (i.e. that the voters can recall the elected at any time)
- Wages must be equal to normal worker wages
- Mandatory participation of all Soviet members in certain tasks in connection with the state administration
- Continuous rotation in this work, so that each member is able to acquire experience in all branches of the administration
- The entire working population must gradually be drawn into the work of the state administration
All these principles were never fully followed in any of the socialist countries. There were good reasons why it didn’t happen. Briefly explained, we find the reason primarily through the fact that the revolution never spread to all other imperialist countries. Consequently, the Soviet Union needed the state to be able to defend itself against reactionary invasion and a complete and comprehensive implementation of these 5 measures will lead to the abolition of the state. At the same time, we find here the key to why the reaction eventually won and socialism suffered a strong setback.
Collective leadership
Collective leadership is a principle that springs from the collective class character of the proletariat. In contrast to the petty bourgeoisie’s individualistic production processes, the proletariat produces in collectives. For the proletariat, it appears quite concretely that they are a link in collective production and that they are dependent on the collective in order to produce. It is obvious to a worker in a car factory, for example, that he only contributes to a small part of what is needed to produce a car. Although in reality it is the case that the petty bourgeoisie is also dependent on societal collective production, it does not appear to them in the same way. A farmer working on his farm is largely working alone. If he needs help, he hires someone, typically on short-term contracts. They become for him only a piece in order for him to be able to complete his production. The entire production on his farm revolves around him and his creativity and initiative. This is in contrast to the proletarian, who herself sees that she is only a piece in production. The life we live determines what we think. This is how individualistic thoughts spring from the petty bourgeoisie, while collective thoughts spring from the proletariat.
This also applies when it comes to management. For the petty bourgeoisie, management is something the petty bourgeois do to complete their production. Petty-bourgeois leadership is to command people to do a task, while the proletarian is to take the lead in solving the task, and to encourage, inspire and persuade people to join.
Petty-bourgeois leadership is individual-based, while proletarian leadership is collective. Petty-bourgeois understanding of leadership is based on the idea of the big, strong leader who commands and decides, while the subordinates loyally and uncritically carry out the boss’s plans and decisions. The proletarian line sees leadership as a task on an equal footing with other tasks. The task is solved by effective division of labour, knowledge and organisation. The proletariat knows instinctively from its practice that the collective is stronger than the individual and that if tasks are to be solved well and efficiently then everyone must do their bit of the task. For tasks that have not already been delegated, or where it is not obvious where they fall under, the team discusses and finds the best solutions together. The collective is also a support when individuals in the collective are unsure of how concrete tasks should be solved.
It has not been easy to find much theory when it comes to the principle of collective leadership. After Stalin’s death, the revisionists tried to use this principle against the Communists. They claimed, among other things, that Stalin undermined the collective leadership and replaced it with the cultivation of “the great leader”. The CCP (China) supported the principle of collective leadership in the great polemic they waged against the CPSU after Khrushchev came to power after Stalin’s death 5. Although Stalin himself on several occasions went against leader worship6 he eventually allowed such a practice to develop. Leader worship, or cult of personality, is a petty-bourgeois phenomenon that breaks fundamentally with communism. This deviation from the proletarian communist line was used by Khrushchev and other revisionists in the CPSU to attack the left wing of the party. Under the guise of correct criticism, they pushed their revisionist lines through.
The cult of personality is a rotten transfer from the long history of mankind. The cult of personality is rooted not only in the exploiting classes, but also in the small producers. As is known, patriarchy is a product of small producer economy7)
Mao criticized the personality cult several times, but he believed it was necessary to stimulate the masses to tear down the right wing of the party8. It therefore became a cult of personality during the Cultural Revolution in China. Just as during the case in the Soviet Union, the right-wing in the CCP also used criticism of the cult of personality at the same time as pushing revisionist lines 9. Experience shows that the cult of personality can mobilize people and be an effective means of achieving political goals in the short term, but that the effect is like pissing your pants – you get warmer for a short while, and then much colder in the long term.
Perhaps it is precisely the fact that the principle of collective leadership has been misused by historical revisionists that has meant that communists in recent times have devoted too little focus to this principle. Despite the abuse of the revisionists, the principle is crucial to being able to create a communist society. We cannot allow the revisionists’ misuse of the principle to continue to harm the communist movement, but on the contrary scientifically elevate the principle.
The problem with rotation
We have now seen the council model as a means of preventing counter-revolution via the state and party apparatus. We have also looked at the principle of collective leadership. These are principles that largely coincide, but with a possible exception.
I mentioned 5 principles under the council model, where principle no. 4 (continuous rotation in this work, so that each member is able to gain experience in all branches of the administration) may come into conflict with the principle of collective leadership, if it is practiced too frequently.
Building strong and efficient collectives takes time. Let’s go back to the car factory example. If we imagine that we have a group of 7 students that we put in a car factory, give them instruction manuals and other training materials necessary to assemble a car and say that they have now got a job as industrial workers who will assemble cars, then we envision the following development:
The students first start discussing how the task of assemble the same car should be done. There are many operations involved, and a lot to get used to. Presumably, a person will come up with the idea that the most efficient thing is for them to divide the tasks between them. Then they can distribute the training material and each individual can concentrate on a part of the task. One concentrates on installing the engine, one on doors, another on the electrical, etc. Presumably there are some tasks that are easier than others, or some people have better personal prerequisites than others to solve the tasks faster. In such cases, it is likely that either the person himself or someone else will take the initiative for the person concerned to help others who are struggling with they’re task. All this with initiative for the distribution of tasks, organization of the collective discussion and the organization of who gets which tasks, initiative so that those who finish first help those who are struggling, etc. (regardless of whether it is the person in question himself or others) is leadership of the work.
The students will spend a very long time making the first car, as they have to learn everything for the first time. The second car goes faster, the third even faster, and they will constantly find methods and distribution of tasks that make the process with putting the cars together faster and faster. Here we have an example of a work collective that is constantly getting stronger and more efficient.
Now let’s imagine that we replace two people in this group. What kind of consequences will it entail? Yes, the new person must receive training. If we are lucky, there is someone in the group who knows a bit about what the task of the two who disappeared was and can help, but regardless productivity will drop drastically. Maybe they go from assembling a car a day, to having to spend a week on the first car with two new people. Let’s imagine that we replace 3 people every week in the collective, what will happen then? Most likely, the collective will never manage to produce a single car because there is simply not enough time for people to learn the tasks. It is one thing to produce a car, which is a rather limited and technical matter. But it gets even worse if one thinks of collectives that are responsible for the management of a state or a communist party. Here, the tasks are far more complex, since we are dealing with people and society. Certain tasks in terms of state administration and administrative party tasks take less time to learn, but many tasks require a lot of experience and knowledge.
The point of this example is to demonstrate that to frequent rotation is destructive for the collective. Sometimes replacing individuals in the collective can strengthen the collective. If we e.g. has a person who does not function well in the collective, then it will strengthen the collective if that person is replaced with a better suited individual.
The point here is not that rotation is always wrong in work collectives, but that you cannot implement this practice without a concrete analysis of consequences and based on this determine frequency etc.
- See F. Engels. in the preface to Marx’s writing “The Civil War in France”. Berlin 1891[↩]
- https://www.marxists.org/archive/riazanov/1928/xx/blanqui.htm[↩]
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre-Joseph_Proudhon[↩]
- https: //www.marxists.org/history/etol/newspape/isr/vol22/no04/rcpb.html[↩]
- https://www.marxists.org/subject/china/documents/polemic/qstalin.htm[↩]
- See: Grover Furr: “Khrushchev lied” pp. 219 and 221[↩]
- Mao: https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-7/mswv7_467.htm (my translation[↩]
- https://www.nixonfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/LIFE-Magazine-April-30-1971.pdf [↩]
- https:/ /en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong%27s_cult_of_personality[↩]