Like I said I sort of hit a wall writing that other post. Along the way I remembered this piece my friend Chris wrote a while back and posted to the aut-op-sy email list back when we were both still on there, it was part of discussions about a book. Sadly I’ve pretty much lost touch with Chris. The piece is a taxonomy of organizations.
There are some general issues with organization. I want to raise some
general problems, though I lay no claim to a solution.The issue is not being opposed to organization, at least not for me, but
what kind of organization? The willed organization appears in a variety of
types: Leninist, Social Democratic, Platformist, the SI, Bordigist,
syndicalist, anarchist affinity group (which may reside in a platformist
federation or some other kind of collective), and of course a wide range of
mixture. But they have some substantial differences, which is key to Ilan’s
point, but also some substantial unities, which I think is key to Peter’s
point. The relationship between the political differences and the
organizational methods or conceptions is not always obvious, however. So I
want to point out some organizational issues and then try and talk briefly
about what I see as some of the political problems raised therein. Maybe at
some point it will be possible to make a point or two on the relation
between theory and organization, but not just yet and not in this e-mail.We can break these up any number of ways, and hopefully everyone will call
me dirty names and correct my misconceptions. I am going to lay our some
basic comparisons and then try and discuss each one a little bit. At each
point, I am obviously expressing my understanding of these and there are a
lot of nuances I am leaving out which any one person may find breaks my
argument. Also, I have not specifically addressed certain councilist ideas
from the early 1920’s, not because they are not important, but because the
councilists themselves seem to have largely broken with the KAPD model by
the late 1920’s. Maybe, in one way, that was a mistake; I am in position to
make an assessment of that possiblity.A. Revolutionary organizations as “mass organizations”?
1. Believes it is possible to be a mass working class organization prior to
a revolutionary situation: syndicalist (I am thinking of the IWW and the
autonomous unions in Italy and France) and Social Democratic.2. Believes it is not possible to be a mass organization prior to a
revolutionary situation, but that a truly revolutionary organization will
become a mass organization during a revolutionary situation, and that this
is necessary for the success of the revolution: Leninist, Bordigist,
Platformist.3. Believes that a willed organization is never going to be a mass
organization and that it should dissolve itself into the organs of workers’
power (in this instance, the councils): the SI.Comment: So strange as it seems, there is a commonality here between
Platformists and Leninists. In fact, IMO, they both believe that their
ideas (Anarchism and Marxism, respectively) must be adopted by the mass of
the working class in order for the revolution to succeed. In so far as they
have a body of beliefs which they want to pass on to the mass of workers, a
codified body of doctrine they want to convince people of, they are pushing
an ideology, and so this aspect of the organization should, in fact, be
similar. That is why the SI, which was attempting to avoid becoming
purveyors of a doctrine or ideology, did not see themselves as becoming a
mass organization. Their task was not mass conversion, but critique. This
already implies a critique of a certain notion of consciousness which Lenin
adopts openly (and which is in fact inherited from Social Democracy), that
consciousness comes from outside the class struggle, from ’science’
(Althusser takes up this view as the basis of his life’s.) Platformists
generally reject this if it is put so bluntly, but IMO after a few years of
conversation with Ilan and a few others and reading OCAP-influenced
anarchists (OCAP having been started more or less as a front group for a
splinter from the Trotskyist Militant Tendency, but having taken on a life
of its own), I have seen a basic agreement on the necessity of anarchist
ideas permeating the mass of the working class, a task which has to be
carried on by some kind of pedagogical organization of organizers. As
always, I find myself wondering who educates the educators and who organizes
the organizers? The problem of the relationship between consciousness and
class is at best avoided by the Platformists and answered in truly
pre-Hegelian/pre-Marx fashion by the Leninists.B. Unity of program, theory and membership.
1. Nominally believes in tolerating a wide-variety of politics internally:
social democratic and syndicalist.2. Believes in a more rigorous political unity, but leaves open more space
for a theoretical smorgasbord as long as there is fundamental unity of
program/platform: Leninist, Bordigist, Platformist.3. Believes that real organizational unity comes from a shared, very clear
theoretical and political basis, grounded in rigorous struggle over ideas
and internal practices: the SI (and to some degree groups like News and
Letters.)Comment: In the first group, if you want to be a mass organization in a
non-revolutionary period, then you have to accept a lot more politically,
and the tendency is to cater, in the end, to the most conservative
consciousness in many ways. In the second case, the key issue is ‘the
program’ or ‘the platform.’ Certainly, that involves agreement with the
home ideology (Anarchism or Marxism), but not on the basis of any kind of
theoretical rigor. It tends, instead, to show up as a kind of laundry-list
of things to which one agrees and can minimally explain. Theory and
critique tend to be looked down upon in practice (since theory, program and
organization all occupy little separate boxes) and the program is seen as a
guide to action, a sort of “Being a Revolutionary Militant for Dummies” with
an appendix of “demands.” This leads to two tendencies, which are NOT
mutually exclusive: 1) a core of people who dominate the dissemination of
that organization’s brand of ideology, often personified but not
necessarily, and who do the thinking for the periphery of activists and/or
2) an absence of serious theoretical engagement and the reduction to a
potpourri of disconnected ideas and ideological rubbish, which either
reinforces or justifies a kind of militantism of the sort the SI critiqued.
As such, the SI took a rather different approach. The emphasis was on a
high level of theoretical and practical participation. All members were
nominally expected to be able to equally defend the program of the
organization and at the same time take up the work of the organization,
including and maybe. But this was not really a solution either. What about
workers who want to join but who are not as educated and capable as a Debord
or Jappe or the others SI members, who were all highly educated elites? The
SI never adequately grappled with this problem, in part resolving it for a
period through a relationship with Socialisme ou Barbarie, but then in 1968
having no real links to anything much going on in the working class outside
the universities and technical schools.
After all, the problem here is to avoid the always fairly passive
leader-follower relation which dominates in most ‘revolutionary’
organizations. I am going to jump ahead a bit and propose that the problem
with many forms of organization is that they replicate the forms of
organization of this society and not always in crude ways, like Lenin’s
approval of the factory as a model of organization for revolutionaries (even
if he was only ‘chastising the bourgeois elements’ or whatever excuse a
person might have.) The Platformist does not escape this, but neither,
while understanding the problem more rigorously, does the SI. So the
solution has to remain elsewhere, but incorporating aspects of the SI
critique.C. “What’s our relationship to the soviets, comrade?”
1. Believes that the (representative) organs of working class power that
will bring about the end of capital must be directed by the right willed
organization: Leninist, Bordigist, social democratic.2. Believes in direct democracy and workers’ self-determination through
mass organizations (councils, cooperatives, etc.), but that a willed
organization must defend those organs and the revolution from anti-working
class elements: the SI, Platformist.3. Believes that their very form of organization is synonymous with the
workers’ self-determination: syndicalist.Comment: This is where a lot of anarchists focus, IMO. As with all of
these, my usages are not politically neutral, nor are they meant to be. The
SI (really only following the council communist position) and the
Platformists (though not only them) have a much better, and IMO, the most
valid approaches. This does not mean that the Platformists and the SI agree
on exactly what to do (as the Platformists entertain a wide variety of
opinion.) Of course, I could be wrong on the Platformist approach, but it
seems to me on this consistent with most anarcho-communist thought. The
advance of the SI and the anarchists in some cases is the emphasis on the
transformation of social relations, not simply “workers’ management” of a
‘technical process of production.’D. Federalist versus Centralist?
1. Believes in the power of the center over the periphery within a
hierarchically structured organization; democratic centralist: Leninist,
Bordigist.2. Believes in the autonomy of the local groups, but accepts adherence from
a local group only as long as it adheres to the program; often no formal
center with any power; federationist: Platformist.3. Rejects a hierarchical organization, demands equal participation of all
members at a high political and theoretical level: the SI.Comment: Again, this is an area where the Platformists are VERY different
from the vanguardists. There is still a substantive difference between the
SI and anarchists on this question, but I think that the SI never really
figured out what to do with this anyway and were never big enough to have to
worry overmuch about a center-periphery relationship. But maybe also the
problem is less relevant in an organization which requires such high level
of theoretical as well as programmatic agreement. Or maybe it is much worse
and you spend a lot of time throwing everybody out, one after another. The
response of the SI, especially Debord, to Vaneigem’s absence in May-June ‘68
certainly seems to indicate a high expectation of unity in action that is
not really democratic-centralist, but the expectation of a high level of
unity in theory. In either case, neither form of organization in this
respect looks much like Marxist vanguardisms.E. To recruit or not to recruit, that is a question.
1. Seeks new recruits for spreading the organization’s ideas and influence:
Leninist, Bordigist, Platformist, Social Democratic, syndicalist.2. Does not seek to recruit: the SI, affinity groups.
Comment: It may seem like every group should recruit, but to me recruitment
goes along with a leader-led/active-passive hierarchical organization. I
don’t want to recruit anyone. I do want to work with other people, and I am
for an organization, but people should want to join and no special effort
should be made to recruit, to proselytize. But to me this goes along with
refusing to push an ideology. I agree with the SI that the point is to make
a critique, to attack any and all forms of ideology that stand in the way of
the workers’ becoming self-conscious. In that sense, I see
pro-revolutionaries as interior to the class, not outside it. It’s my
problem with Negri and Hardt’s ‘militant’ as well as with Platformists I
have talked to. They are still fundamentally vanguardist in orientation on
this level, if on another level they completely reject the Leninist
vanguard. On this question, I actually think that Bordiga’s piece recently
made available by Antagonism is very important because he resurrected the
more complicated notion of the Party as not simply this or that
organization, but as the totality of communists (anarchist, Marxist, other.)In this sense, I am not offering the SI as a counter ’solution’, but also as
failed. Marx’s notion of organization, which was one connected to what was
possible in relation to a mass movement, that of a communist thinker to a
mass working class organization in the process of development (a development
cut short by the smashing of the Commune and the right turn in the British
revolutionary movement, which Marx and Bakunin’s arguments and maneuverings
exacerbated, but did not cause.)Peacock’s book simply does not, as Peter pointed out, adress this in any way
which comes to terms with the SI’s own weaknesses, which Aufheben raises in
their introduction to the history of the French ultra-left, indicated
through many people (hundreds, not thousands, btw) flocking the ICO(?). But
Ilan’s points on this are not convincing, and so he sets up straw arguments
which Peter did not make, such as> It seems Peter Jovanovic is “sponteneist”.
> He does not believe that libertarian communists can promote
> the prevalence of libertarian communist opinions in the working
> people minds.
>
> I wonder if it is so, why libertarian communists need to
> involve themselves in social class struggle.and
> Indeed a scandalous idea that printed texts and involvement in mass
> struggle can influence what people think. Indeed a scandalous idea
> that organized groups of activists can do much more than individuals.
>
> Indeed a scandalous idea that the wisdom of groups of people
> can bring about much more than the sum of the activities of individuals
> going it alone.> It seems he do not find any difference between groups practicing
> direct democracy of grass collectives and authoritarian parties.
>Thus returning to the need to push an ideology, here softly presented as
“opinions”, but which obviously also means “politics” and “ideas”> Without the promotion of libertarian-communist opinions among the masses,
> future uprising and revolutions may face the same fate.So we have yet to resolve the problem. I do think that Marx was working at
the problem from a perspective that has not yet really been returned to in
its entirety, maybe in part because of the lack of revolutionary uphevals on
the scale of the 1920’s (hence my point about the KAPD and early councilist
ideas of organization), but also because Marx’s own development in this area
was cut short as he retreated in his critique after 1872. The French and
Italian ultra-lefts came closest to having to deal with these issues, but
even there, not on a similar scale. There has yet to be a return to the
real unity of theoretical critique and organizational practice, though the
SI, CLR James, splits from Socialisme ou Barbarie, and Marxist-Humanism have
all raised the issue in different ways which we can learn from.It is why I am so insistent on the value of a careful study of what Marx was
really trying to do, which was not a critique of capitalism or an
alternative political economy, but a critique of bourgeois ideology and the
role of communists in the mass working class movement. The relationship
between pro-revolutionaries and mass working class movements will certainly
involve organization and maybe even organizations of revolutionaries, but to
what end? To “promote” certain “opinions” or to engage in a ruthless
critique of everything existing? To lead the working class or to fight for
the absolute sovereignty of the working class’ own revolutionary
organizations against any party or ideology? Are we pedagogues somehow
miraculously “outside looking in”? Purveyors of an ideology of “total
social management” as Debord referred to Leninism or defenders of the idea
that only in and through struggle can workers find real solutions to the
total reorganization of society (and in this sense, of course, defenders of
spontaneous self-organization)?Critique on this level involves critique of the limitations of any given
organization, willed or spontaneous, within the working class and the ways
in which it might replicate the capital-labor relation. Critique is an
organizational principle, but not one which poses itself as separate from
the spontaneous organizations of specific struggles. So I tend to lean
towards notions of willed organizations which are always dependent on an
SI-like level of theoretical and practical unity in the process of critique,
but without pushing a new “ism” to replace capitalism or socialism or
anarchism or Marxism (or, as happened, Situationism.) This is the opposite
of theoretical melting pots, but also a rejection of any form of
organization which does not conform to the kind of relations we aspire to
create (and as such has to do a better job than the councilists of all
shades, for example, in the addressing of intra/cross-class oppressions.)As such, I look forward to the new book edited by Werner Bonefeld because I
think it will be a contribution to that process.Cheers,
Chris
The original post is here, with a bit of follow up discussion here, here, here, and here.
Also worth looking at again are these documents from the Collective Action Notes site: Mattick on spontaneity and organization, Henri Simon from 1974 and 1979.