MARXISM

This analysis of the tactics and strategy of the Socialism Grou Plekhanov Anticipating the International Socialists by 90 years almost, Plekhanov in his remarkable work 'Socialism and the Political Struggle' ridiculed and condemned in the sharpest manner all those who disparaged the revolutionary role of the working class and doubted its ability to assimilate political ideas. Quoting the German economist Rodbertus who said:

'We look upon the workers as children whereas they are already head and shoulders aboye us., Plekhanov wrote: 'Can the working class understand "abstract" questions of social economics and socialism at least as well as, if not better than, people who have spent years and years on their the working class has many chances of understanding correctly the "most abstract" laws of social economics and of mastering the most abstract principles of scientific socialIsm . ..

'Once the fundamental principles of social economics are mastered, the understanding of scientific socialism no longer presents any difficulty: here too the worker will only his practical experience. only follow the directions This aspect of the question was magnificently explained by Marx: "By • heralding the dissolution of the hitherto existing world order" we read in Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right, "the proletariat merely proclaims the secret of its own existence, for it is the factual dissolution of that world order. By demanding the negation of private property, the proletariat merely raises to the rank of principle of society what society has raised to the rank of its principle, what is already embodied in it as the negative result of society without its own participation."

'So we see that the proletariat needs no material wealth to attain an understanding of the conditions of its emancipation. Its pauperism, determined not by the poverty or the barbarism of society, but by the defects in the social organization-this pauperism far from making the understanding of these conditions more difficult, makes it easier' ('Philosophical Works', Vol. I. Lawrence and Wishart 1961. pp. 97-98. Emphasis in original.)

In case anyone gets the impression that Plekhanov was arguing for a spontaneous development of socialism within the working class, it should be pointed out that Plekhanov was careful to qualify this statement with a quotation from the Communist Manifesto indicating the 'other social phenomena which also increase the probability of the proletariat's political victory.' Among these, he includes the important role of the bourgeois intellectuals who join the revolutionary struggle:

• "Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the process of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society assumes such a violent, glaring character that a small section the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands... so pow a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and, in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole."' ('Communist Manifesto.')

One allegory, it is said, is worth a hundred arguments.

At the risk of oversimplifying the question, but for the benefit of the backward intellectuals of IS we reproduce the unique allegory of Plekhanov:

'There is a very remarkable legend among the Negroes of North Guinea. 'One day," it says, "God summoned the two sons of the first human couple.

•"One of them was white, the other dark-skinned. Placing before them a heap of gold anc a book, God ordered the dark. skinned brother, as being ; the elder, to choose one of the two. He chose the gold, so the younger brother received the book. An unknown force immediately transported the younger one with the book to a cold, distant country. But thanks to his book he became learned, terrifying and strong. As for the elder brother, he remained in his native country and lived long enough to see how superior science is to wealth."

'The bourgeoisie once had both knowledge and wealth. Unlike the dark - skinned brother in the Negro legend, it obtained possession ot both gold and book, because history, the god of human societies, does not recognize the right of classes which are under age, and commits them to the guardianship of their elder brothers. But the time came when the working class, slighted by history, grew out of childhood, and the bourgeoisie had to share with it. The bourgeoisie kept the gold, while the younger brother received the "book" ', thanks to which, despite the darkness and cold of his cellars, he has now become "strong and terrifying"

'Little by li socialism bourgeois theor ttle, scientific ousting the ies from the pages of this magic book, and soon the proletariat will read the book how they can gain material sufficiency.

'Then they will throw off the shameful yoke of capitalism and show the bourgeoisie "how superior science is to wealth"! [ibid., p.100] To throw off the yoke of capital is to conduct a merciless struggle against the middle-class pedants and political parasites of the IS group who seek to deprive the working class of its 'magic book'.

The Party and the daily paper From all that has been said it is manifestly evident that the most important weapon of the working class is the party based on the principles of democratic centralism armed with Marxist theory and tempered by an inflexible discipline.

Only such a party can inform, educate and inspire the working class and raise its revolutionary energy and initiative to overthrow capitalism.

Only by this persistent work of all round political agitation and propaganda based on an integrated perspective and the training of cadres can the disunity of the class be overcome.

Only through this struggle can the consciousness of the class be raised and the theory of the party enriched to meet the new problems constantly posed by the class struggle.

Next to the party and inseparable from it are the most important weapons of the party: the Workers Press, and All Trades Unions Alliance and the Young Socialists. These organs reinforce the party's struggle against syndicalism and enable it to conduct such a struggle on a much wider front. Like Lenin, the Socialist Labour League conceives the paper as the collective propagandist, agitator and organizer for the party.

The daily-paper is an indispensible instrument of revolutionary preparation and action. For the IS the question of such an instrument is an academic one since the question of power does not even remotely stir their minds. But for a revolutionary party it is a question of life and death. As Lenin described it:

'We have thus come to the last reason that compels us so strongly to insist on the plan of an organization centred round an All-Russian newspaper. Only such an organization will ensure the flexibility required of a militant Social-Democratic organization, viz., the ability to adapt itself immediately to the most diverse and rapidly-changing conditions of struggle, the ability, "on the one hand, to avoid an open battle against an overwhelming enemy, when the enemy has concentrated all his forces at one shot and yet, on the other, to take advantage of his unwieldiness and to attack him where he least expects it"

"The organization, which will form round this newspaper, the organization of its collaborators (in the broad sense of the word, ie. all those working for it), will be ready for everything, from upholding the continuitthe prestige andy the the Party in periods of acute revolutionary "depression" to preparing for, appointing the time for, and carrying out the nationwide armed uprising' ('What is to be Done?' p.172.)

Together with the Workers Press, the YS and the ATUA, the SLL fights for the political independence of the working class from every form of bureaucratic domination and for the creation of the revolutionary party—without which no victory of socialism is possible.

But this struggle demands, completely and unconditionally, the political and organizational independence from all other parties inside and outside the working class. Thisas we have shown—was how Lenin fought to build the Bolshevik Party against the economists and revisionist liquidators in Tsarist Russia who wished to subordinate the head of the working class to its ignorant and backward rump.

So it was in Russia; so it is today in Britain. Only those who assimilate the theory and practice of Leninism can claim to lead the working class to socialism.

In this scheme of things there is no place for the Cliff group, the successors of English syndicalism and of the 'economists'. • It must be exposed, discredited and smashed politically into pulp. CONCLUDED