Giants Cast Long Shadows, by Bruce Lockhart

[p025] Giants Cast Long Shadows. Robert Bruce Lockhart. By Sir Putnam. 21s. A book can be interesting as much for what it omits as for what it includes. . This is so particularly in personal memoirs, where the essence of a life history is distilled and re- vealing insights may be gained not only into the personality but also into the social role of the individual, his relationship to the class struggles and political movements of his age. This set of reminiscent essays is peopled with journalists, diplomats, writers and socialites (one of whom ‘fell for Hitler, went to at least one Nazi rally, and was treated by the Nazis as if she were royalty’). Lock- hart reveres brilliance, determina- tion and expertise, and he singles out individuals who embody these attri- butes such as Vansittart, George Kennan, John Wheeler-Bennett, to name a few—who thus qualify for his characterization as ‘giants’. A typical illustration of his model man is Richard Crossman, who worked with him on Political Warfare during World War Two. He recollects how Crossman, enthused by his 18,000 majority at Coventry, burst in on him in August, 1945: « he was full of charm, benevolence and, of course, energy. Lockhart adds: ‘He was even good enough to ask me what line he ought to take when he took his seat in the House. / No one can deny the talent and energy of many of the intellectuals who serve the capitalist State and its ‘press, who organize, advise and write, nor ignore the influence that they may have in politics. But what Lock- hart does is to pose their virtues in abstraction, as if their environment —the gigantic clash of class forces in the 20th century—was only acci- dental to their individuality. The tacit assumption beneath his benign abstraction, however, is ideological and active commitment to capitalism and its far from abstract class struc- ture. In the essay ‘Lenin as a Sports- man’ Lockhart describes the Bol- shevik leader in a little-known aspect of his life—as a lover of the out- doors — skating, climbing, hunting and walking. Lenin embodied just the strength of character which Lock- hart admires. What escapes him is that Lenin was a ‘giant’ precisely be- cause he clearly comprehended the needs of the Russian workers and peasants. For Lenin sport was a means to joy in life but also a way to toughen the revolutionary in exile for the rigours of political activity. Lockhart emphasises the period of exile to Shushenskoe in Siberia, in 1897, where Lenin had comparative freedom of movement, and hunted in the marshy scrub. It was here that Lenin not only engaged in in- tensive study and discussion but, moreover, planned the foundation of ‘Iskra’ and the substance of ‘What is to be Done?’, the beginning of the organization of revolutionary Marx- ism that was to lead to the October Revolution. In the final essay ‘Today and To- morrow’ Lockhart gives his advice to youth: ‘. . . nobody knows anything for certain. Indeed, the only know- ledge is the awareness that we’ know nothing. . . Such is the nihilism of a faithful servant of a decayed class. R.A.

[p026] 1960 during s how 18,000 in on © was ad, of s: “He 3k me en he tt and 2ctuals nd its write, they Lock- ues in nment forces acci- The venign ogical talism struc- iports- Bol- aspect > out- anting d just Lock- im is ly be- d the 3 and vas a . way exile tivity. ad of ia, in rative unted here n in- but, on of hat is of the Marx- stober 1 To- ice to thing snow- know iilism cayed A. WHAT duction’. Not only did Behan and the others show by th’s trend their utter misunderstanding of the Marx’st theory of society and politics, but their con- duct gave a valuable lesson in the political import- ance of theoretical weakness of this kind, showing that with an incorrect theoretical approach and a wrong method, first-class historical blunders can be made. Just when the crisis in the British working- class movement approaches precisely its political peak, just when the contradiction between Social- Democracy and the historical needs of the working class is most sharply expressed in the issues of public ownership, defence and the relation between the organized working class and the Labour Party— at th’s point the cry goes up: abandon ship! It is the industrial struggle that matters above all! ‘Re- formism is best exposed at the point of production’! —once again those who fail to grasp the nettle of political action explain their failure with the most resounding of ‘Marxist’ phrases. Precisely by cling- ing to such abstract generalities do men get left xind by historical development. The essence of lectics is not the ability to stand by and pro- pounce what is base and what is superstructure, to know when, where and how to act. Behan insists on the need to go back to the programme of the Industrial Rank-and-File Conference of Novem- ber, 1958, as if nothing has happened in the trade union movement and the Labour Party since then. To confine the demands and activity of the working class at this point to the factory level would amount to betrayal; this is what was meant by the reply given to Behan’s group at the Socialist Labour League Conference. Our resistance to sectarianism is not a doctrinal one only, but part of the lessons learned from the beheading of the German working- class movement, among others, when the Commun- ist Party failed to follow the policy of the United Front of the working class from 1929 onwards. One of the interesting features of sectarians is their ability to take up very opportunist positions on certain questions, and particularly on questions or organization. Again the basic theoretical weak- ness here is lack of understanding of the role of consciousness. To criticise Brian Behan’s ‘Workers’ Voice’ would amount to the mistake of taking on not the strongest but the weakest statement of one’s opponents’ case, and so I take certain points in the first issue of that journal only as an aside, and in order to introduce some more general points. In line with his idea that the class itself must lead the revolution, Behan writes that any workers’ organ- ization, shop stewards’ committee, etc., may submit amendments to the Constitution of the Workers’ Party. This gives an appearance, of course, of a perty open to the working class, not dictating to it but responding to it, and so on. But it is clearly only another example of the old ‘economism’. IS REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP? 105 Certainly no workers’ party will be successful which is not responsive to changes in the moods of the working class, but that is a matter of tactics, of timing, of the form of propaganda, etc., and cer- tainly not a question of programme, policy, con- stitution, which are determined on a basis of theory. The correctness of the policy of a Marxist party is not the extent to which it corresponds to the im- mediate consciousness of the workers. It is a matter rather of correct theoretical appraisal of all the social forces at work in a given period, including the role of the class and the party itself. This raises the old question of the working class ‘throwing up its own leadership’ in times of struggle. It is a fact that in every section of the working class there spring up first-class militants with great organizing power and ability to advance the con- sciousness of their fellow-workers. Without such spontaneous rank-and-file leadership there could be no talk of revolution. But a revolutionary leader- ship is not just the sum of all these rank-and-file leaders, not just the ‘linking-together of rank-and- file committees’. There must be beyond that, above that level, a political leadership. It is not just a matter of daily struggle between employers and workers, which might even culminate in ‘one big strike’, but of the conquest of state power, of assert- ing the revolutionary role of the working class in the transformation of every aspect of capitalist society. The place of the workers in capitalist pro- duction is the basis of their revolutionary historical role, but to assert that role they have to be organ- ized politically and theoretically as well as industri- ally, and the theory required to do this represents a higher form of consciousness than that which flows from the experience of the proletariat. If Lenin was right to condemn the ‘Economists’ for bringing no theory to the Russian workers other than the news that their industrial struggles were vital, how much more necessary it is to insist on advancing the theory required by the British work- ing-class movement, with its scores of years of in- dustrial organization, its opportunist leadership, and the complex international problems of leadership that have developed since Lenin’s day? This brings out another fundamental weakness of sectarianism: its tendency towards idealism. All the talk about ‘no compromises’ and keeping clear of the rottenness of reformism amounts to a fear of rubbing up against reality, and is accompanied by the search for some section of workers which re- mains unaffected and pure despite the economic boom, as a jumping-off ground to defeat reformism. No doubt it is a healthy reaction against bureau- cratic reformism to insist on the roots of militancy in the working class itself, but there is no substitute for fighting the political battle. It is not enough to know that reformism is rotten, to condemn it

[p027] 106 roundly, and to insist on one’s separateness from it; the point is, to take it seriously as a force in the British working class and defeat it on the arena of struggle. At this point, the political mistake of sectarianism ties in with the theoretical mistake of economic determinism or ‘economism’. Somehow, it is assumed, the working class will develop revolu- tionary consciousness because it is exploited. But the ideological struggle within the working class is real, it has to be bitterly fought and won before the class can be fully mobilized for battle. When we say that the long-drawn-out crisis of British im- perialism rots away the social basis of reformist politics, that is not to say that the reformists simply leave the scene and leave a vacant place for a naturally radicalized working class desiring a new form of party. Such a party has to be built in the course of struggle with the reforinists, and it has to be built by those who grasp the historical pro- cess theoretically; it does not grow ‘naturally’ or ‘organically’ out of the economic base. THEORY AND IDEOLOGY IN THE WORKING CLASS When we say that political ideas and movements reflect the economic base we should remember that such reflection is a series of conscious acts. Men’s consciousness is formed in an environment of social institutions controlled by the ruling class, institu- tions of repression and institutions for educational conditioning, staffed by people trained to operate these institutions as though they were part of a naturally or divinely ordained system. The majority of labour’s own organizations have become tied to this structure of established institutions, and are staffed by the ‘labour lieutenants of capitalism’. The proletariat’s consciousness of its role has to be achieved in struggle against all these institutional forms and their ideological results. Without the highest degree of centralized organization, these ideological battles cannot be won.: The crisis of imperialism, which is expressed in the colonial struggle, the arms race and atomic war as well as in the tendency towards slump, constantly produces cultural decay and breakdown. Movements of the extreme Right, like Fascism, are able to call upon depraved elements of the intelligentsia to mobilize petty bourgeois, lumpen proletarians and even num- bers of industrial workers behind the most foul and hideous social programmes. The alternative of socialism or barbarism did not pose itself only after Hiroshima, but was clearly before the eyes of the Bolsheviks and Rosa Luxemburg during the First World War. We are in an epoch which has been correctly characterized as one of a crisis of leader- LABOUR REVIEW—October-November, 1960 ship. What is needed above all is a strongly disciplined leadership able to develop the theory of Imperialism, the Permanent Revolution, the relation between the Workers’ States and the world revolu- tion, and to establish its leadership of the work- ing class. Unless this crisis of leadership is solved, there will be no ‘natural’ growth towards Socialism, but there will be all the danger of war and barbar- ism. In this vital sense those who protest against “‘vanguardism’, against ‘too much centralization’, re- present a reactionary tendency in the working-class movement. The opponents of democratic centralism like to talk about the inevitable crisis of capitalism as the source of revolutionary action in the working class: this is counterposed to the so-called ‘voluntarism’ of the Leninists, who are supposed to think they can suck revolutionary situations out of their thumbs. But preparation of the class and of the party is the decisive question in social crises. It is true that periodically capitalism has undergone the most pro- found crises. We need only mention the Great Crash of 1929 and the consequent depression, and the post-war situation (1945) in Europe, when there returned, particularly in France and Italy, capitalists discredited by their war record and faced with the armed working class. In neither of these cases was revolution the outcome. Instead, helped by the Social-Democratic and Stalinist betrayals of the working class, the capitalists were able to ride the storm and in the earlier case to establish regimes which destroyed the possibility of revolution for many years. The elementary mistake of supposing that in the Marxist view consciousness and organ- ization directly reflect economic need is one that must be conquered if there is to be a victorious revolution. The ideological reflection of changes in the economy lags behind. the machinery of this ‘lag’ is the structure of ruling-class power and educa- tion. There is necessary a theoretical leap in the working-class movement, the development of leader- ship which can grasp the significance of the under- lying crisis in society and inform the activity of the class with that consciousness. What is important for the revolutionary class is that it must not remain determined in its thinking by the existing economy and institutions. As Gramsci puts it: ‘An appro- priate political initiative is always necessary to free the economic drive from the tethers of traditional policies’. (My emphasis—C.S.) Important here is the difference between the working class and other revolutionary classes in history. When Lenin says that the only weapon of the working class is organization, he means that whereas the rising bourgeoisie, for instance. devel- oped its own economy, its art, its religion, its schools, its philosophy, and so on, as the expression and organization of its social consciousness, hefore uetphoeon2a spay

[p028] t. 1960 trongly sory of ‘elation revolu- work- solved, cialism, darbar- against yn’, re- ig-class like to as the ; class: tarism’ ey can qumbs. is the e that 3st pro- Great a, and \ there italists th the 2s was vy the f the Je the >gimes n for dosing organ- 2 that orious langes of this sduca- in the zader- inder- of the ortant 2main nomy ppro- » free tional . the es in on of that WHAT IS REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP? 107 the political overthrow of the feudal political system, the proletariat does not construct the institutions of the new society within capitalism (despite the Fab‘ans and the New Left). Capitalism is the only system of production in history whose inner dynam- ism has pushed it to develop the productive forces incessantly and to drive out all other forms of pro- duction. In order to mobilize for the overthrow of feudalism, it was sufficient for the bourgeoisie and its allies to recognize and feel the political restric- tons upon their growing economic and cultural strength. Their own organic development within feudalism drove their ‘own’ institutions into conflict with the political regime which prevented their natural expansion. But bourgeois power is total social power: capital dominates all relationships like an elemental natural force. In order to seize in consciousness the nature of this power and to organ- ize for its overthrow, there is necessary a scientific consciousness of the whole system of social relation- ships, and not just. a sense of the degradation and exploitation suffered in the process of production, or the abstract knowledge that planned production for use would be more reasonable. There is no repository of this consciousness, and no guarantee of its necessary constant development in theory and practice, other than the proletarian party. To talk about the working class ‘itself’ as an undifferenti- ated, potentially revolutionary whole is to substitute myth for reality. Because it is exploited in an inhuman system, commandeered and degraded in the service of capi- tal, the working class is unevenly developed, apathetic under most circumstances, split into differ- ent sections, often backward in its view of most cultural and social problems, unless there is a con- scious leadership differentiated from the class itself, not at the daily service of capital, determined to explode the false consciousness in which men grasp reality under capitalism. Abdication from the responsibility of constructing such a leadership, under the guise of ‘faith in the workers themselves’ is capitulation to the forces that numb the con- sciousness of the working class—the institutions of capitalist society itself. The centralized party is needed by the working class, then, for the purpose of ‘breaking up the unity based on traditional ideology, without which the new force (the working class) would be unable to gain awareness of its own independent personality’. (Gramsci). The working class cannot make do, like the bourgeoisie in its revolutionary period, with a crude empiricism or idealism. Because the whole of the capitalist structure must be grasped in consciousness and be- cause this whole and its laws of development are different from the immediate consciousness and ex- perience of the proletariat, dialectical theory, ad- vanced theory based on the notion of developing contradictions in the material world, is the basic element of revolutionary theory. Marx’s_achieve- ment was to show the working class a mode of action based on this dialectical approach to history. Bourgeois thought had ceased to develop just at this point, and it took the the highest synthesis of philosophical and scientific thought to make the leap forward. It is in this sense that one should understand Lenin’s insistence that the programme and strategy of the revolutionary party are based on theory, and that this theory is brought to the working class from outside, from bourgeois intellec- tuals. The development of theory among the revo- lutionary workers themselves, once that leap has been made is, of course, a necessity for any revolu- tionary party. So long as the working class is not mobilized by a party based on such a theory, its consciousness remains determined by bourgeois cul- ture, a culture which leads man to see society as a set of separate things, not open to his own con- trol and overthrow, but naturally fixed and with independent reality. Marxist theory explains, on the other hand, that the world of men is a man- made world, that the powers standing over men are products of labour, and that if the whole system of labour-exploitation is abolished, man will become free, will dominate social reality instead of being at its mercy. A revolutionary party is one whose strategy and tactics flow from this total conception. Without it, the working class struggles only against partial features of bourgeois domination and, unable to see their connection, tends to fall back after par- tial victories and defeats. REVOLUTIONARY CRISES AND THE VAN- GUARD PARTY Of course, the building of a leadership capable of theoretical firmness and of combating those tenden- cies in the Labour movement which reflect other classes, is not the whole of the task by a long way. The actual organization in a revolutionary crisis, the rapid changes of tactics necessary, the planning of insurrection and military operations, all this quite clearly requires centralized authority and disci- pline of the highest order, and only a leadership developed over a long period will be capable of the task. While this phase of the development of the working-class leadership is not our immediate sub- ject, a few general points should be made here. Certain ‘anti-vanguardist’ groupings, such as that represented by the journal Socialisme ou Barbarie, put forward the idea that the nearer the revolution approaches, and the more the working class itself fills the historical stage, so the leadership ‘must pre- pare its own dissolution’. It is difficult to see exactly what this can mean. but at best it probably

[p030] WHAT IS REVOLUTIONARY LEADERSHIP? regular troops’ of the revolution, and not at all to any personal ambition or dictatorial habits, as his opponents unceasingly declared. Bolsheviks are determined to base their party only on the firmest theoretical principles, and to subordinate all party work to these principles. A movement of this kind examines scrupulously all political ideas in the light of the needs of the working class and the party, and ruthlessly fights against all tendencies which divert the movement from its revolutionary path. The method of analysis is always to test these ideas against the needs of the classes in society, both in theoretical argument and in the work of the party. In the course of the 1903 conference of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, scene of ihe famous dispute between Lenin and Martov over the conditions of party membership, Trotsky and others of the Iskra group originally supported Lenin’s political line, but found themselves driven towards the opportunists by what they considered to be Lenin’s organizational rigidity. Trotsky later gave his verdict on this episode, and it is worth quoting as an antidote to those who are fond of using Trotsky’s early writings about dictatorship over the party. ‘It was not for nothing’, says Trotsky in My Life, ‘that the words “irreconcilable” and “un- sparing” occurred so frequently in Lenin’s vocabul- ary. Only the highest concentration on the goal of revolution, free from everything pettily personal, can justify this kind of personal ruthlessness. . . . His behaviour seemed to me inadmissible, terrible, shocking. Yet at the same time it was politically correct and therefore indispensable from the point of view of organization’. It is in this very import- ant sense that the lessons of building the Bolshevik Party are lessons for all revolutionaries. The whole method of building the party politically is involved. Lenin, who had agreement with Martov on political questions at the beginning of the Congress, quite agreed that his difference over the rules was a small one. It became important in the course of the Congress, as it became clear that from this one opportunist formulation Martov was to fall into the hands of the opportunists. In order to preserve the narrow circle atmosphere at the head of the émigré Marxists, he was prepared to line up with the opportunists in opposition to Lenin. Lenin was not only insisting on organizational points when he hammered home the authority of the Con- gress and the leading role of the majority. The Iskra-ites, including Martovy, had not gone to the Congress with a factional mandate—that would deny the supreme authority of the Congress, always so dearly cherished by Lenin—but what they did agree, on Lenin’s insistence, was to accept all the decisions of the Congress. This seemed ‘innocent enough’ at the time, as Lenin wrote, but once ‘unfavourable’ decisions 109 (e.g., on the composition of /skra’s Editorial Board) were arrived at, the discipline was broken. Lenin. convinced that without a proletarian party of iron discipline there could be no revolution, was pre- pared to subordinate everything to insistence on this task. Martov’s indiscipline and veering to- wards the opportunists was a capitulation to the bourgeois tendency in the party, the tendency which shrank from independent mobilization of the work- ing class for leadership against Tsarism; hence a split was necessary. Political and organizational questions therefore cannot be separated. In an epoch where the con- struction of a leadership of the working class is the most vital historical problem, it is exactly on the questions of concrete planning and discipline for revolutionary work that political differences be- came explicit. Some Marxists seem to conceive of the party as simply a contractual discipline to stop individuals from going off the rails as they react to class pressure. But it is more than that: it must become the vanguard of revolutionary action, the representative of the general interest of the work- ing class. In the construction of a revolutionary party. there is a constant need to strive to maintain a cor- rect relationship between democracy and central- ism. The balance of ‘this relationship tends to change with the objective situation. During times when the revolutionary movement operates under legal conditions, as in Britain today, it is essential to have full democratic discussion on all questions concerning the working class and the party. This does not, however, mean that democ- racy is a free-for-all, with nothing being decided. To the Marxist, democracy is a weapon in the struggle against capitalism. Discussion is necessary to arrive at decisions upon which the activity of the party can be based. The constant training of new leaders in the revo- lutionary party requires the greatest patience by the leadership. Local autonomy and initiative, allowing the leaders and the rank and file to learn from their mistakes, is essential for the branches of the revolutionary party. The more experienced the revolutionary leadership the more flexible it will be in assisting the ranks by theory and practice to understand the need for a democratic centralist party. - In such an atmosphere differences of opinion can fiourish provided such differences do not set out to overthrow the programme and policy of the Marxist movement. Fundamental differences along these lines in an unfavourable objective situation generally lead to a split. Splits of this kind cannot be avoided, and a mature leadership will see to it that the experiences of such a struggle are utilized to educate a membership in the superiority of the

[p031] democratic centralist method. Any premature at- tempt to resolve the internal crisis, based upon ex- cessive centralism and factionalism, will have serious consequences for the revolutionary party. That is why a revolutionary leadership must be the most vigilant custodian of party democracy and the firmest defender of the discipline and rights of the party as a whole. It is the interrelationship be- tween democracy and centralism that constantly confuses the idealist opponents of Leninist organ- ization. In their effort to run away from central- ism they embrace a theory of spontaneity and pro- ceed to liquidate the party into the class. The Marxist’s interpretation of democratic centralism is part of the fact that he derives his political conclu- sions from an objective historical study of the political situation, and not only from the existing consciousness of the class. The relation between democracy and centralism to him is based upon the constant requirements of the class struggle. The great problem in Britain today is to obtain a Marx- ist conception of the party. Capitalist propaganda constantly seeks to equate Marxist discipline with Stalinism. When ‘Socialist’ opponents of revolu- tionary discipline make the same equation, they are reflecting capitalist public opinion, regardless ‘of their good intentions in this sense they play a definite part in obstructing the solution by the working class of its most pressing need. THEORETICAL DIFFERENCES—PRACTICAL CONSEQUENCES One aim of this article is to make a little clearer the reasons why Marxists concentrate so much attention on theoretical discussion, even on ques- tions which appear at times to be obscure and re- mote from the struggle. There are always critics who say: the important thing is to get on with the struggle and get away from this arid and doctrin- aire wrangling. A good example is the ‘Russian question’. The nature of Soviet society is a vital question for Marxists and it can only be studied historically. After the Khrushchev exposures of 1956 certain prominent ‘New Left’ ex-Communists said quite explicitly that Russia had dominated the Left for too long and that in future we should concentrate on contemporary British problems. There were only jeers for those who wanted to know ‘what Trotsky said in 1924’, and yet without a study of the social roots of Stalinism, rather than the horri- fied turning of one’s back on it, there could be no renewal of Marxism. Even if the 1920s in Russia seemed irrelevant to British problems in 1956, it was an essential clue to the balance of forces in the class struggle and the play of tendencies in the LABOUR REVIEW—October-November, 1960 Labour movement of the world. Not only that, but the very existence of the USSR, its bureauc- racy’s domination over great parties all over the world, and its relationship with imperialism, all the time create situations where one’s evaluation of the Soviet social system takes on immediate im- portance, and for the movement to leave the ques- tion open is inadmissible. One tendency which attracts a certain number of ‘Marxists’ is that which considers the USSR’s economy to be ‘state capitalism’. Now the actual consideration of ‘State capitalism’ as a theory can- not be undertaken here, but some of its adherents illustrate very well the connection between organ- izational and political questions. The claim that the USSR is ‘state capitalist’ is usually accompanied by the view that American, British and all advanced capitalisms are tending in the same direction as the USSR—towards a bureaucratic, state-controlled if not state-owned industry, with the workers ex- ploited in ever larger productive units. As in Burnham’s Managerial Revolution (the product of a similar breakaway from revolutionary Marxism in 1940), the tendency of such theories is to assume that this bureaucratic centralization (‘statification’, ‘managerialism’) actually corresponds to the needs of science and technique at their present level of development, that it represents a naturally higher stage than imperialism. And so one is tempted to conclude either that all talk of the working class as a revolutionary force is nonsense (Burnham) or at least that the age of imperialism, with all the political conclusions drawn from it by Lenin, lie in the past. In the fatter case what is required is a completely new analysis to tell us what sort of contradictions dominate the new society and in what sense a revolutionary class might overthrow it, whether that class is the working class, etc. What is usually done (and it is very unsatisfactory) is to cling to the idea of the working class as revolutionary while rejecting: (a) the economic basis (capitalism and imperialism) for this; and (b) the organizational consequences drawn by the Marxists. As a result, we get among the ‘state capitalists’ a very abstract, general protest against tyranny and oppression, in many cases a strong leaning towards ‘anti-totalitarianism’ in the style of the cold war or State Department Socialists. Lenin’s organiza- tional conceptions are seen as disastrous, for they paved the way for Stalin’s dictatorship, a dictator- ship not of the working class, but over the work- ing class. Bureaucracy ‘in itself’ is seen as reaction- ary since it offends against the idea of self-govern- ment by the working class. Currently circulating in translation is a program- matic statement of the group around the French journal Socialisme ou Barbarie. This document entitled ‘Socialism Reaffirmed’ arrives at the fol-

[p032] NEHRU’S INDIA lowing conclusions: ‘Moreover, the objective existence of the bureauc- racy, as an exploiting stratum, makes it obvious that the vanguard can only organize itself on the basis of an anti-bureaucratic ideology... . ‘The main features of a political organization that has become aware of the need to abolish the distinction in society between people who decide and people who merely execute is that such an organization should from the onset seek to abolish such a distinction within its own ranks.’ In place of the concrete development of organ- izational forms from the specific development of stages of the class struggle and of the type of social crisis arising under capitalism, indeed reacting in a quite topsy-turvy way to the growing concentra- tion of bourgeois state power, we have the abstract argument from general principles. Thus, the aim is workers’ rule; therefore the means, the move- ment, must do away with authority. But how can the working class combat alien tendencies, how can it consolidate its victories and learn from its defeats, how can it organize to crush the powerful enemy, how can it conduct the political struggle from hour to hour, without a leadership, a leadership with authority? All the concentration and centraliza- tion of bourgeois power, its ideological weapons and its control of leading political elements in the labour movement, all of these make more vital the need for centralized and authoritative revolutionary