Saturday, May 18, 2013
On the Maoist Party
The
Maoist Party
ajith
What should be the qualities of an organisation to become the
vanguard of a new society and humans, what should be the methods of party
building corresponding to this, what should be the position of the party within
the dictatorship of the proletariat? Can a proletarian party retain its
communist qualities today without becoming a Maoist party? Is the Maoist party
just another name for communist party? Or does it contain something new, in its
very nature and methods of work?
In the capitalist age, classes (or sections within them)
express and realise their interests mainly through the instrument of political
party (a social organisation). Marx posed the necessity for the proletariat to
form its own party in order to achieve its aims, contending with enemy classes.
This was developed as a scientific theory, verified and established through
practice, by Lenin. The core of the Leninist party concept are professional
revolutionaries; those who devote themselves completely to revolutionary
activity, who make this their profession. It has been criticised that this leads
to an elite who lord over the proletariat. Further, Lenin’s viewpoint that
workers cannot, on their own, arrive at the ideology guiding their liberation, his
proposition that it must be reached to them from outside, have been remarked as
a celebration of elitism. The Leninist party concept is accused of being the
concrete expression of this mindset, one that undervalues the potential of the
workers. Some argue that while the evils of this party concept were held in
check by Lenin’s personal qualities so long as he was alive, they broke out in a
monstrous death dance under Stalin. (Pearson, Mathrubhumi - 87/3, March 29,
2009)
Let us first acquaint ourselves with the ideological
struggles that took place on this issue, during the period in which the Leninist
party concept took form. Its starting point was the debate in the Second
Congress of the undivided Russian Communist Party (then known as the Russian
Social Democratic Labour Party) on the matter of the party constitution. The Rightists
(Trotsky too was part of this) accused Lenin’s draft statutes of promoting ultra-centralisation.
Even his insistence on membership criteria that made it mandatory to join a
party committee and participate in its practice was, in their view, an example
of unwanted centralisation. Their counter-proposal would allow anyone who
helped the party be its member. They would thus make it a loose organisation of
spare-time activists. This was the crux of the difference between Lenin and his
adversaries.
Lenin clearly realised the need for an organisation of those
prepared to be frontline activists in a revolutionary movement aimed at seizing
power, those who devoted their whole lives to this task and thus acquired the
necessary leadership qualities and skills. His party concept evolved from this
vision. The specific situation in Czarist Russia, which ruled out all open
activity and made it imperative to constantly evade the secret police,
certainly was a major influencing factor in this. The weight of such
specificities can be seen in Lenin’s insistence on the total centralisation to
be enjoyed by the party’s leading body and the strict division of tasks -
almost like the division of labour in a modern factory - among different party
committees and members of the committees. But is must also be noted that a
departure from the 2nd International’s party concept was implicit in
this approach, though the immediate context it addressed was the Russian
situation. This is where Lenin separates from his contemporaries on the party
question. Leaving aside diehard Rightist attacks, let us elaborate this by
getting into the criticisms made by Rosa Luxembourg, and also Trotsky (who was
in the revolutionary camp for a while).
Luxembourg characterised Lenin as the representative of the
‘ultra-centralist’ tendency within the Russian revolutionary movement. This
criticism was grounded in her view on the relation between the revolutionary
mass movement and the party. Luxembourg argued that, “Centralism in the
socialist sense is not an absolute thing applicable to any phase whatsoever of
the labor movement. It is a tendency, which becomes real in proportion
to the development and political training acquired by the working masses in the
course of their struggle.”; “The fact is that the Social Democracy is not joined
to the organisation of the proletariat. It is itself the proletariat. And
because of this, Social Democratic centralism is essentially different from
Blanquist centralism … It is, so to speak, the “self-centralism” of the
advanced sectors of the proletariat. It is the rule of the majority within its
own party.” (‘Organisational Problems of Russian Social Democracy’, emphasis in
original) This narration, with its emphasis on the voluntary nature of a
Communist Party’s centralisation, more or less negates the difference between
the class and its advanced elements, between the party and the broad
revolutionary movement. Though the word Luxembourg uses is ‘self-centralism’,
in effect it becomes synonymous to ‘spontaneous’. The thinning out of this
demarcation is also visible in Trotsky’s contestation, “If the division of
labour can be considered as an organisational principle, it can only be
in a factory, but never in a political party of any kind, still less in ours –
is it not obvious to us that the “principle” of the division of labour is in no
way characteristic of the organisation which has made it its task to develop
the class consciousness of the proletariat?” (‘Our Political Tasks – Part 3,
Organisational Questions’, emphasis in original)
Lenin did not deny the voluntary nature of party
centralisation. It is not imposed, but voluntarily acceded to; consciously taken
up by all with the interests of revolution in mind. This is Lenin’s concept of
voluntary centralisation. Contrary to Luxembourg’s ‘tendency’, which must be
realised through the course of struggles, for Lenin, the methods of a
centralised party, including its division of tasks, is something to be
consciously established and trained in from the very beginning. Yet this does
not negate the positiveness of revolutionary spontaneity.
To
repeat, Lenin’s point of departure was the type of organisation needed to
organise and carry out revolution. He arrived at a solution by assessing the
concrete situation of the enemy and the people, rather than starting out from
some preconceived notion of revolution, or of the proletariat and its
development. Thus, during the revolutionary upheaval of 1905, in place of the
strictest centralisation and guarded recruitment he had been favouring till
then, Lenin argued for forms of organisation capable of incorporating the
greatest number of militant working class masses. (New Tasks and New Forces, Volume 8,
pages 209-220)
This was not a case
of Lenin going against Leninism, it WAS Leninism. In this instance, he was
guided by the assessment that the revolutionary zeal of the masses, seen in that
situation, would to a large extent make up for their ideological, political
weaknesses. This displayed deep faith in the masses and a dialectical grasp of
the relation between conscious steps and spontaneity within a revolutionary
movement. Without doubt, Leninist centralisation and organisational principles
are not some absolutes meant to be implemented ‘regardless of the stage’. Its
work division does not abandon the task of raising the consciousness of the
whole party membership and the widest possible mass.
Did the later day international communist movement loose
Lenin’s exemplary, dialectical, handling of the vanguard concept and
organisational methods formulated by him? It would be far more profitable to
pay attention to such differences rather than running after individual traits
of leaders as Pearson does. Lenin was concerned about the dangers posed by universalising
Bolshevik party statutes, regardless of time and place. In a report to the Communist
International (Comintern), Lenin observed that its organisational principles
have a strong Russian flavor, and doubted whether comrades from other countries
would be able to grasp it properly (Report to the Fourth Congress of the Communist
International, Volume 33,
pages 415-432). In those days of haste to rupture from the
loose organisational methods of the 2nd International this concern didn’t
draw attention. Meanwhile, stricter centralisation was demanded of the Russian
Communist Party, which had by this time become a ruling party. The iron unity
of the party was of critical importance for the very existence of the
revolutionary state. This was the context in which the 10th Congress
of the Russian party decided to end all groups within the party and their
publications, departing from its existent practice. Later it became part of the
foundations of communist party organisational principles.
Throughout this period, Lenin, the Russian Party and the
Comintern were of the view that a revolutionary advance was imminent in Western
Europe. Political developments in various countries testified to this. The
immediacy of this situation must certainly have influenced the formulation of
organisational principles. However, the revolutionary situation that was
forming up dissipated. At this point Lenin drew attention to the need for a
thorough evaluation in order to work out future steps, in the situation of ebb.
But before he could grapple with this he was bedridden by an assassin’s bullets
and died. It is not known whether the party concept and its organisational principles
were among the issues he had in mind for review. At any rate this is not what
was seen later. Statutes and methods of
work adopted in a particular situation were later theorised in a very
mechanical manner.
Stalin’s concept of monolithic party was prominent among his
mechanical errors. This was the model followed by the international communist
movement - till it was criticised by Mao. An outlook of worshipping the party
as a power that could not be questioned and was always correct got strengthened.
The influence of mechanical thinking, which denied internal contradictions and
class struggle in socialism, was evident in Stalin’s party concept. It was not
grasped as a space of active contradictions, as an organic entity which must
continually renew its leadership position and relevance in society by grappling
with external and internal contradictions. Ideological struggle became formal.
Democratic centralism froze up into relations of domination and subservience.
As could be expected, there was a difference in this between parties in power
and those struggling for it. In the latter case, the necessities of sustaining
under enemy suppression compelled greater reliance on the people.
Self-criticism, rectification and ideological struggles over such issues
livened up the atmosphere in the party. Yet, the constrictions of the
monolithic party concept were ever present. Purging of membership gained
prominence, compared to ideological rectification. So long as the party
maintained its Marxist-Leninist orientation this usually meant removal of those
who had lost their communist qualities. But even then, ideology took a back
seat in the whole process; the organisational aspect stood out.
Mao broke away from
this negative tradition and the mechanical thinking underlying it. This was
literally a re-construction of the vanguard concept. And it opened up the way
to a deeper, richer, understanding of the proletariat’s leading role and the
Leninist party. Mao’s departure from existent thinking on the party concept can
be seen right from the very beginning. His report on the Hunan peasant
movement, written in 1927, observed that any revolutionary party failing to
give leadership to the insurgent peasantry would be rejected. This statement, that
the peasants - seen as backward in Marxist theory till then - will test and
determine the revolutionary character of a proletarian party, was nothing but a
daring subversion of absolutist thinking on the leading role of the communist
party. It provided space to problematise the proletariat’s historical leading
role and the vanguard concept.
Though other classes and social sections will be important
partners in the historical movement to destroy capitalism (its highest stage of
imperialism) they cannot provide leadership. In each instance the issue of
liberation is specific – land in the case of landless peasants, caste
oppression for Dalits, male chauvinism for women, ethnic oppression for
Adivasis, national oppression for oppressed people, religious persecution for
minorities and so on. Being specific they are also partial, in the context of
the whole revolutionary project. But
this is not the situation of the proletariat. Capitalist bondage is different
from earlier exploiting systems like caste-feudalism. It imposes no other compulsion
on the workers other than the pangs of hunger. And since, in principle, they
are free, there can be no specific liberation suiting them. Every form of
exploitation and oppression must be ended. Thus the emancipation of the whole
of humanity becomes a precondition for the liberation of this class. The
leading role of the proletariat derives from this objective social position. It
obliges the proletariat to continue the revolution all the way up till
realising a world rid of exploitation.
If this Marxist understanding of proletarian leadership is
absolutised it would certainly lead to reification. (Sandeepan, Munnaniporali,
131) Both the history and present of the international communist movement
illustrate how this emerges with mechanical equations, where proletariat = revolution
and communist party = vanguard. On the other hand, economist impulses often
seen in the upper strata of the proletariat, social passivity engendered by
revisionist, reformist politics that strengthen this economism, and changes
seen in the nature of labour and work places, have given rise to views that
abandon the proletarian leadership concept. Carried away in the tide of
identity politics, they believe that, in future, these movements will give
leadership to social change.
Thus we have the two. At one end, reification of the proletariat
and the communist party, selfishness that hoists this banner to justify
fleeting necessities as common interests.
At the other, the lethargic plea to reduce our sights to the partial, to
abandon the noble task of an exploitation free world since it is a mere myth.
Maoism cuts through this vicious circle. The leading role of the proletariat
and the vanguard position of its communist party are potentialities contained
in historical circumstances. They can only be realised through creative
intervention in the historical moment of a specific society. Similar to other
phenomena, this too is a unity of opposites. This was the import of Mao’s
warning in the Hunan report.
One sees the continuity with this in Mao’s observation, made
some 50 years later, “the bourgeoisie is within the party itself”. He arrived
at this conclusion through the experiences of the restoration of capitalism in
the Soviet Union and the Cultural Revolution unleashed in China to prevent it.
This is something that cannot be grasped with Stalin’s monolithic party
concept. The bourgeois presence Mao called attention to was different from the
possible infiltration of bourgeois agents and their corruption of party members.
This was what Lenin and Stalin sought to check through purges. Mao was speaking
about a new bourgeoisie. It is the product of residual capitalist production
relations such as bourgeois right and the political/ruling leading role of the
communist party in the dictatorship of the proletariat; an inevitable element
of socialism. The decisive factor in the struggle against this will be the
correct ideological-political line dealing with the multiple tasks of
continuing the revolution and its further development. If a revisionist line
seizes leadership the bourgeoisie will become dominant in the party. The colour
of the party and the state will change.
This poses yet another dialectic of the communist party’s
position as vanguard. The main source of the potential hazard we saw above does
not lie with external influences. It is contained in the revolution it led, in
the society thus created, in other words, in the emergent unity of opposites
brought up by its successful venture of being a vanguard. This potential is the
mirror opposite of that of leading the advance to communism. Which of them will
be realised in a given socialist society is a matter to be settled by the class
struggle taking place within the party and society in each concrete historical
moment. Grasping the party as a unity of opposites - this is the point of
rupture to firmly establish the Maoist party concept in both theory and
practice.
Taking lessons from the Chinese revolution and the
international communist movement Mao elaborated a number of propositions on the
party. One theme consistently stressed throughout is that of firmly building up
the communist consciousness of serving the people, by checking attitudes of superiority
in the relations between the party and the people, and leadership and ranks. This
does not deny the role or importance of leadership. Mao was contradicting an
outlook that absolutised leadership, and made the masses and ranks into
disciples, passive instruments. He reminded communists that no matter how
necessary cadres are, it is the masses that carry out things and therefore it
wouldn’t do to exaggerate the role of cadres. He persists with this in the
relation between the central committee and lower committees and that between
the socialist state and the people. In the absence of information from the
lower levels the central leadership cannot arrive at correct decisions. At
times a solution may be arrived at in the lower level itself, in which case the
task of the central committee is to propagate this throughout the country. Such
observations of Mao topple any idea of infallible leadership. They also helped
in bringing out the relation between the organisation principle of democratic
centralism and the Marxist theory of knowledge. Mao pointed out that the
struggle against the bourgeoisie was not the only element in class struggle
under socialism. It included contradictions between the socialist state and
people, and between the party and the people. Right in the 1950s itself he
warned that the people would teach those who thought they could lord over them,
now that power was seized. He advocated the right of the people to strike and
protest saying that the communist party needs to learn a lesson. (‘Combat Bourgeois
Ideas in the Party’, ‘Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Eighth
Central Committee of the Communist Party of China’, Volume 5, Selected Works)
What is striking here
is the importance he placed on struggle from below, the spontaneous initiative
of the people. This grasp of the dialectical relation between conscious intervention
from above and spontaneous pressure from below, this Leninist understanding
lost by the international communist movement in the interregnum, was not just retaken
by Mao. He took it to a new height by applying it in the Cultural Revolution, in
the struggle against the danger of capitalist restoration. Mao thus developed
the party concept and established it on new foundations; not on some individual
behavioural traits, but solid ideological-political principles.
To what extent could the Communist Party of China led by Mao
imbibe this newness? This is a relevant question. It serves as an entry for
assessing the extent to which the international movement that emerged in the
1960s inspired by Mao Tsetung Thought, or the Maoists who laid claim to deeper
clarity in the 1990s, have incorporated and actualised the Maoist party
concept. The Chinese party was forged in the Cominternist mould. This aspect,
as well as its background of having functioned for long with its methods and
style, must be kept in mind while seeking an answer to our question. As we
noted, Mao had started to break away from this model from the very beginning.
But his new approach would really be established only through the Cultural
Revolution. In fact, Mao’s teachings on the party were systematically compiled
only in 1973, in the Shanghai text, “A Basic Understanding of the Communist
Party of China”. (Three years later the banning of this book was one of the
first acts of the capitalist roaders who usurped power!) One can then conclude that
the Chinese party was one undergoing reforging in accordance with the Maoist
approach, yet with a lot of unevenness in this very process itself. In fact
this new approach had developed by leading revolutionary practice, all the
while ingesting new insights from its experiences.
But it wouldn’t be enough to mark this limit imposed by
conditions. There is also the matter of an incomplete rupture from the
Comintern approach. Among them, the cult built up around Mao deserves special
attention. This business of personality cult was initiated by Stalin in total
opposition to Lenin’s outlook. When the then Soviet leader Khrushchev prepared
ideological grounds for capitalist restoration by negating Stalin totally,
under the guise of rejecting this cult, Mao took up the defence of Stalin. But
this was done with Marxist criticism on Stalin’s errors, differentiating
between what is to be adopted and what rejected. We need to think over whether
this was complete. Personality cults can never be justified in Marxism. But instead
of totally rejecting them Mao limited himself to criticising their extreme
manifestations. Though this is sought to be justified by appealing to the
complex situation of the class struggle in China, it is unacceptable in
principle itself. The issue is not the extent of praise, or even whether
somebody deserves to be praised. Such cults foster a consciousness of infallibility
of an individual, a leadership and indirectly of that party; something rejected
by the Maoist party concept but seen in the Chinese party’s adjective, “always
correct”. Contemporary examples, of Maoist parties justifying their leadership
cults by citing Mao, draw attention to the need to achieve clarity in this
matter.
In general, how far have the Maoists succeeded in rupturing
from the Cominternist party concept? How much Maoist are the parties they are
building up and leading? Though no one would theorise, and thus legitimise, a
shift from staying with the masses and serving them to lording over them, this
can already be seen in a number of instances. Blind faith in the party in the
place of party loyalty centered on politics, blind belief in the infallibility
of the leadership and cult worship, intolerance of opposition and criticism,
pragmatism that sanctions any method if they are “for the party and revolution”
– such Cominternist influences are commonly seen in methods of work and
approach. The term Cominternist is used because these were not errors of Stalin
alone. Moreover, they contain problems of a whole period in the history of the
international communist movement. We must add, there were problems of outlook and
growth. Because this was a time in which communist ideology was spread
throughout the world, formation of communist parties was promoted, and a truly
international revolutionary proletarian movement was given form to. One of the great leaps achieved by Maoism is
its rupture from bad traditions of the Comintern period, without in the least
minimising its positive role. This must be further deepened. Today’s Maoist
parties are, without doubt, continuators of yesteryear communist parties. But
their foundations must be the heights attained by Maoism in the vanguard
concept, not the outlook or methods of their past.
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