The school served as a source of recruitment for revolutionary workers and .,. also played a central
role in gathering information about factory conditions for use in the League's leaflets and in organising
distribution of the leaflets in the factory.
In this involvement in organisational activity, Lenin was simply following the classical pattern established by Marx and Engels and reflected, for example, in their active participation in political bodies from the Communist Correspondence Committees to the League of the Just to the First International. (See Therborn, 1976: 334)
Accordingly, the Leninist concept of revolutionary organisation, far from setting out to entrench an intellectual elite which would stand above the working class, on the contrary we are informed "perceived the moment of reciprocity in this relationship and very soon came to emphasise the central working-class contribution to the revolutionary leadership". (Therborn, 1976: 326-7). As a consequence, Lenin is seen to have "insisted that the revolutionary cadres should be drawn mainly from the ranks of the workers, who possessed the necessary
'class instinct' and practical experience of the class struggle". (Therborn, 1976: 326-7)
Admittedly, as Therborn concedes, faced with the practical demands for effective revolutionary organisation, 'Lenin was soon to qualify in word and deed' many of the organisational principles that he enunciated in 'What is to be done?' But, despite his many twists and turns on organisational policy and strategy, Lenin never precluded workers from being part of the revolutionary leadership. For example, as Conquest points out, "he was to insist that worker revolutionaries should be
withdrawn from actual factory work to become full-time party operatives, living on party funds". (1972: 43)
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concept of the intellectual elite who would direct, guide and control the spontaneity of the masses and lead them in the revolutionary over- throw of capitalist society has been greatly misunderstood by some of his opponents. (See below) As Therborn observes, in sharp contrast to Kautsky who viewed this leadership basically as a 'bourgeois intnlligentsia', Lenin's view of them is broadly similar to the way
this group were perceived by Marx and Engels in the 'Communist Manifesto': that is, as intellectuals of bourgeois origin who
embrace completely the revolutionary struggle of the working-class. Or, to use the elegant terminology of Therborn, as a "declasse and radicalised section of the petty bourgeoisie". (1976: 326)
For Lenin, of course, the difference with Kautsky's definition of the party leadership is not simply one of semantics, but signifies a radically different conception of the political struggle of the working class and the role of the intellectual in it. To Lenin, the conquest of state power cannot be achieved merely by education and propaganda among the working class by revolutionary intellectuals - important as such activities unquestionably are. Rather, radical
There is pvohdbty no cleaver indioation of the fact that Lenin 's concept of the intellectual leadership of the revolutionary socialist party (to whom he assigns the vital function of ideological indoctrination of the masses) does not exclude the workers,, than his explicit statement on the question of revolution- ary socialist consciousness in 'Waat is to he done?' As Lenin wrote: "This does not mean, of course, that the workers have no part in creating such an ideology. But they take part, not as workers, hut as socialist theoreticians ... (emphasis added) ... in other words, they take part only when, and to the extent they are ahle, more or less to acquire the knowledge of their age ar^ advance that knowledge". (1952: 67-8)
social change is seen as the product of conscious and deliberate struggle by the working class under the active and disciplined leadership of a political party dedicated to socialist revolution. In essence, therefore the Leninist approach to revolution firmly emphasises the unity of theory and practice - an idea that found its most complete embodiment and ultimate vindication in the success of Bolshevism in Russia in 1917.
Significantly, although 'What is to be done?' represents perhaps
Lenin's classic statement on trade unionism, his views on the subject are by no means confined to this polemical pamphlet. In point of fact, as Richard Hyman affirms, "the inflexible position adopted by Lenin in V/hat is to be done? accords ill with certain of his earlier and later writings, where the potential of the trade union struggle for raising workers' consciousness received considerable emphasis". (1971: 41). For example, illustrative of Lenin's far more positive evaluation of the significance of the trade union struggle for the development of worker political consciousness is the draft programme for the Russian Social-Democratic Party which he wrote around 1895. (See Hyman, 1971: 41)
Commenting upon this, Tony Cliff maintains that in this programme, Lenin articulated the belief that the trade union struggle served a three-fold purpose for the working-class individual. Firstly, it unequivocally showed him how he was being economically exploited by the existing system; secondly, it bred a sense of class resentment in him and thirdly, it politically sensitised him to his overall class position in society. (Cliff, 1975: 52). Cliff further makes the point
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that at this stage in his revolutionary career, Lenin envisaged that the futility of the economic struggle would serve to convince the
workers that their only hope of significantly bettering their position lay in political struggle to radically alter the existing social order, As Cliff reveals:
Lenin pursued this line of thought consistently in the agitational leaflets and pamphlets which he wrote during 1894 to 1896.
(1975: 52)
By 1902, however, Lenin was to completely disavow such ideas in the course of his polemical onslaught against the 'Economists' in 'What is to be done?' Basically, he now argued that the trade union
struggle merely allowed the working class to, as Hammond put it, "obtain slightly better terms of sale for their commodity - labor power". (Hammond, 1957: 19). In blunt terms, Lenin now gave short shift to any idea that revolutionary socialist consciousness can
'spontaneously' develop out of the economic struggle waged by the workers through their trade unions. Rather, he sharply polarised worker consciousness into trade union conscious;! iii-ss and revolutionary socialist consciousness - asserting for good measure that there can be 'no middle ideology'. Thus, for Lenin, the uncompromising choice
for the working class movement was between 'bourgeois ideology' or socialist ideology. (See Hyman, 1971: 40-1)
Interestingly, however, with the 'spontaneous' eruption of revolution- ary activity among the Russian masses in 1905 (.and which reportedly caught Lenin completely by surprise by its 'suddenness'), Lenin, as Hammond among others discloses, totally repudiated the gloomy assess-
ment of the revolutionary potential of the working-class vyhich he had so vigorously upheld only three years earlier in 'What is to be done?' (See Hammond, 1957: 19-23). As a matter of fact, as Hyman stresses, faced with such dramatic and incontrovertible evidence of the revolutionary capacities of the Russian masses, Lenin swiftly reversed his earlier opinion and was now prepared to concede the ability of the working class to become in his own words, "instinctively, spontaneously Social-Democratic" (See Hyman, 1971: 42); in other words, 'revolutionary socialist'. (See below)
It is this evident adaptability of Leninist tenets that has obstruct- ed, or at least complicated, objective analysis of his work and which basically accounts for the controversy surrounding theoretical discuss- ion of his ideas. Yet, what should be kept in mind is,that, as one writer notes:
Whatever Lenin's merits as a philosopher, historian, or literary critic, he was pre-eminently a politician,
and it v/as as a master of political tactics v/ho skilfully manipulated men and ideas to v/in power for his party that he won the greatest success.
(Keep, 1967: 135)
Whether or not we accept Keep's evaluation of Lenin's significance, there is no denying that tactical considerations do much to explain
Broadly speaking, Lenin's change of heart on the revolutionary -potential of the working class does not ipso facto entail any fundamental
alteration of his view concerning the leading role of the party in the revolutionary struggle. In fact, the distinction drawn by Althusser between 'class instinct' and 'class position' serves to
emphasise the continuing necessity of the revolutionary party in the Leninist approach. 4s Althusser states: ^ "Class instinct is subjective and spontaneous. Class position is objective and rational. To arrive at proletarian class positions, the class instinct of proletarians ... needs to be educated". (1971: 16)
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the expendability of certain of his doctrines, formulated as they were - to employ a Marxism - not simply to interpret the world, but to change it. (See below) Consequently, his ideological shifts on the question of whether or not socialist consciousness arises spontaneously within the working class serve to confirm that his writings were conceived - not primarily as dispassionate contrib- utions to 'value-free' scholarship, but as ideological weapons to enhance the political consciousness of the working class and pre- cipitate socialist revolution.
To Lenin therefore, the weapons of criticism which he utilised were seen as merely a prelude to the criticism with weapons. It
thus comes as no surprise that Robert Conquest draws attention to Lenin's complete dedication to the notion that the success of the revolution is the supreme law. For, as Conquest suggests, not only did he regard the ends as justifying the means, but as we are further informed, "Lenin was prepared to use any means what- ever to forward the struggle". (Conquest, 1972: 42). Conquest is thus moved to summarise the Leninist postulates on revolutionary organisation as "a theory of extreme tactical flexibility".
Broadly s p e a k i n g , t h e r e f o r e , in his concept of the vanguard party, what Lenin created was - to borrow a phrase from Paul W i l k i n s o n , "the decisive instrument for the fulfillment of M a r x ' s theory of class struggle and proletarian r e v o l u t i o n " . (1971: 129) Yet what should not be overlooked is that:
The construction of the Leninist party (or party leadership) as the real representative of the proletariat could not bridge the gap between the new strategy and the old theoretical conception. Lenin's strategy of the avant-garde acknov/ledged in fact what it denied in theory, namely, that a fundamental change had occurred in the object- ive and subjective conditions for the revolution.
(Marcuse, 1971: 33)
A c c o r d i n g l y , it is in this elevation of the revolutionary party to a political principle that the Leninist departure from Marxian tenets most clearly reveals itself. More importantly, despite
any suggestion to the contrary, the Leninist doctrine of the central- ised party sketched out in 'What is to be done?' cannot be regarded as simply a product of organisational expediency - an historical (but essentially temporary) necessity imposed upon the revolutionary struggle by social circumstances in Czarist Russia. For there is in Lenin's resolution to the Comintern? in 1921, fairly convincing evidence that his theory of party organisation had been translated into a universal imperative of socialist revolution. As Lenin's resolution declared:
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The main principle of democratic centralism is that of the higher cell being elected by the lower cell, the absolute binding force of all directives of a higher cell for a cell subordinate to it, and the existence of a commanding party centre (whose authority is) indisputable for all leaders in party life, from one congress to the next.
(See Conquest, 1972: 45)
To sum up, the Leninist conception of the vanguard party was,
arguably, no mere strategic reaction to a particular historical state of affairs; rather, it was advanced as the sine qua of revolutionary struggle. (See below)
But this is not to imply that Lenin's vision of the specific form the party was to take was entirely uninfLuenced by external social realities. In point of fact, Lenin's conx^eption of the form of political organisation required for the conquest of State power in Czarist Russia, as Conquest points out, " was based in part on the idea that repression made conspiratorial tactics necessary, in part on the backwardness of the Russian working-class, but also as a means of countering the inefficiency and backwardness of the Russian
intelligentsia''. (Conquest, 1972: 44). Similarly, his schematic
view of party organisation and especially his 'arbitrary assumptions ' about intellectual leadership, which he sought to institute as a
basic and internationally-valid principle of revolutionary struggle are perhaps more intelligible in the context of the economic and
political isolation of the Soviet Union following the failure of the forces of intemiational capitalism to crush tl^e Bolshevik revolution. More importantly, Lenin's remarks on political organisation and world revolution need to be seen in the light of the class-collaborationism of the leaderships of European Social Democratic parties, which
expressed itself in chauvinistic support for their respective ruling classes in World. Var I and which coupled loith the defeat of the subsequent German revolution and the crushing of the Spartakus League by the post-War German Social-Democratic Government resulted in the disappointment of Lenin's liopes for revolution in the advanced capital- ist nations. If nothing else, these events served to emphatically
demonstrate to Lenin the futility of a strategy of socialist revolution based upon reliance on 'reformist' Social-Democratic parties and their leaderships. To sum up: "The conception which was initially aimed at the 'immaturity ' of the Russian proletariat became a principle of inter- national strategy in the face of the continued reformist attitude of the 'mature ' proletariat in the advanced industrial countries. To counteract the integration of a large sector of organised labour into the capitalist system, the 'subjective factor' of revolvvtionary strategy is moyiopolised by the Party, which assumes the character of a professional revolutionary organisation directing the proletariat. "
L U X E M B U R G
Like Lenin, Rosa Luxemburg waged vigorous and relentless ideological warfare against the inherently revisionist character of European Social-Democratic politics - a tendency which to her found its classic theoretical exposition in the work of Eduard Bernstein. Briefly, in his book 'Evolutionary Socialism', Bernstein not only expressed considerable doubt about the continued validity of the revolutionary perspectives of Marx and Engels, but, even more controversially, sought to argue that in the changed social and material circumstances of the advanced industrial societies, a gradual (and largely) peaceful transition to socialism was not only possible but desirable.
Central to Bernstein's prescription of a gradual 'evolution' to
socialism however, as Geras (1975) indicates, lay his conviction that the industrial working-class was as yet historically unprepared to either assume State power or to exercise it. Consequently, in his view, to prosecute the proletarian revolution in the manner envisaged by the original architects of Marxism, was simply to engage in
political adventurism and thus foredoom the working-class struggle to defeat and demoralisation. (Geras, 1975: 8).
Fundamentally, Bernstein's thesis was predicated on the optimistic deduction that "capitalism could generate mechanisms of adaptation which suppressed or attenuated the contradictions which Marx had seen as integral to the system". (Looker, 1972: 16) Accordingly, consistent with his assumption that socialism could be achieved by evolutionary rather than revolutionary means, Bernstein, as Looker
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notes, placed considerable importance upon the trade union struggle as a major instrument for the peaceful transformation of capitalism
(1972: 17).
However, replying to Bernstein in her pamphlet 'Social Reform or Revolution', Luxemburg began with the observation that, in essence, Bernstein's work constituted an extremely misleading way of formulat- ing the problem facing the Social-Democratic movement, in that it artifically polarised the issue into one of reform or revolution and moreover, ruled out the latter alternative as a realistic option. To Rosa Luxemburg, such analysis only served to confirm Bernstein's inability to comprehend the essential nature of the problem. As she pointed out:
Legislative reform and revolution are not different methods of historic development that can be picked out at pleasure from the counter of history, just as one chooses hot or cold sausages. Legislative reform and revolution are different factors in the develop-
ment of class society. They condition and complement each other, and are at the same time reciprocally exclusive, as are the north and south poles, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat . . . . It is contrary to history to represent work for reforms as a long-drawn out revolution and revolution as a condensed series of reforms. A social transformation and a legislative reform do not d i f f e r according to their duration but according to their content. The secret of historic change through the utilisation of political power resides precisely in the transformation of simple quantitative modification into a new quality or to speak more concretely, in the passage of an historic period from one given form of society to another.
That is V7hy people who pvonouncethemselves in favour of the method of legislative reform in place o f , and in contradistinction to the conquest of political power and social revolution, do not really choose a more tranquil, calmer and slower road to the same goal, but a different goal. Instead of taking a stand for the establishment of
a new society they take a stand for the surface modifications of the old society. If we follow the political conceptions
of revisionism, vie arrive at the same conclusion that is reached when we follow the economic theories of revisionism. Our program becomes not the realisation of socialism, but the reform of capitalism; not the suppression of the system of wage labour, but the diminution of exploitation, that is, the suppression of the abuses of capitalism instead of the suppression of capitalism itself."
(Luxemburg, 1969: 59-60)
Moreover, in her view, Bernstein's apostasy fundamentally reflected his intellectual innocence of the complexities of the dialectical process. Indeed, as she sarcastically observed:
It is surprising that Bernstein has so little acquaintance with his material. And it is
astonishing how poorly he utilises the existing data in his own behalf.
(Luxemburg, 1969: 43)
Bernstein's real heresy however, as Luxemburg made abundantly plain, lay not in his suggestion that Marx erred in the detail of his
prognosis of the dynamics of capitalist development. On the contrary, his heretical position emanated from his implied view that the
Marxian theory of capitalist development was inherently defective and that this basically accounted for its predictive deficiencies. Taking