AnarWiki/markdown/Revolutionary_Organization_(Pamphlet).md

**Revolutionary Organization** is a 1961 leaflet written by [Chris
Pallis](Chris_Pallis "wikilink") and published by
[Agitator](Agitator_\(UK_Magazine\) "wikilink") and
[Solidarity](Solidarity_\(UK_Magazine\) "wikilink"). It is a short
critique of the nature of capitalism, the failure of trade unions and a
call to working class action. The first section, 'What is not to be
done' is a parody of [Lenin's](Vladimir_Lenin "wikilink") pamphlet 'What
is to be done?'

## Transcript

### 1\. "What is not to be done"

The term "rethinking" is often used as an excuse for not thinking at
all. One hesitates to use it. Much rethinking has nevertheless to be
done by revolutionary socialists. A cursory glance at the Labour
movement in Western Europe today should convince anyone of this dire
need. More and more ordinary people show an indifference bordering on
contempt for the mass Labour and Communist Parties of yesterday. The old
men of the "left" attempt to resolve this crisis by repeating in ever
more strident tone the dogmas and concepts that were good enough for
their own grandads.

We here wish to examine one of the most fervently adhered to dogmas of
the "Left": the need for a [tightly centralized socialist
party](Vanguard_Party "wikilink"), controlled by a carefully selected
leadership. The [Labour Party](Labour_Party_\(UK\) "wikilink") describes
this type of organization as an essential feature of British democracy
in practice. The [Bolsheviks](Bolsheviks "wikilink") describe it as a
"[democratic centralism](Democratic_Centralism "wikilink")". Let us
forget the names and look below the surface. In both cases we find the
complete domination of the party in all matters of organization and
policy by a fairly small group of professional "leaders".

As none of these parties has ever been successful in achieving a society
where the great mass of people control and manage their own destinies,
both their politics and their organizational methods must be considered
suspect. It is our opinion that the type of organization required to
assist the [working class](Working_Class "wikilink") in its struggle for
socialism is certainly a matter for serious thought.

Post-war capitalism has certainly provided more jobs and better paid
ones than many may have thought possible. But its drive to subordinate
people to the process of production has intensified at an enormous rate.
At work, people are reduced more and more to the role of button-pushing
lever-pressing machines. In the "ideal" capitalist factory human beings
would perform only the most simple, routine tasks. The [division of
labour](Division_of_Labour "wikilink") would be carried to its extreme.
[Managers](Boss "wikilink") would decide. Foremen would supervise. The
workers only comply.

In the body politic, omnipotent social institutions similarly decide all
issues: how much production will be "allowed" to increase or decrease,
how much consumption, what kind of consumption, how many
[H-bombs](Nuclear_Weapons "wikilink") to produce, whether to have
Polaris bases or not, etc., etc. Between those who rule and those who
labour there exists a wide and unbridgeable gulf.

Exploiting society consciously encourages the development of a mass
psychology to the effect that the ideas or wishes of ordinary people are
unimportant and that all important decisions must be taken by people
specially trained and specially equipped to do so. They are encouraged
to believe that success, security, call it what you will, can only be
achieved within the framework of the accepted institutions. The rebel,
the militant, the iconoclast may be admired, even envied, but their
example must be shunned. After all no one can really challenge the
powers that be. Just look at what happens to those who try\!

Ironically enough the very organizations that have set themselves up as
the liberators of the working class and the champions of their cause
have become facsimile replicas of the very society they are supposedly
challenging. The Labour Party, the Communist Party and the various
Trotskyite and Leninist sects all extol the virtues of professional
politicians or revolutionaries. All practice a rigid division within
their own organizations of leaders and led. All fundamentally believe
that socialism will be instituted from above and through their own
particular agency.

Each of them sees socialism as nothing more than the conquest of
political power, and the transformation, by decree, of economic
institutions. The instruments of socialism, in their eyes, are
nationalization, state control and the "plan". The objective of
socialism is to increase both productivity and consumption. The
elimination of economic anarchy and the full development of the
productive forces are somehow equated with the millennium.

Labour's nationalized industries are proof of the attitude of the
[Social Democrats](Social_Democracy "wikilink"). The Bolsheviks would
replace the Robertsons and Robens with people loyal to the Party. The
Soviet experience makes this quite clear. As early as 1918 Lenin had
stated "the Revolution demands, in the interests of socialism, that the
masses *unquestioningly obey the single will* of the leaders of the
labour process".\[1\] By 1921 he was saying: "It is absolutely essential
that all authority in the factories should be concentrated in the hands
of management ... under these circumstances all direct interference by
the trade unions in the management of factories must be regarded
positively harmful and impermissible."\[2\]

Trotsky wanted to militarize the trade unions. Is it very far from this
to the statement, issued by Stalin's Central Committee in September
1929, that "Soviet Union Communists must help to establish order and
discipline in the factory. Members of the Communist Party, union
representatives and shop committees are instructed not to interfere in
questions of management".\[3\]

None of them argued for the [working people themselves managing and
organizing industry and the affairs of
society](Workers'_Self-Management "wikilink"), now. That was a carrot to
be nibbled in a distant future.

This conception of socialism spawns the bureaucratic parties that today
constitute the traditional political organizations of the "left". To all
of them the determination and application of policies are a matter for
experts. Gaitskell scorns the Scarborough decisions because they were
made by people whom he considers to be intellectually incapable of
comprehending matters of international importance. The Communist Party
and the Socialist Labour League oppose British
[H-bombs](Nuclear_Weapons "wikilink") but support Russian ones. Their
leaders consider the millions of people [who want to end *all*
H-bombs](Peace_Movement "wikilink") as being sentimental and uninformed.
They have obviously not read the appropriate volumes that would
"clarify" them and make them see how essential Russian bombs really are.

The businessmen insist on the importance of their managerial rights. So
do the leaders of the political organizations of the "Left". This rigid
control from above creates not efficiency but the very reverse. Whenever
decisions are taken at higher levels and simply transmitted to the lower
orders for execution a conspiracy against both leaders and orders
arises. In the factory the workers devise their own methods of solving
work problems. If bonus can be made in five hours well and good. Work is
skilfully spread over eight-and-a-half hours. Supervisors lie to
departmental managers. These, in turn, lie to works' managers, who lie
to the directors and shareholders. Each seeks to preserve his own niche.
Each seeks to hide wastage, error, and inefficiency. In the hierarchical
organization of the modern factory where work is not a matter for common
decision and responsibility, and where relations are based on mistrust
and suspicion, the best "plan" can never be fulfilled in life.

This is repeated in the political parties. Officials have an existence
to justify. Members who are nothing more than contributors to party
funds, and sellers of party literature are regularly called to order to
explain how many papers they have sold and how many contacts they have
visited with their leader's latest line. Those who attempt to discuss
reality or to think for themselves are denounced as either "sectarians"
or "opportunists" or just "politically immature". The factory managers
never really know what is happening in their factories. The political
"leaders" really don't know either what is taking place in their own
organizations. Only the leaders, for instance, believe the membership
figures issued.

Bolsheviks argue that to fight the highly centralized forces of modern
capitalism requires an equally centralized type of party. This ignores
the fact that capitalist centralization is based on coercion and force
and the exclusion of the overwhelming majority of the population from
participating in any of its decisions. The most highly specialized and
centralized bodies under capitalism are its means of enforcing its rule
- its military and its police. Because of their bureaucratic centralism
these organizations produce a special breed of animal noted for its
insensitiveness, brutality and other moronic qualities.

The very structure of these organizations ensures that their personnel
do not think for themselves, but unquestionably carry out the
instructions of their superiors. [Trotsky](Leon_Trotsky "wikilink"), as
far back as 1903, believed that the Marxist movement should have a
similar structure. He told the Brussels Conference that the statutes of
the revolutionary organization should express "the leadership's
organized distrust of the members, a distrust manifesting itself in
vigilant control from above over the Party".\[4\]

Advocates of "democratic centralism" insist that it is the only type of
organization which can function effectively under conditions of
illegality. This is nonsense. The "democratic centralist' organization
is particularly vulnerable to police persecution. When all power is
concentrated in the hands of the leaders, their arrest immediately
paralyses the whole organization. Members trained to accept
unquestioningly the instruction of an all-wise Central Committee will
find it very difficult or impossible to think and act for themselves.
The experiences of the German Communist Party confirm this. With their
usual inconsistency, the Trotskyists even explain the demise of their
Western European sections during [World War II](World_War_II "wikilink")
by telling people how their leaders were murdered by the Gestapo\!

The overthrow of exploiting society is not a military operation to be
planned by a secretariat of amateur generals, armed with a library of
Marxist textbooks and an outdated military manual. A [social
revolution](Social_Revolution "wikilink") can only take place providing
the working class itself is conscious of the need to change society and
is prepared to struggle. Its success is dependent on the disintegration
of the capitalist institutions more than on their military overthrow.
Unless whole sections of the military can either be won over or
neutralized, then the taking of power is impossible.

Because of their basically reactionary ideas and methods of organization
neither social democracy nor Bolshevism are able to understand or
express the real needs of people. The dynamic of any socialist movement
is the desire of people to change the conditions of their lives. The
[Hungarian Revolution](Second_Hungarian_Revolution "wikilink") was more
than a struggle for an extra ten bob a week. It was not a struggle for
an extension of nationalization or for more "efficiency" in Government
departments. Millions of Hungarian people rose against their oppressors
because *they* wanted to determine the conditions of their own lives and
to manage their own affairs. For a brief, heroic period they replaced
the society of rulers and ruled with [direct
democracy](Democratic_Assembly "wikilink"), where every representative
was not only elected by direct vote but was revocable at any time. The
ideas of committees appointed from above and of "panels' commissions"
would have been quite alien to them. Surely political tendencies whose
organizational methods are the very antithesis of what the working class
has demonstrated, in practice, that it wants, should re-examine all
their ideas and previously held theories.

### 2\. Why?

All the ruling groups in modern society encourage the belief that
decision taking and management are functions beyond the comprehension of
ordinary people. All means are used to foster this idea. Not only do
[formal education](Prussian_Education "wikilink"), the press, the radio,
television and the church perpetuate this myth, but even the parties of
the so-called opposition accept it and, in so doing, lend it strength.
All the political parties of the "left" - whether social democratic or
Bolshevik - oppose the present order only by offering "better" leaders,
more "experienced" and more capable of solving the problems of society
than those who mismanage the world today.

All of them, bourgeois and "radicals" alike, distort the history of the
working class and attempt to draw a discreet veil over the immense
creative initiative of the masses in struggle. For the bourgeois, the
[Russian revolution](October_Revolution_\(Russia\) "wikilink") was the
conspiracy of organized fanaticism. To Stalinists and Trotskyists, it is
the justification for their right to lead. For the bourgeois, the
Hungarian Revolution of 1956 showed how capitalist rulers were better
than Stalinist ones. For the Stalinists, it was a
[fascist](Fascism "wikilink") conspiracy. The Trotskyists wrote
pamphlets showing how badly the Hungarians needed their own services.
Over every revolution and struggle the parties compete in the squalid
business of seeking to justify both themselves and their dogmas. They
all ignore the efforts, the struggles, the sacrifices and the positive
achievements of the participants themselves. Every attempt by people to
take control of their own destiny by instituting their own rule has been
buried beneath a million official tracts and a welter of "expert"
interpretations.

It is now almost impossible to learn what actually happened in [Italy
during the early 1920s when the workers occupied and managed the
factories](Bienno_Rosso "wikilink"). The [Asturian Commune of
1934](Asturian_Uprising_\(1934\) "wikilink"), the [May Days in Barcelona
in 1937](May_Days_\(1937\) "wikilink"), the sit-down strikes in France
and the U.S.A. during the late thirties and the events of Budapest in
1956 have become closed books.

If the myth that people are unable to manage, organize and rule society
themselves is to be debunked, workers must be made aware that on several
occasions other workers have in fact managed society. They have done so
both more humanely and more effectively than it is managed at present.
To us who publish *Agitator* there can be no thought of socialism unless
the working class establishes its own rule. Socialism for us implies the
complete and total management of both production and government. The
essential precondition for this is a rise in mass consciousness and the
development of a confidence within people that they are able not only to
challenge the old society but build the new one.

Making these past experiences available to people is one of the primary
tasks of revolutionary socialists. All channels of information are in
the hands of capitalists, bureaucrats, or self-appointed saviours with
special axes to grind. We disagree with those who argue that there is no
need for a revolutionary organization. The production of a truthful and
a serious history requires the conscious and organized association of
revolutionary socialists.

The revolutionary organization must also bring to workers' notice the
common interests that they share with other workers.

On the one hand the concentration of capital has led to an increasing
concentration of workers in giant factories often linked with one
another in various kinds of monopolies. On the other hand the new
productive techniques have led to greater division between the
producers. The labour process has been so broken down that workers are
not only separated by national, regional and sectional boundaries, but
also by artificial divisions within factories and departments. The
increasing tempo of production and introduction of piecework has
fostered the idea that the interests of workers in one section are quite
different from those of men in other sections.

The trade union officials help the employers to maintain these
divisions. Separate and often widely differing wage and piece-rates are
negotiated. Workers in one factory or shop are pitted against workers in
other factories and shops. The employers and the union officials
unscrupulously use the men's short-term interests - or apparent
short-term interests - to sabotage their real needs. The very presence
of different unions competing against one another for members
illustrates how sectional interests are promoted above general
requirements. Clerical workers are today being reduced to mere cogs in
the impersonal machine of production. The increase in union membership
among these workers shows that they are becoming aware of this fact. The
union bureaucracies organize them into separate unions for white-collar
workers, or into special sections of the industrial unions.

The revolutionary organization must help break down the false divisions
between workers. With its paper and publications and through its
militants the revolutionary organization should bring to people's notice
the struggles that are taking place in society. It must truthfully
report what these struggles are about and show how they affect the lives
and interests of other workers.

Most people do not at present see the need for socialism. If by
socialism is meant what currently passes as such - both East and West of
the Iron Curtain - we can scarcely blame them. There is no doubt,
however, that vast numbers of people are prepared to struggle on real
issues, on issues that really concern them, and against the innumerable
and monstrous social injustices and social frustrations of contemporary
society. At an elementary level, they are prepared to fight against rent
increases, against changes in piecework rates and against changes in job
organization about which they have not even been consulted. At a higher
level, they are prepared to campaign against the production of nuclear
weapons. They are constantly challenging the various "solutions" to
these problems, imposed upon them from above. How can this challenge be
generalized? How can it be transformed into one directed against the
very society which perpetuates the division of men into order-givers and
order-takers?

The revolutionary organization must assist people engaged in a struggle
against exploiting society to understand the need to act in an organized
class way and not as isolated groups with limited or sectional
objectives.

Is the socialist society a Utopian dream? The answer depends on how one
sees the development of socialist consciousness. The Bolsheviks -
Stalinists and Trotskyists - both endorse Lenin's statement: 'The
history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by
its own efforts, is able to develop only trade union
consciousness."\[5\]

The adherents to this theory, quite logically, consider it the job of
professional revolutionaries to *plan* the strategy, *organize* the
taking of power and take all the decisions for the instituting of the
"socialist" society. Lenin, the firmest advocate of this reformist and
reactionary idea which was borrowed from
[Kautsky](Karl_Kautsky "wikilink")\[6\] went so far as to applaud the
Webbs' ironical and scornful comments about the attempts of the British
workers to manage their own trade unions.\[7\]

We completely reject this idea. First, because it attempts to impose
upon workers a relationship to "their" leadership which is a replica of
the relation already existing under capitalism. The effect would only be
to create apathy and the [alienation](alienation "wikilink") of the
masses - conditions which powerfully assist the growth of
decision-taking groups, which rapidly assume increasing managerial
functions and which however "well-intentioned" originally, rapidly start
settling matters in their own interests and become exploiting groups and
bureaucracies.

We believe that people in struggle *do* draw conclusions which are
fundamentally socialist in content. Industrial disputes, particularly in
Britain, frequently take on the character of a challenge to managerial
rights. Workers constantly dispute the bosses' right to hire and fire.
Strikes regularly take place over employers' attempts to reorganize and
"rationalize" production. In these workers counterpoise their own
conceptions and ideas of how production should be organized to those of
the employers. Such disputes not only undermine the whole authoritarian,
hierarchical structure of capitalist relations, they also show quite
clearly that people are repeatedly seeing the need to organize
production - which is the basis of all social life - as *they* think
best.

During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 the [Workers'
Councils](Workers'_Council "wikilink") demanded drastic reductions in
wage differentials, called for the abolition of piecework and introduced
workers' management of industry. These organizations of political and
industrial rule - far more important than the Nagy government - were
based on elected and immediately revocable delegates.

The Hungarian Revolution followed the tradition first established by the
[Commune of 1871](Paris_Commune "wikilink"). But the aims of the
Hungarian workers went further than those of any previous revolution. In
the anti-bureaucratic nature of their demands the Hungarian workers
showed that they were fighting for something which will become the
fundamental feature of all workers' struggles in this epoch. Such a
programme is far more revolutionary and more profoundly socialist in
character than anything advocated by any of today's so-called socialist
parties.

The Social Democrats and Bolsheviks look either to war or economic
misery as means of converting to socialism. It is primitive and
insulting to believe that people are unable to oppose exploiting society
unless their bellies are empty or their heads about to be blown off.

That this is untrue is shown by the innumerable disputes which take
place in the motor industry. Car workers - despite their relatively high
wages - fight back against employers' attempts to establish an ever more
rigid control over workshop conditions. Often employers are prepared to
pay more money if workers will give up their hard-won rights in the
workshops. Workers often reject this bribery.

Capitalist and bureaucratic societies both seek to subordinate the great
majority to the needs of their ruling groups. The rulers attempt to
impress the stamp of obedience and conformity on to every aspect of
social life. Initiative, intellectual independence, creativeness are
crushed and despised. Unless man can develop to the full these - his
most precious qualities - he lives but half a life. Men want to be
something more than well-fed servants. The desire to be free is not a
pious liberal phrase, but the most noble of man's desires. The
pre-condition of this freedom is, of course, freedom in the field of
production - workers' management. There can be no real freedom and no
real future for humanity in an exploiting society. The path to freedom
lies through the socialist revolution.

The resentment of people today against the stifling and degrading
relations imposed upon them by class society provides the strongest
driving force towards the socialist future.

### 3\. How?

What type of organization is needed in the struggle for socialism? How
can the fragmented struggles of isolated groups of workers, of tenants,
of people opposed to nuclear war be co-ordinated? How can a mass
socialist consciousness be developed?

In parts 1 and 2 we were quite emphatic about what we *didn't* want. We
looked at all the traditional organizations and found both in their
doctrine and in their structure mirror images of the very society they
were allegedly fighting to overthrow. We would like now to develop some
of our conceptions of what is needed.

Our suggestions are not blueprints. Nor are they intended as the
ultimate and final word on the matter. The methods of struggle decided
by the working class will to a large extent mould the revolutionary
organization - that is, provided the organization sees itself as the
instrument of these struggles and not as a self-appointed "leadership".
"Elitist" conceptions lead to a self-imposed isolation. Future events
may show us the need to modify or even radically alter many of our
present conceptions. This does not worry us in the least. There is
nothing more revolutionary than reality, nothing more reactionary than
an erstwhile revolutionary idea promoted to the rank of absolute and
permanent truth.

Exploiting society constantly seeks to coerce people into obeying its
will. It denies them the right to manage their own lives, to decide
their own destinies. It seeks to create obedient conformists. The real
challenge of socialism is that it will give to men the right to be
masters of their fate.

It seems quite obvious to us that the socialist organization must be
*managed* by its members. Unless it can ensure that they work together
in a spirit of free association and that their activity is genuinely
collective it will be useless. It will appear to people as no different
from any other organization or institution of capitalism, with its rigid
division into order-givers and order-takers.

Without democracy the revolutionary organization will be unable to
develop the required originality of thought and the vital initiative and
determination to fight upon which its very existence depends. The
Bolshevik method of self-appointed and self-perpetuating leaders,
selected because of their ability to "interpret" the teachers' writings
and "relate them to today's events" ensures that no one ever intrudes
with an original idea. History becomes a series of interesting
analogies. Thought becomes superfluous. All the revolutionaries need is
a good memory and well-stocked library. No wonder the "revolutionary"
left is today so sterile.

Struggle demands more than a knowledge of history. It demands of its
participants an understanding of today's reality. During strikes,
workers have to discuss in a free and uninhibited way how best to win.
Unless this is made possible the ability and talent of the strikers is
wasted. The loyalty and determination that strikers display - often
referred to by the press as stubbornness or ignorance - derives from the
knowledge that they have participated in the decisions. They have a
feeling of identification with their strike and with its organization.
This is in marked contrast to their general position in society where
what they think and do is considered quite unimportant

During strikes, representatives of the various political groups gain
control of the Committee. Demands entirely unrelated to the dispute then
make their appearance. The outcome is inevitable. A lack of interest, a
diminution of activity, sometimes even a vote to return to work. The
feeling of identification disappears and is replaced by a feeling of
being used.

When the direct management of an organization by its members is replaced
by an alien control from above, vitality is lost, the will to struggle
lessens. Many will ask what do we mean by "direct management"? We mean
that the organization should be based upon branches or groups, each of
which has the fullest autonomy, to decide its own activities, that is in
keeping with the general purpose of the organization. When possible
decisions should be collective ones. Branches should elect *delegates*
to any committees considered necessary for the day-to-day functioning of
the organization. Such delegates are not elected for three years, for
twelve months ... or even twelve days. They are, *revocable*, *at any
time* their fellow members consider it necessary. This is the only way
that the membership can effectively ensure that their representatives
carry out their jobs properly. We lay no claims to originality in
proposing this. In every revolution, during most strikes and daily at
the level of workshop organization the working class resorts to this
type of direct democracy.

It is rather amusing to hear Bolsheviks argue that this may be all right
for everybody else - but not for themselves. Apparently the same workers
who are expected to have determination and consciousness sufficient to
overthrow capitalism and to build a new society do not possess
sufficient know-how to put the right man in the right place in their own
organization.

The same arguments against direct democracy repeatedly raise their bald
heads\! We are reminded that you cannot have a mass meeting to discuss
every single issue - true, but not very profound. Of course certain
committees are needed. They must however be directly responsible to the
membership, and their duties must be clearly defined. They must be
charged with placing *all* the facts of any matter under discussion
before all the members. The withholding of essential information from
members is a powerful factor reinforcing the division between leaders
and led. It lays the basis for bureaucracy within the organization.
Genuine democracy does not only imply an equality of rights ... it
implies the fullest possible dissemination of information, allowing the
rational use of those rights.

We reject the idea that matters of great importance require split second
decisions by a central committee, with "years of experience" to its
credit, meeting in a secret conclave. If the social conflict is so
intense as to require drastic action, the need for such action will
certainly have become apparent to many workers. The organization will at
best be the expression of that collective will. A million correct
decisions are quite useless unless they are *understood* and *accepted*
by those involved. People cannot fight blindly in such situations, their
unthinking actions projected by a group of revolutionary theoreticians -
if they do the results are liable to be dangerous.

When important decisions have to be taken they must be placed before the
members for approval or otherwise. Without this there can be no
understanding of what is involved. And without understanding there can
be no conviction, and no genuinely effective action. There will only be
the usual frantic appeals to "discipline". And as Zinoviev once put it:
"discipline begins where conviction ends".

Our critics will ask us about differences of opinion within the
organization. Should not the majority decisions be binding on all? The
alternative, we are informed, is ineffectiveness. Again there are
precedents to which we may refer: the real experiences of workers in
struggle. During strikes and even more so during revolutions, big issues
are at stake. Fundamental decisions have to be taken. In these
circumstances the members will automatically expect of each other full
and active participation. Those who do not give it will cut themselves
off from the movement, will have no desire to remain members. It is
quite another matter, however, to insist on the absolute acceptance of a
party line on matters not calling for immediate decision and action.
Those who wish an organization to be run on these lines have clearly
assigned to themselves a divine right of interpretation. Only they know
what is "correct", what is "in the best interest of the movement'.

This attitude is very widespread and is an important factor in the utter
fragmentation of the revolutionary left today. Various sects, each
claiming to be the elite, the one-and-only "genuine" Marxist group,
fight furiously with one another, each quite certain that the fate of
the working class, and of humanity at large, is tied up with "finding
the correct solution" to each and every doctrinal squabble. Faction
fights and the "elite" conception of the Party (the "brain" of the
working class) are but different sides of the same coin. This conception
profoundly underestimates the creative abilities of the working class.
No wonder they reject this type of organization ... and this type of
politics.

What should the activity of the revolutionary organization be? Whilst
rejecting the substitutionism of both reformism and Bolshevism, we also
reject the essentially propagandist approach of organizations such as
the Socialist Party of Great Britain. We consider it important to bring
to workers information and reports of the struggles of other workers -
both past and present - reports which emphasize the fact that workers
*are* capable of struggling collectively and of rising to the greatest
heights of revolutionary consciousness. The revolutionary press must
help break down the conspiracy of silence about such struggles. It must
bring to the working class the story of its own past and the details of
its present struggles. But it must do more than merely disseminate
information. When strikes occur, when tenants oppose rent increases,
when thousands protest against the threat of nuclear war, we feel it our
responsibility to provide the maximum support and assistance. The
revolutionary organization or its members should actively participate in
these movements, not with the idea of "gaining control" or "winning them
over" to a particular line - but with the more honest objective of
helping people in struggle to win.

This does not absolve conscious revolutionaries from arguing for their
own ideas or from the need to try and convince people of the wider
implications of their struggles. We do not "bow to spontaneity".\[8\] We
believe we have something positive to say but also that we must earn our
right to say it. The revolutionary organization must see its job as
serving the working class, not leading it, helping co-ordinate its
struggles, not imposing methods of struggle upon it, learning from the
struggles that are taking place, not ramming *its* learning down the
throat of others. It must realize that correct as its ideas may be, they
are dependent on workers agreeing with them.

## Notes

<references />

## External Links

  - [Revolutionary
    Organization](https://www.marxists.org/archive/brinton/1961/05/organization.htm)
    at [marxists.org](marxists.org "wikilink")

<!-- end list -->

1.  *["The immediate tasks of the Soviet
    government"](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1918/mar/x03.htm)*,
    *Isvestiya of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee*, No.85
    (April 28, 1918). (Emphasis in original.)
2.  *["The role of the Trade Unions under the
    N.E.P."](https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/dec/30.htm)*
3.  Reported in *Freiheit*, German language paper of the American
    Communist Party, September 9, 1929.
4.  See Isaac Deutscher, *The Prophet Armed*, p. 76.
5.  V. I. Lenin, *[What Is To Be
    Done?](What_Is_To_Be_Done?_\(Book\) "wikilink")* (London: Lawrence
    and Wishart, 1944), p. 33.
6.  In *Neue Zeit*, 1901 -1902, XX, No.3, p. 79, Kautsky wrote: "...
    socialist consciousness is represented as a necessary and direct
    result of the proletarian class struggle. This is absolutely untrue
    ... Modem socialist consciousness can arise only on the basis of
    profound scientific knowledge ... the vehicles of science are not
    the proletariat but the bourgeois intelligentsia ..." Lenin, in
    *What Is To Be Done?* (p. 40), quotes Kautsky in full and refers to
    his views as "profoundly true and important utterances".
7.  Lenin wrote (*ibid.* p. 125): "In Mr. and Mrs. Webb's book on trade
    unionism, there is an interesting chapter entitled 'Primitive
    Democracy'. In this chapter, the authors relate how, in the first
    period of existence of their unions, the British workers thought it
    was an indispensable sign of democracy for all the members to do all
    the work of managing the unions; not only were all questions decided
    by the votes of all the members but all the official duties were
    fulfilled by all the members in turn. A long period of historical
    experience was required to teach these workers how absurd such a
    conception of democracy was and to make them understand the
    necessity for representative institutions on the one hand, and *for
    full-time professional officials on the other*".
8.  Most discussions on this theme are quite meaningless. All mass
    struggles have both immediate and remote causes and all are
    influenced to a greater or less degree by the experiences of
    previous struggles.