The need for some sort of vanguard party is often simply regarded as an a priori conception by revolutionary Marxists: we side with Lenin in the Bolshevik/Menshevik split. If the concept of the party is questioned it is generally on tactical considerations: is the type of highly centralised party necessary under an absolutist regime such as Tsarist Russia appropriate for advanced industrial capitalism etc.?

What I want to indicate here, very briefly, is that in fact, the requirement for a Leninist type of organisation rests on profound theoretical groundings strategically drawn from Marxist theory. Trying to dogmatically reproduce an imitation Bolshevik party is an, unfortunately widespread, historical reductionism which completely misses the point. The question of the Leninist party is primarily a political rather than an organisational one. On the political aspects of the party one can be completely intransigent whilst simultaneously exhibiting flexibility on specific organisational formations. There never has been an historical occurrence of an 'ideal' Leninist party and there probably never will be.

Lenin accepts Marx's conception of the working class as the primary agency of social change due to, "its numerical strength and its indispensable role in the capitalist production process". (Sweezy, p.2) These are 'objective factors' which potentially define the proletariat as a revolutionary class. The Leninist theory of organisation concentrates on the interlocked 'subjective factors' of class consciousness and revolutionary leadership.

If the dominated class was socially and politically homogeneous then there would be no reason for a Leninist party to exist. It is exactly the stratifications which exist in this class which make the party necessary.

masses action ---> experience ---> consciousness

advanced experience ---> consciousness ---> action

workers

revolutionary consciousness ---> action ---> experience

nuclei

(Mandel, p.5)

The above is a diagrammatic representation of Lenin's theory of consciousness and the rationale for the Leninist party can clearly be observed. The revolutionary vanguard derives its main initial opposition to capitalism not through experience of the everyday workings of the system, but through a theoretical understanding and critique of the system. The nuclei primarily gain their knowledge from reading and associated pursuits. Precisely because the nuclei does not exist directly in relation to the intensity or lack of intensity of class struggle, it is, potentially, the most consistent opponent challenging the legitimacy of capitalist rule. Further, knowledge may be accumulated by the nuclei from experience gained through action, which it has consciously engaged in and which will test in material reality its theoretical propositions.

This is an entirely different process from that in which the masses engage as they are prompted into action by the impact of the everyday mechanisms of capitalism upon their lives. From this action experience is gained, and a potential exists for modifications in their perception of the sets of relationship constraining them. Because the masses experience is governed by the intensity of class conflict its level of political class consciousness is likely to be highly variable.

Mandel notes,

"It is only in the revolution itself that the majority of the oppressed can liberate themselves from the ideology of the ruling class. For this control is exerted not only, or even primarily, through purely ideological manipulation and the mass assimilation of ruling class ideological production, but above all through the actual day-to-day workings of the existing economy and society and their effect on the consciousness of the oppressed." (Mandel, p.3)

An object-subject status is assigned to the dominated classes in the realisation that ruling class ideology is mediated through the dominated classes and is not simply "injected" into them as it were. Indeed, if this were not so, the possibility of oppositional class consciousness developing would be negligible.

As for the advanced workers:

"The collective action of the advanced workers...is relatively more difficult to attain because it can be aroused neither through pure conviction (as with the revolutionary nuclei) nor through purely spontaneous explosiveness (as with the broad masses)".

(Mandel, p.5)

The Leninist party, then, is an attempt to deal with widely differing levels of class consciousness amongst the workers'. The party acts as a co-ordinator and leader of working class consciousness. It is important to emphasise this latter role because anti-Leninist groupings, (the I.C.C. for example), accept that a party is needed to 'generalise' oppositional class consciousness and class struggle but not to lead it. Let it be noted that the very existence of a vanguard party implies a leadership role. Pressure from the working class and oppressed layers may have pushed the Bolshevik party out of its relatively conservative approach in 1917, at least until Lenin galvanised the party with his 'April Theses', but this pressure:

"...is exceptional, - highly exceptional. The machine of a revolutionary party may tend towards conservatism in spontaneous upsurges - but it is normally the vanguard, normally massively in advance precisely because it is the permanently organised force". (Matgamna, p.23)

Lenin's understanding of class consciousness, famously described in What Is To Be Done?, (Vodslon, p.4) defines a leading role for the party.

"The Leninist concept of the party cannot be separated from a specific analysis of proletarian class consciousness, i.e. from the understanding that political class consciousness grows neither spontaneously nor automatically out of the objective developments of the proletarian class struggle". (Mandel, p.1)

Lenin rejects any strict causal model of determination where direct linkages may be envisaged between socio-economic movements and a critical oppositional consciousness. It is actually this absence of a causal linkage which makes revolution a possibility. If the ruling ideology was totally the ideology of the ruling class then there would be no 'space' for oppositional consciousness to develop. Marxist theory, precisely because it is Marxist theory, can gain a relative scientific autonomy and supersede its origins as a theoretical product of capitalist production and its social relations to become a critique of those things. The existence of Marxist theory as a systematic body of theory and practice can significantly change the 'subjective factor' in favour of revolution if it results in the creation of a vanguard party. Such a party can act as a pole of attraction which further enhances revolutionary consciousness.

Lenin's understanding of consciousness emphasises the dynamic manner in which it is possible for consciousness to modify, under the impact of changes in the objective situation, but by no means asserts that the former is strictly governed by the latter. In fact, the non-causal relations between the working out of contradictions in the economic sphere and the achievement of political class consciousness determines that the subjective factor, the vanguard party, assumes great significance.

The task of the party is to unify a section of the working class under its leadership precisely by undertaking the bitter and protracted struggle for political class consciousness.

The connection between ideology and consciousness is explicit here, in that the party is thought to embody the highest understanding of Marxist theory and indeed, on this factor, its legitimacy to ascribe itself as a leadership of the proletariat substantially rests. A major problem with the Leninist left has been that small and isolated grouplets have viewed political class consciousness as virtually synonymous with an acceptance of their political programmes. This has led to chronic sectarianism, probably taken to its extreme by the original W.R.P. but prevalent also amongst the Maoist left.

The infusion of political class consciousness is not simply propagandist. It is necessary for the party to intersect with the class struggle, act as a "memory" of previous class struggles and to attempt to organise sections of the working class. This is totally basic Leninism but think for a moment how many of the 'vanguard' groupings can stand judgement by these criteria. At one end of the spectrum there is the totally mindless activism of the Socialist Workers Party and at the other the pure and abstract propagandism of the Trotskyite sects who only the connoisseur of left history ever hears of.

To gain and maintain some minimal level of ideological autonomy from bourgeois society is to set oneself on the path of a lifetimes struggle. The collective political life of a party can either help or hinder depending on the party programme, the level of party culture and the presence or absence of a democratic internal life. It is important to understand that in order to have any chance of success in its self-selected task of bringing a political class consciousness to the proletariat, the party must combat the impingement of bourgeois ideology in its own ranks, "Our continuing struggle as revolutionists is "to be in, but not of" this society". (Spartacist League, p.56)

This is far easier said than done in that all individuals are immersed in a social context of lived ideologies. Marxism can recognise the context but it cannot remove one from society, and therefore from the impingement of ideology on ones life. This placement of the individual within the ideological social matrix is not only what makes the recognition of ideology, in the sense of a distorted representation of reality, so difficult but also helps to explain the manner in which a particular consciousness about society is formed by ideology. (Harris, chapters 3/4) Hence the necessity is for Marxists to maintain a constant critical awareness of ideologies and their potential effect as regards the circumscription of oppositional thinking. Many, most?, people will fall by the wayside as work, family and finance provide powerful instruments of integration into bourgeois society. Most of the parties today, understandably due to their tiny size, tend to tolerate people whose outlook and practice is far from revolutionary. An authentic Leninist party cannot be built on this basis.

It is relevant to recall that Lenin recognises a material split amongst the working class in the imperialist countries. As a direct consequence of imperialism a "labour aristocracy" develops.

"1) a section of the British proletariat becomes bourgeois; 2) a section of the proletariat permits itself to be led by men bought by, or at least paid by, the bourgeoisie". (Lenin, p.129/30)

It is important not to mechanically assume that a specific class positional location within the economic framework will inevitably mean that the most oppressed layers develop oppositional revolutionary class consciousness. On the other hand it is important to ask why so many members of the British left are drawn from the relatively privileged layers of the working class and the petit-bourgeoisie, and why so much activity is directed at the bastions of the labour aristocracy, the trade unions and Labour party, and so little at the oppressed and exploited layers who have a very direct material interest in the overthrow of capitalism? In many ways the British left is a left culturally conditioned by imperialism. The overwhelmingly middle class social composition, especially in the higher echelons, of the ostensibly Leninist groups has meant that they are far from "tribunes of the oppressed". Many workers' would find attending the meetings of these groups an uncomfortable and ultimately alienating process.

It is true that those disengaged from social production, obviously, have negligible or non-existent power in this society. Does this mean that they have no power at all? An extrapolation of the Anti-Poll Tax struggle should have disabused many of the left that only workers engaged in industrial production have any potential leverage in imperialist Britain. A reflection on the vast number of unsuccessful industrial disputes over the last period throws much doubt on the thesis of the organised worker as the primary agency of change anyway. But most of the left are happiest doing their routine and, of course, legal 'work' amongst the organised industrial proletariat: the "forces of the past". (R.C.G.)

Of course, the flaw in the idea of the party as potentially developing an high level of collective consciousness is the practice, or rather lack of practice of democratic centralism. I know that this has been discussed at length at meetings organised by, and in the pages of, 'Open Polemic' so I will not labour it here. Suffice it to say that authoritarian internal regimes have been such a systematic characteristic of democratic centralist organisations, both in and out of power, that it cannot simply be put down to unfavourable conjunctural circumstances. In this situation, far from being a developer of working class consciousness the party acts to systematically destroy such consciousness in the interests of maintaining the rule of the leading elite. This is certainly an extremely serious problem for Leninists which deserves equally serious attention.

We certainly do need a pre-party grouping which has as its aim the building of a genuine Leninist organisation, but it needs to be based on a real theoretical understanding of its basis in an interpretation of Marxism, rather than as an optional extra or add on devised by Lenin.

HARRIS, Kevin, Education and Knowledge, R.K.P., 1979.

LENIN, V.I., Imperialism, The Highest Stage of Capitalism, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1973.

MANDEL. Ernest, The Leninist Theory of Organisation, I.M.G. Publications, 182, Pentonville Road, London, 1975.

MATGAMNA, Sean, I.S. and the Revolutionary Party, In:- International Communist, Number 5, (Special Issue 2), 1977. (Some of Matgamna's old material is actually well worth re-reading).

Revolutionary Communist Group, Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!, B.C.M. Box 5909, London, WC1N 3XX. (The manner in which imperialism creates a split in the working class in the imperialist countries is systematically elaborated in their paper).

SPARTACIST LEAGUE, Memorandum to the C.C. on the Transformation of the S.L. In:- Basic Documents of the Spartacist League, Marxist Bulletin 9, 1971, Spartacist Publications, P.O. Box 1377, New York.

SWEEZY, Paul, Marx and the Proletariat, New England Free Press, Somerville, Massachucetts, 1967.

VODSLON, Mirek, The Validity of Lenin's 'What is to be done?' In:- The International, Number 10, December 1992, P.O. Box 1586, London, NW6 6TY (A good orthodox defence of WITBD against the Cliff type criticisms).

 Ted Talbot.

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