Responding to the Legacy of George Orwell

 

When Rightists use Orwell to discredit Socialism and Antifa they often neglect that he was a socialist himself.   And his critique of Totalitarianism is broader than a critique of Stalinism.

 

Dr Tristan Ewins

Just today I was a participant in a debate on George Orwell. One person argued that Orwell was opposed to Left Authoritarianism, and as a consequence would be opposed to ‘Antifa.’  (For those who don’t know, ‘Antifa’ is a broad anti-fascist popular front, often led by anarchists)  Another person responded by saying Orwell was really a social democrat, and spent his life fighting fascism.  Orwell is used to discredit the Antifa cause – in a process that is, well, ‘Orwellian’.

Both people were right in their own way ; but despite the problems with Leninism it is best not to get it entirely mixed up with Stalinism. (though they are historically linked)   Orwell himself was a socialist, and fought in Spain against Franco.  (with the POUM – which translates as ‘Workers Party of Marxist Unification’)   The legacy of George Orwell is too important to reduce it to a critique of ‘socialist totalitarianism’.  Yes, there is an anti-Stalinist aspect to ‘Animal Farm’ and ‘1984’.  But Orwell’s opposition to ‘totalitarianism’ is deeper than this ; and capitalism is increasingly portrayed as an ‘absolute’: ‘total capitalism’.

 

Tactically and in principle it’s also dangerous to avoid the use of the word ‘socialism’ by arguing for ‘social democracy’ instead.  By using both terms together we get a better sense that ‘socialism’ and ‘social democracy’ once meant the same thing.   (and perhaps could again)  ‘Social Democracy’ is more complex than just ‘the post-war mixed economy, Keynesianism and welfare state’.   And the original social democratic (socialist) tradition deserves to be rescued, despite Rosa Luxemburg’s insistence it had become a “rotting corpse” on account of its response to World War One. 

In truth, most of global social democracy did capitulate on the issue of the War ; and this was the flashpoint which saw the rise of Leninism and its opposition to the rest of the Left.  (importantly, Luxemburg herself was what we may call a ‘libertarian socialist’ and was critical of Leninism’s practice of ‘democratic centralism’ following the revolution as well)  Here we have to distinguish, also, between ‘democratic centralism’ as a mode of organisation prior to 1917 on the one hand, and what it mutated into later under Lenin ; and worse so under Stalin.  But figures like Julius Martov and Karl Kaustsky resonated with their criticisms of Bolshevism, also, and in so doing left a legacy for radical social democracy. (socialism)  The Austro-Marxists and their so-called ‘Two and a Half international’ also stand as a reminder that there were alternatives between Leninism and Right Social Democracy.  For many years ‘Red Vienna’ was considered a model of radical (socialist) social democracy. It also involved a ‘workers army’ (Schutzbund) which was meant to be a ‘final defence’ for ‘the democratic path’)   Ironically,  it succumbed to an indigenous ‘clerical fascism’ itself because it could not decide how to fight ; or when.  But Austria’s levels of high quality public housing are an enduring legacy as well.

When people criticise Leninism they often neglect that Leninism originally still allowed for mass participation in the Vanguard Party. (ie: a party of professional revolutionaries whose job it is to lead the revolutionary working class ; often under conditions of capitalist state repression)   This goes to the question of whether a ‘one party state’ can be truly democratic. The answer depends on freedom of participation and organisation, and the absence of internal Terror) Stalin went one step further than Lenin and imposed Terror WITHIN the Party and the whole of society. Up until after the Revolution Leninism allowed for factions as well.  

 

Terror is undesirable anyway, and tends to expand as centralism increases beyond a certain point.  Thus far, Rosa Luxemburg is correct in her critique of Leninism. The problem is that war and foreign intervention left limited choices ; and this helped lead to tragedy.

 

So it depends what you mean by Leninism. There's democratic centralism and the Vanguard Party. Following the Menshevist/Bolshevist split of 1903 (see: 'What is to be Done?' - it is the definitive text on Bolshevist organisation ; written in 1901, published in 1902) And then there's certain policies which followed: Terror (first outside of, then inside of the Party as well – increasingly pervasive and indiscriminate), labour militarisation, banning of factions and of other socialist parties, and so on. The point is that Stalinism took all this to a different level ; and democratic centralism was originally predicated on freedom WITHIN the party (but discipline in between Conferences ; partly as a defence against state repression).

That said, there was a logic to Leninism, which in the context of Entente and other foreign intervention, civil war, the threat of starvation and of people freezing to death – helped lead eventually to Stalinism.  More and more extreme measures were taken (largely defensively) ; and led to permanent repression.

In contrast, though, I don't believe in Leninist centralism. One reason is that in certain contexts it means the suppression of debate between Conferences. I also believe it's inevitable factions will organise ; and suppressing factions just favours the ruling stratum. Finally, I share Rosa Luxemburg’s love of freedom, and recognise that while Leninism and then Stalinism resulted in certain ‘victories’, over the long term these resulted in an object lesson which was used to discredit the Left, and justify policies like McCarthyism. (anti-socialist hysteria and repression)

The problem is: What was the 'way out' in Russia at the time? A purely liberal response may have ended in White victory, a continuation of the slaughter of World War One, and Tsarist Restoration. Also remember that the Bolsheviks were the only Party willing to pull out of World War One pretty much unconditionally.  Maybe the solution was ‘dual power’ – with co-existence of Soviets, the Constituent Assembly and the Red Army.

 

Leninism - warts and all - has problems ; but remember the context of World War One, threatened starvation and social collapse as well. And the liberal parties wanted to continue that war.  Even the Left Social Revolutionaries took this approach - resulting in an assassination attempt on Lenin.

 

Remember that the French Revolution was bloody as well ; but the tactics of the Jacobins didn't forever discredit democracy or liberalism. By contrast we are constantly told that Leninism and Stalinism have forever discredited socialism.

 

Better to avoid the dilemmas the Bolsheviks faced in the first place - because it was bound to end tragically. But appreciate the moral complexity. The Russian Revolution came on the tail end of a War that killed over 20 million people. Some of the same people who are critical on Leninism will try and justify the First World War. And ignore the long list of Western Cold War atrocities. (for example, the brutal mass murder of half a million communists and labour movement activists in 1960s Indonesia)

 
Importantly: liberal democracy ultimately triumphed. But only because it was able to ‘tame’ and internalise the broad left within a practical capitalist consensus.  And eventually a virtual neo-liberal success.  Still: “liberal democracy” is worth defending as opposed to the alternative of Stalinism or a Corporatist State. (ie: fascism)  Now that it lacks opponents on the Left, we see liberal democracy attracting critics on the Right.   (so much for ‘The End of History – a term coined by the liberal Hegelian, Francis Fukuyama after the collapse of the Soviet Union) Here it is well to defend Liberal Democracy . At least it retains freedoms which make liberation imaginable ; and even its limited freedoms are preferable to the Rightist alternative)

 

Libertarianism of both the Right and the Left when authentically expressed are not as bad as fascism.  A true libertarian would defend the rights of unions and their workers to withdraw labour. And would treat free speech as a universal.  A fascist would work through a corporatist nationalist state that suppressed opposition violently, and promoted a literally illiberal Ideology.  By ‘corporatism’ we mean the forcible union of capital and labour under authoritarian nationalism.  A true Left libertarian would be sympathetic to the cause of ‘Antifa.’  A right-libertarian would accept their right to participate and exist. Personally, I consider myself a socialist liberal. That said, all organisations can be penetrated by agent provocateurs.  And ‘ultra-leftism’ is often mistaken.

 

Remember, also, Marx said of the bourgeoisie that it would 'snort' at its republic "Better end with Terror than Terror without End". (written in 1852, largely in response to the context of the 1848 Revolutions)  Trump understands this and seeks a predicate for repression based on 'law and order'. Agent provocateurs understand this also and act accordingly.  (‘End with Terror’ itself can also lead to ‘Terror without End’ under Fascism ; and Hitler came close to winning the Second World War at several points)

The Left needs to respond strategically.  We should not disavow militancy generally ; and practically disarm ourselves.  But neither should we support every act of militancy when this will result in our isolation.  There is a dilemma.  Rosa Luxemburg talked of “spontaneity of the masses” : a ‘dialectic’ between revolutionary working class self-initiative and the leadership of a revolutionary party.  In a way she is right.  On the other hand, unrestrained rebellion can work as a pretext for State Terror. Think of the rise of Mussolini and fascism in the 1920s in Italy following a period of revolutionary upsurge.

 

Also, under Stalinism Western Communist Parties were often restrained to further Soviet Foreign policy.  Dulling ‘the class struggle’.  But sometimes there is wisdom in restraint.

There is also wisdom in taking the initiative at the right time ; including militant strategies.  The Left needs to be nuanced enough to know the difference.

This article was originally published at ‘The Australian Independent Media Network’

John Passant on the Revolutionary Party

above: In the tradition of Lenin, John Passant believes in the necessity of a revolutionary party...

nb: immediately below this is another contribution of Lev's on the subject of "revolutionary reformism'. Below that is another essay by Wes Bishop. Wes considers the question of reform or revolution from a liberal perspective. Both contributions are well worth the read.

One of Lenin's great contributions to humanity was to reclaim Marx's insight that the working class could not simply lay hold of the ready-made apparatus of the state machinery and wield it for its own purposes. It had to smash the capitalist state.

This was not through some top down revolution, but by revolution from below.

History supports me. Workers in struggle could and often do create their own democratic organs of rule that replace the dictatorship of capital over labour. Iran in 1979 was one example.

These two ideas were reflected in a third historic task - to build a revolutionary organisation to help achieve the goal of the working class in power, ruling through their own democratic institutions. As Marx said in the Communist Manifesto:

We have seen above, that the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of ruling class to win the battle of democracy.

The proletariat will use its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible.

Lenin's ideas about a revolutionary party are relevant today. They have been the subject of incessant bourgeois derision, most of it historically incorrect. We have already published on this site a review by Mick Armstrong of Lars T Lih's book 'Lenin rediscovered: What is to be done in context. It's called Lenin, democracy and the way forward for the left.

In short this review encapsulates Lih's argument that 'What is to be done' is actually a reflection of the ideas of revolution from below (not conspiratorial approaches), that the workign class is capable of much more than trade unionism, and that the party it builds is the political expression of the 'vanguard' but that that vanguard can win the battle of ideas to become the political majority in the working class.

The battle is not linear but ongoing, and has ups and downs, in the main depending on the swings and roundabouts of the class struggle.

And of course the party is not separate from the class but part of it and learns from the class as it finds its voice over time, ie as the class becomes not only a class of itself but for itself.

Lenin's organisational approach actually reflects the Marxist idea of socialism from below, of, as Marx put it, the emancipation of the working class being the act of the working class, a movement of the vast majority in the interests of the vast majority.

The relationship of party and class is always complex but as Trotsky put it (or words to this effect), in a revolutionary situation the class is the steam that drives the pistons of the party.

The point is to build a party over the years of struggle that can succeed in that task.

That means years of slow recruitment and steady building based on ideas, with the inevitable upsurges in struggle momentarily destroying the facade of capitalist order and rule and providing further opportunities to influence and grow as history shows the value and worth in practice of revolutionary socialist ideas.

Apart from socialism from below socialism has another side - socialism from above (or perhaps now more accurately described as reform from above.)

As Hal Draper has written in his magnificent book The Two Souls of Socialism:

Throughout the history of socialist movements and ideas, the fundamental divide is between Socialism-from-Above and Socialism-from-Below.

What unites the many different forms of Socialism-from-Above is the conception that socialism (or a reasonable facsimile thereof) must be handed down to the grateful masses in one form or another, by a ruling elite which is not subject to their control in fact. The heart of Socialism-from-Below is its view that socialism can be realized only through the self-emancipation of activized masses in motion, reaching out for freedom with their own hands, mobilized "from below" in a struggle to take charge of their own destiny, as actors (not merely subjects) on the stage of history. "The emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves": this is the first sentence in the Rules written for the First International by Marx, and this is the First Principle of his lifework.

It is the conception of Socialism-from-Above which accounts for the acceptance of Communist dictatorship as a form of "socialism." It is the conception of Socialism-from-Above which concentrates social-democratic attention on the parliamentary superstructure of society and on the manipulation of the "commanding heights" of the economy, and which makes them hostile to mass action from below. It is Socialism-from-Above which is the dominant tradition in the development of socialism.

Draper went on to say:

It was Marx who finally fettered the two ideas of Socialism and Democracy together because he developed a theory which made the synthesis possible for the first time. The heart of the theory is this proposition: that there is a social majority which has the interest and motivation to change the system, and that the aim of socialism can be the education and mobilization of this mass-majority. This is the exploited class, the working class, from which comes the eventual motive-force of revolution. Hence a socialism-from-below is possible, on the basis of a theory which sees the revolutionary potentialities in the broad masses, even if they seem backward at a given time and place. Capital, after all, is nothing but the demonstration of the economic basis of this proposition.

It is only some such theory of working-class socialism which makes possible the fusion of revolutionary socialism and revolutionary democracy. We are not arguing at this point our conviction that this faith is justified, but only insisting on the alternative: all socialists or would-be reformers who repudiate it must go over to some Socialism-from-Above, whether of the reformist, utopian, bureaucratic, Stalinist, Maoist or Castroite variety. And they do.

It is this conception of socialism from below that drives people like those of us associated with Socialist Alternative to build a revolutionary party, to win the battle to meld democracy and production for need.

There is no revolutionary party in Australia, let alone committed to socialism from below. Socialist Alternative is not a party but a small organisation.

At the moment it is in the battle of ideas that such an organisation can work and build for the future. The organisation will also involve itself in any actions which arise but in the main cannot initiate them or influence them given our small size.

All the time the goal remains socialism from below.

This means rejecting laborism as a false way forward for the working class.

Given the history of a hundred years of sellouts of Labor this is not that hard to do (except when discussing matters with the more dogmatic members of the various socialism from above groups.)

We need to be clear - the idea that capitalism can be reformed through Parliament into socialism is essentially a different political goal to the revolutionary one of liberation from below.

In the present epoch this socialism from above approach becomes reforms from above. This is at best the amelioration of the wage- capital relationship, not its overthrow. It presupposes and accepts the supremacy of the wage slave system, not its abolition.

At worst the Labor Party is a cover for pro-boss 'reforms' to better allow the exploitation of the working class.

The history of reformism in Australia supports this conclusion. The Labor Party, born of the defeats of strike action in the 1890s, substitutes a vote every three years for action to defend class interests.

In my view it is impossible to clean out the Aegean stables of capitalism by becoming its agent in its Parliament.

To take a living example, the Iranian revolution against the Ahmadinejad dictatorship appears to be pausing precisely because there is no revolutionary organisation with real influence in the Iranian working class able to put forward and lead the class conscious workers there in an appropriate direction with the aim of overthrowing the capitalist system and its Islamist overlay.

To end exploitation, to end oppression, the working class must first win the battle of democracy. It can only do that through its own organisation.

In the here and now reformism actually provides a cover for parliamentary cretinism to attack workers.

It disarms the working class and others who want to fight against Labor's attacks with a song that essentially promises workers pie in the sky when they vote.

As Labor's support for the Afghan war, the racist state of Israel, the Northern Territory intervention, cutting wages, the Australian Building and Construction Commission through its Workchoices Lite all show , reformism is, like religion, the opiate of the masses, the sigh of the oppressed.

Imagine if the thousands of members of Labor's left were to join with those campaigning on the streets and in the workplaces for real social change.

Instead of endless fights against the right and useless motions at Branch Conference, these thousands could join with us and others to mobilise tens or even hundreds of thousands in a real struggle against the reactionary ALP and create the conditions for strike action to defend working class interests and perhaps lead to the refounding of a militant section in the trade unions.

It will not happen because reformism's historic role is to destroy the possibility of any movement from below.

It fears the power of the working class as much as the reactionaries and will join with them in repressing workers when the struggle is really joined.

Me? I'll keep plugging away, attending demonstrations, selling Socialist Alternative, going to weekly Socialist Alternative meetings to help better educate myself about major issues, blogging on my site, arguing in my workplace for people to join the union and for the union to take action to defend jobs, wages and conditions and in these ways to help build Socialist Alternative into the revolutionary party Australia lacks at the moment.