https://themilitant.com/2019/11/09/communism-is-not-a-doctrine-but-a-movement/
‘Communism is not a doctrine, but a movement’
Vol. 83/No. 42
November 18, 2019
Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, left, speaking in Moscow in 1920 and Fidel
Castro, right, addressing mass rally in Havana in 1962. Russian and
Cuban Revolutions, two great proletarian revolutions of the 20th
century, made key contributions to the development of internationalist
working-class program and strategy. Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin, left,
speaking in Moscow in 1920 and Fidel Castro, right, addressing mass
rally in Havana in 1962. Russian and Cuban Revolutions, two great
proletarian revolutions of the 20th century, made key contributions to
the development of internationalist working-class program and strategy.
Their Trotsky and Ours by Jack Barnes, national secretary of the
Socialist Workers Party, is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for
November. Based on his 1982 speech, it explains that to lead a
successful working-class revolution, a mass proletarian party is needed
whose cadres have absorbed an internationalist communist program, whose
life and work are rooted in the working class, who derive deep
satisfaction from doing politics and have forged a leadership with an
acute sense of what to do next. The excerpt below is from the chapter
“Marxism, Bolshevism, and the Communist International.” Copyright © 1983
by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.
BY JACK BARNES
Our revolutionary political continuity, that of the modern working
class, does not go back very far — only 135 years. It goes back to the
generalizations adopted by the Communist League and presented in initial
form in its manifesto, which [Karl] Marx and [Frederick] Engels were
assigned to draft, and in its organizational rules, which they also had
a major role in preparing.
The lessons drawn by the leaders of the Cuban, Nicaraguan, Salvadoran,
and Grenadian revolutions are part of this common revolutionary
continuity. But determining just what, concretely, that consists of is a
little more complicated than it might seem. Because political continuity
is not like the doctrine of a church, which is ultimately judged right
or wrong by some body of people who claim a direct line to someone or
something you can’t argue with. That is how the articles of a faith are
settled.
But as Engels wrote just two months before the formation of the
Communist League at the end of 1847, “Communism is not a doctrine but a
movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts. … Communism,
insofar as it is a theory, is the theoretical expression of the position
of the proletariat in this [class] struggle and the theoretical
summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.”
Communists don’t have any articles of faith. What we have, as Engels
explained, is simply the political generalizations and strategic lessons
from the experiences of a class that has been marching toward taking
power ever since it was born and began to wage battles in its own name —
the modern working class. …
It is only by generalizing and drawing the lessons of the actual
experiences of the working class that revolutionists develop a program
and strategy that can help us lead our class toward that goal — the
dictatorship of the proletariat. That is where our political continuity
comes from.
Lenin said that without revolutionary theory, there can be no
revolutionary movement. You hear that quotation so many times that it
can sometimes lose its meaning. But it is important to think about what
Lenin actually said. He didn’t say that without revolutionary theory
there can be no revolutionary action. That would be wrong. Horribly and
disarmingly so. There can be, have been, and will continue to be
revolutionary struggles by working people that are not guided by
organizations equipped with revolutionary theory. Revolutionary
struggles, but not a revolutionary movement. Because building a
revolutionary movement, as opposed to action alone, necessitates a
conscious generalization of lessons that our class has learned through
struggle into a program and strategy, a political continuity, upon which
revolutionary organization is based.
These lessons — what to do, and in some ways even more importantly, what
not to do — have been paid for in blood many times over by our class.
They are irreplaceable.
The fact that our program and strategy are rooted in the experience of
the working class, however, also means that new experiences change,
better enrich, our revolutionary continuity. They cannot alter past
events, of course. But our political continuity is not frozen. It is the
evolving consciousness of the vanguard of a class, expressed in program
and strategy and embodied in revolutionary organizations and their cadres.
We incorporate new lessons while preserving old ones and understanding
them in new ways. Our revolutionary continuity is a living thing. It is
our current understanding of the rich lessons of revolutions and class
battles that came before us, and this understanding changes as our class
goes through new experiences.
The program of the Communist International was not only in continuity
with but also far richer and more extensive than the program of the
pre-World War I Bolshevik Party, for example. The world proletariat had
gone through the first imperialist world war, the collapse of the Second
International as a revolutionary organization, and the 1917 Russian
Revolution. These events, culminating in the establishment of the
world’s first workers state, had put all wings of the workers movement
to the test. The Third International didn’t just preserve what was best
from the program of its forerunners, what had stood the test of titanic
events. It also made additions and altered the weight and emphasis it
gave to various aspects of this program.
Similarly, [with] the Cuban Revolution … these experiences enrich and
change the way we understand and apply our revolutionary continuity
today. If new socialist revolutions didn’t affect us this way, we would
be finished as a revolutionary organization.
Questions that couldn’t be answered definitively twenty-five years ago
have been settled by the class struggle. For example, were all
revolutions going to be led — and warped — by parties trained in the
school of Stalinism? That could have seemed to be the case during the
period between World War II and late 1959. We were confident that the
answer was “no,” but it was nonetheless an open question until it was
settled in practice by the victory of the Cuban Revolution. …
But each generation of working-class fighters must see these lessons
through its own eyes, from the standpoint of the concrete experiences it
has gone through and anticipates. In that way, each generation
understands its continuity more deeply, enriches it, uses those aspects
that most directly relate to its own experiences.
In This Issue
Front Page Articles •Asarco strike deserves support of all workers
•US-Chinese rulers’ rivalry grows despite new trade deal
•‘Break from bosses 2-party system, build a labor party’
•New book ‘The Turn to Industry’ boosts fall ‘Militant,’ book drive
•Why working people shouldn’t join the liberals’ impeachment crusade
•California blackout, fire show need for workers control of power companies
Feature Articles •Iraqi protests grow, demand halt to Tehran’s interference
•Socialist Workers Party 2020 campaign program
Also In This Issue •As competition heats up, retail bosses tell workers,
‘Speed up’
•DC meeting: ‘US hands off Cuba and Venezuela’
•UK election: ‘Workers need our own political party’
•Fight continues to keep last abortion clinic in Missouri
•Israel protest: ‘Don’t deport Filipino classmates’
•Courts back two capitalist parties’ ballot monopoly
•After GM workers settle, workers at Ford debate, vote on new contract
•Fall Campaign to sell Militant subscriptions and books (week 4)
•Socialist Workers Party Fund Drive (week 4)
Books of the Month •‘Communism is not a doctrine, but a movement’
25, 50 and 75 years ago
Letters
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David Hume
“ In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees
of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of moral
evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence. ”
― David Hume,