Some guy on a commie forum
It has been 163 years since the founding of the Communist League, the first international revolutionary working class organization. Today, the working class remains enslaved and exploited as it was then.
The “revolutionary left,” made up of various outfits calling themselves communist, socialist or some variation thereof, is weak, atomized and disheveled. In the midst of the biggest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression it is unable to make any real progress. Meanwhile, the crises inherent to capitalism itself are awakening a growing number of working people. As many of these workers become active and get involved in leftist politics they see a clear lack of advancement that causes them to raise the question, “what are we doing wrong?”
But while this question addresses the failure of the left, it misses the main point: rather than being a tool through which the working class can liberate itself, the left is actually a black hole where proletarian militancy goes to die.
Leftist organizations stand outside of the working class. In their propaganda and communications, they refer to the working class (or worse, “the masses” or “the people”) as an external force to be harnessed to achieve victory, with individual workers being something like pieces on a chess board. Thus, we hear phrases like “winning over a section of the proletariat,” “persuading the backward masses” and “mobilizing the workers.” They talk at the workers instead of with us.
This is because rather than being an organic part of the working class, intertwined in our existence and struggles, the left hovers around us like a vulture circling an injured animal. At best, leftist groups send members into work places or working class communities to “proletarianize” and “lay down roots,” or they recruit a few active workers. At worst, they send propaganda-wielding representatives to every outbreak of class struggle like ambulance chasing personal injury attorneys.
Even in those few organizations in which working people make up a large part of the membership (allowing the organizations in question and their supporters and envious competitors to point to their “roots in the proletariat”), the actions and positions are decided by individuals belonging to other classes.
The leftist organizations are set up like businesses trying to “make it big.” They carry out their work with the idea that the brand of socialism they are selling is better than that of their competitors. Their “customers” are their recruits.
These outfits maintain their organization and premise their recruitment on the myth that some day in the future working people will flock to their ranks en masse, while at the same time they operate comfortably in the niche they have carved out for themselves.
In practice, the left groups operate like religious sects, complete with their own doctrines and canons of scripture. Complete acceptance of the tenets is a requirement of membership. Members who deviate from these established “norms” must repent their sins or face excommunication.
The left organizations attempt to draw an unbroken thread running from the first incarnations of working class organization to themselves to “prove” their rightful positions as standard bearers of the communist mantle. Like a poor man seeking glory by searching for royalty in his ancestry, they bend over backwards in an effort to trace their lineage back to this or that individual or “revolutionary tradition.”
The so-called revolutionary left exists in its own ghetto, escaping only occasionally here and there in desperate gasps for air. It carries out its own activities and then reports them in its own media, which is largely ignored by those outside of its own ranks. It has developed its own insular subculture, replete with terminology, “acceptable practices,” heroes, and “trainspotters” more interested in feuds and gossip within the left than real movements by the working class. Like a living thing, its main aim is self-preservation.
In short, the left has its own interests, and they are separate from those of the working class.
It is because of this that communists must abandon the left and resume our place in our class.
As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explained in The Communist Manifesto, communists “are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. “
Rather than leaving our class and attaching ourselves to this or that external organization we need to be fighting from within our class, as a part of it.
Again, from the Manifesto: “The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”
Every day of working class existence is a struggle. We communists need to be energetically engaged in every battle on the basis of our interests as workers. We must be at the forefront of fights for higher wages and better conditions in our jobs, against rent hikes and land lords in our dwellings, against cost of living increases in our cities, against divisions and restrictions forced upon us, etc., while constantly seeking to link up with the struggles of fellow workers elsewhere.
In The German Ideology, Marx wrote, "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.”
Our goal isn’t to sell our fellow workers any great ideas or pre-made formulas ready for implementation. We simply encourage them to think critically and to grasp things as they really are so that they can act on their own.
Throughout the struggles in which we are involved, we must represent the future of the movement by constantly working to help our fellow workers become conscious of their historic task of overthrowing capitalism. In this we are simply giving expression to the interests of our class as a whole and pointing out the conditions for our liberation.
At the same time, we must expose all pitfalls and enemies, using history as our guide.
As Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy, “Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests.”
We must do all we can to facilitate the transformation of the working class into “a class for itself,” that is, a class that is united and prepared to act in its own interests. Workers are already capable of carrying out production, but elsewhere we are lacking. We need to strengthen ourselves. What we don’t need are leftists and their organizations.
In 1885, Engels wrote, "A whole generation lies between then [1836, when the League of the Just, forbearer of the Communist League, was formed] and now. At that time Germany was a country of handicraft and of domestic industry based on hand labor; now it is a big industrial country still undergoing continual industrial transformation. At that time one had to seek out one by one the workers who had an understanding of their position as workers and of their historico-economic antagonism to capital, because this antagonism itself was only just beginning to develop. Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations. … The international movement of the European and American proletariat has become so much strengthened that not merely its first narrow form — the secret League — but even its second, infinitely wider form — the open International Working Men’s Association — has become a fetter for it, and that the simple feeling of solidarity based on the understanding of the identity of class position suffices to create and to hold together one and the same great party of the proletariat among the workers of all countries and tongues….”
Solidarity, the glue that binds the modern international working class, is what is required.
As Eugene Debs said, "Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results."
The working class needs to develop its own culture, conscience and voice. We communists need to encourage and take part in that development, which will require the establishment and expansion of working class media, arts, gatherings and other avenues of connection and interaction. In place of the left sects with more committees and official position than members, and their counterparts in the “mass” left organizations that grow in proportion to their abandonment of the working class, we simply need avenues of communication.
Our class must become self-aware, self-acting and independent in order to establish the necessary solidarity, based on real, shared interests and a common outlook and aspiration.
Once that is achieved, the road to liberation will be opened wide.
Like bourgeois politicians aspiring to public office, it is a common feature of leftists to present themselves as superior beings, free from all of the prejudices and imperfections of the unwashed toiling masses, even when doing so requires the kind of lies and cover-ups typical of the aforementioned politicians. But we communists are not perfect, nor are we saints. We came to the understanding presented here through our own experiences as working people involved with the left.
No doubt there are many well-intentioned communist workers in the ranks of the leftist organizations. To them we say: abandon the dead-end politics and isolation and join your class in battle. Leave the left behind!
The “revolutionary left,” made up of various outfits calling themselves communist, socialist or some variation thereof, is weak, atomized and disheveled. In the midst of the biggest crisis of capitalism since the Great Depression it is unable to make any real progress. Meanwhile, the crises inherent to capitalism itself are awakening a growing number of working people. As many of these workers become active and get involved in leftist politics they see a clear lack of advancement that causes them to raise the question, “what are we doing wrong?”
But while this question addresses the failure of the left, it misses the main point: rather than being a tool through which the working class can liberate itself, the left is actually a black hole where proletarian militancy goes to die.
Leftist organizations stand outside of the working class. In their propaganda and communications, they refer to the working class (or worse, “the masses” or “the people”) as an external force to be harnessed to achieve victory, with individual workers being something like pieces on a chess board. Thus, we hear phrases like “winning over a section of the proletariat,” “persuading the backward masses” and “mobilizing the workers.” They talk at the workers instead of with us.
This is because rather than being an organic part of the working class, intertwined in our existence and struggles, the left hovers around us like a vulture circling an injured animal. At best, leftist groups send members into work places or working class communities to “proletarianize” and “lay down roots,” or they recruit a few active workers. At worst, they send propaganda-wielding representatives to every outbreak of class struggle like ambulance chasing personal injury attorneys.
Even in those few organizations in which working people make up a large part of the membership (allowing the organizations in question and their supporters and envious competitors to point to their “roots in the proletariat”), the actions and positions are decided by individuals belonging to other classes.
The leftist organizations are set up like businesses trying to “make it big.” They carry out their work with the idea that the brand of socialism they are selling is better than that of their competitors. Their “customers” are their recruits.
These outfits maintain their organization and premise their recruitment on the myth that some day in the future working people will flock to their ranks en masse, while at the same time they operate comfortably in the niche they have carved out for themselves.
In practice, the left groups operate like religious sects, complete with their own doctrines and canons of scripture. Complete acceptance of the tenets is a requirement of membership. Members who deviate from these established “norms” must repent their sins or face excommunication.
The left organizations attempt to draw an unbroken thread running from the first incarnations of working class organization to themselves to “prove” their rightful positions as standard bearers of the communist mantle. Like a poor man seeking glory by searching for royalty in his ancestry, they bend over backwards in an effort to trace their lineage back to this or that individual or “revolutionary tradition.”
The so-called revolutionary left exists in its own ghetto, escaping only occasionally here and there in desperate gasps for air. It carries out its own activities and then reports them in its own media, which is largely ignored by those outside of its own ranks. It has developed its own insular subculture, replete with terminology, “acceptable practices,” heroes, and “trainspotters” more interested in feuds and gossip within the left than real movements by the working class. Like a living thing, its main aim is self-preservation.
In short, the left has its own interests, and they are separate from those of the working class.
It is because of this that communists must abandon the left and resume our place in our class.
As Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels explained in The Communist Manifesto, communists “are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.
“The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other proletarian parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. “
Rather than leaving our class and attaching ourselves to this or that external organization we need to be fighting from within our class, as a part of it.
Again, from the Manifesto: “The Communists fight for the attainment of the immediate aims, for the enforcement of the momentary interests of the working class; but in the movement of the present, they also represent and take care of the future of that movement.”
Every day of working class existence is a struggle. We communists need to be energetically engaged in every battle on the basis of our interests as workers. We must be at the forefront of fights for higher wages and better conditions in our jobs, against rent hikes and land lords in our dwellings, against cost of living increases in our cities, against divisions and restrictions forced upon us, etc., while constantly seeking to link up with the struggles of fellow workers elsewhere.
In The German Ideology, Marx wrote, "Communism is for us not a state of affairs which is to be established, an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions of this movement result from the premises now in existence.”
Our goal isn’t to sell our fellow workers any great ideas or pre-made formulas ready for implementation. We simply encourage them to think critically and to grasp things as they really are so that they can act on their own.
Throughout the struggles in which we are involved, we must represent the future of the movement by constantly working to help our fellow workers become conscious of their historic task of overthrowing capitalism. In this we are simply giving expression to the interests of our class as a whole and pointing out the conditions for our liberation.
At the same time, we must expose all pitfalls and enemies, using history as our guide.
As Marx wrote in The Poverty of Philosophy, “Economic conditions had first transformed the mass of the people of the country into workers. The combination of capital has created for this mass a common situation, common interests. This mass is thus already a class as against capital, but not yet for itself. In the struggle, of which we have noted only a few phases, this mass becomes united, and constitutes itself as a class for itself. The interests it defends become class interests.”
We must do all we can to facilitate the transformation of the working class into “a class for itself,” that is, a class that is united and prepared to act in its own interests. Workers are already capable of carrying out production, but elsewhere we are lacking. We need to strengthen ourselves. What we don’t need are leftists and their organizations.
In 1885, Engels wrote, "A whole generation lies between then [1836, when the League of the Just, forbearer of the Communist League, was formed] and now. At that time Germany was a country of handicraft and of domestic industry based on hand labor; now it is a big industrial country still undergoing continual industrial transformation. At that time one had to seek out one by one the workers who had an understanding of their position as workers and of their historico-economic antagonism to capital, because this antagonism itself was only just beginning to develop. Today the entire German proletariat has to be placed under exceptional laws, merely in order to slow down a little the process of its development to full consciousness of its position as an oppressed class. At that time the few persons whose minds had penetrated to the realization of the historical role of the proletariat had to forgather in secret, to assemble clandestinely in small communities of 3 to 20 persons. Today the German proletariat no longer needs any official organization, either public or secret. The simple self-evident interconnection of like-minded class comrades suffices, without any rules, boards, resolutions or other tangible forms, to shake the whole German Empire to its foundations. … The international movement of the European and American proletariat has become so much strengthened that not merely its first narrow form — the secret League — but even its second, infinitely wider form — the open International Working Men’s Association — has become a fetter for it, and that the simple feeling of solidarity based on the understanding of the identity of class position suffices to create and to hold together one and the same great party of the proletariat among the workers of all countries and tongues….”
Solidarity, the glue that binds the modern international working class, is what is required.
As Eugene Debs said, "Solidarity is not a matter of sentiment but a fact, cold and impassive as the granite foundations of a skyscraper. If the basic elements, identity of interest, clarity of vision, honesty of intent, and oneness of purpose, or any of these is lacking, all sentimental pleas for solidarity, and all other efforts to achieve it will be barren of results."
The working class needs to develop its own culture, conscience and voice. We communists need to encourage and take part in that development, which will require the establishment and expansion of working class media, arts, gatherings and other avenues of connection and interaction. In place of the left sects with more committees and official position than members, and their counterparts in the “mass” left organizations that grow in proportion to their abandonment of the working class, we simply need avenues of communication.
Our class must become self-aware, self-acting and independent in order to establish the necessary solidarity, based on real, shared interests and a common outlook and aspiration.
Once that is achieved, the road to liberation will be opened wide.
Like bourgeois politicians aspiring to public office, it is a common feature of leftists to present themselves as superior beings, free from all of the prejudices and imperfections of the unwashed toiling masses, even when doing so requires the kind of lies and cover-ups typical of the aforementioned politicians. But we communists are not perfect, nor are we saints. We came to the understanding presented here through our own experiences as working people involved with the left.
No doubt there are many well-intentioned communist workers in the ranks of the leftist organizations. To them we say: abandon the dead-end politics and isolation and join your class in battle. Leave the left behind!
