Lenin’s Revolutionary Theory of Organisation
Prakash Karat
AN important area where Lenin took forward Marxist theory and practice is the concept of a revolutionary party. In the course of the Russian Revolution, Lenin struggled to put his theory of organisation into practice. The formation of a Communist Party, based on democratic centralism, is the unique contribution of Lenin.
Organisation, for Lenin, was integral to revolutionary theory. “Without a revolutionary theory, there can be no revolutionary movement”, asserted Lenin in his booklet What Is To Be Done?. This booklet published in 1902 goes on to elaborate how an appropriate organisation alone can translate the revolutionary theory into a revolutionary movement. According to Lenin, “In its struggle for power, the proletariat has no other weapon but organisation.”
Between 1900 and 1906, Lenin struggled within the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) to evolve and establish an organisational structure suitable for a revolutionary party. At that time, the Social Democratic Party was the party of the working class that first developed in Germany and subsequently became the model for all working class parties in Europe. The RSDLP later split into the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and one of the factors in the split was the type of organisation and membership that the party should have.
CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS
The Leninist concept of organisation eventually found expression in the Bolshevik party organisation. Within the working class movement in Russia, Lenin had to first wage a struggle against economists who thought that economic and trade union struggles was sufficient to organise the party. Lenin fought against economism which relied on spontaneity in working class struggles. The economic struggle (which is the trade union struggle) emanates from the workers’ elementary response to exploitation and working conditions. Such spontaneous struggles can only develop trade union consciousness. Lenin wrote: “The history of all countries shows that the working class exclusively by its own effort is able to develop only trade union consciousness.” This is consciousness in an “embryonic form”. Further, he stated: “The spontaneous struggle of the proletariat will not become its genuine `class struggle’ until the struggle is led by a strong organisation of the revolutionaries.”
On the issue of consciousness, Lenin proceeds to make another point by arguing that socialist consciousness or class consciousness develops only “from without”. Lenin emphasized what the Communist Manifesto had stated: “Every class struggle is a political struggle”. A party organised on the basis of Marxism would be the agency “from without” which would be able to inculcate class consciousness among the workers.
VANGUARD ROLE
For Lenin, the Social Democratic Party being the party of the working class could not be an organisation open to all, irrespective of their level of consciousness and commitment. He set out the concept of a `vanguard’, a party consisting of an advanced detachment of the working class. This implies a selection of the most conscious and militant workers as members of the party who will then work among the workers and masses in general through a network of organisations.
He called for an organisation of professional revolutionaries. “The organisation of revolutionaries must consist first and foremost of people who make revolutionary activity their profession.”
Lenin’s demand that the vanguard comprise of professional revolutionaries was dictated by the exigencies of the situation. As soon as the 1905 revolution occurred, Lenin saw the immense possibilities of recruiting thousands of militant and conscious workers. Lenin observed that the revolutionary struggle had produced workers with social-democratic consciousness. The Bolshevik party, which developed henceforth, had a core of professional revolutionaries at various levels along with a rising number of proletarian members who were not full-time workers of the party.
The concept of a vanguard meant that an advanced detachment of workers should constitute the party. But Lenin made it clear that “the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory.” (Vol. 5, p. 370)
The Communist Manifesto had defined the role of Communists as, “The most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country and that 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.”
Lenin’s concept of vanguard party is a realisation of this exposition of Marx and Engels in the historic manifesto. The vanguard contains a dialectical approach – the organisation consists of the selected imbued with working class political consciousness and, in turn, it is this vanguard which champions and acts in support of not just the working class, but all sections of society who are oppressed.
It is only such a vanguard that can unite the various sections of the working class who were stratified into various segments and impart them with working class consciousness. Not only that, the vanguard party is necessary to rally other supporting classes and sections into the revolutionary movement and to further draw in their advanced sections into the vanguard party.
CENTRALISATION
The vanguard party has to be a centralised one, wherein from top to bottom the party could act in a single, centralised way. A centralised party was not envisaged by Lenin merely to meet the conditions of underground work and police repression under the Tsarist autocracy. It was mainly to provide a politically-unified party under a centralised political leadership. To accomplish the political-organisational centralisation, Lenin stressed the need for an all-Russian newspaper as against local publications. Lenin explained that: “A newspaper is not only a collective propagandist and a collective agitator, it is also a collective organiser”.
For Lenin, a centralised party was an absolute requirement to take on the might of the capitalist state with all its centralised resources.
INNER-PARTY DEMOCRACY
The principle of centralism was to be combined with the practice of democracy at all levels of the party. However, at the time of writing What Is To Be Done?, given the high degree of State repression, it was not possible to practice inner-party democracy and have elections for committees at all levels, so the principle of centralism dominated.
But, after the 1905 revolution, when there was a greater degree of political freedom, Lenin called for the elective principle to be enforced in the constitution of party committees at all levels. The powers of the central committee were reduced by according a greater degree of autonomy to the lower committees. By the time of the 4th Congress of the RSDLP in 1906, the principle of democratic centralism was accepted by all and incorporated into the rules of the party. Democratic centralism meant that the widest discussions would take place within the party committees, but once a decision was taken, it would be implemented in a united manner.
The Leninist concept of party organisation does not regiment and exclude vigorous inner-party debates and discussions on both theory and practice. What it offers is the widest scope for debate and discussions while demanding the unity of action on a centralised political line.
DEMOCRATIC CENTRALISM
Democratic centralism is a distillation of the Leninist theory of organisation. It is the framework in which the fusion of centralism and democracy is to be worked out in the concrete conditions, in which a revolutionary party is working.
At the heart of the issue of democratic centralism is not just the organisational structure of the party, but the basic role of a communist party. For social democratic parties, whose perspective is to work within the capitalist system itself, the need for a revolutionary organisation does not arise. Hence democratic centralism is anathema to them. For a communist party which works to overthrow capitalism and the ruling class order, and replace it eventually with socialism, party organisation has to be one which is equipped to wage the political, ideological and organisational struggle against the powerful State and the dominant ruling classes. Such a party organisation cannot be only geared to fight elections in a parliamentary democratic system, however stable and long-lasting it is, or to be engaged only in exercising and utilising the democratic rights and institutions available within the framework of the hegemony of a bourgeois state. The key issue would be whether the party is equipped to organise and lead the working class and the revolutionary mass movement?
Lenin’s conception of the party was to build an organisation which could prepare and develop such a revolutionary mass movement. For this he stressed the importance of recruiting the advanced sections of the working class into the party who can be made politically conscious and hence constitute the vanguard. Such an organisation is steeled through class struggle and mass movements and is able to function in all conditions – of legality, semi-legality and illegality. The exigencies of class politics require an organisation which is able to change the forms of struggle according to the prevailing situation. This requires a centralised party. Democratic centralism is best suited as the organisational principle for a party based on Marxism and class struggle. Class struggle is a collective act. Democratic centralism promotes collective decision making and collective activity; it allows for freedom of thought and unity in action.
Many communist parties have operated in a non-revolutionary situation in the second half of the twentieth century. The situation has become more so in the first two decades of the twenty-first century. But many of these parties have survived because they adhered to democratic centralism. Whatever the ideological-political shortcomings or mistakes, democratic centralism has kept them alive with potential as a revolutionary party. Whereas those parties which abandoned democratic centralism either ceased to be communist parties or disintegrated. The classic example is the Italian Communist Party, the biggest party outside the socialist countries till the early eighties. But much before the collapse of the Soviet Union, it began the journey to liquidation by first giving up democratic centralism that culminated in giving up Marxism.
The historical experience of revolutions in the 20th century affirms the validity of Lenin’s theory of organisation and the practice of democratic centralism in the making of revolutions.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist), when it was formed in 1964, adopted its strategic document – the Party Programme. Along with that, it undertook the task of restructuring the Party organisation on the basis of democratic centralism. This was necessary as revisionism in the united party had corroded the organisational principle of democratic centralism. This is an ongoing task. The experience of building the Party in the concrete conditions that we are facing in India shows the necessity to continue the struggle to build a Party based on democratic centralism.
