Theory and the question of organization (part 2)

Revisiting a discussion on Leninism

In 2014, Ian Birchall, a former member of the Socialist Workers Party in Great Britain (SWP-GB) wrote an article titled “Lenin: Yes! Leninism: No?” This drew a number of responses, one from Phil Gasper and another from Tim Goulet, current members of Tempest and who were members at the time of the now-dissolved International Socialist Organization.

Birchall questions whether “Leninism” is an obstacle for revolutionaries today. He explains:

That Lenin made the question of “organisation” central is undeniable. But to reduce “Leninism” to the truism “we’ve got to get organised” is a bit thin. And on the question of how we should be organised he was extremely flexible … There is no such thing [as a “Leninist party”]; Lenin’s party varied enormously in form according to circumstances.

In essence, Birchall is asking two questions I find very helpful, which he answers in the negative: 1. Is Leninism reducible to “organization”? 2. Is there such a thing as a “Leninist party” form or model?

The negative answer to the second question dovetails with an observation that Gilbert Achcar made in a recent presentation:

[T]he party is a tool for the class struggle, for the revolutionary struggle, and this tool must be adapted to different circumstances. There can’t be a general conception of the party, valid for all times and countries. The class party is not a religious sect patterned on the same model worldwide. It is an instrument for action that must fit the concrete circumstances of each time and country.

Birchall departs from a conception of Leninism that tends to give disproportionate attention to organization in the abstract and goes on to talk about State and Revolution being a critical work for the Russian Revolution. Here he highlights Lenin as a revolutionary thinker and theoretician, and not simply the one who built a disciplined and centralized revolutionary party of the working class.

To carry Birchall’s insight further, if Lenin had not worked out the problem of how socialists should approach the capitalist state, all the discipline and centralization in the Bolshevik Party would have meant nothing. The soviets would not have been able to take power, because the Bolshevik argument to do so would not have been made. Perhaps the pressure from the rank and file of the party and radicalized working class would have forced the argument absent the theoretical grounding backing the conviction, but then this would have led to a more protracted contest for power and possible counterrevolution.

Theory provides the general basis and outline that informs the strategy and tactical plan of a party or organization. In this way, theory is a starting point in the revolutionary process. Having a theoretically informed argument, one is then in a position to organize around it. Why weren’t the Mensheviks as successful as a party during the revolution as the Bolsheviks? Their theory of capitalist development and bourgeois revolution in Russia informed a strategic position of supporting the provisional government (which was formed after the overthrow of the tsar in February 1917) and opposed to taking state power. They did not theorize imperialism or the question of state power to the extent the Bolsheviks did and therefore misunderstood their relationship to the Russian Revolution. However, they were probably more “centralized” than many parties historically and today.

Also, the Bolsheviks were not as centralized during the 1917 revolution as is commonly assumed. Paul Le Blanc in his book Lenin and the Revolutionary Party talks about the initiative among the membership not waiting for mandates from the upper sections of the party.1Paul Le Blanc, Lenin and the Revolutionary Party (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2015), 220-222. China Mieville’s book October describes a Bolshevik Party rife with disagreement and decentralized activity throughout the entire revolutionary period. Following government repression in July, Lenin spent July to October in Finland, had much difficulty getting a hearing among the leading members of the party, and was not always correct in his appraisal of the political situation.2China Miéville, October (London: Verso, 2017), 236-304.

By the time the question of state power was posed, the Russian Revolution and the Bolshevik Party within it had matured to the point where theory, organization and strategy/tactics were working as a dialectical whole with equal parity, each component influencing the other. But to make the strategic argument that an insurrection was necessary in October 1917, let alone deciding on the best tactical plan to carry it out, Lenin needed to better understand the nature of the state. In the political moment of October 1917, theory played as decisive a role in the revolutionary process as organization.

The better the theory: 1. the more convincing it is in describing reality; 2. the more people will want to unite behind an organization; 3. the more unity there will be in an organization among members to act; 4. the more likely a democratic debate will take place on appropriate strategy and tactics in a given situation and 5.; the better the reflection and assessment of its application to living conditions of struggle. Theory is not the be-all-end-all. It is merely a foundation in the revolutionary process through which an organization matures with its strategic and tactical experiences in the movement.

Perhaps part of the confusion in the discussion is that Birchall concludes saying we may need a “centralized organization” in the future when struggles are in a more heightened state, but in the immediate term we need to think about open and less centralized forms that involve maximizing democratic practice within an organization and alongside broader organizations of the working class around specific campaigns. In addition to abstracting the question of organization, this appears to replicate his view—which I believe is faulty—that while a centralized party form was perhaps appropriate in 1968 for the group in which he was involved (International Socialists-Great Britain, IS-GB) to accommodate an explosive radicalization, this notion was not helpful for 2014 when he wrote the article. (More on the problems with this conclusion in the next section).

Birchall presents an opposition between “centralism” and “openness/democracy” in organization. This opposition is the hang-up Birchall has with “Leninism” as it is conceived. Such an opposition can only be resolved by building theoretical capacity throughout an organization while cultivating a culture of informed debate and discussion. If an abstract, depoliticized and “centralized” party form cannot be defended today as conducive, there is never a time when it should be.

Some experiences in revolutionary organization among the International Socialists (IS)

The Socialist Review Group (SRG-GB)/International Socialists (IS-GB)/ Socialist Workers Party-Great Britain (SWP-GB)

During the 1950s and 1960s the Socialist Review Group-Great Britain (SRG-GB) was open theoretically and organizationally, albeit having a modest membership numbering in the hundreds. David McNally has recently noted the positive experience of the SRG during this time. This was a period of profound changes in global capitalism following the Second World War.3For a good summary of how dramatic the economic changes were for revolutionaries to grapple with politically see Paul LeBlanc, “Chapter 1 – Introduction: the Coming American Revolution” in: US Trotskyism 1928-1965. Part II: Endurance. The Coming American Revolution. Dissident Marxism in the United States: Volume 3 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019)

The SRG extended some of this period’s innovative theory to grapple with the new reality: state capitalism in Russia, the permanent arms economy, and how these shaped imperialism in a new form.4Marcel Van Der Linden, “Edward L. Sard (1913-99), Theorist of the Permanent War Economy”. Critique: Journal of Socialist Theory (80). Routledge Press. 16 January,  2018. For SRG elaboration see for example Tony Cliff, “Changes in Stalinist Russia: 1 Changes in the Management of Industry,” “Changes in Stalinist Russia: 2 Changes in the Management of Industry” and Peter Binns “The Theory of State Capitalism.” Regarding Imperialism and Permanent Arms Economy see Michael Kidron, “Imperialism, Highest Stage but One,” “International Capitalism,” and “A Permanent Arms Economy.” These theories provided some attempt at an explanation for the post-war economic boom that occurred in the industrial West as well as its political implications. They informed a strategic perspective (the “third camp”)5This position was first articulated by Max Shachtman among a grouping of Trotskyist dissidents. that opposed both the regimes of the capitalist West and the bureaucratic state capitalist East. The local branches of the group exercised considerable autonomy in their decision-making for how to relate to local initiatives.

In 1968, Europe exploded. The 1968 conference of the SRG shifted toward centralization organizationally to harness the radicalization, and the group was renamed the International Socialists in the following year. The moves of the elected leadership came with substantial criticism from some of its leading members.6See Jon Rudge’s compilation of the 1968 IS Convention discussion available as a document for download at: https://splitsandfusions.wordpress.com/2018/10/12/is-and-the-turn-to-democratic-centralism/. See
documents 3 and 4 for apolitical organizational proposals on the part of the group’s leadership. See documents 12, 13, and 14 by Michael Kidron and documents 16 and 17 by Raymond Chanillor
to understand the countering position which desired more political perspective to justify the leadership’s proposal for a more centralized organization.
Following 1968, the centralization of organizational structures produced more coordinated intervention of the group as a whole into the movement among the British Left. This resulted in not only an increase in membership but a larger profile nationally for a number of years following the 1968 radicalization.7For comprehensive accounts of both successes and failures of the IS/SWP-GB see Jim Higgins, More Years for the Locust: the Origins of the SWP and Ian Birchall, Tony Cliff: A Marxist for His Time, (London: Bookmarks, 2011). Alongside a more centralized party structure came a theorization of the party question and its role in the success of workers revolution.8See Part 1 of this article, note 2.

Nonetheless, the consequences of this turn toward a more centralized organization in the late 1960s and early 1970s came without regard to maintaining the theoretical rigor and political democracy of the previous period. This was observed not only by sympathetic outsiders9See Sam Farber “Impressions of a Visit to Britain,” Los Angeles, Sept.-Oct. 1973, available here. but also leading members of the organization.

In 1977, the IS renamed itself the Socialist Workers Party (SWP-GB) during a period of political retreat generally among the Left. Nonetheless, the undemocratic practices were coupled with centralized party structures resting on the theoretical production of the previous period. A model of Leninism fetishizing organizational forms of democratic centralism dovetailed with a de-politicized bureaucratic centralism.

From 1976 to 1981, the IS/SWP hosted a rich discussion in its journal International Socialism on women’s oppression and liberation. A number of topics were debated among mostly women in the organization: Is the family part of the superstructure or the economic mode of production? Are there “two modes”: one of production and another of reproduction? Is patriarchy theory useful for socialists? How do women’s oppression and exploitation of the working class relate? What is the relationship between feminism and socialism? Can there exist a “socialist feminism”? Where are the sites of women’s oppression in society and how does this influence where to organize among women? Do men benefit from women’s oppression?10See issues 100 and 104 in International Socialism (1st Series) 1969-1974, and issues 1-5, 7, 12, and 14 in International Socialism (2nd Series) 1978-1991.

Following 1981, men in positions of leadership were allowed disproportionate access to the discussion.11From 1976 to 1981, there were 11 articles by women and three by men (two of which were written by Tony Cliff about historical figures in women’s movement with little analysis of the contemporary questions posed concretely in the discussion). From 1984 to 1986, there were four contributions written by men (this includes Tony Cliff’s pamphlet “Class Struggle and Women’s Liberation“) who were also in positions of party leadership and four written by women. Two of the contributions were by Lindsey German substantiating the positions of a male leadership in which she was a member. There was an urgency in the organization to settle on a certain position and move on.12See Harman, “The Sort of Leadership We Need,” 1979. Paradoxically, Harman criticizes the undemocratic structures of the organization and makes the case for the need to democratize while saying that the debate on women’s liberation and the implications for organizing among women needs to be settled urgently for the sake of party unity. In other words, it was decided to end a flourishing debate preemptively in order to present the organization as united. The positions which eventually became an orthodoxy in the organization over the subsequent years were: all feminism is “bourgeois feminism,” women only need socialism to fight for their liberation, separate organizations of women are inferior to organizing for women’s liberation under a united socialist party organization (presumably the SWP), and men do not benefit from women’s oppression.13For the contributions to the debate up to 1981 that articulated these arguments and helped congeal the later orthodoxy established by 1986, see Tony Cliff, “Clara Zetkin and the German Socialist Feminist Movement,” Lindsey German, “Theories of patriarchy,” Chris Harman, “The Sort of Leadership We Need” and Bob Lloyd, “The Holy Family.“

Furthermore, the idea that the way to fight for women’s liberation was to struggle against capitalism generally paired with a dismissal of challenging the behavior of men. In essence, by deflecting the discussion to capitalism being the problem generally, changing male behavior was not a priority. An ideological commitment to liberation on the part of men in the organization was considered sufficient so there was no need for women to organize separately within the group.

In her article ‘Theories of patriarchy,’ Lindsey German argued against all feminism, placed all feminist thought under the umbrella of “patriarchy,” and argued against “the logic … that if we change the attitudes of men we can change the world—as though it were men, not capitalism, which is the problem.” Connected to this argument was a general suspicion and even political hostility to autonomous women’s organizations.14For an excellent rebuttal to German’s article and to Cliff’s article cited in the previous footnote, see Lin James and Anna Paczuska, “Socialism needs feminism“

Is there a connection between this debate on the question of women’s liberation and the sexual assault scandal that rocked the organization twenty years later? On the one hand one can observe a trend to establish an unhealthy theoretical orthodoxy on the question of women’s liberation while on the other landing on a position that could have dangerous consequences for women in the organization.

An orthodoxy was established and defended by the elected leadership from which it was more difficult to move when conditions changed and the women’s movement outside of conscious socialist organization began to reassert itself in new form in the 2010’s.

The International Socialist Organization (ISO-U.S.)

The ISO fell victim to the intellectual rigidity and undemocratic paternalism of its larger “sister” organization, the SWP-GB. When the ISO began to assert its political independence, the SWP responded by expelling the ISO from the International Socialist Tendency (IST) in 2001. By then the ISO had already launched its own journal, the International Socialist Review (ISR), with in-depth analysis on a variety of political questions. A few years later, prominent members of the ISO were instrumental in launching Haymarket Books. Both publishing projects showed a commitment to building an intellectually serious organization.

However, the ISO inherited the SWP-GB tendency to theorize the party question in the abstract. Emphasis on the indispensability of a revolutionary party for revolution dovetailed with a tendency toward building a socialist organization as an end-in-itself. Although the ISO liked to say that it never proclaimed itself a “party” like other Trotskyist groups, it did see itself as making a contribution toward an eventual party. In the beginning, the ISO saw itself as an “embryo” of a future party which presumed a lengthy period of development. In the last two decades of its existence the ISO retreated from this idea and spoke more about future splits and fusions with other groups and tendencies to form such a future party. Despite this relaxation in presuming itself to be an “embryo” of a future party, the difference with other Trotskyist groups was one of degree, not substance. Joining the ISO and building it was seen as the way for one to contribute toward the future party formation.15See David McNally, “The Period, the Party, and the Next Left.”

The ISO also inherited the leadership structures of the SWP-GB. The composition of the leadership changed little over the four decades of its life. The leading body, the Steering Committee, was a residential committee for most of the ISO’s existence, requiring that committee members live in the same city. The inclusion of some members from around the country began in the 2010s with the incorporation of regional organizers—people who were essentially employees of the resident committee. This made the body a fairly insular grouping of people who appeared united and agreed politically all the time. Any debate or disagreement within this body was not shared with the broader membership.

Theorization of the party dovetailed with an ideological rigidity and an organizational culture where ideas could not be fully aired. This was evident in theoretical, organizational, strategic and tactical discussions. A debate in 2006 about the relevance of the theory of “permanent revolution” became unnecessarily hostile. A similar disposition on the part of the leadership permeated the penultimate National Convention (2018), when rank and file members proposed plans for more coordinated labor organizing and international work.

Defense of theoretical propositions concerning identity politics contributed to isolating comrades of color in a majority-white organization. On a number of occasions members of color brought discussion and formal proposals to the annual convention on how to expand non-white membership in the organization.

Members were treated with hostility and defensiveness on the part of the leadership as if their desire to discuss were an accusation directed at the leadership themselves for being an obstacle to change in this direction. Leadership continually attributed the difficulty to recruiting and retaining members of color to living in a society that made it difficult to do so. Members never denied this difficulty but were at the same time searching for solutions and demanding an effort be made.16As a member of the International Socialist Organization I witnessed discussions like these play out on a number of occasions periodically, both during annual Convention discussion periods and the Convention itself. The aversion to a politics of identity also discouraged what could have helped develop some solutions: members of color organizing separately within the group.

The identity politics position of the ISO also reinforced a hostility to feminist thought for the first 37 years of its existence, a position identical to the SWP-GB that dismissed all feminism as “bourgeois feminism.” To its credit, the ISO leadership embraced a “socialist feminism” position in 2013.

The problem here was that the long-held position around feminism only changed when it started with a blessing from the leadership. Although members and sympathizers had criticized the identity politics position of the leadership for years, they wouldn’t get a hearing—or worse, they would be harangued and isolated for assuming a liberal bourgeois position. The top-down structure created a division of labor between leadership “thinkers” and a broader membership of “organizers.” This impeded the organization’s ability to adapt to changes taking place and new ideas ensuing from new realities in the post-2008 era.

After a major sexual assault scandal in the SWP-GB, the Renewal Faction announced itself during the ISO’s 2013 pre-convention period. Prior to the pre-convention period, members raised political disagreements that challenged conventional ISO conceptions concerning the structure of capitalism in the current period as well as the relationship of the union bureaucracy with rank and file union members. It also argued for a strategic orientation for organizing in the South. Over the course of the year, the local and national ISO leadership politically isolated a member who had been at the center of raising these issues.

In one incident the leadership ignored a valid grievance of potential harm committed against this member (who later organized the Renewal Faction) by another held in more favorable regard. In response, the Renewal Faction concluded:

What this whole incident demonstrates is that the ISO leadership faction has created a culture in which “leaders” or “stars” who support the leadership’s policies uncritically are permitted to do anything, regardless of the potential or actual harm to the organization, while those who draw attention to problems are denigrated for doing so. There is an unspoken double standard within the organization, based on whether members openly challenge the leadership, or publicly agree (while perhaps hiding their actual disagreements). Ultimately the environment the SC [Steering Committee] is creating by this mode of operating is one where people are learning to keep their heads down if they have any serious criticisms, opening up the possibility that serious crises may be ignored or spiral out of control while no one dares to point out the actual danger. It is impossible to build a party that aims to take down capitalism on this basis. This attitude may work for a sect or a cult, but ISO members must reject it if we wish to contribute to building a revolutionary socialist movement.17ISO Renewal Faction. Who crossed what line? ISO Renewal Faction responds to ISO Steering Committee. Pre-Convention Bulletin #16, January 27th, 2014.

This observation was particularly prescient given that another “star” in the ISO sexually assaulted a woman around the same time this was written. The ISO leadership did not act on the conclusion reached by the National Disciplinary Committee unanimously that sexual misconduct had been committed by a male member of the group. Many members concluded that no disciplinary action was taken against the member due to their popularity among the leadership and their perceived value to building the organization. Ultimately, the ISO tragedy was the leadership’s decision to preserve the organization as it existed over a principled stand against a specific instance of acute oppression under its own roof.

Although the revealing of the sexual assault case in 2013 ultimately brought about the dissolution of the ISO in 2019, it was the socialist radicalization around the Bernie Sanders campaign that threw the organization into uncharted waters. Because there was little culture of serious debate and the leadership acted as gatekeepers as to what constituted good ideas and positions, the organization was ill-equipped to handle debate around how to relate to the Sanders campaign and the tactical question of whether to support “socialist” candidates on Democratic ballots.

If a more accepting organizational culture had been established that entrusted members beyond the leadership with political confidence, it would have increased the likelihood of a better handling of the sexual assault case. It would have also produced a more healthy discussion around the Sanders campaign and socialist use of the Democratic Party ballot line.

In the end, an organization will only be as healthy as the ideas guiding it that inform action, no matter the scale. Theorization of the organization question can easily lead to privileging organization as an end in itself, producing an abstract model that is inflexible when political conditions change. Worse, it can be an obstacle to managing harm.

What explains the organizational crises?

There are a number of explanations that offer insight for why these revolutionary organizations are prone to crisis.

The first explanation is that changes in capitalism following the Second World War destroyed the vanguard layer (“militant minority”) of socialists who led the working class struggle in the 1930’s.

This explanation certainly describes what has been decisive in creating the difficult conditions today for building a party. Even before repression of labor in the reactionary period of the 1950s, the Communist Party (CP) worldwide had retreated from a revolutionary theory and practice to an opportunist one, putting forward the “popular front” strategy in 1935 at the Seventh Congress of the Communist International.

The rank and file workers who had built their respective labor movements from the bottom up were told to politically meld with the labor officialdom and capitalist parties through the iron discipline of their CP. The political rot of Stalinism softened what was once a true working class vanguard. This created a supple layer of politically passive bureaucrats ill-equipped to face revolution, the repression to follow, and the carrot of a prolonged expansion of capitalism in the core industrial countries following the Second World War.

The destruction of the militant minority and its absence today leads to the conclusion that this must be reconstituted. This is essential to begin the exploration of how to do so.

A second explanation is that the political period of retreat in the late 1970s and 1980s negatively impacted small revolutionary groups. This explanation, like the first, describes the difficult context in which socialist revolutionaries are forced to operate. However, in the case of the SWP-GB, it was more theoretically open and relatively more politically healthy during a reactionary period of the 1950’s. They then decided to centralize during a period of upheaval following 1968 and continued to do so during the political retreat of the late 1970s. In other words, the subjective decision to maintain greater degrees of local initiative or centralize operations was made independent of whether the period was one of political retreat or increased struggle.

A third explanation, articulated by David McNally, is the implementation of a “micro-party” model that was bureaucratic-centralist in its method. According to this view, there is no problem with Leninist “party-building” itself, or “Leninism,” but how it is implemented.18Natalia Tylim provides the first explanation in their contribution to following discission: “Revolutionary Socialist Organizations in the 21st Century.” David McNally provides both explanations in an interview with Tempest “Reflections on revolutionary socialist organization today.”

The “micro-party” is good as a description for how groups like the SWP-GB operated to survive and reproduce their organization in difficult political conditions. But it was not the intention of these groups to build a “micro-party.” Doing so was the unintended consequence of what they believed to be the “Leninist” way to build a revolutionary party of the future.

All these explanations offer insight into the problem. But they are insufficient to address what an organization can do today to mitigate the difficulties it faces at the political margins.

We need to go further and interrogate the relationship between theory and organization. For the SWP-GB there was a turn in the 1970s away from maintaining the theoretical rigor of the previous period alongside a theorization of an abstract Leninist party form. The atrophy of theoretical inquiry accompanied arguments for a depoliticized organizational form of “democratic centralism.” Theoretical orthodoxy accompanied organizational rigidity and undemocratic practices.

One common feature of these organizations (past and present) is that theoretical inquiry and intellectual work is concentrated among a small group of leaders who become guardians of an orthodoxy and are slow to take up new ideas. If the general membership challenged the theoretical ideas of the leaders, the organization would isolate or simply ignore them. This shaped a general organizational attitude and culture that ostensibly under the rubric of Leninist democratic centralism insulated the leadership from political criticism and accountability.

The relative autonomy of theory and organization

Marx, Engels, and Lenin remain key figures for revolutionaries today. Their starting point was having ideas that could guide the revolutionary movement. With enough theoretical grounding they became staunch proponents of building revolutionary organizations when the working class movement was ripe. These organizations varied in form and brought theory to the movement in the form of a more refined perspective, strategy and tactics.

Once theory and perspective provide a kick start to an organizational formation of sorts, no matter how immature or rudimentary, the theory, organization, and strategy/tactics, mutually reinforce one another and grow in combination.

It is possible that an organization which stagnates theoretically and settles into an orthodoxy, maintains a strong organization that is still able to influence the movement in a positive direction.

Probably the best example of this is the Communist Party in the 1930s, which successfully organized struggles of the unemployed, militant labor strikes that helped build the Congress of Industrial Organization (CIO), and campaigns against racism. The Communist Party inherited the prestige of the earlier period of international struggle for socialism following the First World War. During that period, and subsequently, it trained layers of cadre who were able to lead despite poor theoretical orientations of “Socialism in One Country” and the “Black Belt” which produced the strategic zig-zags of the ‘third period’ and subsequent “popular front.”19To understand the positive organizing role the CP maintained in the 1930’s among the unemployed see Irving Bernstein, The Lean Years: A History of the American Worker, 1920-1933 (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2010); regarding anti-rascist organizing see Robin D. G. Kelley, Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015) and Paul D’Amato, “The Communist Party and Black Liberation in the 1930’s“; concerning labor struggles that ultimately built the CIO see Art Pries, Labor’s Giant Step: First Twenty Years of the CIO 1935-55 (New York: Pathfinder Press, 1972). Kelley, D’Amato, and Pries all discuss the CP’s political limitations that led to their ultimate betrayal of Black’s, labor and Black labor in the 1930’s.

On a more modest scale this can be observed with the example of British IS. Its theoretical strength20Probably best exemplified in its book World Crisis, a compilation of essays on a number of theoretical questions offering valuable insights into the post– Second World War reality. See Nigel Harris and John Palmer, World Crisis, (New York: Routledge, 2023). carried it through the radicalization of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The IS built the shop stewards movement and gained a national profile. It was central to forming the Anti Nazi League and helped defeat a resurgence of the fascist right in England in the late 1970s. A theoretical blindspot for the IS, typical on the socialist left at this time, was a lack of theorizing oppression sufficiently. Along with its turn to organizational centralization, this negatively affected its ability to grapple with this discussion when political conditions were more challenging.

The Socialist Workers Party in the United States (SWP-US) in the 1960’s-70’s produced a rich discussion regarding Black oppression. This facilitated real engagement with the Civil Rights and later black nationalist movements.21See Paul LeBlanc, “Chapter 4 – Challenges of Black Liberation, ” in Dissident Marxism in the US Volume 4. US Trotskyism 1928-1965 Part III: Resurgence. Uneven and Combined Development, (Chicago: Haymarket Books, 2019), 282-402. Historical opposition to imperialist war gave the SWP the foundation for building broad campaigns in opposition to the war in Vietnam. However, later acrimonious over competing perspectives exaggerated heretics from true believers, and dissolved into a non-entity politically removed from reality ending in its merger with the Communist Party of Cuba.22This summary is based on informal conversations with long time SWP member Mike Alewitz whom I have had the privilege of being acquainted with for the past seven years.

The International Socialist Organization (ISO) organized unapologetically for free abortion on demand despite inheriting a limited theoretical elaboration of the SWP-GB. The organization also launched the Campaign to End the Death Penalty (CEDP), a group dedicated to highlighting the racist nature of the death penalty. The membership of the CEDP was predominately Black and had to engage in a whole range of politics and strategies to win freedom for those on death row. The ISO also took a principled position against U.S. imperialism that remained consistent over the period of its existence.23To understand in greater detail positions taken by the ISO on a number of questions see The International Socialist Review.

Nonetheless, what a cursory view of these organizations demonstrates is that over the long term, to use the old cliche: “What goes up must come down.” Our capitalist reality is constantly changing. In order to account for these changes theory must be continually revisited, refined, and even discarded or an organization will come to a dead end. This requires an organization that maintains an open disposition to theoretical inquiry.

Although an open theoretical disposition is a starting point to which an organization must continually return, it is not sufficient nor a panacea.

Socialisme ou Barbarie, a French revolutionary socialist group maintained a theoretical openness in the period following the Second World War. However, it produced little in terms of action and practice and fell apart on the cusp of the 1968 French general strike.

Solidarity has a history of membership representing a variety of revolutionary socialist tendencies and traditions with roots among the working class. It produced Labor Notes, a network of trade union activists with a publication and annual conferences.

Nonetheless, over the long term, this diversity and openness did not translate into agreed-upon common action, and the group has struggled to draw in and train younger generations of activists in revolutionary socialism.

An alternative approach for today

Today, defense of the need for a “centralized revolutionary party of the working class” as a future goal will not suffice. A “centralized revolutionary party” may be, and mean, many things concretely. Bolshevik success was due less to an organizational model of democratic centralism and due more to having better ideas and action that were more firmly rooted among the working class.  Democratic centralism is predicated on quality ideas engaged with a real movement to overthrow capitalism. Process without guiding theory and rigorous debate is a dead end for revolutionary organization.

As with Duncan Hallas’ insightful 1971 article “Towards a Revolutionary Socialist Party,” Gasper’s and Goulet’s responses to Birchall mention theory as an important component to building a revolutionary organization and eventually a party. I only want to emphasize that quality theory, and the political discussion and debate that results, is not a bullet point under what constitutes a good organization. Rather it is the central element that conditions, shapes, and will build a successful revolutionary organization of critical thinkers who can independently evaluate any given situation and propose a way forward.

Unfortunately, Leninism tends to be reduced to the need for “a disciplined and centralized revolutionary party of the working class.” This forces the discussion within narrow limits and compels those arguing for Leninism to defend a depoliticized organizational form. To use Hallas’ title, instead of “Toward a revolutionary socialist party,” I think a better framing for today is “Toward revolutionary socialist theory for today.”

Perhaps we could start with mapping out the critical and current theoretical debates on the left on a number of topics: capitalism today; the labor movement; social reproduction; imperialism; racial oppression; sexual and gender-based oppression; migrant oppression; the climate emergency; development of the far-right/fascism, etc.

These topics are very general, will require more specificity, and even overlap. For example, understanding capitalism today could involve looking more in-depth into the neoliberal period of capitalism and comparing it with the current economic moment post-2008 in the U.S. and worldwide. How have these economic periods shaped the working class internationally? How does oppression and exploitation work together to shape the working class and its resistance? What are the material factors in this development that make it difficult to form independent parties of the working class? Are there modest developments toward independent working class organization taking place? What can we learn from these and how to we extend them to other places?

The more educated a membership is on these questions (which are all inherently international): 1. the better prepared they will be to analyze the conditions in which they are active 2. the better they will be in organizing and leading. 3. the more confident they will be when moving against the popular stream of ideas and 4. the more likely they will commit to building a socialist organization over the long term.

Each map (a bibliography) should include non-Marxist writers and intellectuals who offer valuable insights, or sharply counter, or qualify, Marxist viewpoints. Working groups exist in Tempest and some are already doing what is suggested here. One working group in particular is drafting an approach for how to deal with sexual assault and harassment, a process that has been ongoing since the founding of Tempest. This has required members to delve into literature outside the Marxist canon to develop something appropriate for the organization today.

With quality theory one has the basis to build quality revolutionary organization. That does not mean everyone who does have good theory, will build one. It only means that theory is a prerequisite for organization. And the reverse is not true: if one builds an organization without rigorous theory, debate, and discussion that engages the full membership, the organization will degenerate into a moralistic, bureaucratic, and abusive enterprise.

“Organization” as a question is informative so long as it is considered a tool corresponding to the political conditions today. The emphasis of “democratic centralism” in organization today among small groups of revolutionaries should be to “centralize” theoretical inquiry, education, political discussion, and questions raised in the movements in which members are immersed. If this is done adequately, the centralization of action will follow as independent movements emerge and mature. “Democratic centralism” today should not mean focusing on building a prefigured organizational model of centralized intervention for future social explosions. Nor should it mean doing so absent a sound theoretical and political foundation that engages the full membership, the broader left, and continually adjusts to account for the dynamism of reality so as to be a real guide for movements.

Returning to the original proposition that Leninism, and Marxism, can be viewed as a dialectical unity of theory, organization, and strategy/tactics, one can see that these three elements mutually reinforce one another, for better or for worse. In the case of many revolutionary socialist groups, an over-emphasis on formal organizational structures abstracted from political theory and perspective develops alongside theoretical orthodoxy. In other words, organizational sectarianism is reflected in theoretical sectarianism. This tends to produce strategic and tactical “interventions” of revolutionaries into the working class movement that are inorganic and awkward.

Theory is only as good as its ability to guide the practice of revolutionaries who are trying to build resistance. Theory needs to be constantly calibrated to match reality as closely as possible. Organizing is critical in the role of bringing the theory and perspective to life and will only be as good as the theory and practice sustaining it.

How do we move forward today? The world is very complex, and the revolutionaries who are trying to organize against the system are few. This requires a non-sectarian approach to theoretical inquiry as well as democratic access to this theory among the membership. Trusting the membership of the group to be able to engage with, and even contribute to theoretical inquiry will help establish a non-sectarian organization. It also requires putting faith in the rank and file of an organization to assume leadership of that organization, their ability to digest theory critically and apply it to the movement in which they participate.

Such an approach within the organization will also reinforce a non-sectarian approach toward others on the Left. We will better be able to engage in joint work with others if we understand what ideas guide their actions, what they are reading, what podcasts they are listening to, what are they doing, etc. We will learn a lot from others who are not self-identified socialists. This engagement will also sharpen our ideas as revolutionaries and contribute to the body of knowledge that is Marxism.

A shift in emphasis from “organization” to “theory” should not mean reaching a comfortable unanimity and theoretical orthodoxy. It simply means understanding the terrain of debate among the left on a number of theoretical questions that are important for us to learn about and discuss.

Tempest is approaching the question of organization uniquely today. There is a working theory (theories) of sorts which falls under the broad label of “socialism from below.” As Tempest works through its ideas, it has chosen to be an open organization, accepting of a variety of viewpoints, and seeking out organizational forms of process that facilitate this openness. The goal, I believe, should never be to settle on a theoretical orthodoxy; rather, it should continually strive for greater clarity about the capitalist reality as it exists and the resistance to that reality on the part of the working class and oppressed.

Tempest has a unique opportunity relative to other socialist groups to discover and enrich its understanding of socialism from below in a non-sectarian manner and build on the authentic Marxist tradition of resistance in the twenty-first century. The open structure is designed to allow revolutionaries to come together and grapple with the complex reality we face utilizing the Marxist (and valuable non-Marxist) theoretical landscape today and its debates. Doing so will better inform action in the movement of the working class and oppressed. Action in movement will refine and reconstruct better theory to again inform and build the movement.

Opinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see “About Tempest Collective.”