How to Build a Revolutionary Party: Propaganda and Intervention Yes! Workerism and Implantation No!
This article argues that building a revolutionary worker’s party requires organizing the developing vanguard of the working class, not substituting for the vanguard by sending Marxists into industrial jobs.
Why Marx looked to the working class
“The revolutionary transformation of capitalism into socialism is necessary, but not inevitable”
The working class is central to Marxism. Marxism was defined as “the theory of international proletarian revolution “by British Marxist John Molyneux. Marx defined socialism as the “self-emancipation of the working class.” Marx was clear about the reason for this working-class orientation: workers are the exploited class in a capitalist society. They produce the wealth that capitalism is based on. They therefore have the power to shut down the system. Workers also have the interest in overthrowing capitalism since they are exploited and oppressed by the system. Workers have the wealth they produce stolen from them. They live in relative poverty compared to the parasites that live off of their labor. Capitalism relies on racism, sexism, environmental destruction, alienation and war, all of which destroy the life prospects of workers and humanity generally. As the anti-globalization movement put it, “Another World is Possible!”. With the threat of the climate crisis and nuclear war, another world is necessary.
Hal Draper explained this in detail in Why the Working Class: https://socialistworker.org/2012/09/14/why-the-working-class
The revolutionary transformation of capitalism into socialism is necessary, but not inevitable. Marx noted that in any revolutionary class struggle there were two possible results: the rising revolutionary class takes power and creates a new social order or it fails. The result of failure will likely be “the mutual ruin of the contending classes”. This is why Rosa Luxemburg said that the resolution of the crisis of capitalism presents two possibilities: Socialism or barbarism.
The Revolutionary Socialist Vanguard Party
“Lenin came to the conclusion that it would take a party made up exclusively of revolutionaries to lead a successful working-class revolution. The party would be based on the vanguard of the working class, those workers who were leading the struggles of the working class.”
Victory for the rising revolutionary class requires organization. Marx developed his theory of revolutionary organization in several writings such as Address to the Communist League: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1847/communist-league/1850-ad1.htm
Lenin further developed the need for organization. The views of Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg and Gramsci are further explored in Marxism and the Party https://www.thriftbooks.com/w/marxism-and-the-party_john-molyneux/1494033/#edition=11166874&idiq=23488054
Party and Class by Chris Harman https://www.marxists.org/archive/harman/1968/xx/partyclass.htm
and Lenin and the Revolutionary Party by Paul Le Blanc among others.
The party would not be an outside elite group but an actual section of the class. He understood that working class consciousness is divided. There are reactionary as well as revolutionary workers, and every shade in between. To be successful, the vanguard section would need to lead the rest of the class in a revolutionary struggle.
This has been the perspective of Leninists since the Russian Revolution of 1917. Everywhere Marxists who follow Lenin’s strategy of organization have tried to build revolutionary socialist vanguard parties based on the most revolutionary workers.
Achieving the Vanguard Party Through Implantation?
“Dismissal of non-industrial workers leads to missing the opportunity to relate to often the most militant sectors of the class. It also leads to ignoring struggles of students and people of color when they don’t organize specifically as workers.”
There are different strategies to achieve the goal of a vanguard party. One of these strategies is implantation. Implantation or industrialization is the strategy of sending students or other Marxists to get jobs in heavy industry. The idea is to engage in class struggle alongside workers and win them to Marxism by showing that Marxists are the best fighters for working class interests. Leftists who favor implantation have drawn this conclusion: Since we need a revolutionary workers party, we should concentrate on recruiting workers in crucial industries right now. This has often meant ignoring other sectors of the population.
There are several problems with this method:
1) It attempts to skip over necessary steps. On the eve of the revolution, Marxists need to be in all the key sections of the working class. If revolutionary workers are not able to shut down the major industries and re-open them under worker’s control, we will not be able to complete the revolution. However, the implantation strategy puts the cart before the horse. We do not know when the revolution will break out. We do not even know what the most important sections of industry will be at that time. (Three decades ago, who would have predicted that IT workers would be vital to the economy?”) Generations of Marxists could spend their lives implanted in dying industries to no avail. Unfortunately, many have! This strategy mistakes the final stages of revolutionary organization for the early stages. Mistaking early phases of revolutionary organization for later phases results in revolutionaries ignoring the tasks that are necessary in early phases. If revolutionaries don’t achieve necessary early goals, they never have the basis to take on the tasks of later phases. To run a marathon, it is necessary to build up gradually. If runners tried to run 26 miles on the first day of training, they would seriously hurt themselves and likely not recover in time to actually run the marathon. Building a revolutionary party is a marathon, not a sprint.
2) It has an archaic idea of who constitutes the working class. Often those who favor implantation pick industries that were central to the economy decades ago. They ignore newly developing areas of the work force. This leads to downplaying the struggles of teachers, nurses, academic workers, IT workers etc. Too often, they don’t see these workers as real workers. Marx did not have this narrow view. Even 150 years ago, he discussed the developing “commercial proletariat”. For Marx, the working class was made up of those who had to sell their labor power to survive, no matter what the particular occupation. In the U.S. today, 75–80% of the population is working class. This dismissal of non-industrial workers leads to missing the opportunity to relate to often the most militant sectors of the class. It also leads to ignoring struggles of students and people of color when they don’t organize specifically as workers.
3) This in turn is often based on and leads to “workerism”: the idea that workers as individuals are more worthwhile than other people. It often goes even further and says that particular workers especially industrial workers are more worthwhile than other workers.
4) Workerism can also lead to opportunist accommodation to the supposed culture and politics of “real” workers. In the 1960s, this led male members of the Progressive Labor Party to cut their hair when they got industrial jobs. In the 70s, industrialized members of the International Socialists took up country music since their co-workers supposedly liked it. More dangerously, this can lead to political accommodation to current attitudes among co-workers. Industrialization led the International Socialists to shift to the right politically in the mid-70s. Some advocates of workerism have gone so far as to say that non-workers are not “quality recruits” to the Marxist movement. One recently said “the problem with Marxist organizations is too many students and not enough workers.” This attitude pushes away people who are good potential revolutionaries and retards the growth of socialist organization. It can also lead to demoralization when “quality recruits” drop away.
5) The implantation strategy often downplays struggles over special oppression and other political issues. It prioritizes struggles over wages and working conditions over other struggles. Obviously, the elimination of exploitation is central to the Marxist project. However, the working class needs to be united in order to overthrow capitalism. The divisions created by racism, sexism, immigrant bashing, bigotry against LGBTQ people etc. prevent the unity necessary to defeat capitalism. Struggles against oppression are in the interest of the whole working class. They are part of the class struggle. They are as important to victory as direct struggles against exploitation at the work place. Often the best fighters against capitalism can be found in the struggles around oppression and other political issues. They have taken a more general stance against capitalism than those who are just focused on their own wage increase. The implantation strategy gets in the way of finding the people most immediately open to Marxist ideas.
6) The implantation strategy is also condescending to the working class. It often assumes that revolutionaries are needed to teach workers to fight back. In fact, workers do not need Marxists to tell them to struggle. To paraphrase Hal Draper: “Workers do not have to believe in class struggle in order to fight the boss any more than a person has to believe in the theory of gravity to fall from an airplane.” Capitalism compels workers to struggle. However, capitalism does not automatically compel the whole working class to go all the way to fight for socialism. People may not need to believe in gravity to fall. However, if they fall from an airplane, they better believe in the theory of parachutes, at least enough to wear one. Likewise, workers don’t need to believe in class struggle to fight bosses, but they do need Marxism to succeed in that struggle. Marxism is the theory of parachutes, not the theory of gravity.
As Lenin noted the working class is divided ideologically. If the most revolutionary workers do not organize together to convince the rest of the working class of revolutionary ideas and strategies, more reactionary ideas can win out. The lack of a strong socialist movement has led to Trumpism among some workers. The role of Marxists is to organize the developing vanguard of the working class with Marxist ideas. This can be done in social and political movements, in outside support for work place struggles as well as directly among co-workers.
Marxists who build a revolutionary organization are not outsiders preaching to the working class. They are part of the naturally developing section of the population that rejects capitalism. Capitalism creates mixed consciousness in individuals but also in the class as a whole. It creates liberal, conservative, reactionary and revolutionary sections of the population. To win, the revolutionary section needs to organize to influence and lead the other sections. Too often, workerists believe there is a major sociological gap between Marxists and the working class. It is actually the implantation strategy that creates an artificial gap! In fact, whether in unions or not, most Marxists are members of the working class. We are not outsiders. We do not have to justify our participation in workers’ struggle by our particular occupation. Marxists who are not members of the working class can also play an important role in building revolutionary Marxist organization, as long as they are committed to achieving working class power. History has shown many examples of middle-class professionals such as Marx and Lenin playing vital roles in the revolutionary workers ‘movement. This is especially true of students. Students come from a variety of class backgrounds. Most will become members of the working class when they graduate, and many are workers while studying.
7) Another problem with implantation is disruption of trust. Most workers in heavy industry do not see themselves as heroes and heroines. They work where they do for financial survival. If they could find an easier way to make a living, most would. When they meet workmates who could be working in easier and more lucrative fields, they wonder why they are working in industry. They distrust their motives. Honesty is necessary to create solidarity. Implanted workers need to pass probation, develop relationships and show they are good workers. This takes time. Usually this means that implanted workers hide their politics and class backgrounds until they are established. This creates unnecessary barriers between implanted cadre and the workers they are trying to organize. When Marxists take jobs that their backgrounds and education indicate instead of implanting because of politics, this barrier doesn’t exist. It becomes easier to organize co-workers who sense that we are all in it together. If Marxist cadre cannot bail out to a cushier job when the going gets rough this creates more acceptance by co-workers. When Marxists work where they would be “naturally” they can be more effective. Proletarianization of many professions makes work place organizing among white collar and professional workers more possible.
8) Finally, implantation is not a way to preserve and build cadre. Being a revolutionary in capitalist society is difficult. It requires sacrifice in time and money, dedication and perseverance. To maintain the level of activity needed to be an effective Marxist, cadre need to jettison burdens that are not necessary. Holding an onerous job only for political reasons is one such unnecessary burden. If comrades are less tired after work, they can spend more time engaging in political organizing. Implantation is a road to burnout. Instead of recruiting potential cadre, it drives out existing cadre.
Building Interventionist Propaganda Groups
“Our goal today is to organize existing and developing Marxists and to create more Marxist cadre. (People who understand and can apply Marxist theory to events and struggles. Experienced Marxists who can lead others). A basic step in this direction is to build groups that propagate Marxist ideas”.
If implantation is not the way to build toward a revolutionary party, what is a better strategy? The Firebrand strategy toward building a revolutionary party is the “interventionist propaganda group” method. This has been elaborated most clearly in From Little Things Big Things Grow by Mick Armstrong:
This approach reverses the terms of the implantation approach:
1) The way to achieve a well rooted, large revolutionary party is to first of all have a larger and more developed revolutionary organization. Our goal today is to organize existing and developing Marxists and to create more Marxist cadre. (People who understand and can apply Marxist theory to events and struggles. Experienced Marxists who can lead others). A basic step in this direction is to build groups that propagate Marxist ideas. Propaganda groups will be most effective when they show the relevance of those ideas by intervening in struggles, hence the need for “interventionist propaganda groups”.
2) To build a larger organization of Marxists, we need to relate to all possible struggles. We do this to increase the level of anti-capitalist struggle, to shift the balance of class forces toward the working class as far as we can with our small numbers and most importantly to find and develop potential Marxist cadre.
3) The revolutionary organization needs to pay special attention to struggles against special oppression and other political struggles. These are the most likely places to find potential Marxist cadre.
4) Marxist education is central to cadre building. This collective education is in Marxist theory and history and also in how to intervene in struggles and how to build organization. As this organization grows, the goal is to influence and merge with the developing vanguard of the working class. The revolutionary party will be created by this merger. Workers will be more likely to join a larger revolutionary organization than a smaller organization made up primarily of their co-workers. The record of the Socialist Workers Party in Britain shows this. They started small with a mostly student base and grew to an organization of several thousand with fractions in many unions. They did this, not by implanting in industry but by being an active interventionist propaganda group that related to union struggles at first mostly from the outside and general social/political struggles. The later degeneration of the SWP is another issue, but the method stands.
The strategy of interventionist propaganda groups has been extensively elaborated in several Firebrand articles. See Firebrand. Red:
https://firebrand.red/2023/06/in-defense-of-revolutionary-organization/
https://firebrand.red/2023/06/building-followers-and-bitter-dissidents-but-not-leaders/
https://firebrand.red/2023/06/years-for-the-locust-part-one-the-myth-of-the-microsect/
https://firebrand.red/2023/07/years-for-the-locust-part-two-leninism-deformed/
