In 1901-1902 V.I. Lenin wrote a lengthy pamphlet on what he felt were the main political errors of the Russian Social Democratic (the term for “Communist” at that time) movement of that period. The pamphlet, What Is To Be Done?, concentrates its attacks on the economist, “spontaneist” tendencies in the Russian socialist movement. In the course of his argument, Lenin refers to the “stages theory put forward by the proponents of Economism in the periodical Rabocheye Dyelo:
The ’stages theory’ or the theory of ’timid zigzags’ in the political struggle is expressed ... in the following way: ’Political demands, which in their character are common to the whole of Russia, should, however, at first ... correspond to the experience gained by the given stratum of workers in the economic struggle. Only on the basis of this experience can and should political agitation be taken up...’ (Peking, 1973, pg. 56)
The theory quoted above should be very familiar to members of the WESTERN VOICE collective, whether or not they have read What Is To Be Done? It is, in fact, the operative theory behind the W.V.’s strategy for the past two and a half years and has been repeated in one form or another by nearly everyone who has been associated with the WESTERN VOICE collective for any length of time, although the clearest and most consistent proponents of this theory have been the active supporters of the X/Y line.
X/Y outline the main tasks of the WV as increasing “the scope, intensity, and numbers of people in mass struggles”. The theory propounded in that paper and the practice associated with it (both before and after its publication) is nothing more than the opportunist “stage theory” in a new form. The theory argues that the working class is basically unable to respond to political ideas and that our task should be almost strictly “agitational”, putting forth as examples the most militant and “advanced” sections of the spontaneous working class movement.
What is wrong with this “stage theory” is that it denies some of the most important and fundamental lessons to be drawn from the long history of working class struggle internationally and the role of the Communist movement in that history. Continuing the quote from Lenin’s attack on Rabochye Dyelo makes this point very clearly:
...the author [of the article in Rabochye Dyelo, ed.], protesting against what he regards as the absolutely unfounded charge of Economist heresy, pathetically exclaims: ’What Social Democrat does not know that according to the theories of Marx and Engels the economic interests of various classes play a decisive role in history and consequently, that particularly the proletariat’s struggle for the defense of its economic interests must be of first-rate importance to its class development and struggle for emancipation? The word ’consequently’ is absolutely out of place. The fact that economic interests play a decisive role does not in the least imply that the economic (i.e. trade union) struggle is of prime importance for the most essential, “decisive” interests of classes can be satisfied only by radical political changes in general. In particular the fundamental economic interests of the proletariat fan be satisfied only by a political revolution that will replace the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie by the dictatorship of the proletariat... (Ibid. 56-57)
The WESTERN VOICE has been guilty of exactly the same error as Rabochye Dyelo. We have continually and consistently emphasized the spontaneous, economic, trade union struggle and just as continuously and consistently ignored the necessity for political struggle. This manifests itself in a refusal to speak about the solution to the problems of workers which we regularly expose, an utter failure to talk about socialism, revolution, the dictatorship of the proletariat or the science of Marxism-Leninism which makes it possible for the working class to achieve the overthrow of capitalism.
The specific examples of these errors are so numerous that they hardly need pointing out. Virtually every issue of the WV contains at least one mystification of a spontaneous, defensive trade union struggle, characterising it by its emphasis and placement in the newspaper, combined with the complete lack of political analysis, as something of immense significance to the working class. The front-page headline article on the situation in the Vancouver post office (V. 4, no. 17) fits very well into this mold. It contains no political information and simply repeats for the nth time that the companies, media, and the government are out to get the workers. Our only solution is praising the militancy of the rank and file and, in this case, the local leadership. We know damn well that the fundamental problems of workers cannot possibly be solved by a more militant CUPW. Yet because of our adherence to the “stage theory” (which has by now become almost unconscious and automatic) we have not taken the trouble to analyze strategically how our understandings can be brought to the working class.
The failure to do a concrete analysis of concrete conditions, to work out a principled theoretical unity and to begin to advance the same strategic notions about the nature of the class struggle in Canada and B.C. is directly connected with this spontaneist approach. How many times has research and study on the most fundamental questions (the principal contradiction in Canada, the precise nature of the Canadian working class, the precise political and class character of the political formations which claim leadership of the working class movement) been shunted aside by the necessity to “put the paper out”, to “develop networks” or to “sum up the actual lessons of specific struggles”? To pretend that we can provide any type of leadership to the working class without even attempting to do basic theoretical work is sheer folly.
The strategic bankruptcy of the WESTERN VOICE has shown clearly in several instances. One notable one was our utter failure to comment on the last federal election. Many readers expected us to at least comment, but our continued failure to do a political analysis made it impossible to do so, to our embarassment.
Another is our failure even at this late date to do a thorough analysis on the pages of the paper of our favourite target in the political arena – the NDP government.
One last example, a tragi-comic one, on the bankruptcy of our spontaneist “stage theory” approach. At an all-day meeting of the collective last January, held to discuss basic political problems of the newspaper, we spent a good deal of time listening to two letters from workers in Kitimat about the Western Voice. No one at the meeting knew who the workers were, what their political outlook was or even their exact relationship to and use of the paper. Yet significant time was given to discussing their comments with the greatest seriousness. It is hard to imagine a more absurd example of workerism.
The existence of the “stage theory” within our collective and its negative results for the practice of the paper are clear. But that is not all that has to be said. Where have these errors come from and why did the collective make them? The WESTERN VOICE collective is, after all, not a group of fools. Nor, we believe, did the errors originate with any conscious attempt to hold back the development of the class struggle (although that has been the objective result).
In tact, the tendency to spontaneism and consequent Economist and right opportunist errors, arose as a reaction. Many (if not most) of us began our involvement in left politics in the student and New Left movements of the Sixties. Those movements were all too often characterized by petit-bourgeois idealism, left adventurist practice, and a downgrading or complete liquidation of the role of the working class.
Disgusted with the failure and demoralization of the New Left and equally critical of the sectarian ravings of the CPCML and the various Trot sects, it was understandable, and perhaps even inevitable, that we would tend to overemphasize the importance of spontaneous working class struggle in an attempt to integrate ourselves with “something real”. Nor, in all fairness, has that error been restricted to the WESTERN VOICE. In fact, “bowing to spontaneity” has been a major error of a good number of Marxist-Leninists and “independent” Marxists across the country over the past few years. That is why polemics in Canadian Revolution, written in Toronto or Montreal, could strike Vancouver with such force.
In retrospect, the “workerist phase” that some of the best elements of the Canadian left have gone through in the past few years has not been all bad. It has, if nothing else, affirmed the centrality of the working class in the struggle for socialism and set the basis for the involvement of the most advanced elements of the working class in the building of a Marxist-Leninist party.
But to continue the errors of the past, to attempt to retrench and defend a right opportunist history that needs to be thoroughly repudiated, to find more sophisticated rationales for the stage theory and avoid assessing the role of the WESTERN VOICE in terms of a developing Marxist-Leninist movement, would have the gravest consequences for the WESTERN VOICE collective. Now is the time to correct errors and begin a serious re-evaluation of our purposes and strategy in the light of Marxism-Leninism.
The material that we have written on the recent woods industry strike, etc. is some of our best stuff. It is generally well-informed and tries to go beyond the pure and simple trade union issues into the underlying political realities. But in the end it is simply an attempt to “lend the economic struggle a political character” (the tendency which pretends that the economic struggle is inherently political, denounced by Lenin in What Is To Be Done?) rather than elevating the resultant trade union consciousness to socialist consciousness.
The latest article, by Pocklington and Fossen (Vol. 4, No. 18), sums up the political lines put forward by earlier articles. Its main thesis is that the NDP has now exposed itself to the working class as just like “any other capitalist government” in producing Bill 146. The consciousness of workers is now freed to reject the NDP and therefore the capitalist system. What is wrong with this outlook?
1) It replaces the ideological struggle against opportunism (in this case reformism) by a struggle against a party and a government over a question of economic struggle. It sees the NDP as the force behind all reaction – the IWA sellout leaders (and even Liberal Ed Lawson!) were “in their pocket”; they “used the collaborationist labour aristocracy” (they are in fact the product of this labour aristocracy and its ideology of class collaboration); the NDP is seen as independent but pro-boss, rather than an ideological and political servant of imperialism and the capitalist class; it even goes so far as to claim that Barrett forced Trudeau to enact wage and price controls.
What in fact separates social democracy from communism is the question of class rule, the question of the dictatorship of the proletariat. This question does not arise spontaneously out of the economic struggle. A real exposure of Barrett and Co. comes from an analysis of their basic class viewpoint; that they strive to maintain the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie. Their strikebreaking must be seen as deriving from this role. What the WESTERN VOICE articles put forward is the idea that the strikebreaking is the reason for calling them a capitalist party.
2) It sees the economic struggle as the basis for the development of consciousness which opposes the capitalist system. Many workers know that the Socreds, Liberals, etc. work against their interests and for big business, and know in that sense that they are “capitalist parties”. What logic is there to show that simply because workers see the NDP as a “capitalist party like all the rest” that they therefore will want to get rid of the capitalist system of exploitation? They could just as easily want to create a “real workers parliamentary party” which puts forward the same reformist illusions as the NDP (or even go back to the Socreds since they are all the same – given no positive alternative). The paragraph at the end of the Pocklington-Fossen article is the classic “and the solution is of course to smash capitalism” piece tacked onto otherwise Economist articles. “The NDP strike busting tactics make it abundantly clear that it is not a party of labour and is not an alternative to the other capitalist political parties. Yet another parliamentary party is no alternative either – The capitalist system itself must be overthrown.” (our emphasis)
Why would another parliamentary party be no alternative? Because it would not break workers’ strikes? What about reactionary (bourgeois) workers’ strikes? – is the need for revolution shown by a capitalist (or socialist) state breaking them? Examples that come to mind are strikes in vital war production areas during WWII, the refusal of American construction union members to work on sites with Canadian Ironworkers Union members in the early 1960’s, or the revisionist-sponsored strike in Shanghai in January 1967. Would we support the striking workers in Shanghai? Or the truly proletarian elements both within and outside the state? Another social-democratic parliamentary party might not break strikes. But they would still be no alternative for they would be enforcing the bourgeois dictatorship through one means or another. They would still be a party based on bourgeois ideology.
The sentiments in Pocklington-Fossen’s last paragraph are generally correct – but they in no way are a sum-up or reflection of the article. As we show they are also so vague as to be open to many (including reactionary) interpretations.
Aside from the tacked-on bit against the capitalist system, the desired state of affairs put forward is a lack of “government interference” – a situation where capital and labour can slug it out by themselves, in a “fair fight”. The workers might get a better economic deal (protect its standard of living) if the state didn’t interfere, but this would not bring us one step closer to socialism.