Supplementary Theses on the Historical Task, Action and Structure of the World Communist Party
(Milan, April 1966)
(«communist program»; Nr. 10; September 2024)
1. The Naples Theses defend the continuity of positions which have constituted the patrimony of the Communist Left for over half a century. One will never succeed in understanding these positions and applying them naturally and spontaneously by consulting articles of codes or regulations. Nor can this application be guaranteed by electoral ballots or – worse – by colleges or tribunals convoked to pass judgment on questions raised by less enlightened elements. The praxis which we have always striven for and which we finally adopted, is quite different. The difficult work that we have done to achieve these results cannot be completed if we do not use the vast historical material taken from the living experience of the revolutionary movement during the various cycles of its long struggle, material that we have assiduously striven to order and distribute collectively, both before and after the publication of theses.
2. Our present small movement is well aware that in the quite barren historical phase we are now passing through it is very difficult at such great historical distance to use the lessons of momentous past struggles (not only resounding victories, but also bloody defeats and inglorious retreats). In our current’s correct, unreformed vision, neither doctrinal rigor nor profundity of historical critique are enough to forge the revolutionary program, because it derives its vital lymph from a line with the masses in revolt in periods when they are irresistible compelled to fight. This dialectical link is particularly difficult to establish today, when the painfully slow development of the crisis of senile capitalism and the continued betrayals of opportunist currents have extinguished the masses’ elan. While recognizing that the party’s influence is limited, we must be aware that we are preparing the real – both healthy and effective – party for the historical epoch when the infamies of contemporary society will once again push the insurgent masses into the vanguard of history; we must realise that their revolt may once again fail if it lacks the party – not plethoric, but compact and powerful – which is the indispensable organ of the revolution. As onerous as this may be, we must surmount the contradictions of this period by drawing the dialectical lesson of the bitter disillusionments of the past and by courageously pointing out the dangers the Left recognized and exposed when they first appeared, and all the insidious forms in which the terrible opportunist infection has manifested itself in the course of history.
3. We will therefore develop an even more thorough activity of critical appraisal of past battles and the repeated reaction of the revolutionary Marxist Left to the historical waves of deviationism and vacillations which, for more than a century, have posed any obstacle to the forward march of the proletarian revolution only by referring to these phases when the conditions of an ardent class struggle existed but the factor of revolutionary theory and strategy were lacking, and above all by retracing the history of events that destroyed the 3rd International (when everyone thought the point of no return had been passed forever) and recalling the critical positions taken by the Left to stave off the growing danger and the disaster which unfortunately ensued, will we be able to draw the lessons which cannot and do not pretend to be recipes for success: rather they are a severe warning to overcome the weaknesses and defend ourselves against the dangers and pitfalls into which history has so often caused forces that nonetheless seemed devoted to the cause of the revolution to fall.
4. The brief illustrations we give here must be understood not as a direct allusion to errors or difficulties that might threaten our current work, but as an additional contribution to transmitting the experience of past generations. This experience was formed in a phase in which there had already been an excellent restoration of the correct doctrine (the proletarian dictatorship in Russia; Lenin’s and the Bolshevik’s work on theoretical questions; the founding of the 3rd International in terms of practical work) and in which, on the other hand, in Italy and in the rest of the world, thereal revolutionary struggle of communist parties was at a fever pitch with broad mass participation.
These factors are today historically and chronologically quite “out of phase”, but their correct utilization remains a vital necessity for the present as well as for the future, which we know with certainty will be more fertile than the present.
5. One of the fundamental characteristics of the phenomenon Lenin, following Marx and Engels, called opportunism, and which he never ceased to combat mercilessly is that it prefers a shorter, more comfortable and less arduous road to the long, difficult road, strewn with obstacles which is the only one on which there can be a full and complete convergence between the assertion of our principles and program, i. e., our final goals, and immediate and direct practical action in the real situation of the moment. Lenin was right when he said that it was not possible to use the extreme difficulty of communist and revolutionary action in parliament as an argument in support of the tactical proposal to renounce electoral and parliamentary action from that point on (the end of the first world war), since the armed insurrection and control of the long and complex economic transformation of the social world wrested by violence from capitalism would assuredly be even more difficult. We, on the other hand showed that a preference for employing the democratic method could obviously be explained as a tendency to prefer the comfortable rites of legal action to the tragic difficulties of illegal action, and that such a practice would not fail to cause the whole communist movement to relapse into the fatal social-democratic error, from which we had just escaped through no less than heroic efforts.
Like Lenin, we knew that opportunism is not a moral or ethical defect, but that it corresponds (as Marx and Engels had already shown in the case of England at the end of the 19th century) to the predominance among the workers of positions characteristic of intermediate, petty-bourgeois strata more or less consciously inspired by the parent ideas of the ruling class, i. e., by its social interests. Lenin’s powerful and generous position on parliamentary action as an element of the struggle for the violent destruction of the bourgeois system and the democratic apparatus itself, and its replacement by the proletarian dictatorship, would, in our view, lead to subjecting proletarian deputies to the worst influences of petty-bourgeois weaknesses, which would culminate in the negation of communism and betrayal, and possibly an overt and venal selling-out to the enemy.
From this confirmation, obtained on an immense historical scale (even if such a broad generalization may seem not to be contained literally in Lenin’s teaching – we too learned in the school of history), we draw the lesson that the party must avoid any decision or choice that might be dictated by the desire to obtain good results for less work or sacrifice. Such a desire may seem innocent but it translates the petty-bourgeois tendency toward laziness and responds to the influence of the fundamental capitalist norm of obtaining maximum profits with the slightest cost.
6. Another constant and recurring aspect of the opportunist phenomenon as it rose within the Second International and as it triumphs today after the even worse ruin of the Third, is that of showing at the same time, both the worst deviation from party principles, and a pretended admiration for the classical texts, for the words and work of big masters and chiefs. A constant character of petty-bourgeois hypocrisy is the servile praise of the power of the victorious leader, of the greatness of famous authors’ texts, of the eloquent speaker’s fluency; while in practice the most despicable and contradictory degenerations are displayed. A body of theses is therefore worthless, if those who welcome it with a literary-type enthusiasm are not able afterwards, in practical action, to understand its spirit and to respect it; and try to disguise their deviation from it, through an emphasized but platonic adherence to the theoretical texts.
7. Another lesson we can draw from events in the life of the Third International, (which the Left often pointed out at the time in criticisms that can be found in our texts): the lesson of the futility of “ideological terror”.
Whereas our doctrine spreads through contact with real forces in ferment in the social milieu, this disastrous method consisted in seeking to replace this natural process with a forced indoctrination of recalcitrant or errant elements, either for reasons that were stronger that individuals and the party, or for reasons related to the imperfection of the party itself, by humiliating and mortifying them publicly in congresses under the very eyes of the class enemy, even when they had represented our party and led our action in episode of political and historical significance. Imitating the fideist and pietist method of penitence and mea culpa, people fell into the habit of obliging these elements to confess their errors publicly, most often placing them before the alternative of resuming or losing an important position in the organizational apparatus. This truly philistine method, worthy of bourgeois morality, has never improved any member of the party or protected anyone from the danger of degeneration. When the revolutionary party is developing fully and is advancing toward victory, militants obey spontaneously and totally, not blindly and under compulsion. Discipline to the center corresponds (as our theses and the supporting documentation show) to the perfect harmony between the rank and file’s and the center’s duties and activities. This cannot be replaced by a bureaucratic intervention that betrays an anti-Marxist voluntarism.
The capital importance of this point for a correct understanding or organic centralism is explained by the terrible memory of the confessions wrenched from the great revolutionary leaders who were massacred in Stalin’s purges, the useless self-criticisms to which they had to subject themselves under penalty of being expelled from the party and defamed as traitors: infamies and absurdities that the no less bigoted and bourgeois method of “rehabilitation” will never erase. The growing abuse of such methods only marks the triumphant progress of the latest and most terrible opportunist wave.
8. In order for the party’s action to be truly organic and have a collective function that surpasses and eliminates all personalism and individualism, the party must distribute its members among the various duties and activities that constitute its life. The succession of comrades in these tasks is a natural fact that cannot obey rules similar to those governing bourgeois bureaucratic careerism. In the party there is no competition to win more or less elevated or prominent positions. We must strive organically for this distribution of duties, which i not an imitation of the bourgeois division of labor, but a natural adaptation of the complex, structured organ of the party to its function.
We are well aware that the dialectic of history leads every combat organ to perfect its methods of attack by employing the enemy’s techniques. We deduce from this that in the phase of armed struggle communists will have a military apparatus with an organization that will ensure the best results from concerted action. But this truth must not be copied senselessly for all even non-military ones. The channel along with directives are transmitted must be a single one, but this lesson from bourgeois bureaucracy must not cause us to forget how this rule is corrupted and degenerates, even when it is adopted by workers’ associations. The organic character of the party by no means requires each comrade to see the personification of the party’s strength in one or another comrade who has been specifically designated to transmit orders coming from above. This transmission among the various molecules that make up the organ-party is always conducted in both directions, and the dynamic of each unit is integrated into the historical dynamics of the whole. Unnecessary abuse of organizational formalism has always been and will always be a stupid and suspicious defect, and a danger.
9. Capitalism, the historical form of production that mystifies and dissimulates the monopoly of a minority class behind the myth of the right of all individuals to private property, needed great names with a widespread reputation to designate the articulations, structures and stages of its evolution, which has now become an involution. Through the long bourgeois cycle, whose sinister history weighs like a yoke on our rebellious shoulders, it was originally the most capable and strongest person who obtained the greatest reputation and sought supreme power. Today, under the dominance of petty-bourgeois philistinism, the most vile and weakest individual can become a great personage thanks to the lurid methods of advertising.
Our party, whose task is so difficult, is now making every effort to free itself once and for all from the wave of betrayal which, it was thought, could be identified with the names of illustrious persons, and to reject definitively the method which, in achieving objectives and securing successes, relies on fabricating a stupid fame by making publicity for even more names. Nowhere along its tortuous path should the party lack the will and courage to fight for these objectives, which truly anticipate the history and society of tomorrow.
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Il comunista - le prolétaire - el proletario - proletarian - programme communiste - el programa comunista - Communist Program
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