Can Marxist-Leninists and Leninist-Trotskyists be real democratic socialists?

 

[Self-disclosure:  As a young socialist radical in the 1960s and a member of SDS. I was enamored with the “far left,” particularly Leninism-Trotskyism.  During the fierce faction fight within SDS that began in earnest in 1968 between the Maoist/Stalinist Progressive Labor Party (PL) and the SDS National Office (N.O.), I reluctantly aligned myself with PL’s Worker-Student Alliance (WSA), as I considered them actually pro-working class and serious Marxists, in contradistinction to the SDS N.O., which I viewed as a bunch of hippies.  After the collapse of SDS and disillusionment with PL borne out by a summer of working with it and WSA in Chicago, I joined the youth group of the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP), the Young Socialist Alliance (YSA), from which I was expelled—twice!  The late, great Peter Camejo congratulated me sincerely on this, telling me that as he got deeper into the SWP, he realized just how Stalinist it was internally also.  From 2001-2010 I was an at-large member of Solidarity, attended the 2006 Solidarity Summer School and Convention, and was an active writer for both Against the Current and the Solidarity internal discussion bulletin, until I too was expelled from Solidarity in October 2010 on “discipline” charges at a hearing before the National Committee,  which my defense witness called a “kangaroo court.”  Today, I wear all three expulsions as a—badge of honor!  In 2015 I became an enthusiastic supporter of the Presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders, and even wrote an article supporting his candidacy that was published that year on the website of the Third Camp socialist magazine New Politics.  I’ve also “moved politically” from the Third Camp “far left” to Third Camp democratic socialism because I enthusiastically embrace Michael Harington’s idea of socialist politics as achieving the “left wing of the feasible” (emphasis added), am a signatory to the DSA North Star Statement of Principles, and a member of Central Indiana DSA, which has adopted a pragmatic approach free of doctrine and jargon as its operating political philosophy—GF] 

Can Marxist-Leninists and Leninist-Trotskyists be good, real, democratic socialists?  I want to answer that in the negative.  Marxist-Leninists and Leninist-Trotskyists cannot be good, real, democratic socialists—and it’s not because democratic socialism is merely “social-democratic” in its politics, proposals and orientation; or insufficiently “anti-imperialist;” or “beholden to the Democratic Party and against the independent mobilization of the working class.”  No, it’s because democratic socialism is resolutely anti-authoritarian; values concrete results in the here-and-now, not off in some distant but “inevitable” future which no one can seriously predict; believes strongly in civil rights and civil liberties for all, even for those deemed “bourgeois” or “incorrect;” distinguishes between “incorrect” thoughts and writings and terroristic, violent, or discriminatory deeds, and while supporting appropriate criminal punishment for the latter, leaves the former alone—to be dealt with by open, democratic criticism and counterproposal, not by punitive sanction; and because democratic socialism respects the autonomy of the individual, and relies on his/her own personal political consciousness and ethical conscience instead of authoritarian, robotic, “discipline” imposed from above. 

Contrast that to Marxism-Leninism and Leninism-Trotskyism, which closes off discussion and criticism once a decision has been made by the “proper” higher-ups;  imposes an inviolable  “party line” on its members and adherents, and requires them to uphold that line affirmatively in all situations, even requiring them to vote robotically as a bloc at meetings and assemblies; and acts like an infiltrating sect in broader groups, assemblies and movements, where the goal of the sect is to impose its (and overwhelmingly, only its) “correct” line, proposals and programs upon others, whether they agree with them or not.  Be it with the CPUSA, Maoist groups, or Trotskyist groups such as the SWP/YSA, ISO, or Solidarity, historically that is precisely what has happened, and why so much of left history, notably in the US, is that of acrimony, sectarianism, accusations of bad faith, and other movement- and organization-dividing charges and countercharges, which has enervated the process of building a genuinely mass movement of the left.  Even at those times when there were mass movements of the left, notably here in the US, everyone politically aware knew that there were leading individuals and groups one did not cross or too strongly criticize.  That was true in the Popular Front era of the CP, within SDS, and, I fear, will become the new norm within DSA.  DSA has responded in the past with its principled ban on democratic centralism (the organizational hallmark of Marxism-Leninism and Leninism-Trotskyism, even of the “soft” Leninism-Trotskyism of Solidarity), but since DSA’s explosive expansion, that ban seems to be going by the wayside, so to speak; while not formally rescinded as of yet, it is becoming a dead letter in practice with the influx of Marxist-Leninist and Leninist-Trotskyist individuals and caucuses within DSA.  Which, I am convinced, will be the downfall of DSA as a viable democratic socialist organization, and cause it to be but another Solidarity, ISO, Maoist sect, other authoritarian grouping of the left, or all of the above, a gaggle of competing rivalries—and lead to its collapse, same as the influx of competing Marxism-Leninisms and Leninism-Trotskyisms into SDS in the 1960s led to its downfall.

The only solution, I assert, is for DSA to affirm its principled ban on democratic centralism within DSA, both in principle and in practice; while I certainly don’t want, or support, a wholesale expulsion of Marxism-Leninism- or Leninism-Trotskyism-sympathetic individuals, groupings or caucuses from DSA, I do steadfastly support a ban on their acting as such; let them, the supposed “far left,” participate openly within DSA and advocate for their policies and proposals, yet demand of them that they not practice any form of democratic centralism—which means a ban on robotic voting blocs held together by “discipline” instead of autonomous fealty to certain positions by individuals and groups of individuals.  Every individual and caucus member within DSA must to be free to dissent from and abstain from voting on caucus and group proposals, even as members of those caucuses or groups.  Individual autonomy, trust by comrades in the good consciousness and conscience of other DSA comrades, must become the sine qua non across the board—be they groupings and caucuses of Solidarity, as but one example, or of their “social-democratic” opposition, such as North Star!  “Let a hundred flowers bloom, let a thousand schools of thought contend” within a truly “big tent” DSA where a “disciplined” voting bloc does not determine the DSA “line” due to organizational maneuvering, but only through truly free, democratic and open debate involving all DSAers, or chapter delegates, who wish to participate, in truly free, democratic and open DSA meetings.  Otherwise, I fear, the inevitable takeover of DSA by some “disciplined” democratic centralist clique, caucus, or organization is inevitable.  If not in the foreseeable future, then eventually, as it did in SDS—to the complete disarray and unviability of SDS!  Which went from a mass organization of the mostly-student left of 100,000 members to poof! overnight.  (Already we are seeing the ill effects of this within DSA itself, which has seen its membership drop 20%, from 94,000 to 74,000; and while those numbers may seem large, remember, the whole of DSA membership in either case could fit within the confines of the average pro football stadium, which should give the reader a sense of just how small, in a country of 330 million, the organized left really is—GF)

Already we are seeing it within DSA in proposals, programs and resolutions of a “far left” cast being rammed through as supposedly the consensus thinking of the whole of DSA.  Further, from such as support for BDS to the “rank-and-file” strategy, and for several others, these DSA “proposals” are not only causing havoc and consternation within DSA itself, but also, in how DSA relates to other organizations of a progressive and leftist bent.  And may well be leading to DSA members dropping out in significant numbers, by not renewing their dues, for example, or not attending DSA meetings.  That surely is not what we in DSA want, but it is what all too easily could happen; and then DSA becomes but a shell of itself, just as the various Marxist-Leninist and Leninist-Trotskyist sects were but shells, sects little noticed or paid attention to in the outside world until their members and sympathizers (formally or informally) joined DSA and thus organizationally amplified their voices.  Such a DSA is not the DSA we of the democratic left, such as a caucus whose approach I generally support, but am not a member of, North Star, want, but it may become the DSA we are saddled with—as long as democratic centralism is given its new lease on life within DSA itself, as it has since 2016, with the explosive influx of new members.  That is why the principled ban on democratic centralism within DSA must be reaffirmed and upheld, both in principle and in practice:  not to squelch the voices within DSA that are “far left” (as will inevitably be charged), but to save DSA as a “big tent” organization itself, one where both socialism (in its many varieties and advocacies) and meaningful democracy can prevail.

While the “far left” may decry this as “bad faith” or even “anticommunism,” they would completely miss the point, which is—not to silence their proposal of ideas and policies, but to prevent them from being implemented by a mere voting bloc of robotic adherents acting under “discipline,” despite what others may think or wish.  Marxist-Leninists and Leninist-Trotskyists defend democratic socialist organizational norms as needed to create a “fighting army of the proletariat,” conveniently forgetting that an army is but a body for fighting that lacks a head; and thus, in this all armies are but instruments that can be used for fighting for good, or for fighting for ill.  In this, both the organizations of the Red Army under Trotsky which successfully staved off the Whites and the foreign imperialist invading armies in the Russian Civil War, and the Japanese Imperial Army which ravaged East Asia in the 1930s and 1940s, were exactly the same.  Also, the reactionary Guomindang (Kuomintang), which massacred thousands of Communists and workers, was a democratic centralist organization! (Specifically reorganized as such under the aegis of Comintern agent Michael Borodin as the “leading force of the “national democratic revolution” in China in the 1920s, let us recall.)  Democratic centralism is but an instrument, and a blunt one at that, and historically, has always been far more centralist than democratic.  Trotsky, before he became enamored of it, spoke trenchantly in 1904 of what becomes of democratic centralist organizations:

The organization of the party will take the place of the party itself; the Central Committee will take the place of the organization; and finally, the dictator will take the place of the Central Committee.

This dreary prognosis has been exactly confirmed historically, not only from the ascendancy of Stalin in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU), but also right up to the present, in the unquestioned and unopposable ascendancy not only of Mao and others,  and now Xi, in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but also of Jack Barnes in the SWP (which led to the demise of this venerable political voice of US Trotskyism) and Bob Avakian in the Maoist/Stalinist Revolutionary Communist Party (RCP).  Hardly models for a mass democratic socialist “big tent” organization such as DSA!

Democratic centralism can also be strongly criticized from the standpoint of “revolutionary socialism” itself, notably in the trenchant critique of it, solidly documented, by Rosa Luxemburg.  In The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg (London and New York: Verso, 2011), in an October 20, 1913 letter to the Editors of Social-Democraten, (pp. 325-328) she specifically excoriates Lenin (pp. 327-8) for organizational heavy-handedness and factionalism in attempting to split the Polish Social Democracy “in a planned and deliberate manner…as the one they [the Leninists—GF] pursue as their specialty in the Russian [Social-Democratic Workers’] Party [RSDRP]” (p. 327) .  The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism? (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961) consists of two notable essays by Luxemburg that criticize both democratic centralism and the undemocratic aspects of Bolshevism as found early on after the Russian Revolution of 1917.  “Leninism or Marxism?” was what her essay was titled in English; it was originally published in 1904 in Iskra, the newspaper of Russian Social-Democracy, in Russian, and in German in Neue Zeit, the newspaper of the German Social-Democracy, as “Organizational Questions of the Russian Social Democracy;” and excoriates Lenin’s One Step Forward, Two Steps Back as advocating Blanquism, undue centralization, and opportunism. (See especially pp. 84-91 in this volume.) Her unfinished 1919 “The Russian Revolution” is famous not only for its line, “Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for members of one party—however numerous they may be—is no freedom at all.” (p. 69) But her following lines, a paean to individual freedom, are even downright “bourgeois liberal”! (In a positive sense, of course.)  She writes (ibid.) “Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently.  Not because of any fanatical concept of ‘justice’ but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when ‘freedom’ becomes a special privilege.”  In footnote 579 in Letters of Rosa Luxemburg (p. 330), it is noted, “On August 4, 1914, the SPD [German Socialist Party, Germany’s mass socialist party headed by Kautsky] parliamentary group—with group discipline applied against the minority (emphasis added—GF)—voted in favor of the war-credits motion of the imperial government.  The decision to approve money for war was made on August 3, after a heated debate within the SPD parliamentary group, by a vote of 78-14.  The support given by the majority to the war meant that an open split in the SPD was inevitable.”  “Group discipline” was also applied in the CPUSA in silencing and later expelling the Trotskyists, the followers of Earl Browder, and others, as well as causing splits within Leninist-Trotskyist groups to become especially acrimonious.   

Further, as Hal Draper, perhaps the leading ideological interpreter of Third Camp revolutionary socialism, notes in his The “Dictatorship of the Proletariat” from Marx to Lenin (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1987), Lenin and the Bolsheviks in power too easily made it into a “dictatorship over the proletariat” enforced by “party discipline.” (See especially pp. 101-105) Last, Trotskyism-sympathetic scholar Tom Smith, “Beyond Hero Worship: A Marxist Critique of Bolshevik Terror and Its Indebtedness to Jacobinism,” Socialism and Democracy 20, Vol. 10, No. 1, Summer 1996, writing at length that (p. 48)

Bolshevism has failed to be effective after 1917, or to inspire the masses of the world to revolution, or to prevent the Stalinist degeneration within its own process of development.  I would argue that one important reason for these failures (though by no means the primary or exclusive reason) is the following assumption on the part of the Bolsheviks:  that popular fear of arbitrary violence and of minority rule is actually irrational, a fear that the masses need to and should “get over.”  I also believe that such nonsense is a big factor in the tendency of Leninist groups to degenerate quickly into cults, with practically no effect upon the real world whatsoever. (Emphasis in original)

Later, (p. 75) Smith critiques Lenin’s “Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power?” for arguing that 240,000 Bolsheviks could be “a permanent, collective, one-party ‘Lawgiver’….In other words, the soviets would become the means of whipping up support for the Bolsheviks’ policies—but not so much, for significantly challenging those policies.”  Or in other words, the Bolshevik Party would become the tail that wags the soviet, working-class, dog!  But such authoritarianism, that such “popular fear” of “minority rule” is “actually irrational,” is, as the critiques of Luxemburg, Draper and Smith show, a built-in feature of democratic centralism!  In fact, as Draper’s book so well shows, and as Smith’s essay also demonstrates, the “social democratic” rejection of democratic centralism, i.e., the organizational feature of Marxism-Leninism and Leninism-Trotskyism, is integral to Marx’s and Engel’s own conception of the “dictatorship of the proletariat.”  But not only that:  democratic centralism not only embraces and enhances myriad evils, but rejection of democratic centralism is far closer to what Marx and Engels themselves envisioned as constituting socialism and socialist organization.  Marx’s famous long essay on the Paris Commune, The Civil War in France, makes this abundantly clear, as does Engels’s remark that the “dictatorship of the proletariat” looks exactly like the Paris Commune—where the Marxists were actually a minority, and had to compete for influence with Prodhonists, Blanquists, and others. 

All this makes a strong, even overwhelming, case that democratic centralism has no place within DSA, and that its principled rejection by DSA must not only be upheld, but also deepened and enforced!

So let our “far leftists” within DSA eschew any practice of democratic centralism, not force through resolutions and policies based on robotic “discipline,” and trust the political instincts and consciousness of DSA members themselves to come to the “right” conclusions, and I would gladly say to all of them—“Welcome, comrades!  While we may disagree, we will, above all, agree to disagree, and agree wholeheartedly that dissenting comrades are not automatically class enemies.  We will win over by persuasion, not by the robotic force of ‘disciplined’ voting blocs.”

Our comrades in the British Leninist-Trotskyist organization Alliance for Workers Liberty (though some will call them only erstwhile comrades, or not comrades at all) strike a good balance between party discipline and individual autonomy with the following stipulation to its members that they must first present the Alliance’s position on an issue; then, if they disagree, they are fully allowed to present their dissent from that position without fear of discipline or expulsion.  Thus, striking a most acceptable balance between upholding the group’s position and individual autonomy within the organization as a trusted, principled member.  That is the way it must be within the organized caucuses within DSA:  the right to affirm the caucus’s position, the right to dissent from the caucus’s position, and the right to abstain—even when it comes to voting.  Sadly, that is not the way Marxist-Leninist and Leninist-Trotskyist organizations or caucuses work:  it’s either uphold the “line” or risk expulsion.  Which is unacceptable within a “big tent” democratic socialist organization such as DSA, or really, anywhere!  Also, there is nothing more cringeworthy than the way “freewheeling” Marxist-Leninists or Leninist-Trotskyists will fold in terror and fear when faced with threats from the organizational “disciplinary committee”!  Right now, this tolerance of democratic centralism (for that is what Marxist-Leninist and Leninist-Trotskyist organizational philosophy is, what it invokes is) has made DSA essentially inoperative except as a sounding board for outrageous ultraleft, often Stalinist, political positions, as each disciplined caucus tries to outdo the others in displays of “how left we really are.”  Such a political approach, however, will doom DSA to the 100+-year irrelevancy that has politically characterized Marxism-Leninism and Leninism-Trotskyism in the US, and from which the growth of DSA was as a beautiful flower emerging through the concrete cracks in the pavement.

My autobiographical note at the end of my manuscript is also of high relevance:

George Fish is a Central Indiana DSA member living in Indianapolis, Indiana, and a North Star Statement of Principles signatory.  A socialist writer and poet, he is a regular contributor to New Politics and other left periodicals and websites.