Permanent Revolution - Summary

 Summary

• The term Permanent Revolution was first used by Marx in a Speech to the Executive of the Communist League, in 1850, analysing the revolutions of 1848.

• In the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of the 18^th and early 19^th century, the bourgeoisie is supported by the peasantry and petty-bourgeoisie, the proletariat is, at that time, only small, and does not form a class for itself.

• In the bourgeois-democratic revolutions of 1848, the bourgeoisie has grown, and the petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry relatively declined, as a result of the process of differentiation, and so the proletariat has also relatively, and absolutely, expanded, and begins to form into a class for itself.

• The bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie are concerned only with their own class interest. As soon as they feel those interests are met, they seek to call a halt to the revolutionary movement, and agree terms with the old ruling class. The petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry are amorphous and unable to form their own state. They must follow behind either the bourgeoisie or else the proletariat. The workers are thrown into the lead of the bourgeois revolution, but a newly politicised and empowered proletariat has no reason to leave things at that, which does not address its own democratic and political interests.

• The proletariat must continue the revolutionary process, making it permanent, in order to secure its own political rights, such as the right to vote, and so on. But, soon, any workers party must also address the needs of workers by an assault on bourgeois property, even if only in search of better wages and so on. The bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie see any such development as threatening their own interests. They break with their erstwhile allies in the proletariat, and align themselves with the old ruling class. The old ruling class, seizes the day, as the revolution falters, and having then dealt with the workers, it takes back the political concessions made to the bourgeoisie, a period of reaction following.

• The lesson for the proletariat, Marx concludes, is that, whilst they can ally, in action, with the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, against the landlords, the proletariat must maintain both political and organisational independence, in preparation for this inevitable betrayal. The proletariat must organise its own militias, and so on, so as to be able to continue with the revolution, when the bourgeoisie seek to bring it to an end. The proletariat must then continue the revolution, beyond the bourgeois-democratic revolution, and seize power themselves, as the only means of securing it, and preventing the reaction.

• Trotsky takes this analysis, and applies it to the conditions in all those places where, in the 20^th century, the bourgeois-democratic revolution had not been undertaken. That amounts to all those places, such as in Russia, where nations existed as annexes of an oppressive Empire, or, for example, as existed with all of the colonies.

• In all these places, the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie, whilst dependent upon an increasingly numerous and powerful proletariat, were afraid of it for exactly those reasons. In the Russian Empire, the liberal bourgeoisie adopted the garb of nationalism, in order to divide the workers, in their nation, from the Russian workers, to prevent a combined class struggle, by all workers, against the bourgeoisie. Whilst spouting nationalist rhetoric, they negotiated with the bourgeoisie of Russia, or in other cases, the bourgeoisie of other large powers who they appealed to for support. In the colonies, the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie argue for independence, and seek the backing of the proletariat, but any hint of the workers pursuing their own interests results in them aligning with the colonial power to suppress the workers revolt.

• Again, therefore, whilst the proletariat agrees to engage in joint action with the bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie and peasantry, it must retain its independence from it, both politically and organisationally. Its motto is “March separately, strike together.” The proletariat, throughout such action, seeks to build its own forces, ready to be able to make the revolution permanent, at that point where the bourgeoisie seeks to bring it to a halt.

• The practical implementation of this theory occurred in February 1917. The bourgeois-democratic revolution brought the Provisional Government to power, as a bourgeois government, a Popular Front government, combining representatives of the bourgeoisie, petty-bourgeoisie and reformist representatives of the proletariat. Lenin, in The April Theses, sets out why it was necessary to make the revolution permanent, to call for the removal of the capitalist ministers, converting it into a Workers and Peasants Government, and for All Power To The Soviets. The Soviets represented the Dictatorship of the Proletariat leading the Peasantry.

• The Theory of Permanent Revolution, advanced by Trotsky, and verified by the 1905 and 1917 Russian Revolutions, says that it is possible for workers to come to power in backward countries, before it does in the more advanced countries. But, it can never establish socialism, in these backward countries, before it does so in the advanced countries. A revolution bringing workers to power in the former, must fail unless supported by an international revolution in the advanced countries, and so the idea of permanence is widened, to the extent that, what starts as a revolution in one country, necessitates a continual expansion of revolution, until the whole world is encompassed by it.

• Understanding Permanent Revolution, also involves an understanding of The Popular Front, The United Front, and the Workers Government. Failure to understand these concepts, and the criminal actions of the Stalinists, in pursuing a Popular Front strategy, rather than a strategy based upon Permanent Revolution, led to the catastrophes of the defeat of the Chinese Revolution in 1927, the demobilisation of the French workers in 1934, and the defeat of the Spanish Revolution in 1936. It has led to defeats elsewhere too, such as that of the Popular Unity government in Chile, in 1973.

• Permanent Revolution does not mean that, today, bourgeois-democratic revolutions cannot occur without them being undertaken by workers in the lead. Each instance must be analysed on the basis of the material conditions that exist. It only explains how, in some cases, workers can come to power in countries that are less developed, but if they do so, they cannot stop at merely the bourgeois-democratic revolution, or a revolution confined to national bounds.

• A large element in relation to colonies was the concept that imperialism would act to divide the world, and so revolutions would be required against the imperialist/colonial power. However, Imperialism destroyed colonialism, and has been a force in supporting the bourgeoisie, in a number of countries, in establishing a bourgeois-democratic regime as the best political shell in which industrial capital can exploit labour.

• Trotsky's Summary.

Forward To Part 1

AWL Stalinism, Once More - Part 3

Reformism, Idealism & Statism

Mondragon Workers Co-operative University

The AWL write,

“The point about cooperatives is that they typically operate in the market, facing constant pressures to function more and more like ordinary capitalist businesses or go under.”

They say this as though, whilst Capitalism continues, it is ever possible to escape the market! They say this as though they have not even noticed that the Capitalist State, they want the workers to place their faith in, is not currently cutting its workers' wages, and pensions, throwing hundreds of thousands of its workers on to the dole, as well as slashing the provision of the services it provides! Just look at the provision of Health and Education. Both of these commodities have been mass produced by the Capitalist State in the interests of Capital, in the interests of the market! Everyone knows that these commodities are not provided equally or on the basis of need, and every survey shows it. In affluent areas, not only is the need for Health, Education and Social Care less, because those in these areas already enjoy better lifestyles, access to culture, books, computers etc, and everything that goes with it, but these areas, DESPITE that, get better provision of these services than deprived areas. Some of that is due to simple things such as the fact that teachers generally prefer to teach in areas where they can obtain success, and there is no problem recruiting GP's to work in affluent areas, but always a shortage of GP's for deprived areas. But, the real reason is that in affluent areas, Labour-Power, particularly high value, skilled, educated, Labour-Power is in short supply, and it is in these areas that the high-value businesses tend to be located. In deprived areas, however, it is usually low value, low skilled industries, which have plentiful supplies of low-paid, low skilled, poorly educated workers, who can be easily replaced out of the Reserve Army of Labour, constantly available in such places.

One of the reasons that workers need to rescue important services such as Health, Education and Social Care out of the hands of the Capitalist State, is precisely so that they can begin to plan it, and provide it on the basis of their needs, and not the needs of the Capitalists. That can only be done if workers themselves have ownership of these services.

Or take another example, that of Coal. Immediately after Nation-alisation, it was geared to the needs of the market. Hundreds of pits were closed, and hundreds of thousands of miners were sacked. The “Plan For Coal” was never a strategic plan for Energy production and consumption, but merely a means of gearing Coal to meet market needs which ultimately led to the 1984-5 Strike, and the closure of nearly all the industry.

If the AWL think that the workers are treated badly at the Co-op or John Lewis, and argue,

“The Cooperative, which runs many supermarkets and other businesses, for instance, was founded by workers as part of the labour movement. But today, despite its lack of shareholders, it is hardly distinguishable from a normal capitalist firm. Its workers certainly do not see much difference; the GMB union has clashed more than once with Coop management. (Talk to anyone who’s worked at John Lewis for a similar, but worse, picture)”

then, in asking the workers to place their faith in the tender mercies of the AWL's friends in the Capitalist State, they should ask Miners from the time what they thought of having Maggie Thatcher for a boss!!!

Kautsky in the Erfurt Programme described this,

“If the modern state nationalizes certain industries, it does not do so for the purpose of restricting capitalist exploitation, but for the purpose of protecting the capitalist system and establishing it upon a firmer basis, or for the purpose of itself taking a hand in the exploitation of labour, increasing its own revenues, and thereby reducing the contributions for its own support which it would otherwise have to impose upon the capitalist class. As an exploiter of labour, the state is superior to any private capitalist. Besides the economic power of the capitalists, ii can also bring to bear upon the exploited classes the political power which it already wields.

The state has never carried on the nationalizing of industries further than the interests of the ruling classes demanded, nor will it ever go further than that. So long as the property-holding classes are the ruling ones, the nationalization of industries and capitalist functions will never be carried so far as to injure the capitalists and landlords or to restrict their opportunities for exploiting the proletariat.”

So speaks the revolutionary Kautsky against the reformist/Stalinist AWL. And, of course, the AWL are factually wrong when they say that the Co-op and John Lewis do not have shareholders. They do. In both cases the shareholders are the workers. In the first case, it is workers as consumers, in the second the workers of the firm itself. What the AWL are actually saying is that they have no faith in workers being able to act collectively, and democratically, and when a problem with that arises, rather than get their hands dirty by involving themselves with those workers to sort it out, they prefer to act like true sectarians, and go their own way. They operate the same method in relation to the LP. And, of course, a lot of the basis for this approach goes back to Rosa Luxemburg, who made the same arguments in relation to the Trades Unions, (See:Reform or Revolution) but whose comments have to be read in the context of the polemic she was waging against the Revisionists. Indeed, its true that workers fail to take part in the democracy of their Trades Unions, just as they do in relation to Consumer Co-ops, and Trades Unions, by their nature, are dominated by bourgeois ideology, by the need to operate within the constraints of the Capitalist Market. The logic of the AWL ought to be to leave the Trades Unions too, and set up their own “pure” unions, free from the problems that the real world imposes on real workers, and their struggles. Or, if they followed their logic consistently, they would argue that workers should avoid the problems the market imposes on organising Trades Unions, and instead demand that the Capitalist State nation-alise the Trades Unions – under Workers Control, of course!!!

There is none of the Lassallean, Utopian nonsense about the State being able to operate outside the market, prior to the establishment of Communism, in any of the works of Marx and Engels. In fact, in the Critique of the Gotha Programme and elsewhere Marx and Engels, argued specifically against such notions. Speaking not just of how things stand for workers now, or even under the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, but under the first stage of Communism, Marx writes,

“Here, obviously, the same principle prevails as that which regulates the exchange of commodities, as far as this is exchange of equal values. Content and form are changed, because under the altered circumstances no one can give anything except his labour, and because, on the other hand, nothing can pass to the ownership of individuals, except individual means of consumption. But as far as the distribution of the latter among the individual producers is concerned, the same principle prevails as in the exchange of commodity equivalents: a given amount of labour in one form is exchanged for an equal amount of labour in another form.

Hence, equal right here is still in principle -- bourgeois right, although principle and practice are no longer at loggerheads, while the exchange of equivalents in commodity exchange exists only on the average and not in the individual case.”

Nor, is the conflict between the interests of workers and the State restricted to just the Capitalist State. In the early 1920's there was a major dispute between Lenin and Trotsky over the question of the Trades Unions precisely on this question. (see: Lenin - The trade unions,

the present situation and Trotsky's mistakes. Lenin insisted that the workers needed their own independent Trades Unions to defend themselves against the Workers State, whereas Trotsky who had already introduced militarisation of Labour in the Transport Ministry, which he and his supporters controlled, saw the Trades Unions as acting as conduits for the Party, and for the State into the class. Lenin writes,

“Our Party Programme—a document which the author of the ABC of Communism knows very well—shows that ours is a workers’ state with a bureaucratic twist to it. We have had to mark it with this dismal, shall I say, tag. There you have the reality of the transition. Well, is it right to say that in a state that has taken this shape in practice the trade unions have nothing to protect, or that we can do without them in protecting the material and spiritual interests of the massively organised proletariat? No, this reasoning is theoretically quite wrong. It takes us into the sphere of abstraction or an ideal we shall achieve in 15 or 20 years’ time, and I am not so sure that we shall have achieved it even by then. What we actually have before us is a reality of which we have a good deal of knowledge, provided, that is, we keep our heads, and do not let ourselves be carried away by intellectualist talk or abstract reasoning, or by what may appear to be “theory” but is in fact error and misapprehension of the peculiarities of transition. We now have a state under which it is the business of the massively organised proletariat to protect itself, while we, for our part, must use these workers’ organisations to protect the workers from their state, and to get them to protect our state. Both forms of protection are achieved through the peculiar interweaving of our state measures and our agreeing or “coalescing” with our trade unions.”

Of course, one of the reasons that Trotsky had introduced militarisation of labour on the railways was precisely because the rail workers were one of the most educated and advanced sections of the class, and their support for the Mensheviks was long established. It was a means of undermining opposition within the class to the Bolshevik Government. As David Law wrote many years ago one of the reasons that it was Stalin, and not Trotsky, who was able to win the support of workers, within the Bolshevik Party, was precisely because, during all this earlier period, Trotsky had shown little concern for pushing the interests of the workers against the bureaucrats. It is for the same reason, as Trotsky himself admits, that it was to him, rather than Stalin, who those bureaucrats first turned in search of their own champion within the party. Critique 2, published in 1973 on the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of the 46, carried an article by David Law entitled “The Left Opposition in 1923”. In it he writes,

“Besides considerable strength in Moscow, perhaps even an actual majority, the Opposition had managed to capture Party organisations in Ryazan, Penza, Kaluga, Simbirsk and Chelyabinsk. The Opposition’s strength in these provincial towns was plausibly attributed to there being, in those centres, a predominance of Party officials transferred as a reprisal for their dissident opinions. In Moscow the strength of the Opposition lay in the State administration (particularly in economic bodies), and student cells. The opposition was comparatively weak amongst the working class. No doubt this was partly a result of the past record of various members of the Opposition on questions of industrial management, and also partly because questions of immediate working class interest, such as wages, were not given any prominence. Whatever the reasons, in Moscow, at a time when it was gaining majorities among the students, the Opposition could only win 67 out of 346 cells of industrial workers.” (p 47)

Back To Part 2

Forward To Part 4

Should We Defend Representative Democracy?

I was just watching Peter Kellner giving the 2012 David Butler Lecture on the BBC Parliament Channel. (See: here) In it he sets out the case for Representative Democracy as against Direct Democracy, which he defines narrowly here in terms of decision making by Referenda. Representative Democracy he contends is under threat from the latter, which is an insidious means by which democracy itself has been undermined by authoritarian forces.

Marxists are clear when it comes to a question of defending representative i.e. Bourgeois Democracy, against a return to feudal absolutism, or its supplanting by fascism or Bonapartism. We are not proponents of Bourgeois Democracy, we are advocates of direct workers democracy of the type we practice in our Trades Unions, Co-operatives, and Workers Parties (though in all these we are not content with the the current standards of democracy actually achieved). However, we recognise that alongside bourgeois democracy go a number of bourgeois freedoms, such as the right to assembly, to free speech etc. Of course, all these rights and freedoms are ones which the bourgeoisie itself sought, for its own ends, in its class struggle against the landed aristocracy, and which it requires for its own rule. They are extended to the working class only under sufferance, which is why male workers did not obtain the right to vote, even in Britain until the latter part of the 19th Century, and women workers not until after WWI. Whenever the bourgeoisie feels that the enjoyment of these rights, by the workers, seriously threatens its own rule, or even its ability to make profits, it acts to withdraw them or restrict them. That may simply be restrictions on the right to strike, to organise through to the use of fascists or a military coup to remove those rights and freedoms completely.

Nevertheless, in so far as workers are able to enjoy these rights and freedoms, they are vital tools for facilitating the workers own activities, and the building up of their own resources. Consequently, we are not advocates of bourgeois democracy but of workers democracy, but we are prepared to support a political struggle for or to defend bourgeois democracy and freedoms as a means of furthering the interests of the working class. But, it is precisely because we are not advocates of bourgeois democracy, but of workers democracy which determines the basis upon which that struggle is conducted. The best illustration of that is given by Trotsky in his Action Programme For France. In it, he sets out that we struggle for, or to defend, these bourgeois freedoms not with the tools of bourgeois democracy, but of direct workers democracy, and proletarian class struggle. Our task after all is not to promote bourgeois democracy, but to illustrate its inadequacy, its sham nature, and the superiority of workers democracy. So, for example, Trotsky proposes defending bourgeois democracy against the fascists in France by such means as:

1) The abolition of all business secrets

2) “Factory committees, peasant committees, committees of small functionaries, of employees could very easily, with the help of honest technicians, engineers, accountants loyal to the working people, do away with the “business secrets” of the exploiters. It is by this method that we must establish public control over banks, industry and commerce.”

3) “...the workers under arms must retain all political rights and should be represented by soldier committees elected in special assemblies. Thus they will remain closely linked to the great mass of toilers and will unite their forces with the people organized and armed against reaction and fascism.”

4) “All the police executors of the capitalist will, of the bourgeois state, and its cliques of corrupt politicians must be disbanded. Execution of police duties by the workers’ militia. Abolition of class courts, election of all judges, extension of the jury for all crimes and misdemeanors; the people will render justice themselves.”

5) “The task is to replace the capitalist state, which functions for the profit of the big exploiters, by the workers’ and peasants’ proletarian state. The task is to establish in this country the rule of the working people. To all we declare that it is not a matter of secondary ‘modification,’ but rather that the domination of the small minority of the bourgeois class must be replaced by the leadership and power of the immense majority of the laboring people.”

6) “To reinforce the struggle of both the workers and peasants, the workers’ committees should establish close collaboration with the peasant committees. Constituted as organs of popular defense against fascism, these workers’ alliance committees and these peasant committees must become, during the course of the struggle, organisms directly elected by the masses, organs of power of the workers and peasants. On this basis the proletarian power will be erected in opposition to the capitalist power, and the Workers’ and Peasants’ Commune will triumph.”

“We are thus firm partisans of a Workers’ and Peasants’ State, which will take the power from the exploiters. To win the majority of our working-class allies to this program is our primary aim.

Meanwhile, as long as the majority of the working class continues on the basis of bourgeois democracy, we are ready to defend it with all our forces against violent attacks from the Bonapartist and fascist bourgeoisie.”

In other words, although the situation was one in which it was the forces of reaction which were on the attack, Trotsky refuses, correctly, to deal with this by assuming a purely defensive strategy. He utilises the old football maxim “the best form of defence is attack”. This is the opposite of the position adopted by the Stalinists and Reformists, who respond by looking to alien class forces, and by subordinating the workers struggle to the bourgeoisie, through the Popular Front.  He recognises that the reaction is itself a sign of the maturing of contradictions in society, the need of the bourgeoisie to respond with such measures, and, therefore, the potential for this situation to turn into its opposite, a revolutionary situation, in which the working-class can go on to the offensive. That, of course, is why Trotsky can include in his demands, the demands for nationalisation of the banks etc., which under other conditions would be unnacceptable. Of course, it is not the Capitalist State, who he looks to, to undertake such nationalisations he says,

“Nationalization by the workers means the destruction of the great private monopolies, support of small enterprises, redistribution of products for the benefit of the great mass of producers.” and,

“The great institutions of the state (post office, customs, education, etc.), which exploit several million toilers, function for the benefit of capitalism. The recent scandals have shown the corruption that reigns among the higher functionaries.

The small government employees are exploited by the corrupt and venal officials who utilize their office to permit the possessing class to crush the labourers still more.

We must make a clean sweep. With the collaboration of all the exploited, committees and unions of small government employees will make the necessary changes to establish real social services that function by and for the labouring masses.”

Of course, these are the last methods by which Kellner seeks to defend bourgeois democracy. His first line of argument is to set out his attack on Direct Democracy. This is done, not by examining the potential for i,t as set out in, for example, Classical Greek Democracy, or even the workers democracy as it exists within the Labour Movement, but by limiting it to the use of referenda. Here the old trick of guilt by association is adopted. All kinds of Dictators have utilised referenda, so, therefore, they must be bad. That is then extended. Kellner provides details of a poll his organisation, "Yougov”, had undertaken on a number of important issues. The results of this poll could only be a surprise to middle class liberals who need to get out into the real world more.

The poll showed that there was a majority of support for a number of reactionary measures, such as leaving the EU, stopping all net immigration, bringing back hanging, providing details of known paedophiles and so on. So, the argument goes, no self-respecting liberal progressive could possibly consider giving the working-class a meaningful vote over any of these things. Much better to only allow the workers a meaningless vote, and allow the professional, bourgeois politicians to continue in the same way ruling over the workers' heads, and in the interests of the bourgeoisie.

Part of the problem here, Kellner argues, is the very nature of referenda, which force the electors into making binary choices, all or nothing. So, for example, Kellner says, in relation to the Immigration question, the referendum could only ask whether voters wanted to stop all net immigration or not. But, for a professional psephologist that is a ridiculous claim for him to make! There is absolutely no reason why such a referendum could not ask a question such as - “Are you in favour of 1) no net immigration, 2) net immigration of 100k – 200k, 3) net immigration of 200k – 300k, 4) net immigration of 300k – 400k, 5) no limit.” Voters could then be asked to respond as with AV, by ranking their preferences.

Moreover, with the advance in ICT, his other objection, that of the time required to set up referenda to deal with new or changed conditions is rapidly disappearing.

Failing to deal with reactionary ideas feeds
support for the extreme Right

What Kellner's approach signifies is the arrogance of the political elite, as well as its basically bureaucratic and lazy attitude. The real answer, to the fact that a large proportion of the British people hold reactionary ideas, in relation to nationalism etc,. is not the bureaucratic response of ignoring the views of the majority, which can only ever feed support for the parties of the extreme right, as the people become ever more alienated from a political class that fails to reflect their concerns, but is to make the case, against those reactionary ideas, more effectively. After all, part of Kellners task here was to make the case as to why Representative rather than Direct Democracy should be supported. If a political campaign can be waged for that, it can be waged for the political ideas that Kellner or anyone else seeks to promote.

But, that is true in the organisations of the Labour Movement too. The answer to the actual lack of democracy within the Trades Unions, the Co-ops, and the Workers Parties, is not the ultra-left and sectarian response of seeking purity, through an infinite number of schisms, but to focus on the actual needs of the workers themselves, and by addressing them, build a mass workers movement from the base up, focussed not within the parliamentary channels of the Trade Union Branch committee, but on the workplace floor, not in the CLP, but in the LP Branch, linked closely and in practice with the TRA, or neighbourhood committee, as well as on a day to day basis with workers in their Co-operative enterprises, Housing Co-ops, estate Co-ops and so on. It will always be the case that only the activists devote their time to the parliamentary bodies of the Labour Movement, often to the detriment of their practical day to day work of dealing with workers problems. At least until Socialism has become a well established fact, the majority of workers will only participate in their organisations if they see an immediate need to do so, for example, during a strike, or because they have some financial imperative for doing so – for example, in running their own Co-op of some form or another. If we want to build a truly democratic movement, it has to be a mass movement, which can only be built from the ground up. If we want a truly democratic movement it has to be based on active mass participation, and that can only happen if workers have a direct imperative for engaging in such activity. Without that workers direct democracy will be as much of a sham as representative democracy is today. It would be to simply replace one political elite with another.

AWL Up To Their Misrepresentation Again - Part 4

In Part 3, I showed how the AWL's attempt to portray Marx as an opponent of the idea of building Co-operatives and Workers Self-Government here and now, flows from their Stalinist politics. The nature of those politics can be seen both in domestic and foreign arenas. At home, their programme amounts to nothing more than left-wing reformism, and radical Liberalism. At an international level they have arrived at an accommodation with democratic Imperialism, which they are happy to see intervene on a global scale in the USSR, in Iraq, Libya etc. rather than build an independent working-class solution to both that Imperialism, and to the other enemies of the working-class in these places.

In reality, that flows from the state of peaceful co-existence they have accepted with bourgeois democracy at home. It is the application of the Popular Front on the basis of seeing bourgeois democracy as a lesser-evil. They attempt to cover the fact of their reformism, and Economism by the use of revolutionary rhetoric, and drama.

So, for example, they employ all of the kinds of measures that Lenin, and the Bolsheviks employed in Russia, justifying this on the basis of Lenin's “What IS To be Done?”, and a misrepresentation of what he said their about the revolutionary Party. They use “secret” Party names and so on, even though, they also use their own names, so everyone knows who they are!!!

Partly, the reason for this is that like most of these sects, they are composed of petit-bourgeois playing at being revolutionaries. Another reason, is that it gives the aura of being in something exciting, and clandestine to all the impressionable young kids, they have to recruit at every Freshers Fair to replenish the other members they have burned out and lost. But, like the demands for the establishment of a Workers Government, for Soviets and so on, of their Maximum Programme, around which they hang regular articles in their paper and magazines, and which make up the agendas of Summer Schools, they are there to cover the fact that in day to day practice they are nothing more than left-reformists, who, like the old British Communist Party, can only justify their separate existence, and endless attempts to build their own organisation, by claiming that although they are fighting for reforms now, their real goal is Revolution. Unfortunately, organisations of 100 people do not lead revolutions. And, in the last election, the AWL was able to garner the votes of just 75 people, so it is clear that, they are having no effect whatsoever on even taking a handful of workers closer to a revolutionary consciousness.

When Lenin wrote “What Is To be Done?”, he was writing in a Tsarist police state, in revolutionary times. He and other revolutionaries were regularly arrested by the police, gaoled, and exiled. There was no freedom of the press, or other bourgeois freedoms. It is not surprising that under those conditions, he recognised the importance of undertaking certain measures required to be able to at least continue certain basic functions such as producing a newspaper, and so on.

But, in “What Is To be Done?”, Lenin also sets out his idea of what a professional revolutionary party should be like. It is not some small, self-selecting organisation, but is the kind of Party that the German SPD was at the time. By professional, Lenin had in mind the ability to intervene in Parliament, or any other sphere of political activity on an equal basis with the bourgeois parties, to understand, and be able to address the issues concerning all spheres and layers of society. He makes clear that his argument for the establishment of a core, clandestine organisation is merely that a core organisation of dedicated revolutionaries, capable of undertaking those basic functions without being continually arrested. He also makes clear that this proposal is not to be taken out of its context, and that he is only making it in relation to the specific conditions that applied in Russia at the time.

Lenin's argument later against Kautsky and the reformists of the Second International was not that they were not revolutionaries because they did not have this kind of small, revolutionary Party, but because the actual practice of the Second International was like that of the AWL reformist, despite the fact that they claimed to be Marxists, and continued to have in their Maximum Programme the goal of socialist revolution.

And, it is no coincidence that, when it comes to the question of the State, Lenin points out that what marked the Second International's reformism, was the extent to which they denuded the revolutionary content of Marx's ideas by misrepresenting and denying just how much Marx had in common in that regard with Proudhon and Bakunin.

In State & Revolution, Lenin writes,

“Marx agreed with Proudhon in that they both stood for the “smashing” of the modern state machine. Neither the opportunists nor the Kautskyites wish to see the similarity of views on this point between Marxism and anarchism (both Proudhon and Bakunin) because this is where they have departed from Marxism.”

In State & Revolution, Lenin also goes on to discuss how Marx and Engels on the basis of the experience of the Paris Commune had found the answer to the question of what was to replace the bourgeois state. The Communes themselves would act as both legislative and executive bodies, and would join together on a national basis to create a centralised state apparatus. Of course, the question still arises of exactly how these Communes would arise.

For Lenin, in Tsarist Russia, where the bourgeois revolution of 1905, had already thrown up Soviets, the answer was clear. Certainly, it was clear for Trotsky, who on the basis of the Theory of Permanent Revolution, posited the idea that such bourgeois revolutions would inevitably have to continue into proletarian revolutions. But, in a world in which Capitalist relations were already well developed in many countries, and were rapidly extending to other countries, the Bourgeois Revolution was already overdue. The same could not be said of those countries such as Britain, France, the US, and Germany where the Bourgeois Revolution was already history. In these countries where what is being discussed is the Proletarian Revolution itself, it is quite clear that a repetition of 1917, or of China in 1949, or Cuba in 1959 and so on is not on the agenda, no matter how much the sects wish to fantasise about it.

The question then arises of how to build these revolutionary Communes within our existing society, and what relationship this should have to the need to continue to deal with the immediate concerns and needs of the working-class. In other words, what is the relation between the kind of revolutionary transformation of productive and social relations that Marx discussed, and the political struggle of the working-class for hegemony? Here too the AWL misrepresent the view of Marx, but they also misrepresent the view of Lenin and other revolutionary Marxists too.

Martin Thomas, says,

“Three: that the working class must engage in political action (battles for reforms made by law, and electoral action) as well as economic struggle.”

On its own this statement is innocuous enough. But, it has to be taken in the context both of what has been said in the previous two statements, and in the context of the AWL's own political practice. In other words, what they mean by a battle for reforms, and electoral action. What it means for the AWL is this. The Revolution is viewed as some repetition of 1917. Out of the blue, perhaps on the back of some economic crisis leading to extended industrial action, the working-class or a significant section of it, develops a revolutionary consciousness, and decides to establish Workers Councils, or else it votes in a Workers Government, which is pushed by external working-class action to break with the bourgeoisie, and to implement Transitional Demands. In the meantime, as there is no prospect of such a development, all that is possible is for miniscule sects such as the AWL, to focus on “Building The Party” ready for the Great Day. The way to “Build The Party” is to engage in individual sectional struggles that remain within the confines of Capitalism – be they economic struggles in the workplace, or political struggles for reforms or Government action.

On this basis individual workers, it is hoped will be attracted to the Party on the basis of its hard work and rhetoric. Rather than building workers self-activity, and self-Government i.e. those revolutionary Communes, this perspective instead relies on a continual Sisyphean labour for these reforms and to prevent the condition of the workers being further reduced, alongside demands raised for the State to do this that or the other on workers behalf, in the hope that this will somehow cause workers to lose their illusions in the nature of that State. This is often phrased as “not letting the State off the hook.”

But, its already been shown what is wrong with this strategy. In order for the State not to be “let off the hook”, the demands placed upon it, have to be ones that it cannot concede. That was not the approach of Marx, but of Guesde! Guesde argued, that the rejection of these reforms would, “free the proletariat of its last reformist illusions and convince it of the impossibility of avoiding a workers ’89.”

Accusing Guesde and Lafargue of “revolutionary phrase-mongering” and of denying the value of reformist struggles, Marx made his famous remark that, if their politics represented Marxism, “ce qu'il y a de certain c'est que moi, je ne suis pas Marxiste” (“what is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist”).

Trotsky makes a similar point in his Open Letter To French Workers, where he attacks the Stalinists for suggesting that workers could control the foreign policy of the bourgeois state, by such demands and pressure. He writes,

“Where and when has an oppressed proletariat “controlled” the foreign policy of the bourgeoisie and the activities of its arm? How can it achieve this when the entire power is in the hands of the bourgeoisie? In order to lead the army, it is necessary to overthrow the bourgeoisie and seize power. There is no other road. But the new policy of the Communist International implies the renunciation of this only road.

When a working class party proclaims that in the event of war it is prepared to “control” (i.e., to support) its national militarism and not to overthrow it, it transforms itself by this very thing into the domestic beast of capital.

There is not the slightest ground for fearing such a party: it is not a revolutionary tiger but a trained donkey. It may be kept in starvation, flogged, spat upon it – it will nevertheless carry the cargo of patriotism. Perhaps only from time to time it will piteously bray: “For God’s sake, disarm the Fascist leagues.” In reply to its braying it will receive an additional blow of the whip. And deservingly so!”

In other words, demands that the State cannot agree to are either revolutionary phrase-mongering, or else they are calls for Revolution Now. But, if they are demands that the State CAN concede, then how can these demands in any way be said to be not letting it off the hook, in what way do they act to shed workers of their illusions in the nature of this State? On the contrary, one of the most powerful ideological weapons that the bourgeoisie have unleashed is precisely the extension of the role of the State into the provision of Welfare and so on, which acts to convince workers of the neutrality of that State, the idea that it is there to provide protection for all within society!

That is why Bismark as part of the modernisation of the German economy in the 19th Century introduced a National Insurance scheme in order to establish such a Welfare State, and why every developed Capitalist State has followed suit.

Marx was well aware of the danger of this for the working-class. That is why he argued that, “"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable.” It is why, in the Programme of the First International, he set out clearly his objection to an extension of the role of the State, because it would undermine workers self-government, writing,

“Because indirect taxes conceal from an individual what he is paying to the state, whereas a direct tax is undisguised, unsophisticated, and not to be misunderstood by the meanest capacity. Direct taxation prompts therefore every individual to control the governing powers while indirect taxation destroys all tendency to self-government.”

It is why he and the First International demanded that the State keep its hands off the workers Friendly Societies, which were the means by which the workers themselves, by their own self-government provided for their own welfare independent of the State.

It is also why at the beginning of the twentieth century, communists such as within the Plebs League set up their own Labour Colleges, and so on, in order to maintain independence from the Capitalist State, and in order to build independent, working-class self-activity, and self-government. It is why the First International set out in its proposals for developing Co-operatives, said,

“We recommend to all co-operative societies to convert one part of their joint income into a fund for propagating their principles by example as well as by precept, in other words, by promoting the establishment by teaching and preaching.”

In fact, the many Co-operative societies that workers did establish throughout the country, DID set aside a portion of their funds for education, and for a long time provided, above each store, libraries, reading rooms and schools long before the Capitalist State intervened to stop this revolutionary development of independent working-class education, and bring it safely into the fold of a transmission belt of bourgeois ideas via the State education factories.

Yet, for the reformists of the AWL, this idea that workers should provide their own independent education rather than calling on the Capitalist State to provide it, would be to let that State “off the hook”. But, of course, when asked the Capitalist State says, “Of course, come on in,” in the same way that the spider did to the fly.

When the AWL talk about “engag(ing) in political action (battles for reforms made by law, and electoral action) as well as economic struggle.” it is precisely these kinds of reforms it has in mind, which is the very opposite of the kind of reforms that Marx was in favour of pursuing, whose aim was to facilitate the working-class freeing itself from dependence upon the Capitalist State, and enabling it all the better to undermine it, and to build its own self-government in opposition to it!

The kind of development that Marx envisaged, even preceding his view about the way the revolutionary Communes could join together, was highlighted in relation to the development of Co-operatives. He argued that the Co-operatives needed to be combined in a national organisation. This point was spelled out by Ernest Jones, who was Marx and Engels' closest collaborator in England, who wrote, in a letter to the Co-operative Societies,

“Then what is the only salutary basis for co-operative industry? A NATIONAL one. All co-operation should be founded, not on isolated efforts, absorbing, if successful, vast riches to themselves, but on a national union which should distribute the national wealth.

To make these associations secure and beneficial, you must make it their interest to assist each other, instead of competing with each other—you must give them UNITY OF ACTION, AND IDENTITY OF INTEREST.

To effect this, every local association should be the branch of a national one, and all profits, beyond a certain amount, should be paid into a national fund, for the purpose of opening fresh branches, and enabling the poorest to obtain land, establish stores, and otherwise apply their labour power, not only to their own advantage, but to that of the general body.

This is the vital point: are the profits to accumulate in the hands of isolated clubs, or are they to be devoted to the elevation of the entire people? Is the wealth to gather around local centres, or is it to be diffused by a distributive agency?”

Of course, its on this basis that Marx could also speak in his Inaugural Address in the same tone about how limited the Co-ops would be if they remained as single enterprises, it is why he can speak in Capital about the role of Credit as “the means for the gradual extension of co-operative enterprises on a more or less national scale.”

But, it is also why he can set out in the Inaugural Address the nature of the political struggle he foresees as necessary, because to stop the growth of the Co-operatives,

“the lords of the land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economic monopolies. So far from promoting, they will continue to lay every possible impediment in the way of the emancipation of labour.”

For so long as the bourgeoisie held State power, therefore, and so long as the laws continued to be made in bourgeois parliaments, workers would need to organise themselves politically, and intervene in those arenas in order to achieve those laws, which enabled them to build their own independent organisations, and to create their own self-government as the pre-condition for their self-emancipation. But, self emancipation does not flow from tying yourself to that Capitalist State, and a reliance upon its provision, but the very opposite! As Lenin says, in “The State and Revolution”, bourgeois democracy is merely a cover for the actual Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie.

“Another reason why the omnipotence of “wealth” is more certain in a democratic republic is that it does not depend on defects in the political machinery or on the faulty political shell of capitalism. A democratic republic is the best possible political shell for capitalism, and, therefore, once capital has gained possession of this very best shell (through the Palchinskys, Chernovs, Tseretelis and Co.), it establishes its power so securely, so firmly, that no change of persons, institutions or parties in the bourgeois-democratic republic can shake it.

We must also note that Engels is most explicit in calling universal suffrage as well an instrument of bourgeois rule.

Universal suffrage, he says, obviously taking account of the long experience of German Social-Democracy, is

“the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the present-day state."

The petty-bourgeois democrats, such as our Socialist-Revolutionaries and Mensheviks, and also their twin brothers, all the social-chauvinists and opportunists of Western Europe, expect just this “more” from universal suffrage. They themselves share, and instil into the minds of the people, the false notion that universal suffrage “in the present-day state" is really capable of revealing the will of the majority of the working people and of securing its realization.”

We could add to Lenin's list the AWL as one of those expecting just this “more” from bourgeois democracy. And, in fact, Lenin himself in Left-wing Communism, sets out just what the political activity in these bourgeois-democratic forums should consist of.

“Even if only a fairly large minority of the industrial workers, and not "millions" and "legions", follow the lead of the Catholic clergy—and a similar minority of rural workers follow the landowners and kulaks (Grossbauern)—it undoubtedly signifies that parliamentarianism in Germany has not yet politically outlived itself, that participation in parliamentary elections and in the struggle on the parliamentary rostrum is obligatory on the party of the revolutionary proletariat specifically for the purpose of educating the backward strata of its own class, and for the purpose of awakening and enlightening the undeveloped, downtrodden and ignorant rural masses. Whilst you lack the strength to do away with bourgeois parliaments and every other type of reactionary institution, you must work within them because it is there that you will still find workers who are duped by the priests and stultified by the conditions of rural life; otherwise you risk turning into nothing but windbags...

Communists, adherents of the Third International in all countries, exist for the purpose of changing — all along the line, in all spheres of life—the old socialist, trade unionist, syndicalist, and parliamentary type of work into a new type of work, the communist. In Russia, too, there was always an abundance of opportunism, purely bourgeois sharp practices and capitalist rigging in the elections. In Western Europe and in America, the Communist must learn to create a new, uncustomary, non-opportunist, and non-careerist parliamentarianism; the Communist parties must issue their slogans; true proletarians, with the help of the unorganised and downtrodden poor, should distribute leaflets, canvass workers’ houses and cottages of the rural proletarians and peasants in the remote villages (fortunately there are many times fewer remote villages in Europe than in Russia, and in Britain the number is very small); they should go into the public houses, penetrate into unions, societies and chance gatherings of the common people, and speak to the people, not in learned (or very parliamentary) language, they should not at all strive to "get seats" in parliament, but should everywhere try to get people to think, and draw the masses into the struggle, to take the bourgeoisie at its word and utilise the machinery it has set up, the elections it has appointed, and the appeals it has made to the people; they should try to explain to the people what Bolshevism is, in a way that was never possible (under bourgeois rule) outside of election times (exclusive, of course, of times of big strikes, when in Russia a similar apparatus for widespread popular agitation worked even more intensively). It is very difficult to do this in Western Europe and extremely difficult in America, but it can and must be done, for the objectives of communism cannot be achieved without effort. We must work to accomplish practical tasks, ever more varied and ever more closely connected with all branches of social life, winning branch after branch, and sphere after sphere from the bourgeoisie.”

Lenin also sets out the way in which Communists in the Parliamentary chamber do not act as Parliamentarians, but act so as at every stage to expose the fraudulent nature of bourgeois democracy, and at the same time to use the position to advocate the cause of the workers and their independent struggle, and organisations. And, of course, given this conception of what bourgeois Parliaments are, and how Communists should work in them, the only means by which Lenin's statement “We must work to accomplish practical tasks, ever more varied and ever more closely connected with all branches of social life, winning branch after branch, and sphere after sphere from the bourgeoisie.” can be understood, is precisely if this is achieved OUTSIDE Parliament, by independent working class activity and self-government rather than merely being a result of Laws and reforms introduced in Parliament.

In reality, the AWL have just turned themselves into Left-Wing reformists, who are not even capable of getting themselves elected, but whose day to day activity is also incapable of raising workers above a Trade Union consciousness.

There are, in fact many workers organisations that COULD be brought together to begin the task of building the revolutionary Communes. In addition to the existing Co-operatives – both the Workers Producer Co-ops, and the various Consumer Co-ops – organisations as disparate as the Trades Councils, Tenants and Residents Associations, Neighbourhood Watch Schemes, and all the various ad hoc campaigns such as against the Cuts have this potential.

But, what is necessary is that the aims of such organisations are revolutionary and transformative, rather than being simply combative and episodic. A Co-operative that simply sees itself as an alternative form of enterprise, content to accept the conditions imposed upon it by Capitalism is neither revolutionary nor transformative. A Co-operative that sees its role as also being to expand its model on a national and international basis, that recognises that it is in combat against Capital, and must expand to survive, and which, therefore ties itself to the class struggle of the workers in general is revolutionary and transformative. A Tenants and Residents Association that sees its function as nothing more than to represent Tenants views, and to bargain for reforms and improvement from the local Council is nothing more than a pressure group, a Trade Union for Tenants. But, a TRA that demands the right to manage the affairs of the estate, that seeks the transfer of property out of the hands of the Capitalist State into the hands of the workers living on the estate is revolutionary and transformative.

A Neighbourhood Watch Scheme that sees its function as being merely to safeguard private property, and to pressure the local Police to increase patrols etc. is useless, but one that established its own neighbourhood patrols, that connects with the TRA, and so on demanding the right to self-policing, is a step towards the establishment of a Workers Militia, and the dismantling of the Police as a weapon of the Capitalist State. A Campaign against the Cuts, which remains on the terrain of simply demanding that the State does not worsen the existing level of provision, is no different than a Trade Union resisting attempts to reduce workers conditions, but conent to accept a less severe exploitation.

But , a Campaign that seeks to demand democratic control over those services, and recognises that only by transferring ownership of them into the hands of the workers themselves can such control be won, engages in a revolutionary and transformative activity. A Trades Council, which acts as merely a forum for Trade Union politics, constrains the working class within bourgeois limits, reinforcing the dominant ideas of present society. But, a Trades Council that acts to link together these various other organisations of workers self-government, that acts to provide Trade Union support for such acts of self-government, begins itself to be transformed into a local Workers Parliament.

And, the more this workers self activity, and self-government develops, the more the bourgeoisie will, as Marx set out, be forced to act more openly to oppose it, thereby exposing the real class nature of its state. The more the workers will see the need to develop their own Party to fight for their interests, until ultimately, they recognise the need to counterpose their own Parliaments, their own organisations, and their own forms of property to those of the bourgeoisie. This is the true message of Marx, and not the statist approach of the AWL.

Back To Part 3

Egypt - What Is To Be Done - Part 5

Build The Workers', Property, Democracy and State

I have spent considerable time discussing these strategies and arguments before coming to the question of what is to be done in Egypt because in order to answer that question it is at least as important to identify what is NOT to be done in order to avoid the disasters that have befallen the workers in the past as a result of pursuing a false course.

The actual strategy for the workers in Egypt has to be determined concretely by the workers themselves with the assistance of Marxists in Egypt, because only they can assess the actual balance of forces at any one time. The above set out the strategies that must be avoided whatever the conditions, the question is to determine the actual tactics that are appropriate at each stage given the actual conditions, and how those tactics can help develop the working-class as an independent force in Egyptian society capable of shaping events and its own destiny.

The basic outline of those tactics I have already set out both here and in other documents. The main focus for Marxists in Egypt must be the building up of independent working-class organisation. There is a tendency, as I have outlined in other documents in relation to Britain, to see the task in terms of winning positions in the Trades Unions, getting resolutions passed etc. In a situation such as that in Egypt today such activity is even more irrelevant. It is not “mass work”, but an electoralist shadow of it. The Trades Unions in any country only organise a minority of workers, and those actively involved in the union organisation an even smaller minority of that minority.

By no stretch of the imagination can this be described as mass work. Real mass work has to be conducted in the midst of the masses themselves, not in the Trade Union meetings, but on the shop floor, through the building up of rank and file organisations of workers – unionised and non-unionised alike – capable of responding immediately to every situation through their own direct action. Such organisation within each shop has to be spread throughout the whole factory in the form of Factory Committees. It is not to say that the Trades Union branches are not important, or that winning them and wider Trades Union organisations to a series of demands that further the workers interests does not matter – as Lenin said in response to the Anarchists in his “Two Tactics of Social Democracy”, this process has to proceed from above and below, but it is to insist that the starting point has to be a real drive to win over the majority of the masses, to win the battle of democracy, and not just to win votes that do not reflect real mass support.

The Factory Committee is the real building block of any proletarian movement. Without effective Factory Committees, Trade Union Branches are no more than empty talking shops, prone to bureaucracy and undemocratic practices. And that makes any other Trade Union organisation based on the Branches even more useless. There is no point winning the leadership of such organisations based on nothing, and capable of mobilising no one.

Without, the Factory Committees, effective Workers Councils are impossible in an area. In 1917, when Lenin recognised that they did not have a majority in the Soviets (Workers Councils) he told the Bolsheviks to focus their attention on the Factory Committees where they did have a majority, and considered organising the insurrection through them rather than the Soviets. But, the Factory Committee is vital to other aspects of the tactics and strategy that the workers need to develop. If the bosses of a factory attempt to lock-out the workers or to close the Factory, then the Factory Committee is the obvious organisation capable of responding immediately not just to occupy the factory, but to ensure that production continues under Workers Control. Because it is a rank and file organisation of the workers it is not susceptible to all of the sectional interests of the different Trades Unions in the factory, and their petty rivalries. Even if the factory is not to be occupied, at a certain stage of the struggle the Factory Committee can act as a means of introducing Workers Inspection, and Workers Control.

The Factory Committee can also be replicated within the workers communities, especially where workers are living in rented properties. Moreover, these committees can be linked together in order to provide support for each group of workers from workers elsewhere be they in a factory, or in a workers district. They are a basic building block of workers organisation, workers solidarity, workers ownership and workers control. And in order to achieve that they also form the basis of the establishment of an alternative Workers Democracy, and Workers State.

But any State requires the means to defend the interests of the Class whose State it is. The basic elements of that are already being developed in Egypt with the establishment within workers communities of Defence Squads and Militia to guard against the thieves and criminals released by Mubarak's State. Once again the Factory Committees provide the basis for regularising these Militia, and bringing them under Workers Control, organising them as a co-ordinated, disciplined force to protect the workers not just in their communities, but in their factories. An urgent task in the days ahead is to organise these Defence Squads and Militia, and also to move from their current position of being armed with knives and sticks, to the acquisition of guns.

To the extent that the workers can achieve this organisation, and be able to provide protection for the protests against the attacks of Mubarak's thugs, the more they will win over the petit-bourgeoisie, which throughout history has thrown its support behind whichever class has provided a clear lead, and demonstrated its ascendancy.

One tactic the regime is using, and which every other regime has used is to try to create economic chaos. Its not known whether the explosion at the gas terminal on Saturday was an accident or the work of the regime, but their have been reports of shortages of food and gas. Ruling groups always hope that if such chaos persists then sections of the population will eventually begin to call for a return of “Order”. Western news reporters, particularly from the BBC, have missed no opportunity to ask the question ad nauseum of protesters whether they should not now call off the protests now that Mubarak has made concessions – concessions which, of course would disappear to be replaced by vicious repression if the protests did end.

But, it is in workers interests both to deny Mubarak of this tactic, and for production and distribution to resume for their own needs. But, the workers should restart production under Workers Control via the Factory Committees, and to meet the needs of the masses, not the needs of the regime. Exactly, how and when that occurs can only be determined on the ground.

None of this constitutes a push for power by the workers. Nor does it constitute an attempt to introduce the Democratic Dictatorship of the Proletariat and Peasantry. It only constitutes measures undertaken by workers for their own defence, and for the efficient functioning of the economy. It assumes that this economy remains a capitalist economy in the hands of Capitalists, and that the State remains a Capitalist State. But, further Political Demands are also required whilst remaining within that context.

If that Capitalist State is to even act as a defender of bourgeois democracy then it must be freed from the clutches of the existing political regime, a regime which is itself based upon the upper reaches of the State itself. A whole series of Democratic demands will be required in that respect such as:

* The election of all Top Civil servants

* The election of all judges

* The election of all Police Chiefs

* The election of the Military Top Brass

* An opening of the books of the State to see what financial links exist with which companies and individuals

* Democratic rights for all soldiers, including the right of Assembly, and to elect immediate commanding officers.

* For annual elections and the right of recall of elected representatives

* Freedom Of The Press

* Freedom Of Assembly

* The Right To Join Trades Unions

* The Right To Strike

* The Right To Bear Arms As Part Of A Democratically Regulated Militia

* Freedom Of All Political Parties

* The Rapid Convening Of A Constituent Assembly

These are not revolutionary socialist demands, but only demands for consistent bourgeois democracy such as outlined by Thomas Paine in his “The Rights of Man”, and which formed the basis of the US Constitution.

But, if the Army is to act as a stabilising force, persuading Mubarak to go prior to the installation of some Provisional Government along the lines of the Kerensky Government in Russia in 1917, then the demand for Democratic Rights for Soldiers, especially tied to the idea of developing Soldiers Committees similar to the Factory Committees of the workers is important, because Mubarak himself comes from that Military, and if he is not simply to be replaced by another General, then the links between the Political regime and the Army Chiefs of Staff must be broken, the political force pressing on the Army must come not from the existing regime, but from the mass of society. The channel for that must come through the rank and file soldiers.

That too will provide the most stable basis for ensuring that when the Parliamentary Elections do take place, when the Constituent Assembly is convened it can occur under the protection of the rank and file soldiers.

Depending upon, the progress achieved, further democratic demands arise to make the civilian regime stable and secure. The American revolutionaries, recognising the power that the State can exercise in its own interests as against those of society, argued against the idea of a permanent standing Army, and in favour of a Citizen Militia. It was after all such a Militia, which had defeated the military might of the most powerful Army of the 18th century, that of George III.

Especially, in conditions such as those of Egypt, where the State has for so long exercised power in its own interests against those of the Citizens, such a demand is particularly relevant. Once a Parliamentary Republic has been established the demand for the gradual replacement of the standing army with such a Militia should be raised. The forces of reaction will oppose such a demand, and from experience so will those of the Liberals and Reformists. In Spain, during the 1930's they opposed the call by Trotsky for the disbandment of the Officer Corps, for instance. They argued that Spain was threatened from without by the forces of German fascism, and the officer corps was needed to organise the country's defence.

But, as Trotsky correctly identified, the immediate threat to the Spanish Republic came not from Germany or any external enemies, but from the internal forces of reaction, for whom the Officer Corps would be the shock troops. The victory of Franco was the complete vindication of Trotsky's warnings.

If all that is achieved by the Democratic Revolution in Egypt is this level of transformation of society then this would represent a significant step forward for the Egyptian workers. It would provide the basis for the resumption of something approaching “normal” politics, and also provide the basis for facilitating the workers further organisation and development. But, precisely because it would constitute the resumption of “normal” politics it would mean that the basic contradictions of those normal politics would once more increasingly take centre stage. That is increasingly the contradictory interests of the workers and the Capitalists would become apparent. In 1848, Marx and Engels concluded that contrary to their belief a Socialist revolution would have been impossible.

Not only were the productive forces insufficiently developed, but the working class itself was insufficiently developed. That too was the real cause of the failure of the Socialist Revolution in Russia in 1917. The solidarity and organisation of the working-class, and its hostility to the old regime, especially a corrupt regime during a period of crisis, is sufficient to overthrow such a regime, but it is far from adequate for the far more complex task of building Socialism, and as the rise of Stalinism demonstrated in Russia, and of the Party and State bureaucracy that led to Stalinism even under Lenin, this task cannot be subcontracted to a party or State to undertake from above. Just as Marx and Engels argued in relation to Lassalle, and his Statist programme of the conversion of property ownership and relations from above, this revolutionary transformation can only be accomplished from below by the acts of the working-class themselves. The workers have to demonstrate their desire to take over their factories, shops and offices not just as an act of rebellion, but out of a desire to become their immediate owners and managers.

If they are not prepared to do that, but instead fall back into the routine that bourgeois society conditions them in, relying on others to undertake that work of control, then necessarily those who undertake the control will usurp authority, establish their own interests, and act in those interests accordingly. The Bonapartist regime in Egypt is just another example of that basic truth.

If a Socialist revolution is to be achievable in Egypt, then not only do the productive forces have to be adequate for that purpose – and its is not clear that at present they are – but the workers must show that they are capable, and prepared to undertake the task of building Socialism themselves. For now, that would mean that workers have to begin to demonstrate their desire to take over the existing means of production, and to develop their own Workers Co-operatives, linked together in a Co-operative Federation. Even if, the productive forces in Egypt are not sufficient for Socialism at the present time, even if the workers themselves are not sufficiently developed as a class to begin to make itself the ruling-class, the creation of such Workers Property is a fundamental requirement for that transformation of the working-class, and for the development of its economic and social power in society.

It provides the Egyptian workers with an alternative to Capitalist exploitation, and demonstrates in practice, how such an alternative could be built as a different type of society. In the meantime, those Co-operatives would provide an increasingly important base of support for workers engaged in the class struggle against their own bosses. In Britain, at the beginning of the twentieth Century that role was played by the Co-op, in providing both food and finance to striking workers during the General Strike, for instance. In current conditions, not only could workers Co-ops in Egypt be providing food and other necessities, but they could also be producing and distributing the guns and other means of defence that the workers need.

But, another lesson of the Russian Revolution was that Socialism cannot be built in a single country, especially a less developed one. Although, the Co-operative production of a Socialist society is far more efficient than Capitalist production, precisely because it releases all of the energy, the inventiveness, and dynamism of the working-class, that cannot outweigh the advantages that a far more developed Capitalism enjoys on a national and international level. As Trotsky put it, “A grown lion can see off a pack of hounds, but if the hounds attack the lion when it is just a cub, then the hounds will defeat it.” Any attempt to build Socialism in Egypt would not only see it confronted by powerful Capitalist competition undermining its ability to survive, but it would also face overt and covert attempts to overthrow it by Imperialism.

The best hope for the Socialist revolution in Egypt will come from the ability of the Egyptian workers to build up their strength, build up their economic and social power by the construction of workers co-operatives linked in to not just a national Co-operative Federation in Egypt, but one across the Middle-East, and Europe. That will provide a powerful basis for competition against Capitalist property, for developing international solidarity, and for undermining the potential for Imperialist intervention. But, here too, workers in the West have a duty of international solidarity with the Egyptian workers. The US alone provides Egypt with around $2 billion of aid each year, half of that in military aid. The advantage the workers have over other classes is that it is they who do the work, who produce the goods and services and distribute them.

There is a duty incumbent on the US workers involved in producing the goods that make up that aid to ensure that it goes to the Egyptian masses, not to their oppressors. The US should not cut off aid to Egypt, but US workers in the factories, on the docks, on the ships and planes should set up their own committees, and link them to the Egyptian workers organisations, ensuring that the necessities, and arms that the Egyptian workers need, are provided to them directly. In Europe, and in the US there are already important worker owned Co-operatives, as well as large consumer Co-ops in Europe. In Europe, where workers themselves are already taking to the streets in opposition to the austerity measures, it is important to link up the struggles of workers on the Southern shores of the Mediterranean with those on the Northern shores in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and no doubt as the austerity measures bit, in Italy and France too.

Workers in Europe should organise through their Co-ops to provide assistance to the Egyptian workers. As the largest and most effective Workers Co-op in Europe, the workers at Mondragon should make contact with their North African comrades to assist in the development of worker owned property, and workers production. This would be the best immediate means of demonstrating an effective, efficient alternative to the chaos and oppression of Capitalism, and its austerity.

Of course, as Lenin outlined in “Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution”, socialists cannot refuse to take power if it is thrust upon them, if the battle of democracy is won, even if the productive forces are not sufficiently developed in the particular country.

In Russia both then, and later in his “April Theses” in 1917, Lenin argued that they would have to take power in the interests of acting to spur on the Socialist Revolution in those countries where the productive forces were sufficiently developed. Given the rapid spread of revolt across the Middle-East against repressive regimes, such a scenario may present itself again today, though it is doubtful that the productive forces in many of these other countries is sufficient to provide a basis for Socialism either. Many of them such as Saudi Arabia, although they have spent some of their oil revenues on trying to develop their own industries, remain largely Rent based economies dependent upon Oil, Gas, and its associated industries, as well as an increasing development of Finance.

If the current revolts spread to the repressive theocratic regime in Iran, where industrial development is reasonably developed, that might be changed, but its unlikely that this would be a sufficient basis for the building of Socialism across the whole of the Middle-East. The most significant development would be if the Arab workers could join with the Israeli workers, in order to take advantage of Israel's relatively advanced economy. But, the real solution for workers in the Middle East is to be able to link their economies and future to those of the workers in Europe, particularly Southern Europe, where the EU has already established a Mediterranean Trading Area. Building up international links between the workers in the Middle East, with those in Southern Europe, building solidarity action between them, especially now as they are both engaged in action, developing Workers property, Workers Democracy, and alternative forms of Workers State to defend the workers interests, would be a great step forward towards the construction of a wider Socialist United States of Europe and the Middle East.

In short, there are a number of principles which must govern the actions of the Egyptian workers if they are to avoid the mistakes of the past. The most important of those is for the workers to maintain their strict independence from other classes, supporting them in action in the struggle for Democracy, but using their own methods of struggle for that, and developing their own organisations and demands alongside it. They must maintain a position of “extreme revolutionary opposition”, supporting the Democracy movement in action, but all the time stressing the separate interests of the working-class, and its ultimate hostility to the bourgeoisie. It must focus primarily on the goal of developing the working-class, and the fight for Socialism rather than subordinating that to the immediate concerns of the struggle for democracy. It must build the strength of the working-class from below. The socialists must conduct mass work on the shop floor and in the workers communities, concentrating on the building of Rank and File Organisations from the bottom up, as the only sound basis for winning positions. Until such time as the socialists have successfully conducted that struggle and won the battle for democracy they must avoid any premature bid for State power.

But, exactly how the tactics outlined in previous paragraphs are implemented, and more importantly when they are implemented cannot be determined in advance, because that depends upon the material factors that exist at the particular time, and the balance of class forces.

In other words, to use Lenin's phrase this formulation has to remain algebraic, outlining the steps to be taken but not setting in stone the order in which they are raised or implemented. At the present time, the working-class may not be the most significant force in Egypt. But, that fact does not mean that the Egyptian workers have to see themselves as mere observers of the historical process tying their fate to some other more powerful group be it an Imperialism now turning on its former agent, or on the Army from which Mubarak came, and upon which ultimately his power has been based, or the Middle Class who were the most visible originators of the protests, and most certainly not upon forces such as the Muslim Brotherhood who would imprison the Egyptian workers if anything more cruelly than has Mubarak. The fate of the Egyptian workers lies in their own hands, and they can by organising to fight for their interests here and now, transform their condition, and can become the most important force in Egyptian society as a result of their actions.

Victory to the Egyptian Revolution, Victory To the Egyptian Workers

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