Building on Le Blanc: Crucial Historical Dimensions for Contemporary Marxist Responsibility
On Paul Le Blanc's talk in Berlin
Paul Le Blanc's outline of four responsibilities for Marxist activists today – understanding and engaging with the working class, the essential question of revolutionary organization, crucial elements for an activist orientation, and the centrality of revolutionary internationalism – provides a vital contemporary framework. This concise taxonomy offers a valuable starting point for revolutionaries navigating the complexities of the 21st century. Drawing on the rich, albeit sometimes difficult, historical experience of the Communist International (Comintern) and related revolutionary debates, we can identify crucial elements that, while perhaps implicit in Le Blanc's framework, require explicit focus to equip Marxists fully for their tasks.
The history of the Comintern, from its ambitious founding to its tragic degeneration and dissolution, serves as an indispensable case study in attempting to fulfill precisely these responsibilities on a global scale. While Le Blanc sets out the contemporary principles, the historical record details the practical struggles, debates, successes, and devastating failures that ensued when revolutionaries attempted to implement them.
Several experiences from the Comintern era stand out as essential supplements to Le Blanc's talk:
The Historical Experience and Degeneration of the Comintern Itself
While Le Blanc champions internationalism, the actual history of the Comintern is the concrete embodiment of this principle in the early 20th century. This history isn't just a backdrop; it's the laboratory where theories of organization, strategy, and international solidarity were forged and tested under immense pressure. Its degeneration, inextricably linked to the rise of bureaucracy within the Soviet Union and the Bolshevik party, provides stark warnings about the challenges inherent in maintaining a revolutionary international. Figures like Lenin struggled against this bureaucracy, seeing it as a significant danger. The process of "Bolshevization," initially aimed at building disciplined parties, became intertwined with centralization and the imposition of the Soviet party's line, often hindering genuine internationalism and revolutionary flexibility. The history of the Comintern encompasses the implementation and failure of key strategies like the United Front and the Workers' Government, and analyzing why it degenerated (including the impact of the "Socialism in One Country" doctrine) is crucial for contemporary internationalism. This history informs how one pursues internationalism today, armed with lessons from past pitfalls.
Specific Comintern Strategic and Tactical Concepts
Le Blanc mentions the need for a revolutionary organization to have a crucial activist orientation. The sources detail the development and intense debate around specific tactics forged by the early Comintern to provide this orientation, such as the United Front and the Workers' Government. These were attempts to bridge the gap between immediate struggles and the fight for power, uniting working-class forces and conceptualizing transitional forms of government. The sources highlight the "algebraic formula" of the Workers' Government concept, noting its varied and sometimes "sharply counterposed interpretations." Understanding the historical context, the debates (e.g., at the 4th and 5th Congresses) and the practical complexities (and failures) of applying these concepts is vital for developing relevant activist strategies today.
The Struggle Against Bureaucracy and for Party Democracy
Embedded within the question of revolutionary organization is the constant struggle against bureaucratic deformations. The sources discuss Lenin's concern with the "professional dangers of power" and the need to combat bureaucracy within the party and state. They also touch upon the debates around party internal life, including the controversial decision to ban factions, which Lenin presented as a temporary, circumstantial necessity in a peasant country under siege. Later, figures like Trotsky raised the need for "democracy in the party" and the right of tendencies as a safeguard against bureaucratic control, particularly as the party held power. While Le Blanc speaks of revolutionary organization, the Comintern's history underscores that maintaining its revolutionary character requires continuous vigilance against bureaucracy and a commitment to genuine, albeit disciplined, internal democracy.
Drawing Lessons from Major Historical Defeats
Learning from past failures is key to developing an effective activist orientation. The left must understand pivotal defeats like the German Revolution of 1923 and the Second Chinese Revolution (1925-1927). The analysis of the German defeat, for instance, involved intense internal debate within the Comintern and the KPD, highlighting errors in strategy, timing, and leadership preparedness. Similarly, the Chinese Revolution in the 1920s showed the Comintern's policy directives, including the controversial entry into the Kuomintang, and their tragic consequences. These defeats are not just historical events; they are crucial educational moments for understanding the complexities of revolutionary situations, the challenges of leadership, and the consequences of incorrect political lines or passive approaches. The sources explicitly argue that drawing "lessons from the major setbacks analyzed by Frank, such as the German defeat of 1923 and the Popular Front experiences, [is of] crucial importance... to inform current strategy."
The Centrality of the Struggle for Power
While not a separate "responsibility" in Le Blanc's list, Leninists frequently return to Lenin's intense focus on the struggle for power as the driving force behind the party's organization and tactics. Daniel Bensaïd, in Revolutionary Strategy Today, notes that this obsession guided Lenin's focus on organizational and tactical questions. Pierre Frank’s history of the Comintern analyzes how debates on strategy, organization, and internationalism were ultimately judged by their contribution to the goal of taking power. The party is presented as the "mediation between theory and practice" for this purpose. Understanding this central objective provides the necessary gravity for the other responsibilities; without the aim of overthrowing capitalism and taking power, understanding the class, building an organization, and developing activist orientation lack their revolutionary motor.
Learn from the Comintern
Of these, the historical experience and degeneration of the Comintern is arguably the most notable missing or understated element in the educational and agitational work of socialists today. While Le Blanc names "revolutionary internationalism" as a contemporary task, socialists must go into the concrete history of the primary international revolutionary body of the period. We must detail its origins, its congresses, its strategic debates, and crucially, its decline and failures under the weight of bureaucratization and the priorities of the Soviet state. This history is not merely about internationalism in principle, but about the immense practical, political, and organizational challenges of building and maintaining a functional revolutionary international in the face of global capitalism and internal pressures. Understanding why the Comintern failed is as important, if not more so, than upholding the abstract principle of internationalism today. This element serves as a critical case study informing all four of Le Blanc's responsibilities.
In conclusion, Le Blanc's framework is a valuable compass for contemporary Marxists. By incorporating the detailed historical lessons from the Comintern era outlined in the sources – particularly the concrete history of internationalism, the development and application of key tactics, the perpetual battle against bureaucracy, the analysis of crucial defeats, and the overarching focus on the struggle for power – we can arrive at a richer, more historically informed, and ultimately more effective understanding of the tasks facing revolutionaries today.