A centrist writes on the

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Mark Hyde reviews Marxism and the Party by John Molyneux, published attempts to present the basic ideas of Marx, Lenin, Luxemburg, Trotsky and Gramsci on the revolutionary party and then to comment on their practical relevance today.

With Tony Cliff as editor of this book it is fair of the reader to assume that it has the seal of approval of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP), particularly since favourable references are made to the writings of other SWP members such as Chris Harman and Duncan Hallas.

A study of Mr. Molyneux's book should then, provide some guide to the ideological underpinnings of this tendency.

It is not possible to take up every error and misconception contained in this work-space is too brief.

But certain central points must be made.

Throughout the book the importance of scientific theory and programme is minimised-the significance of the party as the material organ of class consciousness is thus undermined; in its place stands a glorification of the working class and its consciousness in its present form.

Mere organising

Essentially, the task of the party is reduced to merely organising workers in a more permanent way, for tasks which they are already assumed to have recognised in the day-to-day This method emerges most sharply when Molyneux addresses himself to the theory of Lenin (and Kautsky), that socialist consciousness must be brought to the working class "from without"

From attacking the notion of Kautsky (and at first accepted by Lenin) that "from without" can only mean the "bourgeois intelligentsia" as the "vehicle of science", Molyneux goes over to blur the distinction between the scientific knowledge of the revolutionary party (consisting of the most advanced workers who have risen to the level of Marxism and the best elements of the bourgeois intelligentsia who have come over to the working class) and the spontaneous consciousness generated in the course of the • class struggle itself.

Deprived of Though Molyneux makes frequent genuflections to "orthodox" phrases about the party as a "vanguard", he "need to understand the totality of social relations" and admit that the latter Rosa Luxemburg can only come from much wider sphere than the factory", he therefore deprives the party of its role as the genuine theoretical and polițical leader of the proletariat.

Thus we read of:

-66 • workers spontaneously rising •to much greater heights than trade unionism and trade union politics...

Necessary

Self-consciously defending himself against the accusation that he is about to overthrow the whole of Leninism, Molyneux asserts by Pluto Press at £2.95 that a revolutionary party still necessary because:

66 ... this consciousness does not develop gradually ... On the contrary, it takes giant and sudden leaps forward and can suffer equally catastrophic shipwrecks. Nor does the consciousness spread evenly through the class, so the consciousness of the advanced socialist workers must be organised and centralised to increase to the maximum its influence within the ... class as a whole."

Now, noone has ever denied that when the work-. ing class is driven into conflict with capitalism the development of the revolutionary crisis creates the conditions for sharp changes in consciousness.

And only a fool could fail to see that the proletariat in struggle constantly draws conclusions about the role of the state, the different political parties, etc.

Yet a revolutionary programme of action for the overthrow of the capitalist system, and revolutionary consciousness as such, is far more than the sum total of these experiences.

The consciousness of the Marxist (as opposed to a centrist, SWP-type) party, is far more than that of the "advanced socialist workers"; or, as Molyneux puts it, "workers achieving socialist consciousness spontaneously".

The task is not merely to 'increase to the maximum" the "influence" of this "spontaneous consciousness"

The consciousness of the revolutionary party is that to which Molyneux can only pay lip service in other sections of this book-the complete body of knowledge of scientific Marxism. Lenin could give leadership to the Russian revolution not because he shared the consciousness of the "advanced socialist workers"_but because he fought this consciousness.

Adventurist

If the Bolshevik party had merely sought to "increase the influence" of these "advanced workers"

would have prematurely broken its neck during the adventurist upsurge of July 1917.

While paying close attention to every mood in the proletariat, every shift of mass opinion, while encouraging every progressive trend, the Bolsheviks under Lenin's leadership, were able to maintain the independence of the party from all pressures including the pressures of the advanced workers themselves (though cheets in there thee party too).

• Dialectics And this was possible because Bolshevik strategy after April 1917 was not based on tail-ending the advanced workers (the 'old Bolsheviks', including Stalin had done this before Lenin's return to Russia).

Rather the strategy could not be separated from Lenin's study of dialectical materialist philosophy (which Mr. Molyneux seeks to represent as a form of idealism), from the study of the nature of the imperialist war, of the development of capitalism in Russia, as well as (eventually) from Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution.

It is a happy coincidence of course, that Mr. Molyneux's separation of Marxist theory from the tasks of party organisation, and his view that the revolutionary movement has only to do what workers do spontaneously in a more systematic way, provides a rationale for the current practice of the SWP which never tires of giving workers in struggle *assistance" and patting them on the back in the hope of easy recruitment, while refraining from any sharp struggle for programme against the present consciousness of the class.

Quiescence

In times of relative quiescence in the class struggle tendencies which play this game appear oh-soadvanced, but in times of upsurge act as a drag on the movement.

Molyneux's opposition to the Marxist programme is clearest when he talks about Trotsky's "dual legacy"

There is, are told, a we "qualitative difference" between Trotsky's defence of Leninism against Stalinism up to 1933, and his struggle for a new (Fourth) International from 1933 onwards.

"Pitiful"

The first was basically a good thing; the second a "pitiful gathering" , based upon the Transitional Programme which he calls a "false method"_"a fixed system, in isolation from and in advance of mass struggles"

Molyneux crows (with complete disregard to the teal part played by Trotskyists in leading mass struggles in many countries):

... its demands-for a sliding scale of wages, for the opening of the books of big business, for the nationalisation of the banks, for the workers' militia-were never taken up by the workers".

Mr. Molyneux does not bother to explain how socialism will be achieved without such measures!

Actual experience

Molyneux's tirade deliberately conceals the fact that . the Transitional Programme was based upon the actual revolutionary experience of Russian Bolshevism and the early Comintern (which first spoke of a system of 'transitional demands'.

Further, the experience of every mass revolutionary upsurge of the proletariat has confirmed its method, right up to the present day.

What was the publication of capitalist accounts in Portugal and Iran but the 'opening of the books? What were the seizures of arms in those countries but the first instinctive strivings towards workers' militia?

Centrists like Mr Molyneux serve to conceal the lessons of such experiences from the working class and thus obstruct the development of, revolutionary No programme A fixed' programmé may, of course, be revised in the light of experience (as was the Bolshevik programme in 1917) but what Molyneux puts forward no programme-but instead a recipe for continual adaptation to the existing consciousness of the working class.

A natural complement of this view is the relegation of the task of building • a centralised International to the dim and distant futüre, in favour of "collaboration wherever possible" todaythe long-time justification for the SWP's sordid series of blocs with centrists abroad.

If Molyneux's book causes anyone to begin a serious questioning on the nature of' the revolutionary party, then at least it will have served one useful purpose.

But the task then is the study of the actual works of the great thinkers he seeks to "summarise" in order to discover the actual theoretical gains that have been made and their value today,: rather than their distorted reflection in the cracked mirror of centrism.

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NDUSTRAL From the hard up workers on ADO 14/71" at British Leyland's Body Plant NEWS DEAR EDITOR, After we have suffered two prolonged and arduous years of so-called bonus deals' , British Leyland management's latest tale of woe is to inform us that our parity payments have been suspended because of the lorry drivers' dispute.

This dispute incidentally gave the drivers an increase of over 14%. It makes our measly 5% look non-existent-even if we don't mention the Ford workers' rise.

We are sick and tired of our consorting with management.

We. demand a decent living wage. And we demand our officials do the job, for which they were elected.

This means preserving the living standards and working conditions of their members, not being blackmailed by the wolf-criers of management.

Yours fraternally, *We recommend the brothers concerned consult the

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livelihood being dependant on to stop their preoccupation with