Some thoughts on political organisation: A lot of clever stuff is written about democratic centralism & how revolutionary groups are or are not democratic. It seems pretty obvious to me that an organisation that seeks a world where the means of production are collectively owned, should organise in such a way as they would seek a socialist/communist world to be run, i.e. through direct, democratic, participatory democracy. The only difference being who can be a member. In a socialist/communist world naturally everyone will participate & be a member of the local commune/council/soviet/assembly or whatever name. But a revolutionary group will naturally restrict membership to revolutionaries, or at least those who think they are revolutionary. It may be necessary to expel some people who are not deemed to be revolutionaries from the revolutionary group, e.g. social democrats who dont just see social democracy as a route to socialism but as the end. Virtually no revolutionary group has, in my experience, organised in this way. They seem to prefer the model of the army or church, whereby getting up the hierarchy & having more power is decided by those who are already further up the ladder. No wonder those at the top ensure they stay at the top. A ruling clique. Not very communist! And low & behold not very appealing to the mass of workers. Party members then seem surprised that they are viewed with the same suspicion as Stalinists & Maoists. To my knowledge, it is only the Zapatistas that have tried to buck this trend. Just how successfully Im not sure. But the lesson is clear: organise as you would organise a socialist/communist society, not as an army unit or the Catholic church. Too much to ask?
Posted on: Sun, 17 Nov 2013 21:49:47 +0000
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