We are publishing here the theses on parliamentarism, drawn up by Amadeo Bordiga on behalf of the communist abstentionist fraction of the Socialist Party of Italy, the nucleus of the Communist Party of Italy, formed in 1921.
The theses were submitted for discussion at the Second Congress of the Communist International in 1920. At this time there was a major debate within the CI about whether communists should take part in parliamentary elections, and work inside parliament if elected. The majority position, defended by Lenin, Trotsky and others, was that of “revolutionary parliamentarism” - the idea that revolutionaries could use the parliamentary forum as a “tribune” from which to denounce capitalism and advocate the communist revolution. The left communists - Bordiga’s fraction in Italy, the KAPD in Germany, Sylvia Pankhurst’s group in Britain among them - argued that the period of working in parliament was over. In the new period, when proletarian revolution was directly on the agenda, the ruling class was using parliamentary “democracy” as a means of opposing the workers’ struggle for the power of the soviets; if the Communist parties took part in the charade of elections and in the parliamentary “talking shop”, it would spread dangerous confusions within the ranks of the working class. In our view, history has amply confirmed this view, but we will look at this debate in more detail in a future article.
Today there are all sorts of groups which claim to be “revolutionary” - such as the various Trotskyist factions inside the Socialist Alliance - who claim that they are following on the tradition of “revolutionary parliamentarism” by standing in the forthcoming elections. This is false. As we show in the article in this issue, these “socialists” do not aim to destroy capitalism at all, but merely propose “radical” alternatives for its management.
Today it is rare to find any genuine communist groups advocating the old tactic of revolutionary parliamentarism. But precisely because the pseudo-revolutionaries of today use the errors of the past workers’ movement to justify their bourgeois politics, the theses of the left communists remain as relevant today as they were in 1920.
2. Communists deny the possibility that the working class will ever conquer power through a majority of parliamentary seats. The armed revolutionary struggle alone will take it to its goal. The conquest of power by the proletariat, which forms the starting point of communist economic construction, leads to the violent and careful abolition of the democratic organs and their replacement by organs of proletarian power - by workers’ councils. The exploiting class is in this way robbed of all political rights and the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e. a government system with class representation, is set up. The abolition of parliamentarism becomes a historical task of the communist movement. Even more, representative democracy is precisely the first form of bourgeois society that must be brought down, and moreover even before capitalist property.
3. The same must happen with local government institutions, which should not be theoretically posed as an opposite to the state organs. In reality their apparatus is identical with the state mechanism of the bourgeoisie. They must similarly be destroyed by the revolutionary proletariat and replaced by local soviets of workers’ deputies.
4. At the present moment, the task of the communists in mentally and materially driving forward the revolution is to free the proletariat above all from the illusions and prejudices that were spread by the treachery of the old social democratic leaders. In those countries which have been ruled for a longer time by a democratic order which is rooted in the habits and thoughts of the masses, and also in the old socialist parties, this task is of special importance, and assumes the first place among the problems of the preparation of the revolution.
5. Participation in elections and in parliamentary activity at a time when the thought of the conquest of power by the proletariat was still far distant and when there was not yet any question of direct preparation for the revolution and the realisation of the dictatorship of the proletariat could offer great possibilities for propaganda, agitation and criticism. On the other hand, in those countries where a bourgeoisie has at yet only started and is creating new institutions, the entry of communists into the representative bodies, which are still in a formative stage, can have a big influence on the development of events in order to bring about a favourable outcome of the revolution and the final victory of the proletariat.
6. In the present historical epoch, which has opened with the end of the world war and its consequences for the social organisation of the bourgeoisie - with the Russian revolution as the first realisation of the idea of the conquest of power by the working class, and the formation of the new International in opposition to the traitors of the social democracy - and in the countries where the democratic order was introduced a long time ago, there is no possibility of exploiting parliamentarism for the revolutionary cause of communism. Clarity of propaganda no less than preparation for the final struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat demand that communists carry out propaganda for a boycott of the elections on the part of the workers.
7. Under these historical conditions, under which the revolutionary conquest of power by the proletariat has become the main problem of the movement, every political activity of the Party must be dedicated to this goal. It is necessary to break with the bourgeois lie once and for all, with the lie that tries to make people believe that every clash of the hostile parties, every struggle for the conquest of power, must be played out in the framework of the democratic mechanism, in election campaigns and parliamentary debates. It will not be possible to achieve this goal without renouncing completely the traditional method of calling on workers to participate in the elections, where they work side by side with the bourgeois class, without putting and end to the spectacle of the proletariat appearing on the same parliamentary ground as its exploiters.
8. The ultra-parliamentary practice of the old socialist parties spread the dangerous conception that all political action consists only of election campaigns and parliamentary activity. On the other hand the proletariat’s aversion for this treachery has created a fertile soil for the syndicalist and anarchist tendencies which deny that the political action and activity of the party have any value. Therefore the Communist Parties will never achieve great success in propagating the revolutionary Marxist method if they do not base their work directly on the dictatorship of the proletariat and on the workers’ councils, and abandon any contact with bourgeois democracy.
9. The excessively great importance ascribed in practice to the election campaigns and their results, the fact that the party dedicates to them all its forces and human, press and economic resources for quite a long period of time means on the one hand that all the speeches at meetings and all the theoretical statements to the contrary, the conviction is strengthened that this really is the main action for the achievement of communist goals. On the other hand it leads to an almost complete renunciation of any work of revolutionary organisation and preparation by giving the party organisation a technical character that stands in complete contradiction to the requirements of legal and illegal revolutionary work.
10. As far as those parties are concerned that have affiliated to the Communist International by a majority decision, further participation in election campaigns prevents the required sifting out of the social democratic elements, without whose removal the Communist International will not be able to carry out its historic role.
11. The actual character of the debates that take place in parliament and other democratic organs excludes any possibility of moving on from a criticism of the opposing parties to propaganda against the principle of parliamentarism, to action that exceeds the limits of the parliamentary constitution. In exactly the same way it is impossible to obtain a mandate that gives the right to speak if one refuses to submit to all the formalities of the electoral process.
Success in the parliamentary fight can be achieved merely by skill in the use of the common weapon of the principles on which the institution bases itself and by using the nuances in the rules, just as success in the election campaign will be judged more and more according to the number of votes and seats obtained.
Every attempt by the Communist Parties to lend the practice of parliamentarism a totally different character will simply lead to a bankruptcy of the energies that will have to be sacrificed to this labour of Sisyphus. The cause of the communist revolution calls summarily for direct action against the capitalist system of the exploiters.
The foot and mouth crisis in Britain, which is now spreading to the rest of Europe, is having a devastating economic impact. Nearly half a million animals have already been slaughtered, and the epidemic is still not yet under control. British food exports have been banned, while the closing of the countryside is losing the tourist industry a £100 million a week. The cost of the crisis is already estimated at 1.1% of GDP.
The present epidemic of foot and mouth is not a ‘natural’ catastrophe, any more than mad cow disease, swine fever, salmonella, E. coli, and other livestock infections are. It is the result of modern intensive agriculture: “The modern animal farm not only allows but paves the way for the outbreak of disease. We cram thousands of genetically uniform animals into unhygienic warehouses, generating a feast for microbes. We recycle animal manure and slaughterhouse waste as feed. We process meat at breakneck speed in the presence of blood, faeces and other contagion agents. Long distance transport of food creates endless opportunities for contamination.” (International Herald Tribune, 15.3.01)
The ‘we’ is not the population in general but the capitalist class in their frenetic search for capitalist profit. And the present degeneration of the farming industry is particularly the product of the crisis of the profit system, which takes the form of crises of overproduction. The consequent decay of the infrastructure of the capitalist economy, including agri-business, is the result of the capitalist attempt to lessen the impact of the crisis by all kinds of economies in production costs.
Mad cow disease was provoked by economies made in animal feed production, by adding abattoir waste, to offset the fall in the selling price of cattle on the world market. Result: a growing number of human victims of the agonising vCJD that turns the brain to jelly. Foot and mouth is an old disease, well known since the 16th century in Europe and one which ‘modern’ capitalism had seemed to be rid of. But Britain suffered a major epidemic in 1967. It had never used vaccination, preferring the cheaper method of wholesale slaughter. Yet in 1991 (while foot and mouth spread to Asia) other European countries also abandoned vaccination, because it was too expensive, and so other outbreaks have appeared on the continent in the 90s.
The present epidemic has expanded much more rapidly and extensively than in 1967 principally because of the recent practice of transporting animals for slaughter over longer and longer distances, within countries and over entire continents. In 1967 only one region was involved, this time it had spread to many before the first case was recognised.
Capitalism in decomposition is incapable of humanising the present system of agriculture. On the contrary, the present catastrophe, by getting rid of much of the huge surplus in livestock and by ruining the smaller producers, is only preparing for even more intense competition on the world market, and more intensive farming that will lead eventually to further disasters and more dangerous food.
In the face of the growing absurdity of capitalist production, the capitalist propaganda machine tries to hide the contradictions and puts forward all sorts of illusions to lull us into thinking that it is possible to have the present system without its convulsions. The politicians talk about making agriculture more ecologically sound and putting the emphasis on quality rather than quantity when they are preparing to further reduce the subsidies to producers that the different nation states can no longer afford. As the Financial Times, a business paper that is obliged to give some of the truth, said: “West European farmers obliged to convert to less intensive or organic production would need much greater subsidies than they receive today, or higher protectionist barriers in order to compete against their rivals in world markets” (5.03.01)
At the same time that the bourgeoisie is obliged to reduce the budget for the Common Agricultural Policy of the EU, the left wing of this class produces all sorts of laments for the golden past of self-sufficient local farming and pretends that it is possible to return to it by getting rid of ‘globalisation’. Some even blame the working class for demanding cheap food and not being prepared to pay the price for healthy produce! The working class isn’t to blame: in global terms capitalism benefits by cheapening food production since it reduces the cost of labour power overall, and so increases relative exploitation and profitability. Again the voice of capitalist truth from the FT affirms: “A steady supply of cheap food is a public good that should not be dismissed lightly [the workers have to be fed]. Europe, indeed the world, needs efficient farms deploying modern techniques to provide it. That means specialisation and trade, including arbitrage [carting animals long distances around the country to find the best price, or even just to avoid being sold at a loss] to take advantage of price differentials. There can be no return to a rural idyll of small-scale, local production.” (ibid).
As the economic crisis worsens, not only will the quality of food for the mass of the population continue to deteriorate, but its cost will tend to escalate as the weaker agricultural competitors are forced out of business, and those remaining try to offset the increasing loss of subsidy from the state.
It is only the abolition of the capitalist market at the world level and the installation of a society in which human needs will be the motors of production which will permit the emergence of rational methods of food production capable both of nourishing humanity and avoiding widespread disease and pollution.
Como 30.3.01
With the recent confrontations in Macedonia, yet another part of the Balkans is on the verge of imploding into chaos. After Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo, this new theatre of war threatens to further destabilise a region which has been subjected to blood and fire for ten years. And once again, the local populations are exposed to massacre and barbarity through the confrontation between rival nationalist cliques.
In this conflict, it’s the Macedonian army and police against the UCK, the separatist Albanian guerrillas, a new armed wing of the same Albanian mafia which was at work in Kosovo but was officially dissolved.
Serbia has also been put on a war footing against other pro-Albanian militia, after a year of sporadic skirmishes which threatened southern Serbia from the valley of Presevo and Tanusevci, a frontier village between Macedonia and Kosovo. NATO, and the US in particular, have authorised the Serbian army to make an incursion into the security zone set up since July 1999 round the Kosovan frontier, This concession is aimed at preventing the pro-Albanian militia from acting directly against Serbia. In exchange, Serbia has presented a ‘platform’ of negotiations which on 12 March, under the aegis of NATO, resulted in a cease-fire with another pro-Albanian faction, the UCPMB. This led to the combat zone being displaced towards Macedonia, around Tetovo, the country’s second town, which is near to Kosovo and which is home to a population which is 80% Albanian-speaking (the population of Macedonia as a whole is about one third Albanian).
Ten years after proclaiming its independence in 1991, following the break-up of Yugoslavia, Macedonia is once again at the heart of the Balkans conflicts, just like it was in the wars at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. First it was at the centre of a popular uprising against Ottoman rule, which in turn led to the war between Greece and Turkey in 1897. Then, after its ‘liberation’, which marked a decisive step in the disintegration of the Ottoman empire following the first Balkan war in 1912, the ‘ownership’ of Macedonia was a major imperialist stake in the second murderous conflict which saw Serbia and Greece fighting against Bulgaria. This conflict was one of the immediate causes of the first world war. The same antagonisms are still waiting to resurface at the first opportunity. Not only the old rivalry between Serbia and Albania, which has been revived by the war in Kosovo - Macedonian territory is also claimed by Bulgaria and Greece.
In response to the recent evolution of the situation, we have seen a spectacular turn-around in the position of most of the great powers towards Serbia. Since the ousting of Milosevic and his replacement by Kostunica, this is a state which has become much more "presentable" for the western democracies, who have gradually "normalised" their relations with Serbia. They are trying to make us believe that the great powers within NATO (which has 42,000 soldiers in KFOR) are acting as the guardians of peace and democracy, as the defenders of civilisation against nationalist extremism and wicked people in general. Yesterday it was the Serbs who were in the grip of a dictator accused of wanting to restore ‘Greater Serbia’; today it’s the Serbs and the Slav population of Macedonia who have to be protected, and fingers are being wagged at the Albanians whose government is suspected of trying to set up a ‘Greater Albania’. But only two years ago the ‘international community’ claimed that it was defending the Albanian population of Kosovo. This humanitarian pretext was in fact the essential justification for NATO’s devastating intervention. But it was an out and out lie. By unleashing their military operations, the allied forces knew very well that they would push Milosevic into intensifying and generalising his policy of massive deportation of the local populations. What’s more, the bombing of Serbia and Kosovo turned the region into a pile of ruins. And the partition of Kosovo into different sectors under NATO control, which was supposed to put an end to Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing, has simply parked the local populations in barbed wire ghettos, where they live in miserable conditions in a climate of permanent ethnic hatred.
As in all the Balkan conflicts over the past 10 years, the great powers never get mixed up in the situation for the reasons they give, but only to defend their own imperialist interests in the region. The same imperialist appetites motivate all states, from the smallest to the largest. At the moment all the great powers are openly supporting the Macedonian government and NATO has called for extra troops to deal with the pro-Albanian guerrillas between the Serbian and Macedonian frontiers. But behind the facade of unity between the great powers lie the same cleavages and rival imperialist interests which have already been asserted in the previous Balkan conflicts this last decade. Each one of them makes use of the local nationalist cliques. As in Croatia, Bosnia or Kosovo, the interests of the great powers diverge profoundly and while all of them hesitate to throw too much oil on the fire right now, each one is still seeking to draw whatever benefit it can from the present situation. And if the occasion arises, these divergent interests will come to the surface in Macedonia as well.
Thus France, for example, having been forced last year to take part in the bombing of Serbia in order to be able to maintain its presence in the Balkans (in the form of occupation troops who are holding part of Kosovo in the name of KFOR), is using this opportunity to go back to its traditional policies, on the one hand by renewing its ties with its old Serbian ally, and on the other hand by rushing to express support for Macedonia. As in the past, it is doing this in association with Britain. When the current hostilities began, it was Paris which ran to the president of Macedonia with offers of aid, while the foreign minister went to Skopje and proclaimed “we don’t want to allow the terrorist groups to endanger the stability of Macedonia and the whole region”. Another spokesman declared “we support the Macedonian government’s policy of moderation” - a sentiment echoed almost word for word by Mr Robin Cook at the exact moment that the Macedonian army (moderately, no doubt) began shelling Albanian villages. Meanwhile the British SAS has been seizing Kosovo Albanians on suspicion of being involved in the mass killing of Serbs.
As for Germany, which ten years ago was encouraging Slovenia and Croatia to go for independence, thus precipitating the break-up of Yugoslavia, and which in Kosovo actively supported the UCK, it has not changed its overall objectives in the region: to increase Serbia’s isolation and above all to surround it with a ring of pro-German states. But Germany’s imperialist aims are more long term: to deprive Serbia of access to the Mediterranean by provoking the secession of Montenegro.
The main interest of the US is to preserve the status quo, to act as the leader of NATO in order to contain the ambitions of the European powers - to remain master of the game in the Balkans, even though it is finding it harder and harder to keep control of the situation. One of the most recent examples of this loss of control can be seen in the Bosnian-Croat Federation established by the 1995 Dayton accords. Here the majority of Croat soldiers have left the common army in a move towards establishing a ‘third entity’ (Herzeg-Bosnia) which would leave Muslim areas caught between Serbs and Croats. This undermines the credibility of Dayton.
Finally Russia, by calling loudly for a firm intervention against the ‘Albanian terrorists’ is still trying to present itself as Serbia’s most reliable patron.
This is why counting on the ‘international community’ and on NATO to prevent things spiralling into chaos in the Balkans, which is the notion advertised by all the governments and the media, is a total illusion. Already each power is trying to play its own game behind the limited confrontations that have taken place. But they are also playing with fire. It’s obvious that the extension of the conflict to the whole of Macedonia, the possibility that Macedonia will fall apart, would increase the chances of a more active intervention by other states who have a direct interest in the situation, like Bulgaria and Greece. That would mark a real escalation of military tensions, spreading them outside ex-Yugoslavia for the first time since 1991. The fact that the bourgeoisie is conscious of such a danger is shown by an article which appeared in Le Monde on 18 and 19 March “If the upsurge of violence spreads to the whole Albanian community and if the integrity of Macedonia is threatened, it would then be very difficult to contain the appetites of many others and it could start a chain reaction” Why? Because capitalism is sinking inexorably into military barbarism. This is a clear manifestation of the bankruptcy of this system. But the bourgeois press never point that out.
CB 20.3.01
Regardless of delays in the date for the election, the campaign has already started, and it’s clear what’s in store.
The Labour Party’s mock horror movie posters, ‘Economic disaster II’ and ‘Son of Satan’, picturing Hague and other Tories, show that the strategy of making the campaign personal is no idle threat. “Even if we are criticised for being personal, we will be raising the profile of the election. We have got to give people a reason for voting and we will do that by stoking fear of the Conservatives” said a senior Labour spokesman (The Times 20.3.01). This follows on from Blair’s speech in Scotland in February condemning apathy, and Tony Benn’s farewell speech to parliament in which he said “The real danger to democracy is not that people will overrun Buckingham Palace and run up the Red Flag but that people won’t vote.” Academic studies have pointed to the possibility of the lowest electoral turn-out since 1918. The Socialist Alliance is trying to get workers interested in the democratic charade.
Labour is hardly mentioning its record on the economy and public services. It prefers to recreate the anti-Toryism that dominated the 97 election. The reasons for this are clear. Just look at the state of the economy and Labour’s management of it. It’s in perfect continuity with the government of John Major.
The capitalist economy in crisis
Capitalism has suffered 30 years of crisis. With the slowdown in the US, the world economy is heading for a further decline in the coming period. There is no likely candidate to play the role of locomotive and drag it out of the mire. Japan is still not able to crawl out of 10 years of economic problems. The Asian ‘tigers’ are clearly out of the picture, as is the ‘new economy’ whose speculative bubble has already burst.
“Gigantic debts at every level, ever increasing attacks on working class living conditions internationally, inability to integrate the growing masses of unemployed into capitalist relations of production, etc. these are the fundamental consequences of the capitalist economy. States, central banks, stock exchanges, the IMF, all the financial and banking institutions and all the ‘actors’ of world politics in general are trying to regulate the chaotic functioning of the casino economy, but facts are stubborn and capitalism’s laws always end up imposing their rule.” (International Review 104).
Here in Britain we are seeing the continuing decline of manufacturing industry with the 6,000 jobs due to go at Corus, the planned closure of Vauxhall, Luton as well as the cutback at Ford, Dagenham. Even that great British institution, Marks and Spencers, is announcing redundancies. Official unemployment has gone down to around 1 million - a level that was considered outrageous in 1970. But if those who want a job, but aren’t entitled to make a claim, and those on government training schemes etc, are added in, the true figure rises to 4 million. We could also mention the increase in temporary, insecure and part-time jobs.
The Labour government manages the capitalist crisis - by attacking the working class
Running the country means managing the national capital in the interests of the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. In the economic crisis this can only mean attacking working class living and working conditions, to make the country’s industry more competitive. The Labour government was always very clear about this. In 1997 they promised to keep to the spending limits set by the previous Tory government for the first two years.
One of Labour’s first achievements was to save money on benefit payments. The ‘New Deal’ combined an ideological attack (blaming the unemployed for not working), with measures to push people off benefits and into poverty. Together with increased means testing this has allowed the state to cut its social security spending in real terms. And, as the chancellor boasted in 1998, “we are cutting the costs to business of employing 13 million lower paid workers.”
The success of these policies can be measured in the increase in poverty, particularly among children, during the lifetime of the government. In particular there are now a million more people whose income is less than 40% of national average than in 1997 (see WR 242). The chancellor’s ‘war chest’ (from which he was able to make an electioneering ‘family friendly’ budget that was still ‘prudent’) is based on four years of attacks on the working class.
Workers are finding it very difficult to resist these attacks. Lacking self-confidence in their own strength as a class, having been battered by a whole series of ideological campaigns, they find it difficult to know how to respond to attacks such as redundancies. In particular there are no struggles on the scale of the mass strike in Poland in 1980 or the miners’ strike here in 1984-5 which give some idea of the real strength of the working class.
As the economic crisis continues to worsen all governments must attack the working class. Given the disorientation in the working class today Labour and left wing governments are in a very strong position to impose those attacks with a ‘caring’, or ‘third way’ ideology. It is for this reason that the Sun has thrown its weight behind Labour, as the best choice for the ruling class, in the next election.
However the working class, although disorientated, has not been defeated. There continue to be small but encouraging signs of the development of struggles that hold a promise for the future.
WR 31.3.01
Links
[1] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/3/20/parliamentary-sham
[2] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/development-proletarian-consciousness-and-organisation/third-international
[3] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/geographical/britain
[4] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/4/262/environment
[5] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/historic-events/collapse-balkans
[6] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/5/1846/macedonia
[7] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/general-and-theoretical-questions/economic-crisis
[8] https://en.internationalism.org/tag/recent-and-ongoing/elections