A-Infos (en) Anarkismo.net - "Why the Leninists Will Win" - by Ed Clark

The idea that capitalism in its present form in the United States will 
not endure is hardly to be disputed anywhere. The capitalist class 
itself debates only the precise mixture of state capitalism, social 
democracy, and fascism that will best serve to maintain and expand their 
own power and profits.
That debate is, of course, reflected in Leninist circles. While some 
maneuver for potential advantage in a developing social democracy, 
others are busy learning the skills of underground terrorism and urban 
guerilla warfare. The fortunes of there various groups will ebb and flow 
with the developing consensus of the capitalist class.
The grim truth of the matter is that when (not if. when) the present 
form of capitalism in this country is overthrown, the Leninists will win 
... unless we overcome our own folly of fragmentation, passivity, and 
disorganization. The Leninists will win... unless we develop confidence 
in our own abilities to organize a mass anarcho-communist movement. The 
Leninists will win... unless we ourselves accept the responsibility of 
fighting to win!"

It is nothing but ego-puffing drivel to call oneself an anarchist, 
anarcho-communist. libertarian socialist. etc. and then sit back and 
wait for working people "out there" to liberate us. It is nothing but 
revolutionary nose-picking to sit back and wait for the capitalist class 
to arrange a convenient crisis and then give up its state power to the 
working class.

   /I just came across this on-line article from 1976. I remember when
   this article circulated here in the. US and caused quite a stir of
   discussion. Interesting to read it again after so many years. While
   the thesis of the Leninists winning proved wrong, Ed's call for
   clear cut and responsible anarchist organization still rings out./
   Mitch, wsany@hotmail.com <http://www.anarkismo.net/wsany@hotmail.com>


 Why the Leninists Will Win


     by Ed Clark (1976)

*The following article was written by a radical in the United States 
last summer [1976]. Although it deals with a different context, we felt 
that it raised problems and situations that have relevance for us here 
in Canada too. So we reprint the article here as a contribution to the 
discussion that many of us are engaging in at the present time.*

   /We anarchists and Syndicalists - indeed all who believe that the
   liberation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves -
   were too poorly organized and too weak to hold the revolution on a
   straight course towards socialism./
   - M. Sergven in the Moscow anarchist newspaper /Vol'nyi Golos
   Truda/, Sept. 16, 1918

   /Most of the Russian Anarchists themselves were unfortunately still
   in the messes of limited group activities and of individualistic
   endeavour as against the more important social and collective
   efforts. . . honesty and sincerity compel me to state that their
   work would have been of infinitely greater practical value had they
   been better organized and equipped to quide the released energies of
   the people towards the reorganization of life on a libertarian
   foundation./
   - Emma Goldman, My Disillusionment in Russia, 1925

The idea that capitalism in its present form in the United States will 
not endure is hardly to be disputed anywhere. The capitalist class 
itself debates only the precise mixture of state capitalism, social 
democracy, and fascism that will best serve to maintain and expand their 
own power and profits.

That debate is, of course, reflected in Leninist circles. While some 
maneuver for potential advantage in a developing social democracy, 
others are busy learning the skills of underground terrorism and urban 
guerilla warfare. The fortunes of there various groups will ebb and flow 
with the developing consensus of the capitalist class.

Thus, barring a major nuclear war, we face two possible futures. One, 
which I think less likely, would see a major uprising against a fascist 
tyranny, an uprising led by the political descendents of the Weather 
Underground, the Symbionese Liberation Army etc. The other future, which 
seems more likely to me, would feature the electoral victory of a broad 
coalition that would have evolved from groups we know today as the 
Communist Party, October League, Revolutionary Communist Party, 
Socialist Workers Party, etc.

In a sense most important to us, of course, both futures would be 
identical: the working class would have no substantive political and 
economic power. There would be a lot of speeches about the working 
class, a lot of red flags flying, a lot of statues of Marx and Engels. 
There might (or might not) be some improvements in the conditions of 
ordinary working people. But there would be no real freedom. As the rock 
song of several years ago put it: "Say hello to the new boss: it's the 
same as the old boss!"

But what about us? How will the presence of those who believe that "the 
liberation of the workers is the task of the workers themselves" affect 
these two futures of Leninist victory?

Therein, as it is said, lies a tale.

About ten months ago (October 1975) I decided to move to the San 
Francisco Bay Area from New Orleans. I had spent a number of years 
working in a very small anarcho-communist collective (usually less than 
six people), and it seemed likely to me that nothing bigger was going to 
come along in New Orleans for longer than I wanted to wait.

One thing I expected to find here was a much higher level of class 
consciousness among ordinary working people than was (is) the case in 
New Orleans. I was not disappointed. There are always thousands of 
workers on strike here. Frequently they side-step their "leadership" and 
engage in militant struggle. One can even get occasional glimpses of a 
kind of primitive socialist consciousness.

But I also expected to find a large number (several hundreds) of people 
who understood anarcho-communist politics and who were eager to 
implement those politics in mass struggles. In my more hopeful moments, 
I saw the possibility of beginning to build a real movement for workers' 
councils, starting in the Bay Area and spreading across the country.

Of course, why should I expect this? It's not true anyplace else. I have 
to admit that there was a sizable hunk of romanticism in my "thinking" 
on this matter. The Bay Area was one of the hotbeds of student 
radicalism during the 1960's. I had seen some of the pamphlets published 
by the neo-Situationist groups in the early 1970's, and I assumed these 
Berkeley-based groups had been steadily growing. Finally, and perhaps 
most importantly, it seemed overwhelmingly obvious that given the class 
consciousness of ordinary working people in the Bay Area, even a small 
but active anarcho-communist group would quickly grow towards becoming a 
movement, constantly expanding, recruiting new people, launching new 
projects, showing up in the midst of every struggle with our basic idea: 
only the working class can liberate the working class!

Well, I found the anarchists, anarcho-communists, libertarian 
socialists, etc., if not by the hundreds at least by the score. I 
attended one meeting with more than 50 people present and a number of 
others with from 30 to 40 people present. Not bad for a start, right?

This would be a much easier article to write if I could just say that 
all those I met were simply assholes. Unfortunately, with only a few 
exceptions, they aren't assholes. They are people that anyone with our 
political views would be delighted to work with.

Except that that is the most amazing and sorrowful fact of the matter. 
The practical definitions of "political work" that I encountered among 
various libertarians here were simply stunning in their manifest idiocy.

Or perhaps my own understanding is simply too primitive. I think of 
political work, whatever form it takes, as something we do in order to 
win over millions of working people (our sisters and brothers) to the 
idea that we should all run our own lives. It is, or ought to be, clear 
that both elements are equally important: mass movements, no matter how 
massive, that are not libertarian will not liberate us; our ideas, no 
matter how libertarian, will not liberate us unless shared with millions 
of working people.

Instead, I heard arguments like these:

   /"Who needs a movement anyway? What we really need are more small
   affinity groups, a few close comrades operating on common politics
   and trust in each other. That's the only real egalitarian politics;
   big movements are authoritarian by their very nature."/

If mass movements are authoritarian by their very nature, if we cannot 
build an egalitarian mass movement, then we are simply doomed. Small 
groups will never overthrow capitalism. Instead, the Leninists will do 
it and we will always live under some form of class society.

   /"Hell, it's not up to us to liberate the workers any more than it's
   up to the Leninists. The deepening of the current economic crisis
   will convince the workers that they must liberate themselves,
   without any help from us."/

What is it up to us to do? Is our role that of merely sitting back and 
commenting on the latest trends in the economy? When we say that the 
workers must liberate themselves, do we include ourselves in that phrase?

   /"We cannot build a movement at all. Movements are built by millions
   of workers when they want to build them: a small group can't just
   command such a movement into existence."/

It's true that movements by definition are built by millions of working 
people. But was there ever a movement that didn't begin when a small 
group decided it was time to begin?

   /"We can't simply go out and build a libertarian communist movement.
   First we should spend a year or two developing a common theory and
   building trust in each other."/

How many times does it still have to be repeated: revolutionary theory 
comes only from revolutionary practice. Trust come only from mutual 
experience in common struggle.

   /"Anyway, we don't have to rush into building a united libertarian
   organization. It's not as if the Leninists are about to take over.
   They're always squabbling among themselves, committing one blunder
   after another, hah, hah."/

One thing I've noticed out here: the libertarians all take endless 
delight in the blunders of the Leninists. Now go back and read the 
quotations at the beginning of this article: who had the last laugh in 
Russia?

   /"We should not publish a mass anarcho-communist newspaper in the
   Bay Area. It's too much work and besides, there's already a dozen
   left papers out here."/

That is, we should scorn to reach working people with our ideas because 
we'd have to work hard to do it and, anyway it's not necessary since the 
Leninists are already reaching people with their ideas. (!)

That is what the libertarians in the Bay Area say; this is what they do: 
revolutionary psychotherapy, revolutionary computer programming, 
revolutionary book store, revolutionary radio, revolutionary 
film-making, revolutionary camping out at Lake Tahoe. revolutionary 
trips to Europe, and. most importantly, revolutionary study groups.

There may be dozens of these groups. some more serious in their studies 
than others. But they share a common pattern of social invisibility, 
They are, by and large, closed to new members as a matter of policy. 
Thus, even if a new person became interested in our politics and 
(somehow!) found out that one of these groups existed, they wouldn't be 
allowed to join. (!)

The reader will not be surprised, then, to learn that nothing is 
presently being done to build an anarcho-communist movement in the Bay 
Area. One naturally hopes that this will not always be the case, but it 
will be as long as the libertarians here resolutely refuse to accept 
their political responsibilities!

It is nothing but ego-puffing drivel to call oneself an anarchist, 
anarcho-communist, libertarian socialist. etc. and then sit back and 
wait for working people "out there" to liberate us. It is nothing but 
revolutionary nose-picking to sit back and wait for the capitalist class 
to arrange a convenient crisis and then give up its state power to the 
working class. It is positively criminal when we, knowing full well the 
intentions of the Leninists, do nothing except make wise-cracks while 
they gradually learn enough to take over from the old capitalist class 
and re-establish class society on a new and much more terrible foundation!

The grim truth of the matter is that when (not if. when) the present 
form of capitalism in this country is overthrown, the Leninists will win 
... unless we overcome our own folly of fragmentation, passivity, and 
disorganization. The Leninists will win... unless we develop confidence 
in our own abilities to organize a mass anarcho-communist movement. The 
Leninists will win... unless we ourselves accept the responsibility of 
fighting to win!"


/Published in Volume 2, Number 1 of /The Red Menace/, Summer 1977./

http://www.connexions.org/RedMenace/Docs/RM2-WhyLeninistsWillWin.htm
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