– Fergus McKean –
“Intelligent workers must never forget that sometimes serious violations of principles occur, which make the break-off of organizational relations absolutely necessary.” — V.I. Lenin
The revolutionary Marxist-Leninists in Anglo-American society still, today, are fighting modern revisionism in its most bare and naked form — Browderite revisionism. With its illusory and liberal aims, it attempts to turn the proletariat into something not so harmful to the bourgeoisie, nullify its revolutionary nature and dull its enthusiasm, keeping them under the yoke of parliamentary demagogy. Its illusions are many-sided, but in this excerpt, Fergus McKean exposes its undemocratic and bureaucratic methods of organization.
McKean was a revolutionary communist, serving as the leader of the BC section of the Communist Party of Canada and its successor upon being banned by the Canadian state, the Labor Progressive Party. The Party had followed Browder’s class-collaborationist road, and in some aspects went further than Browder, theorizing a “democratic bourgeoisie” peacefully going over to socialism. In practice, it led to the liquidation of the independent politics of the working class at the behest of the Liberal Party and Mackenzie King, who proceeded to consolidate complete power in the hands of the reactionary forces. When Browder was expelled, the Labor Progressive Party refused to admit any wrongdoings whatsoever; the national leadership chose the prestige and personality of Tim Buck, its leader, over Leninist principles.
How could something so disastrous be brought about? Only by the perversion of the principles of democratic centralism. The Communist Party of Canada was a revolutionary party of the Comintern forged by the working class in the early 20s to correctly wage the class struggle and bring about a new society. By the 40s, the masses of workers in the party were for revolution, for a party of Lenin and Stalin, but the leadership was for their own self-serving interests, to “gain relevance” by begging for crumbs from the Liberals.
The constant fraud of the party conferences at that time, allegedly a fulfilment of democratic centralist principles, were dominated by delegates chosen by the central leadership consolidated in two cities — they burdened the other regions and made it impossible for them to provide delegates. There was no collective decision-making or discussion whatsoever, and certainly no referendums for mass voting members on important matters. The dictate of Tim Buck and others was final on everything, discussion only occurred after the decision was issued from above with no consultation. Any comradely criticism was met with vile slanders of a personal nature, along with accusations of splittism and Trotskyism, and the threat of expulsion. In this way, a climate of fear was created where nobody could voice their concerns, where inner-party methods were useless and where any concerns would fall on deaf ears. In a functioning Leninist party, matters are discussed and ideas are thrashed out by the members before a decision is taken, comradely criticism is considered of a different character than slander and inner-party methods work as they are intended to. In his situation, when none of this was present, who can fault McKean and others for breaking with this unprincipled party, as Lenin spoke of? He and those who agreed with him were labelled “McKeanites” by the Party and its leaders but Marxism-Leninism and time itself proved them correct.
Democratic centralism can only be preserved by preserving the purity of Marxism-Leninism, our guiding theory. What is unity without principles, without basing itself on the theory and practice of the proletariat? It is a sham unity, the same unity as that of this or that bourgeois faction. If any organization operates without fully realizing the slogan “collective work, individual responsibility”, it will never be able to fulfil the historic role of the proletariat to emancipate itself and all of humanity. Time has fully confirmed these facts. Towering over the rubble of a rotten revisionist party is the proletariat and its party, forged in steel unity, principled policies and a Bolshevik character.
NEPH
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The substitution of reformism for revolutionary Marxism was facilitated by replacing inner Party democracy by bureaucracy in the formulation of policy and in the election of leading bodies. Democratic Centralism was interpreted as meaning it was the duty of the membership to blindly accept the policies handed down by the leading bodies without question and to have no voice in the formulation of policy themselves. Anyone who even questioned the correctness of a decision of a higher body was in many cases branded as an anti-Party element, or as being undisciplined.
Instead of a discipline based on conviction, the Party membership were induced, cajoled and threatened into the acceptance of a system of mechanical discipline which was a crude perversion of Marxian principles. Writing on the question of discipline Lenin stated:
“We defined it as unity of action, freedom of discussion and criticism. Only such a form of discipline is worthy of a democratic party of the progressive class. The strength of the working class is organization. Without organization the mass of the proletariat is nothing. Organized it is all. Organization is unity of action, but of course, all action is useful only because and to the extent that it advances and does not retreat, to the extent that it intellectually combines the proletariat and lifts it up and does not degrade and weaken it. Organization without ideas is an absurdity which in practice converts the workers into miserable hangers-on of the bourgeoisie in power. Consequently, without the freedom of discussion and criticism, the proletariat does not recognize unity of action. For that reason, intelligent workers must never forget that sometimes serious violations of principles occur, which make the break-off of organizational relations absolutely necessary.” — (Lenin on Organization, pp. 31-32)
Real discipline, working class discipline, according to Lenin, is not possible unless it is based on ideological conviction. Discipline is “unity of action, freedom of discussion and criticism.” Organization means unity of action but unity of action without ideas, without ideological conviction is an absurdity. And when “violations of principles occur,” said Lenin, it makes the ”break-off of organizational relations absolutely necessary.”
There are two basic forms of organizational structure: centralism and federalism. In a federated structure the federated bodies retain autonomy which makes unity in action of the various autonomous bodies difficult if not impossible. Marxist Parties have always adhered to the form of democratic centralism as being best suited to the tasks confronting the Party. However, centralism was not intended to mean that bureaucracy replaced democracy in the higher organs of the Party.
In an article entitled, The St. Petersburg Split in 1907, Lenin explained the structure of the Bolshevik Party as follows:
“The Russian Social Democratic Labour Party is organized democratically. This means that the business of the Party is conducted by its members, directly or through representatives, and that all members are equal without exception. All the officials, all the leading bodies, all the institutions of the Party are elected, responsible and may be recalled.” — (Ibid., p. 19.)
This meant that every official and leading body was elected by the membership, was responsible to the membership and could be recalled by them. Lenin explained in further detail:
“The business of the St. Petersburg organization is conducted by the elected Petersburg Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. The supreme body of the Petersburg organization, in view of it being impossible to gather all the members together at one time (nearly 6,000 members), is a delegate conference of the organization. All the members of the Party have the right to send delegates to this conference: one delegate for a definite number of Party members. For example, at the last conference, it was decided to elect one delegate for each 50 members. These delegates must be elected by all the members of the Party, and the decision of the delegates is the supreme and final decision obligatory for the whole of the local organization. But this is not all. In order to make sure that a decision shall be really democratic, it is not sufficient to gather together delegates of the organization. It is necessary that all the members of the organization, in electing the delegates, shall independently, and each one for himself, express their opinion on all controversial questions which interest the whole of the organization. Democratically organized parties and leagues cannot, on principle, avoid taking the opinion of the whole of the membership without exception, particularly in important cases, when the question under consideration is of some political action in which the mass is to act independently, as for example, a strike, elections, the boycott of some local establishment, etc.” — (Ibid., p. 20.)
Here we have a very different explanation of democratic centralism, from that propagated by the National leadership of the Communist movement in Canada. While decisions of the higher organs are binding on the membership which elected them a democratic party must on principle take the “opinion of the whole membership without exception,” particularly on important questions.
Lenin explained further how this should be done:
“A strike cannot be conducted with enthusiasm, elections cannot be intelligently conducted, unless every worker voluntarily and intelligently decides for himself whether he should strike or not, whether he should vote for the Cadets (bourgeois liberals) or not, etc. Not all political questions can be decided by a referendum of the whole Party membership. This would entail continuous, wearying and fruitless voting. But the important questions, especially those which are directly connected with definite action by the masses themselves, must be decided democratically, not only by a gathering of delegates, but by a referendum of the whole membership.
“That is why the Petersburg Committee has resolved that the election of delegates to the conference shall take place after the members of the Party have discussed the question as to whether an alliance should be concluded with the Cadets, after all the members of the Party have voted on this question. Elections are a business in which the masses directly take part. Hence, every Party member must intelligently decide the question as to whether we should vote for Cadets at the elections or not. And only after an open discussion of this question, after all the members of the Party will have got together, will it be possible for each one of us to take an intelligent and firm decision.” — (Ibid, pp. 20-21.)
Lenin here insists on democratic discussion on questions of policy. First of all, in order to make an intelligent decision it is necessary “for all the members of the Party to get together” and independently express their views.
Secondly, delegates from regional conferences to the central conference should only be elected after all the local delegates have expressed their opinions and voted on the questions of importance.
Thirdly, all important questions affecting the entire membership were to be decided by referendum. And, it should be remembered, these measures were proposed for the Party in a country in which the Party was either entirely illegal or semi-legal. Lenin regarded inner Party democracy as a question of principle for a Marxist Party.
Violation of inner Party democracy was regarded as a violation of the principle of democratic centralism by the Bolsheviks. As recently as 1937 the Bolshevik Party insisted on the fullest democracy in the election of leading bodies:
“A report of Comrade Zhdanov at the plenum of the Central Committee revealed the fact that a number of Party organizations were systematically violating the Party rules and the principles of democratic centralism in their everyday work, substituting co-option for election, voting by lists for the voting for individual candidates, open ballot for secret ballot, etc.” — (History of the CPSU, p. 349.)
According to the Bolshevik Party therefore the co-option of members to a committee, voting for a slate instead of voting for individuals and voting in elections by means of an open ballot instead of a secret ballot constituted violations of the principles of democratic centralism and of the Party rules.
Let us now consider how the principles of democratic centralism were observed by the National leadership of the Communist movement in Canada in contrast to the Party of Lenin which, prior to the seizure of power, held annual Party congresses.
During the eight-year period from 1935 to 1943 only one National Congress was held, in 1937, and the decision to form a new Party and dissolve the Communist Party itself was decided on, not by the membership, not by a convention, not even by the Central Committee but by a narrow conference of twenty-five people.
In the four-year period, from June, 1938, until February, 1942, not even a meeting of the Central Committee was called. When meetings of the Central Committee were held, many of the members were unable to attend but visitors were invited to attend and given voice in the proceedings; visitors chosen by the National leadership. At the National Convention, held in 1937, the provincial delegations were instructed by the Political Bureau whom they were to nominate to the Central Committee. At the National Convention where the Labor Progressive Party was established, a similar procedure was followed. A nominating committee submitted a list of 75 members to constitute the National Committee. This slate or list was adopted without discussion. The nominating committee itself was dominated by the National leaders who recommended those whom they saw fit from the various provinces and insisted on the main representation being from the cities of Toronto and Montreal. Of the 75 members chosen to form the National Committee, 30 were from Southern Ontario and 20 from Quebec. The overwhelming majority of these were from the two cities of Toronto and Montreal. This meant that the members from Toronto and Montreal, many of them middle class people, constituted a majority of the National Committee under the domination of the National Executive. On the other hand, British Columbia, with the second largest Party organization in the country, was given only five representatives on the National Committee. But even this disproportionate representation does not give the true picture of how the National Executive members dominated meetings of the National Committee. Each Provincial Committee was obliged to finance 50 per cent or more of the costs of sending representatives to National Conventions and National Committee meetings with the result that lack of finances prevented them from even sending the small number to which they were entitled. For instance, at the 1st National Convention of the LPP, the BC Party sent 12 delegates at a cost of $2,500.00. While Toronto was represented by three hundred delegates without cost. At National Committee meetings, BC rarely had more than three representatives in attendance, whereas Toronto always had at least 25. Representation from other provinces was usually even less than that from BC with the exception of Quebec which usually had its full representation present, practically all of whom were from Montreal.
All of which goes to show that both National Conventions and National Committee meetings were always overwhelmingly dominated by the delegates from Toronto and Montreal who constituted two-thirds or more of the total in attendance. It could, of course, be argued that in view of the fact that Toronto and Montreal are the two largest cities, with the National headquarters located in Toronto, that it was logical the majority of the members on the National Committee and of delegates to the National Conventions should be drawn from the “two capitals.” The fact remains, however, that the Toronto and Montreal representatives not only constituted an overall majority numerically, but invariably followed the lead of the National Executive and in most instances were under their ideological and political domination.
The basis of representation, however, was not the principle feature of bureaucracy in the affairs of the Party but the almost total lack of democratic discussion on major questions of National policy. Discussion on major questions of policy by the membership and even by the Provincial Committees was only permitted after the policy had already been adopted. For instance, only one referendum vote of the membership was taken during the entire fourteen-year period from 1931 to 1945, and that was not on a political question but on the relatively trivial question of how many times weekly the National organ, The Worker, should be published.
On practically all occasions changes in the Party line were worked out by the National Executive and either adopted by themselves or submitted to the National Committee for their formal endorsation. On the rare occasions the National Committee was consulted before a policy was adopted they were not even given the opportunity to discuss anything tangible, such as a resolution that could be studied before the meeting. Invariably the new tactical line was presented in the form of a speech by the National Leader, Tim Buck, which the Committee members were then expected to endorse. Following these reports, those present witnessed the spectacle of a nauseating acquiescence in everything Buck had said; a spectacle of revolting adulation of Buck. For the past ten years at least the procedure was, not a critical discussion of policy, but a servile acceptance. The overwhelming majority of the members when called upon to speak, prefaced their contributions with the statement: “I solidarize myself with the report of Comrade Buck,” or “I wholeheartedly endorse the report of Comrade Buck.”
The bolder ones who had the temerity to question or even express doubts about a particular point presented by Buck were ruthlessly dealt with by the National Leaders by means of a tirade of denunciation which invariably assumed a personal character. The loyalty of the person concerned was actually questioned and in most instances the unfortunate individual was obliged to make one or more statements aligning himself with Buck’s position, or face the probability of being removed from his position or even expelled from the Party on the grounds that he was in opposition to the Party leadership and the Party line.
By the use of such high-handed tactics, the National leaders successfully prevented any intelligent, critical discussion from taking place on the points raised and lacking anything in writing to study, it was difficult even to discuss points raised for fear of being accused of “misquoting” what Buck had said. Never, on any occasion during the past ten years, did the membership have an opportunity to discuss or criticize any major political issue until after it had already been adopted and by virtue of that action had become the official Party line, binding on the entire membership. And not only the membership were denied the right to discuss questions of political importance, not even the Provincial Committees had any voice in deciding National policies.
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