>>> "rc-am" <rcollins at netlink.com.au> 08/31/99 11:35PM >>>
Chaz wrote:
> What is Marx's version of the relation between the party and the
masses, according to you ? To feed back to the masses in words what
they are doing spontaneously ? Why was a party or Marx needed for that
? or at all ?<
marx's version of the party is contained in the passages i cited from the _communist manifesto_ in the previous post. to reiterate: in the _communist manifesto_ M&E write: "the communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working class parties. They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole. They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement." they then go on to make two distinctions between communists and other working class parties: communists are not nationalists but proletarian internationalists; they represent the interests of the movement as a whole (ie., they keep their eye on the potentiality of communism and not on immediate demands within capitalism).
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Charles: Right after this section they say:
" The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other had, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletariat movement. "
This is a direct statement of their conception of the Party which is similar to Lenin's, contra yours, on this thread. The party is "theoretically" or intellectually the leadership of the class as a whole.
I agree, you give above some of Marx's party theory. But there is more in the pamphlet. The title of the book is _ The Manifesto of the Communist Party_ ( not _The Communist Manifesto_). So, I would say the whole book is meant to be Marx's and Engels' theory of the Party. In a previous thread, I quoted another section which contained a first program for the party.
Again. they do not say that communist should not keep an eye on immediate demands within capitalism, and only keep an eye on what you call the potential. The interests of the working class AS A WHOLE include immediate demands within capitalism, not just potentials of communism.
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the issue of proletarian internationalism is well known, though often enough forgotten. but i suspect what you're looking for, as a definition of the difference b/n party and masses is contained in the last line: that of the difference between actuality and potentiality. and here, rather than seeing actuality as the realisation of potentiality, and hence as either no difference at all or rather an inevitability of the unfolding of an essence, marx consistently borrows the definition of potentiality given by Aristotle: that potential is the power to not become actuality. hence, what defines the paths to communism is not the identity of the working class, but the decisive power (decisive because the life of capital depends on it) of the working class to refuse to be workers. this is why working class struggle is decisive in abolishing capitalims, and why communism is defined as the abolition of the working class as a class.
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Charles: Uhuh. The difference between actuality and potentiality may be an aspect of the party's role and the class's role, but it is not the way Marx and Engels say it and I don't think it is a paraphrase that captures their whole idea of the party and the class. The party is concerned with determining and understanding actuality and actual immediate activity too. It can't deal with the interests of the working class as a whole without dealing with the interests of the working class in its parts as well, all the parts, immediate and potential.
More later,
Charles Brown