The issue of Marxists and mass movements has come up recently on several lists I am on.
I wrote the essay below for the Resist Newsletter. I was trying to argue that Marxists, even in cadre organizations, could contribute to mass organization, as long as they behaved and played by the rules of the mass group and didn't try to take them over through democratic centralist voting blocs. It sturred up quite a controversy.
Political and social movements that want to remain autonomous and democratic need to think about the dynamics involved.
Abstaining from Bad Sects Understanding Sects, Cadres, and Mass Movement Organizations
http://resistinc.org/newsletter/issues/1999/12/berlet.html
Here are the first two paragraphs:
Any experienced activist can tell tales of trying to unravel the Gordian Knot of the relationships among mass organizing, sectarianism, left cadre organizations, and ultra-leftism. To describe cadre-based sectarian ultra-leftists as tedious and disruptive is a charitable understatement. Wait! Grab hold of that last sentence and examine it.
Sectarianism, cadre groups, and ultra-leftism are three separate issues. Those successful at juggling these tendencies in a real organizing campaign usually start by understanding that there are differences among ideological tendencies and the people who marry them, and there are differences between structures and styles. Rather than lumping everything and everyone together in a prejudiced and stereotypic way, lets unpack the box.
<SNIP>