New Left, Local Control, and Fascism

50
regarded as the most narrow of religious sectarians, doctrine" and the errors and general lack of scientific
coherence in Lenin's own views of the problem of
This does not serve as a basis for a definition of sectarianism and viable "vanguard" organizations.
sectarianism, since those organizations or organized
political-theoretical tendencies which have won the The clinical basis for such a study is properly located
active support of the broadest masses of people have in an examination of the process of degeneration and
been previously regarded as exotic horrors by even the failure of those revolutionary-socialist (by profession)
majority of those who subsequently accepted their organizations which have come within actual reach of
theoretic hegemony. Lenin, for example, had no more political power and nonetheless failed so miserably at
than thirty correspondents in all Russia during a period just such junctures. That includes the pre-World War I
following the 1907 onset of reaction. Popular prejudice, German Social-Democracy (SPD), the mass Communist
commonplace agreements respecting political organi- parties of Western Europe -- and should include study
zations is more likely to tell us a great deal about the of those leading U.S. parties, the CPUSA and SWP,
disorders of the popular mind than the slightest about which, while never approaching the circumstances of
the subjects of such popular opinion, imminent political power, otherwise demonstrate their
inability to take power even under the most favorable
A term such as "sect " is useful in political science circumstances.
only as it specifies something of importance respecting
the future of what each subject organized grouping has In this investigation, we shall provide a rigorous
the potential of becoming under conditions of mass sociological definition for a term, centrism, already in
radical ferment and major social crises. For rather the "Leninist" lexicon. As a descriptive term, centrism
obvious reasons, the appropriate method to be de- signifies those organizations which maintain a commitveloped
ought to restrict the investigation to those mentto revolutionary-socialism in ideology, as auspices
social formations which regard themselves as revolu- for recruiting additional members, etc., and which yet
tionary-socialist, systematically veer away from actual revolutionary
practice. Not self-styled revolutionary parties which
Obviously, any social formation which is a viable make mistakes, but parties whose characteristics as
seed-form of some future mass revolutionary-socialist social formations perdetermine that they will systemovement,
a mass movement capable of appropriating matically avoid the practical road to revolutionary
power, cannot be meaningfully termed a sect. This power in all l_ut the most extraordinary circumstances.
same qualification subsumes the correlative, that the
present existence of such a seedling, its present The classical prototype of such an organization is the
activities, stand in some meaningful, positive relation- pre-World War I German Social-Democracy, especially
ship to the establishment of such a mass revolutionary- from 1907-1914.(7) After defining the centrist process
socialist organization in an appropriate point in the within SPD as a social phenomenon, we shall then
future, examine the same social phenomenon as it is encountered
in the "mass" parties of the Comintern and
Our practical concern, then, is as follows. To estab- their post-war (WWII) successors. Then, we shall bring
lish a method for distinguishing among those organiza- the study home to the cases of the CPUSA and the
tions which call themselves "revolutionary socialist," Socialist Workers Party.
those whose "lawful" social processes and activities do
and do not correspond to the development of a future, Having examined the lawful sociological processes
effective, mass-revolutionary organization, governing the degeneration of the SPD, Comintern,
CPUSA, SWP, we shall, by implication, have dealt with
the more exotic mutations of centrism encountered
locally in the instances of PLP, YAWF, Spartacist, etc.
This question has been previously considered as
solved, following the success of the Russian revolution It ought to be obvious that our purpose here is not to
of 1917, by those persons who consider the adoption of develop epithets of better quality against the CP, SWP,
"Leninist 'democratic centralism' " and "Leninist etc., but, through a compassionate regard for the
'doctrine' " as abstract forms, as a guarantee of the mistakes which led to those organizations' degeneranecessary
qualifications, despite the fact that Lenin tion, to demonstrate the urgency of the positive policies
himself repudiated such silly conceptions in his Left- by which an actually-viable mass-oriented revolution-
Wing Communism.(6) While accepting, in the main, ary socialist organization can be built in today's
Lenin's own systematic denunciations of the organiza- capitalist sector, in particular.
tional theories of the CPUSA, SWP-YSA, PLP, etc., in
that cited source, and the general validity of Lenin's Our procedure will now be as follows. First, we shall
own outlined (but over-broad) alternative in the same locate and develop (summarily) the relevant sociologilocation,
what we have to summarize in this present cal' theoretic apparatus of Karl Marx, noting its relaarticle
is a replacement for both self-styled "Leninist tionship to certain leading currents within modern