S LIBERAL HELPERS

5potential in Western Europe (or elsewhere). As Lenin Unlike the bureaucracies of Eastern Europe, thesedemonstrates, this defect is not a flaw in the Russian parties are to a significant extent immediately engaged incharacter, etc., or a reason for deprecation of the the actual class struggle within the capitalist sector'spotentials of numerous Soviet party activists taken as working class. On this account, those matured cadresindividuals. The problem is based on the fact that the constantly engaged in or otherwise oriented to theidentity of the party member within the apparatus is not political struggle among the masses tend to reflect thelocated in preoccupation with revolutionary mass work. qualities of revolutionary organizers despite the contraryHence, the decisions formulated by the apparatus and its tendencies predominating in the party apparatus as acomponent tendencies are not premised upon whole.revolutionary mass-struggle strategic and tactical In day-to-day character, these parties, like even thecriteria. The party is oriented both to the internal left-wing factions of the mass-based social-democracies,problems of the Soviet bloc and to the foreign-policy are ordinarily centrist" vanguard formations. As tointerests of that bloc otherwise. These are the invariants pre-1914 German Social Democracy,"the party isof membership in the leading organizations of that everything." Their primary concern is the successfulsector. The Soviet apparatus can respond only in terms growth of the party within conditions of capitalistof those invariants upon which the organizations of that society. The idea of socialist revolution exists for them,apparatus are constituted, but only as an abstract idea; it never exists for them inThe bureaucracy does not recognize such a flaw in its any immediate, practical situation, even a revolutionaryconstitution. No one can imagine himself to be defective situation. On this account, such parties happily avoidin lacking what he does not know to exist. The Soviet the sort of suicidal adventures one expects from theofficial is aware of the literary and statistical categories ultra-lefts, but they less happily class actualknown to him as mass struggles, revolutions, and so revolutionary situations under the heading of riskyforth. He associates with such truncated knowledge adventures.certain rationalizations, on which premise he deludeshimself that he can analyze actual phenomena of this There is a further significant conservative influencekind in a dialectical manner. The fact remains, he upon such parties. Not without some justification,cannot, capitalist ruling circles regard Communist parties asHence, to show such bureaucrats -- however reflections of Soviet influences, and hold these partiesprofoundly pro-socialist their convictions -- that a accountable to a far greater extent than mass-basedcertain strategic mass-struggle potential exists is merely social-democracies.to confuse them. They believe that they already know all Consequently, mass-based Communist parties tend tothat is necessary to know concerning the ABC's of mass impose a protective conservatism upon their membersstruggle, and are protected from sensibility of the need to exceeding that imposed upon the left wings of certainlearn better by referring to the primacy of the "first mass-based social-democracies. This produces one of thesocialist revolution" in knowledge of such matters. No most crucial tactical ironies of Western Europe.one in the Soviet leadership understands the mass Although the right-wing factions of leadership in thestruggle, but virtually everyone in that leadership is mass-based social-democracies are more or less directlyconvinced ad hominem that no one outside the Soviet tied to CIA and NATO police agencies, their left wingshierarchy possibly could be qualified to instruct them. tend to include significant numbers of cadres notably toSuch are the essential implications of Soviet failure to the left of the Communist parties in temper andrecognize and act upon strategic potentials in the world thinking. In ordinary circumstances, these socialtoday,democratic left wings have the function of politicalsafety-valves. The capitalists would not ordinarilyMass-Based Communist Parties tolerate such radical manifestations by a mass-basedThe same principles apply, with somewhat less force, Communist party, but consider these expressionsto the mass-based Communist parties of Western harmless occurrences among the ,youthful strata ofEurope. They can be summarily characterized as left- social-democracies otherwise efficiently controlled bywing social-democracies distinguished by their iden- right-wing and center formations. In a pre-revolutionarytification with the Soviet leadership. They are not or revolutionary situation, those left wing socialrevolutionaryparties, but only mass-based socialist democratic formations will usually provide the key to theparties. At best, they are mass-based parties of and for mass mobilization of the working-class forces.those who have no conception of establishing socialism, At such junctures, the freedom of political selfbutwho are nonetheless committed to certain socialist development of these minorities renders them both theprinciples, most receptive to conceptual advances and the efficient