Left-Wing Communism: an Infantile Disorder/Introduction
INTRODUCTION
This work by Comrade Lenin shares a position of equal importance with that of any of the works that he has presented to the movement. Viewed from a tactical angle, its value can not be over-estimated. In the books, etc., that have previously come to hand from Lenin, we have generally had a statement of tactical principles, but in this work we find a more detailed application of these principles to the concrete struggle. Therefore, this book has a great value as an aid to the understanding of the principles that have guided this great Marxian in his activity in the Russian Revolution.
It is important to note that Comrade Lenin makes no extravagant claims for the Russian Revolution as a guide to the revolution in other lands. Those that have aimed at following every step of the Russian Revolution will find small consolation in this volume. However, he says: "One must admit some fundamental features of our revolution to be of such international significance." There is no doubt that the Russian Revolution is properly the guide for the Communist elements of the world and many of the secondary as well as fundamental features of the revolution will find their place in the international revolution. But it would be "erroneous not to keep in mind that, after the proletarian revolution in at least one of the advanced countries, things will in all probability take a sharp turn; Russia will cease to be the model, and will become again the backward (in the 'Soviet' and Socialist sense) country."
The various factions of "Left" Communists with whom Lenin deals have their replicas in America and we can learn considerable by correctly relating this book to American conditions. We, too, have our "Left" Communists who refused to work with the conservative and backward elements in the "Reactionary Trade Unions." If the Bolsheviki could work with the conservative Trade Unions in Russia it is more than correct that we can and must work with them here. There were more reasons for the organization of "new, spick and span 'Workers' Unions,' guiltless of bourgeois-democratic prejudices, guiltless of craft feeling and narrow professionalism" in Russia than there is, for doing the same thing in the United States at this time. When the Bolsheviki became a factor in Russia the Trade Union movement was a negligible quantity. In fact as late as the Third Trade Union Conference in 1917 only 1,475,249 workers were represented. This organization, in itself, could not have been much of an obstacle to the organization of "pure" unions by the Bolsheviki. If this movement of less than a million and a half workers was considered to be the mass movement of a country of one hundred and eighty-five million population, how much more so is it true that the mass movement of America is made up of an organization of four million workers in the American Federation of Labor? Upon the face of it, it would appear that this principle of working within reactionary unions would apply to America and unless we have evidence that it is unsound in its application to conditions here, one is justified in assuming that it does. This, of course, will be hard for some elements in America to swallow and considerable discussion and controversy will occur in the movement in the United States before this is finally settled. We have to admit that Lenin is correct when he says: "There can be no doubt that Messrs. Gompers, Jouhaux, Henderson, Legien, etc., are very grateful to such 'Left' revolutionaries who, like the German 'Opposition-in-principle' Party (Heaven, preserve us from such 'principles') or like revolutionaries in the American 'Industrial Workers of the World,' preach the necessity of quitting reactionary Trade Unions and of refusing to work in them."
Lenin's position upon participation in Bourgeois Parliaments is even more decided and apparently more directly applicable to American conditions. He demonstrates that the parliament was not outworn in Germany upon the basis that it was still able to attract the workers to its support. He asks: "How is it possible to say that 'parliamentarism is politically worn out' when 'millions' and 'legions' of proletarians not only stand up for parliamentarism generally, but are directly counter-revolutionary?" If this position of participation in parliaments is correct in Germany, it is much more so in America. Here the workers not only stand up for parliaments generally but also are counter-revolutionary. Less than two million of the workers in this country were sufficiently awake at the last election (1920) to break away from the so-called old parties. In the face of this it seems apparent that it is necessary to take a revolutionary use of the bourgeois parliaments in this country. Boycotting of elections appears to be permissible only under unusual circumstances which seldom, if ever, arise in countries where parliamentary institutions are highly developed. Certainly no reasons have been shown for the boycotting of elections in the United States by those advocating such boycott. "It is just because, in Western Europe, the backward masses of the workers and the smaller peasantry are much more strongly imbued with bourgeois-democratic and parliamentary prejudices than they are in Russia, that it is only in the midst of such institutions as bourgeois parliaments that Communists can and should carry on their long and stubborn struggle to expose, disperse and overcome these prejudices, stopping at nothing."
For academicians within our movement in America this book should contain some good food for thought. Communism appears here as a fighting organization full of work, full of life. Within its folds there is no room for those mental eunuchs who can produce no offspring in revolutionary action. The intricate philosophic points of Communism are something more than mental gymnastics with which to exercise one's minds. They are a guide to action! Those that cannot translate Communism into terms of action, that the masses understand and need, have no place in Communism as expounded in this work. Those who academically adhere to the principle of "no compromise" whatever, will no doubt take issue with Lenin in the position that he lays down in this work. This is, of course, permissible. No one, but a fool, would contend that merely because Lenin says something that it is correct. However, the fact that he holds a certain position adds weight to it, and this question can well be approached by the reader with an open and considerate mind. As outlined in this volume, the question runs so counter to everything that most Marxists have maintained in this country in the past, that there is no doubt there will be many a heated debate before the thing is definitely settled in the movement here. American Marxists have been forced by this fight against the worst kind of opportunism to preach a general tactic of "no compromise" and it will be with considerable reluctance that they give up that position. However, if we accept as realists what we have always maintained in the past—that "Marxism is not a dogma but a guide to action" we cannot refuse to consider carefully Lenin's position upon this question, and if finding it correct seek the best posible application of it to American conditions. We cannot expect to lay down rules and regulations that will guide the American movement for all time. That would be a Utopian absurdity. "To invent such a formula or general rule as 'NO COMPROMISES,' which would serve in all cases, is an absurdity." The argument will be raised that once we start compromising there will be no end to the practice and opportunism will secure a foothold and again become the order of the day. That since one compromise is bad, all compromises are bad. Lenin says: "In practical questions of the policy appropriate to each separate or specific historic moment it is important to be able to distinguish those in which are manifested the main species of inadmissible treacherous compromises, which embody opportunism detrimental to the revolutionary class, and to direct all possible efforts towards elucidating and fighting them." The whole "history of Bolshevism, both before and after the October Revolution, is full of instances of manœuvring, temporizing and compromising with others, the bourgeois parties included!" This will not set well upon the stomachs of some of our "no compromise" comrades who see the necessity of always and at all times keeping our tactics clear of so-called "political manœuvring." However, "To carry on a war for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie, a war a hundred times more difficult, prolonged and complicated than the most stubborn of ordinary wars between countries, and to refuse beforehand to manœuvre, to utilize the conflict (even though temporary) of interests between one's enemies; to refuse co-operation and compromise with possible (even though transient, unstable, vacillating, and conditional) allies—is not this an infinitely laughable thing? Is it not as though in the difficult ascent of an unexplored and heretofore inaccessible mountain, we were to renounce beforehand the idea that we might have to go sometimes in zig-zags, sometimes retracing our steps, sometimes giving up the course once selected and trying various others?" One certainly is justified in using every strategy in fighting the class war both against the capitalist class itself and its henchmen within our ranks. We will find it increasingly necessary to manœuvre and "stall" as the class-struggle grows more acute. This tactic is justified by necessity. "To bind one's hands beforehand, openly to tell the enemy, who is now better armed than we are, whether or not we shall fight him, is stupidity and not revolutionism. To accept battle when this is obviously profitable to the enemy, and not to oneself, is a crime; and those politicians of the revolutionary class who are unable to 'manœuvre, temporize, compromise,' in order to evade an obviously unprofitable battle, are good for nothing."
One must not lose sight of the fact that the position that Lenin lays down is for a movement that is well organized, disciplined and understands what it wants. A too literal application of these tactics to America may cause us a lot of trouble in the future, and we must study the conditions carefully. A well organized and disciplined organization is lacking in America and it will be some time before one is built up that will function. In the meantime a generous discussion of this work should help the organization of such a movement and speed the day of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat in America.