Workers Need a Mass International Communist Workers’ Party, Not a Socialist State
“Absolute liberalism, anarchism, and even democracy are fine in theory, but not feasible in practice,” Mao Zedong wrote in a 1920 letter. In contrast, “the proletarians are discontented, and a demand for communism has arisen and has already become a fact.”
Mao knew the problems facing revolutionary Russia. But he believed that “the Russian revolution, as well as the radical communists in every country, will daily grow more powerful and numerous and more tightly organized.” He had “doubts about anarchism” because he found “a society without power or organization” to be impossible.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) adopted the Bolshevik model of a disciplined, vanguard organization. It meant to lead the masses rather than relying on spontaneous worker uprisings. It recognized that “the proletariat has already become conscious of the fact that it too should possess wealth, and of the fact that its sufferings are unnecessary.” (Mao)
There were differences. The CCP concentrated on China’s many impoverished rural wage laborers.
The Bolsheviks only formed their Red Army after the revolution. But the CCP formed its in 1929-30. It was not (said Mao) only for fighting. “Fighting is only a means.” The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) was responsible for educating, organizing, and mobilizing the masses.
The PLA was “democratic under centralized leadership.” Officers and soldiers were considered equal. At first, soldiers elected their officers. For a longer time, a “supply system” was in place. Instead of salaries, soldiers received food, clothing, and other necessities. The PLA avoided “extreme democracy or anarchism.” (Mao)
Over time, the Chinese Communist Party abandoned these principles. It instituted “New Democracy” and later socialism. But PLA veterans would play a key role in fighting for communism despite the Party’s revisionist retreats.
The PLA “supply system” was critical to developing our understanding of “mobilizing the masses for communism.”
Communism, Nothing Less
Communist movements have mostly believed they needed to fight for socialism. Later it would transition into communism. But socialism never transitioned into communism. Instead, it exposed itself as essentially state capitalism. It often transitioned into “free-market” capitalism.
Read our document Mobilize the Masses for Communism to learn more about why we broke from the old movement. We prepare ourselves and the masses now so that in a revolutionary situation we, and they, can begin to build communism directly. To organize production for need, without money or markets or even barter. Without wages or the “work points” of Chinese socialism.
Over a century ago, anarchists wanted immediate abolition of all administration, bureaucracy, and subordination. Lenin thought this meant postponing the socialist revolution indefinitely “until people are different.”
“But,” Lenin said, “to smash the old bureaucratic machine at once and to begin immediately to construct a new one that will make possible the gradual abolition of all bureaucracy–this is not a utopia.”
Lenin was right about so many things, but not about this. Socialism required a “new bureaucratic machine.” But communism doesn’t. People become “different” in the struggle for a different world. That was a great lesson of the Chinese revolution and the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
Communism is not a utopia.
The main difference now between anarchism and communism is not whether we need a “state.” We don’t.
It’s whether we need one international communist workers’ party. A party that unifies collectives to fight the capitalists’ attacks on the working class. And against capitalist ideas that hold us back. A party that prepares for armed revolution to destroy capitalism everywhere.
Autonomous anarchist collectives can’t do that.
Our party is open to all who want to act collectively to fight for and build a communist world. Doing that, we transform ourselves into a “different” kind of people. Initiative, unselfishness, and inclusivity replace capitalism’s passivity, individualism, and divisiveness.
Capitalism’s many interconnected crises impact masses everywhere. Mass migration, supply chains, and communication technologies bind us all more closely into one international working class.
One international working class needs one International Communist Workers’ Party to win one communist world without borders. We hope you’ll become a member and help recruit others.
Read previous articles in this series:
Part I here, Part II here, Part III here, Part IV here, Part V here, Part VI here, Part VII here, Part VIII here.
Read Mobilize the Masses for Communism here
Much more can and should be written about anarchism and its limitations and errors. About the IWW (mainly in the United States). About the Spanish Civil War (1936-39), where communists also made grievous errors. In Rojava (Syria) in the present century. In Latin America.
And there is still much more that we can learn from the limitations and errors – as well as achievements – of communist movements. Including our own, in real time.
We ask readers to contribute to these important discussions. Send letters to Contact@ICWPRedFlag.org