About class leadership

Some thoughts on the tube this morning

Given that imperialism is capitalism pregnant with socialism...

The history of the 20C shows that the objective preconditions for socm are far better than we realized, and conversely the leadership situation is far worse.

An important factor almost never taken into account is the enormous readiness of the working class to follow leadership even to death - provided it perceives the leadership as its own. 

Examples are the Social Democrats in Germany and the KPD during the early 30s when their warring destroyed the class's organizational and political viability and let in the Nazis. Also the fatal leadership of the CPSU and the CCP in China and Spain, Indonesia etc.

On the positive side we have the objective victories of the class(es) in ww2, in China vs Japan and the KMT and the bourgeoisie, in Yugoslavia and Vietnam and Cuba, and in the creation of the DWSs in Eastern Europe and Korea.

This is empirical evidence of the power, courage, discipline, loyalty of the mobilized working class and its allies. 

If there are leadership struggles in the class, these can mobilize the same loyalty and courage in a civil war leading to self-destruction (examples above), plus generally speaking a condition of short-circuited paralysis if the war is "invisible" to the masses - as in the DWSs (including the degenerated SU) or in welfare states or imperialist states with traditionally large-scale concessions to strategic sections of the class (the US, Australia).

So, what are the conditions for winning leadership in the class, for getting the class to perceive us as its leaders?

EMPIRICAL - We must be vigorous and influential and viable and be seen to be so.

STRATEGIC - We must have objectives that are crystal clear, attainable, and attractive.

PSYCHOLOGICAL - We must be "charismatic", ie fulfil the empirical conditions with confidence, bravura and heroism.

None of these need be met to an absolute or ultimate degree (as is obvious given the support gained by bureaucratic and fundamentally treacherous leaderships). But they must be met well enough, and in particular to a degree strikingly superior to other contenders for leadership (eg the Maoist leadership of the CCP vs the Moscow-backed leadership, or the Castro leadership vs the Cuban CP, or Chavez vs other left forces in Venezuela).

If you think these points are correct, learn them by heart! Impress them on your comrades and work your arse off to make practical use of them!!

C