In Defense of Revolutionary Organisation
Part 2
Going Round in Circles
The ICC has for some time now been making a distinction between the
"circle spirit" (bad) and the "party spirit" (good).
Having discovered "clans" propogating the "circle spirit"
within their midst, they hope to drag themselves out from the swamp by tugging
at their own hair. They are destined to continually revolve round in circles
not from any emanations from the spirit world, but from the way they have
constructed their ideology around a series of concentric circles. The question
of organisation is reduced to that of the party, the question of the party
is in turn reduced to a fellowship of discourse. Within this circle they
privilege their discussions with the Communist Workers Organisation,
who for years have constituted an opposing pole which the ICC can
treat as a moon reflecting the light radiating from themselves considered
as a sun, as a glorious fountainhead, streaming forth the beautitudes of
class consciousness. They also privelege the circle of "sympathisers
and readers". This is the principle domain within which the ICC
seek to mobilise support against the "parasites" who, composed
of Ex-ICC members, constitute another belt around the ICC.
This circular thinking, having been established in the self-conception of
the ICC, must inevitably reproduce itself internally. Internal debate
requires different viewpoints. Around each viewpoint there must coalesce
those who see the correctness of that viewpoint. As the defenders of the
correct viewpoint vis-a-vis their misguided comrades, they must in turn
view themselves as the party within the party, a circle within a circle.
The ICC calls for the defense of revolutionary organisation. This
can only start, for them, when they shuffle off the coils of Bolshevism,
liberate themselves from mindnumbing concentration of circles. The "party
spirit" is merely the "circle spirit" writ large - larger
than life. With the party, we are lead to believe, the circle gains an infinite
radius, the circular arc is transformed into a straight line. This is the
metaphysics of Newtons calculus where finite magnitudes undergo a magical
transformation into infinite magnitudes in order to realise a qualitive
change. This is the metaphysics of the rising bourgeoisie of the Royal
Society. This is the metaphysics promulgated by Freemasonry. This is
the metaphyiscs attacked by Anton Pannekoek in Lenin as Philosopher.
This is the sterile metaphysics of the ICC.
With their repeated calls for centralisation they echo the seventeenth century
Newtonian clergy who used gravity as the centralising principle manifesting
God, and thereby underwriting a social stability centred around the whiggish
ideal of a constitutional monarchy. The Newtonians, grouped around the Royal
Society, attacked such pantheistic materialists as John Toland, who
saw gravity as an innate property of matter, and used this as a basis to
call for a republic free from clerical influence and religious intolerance.
"In Toland's cosmology the downgrading of the immaterial principle
ruling the behaviour of supposedly inert atoms corresponded to the downgrading,
indeed the removal of king and clergy." (Witch-hunting, Magic and
the New Philosophy, Brian Easlea 1980)
For the ICC consciousness radiates out from the party, whose "spirit"
is "a continuity of organisational principles and experience"
which must be transmitted from generation to generation - i.e. a 'apostolic'
tradition forever seeking to penetrate and 'fertilise' the inert mass of
the proletariat. This is idealism run riot, the same idealism that appears
in Lenin's theory of the 'party' injecting class consciousness into the
mass. In reproducing the Newtonian metaphysics which animated the Royal
Society, is it any wonder that they then attract elements with a more
openly masonic programme?
Back to: Introduction
Forward to: In defense of the Proletariat
New Atlantis
The Future lies Open
What is to be Done?
Return to: Psychic Warfare
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