In Defense of Revolutionary Organisation Part 4

New Atlantis?


The ICC, as an Island of Concentric Circles forever surrounded by a swamp does not constitute the firm ground of proletarian organisation. They present themselves as a magic island, a 'New Atlantis' emerging from the swamp. 'Marxist dialectics' replaces 'the wisdom of Solomon' and they more closely resemble Bacon's College of the Six Days' Works than an organisation given over to class struggle. In fact, given over to airy-fairy idealism they are left evoking the spirits and collapsing in disarray as soon as a stray interloper disrupts one of their séances by failing to be suitably obsequious to the altar - whoops, sorry 'praesidium'. Historically organisational forms show themselves to be insufficient as society evolves. At one time freemasonry placed itself in the forefront of revolution in America, Ireland and France. By the mid-nineteenth century accelerating social development rendered it obsolete.
Although the likes of Garibaldi and Bakunin were active in setting up lodges, these ultimately provided a reactionary influence on the developing movement which flowered with the Paris Commune. As the masonic lodge system fell from use, the party form developed, particularly in Germany, where the Social Democratic Party become almost a state within a state. Long before the first world war problems emerged within the party form, finally manifesting themselves in the break up of the second international, as each separate party supported its own bourgeoisie in the genocidal First World War. The so-called third-international was the warmed up remanants of social democracy dished up to give credence to the young Soviet state. Although it initially drew support from revolutionaries it soon became apparent that whilst it lived on the myth of the Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks, who remained at its heart,had already killed the goose of proletarian insurrection which had laid the golden egg with which they impressed the world.


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Going Around in Circles
In Defense of The Proletariat

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What is to be Done?

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