In the Communist Manifesto, Karl Marx penned the phrase “winning of the battle of democracy.” We have come to three possible options: either he was lying, changed his mind, or Marx was wrong, and the choice that is most likely correct is that Marx changed his mind (see the section Contradictions in Communist Theory in A Contribution to the Critique of Political Autonomy by Gilles Dauve). Amadeo Bordiga had time after time shown how Democracy and Popular Sovereignty are ridiculous notions that Communists should not concern themselves with, that they are as idealist as Divine Right and Absolutism. Communists know that Democracy is at most a means to an end. As Bordiga stated “It is not a “principle”, but rather a simple mechanism of organization, responding to the simple and crude arithmetical presumption that the majority is right and the minority is wrong.” For, if we momentarily suspend the fact that the majority position can radically change within hours, if Communists held up democracy as principle, then how could communists be communists (as the majority of all groups besides the group we can consider communists – and this is a rather arbitrary method – all oppose communism)? Knowing that Democracy has had the potential to disrupt proletarian class struggle, on top of realizing it cannot be a principle, we would state that democracy itself is actually something to be avoided, that democracy should not have any place within communist program. We fundamentally reject the Democratic Fetish.

The historical party, the Vanguard, is the most class conscious organ of the proletariat. It achieves this not by being exclusively composed of wage-laborers, nor by being composed of ivory tower theorists who “know” everything from the most miniscule detail of an oppressed peoples to the whole of Das Kapital. Nor will separation of theory and action be effective, as Bordiga had noted, “It would be a fatal error to consider the party as dividable into two groups, one of which is dedicated to the study and the other to action; such a distinction is deadly for the body of the party, as well as for the individual militant. The meaning of unitarism and of organic centralism is that the party develops inside itself the organs suited to the various functions” It should be admitted that every member of the party is not completely class conscious. No one can be 100% conscious (about anything) so long as they are removed from the gemeinwesen. Only in Communism can we truly know ourselves and others. All the party members will be lacking in something – they may be religious, they might be addicts, they may have suppressed nationalist feelings that they can remove from their theory, they may have a preoccupation with identity politics, they may think opportunist thoughts or they may forget the fact that things are a result of material conditions and that no one from the 19th or even 20th Century could predict everything that occurs today. The party will of course expel members who allow these reactionary feelings to control too much of them and their theory and action. However, where one militant is lacking, they are an expert in other subjects.The organic mind of the party, through both its historical and current experiences, will complement this lack, so whilst each of the members all lack some form of class conscious, the party’s program, its center, is theoretically clear, it is 100% class conscious. The party, through this collective mind, is the true representative of the class interest of the proletariat.

The party’s program is thus the essence of the party, and by submitting themselves to the party, the party members are able to express theory that they do not necessarily agree with, thus they are able to emulate 100% class conscious, and theoretical objectivity (as far as possible, at least). However, in order for this program to mean anything, and thus for this party to truly be a party, the most advanced organ of the class, it must necessarily be centralized and unified. Highly centralized rule where the rank-and-file are subordinated to the Central Committee ensures the unity of the party and the expression of party doctrine by its militants. The unity of the party allows the party to be effective not only in theory but also in action, even if the individual party militant does not understand the specific policy, theory, or action. Thus, right off the bat, centralism and unity in the party is necessary in order for it to function as a party.

Many have unfortunately fallen for the notion that one can reconcile the necessary centralism of the Communist Party with the democratic principle. Such a vile theory is referred to as “democratic centralism” and although Lenin rarely spoke of democratic centralism, this mechanism has been associated with him for almost century. What this principle fails to remember is that the Party is only useful in so far as it is an organ of and for the class, it is irrelevant whether or not a majority of the party agrees or disagrees with this or that. If the party sacrifices theory in order to sedate a majority of the party, then that party has only served to sacrifice itself for a useless principle, thus defeating the entire purpose of the proletarian Party and objectively working in the interests of the bourgeoisie. This is why we agree with Bordiga when he said that the party “eliminates from its structure one of the starting errors of the Moscow International, by getting rid of democratic centralism and of any voting mechanism,” as democracy has just been shown to be a potentially reactionary form, and even if it was beneficial and correct in a particular instance then we still shan’t use it, as it would simply be a waste of time. The party is subordinate to the Program, not to the Majority, thus even if a situation required voting (which may or may not happen) we still would not be “democratic.” The party proudly proclaims its organization form to be Organic Centralism.

Some will gasp at our demand, desperately searching for problems with this, trying to find problems with this organizational form. They think, how does the rank and file stay in touch with the Central Committee, if not by voting? What they forget is that the leaders of the party are not elected, they organically arise, in a sort of “meritocratic” way – if an individual is cut out for the job, then they are given it. The party’s leaders should be determined not by the individual militants’ opinions of these persons, but of the usefulness of these persons to communist revolution. The party must therefore be restrictive, not by choice, but by necessity. We have elaborated enough on the fact the historical party is not some ivory tower, but we must remind the reader of ideological purity and its necessity. The militant must be able to submit themselves to the party, that is a necessity. They must agree with (most of) the fundamentals, principles and core doctrines. Thus the rank-and-file and the Central Committee must be in a continuous concert with each other, the party must be one organism that works in harmony, feeding off each other, a parasite must not develop. The revolutionary Party is not democratic nor anti-democratic, it is undemocratic, i.e. it is organic.

As Lenin had reminded his comrades that when problems arise in the Party, “it must be cured by proletarian and Party measures and not by means of freedom.” The party follows Bordiga’s advice and consequently forbids all factions from forming, gaining in all sections “iron Bolshevik discipline.” However, as Bordiga had stated in his speech to the Sixth Enlarged CECI “at the first signs of crisis within the Party one must first find out its causes.” The Communist Party does not achieve organic unity by expelling its way to purity, the party achieves organic unity by finding the cause of factions or other such problems that disrupt the unity of the party, fixing the problems that cause these crises, or it will prevent such problems from occurring in the first place. The problem with factions is not solved by allowing them “freedom” – this merely weakens the party, nor by making this into a moral issue that must be combated at all times – this merely ignores the issues. ”Fractions are not the disease, they are only the symptom, and if you want to cure a disease, you must first of all discover it and understand it.” We must find the cause of factionalism and strike it there.

Most democratoids will insist that communism is the pinnacle of democracy, that communism must be a democratic society. They see no other form as being compatible with communism than democracy, for, according to them, communism is the mass interests of all the people, and so is democracy. But do they forget when Engels explained “Democracy is, as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy (theology, as we Germans call it), at the bottom. Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery; the appearance of liberty, and therefore the reality of servitude. Political equality is the same; therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must ultimately break to pieces: hypocrisy cannot subsist, the contradiction hidden in it must come out; we must have either a regular slavery — that is, an undisguised despotism, or real liberty, and real equality — that is, Communism.”? Democracy is the rule of the people (or at least the majority), and therefore, democracy implies power and authority, which necessitates subversion and means politics, when in fact, Communism does away with political power; it does not decentralize it (as the anarchists would lead us to believe) nor does it put it into the hands of the mythical “people.” This was emphasized by Lenin in State and Revolution when he had commented that there would be no democracy under communism as “freed from capitalist slavery, from the untold horrors, savagery, absurdities, and infamies of capitalist exploitation, people will gradually become accustomed to observing the elementary rules of social intercourse that have been known for centuries and repeated for thousands of years in all copy-book maxims.” When confronted with this, the detractors reply that what they had really meant was not democracy, but “democratic decision making.” There are multiple problem with this, one of which Dauve had so easily shown in his work, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Autonomy which outlines the list of the points of direct democracy, showing how each one is ultimately a failure and/or unnecessary. In his own words, Dauve’s critique of democracy in communism is that “in any case such freedom can’t be guaranteed by the democratic principle,” as this democratic form does not give necessarily assure that “libertarian principles” be followed, but rather a statistical list of beliefs (ideally at least, in practice democracy cannot even do that!). However, the critique of democratic planning in communism has to go deeper. Democratic decision making assumes that we are all autonomous individuals and all have separate interests (and whilst separate class interests are real, communism has done away with classes, and there exists only the “human interest”) when in fact, things such as a biological drive for the individual to preserve the self (which has been used to defend autonomism) is really just a biological drive to preserve the species. What is necessary for one person will of course vary for a different person, but usually people will need the same thing, their opinion and wants is determined by their social condition, their needs, their interests, which are all roughly the same in communism. Democratic decision making presupposes that these people, who all have roughly the same interest as they will be similar in both biology and in social condition, will somehow disagree on their interest – which runs contrary to Communist Theory. Communist Theory therefore spends no time worrying about democratic decision making, as the result will be the same, and democratic decision making is based on the view we all have wildly different interests, even though this is only true in class society; in fact, it is a justification for Class Society. Communism is organic, and it wastes no time on democracy, instead it develops organs most suited to dealing with problems. Then what form, these democratoids wonder, will communism take? Well, with machinery that is already built by the capitalists, this modern technology would help plan and figure out what is needed and wanted, and the amount of labor that would be necessary to go about doing this. The amount of work an individual does could be decided amongst them and the community, or some other fashion, and when work may affect a community, then a group of randomly selected experts could go and “negotiate” with these affected peoples – now, where is the democracy in that? Communism does not mean the workers control production, communism simply means production is done for use of the whole of human society, and is not produced for value. Communism is the abolition of money, wage-labor, the commodity and it is the unification of humanity that realizes they have one true common interests; communism is not decentralized democratic management of the economy.

Many on the left see the democracy question as a moral question – how can one be a socialist and not believe in democracy? Is not democracy the proletariat’s greatest way to rule? The answer is, of course, no. We must establish Communist Morality here (i.e. the morality of the Party and of the Class, the core element that determines what course of actions to take; not the morality which will organically arise from Communism). Communism does not believe that one should do what is in one’s class’s interest, considering the fact that communists will set up totalitarian states to suppress those whose interests lie in contradiction to the proletariat’s, communism simply acknowledges that people will typically fight for their own class interest. Communism does not assert that it is right to fight for humanity, as Communism will inevitably suppress a sect of humanity. Communists cannot turn this around and say that Communism fights for the interests of a majority of humanity, as this would be a majoritarian position, i.e. an expression of the democratic fetish. However, one must remember the first principle of communism, that “Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.” Communism is the theoretical expression of the proletariat, and as we have established earlier, the morality of each class is based on its class interest, and thus Communist Morality is simply “what furthers proletarian interests in social, economic, and political realms is moral.” Thus, communist morality is Revolutionary Totalitarianism, i.e. the principle that proletarian interests must be pursued, even if the majority doesn’t agree with their imposition on society. So, what then is the use of democracy on a moral level? None at all, Communism does not advocate Democracy, it advocates revolutionary totalitarianism; it is high time that the democratoids stop pretending like democracy is a necessity for communism.

Proletarian Dictatorship is the revolutionary transformation of the mode of production from capitalism to socialism, and during this transformation, the proletariat will have political control of its totalitarian state, which it will use to suppress its class enemies. However, what exactly would we define as the proletariat? If we simply define the proletariat as those who fall under the statistical and sociological category of a wage-laborer, then we would have former police, upper-level management and soldiers as the class that rules as dictators over society, whilst the members of the worker cooperatives and the self-employed independent contractor would be the class that is under siege. The sociological and statistical definition of class has simply not worked. The relationship between the workers and the manager is not at all like the relationship between the capitalist and the worker in the traditional method of class analysis (the manager does not own the means of production, and like the worker, the manager is only able to live insofar that they sell their labor-power), however, in practice, the relationship is the same (the manager hires and fires the workers, has some degree of control over their pay, usually side against the workers during a strike, and almost always side with Capital over Labor). So how can we not consider the management a member of the bourgeois (so long as they truly fight for the maintaining of capitalist relation)? Both management and cops sell their labor, yet they both uphold capitalist relations. The sociological and statistical view of class has yet to adapt to this fact pointed out by Engels in Socialism: Utopian & Scientific, “All its [the capitalists’] social functions are now performed by salaried employees.” The statisticians are also at a loss to explain the lack of the organization of what they deem as the proletariat actually acting in the interests of the proletariat. They handwave the lack of proletarian activity amongst the so-called “proletariat,” away with this famous quote from the The German Ideology “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas.” We do not contest the validity of this quote, but if the socio-economic view of class does not explain political behavior, then what is the use of it for communist theory? If this does not accurately explain behavior, then it becomes simply a category that is based in metaphysics, which Communism has no time for. Economic Determinism does not mean that economics is the only factor on human life, and whilst capitalism certainly has caused these class ideologis, the simple fact is that being a wage labour does not make one a communist and being an owner of the means of production does not exclude one from being communist. The statistical view of class is simply another example of Bourgeois thought infiltrating what many would know as “communism.”

“Instead of taking a snapshot of society at a given moment (like the old metaphysical method) and then studying it in order to distinguish the different categories into which the individuals composing it must be classified, the dialectical method sees history as a film unrolling its successive scenes; the class must be looked for and distinguished in the striking features of this movement. In using the first method we would be the target of a thousand objections from pure statisticians and demographers (short-sighted people if there ever were) who would re-examine our divisions and remark that there are not two classes, nor even three or four, but that there can be ten, a hundred or even a thousand classes separated by successive gradations and indefinable transition zones. With the second method, though, we make use of quite different criteria in order to distinguish that protagonist of historical tragedy, the class, and in order to define its characteristics, its actions and its objectives, which become concretised into obviously uniform features among a multitude of changing facts; meanwhilst the poor photographer of statistics only records these as a cold series of lifeless data.” Amadeo Bordiga, Party and Class

The correct analysis of class is the one that realizes that the class can only be characterized as a class when it is acting as a class for itself. One can only see the proletariat when it acts in its interests, the same goes for every other class. This is of course not to say that class results from the will of its members, it still arises from the complications and relations inherent in capital, it simply expresses itself in ways that aren’t necessarily connected to an individual’s relation to the means of production. Thus a movement wherein a majority are wage laborers can still be classified as petty bourgeois. The statistical method becomes at a loss to explain this. What they forget is that labor is still a part of capitalism, labor seeks to only make capitalism nicer to the wage slave, it does not seek to abolish said slavery. A rough outline of the classes that we see in capitalist society will be presented in the next paragraph.

The first class in which we will outline is the bourgeois, which we classify as those who uphold capitalist relations and all of the things that follow from this, i.e. war, concentration of capital, the success of the boss’s over the wage-laborers, etc. The class that is called the petty-bourgeois would be composed of those who have an interest in capitalist property relations being enforced, but oppose certain things such as the concentration of capital, and fight for decentralized and localized capitalism. Then we have the class from which reformism spawns, the class which we will simply refer to as “labor.” Labor is the flipside of the bourgeois, they are the class that does not fight for the boss’ success, but for the wage laborers’. The Labor class has its interests in making a better life under capitalism, they are responsible for things such as a minimum wage, a shorter work day, worker rights, civil rights, and so on. whilst these things are all spectacular gains for the wage-laborer, they must be looked at critically: these movements did not succeed in destroying capitalist relations, and this is reformism’s failure: the gains of reformism are under constant attack and can never fully succeed because labor isn’t interested in abolishing capitalist relations, on the contrary, labor is interested in maintaining them! Communists fail to realize that the wage-laborer and the unemployed are simply another part of capitalist society when they are fundamentally working in the interests of capitalism, when they are content to be a wage-laborer, when they are content to be a wage slave, when they reaffirm themselves as a producer and consumer in capitalism. These varied classes do not cast aside Marx and Engel’s theory of capitalism reducing the whole of society to two classes, on the contrary it supports it. All of these aforementioned classes have interests opposed to each other (and indeed, even interests opposed to those even in their same class!), but they all ultimately uphold capitalist relations, and therefore, all must uphold the implications of capitalist relations; all these movements can be said to simply be subclasses of the bourgeoisie. The bourgeois state is not bourgeois because it is owns the means of production and exploits wage laborers, nor by being composed of people who do, but because it mantains capitalist relations.

However, there is a different class that does not uphold capitalist relations, the class which is diametrically opposed to capitalism. This is the class that seeks to destroy all capitalist relations, that destroys bourgeois society, this is the class that disrupts capitalism and rejects itself as a producer and consumer in capitalism, this is the class that defines itself as the negation of this society, the class that will do away with society. This is the class that will establish communism, that rebels against the economic category capitalism forces it into (an unemployed, domestic slave, employee, administration, boss, etc). This class is the class that fights for the end of capitalism, not a better life in capitalism. This is the class that is the negation of capitalist relations. This is the class that will abolish itself as a class and establish communism. This class has no subset, as it has no competing interests inside of its own class, this class finds no ally in the other classes. This class has only one invariant theory to express its movement, only one party to express its political might, only one goal and no others. This is the “class of civil society which is not a class of civil society, an estate which is the dissolution of all estates” (A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of the Right). This class of course is the proletariat. The Proletarian state is not a Dictatorship of the proletariat because it’s composed of proletarians or wage earners, but because it abolishes capitalism.

The Proletarian Class is the Communist Party and the Communist Party is the Proletarian Class. Neither a serious Communist Party nor a genuine Proletarian Class exists right now, the best that they can exist as is a fraction of a fraction, what can be derided as an irrelevant sect. As of now, the best that the Party and Class can do is organize itself as a Historical Party. When we say historical party, we refer specifically to the revolutionary party that is the whole of the Communist Program, that is the doctrine of the liberation of the proletariat and the negation of capitalist society. When we say historical party, we mean it in the sense that Marx had used it when he stated that “I have also tried to clear up a misunderstanding that when I refer to the party I mean an organization which died eight years ago, or an editorial board which broke up twelve years ago. When I refer to the party I do so in an historical sense.” The historical party will continue on, for the contradictions in capital will cause the proletariat to always be a force, but it may at times restrict it to the force of a mere potentiality. As Camatte had noted “If the class has been beaten, if its organ of struggle has lost its revolutionary character by rejecting the programme, or if it has been destroyed during an armed struggle, a new organization will reappear spontaneously, the social contracts will lead to an explosion on the historical scene; the party will reappear.” The historical party will continue on, it is the expression, the continuation of the invariant theory of communism. For clarification, when we refer to the “invariance of communism” we do not mean everything that Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxemburg, Camatte, Bordiga, Dauve or any other figure wrote, we refer to the proletarian theory of capitalism, the theory that is at its heart invariant because capital itself is invariant, the laws that govern it are always the same, it simply may find a new expression in different situations, but at its heart, the capitalism of 19th Century Europe is the same exact thing as the Keynesianism of Western Europe, the Neoliberalism of the Modern Era, and the state capitalism of the Eastern Bloc states. Capitalism Dos not change, but it did change the world. Throughout all capitalism we have the exploiter and exploited (even if they ate the same person), we find money, we find class conflict (even if its manifestation was different enough to create a false analysis), we find communists, reformists, those who hate the concentration of capital, those who suppory it, and the state. The invariance of capitalism requires an invariant approach to it. It is through capitalism’s invariant contradictions that we find the historical party, which is the continuation of the historical program of the proletariat. This is the same as we find the “unorganized proletariat” who ultimately is ineffective, this unorganized proletariat cannot fight capitalism, it cannot rebel, it is simply unable to be effective because the historical conditions of the party and of capitalism are not right for revolutionary seizure. The historical party must first propagate this invariant doctrine, it must find this unorganized proletariat, and this unorganized proletarian must find the party. Through the organization of the proletariat that is conscious of itself as a proletariat that knows that it must do away with Capital’s control over life, the party is able to become formal. This formal party is the Class, the Class is this Formal Party. The Formal Party is the action of the class, it is the action of the proletariat, and thus reveals itself to the world as the proletariat, where before it was proletarian in theory and in theory alone, but as a formal party, which is formed organically by the historical party and this unorganized class which acts in perfect unity, then the Party is able to attack capitalism, and ultimately, finds itself in the position that it is able to seize power and implement proletarian dictatorship. However, it is important to not fall into the Blanquism, the communist party does not think that its will a revolution will make, such an idea is as idealistic as the democratists which we are so heavily opposed to. “We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.” (Engels)

As the Manifesto states we must “[organize] of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party.” The organization of the proletariat will necessarily start with the historical party realizing its position as the formal party. It must form is theory and discover the proletariat. This proletariat will most likely be found as a wage laborer or as a self employed or in the worker Cooperative. The party must therefore create Worker groups, organizing these people at the workplace but ultimately making them part of the organic unity of the party. The boss or manager or priest or whatever will most likely join through a local group of the party. It must be assured that only the proletariat join this party through these organizations, we cannot let those in who seek to damage the party and the class. This is how we can state that the class is the party as the class is necessarily organized into the formal party. When the Communist Party has gathers enough political power it then commences violent insurrection, not as a small elite but as a class. This opportunity is to be taken whether or not a majority agrees with this. As Luxemburg had stated “The law of its nature demands a quick decision: either the locomotive drives forward full steam ahead to the most extreme point of the historical ascent, or it rolls back of its own weight again to the starting point at the bottom; and those who would keep it with their weak powers half way up the hill, it drags down with it irredeemably into the abyss.” The party cares not for public opinion, we are not democrats, we are revolutionary totalitarians. We do not care for majoritarian Revolution, we care for the continuation of the Revolution, which must occur, whether a majority agrees with this or not.

Thus proletarian dictatorship is undemocratic. The class, as we have shown is the party, and through party rule we therefore have class rule. Proletarian Dictatorship is not defined by the majority of wage laborers or the proletariat or the party sitting around making debates, like the greek philosophers of old, such thought that the majority opinion has an affect on the actual dictatorship is idealism at its finest. There is a reason Marx refers to it as proletarian dictatorship and not as proletarian democracy. Proletarian power cannot allow itself to be curbed or inhibited in the name of any idealism, especially democracy. Proletarian Dictatorship does not care for majority opinion, it only concerns itself with its historical goal, the only purpose it was established for: the destruction of capitalism and the implementation of socialism. We would not care to take public opinion even if it agreed with us.

It is necessary however, to remember that Bordiga had insisted that whilst the Party was the Class, a view which we have just demonstrated to be correct, he had insisted that the party would be a minority of the class. This view superficially appears to be an insistence of the sociological view of class, but we will demonstrate that this is not the case. We must take heed of what Lenin had reminded us, that “if Socialism can only be realized when the intellectual development of all the people permits it, then we shall not see Socialism for at least five hundred years.” The formal party is of course the complete class, it is formation of the class as a class, with its Vanguard at the head, guiding it; this Vanguard will be the minority of the class. This does not contradict the organic unity of the party, for the whole party organism is both the Historical and the Formal, and the Vanguard develops (and had developed) as a “necessary organ”. The Vanguard will most likely arise from the what was previously solely the historical party, but since the class has become organized, the whole (historical) party becomes formal, by acting the way a communist party should (radical proletarian class struggle such as mass strikes, rebellion, insurrection, etc) and this previous Historical Party becomes the Vanguard as the whole of the party becomes both formal and historical. The Vanguard will most likely be composed of those who were previously just the historical, as what separates the Vanguard from the rest of the Class is whilst the whole Party is the proletariat, the Vanguard is the Communists. It would be a mistake to confuse Communists with Proletarians, for the Proletariat simply recognizes that capitalism needs to be abolished, but Communists know how capitalism needs to be abolished. The proletariat, and thus the whole party, will understand basic theory (that is, it will all act as the Historical Party) and the Class, and thus the Party, will all work in the interests of Proletariat (that is, it will act as the Formal Party). This organ that is the head (or alternatively, the brain) of the Party, this Vanguard, the “Communists”, like the rest of the party, will act both as the Historical and as the Forma, what separates it is the “level” of theory. The Vanguard, as the most class conscious organ of the Class and thus the theoretical essence of the party, will guide the class. Without the Vanguard, the Class will not be able to abolish capitalism, but without the class, the Vanguard’s guidance would be useless. The Vanguard is the theoretical guide of the class, and it is through this theory that it can guide the class in matters concerning action. During the transition from capitalism to communism, we can expect people to understand that communism is in their interests, and therefore show them that their condition is a condition which must be abolished, i.e. we can expect more and more proletarians to fight. However, how can we expect these masses to truly understand the materialist doctrine, the proper applications of the dialectic (if any), the meaning of economic determinism, etc, i.e. become Communists? These are all fundamental aspects and necessary for the establishment of socialism, and it is the Vanguard, this minority of the class, that will help navigate the class through the destruction of capitalism and the establishment of socialism. The Class abolishes capitalism with all of its available tools, including its Vanguard, which is the most conscious element of the Class. Whereas the whole Class realizes the necessity to destroy capitalist relations, the Vanguard is the organ that realizes not only the how but the why. The Vanguard works on a theoretical level that the rest of the class simply is not able to. (So, communists must at the very least entertain the idea that it is possible that the majority of people will not even be consciously aware of the transition from capitalism to socialism, we must acknowledge that it is possible that not everyone will become a Communist.) By rejecting this Vanguard in favor of idealising the wage-laborer (who still suffers from the stranglehold of bourgeois ideology), the syndicalists and councillists, the democraticists and anti-Vanguardists, the workerists and the anarchists, in fact deprive proletarian dictatorship of its revolutionary potential, of its most useful tool, and they would leave political power in the hands of those who will maintain capitalist relations; they negate the entire purpose of proletarian dictatorship, i.e. the transformation of capitalism into communism, and thus this position cannot be considered “communist” but democratic, and we would ask so-called Communists to instead refer to themselves as Democratists. It is a shame to see so many Communists who hold otherwise correct positions betray the proletarian class with such claptrap as “democracy” or “worker control.” The democratic position is objectively bourgeois as it seeks to prevent, whether it does this knowingly or not, communism from being realized. This is due to the fact that many communists have lost themselves within the reformist movement (as the reformist movement works best in a liberal democracy) or the exaggeration of a mistake penned by Marx and Engels on their analysis of what constitutes class (which the bourgeoisie now use against us).

However, we reject pseudo-Vanguardism for the same reason we reject democracy, and we will show that this faux-leninism is as idealistic as democracy. The Vanguard does not make communism, the entirety of the proletariat class, those who work in the interests of abolishing capitalist relations, do. As Lenin said “Then the building of socialism will not be the task of that drop in the ocean, called the Communist Party, but the task of the entire mass of the working people.” The idea that a handful of people will lead the class into socialism is as absurd as thinking that the majority of people can vote in socialism (and we do not necessarily mean voting in a bourgeois state, we mean voting – in any situation). Communism is not established by decree or by judicial methods, communism is organically established by the work of the proletariat. As The German Ideology states, “Communism is not for us a state of affairs which is to be established…an ideal to which reality will have to adjust itself. We call communism the real movement which abolishes the present state of things. The conditions for this movement result from the premises now in existence.” The Vanguard is therefore best described as a sort of GPS unit for a person in a new town, in that it guides and helps, it is an indispensable tool, but eventually becomes unnecessary as soon as the routes are learned and the destination is reached. The idea that through the will of the few working on the behalf of the proletariat socialism can be established is thoroughly idealist, but it results from the same exact idealism of the democratists: communism is not established by the will of the people, but by the organic movements of the proletariat. Ironically, the democratists who would deride us as “blanquists” show that they themselves have more in common with Blanquism than we ever will!

Having established our critique of the democratists view of democracy operating within the party, within proletarian dictatorship, and within communism; we must also show democracy to be one of the greatest of bourgeois hypocrisies, and of democracy’s relationship with capitalism (and broader class society); for how could a critique of democracy really act as a critique of democracy without critiquing its most widespread use? To quote Engels “One must never forget that the logical form of bourgeois domination is precisely the democratic republic.” Of course, the State under capitalism is set up in such a way that it will never serve the interests of the proletariat (the destruction of capitalism) and will always serve the interests of the bourgeoisie (the continuation of capitalism), however, bourgeois democracy offers choices nevertheless. This is roughly analogous to the market, just as you can support politician x or y you cannot decide to destroy the system itself, just as through the markets one can chose product x or y but cannot decide to destroy the market. Bourgeois Democracy limits choices, but nevertheless gives them. The interesting thing of the previous example is that it appears the level of democracy and market “freedom” roughly correlate. In the fascists states, the bourgeois state had a rather large amount of control over the markets, limiting them in favor of state regulation; to the same extent that the fascist governments had a market, they had what they called an Authoritarian Democracy, which no matter how limited and bureaucratic available choices were, they were choices nevertheless. The Keynesians, likewise, were derided as dictators, for just as they strengthened certain sections of the bourgeois and concentrated capital into a few businesses, they had strengthened the central government and concentrated political power into a handful of politicians. The Eastern Bloc States, on the other hand, had told you not only what to buy but who to vote for, the democracy and market appeared absent but were in fact housing in plain sight (the interesting thing about the Eastern Blocs is that the more and more market reforms it had gone through the more and more democratic it became, culminating in the destruction of the Eastern Bloc States and its replacement with liberal democracies). The way the bourgeoisie want to rule is by democracy. Bourgeois-democracy is best able to reflect the ideology of the market, as just as we are all equals on the market, just as we are all consumers and producers and anyone is able to make it or break it, we are all equal at the voting booth, we are all autonomous, one person, one citizen, one consumer, one vote. We are all inherently free and equal to do and decide as we please, even though the options are naturally limited. Bourgeois dominance wants to be democratic, because the bourgeois want you to want them: they have done away with all imposed hierarchy, you can choose your master, you can choose your boss. Labor will be free to gain benefits via the reformist tactics in bourgeois-democracy, and bourgeois democracy will be the easiest for the transfer of rule from the individual bourgeois to the next (that is, when x business fails x will lose political power, shifting its business success and political prowess to y, bourgeois-democracy best explains this). Labor is best sedated in an arena that appears to allow it some victory, thus labor focuses on keeping these gains instead of demanding for more, it helps to consolidate class collaboration by destroying proletarian prowess. democracy insists we ate all one nationality, not seperate classes. Democracy both ideologically supports the bourgoisie, but in practice it gives gains to try to sedate class conflict (reformism) thus materially supporting the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie suppress the class by trying to suppress class conflict itself: an impossibility.

When capitalism comes into crises and nothing more can be given to labor, or when capitalism is developing and cannot afford to stop its development for some foreign imperialist, it becomes dictatorial. The segments of the bourgeoisie that do not develop capitalism in a particular region are necessarily suppressed by this totalitarian state, and in fact, these may be more suppressed than Labor itself. When the bourgeoisie need to reassert its power, it must necessarily kill off all other competition, it must deprive its intra-class enemies of any power, and thus they necessarily must be deprived of political power, this showing itself in the totalitarian state, and of the markets containing those who will develop capitalism. However, capital desires breathing room, capital wants competition, capitalism necessarily has a tendency towards democracy. When the capitalist crises were solved in the former fascist states it was then they became less authoritarian, this transition starting from economic development from the East or the West. When Stalin had modernized the Soviet Union, Khrushchev had allowed capital some breathing room in the market, and consequently, introduced democratic reforms, until the Eastern Bloc states had no longer relied on state industrialization, signalling both the end of state dominance of the economy and the end of totalitarianism: these two events were not separate, they are intricately linked up to one another. Just as true democracy, and a true market, cannot exist in capitalism, neither can a true dictatorship, a truly marketless economy. Capitalism desires chosen authority, for the individualism that it promotes is shown quite well in the idea that an authoritarian structure becomes less authoritarian if it is chosen freely.

However, just as capital rises out of crisis (enters democracy) it will soon turn back to a crisis (hello totalitarianism!), as Dauve put it “just as democracy breeds fascism, fascism breeds democracy. History has demonstrated that what Bordiga argued in theory has been realised in practice: capitalism replaces one with the other; democracy and fascism succeed each other. Both forms have been mixed and intermingled since 1945.” (Fascism is perhaps best replaced with totalitarianism or bourgeois-totalitarianism.) Therefore those who support democracy in the name of defeating totalitarianism end up helping the continuation of totalitarianism, and vice versa. Similarly, we cannot support those who would demand nationalization, for this is simply helping the state solve capitalism’s crisis and ultimately supports privatization. Communists can support neither bourgeois-democracy nor bourgeois-totalitarianism, as both will objectively defend and continue the capitalist mode of production. Time and time has shown that totalitarianism can, and in fact does, respond to labor roughly the same way democracy does, whilst the totalitarianist will attack labor the democratist would ignore them (however it has been shown by history many times that even the democratists would attack labor) they will eventually concede to labor certain “gains”, not to mention the fact democracy would turn to totalitarianism in a heartbeat if it foresaw a proletarian revolution. Class struggle does not change under democracy nor under totalitarianism: true class struggle will be suppressed anyway and both have shown themselves to concede certain things to labor, it simply is that these concessions are more easily explain and done (by the bourgeoisie) in a democracy than a dictatorship. No communist can favor bourgeois-democracy over bourgeois-dictatorship nor vice versa, all bourgeois states are to be opposed and destroyed.

Greek democracy is also used as an example of democracy, as an example of democracy that functions well, as I’d to combat the claim that democracy is inherently bourgeois. But we have made no such claim! The ruling class of these city-states were the one that could vote, adult male landowning natives, athenian democracy is a crude version of ruling class democracy, not collaborationist but openly dictatorial! This is used as an instance of a ruling class using the democratic form and thus is an instance supposedly proving us wrong. However this fails for the same reason that the argument the bourgeois using the democratic form in dictatorship fails. The ruling class has always competed amongst itself for power, it was just in Athens those eligible to vote could not overthrow each other and therefore organized that they would all randomly had political power, and therefore each would have power but not long enough to seriously threaten the others. The ruling class is not a monotone bloc of people, they will act united when necessary, but they continuously strive with eachother to gain more and more power, taking it from the other. Democratic decision making affirms this, each have their own power and thus a vote, and the vote of those they control, thus their interests are expressed through this democracy. Democracy is an expression of the fact that each member of the class has a different interest than the others of that ruling class, it represents the interclass conflict as well as the intraclass conflict. This is not applicable add the proletariat, as a class, does not conflict with itself, whilst other classes compete and vie for their own interest, the proletariat only has one: the destruction of bourgeois society. The proletariat therefore has no democracy, as proletarian interest is the same, and lacks all intra-class conflict.

Under communism there are no classes, no subclasses, no separate strata, nor any separate interests. Communism destroys private property, it therefore does not have anything to compete for. Communism loses the idealist way of thinking, destroys politics, destroys competition; communism destroys the basis of, and thus destroys democracy. Democracy means politics, it means that we will have people in power, and therefore Communism destroys it. Democratic decision making implies numerous things: that people form ideas in a vacuum, that the majority is always right, that people are individual autonomous units which must compete with ideas and separate interests. Communism destroys both classes and competition, communism realizes the majority is not always right, communism reunites the species into one organic unity, communism realizes that we are a product of our social conditions, Communism destroys the base of democracy, it makes the democratic fetish obsolete, and it finds a new way of organizing society and forming decisions. While democracy could be best defined as the rule of the idea of the people/majority (which does not contradict bourgeois dominance, as the ruling class – bourgeois – ideologies are the popular ideologies (The German Ideology)), Communism is best defined as the Dictatorship of the interests of the people/majority. Communism has killed Democracy in theory, the Proletarian will abolish Democracy in action; do not try to save or revive it, let it die and stay dead. Its progressive historical role had been fulfilled long ago. Let us welcome, nay usher in, the new age of Organic decision making.