memes

The wobblies and syndicalists etc had this sort of cult of action. They distrusted party politics, feeling that any change would come from and on the factory floor. It makes sense why they deemed electoralism in most countries a waste of time, but they often threw out forming real discipline and developing a theory of change. Essentially look at the errors of De Leonism which was also party if the IWW, even they disagreed with the IWW's anti-party stance.

Scotland's great trade unionist, early compatriot to the IWW, and eventual head of the Communist Party of Great Britain Willie Gallacher covers the issues with these strategies really well in his autobiography of the WW1 era "Revolt on the Clyde" especially when he went to the Comintern and met Lenin. He talks about how Lenin changed his politics and made him self-crit.

With little delay I got to Moscow and was soon engaged in discussions which completely altered my views on revolutionary politics.

But this change did not take place in any easy manner. At that time the shop stewards’ movement was still comparatively strong and I had little regard for parties and still less regard for parliament and parliamentarians. I was an outstanding example of the “Left” sectarian and as such had been referred to by Lenin in his book Left-Wing Communism an Infantile Disorder .

But here I was In the company of Lenin himself and other leading international figures, arguing and fighting on the correctness or otherwise of these views. I was hard to convince. I had such disgust at the leaders of the Labour Party and their shameless servility that I wanted to keep clear of contamination.

Gradually, as the discussions went on, I began to see the weakness of my position. More and more the clear simple arguments and explanations of Lenin impressed themselves in my mind. When I got back to Glasgow I tried to give the comrades some idea of how I felt when talking- with Lenin. I had never had such an experience with anyone before. Here was a man on whom the eyes of the world were turned. A man who was making history, great history, yet simple, unaffected, a true comrade in the deepest meaning of the word. Not for a moment could I dream of talking about him — to him. I couldn’t even think of him when he was talking to me. The remarkable thing about Lenin was the complete subordination of self. His whole mind, his whole being, was centred in the revolution. So when I spoke to Lenin. I had to think not of him, but of what he was thinking — about the revolutionary struggle of the workers.

Occasionally in the discussions taking place in the various Commissions Lenin would scribble a note clearing up a particular point and pass it to this or that comrade. One evening in the hotel I was commenting on the caustic character of such a note he had passed and how certain people would go red in the face if they had seen it. ‘‘Where is it ?” asked J. S. Clarke.

“I tore it up," I replied.

“What ” he exclaimed. “You tore up a note in Lenin’s handwriting ?”

"Yes,” I said, “I have torn up several. I always tear up whatever notes I have at the end of a sitting."

‘'If you get another, keep it and give it to me,” said Clarke.

The next day I happened to make a heated reference to the criticism in Left-Wing Communism and Lenin passed me a note which read : “When I wrote my little book I did not know you.” I kept that one but gave it to Clarke. He now writes fantastic stories about his relations with Lenin

The more I talked with Lenin and the other comrades, the more I came to see what the party of the workers meant in the revolutionary struggle It was in this, the conception of the party, that the genius of Lenin had expressed itself. A Party of revolutionary workers, with its roots in the factories and in the streets, winning the Trade Unions and the Co-operatives with the correctness of its working-class policy, a party with no other interests but the interests of the working class and the peasant and petty-bourgeois allies of the working class, such a Party, using every avenue of expression, could make an exceptionally valuable parliamentary platform for arousing the great masses of workers to energetic struggle against the capitalist enemy.

Before I left Moscow I had an interview with Lenin during which he asked me three questions.

“Do you admit you were wrong on the question of Parliament and affiliations to the Labour Party ?'*

“Will you join the Communist Party of Great Britain when you return ?'* (telegram had arrived a couple of days before, informing us of the formation of the Party.)

"Will you do your best to persuade your Scottish comrades to join it ?”

To each of these questions I answered “yes.** Having given this pledge freely I returned to Glasgow.

On arrival I heard of a conference that had been held two weeks previously, when the question had been discussed of forming a Scottish Communist Party-, compounded of the sectarians of the S.L. P., the shop stewards and the Scottish nationalism of the group round John McLean I also heard that a further conference was to take place on the Saturday following my return, to elect an Executive Committee and to launch the Communist Party officially.

I highly recommend the book, its a short read and while about very specific strikes and shenanigans and interactions, the heart of it genuinely helped me understand the strengths and weaknesses of even a strong union movement like that one in Scotland at the time. Pure unionism does not have revolutionary potential, it is the breeding group for cadres, not the other way around.