Comments on: The Fourth Comintern Congress: ‘A way to claim victory’

By: John Riddell

John Riddell — Thu, 05 Mar 2015 17:34:21 +0000

Thanks to Steve Bloom for a stimulating comment on The Fourth Comintern Congress: ‘A way to claim victory’, by Antonis Davanellos, and apologies for my late reply.
Steve criticizes the use of the word “claim” in title of Antonis Davanellos’s posted article, “A way to claim victory.” I must take responsibility here. The original text, an introduction to the Greek edition of Fourth Comintern Congress excerpts, did not carry a title. I provided one, using words that appear toward the end of the article. I do not know Greek and cannot vouch for the accuracy of translation. Perhaps the word “achieve,” suggested by Steve, would have been preferable, but the distinction between “claim” and “achieve” does not seem to me to be that great.
Criticizing Davanellos’s text, Steve contends that the Syriza government in Greece “cannot be labelled a ‘workers’ government’ in the transitional sense suggested by the Comintern” because of the lack of “an alternative power,” a “mobilized mass movement.”
However, in the article under question, Antonis does not term the present Syriza regime a “workers’ government,” and I am not aware that he has stated that elsewhere. His text speaks of criteria of “left-wing forces that are inside Syriza … on what is and what isn’t a left-wing government.” Whether these criteria apply to the Alexis Tsipras regime today is quite a different question.
Steve’s reference to the need for “an alternative power” is certainly in the spirit of what the Fourth Comintern Congress (1922) decided on the workers’ government, but the congress resolution is formulated more broadly and flexibly. Here is its key passage on this issue:
“Such a workers’ government is possible only if it is born from the struggles of the masses themselves and is supported by militant workers’ organisations created by the most oppressed layers of the working masses. Even a workers’ government that arises from a purely parliamentary combination, that is, one that is purely parliamentary in origin, can provide the occasion for a revival of the revolutionary workers’ movement.”
(For the full text, see: “The Comintern’s unknown decision on workers’ governments.”)
This description, I believe, corresponds with many aspects of what we have seen in Greece in the past few years: A mighty mass movement was unable to overthrow the government through direct action. It then sought to unlock the door to victory through electoral action. The movement was able to shatter the existing bourgeois party structure and secure a striking electoral triumph. The government’s present authority rests not just on the vote count but on the mass movement that brought it into being. This movement could well spring back into action if the government’s path is barred by capitalist obstruction.
Davanellos and others of the Syriza left have raised many criticisms of the government’s present course. I will leave it to those better informed of the Greek situation to comment on the present character and dynamic of the Syriza regime.

Links: https://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/the-fourth-comintern-congress-a-way-to-claim-victory/
https://johnriddell.wordpress.com/2011/08/14/the-comintern%E2%80%99s-unknown-decision-on-workers%E2%80%99-governments/

By: Steve Bloom

Steve Bloom — Fri, 20 Feb 2015 16:15:22 +0000

I appreciate Davanellos’s assessment of the united front and its importance. This is a concept and history that needs to be better understood. However, I think his discussion of the “workers’ government” and its relevance for Greece today is lacking some crucial elements. I was particularly struck by his statement that we might utilize such a concept as “a way to claim victory.” I am reminded of the useful advice: “Claim no easy victories.” What we need to be considering in relation to Greece right now is not how “to claim victory,” but how to actually achieve one. That, BTW, is what the Comintern, too, was considering in 1922.

Some thought also needs to be given to the third criterion Davanellos cites for his definition of a workers’ government: “[It] must be understood as a transitional step towards socialist rupture and not as a final destination that will ‘save the country’ ” The question is then immediately posed: “Understood” by whom? And the answer is that it has to be “understood” by more than just a small caucus of active left supporters of Syriza. It must become the prevailing trend, that a majority of those engaged in creating and supporting our “workers’ government” are pushing for in one way or another. So in Greece the crucial task remains: to transform this into a predominant consciousness among the most active elements, before we can begin to talk about a “workers’ government” as a transitional formation—even in the limited sense that Davanellos suggests.

I assert that the concept as presented above is limited because one aspect that was central for the Comintern is completely absent from Davenellos’s assessment: the reality of an alternative power—like the dual power represented by the Soviets in Russia in 1917—on which a transitional workers’ government could base itself and take action. This, which is what makes it possible for such a government to actually become “a step towards socialist rupture,” is completely absent in Greece today. The Syriza government therefore relies on the traditional state bureaucracy for any exercise of power, not on a mobilized mass movement. And it has no choice. As long as that’s true it cannot be labeled a “workers’ government” (a “united front” government) in the transitional sense suggested by the Comintern.

Yes, the program of the Syriza left calls for precisely the break that is needed with purely parliamentary/diplomatic processes. But we cannot substitute our own slogans or programs for a reality which is not yet what we envision. We have to acknowledge the reality: There is no social base, today, which would make it possible for Syriza to begin to break with the bourgeois state and lean, in action, on other class forces. If that’s true then the formation of a “workers’ government” in Greece, as conceived by the Comintern in 1922, is still in the future.

Allow me to suggest that this difference—between raising the call for a united-front workers’ government as a transitional slogan today, understanding that the creation of such a government is still in the future (on the one hand), and imagining/pretending that we already have such a government in place led by Alexis Tsipras (on the other)—could be the difference between simply claiming victory and actually achieving one.

By: John Riddell

John Riddell — Thu, 04 Dec 2014 14:59:03 +0000

In reply to abraham Weizfeld PhD.

I apologize that this comment went for ten days without reply.

Your attention to the democratic dimension of social change is on the mark. Under present circumstances, even in the traditional countries of “bourgeois democracy,” any significant movement for social change becomes a struggle for democracy.

This is my own experience in the tar sands / pipeline battles, where opponents of the tar sands have posed a constitutional challenge — a component of the battle of Burnaby Mountain.

The historic call for a Constituent Assembly is worth attention, but I would hesitate to recommend it in a given struggle — as, for example, Greece — without a detailed study of the local class struggle and the views of local revolutionists. — John

By: abraham Weizfeld PhD

abraham Weizfeld PhD — Sun, 23 Nov 2014 22:45:55 +0000

There is a missing dimension to this analysis due to the deference to the legislative assemblies called governments. While it is known that the liberal democratic theory is patterned to suit the bourgeois State, there is no alternative presented to the practice of bourgeois democracy. There is also no critique of the State per se.
The alternative to the governmental assemblies is the formation of the Constituent Assembly in contrast to the prevailing austerity governments. When Civil Society takes on the clothing of an independent societal body it becomes the Constituent Assembly by direct democracy, and not representative democracy. This is inconceivable to a Party formation which seeks to speak on behalf of the national proletariat. As so the revolutionary cadres fall into the trap of replicating the existing bourgeois State in its own name, an impossible task.