Party Machines and Democragy
Silone, Ignazio
The boundless power of the party machine over public life is constantly being confirmed; in private conversation and on the printed page we return to this problem in the weary tones of...
...by monopolizing all the work of the party, from research down to the most simple, material tasks, they deliberately encourage the apathy of their memberships...
...Something must be attempted...
...4) A commission appointed at the party or union convention, including the representatives of the minorities, must be able to examine the financial reports, and if necessary all the administrative documents of the organization...
...The ears of the prefects are sweetly receptive to the wishes of the provincial secretaries...
...the cynical ones excuse their actions, pleading the necessities of the times, the hypocrites invoke "the lesser of two evils...
...It seems to me, however, that I am slighting no one when I say that the party machines exist for quite different purposes...
...The boundless power of the party machine over public life is constantly being confirmed...
...Once," he said, "Russia was under the rule of a matriarchy, then a patriarchy ruled, now we are entering the age of the secretariarchy...
...This is enough to inspire defeatist sentiments in the suffering and impotent minorities...
...Marx, Let us seek together, if you wish, the laws of society, the manner in which these laws are realized, the process by which we shall succeed in discovering them...
...Why complain...
...And this in a matter involving only a few liras and Constantino Lazzari...
...the ambitious ones, in order not to jeopardize their future candidacy, the necessary support on the preferential ballot, the hope for an office...
...Sooner or later the party machines prepare their fatal punishment: the degeneration of their party and its downfall...
...Are there any remedies for the grave dangers of the machines...
...after serving his term he was to return to the office or factory and continue to earn his living as before...
...let us give the world the example of a learned and farsighted tolerance, but let us not, because we are at the head of a movement, make ourselves the leaders of a new intolerance, let us not pose as the apostles of a new religion, even if it is the religion of logic and reason...
...It is certainly admirable that Pierre Monatte, director of the Vie Ouvriere during the first World War, returned to his work in the printing business, where, in spite of his old age, he is still employed...
...The change which has taken place in our democracy can be roughly estimated if we remember that at a Socialist Party convention forty years ago Filippo Turati asked to have Constantino Lazzari investigated because the recorded expense for some twine seemed to him incredible...
...We, however, do not believe that defeat can act as a cure...
...As the Stalinist technique of arousing, stupefying and brutally managing the masses is imitated by the opposition, the Communist machine is given a taste of its own medicine, far more sour than the usual dose doled out by the Social-Democrats...
...in private conversation and on the printed page we return to this problem in the weary tones of recrimina tion and impotence...
...they must favor the free growth and elaboration of political ideas among the party's membership...
...These two qualities are perfectly acceptable—but there are conditions...
...FINALLY, to console ourselves let us reread a letter written by P. J. Proudhon, at that time 37 years old, to Karl Marx, then 28: "My dear Mr...
...Occasionally, it still happens that some surviving oligarch dominates the dull sittings of a political convention...
...With us the anti-Communist mass organizations have come to adopt, bit by bit, the whole Stalinist system: the block and factory factions, the small organized cells in the cooperatives, the agit-prop in the crowd, the meetings reserved 50 for the most active members, the party schools at every level of organization, and finally, what is most important and most essential for Stalinism, the two-faced ideology, one, opportunistic and demagogic, for the mass public, the other for the initiates of the central apparatus...
...I applaud with all my heart your thought of bringing to light all opinions...
...This is the point we have reached...
...This draconian decision remained inapplicable...
...Only a non-precarious economic situation can free the officials from their obligation to serve the ever-shift ing leaders...
...Right now the real problem, of 52 all parties, is to guarantee a minimum of freedom to those Italians who are interested in public life...
...This surrender is justified, naturally, on grounds of expediency: once again the means devour the end...
...However, the activities of the committees and the final vote are determined by the party machine...
...But the greatest mistake lies in believing that this situation is in evitable...
...For the technique of the modern machine undoubtedly has that origin...
...Today we also live in an age when bureaucrats are tyrants...
...The Communists copy the clerical party, and the Democratic-Christian civic committees imitate the Communists...
...On the other hand, is a democracy conceivable without parties...
...but, for God's sake, after having demolished all the a priori dogmatisms, do not let us in our turn dream of indoctrinating the people...
...1) The members of the party bureaucracy must be guaranteed a living standard equal to that of members of corresponding cate gories in private...
...2) No bureaucrats, of whatever rank, can serve as delegates to the conventions...
...They decreed that no union officer could be re-elected...
...The timid members remain silent out of party loyalty (the enemy is listening...
...SINCE OUR POLITICAL LITERATURE lingers on abstract themes, digesting and redigesting them, we do not yet have a complete or profound study of the party machines...
...However, no careful observer can miss their most salient characteristics...
...they must guarantee to that membership the control of every facet of the organization...
...Is there any point, we ask ourselves, in continuing to talk of democracy...
...If it could, then socialism, whether Italian or international, would by now have attained a godly perfection...
...let us carry on a good and loyal polemic...
...Finally even their insipid and reactionary cult of force has turned against them, for the suspicion is growing among their followers that the greater quantity of force now lies with their opponents...
...In addition, militant unionists, all-too-well-known for their activity in strikes and other labor agitations were not likely to be rehired by their old firms, nor would, in any case, the psychological impact of a return to the old routine be unimportant...
...Daily events are enough to refresh the memory even of the inattentive...
...The following suggestions by no means add up to a complete answer, but they may serve as indicators, and, as they are in accord with my own experience, may be worthy of further investigation...
...It is necessary, first of all, to admit that modern parties and unions can no longer do without bureaucratic machinery...
...Do you wish proof of this...
...In those fortunate Western countries where the Communist following is small, the democratic parties have less rigid organizations...
...But why should it become necessary to oppose modernity and efficiency...
...Otherwise— no...
...Before this necessity was realized, but when the bureaucratization of the workers' movement had already become a problem, the revolutionary unions of the French CGT devised a remedy both radical and romantic...
...And a modern party without its machinery...
...The rule is, we repeat, that no modern party or union which is even minimally organized, can do without a bureaucratic mechanism...
...Finally, we reach this conclusion: as long as our democratic mechanism is, in fact, based mainly upon the parties (and under the present social system we cannot conceive of a substitute for them) and as long as the parties are empty floats moved only by their machinery, the democracy of the Republic will remain greatly limited, if not, in deed, entirely non-existent...
...How ever, we must not overlook the fascination that certain words such as "modernity" and "efficiency" exercise even over the well educated...
...The effect of this is predictable...
...This same control must also be put into effect on the local level...
...SUCCESS IS A JUSTIFICATION only for the feebleminded...
...These represent the quintessence of the self-justification offered by the re nowned engineers of our political machines...
...The Secretary General has become the true representative of our times, while the old oligarchies of prominent citizens (survivors of the political geriarchy, heads of the Mafia, publicists, great orators) are thrust from their pedestal...
...It is not surprising that the internal organization of the parties contributes greatly to worsen the political and moral climate of all public 51 life, for our democracy is first of all a democracy of parties...
...This rule has the same political and moral jus tification as the law which forbids political activity to state of ficials...
...Add to this the fact that the central organization of every important political party administers enormous funds about which, it is well understood, no accounts need be rendered, either as to their source or their use...
...Yet the violations of the party constitution, the offenses to fair play, do not provoke the expected dramatic protest...
...This is the irony of the strategy of the opposition: the fear of the enemy leads to imitation...
...Our own situation is far worse...
...Their much-vaunted expediency fails in the end to justify itself...
...Curiously enough, the pretense of fighting the dangers of Communism or of clericalism—always for the sake of liberty—can lead with terrible ease to the surrender of all personal freedom...
...They must facilitate the active and conscious participation in the development of party policy of all who have the capacity and desire...
...Careful checking of delegate credentials would reveal that the machine has usurped the representation of many party constituencies through a fictitious inflation of the membership...
...And, of course, there are precedents which encourage them...
...Why not...
...It is now the common opinion that only a political defeat can free a party from its bureaucratic strait-jacket...
...We hope now that whoever has had to struggle, or is at present struggling, with these difficulties, will take courage and express his ideas...
...This rule, which to the interested parties may seem sheer folly, is 53 currently in force in some Scandinavian workers' parties and was also a regulation of the Italian Socialist Party unions before 1919, with excellent results...
...Among these notables a few have saved themselves—by serving as rubber stamps for one or another of the more efficient machines...
...and it is preferable to hit one's head against the wall a hundred times rather than admit that there exists a situation beyond solution...
...It would have been disastrous for a labor union periodically to lose its leaders just when they had begun to know their duties, and to have constantly to call upon men without experience...
...The trouble is, however, that Stalinism by now has seriously contaminated and perverted those public energies which, up to about forty years ago, seemed to be the most promising resources of Iiberty...
...The problem is how to prevent the machine from emptying party or union of their real content and substituting itself...
...Those who are not aware of this, learn it by reading the newspapers...
...But in human relations there are no insoluble problems...
...They are executive machines...
...After all that has been said, this may seem like an attempt to square the circle...
...Further, though this may appear even more strange, no one at any party convention ever rises to demand a financial report or to request the appointment of a committee for financial control...
...3) The members of the party executive and of the national ad ministration cannot be candidates for political elections...
...The reasons are evident...
...but this is an exception to the general rule...
...5) Free contacts, exchanges and friendships among members ought to be fostered (especially in the big cities, where general assemblies are impossible because of the great number of members) by the organization of clubs, and by periodicals devoted to cultural and political matters...
...On this condition, I will gladly enter into your association...
...The General Secretaries of the parties appoint the ministers and dismiss them...
...54...
...It is even possible that the various minority currents among the Italian Social Democrats entertain such hopes concerning their own party...
...let us not fall into the same contradiction as your countryman, Martin Luther, who after having overthrown Catholic theology, began at once with the help of excommunications and anathemas, to found a Protestant theology...
...I remember a sentence of Karl Radek's from the days when the crushing power of the Stalinist machine was beginning to take form...
...The regime of the secretariat has expanded rapidly in every country, civilized and uncivilized alike...
...Let us gather together and encourage all protests, let us condemn all exclusiveness let us never regard a question as exhausted...
...In view of the present situation it is not an exaggeration to say that Italian political life today is almost completely Stalinized...
...They are machines, which, in their proposals and their activity, destroy the popular foundation of the party and reduce it to a hollow chorus, a mass which can be manipulated...
Vol. 5 • January 1958 • No. 1
