Why we 'submit to the majority

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OMRADE Munis* is issatisfied with our assert›ns at the trial that "we ubmit to the majority" 'he Oehlerites** also are cornful of this declaration ind represent it as some ind of capitulatory repudation of our principles in order to impress the jury. All of these assumptions are without foundation.

Our submission to the najority' was not first revealed at the trial. We said it before the trial and continue to repeat it atter the trial. It is a correct statement of our position because it conforms both to reality and necessity. Moreover, our Marxist teachers said it before us: we learned it from them.

Minority

What else can we do but 'submit to the majority' if we are Marxists, and not Blanquistst or anarchist muddle-heads? It is a timely occasion to probe into this question because we believe any ill considered talk about some kind of mysterious 'action' • presumed to be open to us while we remain not only a minority, but a very small, numerically insignificant minority, can lead only to a dangerous disorientation of the party. An exposition of the Marxist position on this question can also be useful as an antidote for any remnants of the halfBlanquist tradition of the early years of the Comintern in America.

The pioneer communists in the United States and not only here) heard of the Bolshevik victory in Russia long before they learned about the political method and propaganda techniques whereby the Bolsheviks. gained the mass support which made the seizure of power possible.

Their first impressions were undoubtedly coloured by the capitalist press accounts which represented the revolution as a coup d'etat engineered by a small group.

This distorted conception was epitomised by the title given to the American edi. tion of Trotsky's classic pamphlet, 'Terrorism and Communism' , which was published here by the party's publishing house in 1922 under the completely misleading title, 'Dictatorship versus Democracy' We took the 'dictatorship', so to speak, and generously handed over to the bourgeoisie all claim to 'democracy.

This was far too big a concession, perhaps pardonable in a young movement lacking adequate knowledge about the democratic essence of the Bolshevik programme, but by far out of date today.

The bourgeoisie have always tried to picture communism as a 'criminal conspiracy' in order to alienate workers who are profoundly democratic in their sentiments. That was the aim once again in the Minneapolis trial. It was our task at the trial to go out of our way to refute this misrepresentation and emphasise the democratic basis of our programme;

not in order to placate our enemies and persecutors, as is assumed, but in order to reveal the truth to our friends, the American workers.

We cannot eat our cake and have it too. We must either 'submit' to the majority and confine ourselves to propaganda designed to win over the majority -or, we must seize power, more correctly, try to seize power and break the neck a ton party, by minority 'action'.

Winning

Marxist authority is clear and conclusive in choosing between these alternatives.

When we took our stand in court regarding 'submission' to the majority we were not 'folding our arms' and making 'opportunistic' statements of passivity in the face of imperialist war' , as we are accused.

Nothing of the sort. The testimony states, repeatedly, and with sufficient emphasis, that, while 'submitting to the majority' - that is, making no minority insurrections or

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EST 18R1 dI monSeSG üùoN TazinogiO teilooé Socialist Organiser no.66 December 16 1981 Page 13 the SDP 'The uprising must be based on the crucial point in the history of the maturing revolution, when the activity of the vanguard of the people is at its height, when the vacillations in the ranks of the enemies, and in the ranks of the weak, half-hearted, undecided friends of the revolution are at their highest point. This is the third point.

'It is in pointing out these three conditions as the way of approaching the question of an uprising, On September 25-27 Lenin called upon the Bolshevik party to take power. In this famous letter, addressed 'to the Central Committee, the Petrograd and Moscow. Committees of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party" Lenin, with the logic and directness which characterised him, states his premise and his conclusion in the first sentence:

"Having obtained majority in the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies of both capitals, the Bolsheviks can and must take power into their hands"' DECLARATIONS IN Limehouse, by-election victor-. ies, party conferences in three places, Shirley Williams missing trains, Roy Jenkins drinking claret, David Owen being pelted with tomatoes* yes, the SDP has brought a new mood of excitement and expectation into British politics in 1981!

Nobody is quite sure what the SDP represents, but that hasn't stopped its bandwagon collecting votes on a large scale from both

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