Le

Left-wing / Right-wing

Left/Right is the basic polarity of political temperament, the axis of political antagonism which manifests itself across all shades of politics, all epochs and social movements. Broadly speaking, the left-wing expresses that social force which is the most marginalised by, and has the least commitment to, the status quo and power relations of the existing society, and it responds to this position by being reformist or revolutionary. Meanwhile, the right-wing is by and large committed to reinforcement of, or at least adaptation to, the status quo and its power relations by being conservative or reactionary.

Historical Development: The left-right identification in politics dates from the seating arrangements in the French Chamber of Deputies after the French Revolution of 1789. [See Girondists and Montagne.] It is believed that the practice of the conservatives sitting to the right of the Speaker and the radicals to the left had its origins in the old custom by which a host would place their honoured guests to the right at formal gatherings.

It is usually clear in any given political context which is the left and which is the right-wing position on a given question, but political deception aside, sometimes even an objective view of what is right and left is obscure. For example, is it left or right for hospital workers to take pay cuts to provide lower costs of medicine? What about gun-control and citizen participation in maintaining law and order? Furthermore, over time the concrete, day to day meaning of left and right changes. For example, in the earliest days of capitalism only the right-wing of the workers’ movement would look to the state for social support, while the left-wing looked to independent workers’ organisation for social support; during much of the twentieth century however, the idea of the state taking responsibility for everything from workers’ health and education through to economic management was a left-wing position. At the onset of the 21st century, the political forms of the left-right axis are continuing to change.

At first sight it would seem that certain values, such as community or equality, are more valued by the left than the right. However, this is hard to sustain. While the left may support communitarianism against individualism, it may also counterpose class struggle to community, and individual autonomy to moral conformity - it depends on the context. Everybody is for freedom and equality, but these values are subject to different definitions - free trade, free enterprise and free speech may all be right-wing policies, for example, because they are freedoms which consolidate the existing power relations. The left traditionally opposes censorship, but favours government regulation of foodstuffs. The Left generally supports emancipation, but this by no means supporting “freedom" in every instance (e.g. the “freedom” to exploit others).

Extremism of either the left or the right, manifesting itself in either revolutionary or reactionary forms, is formed from a hard core of the most excluded, the most down-trodden and marginalised layers of society. You can’t have a revolutionary or reactionary movement without people who are extremely oppressed becoming active in overthrowing that repression in either a progressive (left) or retroactive (right) way.

Marxist politics and the left: Marxists unequivocally identify themselves with oppressed people who take up positions on the extreme left in social movements. Marx & Engels supported the Paris Commune, but criticised it for not being thorough enough – since the communards did not smash the state apparatus, tens of thousands were massacred by the French state. The Bolsheviks supported the Petrograd workers who tried to stage a premature revolution in July 1917, and Luxemburg and Liebknecht supported the 1919 German Revolution, even though it too was premature. The object of such support is both to try to move society forward through revolution and to temper the left-wing spontaneity with a scientific consciousness. During the 1920s and onwards, Trotsky criticised the Soviet Union in some cases for being too far left (e.g. forced collectivisation) and in most cases, particularly after 1933, for being too far right (e.g. popular front policies).

Marxism stands on the left-wing of politics in a revolutionary way. Nevertheless, the spontaneity of a mass movement is one thing, and political leadership is another. Marxist political theory had its origins in both a critique of capitalism and the left. “Young” Hegelians, “True Socialists” and Utopian socialists, the left-wing of politics of the 1840s – See The German Ideology); Lenin’s last major work, addressed to the supporters of the Russian Revolution in the West, was entitled “Left-Wing” Communism: An Infantile Disorder - a critique of the “left-ism” of those who wanted to imitate the Russian Revolution, without paying attention to the specific conditions of their own country. Marxism is scientific socialism; it is not a spontaneous politics. Consequently, while giving voice to the most left-wing forces in society, Marxists have a mind to what basis exists for this or that policy, the reality of the political terrain, and take a critical attitude to left-wing politics. Political leadership is never a question of looking for the most left-wing position on any given problem, but rather, of finding that policy which most strengthens and builds the self-confidence, unity and self-consciousness of the working class as a whole. In capitalist society this invariably involves a struggle with spontaneous left-wing consciousness.

All political parties invariably find their youth, oftentimes side by side with minorities and so many other commonly disenfranchised groups, occupying the left-wing of the party, and this is generally true of workers’ and communist organisations as well. Marxists seek to foster and educate the left-wing to develop a more sober and scientific view of the political terrain, to learn to understand the motivation of other social layers and how to win battles, rather than just fighting valiantly. On the other hand, the trade unionists typically form the right-wing of workers’ parties, and obviously are valued nonetheless for their concern for a sober assessment of the balance of forces before battle is joined.

In this way, in whatever political organisation you look to, there is a left and a right wing – and to trample that difference is a blow to democracy. Thus, we can see the radical and progressive step that capitalism took in its foundation: the right and left have been institutionalised – the left typically supports the small buisness owner (and to some extent unions) because they are the most marginalised by big buisness, while the right supports big buisness and some small buisnesses. Neither the big nor small buisness can exist without the other, so having advocates of both political wings in the government is key to the democractic and efficient functioning of society. This division in government is the most basic recognition and acceptance of the reality of the political terrain in any society. When Stalinism attempted to crush all political opposition in the Soviet Union, the party itself had to go from left to right in a zigzag of policy moves that became more and more dictatorial and destructive.

While Marxism at present stands on the extreme left wing as advocates (in the words of the Communist Manifesto) of the “overthrow of all existing social conditions,” Marxism frequently warns against being too far left – you can’t just take to the streets and begin fighting a revolution when the conditions are not ready, when the working class is not in the streets with you! Even in Socialist society Marxism warns against being too far left – you can’t just (as Anarchists want) go directly into classless society. Cuba, for example, tried to completely do away with money in the first years of the revolution, in a move that was far left. Most Marxists disagreed with this policy, as it turns out correctly, as it outstripped material reality: society was no where near advanced enough to take that bold step forward. Thus, Marxism encourages a thoroughly scientific element in any political position. In times of political retreat, it is not simple; spontaneous left-wing politics may lack a basis in society at large, and pursuit of a left-wing policy for which there is no basis is unwise and irresponsible, while in periods of social upsurge, communists place themselves shoulder-to-shoulder with the left-wing and seek to bring together all the left in their common interests.

Legitimation

Legitimation literally means “to make lawful”, but social theory recognises that the processes by which an action is deemed “legitimate” are significantly broader than the legal system and are fundamental not only to the power relations in a society but to its relations of production, ideology and belief systems.

For example, by what means is a new scientific theory deemed “legitimate"? Is the author a “scientist” legitimated by an institution which in turn has been legitimated by the state? Has the theory been published in a “learned” journal, and “peer review"? Does the theory fit in with other theories which have been stamped as legitimate, and so on? On top of all this, the theory will never see the light of day without funding for the research in the first place, which involves a whole series of legitimation processes and overt social interests. Knowledge is today more commercialised than ever before

In this way, the social interests deeply penetrate a society’s whole conception of the world. This does not mean however that all knowledge is ideological and relative, for the social interests expressed in knowledge are themselves expressive of the real relations by which human beings engage with Nature. Criticism which discloses the social interests embedded in forms of knowledge and the processes of legitimation does not thereby destroy it but simply discovers the real, human significance of a given theory.

Further Reading: Archaeology of Knowledge by Michel Foucault, Knowledge and Human Interests by Jürgen Habermas, Capital, Chapter 1 section 4.

Lenin’s Last Testament

Written in late December 1922 to early January 1923, Lenin’s last testament was an outline for the reorganisation of the Soviet government. The testament contains three parts: on increasing the size of the Central Committee; on granting legislative functions to the State Planning Commission; and on the Question of Nationalities.

Lenin intended his letters to be published in Pravda, read at the upcoming Congress of Soviets, the Congress of the Communist party and (the Question on Nationalities) at the First Congress of Soviets of the U.S.S.R. Lenin’s letters were withheld from all. In May, 1924, some 16 months after Lenin had written these letters, they were first read (note taking was not allowed) post-mortem to the Council of Elders of the Thirteenth Communist party congress.

"At that time the party apparatus was semi-officially in the hands of the troika (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Stalin) – as a matter of fact, already in the hands of Stalin. The troika decisively expressed themselves against reading the testament at the Congress – the motive not at all difficult to understand. Krupskaya insisted upon her wish. At this stage the dispute was going on behind the scenes. The question was transferred to a meeting of the Elders at the Congress – that is, the leaders of the provincial delegations. It was here that the oppositional members of the Central Committee first learned about the testament, I among them. After a decision had been adopted that nobody should make notes, Kamenev began to read the text aloud. The mood of the listeners was indeed tense in the highest degree. But so far as I can restore the picture from memory, I should say that those who already knew the contents of the document were incomparably the most anxious. The troika introduced, through one of its henchmen, a resolution previously agreed upon with the provincial leaders: the document should be read to each delegation separately in executive session; no one should dare to make notes; at the plenary session the testament must not be referred to. With the gentle insistence characteristic of her, Krupskaya argued that this was a direct violation of the will of Lenin, to whom you could not deny the right to bring his last advice to the attention of the party. But the members of the Council of Elders, bound by factional discipline, remained obdurate; the resolution of the troika was adopted by an overwhelming majority.

Leon Trotsky
On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin

The document read, unknown to this writer, was only the first half of the first part of Lenin’s testament (Sections I & II of the letter on the Central Committee, including the postscript on Stalin). An edited portion of this first half was first published in a Bulletin of the Fifteenth Congress of the Communist party, in December 1927, shortly after the Left Opposition had been expelled from the country. The postscript on Stalin was not included.

The contents of Lenin’s letters were not communicated again until the Twentieth Congress of the Communist party. After Stalin’s death, 32 years after it had been written, Lenin’s testament was first fully published (as in present form) in 1956, in the magazine Kommunist. This version of the testament was first publicly published in the Fourth Edition of Lenin’s Collected Works, in Volume 36, in 1964.

Some scholars argue that the published version of Lenin’s testament has been altered, especially on the Question of Nationalities, due to internal inconsistancies and the abrupt change of opinion in the last portion of the document.

Further Reading: Lenin, Lenin’s Last Testament; Trotsky, On the Suppressed Testament of Lenin (1926)