Every revolutionary organisation is permanently threatened by two sorts of political deviation, opposed but not mtually exclusive. The first sort is leftist sectarianisn; it shows itself in failure to understand the real process through which the rising of the masses comes about. In the presence of a mass movement, leftism adopts a semi-suspicious, semi-contemptuous attitude: in so far as it does not correspond to traditional schemas, it constitutes a priori, an either dangerous or misleading phenomenon. Leftist deviations are characterized by a break with the mass movement and a cramping turning in on itself by the organization.
The second type of deviation is rightist opportunism. It is characterized by an unprincipled "adaption" to the mass movement treated as a fetish. The dynamic of opportunist deviations is the self Liquidation of the revolutionary vanguard by progressive dissolution into the movement.
These two types of deviation, which clearly distinguish themselves by two sorts of degeneration, are not accidental. Their basis lies in the very nature of the class struggle: every revolutionary organization strives to mobilize the exploited classes against the system. But these exploited classes are also. dominated idealogically. They are by no means ready to radically question the social order under which they suffer.
They come to revolutionary consciousness precisely in the course of everyday struggles for limited objectives, waged for years within the bounds of the system. Such is the contradiction with which every revolutionary organisation is faced; in order to mobilize the masses in struggle against the system it is necessary first of all to organize and educate the masses for struggle within the bounds of the system. (1)
Opportunist and sectarian deviations originate in an actual division introduced between struggles conducted “against the system" and struggles conducted "within the system". There is an inability to bind together @ialectically these two sorts of struggle, a tendency to autonomise then, and to gravitate onesidedly to one or the other.
The sectarian deviation reverts to promoting "struggles against the system", and on the contrary the opportunist deviation reverts to promoting "struggles within the limits of the system", whilst neglecting the perspective of passing beyond them in a revolutionary manner. Rosa Luxemburg, who first developed this theoretically, put the workers parties on guard against rightist-opportunist deviations which are their natural inclinations: the conservative and privileged apparatus of the working class, wholly absorb themselves in day-to-day struggles and shout out at every revolutionary crisis that "all the conditions are not yet present." But as far as the grouplets are concerned, the danger of sectarian deviations is undoubtedly by far the most real.
The grouplets are not fundamentally differentiated from the large workers formations on the level of practical politics. Their roots are too superficial for the difference to be shown in the realm of action. At the
present stage of their development it is on the level of ideology that their specific nature is essentially affirmed.
A doctrinaire attitude, based on the necessity to preserve at all costs the purity of their principles which might be corrupted by a real-life application, is their immediate reaction. Their smallness and peripheral nature prevents them from proving their strategy through the test of practice. At the same time, the positions they adopt are not of much consequence. That is certainly a situation favourable to delirium... 3
The road that leads from leftist deviation to sectarian degeneration: leftist orientation shows itself in fantastic analyses, maladjusted political actions, a stunted sort of relationship with the mass movement and rival organisations... its analyses, its political actions, its relationships are made up of so many peculiarities, which define the grouplet by differentiating it from everyone else. The grouplet becomes a sect when the multiplication of its own peculiarities becomes the unconscious motive of its political activity.
The grouplet is no longer made to function in the general interest of the labour movement and the revolution. From then on it is constrained to function by its internal needs, to preserve itself as a clearly defined grouplet, marked out in its political setting by its list of peculiarities.(2) The grouplet becomes a sect when it sets up a fetish of itself,
From the moment when sectarian degeneration is effected, the problems are posed very differently. ‘The logic of a sect hasn't got much in common : with the logic of a revolutionary group, however small. The analyses. and political activity in the two cases correspond to very different laws. In the case of a sect, they stem from a logic of reproduction: political * analyses aim to confirm (hence reproduce) the original assumptions. They tend to recognise in social reality the verification of the particular theses held by the sect, whatever the "distortion" that it needs to impose on events to justify this. In the first instance political activity is determined by the internal needs of the sect. It seeks above ali to preserve itself, by means of its particular shibboleth. Its relationship with the mass movement and political groupings also arises from the logic of preservation: the sect considers anything that it cannot control as a menace. In the presence of the mass movement it adopts defensive positions either by denigrating or by claiming self-appointed leadership of it. With regard to political groupings it shows that attitude which has given the description "sectarian" its currect meaning. Virulent hostility to everyone else is an important part of its mode of cohesion. This hostility is all the sharper when the political grouping is closest to its own positions.
«l
A sect can grow numerically up to a certain point, but it is condemned to remain in the state of a grouplet. It is basically incapable of rising abeve its marginal nature. It is irremediably cut off from the mass movement ‘ which it dees not understand and on which it lives parasitically. It
recruits its militants in this movement, but this recruitment is selective {at least when there are a number of organisations). Insofar as it is a small, fringe group and sectarian in operation, the sect recruits a certain type of individual, an unmistakable psychological type, an individuel
sufficiently predisposed to the atmosphere of the sect as to be attracted by at. The group undertakes in some respects to integrate new recruits and to absorb those admitted. But it can not sustain quantitative growth beyond a certain limit. Its internal processes of homogenization and cohesion function badly after a certain stage. The sects theses only having distant contact with social reality, and one aberration being as good as another, centrifugal tendencies then develop naturally. Tihen the cement, (i.e. the sects techniques of internal cohesion) begins to soften, the sect inevitably crumbles to pieces,
. . . a ® e « . e a o e . ° . ‘ * * . e ° a ° * * a ° . s s * . . . ° a e ° . * Nai 1968; Une Repetition Generale , by D. Bensaid & H. Weber (ex-member of the National Bureau of the JGR) , Maspero cachiers libres 133 chp. 4. "Le movement etudiant Francais: Typologie des groupuscules" = "Sect et Groupuscule" pp. 53 - 56.
(1) R. Luxemburg: Leninism or Marxism
"The international movement of the proletariat towards its complete emancipation is a process peculiar in. the following respects, For the first time in the history of civilisation, the people are expressing their will consciously and in opposition to all ruling classes. But this will can only be satisfied beyond the limits of the existing system. Now the mass can only acquire and strengthen their will in the course of day to day struggle against the existing social order ~ that is, within the limits of capitalist society. On the one hand, we have the mass; on the other, its historic goal, located outside of existing society. On one hand, we have the day-to-day struggle; on the other, the social revolution. Such are the terms of the dialectical contradiction through which the socialist movement makes its way." (2) cf. Karl Marx, "The sect sees the justification for its existence and its ‘point of honour! = not in what it has in common with the class movement but in the particular shibboleth which distinguishes it from it". (Marx to Schweitzer, 13 October 1868. In the Selected Correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engets, International Publishers edition, p. 230) Cited by E. Germain, Marxism and Ultra-leftism. p. 9
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