Rackets

F. Palinorc
Like classes, rackets are a product of domination. They probably emerged when shamans, military chiefs or clan patriarchs first conspired against other humans from their own or nearby communities. Pillage, warfare and enslavement dissolved primitive communities, and rackets were formed in that violent process. Commodity relations, the emergence of the division of labour, classes and the state changed rackets fundamentally, but thats not an evolution we can discuss now. What concerns us is the e istence and persistence of rackets in modernity, in capitalist society. We will talk about rackets in the political sense, especially in !ar ist organisations. "owadays its common to narrowly define a racket as an illegal organisation set up for profit, such as e tortion, protection and fraud. This #uridical definition originates in states, which criminalise smaller rivals. $n specific cases, like the drug cartels, rackets can grow to ominous si%e and influence, seeping into the fabric of Leviathans. Theres nothing more &normal than a racket. What restrains state rackets from mutual e termination is their awareness that cohesion and self control assures their mutual survival. 'elow them, theres the mass of humanity enclosed by e ploitation and national frontiers. (ominant rackets have learned to negotiate and tolerate each other by coe isting in the state. The role of national mediation alters their function, from private looting to large scale administration and bureaucratic )and legal* access to the national treasure. $n this form, modern politicians and functionaries buy themselves national pedigree, legitimacy and incomes. 'ut the racket remains the underlying state module. (ominant classes secrete them constantly, and in a democracy this tendency is generalised in civil society. The fragmentation of commodity society and its conse+uent &war of all against all, creates a fertile soil for rackets. ,s long as a strong Leviathan is not disturbed and undermined by this, rackets are tolerated even if legally proscribed. Political rackets are informal specialist bodies, usually legal and aspiring to state domination. -owever, their reduced si%e forces them to an unstable and precarious e istence. ,t most, they become pressure groups for parties that have gone beyond the racket stage. The larger the racket, the more it appro imates a party, which contains a few rackets called tendencies or factions. .nly e traordinary world and national events propel rackets to become mass parties and even attain state power. 'ut these moments are few and far between. !ost rackets have a relatively short e istence. , few last for years, as torture chambers for their members. /ackets lack a significant and visible system of ideological #ustification. What they are, they conceal, under many layers. Leviathans have a long list of ideologists, from Plato to -obbes, Locke, 0efferson, -egel and even 1chmitt. $nsofar as one knows, rackets have no such eulogisers. There are many doctrines #ustifying Leviathans, but rackets lack this shielding. Their real function of domination is incognito. Though political rackets seldom attain their goal of state power, their internal organisation mimics statist functions. The membership of the racket is its proletariat,

and the leaders constitute a sort of portable mini2state. /ackets are essentially conservative, even if some of them, the !ar ist and anarchist ones, spout radical or emancipatory messages. 'ut #oining a racket is usually e hilarating at the beginning, when the new recruit is convinced that his participation will shape history and that hes #oining a collective venture to help humanity. -e also feels that hes found a heroic community of like2 minded comrades. 0oining a racket has this hidden libidinal dimension, which e plains the enormous attachment and %ealotry of the members. ,t the beginning, a recruit is unaware that hell be persuaded to lose most of his individuality and free time, and that the false community of the racket will only accentuate his alienation. $ts useful to +uote a few political writers and critics who have attempted to analyse the racket phenomenon. !achiavelli )345623789* feared rackets because he saw in them the dissolution of the virtuous state. -is The Prince is a description of an ideal /enaissance state. !achiavelli doesnt describe rackets in detail, but they are always present in the background. The Princes paranoia stems from !achiavellis acute concern that unless a virtuous Prince consolidates the state, this machine will be devoured by unprincipled and ruthless factions out for themselves, not the &common good. !achiavelli understood rackets well, he had closely studied how /enaissance states arose from them. -e advocated taming the racketeering spirit, hoping that &the country would benefit from the rule of virtuous princes. $n a utopian way, !achiavelli thought that the self destructive greed of rackets could be held in check and neutralised by the modern state. -e warned princes: ;< the person who introduces this new form =of virtuous government> makes enemies of all those who benefited under the old form <; These enemies gather strength from ;a unified faction;. The only way to defeat this danger is for the Prince to use force: ;< all armed prophets are victorious and the unarmed destroyed. < the people are by nature fickle. $t is easy to persuade them of something, but difficult to secure them in that conviction. ?or this reason it is worthwhile being organised in such a way that, when people no longer believe, they can be made to believe by force.; 3 $n the fluid use of strategies of persuasion and terror against civil society, rackets and Leviathans differ only in scale. !achiavelli was blind to the reality that rackets and states operate in unison, and share a basic synergy because both depend on domination. , remarkable critic is @tienne de La 'oAtie )37BC2375B*. $n his Discourse of Voluntary Servitude he wasnt concerned with advising princes, but in castigating humanitys predisposition to &voluntary servitude. ,ccording to de La 'oAtie, this servility is what keeps princes in power. $n spite of a circular moralising, he has a profound insight on the nature of rackets: ;Whoever thinks that halberds, sentries, the placing of the watch, serve to protect and shield tyrants is, in my #udgment, completely mistaken. < $t is not the troops on horseback, it is not the companies afoot, it is not arms that defend the tyrant.; -e then e plains that if si racketeers who have the tyrants ear recruit 5CC adepts, they in turn have 5,CCC under them. ;The conse+uence of all this is fatal indeed<; observes de la

'oAtie, pointing out that tyrants often destroyed their own servile followers. ;< whoever is pleased to unwind the skein will observe that not the 5,CCC but a 3CC,CCC, and even millions, cling to the tyrant by this cord to which they are tied.; 8 Thats the true bulwark of tyranny: the fragmentation of society into servile accomplices of power and gang chieftains. $n other words, rackets. (e La 'oAtie thought that in a tyranny there were almost as many people corrupted by it as those to whom liberty seemed desirable. -ere society seems subsumed into rackets, possibly because in the 35th centrury, civil society was relatively undifferentiated in terms of class structure. Deorg 1immel )3E7E2363E* wrote copiously about groups and secret societies. -e grasped well the persecutory synergy between Leviathan and racket: ;the secret society is so much considered an enemy of the central power that, even conversely, every group that is politically re#ected, is called a secret society.; B 1ecret groups and rackets e ist because of the dearth of individual sub#ectivity and autonomy caused by the division of labour. $ndividuals try to compensate for this lack by voluntarily entering communities where there is an appearance of individuality, by the mere fact of not being mainstream. 1immel is one of the more important writers on rackets, and his writings on groups, subordination and domination are profoundly pertinent. !a Weber )3E542368C* wrote on bureaucracy, castes, sects, rationality, charisma, power and authority, which throw light on rackets. $n his writings, Weber supports capitalist &rationality against undeveloped forms of pre2capitalist domination. -e was a loyal and consistent apologist of Leviathans, and, like 1immel, became a raving Derman patriot in WW3. TW ,dorno )36CB23656*, like !a -orkheimer and -erbert !arcuse of the ?rankfurt 1chool, analysed how individuals were damaged under an increasingly administered society. -owever, ,dornos writings on rackets )he used the term* seem, in @nglish, to be scattered and unfinished. ,ccording to /olf Wiggerhaus, the theory of rackets developed by -orkheimer and ,dorno remained an &unfinished torso. This is a pity. "evertheless, across much of ,dornos dense prose we capture gems like: ;,nyone who wants to change the world must on no account finish up in the swamp of petty rackets where fortune tellers languish with political sectarians, utopians, and anarchists. 4 Fou have been warned. $n ,dorno, rackets seem to be mainly criminal )economic ones*, and how the specifically political ones operate is not clearly dealt with. 1till, many insights on rackets in Minima Moralia are mini2concentrates, rich in meanings. 1o2called situationism, especially Duy (ebord, has contributed enormously to a criti+ue of rackets. $n (ebordGs The Society of the Spectacle there are poignant insights on the horrifying loss of individuality through the separations in capitalist society. $n (ebord one finds profoundly elaborated themes on alienation, from te ts by !ar , ,dorno and probably 1immel. 1till, the grouplet around (ebord seems to have engaged itself in many racket activities, including group megalomania and the usual leftist2type e pulsions. ?redy Perlmans Ten Theses on the Proliferation of Egocrats have been influenced by situationism and an earlier 'audrillard. -is theses are concise and have no truck with &militant organisations, i. e., rackets, including situationist ones.

0ac+ues Camatte has written e tensively on the social )or asocialH* basis of rackets. -is views on rackets )gangs* are found concentrated in the long letter2essay & On Organisation )3656*. $ts a devastating e posA of rackets, and its superior to ,dornos treatment in that Camatte dissects political )mainly leftist2ultraleft* rackets in a comprehensive and e tended way, linking them to the total domination of capital. 'olshevism, like !ar ism in general, has little understanding of rackets. 'olshevism itself arose as a political racket, and climbed to state power after becoming a party tempered in mass mobilisations against the Tsarist regime. This gave it the &birthright to later demoralise and crush the insurgent proletariat and peasantry. Perhaps for these reasons the more famous 'olshevik theoreticians, like 'ukharin, /akovsky and Trotsky, were incapable of being self2critical when confronting the unfolding of 1talinism. "one could accept that 'olshevism had let loose a revamped capitalist state in /ussia, with a totalitarian stratum that was effectively a state ruling class. /akovsky comes closest to admitting it in 368E, but recoils from this conclusion. We can say that modern political rackets have these general characteristics: They gyrate around a guru, a charismatic leader )Weber* or &egocrat )Perlman*. The guru is usually male, though rackets run by female gurus have been known to e istI o The guru fosters and controls a centralised and despotic hierarchy. -e relies on an inner faction of conspirators, who plot permanently against the rackets membership. "o racket is ruled by consensus or by transparent participatory methodsI o /ackets have a political platform or programme, usually of a messianic kind. .ne of the tasks of the guru is to inherit or draft and uphold this platform. /ackets attempt to influence the world around them by publishing regularly )or maintaining a web site*. To them influencing others means recruitment, not contributing to an ongoing clarification of consciousnessI o /ackets recruit individuals who voluntarily #oin and are systematically persuaded by the gurus infallibility. .nce recruited, the rackets goal is to alienate individuals further by making them sever many of their links with society. This is not a conscious conspiracy, but a process in which recruiter and recruited delude themselves and each other. The first by his denial of what takes place in the racket, and the latter by his suspension of critical thoughtI o /ackets strive to become permanent but are constantly disrupted by internal dissension, splits and competition from rival rackets. Political divergences are rarely addressed J they are replaced by personal factionalism and competition for positions in the hierarchy. Thus the pervasive use of scapegoating and ad hominem attacksI o Parado ically, the survival of rackets depends on internal factionalism and e ternal enemies. The climate of paranoia and search for scapegoats strengthens the gurus control. -e is reinforced by recurrent purges. "ew rivals, often formed by the e pelled members, focus the survival instincts of the racket, creating paro ysms of hate and fostering a state of siege mentality. These centripetal and centrifugal &crises, both carefully stage managed, aid the rackets survivalI o The more virulent rackets attempt to organise themselves in military fashion. The move illegalises them and places them in direct confrontation with
o

Leviathan. This tends to deplete them of female members and increases the dysfunction of militants enormously. These rackets tend to e ist more in the peripheries of the system, where Leviathans are weak and depend mostly on naked terror to survive. This method of rule unleashes an indiscriminate war between Leviathans and opposing rackets, where terror and e termination are the sole methods of asserting dominationI 'ut where do the members of rackets come fromK (uring the /enaissance and the @nlightenment the growing capitalist division of labour released layers of professional and cultured people no longer beneficiaries of church or royal patronage. 1ome of these layers were employed as state functionaries. , number of them remained unemployed, or underemployed. These &floating layers are the main social basis for political rackets. -istorically, they aspired to: influence state policyI be employed by the stateI take over the state to run it according to their ideology and doctrine. The state no longer was the attribute of royalty, but of &the people. 'ecause of the tendency of state capitalism, the state itself became a hugely coveted unit of capital. $ts capacity as ta collector, manager of the national bank and budget, plus state enterprises, made it an ideal capitalist conglomerate. /ackets of all persuasions were formed to attain the status of parties, the necessary step to attaining state power and reaching state coffers.
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1tate power is also the ultimate goal of political rackets. Trotsky means this when he says ;@very serious political tendency strives to con+uer =state> power.; 7 The liberal $talian sociologist Daetano !osca )later approved by ?ascists* observed that &The idea that each separate individual should have an e+ual share in the e ercise of sovereignty could have arisen only after bureaucratic absolutism had broken up the old groups and destroyed all sovereign powers intermediate between the state and the individual.; 5 This conception of the e+ual and sovereign individual is at the heart of bourgeois politics, and is linked to a society of generalised commodity production. Capitalism needed many of these separate and trained individuals from the start. The systems scientific and technological development re+uired vast numbers of specialists. !a "omad, the disciple of Waclaw !acha#ski =himself a critic of !ar ist rackets> had this to say about them: ;1andwiched between the capitalists and the manual workers there has emerged an ever growing stratum of neo2bourgeois or not2yet2+uite2bourgeois engaged in mental or near2mental occupations. &$ntellectual workers, &privileged employees of capital, &new middle class J these are the various terms used interchangeably for this ama%ing variety of people: office2holders, teachers, professional men, technicians, clergymen, commercial and financial e perts, #ournalists, writers, artists, politicians, professional revolutionists and agitators, trade union organi%ers and so on. $n short, a vast crowd of educated and semi2educated people, all of them &propertyless, who may or may not have a college degree, but can make a livelihood without resorting to manual or lower clerical work.;

'ut these were mostly conservative in outlook, unwilling to disturb the social peace and endanger their own privileged incomes. ,gainst these supporters of the status +uo, are arrayed the ;< &outs, the unemployed or underpaid #ournalists, lecturers, college graduates and undergraduates, &lawyers without clients and doctors without patients =!ar >, educated e 2workers in search of a white2collar position Jin short all that motley army of impecunious or starving intellectuals, who are dissatisfied with the e isting system and very often militantly active in the various radical or fascist movements. $t is the members of this group who have the ambition of eliminating the capitalist class of parasitic consumers and of establishing their own rule in a system based on government control or ownership of industries, and an une+ual distribution of incomes.; 9 .ne doesnt have to go along with "omads bitterly conspiratorial description to agree broadly with his definition. These atomised individuals have provided the social base for political rackets and their gurus. $n the late 36th century, !ar ism became the ideology of the more e treme and consistently radical faction of political specialists. ,fter constant defeats and massacres, the proletariat learned to be wary of the radical petty2bourgeoisie )3EBC23E4E in ?rance and Central @urope*. .ther ideologists replaced these recuperated rackets. $n these countries !ar ist and anarchist parties and unions managed to implant themselves in a minority of the proletariat. $n 3634 most of these organisations supported their own warring states in World War $. They did the same in World $$, when 1talinism proved conclusively that the .ctober revolution had ended in a catastrophic counter2revolution. These historic defeats confirmed that the proletariat re+uires no political parties. $ts emancipation can become a reality through the worldwide, and co2ordinated, transcendence of value and dissolution of private )including state* property. The needs of the proletariat contradict the e istence of social classes and all political domination. To claim that the proletariat re+uires &revolutionary parties contradicts the nature of this class, which is fated to dissolve itself in the communist emancipation of society. The e istence of rackets, which speak in the name of the proletariat, is thus a retrogressive remnant of a period of historic defeat and mass delusion. $n The Socialist Revolution, Lautsky observed that: ;The smaller the number of individuals who take part in a given social movement, the less this movement appears as a mass movement Jthen the less the general and necessary are evident among them, and the more the chance and the personal predominate.; Lautsky was referring to socialist sects, without suspecting that this phenomenon, where &chance and the personal predominate, would become common in society once atomisation was generalised. (isaffected individuals are more attracted to rackets, not to large Leviathanic corporations like parties, official churches and unions. The form political party is an ideal form of capitalist class rule. The present ruling classes have a political wing Ji. e., parties, because only a minority of specialists has to rule for these classes )a product of their own division of labour*. To assume this for the proletariat is based on a false analogy. $. e, that a minority of the proletariat can also represent the whole class, as it happens with the capitalist class. $n this e ploited and communist class, any party claiming to represent it becomes an alien stratum over it,

linked to the dominant society. This #ustification is not a &substitutionist mistake but an e pression of e ploitative needs. 1ometimes the need for the party is #ustified by the &heterogeneity of class consciousness in the proletariat. This is specious, because the social fragmentation of the proletariat, and thus its various false views under capitalism, cant be resolved by a permanent minority of specialists. This Leninist #ustification pretends that the division of labour of capitalism, which has produced the heterogeneity, has an emancipatory potential. -owever, the fragmentation can only be reduced and finally resolved by e plicit and e panding struggles for communism. .nly these will allow the widest active participation not only within the proletariat but also from all humanity going beyond value and Leviathan. @ven if we were to agree that proletarian fragmentation produces a specialised &theoretical2practical consciousness in a minority, this doesnt follow that this minority is a &political vanguard. .n the contrary, historical e perience confirms that these &vanguards are rackets because of their militarised structure, cultist practices, fragmentation and isolation from the proletariat as a whole. Their ideology allows capital to recuperate these rackets as soon as theyre formed. The idea that these rackets e press the minds and needs of the working class is a clichA of omnipotence, concealing destructive appetites within these rackets. With a fine instinct, they recognise in the proletariat their cannon fodder for apocalyptic desangres )'astille or Winter Palace stormings*. .ctober 3639 as mythology is embedded in all Leninist rackets. .nce the idea of a proletarian party is accepted, the idea that it will be the ruling state party is also accepted. Leninism was always a Leviathanic ideology. @ven the attempt to create social mediations and cushions through a separation of powers in &the transition period is unrealistic. The centripetal tensions at the core of all Leviathans in our state capitalist period will unify political functions, and fanatical, war2 supporting mass mobilisations will be indispensable. The proletarian party is an ideal organisation to centralise and inspire these spectacles. The solipsism is thus not resolved Jto the end, Lenin and 'ordigas sons will defend their bloodied birthrightJ &The state is us. $f one national proletarian party is possible, then many proletarian parties across the globe are possible. They will either regroup in the long term or e terminate each other. These parties, or rackets, replicate a tendency of capitalist firms Jbankruptcy or merger2monopoly. $ts the fate of all bourgeois parties J the totalitarian dynamic is inherent in them. This permanent anthropophagy is visible internally: no factions or tendencies are truly allowed. $n addition, its enough to imagine the si%e of such a worldwide &revolutionary party to grasp the 'y%antine vision of leftist and ultraleft rackets. , machine with &consciousness raising and mass2organising tasks would have to be a centralised party of many millions of members. The only operational techni+ues open to such a slumbering Leviathanic machine would be militaristic, totalitarian, terroristic, ones. The increasing atomisation and passivity in civil society provides a fertile soil for rackets and future totalitarianisms. 19 ! has never gone away. 1tate violence fascinates many people, and instead of confronting it in their minds Ja prere+uisite for

confronting it collectively one dayJ they submit, hoping to ingratiate themselves. -owever, peoples passivity is rooted not in stupidity, but in a schi%oid and fearful compulsion to evade barbaric truths. When peoples bodies are overworked and their minds fragmented, they prefer the infantile and spectacular icons of the mass media, reeking in sentimentality and comforting bad2faith. -ow can atomised individualists find solidarity and community in the war %one of all against allK /eality appears as a ma%e with infinite separations and opa+ue screens. To confront truths, which take time to unearth, and not let resistance become raging despair or cynicism, is a daily test for each thinking human. /eason alone, with forgiveness and persistence, can illuminate a way forward. That this reason, in its intransigent single2mindness, contains empathy for all beings, goes without saying. 'ut it is not easy to resist the lure of rackets, religious or political. The consolidation of a revamped state based on unmitigated terror obviously appealed to a sanguinary apparatchik like 1talin. $t was a situation without modern @uropean precedent )e cept perhaps the short 0acobin and Thermidorean dictatorships*. 'olshevism under 1talin fostered an apparatus Jlike an old ,siatic or $nca despotism, endowed with total arbitrary power. The arrest and e ecution of anybody who could oppose 1talins regime came as a natural and irresistible option. Who was there to stop himK "obody, as nobody could have stopped Lenin once in power. &?rom the proletarian revolution to the Lubyanka Jthis was not an impossible progression. The decline started very early, from 3639. !arc ?erro, and others, document this abdication of power by the councils and factory committees. /eligious rackets recruit victims by presenting themselves in camouflage. Their long2term aim may be world power but the everyday aim of e torting the ma imum amount of cash from their devotees is paramount. Thus their sophisticated manipulation and use of mass marketing techni+ues. $n contrast, political rackets are not out to amass money. $n the case of leftist and ultraleft rackets, they aim at power only in specific social circumstances. $n the meantime they are doomed to stagnate and decompose partly because they have no fle ibility, no updated &marketing techni+ues that would allow them to grow. .n the contrary, they insult all and sundry, giving the )correct* impression of isolated lunatic fringes. $n periods of social contraction this &sectarian tendency becomes very manifest. $f the social circumstances change, such rackets may be too isolated to have any influence. Thus there are ob#ective limits to the si%e and influence of political rackets such as these. 'ut history also gives us many surprises. We should look forward to the day when social transformation, and the &utopian vision of an emancipated society, can be discussed without the stigmata of 'olshevism. That will take some time, because such myths have a powerful irrational basis in society. ?actual evidence is a weak antidote, as facts can be denied or cunningly e plained away. The leftist and ultraleft school of 'olshevik hagiography was started by the 'olshevik Party in power, and the 'ordiguists Jlike all supporters of .ctoberJ uncritically swallowed the mythology. $t was enough that a party of the Mimmerwald2 Lienthal left took power for all critical thought to go out of the window. "othing succeeds like success. @ven Lu emburg deluded herself, when she congratulates 'olshevism for having &saved the honour of international socialism )in more sober instances, her criti+ue of 'olshevism is scathing*.

The accumulationNvalorisation process of the capitalist mode of production may yet contain important conse+uences for a communist consciousness. The breakdown can suggest an enthropic collapse of the militarised constituent parts of Leviathan. This would allow the unified forces of civil society to &leave this world )Camatte* with a minimum of destruction and violence, which, if it permeates society, would affect mostly the proletariat. Perlman describes how the Taborites, in defending themselves against Leviathan, rebuilt it within their own ranks. $ts a tragic warning. The 'olsheviks did the same, in part because their own ideology supported 0acobinism, and because the /ussian Leviathan had needs that 'olshevism unconsciously e pressed from the start )Lenin: &we will become defensists only when were in power*. &We of course wasnt the proletariat but a party serving Leviathan. ,ccording to !arc ?erro, the sovietsNfactory committees ceased to function by 363E. !aurice 'rintons book on workers control confirms this. Oictor 1erges golden age of &soviet democracy is a fable. !aybe &democracy =i. e., racket factionalism> did survive inside the Party for a while longer )a few weeks moreK Pp to 3683K* This is a formalist matter, if one re#ects that the proletariats historic interests can be represented by any party or state. ?or ultraleft rackets, their devotion to the 'olshevism of 3639 is &loyalty to revolutionary positions, or to a &socialist state, but not to the countless individualsJ workers or whoeverJ who were sacrificed by the 'olshevik Leviathan. Thus Lronstadt doesnt really matterI its a &mistake caused by who knows what )not revolutionary positions of course, these never fail*. 'ut Lronstadt is used here as shorthand Jthe anti2human perfidy started long before 3683. The capacity of the 'olshevik apparatJ both party and stateJ to betray and terrorise supporters and neutrals started from day one. .nce the mass forms that the proletariat and society had created to emancipate themselves were subverted, the communist movement in gestation was aborted. /ight there and then, probably by early 363E. The proletariat, and humanity, got caught in a trap in 3639. ,nd paid very dearly for this, and the trap can be re2activated nearly EC years later. /eading the 1ergeNTrotsky correspondence of 36B5, one notices a related racketeering attitude. .ften, 1erge mentions that his wife, e iled with him in 'russels, is suffering from schi%ophrenia. Trotsky, to his credit, asks after her and gives advice. 1erge never elaboratesI he only mentions laconically that shes getting worse. 1erge describes the terrible conditions of oppositionists in the gulag with much greater detail and warmth than his wifes endless nightmare. When his 35 year old son wants to enlist and fight for /epublican 1pain, what his mother thinks is never mentioned )1erge dissuaded him, for age reasons*. $ts distressing, so< &macho. ,nd so it goes on, letter after letter, with a line or two from 1erge about her worsening illness< and what happened in the endK (id she escape with him to !e icoK ,nd what happened to their 3E2month girlK Were never told. .nes suspicions were reinforced Jthese great revolutionaries lacked some elementary empathies, and thought that great historical scenes, pastiches, compensated for this lack. They never do. $n Deorges Oereekens The "P# in the Trots$yist Movement, one reads the following, chilling, passage: ;What always comes to my mind, almost obsessively, is the e ecution of two friends, both thieves. They died without showing fear, facing the rifles, and shouted: &Long live the C"T<they were two good comrades.; )p. 3BE*

This is from a letter of a young 'elgian comrade of Oereeken, written from the 1panish trenches in 36B5. This militant had #oined the C"T militias. The C"T &revolutionaries shoot thieves, of course, and the poor friendly wretches even salute their e ecutioners J,ve C"T, morituri te salutantJ something only &two good comrades would do. Oereeken offers no criticism, and neither does the young letter writer. There is no indication that the young &friend of the thieves interceded for them. 1uch were the sewer morals of those years. ,fter all, Trotsky introduced the death penalty in the /ed ,rmy, and the /ed Terror thrived on summary e ecutions and hostage taking. Why not in 1pain, in the name of anarchism and the P.P!K "aturally, the C"Ts participation in the /epublican government was not an act deserving any swift draconian retribution. Tartuffians and state assassins, thats what glorious cenetismo ended upholding. The neurotic and obsessive clinging to &politics only as positions and programmes is a ploy to conceal a rackets real activities. Pnder this denial and camouflage, manoeuvres and tricks Jthe real stuff of politics, the art of the possible and the rotten J can take place unhindered. ,ll rackets engage in them, but deny that these practices take place. .r accuse other rackets, but never themselves, of these practices. To openly admit that they take place would be an admission of deceit and moral bankruptcy. Fet an outside critic must carefully analyse why rackets act in these ways. The preservation of power of course is the main component of these practices. Fet for many !ar ists, e pert critics of &bourgeois power, this aspect of power is not politics. $t doesnt count. This from the ,ugust 3667 issue of the $CDs %ommunism. This is an ultraleft racket, its the immediatist, messianic clone of the $CC. The essay &Deneral characteristics of the struggles of the present time starts interestingly but soon degenerates into the predictable: ;Todays world is characterised by the conse+uences of the tragic lack of permanent association of the proletariat: no permanent nucleus, no meeting centre, no massive classist press, no international organisation of the proletariat able to gather the vanguard of this community of struggle that shows up here and there. Therefore, =here starts a long non2se+uitur> the importance of permanent militant activity, of directly internationalist communist action )K* centred on a revolutionary program of action, )K* of organisation, of perspectives such as the one developed by our little group =H> of militants J in spite of our very weak forces, becomes clear.; )p. 44* 1uch fantasies trivialise a social problem of gigantic dimension, pretending that a racket can be the missing link to humanitys consciousness and global emancipation. The $CD spice their #ournals with pictures of looting, of &/ed Terror against White Terror )showing a Chinese ,rmy officer burned by proletarians in 'ei#ing in 0une 36E6*, as if this didnt e press the general barbarism and confusion of humanity at this time. 1ome militants dreams re2enact the worst nightmares of the 8Cth century. @very socio2political vision selects appropriate cadre. ,part from social necrophily, its difficult to know what the $CD stand for, but the future will tell us. Whatever it is, one doubts it will be positive. Why did Lenin and Trotsky conceal their intentions of total power prior to .ctoberK They certainly did so. They knew that the proletarian soviets and factory committees would have ignored, if not resisted, a 'olshevik take2over. 'ut the important +uestion is not &why but -.W 'olshevism managed to persuade the proletariat into an e periment

that could only end in a world defeat for communism. $f the mechanism of mass delusion and influence is e posed, perhaps we can contribute to a higher consciousness tomorrow. (ysfunctional individuals can only reproduce Jthrough displacementJ the families of which they are a product. That the displacement hooks into a politics of disgust and hatred mas+uerading as &love of the human race, is bound to lead, once its ob#ect J&the class, that metaphysical categoryJ ignores the message, into a disgust and hatred for ones fellow2believers. @ ophagy becomes endophagy. The Christs eat each other. (estructive impulses are transferred to society through the ideological hegemony of Leviathan. The subsoil is the peculiar alienation of capitalism, that complete spiritual and material dispossession of humans. This impoverishment in the midst of potential abundance is a historically cumulative process. We must assume also that there is a geometric growth of violent and repressive mental material. $n the proletariat, this material works itself through this classs acceptance of wage labour, the nuclear family, nation and Leviathan. Pp to now, this has paralysed and deflected the only social class capable of freeing a classless humanity. $t neutralises and disperses their emancipatory capacities. $ntegration is a violent process, and creates a mindset of passivity and seething unconscious rage among billions of atomised individuals. $n moments of deep crisis, Leviathan channels these destructive impulses into actions, from electoral spectacles to support for &authoritarian solutions like ?ascism, &humanitarian wars or for various populist demagogues in the peripheries. /eligious rackets and state fundamentalism mop up further atomised millions. 1capegoating is a key component in these strategies. ?aced with these Leviathanic initiatives, mankind remains with decisive and urgent practical tasks. !ost vital is the need to understand that capital and Leviathan are not invincible J thus the need to see the )economic2social* crisis in historical terms. The &crisis didnt start today. $t started with the dissolution of the primitive human communities. Theres the urgent need to emancipate something higher, on a planetary basis. "ot a return, as Perlman2Camatte sometimes seem to advocate. "ot a &leaving of this world but the emancipation of a new global community, using reason, science, empathy and individualNsocial love. Communism &frees mankind as it can be potentially. -istorically, various working class layers have ac+uiesced and supported Leviathan and capital. Fet this isnt a +uestion of blame or moralising. $f this class has an emancipatory potential, then it can have, in certain moments, the essential ability to choose life against necrophilia. ,nd, because it has this choice, its mistakes, abasement and self2betrayals can be understood and transcended in practice. The rackets and parties running Leviathans dont have that capacity for self2reflection. They are structurally linked to power, and only an emancipated proletariat can take those individuals out of this trap, showing them a new way of living )without wage labour and nation2states*, disarming them without retributions and with the least possible bloodshed. The proletariat in motion will have to show a way out to millions of people now snared and employed by Leviathans. The collective transformation of humanity has

no need for vengeance or red terrors. The enemy has always been social relations, not humans. 1uch a stance to the rest of mankind appears as a possibility for the proletariat in moments leading to imminent universal disintegration. $n those occasions the proletariat will show whether its capable of freeing society, so that individuals change to remain human. 'efore that time, individuals who partake of critical views can only hope to disseminate them in small discussion circles. This doesnt re+uire any formal structure, &membership or unwritten power agendas. The racketeering principle is broken up in these loose, transient, but committed pro#ects. 'olshevism never understood this need for individual and collective responsibility and therefore it showed the masses only the murderous enactment of destructive impulse and action. Thought, which includes concern for human life and individual responsibility, must interpose itself between irrational impulses and action. The historical tendency of punishing the outsider, the scapegoat, is one of the main factors destroying proletarian revolutions from within. The &red terror of Lenin2Trotsky2 (%er%hinsky e emplifies this tendency. $n /ussia the e propriated landlords and capitalists were the ideal scapegoats and a war of e termination allegedly against them ensued, the vast ma#ority of victims being workers and peasants. This trend of obliterating civilians was already present in the 39E6 ?rench /evolution. These atrocities could only depress consciousness on a massive scale, and disarm mankind of its inner spiritual resources and solidarity. Towards potential recruits and circles, rackets always appear benign, open, even obse+uious< at the beginning. /eligious cults behave similarly. ?action fights in rackets share something J they e press a totalitarian dynamic intrinsic to life today. $n the final analysis, this dynamic reflects the needs and preservation of domination. The gurus of leftist and ultraleft rackets defend a deeply totalitarian worldview. /acket2 building, which contains the seeds of Party2'uilding, follows a managerial method. $ts a system of mind2control. Lenin was certainly T-@ master builder within this dynamics tradition, but elements of it already e ist in various 36th century movements. 0ohn Mer%an persuasively claims that !ar participated in racket activities. The ultraleft milieu, to a lesser )(utch Left* or greater )DermanN$talian Lefts* degree, shared this tradition with Leninism. /ackets are unable to look at the whole logic of organisation. $t is their blind spot. 1ome of their analyses are interesting and show a genuine theoretical +uest, even if still trapped by the dogmas of Leninism and manipulative polemics. Lets take the e ample of .ctober 3639, the main icon of these rackets. What are the &lessons of .ctoberK The evidence suggests that the &/ussian Commune died at birth. Fet that creates an unbearable psychological dilemma for rackets: how are we going to defend &party traditions if there are ne t to none in .ctoberK This obstinate resistance confirms that deluded legends and &traditions are crucial to racket building. They provide comfort, a teleological assurance, historic continuity and legitimacy< something like a companys &mission. Fet these are all lies, social lies. "evertheless, #ust because !ar ism ended up being &the last refuge of the bourgeoisie )!attick* doesnt mean that humanity cant learn an immense amount from the many insights of !ar and @ngels, and many thinkers in that tradition. ,s it can and

must from -egel, Weber, and countless others. $ts as if the contribution and relevance of The @nlightenment havent ended yet. There is nothing wrong in forming reading or study circles, or noyau& engaged in e changing ideas and discussions. Whats debilitating is the racketeering notion that all this is a &duty with a historical destiny, moreover, a role so vital that humanitys fate depends on it. The idea of the World Party lies behind this notion of omnipotence. That such a Party will ever emerge now is most improbable, and if it was essential, we have missed the boat for more than 37C years. $n any case, theres nothing one can do about it now. The world proletariat has no lasting and genuine relationship with &its minorities, and hasnt for generations. Which suggests that mankind will have to do without them Jwithout the many World PartiesJ when the time comes. Perhaps revolutionary fractions were always unnecessary, or can be generated during the revolution itselfK $n a movement of billions, such associations may appear simultaneously everywhere, and will not carry the racketeering virus. -istorically, lofty motivations and proclaimed intentions of parties and individuals, or even by the masses, are no warranty or criteria in themselves. .ne must #udge the results, short and long2term, of social actions. ,ll revolutionary ideas can degenerate and serve Leviathan, and they only prove to be truly human when the whole of humanity is involved in its self2emancipation. , proof that ideas are revolutionary )negating Leviathan and the law of value* is that the population itself understands, adopts and practically implements those ideas. ,fter all, these ideas do stem from historical practice, when previous communities have attempted to reverse Leviathans domination. This is possible only during a revolutionary period, and on a worldwide scale. 'efore that, the masses of the population are suffering some sort of stupor, and thus under the psychological and material sway of Leviathan and the atomisation implicit in the global domination of value. , new revolutionary movement Jwhich means most of humanity in motionJ can only arise in a revolutionary period. This period is a possibility, not an inevitability. ,ssuming that this period will come about, the racketeering ideas of 'olshevism, even heavily reformed, may be one of the most formidable enemies of this movement, because 'olshevism, in its innumerable forms, will mas+uerade as &revival of a long and valid tradition. The tradition is indeed 0acobinism, a vindictive early bourgeois militarism, but taken historically, its the millennia of domination. $ndividuals can contribute to humanitys emancipation if they help to clarify the general goals of a world community )communism* during a revolutionary period. Their role is not to lead or to create a party. They are part of the population which is becoming revolutionary as a whole. 'efore that period, they should try to clarify among themselves basic +uestions about Leviathan and communism. They should try to anticipate what the future may bring. /evolutionaries belong to humanity, and their ideas Jif they are truthfulJ belong to humanitys +uest for biophilia and may contribute to and hasten mass communist consciousness. 'elonging to a racket adds nothing to this +uest. .n the contrary, all &revolutionary rackets are training grounds for future .rwellian policemen. That individuals are sucked into rackets is a regrettable waste of human potential. 'ut the situation in the peripheries is monstrously tragic in that huge numbers of very young humans are being recruited into military rackets working in tandem with

genocidal Leviathans. Children as Praetorians of ,frican warlords and prime ministers )Congo, 1omalia, etc*, children as paramilitaries and sicarios of drug rackets in Colombia, children as human waves in the $ran2$ra+ and @thiopian2@ritrean wars, children as torturers and commando forces in the 'alkans, children as sadists, rapists and drug addicts, and rackets co2ordinating at root level these endless necrophilous activities. ?ew realities e press more brutally the decadence of a social system based on a predatory inhumanity. $ts during this decline that military rackets come into their own, processing human misery and bodies on vast scales, mopping up whatever life Leviathans leave in their trail of e termination and mayhem. /ackets e press a need for personal access to community. 'ut in war%ones these are false communities, nightmares posing as dreams. /ackets result from the decomposition of society, and they also contribute to it, by foreclosing human solutions, by destroying all hope in the future. The humans who will dismantle a collapsing capitalist system will have to be the same who will emancipate an alternative fit for humans. Theyre the people who are today &integrated into capitalism because everybody is. $n our present epoch, there is no room for nihilist gangs of &outsiders or &barbarians who destroy a collapsing system from the outerlands, as happened in the fall of the Western /oman empire. .nly in this way will rackets disappear forever. ?. Palinorc, ,pril 8CC3 ANNEX 'elow, a letter from 3669 dealing with a grotes+ue pantomime. The $CC, a well2 known ultraleft racket )called &apparat here* had e pelled one of its leaders and was proposing a &trial called a &0ury of -onour )H* to confirm his e pulsion. ,ll the material used here was obtained from their public press and the writer offered these comments to a friend, who isnt a member of any racket. The case displays the full pathology of a political racket. The letter has been slightly edited. The case wasnt uni+ue. ,ll leftist and ultraleftist rackets display similar paranoia and uncontrolled spite. .n a historical level, the case is interesting also because it shows the racketeering activities of Lu emburg and Lenin, two revered icons of leftism and ultraleftism, and the complete integration of the Derman 1P(, before 3634. ;(ear friend .n the +uestion of 00 and the &0ury of -onour proposed by the apparat. $t took me a few readings of the article &The 0ury of -onour, a weapon for the defence of revolutionary organisations )W/ 8C3, p. 4* to make some sense of what theyre saying. , few thoughts on the +uestion. 00s e pulsion means that a trial has already taken place within the apparat and that he was found &guilty. 1o why an additional trialK The apparat presents the &0ury of -onour as its response to 00s re#ection of the apparats charges. The apparat claims

that the &0ury of -onour is a traditional procedure of the &workers movement )citing the cases of ,%ev and /adek*, and insists that 00 must appeal and submit to this new tribunal. The lecture continues: ;When a militant is the ob#ect of serious accusations, he has the duty and responsibility to show the loyalty of his engagement by making an appeal to a #ury of comrades charged with leading an in depth in+uiry into his tra#ectory and actions. ,ny member of a communist organisation =but 00 is no longer a member> who, faced with these accusations, refuses to defend his militant communist honour can only give credence, through his attitude of capitulation, to the suspicions which weigh on him<; )ibid*. .ne would have thought that the whole point of appealing was to re+uest to a superior court to review a decision of a lower court. (oes the apparat consider itself a lower court of any sortK -ardly, so it will "@O@/ be bound by any unfavourable decision of this &0ury of -onour. To avoid surprises, it will carefully screen, with right of veto, the composition of this tribunal )because sympathisers and contacts hardly e ist nowadays, most having become &parasites, who will be the #uryK* The CW. might agree to participate. ,fter all, they proudly assert: ;$n the past we have supported the $CC against its various splitters<; )/P 7, p. 36*. 'ut $ doubt that the $'/P, their sponsors, will accept this role, unless they can use it as a forum to deflate the $CC, accusing it of &councilism. ,n appeal is motivated by a desire to undo an in#ustice. ?rom what we read, it doesnt seem that 00 wants to return to the apparat. "either did he propose this &0ury of -onour and it appears that he has refused to participate in it. $n any case, the apparat hasnt said that 00 could be re2instated if the &0ury of -onour clears him of the &charges. The apparat is convinced of 00s &guilt, which is why they e pelled him, so his claims of innocence would be pointless then as now. $ note that 00s lack of co2 operation wont dampen the apparats persistence. ,nyway, need we say it, this proposal is not motivated by the concern for an e 2members good name )how chivalrous, and beside the point, are these allusions to &honour and &loyalty*. The apparat has another agenda: ;< the necessity to appeal to a 0ury of -onour )or /evolutionary Tribunal* is not imposed solely to safeguard militants or for the moral health of the organisation. This political process e+ually constitutes a weapon for the defence of the proletarian political milieu faced with disturbing elements, whether agents of the state or simple adventurers acting on their own account.; )ibid*. Thus the apparat reveals the underlying motivation J the &0ury of -onour is another tactic in the strategic campaign against &parasitism. $n passing, it will aim at further slandering 00, together with those who &dont understand the dangers of parasitism. To go back to the original accusations against 00. $n their articles on 00s &case, the apparat doesnt +uote from any !asonic document written by 00, or cites testimonials from anybody. Fet hes accused of constituting ;< a secret network of adepts of !asonic ideology.; )ibid* Theres an internal dossier on 00 J an e 2member, L, was offered to see it. The stuff must be pretty riveting, as the apparat hasnt published any of it. ?urthermore, its not mentioned if 00s !asonic &adepts were also e pelled. $nterestingly, the recent /P )7* asserts that ;<at least a do%en other members of the organisation have resigned<; )p. 36*. $n the latest W/, its stated that ;00 re#ected the arguments given for his e clusion, notably the conscious and deliberate character of his actions, by attributing to

the #udgements of the $CC a &collective delirium and an &interpretive )sic* paranoia;. This suggests that 00 did try to defend himself. $ts never too late, bravo for 00H The 36E3 ChAnier case established important precedents for the &defence of the organisation )although these go back to !ar Q @ngels, and 0acobinism*. $n 36E3, the apparat also called for a &0ury of -onour to #ustify its gangster raids, but the other apparats smelled a rat and kept their distance. When ChAniers new racket, '(Ouvrier )nternationaliste, responded with a call to form a tribunal to clear ChAniers name and #udge the apparats actions, the apparat re#ected participating in it out of hand. .nly the apparat has the historic right to organise trials, raids and e pulsions. To the apparat, trials arent there to establish the truth, but to punish. The accused is automatically guilty, because in the apparats vision, &the truth invariably belongs with the apparats leading Tor+uemadas. , trial is about dishing out &penalties, like in an auto2da2fA. 'efore $ comment on the e amples given by the apparat, of ,%ev and /adek, lets not forget that these two werent e pelled from their organisations before the verdicts. Therefore, theres no analogy with 00s case. This holds true also for !alinovsky, who, contrary to what the apparat claims, did face a party trial in 0une 3634. $n fact, he craftily re+uested a &0ury of -onour to clear his nameH , commission was formed, chaired by -anecki, with Lenin and Minoviev as members. The commission sat for weeks and reached no conclusions as WW$ intervened. @ven in 3635 Lenin continued to believe in !alinovskis innocence and corresponded with him. 1o much for the value of a &0ury of -onour. $ wont comment much on the case of ,%ev, whose party, the 1/s, were never part of the &workers movement in spite of the apparats assertion. 1till, its the only case cited where a &0ury of -onour seems to have uncovered an agent provocateur. "evertheless, a careful reading of the apparats version suggests a &0ury of -onour more interested in protecting one of its &own J,%evJ against the e ternal evidence of 'urtsev the &fellow traveller )soon to become something like a &parasite*. ,%ev was finally e posed not because of the &0ury of -onour but through the perseverance of 'urtsev and the denunciation of ,%ev by an e 2(irector Deneral of the Tsarist police. $n the case of the .khrana agent !alinovsky, the apparat pontificates: ;This responsible attitude of the 1/s, consisting of convoking a 0ury of -onour faced with the accusations against ,%ev, unfortunately wasnt shared by Lenin in 3634 when faced with the case of !alinovsky. When !alinovsky was suspected of working for the .khrana, the 'olsheviks proposed treating his case in front of a revolutionary Tribunal. Lenin re#ected this on the basis of a totally sub#ective belief that !alinovsky was a militant entirely devoted to the cause of the proletariat.; )ibid.*. ,s $ write above, this description of the events is false. The &/adek case is particularly important for the apparats case. Pnfortunately for the apparat, its version of what happened is riddled with half2truths and slanders against /adek. .nce more, their intellectual and moral debasement is confirmed: ;This #ury =in /adeks case> did not have the mission of clearing a militant suspected of being a state agent, but of penalising =H> the political behaviour of /adek within the Party.; )ibid*. $n reality, /adek had to endure ?.P/ such &#uries of honourJ two set up by the 1(LPiL Lu emburg20ogiches apparat and another by the 1P( apparat. The fourth, held in Paris, cleared him of all charges.

,ccording to the apparat, the 3633 1(LPiL2nominated commission in the &/adek case ;led to nothing;. 'y this they mean that the &0ury of -onour, finding the evidence inconclusive, didnt pronounce /adek guilty. -e had been accused, the apparat says, of stealing ;< the clothes of a comrade< of books belonging to the Party library< and< money.; The apparat claims that /adek ;ended up admitting having stolen the books and clothes<; Theres no evidence presented that /adek admitted this. When the Lu emburg20ogiches apparat saw that the commission they had set up didnt deliver the goods: they dissolved it and set up a Party &/evolutionary Tribunal which predictably found /adek guilty in less than two weeks. To throw some light on this affair $ had to go back a few years in /adeks life. ,ccording to /adeks &,utobiography )3687K*, he moved from Lrakow to 1wit%erland in the autumn of 36CB, ;leaving unpaid debts.; )Deorges -aupt Q 0ean20ac+ues !arie, Ma$ers of the Russian Revolution, London 3694, p. B5B* "o other admission of possible wrongdoing appears in that autobiography, written when /adek had fallen from power in 'olshevik /ussia. $n 36CB he was 3E and still not a member of the Polish 1(LPiL, which he #oined in MRrich as an AmigrA member in 36C4. /adeks previous mentor, the national socialist @mil -Scker of the PP1(, had publicly accused /adek of theft in 1eptember 363C. $t seems that he was echoing claims of this sort made in Warsaw in 36CE against /adek. $ts not clear by whom or theft of what. The interesting thing is that /osa Lu emburg, 0ogiches and !archlewski, the de facto 'erlin e ecutive of the 1PLPiL, indignantly defended /adek against the charges. )Peter "ettl, Rosa 'u&em*urg, abridged edition, London 3656, p. B74*. -Sckers attacks were echoed by the notorious Polish antisemite "iemo#ewski, a rabid baiter of the 1(LPiL. $n 363C, it was honourable to defend /adek against charges of theft. -owever, a year later, /adeks luck changed radically when he sided with the dissident Warsaw organisation of the 1(LPiL J-anecki, !alecki, Leder, Pns%licht et al. Pns%licht was slandered by allusion as an agent provocateur by Lu emburg2 0ogiches, proving that slander is another &weapon for the defence of revolutionary organisations. $ndeed, the $CC against ChAnier tested this weapon in 36E3. ),fter 3639, as Chekist under (%er%hinsky, Pns%licht used his turn to similarly terrorise people and, progress in history, shoot them as well.* 'ut back to /adek. ,t this time, 363823B, he wrote Meine +*rechnung )&!y /eckoning* refuting the charges, but $ve not seen it and ignore if an @nglish translation e ists. $n !ay 3638, as the &0ury of -onour mulled over the /adek +uestion, 0ogiches formally declared the Warsaw organisation disbanded )H* !alecki and Pns%licht were delivered to another &party court )who knows on what charges, probably as &troublemakers or &provocateurs J isnt it the sameK*. $ ignore what this eminent tribunal decided. ?ed up with their overloaded schedule of &0uries of -onour, the Warsaw dissidents formed a separate 1(LPiL .pposition Party )the two factions reunited in 3635*. $ts obvious that /adek was made a scapegoat by the 'erlin 1(LPiL, and his supposed irregularities used to undermine his faction in Warsaw. The truth or falsity of the charges wasnt the point )the accusers took them to be truthful when suitable*. What took precedence over +uestions of truth was the factional needs of the 'erlin 1(LPiL apparat.

To poison matters further, Lu emburg20ogiches couldnt forgive /adek for having &betrayed them. /adek had been their protAgA, but had the temerity of publicly criticising !archlewski, one of the 1(LPiL @gocrats. ,fter this, the paranoiac and vindictive animosity shown to /adek by Lu emburg probably pushed /adek to break with the 'erlin 1(LPiL. ,cting as &la grande dame of the left, she couldnt sit in the same restaurant table with others if /adek was present, and called him a &political whore in a private letter to the Metkins. $n 363E she had to be persuaded to shake /adeks hand when he re2appeared in Dermany as a 'olshevik envoy. ;Lu emburg was #udged by her allies to be irresponsible at times, even &pathological; comments 1tanley Pierson )Mar&ist )ntellectuals and the ,or$ing-%lass mentality in "ermany 1 .-191/ , Cambridge, 366B, p. 874*. -er loathing for /adek certainly backs this up. "ettl, Lu emburgs able biographer, politely opines that ;1he was clearly unfair to /adek.; )opus cited, p. B39* The split in the 1(LPiL developed when the Warsaw dissidents got tired of the despotic behaviour of 0ogiches. -e was rude and treated his comrades with open contempt )weve mentioned already his mania for &0uries of -onour*. ,t one point he even threatened Lu emburg, his former lover, with a gun )/obert 1ervice, 'enin0 + Political 'ife /, London 3667, p. 89*. These &small personal incidents make one think that 1talinism had a robust gestation period in the 8nd $nternational, including in the left, and many &resolute revolutionaries would later become Jwithout apparent inner conflictJ devoted torturers and genocidists. ?rom the evidence, 0ogiches was an ideal candidate for this role. That this possible evolution was cut short by the 1P(s bloodbath in which 0ogiches tragically achieved martyrdom shouldnt blind us to his prewar behaviour. Lenin was also instrumental in the rift between the 1(LPiL factions, as he consistently supported the dissidents against 'erlin and defended /adek. -e saw from early on that they were potential allies against the !ensheviks in the /1(LP. 1imilarly, Pannekoek, Lnief, Thalheimer, etc, defended /adek unconditionally against the 36332 38 charges. $ts so clear Jas it was thenJ that only when /adek changed factions were the old charges revived and thrown at him. /adek was accused of: stealing a coat )or &clothes* in Lrakow )in 36C8K*, books )how manyK* from comrades or from a Party newspaper library )its not clear which, or bothK*, a watch, BCC roubles belonging to the Warsaw unions )in one source this becomes &several hundred*, failure to pay party dues and of diversion of party funds. ,ccording to "ettl, he admitted the theft of the books and the clothes )or was it &the coatK*. 'ut "ettl offers no evidence for this )opus cited, p. B77*. /adek insistently denied stealing money, although the admission about his unpaid debts in leaving Lrakow suggests that there was an issue there. 'ut maybe he paid his debtor)s* later, as this issue wasnt raised by anyone )unless by unpaid debts /adek meant a coatK*. $n view of all this confusion, "ettl rightly observes that ;The case deserves further study, especially in view of /adeks later eminent position in the /ussian party and his influence on Derman left2wing affairs.; )opus cited, p. B77* 'ut for the $CC apparat the &lesson about the &/adek case is about ;#uries of honour as weapons for the defence of revolutionary organisations;. The use of &0uries of -onour in the &/adek case doesnt prove anything of the sort. Possibly the only tribunal that

was fair to /adek was the fourth, held in Paris. 'ut as Lenin seems to have been very influential in it, one cannot ignore the factional dimension. 'ut lets return to 3633238. ,s it turned out, the 'erlin 1(LPiL apparat, mainly 0ogiches, wanted /adek to be e pelled also from the Derman 1P(. ?or his personal disloyalty, /adek had to become a pariah everywhere. @specially in Dermany, where /adek was then active. "ever mind that he supported Lu emburgs politics. -e had been unfaithful, and that demanded a blood atonement, at least symbolically. $f ,%tec chest surgery, or a !auser, werent available, then an e pulsion was the ne t best thing. Lu emburg was prepared to side with the e ecutive of the 1P( )@bert Q Co* to punish /adek. $n so doing she blindly undermined the position of her own allies Jthe left in 'remen and many other Derman leftists who supported her. 'ut her wrath towards /adek also had a factional dimension. $t was she who proposed to 0ogiches that the dissident Warsaw Committee be slandered as being ;< in the hands of agents provocateursI that names cannot yet be named =an old $CC trickH> but the CC =the 'erlin e ecutive> is on their trackI<; )@l%bieta @ttinger, Rosa 'u&em*urg0 + 'ife, London 369E, p. 399*. ,stounding behaviour on the part of Lu emburgH There is indeed a &Lu emburg Legend that she was above this filth, that she had scruples and personal integrity. The reality is more comple . .bviously she learnt nothing from the slanders spewed at her comrades Laspr%ak and Wars%awski )Warski* in 3E65 by the social patriots of the PP1. 'oth were accused of being .khrana agents )"ettl, opus cited, p. 5C*. , &0ury of -onour cleared Warski and a 1P( commission cleared Laspr%ak in 36C3. Theres no doubt that these slanders were the common fare of the prewar revolutionary apparats. Which may e plain why real spies could do their #ob so well J the revolutionaries had become impervious to the repetitive and meaningless charge. The &0ury of -onour so praised by the $CC apparat was seldom an effective weapon. /eal spies were hardly e posed by these pantomimes. 'ut they served as useful propaganda e ercises for the factions involved. $n 3638 the 1(LPiL 'erlin apparat, possessed by the &party spirit, approached @berts 1P( e ecutive )the same people who would vote for war credits in 3634 and murder Lu emburg and BC,CCC Derman workers in 3636*, informing them that /adek had been e pelled from their Party. The 1(LPiL had no hesitation in divulging /adeks real name )1obelsohn*: ;The Derman e ecutive was officially informed of the decision =/adeks e pulsion from the 1(LPiL> on 84 ,ugust =3638> < in doing so the Polish Central Committee used /adeks real name and thus broke his pseudonymI according to him his departure for 'remen< was due to the danger from the police in the capital.; )"ettl, opus cited, p. B77* The 1P( e ecutive doesnt appear to have minded this provocative &lapse and didnt rebuke the 1(LPiL for potentially delivering an outspoken foreign militant to the Prussian police. ,t the annual 1P( Congress in Chemnit% )1eptember 3638* the /adek case received an enormous amount of attention. ,s is common when tribal bloodlust for scapegoats is aroused, /adek was baited and ridiculed. $n his &,utobiography /adek remarks, slyly pointing at 1talins rAgime: ;Citing my e pulsion from Polish social democracy, the Derman leadership announced that it no longer considered me a member of its Party. ,t the Chemnit% party Conference, it played an e cellent trump card: it

derided this obscure personage of foreign e traction =a 0ew of all thingsH> who dared to accuse the Derman CC of corruption.; )-aupt Q !arie, opus cited, p. B5E* ,s /adek recalls, the 1P( apparatchiks had strong reasons to go after his blood. They wanted to crush the left )&lance it as @bert had said in DTppingen* and this was an ideal opportunity. /adek was a vocal and merciless critic of their revisionism, and he had embarrassed @bert personally during the recent &DTppingen incident. 'ut too many decent 1P( members, of left and right, criticised the e ecutives treatment of /adek at the conference, and a second &0ury of -onour was appointed to investigate him. This Derman &revolutionary tribunal reported to the 363B 0ena Congress of the 1P(. $ts not clear if /adek was present at Chemnit%, or &helped the 1P(s 0ury of -onour with their en+uiries or attended the 0ena Congress, #ust as it isnt clear if he attended the previous 1(LPiLs &investigations. ,s $ dont have access to the conference proceedings or reports of the &0uries of -onour, his presence cant be confirmed. $ have tried to establish what /adek said at these trials in his defence )having studied law, he probably defended himself well*. 'ut this is not possible at the present time. The specialist librarian -. 1churer comments on what happened at 0ena: ;, decision was reached that any member of a fraternal party e pelled for dishonourable conduct should be ineligible for membership of the Derman Party. The ruling was to be applied retroactively to /adek and, on the basis of this specially created le& Rade$, the culprit was solemnly e pelled from the 1P(, despite the protests of his friend Pannekoek. )-. 1churer, &/adek and the Derman /evolution $, Survey, London 3657, p. 58*. ,t 0ena, Lu emburg voted against the measure of automatic e pulsion because at last she saw that it set a dangerous precedent for all critics of the Derman e ecutive. 1he realised that @bert Q Co had outmanoeuvred the 1(LPiL by throwing /adeks e pulsion back on their court. ,s /adeks biographer, Warren Lerner, observes, ;'y this resolution, the @ ecutive Committee declared in effect that /adek had never been a member of the Derman 1ocial (emocratic Party, and thus spared the Congress the necessity of voting to e pel him. The resolution embarrassed the 1(LPiL, since it put the onus for the e pulsion on them and clearly implied that only by their petition could /adek be granted continued membership in the 1P(. 1ince /osa Lu emburg had no desire at this time =or ever> to help /adek, she did nothing and the e 2post2facto statute automatically brought about his e pulsion from the 1P(.; )Larl /adek, The 'ast )nternationalist, 1tanford 369C, p. BC* 'ut something more far reaching than the &/adek case had unfolded at Chemnit% in 3638. Pierson writes that ;< the radical !ar ists, led by Pannekoek and Lensch, suffered crushing defeats in their challenges to the partys policies on imperialism and its electoral treaty with the Progressives. ,fterward Pannekoek conceded that the revisionist point of view, now supported by the orthodo !ar ists =like Lautsky>, had triumphed on all the critical issues.; )opus cited, p. 87B* ?or the $CC, this defeat isnt mentioned Jthe &lesson for them is the commendable persecution of /adek by the magistrates of the &party spirit. $mperceptibly the apparat sides with the @berts, the !Rllers and the other power2servers of the 1P(, precisely the state functionaries who would crush all oppositions from 3634 to 3636. Thus, the &crushing defeat of the left, supposedly a forefather of the $CC apparat, is ignored in its account of the &/adek case. @ven more grotes+uely, the $CC #ustifies

/adeks e pulsion with two trumped2up charges never raised in 36332363B: that /adek was e pelled ;< above all because of his trouble2making, in particular e ploiting on his own account the dissensions within 1ocial (emocracy; )ibid*. The apparat doesnt bother to e plain in what way /adek was a &trouble maker =after all, he considered himself a revolutionary, so this shouldnt be surprising>. "either do they e plain how /adek was &e ploiting the &dissensions within 1ocial (emocracy. Was he diverting Party fundsK .r, to take a cue from the apparats recent incursions into pop psychology, was he flattering his idK .r his egoK These idiocies feed its current &anti2parasite phobias, pro#ecting them into history. ,s its doing with the &struggle against 'akunin. Thus critics are: 3* &trouble2makers and 8*, &parasites, because they act for &their own account. $ncidentally, the &dissensions can be subsumed into ."@, namely the conflict between revisionism2social patriotism and &revolutionary !ar ism. ,s a result of the &0uries of -onour in the crucial years 363823B, /adek, one of the most hard2hitting publicists of the isolated prewar Derman left, was effectively weakened if not silenced. 1mall details no doubt, which pale in insignificance in front of the &0uries of -onour on the eve of the first imperialist war. Considering the apparats obsessions with &lessons and &traditions, this blindness is remarkable. ,lso not mentioned is that /adek refuted the charges after his e pulsion in the mentioned My Rec$oning. ,s said before, after 0ena, /adek assembled another &0ury of -onour in Paris, called the &Paris Commission ;< which absolved him of all the charges, and he also gained the support of Lenin, Trotsky and Larl Liebknecht.; )-aupt Q !arie, opus cited, p. BEC* $t seems that this trial was actively supported or organised by the 'olsheviks. !ehring, protesting at how /adek had been treated, stated that 1ocial (emocracy should at least ;< guard the moral e istence of its members< with the same legal guarantees which bourgeois society has thus far maintained unbroken for all its members, including the working class.; )mentioned in Carl 1chorske, "erman Social Democracy 1912-191., -arvard 3677, p. 875* ?ortunately for /adek, the 'remen leftists protested the decision of the 1P( e ecutive and continued to provide /adek with an outlet for his writings in their paper. -ad they not done this, his financial situation would have been worse. These leftists were no worshippers of &0uries of -onour set up for repressive reasons. 1hurer confirms that ;@arly in 3634, the traditional court of honour appointed in such cases by the various wings of the /ussian and Polish !ar ist movements sat in Paris and decided unanimously in favour of /adek. ,mong the #udges was Lunacharsky. Lenin and Trotsky made additional separate statements in his favour. "ormally the whole case would have gone back to the Derman party for reconsideration of its earlier decision, but the outbreak of the war stopped this. ?or the great ma#ority of Derman socialists, /adek remained a marked man.; )opus cited, p. 58* $n 3638 Lenin refuted Lu emburgs account of the &splinter group in Warsaw =which /adek supported>. ,ccording to her the dissidents had broken discipline and the whole thing was the work of &agents provocateurs. This was baseless, but like the $CCs slander against ChAnier in 36E3, it was designed to obscure any ongoing political

and theoretical clarification. Lenin knew this and therefore ignored the 1(LPiLs &0ury of -onour against /adek. .f course the apparat doesnt mention Lenins attitude in the &/adek case. They either truly ignore his position or conceal it. !aybe the latter, as they criticise Lenin for his la ity regarding !alinovsky, preparing the ground for saying that this was a Lenin weakness, his inconsistency towards the &0ury of -onour. 'ut Lenin wasnt inconsistent. When it suited him, he played the &0ury of -onour card well and knew his facts, which cant be said for the $CC. $ts noteworthy that the mentioned W/ article is not a signed article but one carrying the $CC imprimatur. $t stems from its highest cabal, e pressing its vision and morals. Well, the lack of historical accuracy is abysmal. 'ut only academic parasites would dare point out such things. $n 3636, /osa LevinA2!eyer had a conversation with /adek in which he e plained what happened in 3633238: ;, nasty incident nearly wrecked his political life. -e was accused of embe%%ling BCC marks =see how the roubles transmigrate>< from Party funds. The chief plaintiff was Leo 0ogiches. /adek told me without any bitterness that 0ogiches might have been prompted by a desire to rid himself, or the Party, of a troublesome opponent. Perhaps it was something in between. , hapless mistake, very probable in an underground movement which makes it +uite impossible to keep documents and receipts, threw suspicion on the unfortunate /adek. The matter was cleared up in the end but /adek went through a terrible ordeal<; ) )nside "erman %ommunism, London 3699, p. 8C3* $t seems that /adek was indifferent to money and sloppy in financial dealings. .n a personal level, he was considered a bohemian and a cynical intriguer by some. Those perceptions were used by apparatchiks who wanted to defeat him politically. 'ut they were too la%y and malevolent to use upfront political debates. They opted for the easy option of smears and ad hominem attacks. Like today, they hid their manoeuvres behind &the defence of the organisation. $n his booklet ,hat Revolutionaries Should 3no4 +*out Repression, 1erge observes that its usually the opportunists, the cowards, the tired and self2serving bureaucrats that go for such sewer2material. $t should be said that 1erges booklet is also apologetic of apparats J when they engage in repression and Chekist terror, its for the benefit of mankind. )Oictor 1erge, %e 5ue tout r6volutionnaire doit savoir de la r6pression, !aspAro, Paris 369C, p. 78* Pnder the 'olshevik rAgime /adek became a fanatical supporter and apologist of state terror, serving 1talin well after Trotsky was defeated. Poor /adek played the victim as the victimiser in all his political life. The roulette ended tragically when he perished in the gulag: ;The story has it that sometime in 36B6, one such pack of the /evolutions monsters =the thousands of orphaned children called the *e7pri7ornii> cornered Larl /adek in the prison yard. -e was far from history now. The killing winter was all around him and he was alone with the revolutions wretches, nameless. 1omeone flung him to the ground =/adek was 74 then>. Then, following the impulses by which they lived, the *e7pri7ornii were all kicking together, smashing out the brains of this brain2proud man against the tundra. "emesis the goddess is fierce. ?ierce J and ingenious.;

1o writes 1tephen Loch in Stalin0 ,illi M8n7en*erg and the Seduction of the )ntellectuals, London 3667, p. 347. 1till, $ prefer other gods to Lochs "emesis. The -ebrew god, if $m correct Jand when hes in a playful moodJ protects all the persecuted, whether they be evil or unfair, and even against #ust and good men, if they be persecutors. $nspired by this god, the memory of Larl /adek deserves to be protected when he was being persecuted, and that happened in 363323B.; Works consulted
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