Modern Communism and the Political Legacy
of Hardial Bains
Part 8: The Right to Conscience
The collapse of the Soviet Union inevitably gave rise to various theories about the failure of communism. Some of these theories were simply a rehash of the anti-communist propaganda that the Anglo-American imperialists had been promoting since the time of the 1917 Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia. Other theories were more pernicious, attacking the very concept of a communist party and denying the necessity for a vanguard organization of the working class. All sorts of old forms of organization, obsolete since the early years of the 20th century, were put forward as "new" discoveries which were supposedly superior to democratic centralism.
Hardial Bains rejected the claim that it was communism which had failed in the Soviet Union, as well as all of the claims that democratic centralism, the Leninist method of organization, had failed. He maintained that it was the failure of the Soviet communists to defend the methods and principles of Leninism which led to the destruction of socialism there. The bureaucratism, elitism and lack of internal democracy that came to characterize the Soviet party, as well as many other communist parties, represented the rejection of Marxism-Leninism and the principles of democratic centralism.
The conception of a modern communist party presented by Hardial Bains was not that of a simple bureaucratic or administrative arrangement, but a militant, revolutionary force dedicated to the creation of a modern, democratic state governed by the people of the country. Such a party must be the most conscious expression of those new relations between people which will characterize this new society.
Hardial Bains insisted that the starting point of a modern communist party must be the principle of the equality of all members. He did not accept the notion of a party of "leaders" and "followers". In fact, he rejected the very concept of leadership by individuals. In an interview with CPAC television channel in early 1997, Hardial Bains explained that CPC(M-L) did not agree with the position of National Leader, that this was merely a concession made to Canada's electoral laws. He stressed that the only leadership of CPC(M-L) was the collective leadership of its Central Committee. Within the Central Committee there are various positions with various responsibilities, but which carry with them no special rights or privileges.
This conception of a political party in which the "National Leader" has no more rights than any other member is totally foreign to Canadian bourgeois political culture and is therefore difficult for many people to grasp. Canadians are accustomed to political, social and economic forms of organization in which a hierarchy of rights exists and in which the opinions and votes of a few individuals outweigh the opinions and votes of the vast majority. Some people have even concluded that no other form of organization is possible. Many communists also hold such views and within CPC(M-L) a constant tension existed between those, like Hardial Bains, who opposed a hierarchy of rights and those who could conceive of no other method of organization.
This struggle within CPC(M-L) came to a head at its Sixth Congress in 1993. The issue arose at that congress of how to ensure such equality in practice. It quickly became apparent that equality of membership and the elimination of a hierarchy of rights could not be achieved in practice without a practical guarantee of the right to conscience. In other words, a mechanism had to be developed which would ensure that every individual could freely give his or her views without the fear of personal retaliation by the "leaders" or by any other individuals. As a result, the Sixth Congress adopted a rule prohibiting agreement or disagreement with the views of any delegate. Speakers were restricted to giving their own opinions and arguing for their own positions, rather than merely agreeing with some "leader" or attacking a position that they thought was opposed by some "leader" This also encouraged people to think for themselves and to present opinions which stood on their own merits, rather than lobbying for credibility by attaching themselves to the views of someone else. The Sixth Congress proved not only that such a discussion was possible, but that the development of a political culture on such a basis created conditions for genuinely collective decision-making and a collective leadership in which all individuals are able to develop to their full potential.
Of course, the development of a political culture based on equality, mutual respect and the inviolability of the right to conscience cannot be created overnight or in the course of a single congress, but Hardial Bains insisted that only a party based on such a culture deserved to be called a communist party. He also stressed that this culture must exist at all level of the Party and especially within its basic organizations in order to ensure that the revolutionary organization constantly renews itself.
The Leninist concept of democratic centralism was never a blueprint for hierarchical and bureaucratic methods of organization. Rather, it was a method of party organization developed by V.I. Lenin as a means of combatting the hierarchical, bureaucratic and unaccountable forms of organization which were paralyzing the social democratic parties at the turn of the 20th century. It was a method of organizing which would ensure that the party members retained the decision-making powers and that those powers were not usurped by the leadership or by the parliamentary caucus. However, the experience of the communist movement shows that, without strict measures to ensure the right to conscience of every member, the principles of democratic centralism can easily be negated and democracy replaced by bureaucratism. In fact, there is ample evidence to prove that any form of organization, no matter how democratic it claims to be, will be rendered anti-democratic if concrete measures are not taken to ensure the right to conscience of its members. The method developed by Hardial Bains to deal with this problem within CPC(M-L) was codified in the rules of the Party's Sixth Congress and the political culture based on those rules.