Revolutionary committee

“ Threescore years after the first successful seizure of State power by a revolutionary organization, the goal of the revolutionary organization ceases to be an enigma proclaimed by slogans on banners. The purpose of revolutionary organizations becomes concrete at the historical moment when the first successful revolutionary leader proclaims that State power has passed into the hands of the organ of the Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies�the Revolutionary Military Committee, which heads the proletariat and the garrison. ”

“ Now I appeal to the honesty of you Judges and Generals present here to confirm my assertion that, if the Central Committee, at the moment when the revolutionary passions exploded, had not succeeded in concentrating effective authority in its hands, you gentlemen would surely have been killed by the bullets of your soldiers or hung on the lamp-posts by the maddened and lawless anarchists. ”

“ The so-called Constitutional ministry, consisting of half Liberal, timid, incapable bureaucrats, on the 14th of May, even ventured a direct attack upon the revolutionary organizations of the masses by dissolving the Central Committee of Delegates of the National Guard and Academic Legion; a body formed for the express purpose of controlling the Government, and calling out against it, in case of need, the popular forces. ”

“ The anarchist leaders lost their audacity as soon as they were arrested; they defended themselves, and, for the most part, died, without any display of courage. The committee of public safety disbanded the revolutionary army, diminished the power of the sectionary committees, and obliged the commune to appear at the bar of the convention, and give thanks for the arrest and punishment of the conspirators, its accomplices. ”

“ When all this is taken into account, it is easier to understand the influence of the revolutionary syndicalists. It is insufficient to explain their leadership by clever machinations of the Confederal Committee, as M. Mermeix and many others do. It is quite true that the Confederal Committee tries to maintain its power by all means possible. It sends out delegates to Federal Congresses, on conference tours over the country, to assist workingmen on strikes, etc. ”

“ The Committees of Supervision lately instituted by the Convention, and known before long as Revolutionary Committees, sat in every Section, denouncing, disarming, and fining their enemies, dealing out certificates of 'civism' to their allies, forming ready centres of Jacobin intrigue, and arranging plans for a general rising. If ever the Moderates dared to assert themselves in the Sections, the Jacobins could call in the authority of the police, and thus secure the arrest of their opponents. ”

“ But no individual energy could have sustained these dictatorships without the support of a popular organisation. All over France a system of revolutionary government sprang up, which superseded all existing institutions just as the authority of the Commissioners of the Convention superseded all existing local powers. The local revolutionary administration consisted of a Committee, a Club, and a Tribunal. ”

“ Parties desirous of joining the Third International shall be bound to reinspeet the personnel of their parliamentary factions, remove all unreliable elements therefrom, subordinate such factions not verbally only, but in reality, to the Central Committee of the Party, and demand from each proletarian Communist to submit his whole work to the interests of real revolutionary propaganda. ”

“ Party members hold practically all leadership positions. There is one indisputed leader of the Party and the country. The Central Committee makes basic policy decisions according to their understanding of what the people want, and the economic and political necessities of the country. —As a state designed to end the exploitation of man by man and representing for the first time a majority class in society, it differs from all other states, which perpetuated the exploitation of man by man and were based on the rule of a small minority divorced from production and living off the labor of others. ”

“ The Party Committee of this town should interest itself above all in what is happening in the big enterprises—in the railway workshops, in the metal factory and the textile factory, how the factory cells are working there and in the first place help the factory cells of these enterprises by all and every means possible, concentrating all their attention and all their forces on this task. In the lawyer’s office and the doctor’s surgery there are no masses which the Party must win over and organize for revolutionary struggle. It is another matter with the big enterprises. ”

“ While they pretended obedience to the regulations to which the Convention had subjected them, they intrigued to promote a revolt, and were strenuously exerting themselves to gain partizans among the idle and dissolute, who, having subsisted for months as members of revolutionary committees, and in other revolutionary offices, were naturally averse from a more moderate government. ”

“ In most cases it sends only men who represent the revolutionary ideas of the Committee and who, therefore, strengthen the influence of the latter by word and deed. It is also true that in most Bourses du Travail the secretaries are revolutionary and that they help to consolidate the influence of the Confederal Committee. ”

“ It is probable, and strongly desired as well, that when the hour of the People's Revolution strikes again, every nation will unite in brotherly solidarity and forge an unbreakable alliance against the coalition of reactionary nations. This alliance will be the germ of the future Universal Federation of Peoples which will eventually embrace the entire world. The International Federation of revolutionary peoples, with a parliament, a tribunal, and an international executive committee, will naturally be based on the principles of the revolution. ”

“ Finally, what is specially important, every member of a factory cell should know which of his neighbors at the bench is revolutionary minded even though non-Party, and ready to take or has already taken, active part in strikes and revolutionary demonstrations. When a Party member working in a workshop has a clear picture of what each worker there represents, it will be much easier for him to carry on his everyday work. ”

“ No consideration ought to stand in the way of your revolutionary progress—give free scope therefore to your energy; the powers you are invested with are unlimited, and whatever you may deem conducive to the public good, you are free, you are even called upon by duty, to carry into execution without delay.—We here transmit you an order of the Committee, by which your powers are extended to the neighbouring departments. Armed with such means, and with your energy, you will go on to confound the enemies of the republic, with the very schemes they have projected for its destruction. "Carnot. ”

“ After a critique and self critique of the earlier meeting at which the Workers' Council was formed, the three militants decide not to call for a general meeting to elect the Council Committee. Instead, they take the opportunity of joining a group of individuals who are taking a break and eating. The three militants present the case in favor of electing a Council Committee. No one seems to have a case against such an election. ”

“ In the light of his earlier election to the Council Committee, namely in the light of his proven popularity among his fellow workers, he is assigned by the organization's leaders to present himself as the plant's candidate for the position of delegate to the Regional Workers' Council.
On this occasion the militant does not attempt to gather even a few individuals in a meeting. He makes it a point to talk to every individual in the plant on a particular day. ”

“ However, one of the individuals eating lunch, a regular user of the printing equipment and an outstanding photographer, says that since most people don't know what such a Committee member is supposed to do, and since he's sure most people wouldn't be willing to devote time and energy to such a Committee, why don't the three proponents of such a Committee simply elect themselves? ”

“ Their enforcement of rules is successful only among newcomers, and then only temporarily; when the newcomers join more experienced persons and learn to execute technical processes on their own, they also learn to disregard even the most minimal rules. However, even the Council Committee doesn't last. ”

“ But, gentlemen, remember that the Central Committee is all the more dangerous, in that it has taught the revolutionaries how to act outside the authority of the Central Government and how to manage the ship of State. ”

“ Matters which require decision, administration and coordination are not determined by the Council Committee but are informally arranged by the work groups through personal relations between suppliers, producers and users. What's worse, due to their engagement in outside projects, none of the Council Committee members except the President even have a regular attendance in the plant, and as a result the Committee never meets and does not, strictly speaking, function.
Even the Council's President devotes more time and energy to experimentation and discovery than to the political tasks of the day. ”

“ Early in the Revolution the advantage lay with the “dispersive school.” Its executive plan of Congressional committees needed little work to put it into operation; it was more flexible than the scheme of permanent single-headed executives; and it was more in harmony with the ultra anti-monarchical spirit of the times. The Revolutionary government, originating as a congress of delegates, organized itself, after the manner of congresses, by means of committees of its own members. ”

“ The revolutionists of the seventies and the eighties did not succeed in creating among the peasantry or the town workmen anything which had even the appearance of a force capable of struggling with the Government; and the revolutionists of the future will have no greater success until they have obtained such political rights as personal inviolability. Our immediate aim, therefore, is a National Assembly controlled by local self-government, and this can be brought about only by a union of all the revolutionary forces. ”

“ He has his share in electing the local Communist Committee, and, indirectly, in electing the all-powerful Central Committee of the party, and he binds himself to do at any moment in his life exactly what these Committees decide for him. These Committees decide the use that is to be made of the lives, not only of the rank and file of the party, but also of their own members. ”

“ All the Representatives cheered this eloquent and courageous man. Seven members were proposed. They named at once Carnot, De Flotte, Jules Favre, Madier de Montjau, Michel de Bourges, and myself; and thus was unanimously formed this Committee of Insurrection, which at my request was called a Committee of Resistance; for it was Louis Bonaparte who was tire insurgent. For ourselves, the were the Republic. It was desired that one workman-Representative should be admitted into the committee. ”

“ On the whole, if there were any probability of the assembly's confining themselves merely to the business of organizing the government, so as to put an end to their session and call a new legislature, the Revolution might be considered as really in a successful state; but the Report of the Central Committee, which you will have received, prescribes such a superabundance of matter as necessary to be deliberated on and settled by the present assembly, that its end as well as the term of the completion of the constitution can be reduced to no calculation. ”

“ At the sight of the liberated Representatives of the people, surrounded by their Jacobin friends, the members of the Council rose spontaneously with cries of "Long live the Republic!" Gradually the tumult died down, and the Mayor of Paris began to speak:
"Citizens—from this moment the functions of the General Council of the Commune should undergo a change. I move that it be transformed into a committee of action, and that the presidency of it be conferred upon Maximilien Robespierre. The Revolution now commences!" ”

“ In an assembly of men new to government this very difficult province fell of itself into the hands of a man whose genius all admitted, and whose probity no one of his enemies would deny. Long before the insurrection took place, any man with information, with authority, or with a special duty to perform, had learnt to regard the Committee as his chief, for the simple reason that no other centre of authority existed. ”

“ It provided for the election of a National President, to serve until his successor could be elected at a general election, and for the appointment of a Minister-President and various ministers of state. The constitution created a so-called Committee of State, to be named by the various state governments and to occupy the position of a Second Chamber, and empowered the assembly to enact "such national laws as are urgently necessary," particularly revenue and appropriation measures. ”

“ This is no one-man union, there is no one man they can fix, nor even a small committee. We're a committee of fifty thousand here to make our own laws for ourselves. As you lift up your hands and vote, so it will be decided. ”

“ But, from the standpoint of the professional politician, all this that the voter sees is a mask, the patriotic veneer to hide the machine, that complex hierarchy of committees ranging from Washington to every cross-roads in the Republic. The committee system, described in a former chapter, was perfected by the Republican party during the days of the Civil War, under the stress of national necessity. The great party leaders were then in Congress. When the assassination of Lincoln placed Andrew Johnson in power, the bitter quarrel between Congress and the President firmly united the Republicans ”