We Have a Duty to Lead
‘An arduous journey scroll (one). Ruijin’, by Ying Yeping and Wang Huanqing
The Need to Serve the People
Among the left in the United States, the subject of leadership is a fraught one – and understandably so. As a buzzword, it is valorized with almost religious fervor these days by a ruling class who tailors its meaning to fit their objectives. On social media, “followers” can be amassed like so much currency. It is no surprise why so many of us are skeptical of leadership.
From anarchists to abolitionists, authoritative leadership – often synonymous with ‘authoritarianism’ – is viewed rather negatively, as a bogeyman only leading to harm.
There are many reasons why people, even organizers, have negative attitudes towards authoritative leadership. For some, this is due to witnessing the naked opportunism of those who would use authority for their own benefit; nepotism, climbing the social ladder, and pursuing leadership solely to advance one’s own career are poignant examples of this opportunism. This is, of course, emblematic of the capitalist view of leadership, in which individual “opportunity” or success is prioritized above collective structures of leadership and discipline. This view of leadership is of course heavily propagandized, and upheld as legitimate by the capitalists and their state. For others, their rejection of leadership is a result of this indoctrination. They see leadership as only a thing which can harm; they cannot conceive of leadership being utilized for the benefit of the working class.
As a result, many think that authority is dangerous, and that the “humane, kind, loving” approach is one of decentralization, structurelessness, complete horizontality, or decision-making that requires absolute consensus. But when it comes to love – love of one’s class, of working and oppressed people – let us recall the words of Che Guevara in his 1965 letter on the Cuban Revolution:
At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love…Perhaps it is one of the great dramas of the leader that he or she must combine a passionate spirit with a cold intelligence and make painful decisions without flinching. Our vanguard revolutionaries must idealize this love of the people, of the most sacred causes, and make it one and indivisible. They cannot descend, with small doses of daily affection, to the level where ordinary people put their love into practice.
For a revolutionary, love of the people requires seizing the reins of leadership. True commitment requires us to educate, instruct, and guide working and oppressed people towards revolution. This is not because the people are unintelligent, incapable, or inferior; quite the opposite. In truth, it is the conditions of proletarian existence – conditions imposed by the capitalists – that lead to workers being unorganized, politically unconscious, and confused. And as organizers, we cannot take an aloof position in response; we have a responsibility to lead.
The Truth about Leadership
As communists, we understand that leadership is not about seizing power and taking charge simply to have someone to order around; leadership is about our obligation to use what we know in service of the working class.
Workers are in need of guidance; as stated, not because of ineptitude, but because of the enormity of the task of revolution, and because the realities of working class life do not lead to workers spontaneously becoming seasoned organizers. Workers, and the working class as a whole, have concrete needs that must be met, and the conditions of capitalism make it so that meeting these needs is extremely difficult.
There are those who claim that workers instinctively reject attempts by organizers to come and “help them”, that this is a patronizing gesture on the part of out-of-touch groups who don’t understand the realities of proletarian life. The truth is that to avoid leadership is to throw one’s fellow workers to the wolves, to see someone in need of help and to do nothing. It is both neglectful and shortsighted.
If you see someone about to mix bleach and ammonia while cleaning – a mixture that creates deadly gasses – and you know of the danger, is it not your duty to warn them, to educate them? If you see someone struggling with a task, and you have the knowledge that can help them, is it not your duty to assist? And for an organizer, if people lack an understanding of how to organize, what the political and economic realities of capitalism are, and what the steps to establishing socialism are, is it not absolutely necessary that we who are equipped with those skills and knowledge do everything we can to agitate, educate, and organize? To make appeals to the supposed greater ‘fairness’ of ‘horizontality’ is in actuality a call to abandon those who need revolutionary structure and authority most.
So how do we lead the people to revolution? While the ends do not justify or excuse the means, they do determine the means. In other words, one’s desired outcome determines what courses of action are necessary to guarantee that outcome. As an example; burning down a forest just to light a cigarette is not a justifiable solution to the problem. However, one must at the very least strike a match; spitting on the cigarette will not work, squinting one’s eyes and staring at the cigarette will not work, nor will countless other incorrect and unviable means of solving the problem.
If capitalism is to be overthrown, if we are to establish Revolutionary Democratic Control by the Working Class, then we have to choose the strategies and tactics that will get us there. This is not a matter of fairness, of abstract petty-bourgeois notions of ethics – this is a matter of survival, a matter of the love Guevara described.
Leadership is an opportunity to serve the people. Communists taking up leadership and agitating, educating, and organizing is the way that we teach and instruct workers in becoming leaders themselves. We have the utmost responsibility to act; to fail to do so is to fail the very people whom it is our sacred duty to serve.