Being right in highlighting a problem in no way guarantees success in proposing a solution. This truism, practically universal in nature, is particularly useful when applied to the analysis of political formations. Probably of the more traditional ones, it can be argued that they have reached the present day practically exhausted, in need of an important stimulus that would serve to clean up those negative elements and those flawed practices that jeopardized their good functioning. But, applying Chesterton’s well-known teaching that the reform of an institution or organization should not be entrusted to someone who has never fully understood its meaning, it is important not to lose sight of the fact that the complexity of these organizations was not a mere bureaucratic whim or the excuse to turn the most disciplined members into party officials or other arguments of a similar nature, however reiterated they are more true. The different levels of these formations performed a mediating function between the bases and the directions, they constituted the spaces in which the requests and demands coming from below took shape and where the lines of action to respond to them were discussed before transforming them into arguments and slogans. The fact that – the iron law of oligarchy – there came a time when they did not adequately fulfill this function does not automatically make the possibility of completely doing without them good.
In any case, in these intermediate cases there was room – even if it was often a rarity – for internal debate, to enrich the disagreement. We know in the name of what practically everyone was eliminated. No one has resisted the attack launched over the last decade by an alternative that used as ammunition a practically unbeatable order of slogans such as “return the voice of militancy”, “recover direct democracy” and the like, which put anyone who dared to question them in a frankly uncomfortable position. We also had ample opportunity to verify what real functioning the triumph of those who defended these slogans gave rise to. Supposed direct democracy has become Caesarism, if not leader worship, virtually every discrepancy immediately disappears.
We have the right to suspect that this did not happen by chance, but turned out to be the almost inevitable effect of the new, apparently regenerative premises. It is true that even in the formations that have seen the internal debate significantly devalued, the cliché remains that the discussion must take place within the party bodies, and that when it comes to taking to the streets what must take precedence is the image of unity. Apart from the fact that I have serious doubts about the validity of this cliché (I admit that I have greater sympathy, because they give me the feeling of greater theoretical-political strength, organizations in which dissenting voices are not automatically disqualified as disloyal), the truth is that if we stick to the reality of the facts it does not seem that in the formations restructured under the bait of direct democracy, internal democracy is actually more present than yesterday. Rather it seems exactly the opposite.
It would be appropriate to consider to what extent the two aspects are closely linked. Perhaps the old argument that making differences public weakens the organization, in addition to not describing reality, has become a completely hypocritical argument. Because it seems like the problem is something else. Perhaps the problem is that, in an organization weakened precisely by those who presented themselves as its regenerators, for whom the discrepancy represents a danger, it is not so for the party as a whole but for those who have won the saint and the alms, that is, for those who have complete control of the political direction in their hands.
Ultimately, the logic that governs these situations is very simple. When a decision is collective, the error falls on the entire group, while if it is individual, the responsibility of whoever assumed all the power becomes strictly inexcusable. In this sense, we find ourselves faced with a double-edged sword. Successes, without a doubt, are extremely rewarding for the leader in such a context, to the extent that they present themselves as tangible proof of his genius, intuition, courage, resilience or quality that the tuferarios on duty determine at all times. The other side of the coin, however, is no longer so rewarding. Because being solely responsible implies that, in the event of mistakes that the political group he leads may make, all responsibility falls on the leader. Which is to say, in short, that whoever has absolute power has absolute responsibility.
It is in this framework that the growing resistance to the slightest discrepancy within political organizations must be understood. This resistance is, ultimately, a symptom of a profound weakness, that of the leader who fears that the slightest criticism will end up turning into questioning his all-encompassing power. Obviously this fear is never recognized as such but hides behind arguments of various kinds, but which have their weakness as a common denominator. There is, for example, the pragmatic one according to which a party should not show its shame in public because discrepancies of any kind displease voters, who end up penalizing, when they go to the polls, the parties that demonstrate them. Another disguise for this same fear is the, if possible weaker, argument that any criticism can be used as a weapon by the electoral rival, so disagreement is ultimately a way of playing into the hands of those who should be attacked the most. Finally, there would be the argument with the greatest political charge, and it is the one that consists in confusing disagreement with dissidence, as if the slightest disagreement, for example, with a certain initiative of the government or party, was equivalent to the complete questioning of its strategy, if not of its founding principles.
Probably, at this point, evoking La Boétie and his voluntary servitude would be a bit forced (even if the temptation to do so is great). Perhaps it would be enough to put the matter in terms of a paradox, which seems to constitute, let’s call it that, democratic Caesarism. Because, in fact, the new internal structure of the organization has as its founding moment a collective decision, with the bases taking the floor, the recovery of their voice by the militancy, or any other similar unbeatable formulation. The paradox arrives at the moment in which the effects of that decision are confirmed, with all dissenting voices silenced and critical words marginalised, if not directly cancelled. The bases supported the leader, but this relationship has no way out. Therefore, the paradox could well be formulated in these terms: those who, consciously or unconsciously, had promoted a direct relationship between the militants and the organization’s management, ended up transferring all decision-making capacity to it. So basically what they ended up deciding was to stop deciding, they chose to stop choosing, they voted not to vote until the acclaimed leader decides. In short, they decided not to think for themselves and to wait for the training management to tell them what to think in each new situation. Little happens to us.
