Why is the SWPs attack on Bakunins organisation ironic?
That the SWP attack Bakunin’s organisational schema (see last section) is somewhat ironic. After all, the Bolshevik party system had many of the features of Bakunin’s organisational plan. If Bakunin, quite rightly, should be attacked for certain aspects of these ideas, then so must Bolshevik parties like the SWP. For example, Lenin argued in favour of centralisation and secrecy in his work What is to be Done?. In this work he argued as follows: “The active and widespread participation of the masses will not suffer; on the contrary, it will benefit by the fact that a ‘dozen’ experienced revolutionaries, no less professionally trained than the police, will centralise all the secret side of the work — prepare leaflets, work out approximate plans and appoint bodies of leaders for each urban district, for each factory district and for each educational institution, etc. [our emphasis] (I know that exception will be taken to my ‘undemocratic’ views, but I shall reply to this altogether unint
