The Political Party

I have said that the protagonist of the new Prince in modern times cannot be an individual hero, but the political party, that is, that particular party which, at different times and in the different internal relations of the various nations, aims (and is rationally and historically founded for this end) to found a new type of State.

It must be observed that in the totalitarian régimes, the traditional function of the institution of the Crown is in reality taken over by the party which is totalitarian precisely because it acquires this function. Although every party is the expression of a social group and only one social group, nevertheless certain parties represent only one social group, in certain given conditions, in so far as they exercise a function of balance and of arbitration between the interests of their own group and the other groups, and ensure that the development of the represented group takes place with the consent and assistance of the allied groups, if not actually of decidedly opposed groups. The constitutional formula of the king or the president of a republic who “reigns but does not govern” is the juridical formula which expresses this function of arbiter, the concern of the constitutional parties not to “unmask” the Crown or the president; the formulae of the non-responsibility of the head of the State for governmental acts and of ministerial responsibility, are the casuistry of the general principle of guardianship of the conception of State unity, of the consent of the governed for State action, whatever may be the immediate personnel and party of the government.

With the totalitarian party, these formulae lose their meaning and the institutions which used to function according to such formulae are diminished; but the function itself is incorporated in the party, which will exalt the abstract concept of "State" and will seek by various means to give the impression that the function of "impartial force" is active and effective.

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Is political action (in the strict sense) necessary in order to be able to speak of a “political party”? It can be observed that in the modern world, in many countries, because of the needs of the struggle or for other causes, the organic and fundamental parties are split up into segments, each one of which assumes the name of “party” and even of an independent party. Often therefore the intellectual High Command of the organic party does not belong to any of these fractions but operates as a leading force standing on its own, above the parties and sometimes is even believed to be such by the public. This function can be studied with greater precision if we begin from the point of view that a newspaper (or a group of newspapers), a review (or group of reviews), is also a “party”, or “fraction of a party”, or “the function of a determined party”. One could think of the function of The Times in England and of that which the Corriere della Sera had in Italy, and also of the function of the so-called “information Press”, styling itself “apolitical”, and even of the sporting and technical press. For the rest, the phenomenon offers interesting aspects in countries where a single governmental, totalitarian party exists: because such a party no longer has a strictly political function but only one of technique, propaganda, police, and of moral and cultural influence. The political influence is indirect: since, if no other legal parties exist, there always exist other parties either in fact or in tendency which are legally uncoercible, against which one polemicises and struggles as in a game of blindman’s buff. In any case it is certain that in such parties the cultural functions predominate, giving rise to a political jargon: that is, political questions are reclothed in cultural forms and as such become unresolvable.

But one traditional party has an essentially “indirect” character, in other words, it presents itself explicitly as purely “educative” (lucus, etc.), moralistic, cultural (sic): and this is the anarchist movement: even so-called direct action (terrorism) is conceived as “propaganda” by example: from this the judgment may be further strengthened that the anarchist movement is not autonomous, but exists on the margin of the other parties, “to educate them”. One can speak of an “anarchism” inherent in every organic party. (What are the “intellectual or cerebral anarchists” if not an aspect of this “marginalism” in respect of the great parties of the ruling social groups?) The “economist sect” itself was an historical aspect of this phenomenon.

Two forms of "party" that seem to abstain from immediate political action therefore present themselves: that constituted by an élite of men of culture, who have the function of leading from the point of view of culture, of general ideology, a large movement of allied parties (which are in reality fractions of the same organic party); and, in the most recent period, a party not of an élite, but of the masses, who as masses have no other political function than that of generic loyalty, of a military kind, to a visible or invisible political centre (often the visible centre is the mechanism of command of forces which are unwilling to show themselves in full light but only work indirectly, through interposed people and through an "interposed ideology"). The masses are simply for "maneuvering" and are "kept busy" with moral sermons, with sentimental goads, with messianic myths of an awaited fabulous age, in which all the present contradictions and poverty will be automatically resolved and healed.

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To write the history of a political party, it is really necessary to face up to a whole series of problems, much less simple ones than Robert Michels, for example, believes, though he is held to be a specialist in the subject. What will the history of a party be? Will it be merely the account of the internal life of a political organisation? How it comes into existence, the first groups constituting it, the ideological polemics through which its programme and its conception of the world and of life were formed? In this case one would be dealing with the history of restricted intellectual groups and sometimes with the political biography of a single individual. The framework, therefore, will have to be larger and more comprehensive.

One will have to write the history of a certain mass of men who have followed the promoters, sustained them with their faith, with their loyalty and with their discipline, or criticised them "realistically" by dispersing or by remaining passive in response to some lead. But will this mass only consist of the party members? Will it be enough to follow the congresses, votes, etc., i.e. the whole of the activity and modes of existence through which a party mass shows its will? Obviously it will be necessary to take account of the social group of which the given party is the expression and the most advanced part: the history of a party, in other words, must be the history of a particular social group. But this group is not isolated; it has friends, allies, opponents and enemies. Only from the complex picture of social and State life (often even with international ramifications) will emerge the history of a certain party. It can therefore be said that to write the history of a party means in fact to write the general history of a country from a monographic point of view, in order to bring out a characteristic aspect. A party will have greater or less significance and weight, precisely to the extent to which its particular activity has weighed more or less in determining the history of a country.

That is why one's conception of what a party is and ought to be results from the way in which one writes the history of a party. The sectarian will rejoice in minor internal facts, which will have for him an esoteric significance and will fill him with mystical enthusiasm; the historian, however, who gives to everything the importance which it has in the general picture, will concentrate above all on the real efficacy of the party, on its determining power, positive or negative, in having contributed to creating an event or in having prevented other events from coming about.

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The point of knowing when a party was formed, i.e. acquired a precise and permanent task, gives rise to many discussions and often also, only too often, to a form of arrogance, which is no less ridiculous and dangerous than the "national arrogance" of which Vico speaks. True, it can be said that a party is never completely formed, in the sense that every development creates new tasks and functions, and in the sense that for certain parties the paradox is true that they are completed and formed only when they no longer exist, i.e. when their existence has become historically useless. Thus, since every party is only a class nomenclature, it is evident that for the party which sets itself to abolish the division into classes, its perfection and completion consists in no longer existing, since classes, and therefore their expressions, no longer exist. But here I want to emphasise a particular stage in this process of development, the stage following that in which a fact may or may not exist, in the sense that the necessity for its existence has not yet become "peremptory", but depends in "great part" on the existence of persons of extraordinary will-power.

When does a party become historically "necessary"? When the conditions for its "triumphs", for its inevitable assumption of State Power are at least in process of formation and allow their further developments to be normally foreseen. But then can one say, in these conditions, that a party cannot be destroyed by normal means? To answer this it is necessary to develop the argument: in order that a party shall exist the converging of three fundamental elements (i.e. of three groups of elements) is necessary:

1. A widespread element of common, average men, whose participation is provided by discipline and faith, not by a creative and highly organisational spirit. Without these the party would not exist, it is true, but it is also true that the party would not exist "only" with these. They are a force in so far as there is someone who centralises, organises, disciplines them, and in the absence of this force they would break up and cancel each other out in scattered impotence. I do not deny that every one of these elements could become a cohesive force, but we are speaking of them precisely at the stage when they are not this and are not in a condition to be so, or if they are it is only in a restricted circle, politically ineffective, and inconsequential.
2. The principal cohesive element, which centralises in the national field, which renders effective and powerful the totality of forces which left to themselves would count for nothing or very little; this element is endowed with a highly cohesive, centralising and disciplinary power which is also, perhaps because of this, inventive (if what is meant is "inventive" in a certain direction according to certain lines of force, certain perspectives and certain premises). It is also true that this element alone would not form a party, but it would do so more than the first element. They would be generals without an army, but in reality it is easier to create an army than to create generals. It is equally true that an already existing army is destroyed if the generals disappear, while the existence of a group of generals, trained to work together, in agreement among themselves, with common ends, is not slow to form an army even where none exists.
3. A middle element, which links the first element with the second, and puts them into contact, not only "physically" but morally and intellectually. In fact, for every party there exist "definite proportions" between these three elements and the greatest effectiveness is achieved when these "definite proportions" are realised. Given these conditions one can say that a party cannot be destroyed by normal means, since if there necessarily exists the second element, whose origin is tied to the existence of the objective material conditions, although in a dispersed and vague state (and if this second element does not exist all argument is pointless), then the other two elements cannot help being formed, i.e. the first element which necessarily forms the third as its continuation and means of expression.

For this to come about it is necessary that the iron conviction be formed that a certain solution to vital problems is necessary. Without this conviction the second element, whose destruction is easier on account of its smaller numbers, will not be formed, but it is necessary that this second element, if destroyed, leaves as an inheritance a ferment from which it can be reformed. And where can this ferment exist better and be able to form itself better than in the first and third elements, which, evidently, are the most homogeneous with the second? The activity of the second element to constitute this is therefore fundamental: the criterion of judgment of this second element is to be looked for:

1. in what it actually does;
2. in what it prepares on the hypothesis of its own destruction.

Of the two facts it is difficult to say which is the more important. Since defeat in the struggle must always be foreseen, the preparation of its own successors must be an element of equal importance with what is done for victory.

As regards party "arrogance", this may be said to be worse than the "national arrogance" of which Vico speaks. Why? Because a nation cannot help existing and in the fact that it exists it is always possible, even with good will and bringing forward authorities, to find that this existence is full of destiny and significance. On the other hand a party can cease to exist by its own act. It must never be forgotten that, in the struggle between nations, it is in the interest of each nation that the other should be weakened by internal struggles and that the parties are precisely the elements of internal struggles. For the parties, therefore, it is always possible to ask whether they exist by their own powers, as real necessity, or whether they exist only for the interests of others (and in fact in polemics this point is never forgotten, rather is it a persistent theme, especially when the reply is not in doubt, which means that it has been in doubt but is so no longer). Naturally the person who lets himself be torn to pieces by these doubts would be a fool. Politically the question has only a momentary relevance. In the history of the so-called principle of nationality, foreign interventions in favour of national parties which disturbed the internal order of antagonistic States are innumerable, so much so that when we speak, for example, of Cavour's "Eastern" policy we wonder whether we are speaking of a permanent line of action, or of a strategem of the moment to weaken Austria in view of 1859 and 1866. Thus in the Mazzinian movement of the early 1870's (for example, the Barsanti affair), we see the intervention of Bismarck, who in view of the war with France and the danger of a Franco-Italian alliance, thought to weaken Italy by internal conflicts. Thus, in the events of June, 1914 some see the intervention of the Austrian General Staff in the light of the war to come. As we see, the casuistry takes many forms, and it is necessary to have clear ideas about it. Admitted that whatever one does, one always plays somebody's game, the important thing is to seek in every way to play one's own game, i.e. to win completely. Anyway, we must despise party "arrogance" and substitute for it concrete facts. Those who substitute arrogance for facts, or carry on a policy of arrogance, are certainly to be suspected of very little seriousness. It is not necessary to add that it is essential for parties to avoid even the "justified" appearance of playing somebody else's game, especially if the somebody is a foreign State; but if someone tries to exploit this nothing can be done about it.

It is difficult to exclude the fact that some political parties (of the ruling group but also of subordinate groups) also fulfil a police function, that is, one of tutelage to a certain political and legal order. If this were shown, with precision, the question would have to be posed in other terms: i.e. about the ways and directions in which this function comes to be exercised. Is the sense repressive or propagandist, i.e. is it of a reactionary or a progressive character? Does the given party exercise its police function by conserving an external, extrinsic order, as tethering rope of the live forces of history, or does it do so by aiming to raise the people to a new level of civilisation whose political and legal order is a programmatic expression? In fact, a law finds out the people who break it: (1) among the socially reactionary elements whom the law has dispossessed; (2) among the progressive elements whom the law represses; (3) among the elements who have not reached the level of civilisation which the law may represent. The police function of a party can therefore be progressive or regressive: it is progressive when it aims to keep the reactionary forces inside the orbit of legality and to raise the backward masses to the level of the new legality. It is regressive when it aims to repress the live forces of society and maintain a superseded, anti-historic legality which has become extrinsic. For the rest, the functioning of a given party furnishes discriminating criteria: when a party is progressive it functions "democratically" (in accordance with democratic centralism), when it is regressive it functions "bureaucratically" (in the sense of bureaucratic centralism). The party in this second case is purely executive, not deliberative: it is then technically a police organisation and its name of "political party" is pure mythological metaphor.