Итог полностью

38 The reader will no doubt think of the Gaullist adventure. But one could also find an equivalent in an altogether different region of the social and political space. Thus Denis Lacome observes that elected representatives in the Communist Party who enjoy a personal notoriety almost always owe their status as ‘local personalities’ to some ‘heroic act’ performed during the Second World War (ibid.. p. 69).

39 That being said, a political mission can be distinguished, even in this case, from a mere bureaucratic function by virtue of the fact that it always remains, as we have seen, a personal mission, which involves the whole person.

40 litis is not the only feature which suggests that the workers* movement fulfils for the working class a function homologous to that which the

Church fulfils for peasants and for certain fractions of the pelite bourgeoisie.

41 Here one can quote Michels: ‘The most tenaciously conservative members of the organization are, in fact, those who are most definitely dependent on it* (Michels, Political Parties, p. 124). And further on:⁴ A party which has a welt-filled treasury is in a position, not only to dispense with the material aid of its comparatively affluent members, and thus to prevent the acquirement by these of a preponderant influence in the party, but also to provide itself with a body of officials who are loyal and devoted because they are entirely dependent on the party for their means of subsistence¹ (ibid., p. 129). Or Gramsci: ‘Today, the representatives of established interests * i.e. of the cooperatives, the employment agencies, the shared land-tenancies, the municipalities and the providential societies - although they are in a minority in the party, have the upper hand over the orators, the journalists, the teachers and the lawyers, who pursue unattainable and vacuous ideological projects’ (Gramsci, Selections from Political Writings, 1921-1926, p.M),

42 Weber, Economy and Society, vol. 2. p. 1165.

43 These analyses also apply to the case of the Church: as the political capital of the Church is objectified rn institutions and. as is the case in the recent period, in jobs controlled by the Church (in teaching, the press, youth movements, etc. ), the Church’s power tends to rest less and less on instilling doctrine and the ‘cure of souls'; in this way. it can doubtless be better measured by the number of jobs and agents indirectly controlled by the Church than by the numbers of mass-goers’ or *Easter-worshipper<

44 ‘The normal development of the trade union organization produced results that were the complete opposite of those that had been foreseen by trade unionism: the workers who had become trade union leaders completely lost their vocation as workers and their class spirit and acquired all the characteristics of the petty-bourgeois functionary, intellectually lazy, morally perverted or easy to pervert. The broader the trade union movement became, as it embraced great masses of people, the more officialdom took over' (A, Gramsci, Ecrits politiques, vol. Ill (Paris: Gallimard. 1974). pp. 21)6-7; translated from the French).

45 ‘Town halls represent the essential base of the Socialist Party’s means, men and influence ... So long as there are town halls, the party will last, will survive, whatever happens. It is easy to understand why the town halls are the socialists¹ mainstay. You might even say they are the only really serious thing. Ideology, declarations of principle, plans for action, programmes, debates, discussions, dialogues, all that is important, of course ... But on the local level, the party is in power, or at least has the illusion that it is. That is why all the playing around has to stop when municipal elections come up. You have to face up to

concrete problems. You defend your territory, without any theoretical prattling, strenuously, right up to the bitter end* (P, Guidoni. Hiuoire du nouveau Parti socialist? (Paris: Tema-AcUon, 1973). p. 12(1).

46 One can observe this in the apparently most unfavourable case, that of the Bolshevik Party: ‘Behind the facade of declared political and organizational unity, known under the name of ‘democratic centralism", there was no such thing as a uniform Bolshevik political philosophy or ideology in 1917 or even several years later. On the contrary, the party included a remarkable variety of points of view: differences extended from semantic points to conflicts over rhe most basic options' (Cohen, Nicolas Boukharine, p. 19).