Part Two -- How
Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionaries And Their Theory, Dialectical Materialism, Have
Damaged Marxism
This page might take
several seconds to load because of the many videos it has embedded in it.
However, for some reason I can't
work out, Internet Explorer 11 will no longer play these videos. Certainly not on my computer!
As far as I can tell, they
play in other Browsers.
The material presented below should be read in conjunction with Essay Nine
Part One
-- where conclusions I seem to take for granted are substantiated --, as well as Essay Ten
Part One,
where this part of the story has been concluded.
If you are using
Internet Explorer 10 (or later), you might find some of the links I have used won't
work properly unless you switch to 'Compatibility View' (in the Tools Menu); for
IE11 select 'Compatibility View Settings' and then add this site
(anti-dialectics.co.uk). I have as yet
no idea how Microsoft's new browser,
Edge, will handle these links.
If you are viewing this
with
Mozilla Firefox, you might not be able to read all the symbols I have used
-- Mozilla often replaces some of them with an
"°". I do
not know if other browsers are similarly affected.
Some
of the links I have posted below -- which were meant to take the reader to
Richard Seymour's blog, Lenin's Tomb -- no
longer seem to work. It now appears there has been a slight change to Lenin
Tomb's URL. It will take me some time to correct them all!
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
For those who might find the length of this Essay somewhat daunting
-- it is, after all, about the same length as a 450 page book! -- I have summarised its main points
here.
Others who might still be puzzled by the length of this Essay should
perhaps reflect on the fact that anything
shorter would hardly do justice to this important and universally neglected
topic.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
As is the case with all my
work, nothing here should be read as an attack
either on Historical Materialism [HM] -- a theory I fully accept --, or,
indeed,
on revolutionary socialism. I remain as committed to the self-emancipation of the
working class and the dictatorship of the proletariat as I was when I first became a revolutionary
nearly thirty years ago. My aim is simply to assist in the
scientific development of Marxism by (i) Demolishing a
dogma that has in
my opinion seriously
damaged our movement from its inception:
Dialectical Materialism [DM] -- or, in its more political form, 'Materialist
Dialectics' [MD] --, (ii) Exposing the class origin and class position of the
leading comrades who
invented, have accepted or who now promulgate this theory, and (iii) Revealing
at least
one source of the countless debacles and disasterswe have witnessed
on the far-left over the last century or so.
The
difference between
DM and HM as I see it is explained
here.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
Readers new to my ideas would be wrong
conclude from the title of this Essay (or, indeed, this site) that it is all
about DM and the effect it has had on Marxism. This Essay and this site are
just as focussed on the class origin of the founders of our movement, and of
those who control its ideas today, as it is on DM.
Hence, it breaks entirely new ground -- as anyone who reads on will soon
discover --, providing for the first time [**]
an HM explanation why our movement so often fails and why much that we on the
Revolutionary Left touch sooner-or-later becomes corrupted, fragmented, and
then turns to dust.
[**] This
particular comment is no longer strictly true; a partial
explanation for the malaise that has afflicted the revolutionary left for at
least a century has now been posted
here. I have reproduced the core of its argument
below. While this 'new' explanation echoes Trotsky's analysis of
substitutionism (a topic covered
more fully in
Part One of this
Essay), it omits (a) Any mention of the wider class-based and structural problems our
movement has faced, and still faces, and (b) It completely ignores the historical and ideological
roots of this (possibly lethal) defect. Nor does it consider (c)
Why this keeps happening, and will keep happening unless we recognise the
problem and its causes. I
have addressed these issues in the Essays published at this site, but
more specifically in the material presented below.
[Another analysis, which I think also
beaks new ground, has just been posted
here, up-dated
here.]
While it is encouraging to see comrades attempting to account
politically and sociologically for
the serial disasters that regularly engulf the far-left , the analyses that have
so far appeared, including the above two, still refuseeven to consider the issues
raised in the previous handful of paragraphs. Indeed, the author of the second of
the above articles, who is also the owner
of the blog in question, refused to post my contribution to the debate! Below,
I also endeavour to explainwhy
such discussion has been deliberately curtailed -- why debate on this issue is still
heavily constrained
and why certain topics are considered taboo.
Update 01/01/2014: I ought to add
that my latest contribution, brief though it is, has been published at the
above site!
These untoward events
-- i.e., the many disasters and debacles experienced by the far-left -- are and were predictable given
the things you will read below, as are the many more we will witness in the future.
Unfortunately, failure,
sectarian fragmentation, expulsion and bureaucratic cover-up seem to be the only
areas where fellow revolutionaries display genuine expertise!
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
A section devoted to the on-going crisis
in the UK-SWP (that used to form part of this preamble)
has now been moved
since
these opening comments were becoming a little too long. A new section: 'The
Last Death Throes Of The UK-SWP?' has just been added to the Appendices as a result of the
latest wave of resignations following on the December 2013 Conference. [On this
particular
crisis also see
here and
here in the same Appendix.]
Update 09/06/2014: We now learn of
new accusations of rape, this time in the Swedish Trotskyist, Socialist
Justice Party (affiliated with the
CWI). More details
here (trigger warning: descriptions of sexual violence),
alongside allegations that this is a historic problem right across the entire left.
Update 13/12/2016:
Two
years on and
this is the only new information I could find on-line about the above
allegations.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
It is important to
underline what I am not doing in this Essay: I am not arguing that
DM/MD have helped ruin Marxism
and therefore they are false. My argument is in fact as follows: as the
Essays published at this site
show, DM/MD make not one ounce of sense -- to such an extent that it is impossible
to
determine whether or not they are true --, hence it is no big surprise that they
have not only
helped cripple our movement, they have assisted in no small way in its
corruption.
[Why that
is so is also explained below -- for example,
here and
here.]
Nor am I blaming all our woes on DM/MD
(note the italicised word "helped" the last but one paragraph). However, that particular topic is
one of the main themes of Essay Ten
Part One,
and readers are directed there for more details.
Our 'woes' clearly have many
causes, but this Essay highlights two of the
main reasons why Dialectical Marxism has
now become almost synonymous with failure, corruption and sectarian in-fighting.
Namely:
(a) The class origin, socialisation, and class position of the founders of our movement,
and of those who now lead it or control its ideas, and (b)
The philosophical theory with which they have saddled Marxism.
[Note also the
use of the term "Dialectical Marxism". I am not
criticising Marxism as such, nor am I claiming it has failed -- it is just that the non-dialectical version hasn't been
road-tested yet!]
Of course, there are
other reasons why our movement has been such a long-term failure, but
comrades in general -- that is, of those who are even prepared to acknowledge
our appalling record -- comrades in general are well aware of what these
are. Hence, in what follows, I have largely ignored these "other reasons". That
doesn't mean they aren't important; I would only be raking over familiar territory if I included them in this
Essay, making it even longer!
I am only publishing this on the Internet because several comrades whose
opinions I respect urged me to do so, even though the work you see before you is less
than half complete. Many of my ideas are still in the developmental stage, as it
were, and need much work and time devoted to them before they mature.
In addition, this Essay has
been written
from within the Trotskyist tradition, but because I have found that my work is
being read by other Marxists, I have had to incorporate an analysis of the
negative influence that items (a) and (b)
above have had on Communism and Maoism. Since I am far less
familiar with these two political currents, many of my comments in this area
are even more tentative than elsewhere. I will add more details as my researches
continue.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
Independently of this, it is worth adding
that phrases like "ruling-class theory", "ruling-class view of reality",
and "ruling-class ideology" (etc.) -- used at this site in connection with
Traditional Philosophy and the concepts that underpin DM/MD (upside down
or 'the right way up') -- aren't meant to imply that all or even
most members of various ruling-classes actually invented this way of thinking or of
seeing the world (although some of them did -- for example,
Heraclitus,
Plato,
Cicero and
Marcus Aurelius).
They are intended to
highlight theories (or "ruling ideas") that are conducive to, or which rationalise, the
interests of the various ruling-classes history has inflicted on humanity, whoever invents them.
Up until recently this
dogmatic approach to knowledge had almost invariably been promoted by thinkers who relied on
ruling-class patronage, or who, in one capacity or another, helped run the
system
for the elite.
However, that will become the
central topic of Parts Two and Three of Essay Twelve (when they are published; until then, the reader is
directed
here,
here, and
here, for further
details.)
[Exactly
how and why the above applies to DM has been explained in other Essays
published at this site (especially
here,
here,
and here).
In addition to the three links in the previous paragraph, I have summarised the
argument (but this time aimed at absolute beginners!)
here.]
It is worth pointing out, too, that a good 50% of my case
against DM/MD (along with much that I have to say about the class origin and
class position of leading Marxists) has been relegated to the End Notes.
Indeed, in this particular Essay, most of the supporting evidence is to
be found there! That has been done to allow the main body of the Essay to flow a little more
smoothly. If readers want to appreciate more fully my case against petty-bourgeois
Marxism and its theory -- DM/MD -- they will
need to read this material, too. In many respects I have greatly qualified and
amplified what I have to say in the main body of this Essay. I have also raised objections to my own arguments (some obvious, many not -- and some that will
no doubt have occurred to
the reader), which I have then proceeded to answer.
I explain why I have adopted this tactic in
Essay One.
If readers skip this material, then my answers to any
qualms or objections they might have will be missed, as will my expanded comments,
supporting evidence
and clarifications.
Since I have been
debating this theory with comrades for well over 25 years, I have heard all the
objections there are! (Links to many of the more recent 'debates' on the
Internet can be found
here.)
Anyone who can't be bothered to plough
through all the material I have presented in this Essay can use the
Quick Links below, or consult the summaries of key points I have posted
here,
here
and
here.
A very basic outline of my overall objections
to DM/MD can be accessed here; why I embarked on this project is
explained
here.
Anyone puzzled by the unremittingly
hostile tone I have adopted toward DM/MD (and, indeed, toward anyone who
propagates either or both of these
theories) should read
this
if they want to know
my reasons.
Some parts of this Essay are, unfortunately, a little
repetitive. I am in fact trying to make the same point from several different
angles. An "all-round" perspective, as Lenin might have said.
Incidentally, I have no
illusions that this Essay (or any of the other Essays published at this site)
will make a blind bit of difference, or even that it will get a fair hearing
from the DM-faithful. Dialectically distracted comrades cling to
DM/MD for non-rational reasons (explored
fully in what follows). It will take revolutionary workers themselves
to rejuvenate our movement and save dialecticians from themselves. This will
only happen if or when the proletariat rid the world of the alienating forces that make it
attractive for the DM-faithful to look to mystical concepts ('contradictions', 'the
negation of the negation', 'unities of opposites', 'determinations',
'mediations', 'moments' -- upside
down or 'the right way up') to help explain, and thus influence, social development.
What I hope to achieve is prevent younger comrades from catching this
Hermetic Virus.
Finally, in what follows I am dealing with
all forms of Dialectical Marxism, not just with Dialectical
Trotskyism (or even with the structure and ideology of the UK-SWP!). Some of the things
I have to say therefore apply to all forms of Dialectical Marxism, while all of
them apply to some.
[On the almost identical use of DM across
all forms of
Dialectical Marxism, see here and here.
Again, on the difference between HM and DM, see
here.]
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
As of September 2017, this Essay is just
under 204,000 words long. As noted earlier: a muchshorter version of some of its main
points can be accessed
here,
and an even shorter one still,
here.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
This Essay was becoming
rather unwieldy so I have moved the Appendices to a
separate area.
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
The
material below doesn't represent my final view of any of the issues raised; it is
merely 'work in progress'.
Anyone using these links must remember that
they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier
sections.
Also, if your Firewall/Browser has a 'pop-up' blocker, you
might need to press the "Ctrl" key at the same time or the links above and below
won't work!
I have adjusted the
font size used at this site to ensure that even those with impaired
vision can read what I have to say. If the text is still either too
big or too small for you, please adjust your browser settings!
This half of Essay Nine deals with some
of the main background reasons for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism,
linking it with the class origin and class position of those who control, or
have controlled, its
ideas and party structures. It also
exposes the reasons why dialecticians cling to
DM
like
terminally insecure limpets -- despite (a) The damage it has done to Marxism, and (b) The fact that it has presided over
150 years
of almost total failure.
In these respects this Essay is a continuation of the argument developed in Essay NinePart One, which is further elaborated
upon in Essay Ten Part One
--
where the usual
replies advanced by dialecticians to allegations like
the above will be dealt with, and more
general theoretical
issues (concerning the relation between theory and practice)
are analysed.
Spoiler alert: In the aforementioned
Essay it will be shown
that truth can't be tested in practice, and that even if it could,
practice has returned a very clear message: Dialectical Marxism has been refuted
by history.
[Notice the use of the phrase "Dialectical
Marxism", here -- and not "Marxism" --, as noted above, non-dialectical
Marxism hasn't been tried yet. Some might think that the phrase "non-dialectical
Marxism" is an
oxymoron;
I have dealt with that response
here and
here.]
In which case,
dialecticians would be well advised to avoid using practice as a test
of the correctness of their theory.
In Essay Ten Part One, I
will also reveal
why the claim that Dialectical Marxism has been
a long-term and
abject failure is no exaggeration.
[To save on needless repetition, from now on,
when readers encounter the abbreviation "DM" ("Dialectical Materialism") on its own, they should
in general view
this as incorporating a reference to MD ("Materialist Dialectics"), as well -- and/or
vice versa.]
Even though it had been obvious to many for some time, several comrades
have recently voiced concern that the revolutionary left is stagnating, if not experiencing
a long slow
decline:
"The 'strategic perplexity' of the left
confronted with the gravest crisis of capitalism in generations has been hard to
miss. Social democracy continues down the road of social liberalism. The
far-left has struggled to take advantage of ruling class disarray. Radical left
formations have tended to stagnate at best." [Seymour
(2012), p.191. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site. Bold emphasis added.]
Of course, as Richard points out, there are two notable exceptions to
this generalisation -- the gains made by the electoral left in Greece and
France (although, by
mid-July 2015 it
was clear that the
'advances' made by Syriza weren't
worth the paper by which they had been elected -- confirming yet again that not even
reformist socialism can be built in one country!), but it is far from clear that the 'Dialectical Left' have benefitted
(or will benefit) from this in any way. In addition, the anti-austerity
left in Spain, spearheaded by
Podemos, have began to make
significant electoral gains in 2015. Finally, the UK
Labour Party left has experienced a
meteoric rise in numbers culminating in the
election of Jeremy Corbyn as its leader. Despite this, the 'dialectical
left' has seen no corresponding growth.
However, a movement that is constantly
fragmenting, and which maintains an almost incessant internecine war between its member parties,
isn't likely to grow to a size that will threaten even a handful of bosses or
local police chiefs, let alone the entire capitalist class.
Nor is it ever likely to impress radicalised workers
or the young.
"There is
no question that the
global recession on the back of the constant 'war on terror' has produced a
radicalisation. Anti-capitalism is widespread. Evidence comes from the sheer
scale of popular mobilisations over the last decade. Once,
achieving a demonstration of 100,000 in Britain was regarded as an immense
achievement. When grizzled lefties looked back on the demo of that size against
the Vietnam War in October 1968, tears welled in their eyes. Now a London demo
has to be counted in hundreds of thousands, to be a success.
"Yet this radicalisation, in
Britain at least, has not been accompanied by the growth of any of the
political currents which you would expect to benefit from this anti-capitalism.
And I mean any, even those who reject the label 'Party'.
"The situation the
left finds itself in is worse than when it entered the new century....
"No other period of
radicalisation in British history has experienced this lack of any
formal political expression. It's not that people opposing austerity,
war and much else are without politics. They are busy devouring
articles, books, online videos and much else." [Quoted from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site. Bold emphases added.]
"Let's start with a simple observation:
the
revolutionary left is not growing. Indeed I am perhaps being generous in
referring merely to stagnation rather than decline....
"Yet we live in an age in which many revolutionary socialist groups predict a
growth in the revolutionary left -- including whatever their own organisation is
-- and indeed sometimes speak as if it's already happening. So for someone from
within the revolutionary left -- like me -- to make this comment may be somewhat
uncharacteristic.
"There are two reasons why this stagnation might surprise people and therefore
requires explanation. One is historical precedent. Previous periods of systemic
crisis -- whether the First World War, the 1930s or the post-1968 era -- have
led to a growth in the revolutionary left or in other sections of the Left (or
both). So shouldn't that be happening now?
"The second reason is that it's not like we have a shortage of resistance to
capitalism, or particular aspects of capitalist crisis, in the current period.
Shouldn't such phenomena -- Arab revolutions, Occupy, general strikes in
southern Europe, a widespread anti-establishment mood etc -- find expression in
the growth of the revolutionary left?" [Quoted from
here. Bold
emphases added.]
"[T]here
have been some notable, in some cases historic, movements of resistance. The
global anti-capitalist movement which began with mass demonstrations against the
World Trade Organisation in Seattle in 1999 was a signal event. It brought
together climate change and environmental activists with trade union
demonstrators -- the famous teamster-turtle alliance. It named the enemy in the
most general political terms: capitalism. And it self-identified as an
'anti-capitalist' movement. This was new. I remember watching the BBC main news
bulletin where the commentator said 'anti-capitalist protestors took over the
centre of Seattle today'. I'd rarely heard the BBC use the word 'capitalist',
let alone the words 'anti-capitalist' before. This term became the hallmark of
many demonstrations to this day. It had a great strength: an immediate
identification of the entire system as the problem. But there was also a
corresponding weakness: a much lower level of direct workplace struggle than in
the 1968-1975 period.
"Even so the
movement's political strength became greater as the anti-war movement arose,
involving many of the same forces, in response to the invasions of Afghanistan
and Iraq in 2002-2003. Again, just as the anti-capitalist movement had
popularised to millions of ordinary citizens language once the exclusive
property of the left, so the rise of the mass anti-war movement made
anti-imperialism a mass popular force on a scale that even exceeded that
achieved by the anti-Vietnam protests. At the same time, and partly as a
consequence, establishment politics became hollowed out to an unprecedented
degree. Faced with mainstream parties all of whom embraced neo-liberalism at
home and defended imperialism abroad the old system began to crack. Political
party membership fell and turnout in elections declined. Opinion polls revealed
that public faith in politicians, the police, the media and other pillars of the
status quo were at historic lows.
"And yet at the
same time the organisation of the left was also facing a crisis. The Labour Left
has probably never been weaker. The Communist Party left is much reduced after
the body blow of the East European revolutions of 1989, far longer and deeper in
their effect on the left than many thought at the time. The revolutionary far
left has, in all too many cases, retreated into sectarian isolation.
"In fact the central paradox of left politics can
be formulated in this way: at a time when an unprecedented level of ideological
radicalism have seized large sections of the working class the far left has been
unable to strengthen itself because it is wedded to 1970s models of industrial
militancy which prevents it from understanding the tasks before it." [Preface to
the new edition of The ABC of Socialism, quoted from
here. Accessed 21/06/2014.
Bold emphases added.]
Of course, Rees's explanation for the failure
of the far-left to make any progress is itself misplaced; even sections of the
left that have abandoned "1970's models of industrial militancy" have made
little or no progress. We must look elsewhere for the reason why the
revolutionary left has signally failed to connect with this radicalisation, and into areas
dialecticians like Reesrefuse even to consider, and will even
reject out-of-hand.
It is quite remarkable that
comrades who will in one breath extol the virtues of
HM, will in
another
refuse to apply it to the left itself.
"The paradox of the present
situation is that capital is weak -- but the radical left is much weaker.
Alternatively, capital is economically weak, but much stronger politically, less
because of mass ideological commitment to the system than because of the
weakness of credible anti-capitalist alternatives....
"By contrast today, nearly
seven years after the financial crash began, the radical left has not been
weaker for decades. We have seen the following pattern over the past 15 years.
The period between the late 1990s and the mid-2000s can be described as an era
of good feelings for the radical left. In the immediate aftermath of the
collapse of the Stalinist regimes in 1989-91 neoliberalism had seemed
all-conquering. But the Seattle protests of November 1999 marked the beginning
of a wave of new movements of resistance demanding another kind of globalisation
that were based not just in the North but in parts of the Global South. The
events of 9/11 and the proclamation of a global state of emergency by the
administration of George W Bush provoked an extension of resistance from the
economic to the political, as the altermondialiste [Anti-Globalisation -- RL]
networks that had emerged from Seattle and the July 2001 protests at Genoa
launched the anti-war movement responsible for the unprecedented day of global
protest against the invasion of Iraq on 15 February 2003....
"But May 2005 represented the
high-water mark for the radical left in Europe. Afterwards the process went into
reverse. Sometimes this took the form of organisational implosion: the splits in
the
SSP
in 2006 and in Respect in 2007 removed the most serious left electoral
challenges the Labour Party had faced for decades. Sometimes there were
electoral reverses, such as that suffered by the Bloco in 2011. Sometimes it was
both:
Rifondazione
cracked up as a result of both electoral eclipse and a series
of splits following its participation in 2006-8 in the centre-left coalition
government of
Romano Prodi, who continued the neoliberal and pro-war policies of
their predecessors.
"Disarray set in among the
radical left before the onset of the economic crisis: thus
George Galloway
launched his attack on the role of the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) within
Respect in August 2007, just as the credit crunch was beginning to develop. But
the process of fragmentation has continued against the background of the crisis.
Although developments in France have exercised a major influence on the radical
left internationally, new political formations came relatively late there: the
Parti
de Gauche, which split from the
Socialist Party
in 2008, and the
Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste
(NPA) launched at the beginning of 2009 by the
LCR. But, bested electorally by the Parti de Gauche and its allies (mainly
the Communist Party) in the Front de Gauche, the NPA suffered an agonising
internal crisis in 2011-12. This ended with the departure in July 2012 of
several hundred members, including many of the historic cadre of the LCR, to
form
Gauche Anticapitaliste
as part of the
Front
de Gauche.
"Meanwhile, the other major
organisation of the European revolutionary left, the SWP, suffered no less than
four splits -- one in the immediate aftermath of the Respect crisis in 2010, one
involving a group of mainly young members in Glasgow in 2011, and two associated
with the intense crisis in 2012-13 precipitated by allegations of rape against a
leading member. This crisis saw about 700 members (including, once again, some
of the historic cadre of the SWP) leave and three new far-left groups formed. Of
course, this particular drama underlines that the splits had very specific
driving forces: setting the SWP's troubles in context in no way dismisses the
issues of oppression and women's liberation that for many were the central
issue. But the broader pattern seems undeniable, as is indicated by the internal
divisions that affected the largest far-left group in the United States, the
International Socialist Organization, in 2013-14....
"Some 35 years ago, at the
dawn of the neoliberal era, Chris Harman wrote a memorable analysis
in this journalof the crisis the European revolutionary left was then
experiencing. That crisis was much more severe and concentrated than what we are
currently experiencing because it represented the collapse, in an astonishingly
short period of time, of many of the quite substantial far-left formations that
had emerged during the great upturn in workers' struggles of the late 1960s and
early 1970s -- formations that had grown very quickly, but that proved to lack
the political strength to cope with the downturn in class struggle that
developed in the second half of the 1970s. The present crisis is much more
diffuse, but in some ways more threatening, because the revolutionary left is
much weaker than it was in 1979. This makes the attempts to split and even to
destroy organisations such as the NPA and the SWP so irresponsible. These
parties represent decades of concentrated efforts by thousands of militants to
develop credible revolutionary alternatives. They are not to be thrown away
lightly." [Callinicos
(2014), pp.111-36.
Links and bold emphases added.]
In the above
article, Callinicos makes no attempt to apply a class analysis to this
decline -- and this is a long-term decline, too, onethat has been on-going now for several generations, despite
the upturns Callinicos mentions, which turned out to be temporary, anyway. For far
too many the far-left is now largely toxic. Callinicos not only fails to
note this, he ignores his and the UK-SWP's role in helping to accelerate it. To be
sure, Callinicos discusses several other plausible factors that have contributed
to the current weakness of the far-left, but he signally fails to account for
its propensity to fragment (he just notes that it happens) as well as its
tendency to decay into crises of corruption (which, in the case of the UK-SWP,
he briefly mentions but soon shrugs off, blaming others for its inevitable
consequences).
"[Break]
from the toy Bolshevism that has led to the dominance of monsters like
Gerry Healy
and to grotesque fractures such have been discussed on these pages, a practice
that has meant the Left has failed to grow in circumstances that have looked
favourable....
"The Left
can point to some successes out of proportion with its size: the
Anti Nazi
League, the poll tax campaign, the Stop the War campaign. Have these
mobilisations resulted in any genuine lasting and durable implantation of the
Left? I'm afraid not. It has to be discussed why not. The lessons have to be
learned. Then maybe left organisations can handle incidents such as the one
which triggered this whole debate with integrity and humanity and not a squalid
clumsiness that discredits it." [Quoted from
here; accessed 13/01/2013.
Bold emphases added.]
This malaise isn't just a UK or even a
European phenomenon; here are the thoughts of a US comrade:
"We should
start with the fact that the objective situation is tough and that the left
everywhere is having a hard time. Practically no organization or model has
succeeded as a consistent challenge to the neoliberal order, and the most
inspiring efforts in Greece and Egypt have stalled and been savagely turned
back, respectively. The US working class is disorganized and reeling under blow
after blow of austerity. The picture is defeat and flaming wreckage all across
the front line, and, in Richard Seymour's words, pointing to the example of 'the
CTU [Chicago Teachers Union -- RL] will not save us, comrades.' The American
capitalist class has done pretty well under Obama's leadership, and
profitability is at record levels (though they're not out of the woods of the
Great Recession just yet).
"So yes, the
world is not making it particularly easy to build a revolutionary socialist
organization at the moment (and perhaps for quite a while now). That also makes
it more likely that we're getting parts of our perspective and orientation
wrong. We cannot allow reference to the objective conditions to become a block
to self-evaluation, self-criticism, and change. And on the one hand, to say that
objective conditions have been extremely difficult for the past five years does
not square with our sense that the onset of the Great Recession would open a new
era of radicalization that would allow us to operate more effectively and grow.
Nor does it square with the advances in struggle in the Arab Spring and Occupy.
Nor does it square with the assertion that there is a 'continuing
radicalization' going on right now." [Sid Patel, quoted from
here. Accessed 08/02/2014.
Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis added.]
But,
"self-evaluation" and "self-criticism" doesn't apparently stretch as far as
applying an HM analysis to this chronic problem.
And, here are the comments of the
ISO-Renewal Faction:
"The international revolutionary
Left is in the throes of a serious crisis. This crisis has manifested itself
most clearly in organizational terms in the debacle of the Socialist Workers
Party in the UK; in the splits in the Nouveau Parti Anticapitaliste in France;
and in the attack on the revolutionary Left within SYRIZA. In practical terms,
it has manifested in the inability of the Left to steer major events: the
stalemate in the struggle against austerity in Greece and the growth of fascism;
the twists and turns of the Egyptian revolution; and the reversals suffered by
the defeat of the Wisconsin Uprising, the dramatic repression of Occupy, and
even the setbacks in spring 2013 after the heroic
Chicago Teachers' Union strike
testify to this fact. And on the theoretical plane, there remain large questions
about the character of neoliberalism and the current crisis; the shape of the
international working class at the end of the neoliberal period; and the
strategies and methods for the Left to organize a real struggle against a system
in crisis. It is a crisis that requires a deep re-examination of all previous
assumptions on the part of the entire international Left.
"We believe this crisis
has impacted the ISO as well, though we think that it is a more significant
development than simply 'the demoralization and disorientation experienced by
the Left in the wake of Occupy'. While the SWP's crisis is far more serious than
ours, we believe both crises (as well as the others mentioned) grow out of the
same general political background common to the entire revolutionary Left. In
the ISO, the response to this crisis has shifted from a perceived new political
openness in the first half of the year (most notably
Ahmed Shawki's talk at Socialism 2013 on Perspectives for the Left, which
was interpreted as such by people well beyond the ISO); to a debate around the
March on Washington and the United Front; to a closing of ranks, a renewed focus
on routines and low-level political education, and a retreat from
outward-looking events such as the regional fall Marxism conferences. The
assertion in the NC report that the ISO was 'under attack' was quite stunning to
us. But it has now become clear that the 'attack' is really a bout of
self-doubt, in our estimation brought on by the same factors that have
precipitated the crisis of the international Left: a misunderstanding of the
neoliberal period and its crisis, and a frustration at the ability of the Left
to advance." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 08/02/2014. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Links and bold emphases added.]
Who wants to join a movement that will
in all likelihood split before they receive their membership card?
Or, which will descend into yet another wave of scandal, corruption, and cover-up before they
attend their first paper sale?
As I have pointed out in several places on
the Internet:
"If you read the attempts
that have been made so far by comrades (here and elsewhere) to account for this
and other crises, you will struggle long and hard and to no avail to find a
materialist, class-based analysis why this sort of thing keeps happening.
Comrades blame such things on this or that foible or personality defect of that
or this comrade, or on this or that party structure. If we only had a different
CC, or a new constitution, everything would be hunky dory. If only the climate
in the party were more open and democratic...
"Do we argue this with respect to anything else? If only we had a different
Prime Minister, different MPs or Union Leaders! Or, maybe a new constitution with
proportional representation allowing us to elect left-wing representatives to
Parliament..., yada yada.
"But this problem is endemic right across our movement, and has been for
many generations, just as it afflicts most sections of bourgeois society. In which
case, we need a new, class-based, materialist explanation why it keeps
happening, or it will keep on happening." [Re-edited, and quoted,
for example, from
here.]01a
And yet, comrades
still refuse to approach the crisis that has recently engulfed the UK-SWP with
any such analysis; they still refuse to apply Marxism to
Marxism itself! A point brought out recently in another blog (although the
author neglected to develop an
HM
analysis of this
crisis, too!):
"Someone, probably the late
John Sullivan, once pointed out the irony that
parties adhering firmly to
historical materialism are even firmer in refusing to apply it to their own
organisations; instead insisting, like the best idealists, that they be judged
on their programme alone." [Quoted from
here; accessed 01/01/2014. Link
and bold emphasis added.]
In its place, comrades prefer to write the sort of
superficial analyses they would heavily criticise if they were applied to any
other group, or, indeed, any other topic, such as the following:
"There is currently a huge
crisis playing itself out within the SWP, the party I have been a member of the
past five years. Like many of us warned, this has now spread beyond our ranks
into the national press, and has even been picked up by our international
affiliate groups in the
International Socialist Tendency. Regardless of [any?] individual's
opinion on the details of this case, it can no longer be denied that this issue
will create severe repercussions for the party. The CC have failed to lead and
much of the membership is demanding an explanation. It is also a dead end to
argue that this should stay within the party and we should simply draw a line
under it. This is in the national press and silence and failure to recognise the
problem would be political suicide with the very people we hope to work with,
the movement....
"We need an entirely new
leadership, and we need to comprehensively overhaul all the democratic
structures of the party." [Quoted from
here; accessed 14/01/2013. Bold emphasis and link added.
Minor typo corrected.]
Another UK-SWP comrade had this to say in the
March 2013 Special Pre-Conference Bulletin:
"The question therefore becomes how
do we organise ourselves in any given period, and, more particularly, how do we
need to organise today?
"It ought to be clear to everybody
that our present arrangements are not provably fit for purpose. Either that
or we [are?] the unluckiest party in the world having suffered a string of crises
(Respect, Counterfire, IS Group,
Disputes Committee) in rapid succession. In
a situation like this there can be a tendency to 'batten down the hatches', seek
internal scapegoats and meet internal criticism with impatience, censure or even
disciplinary measures....
"[The following] are some
organisational areas...where I think we currently fall short of what is needed
to make us a more successful and effective Leninist party." [Quoted from
here, p.68. Bold emphases
added; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this
site. Accessed 08/03/2013. Although the criticisms and suggestions this comrade
then proceeds to make look eminently reasonable, they clearly fall far short of what is required.]
Here is an account from across the Atlantic concerning the collapse of the
US-SWP (but the points made are clearly far
more general in scope):
"This
process can be described by the term 'regression to the mean.' In statistics,
that term describes the tendency of 'outliers' -- facts or observations that are
substantially different from the average -- to shift over time towards the
average. In Marxist politics, it means that a small group that achieves
excellence in one or another respect will tend to lose these characteristics
over time, unless its strong points are reinforced through immersion in broad
social struggles.
"The
'mean' -- that is, the profile of the average small Marxist group -- includes
these features:
"A conviction that the small group, and it alone, represents the historic
interests of the working class.
"A high ideological fence separating members from the ideas and discussions of
the broader Marxist movement.
"A hostile relationship to other Marxist currents.
"A haughty attitude to social movements: the group's interventions, when they
occur, focus on self-promotion and recruitment.
"An internal discipline aimed not at fending off blows of the class enemy but at
restricting discussion and keeping the members in line.
"A conservative approach to Marxist doctrine, aptly summarized by Marx in 1868:
'The sect sees the justification for its existence and its "point of honour" not
in what it has in common with the class movement but in the particular
shibboleth which distinguishes it from it.'" [Taken from
here. Accessed 15/01/2014. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
But,
still
no attempt made to provide a
class analysis. Indeed, as far as can be determined, none of the articles posted
at the site from which the above was taken (which constitutes a detailed history
of the decline of the US-SWP) even so much as attempt to apply Marxism to
Marxism itself.
Why is this?
I will endeavour to answer that question in what
follows.
Nevertheless, "crises" like these are endemic on the
far-left. As if organisational tinkering can affect issues related to the
class origin and class position of those who 'lead' our movement and who control
its ideas! As if simply immersing the party in wider activity can erase awkward
facts about the class origin of our 'leaders' and their core theory, DM!
And, there is no sign that comrades in the
UK-SWP 'opposition' (or elsewhere, for that matter)are even asking the right questions. Here is
one of the latest from
this faction:
"In just a few weeks, the
desire to analyse how we got to this point has resulted in many faction members,
both longstanding and new cadre, starting the process of attempting to fill
some theoretical gaps. This is fantastically encouraging, and a glimpse at
how political pride can be rebuilt and how fruitful honest collective discussion
is. The very fact of the conference is a victory, but if we accept that silence
must follow, then we have not achieved what we set out to achieve." [Megan T., and
Mike G., quoted from
here; accessed 09/03/2013. Bold emphasis added.]
Other than arguing for an open, democratic
party (an excellent aim in itself), filling the above "theoretical gaps" doesn't
seem to involve any attempt to develop an HM-analysis of the
class origin and class position of the party 'leadership', and their commitment to
thought-forms
appropriated from the class enemy -- again, DM.
Which means, of course,
that these 'crises' will keep on happening.
And if you complain? Well you
just don't 'understand' dialectics...
This Essay and the other two mentioned in the
Preface are aimed at approaching
catastrophes like these from an entirely new angle, providing for the first
time an HM-explanation why our movement is
constantly in crisis, constantly fragmenting, constantly screwing-up -- and
what can be done about it.
In addition to providing a class analysis of
Marxism itself, Part Two of Essay Nine will also aim to show how and why:
(1)
DM
has been, and still is, detrimental to Marxism,
(2) DM has assisted in
the fragmentation of our
movement,
(3) DM has contributed in its own way to the long-term failure of Dialectical
Marxism itself, and,
(4) DM helps convince dialectically-distracted comrades that
there arein factno problems that need addressing (in this respect) -- and, even if there were,
DM (supposedly Marxism's core
theory!) and the class origin of leading Marxists have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with it!
As intimated above, this Essay will also show that:
(5) The
class origin of leading members of Dialectical-Marxist parties is one of the
main reasons why revolutionary politics is deeply sectarian,profoundly unreasonable,
serially abusive, alarmingly fragmentary, studiously arrogant, and notoriously ineffective.
DM, of course, only succeeds in
making a bad situation worse.
[I will also explain how and why
it manages to do that, too.]
Part
One demonstrated that DM not only doesn't,
it can't
represent a generalisation of working class experience; nor can it express their
"world-view", whoever tries to sell
it to them.
Worse still, it can't even represent a generalisation of the experience of the revolutionary party!
It was also shown in Part One that DM
can't be "brought" to workers
"from the outside" (as Lenin seemed to suggest -- please note
the use of the word "seemed" here!), because it has yet to be brought
to a sufficient level of clarity so that its own theorists can even so much
as begin
to understand it themselves,beforethey think to proselytise unfortunate workers.
In that sense, dialecticians are still waiting for their own
theory to be "brought" to them -- from the "inside"!
It was alleged in Essay Twelve
Part One (and in other Essays posted
here,
here, and
here) that
DM is a form of
Linguistic Idealism (LIE)
and, as such, reflects key
features of
ruling-class ideology.
[On my use of the phrase "ruling-class ideas/ideology", see
here.]
However, what has not been established yet is how it is
even conceivable that generations of leading revolutionaries with impeccable
socialist credentials could have imported into the workers' movement ideas
derived from the class enemy --, or at least from Philosophers who gave
theoretical voice to the interests of that class.
Surely, this alone shows that the allegations made
in these Essays are completely misguided.
Or, so it could be argued.
Of course, even its own most
loyal and avid supporters can't, and don't, deny that
dialectics itself had to be introduced into the workers' movement from the outside; neither Hegel,
Feuerbach, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky,
Stalin nor Mao were
proletarians.
Moreover, there is no evidence that workers in the 19th
century were avid readers of Hegel's Logic.
[The idea that
Dietzgen,
for example, was an exception to the above generalisation has already been batted out of
the park
here.]
As is
well-known, Hegel's system is the most absolute form of Idealism ever invented,
and was situated right at the heart of an ancient ruling-class
tradition (aspects of which are examined in detail in Essay Twelve and Fourteen
(summaries here
and here)).
Lenin
admitted as much -- without
perhaps realising the full significance of what he was saying:
"The history of philosophy and the history of
social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling
'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified
doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the
development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists
precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the
foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate
continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of
philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive
and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable
with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It
is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth
century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and
French socialism." [Lenin,
Three Sources
and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone
added.]
More-or-less the same can be
said about Plekhanov:
"Marxism is an integral
world-outlook. Expressed in a nutshell, it is contemporary materialism,
at present the highest stage of the development of that view upon the world
whose foundations were laid down in ancient Greece by
Democritus, and
in part by the
Ionian thinkers who preceded that philosopher." [Plekhanov
(1908), p.11. Italic emphases in the original; links and bold
emphasis added. I have covered this topic in much more detail
below.]
Despite this, the
importation of
Hegel's ideas into Marxism is often justified by
DM-supporters on the basis that he lived at
a time when the bourgeoisie were the revolutionary class, and so his ideas
weren't
as 'ideologically-tainted' -- so to speak -- as those of later thinkers.
Now, that excuse might work in relation to theorists
like Smith
or
Ricardo,
but it can't work with Hegel. Not only did he live in
politically backward Germany, where there was no such revolutionary bourgeois
class, his ideas represented both a continuation of ruling-class thought and a
throwback to earlier mystical ideas about nature and society. [On this, see
Essay Twelve Part Five and Essay Fourteen Part One (links above).]
Moreover, by no stretch of the imagination
were Hegel's ideas scientific, unlike those of Smith and Ricardo.
Nor can it be argued that Marx derived HM
from Hegel; in fact (as Lenin himself half admits) both he and Hegel were influenced by the Scottish
Historical School (of
Ferguson,
Millar,
Hume, Smith,
Steuart, Robertson,
and Anderson).01
If anything, Hegel's work
helped slow
down the formation of Marx's scientific ideas by mystifying them.
It could be argued that Marx derived other
important concepts from Hegel (such as alienation, or species being), but these
ideas (or others very much like them) can be found in
Rousseau,
Fichte
and
Schelling
(who
were far clearer thinkers than Hegel ever was).
Moreover, these concepts are easily replaced with materialist analogues -- which
explains why Marx subsequently dropped these terms, and adopted others. [On this,
see White (1996).]
Finally, no dialectician, as far as I know, would
argue the same for other figures who were writing at about this time, and who were
much closer to the revolutionary class action (as it were). Does anyone think this of
Berkeley?
And yet he lived in and around what was the leading capitalist country on earth at the time:
Great Britain. Or, of
Shaftesbury and
Mandeville? Slap bang in the middle these two. And, it is little use pointing
out that this pair wrote shortly after the
reactionto the English Revolution,
since Hegel did, too, after the reaction to the French Revolution. Nor is it any use arguing that these
two were card-carrying ruling-class hacks, since the same can be said of Hegel.
Or, even that one of them was an aristocrat; it may be news to some,
but Hegel wasn't a coal miner or a stable hand!
Indeed, the only reason Hegel is
chosen for special treatment is because of contingent features of Marx's
own biography. Had Marx's life taken a different course, or had Hegel died of
typhoid forty years before he actually did, does anyone think we would now be
bothering with dialectics? It is no surprise, therefore, to find that Marx himself moved
away from Hegel and Philosophy all his life.
[The first of these controversial allegations
was substantiated in
Part One
of this Essay;
the second,
here.]
In that case, and contrary to what Lenin said, we should exclude Marx himself
(at least, in relation to his more mature work) from the above seriously
compromised
boss-class pedigree.
Independently of this, it could be objected
that this allegedly class-compromised background isn't sufficient to condemn
DM. After all, it could be argued that the
advancement of humanity has always been predicated on practices, concepts and
theories developed by individuals freed from the need to toil each day to stay
alive -- for example, the work and ideas of scientists, philosophers,
mathematicians, technologists, inventors and the like. Surely, this doesn't automatically
impugn every idea drawn from outside the workers' movement. Neither does it mean
that philosophical notions are in general of no use to revolutionaries. Indeed,
denouncing certain beliefs justbecause they are alien to the
working-class is not only ultra-left, it is inconsistent with key ideas
found in HM itself. In that case, the fact that DM
is based on Hegel's system doesn't automatically malign it, especially if the latter has been given a
materialist make-over (as Marx himself argued), and has subsequently been tested in practice.
Furthermore, the origin of DM
goes back many centuries, and is related in complex ways to the development
of class society and thus of humanity in general. Admittedly, that implicates this process in the formation of
ideas representing the theoretical interests of former and current
ruling-classes. But, even granting that, such ideas have also
featured in the overall development of human knowledge -- indeed, many of them
have been integral to the advancement of science, and thus of industry.
Considerations like these do not compromise DM in any way; on the contrary, as
Lenin noted, this complex set of connections (linking DM with the
very best of human endeavour) constitutes one of its strengths. Dialectical thought is
thus not only
part of the theoretical maturing process of humanity, it is a vital component in
its future development.
However,
DM isn't quite so easily
exculpated. That is so for several reasons:
(1) DM-theses make no sense. Anyone who thinks otherwise is
invited to say clearly (and for the first time ever) what sense they do
make. As the Essays posted at this site have shown, anyone who attempts that modern-day
'labour of
Sisyphus'
will face an impossible task.
(2) DM-concepts
hinder the development revolutionary theory and practice. We saw that in more detail in Essay Ten
Part One -- for example, in
connection with Lenin's advice relating to a certain glass tumbler. [Other examples
are given below.]
(3) DM is locked in a tradition of thought that has an impeccable
ruling-class pedigree.
No wonder then that it hangs like an
albatross around our necks, to say nothing of the negative effect it has
had on generations of comrades (these are detailed
below, too).
(4) Although many claim that science is
intimately connected with earlier philosophical and religious or mystical forms-of-thought, this is in fact less than half the truth. Indeed, materialist
and technological aspects of science haven't been as heavily dependent on such
ruling-class ideas as many believe. [That rather bold claim
will be substantiated in Essay Thirteen Part Two (when it is published sometime
in 2017).]
(5) DM-concepts
undermineordinary language
and
common understanding;
this means that workers have had these alien-class ideas inserted
into their heads against the materialist grain, as it were. As such, DM (a) fosters passivity, (b) rationalises
substitutionist ideology,
and (c) aggravates sectarianism and helps motivate corruption.1a
[More on these below, and
in Part One. On the phrase
"common understanding", see here.]
(6) The materialist flip allegedly
performed on Hegel's system, so that its 'rational core' might be appropriated
by revolutionaries, has been shown not in fact to have been through 180 degrees,
as is often claimed, but through thefull 360.
[On that, see especially Essays Twelve
Part One and Thirteen
Part One.]
(7) It isn't being claimed here that DM is false
because of its ruling-class pedigree; it is in fact being maintained
that this 'theory' is far too vague and confused to be
described as either true or false. Nevertheless, its
deleterious effects can in fact be traced to its dependency on ruling-class forms-of-thought.
[More on that throughout this Essay, and
later in Essay Fourteen Part
Two.]
(9) Finally, and perhaps more importantly, DM has played
its own not inconsiderable part in creating the
long-term
failure we see before us today -- Dialectical Marxism
in all its forms, parties and tendencies. In addition, as noted
above, DM has helped
aggravate the serious
personal, organisational and political corruption that generations of petty-bourgeois party
'leaders' have brought in their train.
These are serious allegations; those that haven't already been substantiated (in other Essays) will be expanded upon and defended in what follows.
In spite of this, it could be argued that
the above counter-response is totally unacceptable since it ignores the fact that some of the best
class fighters in history have not only put dialectics into practice, they have woven it
into the fabric of each and every classic, and post-classic, Marxist text. Indeed, without
dialectics there would
be no Marxist theory; in fact, it would be like "a clock without a spring":
"While polemicising against
opponents who consider themselves -- without sufficient reason -- above all as
proponents of 'theory,' the article deliberately did not elevate the problem to
a theoretical height. It was absolutely necessary to explain why the American
“radical” intellectuals accept Marxism without the dialectic (a clock without
a spring)." [Trotsky
(1971), p.56. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with
the conventions adopted at this site.]
[Which is rather odd since Essay Seven
Part Three has shown that if
DM were true, change would be impossible.]
How would this be, or have been, possible
if the above allegations were correct? And what alternative theory or
literature (that has been tested in the 'heat of battle', as it were) can Ms
Lichtenstein point to that recommends her ideas as superior to those found in this proven tradition, one stretching back now over
150 years?
Much of the above volunteered response (in fact, it is a
summary of a handwritten letter sent by
John Molyneux
to a supporter of this site many years ago) is demonstrably
misguided. The
link between DM
and successful practice was severed in Essay Ten
Part One, and will be further undermined
in what follows.
Furthermore, very few of the classic Marxist texts
(that is, outside the DM-cannon -- i.e.,
AD, DN, MEC, PN, etc.) mention this 'theory' (except in passing). Indeed,
despite tradition and as
Part One
of Essay Nine
shows -- here
and
here
--, Das
Kapital itself is a
DM-free zone. But, even if this weren't
the case, the fact that Dialectical Marxism has been such a long-term failureought raise serious questions about the malign influence this theory
has had on HM
and
on revolutionary practice in general.
Indeed, if Newton's theory had been as
spectacularly unsuccessful as Dialectical Marxism has been, his ideas would have
been still-born as they rolled off the press.
In addition, a continuing commitment
to dialectics just because it was good enough for the 'founding fathers'
of our movement -- and for no other reason -- is itself based on the sort of
servile, dogmatic and conservative
mind-set
that graces most religions.1b
There is, indeed, something decidedly
unsavoury witnessing erstwhile radicals appealing to tradition alone as their only
reason for maintaining their commitment to such class-compromised ideas --
especially since this doctrine (i) hasn't
served us too well for over a century, and (ii) remains unexplained to this day.
As it turns out, and as will now be argued, the reason why the majority
of revolutionaries not only willingly accept the alien-class ideas
encapsulated in DM,
but also cling to them like terminally-insecure limpets, is connected
with the following four considerations:
(2) Lenin's warning that revolutionaries may sometimes respond to
defeat and disappointment by turning to Idealism and Mysticism.
(3) The
biographies and class origins of leading Marxist dialecticians.
(4)
The fact that
DM
not only helps mask the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism itself,
it
provides its acolytes with a source of consolation for unrealised expectations and
continually dashed hopes.
These
seemingly controversial allegations will now be explained more fully, and then defended in depth.
[The
other counter-arguments recorded in the
previous section will also be tackled as this Essay
unfolds.]
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is:
Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the
self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to
himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract
being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state,
society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted
consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world.
Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its
logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its
moral sanction, its solemn complement, and itsuniversal basis of consolation
and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence
since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle
against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
"Religious
suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering
and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.
"The abolition of religion as the illusory
happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call
on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to
give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion
is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo." [Marx
(1975b),
p.244. Bold emphases alone added.]
Of course, no one is suggesting that
Dialectical Marxism is a religion --
but it certainly functions in a way that makes it analogous to one.
Indeed, as Marx also noted:
"Feuerbach's
great achievement is.... The proof that philosophy is nothing else but
religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form
and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally
to be condemned...." [Marx
(1975c), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis
and link added.]
So, "philosophy is nothing but religion
rendered into thought" -- in other words, philosophy is a far more abstract source of
consolation.
These serious allegations, and their materialist
background, will now be explained.
Plainly, revolutionaries are human beings with ideas in their heads, and every
single one of them had a class origin, or now has a current class position.
The overwhelming majority of those who have led our movement or who have
influenced its ideas didn't come from the working class. Even
workers, if they become full-time or "professional revolutionaries", are thereby
rendered de-classé -- or
even petty-bourgeois -- as a result. Since the social being of these comrades can be
traced back to their class origins and current class position, it is no
surprise to discover that they have allowed "ruling ideas" to dominate their
thought.
The allegation that these
comrades have appropriated such ideas -- for the same sorts of reasons that the religious hold
onto their beliefs --, and that this is because of their class origin or current class position --, will be regarded by dialecticians as so obviously wrong
that it will be rejected out-of-hand as "crude reductionism".
Nevertheless, as far as I am aware, no
Marxist Dialectician has subjected the origin of DM, or the reasons for its
adoption by the vast majority of comrades, to any sort of class, or even
materialist, analysis.
To be sure, they will often subject the ideas of their opponents or enemies (both Marxist and non-Marxist --
examples are given below) to some form of
impromptu class analysis, but not their own acceptance of boss-class
thought-forms, nor yet the appropriation of these ideas by most Marxists -- and certainly not
to their adoption by every single leading
Marxist (except Marx).
This
suggests that dialecticians see themselves as exempt from, or
even above, a Marxist analysis
of the origin of their own ideas, and that they somehow think they are immune from the
material
constraints that affect the rest of humanity.
Nevertheless, it will be maintained here that the above
comrades do, indeed, hold on to alien-class ideas -- even if they aren't fully aware of
their nature --, and that they do this for at least four reasons:
First: Because of their petty-bourgeois
or
non-working class origin -- and as a result of their socialisation and the 'superior' education they
have generally received in bourgeois society -- the vast majority of the above
comrades have had
"ruling ideas", or ruling-class forms-of-thought, forced down their throats
almost from day one.
[More on this below. See also Essays
Two and Three Parts
One and
Two.]
Second: Because Dialectical Marxism
has been so spectacularly
unsuccessful, revolutionaries have had to convince themselves that (a)
This isn't really so,
(b) That the opposite is in fact the case, or that (c) This is only a
temporary state of affairs. They have to do this otherwise many of them would simply give up.
In view of the fact that they also hold that truth is tested in practice, they
have been forced to conclude that one or more of (a), (b) and (c) is correct.
However, because dialectics teaches that
appearances are "contradicted" by underlying "essences", it is
able to fulfil a
unique and highly specific role
in this regard, motivating or rationalising (a), (b) and/or (c). In this way, it
provides comrades with much needed
consolation in the face of 'apparent' failure, convincing them that everything
is fine with the core theory -- or, perhaps, that things will change for the
better, one day. This
then 'allows'
them to ignore the
long-term
failure of Dialectical Marxism, rationalising it as a mere "appearance", and hence
either false or
illusory.
So, faced with 150 years of set-backs,
defeats and disasters, revolutionaries, who will also, in all seriousness, inform
any who will listen
that "truth is tested in practice", will then respond in the very next breath with: "Well, that doesn't prove
dialectics is wrong!"
Hence, just like the religious
-- who seem able to look at
all the evil in the world and still see it somehow as an expression of the 'Love of God',
and who
will make all things well in the end -- dialecticians will survey the last 150
years and still see the 'Logic of History' moving their way, and then infer that all will
be well in the end, too. This means that the theory that prevents them from
facing reality is the very same theory that also prevents them from examining
the role that DM has played in all this,
inviting yet another
generation of set-backs and disasters by masking these unwelcome facts.
Apparently, therefore, the only two things
in the entire universe that
aren't interconnected are the long term failure of
Dialectical Marxism and its core theory!
[This theme is developed below, and in
Essay Ten Part One
(where the usual
objections
to the
above allegations are
neutralised).]1c
Third: Just like the Bible, which
supplies
its acolytes with ample reasons to accuse others of not 'understanding the Word
of God', DM, with its own 'sacred texts' beloved of the 'orthodox', also provides dialecticians with
an obscure theory that 'allows' them to claim that other, rival DM-theorists do not
'understand' dialectics -- or that they ignore/misuse it --, and that only they,
the 'bearers of the flame', are capable of grasping its inner meaning. This then 'enables' them to anathematise and castigate
these others as
anti-Marxist. In short, it puts in the hands of inveterate sectarians (of
which Marxism has had more than its fair share) an almost infinitely pliable,
ideological weapon that is capable of proving anything at all and its
opposite (often this trick is performed by the very same theorist, in the same
article or speech), simply because it glories in
contradiction.
[Again, scores of examples (and that is no exaggeration!) of the above are given below.]
Fourth: It provides dialecticians with
an exclusivising device that sets them above the 'common herd' -- or,
indeed, those
who are lost in the banalities of 'commonsense' and the cloying mists of 'formal
thinking'; this
now 'confirms' them in their
self-appointed role and pre-eminent status in the class war. In short, DM is the
ideology of substitutionist elements within Marxism.
In addition, the above phenomena have the untoward effect of
rendering such comrades studiously arrogant, which further motivates them into treating
others in the movement (often those in the same party!) with haughty contempt,
condescending indifference, even callous inhumanity. After all, if you are
sole
bearers of 'the word delivered from off the mountain top', that makes you
special, superior to the 'rank-and-file' -- which means that anyone who
disagrees with you deserves
ostracism and expulsion, at best, imprisonment or death, at worst.
[These serious allegations will be substantiated
throughout the rest of this Essay.]
[The
question whether the above analysis is an example of 'crude reductionism' is
taken up again in even more detail,
below.]
Despite this, it might still be wondered how
this relates to anything that is
even remotely relevant to the ideas entertained by hard-headed revolutionary
atheists. Surely, it could be argued, any attempt to trace a commitment to
DM to its origin in allegedly alienated
thought-forms is both a reductionist and an Idealist error.
Fortunately,
Lenin himself supplied a
materialist answer to this apparent conundrum, and John Rees kindly outlined it for us when he
depicted the period of demoralisation following upon the failed 1905 Russian revolution, in the
following terms:
"[T]he defeat of the
1905 revolution, like all such defeats, carried confusion and demoralisation into the
ranks of the revolutionaries…. The forward rush of the revolution had helped
unite the leadership…on strategic questions and so…intellectual differences
could be left to private disagreement. But when defeat magnifies every tactical
disagreement, forcing revolutionaries to derive fresh strategies from a
re-examination of the fundamentals of Marxism, theoretical differences were
bound to become important. As
Tony Cliff
explains:
'With politics apparently failing to
overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of
philosophical speculation became the fashion….'
"Philosophical fashion took a
subjectivist, personal, and sometimes religious turn….
Bogdanov
drew
inspiration from the theories of physicist
Ernst Mach and philosopher
Richard
Avenarius…. [Mach retreated] from
Kant's ambiguous idealism to the pure idealism
of
Berkeley
and
Hume….
"It was indeed Mach and Bogdanov's
'ignorance
of dialectics' that allowed them to 'slip into idealism.' Lenin was right to
highlight the link between Bogdanov's adoption of idealism and his
failure to react correctly to the downturn in the level of the struggle in
Russia." [Rees (1998), pp.173-79, quoting
Cliff
(1975), p.290. Bold emphases and links added.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. (However, I can find no reference to "dialectics" in Cliff's book.)]
Cliff continues:
"With politics apparently failing to
overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of
philosophical speculation became the fashion. And in the absence of any
contact with a real mass movement, everything had to be proved from scratch
-- nothing in the traditions of the movement, none of its fundamentals, was
immune from constant questioning.
"...In this discussion
Bogdanov,
Lunacharsky,
Bazarov
and others tried to combine marxism with the
neo-Kantian theory of knowledge put forward by Ernst Mach, and Richard
Avenarius. Lunacharsky went as far as to speak openly in favour of fideism.
Lunacharsky used religious metaphors, speaking about 'God-seeking' and
'God-building'.
Gorky
was influenced by Bogdanov and Lunacharsky....
"Lenin's reaction was very
sharp indeed. He wrote to Gorky, 'The Catholic priest corrupting young
girls...is much less dangerous precisely to "democracy" than a priest without
his robes, a priest without crude religion, an ideologically equipped and
democratic priest preaching the creation and invention of a god.'" [Cliff
(1975), pp.290-91. Bold emphases and links added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site.]
It is quite clear from this that the
experience of defeat (and the lack of a significant materialist input from a mass working-class
movement) re-directed the attention of certain revolutionaries toward Idealism
and the search to find mystical explanations for the serious set-backs Russian
Marxists had witnessed in and around 1905.
Plainly, this search provided these comrades with some form of consolation
-- just as Marx had alleged of religious belief pure and simple, and as Lenin
himself implied.
But, there is
another outcome that Rees and others have failed to notice: this
major set-back turned Lenin toward philosophy and dialectics. These were subjects he
had largely ignored up until then.2 While it is true that Bogdanov and the
rest turned to Mach, Berkeley,
Subjective Idealism, and other assorted
irrationalisms, it is equally clear that Lenin,
too, looked to Hegel and Hermetic Mysticism.
Nevertheless, Lenin's warning shows that
revolutionaries themselves aren't immune from the pressures that
lead human beings in general to seek consolationin order to counteract
disappointment, demoralisation and alienation. As we have seen, Lenin was well
aware that alien-class
ideas, which 'satisfy' such needs, could enter the revolutionary movement from the "outside"
at such times.
Much
more profound disappointments confronted Lenin a few years later
when WW1 broke out. Kevin Anderson takes up
the story (without perhaps appreciating its significance):
"The outbreak of World War 1
in 1914 shattered European liberals' belief in peaceful evolutionary progress.
To Marxists, however, most of whom already believed that capitalism was a
violent and warlike system, an equally great shock occurred when, yielding to
the pressure of domestic patriotic sentiment, most of the world's socialist
parties, including the largest and most important one, the German Social
Democracy, came out in support of the war policies of their respective
governments.... So great was the shock to Lenin that when he saw a German
newspaper report on the German Social Democracy's vote to support the war, he
initially thought that it was a forgery by the Prussian military for propaganda
purposes....
"Once he arrived in Bern,
Lenin moved quickly in two seemingly contradictory directions: (1) he spent
long weeks in the library engaged in daily study of Hegel's writings, especially
the Science of Logic, writing hundreds of pages of notes on Hegel,
and (2)...he moved toward revolutionary defeatism...." [Anderson (1995), p.3.
Bold emphasis alone added. See also Krupskaya's remarks,
here.]2a
Just as Christians often turn to the Bible in
times of stress or depression, so Lenin turned to the writings of that Christian
Mystic, Hegel. Disappointed with the course of events in this capitalist "vale of tears",
Lenin turned toward a source of quasi-religious consolation, away from the
material world of woes, and toward a hidden world governed by an assortment
of invisible beings -- 'abstractions' and, of course, 'Being' itself -- and
a set of mysterious forces
comprising the DM-trinity: 'contradiction', 'sublation', 'mediation'.
Is it possible, then, that revolutionaries of
the calibre of Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg, Plekhanov and Trotsky were tempted into seeking metaphysical
consolation of the sort depicted not only in this Essay, but attributed
to
others by Lenin himself? Is it conceivable that they opened themselves up to
the alien-class ideas that later found expression in
DM,
and for such reasons?
As we have seen in other Essays posted at
this site (especially Essays Three Parts One
and Two, Twelve
Part One, the rest of
Twelve, and Fourteen Part One
(summaries here
and
here)), and as
Lenin himself acknowledged,
dialectics is
shot-through with ideas, concepts and thought-forms imported from Traditional Philosophy (which
ideas, concepts and thought-forms were in turn invented by theorists who,
undeniably,
had material and ideological interests in rationalising the status quo). Indeed, in many
places it is hard to tell the
difference
between DM and open
and honest
Mysticism
(as Essay Fourteen Part One will demonstrate, when it is
published -- until then, check
this and
this out).
All this
more thanmerelysuggests that the above
allegations aren't completely wide-of-the-mark.
On the contrary, as we will
see, they hit the bull's eye smack in the middle.
But, is there anything in
the class origin and class background of leading comrades that pre-disposed
them toward such an unwitting adoption of this rarefied form of boss-class ideology?
The first of these questions can
be answered relatively easily by focussing on item
Four above, and then on the periods in which revolutionaries
invented, sought out, or reverted in a big way tousing, or appealing
to, classical concepts found in DM. Upon
examination, a reasonably clear correlation can be seen between periods of
downturn in the struggle and subsequent 're-discoveries' of Hegel and DM by aspiring
dialecticians -- with the opposite tendency kicking in, in more successful times.3
As Rees pointed out:
"...[D]efeat magnifies every
tactical disagreement, forcing revolutionaries to derive fresh strategies from a
re-examination of the
fundamentals of Marxism.... Lenin was right to highlight the link between
Bogdanov's adoption of idealism and his failure to react correctly to the
downturn in the level of the struggle in Russia." [Rees (1998), pp.173-79.]
It is no surprise, therefore, to find that most (if not all) of
Engels's work on the foundations of DM was written in the post 1860s downturn -- after
the massive struggles for the vote
in the UK, up to the
Reform
Act of 1867, following on the demise of
the Chartist Movement
and after the
Paris Commune
had been defeated
in 1871.4
Similarly, Lenin's philosophical/dialectical writings were largely confined to the period
after the defeat of the
1905
Revolution, and before the short-lived
successes of 1917.
Trotsky's dialectical commentaries
(including his Notebooks and his wrangles with
Burnham) date largely from
the 1930s, after the major reverses that took place in the post
1917-1926
period in
Europe and internationally in
China,
then subsequently in
Spain,
following upon his own isolation and
political quarantine
later in that decade. He had shown very little interest in
such matters before then.5
Indeed, Trotsky admitted as much in his 1935
Diary:
"It's been about two
weeks since I have written much of anything: it's too difficult. I read
newspapers. French novels.
Wittel's
book about Freud (a bad book by an envious pupil), etc. Today I wrote a little
about the interrelationship between the physiological determinism of brain
processes and the 'autonomy' of thought, which is subject to the laws of logic.
My philosophical interests have been growing during the last few years,
but
alas, my knowledge is too insufficient, and too little time remains for a big
and serious work...." [Trotsky (1958), p.109. Bold emphasis added.]
As should seem obvious from the above: (i)
Trotsky's interest in philosophy coincided with the period of his political
quarantine, and (ii) He admits he had paid little attention to it before.
Stalin, too, only became obsessed with
dialectics after the defeat of the
Deborinites post-1929, and after the failure of the Chinese and German
revolutions (although he had written about this theory
in 1901). Likewise, Mao himself 'discovered' a fondness for this
Hermetic creed after
the crushing defeats of the mid-1920s.6
More recently, the obsessive devotion shown
by OTs toward the minutiae of DM follows a similar
pattern. Because (a) OTs invariably adopt a catastrophist view of
everything that happens (or is ever likely to happen) in capitalist society, and (b) OT
parties
are constantly splitting, hence they face semi-permanent disappointment and demoralisation. Naturally, relentless disillusion requires regular, massive doses of highly potent DM-opiates.
To take just one example: an OT of the stature of
Ted Grant
(along with
Alan Woods)
only 're-discovered' hardcore DM after his party
had booted him out,
which expulsion itself followed upon the
catastrophic collapse of the
Militant Tendency in the late 1980s, this turn to
mystical forms of consolation materialising in the shape of that
ill-advised and badly researched book, RIRE.7
[OT = Orthodox
Trotskyist; NOT = Non-Orthodox Trotskyist; RIRE = Reason In Revolt, i.e.,
Woods and Grant (1995/2007).]
This regressive doctrine doesn't just
afflict OTs, NOTs show similar but less chronic signs of
dialectical debilitation.
For example, the overt use of DM-concepts
by leading figures in the
UK-SWP
(a NOT-style party) only began in earnest after the downturn in the class
struggle in the late 1970s, and more specifically following upon the defeat of the
National Union of Miners
in 1985. In this respect, therefore, TAR itself represents perhaps the
high-water mark of this latest retreat into consolation by
UK-SWP theorists. [This was written before Rees
resigned from the SWP!] The fact that this newfound interest in DM has nothing to
do with theoretical innovation (and everything to do with repetition, consolation
andreassurance) can be seen from the additional fact that TAR adds nothing new
to the debate (about 'dialectics'), it merely repeats significant parts of it, albeit from a
different perspective -- for the gazillionth time.
So much for
re-examining basics!8
[I have added much more detail about the UK-SWP's turn to
mysticism to Note 8.]
Given
the overwhelming experience of defeat,
debacle, disaster, and retreat that the international labour movement and the
revolutionary tradition have together endured over the last 150 years, these correlations
are quite striking (even if they aren't the least bit surprising) -- for all that no one seems to have noticed them before!9
If the movement has known
little other
than defeat, then it
becomes vitally important for revolutionaries to account for, re-interpret
and then re-configure
their view of this depressing state-of-affairs.
[IO = Identity of
Opposites; NON = Negation of the Negation; OT = Orthodox Trotskyist; NOT =
Non-OT.]
Among Maoists, Stalinists and Trotskyists (OTs and
NOTs
alike) this tactic has often assumed a thoroughly dishonest form, which has
frequently sought to re-classify defeats as hidden victories (involving a
novel use of the IO-dodge, and a quasi-religious use of the NON-ploy; examples
of both of these are given below). Clearly, this has permitted factors
other than the theoretical failings of the parties involved to be blamed for the setbacks
our side has faced.
As should seem obvious, a movement can't learn from its
mistakes if none are ever made -- or, rather, Dialectical Marxists never admit to making any! Indeed, it looks like
DM-theorists are the only life-form
in the known universe that
not only does not, but can't learn from recalcitrant reality. As we will see, the
NON and the belief that appearances 'contradict' underlying "essences" stands in
the way of them emulating the rest of sentient life on the planet, learning from
past mistakes.9a
Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the
aforementioned dialectical-dodges mean that significant parts of our movement have
engaged in the deliberate rotation of material reality so that
their (in)version of Hegelian Idealism can remain on its feet. Instead of
flipping Hegel, material reality has been up-ended in order to conform with
a set of doctrinaire ideas
held about it.
Hard-headed
revolutionaries have thus spun reality
through 180 degrees,
stuck their own theoretical feet in the air, inserted their collective head in the sand,
and have proclaimed -- despite the fact that virtually every aspect of
revolutionary practice has failed for much of the last hundred years, and in the face of the grim
realisation that the
overwhelming majority of workers ignore DM, and have done so for many generations
-- thatDialectical Marxism has been tested
successfully in practice and now represents the objective "world view" of the
proletariat!10
Theoretical
inversion like this has unsurprisingly prompted a headlong retreat into fantasy, of the
type noted
in the last sub-section. Such flights-of-fancy have been reinforced by the
profound
narcolepsy induced
in comrades by the constant repetition of the same tired old formulae, obscure
jargon, and hackneyed phrases.
A simple but effective Dialectical Mantra, internalised and regurgitated by all
serious adepts -- which boasts such hardy perennials as the dogma that Capitalism is
riddled with 'contradictions', even though not one of those who intone this
shibboleth
seems able to say
why these are indeed contradictions (on that, see
here, and
here,
in the comments section at the bottom -- unfortunately, the comments sections
has now vanished!) has helped insulate them from material reality. In the DM
tradition-dominated
and Ideally-constructed world annoying facts are simply ignored -- or they are flipped
upside down. 'Post-truth'
isn't a recent phenomenon; DM-fans have been promoting it for over a century.
Anyone who doubts this should try the
following experiment: chose any randomly-selected,
dialectically-distracted comrade and attempt to persuade
them to acknowledge the long-term failure of
their own brand of Dialectical Marxism (that is, if it has been around long enough!). Unless you are extremely
unlucky, you will soon
discover how deep this particular head has been inserted into the nearest sand dune.
[On the
excuses usually given for the failure of Dialectical Marxism (that is, where
failure is
even so much as acknowledged!), see Essay Ten
Part One.]
To that end,
boilerplate phrases will be dusted-off and
given another airing almost as if they were still in mint
condition. Even a cursory glance at the debates that have taken place over the
last five revolutionary generations will reveal the sad spectacle of theorists
mouthing dialectical slogans at one another as if those on the receiving end
hadn't heard them a thousand times already, and those chanting them hadn't intoned them just
as often.11
Alongside this there has emerged a correspondingly
robust refusal to face up to reality. In my experience, this ostrich-like characteristic is
found most glaringly among OTs
-- perhaps because Trotskyism is by far and away the most unsuccessful and
fragmentary wing of mainstream Dialectical Marxism --, but this malady is
also represented to varying degrees
throughout the rest of the revolutionary and communist movement, with
MISTs perhaps winning
a Silver Medal in this event.12
As already noted, a good example of this is
the knee-jerk quotation of the phrase "tested in practice" in support of the
supposed (but imaginary) universal validity of DM.
Even though
realitytells a different story, we regularly encounter the following 'whistling in
the dark' type of argument:
"There is no final, faultless, criterion for
truth which hovers, like god, outside the historical process. Neither is there
any privileged scientific method which is not shaped by the contours of the
society of which it is a part. All that exists are some theories which are less
internally contradictory and have a greater explanatory power…. [I]f the truth
is the totality, then it is the totality of working class experience,
internationally and historically which gives access to the truth…. [A theory's]
validity must be proven by its superior explanatory power -- [which means it
is] more internally coherent, more widely applicable, capable of greater
empirical verification -- in comparison with its competitors. Indeed, this is a
condition of it entering the chain of historical forces as an effective power.
It is a condition of it being 'proved in practice.' If it is not superior to
other theories in this sense, it will not 'seize the masses,' will not become a
material force, will not be realized in practice." [Rees (1998), pp.235-37.]
However, Dialectical Marxism -- never
mind Dialectical Trotskyism -- has never actually "seized the masses"; except perhaps briefly in Germany, Italy and France, it has never
even got close to lightly hugging them (not even in Russia, in 1917!).
But this isn't allowed to rain on the
parade or interrupt the reverie. So, this inconvenient aspect of reality is simply
inverted and the opposite idea is left standing on its feet (as the
above passage confirms), or, alternatively, it is
simply ignored.
Failing that, of course, the
happy day when DM finally manages to captivate the
masses is projected way off into the future where it becomes a safe 'fact', insulated from easy refutation.
Of course, beyond blaming the mass of the
population for their own failure to appreciate this wondrous theory -- a
rhetorical tactic beloved, for example, of Stalinists and Maoists, who tell us
they need a
'Great Teacher' to set them straight --, few
DM-fans have ever paused to wonder why the
overwhelming majority
of workers/human beings stubbornly remain locked in 'un-seized' mode so deep in the sand is this collective,
Hegelianised brain now wedged.
Since DM is regarded as the very
epitome of scientific knowledge (a veritable "Algebra of Revolution", if you will),
the fault can't lie with this theory (perish the thought!), so the
'problem' must be
located elsewhere. The
'solution' is, apparently, staring us in the face: why, the masses are to blame!They are gripped by
"false
consciousness", trapped in a world dominated by
"formal thinking". "Static" language and "fixed categories" dominate their
lives, this sorry state of affairs further compounded by the "banalities of commonsense". Indeed, they have been
seduced by "commodity fetishism", or have been bought off by
imperialist "super-profits".
Material reality is once more inverted so
that a comforting idea is allowed to remain on its feet. A vanishingly small
fraction of humanity have seen the light; the vast majority of working people are
lost in
stygian gloom
--, this peremptory verdict itself
justified by a theory that not one of its acolytes can actually explain!
Such is deleterious effect on
Dialectical Marxists
of a diet rich in
Silicates.
Naturally, this means that dialectics must be brought
to the masses "from the outside", whether they like it or not.
Up to present, however, the
signs
are that this
has been a
clear and consistent "Not!"
But, the conclusion is never drawn -- it doesn't
even make onto the edge of the radar screen -- that workers will never accept a theory
that clashes with their materially-, and socially-grounded
language, and which is counter to their understanding and experience -- or
which, because of this,isn't even a materialist theory!
It could be countered that in a revolutionary situation, daily experience and
commonsense aren't sure and safe guides to action. Hence, a revolutionary party
needs a theory that transcends the
immediate, and which has been tested in practice.
And yet, HM
has provided, and still provides us with just such a
theory. Even better: its concepts clash neither with the vernacular nor
with common understanding. Quite the contrary, as we saw in
Part One of this Essay,
HM
actually depends on both!
On the other hand, with respect to concepts
drawn from DM, the
proffered rejoinder
in the last but one paragraph is as misguided as it can be. As Part One of this
Essay has also shown, not one single thesis drawn from DM relates to anything a human
being, let alone a worker, or even a Marxist, could experience. In that case,
it can't
be an expression of the party's practice; nor can it be, or have been, tested in
practice (as we will see). Moreover, as Essays Twelve
Part One, and subsequent Parts
of Essay Twelve (summary here) and
Fourteen Part One (summary
here) show, DM is based on concepts
derived from over
two millennia of boss-class ideology.
Small wonder then that DM fails to mesh with
material reality, and hence that it can't be used to help change it.
Nor, it seems, has anyone even considered the
effect that DM has had on the standing of revolutionaries in the eyes of
ordinary workers, or on their respect for Marxism, whose parties are
now widely regarded as little more than a standing joke, comprised of nothing but
warring sects
dominated by obscure and irrelevant ideas.
Video One: The First
Anti-Dialectical Joke in History?
Still less thought has gone into the extent to which
this 'theory'
(with its egregious logic)
has only succeeded in undermining the reputation of HM as a science, just as precious little attention has been paid to the
fatally-compromised
credibility of anyone who accepts DM.
Well, would you listen to, or even respect,
the opinions of someone who accepts the
theoretical equivalent of Astrology?
However, as noted in the
Introduction,
revolutionaries are unlikely to abandon DM in spite of the noxious effect
it has had on their own thought, let aloe their own movement --, or even in the face of the steady blows that yours truly rains down upon it.
Whether or not DM
actually spells the Death of Marxism
is obviously of no concern to those held in its thrall, which is why many who might have made it this far will reject much of what this Essay says, and will
read no further.
This is hardly
surprising:it is
difficult to see clearly with your head stuck in what is perhaps the metaphorical equivalent of
the
Gobi Desert.
It has been maintained here that
DM
appeals to, and hence satisfies, the contingent
psychological needs of certain sections of the revolutionary movement, comrades
who, because of their class origin, class position, their socialisation, and response to the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism, cling to DM in
a way that makes
a drowning man look positively indifferent toward any straws that might
randomly drift his way.
[Any who doubt this should try 'debating' with
comrades who are in thrall to this theory. (On that, see
here.)]
As noted earlier, that is because dialectics
offers consolation analogous to the comfort and reassurance that religious dogma
supplies its believers; that is, while DM provides its acolytes with solace in the
face of dashed hopes and unrealised expectations, it also supplies them with a
psychological defence mechanism against the acid of disillusion by re-configuring each defeat as
itsopposite.
For example, in relation to the recent crisis in
the UK-SWP, this is what
Mark Steel had to say:
"SWP members who have taken a stand on the current issue seem bewildered as to
why their leaders behave in this illogical way. But the reason may be that the
debate isn't really about the allegations, or attitudes towards feminism, it's
about accepting that you do as you're told, that the party is under attack at
all times so you defend the leaders no matter what, that if the party's
pronouncement doesn't match reality, it must be reality that's wrong. Dissent on
an issue and your crime is not to be wrong about the issue, it's that you
dissented at all." [Quoted from
here. Bold
emphasis added.]
As we will see, DM plays a key role in
this regard, since it teaches that reality contradicts the way the world only appears
to be.
This is worryingly similar to the way that theists manage to persuade themselves that,
despite appearances to the contrary, death, disease and suffering are not
only beneficial, they actually confirm 'the goodness of God'! Both clearly provide
believers with a
convenient excuse for
refusing to face the facts.13
In other words,
DM is the
"opiate" of the
Party, the heart of a seemingly hopeless cause.13a00
For those Dialectical Marxists who live in a theoretical
world divorced from the day-to-day life and struggles of ordinary workers --
i.e., for professional revolutionaries who aren't employed in the world of
work
alongside workers --,
HM
plainly isn't fundamental enough.
In fact, these individuals -- who, for whatever reason, are cut-off from the world of
collective labour --
clearly require their own
distinctive world-view,
expressed in and by a theory that has itself been abstracted (cut-off) from
the world of 'appearances', and thus from material reality itself.
This 'world-view' must incorporate a theory that adequately represents the (now) alienated experience of these erstwhile 'radicals'; it
must not only be divorced from ordinary language and common experience, it must
be distanced from working class experience and hence from
genuinely
materialist forms-of-thought. In addition, it must help rationalise,
justify, and underline the pre-eminent organisational and theoretical position
DM-theorists have arrogated
to themselves -- that is,
it must ratify their status as 'leaders of the
movement and the class'.
To
that end, it must be a theory that only they are capable of "understanding".
Even then, they must be able to employ this theory to
'prove' that members of other Marxist groups either (i) Don't "understand"
dialectics or (ii) They misuse or distort it. [On that,
see below.]
What better theory to fit the bill
than one that is based on an incomprehensible set of ideas Hegel concocted in the
comfort of his own head (upside down or 'the right
way up')?
DM is thus beyond workers' experience (indeed, anyone's experience) -- not by
accident -- but because it is meant
to be this way.13a0
Naturally, this not only renders DM immune from
refutation, it also transforms it into an ideal intellectual device for
getting things the wrong way round (or, indeed, upside down). It is thus an ideal
tool for keeping 'reality' Ideal.
All the while, this 'theory' helps
insulate militant
minds from the defeats and setbacks revolutionaries
constantly face -- just as it inures them to the dire consequences of the theory itself.
DM isn't just the opiate of the party,
it expresses thevery soul of professional revolutionaries.
Abstracted not just from the class, but also from humanity itself, this faction
within the labour movement naturally finds abstraction
conducive (a) to
the way it
sees the natural and social world, and (b) to the way it views the working class
itself -- that is, as
an abstract object of theory, not the subject of history.
Moreover, it also exposes the motivating factors that underpin the belief that DM is the
"world-view" of the proletariat -- plainly, those proletarians aren't
real workers, they are
members of an abstract class of 'workers' kept at arms length by a set of dogmas
only the terminally naive or the psychologically challenged among them would
swallow!13a01
Of course, this also accounts for DM's long-term
lack of impact on workers themselves.
The
Indoctrination And 'Conversion' Of Marxist Dialecticians
It is important to point out
that the ideas I am about to rehearse in this sub-section:
A) Bear no relation to those
advanced by the anarchist,
Jan
Machajski. I am not arguing that 'intellectuals' are at every level
automatic and implacable enemies of the working class -- or even that workers
are only interested in the economic struggle with their bosses -- just that
'intellectuals' (of themselves) can no more escape the class forces that shaped
them than workers can. [On this, see also Note
3, where I attempt to supply some of the theoretical background. On
Machajski,
see here (second section).]
B)
Share nothing with the myth invented and propagated by 'Leninologists', summed
up by Hal Draper:
"According to the myth,
endlessly repeated from book to book, Lenin's 'concept of the party':
"(1) saw the party as
consisting mainly of 'intellectuals,' on the basis of a theory according to
which workers cannot themselves develop to socialist consciousness; rather, the
socialist idea is always and inevitably imported into the movement by bourgeois
intellectuals;
"(2) posited that the party
is simply a band of 'professional revolutionaries' as distinct from a broad
working-class party;
"(3) repudiated any element
of spontaneity or spontaneous movement, in favour of engineered revolution only;
"(4) required that the party
be organized not democratically but as a bureaucratic or semi-military
hierarchy." [Draper
(1999), pp.187-88. Formatting adjusted to agree with the conventions adopted
at this site. Spelling modified to agree with UK English.]
My
case (summarised) is as follows:
1)
The party should ideally consist of socialist workers and 'intellectuals' (as well as
others less easy to categorise separately). However, 'intellectuals' (petty-bourgeois and déclassé) have not only shaped our core ideas, they have led the
movement for over a century. In and of itself this isn't a problem. What
is problematic is their importation of ruling-class ideas into the movement;
non-working class 'intellectuals' have imported into Marxism ideas derived
from the very worst forms of Christian and Hermetic Mysticism.
Workers themselves
can and have formed socialist ideas.
However, as we have seen throughout this site, DM has nothing to do with
socialist theory, so the admission that workers can form such ideas doesn't
imply they can or have formed ideas unique to DM. [This was covered in
detail in Part One.]
2)
There are "professional revolutionaries" in the party -- but, as Draper
notes:
"It can easily be shown, from Lenin's copious
discussions of the professional revolutionary for years after WITBD [i.e.,
Lenin (1947)], that to Lenin the term meant this: a party activist who
devoted most (preferably all) of his spare time to revolutionary work.
[Draper (1999), p.193. Italic emphasis in the original.]
However, it is also clear that a layer
in
the above class of "professionals" is also composed of "full-timers", "party functionaries",
and petty-bourgeois or de-classé 'intellectuals'. Draper was concerned to
repudiate the myth that the party was formed only of 'intellectuals',
full-timers and functionaries. Of course, these three groups can and do
overlap.
"The point of defining a professional
revolutionary as a full-timer, a functionary, is to fake the conclusion, or
'deduction': only non-workers can make up the party elite, hence only
intellectuals (sic). This conclusion is an invention of the Leninologists, based on
nothing in Lenin." [Ibid.,
p.193. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site.]
[Point (3)
above lies beyond the scope of this Essay; (4) will be discussed throughout this
Essay.]
The mind-set mentioned in the previous main section
is intimately connected with (i) The way that prominent revolutionaries -- or
those who have shaped Marxist theory -- were socialised in, or by, bourgeois
society long before they had even heard of Marxism, and (ii) How the latter affects their subsequent theoretical, political,
and organisational development. The rest of this
Essay will expand on each of these issues.13a1
However, this topic introduces difficult questions about the role of the individual in
revolutionary activity, and hence by implication, the role of the individual in
history. In turn, this raises further questions connected with the age-old
conundrum concerning the relation between 'free will' and 'determinism'. [I will say much more about
that controversial topic in
Essay Three Part Five. Until that Essay is published readers are directed
here and
here for more details.]
Given the constraints imposed on every human being by their class position,
Dialectical Marxists have struggled to explain how individuals,as
individuals, can have an
impact on the class war -- or at least an impact that doesn't imply they are
merelyautomatonstotally in thrall to social and economic forces. Plainly, that is because they
have largely accepted the parameters of discourse laid down by Traditional Philosophers,
an error of judgement seriously compounded by the importation of obscure jargon
into Marxism that has only succeeded in further clouding the issue. Small wonder
then that they have found it difficult to account for 'free will' in the face of
the sort of 'rigid determinism' posited everywhere else by their own
theory. As is the case with other 'problems' thrown up by DM, this conundrum was 'solved'
by throwing the word "dialectical" at it, as if that term were a magic
formula of some sort.
Here is a classic example
of the genre from Engels himself:
"Another
opposition in which metaphysics is entangled is that of chance and necessity.
What can be more sharply contradictory than these two thought determinations?How is it possible that both are identical, that the accidental is necessary,
and the necessary is also accidental?Common sense, and with it the majority
of natural scientists, treats necessity and chance as determinations that
exclude each other once for all. A thing, a circumstance, a process is either
accidental or necessary, but not both. Hence both exist side by side in
nature; nature contains all sorts of objects and processes, of which some are
accidental, the others necessary, and it is only a matter of not confusing the
two sorts with each other.... And then it is declared that the necessary is the
sole thing of scientific interest and that the accidental is a matter of
indifference to science. That is to say: what can be brought under laws, hence
what one knows, is interesting; what cannot be brought under laws, and
therefore what one does not know, is a matter of indifference and can be
ignored.... That is to say: what can be brought under general laws is regarded
as necessary, and what cannot be so brought as accidental. Anyone can see that
this is the same sort of science as that which proclaims natural what it can
explain, and ascribes what it cannot explain to supernatural causes; whether I
term the cause of the inexplicable chance, or whether I term it God, is a matter
of complete indifference as far as the thing itself is concerned. Both are only
equivalents for: I do not know, and therefore do not belong to science. The
latter ceases where the requisite connection is wanting.
"In
opposition to this view there is determinism, which passed from French
materialism into natural science, and which tries to dispose of chance by
denying it altogether. According to this conception only simple, direct
necessity prevails in nature.... [T]hese are all facts which have been produced
by an irrevocable concatenation of cause and effect, by an unshatterable
necessity.... With this kind of necessity we likewise do not get away
from the theological conception of nature. Whether with
Augustine and
Calvin we call it the eternal decree of God, or
Kismet [Destiny -- RL] as the Turks do, or whether we call it necessity, is all pretty
much the same for science.There is no question of tracing the chain of
causation in any of these cases; so we are just as wise in one as in another,
the so-called necessity remains an empty phrase, and with it -- chance also
remains -- what it was before....
"Hence
chance is not here explained by necessity, but rather necessity is degraded to
the production of what is merely accidental. If the fact that a particular
pea-pod contains six peas, and not five or seven, is of the same order as the
law of motion of the solar system, or the law of the transformation of energy,
then as a matter of fact chance is not elevated into necessity, but rather
necessity degraded into chance....
"In
contrast to both conceptions, Hegel came forward with the hitherto quite
unheard-of propositions that the accidental has a cause because it is
accidental, and just as much also has no cause because it is accidental; that
the accidental is necessary, that necessity determines itself as chance, and, on
the other hand, this chance is rather absolute necessity. (Logik, II, Book
III, 2: Reality.) Natural science has simply ignored these propositions as
paradoxical trifling, as self-contradictory nonsense, and, as regards theory,
has persisted on the one hand in the barrenness of thought of
Wolffian metaphysics, according to which a thing is either accidental or
necessary, but not both at once; or, on the other hand, in the hardly less
thoughtless mechanical determinism which in words denies chance in general only
to recognise it in practice in each particular case....
"The
previous idea of necessity breaks down. To retain it means dictatorially to
impose on nature as a law a human arbitrary determination that is in
contradiction to itself and to reality, it means to deny thereby all inner
necessity in living nature, it means generally to proclaim the chaotic
kingdom of chance to be the sole law of living nature....
"The
evolution of a concept, or of a conceptual relation (positive and negative,
cause and effect, substance and accidency) in the history of thought, is related
to its development in the mind of the individual dialectician, just as the
evolution of an organism in palaeontology is related to its development in
embryology (or rather in history and in the single embryo). That this is so was
first discovered for concepts by Hegel. In historical development, chance
plays its part, which in dialectical thinking, as in the development of the
embryo, is summed up in necessity." [Engels (1954),
pp.217-22. Italic emphasis in the original. Bold emphases and links
added. Four minor typos corrected. (I have informed the editors over at the
Marxist Internet Archive). On this, see also
below.]
How
this settles the issue Engels neglected to tell his readers. Merely reminding us that
Hegel said this or that is no solution if what the latter dogmatically asserted is
even more obscure than the 'problem' it was meant to solve. So, it was a bit rich
of Engels
adding this comment:
"Anyone can see that this is the same sort of science
as that which proclaims natural what it can explain, and ascribes what it cannot
explain to supernatural causes; whether I term the cause of the inexplicable
chance, or whether I term it God, is a matter of complete indifference as far as
the thing itself is concerned." [Ibid.]
Translated, this pans out as:
What Engels can't actually explain can safely be ascribed to
'dialectical causes'; whether he calls this explanation "supernatural" or
"dialectical" is "a
matter of complete indifference as far as the thing itself is concerned."
Different wording, same implication: both remain a total mystery.
"This
second definition of freedom [proposed by Dühring -- RL], which quite
unceremoniously gives a knock-out blow to the first one, is again nothing but
an extreme vulgarisation of the Hegelian conception. Hegel was the first to
state correctly the relation between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is
the insight into necessity
'Necessity
is blind only in so far as it is not understood.' [Engels is
here quoting
Hegel (1975), p.209, §147 -- RL.]
"Freedom
does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the
knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically
making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the
laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental
existence of men themselves -- two classes of laws which we can separate
from each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of
the will therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with
knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a man's judgment is
in relation to a definite question, the greater is the necessity with
which the content of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty,
founded on ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many
different and conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is
not free, that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control.
Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external
nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore
necessarily a product of historical development. The first men who separated
themselves from the animal kingdom were in all essentials as unfree as the
animals themselves, but each step forward in the field of culture was a step
towards freedom." [Engels (1976),
p.144. Bold emphases alone added.]
But,
how
do dialecticians respond to the counter-argument that human decisions are also
'determined' by events in the
CNS? How is it possible to
isolate the human will from the
'deterministic' course of nature? As we will see in Essay Thirteen Part Three,
dialecticians appeal to Engels's First Law [Q«Q],
and, hey presto, freedom just 'emerges' from necessity. Simple really. As
we saw in the aforementioned Essay (but more specifically in Essay Seven
Part
One), this 'law' is far too shaky to support any conclusion much heavier
than an amoeba
on a crash diet.
Simply asserting that 'free' action is such if it is in accord with, or based on,
knowledge of the "laws of external nature" is itself of little use if those
actions themselves have been 'determined' by other laws about which we might be
unaware. Were the aforementioned actions uncaused? If they were, then they would
be unrelated to the individual concerned (as Hume pointed out over two hundred
years ago -- on that, see
here,
Section VIII), and hence not an action of that individual -- no more than being pushed
out of a tree, for example, would be his/her action, either. On the other hand,
if they were caused, then they must have
been 'determined' in some way, and so can't be 'free'. Throwing the word
"dialectical" at the page (or screen) in no way resolves this conundrum.
[I
hasten to add that the above comments do not represent my view, but
merely underline the theoretical hurdles implied by the traditional theory
DM-supporters have bought into, even if they think they have somehow solved it.
My dissolution of this conundrum takes an entirely different line and presents a
completely novel approach to this age-old pseudo-problem. Again, more details can be foundhere and
here.]
Other
dialecticians have echoed the above non-solution; here is Lenin:
'Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation between
freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the appreciation of necessity.
"Necessity is blind only in so far as it is not understood."
Freedom does not consist in the dream of independence from natural laws, but in
the knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically
making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the
laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental
existence of men themselves -- two classes of laws which we can separate from
each other at most only in thought but
not in reality. Freedom of the will therefore means nothing but the capacity
to make decisions with knowledge of the subject. Therefore the freer a
man's judgment is in relation to a definite question, the greater is the
necessity with which the content of this judgment will be determined....
Freedom therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external
nature, a control founded on knowledge of natural necessity'....
"Firstly,Engels at the very outset of his argument recognises laws of
nature, laws of external nature, the necessity of nature -- i.e.,
all that
Mach,
Avenarius,
Petzoldt and Co.
characterise as 'metaphysics.' If
Lunacharsky had
really wanted to reflect on Engels' 'wonderful' argument he could not have
helped noticing the fundamental difference between the materialist theory of
knowledge and agnosticism and idealism, which deny law in nature or declare it
to be only 'logical,' etc., etc.
"Secondly, Engels does not attempt to contrive 'definitions' of freedom and
necessity, the kind of scholastic definition with which the reactionary
professors (like Avenarius) and their disciples (like
Bogdanov) are
most concerned. Engels takes the knowledge and will of man, on the one hand,
and the necessity of nature, on the other, and instead of giving definitions,
simply says that the necessity of nature is primary, and human will and mind
secondary. The latter must necessarily and inevitably adapt themselves to
the former. Engels regards this as so obvious that he does not waste words
explaining his view. It needs the Russian Machians to complain of
Engels' general definition of materialism (that nature is primary and mind
secondary; remember Bogdanov's 'perplexity' on this point!), and at the same
time to regard one of the particular applications by Engels of this
general and fundamental definition as 'wonderful' and 'remarkably apt'!
"Thirdly,Engels does not doubt the existence of 'blind necessity.'He admits the existence of a necessity unknown to man. This is
quite obvious from the passage just quoted. But how, from the standpoint of the
Machians, can man know of the
existence of what he does not know? Is it not 'mysticism,'
'metaphysics,' the admission of 'fetishes' and 'idols,' is it not the 'Kantian
unknowable thing-in-itself' to say that we
know of the existence of an unknown necessity? Had the Machians given the matter
any thought they could not have failed to observe the complete identity
between Engels' argument on the knowability of the objective nature of things
and on the transformation of 'things-in-themselves' into 'things-for-us,' on the
one hand, and his argument on a blind, unknown necessity, on the other. The
development of consciousness in each human individual and the development of the
collective knowledge of humanity at large presents us at every step with
examples of the transformation of the unknown 'thing-in-itself' into the
known 'thing-for-us,' of the transformation of blind, unknown necessity,
'necessity-in-itself,' into the known 'necessity-for-us.' Epistemologically,
there is no difference whatever between these two transformations, for the basic
point of view in both cases is the same, viz., materialistic, the
recognition of the objective reality of the external world and of the laws of
external nature, and of the fact that this world and these laws are fully
knowable to man but can never be known to him with finality. We do not
know the necessity of nature in the phenomena of the weather, and to that extent
we are inevitably slaves of the weather. But while we do not know this
necessity, we do know that it exists. Whence this knowledge? From the
very source whence comes the knowledge that things exist outside our mind and
independently of it, namely, from the development of our knowledge, which
provides millions of examples to every individual of knowledge replacing
ignorance when an object acts upon our sense-organs, and conversely of ignorance
replacing knowledge when the possibility of such action is eliminated.
"Fourthly, in the above-mentioned argument Engels plainly employs the
salto vitale [energetic somersault -- RL] method in philosophy, that is to
say, he makes a leap from theory to practice. Not a single one of the
learned (and stupid) professors of philosophy, in whose footsteps our Machians
follow, would permit himself to make such a leap, for this would be a
disgraceful thing for a devotee of 'pure science' to do. For them the
theory of knowledge, which demands the cunning concoction of 'definitions,' is
one thing, while practice is another. For Engels all living human practice
permeates the theory of knowledge itself and provides an objective
criterion of truth. For until we know a law of nature, it, existing and acting
independently and outside our mind, makes us slaves of 'blind necessity.'
But once we come to know this law, which acts (as Marx pointed out a thousand
times (sic)) independently of our will and our mind, we become the
masters of nature. The mastery of nature manifested in human practice is a
result of an objectively correct reflection within the human head of the
phenomena and processes of nature, and is proof of the fact that this reflection
(within the limits of what is revealed by practice) is objective, absolute, and
eternal truth (sic).
"What is the result? Every step in Engels' argument, literally almost
every phrase, every proposition, is constructed entirely and exclusively upon
the epistemology of dialectical materialism, upon premises which stand out
in striking contrast to the Machian nonsense about bodies being complexes of
sensations, about 'elements,' 'the coincidence of sense-perceptions with the
reality that exists outside us,' etc., etc., etc. Without being the least
deterred by this, the Machians abandon materialism and repeat (ŕ la
Berman) the
vulgar banalities about dialectics, and at the same time welcome with open arms
one of the applications of dialectical materialism! They have taken
their philosophy from an eclectic pauper's broth and are continuing to offer
this hotchpotch to the reader. They take a bit of agnosticism and a morsel of
idealism from Mach, add to it slices of dialectical materialism from Marx, and
call this hash a development of Marxism. They imagine that if Mach,
Avenarius, Petzoldt, and all the authorities of theirs have not the slightest
inkling of how Hegel and Marx solved the problem (of freedom and necessity),
this is purely accidental: why, it was simply because they overlooked a certain
page in a certain book, and not because these 'authorities' were and are utter
ignoramuses on the subject of the real progress made by philosophy in
the nineteenth century and because they were and are philosophical
obscurantists." [Lenin (1972),
pp.219-23. Bold
emphases and links alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
And
yet, just like Engels and Hegel before him, Lenin failed to explain how
'freedom' can emerge from 'necessity' -- except Lenin substitutes invective,
bluster and abuse for cogent argument, providing his readers with a classic example of
"philosophy practiced with a mallet". Simply asserting that a passage from Hegel
or Engels solves this knotty 'problem' might work for the many
true-believers
Dialectical Marxism attracts to its ranks, but even they will struggle to fill
in the gaps in the above 'argument' (which is, of course, why they
resort to abuse almost
from the get-go).
We
have already seen (in Essay Thirteen
Part One) that Lenin's
theory restricts the source of his knowledge to the 'images'
in his head:
"All
knowledge comes from experience, from sensation, from perception. That is
true. But the question arises, does
objective reality 'belong to perception,' i.e., is it the source of
perception? If you answer yes, you are a materialist. If you answer no,
you are inconsistent and will inevitably arrive at subjectivism, or agnosticism,
irrespective of whether you deny the
knowability of the thing-in-itself, or the objectivity of time, space and
causality (with Kant), or whether you do not even permit the thought of a
thing-in-itself (with Hume). The inconsistency of your empiricism, of your
philosophy of experience, will in that case lie in the fact that you deny the
objective content of experience, the objective truth of experimental knowledge."
[Lenin
(1972), p.142. Bold emphasis alone added.]
"For instance, the materialist Frederick
Engels -- the not unknown collaborator of Marx and a founder of Marxism --
constantly and without exception speaks in his works of things and their
mental pictures or images..., and it is obvious that these mental images
arise exclusively from sensations. It would seem that this fundamental
standpoint of the 'philosophy of Marxism' ought to be known to everyone who
speaks of it, and especially to anyone who comes out in print in the name of
this philosophy.... Engels, we repeat, applies this 'only materialistic
conception' everywhere and without exception, relentlessly attacking Dühring for
the least deviation from materialism to idealism. Anybody who reads Anti-Dühring
and Ludwig Feuerbach with the slightest care will find scores of instances when
Engels speaks of things and their reflections in the human brain, in our
consciousness, thought, etc. Engels does not say that sensations or ideas are
'symbols' of things, for consistent materialism must here use 'image,'
picture, or reflection instead of 'symbol,' as we shall show in detail in
the proper place." [Ibid.,
pp.32-33.
Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site.]
"[S]ensation
is an image of the external world...." [Ibid.,
p.56. Bold emphasis added.]
"Our sensation, our consciousness is only an image of the external
world…." [Ibid.,
p.69.
Bold emphasis alone added.]
"The doctrine of introjection is a muddle, it
smuggles in idealistic rubbish and is contradictory to natural science, which
inflexibly holds that thought is a function of the brain, that sensations,
i.e., the images of the external world, exist within us, produced by the action
of things on our sense-organs." [Ibid.,
p.95.
Bold emphasis added.]
"The sole and unavoidable deduction to be
made from this -- a deduction which all of us make in everyday practice and
which materialism deliberately places at the foundation of its epistemology --
is that outside us, and independently of us, there exist objects, things, bodies
and that our perceptions are images of the external world." [Ibid.,
p.111.
Bold emphasis added.]
"Thus, the materialist theory, the theory of
the reflection of objects by our mind, is here presented with absolute clarity:
things exist outside us. Our perceptions and ideas are their images." [Ibid.,
p.119.
Bold emphasis added.]
"For the materialist the 'factually given' is
the outer world, the image of which is our sensations." [Ibid.,
p.121.
Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site.]
"[S]ense-perception is not the
reality existing outside us, it is only the image of that reality."
[Ibid.,
p.124. Bold emphasis alone added.]
In
which case, Lenin can't possibly claim to know anything at all 'objective' even about
Engels (let alone anything else), since all he has available to him are 'images' of Engels's
writings with no way of knowing whether or not these 'images' are valid. No use
appealing to practice, or even science, since, once again, all Lenin has is an
'image' of practice and an 'image' of science, and no 'image' can guarantee the veracity
of another 'image'. Small wonder then that Lenin
substituted bluster for proof -- plainly, in order to distract attention from the
gaping holes in his argument. Indeed, as we saw in Essay Thirteen
Part One, Lenin
only succeeded in trapping himself in a
solipsistic world of his own making, leaving him in the same predicament
as those he was criticising. And that in turn is because they both accepted
the parameters laid down by post-renaissance bourgeois philosophers. [On that,
see Essay Three
Part Two.]
Be
this as it may, these pseudo-solutions bequeathed to subsequent
generations of DM-theorists an unsolved 'problem', which is
why they simply uncritically regurgitate the above 'arguments' in the vain hope that
repetition constitutes proof -- parroting a chorus of assertions to the effect that
what doesn't
even remotely look like a solution is in fact a solution to the 'problem' of the
relation between the individual and history.
'Triumph of the will' with respect
to theory, here, one feels.
However, questions remain: Do we have 'free will'? Or, are we all slaves to
necessity and mere pawns? Are we capable of acting and
deciding for ourselves? What exactly is 'revolutionary agency'? Subsequent
dialecticians have wrestled with these knotty problems, but they have either (a)
Reproduced the above non-solution, or they have (b) Elaborated on it, perhaps
drawing on certain aspects of contemporary Philosophy. [Callinicos (2004), for
instance, is an excellent example of this genre. I will say more about
Callinicos's 'solution'
in Essay Three Part Five.]
"For the
materialist, all of reality is based on matter, including the human brain which
is itself a result of the organization of matter in a particular way. In this
view, the abstract idea of 'tree' was developed by humans from their experience
of actual trees. 'It is not consciousness that determines being,' wrote Marx,
putting it another way, 'but social being that determines consciousness.'
[D'Amato is here attributing to Marx a
bourgeois
individualist theory of knowledge/abstraction, little different from that
invented by John Locke,
not realising that Marx was referring to social being here (even though
D'Amato actually quoted the phrase!), not individual experience -- RL.]
"Probably
the most popular form of idealism is 'free will' -- the idea that individuals
can do anything they set their mind too (sic). For example, the view that 'you can
beat poverty if you really try hard' implicitly accepts the idea of free will.
Poverty, in this view, is not a social phenomenon caused by, for example, a
plant closing or a chronic illness in the family. Rather, poverty is some kind
of personal choice....
"Marx and
Engels ridiculed the view that ideas
determine reality. 'Once upon a
time, a valiant fellow had the idea
that men were drowned in water only
because they were possessed with the
idea of gravity,' they wrote. 'If
they were to get this notion out of
their heads...they would be
sublimely proof against any danger
from water.'
"But by
rejecting 'free will,' Marx didn't
embrace 'determinism' -- the idea
that human beings are slaves to the
blind forces of history. 'The
materialist doctrine,' wrote Marx, 'that men are products of
circumstances and upbringing, and
that, therefore, changed men are
products of other circumstances and
changed upbringing, forgets that it
is men who change circumstances.'
"For Marx,
people 'make their own history, but
they do not make it just as they
please; they do not make it under
circumstances chosen by themselves,
but under circumstances directly
encountered, given and transmitted
from the past.'
"Human
behaviour is first shaped by our
physical makeup. We must labour
cooperatively in order to eat, drink
and find shelter. At any given stage
in human development, the level of
production -- and the social
relations based on that level of
production -- shape our limits and
possibilities.
"'People
cannot be liberated,' wrote Marx and
Engels, 'as long as they are unable
to obtain food and drink, housing
and clothing in adequate quality and
quantity. "Liberation" is a
historical and not a mental act and
it is brought about by historical
conditions.'
"Ideas can
and do shape history -- but only if
those ideas are embraced by millions
and only if the social and material
conditions for their realization
exist." [Quoted from
here; accessed 24/12/2016.
Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this
site. Spelling modified to agree
with UK English.]
But, and once again, simply asserting that
humans can do this or that, when your theory also implies they can't since they
are all subject to
natural necessity, is no solution.
Here
is John Molyneux of the UK-SWP, also choosing Box (a):
"Before dealing directly with these issues it
is worth noting that bourgeois thought has never been able to resolve the
problem of determinism. Rather it has swung back and forth between voluntarist
idealism, which ignores social conditions and places all the emphasis on 'great'
individuals and ideas, and mechanical materialism which stresses the
unchangeable nature of people and society. Both these positions reflect aspects
of bourgeois society viewed from the top down. On the one hand the bourgeoisie
standing at the head of society, freed from productive labour and living off the
exploitation of others, is able to flatter itself that its ideas and deeds rule
the world. On the other hand looking down on the masses it sees them there as
mere objects, passively driven this way and that by the requirements of capital
accumulation. Bourgeois ideology thus attacks Marxism both for being too
deterministic and for not being deterministic enough....
"Debates about determinism have also occurred
amongst those claiming allegiance to Marxism. At different points in time both
passive determinist and highly voluntarist interpretations of Marxism have
flourished. The most important example of the determinist trend was the version
of Marxism developed by Karl Kautsky which dominated German Social Democracy and
the Second International in the period leading up to the First World War. In
Kautsky's view the economic laws of capitalism guaranteed the growth in numbers
and consciousness of the working class to the point where power would
'automatically' fall into its hands. All that was required of the socialist
movement was that it build up its organisations, strengthen its vote and avoid
adventures while patiently waiting for economic development to do its work. It
was of this period that Gramsci wrote that 'the deterministic, fatalistic and
mechanistic element has been a direct ideological "armour" emanating from the
philosophy of praxis [Marxism -- JM] rather like religion or drugs'.
"At the opposite pole, the most extreme cases
of voluntarism trading under a Marxist label were Maoism and Guevarism. Maoism
proclaimed not only the possibility of industrialising China by will power in
the disastrous Great Leap Forward but even the direct transition to complete
communism in China alone without any regard for objective material circumstances.... Guevarism, basing itself on the special case
of Cuba, developed a theory of revolution instigated by a small band of
guerrillas in the countryside. 'It is not necessary', wrote Guevara, 'to wait
until all the conditions for making revolution exist: the insurrection can
create them'....
"By absolute determinism I mean the view that
every event in the history of the universe from the big bang to the end of time
and every human action from the writing of Capital to whether or not I
raise my right eyebrow is inevitable and could not be other than it has been, is
or will be. The argument in favour of absolute determinism is that every
event/action has its cause or causes, and that these causes determine precisely
the nature of the said event/action and that these causes are themselves
completely determined by prior causes. Thus every particular event or action is
part of an infinitely complex but absolutely inevitable chain reaction inherent
in the singularity or whatever lay at the origin of the universe.... [Molyneux
is here deliberately confusing, or equating, determinism (or 'absolute determinism') with fatalism -- RL.]
"However, it also involves the belief that
human behaviour is 'ultimately' reducible to the movements of the physical
particles of which humans are made up and which are held to obey universal
natural laws. Some such view as this, even if not openly proclaimed, seems to
have influenced those Marxists who have held an absolute determinist position.
Such Marxists, however, have generously held that for the purposes of social
analysis it was unnecessary to effect a reduction to the level of physics since
human behaviour was governed by social laws which were akin to natural laws in
their operation.
"Discussing absolute determinism,
Ralph
Miliband comments, 'This is not a view that can be argued with: it can only
be accepted or rejected. I reject it and pass on'. Miliband has a point in that
it is impossible to cite empirical evidence which refutes absolute determinism
(just as it is impossible to cite facts which 'prove' it). Nevertheless it is a
view which can be argued with. Bearing in mind Marx's dictum that:
'In practice man must prove the truth,
that is, the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking. The dispute
over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated from practice is a
pure scholastic question.'
[Molyneux is here quoting the first of Marx's
Theses on Feuerbach -- RL.]
"It is possible to assess the advantages and
disadvantages of absolute determinism from the standpoint of practice."
[Molyneux (1995), pp.39-42. Italic emphases in the original; link added.]
I
will discuss Molyneux's article in much more detail in Essay Three Part Five,
but his 'solution' to this ancient problem in the end plainly revolves around practicalities,
the dialectical equivalent of
Samuel
Johnson's refutation of
Bishop
Berkeley's
Subjective Idealism --
by kicking
a stone! Moreover, any response that amounts to little more than "I
personally can't
believe this theory or its implications" has no place in Marxism, or, indeed,
in any scientific theory.
Finally, here is Rob Sewell (of the
IMT), choosing Box (a), too:
"In the
past, the role of the individual in history (the 'subjective factor' in Marxist
terminology) has been the subject of heated debate. There are many bourgeois
historians even today who believe that history is made by 'Great Men and
Women'.... Supposedly through their force of character, they have shaped history
while the masses play little or no role.... Little attention is played to economic,
political or social forces which operate largely behind the scenes.
"There are
those who argue that individuals determine nothing, but are thrown about by the
greater objective forces of history. This school of thought represents fatalism,
where individuals act as mere marionettes, their strings pulled by some
invisible hand. This idea is derived from a Calvinist doctrine that all human
action is divinely predestined, like some lunar eclipse.... The
domination of Fate rules out any idea of individual freedom and the independent
activity of the masses. We are all reduced to the role of pawns. [Sewell is
doing the
opposite of Molyneux by deliberately conflating, or identifying, fatalism
with determinism -- RL.]
"This is
however not the case. History is made by people. Marxists, unlike the
superficial fatalists, do not deny the role of the individual, his (sic) initiative or
audacity (or lack of it), in the social struggle. It is the task of Marxism
to uncover the dialectical relationship between the individual (the subjective)
and the great forces (objective) that govern the movement of society.
Historical materialism does not dismiss the role of the individual, of
personality, in history, but sees this role in its historical context. Marxism
explains that no person, no matter how talented, capable or farsighted, can
determine the main course of historical development, which is shaped by
objective forces. However, under critical circumstances, the role played by
individuals can be decisive, the last decisive link in the chain of causality.
Under certain circumstances, the 'subjective factor' can become the most
important fact in history....
"In
relation to the importance of decisive leadership in the socialist revolution,
Lenin's role in 1917 stands out as decisive. Could another Bolshevik leader,
even Trotsky, have substituted Lenin's role? Trotsky believed not. Given the
concrete conditions, where the Bolshevik Party had to be rearmed in April 1917
for the socialist revolution, only Lenin had the necessary authority in the
party. The conservative pressures from the other leaders would have had been too
great an influence without Lenin. In other words, the importance of the
conscious subjective factor stood out with greater force than ever before.
Lenin's role could not have been duplicated. This was due not simply due
(sic) to his
personal qualities, but his exceptional standing within the Bolshevik Party.
While the Bolsheviks led the workers and peasants, Lenin led the Bolshevik
Party. He was the leader of the leaders.
"One of the
fundamental reasons for this critical role of leadership or the subjective
factor in our epoch, stems from the fact that all the major objective conditions
for the overthrow of capitalism are rotten ripe (the integration of the world
economy, the inability of capitalism to take society forward, the chronic
instability and impasse of the system, the elements of barbarism emerging, the
existence of mass unemployment, etc). The defeat of the numerous revolutions
since the October Revolution of 1917 has been due to the failure of leadership
of the mass organisations, whether they are social democratic or Stalinist. For
the successful socialist revolution, a mass party is needed with a far-sighted
revolutionary leadership schooled in the ideas of Marxism ('the memory of the
working class'). The Bolsheviks under the Leadership of Lenin and Trotsky was
able to provide this. They provided the dialectical unity of the objective
and subjective factors." [Rob
Sewell. Accessed 24/12/2016. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
Once again, Sewell solves this
'problem' by throwing 'dialectics' at it without even a perfunctory attempt to explain how this
advances the argument one nanometre.
In the end, like Plekhanov [Plekhanov
(2004b)], DM-theorists are forced to conclude that the individual
personality, say, of Lenin, or the psychological differences between him and other
leading Bolsheviks, was the (final) decisive factor in the 1917 revolution. Of course,
this conclusion is heavily qualified by the objective historical circumstances surrounding
both Lenin and the 1917 revolution; nevertheless, in the end, 'subjective' factors 'tipped the
balance' in this instance, as they also appear to have done in relation to other
'revolutionary actors' and events, and, indeed, with respect to Marxists in general.
In what follows, I have no desire to question
that particular conclusion -- although I will qualify it greatly in Essay Three
Part Five.
However, if it is admitted that 'subjective'
factors (of the above sort) are important, if not decisive, in revolutionary theory,
then it can
hardly be denied that the ideas such individuals bring with them into
Marxism are insignificant and can therefore be discounted.
We will soon see that these individuals openly
admit they inherited many of their core ideas from the ruling-class (and/or their ideologues)
-- a general point Marx underlined, anyway:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch
the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means
of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the
means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it. The ruling
ideas are nothing more than the ideal expression of the dominant material
relationships, the dominant material relationships grasped as ideas; hence of
the relationships which make the one class the ruling one, therefore, the ideas
of its dominance. The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other
things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a
class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that
they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers,
as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas
of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65, quoted from
here. Bold
emphases added.]
The next sub-section will further develop
this point, underlining its all too easily missed significance.
This now brings us to a consideration of the
factors that define and shape the mind-set, role and status of leading Marxists. Unlike
most workers who become revolutionaries, most 'professional revolutionaries'
(and all of the leading figures) by-and-large join, or have joined the
revolutionary socialist movement as a result of one or more of the following 'subjective'
factors: (i) Their own personal or intellectual commitment to the revolution
(for whatever reason), (ii) Their 'rebellious' personality (howsoever that phrase is understood),
(iii) Their alienation from the system, or
(iv) Other contingent psychological or social motives (for example, in Lenin's
case, the
execution of his brother, Aleksandr) --,
but, significantly, (v)Not as a direct result
of their
(collective) involvement in the class war.
"We begin to recruit from sourcesnone too healthy….
Freaks always looking for the most extreme expression of radicalism, misfits,
windbags, chronic oppositionists, who had been thrown out of half a dozen
organizations…. Many people came to us who had revolted against the Communist
Party not for its bad sides but for its good sides; that is, the discipline of
the party, the subordination of the individual to the decisions of the party in
current work. A lot of dillettantish, petty-bourgeois minded people who
couldn't stand any kind of discipline, many of the newcomers made a fetish of
democracy…. All the people of this type have one common characteristic; they
like to discuss things without limit or end…. They can all talk; and not only
can but will; and everlastingly, on every question." [James P. Cannon, History
of American Trotskyism, pp.92-93, quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
[Items (i)-(iv) above might appear to be
'subjective factors', but in view of what was argued in
the previous
sub-section, and what James Cannon has just admitted, this is no mere appearance: they are subjective. Readers
are referred to that sub-section or more details.]
"A worker comes to socialism
as a part of a whole, along with his class, from which he has no prospect of
escaping. He is even pleased with the feeling of his moral unity with the mass,
which makes him more confident and stronger. The intellectual, however, comes to
socialism, breaking his class umbilical cord as an individual, as a personality,
and inevitably seeks to exert influence as an individual.But just here he comes
up against obstacles -- and as time passes the bigger these obstacles become. At
the beginning of the Social-Democratic movement, every intellectual who joined,
even though not above the average, won for himself a place in the working-class
movement. Today every newcomer finds, in the Western European countries, the
colossal structure of working-class democracy already existing." [The
Intelligentsia and Socialism, quoted from
here. Bold
emphases added.]
These
individuals become
revolutionaries through their ownefforts, or they do so under the influence of
someone else (a parent, partner, sibling, friend, teacher, author,
or even another revolutionary), but not (in general) through
participation in collective action, in strikes (etc.), at their own
place of work --that is,ifthey work.
Of course, Trotsky was
here speaking about 'intellectuals', but his comments apply to most
individuals who drift into the movement -- that is, those that aren't workers
and who don't join
as a result of a direct involvement the class war. In which case, if these
individuals aren't, or weren't, members of the working class, they can't
come "to socialism as a part of a whole, along with [their] class", whether or
not they are 'intellectuals'. Not everyone
outwith the working class is
an 'intellectual', but both 'groups' (the 'intellectuals' and the
'non-intellectuals') still join the movement under the circumstances Trotsky
mentioned
-- and that includes Trotsky himself!
Lenin
(quoting
Kautsky)
added the following thoughts about these 'intellectuals':
"Theproblem...that again interests us so keenly today is the
antagonism between the intelligentsiaand the proletariat. My
colleagues (Kautsky is himself an intellectual, a writer and editor) will
mostly be indignant that I admit this antagonism. But it actually exists, and,
as in other cases, it would be the most inexpedient tactics to try to overcome
the fact by denying it. This antagonism is a social one, it relates to
classes, not to individuals. The individual intellectual, like the
individual capitalist, may identify himself with the proletariat in its class
struggle. When he does, he changes his character too. It is not this type
of intellectual, who is still an exception among his class, that we shall
mainly speak of in what follows. Unless otherwise stated, I shall use the
word intellectual to mean only the common run of intellectual who takes the
stand of bourgeois society, and who is characteristic of the
intelligentsia as a class. This class stands in a certain
antagonism to the proletariat.
"Thisantagonism differs, however, from the antagonism between labour and
capital. The intellectual is not a capitalist. True, his standard of life
is bourgeois, and he must maintain it if he is not to become a pauper; but at
the same time he is compelled to sell the product of his labour, and often his
labour-power, and is himself often enough exploited and humiliated by the
capitalist. Hence the intellectual does not stand in any economic antagonism
to the proletariat. But his status of life and his conditions of labour are
not proletarian, and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in sentiments and
ideas.
"...Quitedifferent is the case of the intellectual. He does not fight by means
of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his
personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at
all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his
individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity.
It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a
whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the
need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course
he counts himself among the latter...." [Kautsky, quoted in Lenin (1976),
pp.161-62. Bold emphases
alone added.]
To be sure, Lenin and Kautsky were describing hostile
(anti-Marxist) intellectuals, but much of what they had to say also applies to those who
move in the opposite direction, and becomeprofessional revolutionaries-- as Kautsky
himself admits:
"The individual intellectual, like the
individual capitalist, may identify himself with the proletariat in its class
struggle". [Ibid.]
Except, with the above individuals, their 'hostility' toward the proletariat often
is latent and lies under the
surface (but, from whom we regularly hear words like "workerist",
or "economism",
and who spare no effort telling us that ordinary workers are prisoners of "banal commonsense",
bought off by "super-profits" and in thrall to "formal thinking"). This hostility later
assumes an entirely different aspect -- as we will see, this often, but
not exclusively, surfaces in
a haughty, arrogant, contemptuous, even impatient attitude toward other
revolutionaries and, indeed, workers themselves, which later morphs,
under specific social and political conditions, into various forms of
substitutionism. It is then that this latent hostility surfaces, rationalising
and justifying (even ignoring or explaining away) the continued oppression and
exploitation of workers -- as we saw, for example, in "already existing socialism". We
witnessed this as
generations of Marxist 'intellectuals' ('east' and 'west') supported, or advocated a 'revolutionary
defence' of, the anti-worker and oppressive regimes in the former Soviet Union
[fSU], China,
Eastern Europe, Vietnam, North Korea, and Cuba. Of course, this wasn't the case with every such Marxist
'intellectual' or professional revolutionary, but their alien-class origin, or
current class position, can't fail to have affected their
view of, and attitude toward, workers and fellow revolutionaries in general.
Indeed, as we will see
as this Essay unfolds.
This conclusion is forced on usunless we choose to regard
such 'individuals' as 'saints', above the pressures that
every other human being experiences as a result of living in class society. Any
who cavil at this point might be tempted to think that they alone perhaps --
unique in all of humanity over the
last 5000 years -- they alone are capable
of rising above such mundane forces, and are able to do so against the pull of social gravity.
So,
Lenin and Kautsky's class
analysis also applies to Lenin and Kautsky, as well as other petty-bourgeois,
or déclassé, Dialectical Marxists.
Again, this must be so otherwise we would have to conclude that Lenin was committed to an Idealist
theory, in this case. That is, he would be attempting to account for the
theories, ideas and attitudes
adopted by these 'intellectuals', petty-bourgeois, or déclassé Dialectical Marxistson the basis of who they "identified" with
-- not
on their class origin and current class position, but on their psychological orientation toward another
class. Except, in the case of their attitude to the bourgeoisie, this would
have
economic roots; in the case of their orientation toward the working class, it had no such roots
-- just
a stance based, perhaps, on lifestyle:
"Hence the intellectual does not stand in any economic antagonism
to the proletariat. But his status of life and his conditions of labour are
not proletarian, and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in sentiments and
ideas." [Ibid.]
But:
"The intellectual is
not a capitalist. True, his standard of life
is bourgeois, and he must maintain it if he is not to become a pauper; but at
the same time he is compelled to sell the product of his labour, and often his
labour-power." [Ibid.]
If
the intellectual isn't part of the capitalist class and has to sell 'his' labour-power just like
a worker, then the only thing that could possibly swing 'him' behind the bourgeoisie is "his
standard of life" or 'his' socialisation. But, it would be interesting to see how many intellectuals
enjoy a
standard of living on a par with an average member of the capitalist class.
Their precarious economic condition would surely make them the Janus Class, as
Marx characterised the petty-bourgeoisie, a class fraction that could break
either way. [On this, see Draper (1978), pp.288-316.] But, whichever way they
finally do break, their socialisation will always predispose them toward the ideas
and thought-forms of the ruling-class.
So, Lenin tells us that some
'intellectuals' side with the bourgeoisie, which implies, of course, that others identify with the
proletariat -- for example, Marx, Engels and Lenin! But, if Lenin were right, their ideas wouldn't be a function of their class position
as such,
they would be a sole function of other ideas they held -- contradicting Marx:
"It is not the consciousness
of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that
determines their consciousness." [Marx
(1968), p.181.]
If those who identify with the
proletariat and those who don't identify with them originate in,
or belong to, the same class
faction (the petty-bourgeoisie/déclassé intellectuals), then the only
factor that would distinguish them, that would motivate them into choosing one over
the other, would be the contingent ideas they had adopted/formed, not their class
position as such. But, those in this class fraction, on both sides of the class war, have imbibed ideas they
inherited from previous generations of ruling-class thinkers.
While it is undeniable
that there are significant differences between (a) Marxist intellectuals, and/or
"professional revolutionaries" and (b) non-Marxist intellectuals,
because they both come from, or now belong to, the same class faction they are still either petty-bourgeois or
they are déclassé and they share the same set of ruling-class ideas.
Their attitudes and beliefs can't
change the class to which they belong, or from which they emerged. So, there
are far more basic ideological similarities between those who break either way than there are
differences -- especially since both halves of this class fraction have had
ruling-class ideas forced down their throats almost from day one and which they subsequently put to use in the class war:
"In the social production of their existence,
men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their
will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the
development of their material forces of production. The totality of these
relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real
foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of
material life conditions the general process of social, political and
intellectual life.... In studying
such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material
transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined
with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious,
artistic or philosophic -- in short, ideological forms in which men become
conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an
individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of
transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness
must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict
existing between the social forces of production and the relations of
production." [Marx
(1968), pp.181-82. Bold emphasis added.]
[It
could be agued that if the above were correct, then it would imply that workers
themselves
can use philosophy to help fight their corner in the class war. I have dealt
with that riposte in Part One,
here.]
The
above applies no less to Marxist intellectuals; the only factors that
distinguish them from those who do not 'side with the revolution' are those that
were mentioned
earlier,
and in the previous
sub-section. Although the ideas held by both sets of individuals originated
outside the working class, subjective factors finally determine the side with which
they subsequently identify -- which is what one would expect of those who are
quintessential 'individuals' and who religiously defend their individuality:
"A worker comes to socialism
as a part of a whole, along with his class, from which he has no prospect of
escaping. He is even pleased with the feeling of his moral unity with the mass,
which makes him more confident and stronger. The intellectual, however, comes to
socialism, breaking his class umbilical cord as an individual, as a personality,
and inevitably seeks to exert influence as an individual.But just here he comes
up against obstacles -- and as time passes the bigger these obstacles become. At
the beginning of the Social-Democratic movement, every intellectual who joined,
even though not above the average, won for himself a place in the working-class
movement." [Trotsky, op cit; bold emphases added.]
"He does not fight by means
of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his
personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at
all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his
individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity.
It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a
whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the
need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course
he counts himself among the latter...." [Kautsky, op cit; bold
emphasis added.]
[More on this
later,
where I deal with the clichéd rebuttal that this is just 'crude reductionism'.]
Such comrades thus enter
the movement committed to the revolution as an
Idea, as an expression of their own personal and intellectual integrity --
maybe also because of anger directed against the system (for whatever reason),
or their idiosyncratic alienation from class society (again, for whatever
reason).
However, they aren't revolutionaries for
proletarian or materialist reasons --, that is, they don't side with the
proletariat as a result of their
direct experience of collective action, or as a direct consequence of
working class response
to exploitation --, but for individual, albeit often very noble, reasons.
This means
that from the beginning(again, by-and-large),because of their
class position and non-working class origin and upbringing, they act
and think like individuals (indeed, as Trotsky noted, and Lenin implied). This (i) Affects the ideas they
are capable of forming, (ii)
Colours their attitude toward such ideas, (iii) Skews
their activity inside the movement, and (iv) Slants the relationships they form
both with other
revolutionaries and with workers themselves. It also draws in others who
already have boss-class ideas implanted in their brains, ideas that had been shaped by
an ancient and well entrenched ruling-class tradition.
This isn't to malign such individuals, but to remind
us that this is a class issue -- again, as Lenin noted:
"...[I]t relates to
classes, not to individuals." [Loc cit.]
Although this
is indeed a class issue, it affects how those caught in the machinery
behave as individuals. How else could class influence be expressed?
As noted above, these individuals have had their
heads filled with "ruling ideas" almost from the day they left the cradle --
which indoctrination was itself a direct result of the 'superior'
education and the bourgeois/petty-bourgeois socialisation to which they had
been subjected. So, when
those who later 'side with the revolution' encounter Hegel's work (or even DM),
it is quite 'natural' for them to latch on to his (and its) dogmatic and a priori
theses.
"Natural" in the sense that their class origin and current position has already
delivered them up as atomised, socially-isolated individuals with no collective identity,
as Lenin and Trotsky argued.
Hence, before they became revolutionaries or
even Marxists they had already received both
barrels of boss-class ideology, right in the face -- or, rather, right in the
brain.
This means that Hegel's doctrines (upside down or
'the right way up') mesh seamlessly with ideas they had already internalised
-- that is, it is the job of 'genuine' philosophers to concoct a priori dogma
like this. Marx's famous words, therefore, apply equally to them, too:
"The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch
the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society,
is at the same time its ruling intellectual force. The class which has the means
of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the
means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.... The individuals composing the ruling class possess among other
things consciousness, and therefore think. Insofar, therefore, as they rule as a
class and determine the extent and compass of an epoch, it is self-evident that
they do this in its whole range, hence among other things rule also as thinkers,
as producers of ideas, and regulate the production and distribution of the ideas
of their age: thus their ideas are the ruling ideas of the epoch.'" [Marx and Engels (1970), pp.64-65, quoted from
here. Bold
emphases added.]
Notice how Marx argued that:
"The class which has the means
of material production at its disposal, has control at the same time over the
means of mental production, so that thereby, generally speaking, the ideas of
those who lack the means of mental production are subject to it.... Insofar,
therefore, as they rule as a class and determine the extent and compass of an
epoch, it is self-evident that they do this in its whole range, hence
among other things rule also as thinkers, as producers of ideas, and regulate
the production and distribution of the ideas of their age...."
[Ibid. Bold emphases added.]
So, they rule also as
"thinkers", and this they do in "its whole range"; moreover,
those who have no control over the system -- which includes every single one of the
DM-classicists, as well as those who have led the movement and who have shaped
its ideas ever since -- are
plainly "subject" to its vice-like ideological grip. The "ruling
intellectual force" can't fail to have affected such 'intellectuals'
(Marxist or otherwise). But, we needn't guess here. They already openly admit to
this influence, if not glory in it. [On that, see the next
sub-section.]
Moreover, for reasons
also outlined in Note 13a2, they
are happy return the 'favour', gladly assisting in the elaboration and dissemination of these
alien-class thought-forms in books ad articles on DM--, which
is, of course, how the ruling-class manage to "control
at the same time...the means of mental production",
and hence Dialectical Marxism itself.
Naturally,
"the means of mental production" have changed markedly since Ancient Greece
dominated 'western' thought, but the last fifteen centuries or so (again, in the
'west') saw this hegemony initially coalesce in and around the Roman
Catholic Church -- in the Monasteries and later in the Universities. But, since the
Renaissance, intellectual control has become increasingly diffuse, spreading its
tentacles out from the Universities to cover itinerant thinkers (including those
patronised by the rich and those who had private means); of late, "the means of
mental production" have also incorporated free-lance writers, journalists, TV, radio,
and Internet pundits, as well as editors and producers. The livelihood and
reputation of those caught up in this are largely dependent on factors highlighted by
Lenin:
"[Their]
standard of life is bourgeois, and [they] must maintain it if [they are] not to
become...pauper[s]; but at the same time [they are] compelled to sell the
product of [their] labour, and often [their] labour-power....
[They do] not fight by means of power, but by argument. [Their] weapons
are...personal knowledge,...personal ability,...personal convictions. [They] can
attain to any position at all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for
[their]
individuality seems to [them] the prime condition for successful activity.
It is only with difficulty that [they submit] to being a part subordinate to a
whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. [They recognise] the
need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course
[they count themselves] among the latter...." [Op
cit.]
Hence, those
who later became 'leading revolutionaries' (and who had also been "subject to"
the full force of this indoctrination
before they became Marxists), have indeed had their thinking shaped by the ideas
and thought-forms of the
ruling-class. As we have seen -- and
are about to see.
Which is,
once more, why Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Trotsky and Dietzgen (to mention just a
few) thought it quite natural to look to previous thinkers as precursors of the concepts we find in DM,
and hence for
guidance and inspiration:
"With
this assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further
about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a
thinker who had traced the evolution of the world back to its self-equal state,
and is so much at home on other celestial bodies, would have known exactly
what's what also on this point. For the rest, however, the assurance he gives
us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of
measure relations which has already been mentioned. In spite of all gradualness,
the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a
decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial
bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally
true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of
molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper: heat,
light, electricity, magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics
of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided
leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary
chemical action to the chemism of albumen which we call life. Then within
the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible. --
Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring." [Engels
(1976),
pp.82-83.
Bold emphases added.]
"Marxism is an integral
world-outlook. Expressed in a nutshell, it is contemporary materialism,
at present the highest stage of the development of that view upon the worldwhose foundations were laid down in ancient Greece by
Democritus, and
in part by the
Ionian thinkers who preceded that philosopher." [Plekhanov
(1908), p.11. Italic emphases in the original; bold emphases and links added.]
"According to Hegel, dialectics is
the principle of all life…. [M]an has two qualities: first being alive,
and secondly of also being mortal. But on closer examination it turns out that
life itself bears in itself the germ of death, and that in general
any phenomenon is contradictory, in the sense that it develops out
of itself the elements which, sooner or later, will put an end to its existence
and will transform it into its opposite. Everything flows, everything changes;
and there is no force capable of holding back this constant flux, or arresting
its eternal movement. There is no force capable of resisting the dialectics of
phenomena….
"At a particular moment a moving body is
at a particular spot, but at the same time it is outside it as well because, if
it were only in that spot, it would, at least for that moment, become
motionless.
Every motion is a dialectical process, a living contradiction, and as
there is not a single phenomenon of nature in explaining which we do not have in
the long run to appeal to motion, we have to agree with Hegel, who said that
dialectics is the soul of any scientific cognition. And this applies not
only to cognition of nature….
"And so every phenomenon,
by the action of those same forces which condition its existence, sooner or
later, but
inevitably, is transformed into its own opposite….
"When you apply the dialectical method
to the study of phenomena, you need to remember that forms change
eternally in consequence of the 'higher development of their content….'
"In the words of Engels, Hegel's merit
consists in the fact that he was the first to regard all phenomena from
the point of view of their development, from the point of view of their origin
and destruction….
"[M]odern science confirms at every step
the idea expressed with such genius byHegel, that quantity passes into
quality….
"[I]t will be understood without
difficulty by anyone who is in the least capable of dialectical
thinking...[that]
quantitative changes, accumulating gradually, lead in the end to
changes of quality, and that these changes of quality represent leaps,
interruptions in gradualness…. That's how all Nature acts…."
[Plekhanov
(1956), pp.74-77, 88, 163.
Bold emphases alone added. (Unfortunately, the Index page for the copy of this book over at The Marxist Internet Archive has no link to the
second half of Chapter Five, but it can be accessed directly
here. I have informed the editors of this error.
Added June 2015: they have
now corrected it!)]
"The theory of socialism, however,
grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories elaborated by
educated representatives of the propertied classes, by intellectuals. By
their social status the founders of modern scientific socialism, Marx and
Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois intelligentsia.
In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of Social-Democracy
arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the working-class
movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the development of thought among
the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia."
[Lenin (1947),
p.32. Bold emphases added.]
"The history of philosophy and the history of
social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling
'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified
doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the
development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists
precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the
foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate
continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of
philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive
and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable
with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It
is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth
century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and
French socialism." [Lenin,
Three Sources
and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone
added.]
"Dialectics requires an all-round
consideration of relationships in their concrete development…. Dialectical logic
demands that we go further…. [It] requires that an object should
be taken in development, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts it)….
"[D]ialectical logic holds that 'truth'
is
always concrete, never abstract, as the late Plekhanov liked to say
after Hegel." [Lenin (1921),
pp.90, 93. Bold emphases added.]
"Hegel brilliantly
divined the dialectics of things (phenomena, the world, nature)
in the dialectics of concepts…. This aphorism should be expressed more
popularly, without the word dialectics: approximately as follows: In the
alternation, reciprocal dependence of all
notions, in the identity of their opposites, in the transitions
of one notion into another, in the eternal change, movement of notions, Hegel
brilliantly divined precisely this relation of things to nature…. [W]hat
constitutes dialectics?…. [M]utual dependence of notions all without
exception…. Every notion occurs in a certain relation, in a certain
connection with all the others." [Lenin (1961), pp.196-97.
Italic emphases in the original; bold added.]
"[A]ll bodies change uninterruptedly
in size, weight, colour etc. They are never equal to themselves…. [T]he
axiom 'A' is equal to 'A' signifies that a thing is equal to itself if it does
not change, that is, if it does not exist…. For concepts there also exists
'tolerance' which is established not by formal logic…, but by the
dialectical logic issuing from the axiom that everything is always changing…. Hegel in his Logic established a series of laws: change of quantity into
quality, development through contradiction, conflict and form, interruption of
continuity, change of possibility into inevitability, etc…." [Trotsky
(1971),
pp.64-66. Bold emphasis added.]
"I should like to make the reader
understand what the professors, so far as I know them, have not yet understood,
viz., that our intellect is a dialectical instrument, and instrument which
reconciles all opposites. The intellect creates unity by means of the variety
and comprehends the difference in the equality. Hegel made it clear long ago
that there is no either-or, but as well as...." [Dietzgen
(1906), p.248. Bold
emphasis added.]
This idea isn't confined to the
DM-classicists:
"Previous chapters have shown that
dialectics has a history which embraces many thousands of years and that it has
passed through various stages of development. Disregarding the beginnings of
dialectics in Indian and Chinese philosophy, the following main stages can
be distinguished: (1) the dialectics of the old Greek philosophers of nature,
Heraclitus; (2) the second and higher stage, the dialectics of Plato and
Aristotle; (3) Hegelian dialectics; and (4) materialistic dialectics. Dialectics
itself has undergone a dialectical development. Heraclitus, representing the
first stage, develops the dialectics of one-after-the-other; Plato and
Aristotle, representing the second stage, develop the dialectics of
one-beside-the-other. The latter is in opposition to the dialectics of the first
stage, being its negation. Hegel embraces both preceding stages of development
and raises them to a higher stage. He develops the dialectics of the
one-after-the-other and the one-beside-the-other, but in an idealistic form; in
other words, he develops an historico-idealistic dialectics." [Thalheimer
(1936),
pp.157-58. Bold emphases added.]
"The integrity, the wholeness, the
irrefutable logic and consistency (sic!) of Marxism-Leninism, which are
acknowledged even by its opponents (sic!), have been achieved by the application
of the unified philosophical dialectical-materialist world outlook and method.
Marxism-Leninism cannot properly be understood without its philosophical basis.
"The philosophy of Marxism-Leninism is a
result and the highest stage of the development of world philosophical thought.
It has assimilated al that was best ad most progressive in the centuries of
development of philosophy...." [Konstantinov (1974), p.15. Bold emphasis
added.]
"As the philosophy of the working class,
Marxist-Leninist philosophy is the supreme form of materialism, a logical
result of the preceding development of philosophical thought through the
ages, and of the whole spiritual culture of mankind." [Kharin (1981), p.12.
Bold emphasis added.]
"The
history of Western philosophy, however, begins not with idealism but with
materialism. This asserts...that the material world, known to us and
explored by science, is real; that the only real world is the material one; that
thoughts, ideas and sensations are the product of matter organised in a certain
way (a nervous system and a brain); that thought cannot derive its categories
from itself, but only from the objective world which makes itself known to us
through our senses.
"The
earliest Greek philosophers were known as 'hylozoists'
(from the Greek, meaning 'those who believe that matter is alive'). Here we have
a long line of heroes who pioneered the development of thought.... What was
startlingly new about this way of looking at the world was that it was not
religious. In complete contrast to the Egyptians and Babylonians, from whom they
had learnt a lot, the Greek thinkers did not resort to gods and goddesses to
explain natural phenomena. For the first time, men and women sought to explain
the workings of nature purely in terms of nature. This was one of the greatest
turning-points in the entire history of human thought....
"Aristotle,
the greatest of the Ancient philosophers, can be considered a materialist,
although he was not so consistent as the early hylozoists. He made a series of
important scientific discoveries which laid the basis for the great achievements
of the Alexandrine period of Greek science....
"The predominant philosophical trend of the
Renaissance was materialism. In England, this took the form of
empiricism, the school of thought that states that all knowledge is derived
from the senses. The pioneers of this school were
Francis Bacon
(1561-1626),
Thomas
Hobbes (1588-1679) and John Locke (1632-1704). The materialist school passed
from England to France where it acquired a revolutionary content. In the hands
of Diderot,
Rousseau,
Holbach
and Helvetius,
philosophy became an instrument for criticising all existing society. These
great thinkers prepared the way for the revolutionary overthrow of the feudal
monarchy in 1789-93....
"Under the impact of the French revolution, the German
idealist
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) subjected all previous philosophy to a thorough
criticism. Kant made important discoveries not only in philosophy and logic but
in science.... In the field of philosophy, Kant's masterpiece The Critique
of Pure Reason was the first work to analyse the forms of logic which had
remained virtually unchanged since they were first developed by Aristotle. Kant
showed the contradictions implicit in many of the most fundamental propositions
of philosophy....
"The
greatest breakthrough came in the first decades of the 19th century with George
Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Hegel was a German idealist, a man of
towering intellect, who effectively summed up in his writings the whole history
of philosophy.
"Hegel
showed that the only way to overcome the
'Antinomies' of Kant was to accept that contradictions actually existed, not
only in thought, but in the real world. As an objective idealist, Hegel had no
time for the subjective idealist argument that the human mind cannot know the
real world. The forms of thought must reflect the objective world as closely as
possible. The process of knowledge consist of penetrating ever more deeply into
this reality, proceeding from the abstract to the concrete, from the known to
the unknown, from the particular to the universal.
"The
dialectical method of thinking had played a great role in Antiquity,
particularly in the naďve but brilliant aphorisms of Heraclitus (c.500 B.C.),
but also in Aristotle and others. It was abandoned in the Middle Ages, when
the Church turned Aristotle's formal logic into a lifeless and rigid dogma, and
did not re-appear until Kant returned it to a place of honour. However, in Kant
the dialectic did not receive an adequate development. It fell to Hegel to
bring the science of dialectical thinking to its highest point of development.
"Hegel's
greatness is shown by the fact that he alone was prepared to challenge the
dominant philosophy of mechanism. The dialectical philosophy of Hegel deals with
processes, not isolated events. It deals with things in their life, not
their death, in their inter-relations, not isolated, one after the other. This
is a startlingly modern and scientific way of looking at the world. Indeed, in
many aspects Hegel was far in advance of his time. Yet, despite its many
brilliant insights, Hegel's philosophy was ultimately unsatisfactory. Its
principal defect was precisely Hegel's idealist standpoint, which prevented him
from applying the dialectical method to the real world in a consistently
scientific way. Instead of the material world we have the world of the Absolute
Idea, where real things, processes and people are replaced by insubstantial
shadows. In the words of Frederick Engels, the Hegelian dialectic was the most
colossal miscarriage in the whole history of philosophy. Correct ideas are here
seen standing on their head. In order to put dialectics on a sound foundation,
it was necessary to turn Hegel upside down, to transform idealist dialectics
into dialectical materialism. This was the great achievement of Karl Marx and
Frederick Engels...." [Woods and Grant (1995),
pp.40-42; pp.44-46 in the second edition. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases and links added.
Italics in the original.]
"This world outlook of Marxism is called
dialectical materialism, a philosophy that is the direct descendent of the
great Enlightenment thinkers of the eighteenth century but which revolutionized
their thinking by introducing a historical dimension. The achievement was
scientific materialism enriched with the theory of evolution propounded by G.W.F
Hegel. Materialism states that our ideas are a reflection of the material
universe that exists independently of any observer. It's dialectical in that it
is always in a state of movement, and change. One of the early dialectical
philosophers was the Greek Heraclitus, 'the obscure' (535-475 BCE)." [Brad
Forrest, quoted from
here. Accessed 22/12/2016. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to
conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
[Quotations to the same effect, from across every wing of Dialectical Marxism,
can easily be multiplied by a couple of orders of magnitude -- as is easily
confirmed by anyone who has as many books and articles on DM as I have.]
Notice
that according to Lenin DM is "a continuation of the
teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy". A
"continuation" isn't a "break from"! Plekhanov also thinks DM represents the
"highest stage...whose
foundations were laid down in ancient Greece"; again, that isn't a "break from". The others do not
demur. In fact, I have yet to encounter a single DM-theorist who rejects this
connection.
As we will see
in Essay Twelve Part One, and the
rest of Essay Twelve (summary
here), there is a
clearly identifiable thread running through the many and varied world-views that have been
imposed, encouraged, commissioned, or financed by the assorted ruling-classes history has inflicted
upon humanity: i.e., that there is a 'hidden world' underlying 'appearances', accessible to thought alone, the nature of which
can be derived from the supposed meaning of a handful of words or 'concepts',
and nothing more. Concerning the most immediate source of
'dialectical thought', in German Idealism, we read the following:
"Already with
Fichte
the
idea of the unity of the sciences, of system, was connected with that of finding
a reliable starting-point in certainty on which knowledge could be based.
Thinkers from
Kant onwards were quite convinced that the kind of knowledge which came from
experience was not reliable. Empirical knowledge could be subject to error,
incomplete, or superseded by further observation or experiment. It would be
foolish, therefore, to base the whole of knowledge on something which had been
established only empirically. The kind of knowledge which Kant and his followers
believed to be the most secure was a priori knowledge, the kind embodied in the
laws of Nature. These had been formulated without every occurrence of the
Natural phenomenon in question being observed, so they did not summarise
empirical information, and yet they held good by necessity for every case; these
laws were truly universal in their application." [White (1996), p.29. Bold
emphasis added.]
Because
of this, Traditional
Philosophers were quite happy to impose their theories on the world in a
dogmatic and a priori
manner -- plainly because these theories relate, not to
the material word, but to this invisible world, a world that issupposedly more real than the
physical universe we see around us.
Even though the content of these theories has altered with
each change in the Mode of Production, their form has remained largely
consistent for two-and-a-half millennia: philosophical theses, valid
for all of space and time, derived from words or from thought alone, can
therefore be imposed on nature and society dogmatically.
Some might object that
the above philosophical ideas can't have remained the
same for thousands of years, across different Modes of Production; that
supposition
runs counter to core HM-concepts.
But, we don't argue the same
for religious belief. Marx put no time stamp on the following, for
example:
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is:
Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the
self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to
himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract
being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state,
society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted
consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world.
Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its
logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its
moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation
and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence
since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle
against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
"Religious
suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering
and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people.
"The abolition of religion as the illusory
happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call
on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to
give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion
is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which
religion is the halo." [Marx
(1975b),
p.244.
Italic emphases in the original.]
The above remarks applied back in Babylon and
the Egypt of the Pharaohs,
just as they did in Ancient China and the rest of Asia, The Americas, Greece,
Rome, and throughout Europe, Africa, Australasia, as, indeed, they have done right across the planet ever since.
The same is true of the core thought-forms found throughout Traditional
Philosophy -- that there is an invisible world underlying 'appearance', accessible to thought
alone --, especially since Marx also argued that:
"...philosophy is nothing else but
religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form
and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally
to be condemned...." [Marx
(1975c), p.381. Bold emphasis added.]
In which case,
these individuals -- recall, who had been educated to view the world
precisely this way long
before they had even heard of Marxism --, when they encountered Hegel and
DM, readily appropriated these dogmatic
ideas.
That is because they looked for 'logical' principles in this hidden world that
guaranteed change was apart of the fabric of reality. The thought-forms encapsulated
in this theory appeared (to them) to be at once both
philosophical and self-certifying (i.e., they were based on
thought and language alone, and hence were true
a priori). Moreover,
because dialectical concepts formed part of what seemed (to them) to be a
radical philosophical and political tradition, they also struck them as revolutionary ideas.
Manifestly,
dialectical concepts could only have arisen from Traditional Philosophy (workers
aren't known for dreaming them up),
which ideological source had already been coloured by centuries of boss-class dogma,
as we have seen.
That in turn is because:
(i)
Traditional Philosophy (i.e., non-socialist ideology) was the only source of
developed 'High Theory' available to these individuals at the time, as
Lenin himself admitted:
"...[B]ourgeois ideology is far older
in origin than socialist ideology, that it is more fully developed, and that
it has at its disposal immeasurably more means of dissemination. And the
younger the socialist movement in any given country, the more vigorously it must
struggle against all attempts to entrench non-socialist ideology...." [Lenin
(1947), pp.42-43. Bold emphases added.]
Of course, it doesn't help if
revolutionaries like Lenin bring this alien-class ideology with them into the
movement.
(ii) These
erstwhile radicals were predisposed to look for, or even expect, a 'world-view' that
told them change was inevitable, part of the cosmic order, and,
(iii)
They looked for a set of ideas that was
exclusively their own --
because, as they will tell anyone prepared to listen, "Everyone has to have a philosophy!"
-- and which ideas, when they had finished shaping them, taught that the present
order was ripe for change.
John Molyneux and Woods and Grant, I think, speak for all DM-fans:
"It is very difficult to sustain much
ongoing political work for any length of time without a coherent alternative
worldview to the dominant ideology which we encounter every day in the media (at
work, at school, at college, etc.). A significant role in an alternative
worldview is played by questions of philosophy.
"[Added in a footnote: To attempt an
exact definition of philosophy at this point would be a difficult and lengthy
distraction. But what I mean by it in this book is, roughly, 'general' or
'abstract' thinking about human beings and their relations between society and
nature.]" [Molyneux (2012), p.5. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis added.]
"Before we start, you may be tempted
to ask, 'Well, what of it?' Is it really necessary for us to bother about
complicated questions of science and philosophy? To such a question, two replies
are possible. If what is meant is: do we need to know about such things in order
to go about our daily life, then the answer is evidently no. But if we wish to
gain a rational understanding of the world in which we live, and the fundamental
processes at work in nature, society and our own way of thinking, then matters
appear in quite a different light.
"Strangely enough, everyone has
a 'philosophy.' A philosophy is a way of looking at the world. We all believe we
know how to distinguish right from wrong, good from bad. These are, however,
very complicated issues which have occupied the attention of the greatest minds
in history. When confronted with the terrible fact of the existence of events
like the fratricidal war in the former Yugoslavia, the re-emergence of mass
unemployment, the slaughter in Rwanda, many people will confess that they do not
comprehend such things, and will frequently resort to vague references to 'human
nature.' But what is this mysterious human nature which is seen as the source of
all our ills and is alleged to be eternally unchangeable? This is a profoundly
philosophical question, to which not many would venture a reply, unless they
were of a religious cast of mind, in which case they would say that God, in His
wisdom, made us like that. Why anyone should worship a Being that played such
tricks on His creations is another matter.
"Those who stubbornly maintain that
they have no philosophy are mistaken. Nature abhors a vacuum. People who lack a
coherently worked-out philosophical standpoint will inevitably reflect the ideas
and prejudices of the society and the milieu in which they live. That means, in
the given context, that their heads will be full of the ideas they imbibe from
the newspapers, television, pulpit and schoolroom, which faithfully reflect the
interests and morality of existing society.
"Most people usually succeed in
muddling through life, until some great upheaval compels them to re-consider the
kind of ideas and values they grew up with. The crisis of society forces them to
question many things they took for granted. At such times, ideas which seemed
remote suddenly become strikingly relevant. Anyone who wishes to understand
life, not as a meaningless series of accidents or an unthinking routine, must
occupy themselves with philosophy, that is, with thought at a higher level than
the immediate problems of everyday existence. Only by this means do we raise
ourselves to a height where we begin to fulfil our potential as conscious human
beings, willing and able to take control of our own destinies." [Woods and Grant
(1995),
pp.29-30. Italic emphasis in the original; bold added. Quotation marks altered to
conform with the conventions adopted at this site. (This passage appears on
pp.33-34 of the second edition.)]
The
above sentiments are echoed by a dusty old Stalinist textbook (whose line, oddly
enough, agrees with that of the two Trotskyists, above):
"A
philosophical world outlook is a system of highly generalised theoretical views
of the world, of nature, society and man. Philosophy seeks to substantiate a
definite orientation in social, political, scientific, moral, aesthetic, and
other spheres of life.
"Everybody forms his own particular view of the surrounding world, but this view
often consists of no more than fragments of various contradictory ideas without
any theoretical basis. The philosophical world outlook, on the other hand, is
not merely the sum total but a system of ideas, opinions and conceptions of
nature, society, man and his place in the world." [Konstantinov (1974), p.16.
Bold emphasis added. Which is a bit rich given the fact that DM glories in contradiction!
(More-or-less the same comment (almost word-for-word identical) can be found in
Krapivin (1985), p.17.)]
The
everyday musings of your average Jane and John Doe are hardly to be compared with the
systematic thoughts of Plato, Aristotle,
Thomas Aquinas or
Immanuel Kant, but this
elision (i.e., between such amateurish musings and the
sophisticated theories of Traditional Philosophy) is clearly aimed at justifying
the importation of ideas from ruling-class ideology, which are, as Marx pointed out,
"to be condemned":
"Feuerbach's
great achievement is.... The proof that philosophy is nothing else but
religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form
and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally
to be condemned...." [Marx
(1975c), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis
added.]
Plainly,
the
attitude displayed by DM-fans toward philosophy (somewhat fittingly)
contradicts
what
Marx himself concluded about this archetypical boss-class discipline.
This ancient 'world-view' -- on steroids in Hegel's
work -- appealed to these
individuals; i.e., the DM-classicists, those who later led the movement, and
those who shaped, and still shape, its ideas. It appealed to them since it encapsulated thought-forms to which they were
already highly susceptible by the time they hit adulthood. The
class background, socialisation and education to which they were,
and still are, subject under Capitalism meant that
ruling-class
ideas had already been installed in their brains long before they became
revolutionaries.
This thought-form (courtesy of a
long line of mystics and boss-class hacks), which promoted dogmatic, a priori
'knowledge', mesmerised these comrades from the get-go.
In fact,
this new batch of Dialectical
and Hermetic
nostrums
(upside down, or 'the right way up')
hardly raised an
eyebrow.
Initially, very little specialist knowledge
is needed to 'comprehend' DM; no expensive equipment or time-consuming experiments are required. And yet, within
hours, this superscientific'world-view' can be internalised with ease by
most eager novitiates -- since,
once more, it relies onthought alone,
and hence appears to be 'self-evident'. Literally, in half an afternoon, or
even less, an
initiate can familiarise him/herself with a handful of theses that purport to explain
all of reality, for
all of time.
Just try learning Quantum
-- or even Newtonian -- Mechanics that
quickly!
Readers can test this for themselves: check out a random
sample of the 'theory' sections of Marxist revolutionary websites. It will soon
become apparent how each one confidently claims to be able to reveal nature's deepest secrets
(valid for all of space and time) in a paragraph or two, or page or two, of
homespun 'logic', obscure jargon, and a few
dollops of Mickey Mouse Science
--, for
instance,
here,
and
here.
[I have re-posted much of this Internet material in
Appendix A to Essay Two.]
Contrast that with the many months, or
even
years, of hard work and study it takes to grasp the genuine science of Marxist economics,
for example. Contrast it, too, with the detailed knowledge required in order
to
understand, say, the class structure and development of the Ancient World, or
even Medieval
Society. No 'self-evident', a priori truths, there!
Moreover, because
DM is connected
with wider historic, or even romanticaspirations (outlined below),
dialectically-distracted
comrades soon become wedded (nay, superglued) to this doctrine. They
become converts who act, talk and behave as if they have received revelation
from On High.
"It was from him that I first
learned, often with the force of revelation, many of the main ideas of
the Marxist tradition." [Quoted from
here.
Bold emphasis added.]
Novack's use of
quasi-religious language is, in the event, revealing.
The
subjective and often
highly emotional response
elicited in such individuals after they have passed through the
dialectical 'doors of perception'
reveals how crucially important this Hermetic World-View is to the
revolutionary ego: it helps guarantee that the
anger these individuals feel toward the injustices of Capitalism, allied with
their alienation from the system and all the hard work they have devoted to The
Cause won't be in vain.
For the DM-convert there now appears to be some point, not just to history, but to the overall development of
reality itself, courtesy of the ramblings of a Christian Mystic.
So, this isn't so much as Christianity secularised, as it is materialism re-enchanted.
Indeed, this theory now ensures that the life of each initiate assumes
truly cosmic significance. Dialectics places the militant mind at
the very centre of the philosophical universe -- for it offers each of these
'social
atoms' a unifying purpose accompanied by a set of eternal 'truths' that
underwrite and then confirm their exclusivity, linking their actions directly
with the further development of reality itself. Only they understand
'the dialectic' of nature and society -- the very Algebra of the Revolution -- only they
have their fingers on the 'pulse
of freedom',only they know how to further its development.
For the want of a better phrase, we might even call this
insidious process the "Ptolemisation
Of The Militant Mind", since around this 'theory', and their
interpretation of it, all of reality now
revolves -- the obverse of
Hegel's doctrine of the 'self-development' of 'Mind', which placed the
development of 'God's Mind' at the centre and the periphery of this
process, put into neat 'logical' order by a handful of trite,
but egregious, a priori theses.
The heady romance
of being both a revolutionaryand an active participant in the cosmic drift of the entire
universe now takes over. As
Alan Wald (veteran US Marxist and editor of Against the
Current) noted in connection with the
US-SWP:
"To join the SWP was to
become a person with a mission, to become part of a special group of men and
women who, against all odds, wanted to change society for the better; one
felt a bit more in control of the universe." [Quoted from
here; bold emphasis added.]
Much the same can be said about those joining other far-left groups.
Indeed, even rank-and-file revolutionaries are often affected in this way. Speaking of
his time in the Militant Tendency, this is what Andy Troke had to say:
"It's
like somebody who has been through a religious period. You look to either
Trotsky, Marx, Lenin, Engels or Ted Grant or Peter Taaffe and you have got the
rationale for why people are reacting this way or that. And obviously, everyone
else is illogical, because you have the right view. I believe there was a great
deal of this type of thinking: we were the chosen few. We had the right
ideology. People like Tribune, who were at that time Militant's main
opponents didn't know where they were going.... We were the right ones." [Quoted
in Tourish and Wohlforth (2000), p.181. Bold emphases added.]
To be honest, I must admit to similar thoughts and feelings myself when I joined
the UK-SWP in 1987, pinned a red, clenched fist badge to my lapel, and started
selling the paper. I am sure I wasn't the only one who reacted this way. In
fact, I can recall a period in 1988 when a major discussion took place in the
UK-SWP following on a talk given by
Lindsey German. In that talk, Lindsey advanced the
claim that there were in her "no
traces of bourgeois ideology". For some time after that it became a hot topic whether
or not revolutionaries were free from all such 'indecent thoughts' -- or,
simply, "traces", which was the buzz word used at the time. One could
almost hear echoes of the phrase "Born
again!" and "Cleansed
by the blood of the lamb!"
For all the world, DM-fans
seem to fall in love with this 'theory'. That itself is evident from the irrational,
emotional, often extremely abusive, if not violently aggressive way they respond when it is attacked. [On that, see below,
as well as
here.]
[The
vitriol, hostility, lies and smears
I have had to face now for many years suggests I wouldn't last long if DM-fans were ever to gain power
in the UK! Indeed, one
prominent Marxist Professor of Economics,
Andrew Kliman, in an e-mail
exchange expressed the fervent hope I should "Eat sh*t and die!" (either that
or quaff some
Hemlock), simply because I had
the temerity to question the sacred dialectic. This comradely wish was repeated
here
(in the
comments section) in October 2013, but was deleted by the moderators soon after because of the violent and intemperate language the good
Professor thought to use! Another UK-SWP comrade (implicitly)
accused
me of being worse than the Nazis, and for the same reason!
Incidentally,
this comrade has now left the UK-SWP. I hasten to
add that I am not complaining about this abuse; given what you will read
at this site,
I expect it!]
However, the
'dialectical ego' can only ascend to
the next 'level' if it becomes
a willing
vehicle for the tide of history, a veritable slave to the dialectic. DM now
expresses in its earthly incarnation
cosmic forces that have supposedly governed all of reality from the Big Bang onward,
and will continue doing so until the end of time. Its theses are woven into the very fabric
of the Universe -- just like the 'Word of God'.
Or, at least, judged by the way DM-acolytes speak about their theory, and about those who promulgate it from the dialectical
pulpit, that is how the DM-Faithful seem to picture it
to themselves.
"It goes
without saying that my recapitulation of mathematics and the natural sciences
was undertaken in order to convince myself also in detail -- of what in general
I was not in doubt -- that in nature, amid the welter of innumerable
changes, the same dialectical laws of motion force their way through as those
which in history govern the apparent fortuitousness of events; the same
laws which similarly form the thread running through the history of the
development of human thought and gradually rise to consciousness in thinking
man; the laws which Hegel first developed in all-embracing but mystic form, and
which we made it one of our aims to strip of this mystic form and to bring
clearly before the mind in their complete simplicity and universality."
[Engels (1976),
pp.11-12.
Bold emphasis added.]
"Dialectics, however, is nothing more than the science of the general laws of
motion and development of nature, human society and thought." [Ibid.,
p.180.
Bold emphasis added.]
So, by becoming a
willing vehicle, ready to channel the
mysterious 'mediations' that
emanate
forth from the "Totality" (which, like 'God',
can't be defined,
but which
works no less mysteriously), through
revolutionary 'good works' ("activity") and pure thoughts ("non-Revisionist" devotion
to "the tradition"),
by joining a movement that
can't fail to alter fundamentally the course of human history, the petty-bourgeois ego is 'born
again' to a higher purpose and with a cosmically-ordained mandate.
The
dialectical novitiate thus emerges
as a professional revolutionary --
sometimes with a
shiny new name to prove it. But, certainly with a brand new persona.
"Hegelism is
like a mental disease--youcan't know what it is until
you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it." [Eastman (1926), p.22.]
Given the atrophy of their critical faculties when it
comes to DM, compounded by the nausea inducing sycophancy exhibited by many of
them (on that, see
below), who can doubt it?
(1) They as individuals
can become key figures in the further development of history -- actually helping determine the
direction that social evolution will next take.
(2) Their
personal existence isn't after all meaningless or for nought.
(3) Whatever motivated their personal alienation from
class society can be rectified, reversed
or redeemed
(in whole or in part) through the
right sort of acts, thoughts, and deeds -- reminiscent of the way that
Pelagian
forms of 'muscular Christianity'
taught that salvation might be had through pure thoughts, good works, and the severe
treatment of the body.
Dialectics now
occupies a role analogous to that which religious belief has always assumed in the
lives of the
credulous, giving cosmic significance and consolation to these, its very own,
petty-bourgeois victims.
Same cause,
similar palliative drug.
However,because they haven't been recruited from the working class, these social atoms need an internally-generated unifying force --
a theory that supplies a set of self-certifying ideas -- to bind them to
The Party
and The Cause.
"...Quitedifferent is the case of the intellectual. He does not fight by means
of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his
personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at
all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his
individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity. It is
only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a whole, and
then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the need of
discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course he counts
himself among the latter...." [Kautsky, quoted in Lenin (1976),
p.162. Bold emphases
alone added.]
As such, they need a Cosmic Whole allied to a
Holistic Theory to make sense of their social fragmentation. This is where the mysterious
"Totality" (with its 'universal interconnections' and 'mediations' -- analogous to the
Omnipresence of 'God' and the 'mediations
of Christ') -- comes into its own. But, just like 'God', the DM-"Totality"
is so mysterious that beyond a few vague gestures and much hand waving not one of its slaves can tell you of its
nature, even though they all
gladly bend
the knee to its Contradictory
Will.
Given its origin in Hermetic Mysticism, this is
hardly surprising.
In
stark contrast, workers involved in collective labour have unity forced on them by
well-known, external, material forces. These compel workers to
combine; they don't persuade them to do so as a result of some theory or
other. Workers are thus forced to associate with unity
externally-imposed upon them. This is a material,
not an Ideal force.13a
In contrast,
once more, while the class war forces workers to unite, it
further drives apart these
petty-bourgeois individuals, these
professional revolutionaries,
depositing them in ever smaller, continually fragmenting sects.
"For the factory, which
seems only a bogey to some, represents that highest form of capitalist
co-operation which has united and disciplined the proletariat, taught it to
organise, and placed it at the head of all the other sections of the toiling and
exploited population. And Marxism, the ideology of the proletariat trained
by capitalism, has been and is teaching unstable intellectuals to distinguish
between the factory as a means of exploitation (discipline based on fear of
starvation) and the factory as a means of organisation (discipline
based on collective work united by the conditions of a technically highly
developed form of production). The discipline and organisation which come so
hard to the bourgeois intellectual are very easily acquired by the proletariat
just because of this factory 'schooling'. Mortal fear of this school and utter
failure to understand its importance as an organising factor are characteristic
of the ways of thinking which reflect the petty-bourgeois mode of life and
which give rise to the species of anarchism that the German Social-Democrats
call Edelanarchismus, that is, the anarchism of the 'noble' gentleman,
or aristocratic anarchism, as I would call it. This aristocratic anarchism is
particularly characteristic of the Russian nihilist. He thinks of the Party
organisation as a monstrous 'factory'; he regards the subordination of the part
to the whole and of the minority to the majority as 'serfdom' (see Axelrod's
articles); division of labour under the direction of a centre evokes from him a
tragi-comical outcry against transforming people into 'cogs and wheels' (to turn
editors into contributors being considered a particularly atrocious species of
such transformation); mention of the organisational Rules of the Party calls
forth a contemptuous grimace and the disdainful remark (intended for the
'formalists') that one could very well dispense with Rules altogether." [Lenin
(1976),pp.248-49.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.
Bold emphases and links added. (The on-line translation is slightly different
from the published version I have referenced here.)]
Unfortunately,
Lenin failed to apply these
insights to himself, to his own class origin and
current class position. He was, however, quite happy to include Marx and Engels
among the "bourgeois intelligentsia":
"The theory of socialism,
however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories
elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by
intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific
socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois
intelligentsia." [Lenin (1947),
p.32. Bold emphases added.]
The same was the case with George
Novack:
"Many of
the most important political and intellectual leaders of the Marxist parties
have been middle-class intellectuals. This is true of Marx and Engels,
the founders of the movement. Bebel and Dietzgen the elder were of
proletarian origin, but these two stand out as conspicuous exceptions in a
galaxy which includes
Lassalle,
DeLeon,
Plekhanov,
Liebknecht, Luxembourg, Lenin and Trotsky. [As we have seen,
this isn't true of Dietzgen
-- RL.] All of these intellectuals, 'having grasped the historical movement as a
whole', broke with the class of their origin, and merged their lives with the
fate of the working class. Trotsky informs us that, of the 15 original
members of the Council of People's Commissary elected on the day following the
October insurrection, eleven were intellectuals and only four workers....
"Since
Marxism, the science of the proletarian revolution, is itself the supreme
creation of middle-class intellectuals, and every Marxist party has had its
quota of militants drawn from the radical intelligentsia, a Marxist party can,
least of all political organizations, ignore the role that intellectuals may
play in the struggle of the working class for emancipation. But the relationship
between the radical intellectuals and the revolutionary workers' party must be
correctly understood. Although individual intellectuals may take a place in the
leadership of the party by their talents, energy and devotion, intellectuals are
generally an auxiliary force of the party with their own special talents to
contribute to its work. There is a place for intellectuals inside the party, in
the mass organizations it supports, and in many party activities. But the main
body of the party must be recruited from, and rest squarely upon, the vanguard
of the working class. The party and its leadership must have a solidly
proletarian core." [Novack
(1935). Bold emphases and links added.]
The social forces that operate on
Marxist dialecticians are thus quintessentially individualistic, manifestly Ideal, and
notoriously
'centrifugal' (as, indeed, Lenin noted above and
earlier
-- and as we will see again below) -- as one participant
admitted
(in the recent debate over
the crisis that engulfed the UK-SWP in January 2013):
"I don't know if you have
permanent factions within
ISO -- my experience of the movement is that they are
a disaster. I assume you have a constitution, rules for members to abide by and
a disciplinary procedure to deal with those who deliberately flout them. So do
we, and surely you respect our right to act accordingly." [Jeffrey Hurford,
quoted from
here;
accessed 07/02/2013.]
The party thus needs a set of anti-democratic and bureaucratic rules to ensure
its internal cohesion and integrity.
Without this 'theory', the
rationale underlying the romantic revolutionary idea -- which, once more, situates
each DM-fan right at
the centre of the dialectical universe
-- would lose its impact.
Moreover, because
dialectics provides such comrades with an apparently coherent, but
paradigmaticallytraditional picture of
reality (i.e., DM is an a priori
theory, dogmatically imposed on nature, and derived from thought alone), it
supplies each
of its acolytes with a unique
set of motivating factors. Indeed, because this theory is represented individualistically
inside each dialectical skull (which fact convinces one and all that they alone
truly
'understand' this
esoteric theory), it helps divide each 'dialectical disciple', one from
the next -- for reasons explored in the next sub-section, and the rest of this
Essay.
As we
have seen, the sectarianism inherent in Dialectical Marxism is a consequence
of the class origin and current class position of its leading figures and most
important theorists. Dialectics,
the theory of universal opposites, soon goes to work on their minds and
turns each and every one of these serial sectarians into fanatical faction
fiends on steroids.
Collective
discipline is paramount inside
Bolshevik-style parties. But, the strong-willed, petty-bourgeois militant this
style of politics attracts isn't used
to this form of externally-imposed regimentation (since, as
Lenin noted); these
social atoms are in fact attracted by internally-processed, self-certifying ideas.
Their individualism means that fights
soon break out, often over
what seem minor, even petty personal gripes.14
Ever since childhood, these
comrades have been socialised think like social atoms, but in a
revolutionary party
they have to act like socialmolecules (which is a psychological
trait
that lies way above their 'pay grade' -- i.e., beyond the capacities that have
been created,
or motivated, by their class origin or their
current class
position). Because of this, as noted above, personal disputes quickly
break out and are soon
re-configured aspolitical differences. Once again, since these are primarily disputes over ideas
they require, and are soon given, theoretical 'justification'; but
because it glories in contradiction, DM is ideally suited to that end.
Unfortunately,
again as Lenin and Trotsky intimated (both are quoted below), these
individuals are socially-conditioned egocentrics who, in their own eyes, enjoy
direct access to the
dialectical motherlode (a hot wire installed in each DM-brain by
those self-certifying Hegelian concepts -- upside down or 'the right way up') --
and they can't help exploiting this fact.
That is because
this 'dynamic', contradictory world-view defines them as
revolutionaries.
In such an
Ideal
environment, the
DM-classics
-- just like the Bible and other assorted Holy Books -- soon come
into their own.15
Again,
Lenin and Trotsky pointed out (repeated below), ruling-class theorists
and 'intellectuals' have always endeavoured to make
names for themselves by developing 'their own ideas', carving out a corner, or
tiny niche,
in the market of ideas, which they can only do by criticising the ideas of every
other rival theorist. This is, after all, part of being able to establish
a reputation and standing among their peers,
which is an essential component in
furthering their careers -- or, indeed, for defending and promoting a patron, or some other
beneficent section of the ruling-class. That was particularly true in earlier
centuries.
Lenin:
"The intellectual...does not fight by means
of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his
personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at
all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his
individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity.
It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a
whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the
need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course
he counts himself among the latter...." [Kautsky, quoted in Lenin (1976),
pp.161-62. Bold emphasis
alone added.]
Trotsky:
"The intellectual, however, comes to
socialism, breaking his class umbilical cord as an individual, as a personality,
and inevitably seeks to exert influence as an individual. But just here he comes
up against obstacles -- and as time passes the bigger these obstacles become." [The
Intelligentsia and Socialism, quoted from
here. Bold
emphasis added.]
Just as petty-bourgeois capitalists have to
rely on their individual knowledge, drive, effort and skill in order to survive in the face
both of Big Capital
and the working class,
so these unfortunate dialecticians have to ply their trade in the
revolutionary movement as individual
theorists, armed only with a set of dogmatic ideas, fortified by an entire
Thesaurus
of obscure jargon, arcane terminology,
sub-Aristotelian 'logic' and
Mickey Mouse Science. Hence, these
hapless
comrades find that they, too, have to ply their trade in hostile theoretical waters.
[Anyone who doubts this only has to read the
writings churned out by these characters to see how little respect they have for the work of
the vast majority of other revolutionary theorists (sometimes whose opinions
differ from their own only in the minutest of theological details); their work always
appears to be
a "rant", a "re-hash", a "screed"; it is invariably "boring", "turgid",
even "hysterical"; the one writing it has "bloviated"
all over the page. In addition, we find a surfeit of
scatological epithets.
(Monty Python
lampooned this mind-set only too well:"The only people we hate more
than the Romans are the f*cking Judean People's Front.") It isn't
being suggested that every last one of
them adopts this stance cynically. Many have very noble intentions -- but, and once again,
this is a class issue. I have posted some of this material in Essays
One and
Ten
Part One, as well as in several places below -- for example,
here.]
So it is that these 'social atoms' have brought with them
into the Workers' Movement this divisive, bourgeois trait. And, by all
accounts, they have perfected it with all the verve of
inveterate religious sectarians.
In the market for 'Marxist' ideas, those
with the most sharply-honed critical skills soon claw their way to the top.
As one-time UK-SWP stalwart,
Andy Wilson, pointed out:
"Things get interesting when
you go a little deeper. If the correct, imputed class-consciousness resides in
the revolutionary party, and yet the members of the revolutionary party are in
fact pulled in different directions by their day-to-day experience, where
in the revolutionary party does it actually reside? Well, of course, if the
members at the 'periphery' of the party -- where it makes contact with the world
outside, so to say -- are being pulled by the class, then the correct
consciousness must lie at the point furthest away from this periphery -- it must
reside at the 'centre' of the party. That is why all the groups have their
'centre', and 'centralised' leaderships.
"However, in reality the
central committees are also torn apart by ideological differences; by outside
allegiances, prejudices, whims -- whatever it is that drives these people.
Therefore, ultimately possession of the correct consciousness comes down very,
very often to one person (though a member of the SWP central committee once
confided to me that, in her opinion, only two people in the SWP had the correct
revolutionary 'instincts' -- herself and Tony Cliff). The way that Gerry Healy
dominated the WRP, the way that Cliff dominated the SWP, and so on, is perhaps
not merely down to their talents or the force of their personalities, but has
been prepared by the logic of a particular mindset. So, while there is no
Führerprinzip involved, in practice these groups are nevertheless generally
dominated by powerful individuals, or powerful cliques." [Quoted from
here; italic emphasis in the original. Accessed 04/02/2013.]
Except, Wilson seems not to have applied any
sort of class analysis to this phenomenon, nor does he even so much as
mention the theory that lies at its heart.
And that isn't surprising,
either,
since he is a
dialectician, too.
As Wilson noted, the fact that such individuals have very
strong personalities (which they need, otherwise they wouldn't survive long at the top of a revolutionary party,
let alone climb the greasy pole) merely compounds the problem. As noted
above, in order
to make a name for themselves, and advance their 'revolutionary careers', it becomes
important, if not necessary, for them to disagree with every other theorist, which they almost
invariably proceed to do.
In fact, the expectation is that every single
comrade should argue his/her corner, and do so with vigour and
conviction. And, in some parties, with
no little
added violence, verbal and physical.
Even though
sectarianism is
caused by petty-bourgeois social 'atoms' such as these dialectics only
makes a bad situation worse.
How is it able to do this?
The answer isn't hard to find: what better theory could
there be that is capable of initiating and encouraging endless
disputation than one as contradictory and incomprehensible as
DM? What
other theory informs all who fall under its hypnotic spell that
progress (even in ideas) may only be had through "internal contradiction",
and thus through splitting?
"The
splitting of a single whole and the cognition of its contradictory parts...is
the essence (one of the 'essentials,' one of the
principal, if not the principal, characteristics or features) of dialectics....
"The struggle of mutually
exclusive opposites is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute...."
[Lenin (1961),
pp.357-58. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site.]
There
it is:
"splitting" is an "essential" aspect of this theory, with "struggle" an "absolute".
Plainly, that must also involve the relations between comrades.
So, an emphasis on intra-party strife and splitting sits right at the heart of
DM!
In which case, DM-fans needn't wait for
the ruling-class to divide them, they are experts already!
More importantly,
as we will see, DM is almost unique
in its capacity to 'justify' anything at all and its opposite,
both alternatives often promoted and rationalised by the very same
dialectician in the
same book, article or even speech! Hence, this theory is unique in its
capacity to rationalise any point of view and its opposite.
And if you complain, well you
just don't 'understand' dialectics...
DM is therefore the theoretical equivalent of
throwing petrol on a raging fire.
For
Dialectical Marxists, the drive to impose one's views on others thus becomes
irresistible. Doctrinal control (i.e., the control of all those inner,
privatised ideas lodged in every
other atomised party skull, which threaten the legitimacy of the ideas of
still other dialecticians similarly so beleaguered) now acts as a surrogate for external
control by material forces.
Indeed, this
desire to control the thoughts of all those other 'atoms' in the Party has even been
given the grandiloquent name: "democratic centralism" -- a nice
'contradiction-in-terms' for you to
ponder.16
[Don't get me wrong; I am here referring to the
Zinoviev-Stalin aberration, not democratic decisions openly agreed upon and collectively
implemented, whatever we finally decide to call it.]
"The Bolshevik leadership of 1917 was elected individually.
There was no ban on factions. On the eve of the October Revolution,
Zinoviev
and
Kamenev
publicly opposed the insurrection in
Maxim Gorky's
newspaper...and resigned from the Bolshevik Central Committee. They were not
expelled from the Party.
"The model operated currently by the SWP is not that of the
Bolshevik revolution. It is a version of the Zinovievite model adopted during
the period of 'Bolshevisation' in the mid-1920s and then honed by ever smaller
and more marginal groups." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 29/01/2013. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Links added. See also
Appendix D,
and
here.
(The
background details can be found in Cliff (1985),
Chapter 19.) For an
alternative view, see the UK-SWP Special Pre-Conference Bulletin article 'You
Say Kamenev, I Say Bogdanov', written by 'Kevin',
pp.69-70.]
But, just
as genuine religionists soon discovered, mind-control is much easier
to
secure if
an appeal is made to impenetrably mysterious doctrines that no one
understands, but which all must accept and all must repeat constantly in order to dull the critical faculties.
Hence,
because the party can't reproduce the class struggle inside its four walls, and
hence force unity on its cadres externally,
it can
only control political thought internally (in each head) by turning it into a
repetitive, mind-numbing mantra,
insisting on doctrinal orthodoxy, and then accusing all those who don't conform
to such Ideal standards of
heresy, or -- worse --of not "understanding" dialectics!
In this milieu, anAuthoritarian Personality type soon emerges
to endorse, and then enforce, ideological purity
(disguised now as part of an endeavour to keep faith with "tradition"
-- which is,
un-coincidentally, a noxious trait shared by all known religions).
"Tradition" now becomes
a
watch-word to test the doctrinal purity of party cadres -- especially those who might stray too far
from the
narrow path which
alone leads the DM-electtoward revolutionary salvation.17
This naturally
helps inflame yet more disputes
and thus more splits.
[History has
indeed confirmed that the 'centrifugal forces' of fragmentation that operate between
dialectically-distracted
comrades far out-weigh their constant calls for unity. (I return to this theme
below.
See also
Appendix F.)]
We have already seen Marx nail his colours to
the anti-Philosophy mast with these woods:
"Feuerbach's
great achievement is.... The proof that philosophy is nothing else but
religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form
and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally
to be condemned...." [Marx
(1975c), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis
added.]
So, it is no surprise, therefore, to see
DM-fans -- who reject the above, as well as
Marx's advice that they should "leave philosophy" -- act and express
themselves in a quasi-religious terms.
In addition to the many examples listed
here, the above allegations concerning the
quasi-religious, or highly emotional and irrational responses elicited from dialecticians when
their theory is criticised, find ready confirmation in the case of at least one
leading Marxist.
George Novack
records the following meeting he and Max Shachtman
had with Trotsky in Mexico, in 1937:
"[O]ur discussion glided into the subject of
philosophy.... We talked about the best ways of studying dialectical materialism,
about Lenin's Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, and about the
theoretical backwardness of American radicalism. Trotsky brought forward the
name of
Max Eastman, who in various works had polemicized against dialectics as
a worthless idealist hangover from the Hegelian heritage of Marxism.
"He became tense and agitated. 'Upon going
back to the States,' he urged, 'you comrades must at once take up the struggle
against Eastman's distortion and repudiation of dialectical materialism.
There is nothing more important than this. Pragmatism, empiricism, is
the greatest curse of American thought. You must inoculate younger comrades
against its infection.'
"I was somewhat surprised at the vehemence of
his argumentation on this matter at such a moment. As the principal
defendant in absentia in the
Moscow trials, and because of the dramatic
circumstances of his voyage in exile, Trotsky then stood in the centre of
international attention. He was fighting for his reputation, liberty, and life
against the powerful government of Stalin, bent on his defamation and death.
After having been imprisoned and gagged for months by the Norwegian authorities,
he had been kept incommunicado for weeks aboard their tanker.
"Yet on the first day after reunion with his
cothinkers, he spent more than an hour explaining how important it was for a
Marxist movement to have a correct philosophical method and to defend
dialectical materialism against its opponents!...
"[Trotsky later wrote:] 'The question of correct
philosophical doctrine, that is, a correct method of thought, is of decisive
significance to a revolutionary party....'" [Novack (1978),
pp.269-71. Italics in the original. Bold emphases and link added. Spelling altered to conform with UK English;
quotation marks adapted to agree with conventions adopted at this site.]
The accuracy of Novack's memory is confirmed by the following comment recorded
by Trotsky:
"...It would not be amiss, therefore, to refer to
the fact that my first serious conversation with comrades
Shachtman and Warde,
in the train immediately after my arrival in Mexico in January 1937, was
devoted to the necessity of persistently propagating dialectic materialism.
After our American section split from the Socialist Party I insisted most
strongly on the earliest possible publication of a theoretical organ, having
again in mind the need to educate the party, first and foremost its new members,
in the spirit of dialectic materialism. In the United States, I wrote at
that time, where the bourgeoisie systematically in stills (sic) vulgar empiricism in
the workers, more than anywhere else is it necessary to speed the elevation of
the movement to a proper theoretical level. On January 20, 1939, I wrote to
comrade Shachtman concerning his joint article with comrade
Burnham, 'Intellectuals
in Retreat':
'The section on the dialectic is the greatest
blow that you, personally, as the editor of the New International could
have delivered to Marxist theory.... Good. We will speak about it publicly.'
"Thus a year ago I gave open notice in advance to
Shachtman that I intended to wage a public struggle against his eclectic
tendencies. At that time there was no talk whatever of the coming opposition; in
any case furthest from my mind was the supposition that the philosophic bloc
against Marxism prepared the ground for a political bloc against the program of
the Fourth International." [Trotsky (1971),
p.142. Bold emphases
and link added.]18
Given the content of this Essay -- and
Marx's own words
--, Trotsky's semi-religious
fervour, his emotional attachment to the dialectic, and his irrational
response to Max Eastman and
James Burnham,
for example, are much easier to understand. Can you imagine anyone getting so
worked up over the minutiae underlying the demise of Feudalism? Or, the falling rate of
profit?
For all their other major differences, Trotsky and Stalin were
both Devoted Dialectical Disciples.
Ethan Pollock reports
on a revealing incident that took place in the Kremlin just
after the end of World War Two:
"In late December 1946 Joseph Stalin called a
meeting of high-level Communist Party personnel.... The opening salvos of the
Cold War
had already been launched. Earlier in the year
Winston Churchill
had
warned of an iron curtain dividing Europe. Disputes about the political future
of Germany, the presence of Soviet troops in Iran, and proposals to control
atomic weapons had all contributed to growing tensions between the United States
and the USSR. Inside the Soviet Union the devastating effects of the Second
World War were painfully obvious: cities remained bombed out and
unreconstructed; famine laid waste to the countryside, with millions dying of
starvation and many millions more malnourished. All this makes one of the agenda
items for the Kremlin meeting surprising: Stalin wanted to discuss the recent prizewinning book
History of Western European Philosophy[by Georgii
Aleksandrov -- RL]." [Pollock (2006), p.15. Bold emphasis and links added.
Italic emphases in the original.]
Pollock explains that the problems Aleksandrov faced arose because of his interpretation of the foreign (i.e., German) roots of
DM
in an earlier work, and how
he had
been criticised for not emphasising the "reactionary and bourgeois"
nature of the work of German Philosophers like
Kant,
Fichte
and Hegel --, in view of
the recent fight against Fascism -- when, of course, during the
Hitler-Stalin pact a few
years earlier, the opposite line had been peddled by the Kremlin. Pollock also
describes the detailed and lengthy discussions the Central Committee devoted to
Aleksandrov's previous work years earlier at the height of the war against the Nazis!
It is revealing, therefore, to note that Stalin and his henchmen
considered DM to be so important that other more pressing matters could be shelved
or delayed
so that they might devote time to discussing...Philosophy! In this, of course, Stalin was
in total agreement with Trotsky and other leading Marxists.
Once more, Marx's comments (repeated
below) make
abundantly clear why that is so.
We can see something similar happening in the case of
Nikolai Bukharin. Anyone
who reads Philosophical Arabesques [Bukharin (2005)] will be struck by
the semi-religious fervour with which he defends dialectics. In view of
Bukharin's serious predicament this is hardly surprising. But, it is also no less revealing
since it confirms much of the above: this theory is responsible for holding the dialectical
ego together,even in the face of death.
The old saying, "There are no atheists in a foxhole", may be
incorrect, but it looks like there might not have been many non-dialecticians in the
Lubyanka
waiting on Stalin's 'mercy'. Behind those grim walls it seems that even hard-nosed
Bolsheviks needed some form of consolation. As Helena Sheehan notes in her Introduction:
"Perhaps the most remarkable thing about his text
is that it was written at all. Condemned not by an enemy but by his own
comrades, seeing what had been so magnificently created being so catastrophically destroyed, undergoing shattering interrogations, how was he not
totally debilitated by despair? Where did this author get the strength, the
composure, the faith in the futurethat was necessary to write this treatise
of Philosophy, this passionate defense of the intellectual tradition of Marxism
and the political project of socialist construction?
"Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin was a tragic true
believer...." [Sheehan (2005), pp.7-8. Bold emphases added.]
Once again, Marx, I think, had the answer:
"Religion
is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet
won through to himself, or has already lost himself again.... Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its
logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its
moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation
and justification....
"...Religion is the sigh of the
oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions...." [Marx (1975b),
p.244. Bold emphases added.]
"Feuerbach's
great achievement is.... The proof that philosophy is nothing else but
religion rendered into thought and expounded by thought, i.e., another form
and manner of existence of the estrangement of the essence of man; hence equally
to be condemned...." [Marx
(1975c), p.381. I have used the on-line version, here. Bold emphasis
added.]
The fact that this doomed comrade
chose to spend his last
days and weeks
expounding and defending this Hermetic theory --
pleading with
Stalin not to destroy his book -- tells us all we need to know.
[Several more examples of DM-faith like this
have been posted here and
here.]
"Power tends to corrupt;
absolute power corrupts absolutely."
This gets things completely the wrong way
round. As Tony Cliff remarked in a talk, it is
lack of power that corrupts absolutely. It corrupts the working class, and that in turn
allows the members of the ruling-class to get away with whatever they feel
they can get away with, corrupting them in return.
Similarly, a passive working class allows
revolutionaries -- or, rather, their supposed 'tribunes' -- to get up to all kinds of
dialectical mischief. Hence, the latter become corrupted, too.
As we
have seen, among the many different forms this corruption takes is
the general lack of any sort of
effective democratic control exercised on
Central Committees and Party 'Leaders'.
Despite the regular calls to "build the party",
it now looks like small is beautiful, if not highly desirable. Clearly, that is because it allows for
maximum thought-control. In small parties the 'purity' of the
'revolutionary tradition' is easier to enforce.
Factionalism, splits and sectarianism are thus intrinsic, constant and
ubiquitous features of the political and organisational
practice of these petty-bourgeois revolutionaries. This keeps their parties
small and helps distinguish them from all the rest.
This is what
Hal Draper
had to say about the situation in America alone, thirty
or forty years ago:
"American socialism today has hit a
new low in terms of sect fragmentation. There are more sects going through their
gyrations at this moment than have ever existed in all previous periods in this
country taken together. And the fragments are still fissioning, down to the
sub-microscopic level. Politically speaking, their average has dropped from the
comic-opera plane to the comic-book grade. Where the esoteric sects (mainly
Trotskyist splinters) of the 1930s tended toward a sort of super sophistication
in Marxism and futility in practice, there is a gaggle of grouplets now (mainly
Maoist-Castroite) characterized by amnesia regarding the Marxist tradition,
ignorance of the socialist experience, and extreme primitivism. The road to an
American socialist movement surely lies over the debris, or around the rotting
off-shoots of, this fetid jungle of sects." [Quoted from
here.]
This isn't
just an American phenomenon, either, it is international, and, as we will see in Essay
Ten Part One, the situation has
worsened considerably since the above words were committed to paper. [The
fragmentation of the UK-SWP is just the latest example of this trend.]
The
aforementioned Authoritarian Personality-type
-- in the shape of The Leader, The 'Great
Helmsman'/'Teacher', the Central Committee [CC] itself, or one or more of their
lackeys --
ensures that democratic accountability
is at best merely formal. Hence, genuine democratic control soon becomes an early casualty in this backwater of the class war.
Democracy is, among other things, an external constraint exercised by the majority
on the individual, which helps explain why it is favoured by the majority; but, it is equally feared by the petty-bourgeois minority, and for the same reason.
In
such dialectically-dominated micro-parties, democracy threatens the internally-enforced
mind control this minority prefers.
Which is, of course, why so many DM-parties have latched onto the slate system as the preferred
method of electing their CCs, and their preferred method for denying their
rank-and-file any sort of democratic control.18a
This, too, is one of the reasons why Capitalists themselves need the state
-- packed to the gunnels with individuals they can trust, those selected by
their own version of the slate system -- to impose and then consolidate the rule
of the minority over otherwise democratically-inclined workers. And, it is also
why they need to call upon various Idealist and reactionary nostrums to convince
the recalcitrant majority that this is all 'for their benefit you understand', since "we are all in it together".
It is also why Dialectical Marxists
need the centralism, but not the democratic part of democratic
centralism, and why democracy is ditched so readily
and so often.
Naturally, political degeneration like this doesn't
grow in a vacuum, independent of
social forces. As noted
here, the malignant
side-effects of Dialectical Dementia tend to dominate (i) When the
materialist counter-weight provided by the working class is totally absent
(i.e., before the proletariat had emerged as an effective social force), (ii) When
it is
much more attenuated, or (iii) In periods of
"downturn", retreat and defeat. This is, of course, also when
Dialectical Druggies tend to
're-discover' this 'theory' and when
they all attempt to snort along the
'correct' philosophical line.19
Small wonder then that these petty-bourgeois victims cling on to DM like drunks
to lampposts -- and, alas, just like the 'god'-botherers among us who cling to their own
favourite brand of opiates.
DM
now shapes and dominates the personal-, and party-identity of such comrades.
Any attack on this sacred doctrine is an attack not just on the glue that holds
each of these social atoms together, but on the cement that holds together the party and the entire
Dialectical Marxist
"tradition".19a
In their own eyes, these professional, petty-bourgeois revolutionaries are special; they live --
no they embody -- the revolution. They have caught the tide of history,
they must keep the faith.
Commitment to the revolution on these terms now
creates a layer of militants who, for all the world, appear to suffer from
some sort of dialectical personality disorder --
one aspect of which is The Leader Complex.
Again,
as noted above, fragmentation
lies at the very heart of DM, and is now
synonymous with
Dialectical Marxism
itself -- witness the well-aimed joke in Monty Python's
Life of Brian (about the Judean People's Front,
etc.). It is memorable because everyone recognises its central core of truth.
So,
Dialectical Marxists
soon transform themselves into Militant
Martinets, ostracising and expelling anyone who fails to tow the 'correct' line.
As noted above, these
Dialectical Despots have very
powerful personalities, something they can use to good effect in the small ponds
they invariably patrol --and
clearly prefer. Expulsions, splits and bans thus keep their
grouplets small,
and thus easier to control.
The petty-bourgeois revolutionary ego helps keep our movement
fragmented,
small, insular and thus ineffectual --, clearly in preference to its being democratic,
outward-looking and effective. No wonder then that in such
circumstances, democracy goes out the window along with reasonableness --,
and, of course, along with any significant political impact.
In this way, ruling-ideas have come to rule
Dialectical Marxism,
which has in turn has helped ruin our movement -- by allowing those who divide, rule,
and those who rule, divide.
Another ironic 'dialectical inversion' for
readers to ponder.
Each Dialectical
Dopehead acts as if he/she alone has direct access to the exact
meaning of the dialectic (here
is an excellent recent example of this syndrome), mirroring the individualism
that underpins Protestantism wherein believers are required to
work out their own
salvation in
'fear and trembling' by means of a thorough study of the Bible allied to endless disputation.
This also helps account for the interminable
dialectical debates over vacuous
Hegelian concepts (rather like
those that exercised the
Medieval Schoolmen): for example, whether this or that thesis is "abstract",
"positivist", or "one-sided", or whether 'opposites' are
'united' or 'identical' --, or, indeed, whether "motion precedes matter"..., or is it the other way round?20
This also helps explain why each
DM-supplicant thinks that no one elsereally"understands" the dialectic.
[Since no one does in fact understand
it (on that, see Essay Nine Part
One), this is a very easy claim to make -- and one no less
difficult to refute.]
Every opponent is
now tarred with the same brush (on
this, see below as well as
here): all fail to
"understand" the dialectic -- that is, all except the blessed soul that
made
that claim!
Rather like the
Old Testament Prophets, it is almost as if these
individuals have received
a personal visit from the Self-Developing Idea Itself.
Indeed,
The Road
to Damascus and The Road to Dialectics have more in common than
just a capital
"D".
All this explains why, to each
DM-acolyte, the dialectic is so
personal and so intimately their own possession, andwhy you can
sense the personal hurt they feel when it is comprehensively trashed, as it has been at
this site. [For two excellent recent examples of this syndrome, check out
these two
incoherent videos.]
Hence, any attack on
this 'precious jewel' is an attack on the revolutionary ego itself and will be
resisted with all the bile at its command.
And that explains, too, all the
abuse you, dear reader,
will receive
if you think to
challenge the Dialectical Doctrines of a single one of these
Hermetic Head Cases.
Again,
as noted above,
in defeat these individuals reach once more for what is in effect a comfort
blanket -- Dialectical
Methadone
-- in order to insulate their minds
both from reality and constant
failure. And, by all accounts this
ersatz
opiate has done excellent job
to date.
In fact, anyone
who attempts to argue with a single one of these Dialectical Dupes would be far better occupied
head-butting a Billy-goat for all the good it will do. [That allegation is easily
confirmed; the reader should check this
out.]
However,
narcoleptic
stupor
of such depth and intensity -- coupled with the serial lack of clarity required to maintain it
-- only helps engineer more splits, thus more set-backs and defeats,
which in turn simply creates the need for another sizeable hit.
And so the Dialectical Monster lumbers on into this new millennium.
Small wonder then that Dialectical Marxism is to success what
religion is peace on earth.
DM has thus infected our movement at every
level, exacerbating sectarianism,
factionalism,
exclusivism,
unreasonableness,
dismissive haughtiness
(this endearing
quality displayed most notably by the
High Church Faction),
pomposity, corruption, extreme dogmatism (clearly bordering on
clinical paranoia
in some cases),
topped-off with several layers of abuse,
all liberally peppered with delightful phrases like "rant", "diatribe", "screed", "sh*t",
"cr*p", and worse. Indeed, as noted earlier, a leading Marxist Professor of Economics,
(Andrew Kliman,
no less),
recently urged me (via e-mail) to "Eat sh*t and die!", simply because I
had the temerity to ask him
to explain what a 'dialectical contradiction' is, which he, like all the rest,
had signally failed to do.
Dialectical vices like these have introduced into each and every tiny sectlet an open and
implacable hatred of practically every other sectlet, and, in some cases,
every
other comrade
-- especially those who dare to question The Sacred Mantra.
[On that, see Note
14 and
Appendix B.]
Unsurprisingly, the result of all this
dialectical infighting is that in order to consolidate their power the
ruling-class needn't try to divide us; we're quite capable of making a
first-rate job of it ourselves, thank you very much.
Everyone in the movement is painfully aware
of this (some even joke about it
-- again, often along Monty Python
lines!); others excuse
it or explain it away with yet more 'dialectics' -- or even with
fruitless calls for unity.21
But, no one confronts these fatal defects at their source
in (i) The class origin of the petty-bourgeois
revolutionary personality
and (ii) Its fondness for the divisive
doctrines of that latter-day
Hermeticist
-- Hegel.
Doctrinaire Marxism is the final outcome
of this mystical creed, hence it needs a Guru or two to interpret it, rationalise
constant failure, and 'justify' regular splits -- and, of course, to initiate
yet more of the same.
Enter the cult of the
personality with its petty, nit-picking, small pond mentality. Enter the "Leader" who knows all,
reveals all, expels all (and, in several notorious cases, executes or
imprisons all): The Dialectical Magus.
As observers of religious cults have noted,
even the most
mundane
and
banal statements put out by such leaders
are
treated with awe, attention and inordinate respect, compounded by a level of deference that would shame
a professional sycophant -- almost as if their words had been conveyed to
expectant humanity from
off
the
mountain top itself, possessed of profound,
esoteric significance
and divine authority.
Witness the
inordinate
and quasi-religious reverence in which the
dialectical meanderings of
Mao
and
Stalin
were held.
Here, for example, is Lin Biao
on the former, in 1966:
"Chairman Mao is a genius,
everything the Chairman says is truly great; one of the Chairman's words will
override the meaning of ten thousands of ours." [Quoted from
here.]
This
is what Nikita Khrushchev had to say (in his 'secret speech' to the 20th
Congress of the CPSU):
"After
Stalin's death, the Central Committee began to implement a policy of explaining
concisely and consistently that it is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of
Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman
possessing supernatural characteristics, akin to those of a god. Such a man
supposedly knows everything, sees everything, thinks for everyone, can do
anything, is infallible in his behaviour.
"Such a
belief about a man, and specifically about Stalin, was cultivated among us for
many years. The objective of the present report is not a thorough evaluation of
Stalin's life and activity. Concerning Stalin's merits, an entirely sufficient
number of books, pamphlets and studies had already been written in his lifetime.
Stalin's role in the preparation and execution of the Socialist Revolution, in
the Civil War, and in the fight for the construction of socialism in our
country, is universally known. Everyone knows it well.
"At
present, we are concerned with a question which has immense importance for the
Party now and for the future -- with how the cult of the person of Stalin has
been gradually growing, the cult which became at a certain specific stage the
source of a whole series of exceedingly serious and grave perversions of Party
principles, of Party democracy, of revolutionary legality.
"Because
not all as yet realize fully the practical consequences resulting from the cult
of the individual, [or] the great harm caused by violation of the principle of
collective Party direction and by the accumulation of immense and limitless
power in the hands of one person, the Central Committee considers it absolutely
necessary to make material pertaining to this matter available to the 20th
Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
"Allow me
first of all to remind you how severely the classics of Marxism-Leninism
denounced every manifestation of the cult of the individual. In a letter to the
German political worker Wilhelm Bloss, [Karl] Marx stated: 'From my antipathy to
any cult of the individual, I never made public during the existence of the
[1st] International the numerous addresses from various countries which
recognized my merits and which annoyed me. I did not even reply to them, except
sometimes to rebuke their authors. [Friedrich] Engels and I first joined the
secret society of Communists on the condition that everything making for
superstitious worship of authority would be deleted from its statute.
[Ferdinand] Lassalle subsequently did quite the opposite.'" [Nikita Khrushchev,
Speech to the 20th Congress of the CPSU, 24-25/02/1956. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Spelling modified
to agree with UK English. Typos corrected. (I have informed the editors over at
the Marxist Internet Archive.)]
[Of
course, this cult-of-Stalin had been growing since the mid-1920s.]
Here,
Stalin is praised to the rafters, and beyond:
"Thank
you, Stalin. Thank you because I am joyful. Thank you because I am well. No
matter how old I become, I shall never forget how we received Stalin two days
ago. Centuries will pass, and the generations still to come will regard us as
the happiest of mortals, as the most fortunate of men, because we lived in the
century of centuries, because we were privileged to see Stalin, our inspired
leader. Yes, and we regard ourselves as the happiest of mortals because we are
the contemporaries of a man who never had an equal in world history.
"The men of all ages will call on thy name, which is
strong, beautiful, wise and marvellous. Thy name is engraven on every factory,
every machine, every place on the earth, and in the hearts of all men.
"Every time I have found myself in his presence I have
been subjugated by his strength, his charm, his grandeur. I have experienced a
great desire to sing, to cry out, to shout with joy and happiness. And now see
me -- me! -- on the same platform where the Great Stalin stood a year ago. In
what country, in what part of the world could such a thing happen.
"I write books. I am an author. All thanks to thee, O
great educator, Stalin. I love a young woman with a renewed love and shall
perpetuate myself in my children -- all thanks to thee, great educator, Stalin.
I shall be eternally happy and joyous, all thanks to thee, great educator,
Stalin. Everything belongs to thee, chief of our great country. And when the
woman I love presents me with a child the first word it shall utter will be:
Stalin.
"O great Stalin, O leader of
the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth.
Thou who fructifies the earth,
Thou who restorest to centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords...
Thou, splendour of my spring, O thou,
Sun reflected by millions of hearts."
Did even Hitler ever receive such praise
and adoration?
"According to his official biography, Kim Jong Il's birth atop a
sacred mountain saw a new star created and winter turn to spring. However,
records kept by the country's Soviet allies show he was born in a Siberian
village in 1941." [Quoted from
here.]
I have just seen a documentary on CNN (aired
14/09/2017 -- the original video is available
here, Chapter Six, The Sacred Mountain -- scroll down to see a short
clip from this chapter, although i have posted the full clip as Video Two, below), in which the official North Korean guide (employed at
the site of Kim-Jong-il's
'miraculous' birthplace) confirms the above tale. She adds that this isn't a
legend -- itreally didhappen:
"So it was really cold and the weather was
not normal. But, somehow, the day the General was born the strong wind stopped
all of a sudden. The sun began shining through. Everything was bright and a
quiet calm took over. The flowers bloomed and in the sky was a particularly
bright star.... Yes, it actually happened. It's not a legend. Our general is
really a person who (sic) heaven sent to us. So, he changed the weather, too.
It's a true story.... Nature actually transformed itself to announce the birth
of our General to the whole world, blessing it. That's how it happened."
Video Two: The Miraculous
Birth of Kim-Jong-il
Nor, indeed,
need we be asked to recall the obsequious praise heaped on
Gerry Healy
--
Blessed Be His Name! -- by prominent
members
of the now defunct WRP, or even the nauseating adulation lavished on
Marlene Dixon of the DWP:
"Comrade Marlene and the Party are
inseparable; her contribution is the Party itself, is the
unity all of us join together to build upon. The Party is now the material
expression of that unity, of that theoretical world view. That world view is the
world view of the Party, its central leadership and all of its members. And
there will be no other world view…. This was the unity that founded the Party,
this was the unity that safeguarded the Party through purge and two-line
struggle, and this is the unity we will protect and defend at all costs. There
will be no other unity."
[Quoted from
here;
see also
here. This passage in fact appears in Lalich (2004), p.164.]
[I have posted many more examples of this retch-inducing
sycophancy here and
here.]
In fact, Healy was well-known for fomenting strife among
party members
(with added violence,
so we are told)
in order to heighten the 'contradictions' in his micro-sect --, along 'sound'
dialectical lines, of course.
In the recent crisis in the UK-SWP, Alex Callinicos even spoke about of "lynch
mobs". Of late we have also witnessed the divisive political and
'philosophical' gyrations of
Chris Cutrone and the 'Platypus Affiliated Society'.
Compare the above hero worship with Marx's own stated attitude
(referenced above by Khrushchev himself):
"Neither of us cares a straw
for popularity. Let me cite one proof of this: such was my aversion to the
personality cult that at the time of the International, when plagued by numerous
moves -- originating from various countries -- to accord me public honour, I
never allowed one of these to enter the domain of publicity, nor did I ever
reply to them, save with an occasional snub. When Engels and I first joined the
secret communist society, we did so only on condition that anything conducive to
a superstitious belief in authority be eliminated from the Rules. (Lassalle
subsequently operated in the reverse direction.)" [MECW, 45, p.288,
Marx to Wilhem Blos, 10/11/1877. Link added.]
This un-Marxist phenomenon also helps account for much
of the
personal and organisation corruption
revolutionary politics has witnessed over
the last hundred years or so -- ranging from
Mao's
abuse of female comrades
to the same with respect
to
Healy
(on that, see
Appendix A),
down to the
scandal that engulfed the UK-SWP
--, but there are many more examples of this malaise.
All of these are
partly the
result of the noxious effect this doctrine has had on otherwise radical minds
-- i.e., convincing them that they are somehow 'special' and thus are,
Raskolnikov-like, above the 'conventional' morality of the
'herd', or, in some cases, the laws of nature!
This
is just the latest of these,
concerning
a
Maoist cult in London:
"Last week the 75-year old
Aravindan Balakrishnan (aka 'comrade Bala')
was sentenced to 23 years in jail for a string of offences, including rape,
sexual assault, child cruelty and false imprisonment -- the last two charges
relating to his daughter, Katy Morgan-Davies, who is now 33.
"The court heard how the
leader of the Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong
Thought -- such as it was -- operated a 'dehumanising and degrading'
domestic regime, terrifying his small coterie of female followers
(or subjects) into thinking he could read their minds and had
'god-like' powers. These powers involved mastery of 'Jackie'
(Jehovah, Allah, Christ, Krishna, Immortal Easwaran), and an
'electronic satellite warfare machine' built by the Communist Party
of China/People's Liberation Army, which could strike them dead if
they ever stepped out of line. Balakrishnan also claimed that it was
a challenge to his leadership that had resulted in the 1986 space
shuttle disaster.
"All this is perhaps not
quite so surprising when we discover that Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and
Saddam Hussein were -- in the words of Morgan-Davies -- his 'his
gods and his heroes' that he wished to 'emulate': therefore you
'couldn't criticise them'. Indeed, according to her, her father was
using the sect or collective as a 'pilot unit' to learn how to
control people before taking over the world -- presumably appointing
himself as global revolutionary dictator. But so great were his
delusions, revealed Morgan-Davies, that at times he worried that Mao
and the others might act as a 'rival to him' -- when instead they
should be 'secondary to him', as he wanted to be 'bigger than all of
them'. We are also informed that he wished three million had died in
the Tiananmen Square massacre.
"Balakrishnan raped two
women on the basis that he was 'purifying them' of the 'bourgeois
culture' in the outside world, the jurors were told. He began
sexually abusing his first victim when his wife, Chandra, was in a
diabetic-induced coma. She met him at a demonstration when she was
23, saying he 'had the air of an important man with authority' and
quickly became entranced by him. The other victim was a Malaysian
nurse who initially found Workers' Institute meetings 'welcoming and
friendly', but was repeatedly sexually assaulted over a 10-year
period....
"In 1974 Balakrishnan was
expelled from the Communist Party of England (Marxist-Leninist) for
'splittist activities' and 'opposition to dialectical materialism'.
In return, he scornfully called them the 'Communist Party of
Elizabeth (Most-Loyal)' and set-up the rival 'institute' -- also
launching his own publication, the South London Workers'
Bulletin, which never missed an opportunity to vehemently
denounce his former comrades of the CPE(M-L), and just about
everybody else, for being 'fascists', 'running dogs', 'agents of
imperialism' and so forth....
"The 'institute' started
to produce spectacular leaflets predicting the overthrow of the
'British fascist state' and the beginnings of the 'world revolution'
led by the CPC/PLA [Communist Party of China/People's Liberation
Army -- RL]. In fact, we learnt, the PLA would launch a
'revolutionary invasion' of Britain by 1980 -- the bridgehead being
the liberated zone of Brixton. This was the 'first stable base area
in the imperialist heartlands', where whole families were free from
'fascist rules and regulations' -- a fact, Balakrishnan assured his
followers, that has 'driven the British bourgeoisie up the wall'.
Developing the theme, a 'perspectives' document from 1977
confidently stated that the British population was moving in a clear
'revolutionary direction' -- primarily thanks to the Workers'
Institute 'successfully' conducting 'vigorous programmes to uphold
Chairman Mao's revolutionary line amidst the mass upsurge in
Britain'. And if you went to certain pubs in Brixton at this time,
occasionally someone might get on a table and wave the Little
Red Book about.
"Much to the mirth of the
left, and showing the final descent into complete lunacy,
Balakrishnan's group asserted that the 'international dictatorship
of the proletariat' had been 'established covertly' in 1977 by 'our
party' -- i.e., the CPC. You are actually living under socialism:
it's just that you don't know it yet. The fact that a diarist in
The Times reprinted some of the group's material that year for
the amusement of its readers only proved to Balakrishnan that the
'hired scribes of the bourgeoisie' and 'their masters' are 'well
aware of the danger of the rapid growth and development of the
Workers’ Institute in the past four years to their class interests'.
Maoists are, of course, renowned for their sense of humour....
"Then again...mad politics
drives you crazy, not the other way round. In certain respects, the
Workers' Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought and its
devotion to dogma is a representative example of the British left --
albeit in an extreme or concentrated form. Take Gerry Healy's
Workers Revolutionary Party -- not as mad as the Workers' Institute,
true, but not far off it and arguably more destructive. You can see
obvious similarities not only with regards to sexual abuse and rape,
but also when it comes to promoting a world view which is
patently false. When the WRP first came out with its line that
we were living under a Bonapartist dictatorship and on the edge of a
military coup -- so sleep with your boots on as the revolution is
about to happen -- you might have conceded generously that, whilst
the comrades were wrong, it was worth having a discussion
about it. But to repeat the same thing 20 or 30 years later is just
madness. Healy and the then WRP leadership may not have been
clinically insane, but they were definitely socially
insane.
"Not entirely
dissimilarly, there is the Socialist Workers Party and its
frighteningly bureaucratic internal regime. It may not have had a
Gerry Healy or an Aravindan Balakrishnan, but it certainly had
comrade Delta -- and at first the apparatus automatically rallied
around him, attempting to protect him from accusations of sexual
abuse. Or how about when our SWP comrades told us that the miners'
Great Strike of 1984-85 was an 'extreme form of the downturn'? You
could hardly make it up. Dogma run amok." ['Devotion
to Dogma', Weekly Worker, 04/02/2016; accessed 29/03/2016.
Quotation marks altered to conform with conventions adopted at
this site. Italic emphases in the original. A BBC report can
be accessed
here. I have corrected this author's mis-spelling of Gerry
Healy's name.]
Figure Three: Gerry Healy
Receives The Sacred Word --,
Er..., Or Is It Kim-Jong-il, Bob Avakian, Aravindan
Balakrishnan Or Marlene Dixon?
Megalomania coupled with an inflated view of one's own
(surely cosmic) importance, a failure to face reality (courtesy of a theory that
teaches that 'appearances' are 'contradicted' by underlying 'essence') descend
like a cloud on the brains of such individuals -- these 'prophets-in-the-making'
--, and, of course,
their acolytes. How else would it have been possible for them to rationalise so easily the
pragmatic contradiction between, say, the widespread abuse of female comrades and a formal
commitment to women's liberation, except by means of this contradictory theory:
DM?23
In this way, we have seen Dialectical Marxism replicate
much of the abuse -- and most of sectarianism --
found
in almost all known
religions. [Again, on this, see
Appendix A.]
And no wonder, both were spawned by similar alienated patterns of ruling-class
thought and social atomisation --, compounded, of course, by a cultic mentality,
a pathological mind-set further aggravated by a divisive, Hermetic
Creed
capable of rationalising anything whatsoever and its opposite!
As
even Marx inadvertently admitted:
"It's possible that I shall make an ass of
myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little
dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be
right either way." [Marx
to Engels, 15/08/1857, MECW 40, p.152.
Bold emphasis added.]
And this is one of the logical
consequences of all that dialectical-adulation, exhibited by Gerry
Healy of the old WRP, but more recently by the UK-SWP and the 'comrade Delta'
debacle:
"Rape, however, is a most abusive violent power
relation and weapon used for oppression which echoes the exploitative rule of
capital itself. For such a form of abuse to emerge in any so-called socialist
organisation -- and to 'deal' with it in the way the SWP has -- reflects the
presence of the deepest forms of degeneration and corruption which, in turn,
replicates the most insidious and inhuman forms of alienation and oppression of
capitalist domination. If a so-called socialist organisation is not a safe place
for women to voluntarily participate in its activities, then it is not worthy of
the name 'socialist'....
"Historically, and speaking from my early
political experience, socialists have witnessed such behaviour before. The
dissolution of the Workers Revolutionary Party in 1985 was sparked by the
discovery that its leader -- Gerry Healy -- had regularly assaulted party
members, sexually abusing female comrades for many years and perpetrating
various libels and slanders against socialists in other organisations. Healy's
secretary -- who was instrumental in exposing his abuses -- listed more than 20
victims. Healy used his position of power in the party to sexually abuse female
comrades....
"When
Cliff
Slaughter
in opposition to Healy -- at a meeting in London -- quoted Lenin
on morality, Healy et al accused him of purveying bourgeois morality (such
accusations will ring a bell with those currently fighting the 'elect' in the
SWP) until he actually stated subsequently to the full meeting that he had just
quoted from Lenin. This exposed how far Healy & Co had actually moved away from
'their' Lenin on questions of morality. For Healy et al, Lenin was infallible,
indisputable gospel. Nobody critiqued Lenin. Volumes 14 and 38 of the Collected
Works were treated like divine revelation....
"Corin
Redgrave (the now dead brother of the still living actress
Vanessa)
caused uproar in a meeting in Scotland when he praised what he called Healy's
'achievements' and said that... 'If this is the work of a rapist, then let's
recruit more rapists'....
"This was the sort of obscene, anti-socialist,
inhuman morality which prevailed in the Workers Revolutionary Party prior to the
break-up in 1985. This was used to prop up and validate the bizarre sectarian
notions of vanguardism: 'we are the vanguard party', etc. Verbal and physical
abuse, coercion, bullying, intimidation, emotional blackmail, humiliation,
people re-mortgaging and even losing their houses to fund the party and working
all hours (18-hour days were normal for some comrades) were all part of being a
'professional revolutionary' in the WRP. The personal life was 'toast'....
"[All this] was 'complimented' by
the most abject
philosophical philistinism and theoretically dissolute publication of Healy's
very unremarkable 'Studies in Dialectical Materialism' which turned out to be an
incomprehensible dog's dinner of convoluted mumbojumbo phrasemongering and
terminological confusion. One comrade in Hull sarcastically recommended it as
'bedtime reading' when I told him I was having trouble sleeping. Because we
didn't grasp it, we thought it was 'too advanced' for us. We didn't possess the
'supreme dialectical mind of a Gerry Healy'. As things turned out, when we
looked at it as the fog started to lift, it was clear that we didn't understand
it because it was unadulterated gobbledegook. Here again, we see a
characteristic of cult-existence in which its leader was, momentarily at least,
attributed powers which he really didn't hold. None of us understood the
'Studies' and so we were told to 'theoretically discipline ourselves' like a
mental or intellectual form of self-flagellation or 'penance' found in physical
form in some religious cults or sects....
"Many people did actually have mental breakdowns
even after the break-up of the WRP. Homes broken. Divorces. Families destroyed.
'Building the party' was simultaneously the point of departure and the point of
return. Everything else was subservient to this manic 'party-building'....
"The 'leaders' of these sectarian groups -- these
minilenins and tinytrotskys -- tend to attract the same degree of reverence from
their rather uncritical membership as a charismatic neo-prophet does from the
enchanted congregation of his cult. The social psychology is fundamentally the
same. Until, of course, a profound crisis sets in which shakes everything to its
foundations. And sexual abuse in a so-called socialist organisation is such a
crisis....
"Meanwhile today, in March 2013, 28 years
post-Healy, the Socialist Workers Party remains open to the accusation that it
is harbouring rapists and sexual predators (sic) whilst two women socialists are
insisting that they have been sexually abused by the accused man who is still
free to prowl around the female membership. [The ex-comrade involved has since
resigned from the SWP
in order to avoid having to answer further accusations
of sexual harassment levelled at him by the second of the two female comrades
mentioned above -- RL.]" [Quoted from
here; accessed 09/10/2013. Quotation marks altered to conform with
conventions adopted at this site. Links added. (See also
here and
here -- warning: graphic detail!)]
As things stand, we are bound to witness yet
more Gerry Healys and Comrade Deltas on the revolutionary left (accompanied, of
course, by the regulation 'it's all a fame-up by the capitalist state/media' defence). [On this, see Note 23.]
As far as the DM-'faithful' are concerned
all
this will fail to go even in one ear let alone straight out through the
other. That is because they refuse to accept that any of the pressures bearing
down on the rest of humanity could possibly have any
effect on them,
the DM-Elect.
Apparently, social psychology doesn't apply to these demi-gods!
Indeed, as far as The Chosen are concerned, we can totally ignore these famous
words (as they apply to them):
"In the social production of their existence,
men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their
will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the
development of their material forces of production. The totality of these
relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real
foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which
correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of
material life conditions the general process of social, political and
intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their
existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness."
[Marx
(1968), pp.181. Bold emphasis added.]
In response, it is often argued that
tracing the fondness dialecticians have for Philosophy
back to their class origin or current class position is just "crude reductionism"! In stark
contrast,
however, dialecticians are quite happy to reduce their opponents'
theories and beliefs to
their class origin or class position, while any
attempt to do likewise with respect to their philosophical ideas is
rejected out-of-hand.
"In a word, Comrade
Martov's
formula will either
remain a dead letter, an empty phrase, or it will be of benefit mainly and
almost exclusively to 'intellectuals who are thoroughly imbued with
bourgeois individualism' and do not wish to join an organisation. In
words, Martov's formulation defends the interests of the broad strata of
the proletariat, but in fact it serves the interests of the
bourgeois intellectuals, who fight shy of proletarian discipline and
organisation. No one will venture to deny that the intelligentsia,
as a special stratum of modern capitalist society, is characterised, by and
large, precisely by individualism and incapacity for discipline and
organisation (cf., for example,
Kautsky's
well-known articles on the
intelligentsia (partially reproduced below -- RL)). This, incidentally, is a feature which unfavourably
distinguishes this social stratum from the proletariat;
it is one of the
reasons for the flabbiness and instability of the intellectual, which the
proletariat so often feels; and this trait of the intelligentsia is intimately
bound up with its customary mode of life, its mode of earning a livelihood,
which in a great many respects approximates to the petty-bourgeois mode of
existence (working in isolation or in very small groups, etc.). Nor is it
fortuitous, lastly, that the defenders of Comrade Martov's formulation were the
ones who had to cite the example of professors and high school students! It was
not champions of a broad proletarian struggle who, in the controversy over
Paragraph 1, took the field against champions of a radically conspiratorial
organisation, as Comrades
Martynov
and
Axelrod
thought, but the supporters of
bourgeois-intellectual individualism who clashed with the supporters of
proletarian organisation and discipline." [Lenin
(1976),
pp.87-88. Bold emphasis and links added; italic emphases in
the original.]
Quoting
Kautsky
on the social psychology of his opponents, Lenin further argued:
"Onecan't help recalling in this connection the brilliant social and
psychological characterisation of this latter quality recently given by Karl
Kautsky. The Social Democratic parties of different countries suffer not
infrequently nowadays from similar maladies, and it would be very, very useful
for us to learn from more experienced comrades the correct diagnosis and the
correct cure. Karl Kautsky's characterisation of certain intellectuals will
therefore be only a seeming digression from our theme.
'The problem...that again interests us
so keenly today is the antagonism between the intelligentsia and the
proletariat. My colleagues (Kautsky is himself an intellectual, a writer and
editor) will mostly be indignant that I admit this antagonism. But it actually
exists, and, as in other cases, it would be the most inexpedient tactics to try
to overcome the fact by denying it. This antagonism is a social one, it relates to
classes, not to individuals. The individual intellectual, like the
individual capitalist, may identify himself with the proletariat in its class
struggle. When he does, he changes his character too. It is not this type
of intellectual, who is still an exception among his class, that we shall
mainly speak of in what follows. Unless otherwise stated, I shall use the
word intellectual to mean only the common run of intellectual who takes the
stand of bourgeois society, and who is characteristic of the
intelligentsia as a class. This class stands in a certain
antagonism to the proletariat.
'Thisantagonism differs, however, from the antagonism between labour and
capital. The intellectual is not a capitalist. True, his standard of life
is bourgeois, and he must maintain it if he is not to become a pauper; but at
the same time he is compelled to sell the product of his labour, and often his
labour-power, and is himself often enough exploited and humiliated by the
capitalist. Hence the intellectual does not stand in any economic antagonism
to the proletariat. But his status of life and his conditions of labour are
not proletarian, and this gives rise to a certain antagonism in sentiments and
ideas.
'...Quitedifferent is the case of the intellectual. He does not fight by means
of power, but by argument. His weapons are his personal knowledge, his
personal ability, his personal convictions. He can attain to any position at
all only through his personal qualities. Hence the freest play for his
individuality seems to him the prime condition for successful activity.
It is only with difficulty that he submits to being a part subordinate to a
whole, and then only from necessity, not from inclination. He recognises the
need of discipline only for the mass, not for the elect minds. And of course
he counts himself among the latter....
'...The typical intellectual ŕ la
Stockmann regards a "compact majority" as a monster that must be
overthrown....'
"Justsuch feeble whining of intellectuals who happened to find themselves in the
minority, and nothing more, was the refusal of Martov
and his friends to be named for office merely because the old circle had not
been endorsed, as were their complaints of a state of siege and emergency laws
'against particular groups', which Martov cared nothing about when
Yuzhny
Rabochy
and
Rabocheye Dyelo
were dissolved, but only came to care about when his
group was dissolved.
"Justsuch feeble whining of intellectuals who happened to find themselves in the
minority was that endless torrent of complaints, reproaches, hints, accusations,
slanders, and insinuations regarding the 'compact majority' which was
started by Martov and which poured out in such a flood at our Party Congress
(and even more so after).
"Theminority bitterly complained of the 'false accusation of opportunism'. Well,
it had to do something to conceal the unpleasant fact that it was
opportunists, who in most cases had followed the anti-Iskra-ists
-- and
partly these anti-Iskra-ists themselves -- that made up the compact
minority, seizing with both hands on the championship of the circle spirit in
Party institutions, opportunism in arguments, philistinism in Party affairs,
and the instability and wishy-washiness of the intellectual." [Ibid.,
pp.160-64.
Bold emphases and links added; italic
emphases in the original. Quotation marks altered
to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Trotsky was also happy to do
likewise (this time
applying the following analysis to those in his own
party who opposed him, but failing to do so with respect to those who
supported him, or, indeed, himself):
"[Y]ou
[James Burnham -- RL], likewise, seek an ideal party democracy which would
secure forever and for everybody the possibility of saying and doing whatever
popped into his head, and which would insure the party against bureaucratic
degeneration. You overlook a trifle, namely, that the party is not an arena for
the assertion of free individuality, but an instrument of the proletarian
revolution; that only a victorious revolution is capable of preventing the
degeneration not only of the party but of the proletariat itself and of modern
civilization as a whole. You do not see that our American section is not sick
from too much centralism -- it is laughable even to talk about it -- but from
a monstrous abuse and distortion of democracy on the part of petty-bourgeois
elements. This is at the root of the present crisis....
"Petty-bourgeois,
and especially declassed elements, divorced from the proletariat, vegetate in an
artificial and shut-in environment. They have ample time to dabble in politics
or its substitute. They pick out faults, exchange all sorts of tidbits and
gossip concerning happenings among the party 'tops.' They always locate a leader
who initiates them into all the 'secrets.' Discussion is their native element.
No amount of democracy is ever enough for them. For their war of words they seek
the fourth dimension. They become jittery, they revolve in a vicious circle, and
they quench their thirst with salt water. Do you want to know the organizational
program of the opposition? It consists of a mad hunt for the fourth dimension of
party democracy. In practice this means burying politics beneath discussion; and
burying centralism beneath the anarchy of the intellectual circles. When a few
thousand workers join the party, they will call the petty-bourgeois anarchists
severely to order. The sooner, the better." [Trotsky
(1971), pp.116-17. Bold emphases
and link added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site. Needless to say, the "few thousand"
workers failed to show up.
For Burnham's reply to Trotsky, see
here.]
"If we exclude that stratum of the
intelligentsia which directly serves the working masses, as workers' doctors,
lawyers, and so on (a stratum which, as a general rule, is composed of the less
talented representatives of these professions), then we see that the most
important and influential part of the intelligentsia owes its livelihood to
payments out of industrial profit, rent from land or the state budget, and thus
is directly or indirectly dependent on the capitalist classes or the capitalist
state.
"Abstractly considered, this material
dependence puts out of the question only militant political activity in the
anti-capitalist ranks, but not spiritual freedom in relation to the class which
provides employment. In actual fact, however, this is not so. Precisely the
'spiritual' nature of the work that the intelligentsia do inevitably forms a
spiritual tie between them and the possessing classes." [Trotsky,
The Intelligentsia And Socialism. Bold emphases added.]
Finally, this is how Trotsky
analysed the clique around Stalin:
"The entire effort of Stalin,
with whom at that time
Zinoviev and
Kamenev were working hand in hand, was
thenceforth directed to freeing the party machine from the control of the
rank-and-file members of the party. In this struggle for 'stability' of the
Central Committee, Stalin proved the most consistent and reliable among his
colleagues. He had no need to tear himself away from international problems; he
had never been concerned with them. The petty bourgeois outlook of the new
ruling stratum was his own outlook. He profoundly believed that the task of
creating socialism was national and administrative in its nature. He looked upon
the Communist International as a necessary evil would should be used so far as
possible for the purposes of foreign policy. His own party kept a value in his
eyes merely as a submissive support for the machine." [Trotsky
(1977), p.97. Bold emphasis
and links added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
"Since the theory of historical materialism,
which lies at the very heart of Marxism, is the crowning achievement of the
bourgeois intellectual, it is no more than an act of historical justice to
apply it to the intelligentsia itself.... But the intelligentsia as a highly
self-conscious and separate grouping with its own interests and institutions is
a peculiar product of bourgeois society and the highly developed division of
labour within it....
"Intellectuals are usually (though not
necessarily) professionals of one kind of another, teachers, writers,
scientists, artists, politicians, etc....
"But, along with the professionalisation of
technical training and the institutionalization of branches of learning which
reach their highest development in present-day society, there ensues a further
specialization. A deep division of labour springs up between the theorists and
practitioners of the arts and sciences. Thus we have theoreticians of
aesthetics, who have never produced a work of art, and painters who have never
given an abstract thought to their work; practical politicians and professors of
politics; field scientists and laboratory scientists; experimental physicists
and mathematical physicists. There have even been established 'schools of
business administration', like that at Harvard, where the art of exploitation is
taught in the grand manner, and the science of capitalist apologetics developed
to the same refined degree as the scholastics developed Catholic theology.
"Finally, out of the division of labour in
the academic domain have emerged entire departments of philosophy and the social
sciences, given over to the task of speculating upon the most profound
philosophical, historical, and social problems. The professional philosopher is
the most consummate expression of the modern intellectual, as the professional
theologian was the highest representative of the medieval learned caste.
"The native habitat of the professional
intellectual in modern as well as in medieval society is the university. The
growth of universities furnishes one of the best indices to the evolution of the
intelligentsia. It must be noted in this connection that the leading
institutions of learning are usually supported and controlled by the ruling
classes, as a centre for the dissemination of their ideas.
Plato's Academy
was for the sons of the Greek aristocracy, just as Plato's philosophy was the
reasoned expression of the world view of the Greek aristocrat. The medieval
universities were in the hands of the higher estates of the clergy and the
nobility. Oxford and Cambridge have been, since their inception, finishing
schools for the scions of the masters of England and training schools for their
auxiliaries the clergy and governmental bureaucracy. Today in the United States
the capitalist plutocracy controls the purse strings and the faculties of the
great privately endowed institutions like Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Chicago, and
Leland Stanford, while the upper strata of the middle classes set the prevailing
tone in the state universities.
"...Intellectuals are specialists in the
production and propagation of ideas. They constitute the sensorium of modern
society, the concentration points where ideologies emerge into consciousness;
take systematic shape; and are then diffused through the body politic. In
various professional capacities, as teachers, writers, politicians, etc., the
intelligentsia disseminates not only scientific knowledge but the ideas which
classes entertain about themselves and their aims....
"Because of their economic insecurity,
social rootlessness, and mixed composition, intellectuals constitute one of the
most unstable, mobile, and sensitive groups in modern society. The
mercurial character of their social and intellectual movements make them
excellent barometers of social pressures and revolutionary storms. Impending
social changes are often anticipated by restlessness among the intelligentsia.
The
French Encyclopaedists of the eighteenth century who frequented the salons
of the nobility and taunted them with the idea of revolution; the Northern
abolitionists and Southern fire-eaters; the Communist and Fascist intellectuals,
who are beginning to spring up on all sides in the United States today, fight on
an ideological plane the battles to be fought in grim reality between opposing
classes on the morrow.
"The intelligentsia therefore becomes a
microcosm of capitalist society, mirroring in a contracted compass and often in
a distorted manner the real conflicts in the world around them. This
peculiar character of the intellectuals endows their history with a significance
lacking in the development of other professional groups, just as the
articulateness (sic) of the intellectuals, and their function as the
spokesmen of party and class interests, give their intellectual expressions,
and even their political affiliations, an importance disproportionate to their
numbers and actual power....
"Whereas the members of real ruling classes
base their claim to supremacy upon social position or economic power, this
intellectual élite claim the right to rule by virtue of an ability to produce or
appreciate works of art, science, or philosophy. Arrogating a superior social
status to themselves, they further declare that, as creators, scientists, or
philosophers, they have been washed clean of the material motives and class
interests that stain their baser fellow citizens. They make a religion of
'art', torn up from its social roots and abstracted from its social milieu, like
Flaubert, or a religion of 'science' in the abstract, like
Renan,
in order to exalt themselves above the vulgar herd. The perennial
wish-fulfilment dream of the intellectual to be the monarch of mankind is best
embodied in Plato's mythical republic, where the philosopher is king -- and the
labouring masses are
helots....
"It is said that radical intellectuals are
unstable and unreliable allies of the working class. There is a certain element
of truth in this accusation. Since, socially speaking, intellectuals form a
parasitic group, even the most radical intellectuals may have stronger social
and ideological ties with the existing order than they consciously suspect.
Long after the umbilical cord is cut and the youth has declared his
independence, the mature man is not free from the subtle subconscious influence
of his parents. At crucial moments, deep-seated attachments, reinforced by
the exceptionally heavy pressure exerted by alien classes, may generate a mood
of vacillation in the intellectual, holding him back from decisive action and a
sharp break with the bourgeois world....
"The intellectual defenders of reaction
usually abandon the attempt to reason out their position in a straightforward
logical manner and rely instead upon some substitute for logical and scientific
method. Reaction in every sphere of experience, political, artistic and
cultural, disparages the intellect as an organ of objective knowledge and leans
upon some presumably more fundamental factor such as intuition, blood-sense,
tradition, revelation, emotion, etc. This can be seen in all the great
reactionary movements in philosophy and politics from the French Revolution to
the present lay.
Burke's
defense of tradition against the implacable logic of bourgeois revolutionists,
DeMaistre's brief on behalf of the Catholic Church and the guillotine as the
foundation of the state,
Carlyle's
exaltation of divine inspiration and the strong man, are instances which spring
readily to mind. The truth of this observation can best be seen in the Fascist
movements of our own time." [Novack
(1935). See also
Novack (1936). Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site. Bold emphases and links added. Spelling modified to agree
with UK English.]
While
the above is a much more nuanced analysis, Novack nowhere applies the
following
comment to the DM-classicists or other Marxist intellectuals:
"Arrogating a superior social status to
themselves, they further declare that, as creators, scientists, or philosophers,
they have been washed clean of the material motives and class interests
that stain their baser fellow citizens." [Ibid., bold added.]
As
noted earlier, this can only that mean
DM-theorists have indeed been
"washed clean of the material motives and class interests...", which,
alas, affect the
rest of humanity.
So,
Lenin and Trotsky saw nothing wrong with applying their analyses to the behaviour of,
or the ideas formed by, fellow Marxists. But, which
Leninist or which Trotskyist today is going to accuse either of those two of "crude reductionism"?
In which case, while it seems
quite legitimate for
dialecticians
to 'reduce' their enemies and opponents' --
and, indeed, some of their fellow
Marxists' --ideas, attitudes and behaviours to their class position, or class
origin, it is illegitimate for anyone to do the same to them.
On the other hand, Marxists are quite
right to point out that when, for example, union militants are drafted into the
trade union machine, becoming bureaucrats themselves, their new material
conditions have a predictable effect on the attitudes they adopt and the ideas
they form. However, the very same Marxists
will resist with no little vehemence the same conclusion when it is applied
to them, their material circumstances or their class position.
Or, as a
supporter of this site argued a while back:
"Put it
this way, the Marxist tradition (the SWP certainly included) has been able to
produce a class-based analysis that explains why trade-union bureaucrats tend so
strongly towards selling out their members. When a rank-and-file member of a
union gains a position in the bureaucracy and begins to ascend through its
ranks, s/he discovers that his/her material interests are not the same as those
of the rank-and-file members s/he left behind.
"It should
not be hard for people who have grasped such analyses to realise that if this is
the case for union bureaucrats with solid working-class backgrounds, then it can
also be the case (and still more so) for the leaders of revolutionary or other
far-left political organisations, where petty-bourgeois backgrounds often
predominate. And yet it is hard, because the leaderships of such
organisations are understandably reluctant to subject their own positions and
interests to the same kind of Marxist analysis they're keen to apply to others.
Rosa, I think, has made a brave start on this at her site, and I think her work
is worth reading for this (even for readers who don't need immunizing against
Dialectics).
"So
ensuring RR [Respect
Renewal] will not go down the same road as the pre-split Respect is not as
easy as shedding Rees and those who followed his orders. The same tendencies
will be present in the leadership, because they arise from material conditions
rather than from personal character quirks. To counteract this, it would take a
strong framework of democratic checks together -- most importantly -- with a
membership that habitually insists on exercising democratic control of the
organisation on a daily basis, and not just at conference time. It will not be
easy to sustain this in the conditions that prevail in this country: workers
need confidence to win and maintain democratic control, and a long period of
defeats for the class is not conducive to such confidence.
"This is
not to say that the open-ended RR project is fatally misconceived. But it is to
say that the avoidance of the mistakes made in its predecessor organisation will
require constant vigilance on the part of the membership, and in the longer run,
revived class struggle in this country to at least the levels France enjoys
today." [Quoted from
here. Link added.]23a0
If the class analysis promoted at this site is rejected for some reason, the
only other conclusion possible is that it must be by sheer coincidence that revolutionary parties
the world over have replicated, time and again, practically
every single fault and foible that afflicts the genuine god-botherers among us -- even down to their reliance on an obscure book about an
invisible 'Being' -- in this case, Hegel's Logic.
So, while all these faults and foibles have
well-known material and social causes when they descend upon the duplicitous, the alienated, the superstitious,
and the
gullible,
they apparently have no cause whatsoever when they similarly grace the
sanctified lives of our very own Immaculate Dialectical Saints. In which
case, faults and foibles
like these can safely be ignored, never spoken about in polite company.
Until,
that is, The Chosen Ones are caught with their dialectical pants down; even
then these "scurrilous accusations" can be brushed aside as "bourgeois
propaganda", or as
part of a heinous
"witch-hunt".
This
means that the Dialectical Merry-go-round can take another spin across the
Flatlands of Failure, its participants ever more convinced of their semi-divine
infallibility and ideological purity.
In order to
underline its hypnotic power, DM must be able to explain
absolutely
everything (which
is indeed precisely what the DM-classicists assure it is capable of doing; on this, see
Essay
Two) -- even if
it never actually delivers a single comprehensible explanation of
anything, predicts not one novel fact, no mathematical backing, and has
no discernible practical
implications or applications -- except, perhaps, negative.23a
To that
end,
we are presented with an "insistence" on"Totality"
(which remains conveniently undefined),
obscure "Infinities",
a declaration that "truth is the whole" [Hegel
(1977), p.11; Preface, paragraph 20], and various assorted
"relatives" and "absolutes"
(all of which are left
theologically vague).
DM
must not only be able to weather any and all defeats, it must be capable of 'foreseeing'
future victories in each set-back.
To that end, we are told there are UOs everywhere -- for a particularly good example of this
phenomenon, see below
--, all
of which operate under the watchful eye of the NON. The NON informs us that everything "inevitably"
turns into its opposite;
if so, failure
(that is, if the latter is even acknowledged) can't help but turn into success --
one day...24
[UO = Unity of Opposites;
NON = Negation of the Negation; DM = Dialectical Materialism/Materialist,
depending on context.]
This theory
must, therefore, 'allow' its adepts to re-configure each defeat as a 'victory waiting in the
wings'.
To that end, we are told that appearances "contradict" underlying "essence",
and hence that the long-term failure of
Dialectical Marxism
can be ignored (since its seemingly disastrous record isn't, after all,
really real, it just looks that way to those who don't 'understand'
dialectics), or it can be blamed on anything but the theory that
has delivered this comforting message to the faithful.
DM must
also
transcend the limitations of ordinary, 'formal
thinking' -- which is one reason why the attainment of 'absolute truth' has to be
projected into the future, to the end
of time via an infinite asymptotic
meander through epistemological space, insulating DM from easy disconfirmation in the here-and-now.
In this 'capitalist vale of tears', 'relative truth' is all
we can hope to achieve
--
except, of
course, for that absolute truth itself!
This also helps explain why DM-fans develop
selective blindness, ignoring awkward facts that fail to fit the Ideal Picture
bequeathed to them by the Dialectical Classicists.
[On all of the
above, see Essays Two through Eleven Part Two. On the
lengths to
which dialecticians will go to ignore things they can't explain, have
never even thought about, or do not like, see the links
indexed here. As readers will soon
see,
Creationists are rank amateurs in comparison!]
In addition, DM must encourage and facilitate a level of theoretical and thus tactical flexibility that places it outside, if
not way beyond, the normal canons of reason -- and of reasonableness -- enabling its more skilled
adepts to change direction (anti-democratically, opportunistically, and
inconsistently) at the drop of a negative particle.
To that end, regular appeals
are made to the contradictions integral to DM. Since
the latter are found throughout the universe, so we are told, they must also
appear in'applied dialectics'
if it is to reflect the real world and help change it. In that case, 'applied
dialectics' is riddled
with contradictions, which, paradoxically, is regarded as one of its strengths
not a
fatal defect as it would be with any other theory! This heady brew
now 'allows' skilled
dialecticians to argue for anything they like and its opposite. [On exactly how
they
manage do this, see below.]
Moreover, this theory must lie way beyond all
conceivable doubt, so that if anyone attempts to
question its
apodictic certainties, they can be ignored on the grounds that they just
don't 'understand'
dialectics --, which is, once more, a pretty safe accusation since no
one understands it! [On the accuracy of that allegation, see
Part One of this Essay.]
If there is no settled view of DM (or if it
is expressed in sufficiently vague and equivocal terms, and is left in that
condition for
generations, frozen in a nineteenth century time warp), anyone who disagrees
with the latest dialectical line can be accused of "deviationism" and "revisionism"
-- and hence of betraying Marxism. Needless to say, this approach to theory is the non-existent
deity's gift to opportunists, sectarians, and control freaks -- of whom Marxism has
had more than its fair share.
As one left-wing blogger pointed out with
respect to the WRP:
"To be sure, [the WRP] did
acquire a very bad reputation over the years for having a thuggish and violent
internal regime, sometimes spilling over into physical attacks on members of
other groups; for its habit of slandering anyone who disagreed with it as an
agent of the CIA, the KGB, or both; and for an impenetrable 'philosophy'
whose main function was to justify whatever Gerry wanted to do at any particular
moment." [Quoted from
here; accessed 05/02/2013. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to
conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
Even
better, this theory must be impossible to refute. This is a convenient
implication of the Hegelian dialectic itself -- which we
have already had occasion to underline --
whereby every attempt to
oppose it, expose its contradictions or challenge it is viewed as further proof of its correctness
-- since it is argued that to do so is, ipso facto, to use the dialectic itself
-- providing yet more grist to the Hermetic mill. Hence, any
attempted 'refutation' merely
doubles up and returns as confirmation of a system that glories in just such
contradictions! The more heads that are lopped off this
Hydra,
the more it grows in their place!25
[It is worth pointing out that at this site I haven't even attempted to 'refute' Hegel's
dialectic (i.e., show that it is false), or even its alleged 'rational core' appropriated by Marxist
dialecticians. What I have argued is that both versions are far too
vague and confused for anyone to be able to determine whether or not they are true,
let alone try to refute.]
DM can't disappoint nor can it fail its acolytes since,
according to another of its tenets, humanity will never actually possess
the
complete picture of anything -- apparently not even of
an ordinary
glass tumbler! -- let
alone everything. So, like
the will of 'God', the DM-Absolute (the "Totality")
mysteriously
trundles ever onward,
its many twists and turns capable of being fully 'comprehended' only
by our "glorious" leaders (who, up to now, have proved
totally
incapable of explaining this
'theory' to a living soul).
Consequently, what might at first sight appear to be an
engagingly modest admission (i.e., that no one knows the final truth
about anything, or that
all theories are
only ever "partially true", etc., etc.)
soon turns into its opposite. That acknowledgement is then transformed into a stick with
which to beat the opposition: if no one knows the final truth, then neither
does an erstwhile
critic. Only the Party (with its Doctors of Dialectics) can be relied on to
interpret this infinitely plastic theory aright -- by appealing,
like the Roman Catholic Church,
to "tradition" and authority.25a
In such a
topsy-turvy world of silicate-loving, 'dialectical ostriches', the head buried deepest in the sand
is clearly leadership material!26
However, the spurious superiority
enjoyed by
DM
over 'ordinary consciousness' is secured by means of several exclusivising
tricks: (i) The use of unintelligible jargon that no one understands, or seems able to
explain (without employing even more jargon, of equal obscurity);
(ii) An
appeal to authority (sometimes called the "real Marxist tradition");27
(iii) Regular appeals to the sacred DM-texts, linked to an 'orthodox'
interpretative tradition of the latter, now ossified in recycled and highly
repetitive commentaries -- the aforementioned Dialectical Mantra.28
To that end,
DM must
harmonise to some extent with other
boss-class
systems-of-thought, since it has to emphasise the
continuity and progress of human knowledge -- "through contradiction" --
of which it proudly forms a part. In that case, there must be an IED between DM
and Traditional Philosophy, or there would be no
such continuity. This helps explain why erstwhile radicals are
slavishly
conservative when it comes to Philosophy.
However, dialectically-distracted comrades refuse to admit that the demonstrablelink that
exists between DM and the ideas of previous generations of mystics and
ruling-class hacks in any way
compromises their theory --
as one would imagine ought to be the case with those who proudly and
openly proclaim their materialist or scientific
credentials. Ironically, the fact that virtually every DM-thesis
finds echo in
most mystical
systems-of-thought is, paradoxically, regarded as one of its strengths,
not one of its
fatal defects!29
This theory must also insist that in
spite of a formal acceptance of the
Heraclitean Flux,
its core ideas should
remain permanently sealed against change. And so they are. In that case, over
the last hundred years or so there has been virtually no innovation of note in DM
-- just more
epicycles. [This
allegation will be substantiated in Essay Fourteen Part Two.]
Indeed, those with their
heads buried in the nearest dune can hardly promote a theory that shifts with the Heraclitean
sands.
Furthermore, this theory must be the source of
boundless optimism, so that despite the way things appear to be (to those lost in the mists of "commonsense" and
"formal thinking", of course), the NON
guarantees that the underlying tendency
at work throughout the universe favours the dialectical cause -- even if things sometimes need hurrying along
a little with
human intervention.29a
Dialectics provides all of the faithful with some of the above, and some of the
faithful with all of the above. This helps explain (a) Its
acceptance by practically every shade of revolutionary socialism, (b) Its longevity,
(c) the
semi-religious
loyalty
it engenders in those held in its thrall and
(d) Why these True Believers will never abandon it.
DM-fans would rather die with their heads
buried in these Parmenidean
Sands than face material
reality in all its complexity with even an ounce
of courage
-- or, for that matter,
honesty.
However, this also helps explain a rather curious anomaly:
as the working-class
grows ever larger the influence that
Dialectical Marxism has on it continues to dwindle.
Parallel to this -- but not unrelated to it -- our movement continues to
fragment and flounder, a degeneration plainly not unconnected with its dwindling influence on the class
war. Moreover, the fact that workers ignore our
movement en masse means that the materialist counter-weight they could
have brought with them into Marxism now has zero influence where
it might otherwise have counted -- on our ideas.
The dearth of active socialist workers thus means that the unifying force of the
class struggle by-passes our movement, which, because it is
dominated by petty-bourgeois individuals, continues to splinter and
disintegrate.
So DM-Idealism lumbers on while its theorists think of new ways to
make these inconvenient facts disappear.
The class origin of the majority
of professional revolutionaries (who, for allor most of their
lives don't share in the lives and struggles of ordinary workers) analysed
in the preceding sections, means
that this alien-class theory -- DM -- consolidates and strengthens their sense of
exclusivity. Indeed, it is why this theory appeals to petty-bourgeois and de-classé revolutionaries --
most of whom populate the higher echelons of our movement and thus control its ideas.
The
growing crisis in the UK-SWP
is ample testimony to this (especially since such things
aren't unique to that Party):
"Members of the SWP must
understand what is at stake in the crisis rocking our organisation. Not only is
there already a steady outflow of members resigning in disgust at this farrago
and its handling by the leadership, but now other organizations of the left are
becominghesitant about working with us,
and in some cases are
openly boycotting and censuring us....
"Many of us have argued
strongly that catastrophic errors of principle and process on the part
of the leadership have taken us to this. But even those who -- I firmly
believe wrongly -- disagree about this must recognise the situation we
are in. This has rapidly also become a catastrophe for us strategically.
Our name is becoming toxic. Our credibility as a collective and as
individual activists is being grossly compromised, and is on the verge
of being permanently tainted. We all know the allegations that any
future potential recruit who takes two minutes to research us online
will read. The hoary accusations of the loyalists that those of us
expressing concerns are looking 'inward' to 'blogland' and are not in
the 'real world' have never looked so pitiful as they do now. This is a
real world, acute crisis, of the leaderships making.
"As we 'dissidents' have repeatedly stressed, the
fact that we are on the verge of permanently losing our credibility is
irrespective of the truth or otherwise of the allegations of rape and
sexual harassment. (These, of course, deserve sensitive and appropriate
examination in their own right.) This fact inheres in the grotesque and
sexist nature of the questions posed to the accusers; in the
'wagon-circling' attitude of the leadership and its loyalists; in the
failures and evasions of accountability that meant the processes
involved could ever have been thought appropriate; and now in the
belief-beggaringly inadequate and arrogant response of the CC to the
greatest crisis we have ever faced. These are all political failings of
astonishing proportions.
"We must not only deal with
this but be seen publicly to be dealing with it. A 'quiet revolution'
will be no revolution at all. There is one chance to save the SWP, and
to do so means reclaiming it. We must be the party whose membership saw
that there was a catastrophe unfolding, refused to heed our own failed
leadership's injunctions to fall into line, and reclaimed the party and
the best elements of our IS tradition. If we fail in this, the SWP is
finished as a serious force.... [It wasn't 'reclaimed -- RL.]
"By far the lion's share of
blame for our parlous situation lies squarely with the CC and its
loyalists. However, none of us can avoid hard questions. What got us
here was not merely the failures of this particular CC, but of our
structures. These structures concealed from the members perfectly
legitimate debate within the party; pathologised dissent on the CC and
among the membership; and at worst legitimated whispering campaigns and
bullying against members considered 'troublemakers'. We could have
stopped this train wreck at an earlier stage if the membership had been
able and ready to call bullshit on the CC's bullshit.
"To overthrow these
problems requires, among other things, a huge shift in internal culture.
This, of course, is not possible in isolation from the structures that
we have worked under. These have enabled the CC's top-down and
dissent/discussion-phobic style and mistrust of the membership; and
among the membership itself have encouraged a damaging culture of
deferral to the leadership." [China
Mieville, quoted from
here, 17/01/2013. Bold emphases and links added. China
resigned from the UK-SWP soon after.]
But, why does this sort of thing keep happening? Is the UK-SWP simply unlucky? And, why has this
sort of thing been endemic on
the left now for many generations?
"The CC now unfortunately
represents a conservative layer now firmly ingrained in the party and focused on
preserving its position. Many of its members have worked for the party for a
decade or more, they rely on the party as an income (sic) and have become career
bureaucrats entrenched in their jobs. Somewhere along the way the leadership
stopped being a group of leading revolutionaries and started to be a
self-serving political class in their own right. Now more than ever the party
needs effective and democratic leadership made up of the best people in the
class, not people who haven't set foot in a workplace for decades and who are in
my opinion totally divorced from the class." [Quoted from
here; 14/01/2013. Bold emphasis added. Minor typo corrected.]
"The SWP has a particular
understanding of the role of the bureaucracy within trades unions.
We view them as neither workers nor bosses, but rather as a
vacillating force between the two. The bureaucrat is insulated from
the day-to-day life of the worker -- of having the boss breathing
down their neck, and from the collective interest that workers have
within workplaces. They depend for their continued existence, this
insulation, and the level of prestige they hold, on the continuation
of the capitalist system -- if there were no longer any capitalist
class to negotiate with, there would no longer be any need for the
bureaucrats. Nothing terrifies a bureaucrat more than being chucked
back into the same world the rest of us, as workers, inhabit. There
is an old story of an
RMT NEC member
many years ago (before
Bob
Crow) who wished to support a strike ballot that the General
Secretary opposed. The General Secretary advised him that if he did
so, he'd be back working on the tracks within days. The NEC member
withdrew his support for the ballot.
"And it is this recognition
that the interests of the bureaucracy are not those of the working
class that leads us as revolutionary socialists to believe the only
truly effective way to organise inside trades unions is on a rank
and file basis. We are with the bureaucrats for as long as they
support our demands -- we fight without them when they don't. And we
recognise a bureaucratisation that takes place when workers are
removed from the shop floor -- which is why, for example, it is
officially only in exceptional circumstances that SWP members are
allowed to take elected trade union positions on 100% facility time.
Because we recognise that you cannot act in the interests of the
working class if you exist separately from it. I want to illustrate
that a failure to apply this analysis to the SWP itself is at the
root of many of the problems we now face.
"While very limited steps
have been taken in recent years to address this, the Central
Committee is made up almost entirely of full-time party workers (and
it is notable that of the two CC members removed from the preferred
slate 48 hours before conference, one is a respected trade unionist
and the other is centrally involved in arguably the broadest united
front the party is engaged in). This is a separation from the
outside world, and the experiences of the membership. Worse, the
slate system as currently constituted is designed to prevent any
alternative leadership from emerging -- as we are told to correct any
error we must replace the CC wholesale; very difficult if they are
also the party workers who run the apparatus. As pretty much the
only way to be elected to the CC is to be nominated by the existing
CC, this means CC members owe their positions to the other CC
members, not to the party membership. And this means that, despite
the party's Democracy Commission passing policy in favour of it,
disagreements on the CC are not aired in front of the party
membership, but rather are usually dealt with privately, with the
first most members know of it being when a CC member mysteriously
disappears off the slate. I would argue the loyalty to each other
this creates amongst CC members leads to many situations, such as
those around Comrade Delta and the expulsions of the
Facebook Four, being dealt with bureaucratically and behind
closed doors and then presented to the party as a fait accompli.
Party policies and 'turns' are decided in similar fashion, with a
National Committee or Party Council presented with a CC document
that is discussed and then invariably approved, usually without any
discussion in the wider party, let alone the class.
"This also has the effect of
encouraging sycophancy, Comrades who wish to develop their standing
in the party, be selected for slates in trade union elections, be
added to the CC themselves, or be touted as a public speaker, do so
by developing a position of ultra-loyalty to the CC (these are the
party members who some refer to as 'hacks'). Party workers are all
appointed by the CC, not by the membership, and are threatened with
the sack if they dare venture their own political ideas that run
contrary to those of the CC. All of this has more in common with the
organisation of Stalinist Parties than with the libertarian roots of
the IS tradition. The party actually starts to become the caricature
painted of it by sectarians and red-baiters.
"At its most extreme, the
sycophancy appears cult-like. A number of CC members are big fans of
jazz music. Under their leadership over the past few years,
the party has organised a number of (mostly loss-making) jazz gigs
as fundraising events. Regardless of their own musical tastes,
comrades were told they were disloyal if they didn't purchase
tickets. This elevates the cultural tastes of the official
leadership to a point of political principle; and clearly is not in
any way a healthy state of affairs." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases and links added. Minor typo corrected.]
The above echo Trotsky's analysis of
substitutionism (covered in
Part One of this
Essay), but they omit (i) Any mention of the wider
structural problems our movement faces (i.e., the fact that the situation
described by the above comrade has been an integral feature of Marxist parties for
well over a hundred
years), and they completely ignore (ii) The historical and ideological
roots of this malaise -- nor do they consider (iii) Why this keeps happening,
and not just to the UK-SWP, but right
across the Marxist left.
Only if Marxists in general become aware of
the serious structural, class, and ideological problems we face is there any hope that the movement can extricate itself from this
toxic morass.
Unfortunately, as is the case with other
forms of drug addiction, clarity
of vision is the last thing one can expect of those in the 'leadership' -- those who control the production and dissemination of ideas --, who have
a serious dialectical-opiate
dependency problem themselves.
As these Essays have shown, and as experience confirms, this is indeed
what we find.
There are in fact two
main types of dialectician:
'Low
Church'
and 'High
Church'. This distinction roughly corresponds with that between active
revolutionaries and Academic Marxists -- of course, there is some
overlap at the margins. The members of neither faction are seekers after truth,
since, like Hegel, they have already found it. As Glenn Magee points out:
"Hegel is not a philosopher.
He is no lover or seeker of wisdom -- he believes he has found it. Hegel writes
in the preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, 'To help bring philosophy
closer to the form of Science, to the goal where it can lay aside the title of "love
of knowing" and be actual knowledge -- that is what I have set before me'
(Miller, 3; PC, 3). By the end of the
Phenomenology, Hegel claims to have
arrived at Absolute Knowledge, which he identifies with wisdom.
"Hegel's claim to have
attained wisdom is completely contrary to the original Greek conception of
philosophy as the love of wisdom, that is, the ongoing pursuit rather than the
final possession of wisdom. His claim is, however, fully consistent with the
ambitions of the
Hermetic
tradition, a current of thought that derives its name
from the so-called
Hermetica
(or
Corpus Hermeticum), a collection
of Greek and Latin treatises and dialogues written in the first or second
centuries A.D. and probably containing ideas that are far older. The legendary
author of these works is
Hermes Trismegistus ('Thrice-Greatest Hermes').
'Hermeticism' denotes a broad tradition of thought that grew out of the
'writings of Hermes' and was expanded and developed through the infusion of
various other traditions. Thus,
alchemy,
Kabbalism,
Lullism, and the mysticism
of
Eckhart
and
Cusa
-- to name just a few examples
-- became intertwined with the
Hermetic doctrines. (Indeed, Hermeticism is used by some authors simply to mean
alchemy.) Hermeticism is also sometimes called
theosophy, or
esotericism; less
precisely, it is often characterized as mysticism, or
occultism."
[Magee (2008), p.1. Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Links and bold
emphasis alone added.]
Much the same can be said about Marxist
Dialecticians who hail from both Denominations (whether they realise it or not).
Comrades of this
persuasion
cleave to the original, unvarnished truth laid down in the sacred DM-texts
(i.e., those written by Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, and Mao).
Many of these simple souls are highly proficient at quoting, or paraphrasing, endless passages from the
Holy Books in answer to everything and anything, just like the faithful who bow to the East or who fill the
Gospel
Halls around the world. Their unquestioning faith is as impressive as it is
un-Marxist.30a
[An excellent recent
example of this affliction, which was in fact prompted by the current crisis in the UK-SWP,
can be found
here. In January 2013, I posted a
mini-refutation of a DM-article of Trotsky's that had been republished at the latter site; my
post was based on some of the points made in
Essay Six), but as of
February 2017 it is still 'waiting moderation'!]
[FL = Formal Logic.]
In general, LCDs are
sublimely ignorant of
FL. Now, on its own this is no hanging matter.
However, such self-inflicted, woeful ignorance doesn't stop these individuals pontificating about FL,
nor from regaling us with
its alleged limitations
at every
turn -- accusations
based on ideas they unwisely lifted from
Hegel, surely the
George W Bush of Logic.
Figure Four: Advanced
Logic Class At Camp Hegel
LCDs are, by-and-large, active
revolutionaries, committed to 'building the party'. Ironically, however, they have
unwisely
conspired to do the exact opposite, helping keep their parties small
(because of the continual splits and expulsions they skilfully engineer). This is a rather fitting
pragmatic contradiction that the 'Dialectical Deity' has visited upon these, the
least of its slaves.
Of course, LCDs can't see the irony in
any of this (even
after it has been pointed out to them -- I know, I have lost count of the number of
times I have tried!), since they, too,
haven't taken the lens caps off.
So, despite the fact that every last one of these
short-sighted individuals
continually strives to "build the party", after 140 years of
building few revolutionary groups
can boast membership rolls
that rise much above the
risible. In fact, all we have witnessed since WW2
is yet more fragmentation, but still no mass movement.
[Anyone who doubts this should look
here,
here,
here and
here
-- or, now,
here -- and then, perhaps, think again.
Here, too, is a diagram of the main branches of, and links between, the leading US
Trotskyist parties/tendencies.]
Has a
single one of these individuals made this connection?
Are
you kidding!?
It seems that the
long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism and its core theory (DM)
are the only two things in the entire universe that aren't
'interconnected'.
HCD Marxists are in
general openly contemptuous
of the 'sophomoric ideas' found in most of the DM-classics (even though many of
them seem to have a fondness for
Engels's First 'Law'),
other than, perhaps, Lenin's
PN.
More often than not,
HCDs
reject the idea that the dialectic operates throughout nature, sometimes inconsistently
using the aforementioned 'Law' to account for the evolutionary 'leap' that
underpinned our development from our ape-like ancestors -- which tactic allows them to
claim that human history and development are therefore unique --, just as they are
equally dismissive of simple
LCD souls for their adherence to every last
word found in the DM-classics.31
[Chomsky's
penetrating thoughts on many of the above
'thinkers' can
be accessed in Note 31a.]
HCDs are generally, but not exclusively, either academics or
they are itinerant 'intellectuals' and 'bloggers'.
In common with many of those listed above, tortured prose
is their
forte -- and pointless existence is their punishment.
Almost any randomly-selected issue of, say, Radical Philosophy,
or Historical
Materialism, will provide ample confirmation of the baleful influence the
ideas and prose style of many of the above have had on
left-wing 'intellectuals'. [Here
is yet another example to add to the membership list of The Hallowed
Society for the Production
of Gobbledygook. Also, see my comments,
here.]
Figure Five:
Sisyphus
College Recruitment Poster --
Aimed At HCDs
Seeking A More Useful Existence
At least LCDs like to
think their ideas are somehow relevant to the class
struggle.
In
contrast, High Church Dialectics
is good only for the CV.
Plainly,
the sanitised
version of
dialectics that HCDs inflict on their readers (purged of
all those Engelsian 'crudities') isn't
an "abomination"
in the eyes of those sections of the
bourgeoisie that administer Colleges and Universities, or, indeed, who publish
academic books and journals.
Some
might object that the above is a caricature of 'dialectical thought'; they
might even be tempted to argue that dialectics is based
on evidence and on the practice and experience of the party/humanity. Alas, that
rather naive belief
was put to the sword in Essays Two,
Seven Part One, Ten
Part One, as well as in
Part One of this Essay.
It is
worth adding that there are notable exceptions to these sweeping generalisations; some academic
Marxists do actively engage with the class struggle. The point, however, is that the
'High Theory' they churn out is irrelevant in this regard. Indeed, I can't think of an
example of the work of a single academic Marxist that has had any impact on the class
war -- except perhaps negatively. [Any who disagree with that indictment are invited to
e-mail me with the details of any
counter-example they think I have missed.]
To be
sure, one or two
comrades have tried to come up with a few examples of the (positive) practical applications of
'the dialectic'. Unfortunately for them, I have shown that all fail -- on
that, see here,
here, and here.
This has meant that the baleful influence of
Hegelian Hermeticism
becomes important at key historical junctures (i.e., those involving defeat
or major set-back), since it acts as a materialist-soundingalternative
to mainstream, Traditional Thought -- indeed, as we saw was the case with Lenin
after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution in Russia,
and after the Second International caved in to nationalist warmongering at the beginning of
WW1.
Dialectics (especially those parts that have
been infected with the lethal HCD-strain) thus taps into thought-forms that have
dominated intellectual life for over two thousand years -- i.e., those that
define the 'legitimate' boundaries of 'genuine' philosophy, and hence those that
amount to little more than dogmatic thesis-mongering.
So, because of its
thoroughly traditional nature, DM is able to appeal to the closet "god-builders"
and dialectical mystics that revolutionary politics seems to attract -- and
who, in general, appear to congregate at the apex of this ever-growing heap of
dialectical disasters.
However, one question has so far remained unanswered: How is it even remotely possible for the vast majority of revolutionary socialists
to have
imported supposedly ruling-class ideology into Marxism, as this site alleges? At first sight it seems
inconceivable that leading socialists like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg, and
Trotsky -- individuals possessed of impeccable revolutionary credentials -- could have maintained a consistent
revolutionary stance if the account of the origin and nature of
DM given in these Essays is correct. An ideological
compromise of this order of magnitude would surely have had major, if not disastrous, effects
on revolutionary practice; indeed, it would have rendered Marxism totally ineffective.
In fact, and contrary to the ideas advanced at this site, it could be argued that
DM has
actually been successfully tested in practice for well over a
hundred and forty years.
These considerations alone seem to make
the abstract allegations advanced at this site impossible to accept.
In spite of constant claims to the contrary, DM in fact has no practical
applications -- that is, other than the negative
consequences outlined above, and again below.
This doesn't mean that
revolutionaries haven't continually toyed with dialectical phraseology in
some of their
practical deliberations. Certainly, DM-theorists can talk the talk, but, as we will see, it is impossible for
them to
walk the walk.
Undeniably, books and articles outlining revolutionary
theory are often packed with words that seem to contradict the above
allegations,
which purport to show that dialectics has played
a central role in Marxist politics since its inception. However, what revolutionaries
mightwant to claim about the relation between theory and practice and what they are capable
of putting into practice are two entirely different
things.
These Essays have shown
time and again that DM-theses make no sense at all, just as they have shown that
Dialectical Marxism is to success what
Donald Trump is to racial harmony. This means that while dialecticians may
write, or,
indeed, constantly intone DM-phrases, it isn't possible for
them to form a single coherentDM-thought, and thus act upon
it as a result.
Of course, this places dialecticians in no worse a position than other
metaphysicians
(whose theories are
similarly bereft of practical import); no worse perhaps,
but certainly no better.32
If a sentence purporting to express
a thought is itself incoherent, then no one uttering or writing it can mean
anything by it (over and above, perhaps, certain contingent or consequential effects;
for example they might intend to amuse, impress, confuse, bamboozle, distract, or startle their interlocutors). [More on
this in Essay Thirteen
Part
Three.]
The words employed in such sentences can't
represent anything that could become the content of a coherent thought, and
hence motivate a corresponding set of actions (trivial examples excepted, of
course).33
To be sure, dialectical phrases can be, and have been wheeled out to 'justify'
or 'rationalise' decisions that had already
been taken for
hard-headed political reasons, which means that such phrases function rather like the
empty rituals
and incantations that assorted Priests, Bishops and Imams have uttered for many centuries to 'justify'
war,
royal privilege, exploitation, oppression, and gross inequality -- or, indeed, the
'magical words' stage magicians intone to impress the unwary.
Which means, of course, that DM is more
the Abracadabra than it is the Algebra of Revolution.
Figure Six: A More
Effective Form Of Magic?
Furthermore, as noted in Essay Twelve
Part One,
because DM-theses are both
non-sensicalandincoherent, they are
totally incapable of 'reflecting'
anything in the natural or social world, and, a fortiori, any processes underlying
one or both.
In that case, they can't possibly help
change society.
The above allegations might at first sight appear to be
rather dogmatic, if not downright impertinent, since it seems plain that if something can be uttered,
or perhaps committed to paper, it must be capable of being thought, and hence
acted upon.
The
rest of this section will be devoted to defending the apparently controversial
allegations aired a few paragraphs back.
We encountered similar problems in Essay Twelve
Part One,
connected with Lenin's attempt to specify what could or couldn't be thought
concerning
matter and motion:
M1: "[M]otion without matter is
unthinkable." [Lenin (1972), p.318.
Italic emphasis in the original.]
It turned out that what Lenin wanted to 'say' vitiated the
content (or, rather, the lack of 'content') of what he appeared to mean
by saying it. In the end, it
emerged that he couldn't actually think what he imagined he
could since M1 fell apart in the very act of 'thinking' whatever it
was he thought he wanted to say by means of it! So, by asserting that motion
without matter is "unthinkable" he had to do what he said could not be done; i.e., he had to think the offending words "motion without matter...",
or their content. For M1 to be true, Lenin would have to know what was being
ruled out (as forever false) -- i.e., by the sentential use of the phrase "motion without matter"
-- as in: "It isn't possible to think the proposition 'Motion without matter is
unthinkable.'" But, he had just declared that this
was "unthinkable".
So, in order to
know what was being excluded in the above sense he would have had to be able to
declare that the following sentence, for example, could only ever be false, never true:
M2: Motion sometimes occurs without matter.
But, if such a sentence can
only be false, and never true, it turns out that it can't actually be false. That is
because if a sentence is false, it is untrue. And yet, if we can't say under what circumstances such a sentence is true,
then we certainly can't say in what way it falls short of that so that it
could be untrue, and hence false. For Lenin to be able to declare M2
untrue, he would have to know what situations made it true, so that he
knew what he was in fact ruling out. But, he was in no position to do this, for
the truth of M2 he had already declared "unthinkable".
Conversely, if a proposition can only ever be true, the conditions that would make it
false are likewise excluded. In that case, if we can't say under what circumstances such a
sentence is
false then we certainly can't say in what way it falls short of these conditions,
either, so that it
could be true, and hence not false. In which case, its
truth (or non-falsehood) similarly falls by the wayside. Hence, Lenin was in no
position to declare M1 true, because he was in no position to declare it false.
[A much clearer explanation of this idea can be found
here; I deal with several obvious, and a few less obvious, objections to this
line-of-argument in Essay Twelve Part
One.]
So, not even Lenin could say what it was he
was trying to rule in or rule out.
If we ignore the remote possibility that
Lenin either wanted to (i) utter complete nonsense, or (ii) puzzle his readers, the above
argument implies that there wasn't in fact anything that Lenin intended to say, nor was there anything in his words that he
could have communicated to anyone that was capable of being put into
practice -- or, indeed, which could have had any practical implications whatsoever (other than negative,
once more). If we are in no position to think the truth or the falsehood
of M1, we are certainly in no position to say what the world would have to look
like if M1 formed part of revolutionary practice and was to be 'acted upon'.
[The problem here, of course, is that it isn't easy to
think of a single DM-thesis that could plausibly be used in practice, so
if the last sentence above looks rather odd, that is the fault of this theory,
not the present author! The only point being made is that if it is logically
impossible to decide whether or not a certain thesis is true, then it is also
logically impossible to decide if it has ever been implemented correctly -- or at
all! So, it is no wonder then that DM-theses
aren't actually
put into practice by dialecticians!
(On that, see
here. In over 25 years of
searching I have only been able to find two examples where comrades have
tried to argue that DM has had some sort of practical application. I have
neutralised both of them here and
here.)]
To see more clearly how this relates in
general to the
issues raised in this Essay,
consider the following sentence schema:
S1: NN thought that p.
If "p" is taken to be a schematic letter
replaceable by an empirical or factual proposition (such as "The Nile is
longer than the Thames"), then clearly the
sense
that this
proposition already has will enable it to become the content of a thought
that NN could entertain, truly or falsely. However, if the sentence
substitutable for p makes no sense, then not only would the words it contains
fail to express a proposition (since it would then be unclear what was being
proposed or put forward for consideration), it would be impossible for
NN to think a thought by means of it. That is because a sentence lacking
a sense can't express a true or false thought -- once more, as we saw was the case with Lenin
and M1, or, indeed, would be the case with M3:
M3: Lenin thought that motion
without matter is unthinkable.
M3a: I think that motion
without matter is unthinkable.
M3b: Motion
without matter is unthinkable.
M3c:
It possible to think the truth of the
proposition 'Motion without matter is unthinkable.'
[Of course, it is certainly possible for
anyone to write M3 -- or utter, or run the words it contains 'through one's
mind' (or, indeed,
its first person equivalent, M3a), indeed, as Lenin himself might have done, but as we have just seen,
M3b's supposed content would mean M3 itself would immediately self-destruct. (There is more on
this in Note 35a.)]
Howsoever M3, M3a, M3b and M3c are repackaged, they are incapable of
making any sort of sense.
It is worth reminding ourselves that it isn't an 'act of thinking' that gives a sentence its sense. If that were so, then
anything could make sense, and the clause "that is an act of thinking" would itself
become problematic.34
In
fact, the opposite of this is the case. The
sense a proposition already has is what enables us to think it.
[What is meant by the word "sense" is covered
here.]
The contrary supposition gains credence from
the Cartesian
idea that an 'act of thought' is a private, internal episode, which takes place
in 'the mind' or in 'consciousness', divorced from, or anterior to, social
convention or interaction, and which gives both meaning to our words and sense to our
indicative
sentences.
[Again, I have covered this topic in detail in Essays Twelve
Part One and Thirteen
Part Three, so the reader is
directed
there for more details.]
Consider the following
illegitimate substitution instance of p in S1:
S1: NN thought that p.
S2: NN thought that the speed mice
inconsiderable sunset the colour red was twice acidic, but not Tarquin on
between three o'clock recidivist it squared less before, if telescope (sic).
S2a: The speed mice inconsiderable
sunset the colour red was twice acidic, but not Tarquin on between three o'clock
recidivist it squared less before, if telescope (sic).
S2a makes no sense, and so while
NN might
attempt to mouth this set of words he wouldn't be able to form them into a coherent thought (assuming,
once more, that S2a isn't a coded
message of some sort).35
The problem with S2a isn't connected with any
lack of imagination on either the part of the one who uttered it or his/her audience. It isn't that
howsoever hard we try we can form no idea of a primary colour
that is connected to a "speed mice inconsiderable sunset", which has a
pH value
close to
seven, twice, but only (Tarquin?) on (?) "between three o'clock…", etc. There is no such
coherent thought to form. In turn, this is not because of the facts of chemistry,
chromatology,
or rodent biology -- or even because of the rules we have for telling the time
of day. It is because S2/S2a represent a radical misuse of
language, as should seem obvious. Anyone who regularly uttered sentences like S2a would
probably be diagnosed as an
aphasic, or
maybe suffering from some other neurological or psychiatric condition.
While S2a is a clear case of
extreme incoherence, DM-doctrines require a little more encouragement before they
self-destruct (as we saw was the case with M3 and M3b).
M3: Lenin thought that motion
without matter is unthinkable.
M3b: Motion
without matter is unthinkable.
As I have argued more fully in Essay Twelve
Part One, that is because DM-theorists (just like other
metaphysicians) misconstrue the
rules we have for the use of certain words as if they reflected substantive features of
the world. They mistake the medium for the supposed message.
Dialecticians
compound this error by appropriating ideas found
almost
exclusively in mystical theology, burying the result under several layers of
impenetrable Hegelian jargon (upside down or the 'right way up'), a condition
further aggravated by the disdain they show for the
language
of ordinary life -- certain principles of which are partially expressed in
FL.
[These allegations have been substantiated in other Essays published at this site, and will be given a more
comprehensive analysis in Essay Twelve Parts
One to Seven (summary
here).
It is worth emphasising that the word "non-sense" is being used here in a
special way, an explanation for which can be found here.]
However, the
heavilycamouflaged non-sense expressed by
typical DM-sentences doesn't affect the present
point. Disguised or not, if it isn't possible to explain the sense of a single
DM-thesis (as these Essays have shown, and as DM-theorists themselves
have (implicitly) confirmed by their failure to do just that over the last 140+ years), it isn't possible to
think
their content either -- since they have none.
In that case -- trivial examples to aside again --, it isn't possible to act upon a single DM-thesis.35a
This means that any sentence
token
substitutable for p in S1 has to make sense
independently of
the
immediate context of utterance if it is to form the content of a legitimate
thought (coded messages excepted, once more).
S1: NN thought that p.
Hence, S2a (or whatever finally replaces
p)
doesn't acquire a sense just
because it is prefixed with the sentential operator: "NN thought that…."36
S2a: The speed mice inconsiderable
sunset the colour red was twice acidic, but not Tarquin on between three o'clock
recidivist it squared less before, if telescope.
On the contrary, the use of "NN thought
that...." is only legitimate if what follows it makes sense
independently of that prefix.
Consider these examples:
S1: NN thought that p.
S2: NN thought that the speed
mice inconsiderable sunset the colour red was twice acidic, but not Tarquin on
between three o'clock recidivist it squared less before, if telescope.
S3: NN thought that Being is identical with but
at the same time different from Nothing, the contradiction
resolved in Becoming.
S3a: Being is identical with but
at the same time different from Nothing, the contradiction
resolved in Becoming.
S3a
doesn't
express a coherent thought that NN
could form by his/her use of it (or our attribution of it to him/her), hence the phrase "NN thought that..." is illicit here,
in S3.
So, despite claims to the contrary,
metaphysicians and religious mystics can't think the truth -- nor
can they even think the falsehood -- of anything they assert in this area, either.
[As we will see in Essay Twelve
Part One, sentences
like S3a can't be made sense of, no matter what is done with, or to, them.]
Naturally, this helps account for
the total uselessness of doctrines like these, and hence why they appeal to those in power
-- or, at least, why they appeal to their ideologues. That is plainly because a
'profound-looking' metaphysical thesis is more likely to convince a wealthy
patron -- and/or their assorted toadying/uncritical on-lookers -- that the one who concocted
it has hit on
something very 'deep', especially if
no one appears to understand it.
Clearly, this is the philosophical equivalent
of the Parable of the
Emperor's New
Clothes.37
This
linguistic defect applies equally well to
the theses promoted by DM-theorists, which naturally means that if what they say
can't be thought (in the sense indicated above), then it can have no
practical consequences (other than negative), nor can it form the basis of a sane course of
action. That is, no more than it would be the case if someone uttered the following sentences and
imagined they meant anything by them (other than, perhaps, an intention to
confuse or startle, etc.), or, indeed, expected others to act upon them:
S4: Make sure that the speed mice
inconsiderable sunset of the colour red is twice acidic, or the scabs will break
through the picket line.
S5: Don't forget that the
speed mice inconsiderable sunset of the colour red is twice acidic, so we have
to
organise a march next week.
S6: The fact that the speed mice
inconsiderable sunset of the colour red is twice acidic means that we should widen the dispute.
S7: Being is at the same time
identical with but different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved by
Becoming, so the latest pay offer is unacceptable.
S8: Motion without matter is
unthinkable, so you'd better print more strike leaflets.
S9: Change is the result of
internal contradictions, so don't forget to turn up on time for the paper sale.
Of course, S4-S6 are obviously malformed and/or ridiculous, but
they have only been quoted to make this point abundantly clear. No one supposes that
dialectical propositions or instructions are quite so syntactically-challenged
as these are -- on that see, for example,
here --, but
they do fall apart alarmingly quickly for other reasons (as these Essays have
shown). [Another excellent
example can be found
here.]
However, as S7-S9 also demonstrate,
DM-theses can't form a coherent basis for action.
[Sceptical readers can insert their
own favoured DM-thesis (notan HM-thesis!) into any of S7-S9; the result, I predict,
won't be
much
different. If anyone thinks otherwise, please
e-mail me with your best shot!]37a
It could be objected that this completely
distorts and misrepresents dialectical thinking. Marxists do not reason along the above lines,
nor on anything remotely like it. Perhaps not, but until we are given a clear
example of the practical use of a single DM-thesis, they will have to do.37b
So, when it is claimed that ideas specific
to DM have actually formed a basis for revolutionary practice it is
reasonable to expect some sort of explanation how that iseven possible --
which explanation must advance beyond the usual hand waving, diversionary
tactics, prevarication, and bluster --, especially
when no one seems to be able to say with any clarity what a
single DM-doctrine actually amounts
to.
Indeed, and because of this, it is equally reasonable to suppose that DM could
only ever have succeeded in clouding the issues -- hindering
revolutionaries in their attempt to develop clarity --, and further that this
could only have helped initiate a series of
tactical blunders and pointless time-wasting arguments, just as
this theory
should be expected to aggravate sectarian in-fighting and petty point-scoring.
On top of this, this theory should be expected to help 'excuse' post hoc
rationalisations of regressive or opportunistic policies, which would be impossible to justify otherwise (indeed,
as we will
soon see).38
Of course, this isn't the only reason for
Dialectical Marxism's spectacular record offailure over the last 140+ years -- a
record un-rivalled by any other majorpolitical creed in recent history
(other than perhaps Fascism).
But, it is certainly one of the contributory reasons.
Without doubt, this truly appalling record has much more to do with the
general nature of capitalist society, the fragmented and uneven state of the
working-class -- when that is set against a relatively better organised, and
ideologically more coherent ruling-class --, among other things.
However, the opposite idea that dialectics (which supposedly constitutes the theoretical core of Marxism)
has had nothing whatsoever to do with this long and sorry record isbizarre in the
extreme. [More on that in Essay Ten
Part One.]
In
fact, we can
only absolve this Hermetic 'theory'
of all blame if we
concede that it has had no subjective impact whatsoever
on previous generations of revolutionaries, and has never been used by them at
any time in the entire history of Marxism.39
When confronted with
such unwelcome
facts (like those rehearsed above), DM-fans often respond with a knee-jerk reply: "Well if dialectics is so dire, how come the Bolsheviks
were able to win power in 1917?"
[Non-Leninist
DM-fans, of course, don't even have this to point to as a 'success'!]
Oddly
enough, as a
Leninist myself,
I find this 'objection' remarkably easy to answer:
the Bolsheviks were successful because
they could not, and did not use dialectics
(either in its DM-, or in its MD-form)
in their interface with the Russian masses -- or in the soviets. To be sure, this
is a controversial claim --
but that is only because no one has thought to controvert it before.
In fact, the material counterweight provided by working class prevented
the Bolsheviks from employing
this useless theory. Had they tried
to propagandise or organise Russian workers with slogans such as: "Being is
identical with but at the same time different from Nothing...", "The
whole is greater than the sum of the parts...", or "Matter without motion is
unthinkable" (and the
like),
they would have been regarded as complete lunatics, and rightly so.
On the other hand, they could
and did use ideas drawn from
HM
to help organise the
revolution.
[This topic was covered in detail
Part One
of this Essay. The
difference between HM and DM is explained
here.]
And it is little use arguing that dialectical
concepts were used 'implicitly' --or that they 'informed' the tactics that Lenin
and his party adopted, somehow operating 'behind the scenes'. As we will see
below, since dialectical concepts can
be employed to justify anything at all and its opposite (being inherently and proudly
contradictory), had they been employed, they could only have been used
subjectively, since there is no objective way to tell these two incompatible
applications apart.
Anyone who
takes exception to the above will need to show precisely howand where Lenin and
the Bolsheviks explicitly used dialectical-concepts --, as opposed to their
actual employment of HM-concepts (the latter having been based on (i) a concrete class analysis of events
as they unfolded in that fateful year, and (ii) decades of experience relating to the working class) -- in 1917.
They will thus need to produce documentary evidence
of the Bolshevik's actual use of dialectical ideas or theses, and then show how they could possibly
have been of any practical benefit or use to workers in revolutionary struggle --, or
even how they could have helped the Bolsheviks comprehend what was going on and
how to intervene successfully.
"The
gist of [Bukharin's] theoretical mistake in this case is
substitution of eclecticism for the dialectical interplay of
politics and economics (which we find in Marxism). His theoretical
attitude is: 'on the one hand, and on the other',
'the one and the other'. That is
eclecticism. Dialectics requires an all-round consideration of
relationships in their concrete development but not a patchwork of
bits and pieces. I have shown this to be so on the example of
politics and economics....
"The reader will see that Bukharin's example was meant to
give me a popular explanation of the harm of one-track thinking. I
accept it with gratitude, and in the one-good
turn-deserves-another spirit offer a popular explanation of the
difference between dialectics and eclecticism.
"A tumbler is assuredly both a glass cylinder and a drinking
vessel. But there are more than these two properties, qualities or
facets to it; there are an infinite number of them, an infinite
number of 'mediacies' and inter-relationships with the
rest of the world. A tumbler is a heavy object which can be used
as a missile; it can serve as a paper weight, a receptacle for a
captive butterfly, or a valuable object with an artistic engraving
or design, and this has nothing at all to do with whether or not
it can be used for drinking, is made of glass, is cylindrical or
not quite, and so on and so forth.
"Moreover, if I needed a tumbler just now for drinking, it would
not in the least matter how cylindrical it was, and whether it was
actually made of glass; what would matter though would be whether
it had any holes in the bottom, or anything that would cut my lips
when I drank, etc. But if I did not need a tumbler for drinking
but for a purpose that could be served by any glass cylinder, a
tumbler with a cracked bottom or without one at all would do just
as well, etc.
"Formal logic, which is as far as schools go (and should go,
with suitable abridgements for the lower forms), deals with formal
definitions, draws on what is most common, or glaring, and stops
there. When two or more different definitions are taken and
combined at random (a glass cylinder and a drinking vessel), the
result is an eclectic definition which is indicative of different
facets of the object, and nothing more.
"Dialectical logic demands that we should go further. Firstly,
if we are to have a true knowledge of an object we must look at
and examine all its facets, its connections and
'mediacies'. That is something we cannot ever hope to
achieve completely, but the rule of comprehensiveness is a
safeguard against mistakes and rigidity. Secondly, dialectical
logic requires that an object should be taken in development, in
change, in 'self-movement' (as Hegel sometimes puts
it). This is not immediately obvious in respect of such an object
as a tumbler, but it, too, is in flux, and this holds especially
true for its purpose, use and connection with the
surrounding world. Thirdly, a full 'definition' of an
object must include the whole of human experience, both as a
criterion of truth and a practical indicator of its connection
with human wants. Fourthly, dialectical logic holds that
'truth is always concrete, never abstract', as the
late Plekhanov liked to say after Hegel....
"I have not, of course, run through the whole notion of
dialectical logic, but what I have said will do for the present. I
think we can return from the tumbler to the trade unions and
Trotsky's platform....
"Why is Bukharin's reasoning no more than inert and empty
eclecticism? It is because he does not even try to make an
independent analysis, from his own standpoint, either of the whole
course of the current controversy (as Marxism, that is,
dialectical logic, unconditionally demands) or of the whole
approach to the question, the whole presentation -- the whole
trend of the presentation, if you will -- of the question at
the present time and in these concrete circumstances. You do not
see Bukharin doing that at all! His approach is one of pure
abstraction: he makes no attempt at concrete study, and takes bits
and pieces from Zinoviev and Trotsky. That is eclecticism." [Lenin
(1921), pp.90-93. Italic emphases in the original. Quotations marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
It could be argued that
this is a classic example of dialectical thought in action, and one which not
only allowed Lenin to transcend the hasty and narrow conclusions drawn by Bukharin and Trotsky, but
also form a clear, concrete political analysis of situations as they arose -- and
then decide how to move the revolution forward.
However, as we have seen in
Essay Ten Part One, it is
in fact quite impossible to put Lenin's strategy into practise, just as there is
no evidence that he ever did so himself (in 1917, or even in 1921, when the
above was written). [The reader is directed to the above Essay for more
details.]
Now, I have trawled through
the available minutes and decrees of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik
Party (from August 1917 to February 1918), and have failed to find a
single DM-thesis -- let alone one drawn from
an attenuated form of
DM --
put to any use, or even alluded to in passing!
[Bone (1974).] To be sure, it is always possible
I might have missed something, but even if I have, this
Hermetic creed hardly forms
a prominent part of the day-to-day discussions between active revolutionaries.
Added on edit: I have now gone though the available documents
line by line twice-- still no sign of this
'crucially important' theory!
In fact, it is
conspicuous by its absence.
Hence, the available
evidence confirms the claims made above: active revolutionaries made no use
of this 'theory', plainly because it is impossible to put a single DM-thesis into practice.
Added later still: I have now checked
the Theses, Resolutions And Manifestos Of The First Four Congresses Of The
Third International [Holt and Holland (1983)], and the only visible sign of
'dialectics' amounts to a couple of dozen occurrences of the word "contradiction"
(employed in
relation to the unfolding crises in capitalism (etc.)) in over 400 pages. No other examples of
dialectical jargon (or 'thought') appear in the entire volume. Even then,
"contradiction" isn't used to explain anything, nor does it seem to do any
theoretical or practical work
(indeed, as noted elsewhere, this word is used simply because it is part of a
well-established DM-tradition,
and nothing more).
Furthermore, most of the occurrences of this word are by
Zinoviev;
as far as I can determine, Lenin doesn't use the term anywhere in the book.
Moreover, in Trotsky's The
Third International After Lenin [Trotsky (1974)], dialectics is mentioned
only fourteen times in nearly 300 pages, and then only in passing. This theory does no
work there either.
Update February 2017: I have just received a copy of Riddell (2015)
-- an amazing book that reproduces The Proceedings of the Third Congress of
the Communist International, 1921 -- which I am now going though
line-by-line to see how prominently DM features in these proceedings. However,
an examination of the Index reveals the unsurprising fact that neither
'dialectics'/DM nor 'philosophy' -- and not even phrases like "contradiction", "unity
of opposites", "totality", "mediation", or "negation of the negation"
-- merit so
much as a single entry. Of course, on its own, that isn't conclusive, but
it does show that this theory failed to make a significant (or any?)
contribution to these proceedings. When I have finished working my way through
its 1200 pages, I will record the results here. Clearly, that will take some
time.
And it is even less use someone requiring of me to produce proof that Lenin and
the Bolsheviks didn't use dialectical ideas,
since there is no written
evidence that he or they did, as the above indicates. In which case, the contrary
conclusion (that DM wasn't actually used) goes by default.
That is in addition to the fact that it has
been
shown (above, and in Essay
Nine Part One)
that it isn't possible to apply DM-concepts -- they have no practical
applications other than negative (as we will see in the
next section). After all, even Lenin got into a serious
muddle when he tried to
play around with such ideas, let alone when he attempted to
apply them; his "all round" consideration of the facts ("mediacies"),
in the passage quoted above, would have
locked him into a permanent
state of indecision. So, it is
little wonder he avoided using this crazy theory at such an important juncture.
As we will soon find out: dialectical concepts
can be employed to 'justify' anything you like (no matter how contradictory that
"anything you like" might otherwise appear to be; in fact the more
contradictory it is, the more 'dialectical' it looks!). Indeed, it can be, and has been used to rationalise any course of action, and its
opposite (often that trick is performed by the very same dialectician, in the same
article, or even in the same speech!), including policies that are
both counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist.
[Some have argued
in response to the above claim that other theories can be, and have been, used in this way -- i.e., one
individual might use a theory to prove one proposition and then another theorist
might use it
to prove its
opposite. Maybe so, but only DM (or maybe,
perhaps, Zen Buddhism) has been
usedby the very same individual to
rationalise one course of action or thesis, and its opposite, sometimes on the same
page, or even in the same paragraph, sentence, or speech! Moreover, no other
theory is acceptable to
revolutionary cadres, and so no other theory is so well placed to 'win' them to anything their 'leaders'
consider expedient or opportune.]
In fact, shortly after the
revolution many younger comrades and scientists began to argue that all of Philosophy (and not just dialectics) is
key part of ruling-class ideology -- which is a crude version of my own thesis! It
wasn't until the
Deborinites
won a factional battle in 1925/26 that this trend was defeated and then reversed -- and that was
clearly engineered to help pave the way for the further destruction of the gains
of October 1917. [More about that later. On this, see Bakhurst (1991),
Graham (1971), Joravsky (1961), Kolakowski (1981), Wetter (1958).]
Indeed, Lenin's use of
'dialectical logic' (again, in the passage
quoted above) was in 1921, when the revolution was beginning to
retreat. This is in line with what was alleged earlier:
DM is only of real use in times of defeat or set-back. This also conforms
with other things that have been asserted in this Essay: that dialectics is an
ideal tool for use in faction fights, since its nebulous theses can be marshalled in
support of anything at all, and its opposite.
So, 1917 can't be chalked-up as a success for
this strain of
Hermetic Mysticism.
However, we will soon see that
the
disintegration and destruction of the results of 1917 can, indeed, be attributed partly to
this 'theory'.
Naturally, the above comments leave out of the account the
influence DM has had on
substitutionist ideas at work in the revolutionary tradition.
This brings us to our next topic.
I will be devoting an entire Essay to this
issue, but for present purposes we need merely sum up the results so far:
In
Part One it was
shown that ideas exclusive to DM can't be used to educate, propagandise or
agitate the working-class. Moreover, dialectics can't even represent a
generalisation of the experience of the Revolutionary Party; that is because
not one single DM-fan understands this theory -- or if they do, they have kept
that fact well hidden for over one hundred and forty years. Worse still, there
is no evidence that revolutionaries have used this 'theory' in
their practical interface with the working-class. Indeed, because of its
incoherence, it can't be so used.
On the contrary, the
shadowy history
of this theory reveals that DM-concepts originated, not from the experience of the
party, nor from that of the class, but from a tradition possessed of excellent
ruling-class
credentials, a tradition that promoted an Ideal view of reality for at least
two-and-a-half millennia -- a picture of a hidden world supposedly underlying
appearances, accessible to
thought alone.
In this Part of Essay Nine, it has been argued
that ideas unique to DM can have no practical impact other than negative,
since they are devoid of sense and are based on divisive concepts imported
from the work of boss-class ideologues. Not only does this theory fail to relate to workers' experience,
it fails to relate to anyone's experience -- or, indeed, experience anyone could
conceivably have. Because of this it has to be imposed
on workers
'against the materialist grain', as it
were.
In stark contrast, HM not only can, it does have practical import.
It represents
the generalisation and systematisation of workers' (indeed, humanity's) collective
experience and understanding -- as well as that of the party.
Nevertheless, in the analysis
given so far, the connection between DM and substitutionism has been left somewhat
vague and unclear.
Substitutionist ideas in general
(in this context) originate from the belief that workers are
incapable of organising themselves (that is, over and above their developing merely a
'trade union
form of consciousness', or the like) -- or they are too few or too weak to do this -- and thus
that they are incapable of bringing about (successful) revolutionary change.
[It is now clear from Lars Lih's work that
Lenin himself didn't believe this; but the vast majority of those claiming to be
Leninists since, have (Lih (2005, 2010)).]
Of course, substitutionism isn't itself an
expression of free-floating ideas, nor is it monolithic. It springs from
various class ideologies and material interests, but it only becomes problematic
at certain historical junctures. It largely gains and maintains its grip (when it does)
because of the fragmented and uneven nature of the working-class --, which condition
it parasites, extends, and exacerbates.
Nevertheless, as is well-known, substitutionist ideas manifest themselves in the
general belief that workers in the end need someone, or some other group to lead them both
theoretically and practically, and that they are incapable (for whatever
reason) of leading their own political struggles and thus of transforming society through their own activity, etc., etc.
In that case, they require other forces to bring about socialism for
them.
[More on this in
Essay Nine Part One.]40
To be sure, this isn't the whole story, and
it is possible to link substitutionist ideas to other reactionary beliefs and
theories not just these. That won't be attempted here.
Among revolutionaries (at such times), the
ideological justification for substitutionism can assume many forms, nurturing
perhaps the belief that 'objective' factors prevent workers themselves from
creating a classless society, or from prosecuting the struggle to attain it. It
also motivates the belief that workers are incapable of
comprehending their own interests (now, or at any time in the future), that they have been befuddled by
'commonsense' and 'formal thinking', or that they have been "bought off" by imperialist "super-profits",
etc., etc.
However, more specifically in connection with the
main theme of this
Essay,
a commitment to DM motivates
the idea that workers can't grasp the fundamental 'scientific' and
'philosophical' principles that underlie human history or, indeed, those
'governing' the development of the entire universe. That being the case, they will, of course, need someone else to do this, or to understand that, for them.40a
This belief now transforms Marxists who are inclined in the above
directions into latter-day prophets, 'teachers of the masses', and hence superior human beings -- which
helps explain the
personality cults and the elitist comments
one
often hears from such individuals
-- such as "workerism", "economism",
"banal commonsense",
or even "trade union consciousness".41
Nevertheless, this doesn't exhaust the
possibilities. As it turns out, these other considerations are connected
with the familiar claim appropriated from Traditional Philosophy that
there is a fundamental distinction between
"appearance" and "reality".
It is no accident then that the above
distinction
has traditionally been associated with a concomitant disdain
for ordinary language and common experience (as we will see in Essay Twelve,
summary here). Thus, if reality is
in fact different from
the way it seems -- indeed, its very opposite -- then workers -- who, according to this
approach, view
nature and society superficially, based on 'commonsense' -- clearly require someone
to (i) Unmask nature's secrets for them (ii) Direct and lead their thinking and
(iii) Act as their brains.
Indeed, if the vernacular is inadequate in this regard
-- that is, if it can't be trusted "beyond certain limits", then
it needs to be 'augmented', or even replaced, with jargon that can. Or, at the very least, it requires supplementation
with Hegelian or 'philosophical' terminology. Since 'commonsense' and ordinary language are inter-linked
(on this view), and both are connected with communal life, this 'replacement language' must be based on
what are taken to be philosophically-, and
scientifically-sound
representational principles -- but not on the
vernacular, which is governed by 'unreliable' and 'crude' working class, communicational or
communitarian , and thus severely limited, principles.42
Moreover, and because of this, the
impenetrable jargon
employed by those who also developed this
new 'revolutionary' theory must assist in the initiation of any acolyte
it manages to attract into its inner mysteries, which will in the end reveal
-- to those not lost in the cloying fog of 'commonsense' -- nature's underlying "essence", uncovering secrets that lie way beyond the
reach of 'formal thinking'.
Figure Seven: Dialectician
Looking
For 'Underlying Essences'
Hence, according to this way of seeing
things, workers require teachers -- indeed, 'intellectuals',
if not 'Great Teachers'
-- who are
prepared to substitute into their heads a new set of ideas -- a set of
doctrines that inform them of this hidden world underlying 'appearances',
accessible to thought alone, which is why such ideas have to be introduced to workers,
not practically, but theoretically -- in place of the socially-, and
materially-grounded beliefs they already have. Unfortunately, this new set of ideas
has been imported from the
class enemy, containingconcepts drawn from the
very worst forms of Mystical Idealism.42a
So,
in spite of what we read in the official DM-brochure, it isn't Hegelian 'logic'
which has been rotated through 180 degrees, but workers themselves.
Their thinking has been up-ended, their materialist ideas replaced with
incomprehensible Idealist concepts. The
erstwhile subjects of history (i.e., revolutionary workers) are thereby
transformed into the passive
objects of theory. They
must be intellectually neutered by being theoretically knocked off their feet.
[Much of the background to the above,
seemingly dogmatic assertions, can be found in
Part One of this Essay.]
At this point, it is worth stressing that it is not
being maintained here that revolutionaries should adopt a romantic or naďve view
either of workers or their ideas --, i.e., that their thoughts aren't
fragmentary or inconsistent, that racist or sexist notions don't enter their heads, that they always and infallibly know how best to further
their own interests, that they have the requisite organisational structures
adequate to that end -- or even that they understand the nature and source of
their own oppression and exploitation, and so on.
[None of the above regressive conditions are cast in stone,
anyway!
How workers transform themselves in struggle (with or without the aid of the party)
is already well understood by Marxists and needs no elaboration by me. Even so,
Essay Twelve Part Seven I aim to show why any successful intervention by
revolutionaries will have to be centred on the vernacular -- not on the
obscure jargon imported from the works of Hegel and other boss-class theorists
--and
common understanding. Any who still think ordinary language is inadequate
in any way are encouraged to read
this
and
this,
and then perhaps think again. Or, failing that, contact the editors of the vast
majority of revolutionary papers on the planet and tell them to stop using the
vernacular to communicate with workers!]
Neither is it part of the argument
presented here that workers have no need of a revolutionary party, drawn from their own ranks, which has established
deep links with the working class, forged in struggle, and which has also learnt from them.43
On the other hand, because HM represents a
generalisation of workers' experience, when it is introduced to them it
augmentswhat they already know. In that case, it doesn't need to be
substituted into their heads in place of their own ideas -- even though it might change many of these
for the better. As, noted in Essay Nine
Part One, because HM
meshes with workers' own experience, and speaks to their exploitation and
oppression, it is introduced to them from the 'inside', as it were.
Nevertheless, the only issue of immediate
concern here is the influence that DM has had on the attitude revolutionaries
adopt toward workers. Indeed, this concerns the connection
between DM
and the
petty-bourgeois, substitutionist mentality that is endemic among
certain professional revolutionaries
(because of their class position and their fondness for elitist,
boss-class
theories).
Hence, in relation to strategy and tactics, and with regard to the theoretical
understanding of the relationship between party and class, the question
posed in this section is whether ideas drawn from what are demonstrably
ruling-class sources, which reflect the priorities of that class (e.g., mystification,
esotericism,
secrecy, fragmentation, control,
arrogance, disdain), when adopted by revolutionaries may have
unsuspected, but inevitably substitutionist consequences.
In short, it is alleged that
dialectical concepts will, among other things, be used in order to rationalise
and justify substitutionism.
And that is precisely what we find.
[Indeed, in Essay Nine
Part One
it was concluded that DM is in fact the ideology of substitutionist
elements in Marxism.]
It could
be argued that the remarks aired in the first half of this
Essay are largely theoretical, academic, or abstract.
That isn't entirely true, but let us suppose it is. In that case, what
now required are
concrete examples --
drawn from the history of Dialectical Marxism itself -- of the deleterious effects
of 'dialectical concepts' on the
aforementioned petty-bourgeois and déclassé revolutionaries.43a
Fortunately, because of the
long-term
failure of Dialectical Marxism, these aren't too hard to find -- in fact,
it is rather surprising that no one has noticed them before (which in itself confirms
the narcoleptic
effect Hegelian concepts, compounded by a slavish adherence to tradition, have
had on the minds of the
vast majority of
DM-fans, and,
indeed, on those
who have studied, or who have written about, the history of our movement).
In that case, what follows is, I think, the
very first study of its kind.
Four preliminary points, however, need to be
made:
(1) As noted in the
Preface to this Essay, the following sections are still in their infancy;
they will require far more
attention devoting to them before the conclusions I have drawn can be regarded as in any way definitive.
I will add more detail and evidence as my researches continue.
(2) The search for
such evidence has
been hampered by the fact that every single Marxist history I have read (concerning the
periods I am about to analyse -- indeed, about any period in our
history!) fails even to consider whether or not DM is
in any way to blame (in whole or in part) for
the defeats and disasters our side has suffered since the 1870s.
As far as I
can determine, the role this theory has played doesn't merit so much as a
cursory mention in this respect!
Of course, that is in itself quite revealing, given
the fact that DM is supposed to be central to everything that revolutionaries are
alleged to have said, thought and done --that is,according to what they
themselves
tell us.
Why this universal, selective blindness?
Why this collective amnesia?
The answer is pretty clear:
as Marx
suggested, blaming this theory in any way at all, directly or indirectly, in
whole or in part, for the long-term failure of Dialectical Marxism would fatally compromise the only
source of consolation available to dialectically-distracted comrades. Despite
what we are constantly told, it is
also why this theory has never been tested
in practice -- in the sense that practice has been allowed to deliver its
unambiguous
and negative verdict.
(3) Any Stalinists and/or Maoists who
disagree with my assessment of their respective traditions below are
encouraged to shelve
whatever knee-jerk reactions they might have to what they might read until the end of this
main section, by which time they should see the
point of it all.
[As for fellow Trotskyists, they will already have
switched off, anyway! Experience has taught me that they are among the most
closed-minded of dialecticians, often warning others not to read these Essays for
fear that the pristine purity of their minds might be 'tainted' as a result --
indeed, they often react just like
Trotsky did to those in the US-SWP back in the 1930s who rejected this
theory: i.e., entirely emotively. Literally scores
of
examples of this rather odd phenomenon can be found at
RevLeft and other sites
on the
internet where I have tried to engage with them in debate.]
(4) Once again, it is worth reminding readers
that my argument isn't the following: DM has been derived from, and is
based on, ruling-class
concepts, therefore it is false. On the contrary, my argument is as follows: DM makes no
sense whatsoever; in which case it is impossible to decide if it is true or
if it is false. Hence, it is no big surprise to see that it has served us so
badly for over a century.
Furthermore,
because (a)
DM is non-sensical
and
incoherent, and (b) DM theory originated in traditional, ruling-class thought,
it can't have any positive practical applications -- only negative -- in
a movement that is supposed to be aimed at terminating class society.
In the material presented below, I have
quoted dozens of rather lengthy DM-passages taken from all
wings of Dialectical Marxism, aimed at showing how deep Hegelian
concepts have seeped into our movement, exposing the pernicious effect they have
had on every aspect of revolutionary theory and practice.
Apologies must be offered in advance for its rather
repetitive nature, as well as its length, but there is no other way that
the above objectives can be achieved. Experience has taught me that
dialecticians tend to deny allegations they don't like (or which threaten to disturb their
"dogmatic slumber") unless they are backed-up extensively by chapter and verse. Even then, with passages from
Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, Stalin, or Mao staring them in the face, many of them remain locked in 'deny-everything-mode'.
[Excellent recent examples of this phenomenon can be found
here.]
There are other examples I could have chosen (indeed, I might include them at a later date,
perhaps as part of another Appendix
to this Essay), but given the fact that
these three examples cover periods when workers (and others) were
entering into what is arguably one of the biggest, if not the biggest --
certainly the most important and intense -- revolutionary wave in human history, and
given the further fact that all this energy was squandered by the
activities and the antics of Dialectical Marxists, they should be enough to prove to
all but the most rabidly partisan, or the most deeply dialectically doped of comrades,
that
DM/MD
are among the very worst theories ever to have colonised the human brain.
When large sections of the working class
were ready to move, Dialectical Marxists screwed up catastrophically.
We will be lucky if the
proletariat
ever trust us again.
DM
was used by the Stalinised Bolshevik Party (after Lenin's death) to 'justify'
the imposition of an undemocratic (if not openly anti-democratic and
terror-based) political structure on both the Communist Party and the population of former Soviet Union (fSU)
-- and later still on the citizens of Eastern Europe, China, North
Korea, Cuba, and elsewhere.
The catastrophic effect of these moves hardly needs
underlining.
This new and vicious form of
the 'dictatorship of the proletariat' was justified by Stalin on the following
basis: Marxist 'dialectics' holds that everything is 'contradictory', hence increasingly centralised control
by the party was compatible with greater democratic freedom! The "withering-away of the state" was confirmed by moves in the opposite direction: the ever-growing concentration
of power at the centre. So,
and paradoxically, less democracy was in fact more
democracy! The merging of all national cultures into one was in fact to preserve
them!
[As we will discover, similar moves have been echoed
in practically every Marxist Tendency since -- oddly enough, right down to the current crisis in
the UK-SWP.]
Indeed, this very 'contradiction' supposedly illustrates the truth of dialectics!
"The flowering of cultures that are national in form and
socialist in content under the dictatorship of the proletariat in one country
for the purpose of merging them into one common socialist (both in form
and content) culture, with one common language, when the proletariat is
victorious all over the world and when socialism becomes the way of life -- it
is just this that constitutes the dialectics of the Leninist presentation of
the question of national culture.
"It may be said that such a
presentation of the question is 'contradictory.' But is there not the same
'contradictoriness' in our presentation of the question of the state? We stand
for the withering away of the state. At the same time we stand for the
strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest and
strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development of state
power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering away of
state power -- such is the Marxist formula. Is this 'contradictory'? Yes, it is
'contradictory.' But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it fully
reflects Marx's dialectics." [Political
Reportof the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B),
27/06/1930. Bold emphases alone added; quotation marks altered to conform
with the
conventions adopted at this site.]43a0
So, less democracy is more democracy! The separate 'national cultures' in the fSU will flower under
'socialism', but only if they are merged in to one, whether they like it or not!
A contradiction?
No worries --
a little dialectics will soon sort that out!
Greater democracy from less democracy; all eminently
contradictory, all quintessentially 'dialectical'.
Stalin went on to add this rather ominous note:
"Anyone who fails to understand this peculiar feature and
'contradiction' of our transition period, anyone who fails to understand
these dialectics of the historical processes, is dead as far as Marxism is
concerned.
"The misfortune of our deviators is that they do not
understand, and do not wish to understand, Marx's dialectics." [Ibid.
Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site.]
As many leading Bolsheviks
and countless thousands from the many nationalities that former the fSU were soon to find out, Stalin
wasn't
joking when he made those remarks.
Indeed, as noted above, this theory formed part of Stalin's 'justification' for
the Communist Party's line on the National Question, specifically linking these two issues in the
previous quotation:
"Lenin sometimes depicted the thesis on national
self-determination in the guise of the simple formula: 'disunion for union'.
Think of it -- disunion for union. It even sounds like a paradox. And yet,
this 'contradictory' formula reflects that living truth of Marx's dialectics
which enables the Bolsheviks to capture the most impregnable fortresses in the
sphere of the national question." [Ibid.
Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site.]
This 'allowed' Stalin to claim that the merging of all national
cultures (in the fSU) into one was at the same time to show respect
for, and
thus preserve, their differences! One thing we can be sure about: the
Chechens and the
Cossacks
certainly
'appreciated' Stalin's 'dialectical' solution to the national question.
"The essence of Trotskyism is, lastly,
denial of the
necessity for iron discipline in the Party, recognition of freedom for factional
groupings in the Party, recognition of the need to form a Trotskyist party.
According to Trotskyism, the CPSU(B) must be not a single, united militant
party, but a collection of groups and factions, each with its own centre, its
own discipline, its own press, and so forth. What does this mean? It means
proclaiming freedom for political factions in the Party. It means that freedom
for political groupings in the Party must be followed by freedom for political
parties in the country, i.e., bourgeois democracy. Consequently, we have here
recognition of freedom for factional groupings in the Party right up to
permitting political parties in the land of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
disguised by phrases about 'inner-party democracy', about 'improving the regime'
in the Party. That freedom for factional squabbling of groups of intellectuals
is not inner-party democracy, that the widely-developed self-criticism conducted
by the Party and the colossal activity of the mass of the Party membership is
real and genuine inner-party democracy -- Trotskyism can't understand." [Ibid.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
Why Stalin didn't conclude the same about Trotsky's alleged concept of the
party:
"denial of the
necessity for iron discipline in the Party, recognition of freedom for factional
groupings in the Party, recognition of the need to form a Trotskyist party.
According to Trotskyism, the CPSU(B) must be not a single, united militant
party, but a collection of groups and factions, each with its own centre, its
own discipline, its own press, and so forth." [Ibid.]
That
is, the following:
"It may be said that such a
presentation of the question is 'contradictory.'... Is this 'contradictory'?
Yes, it is 'contradictory.' But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it
fully reflects Marx's dialectics....
"And yet,
this 'contradictory' formula reflects that living truth of Marx's dialectics
which enables the Bolsheviks to capture the most impregnable fortresses in the
sphere of the [party]" [Edited misquotation of Stalin.]
If
two contradictions are OK (i.e., concerning (i) the 'dictatorship of the
proletariat' and (ii) the national question), then why not a third?
All this follows, of course, from the
Hegelian idea that
conformity to law is the very essence of freedom, as Lenin noted:
"To begin with what is the simplest, most
ordinary, common, etc., [sic] with any proposition...: [like] John
is a man…. Here we already have dialectics (as Hegel's genius recognized): the
individual is the universal…. Consequently, the opposites (the
individual is opposed to the universal) are identical: the individual exists
only in the connection that leads to the universal. The universal exists only in
the individual and through the individual. Every individual is (in one way or
another) a universal. Every universal is (a fragment, or an aspect, or the
essence of) an individual. Every universal only approximately embraces all the
individual objects. Every individual enters incompletely into the universal,
etc., etc. Every individual is connected by thousands of transitions with
other kinds of individuals (things, phenomena, processes), etc.
Here already we have the elements, the germs of the concept of necessity,
of objective connection in nature, etc. Here already we have the contingent and
the necessary, the phenomenon and the essence; for when we say John is a man…we
disregard a number of attributes as contingent; we separate the essence
from the appearance, and counterpose the one to the other…." [Lenin (1961),
p.359. Italic emphases in the original;
bold emphases added.]
"This second definition of freedom, which quite unceremoniously gives a
knock-out blow to the first one, is again nothing but an extreme vulgarisation
of the Hegelian conception. Hegel was the first to state correctly the relation
between freedom and necessity. To him, freedom is the insight into necessity (die
Einsicht in die Notwendigheit).
'Necessity is blind only in so far as it is
not understood[begriffen].' [Engels is
here quoting Hegel (1975),
p.209, §147
-- RL.]
"Freedom
does not consist in any dreamt-of independence from natural laws, but in the
knowledge of these laws, and in the possibility this gives of systematically
making them work towards definite ends. This holds good in relation both to the
laws of external nature and to those which govern the bodily and mental
existence of men themselves -- two classes of laws which we can separate from
each other at most only in thought but not in reality. Freedom of the will
therefore means nothing but the capacity to make decisions with knowledge of the
subject. Therefore the freer a man's judgment is in relation to a
definite question, the greater is the necessity with which the content
of this judgment will be determined; while the uncertainty, founded on
ignorance, which seems to make an arbitrary choice among many different and
conflicting possible decisions, shows precisely by this that it is not free,
that it is controlled by the very object it should itself control. Freedom
therefore consists in the control over ourselves and over external nature, a
control founded on knowledge of natural necessity; it is therefore necessarily a
product of historical development.
"The first men who separated themselves from the animal kingdom were in all
essentials as unfree as the animals themselves, but each step forward in the
field of culture was a step towards freedom.... [F]or the first time there
can be talk of real human freedom, of an existence in harmony with the laws of
nature that have become known." [Engels (1976),
pp.144-45. Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with
the conventions adopted at this site.]
I will be discussing these rather odd ideas -- which are in fact reminiscent
of New
Testament and
Pauline
notions (also to be found in
Rousseau) -- in Essay Three Part Five. Suffice it to say here that the
'contradiction' between 'freedom and necessity' was 'solved' by Engels and Lenin
in the same basic way that Christians 'solve' scientific problems in the Bible
-- they either (a) Invent a miracle or (b) Bury the problem in the 'Divine
Mystery'. DM-theorists 'solve' this problem, too, by waving the word
"dialectics" at it, thus burying it in the esoteric mysteries of
DL. [In short,
they Nixon it.]
Be this as it may, the first 'contradiction' 'justified' the
Stalinised
argument that greater freedom was to be found in the imposition of an undemocratic and
terror based legal structure on the working class of the fSU (and elsewhere).
[Although they most certainly wouldn't put this point quite like that!]
[The background to this way of looking at 'freedom' can be found
in Isaiah
Berlin's classic essay
Two Concepts of Liberty -- i.e., Berlin (2002),
pp.166-217. I hasten to add that I don't agree with everything Berlin says, but
this work is still unmatched in the clarity it brought to the topic.]
To be sure,
Stalin's line was a gross distortion of what Engels and Lenin
might have meant, but that's Diabolical Logic for you; it can be (and was here) used to
rationalise anything Stalin and his henchmen found expedient,
and its opposite.
Indeed, the use of this handy, universal
solvent (DL) made it possible to 'justify' the idea that socialism could be built in one country, by, among other things, the dubious invention
(by Stalin) of
"internal" versus "external" contradictions, later
supported by
the further invention of "principal" and
"secondary" contradictions, alongside the highly convenient
idea that some contradictions were, while some weren't, "antagonistic".
Hence,
the obvious class differences that remained, or which soon emerged in the
fSU were either
"non-existent" or were, despite 'appearances' to the contrary, "harmonious". The real enemies
(i.e., the source of all those nasty, "principal" (or perhaps even
"antagonistic") contradictions) were the
external, imperialist powers.43a00
This analysis 'allowed'
STDs to argue that socialism could be built in one country because
it was now possible to define the
intrinsic nature
of the fSU by means of its internal relations, not the relations it
held with the rest of the capitalist world. We saw this was a consequence of
one
interpretation of the "unity and interpenetration of opposites"
(which was, oddly enough, an interpretation
promoted by STDs themselves). Since
DM can be used in any which way a particular dialectician pleases, or finds
expedient, we also saw
that this approach will only work if, in this case, the fSU
is isolated from its surroundingsand the relations it holds with the rest of
the world are treated as merely 'external'. On the other hand, if we look at
capitalism from a different, 'dialectical' angle and view the world economy as a
system in its own right, the relationship between the fSU and the capitalist
world can be
re-configured and then re-classified as 'internal' [This is indeed the line that Trotsky and his followers took.]
All this is one consequence of the
'dialectical
equivocation' (we met
in Essays Eight
Part
One and Eleven Part
Two) between 'external' and 'internal' contradictions; between what I have
called the 'geometric' or 'spatial interpretation' of the "unity and
interpenetration of opposites", and the 'logical' interpretation. What looks 'external'
on one view is 'internal' from another, and vice versa.
The super-dialectical 'flexibility' built into
this mutant STD-theory -- since neither Hegel, Marx, Engels, Plekhanov nor Lenin seem to
know anything about 'external contradictions' (and on
'dialectical'
grounds alone, the
term itself
appears to be
non-viable,
anyway) --, again 'allowed' this convenient distinction to be used to defend any idea whatsoever,
and its opposite, put to 'good use' here by the Stalinists to defend his
revised view of the nature of the fSU and what was possible to build within its
now 'dialectically-sealed' borders.
[This might even be called the dialectical version of
the story about
King Canute; the Stalinists, instead of trying to hold back the tides,
attempted to keep the international capitalist economy at bay by (i) a sheer act
of will and (ii) throwing a few 'dialectical' words at the problem!]
Again, this 'permitted' STDs to
claim that the actions of the imperialist powers, for example, constituted one set
of 'external contradictions'
in relation to the fSU itself, and hence to argue that the real nature of the
fSU could be defined
internally, based on its own internal, but 'non-antagonistic' contradictions.
This in turn 'enabled' them to conclude (or, rather, it 'allowed' them to
rationalise a conclusion already arrived at for other, hard-headed, political reasons -- on
that, see here) that socialism
could be built in one country.
Clearly, this hyper-plastic theory can be bent
into any shape that proves either convenient or expedient.
"Our
country exhibits two groups of contradictions. One group consists of the
internal contradictions that exist between the proletariat and the peasantry....
The other group consists of the external contradictions that exist between our
country, as the land of socialism, and all the other countries, as lands of
capitalism....
"Anyone
who confuses the first group of contradictions, which can be overcome entirely
by the efforts of one country, with the second group of contradictions, the
solution of which requires the efforts of the proletarians of several countries,
commits a gross error against Leninism. He is either a muddle-head or an
incorrigible opportunist." [Stalin
(1976c), pp.210-11. Bold emphasis added.]
"What is
meant by the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country?
"It
means the possibility of solving the contradictions between the proletariat and
the peasantry by means of the internal forces of our country, the possibility of
the proletariat seizing power and using that power to build a complete socialist
society in our country, with the sympathy and the support of the
proletarians of other countries, but without the preliminary victory of the
proletarian revolution in other countries.
"Without,
such a possibility, building socialism is building without prospects, building
without being sure that socialism will be completely built. It is no use
engaging in building socialism without being sure that we can build it
completely, without being sure that the technical backwardness of our country is
not an insuperable obstacle to the building of a complete socialist society. To
deny such a possibility means disbelief in the cause of building socialism,
departure from Leninism.
"What is
meant by the impossibility of the complete, final victory of socialism in one
country without the victory of the revolution in other countries?
"It means
the impossibility of having a full guarantee against intervention, and
consequently against the restoration of the bourgeois order, without the victory
of the revolution in at least a number of countries. To deny this indisputable
thesis means departure from internationalism, departure from Leninism...." [Ibid.,
pp.212-13. Bold emphases added.]43a1
[How 'contradictions' can be "overcome" is, of
course, a deep mystery which we will have to pass over in silence for now. I will return
to this passage along with others like it and consider them in more detail as
this Essay unfolds.]
Nevertheless, as Tom Weston has shown in a recent article
in Science &
Society
[Weston (2008)], the distinction between "antagonistic" and "non-antagonistic
contradictions" [henceforth, ACs and NACs,
respectively] can't be attributed to Lenin, as many have supposed:
"Antagonism and contradiction are not at all the same
thing. In socialism, the first will disappear, but the latter will remain."
[Lenin, quoted in Weston (2008), p.433. This was in fact a marginal note
Lenin wrote in his copy of a book by Bukharin!]
Weston goes on to say:
"This note has often been treated as evidence that Lenin
accepted or even invented the NAC concept (e.g.,
Mitin
and Mao), but it surely
does not show this. Like Marx, Lenin distinguished contradiction from
antagonism, and this raises a philosophical question about the relation between
the two. Lenin did not answer this question, however, and he did not claim that
antagonism is a special kind of contradiction." [Weston (2008), p.433.]
[Incidentally, Weston, who knows his logic (after all, he
teaches the
subject!), is remarkably accommodating here. For example, he nowhere asks
why 'dialectical contradictions' are contradictions to begin with. As we
have seen (in Essays Five, Eight
Part One, Eight Part Two (here,
here
and
here),
Eight Part Three, and
Eleven Part One),
little sense can be made of the term "dialectical contradiction". Nor does
Weston ask how Lenin could possibly have known that "antagonism" and
"contradiction" either are or aren't the same, or that one will disappear under socialism
while the other won't. (The answer is, naturally, that Lenin couldn't possibly
have known this -- unless, of course, he was imposing these ideas on nature and society,
contrary to what dialecticians tell us they
never do.) It also raises the
question -- which Weston doesn't, I think, bother to answer --, "Well, what is the difference
between antagonism and contradiction?"]
Weston then goes on to point out that the idea that there are NACs and
ACs in nature and society began to take shape in the work of
Bukharin
and Deborin,
but the first explicit appearance of either notion was in 1930, in an article
that appeared in the Party's theoretical journal Bol'shevik, written by
Nicolai Karev (who was later to play a key role in
Boris
Hessen's demise):
"The theme of this article was a critique of Bukharin's
and
Alexandr Bogdanov's
conceptions of contradiction and equilibrium. As part of
his argument that antagonism of classes is not analogous to antagonism of
physical forces acting in different directions, Karev gave the following
definition: 'Antagonism is in general that type of contradiction in which the
opposite sides have become completely isolated from one another and externally
confront one another'". [Ibid., p.440. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
[As noted above, this new line
plainly depends on what I have called a geometric or spatial interpretation of the "unity and interpenetration of
opposites" (and which can't be made consistent with
anything Hegel
or Lenin argued --
upside down or the 'right way up') -- an idea that has been peddled by
STDs and MISTs
ever since.]
It is quite clear from what Weston tells us that these two
forms of 'contradiction' were introduced in order to rationalise the CPSU's claim
that (i) Socialism could be built in one country, (ii) There was no class war in
the fSU,
(iii) Workers and peasants
were neither oppressed nor exploited -- even if they still had conflicting interests
--
and also in order to (iv) 'Justify' the murderous
collectivisation of land, alongside the many subsequent purges
inflicted on the Russian population:
"From the 1930s, the most important application of the NAC
concept was the soviet policy toward the peasantry...." [Ibid., p.436.]
Production by peasants was based on privately owned
small-holdings, and there would naturally arise conflict between the peasantry
and the urban working class over the prices they charged for their produce.
However:
"The Bolsheviks...considered the poor and middle peasants
and agricultural workers to be allies of the urban working class, forming a
'bond' which was the official basis of the soviet state." [Ibid., p.437.]
However, this wasn't so with respect to the "kulaks"
and the urban traders (the so-called "NEPmen"),
who were regarded as class enemies, whose ACs were soon 'resolved' by the
'Bolsheviks' -- that is, these groups were liquidated. "No man, no problem."
[Yes, I know
Stalin probably didn't say this!]:
"The...official view was that the contradiction of the
labouring classes versus the kulaks tend to become more intense, while the
contradictions inside the 'bond' tend to die out. Stalin wrote that inside the
'bond', there existed 'a struggle whose importance is out-weighed by...the
community of interests, and which should disappear in the future...when they
become working people of a classless society'.... Similar claims were made for
the contradictions between manual workers and the soviet 'intelligentsia'...."
[Ibid., p.437. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site.]43b
Nevertheless, a couple of generations
later and we find STDs still pushing the same line. Here is Cornforth (also misusing
the Lenin quote!):
"In general, social contradictions are
antagonistic when they involve conflicts of economic interest. In such cases one
group imposes its own interests on another, and one group suppresses another by
forcible methods. But when conflicts of economic interest are not involved,
there is no antagonism and therefore no need for the forcible suppression of any
group by any other. Once class antagonisms are done away with in socialist
society, all social questions can be settled by discussion and argument, by
criticism and self-criticism, by persuasion, conviction and agreement....
"So Lenin remarked that 'antagonism and
contradiction are utterly different. Under socialism antagonism disappears, but
contradiction remains' (Critical Notes on Bukharin's 'Economics of the
Transition Period')." [Cornforth (1976), pp.105-06.]
In which case, under 'socialism' strikes are
'obviously' unnecessary -- or, they just 'don't happen' -- hence, they shouldn't
happen. But,
when they do, they must be suppressed. And so they were suppressed, with a
level of violence rarely seen anywhere outside
of overtly fascist states. [On this, see Haynes (2002), and Kozlov (2002).]
Any attempt made by workers to rebel (e.g.,
Hungary 1956)
were blamed,
naturally, on "external forces",
or on agents
from
outside the working class (a
familiar excuse used by
ruling classes
the world over to account for, and thus ignore or explain away, the significance of
'social unrest' -- all caused, of course, by the ubiquitous "external agitator"),
i.e., in this case, the "imperialist powers", "fascists", or even
Tito (but not ordinary workers fighting for and on behalf of their own interests), once more.44
We will merely note, alongside Cornforth, the calm
way that those
NACs in Hungary (in 1956) were resolved by Russian tanks
(i.e., using "discussion and argument...persuasion, conviction and agreement").
To be sure, and howsoever hard one tries, it is
difficult not to be "persuaded" by an armoured column.
Cornforth also attempted to defend the idea that
socialism could be created in one country -- referring his readers
to Trotsky's counter-claim, which was allegedly based on "abstract" and fixed categories:
"After the proletarian revolution was successful
another scheme was propounded -- this time by Trotsky. 'You can't build
socialism in one country. Unless the revolution takes place in the advanced
capitalist countries, socialism can't come in Russia.' Lenin and Stalin showed
that this scheme, too, was false....
"In all these examples it will be seen that the
acceptance of some ready-made scheme, some abstract formula, means passivity,
support for capitalism, betrayal of the working class and of socialism. But the
dialectical approach which understands things in their concrete interconnections
and movement shows us how to forge ahead -- how to fight, what allies to draw
in. That is the inestimable value of the Marxist dialectical method to the
working class movement." [Ibid., pp.79-80.
Bold emphasis added.]
[Several other attempts made by
STDs and
MISTs to show that
Trotsky ignored or 'misused' the 'dialectic' (or even that he applied a
'wooden', 'abstract' version of it) have been added to Note 44.]
Which is odd in view of what Trotsky himself argued:
"Shachtman
obviously does not take into account the distinction between the abstract and
the concrete. Striving toward concreteness, our mind operates with
abstractions. Even 'this,' 'given,' 'concrete' dog is an abstraction because it
proceeds to change, for example, by dropping its tail the 'moment' we point a
finger at it. Concreteness is a relative concept and not an absolute one:
what is concrete in one case turns out to be abstract in another: that is,
insufficiently defined for a given purpose. In order to obtain a concept
'concrete' enough for a given need it is necessary to correlate several
abstractions into one -- just as in reproducing a segment of life upon the
screen, which is a picture in movement, it is necessary to combine a number of
still photographs.
"The
concrete is a combination of abstractions -- not an arbitrary or subjective
combination but one that corresponds to the laws of the movement of a given
phenomenon." [Trotsky (1971),
p.147. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Since the USSR is no more, and with the benefit of hindsight, one should rightly conclude that Cornforth
ought to have
remained loyal to Lenin's 'fixed' and 'abstract' scheme that the revolution
would have to spread, or die:
"The facts of history have proved to those
Russian patriots who will hear of nothing but the immediate interests of their
country conceived in the old style, that the transformation of our Russian
revolution into a socialist revolution, was not an adventure but a necessity
since there was no other choice; Anglo-French and American imperialism
will inevitably strangle the independence and freedom of Russia unless
the world-wide socialist revolution, world-wide Bolshevism, triumphs."
[Lenin, quoted from
here. Bold emphasis alone added.]
"We always staked our play on an international
revolution and this was unconditionally right... we always emphasised...the fact
that in one country it is impossible to accomplish such a work as a socialist
revolution." [Lenin, Sochineniia, 25, pp.473-74; quoted
from Cliff (1988),
pp.156-57.
Bold emphasis added. Parts of this can be found in
Volume 31
of Lenin's Collected Works;
however, the last 18 words have in fact been edited out!]45
Anyone who thinks these comments are prejudicial to Stalinism
(and/or Maoism) should perhaps reflect
on the fact that the contrary idea -- that socialism could be built in
one country -- has been refuted by history.
Which is, after all, what Lenin predicted.
The additional fact that not one single
proletarian hand
was raised in defence of the 'workers' states' (both in the fSU and in Eastern Europe) between
1989 and 1991 as they were toppled (or even earlier, in the period 1953-1956, for
those who are hardcore Stalinophiles) merely confirms Lenin's assessment. Indeed, many workers actually helped overthrow these 'People's Democracies'.
Compare this with the way that workers in many countries have fought (sometimes
to the death) to defend or promote even limited forms of bourgeois democracy
since then. Indeed,
contrastitwith the way
that workers and others
fought in
Nepal,
Lebanon,
Serbia,
France,
Mexico,
Argentina,
Venezuela,
Peru and
Bolivia
recently
-- and now in
Burma (1988
and 2007),
Kyrgyzstan (April
2010), Bangkok (April
2010),
Tunisia,
Algeria,
Egypt,
Syria,
Bahrain,
Morocco,
Yemen,
Libya, and
Romania --to name but a few.
This is all the more remarkable given the
additional fact that the Soviet working class and the Soviet State were supposed to be the most
powerful in history, as Stalin himself argued:
"At the same time we stand for the
strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the mightiest
and strongest state power that has ever existed. The highest development
of state power with the object of preparing the conditions for the withering
away of state power -- such is the Marxist formula. Is this 'contradictory'?
Yes, it is 'contradictory.' But this contradiction us bound up with life, and it
fully reflects Marx's dialectics." [Political
Reportof the Central Committee to the
Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B), 27/06/1930. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform
with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Add to this the extra fact
that the working class
in the fSU were also supposedly in command not only of one of the most powerful military forces on the planet, but the unions, the police, the party, the
state bureaucracy, the courts and the media. Considering the overwhelming force
available to them, workers could easily have crushed any attempt to undermine the
Soviet Union had they chosen to do so (in 1953, when Stalin died, or even in
1991); more-or-less the same can be said of the 'People's Democracies' in
Eastern Europe, as well as Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia..., and now China and Cuba.
[In response to this, Stalinophiles often
point to
opinion polls that seem to suggest a large proportion of the population of
Russia would prefer to go back to the old system. However, as we know, the
results of such polls can be skewed by the options on offer, or the questions
posed. Had they been asked instead: "Do you prefer to return to a system
dominated by mass incarceration, oppression and lack of democratic control,
governed by a self-selecting elite that lines its own pockets at your expense?"
I rather think the results would have been different. Of course, that question
itself is prejudicial and politically-motivated, so the real test of opinion
here isn't simply for the Russian population to express passive opinions about
the past, but what they are prepared to do to fight to restore the old
system, and what they did in defence of that system when they supposedly
had their hands on the levers of power and overwhelming force -- the answer, of course, being:
absolutely nothing. Others have argued that the Russian working class
did defend Russia from fascist attack in WW2, so they are prepared to defend
their state. If so, why were they quiescent in 1953/1991?]
Be this as it may, the dire political consequences of the idea that socialism
could be built in one country
can be seen in the subsequent use to which dialectics was put to defend and
rationalise this
counter-revolutionary
idea, as well as try to limit (or deny) the catastrophic damage it inevitably
inflicted on the international workers' movement in particular, and Marxism, in general.
And, this is precisely where DM comes
into its own:
DM is invaluable when short-term, opportunistic tactics have to be sold to party cadres (nationally
or world-wide). Since this theory seems to provide militants with an 'orthodox revolutionary method' --
which supposedly
bears Marx's
imprimatur
(certainly Engels and Lenin's), and which can be used to 'justify' anything
whatsoever and its opposite, often by the very same individual -- it carries
decisive weight
with cadres and the rank-and-file.
Trotskyists, of
course, argue for the exact opposite conclusion, using equally sound 'dialectical' arguments to show
how and why the revolution decayed, and how the fSU
was (paradoxically) still be a workers'
state (albeit, 'degenerated'), even if the proletariat were oppressed and
exploited for their pains --, and, incidentally, how
it's the STDs and
MISTs
who actually 'misuse' or ignore 'the dialectic' (applying, would you believe, a 'wooden'
and 'abstract' version!) in order to arrive at the reverse conclusion! [On that, see
below.]
Dialectics can therefore be used to defend and
rationalise anything the Party, or a particular dialectician, chooses, and as the political
or factional circumstances require.
Indeed,
Stalinism and Trotskyism (rightly or wrongly) parted company largely over of
their differing views on the international revolution, workers' control and party democracy. Of course,
this rift wasn't just about ideas! Hard-headed decisions were taken for
political reasons, but in order to rationalise these decisions and sell them to the
international communist movement, they were liberally coated with dialectical jargon.
How else would cadres swallow this poison?
Those cognisant of the history of Bolshevism will also know of the incalculable damage
this deep rift has inflicted on Marxism world-wide ever since.
Later still, DM
was used to 'justify' and rationalise the catastrophic and reckless
class-collaborationist tactics imposed on both the
Chinese and
Spanish revolutions, just as
it was employed to rationalise and 'justify' the ultra-left, "social
fascist" post-1929 about-turn by the
Stalinists. This helped cripple the fight against the Nazis by suicidally
splitting the left in Germany, pitting communist against socialist while Hitler
laughed all the way to the
Reichstag.45a
This 'theory' then helped 'excuse' the rotation of the Communist
Party through another 180 degrees
in its
next, class-collaborationist phase, the "Popular Front"
(when all those 'socials fascists' suddenly became allies, alas too late to stop
Hitler!) --, and then through another 180
in order to 'justify' the unforgivable
Hitler-Stalin pact
as part of the newly re-discovered 'revolutionary defeatist' stage --, and through yet another
180 two years later in the shape of 'The Great Patriotic War', following upon
Hitler's predictable invasion of the "Mother Land" -- "Holy
Russia".46
"We are told that the Soviet-German pact has also
strengthened Nazi Germany. The process is of course dialectical, but
fundamentally Nazi Germany has been weakened by the Soviet-German Non-Aggression
Pact and is more weakened every day as this [dialectical -- RL] process is
continuing and is beginning to become clearer to more and more people." [King
and Mathews (1990), p.75. Bold emphasis added.]
Once more, it seems that to strengthen the Nazis
is dialectically to weaken them! Well, we can see how accurate that analysis was
by the fact that the dialectically "weakened"
Wehremacht was able to conquer most of
Europe within two years, and large swathes of the fSU in six months! It
was only Hitler's incompetent generalship and the hard Russian winter that saved the USSR from
total annihilation.
[This isn't to minimise the truly heroic resistance mounted
against fascism by the Russian people! A good two thirds of WW2 was fought on the Eastern Front.
Two massive battles --
Kursk
and
Operation Bagration -- each dwarf anything fought by the 'western' allies in
Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Pacific.]
Post-1945, one more dialectical flip saw the invention of "peace-loving" nations versus the
evil US Empire. History now became the struggle between "progressive, peace-loving"
peoples and
reactionary regimes, the class war lost in all the dust kicked up by so much
dialectical spinning.
[Indeed, and by now, Marx would be doing much more than 180 degree flips in his grave!]
Every single one of these 'somersaults' had a catastrophic
impact on the international workers' movement. For example, the
Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Treaty fatally weakened the Communist
Party's opposition to
fascism in France prior to the German invasion of May 1940, which, of course, forms
part of the explanation why France collapsed so quickly; this is quite apart
from the fact that it allowed Hitler to concentrate his forces in the West, no
longer having to worry about the Eastern Front.
Collectively, these dialectical flips cast a long
shadow across the
Communist
Party worldwide, reducing it to the sad,
reformist rump that we see among us today.
However, and far, far worse: as noted above, these 'contradictory' about-turns helped pave
the way for fascist aggression and the Third Reich. In which case, this 'theory'
has played
its own small, shameful, but indirect part in the deaths of millions of workers and
countless numbers of communists, Jews, Gypsies, Russians and Slavs -- alongside the many hundreds of
thousands of mentally-ill and handicapped victims surrendered to the Nazi death
machine by opportunist dialecticians.46a0
Because of their continual, dialectically-inspired
twists and turns, STDs in effect all but invited the Nazi tiger to
rip European humanity to shreds.
And, it was only too happy to oblige.
The result?
More 'dialectical contradictions' = more dead workers.
The negative effect on the reputation of Marxism
on the great mass of workers of all this spinning can't be over-estimated, howsoever hard one tries.
Talk to anyone about Marxism (and not just Communism), and you will be regaled
with much of the above. Hence, these days, everyone 'knows' Marxism/Communism "doesn't work",
and stands for bureaucratic authoritarianism, heartless oppression and cynical
realpolitik.
We can only put all this down to "capitalist propaganda" if we want to see
another wave of
dialectical disasters.
Of course, none of this is the sole fault of this mystical theory; but it is
undeniable that it was a major factor in helping to rationalise
the above political gyrations (for whatever other political reasons they were in fact
decided upon), and in helping sell them to party cadres. Over the years, this has had an inevitable
and seriously demoralising effect on the entire movement.
Moreover, no other theory (save, perhaps,
Zen Buddhism!)
could so easily excuse the
continual, and almost overnight, changes in strategy and tactics --, or rationalise
so effectively the pathetic reasons that were given for the criminally
unacceptable political U-turns imposed on the Communist Party
internationally by post-1925 Stalinism.
Nor, indeed, could any other theory have so effortlessly licensed the grinding to dust of
the
core and periphery of the
old
Bolshevik Party in the 1930s, as scores of leading (and thousands of ordinary) comrades were put on 'trail'
on trumped-up charges, and then either shot or worked to death -- or, more likely, were summarily
executed.
And you can still find
communists
defending the execution of these "wreckers" and "fascist" spies -- the core of
the party leadership! -- along equally crazy, dialectical lines!
Millions dead, Bolshevism in tatters and Marxism a foul stench in the nostrils
of workers everywhere.
DM, tested in practice? A resounding success?
Indeed it was -- but, alas, only for
the international ruling-class!
Anyone who knows anything about Maoism will also know that Maoist Dialecticians
[MISTs] are hardcore
DM-oholics,
and will brook no compromise.
[Excellent recent examples of this phenomenon can be found
here and
here. This might have something to do with the fact that
Daoism shares
much with Maoism and DM. More on this in Essay Fourteen Part One (summary
here).]
Nevertheless, deep dialectical devotion like this means that the anti-democratic and class collaborationist
tactics adopted by the
CPSU were
emulated by the
CCP under
Mao (even if this was for locally different reasons). For example,
the use of "principal" and "secondary" contradictions to justify the suicidal
alliances with the
Guomindang,
the use of UOs to rationalise one-party, autocratic rule, and the reference to
"leaps" to excuse the lunatic and murderous and ill-advised "Great
Leap Forward".
MISTs are among the most fanatical
anti-Revisionists on the planet -- but has a single one given Mao a hard time for
revising Hegel, Marx, Engels and Lenin, who knew nothing of such
'contradictions'? [There is also evidence that
Mao rejected the NON,
too.]
Once more:are you joking?
Consider the first two of these: class-collaboration and anti-democratic centralisation. Dialectical arguments
favouring class-collaboration and the centralisation ("concentration") of power
weren't exclusive to CPSU theorists. In the mid-1930s, the abrupt change from
outright opposition to the Guomindang to a policy that advocated a united front
with them was justified by, among other things, yet another dollop of
dialectics!
The whole
sorry affair is well documented in Werner Meissner's detailed study; the reader
is directed there for more details. However, a few choice examples will
illustrate the influence
dialectical mayhem had on the minds of CCP theorists. Consider the arguments of
Ai
Ssu-ch'i (whose work was highly influential on Mao's thought):46a
"The law of identity is a rule of the abstract,
absolute unity; it sees in identical things only the aspect of absolute
identity, recognising this aspect alone and disregarding its own contradictory
and antagonistic aspects. Since an object can only be absolutely identical to
itself, it therefore can't be identical to another aspect. One expresses this
with the formula: A is not Not-A, or A is B (sic) and simultaneously it can't be
Not-B.... For example, 'retreat is not attack' (A is Not-A (sic)),
concentration is limitation of democracy (A is B), one can't in this case
develop democracy (simultaneously 'not is Not-B' (sic)). In this definition
(sic), an
object (concept (sic), thing, etc.) is confronted absolutely with another object,
which lies beyond the actual object, a consequence of which is that an object
(A) and the others (Not-A) have no relations at all with each other.... The law
of identity thus only recognises abstract identity, and the law of contradiction
only recognises an absolute opposite." [Ai Ssu-ch'i, 'Formal Logic And
Dialectic', quoted in Meissner (1990), p.107. Bold emphasis added.]
We have
already had occasion to note the
incondite
and
sloppy syntax
found throughout the writings of these 'superior' dialectical logicians, but
here we encounter yet another prize example. For instance, the "A" in this passage is
at one point "retreat",
while "Not-A"
is "not attack"! Ai's schema should therefore have been "A is not-B".
[This is reminiscent of
Palme Dutt's 'dialectical' idea that signing a treaty
with Hitler weakens
the Nazis! In addition, it has already
been shown that the above 'conclusions' only seem to
follow because everything has been turned into an object of some sort. Even
concepts are called objects!]
Despite this, Ai Ssu-ch'i
continues in the same fantastical, almost psychedelic, vein:
"The law of the excluded third specifies: either
there is an absolute identity (A is B) or an absolute opposition (A is not B);
an object can't be simultaneously identical and at the same time be
antagonistic. For example 'concentration' is either limited democracy or
unlimited democracy; it can't at the same time be limited and a developed
democracy. A government in which the people participate is either a democratic
organ or it is not a democratic organ. It can't be simultaneously democratic
and insufficiently democratic. Therefore the law of the excluded third only
recognises opposition or unity, and struggles against the 'unity of opposites'.
This meant that it ['formal logic'] and the dialectic are diametrically
opposed." [Ibid. Bold emphases added.]
This, of course, has nothing whatsoever to do with the LEM;
Ai Ssu-ch'i
has simply made this up (as, indeed,
did Hegel before him).
[LEM = Law of Excluded Middle.]
In relation to the above (i.e, "retreat is not attack"), and the question
whether increased democracy implied further concentration of power at the centre
(which might appear to be diametrically opposed -- but only to those duped by a 'formal' view of the world
--, and which we have already seen Stalin brush aside with a breezy
appeal to DM-'contradictions')
Meissner summarises Ai Ssu-ch'i's main
points as follows:
"1. What is the meaning of 'Retreat is not
attack'? As we will see in more detail below, this formulation referred to the
strategic principles of the long-protracted war....
"For Mao Tse-Tung...the defence of
Wuhan
had no
special meaning. Instead he advocated surrendering the city and building up the
resistance in the countryside. Ai Ssu-ch'i thus defended Mao's tactics, in that
he dismissed the phrase 'Retreat is not attack' as 'formal logically'. To
consider the 'retreat' from Wuhan solely as a retreat or non-attack
corresponded, according to Ai, to the first law of 'formal logic' and was in no
way seen as 'dialectical'. On the other hand, Ai wanted to show that the retreat
was at one and the same time both a retreat and not a retreat.... The retreat
thus contained an attack.
"2. The explanations of 'democratisation' and
'concentration' were also a criticism of
Wang Ming's concepts of setting back
'democratisation' in favour of the 'concentration' of all political and military
forces, and of attempting to commit the CCP exclusively to the support of the
national government. Behind this was hidden the consideration that a possible
'democratisation' of Kuomintang control could lead to an impairment of the
military effectiveness of the United Front. Ai criticised this view as 'formal
logically', because 'democratisation' and 'concentration' were seen as mutually
exclusive contradictions. 'If we thus say: during the war against Japan,
everything must be concentrated and united, but at the same time as much
democracy as possible must be developed, that is, according to the rules of
formal logic, unreasonable, i.e., illogical.' However according to Ai, that was
true only for the rules of 'formal' not of 'dialectical logic.'
"[This was] because, according to
'dialectical logic', 'democratisation' and 'concentration' were not mutually
exclusive but rather represented a unity. Ai thus argued in support of Mao
Tse-tung's position since Mao had often insisted that the 'democratisation' of
all areas of the state by the Kuomintang was essential for the concentration of
all forces in the struggle against Japan.
"3. However, Ai Ssu-ch'i' made a further
observation concerning the relationship between the CCP and the Kuomintang by
speaking of the 'unification of several objects identical to themselves' and by
characterising them as a 'formal-logical' combination of independent, mutually
unrelated objects, which thus represented a state of rest. The 'formal-logical
identity' served him as an example of how the relationship between the two
parties should not be constituted. The United Front was not to be a
condition of repose, but the very reverse: the 'struggle' was to form the
'driving force'.... This was a clear rejection of the concept of the Commintern
faction within the United Front which wanted to suspend the struggle against the
Kuomintang.
"Through the example of the 'law of identity', Ai
also grappled with the question of how far the CCP should acquiesce in the
Kuomintang's demand to base itself on the 'Three principles of the people',
without endangering the independence of the CCP....
'Since the law of identity only recognises the
absolute aspect of identity, one can maintain in the United Front that all
parties and factions have now already given up their independence and have only
one goal; consequently, many people say that the CP has given up Marxism. Since,
on the other hand, the law of contradiction only recognises the absolute
opposite, some people advocate the view that every party and faction must retain
its own independent programme and organisation'. [Ibid.]
"Ai characterised the adherents of the first view
as 'right deviationists' and those of the second as 'left deviationists'....
Both groups...are, according to Ai, 'formal-logical' in their thought; they
consider one aspect of the whole and make it absolute. They both make the
mistake of 'formal logic', which includes only the 'external part' of what
'simultaneously exists[']..., but not the diverse connections of the internal
parts'. 'Formal logic'
recognises only attack and/or retreat, only concentration and/or democracy, only
the 'three principles of the people' and/or communism. However, it is not
capable of comprehending the existing relationships between those respective
pairs of objects....
'Unity is unity, but unity must have
as a basis independence of every party.
Centralised state power is centralised
state power, but a united, effective concentration of forces to the maximum
extent must be established on the basis of democracy. Two opposing sides
penetrate each other.... If one were to write this as a formula, it would be "A
is A and at the same time Not-A". Or, "Affirmation is rejection, rejection is
affirmation."'
"Thus, in concrete terms, 'dialectical logic' can
be explained thus: the United Front is accepted and at the same time rejected,
in that the struggle against the Kuomintang is to be continued within the United
Front." [Meissner (1990), pp.107-10. Bold emphases and link added;
quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
So, once again, we
witness here a dialectician using DM to derive specific
conclusions -- a result required for other, political reasons -- andtheir opposite at the same time, for example:
"Affirmation is rejection,
rejection is affirmation."
Anyone interested in
reading more material like this will find plenty of it --
comprised of page-after-page of
lame-brained
'logic' (not all of it from the writings of
Ai Ssu-ch'i) --
in Meissner's book. In these pages alone
we see how dialectics 'allowed' its Maoist acolytes to interpret the
world in whatever way they found opportune or expedient, just as we can see how DM helped insulate their thought
processes from material reality in front of them.
Consider next the second of the
aforementioned examples: the 'contradiction'
between centralised state power and greater social and democratic accountability. Dialectical
dodges similar to those
deployed by Stalin
were pressed in to service by Mao and his ideological henchmen in order to
rationalise this 'paradox', again by an appeal to the alleged 'contradictory' nature of
'socialist' democracy. [Indeed, we saw some of this 'logic' at work in Ai Ssu-ch'i's
'reasoning' above.]
Mao himself tried to rationalise class-collaboration and the contradictory combination of autocracy with proletarian democracy
along by-now-familiar Stalinist lines. In what follows, he first of all 'establishes' the
truth of certain DM-principles (with some threadbare, home-spun 'logic', thus confirming
their dogmatic and a priori provenance), which obviously meant that no one could
'legitimately' question their veracity or their authority. He was then able to appeal to the supposed
'self-evidence' of these quirky ideas to 'justify' a movement away from democratic
control
as a move toward it.
Only those who didn't 'understand' dialectics could
possibly complain:
"The contradictory aspects in every process
exclude each other, struggle with each other and are in opposition to each
other. Without exception, they are contained in the process of development of
all things and in all human thought. A simple process contains only a
single pair of opposites, while a complex process contains more. And in turn,
the pairs of opposites are in contradiction to one another.
"That is how all things in the objective world
and all human thought are constituted and how they are set in motion.
"This being so, there is an utter lack of
identity or unity. How then can one speak of identity or unity?
"The fact is that no contradictory aspect can
exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each loses the condition for
its existence. Just think, can any one contradictory aspect of a thing or of a
concept in the human mind exist independently? Without life, there would be no
death; without death, there would be no life. Without 'above', there would be no
'below'.... Without landlords, there would be no tenant-peasants; without
tenant-peasants, there would be no landlords. Without the bourgeoisie, there
would be no proletariat; without the proletariat, there would be no bourgeoisie.
Without imperialist oppression of nations, there would be no colonies or
semi-colonies; without colonies or semicolonies, there would be no imperialist
oppression of nations. It is so with all opposites; in given conditions, on the
one hand they are opposed to each other, and on the other they are
interconnected, interpenetrating, interpermeating and interdependent, and this
character is described as identity. In given conditions, all contradictory
aspects possess the character of non-identity and hence are described as being
in contradiction. But they also possess the character of identity and hence are
interconnected. This is what Lenin means when he says that dialectics studies
'how opposites can be and how they become identical'. How then can they be
identical? Because each is the condition for the other's existence. This is the
first meaning of identity.
"But is it enough to say merely that each of the
contradictory aspects is the condition for the other's existence, that there is
identity between them and that consequently they can coexist in a single entity?
No, it is not. The matter does not end with their dependence on each other for
their existence; what is more important is their transformation into each other.
That is to say, in given conditions, each of the contradictory aspects within a
thing transforms itself into its opposite, changes its position to that of its
opposite. This is the second meaning of the identity of contradiction.
"Why is there identity here, too? You see, by
means of revolutionthe proletariat, at one time the ruled, is
transformed into the ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is
transformed into the ruled and changes its position to that originally occupied
by its opposite. This has already taken place in the Soviet Union, as it will
take place throughout the world. If there were no interconnection and identity
of opposites in given conditions, how could such a change take place?
"The Kuomintang, which played a certain positive
role at a certain stage in modern Chinese history, became a
counter-revolutionary party after 1927 because of its inherent class nature and
because of imperialist blandishments (these being the conditions); but it has
been compelled to agree to resist Japan because of the sharpening of the
contradiction between China and Japan and because of the Communist Party's
policy of the united front (these being the conditions). Things in contradiction
change into one another, and herein lies a definite identity....
"To consolidate the dictatorship of the
proletariat or the dictatorship of the people is in fact to prepare the
conditions for abolishing this dictatorship and advancing to the higher stage
when all state systems are eliminated. To establish and build the Communist
Party is in fact to prepare the conditions for the elimination of the Communist
Party and all political parties. To build a revolutionary army under the
leadership of the Communist Party and to carry on revolutionary war is in fact
to prepare the conditions for the permanent elimination of war. These opposites
are at the same time complementary....
"All contradictory things are interconnected; not
only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given
conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full
meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed
'how they happen to be (how they become) identical -- under what conditions
they are identical, transforming themselves into one another'." [Mao
(1961), pp.337-40. Bold emphases added. I have quoted this passage in full
since, when I haven't, I am accused of "taking it out of context".
Quotation marks altered to conform with conventions adopted at this site. Minor
typo corrected -- I have informed the editors over at the Marxist Internet
Archive.]47
Hence, for Mao, as it was for Stalin, less democracy meant
more democracy!
[As we have
seen,
the theory that things "struggle" with and then
turn into their
opposites is defective, which means that DM, the erstwhile theory of
change,
can't in fact account
for change! (See also here.)]
Confused ideas like these have been shown up for what they
are in other Essays posted at this site, but the passages quoted above have been included here to demonstrate
how Maoist versions of DM
helped corrupt not only Mao's thought processes, but also the strategy and tactics of
the CCP.
[Once more, while there were hard-headed political reasons for
these moves, DM provided opportunists like Mao and
Ai Ssu-ch'i with an ideal rhetorical device for selling
anything whatsoever
and its opposite to the rank-and-file of the party.]
DM: tested in practice?
Indeed it was.
The result?
Once again: yet more 'dialectical
contradictions' = yet more dead workers -- and yet more ordure heaped on Marxism.
And, what is more, we can all see the results for ourselves in that model
'socialist' state: China.
At the very least, this means that approximately 20% of the world's population
can't now
(and might not in the foreseeable future ever) be won over to any credible form of
Marxism, since the vast majority have been inured to it, having seen the dire
consequences of this contradictory theory, which preaches 'proletarian
democracy' but won't actually trust them with any -- alongside the "mass-line",
while practicing mass oppression --, these dialectical 'contradictions'
rationalised along sound Stalinist lines.
Chinese workers don't need anyone to
enlighten them about the results of "practice"; the vast majority can see for
themselves the dire political and social consequences of this 'theory'.
But, it is little use you complaining that the
phrase "socialist
billionaire" is
a contradiction in terms. You clearly don't
'understand' dialectics!
Once again, anyone who thinks the above is
prejudicial to Mao, need only reflect on the fact that, since Maoism has been
ditched, China has turned into one of the most successful economies on
earth.
Trotskyism has similarly been cursed by the
Dialectical Deity. Its founder succeeded in welding his followers to the
dialectical doctrine that the 'socialist' regime in the fSU was contradictory
-- as Alex Callinicos notes:
"There is, moreover, a third respect in which the
classical Marxist tradition is relevant to understanding the Eastern European
revolutions. For that tradition gave birth to the first systematic attempt at a
social and historical analysis of Stalinism. Trotsky's
The Revolution
Betrayed
(1937) pioneered that analysis by locating the origins of the
Stalin phenomenon in the conditions of material scarcity prevailing in the Civil
War of 1918-21, in which the bureaucracy of party officials began to develop. He
concluded that the USSR was a 'degenerated workers' state', in which the
bureaucracy had succeeded in politically expropriating the proletariat but left
the social and economic foundations of workers' power untouched. The
contradictions of that analysis, according to which the workers were still
the ruling class of a state which denied them all political power, did not
prevent Trotsky's more dogmatic followers extending it to China and Eastern
Europe, even though the result was to break any connection between socialism and
the self-emancipation of the working class: socialism, it seemed, could be
imposed by the Red Army or peasant guerrillas." [Callinicos (1991), pp.18-19. Bold emphasis
and link added; italic emphasis in the original. Minor typo corrected.]
In which case, it made perfectly good 'dialectical-sense' to suppose that the ruling-class (i.e.,
the
proletariat!) exercised no power at all, and were systematically oppressed for their pains,
even though they
were still supposed to be the ruling-class!
[This is the Trotskyist equivalent of the
"Retreat is attack" nostrum that Ai
Ssu-ch'i tried to sell his readers, which we met earlier.]
Here is Trotsky himself:
"The bourgeois norms of distribution, by hastening the
growth of material power, ought to serve socialist aims -- but only in the last
analysis. The state assumes directly and from the very beginning a dual
character: socialistic, insofar as it defends social property in the means of
production; bourgeois, insofar as the distribution of life's goods is carried
out with a capitalistic measure of value and all the consequences ensuing
therefrom. Such a
contradictory
characterization may horrify the dogmatists and scholastics; we can only offer
them our condolences." [Trotsky
(1977), p.54. Bold emphasis added.]
Hence, because DM
appeared to demand
it, all good Trotskyists were required to defend the USSR as a "workers' state" --, albeit
"degenerated". As he argued at
length [in Trotsky (1971)] only those who failed to "understand" dialectics would
even think to disagree:
"Is
it possible after the conclusion of the German-Soviet pact to consider the USSR
a workers' state? The future of the Soviet state has again and again aroused
discussion in our midst. Small wonder; we have before us the first experiment in
the workers' state in history. Never before and nowhere else has this phenomenon
been available for analysis. In the question of the social character of the USSR, mistakes
commonly flow, as we have previously stated, from replacing the historical fact
with the programmatic norm. Concrete fact departs from the norm. This does not
signify, however, that it has overthrown the norm; on the contrary, it has
reaffirmed it, from the negative side. The degeneration of the first workers'
state, ascertained and explained by us, has only the more graphically shown what
the workers' state should be, what it could and would be under certain
historical conditions. The contradiction between the concrete fact and the
norm constrains us not to reject the norm but, on the contrary, to fight for it
by means of the revolutionary road.... (p.3)
"The events did not catch us unawares. It is
necessary only to interpret them correctly. It is necessary to understand
clearly that sharp contradictions are contained in the character of the USSR
and in her international position. It is impossible to free oneself from those
contradictions with the help of terminological sleight-of-hand ('workers' state'
-- 'not workers' state'). We must take the facts as they are. We must build
our policy by taking as our starting point the real relations and contradictions....(p.24)
"The present political discussion in the party
has confirmed my apprehensions and warning in an incomparably sharper form than
I could have expected, or, more correctly, feared....
The attitude of
[Shachtman
and
Burnham] toward the nature of the Soviet state reproduces point for
point their attitude toward the dialectic....(pp.60-61)
"...Burnham and Shachtman
themselves demonstrated that their attitude toward such an 'abstraction' as
dialectical materialism found its precise manifestation in their attitude toward
the Soviet state.... (pp.61-62)
"Last year I was visited by a young British
professor of political economy, a sympathizer of the
Fourth International.
During our conversation on the ways and means of realizing socialism, he
suddenly expressed the tendencies of
British utilitarianism
in the spirit of
Keynes
and others: 'It is necessary to determine a clear economic end, to choose
the most reasonable means for its realization,'. I remarked: 'I see that you are
an adversary of dialectics.' He replied, somewhat astonished: 'Yes, I don't see
any use in it.' 'However,' I replied to him, 'the dialectic enabled me on the
basis of a few of your observations upon economic problems to determine what
category of philosophical thought you belong to -- this alone shows that there
is an appreciable value in the dialectic.' Although I have received no word
about my visitor since then, I have no doubt that this anti-dialectic
professor maintains the opinion that the USSR is not a workers' state, that
unconditional defense of the USSR is an 'out-moded' opinion.... If it is possible to place a given
person's general type of thought on the basis of his relation to concrete
practical problems, it is also possible to predict approximately, knowing his
general type of thought, how a given individual will approach one or another
practical question. That is the incomparable educational value of the
dialectical method of thought.... (pp.62-63)
"The definition of the USSR given by comrade
Burnham, 'not a workers' and 'not a bourgeois state,' is purely negative,
wrenched from the chain of historical development, left dangling in mid-air,
void of a single particle of sociology and represents simply a theoretical
capitulation of pragmatism before a contradictory historical
phenomenon.
"If Burnham were a dialectical materialist,
he would have probed the following three questions: (1) What is the historical
origin of the USSR? (2) What changes has this state suffered during its
existence? (3) Did these changes pass from the quantitative stage to the
qualitative? That is, did they create a historically necessary domination by
a new exploiting class? Answering these questions would have forced Burnham to
draw the only possible conclusion -- the USSR is still a degenerated workers'
state.... (p.68)
"It is not surprising that the
theoreticians of the opposition who reject dialectic thought capitulate
lamentably before the contradictory nature of the USSR. However the
contradiction between the social basis laid down by the revolution, and the
character of the caste which arose out of the degeneration of the revolution is
not only an irrefutable historical fact but also a motor force. In our
struggle for the overthrow of the bureaucracy we base ourselves on this
contradiction.... (p.69)
"...Dialectic training of the mind, as
necessary to a revolutionary fighter as finger exercises to a pianist, demands
approaching all problems as processes and not as motionless categories.
Whereas vulgar evolutionists, who limit themselves generally to recognizing
evolution in only certain spheres, content themselves in all other questions
with the banalities of 'common sense.'
"A vulgar petty-bourgeois radical is similar to a
liberal 'progressive' in that he takes the USSR as a whole, failing to
understand its internal contradictions and dynamics. When Stalin concluded
an alliance with Hitler, invaded Poland, and now Finland, the vulgar radicals
triumphed; the identity of the methods of Stalinism and fascism was proved. They
found themselves in difficulties however when the new authorities invited the
population to expropriate the land-owners and capitalists -- they had not foreseen
this possibility at all! Meanwhile the social revolutionary measures, carried
out via bureaucratic military means, not only did not disturb our, dialectic,
definition of the USSR as a degenerated workers' state, but gave it the most
incontrovertible corroboration. Instead of utilizing this triumph of Marxian
analysis for persevering agitation, the petty-bourgeois oppositionists began to
shout with criminal light-mindedness that the events have refuted our prognosis,
that our old formulas are no longer applicable.... (pp.70-71)
"Tomorrow the Stalinists will strangle the
Finnish workers. But now they are giving -- they are compelled to give -- a
tremendous impulse to the class struggle in its sharpest form. The leaders of
the opposition construct their policy not upon the 'concrete' process that is
taking place in Finland, but upon democratic abstractions and noble sentiments.... (p.74)
"Anyone acquainted with the history of the
struggles of tendencies within workers' parties knows that desertions to the
camp of opportunism and even to the camp of bourgeois reaction began not
infrequently with rejection of the dialectic. Petty-bourgeois intellectuals
consider the dialectic the most vulnerable point in Marxism and at the same time
they take advantage of the fact that it is much more difficult for workers to
verify differences on the philosophical than on the political plane. This long
known fact is backed by all the evidence of experience.... (p.94)
"The opposition circles consider it possible to
assert that the question of dialectic materialism was introduced by me only
because I lacked an answer to the 'concrete' questions of Finland, Latvia,
India, Afghanistan, Baluchistan and so on. This argument, void of all merit in
itself, is of interest however in that it characterizes the level of certain
individuals in the opposition, their attitude toward theory and toward
elementary ideological loyalty. It would not be amiss, therefore, to refer to
the fact that my first serious conversation with comrades Shachtman and Warde,
in the train immediately after my arrival in Mexico in January 1937, was devoted
to the necessity of persistently propagating dialectic materialism. After
our American section split from the Socialist Party I insisted most strongly on
the earliest possible publication of a theoretical organ, having again in mind
the need to educate the party, first and foremost its new members, in the spirit
of dialectic materialism. In the United States, I wrote at that time, where
the bourgeoisie systematically instills (sic) vulgar empiricism in the workers, more
than anywhere else is it necessary to speed the elevation of the movement to a
proper theoretical level.... (p.142)
"This impulse in the direction of socialist
revolution was possible only because the bureaucracy of the USSR straddles and
has its roots in the economy of a workers' state. The revolutionary utilization
of this 'impulse' by the Ukrainian Byelo-Russians was possible only through the
class struggle in the occupied territories and through the power of the example
of the October Revolution. Finally, the swift strangulation or
semi-strangulation of this revolutionary mass movement was made possible through
the isolation of this movement and the might of the Moscow bureaucracy.
Whoever failed to understand the dialectic interaction of these three factors:
the workers' state, the oppressed masses and the Bonapartist bureaucracy, had
best restrain himself from idle talk about events in Poland...." (p.163)[Trotsky (1971). Bold emphases alone added. Minor typos corrected. I have
reproduced Burnham's response in
Appendix C, where we will see that
many of Trotsky's claims about what the Red Army would or wouldn't do in Finland
and the Baltic States were wildly inaccurate, as he himself later had to admit. So
much for the predictive powers of
DL.]47a
"The Marxist
method, of consciously engaging theory in a constant conflict with practice, has
been under continuous fire ever since the foundation of the Trotskyist movement.
Long before the Fourth International was set up, Trotsky fought many battles,
inside the Russia Left Opposition as well as internationally, against the
impressionistic and empirical method which simply sees this or that series of
events as confirmation or refutation of a set of ideas or 'theories'. Within
the Fourth International, the first great battle took place in 1939-1940 against
the petty-bourgeois opposition of Burnham and Schachtman (sic). This struggle
revolved around all the basic political questions, from the class nature of the
USSR to the revolutionary party and democratic centralism. Trotsky went to great
pains to show that the divisions on these questions flowed inexorably from the
failure of the petty-bourgeois opposition ever to break from idealism and
pragmatism and to adopt the revolutionary objective standpoint of dialectical
materialism.
"Characteristically, the forces of revisionism in the Fourth International have
always resisted the struggle to expose the philosophical roots of their
political positions and have condemned the introduction of these fundamental
questions as a diversion from the 'concrete questions' of the hour." [Slaughter
(1974a), p.xi. Bold emphases added.]
"Actually...Marx absorbed Hegel's idea into Marxism, there is absolutely no
question that Lenin decided a deep study of Hegel would help him to understand
the crisis of the Second International, which had backed the imperialist war.
Lenin would not bother writing a 600 page Hegel Notebook just for his curricula
vitae. Everything he read and wrote was for a purpose. He was almost
monomaniacally devoted to revolution. He once complained about a Beethoven
sonata to the effect that it might take his mind off of capitalist barbarism.
"What preoccupied Lenin in this conjuncture was the failure of the Marxist
movement to understand the world dialectically. This has been endemic to the
Marxist movement since its inception.
"You can see evidence all around you. Take, for example, the 'state
capitalist' theory. What is this except an inability to understand the former
Soviet Union dialectically. They argue that there can only be socialism or
capitalism. Either/Or. Adam Rose of the British SWP, a likable youth all in
all who used to post to the Spoons lists, once cited a passage from Marx that
'defined' socialism. He challenged me to show how the Soviet Union lived up to
that definition. I tried to explain to him that Marxists were more interested
in motion, in dynamic processes but he couldn't get it." [Quoted from
here; accessed 03/08/2003. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases alone added.]
This
theoretical wooliness helped cripple the politics of the
Fourth
International, demobilising militants in the
run-up to WW2, whose cadres, even while they were advocating a
principled anti-imperialist stance elsewhere were quite happy to defend Stalinist
Imperialism.
And, as if to compound this monumental
error, Trotsky also used dialectics to justify Stalin's
invasion of Finland!
As Alex Callinicos pointed out above, such
dialectical devotion prompted
OTs to argue that Red
Army tanks were capable of
bringing socialism to Eastern Europe in the absence of a workers' revolution
(a line that in fact agreed with the analysis put out by the Stalinists
themselves!).
Substitutionism justified by another dose of dialectical double-dealing.
After Trotsky was murdered by a Stalinist agent, the application of 'scientific dialectics' to the contradictory
nature of
fSU (alongside its satellites in Eastern Europe and elsewhere) split the
Fourth International into countless
warring sects,
which have continued to fragment to this day.
Indeed, this is the only aspect of 'practical dialectics' that Trotskyists
seem to have
perfected as their movement
continues to splinter under the weight of its own 'internal contradictions'.
Trotsky's
heirs couldn't quite decide which was the more important principle, loyalty (a) to their founder's 'dialectical method', or
(b) to Marx's belief
that the
emancipation of the working class
must be an act of the workers themselves. If they opted for alternative (b), the
emancipation of the working class couldn't possibly be an act of the Red Army (in Finland, Eastern Europe, or
even North Korea), 'Third World' guerrillas
(in China, Cuba, Nepal, Peru, etc.), nationalist or 'progressive' dictators (in
parts of Africa or South America, for example), or even radicalised
students -- to name just a few of the forces that have been 'dialectically substituted'
for the proletariat by assorted OTs ever since.
On the
other hand, if they chose Box (a), the above made excellent 'dialectical' sense. Socialism from below was now replaced
by
socialism from above,
courtesy of this boss-class theory.
Indeed, if it were possible to a create workers' state in this way
(deformed or degenerated), then Stalinism must indeed be "progressive"
-- and
Pablo
was right, after all!
It is little use complaining that this contradicts Trotsky's belief that
Stalinism is inherently counter-revolutionary (as, for instance,
these comrades have tried to argue, again along sound 'dialectical' lines), since, if everything is
contradictory, then on equally sound 'dialectical' lines, so is Stalinism.
Hence, on that basis, the fSU is both counter-revolutionary and 'progressive'
all rolled into one -- as we witnessed, for example, when the
Red Army invaded
Afghanistan. [This link leads to an article which is plainly the
Spartacist equivalent of the "Retreat is attack", made famous by
Ai
Ssu-ch'i.]
[I hasten to add that I don't think Stalinism is
progressive; quite the reverse. But, if I were a DM-fan, I could
easily 'prove' it to be the most progressive force in human history --
and its
opposite at the same time!]
Dialectics has been used, and is still being used, to
justify every conceivable form of
substitutionism.
Just to take one more example: dialectical dissembling allowed
Ted Grant to
invent yet another
contradictory idea --
"Proletarian
Bonapartism" -- in order to account for,
or rationalise, the fact that the Stalinist regime in the fSU and the Maoist clique in
China were actually oppressing the supposed ruling-class: i.e.,
workers!
That contradictory fact didn't mean that
they weren't workers' states. Far from
it, it proved they were!
[The ghost of
Ai
Ssu-ch'i lives on! (There is much more on this in Note 48.)]
All this dialectical dithering has
gravely wounded Trotskyism. It might never recover. At present the signs aren't
at all promising. The
difficulties recently experienced by UK-Respect (and
now the UK-SWP) are just another
sign
of this long-term malaise.
Woolly dialectical 'thinking' like this has infected the movement from top to bottom, to
such an extent that mundane tactical discussions are often rendered opaque in
the extreme at the hands of DM-fans -- a faint echo of the gobbledygook
regularly
churned out by academic dialecticians engaged in
the production of 'High Theory'.
Here, for example, are two paragraphs taken from a recent letter written by the New Zealand SWP to the UK-SWP:
"'The critics of the [UK] SWP's position have organised themselves under the slogan
'firm in principles, flexible in tactics'. But separating principles and tactics in
this way is completely un-Marxist. Tactics derive from principles. Indeed
the only way that principles can become effective is if they are embodied in
day-to-day tactics.' [This is a quote from the UK-SWP.]
"In contrast, Socialist Worker -- New Zealand sees
Respect -- and other 'broad left' formations, such as
Die Linke
in Germany, the
Left Bloc in Portugal, the
PSUV
in Venezuela and
RAM
in New Zealand
-- as
transitional formations, in the sense that Trotsky would have understood.
In programme and organization, they must 'meet the class half-way' -- to provide a dialectical unity between
revolutionary principle and reformist mass consciousness. If they have an
electoral orientation, we must face the fact that this can't be avoided at this
historical point. Lenin said in 'Left-Wing' Communism that
parliamentary politics are not yet obsolete as far as the mass of the class are
concerned -- this is not less true in 2007 than it was in 1921. The question is
not whether Respect should go in a 'socialist' or 'electoralist' direction, but
in how Respect's electoral programme and strategy can embody a set of
transitional demands which intersect with the existing electoralist
consciousness of the working class." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Tactics from principles, or flexible tactics from
inflexible principles? WTF does that mean? From which 'god'-forsaken Thesaurus have these
gems been dredged?
Internal Bulletins and Documents are full of empty, but
radical-sounding rallying calls like this. Phrases like "the relationship is
dialectical" and "the current situation is contradictory" litter such
literary productions
and are invariably a sign that the one using them has run out of arguments to
support their case.
Consider a recent example: ex-member of the
UK-SWP,
John
Rees, sought to defend the "united front of special kind", entered into
by the UK-SWP back in 2004. He did so with a stock phrase, right out of The Dialecticians'
Handy Phrasebook; it was -- wait for it -- a "unity
of opposites"! On that basis -- as we saw above was the case with Mao -- any sort of
class-collaboration is 'justifiable'. Alas, this desperate dialectical
dodge was in its own small way responsible for the
subsequent split in the SWP (and for
many of its
subsequent 'problems' -- indeed, it
might never recover).
Dialectical
incantations like this are then turned around and used to berate whoever might
have fallen
foul of the CC member (or party theorist) who has just hauled these dodges out
of the archives, raised from the dead or imported from
the last faction fight --, this frame of mind aggravated by far too many years
of
"dialectical training" than is good for any human being to
have to endure.
This means that the Stalinists aren't the only
ones who can change tack overnight, and 'dialectically' create an opposite
analysis within hours of the ink having dried on the previous line. Here is a
description of how
the UK-SWP's CC has responded to a sizeable faction in their midst
(comprised partly of party heavyweights):
"The faction includes a whole raft of middle to senior
cadre, including 10 members of the NC [National Committee -- RL] and perhaps as
many former members of the CC; it includes people of unimpeachable moral
authority within the SWP, such as Pat Stack and Tony Cliff's biographer, Ian
Birchall. It is one thing to fold Richard Seymour into an amorphous morass of
hostile anti-Leninists and 'creeping feminists'. Ian Birchall simply does not
fit the bill.
"It was too much for the CC, in the end. Having spent
every bit of energy it could muster on preventing the opposition from forcing a
'special conference' -- from ruling motions out of order on technical grounds,
to imposing an arbitrary February 1 deadline for such motions --
it has executed
a whiplash U-turn
and called one itself.
"The CC's statement on the matter is remarkable
principally for being almost identical to every other statement the CC has put
out so far during this crisis. There are the usual attempts to foster a 'bunker
mentality' among the membership, shoring it up against 'attacks'...; the usual
scare stories about the horrors of permanent factions. There is just that one,
tiny, almost insignificant difference: that one week ago, such 'arguments' were
being mustered against the idea of revisiting the affair at a special
conference, but now they have mysteriously become arguments for doing
so." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
Once more, if you are trained to 'think
dialectically', U-turns like this are par for the course, if not de rigueur.
[Apologies for that mixed metaphor! Several more examples of this phenomenon
are given in Essay Ten Part
One. See also my own experience of 'applied dialectics', reported in
Essay One.
Similar things are now (allegedly) taking place in the UK-SWP's current
crisis.]
So, even in the Trotskyist 'tradition', dialectics is still
lumbering on, helping to wreck all in its path.
This main sub-section should be read
by NOTs (like myself) just as it was intended. However,
any Maoist or Stalinist readers who have made it this far should perhaps read it as
yet more
proof of the extent to which dialectics can, and has been 'misused' by us 'trots' --
although, it might prove difficult for them provide an objective criterion that
distinguishes the 'proper' use of dialectics from its 'misuse'. [And good luck with that
one!]
OTs should make of this
material what they can. They will, anyway, have given up on these Essays long ago -- even
if a single one of them has actually bothered to read any of them. In which
case, they are unlikely
to have made it this far! Indeed, if the past is anything to go by, such
'scientifically'-minded souls will be busy warning
the unwary to avoid casting their innocent eyes on these infidel pages lest they
be led astray by my "elitism", "empiricism", "arrogance", and "formal thinking"
(the
OT equivalent of smallpox). (Any who find this difficult to believe should check
this or
this out (unfortunately, that site might vanish
off the internet any week now --added later: indeed, it has!) -- or several of the links posted
here
-- where they should find those doubts assuaged.)
Either way, this section will
help demonstrate that as far as dialectics is concerned, all four 'traditions' share a
common fondness for the same sort of mystificatory jargon, rhetorical flourishes
(mostly lifted word-for-word from Engels, or the other DM-classics -- Lenin, Stalin and Mao were
themselves particularly good at this),
sub-Aristotelian 'logic', and
Mickey Mouse Science, all the while using this
infinitely malleable theory to 'justify' almost anything which they find
expedient, and its opposite --
as we have seen was the case in the last three
sub-sections.
In fact, as far as the
dialectics of nature is concerned it is hard to slip a party card between the views
expressed by MISTs, STDs, OTs, NOTs, and, indeed, non-Leninist Marxists.
At this point, it is pertinent to ask the
following question: Why did the ruling-classes of the former Stalinist
states (particularly the fSU) find DM so conducive to their interests? Why were
they such avid fans of 'traditional' Marxist Philosophy? An unambiguous answer to this
query is all the more pressing in view of what Marx appeared to say about
'the
dialectic':
"In its mystified form, the dialectic became
the fashion in Germany, because it seemed to transfigure and glorify what
exists. In its rational form it is a scandal and an abomination to the
bourgeoisie and its doctrinaire spokesmen, because it includes in its
positive understanding of what exists a simultaneous recognition of its
negation, its inevitable destruction; because it regards every historically
developed form as being in a fluid state, in motion, and therefore grasps its
transient aspect as well; and because it does not let itself be impressed by
anything (sic), being in its essence critical and revolutionary." [Marx (1976),
p.103. Bold emphasis added.]
In
view of the above,
one of the following must be the case: (i) The ruling-classes of
the former Stalinist states weren't
part of a new, capitalist ruling-class, (ii) Marx was wrong, or (iii) He was
speaking
metaphorically, even hyperbolically
(in view of his obvious personification of 'the dialectic', where he tells us
that it "does not let itself be
impressed by anything").
It could be replied
(by OTs and NOTs) that in the hands
of STD hacks the dialectical method became "wooden and formulaic"; it was
little more than the "cynical and self-serving creed of a new and brutal ruling
class." [Rees (1998), p.196.]
While Rees's description of the nature of the Stalinist ruling-elite won't be questioned here -- or anywhere else for
that matter -- the rest of what he had to say is, however,
highly questionable.
[TAR = The Algebra of
Revolution, i.e., Rees (1998).]
Having said that, Rees then proceeded to
devote fifty-nine pages of his book lionising the work of that Stalinist, György Lukács
(ibid., pp.202-61). And he isn't the only one. Here is ex-UK-SWP-er, Chris
Nineham:
"Georg Lukacs' revolutionary writings of the 1920s provide a devastating account
of the way capitalist commodification shapes every aspect of our lives. In
particular, they show how living in this commodified world can blind people to
capitalism’s underlying drives and therefore prolong the system’s existence.
"But unlike
so much of the critical theory that came after his seminal essays collected in History
and Class Consciousness, Lukacs doesn't stop at exposing capitalism's
mystifying qualities. He is in fact focused on revealing the other, often
ignored but explosive side of the commodification of human beings, the aspects
which periodically lead to rebellion. What the right finds even more
objectionable about these great works of philosophy is their preoccupation with
turning this rebellion into revolution. Not content with identifying the source
of mass opposition to capitalism, Lukacs was concerned to work out how conscious
human action can encourage and develop resistance into a movement to overthrow
reification by overturning the system that creates it." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 06/08/2017. Italic emphasis and link added.
Original spelling left unchanged.]
I have yet to see anyone describe Lukács's
works as "wooden and lifeless". Of course, it is always possible to argue that
History and Class Consciousness [i.e.,
Lukács (1971)] was written before Stalinism had crippled his thought,
and that might have been a successful reply to have made before Rees also
helped publish Lukács (2000) in the UK, a book that was written a few years
later (and which defended the extension of 'the dialectic' into nature) -- not
to mention his subsequent publications: e.g., Lukács (1975,
1978a,
1978b, and
1980), all of which are held in high esteem by many non-Stalinist Marxists.
This is despite Lukács's anti-Trotskyist, pro-Stalinist, diatribes -- for
example
this one, written in 1968. Here is quasi-revolutionary from
the HCD-faternity,
Ross Wolfe (who also appears to be a Lukács fan):
"Georg
Lukács wrote in his 1967 preface to the reissue of History and Class
Consciousness that he 'always rejected' Trotskyite positions. Several years
later he told
Perry
Anderson that he disliked Trotsky immediately upon their meeting in 1920,
striking him as a 'poseur.' If one goes back to the original version of Lukács'
essay 'What is Orthodox Marxism?' published in 1919, one reads: 'As truly
orthodox, dialectical Marxists, Lenin and Trotsky paid little attention to the
so-called 'facts'… Lenin and Trotsky understood the true reality, the necessary
materialization of the world revolution; it was to this reality, not to the
'facts,' that they adjusted their actions. It was they who were vindicated by
reality, and not the apostles of Realpolitik… swaying to and fro like
reeds in the wind.'" [Quoted from
here; accessed 06/08/2017. Quotation marks altered to conform ith the
conventions adopted at this site. Italic emphases in the original. Link
added.]
This, of course, helps explain why, for instance, UK-SWP outlets (such as
"Bookmarks" in London) find they can sell
books on dialectics written by openly
Stalinist and rabidlyanti-Trotskyist writers -- like Cornforth
among others --, why an
Orthodox
Trotskyist site can link to arch-Stalinist, J D Bernal's writings on DM (link at the
foot of the latter page), and why some OTs openly appeal to the work of STDs like
Ilyenkov
(for
example). The
old
WRP were, for instance, rather fond of Ilyenkov's terminally obscure work;
one
of the fragments that survived the WRP's meltdown thirty odd years ago still
appear to be enamoured of it. Many HCDs also look like
they are avid Ilyenkov fans; Historical Materialism (one of the in-house journals of the
HCD Tendency) has even published
a
collection of his work -- or rather Brill, a capitalist concern not known
for its cheap, worker-friendly or affordable publications, has published it on their
behalf!
Indeed, up until a few years ago, OTs, STDs,
NOTs and MISTs could, one and all, read and study classic texts published by
Progress Publishers and
Foreign Languages Press (Stalinist and Maoist publishing houses,
respectively, which were also regularly sold in and by Trotskyist outlets a generation or so
ago -- and still are in their second hand departments). [See also
the rather odd anomaly mentioned in Note
19a.]
In addition, it is
also worth pointing out
that even avowedly Stalinist versions of DM emphasise change through
contradiction, often in terms indistinguishable from those found in TAR,
or other NOT-, and OT-texts -- anyone who doubts this should read, for example,
Shirokov (1937).
A question seldom asked is this: Why were such State Capitalist/Stalinist/'Socialist'
regimes happy to busy themselves churning out classic, and post-classic, works
on DM by the container load? Surely, if Marx were right, that would be like
Dracula
running a
garlic farm, or Superman a
Kryptonite
factory?!
Figure Nine: Kryptonite -- An Abomination To The Bourgeoisie?
Perhaps this helps account for the fact that
books on DM are often published by capitalist
enterprises, too -- indeed,
TAR
was itself
published by Routledge, Bertell Ollman's Dance of the Dialectic
by the University of Illinois Press, and Raya Dunayevskaya's The
Power of Negativity by Lexington Books, Ilyenkov's work by Brill, and so on. How is it
that
capitalist enterprises like these find they can publish works about a theory which is supposed to be an "abomination" in
their eyes?
Of course, all of this becomes explicable if, as is argued here,
DM is
itself part of an ancient and long-standing tradition of ruling-class thought.
It is inexplicable
otherwise.
It could be argued in response that such outlets also
sell books on HM. However, since I am not committed to the truth of Marx's claim
(I merely quoted it to embarrass NOTs and
HCDs, among others), I am not committed
either to the idea that
one or both, DM and HM, is/are an anathema to the ruling-class, or, indeed, to
any capitalist publishing house. Clearly they sell such books to make a profit
-- just as they sell books on
magic and mysticism. [What was it again that Lenin said about
ropes?]
Nevertheless, the alleged differences that are supposed to exist between
the three main strands of 'Marxist dialectics' (Stalinist, Maoist, and Trotskyist) are considerably more
difficult to find than their similarities. Indeed, we can test the veracity of that
allegation
if a dozen or more quotations are compared -- these have been lifted from a
selection of STD and non-STD sources, the identification of which will be left
until the end to assist in their non-biased appraisal.
[Apologies are
once more offered in advance for the
mind-numbingly
repetitive and mantra-like nature of the following quotations, but they are
typical of the overwhelming majority of books and articles published in the DM-tradition,
and, indeed, on-line.]
[1] "Its conception of the inter-relation of
Theory and Practice, is the vital essence of Marxism and is that one aspect of
its many-faceted unity in which the significance of Dialectical Materialism is
most clearly seen…. This unity is a unity of inter-relation: it is
Materialist in that it is based on the primacy of practice, and
Dialectical in its postulation of the indispensable precondition for both
the practice and the unity….
"Its world-conception is Materialist
alike in its Objectivity and in its Activity -- in that the world is conceived as
a totality, and by means of its inseparably connected and never ceasing
interacting movements.
"And it is Dialectical in that these
inter-acting movements are recognised as begetting, of necessity, a perpetual
self-transformation of the Universe as a whole -- a universally inter-connected
series of processes in which old forms, formations, and inter-relations are
constantly being destroyed and replaced by new forms…."
[2] "Materialist dialectics was born of the
generalisation of scientific achievements and also of mankind's historical
experience, which showed that social life and human consciousness, like nature
itself, are in a state of constant change and development….
"Every system in the world is
formed through interaction between its constituent elements. In exactly the same
way all bodies acquire their properties through interaction and motion, through
which their properties are manifested. Interaction is universal…."
[3] "Dialectics is the logic
of movement, of evolution, of change. Reality is too full of contradictions, too
elusive, too manifold, too mutable to be snared in any single formula…. Each
particular phase of reality has its own laws and its own peculiar categories….
These laws and categories have to be discovered by direct investigation of the
concrete whole; they can't be excogitated by mind alone before the material
reality is analysed. Moreover, all reality is constantly changing, disclosing
ever new aspects of itself which have to be taken into account and which can't
be encompassed in the old formulas, because they are not only different from but
often contradictory to them."
[4] "Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does
not regard nature as just an agglomeration of things, each existing
independently of the others, but it considers things as 'connected with,
dependent on and determined by each other'. Hence, it considers that nothing can
be understood taken by itself, in isolation….
"Contrary to metaphysics,
dialectics considers everything as in 'a state of continuous movement and
change, of renewal and development….'
"The dialectical method
demands, first, that we should consider things, not each by itself, but always
in their interconnection with other things."
[5] "The dialectical [method]…involves, first
and foremost, three principles: totality, change and contradiction….
"Totality refers to the
insistence that the various seemingly separate elements of which the world is
composed are in fact related to one another….
"In a dialectical system, the
entire nature of the part is determined by its relationships with the other
parts and so with the whole. The part makes the whole, and the whole makes the
parts….
"Totality alone is not,
however, a sufficient definition of the dialectic….
"Change, development,
instability…are the very conditions for which a dialectical approach is designed
to account….
"A dialectical approach seeks
to find the cause of change within the system…. If change is internally
generated, it must be a result of contradiction, of instability and development
as inherent properties of the system itself."
[6] "Marxist dialectics…examines the world in
constant motion, change and development….
"To gain knowledge of objects
and phenomena, it is necessary first of all to study their constant change and
development. To really know an object we must examine it in its development,
'self-motion', change.
"…Dialectics sees the sources
of development in the contradictions inherent in objects and phenomena….
"The material world is not only a developing,
but also a connected, integral whole. Its objects and phenomena do not
develop of themselves, in isolation, but in inseverable [sic] connection or
unity with other objects and phenomena….
"One of the most important aims of
materialist dialectics is the study of the world as an integral connected
whole, the examination of the universal connections of things."
[7] "Dialectics is also the
totality of the forms of natural and socio-historical development it its
universal form. For this reason the laws of dialectics are the laws of
development of things themselves, the laws of development of the self-same world
of natural and historical development. These laws are realised by mankind (in
philosophy) and verified by the practice of transforming both nature and
socio-economic relations."
[8] "Everything is not only part of the great
world process but is essentially a process. Its 'nature' can't be understood
apart from the form of change it undergoes, that is, inherent in it….
"But this development is not
something that proceeds in an automatic fashion, without cause…. Development is
always the result of internal conflict as well as of external relations,
themselves including conflict. It can only be explained and rationally grasped
to the extent that the internal contradictions of the thing have been
investigated."
[9] "[Dialectics] is a critique of static,
fixed categories usually used in science -- categories valid within certain
limits, which differ according to the case, but which prove inadequate to fully
grasp the nature of reality….
"[A] further characteristic
typical of processes of change is the 'negation of the negation' -- development
through a new synthesis emerging which surpasses and transforms the elements of
the 'contradiction'."
[10] "Dialectical thinking analyses all
things and phenomena in their continuous change…. Hegel in his Logic
established a series of laws: change of quantity into quality, development
through contradictions."
[11] "Dialectics is the logic of motion,
development, evolution…. Engels, following Hegel, called those who think in
absolute and unchanging categories, that is, who visualize the world as an
aggregate of unchanging qualities, metaphysicians….
"In these abstract formulas
we have the most general laws (forms) of motion, change, the transformation of
the stars of the heaven, of the earth, nature, and human society….
"Dialectics is the logic of development. It
examines the world -- completely without exception -- not as a result of creation,
of a sudden beginning, the realization of a plan, but as a result of motion, of
transformation. Everything that is became the way it is as a result of
lawlike development….
"Thus, 'the materialist
dialectic' (or 'dialectical materialism') is not an arbitrary combination of two
independent terms, but is a differentiated unity -- a short formula for a whole
and indivisible worldview, which rests exclusively on the entire development of
scientific thought in all its branches, and which alone serves as a scientific
support for human praxis."
[12] "Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics
does not regard Nature as an accidental agglomeration of things, of phenomena,
unconnected with, isolated from, and independent of, each other, but as a
connected and integral whole, in which things…are organically connected with,
dependent on, and determined by, each other.
"The dialectical method
therefore holds that no phenomenon in Nature can be understood if taken by
itself, isolated from surrounding phenomena….
"Contrary to metaphysics,
dialectics holds that Nature is not a state of rest and immobility, stagnation
and immutability, but a state of continuous movement and change, of continuous
renewal and development….
"The dialectical method
therefore requires that phenomena should be considered not only from the
standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the
standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into
being and going out of being….
"Contrary
to metaphysics, dialectics holds that internal contradictions are inherent in
all things and phenomena of Nature…."
[13]"The
dialectical philosophy of Hegel deals with processes, not isolated events. It
deals with things in their life, not their death, in their inter-relations, not
isolated, one after the other. This is a startlingly modern and scientific way
of looking at the world. Indeed, in many aspects Hegel was far in advance of his
time....
"Dialectics is a method of
thinking and interpreting the world of both nature and society. It is a way of
looking at the universe, which sets out from the axiom that everything is in a
constant state of change and flux. But not only that. Dialectics explains that
change and motion involve contradiction and can only take place through
contradictions. So instead of a smooth, uninterrupted line of progress, we have
a line which is interrupted by sudden and explosive periods in which slow,
accumulated changes (quantitative change) undergoes a rapid acceleration, in
which quantity is transformed into quality. Dialectics is the logic of
contradiction....
"When we first contemplate
the world around us, we see an immense and amazingly complex series of
phenomena, an intricate web of seemingly endless change, cause and effect,
action and reaction. The motive force of scientific investigation is the desire
to obtain a rational insight into this bewildering labyrinth, to understand it
in order to conquer it. We look for laws which can separate the general from the
particular, the accidental from the necessary, and enable us to understand the
forces that give rise to the phenomena which confront us....
"In general, we can only
understand things by comparing them to other things. This expresses the
dialectical concept of universal interconnections. To analyse things in their
movement, development and relationships is precisely the essence of the
dialectical method. It is the exact antithesis of the mechanical mode of thought
(the 'metaphysical' method in the sense of the word used by Marx and Engels)
which views things as static and absolute. This was precisely the defect of the
old classical Newtonian view of the universe, which, for all its achievements,
never escaped from the one-sidedness which characterised the mechanistic world
outlook."
[14] "The second fundamental
principle of dialectical materialism lies in its theory of movement (or theory
of development). This means the recognition that movement is the form of the
existence of matter, an inherent attribute of matter, a manifestation of the
multiplicity of matter. This is the principle of the development of the world.
The combination of the principle of the development of the world with the
principle of the unity of the world, set forth above, constitutes the whole of
the world view of dialectical materialism. The world is nothing else but the
material world in a process of unlimited development....
"Dialectical
materialism's theory of movement is in opposition first of all with
philosophical idealism and with the theological concepts of religion. The
fundamental nature of all philosophical idealism and religious theology derives
from their denial of the unity and material nature of the world; and in
imagining that the movement and development of the world takes place apart from
matter, or took place at least in the beginning apart from matter, and is the
result of the action ofspirit, God, or divine forces....
"The causes of
the transformation of matter is to be found not without, but within. It is not
because of the impulsion of external mechanical forces, but because of the
existence within the matter in question of two components different in their
nature and mutually contradictory which struggle with one another, thus giving
an impetus to the movement and development of the matter. As a result of the
discovery of the laws of such movement and transformation, dialectical
materialism is capable of enlarging the principle of the material unity of the
world, extending it to the history of nature and society. Thus, not only it ispossible to investigate the world considered as matter in perpetual
movement, but the world can also be investigated as matter endlessly in movement
from a lower form to a higher form. That is to say, it is possible to
investigate the world as development and process.
"Dialectical
materialism investigate[s] the development of the world as a progressive
movement from the inorganic to the organic, and from thence to the highest form
of the movement of matter (society)."
[15] "Nature is
not an accidental collection of unconnected isolated independent things, but a
connected whole, in which all things are connected, determined by and dependent
on each other. Therefore nothing can be understood by itself -- in isolation --
but the way to understand anything is to see how it is conditioned by the
circumstances in which it arises....
"Nature is not
in a state of rest. Everything is continually moving and changing; there is
continuous renewal and development. Something is always arising and developing,
something is always disintegrating and dying away.
"Therefore we
must always think of things in motion, considering where they are
coming from and where they are going. And we must attend especially to what is
new, to what is arising and developing, because nothing persists
unchanged, and what seems established and lasting may already be about to pass
away....
"Every process
of development is a process of conflict, in which something is dying away, and
something is growing up, and this conflict between tendencies operating in
opposite directions is what conditions the whole process. A sharp break or
decisive leap occurs when one of the tendencies gains a decisive dominance over
the other.
"Thus the
development of the world is not a smooth, harmonious unfolding, but conflict and
contradiction are right at the very heart of things -- as Lenin put it in one
place: 'Dialectics is the study of contradiction within the very essence of
things.'
[16]
"Today...most people have no problem with the idea of scientific materialism.
Materialism is the basis of all scientific knowledge, and it says simply that
reality has an objective, concrete independence: there is nothing beyond nature
-- no supernatural god, fate or destiny. The laws of nature are to be found
within nature.
"Few people, either, will have a problem with the idea that this material
reality is in a constant process of change and transformation. Under a
laboratory microscope apparently dead matter is seen to be a mass of living
cells and organisms. Scientists have discovered proof that the universe itself
is still expanding.
"But what are the laws of this motion? Can we begin to discern general features
of the way things change? Can we codify these laws without imposing some
abstract scheme or model on our investigations?
"Marxists recognise the danger of this, but still believe that the essential
laws of motion -- both of nature and society -- can be codified. The first
attempts to do this used traditional, or formal, logic. The Greek philosopher,
Aristotle, systematised these laws which still hold good -- within certain
limits -- to this day.
"At the centre of these theories was the idea that a thing is equal to itself
and cannot therefore be at the same time equal to something else. Crucial as
this idea was for the development of arithmetic, basic accounting and the
categorisation of the natural world, it contained a basic flaw. It could not
account for change, for a process of becoming.
"It is precisely when things are in a process of development from one thing into
something else, that new and higher forms of logic are needed. Dialectics
applied to a study of all social and physical phenomena show that 'something'
can be itself and at the same time be in the process of becoming 'something
else'.
[17]
"Dialectical materialism is the world outlook and method of scientific
socialism. It holds that every natural, social and intellectual formation is the
transitory product of given material conditions. That all phenomena come into
being, develop and eventually perish as a result of the action of the
contradictions within them. For Marx and Engels dialectical materialism provided
the means by which the illusions of religion could be dispelled, philosophy
could be retrieved from speculation to serve the liberation of humanity, and
theory could be put on a scientific basis....
"All
phenomena contain contradictions which form the unity of opposites: society is
divided into classes. Marx's philosophy is partisan because reality is partisan.
Thought and philosophy could not be neutral because they are parts of a world in
struggle. In our epoch that struggle, and the principle contradiction
determining the fate of humanity, is the struggle between capital and labour....
"Matter
exists in motion. All matter, galaxies, plants, molecules and society is in a
state of motion. Human beings are part of matter, as is consciousness, but exist
in conflict with it. That conflict is conducted through production, which
discloses human kind to itself...."49
[I
have also quoted a hundred or more passages like the above -- no exaggeration! -- from all wings of Marxism, the vast majority of which say
more-or-less the same things:
here,
here,
and
here.
As noted earlier, the number of virtually indistinguishable passages like these
can be multiplied by at least one order of magnitude -- withease --, as any
reader possessed of inordinate patience and plenty of
Prozac
may readily
confirm -- providing they have access to the countless books and articles on DM that have
been written over the last hundred and forty years. The extremelymind-numbing
and repetitive nature of
such quotations (the vast majority of which agree with each other down to the minutest of
details, and which use almost exactly the same words and sentences --
often the latter have simply been
lifted verbatim from Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao or Trotsky) confirms the allegation advanced several times
at this iste: key DM-theses are
living disproof of
Heraclitus -- they never change.]
In many ways, these passages not only
closely resemble one another, they are reminiscent of the role served by the ritual and liturgical passages
intoned by the
genuine god-botherers among us; plainly, the
repetition of
boilerplate text like this is more important than their
content. Hence, in books and articles on dialectics (especially those found in the
LCD
tendency), the
actual words used are more an affirmation of
orthodoxy, a
commitment to
tradition, than they are a genuine contribution -- or any contribution
at all -- to (i) socialist theory, (ii) understanding the world or (iii)
knowing how to
change it.
[However, it is important to add what
is not being suggested: that Stalinism and Maoism, on the one
hand, and
Trotskyism, on the other, are remotely similar in any other respect; indeed, in relation to their commitment to
the international revolution and
change from below, the
difference between Trotskyism and the other two'traditions' couldn't be
starker. However, in relation to their fondness for DM-phraseology, it is hard to slip a party card between
them.]49a
Nevertheless, awkward questions remain: How
was it possible for the Stalinist ruling-classes and bureaucrats (of the fSU, Eastern
Europe, China and elsewhere) to adopt and then advocate enthusiastically a supposedly revolutionary theory
(i.e., DM),
which is identical in almost every respect to that espoused by genuine revolutionaries
--
if dialectics is such an "abomination" to all members of the
ruling-class and their hangers on? Even an allegedly "wooden and lifeless" version of DM (with its
emphasis on 'Totality' and 'change through contradiction', etc., etc.) would be
no less "abominable".
The standard explanation why DM is accepted
by counter-revolutionaries (such as the above Stalinists) and revolutionaries
alike is that the Stalinist version is "wooden and lifeless", whereas the
revolutionary strain is 'vibrant' and 'un-dogmatic'. But this is highly implausible,
especially since both versions seem to be equally
wooden, lifeless and dogmatic, and
are practically indistinguishable from one another on the page or screen. It isn't as
if when OTTs (or even NOTs) write the very same words as
STDs and
MISTs their use of
these phrases is somehow less
'wooden' or 'lifeless'. Not, that is, unless Trotskyists use aspecial sort of
ink, paper or computer screen.
[STD = Stalinist
Dialectician; MIST = Maoist Dialectician; OT =
Orthodox Trotskyist; NOT = Non-OT; OTT = OT
Theorist.]
Even so, it could be objected that it is the use to which dialectics is put --
not the phraseology -- that
distinguishes (i) Stalinist and Maoist from (ii) Trotskyist and revolutionary versions of the
dialectic. Hence, when
the latter forms
part of a genuinely revolutionary movement -- as opposed to its use by a
cynically counter-revolutionary 'clique' -- it is
vibrant and alive.
[The above passage can be read the same way by
supporters of each and every strain of Dialectical Marxism -- just swap the names around as the indignation
or inclination takes you.]
In fact, truth be told, some STDs
and MISTs display a far more nuanced and sophisticated
understanding of "the dialectic" than
many OTs -- Lukács,
Ilyenkov
and
Oizerman come to mind, again, here. Another is
Alexander Spirkin's intelligent analysis of the Part/Whole relation, discussed
here; another is Yurkovets's
analysis of "quality".
To that we can add Shirokov (1937), Thalheimer (1936), and Gollobin (1986) -- to
say nothing of Bukharin (2005) and Ai
Ssu-ch'i
from earlier.
Be this as it may, the response volunteered
three paragraphs back still assumes that the 'dialectic' has a genuine role to play in the revolutionary
movement. This idea has been subjected to sustained criticism in this Essay and throughout this site.
The onus therefore is on those
who claim
this 'theory' has some sort of use or role to play -- i.e., that it can
even be accurately described as 'vibrant' -- the onus is on them to show how the 'dialectic' has featured in a positive way anywhere, at any time,
in the entire history of Marxism.49b
But, even if
that could be demonstrated,
it would still be worth pointing out that in the hands of the STDs and MISTs
(or, in the hands of the OTTs and NOTs, if you are a MIST or an STD yourself!)
the dialectic was, and still is, used to derive conclusions that contradict
-- not without some irony -- those drawn by other revolutionaries from other
wings of Marxism. As we have seen, STDs and MISTs (or OTs and NOTs) use
dialectical concepts to justify everything from the denial of party democracy
and the concentration of power to the accusations made against the German SPD (that they were
"social Fascists"), from the about-turn in the Popular Front to the pact with Hitler and the subsequent war
against the Nazis, from the fight against Trotsky (accusing him of being a
fascist agent -- if true, that should have in fact made him a hero in the Russia
of 1940!),
to the argument justifying socialism in one country, from the repeated invasions of Eastern Europe
to the opposite conclusion drawn about those very same U-turns (often these are
advanced by the same individual or
party, sometimes on the same page or even in the same speech!).
In addition, we have even seen how Trotsky scandalously used
DM to
justify Stalin's invasion of Finland, and how the application of this theory to
the allegedly 'Degenerated' Workers' States (in the fSU and
Eastern Europe) split the Trotskyist
movement from top to bottom into countless warring sects. DM was also employed by NOTs to justify
the theory of State
Capitalism -- at the same time as it was being used by OTTs to 'refute' that very theory, in
order to show how "un-dialectical" it was -- just as it has been deployed to rationalise
substitutionist strategies of every stripe!
Ironically, the 'correct' use of the
dialectic amounts to its being employed to prove anything a particular theorist
finds expedient and its opposite!
Given such a shameful and opportunist history, one would
have thought that serious Marxists would want to disown anything that
remotely resembled the 'dialectic', especially if their particular version of it
is indistinguishable from the lethal STD stain -- or, from the "wooden",
"revisionist"/"abstract" MIST/OT/NOT version (depending, of course, on which one
of these traditions the reader doesn't belong to).
Finally, the quotation from Marx that opened this section simply said that the
dialectic was an "abomination" to the bourgeoisie. He didn't qualify these
words. He certainly didn't rule out a "wooden" version of it being an "abomination". What he wrote
has
to be qualified considerably to make his words fit the picture the above counter-claim wishes to
paint.
To be sure, Marx did say that
"in its rational form it is a scandal and an abomination to the bourgeoisie".
But, "wooden" forms can be no less rational. Anyway, this response begs the question as to what
the
"rational" form of the dialectic actually is, or even whether there is such a
thing as its "rational" form. If, as these Essays have shown,
DM has no "rational" form -- just a rotten
core -- then wooden or plastic, there is no
detectable difference between
them.
These observations similarly apply to the
usual reason given why DM is almost universally rejected by ruling-class
hacks -- which is that DM is an "abomination", since it supposedly shows that all social
forms are subject to change, etc. But, if in reality ruling-class hacks reject
DM because it threatens their ideologically-motivated belief that certain social forms are
unchangeable (or, that they are
'natural'), then why didn't the Stalinist ruling-class reject it on similar
grounds? Why did they become its most enthusiastic supporters and proselytisers?
[Or, if you aren't a Trotskyist: why do "revisionist" OTs and NOTs also accept the
dialectic?]
The reason is pretty clear: DM allowed STDs
to justify any old line coming out of the Kremlin, and its opposite the very
next day!
[Again, if you are a Maoist or a Stalinist: DM allowed
OTs and NOTs to 'justify' their opposition to the genuinely socialist regime
in Stalin's Russia, or Mao's China, etc., etc. -- since, once more, it can be used to rationalise
anything you like and its opposite, even by us 'trots'!]
However, an overall answer to these awkward
questions isn't too difficult to find, either. It has been maintained here, and in
Part One
of this
Essay, that DM is the ideology of
substitutionist elements in Marxism. That is, DM is the
ideology of
petty-bourgeois and de-classé revolutionaries, who, in important junctures, use
DM to justify the substitution of themselves, or other class forces, for the
working class.
If that
is so, one should expect to
find that only those ruling-classes -- i.e., those comprising petty-bourgeois
professional revolutionaries, or the bureaucratic elements that have
descended with modification from them, or from some other social layer, which
themselves arose as a
result of the degeneration of a proletarian revolution (etc.) --, would find
this theory conducive to their interests. As we have seen, that is precisely what we
have found.
In which case, other ruling-classes (i.e., those that
have no pretension, need, or desire to substitute themselves for the
working class since they are quite happy to remain bourgeois) wouldn't want to adopt DM
-- since they have theories of their own that 'justify' and rationalise their pre-eminent position, thank you very much.
In other words, DM found its place in STD-,
and MIST-theory -- not because
that theory had become wooden and lifeless in their hands -- but because
it helped render the working class wooden and lifeless, therefore all the more easily substituted
for, and hence safely removed from its active
role in history.
Since
DM is the theory that ideologically
'justifies' all forms of substitution (because it is capable of 'justifying'
anything and its opposite), it is hardly
surprising to discover that it fails to appeal to those not
wishing to substitute themselves for workers -- i.e., the open, honest and
genuine, non-Stalinist, non-Maoistbourgeoisie.
Now, if you are a MIST or an STD reading this,
the answer is equally clear: one would expect Trotskyist 'wreckers' to adopt
dialectics, too. What better theory
is there if you want to argue that the former socialist states -- the USSR,
Eastern Europe and Maoist China, for example -- aren't permanent, but will disappear one day
-- as indeed they have -- than 'the dialectic'?
"In its rational form it
is a scandal and an abomination to the bourgeoisie and its doctrinaire spokesmen, because it includes in its
positive understanding of what exists a simultaneous recognition of its
negation, its inevitable destruction; because it regards every historically
developed form as being in a fluid state, in motion, and therefore grasps
its transient aspect as well...." [Marx (1976),
p.103. Bold emphases added.]
It could be objected to this that STDs, MISTs, NOTs, and
OTs also accept
HM. Hence, based on the above argument, HM
must similarly be
compromised.
To be sure, the grafting of
DM onto HM has undoubtedly been to the
detriment of the latter theory. HM is only acceptable to Stalinists (for example) because it can
be rendered inoffensive by burying it under several layers of
incomprehensible
Hermetic
jargon. HM isn't an
inherently metaphysical theory; it is testable, it actually makes sense
(but only when those alien-class, Hegelian concepts have been completely excised), and it arises from, and generalises,
workers' experience (as Part One
of this Essay sought to show). HM only becomes metaphysical and wooden when combined
with DM -- to form Dialectical
Mahogany.
When HM is distanced from DM (in the
suggested manner), it is a
scientific theory, of invaluable use to revolutionaries. That is why, of course, the
Stalinists (and, indeed, MISTs, OTs and NOTs) never separated the two --, but, that
doesn't stop us genuine
materialists from doing just that.50
On the other hand, if you aren't a Trotskyist
(i.e., if you are a Stalinist or a Maoist), the answer
is plain too: any petty-bourgeois element of the workers' movement -- be
it of the OT or the NOT persuasion -- will have perfectly good, class-based
reasons to prefer a theory that rationalises their own substitution (or that of
other groups) for the working class.
Perhaps now, dear reader, you can see
how useful this theory is at explaining anything you like and its
opposite? I have just done it!
"The courts play a dual
role: enforcers for the ruling class -- as in so many cases when trade unionists
have been done in -- and in the main run of cases, where the interests of the
ruling class are not at stake, providing a tribunal that interprets and applies
the law to regulate relations between individuals within society. The law has
two natures (remember dialectics?)." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 03/02/2013.]
Two diametrically opposite conclusions based
on 'dialectics'.
"Because historically US Imperialism
has been very reactionary, as exemplified by the Vietnam war and much more,
there are now many people in the world who seem incapable of conceptualising
that the US could possibly do something progressive. It's always possible for
these people to point to bad things that the US does -- there is no shortage of
examples.
"Maybe part of the problem is that
they have an ingrained black and white, non dialectic world view, which
implicitly denies the very possibility that the US could do something
progressive....
"I'm not saying
that thinking dialectically is a substitute for studying the details of
processes in detail -- including the details of what the Soviet Union became
historically and the details of what is happening in Iraq and the Middle East.
But that having the concept of dialectics (the coexistence of opposites in
things)might help prevent falling into the rigid black and white
thinking illustrated in the two examples above. If some people can't even
conceptualise that it might be possible for US Imperialism today to do something
progressive then no amount of detail is going to change their mind about Iraq.
Their thinking is dogmatically stuck at another level to do with their whole
world view. I'm arguing that studying dialectics is useful because it helps
us keep our minds open to these possibilities."
[Quoted from
here. Accessed 12/01/2014. Bold emphases added.]
This individual might just as well have
written the following:
"Because historically the Nazis/KKK
have been very reactionary, as exemplified by the Second World War/Concentration
Camps/US history and much more, there are now many people in the world who seem
incapable of conceptualising that they could possibly do something progressive.
It's always possible for these people to point to bad things that they do --
there is no shortage of examples.
"Maybe part of the problem is that
they have an ingrained black and white, non dialectic world view, which
implicitly denies the very possibility that the Nazis/KKK could do something
progressive."
"With some
cynicism
Shliapnikov
told the Eleventh Party Congress: 'Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin] said
yesterday that the proletariat as a class, in the Marxian sense, did not exist.
Permit me to congratulate you on being the vanguard of a non-existing class.'
"Of course,
to a vulgar materialist, it sounds impossible to have a dictatorship of the
proletariat without the proletariat, like the smile of the Cheshire cat without
the cat itself. But one must remember that the ideological as well as the
political superstructure never reflect the material base directly and
immediately. Ideas have their own momentum. Usually in 'normal' times they are a
source of conservativism: long after people's material circumstances have
changed, they are still dominated by old ideas. However, this disjuncture
between the ideological superstructure and the economic base became a source of
strength to Bolshevism during the civil war." [Cliff (1990), p.189. Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis
and link added.]
Hence, what would normally appear to be a
'contradiction in terms' -- i.e., "the dictatorship of the proletariat when
there is no proletariat" -- can be rationalised and 'justified' by the use of a
little dialectics (surely implied by Cliff's use of the term "vulgar materialist"
-- plainly set in opposition to the phrase "dialectical materialist").
DM is an almost infinitely pliable tool
for defending anything a party -- or even a particular individual -- feels
expedient and its opposite.
Incidentally, this also explains why
revolutionaries almost universally accept DM, and why any attempt to criticise
it is resisted with no little vehemence.
For such comrades, DM works not only like a
drug consoling them for the repeated 'failure' of the class they champion, it
allows them to argue for whatever is opportune at the time, andit
rationalises their pre-eminent position in the revolutionary movement.
Hence, ditching
dialectics demotes dialecticians!
For Stalinists
in power, on the other hand, DM also worked as a means of (i) Legitimisation and
(ii) Ideological control, a handy device for mystifying state power,
and as (iii) A convenient
way to rationalise the oppression and exploitation of workers -- by the use of
cynically casuistical
'dialectical' arguments that promoted those
'non-antagonistic contradictions'. The "wooden" nature of
the Stalinist dialectic is derived from the nature of the class that holds power
-- a dynamic dialectic is surplus to requirements if you are already
top dog.
On the other hand, 'lively' Trotskyist
dialectics arises from sections of Dialectical Marxism that need to generate quasi-religious fervour
as a form
of consolation for their own lack of power, and lack of success.
This makes Dialectical Trotskyism the Charismatic
Wing of Marxism!
Finally, it isn't being suggested
here that the author of TAR, or any other NOT
(or OT, for that matter), is in any way
to be associated with the crimes of Stalinism -- far from it. As one comrade so
aptly put it a few years ago (Sheila McGregor, if memory serves me right): there
is a wall of blood separating Stalinism and Trotskyism.
And, I know which
side of that divide I'm on.
Nevertheless, TAR itself was clearly written from a
revolutionary perspective; that is its enduring strength.
Alas, that is also what
makes its author's acceptance of DM so regrettable.
Dialectical Marxism: The
Rotten Fruit Of A
Diseased Tree
If
DM
represents a serious inroad
of alien-class ideas into the revolutionary movement -- imported from the
"outside" by theorists who imported a bucket full of confused concepts from Hegel (upside down,
or 'the right way up') --, then one should expect
it to exacerbate problems that revolutionaries inevitably face in the
class war. Hence we should expect it to aggravate
sectarianism, fragmentation, substitutionism and mystification. We saw
earlier that
there is a layer of professional revolutionaries
who
in general become Marxists for idiosyncratic, personal reasons (hence,
unlike workers, they aren't 'natural' materialists), This means that in
the hands of socialist prima donnas like these, DM is soon transformed into Dogmatic
Marxism.
To this end, one would expect DM to encourage
(i) A drift toward centrally-promulgated dogma, controlled from the top-down, (ii) Obscure 'theological' disputation
and self-serving casuistry,
(iii) The branding of rival tendencies 'heretical' (in
their interpretation of this or that obscure and incomprehensible dialectical thesis),
(iv) The
emergence of 'dialectical-experts' who arrogate to themselves the semi-miraculous
ability of comprehending the secrets of Hegelian
esoterica,
and who then tell us that others simply don't, or can't, "understand" dialectics -- or, indeed, that they
can't possibly master
Das Kapital until they have thoroughly studied and understood all of Hegel's Logic
(a claim, it is worth recalling, not even
Marx
made about
his own work!).
In addition,
(v) One should expect DM-theorists
to use its ideas to defend counter-intuitive doctrines (i.e., those that "contradict
commonsense", or even common understanding)51 and
that DM would be used (vi) To justify, on a post hoc
basis,
impromptu U-turns, inconsistent
tactical manoeuvres and off-the-cuff dialectical 'justification' for one and
all.
Finally,
(vii) One should expect dialecticians to use
this theory to convince recalcitrant workers that they (these DM-soothsayers) are acting in their
best interest -- which they would, of course, appreciate if they
"understood" dialectics, but, alas, they don't. In short, one should expect DM to function as an
ideological'justification' for substitutionist thinking.
Every single one of the above
has been instantiated in the history of the various
revolutionary tendencies our movement has thrown up over the last hundred years
or so --
and
many times over.
From Lenin's claim that no one fully understands Marx's
Kapital who has not fully understood all of Hegel's Logic,
down through the wranglings between Lenin and Rosa Luxembourg,51a
to the attempt made
by Trotsky to justify the revolutionary defence of the
fSU as a
"degenerated
workers' state" (coupled with his scandalousdefence of Stalin's
invasion of Finland), down to the interminable use of 'dialectics' within
OTGs
to
justify the latest tactical change (on the basis that it is
'dialectical' -- i.e., openly contradictory -- and that this is something
that recommends it), on to the haranguing of every other
revolutionary group for failing to see things the same way (in view of the fact
that everyone else adheres to an "abstract"/"wooden"/"formal" version of
the dialectic) --, to the use of dialectical jargon to rationalise this or that
episode of sectarian point-scoring, and then on to the use of the very same theory
to 'justify' the centralisation of power in the former communist states on the
basis that everything is contradictory anyway, to the regular almost over-night
180 degree U-turns in policy -- and finally down to TAR
with an ill-advised use of the word "algebra" in its title.52
Although substitutionist tendencies within
Bolshevism act like the proverbial bacteria that invades a diseased or a dead body, it is important to be aware of the class-, and ideological-source
of this infection: an ancient and well-established
ruling-class philosophical tradition
in the hands of petty-bourgeois theorists.
Given all that has gone before, unless we are
clear that DM has played a significant role in preventing Marxism
from being "seized by the masses" (on this see
Part One of this Essay, and Essay
Ten Part One) -- and hence in exacerbating
and prolonging the chronic
sickness of Dialectical Marxism itself -- unless we are clear about
this,
all we can ever expect from our efforts are millions more dead workers.
Followed, of course, by a Dead Movement;
DM, the final negation of this Hermetic
Dead-End.
01.
Marx made plain
the influence of the 'Scottish School' in the German Ideology (erroneously
calling it "English"):
"The French and the English, even if they have conceived
the relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided
fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political
ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of
history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil
society, of commerce and industry." [MECW
5, p.42. Bold added.]
On this see Meek (1967), and Wood (1998,
1999) -- the latter of which underlines how influential Kant's work had been in this area.
This is what I have posted at
RevLeft on this topic (slightly edited):
It is not I who
called them this (i.e., "The Scottish Historical Materialists"), but others, mainly Marx and Engels.
"Ronald Meek, 'The Scottish Contribution to Marxist Sociology' [1954; collected
in his Economics and Ideology and Other Essays, 1967.] Such luminaries as
Adam Ferguson
and
Adam Smith. This influence was actually acknowledged. In The
German Ideology, right after announcing their theme that 'men be in a position
to live in order to be able to "make history", they say "The French and the
English, even if they have conceived the relation of this fact with so-called
history only in an extremely one-sided fashion, particularly as long as they
remained in the toils of political ideology, have nevertheless made the first
attempts to give the writing of history a materialistic basis by being the first
to write histories of civil society, of commerce and industry.'"] [Quoted from
here. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
[I have to point out that the above link is hostile to Marx and Engels, but there is
little available on the internet at present on this topic that isn't hidden
behind a pay wall.]
Meek actually calls them the "Scottish Historical School" (p.35), but he
attributes this phrase to Roy Pascal (Communist Party member, friend of
Wittgenstein
and translator of TheGerman Ideology), who used it in his article
"Property and Society: The Scottish Historical School of the Eighteenth Century",
Modern Quarterly, March 1938.
The full passage reads:
"Since we are dealing with the Germans, who are devoid of premises, we must
begin by stating the first premise of all human existence and, therefore, of all
history, the premise, namely, that men must be in a position to live in order to
be able to 'make history.' But life involves before everything else eating and
drinking, a habitation, clothing and many other things. The first historical act
is thus the production of the means to satisfy these needs, the production of
material life itself. And indeed this is an historical act, a fundamental
condition of all history, which today, as thousands of years ago, must daily and
hourly be fulfilled merely in order to sustain human life. Even when the
sensuous world is reduced to a minimum, to a stick as with Saint Bruno [Bauer],
it presupposes the action of producing the stick. Therefore in any
interpretation of history one has first of all to observe this fundamental fact
in all its significance and all its implications and to accord it its due
importance. It is well known that the Germans have never done this, and they
have never, therefore, had an earthly basis for history and consequently never
an historian. The French and the English, even if they have conceived the
relation of this fact with so-called history only in an extremely one-sided
fashion, particularly as long as they remained in the toils of political
ideology, have nevertheless made the first attempts to give the writing of
history a materialistic basis by being the first to write histories of civil
society, of commerce and industry." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
In the Poverty of Philosophy, Marx also wrote:
"Let us do him this justice:
Lemontey
wittily exposed the unpleasant
consequences of the division of labour as it is constituted today, and
M.
Proudhon
found nothing to add to it. But now that, through the fault of M.
Proudhon, we have been drawn into this question of priority, let us say again,
in passing, that long before M. Lemontey, and 17 years before Adam Smith, who
was a pupil of A. Ferguson, the last-named gave a clear exposition of the
subject in a chapter which deals specifically with the division of labour." [MECW
Volume 6, p.181. Spelling altered to conform with UK English.]
Marx refers to Ferguson repeatedly in his Contribution to the Critique of
Political Economy (MECW
Volume 30, pp.264-306), as he does to others of
the same 'school' (Adam Smith and
Dugald Stuart) throughout this work.
He does so, too, in Volume One of Das Kapital --
MECW Volume 35, pp.133, 359, 366, 367. [He also
refers to others of that 'school', e.g., Robertson, p.529, Stuart and Smith
(however, the references to the latter two are
too numerous to list).]
Indeed, throughout Marx's entire works, the references to Smith and Stuart are
also too numerous to list.
Kant's influence is outlined in the following (I owe these references to
Philip
Gasper):
Wood, A, (1998), 'Kant's Historical Materialism' in Kneller and Axinn, Chapter
Five.
--------, (1999), Kant's Ethical Thought (Cambridge University Press).
Kneller, J., and Axinn, S, (1998), Autonomy And Community: Readings In
Contemporary Kantian Social Philosophy (State University of New York Press).
01a.
It has to be said that this comment of mine has sunk
without trace on the Internet. Comrades, it seems, still prefer to advance
Idealist explanations why we on the far-left are continually in crisis. [This
Essay even attempts to explain that phenomenon,
too!] After all, if your core theory [DM] has been lifted from German
Idealism and Mystical Christianity, it isn't surprising to see comrades
automatically reach for an Idealist explanation for most things.
1.Standard DM-accounts of the origins of materialism (in Ancient
Greece) are highly misleading. However, I don't propose to substantiate that contentious
observation, here.
Several comments will be
added to Essay Twelve at a later date.
1a.
It is worth pointing out that I am
employing the word
"sectarianism" in a wider sense than is generally the case in Marxist
circles -- it is more
akin to its use in describing the many and varied splits that occur within and
between religious denominations. On that,
see here.
The Marxist.org glossary characterises "sectarianism" as
follows:
"Sectarianism
and Opportunism are the twin errors which may befall any organisation formed in
pursuit of some principle.
"The Sectarian
emphasises the absolute truth of its principle over any other, finds in every
small disagreement the seeds of fundamental difference, see[s] the most deadly foe
in the closest rival, puts purity of dogma over tactical advantage, refuses to
compromise or modify their aims and is proud of being against the stream. Simply
put, sectarianism is the breakdown of
solidarity.
"The
Opportunist is always ready to adapt its principles to circumstances, minimises
the significance of internal disagreements, treats even opponents as 'the lesser
evil', puts tactical advantage ahead of being true to its principles, is too
ready to make compromises and is all too ready to follow the current of the
stream.
"Not
surprisingly, the sectarian or opportunist invariably repudiates being labelled
as such, and instead reverses the claim. Meanwhile, these labels are all too
easily thrown against minority positions in the attempt to invalidate their
opinions as 'anti-party', simply because they are different and challenging.
"Naturally,
real differences exist within groups and between different organisations.
When these are
fundamental
differences,
opposition and conflict is [sic] to be expected when a common course is attempted.
The
trouble with sectarianism is that it behaves as if fundamental differences exist
when they do not; while opportunism actively ignores real differences. Thus,
when for example Anarchists and Socialists attempt a common action, one can
expect some areas of conflict.
"Some confusion
arises because the very nature of a
Communist is to support
the working class as a whole, which includes parties, unions, organisations,
etc. Such a purpose is an arduous one and a fine line is sometimes walked
between helping increase class consciousness and the sectarian slide of
dictating to workers that their interests are not workers' interests! Thus,
mutual respect and thorough going [sic] solidarity are two steadfast principles of
real Communists.
"Sectarianism
and Opportunism exist in all things; but they are no more dominant in the
working class movement than they are in religious organisations or capitalist
governments. In the United States for example, the Republican and Democratic
parties have been in deeply sectarian battles over how best to rule a capitalist
government for over 100 years. While they see one another as fundamentally in
opposition (though we clearly know that they are not), they do have the
tolerance to the extent that they recognize the need for one another in order
for their government to survive. Thus, to eradicate sectarianism is impossible
(an attempt we saw in the Soviet Union, accomplished with the most brutal of
results), but to control it within certain boundaries can be a source of great
strength." [Quoted from
here.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Spelling
errors corrected. Bold emphases alone added.]
This is in fact much closer to the meaning of the term I have
adopted, but it
still fails to come to grips with the reasons why Dialectical Marxism is quite so fragmentary.
Bourgeois parties don't split this much. Dialectical Marxism is surely just as cursed in this regard as Christianity (and particularly
Protestantism) --, indeed, as the above article concedes. According to
one
estimate, there are 34,000 different Christian sects on the planet! Well,
there might not be quite that many Marxist parties or far-left denominations, but
they certainly
number in the hundreds, possibly the thousands. After another 2000 years, if humanity
lasts that long, perhaps we will more closely rival the Christians in this
respect, too. Even so, per head of believers, Dialectical
Marxism is considerably worse off than Christianity -- DM-supporters are,
after all, much
thinner on the ground. [On that, see
here.
There are reported to be
2.2 billion Christians on earth.]
This phenomenon plainly requires a sociological,
ideological and political explanation. The
beginning of one has been advanced in this
Essay.
It is also important to note at the start that I am not arguing
that everything that workers do or believe is above criticism, and therefore
that Marxists should tail-end the proletariat; quite the reverse, in fact.
Hence,
the material presented here isn't meant to be an apology for
opportunism.
But, the politically backward
and uneven nature of most sections of the working class, and the need for a
Leninist Party have been studied in detail by other
Marxists -- whereas the sociological, political, and ideological roots of sectarianism
haven't -- so, I will be concentrating on the latter, not the former, in this Essay.
[The former was in fact partially dealt with in Essay Nine Part One.
Also, see Note 13a, below.]
1b.
Alas, this seems to be true of most
comrades with whom I have debated this dogma on the Internet; few seem capable of
defending it, and, of those who are minimally proficient in this regard, none can do so to
any depth -- and that even includes academic dialecticians, and one or two Marxist
Professors! All appear to have uncritically accepted large parts, or indeed all, of DM.
[On that, see here.]
An excellent recent example of this can be
found
here
-- in the comments section at the end; look for the discussion between
the present author on a comrade called "Mick Travis".
Added
January 2017: unfortunately, those comments now seem to have vanished!
"I have heard 'the dialectic' defined by way of the
alleged fact that however bleak the present conjuncture may seem (here again the
unreliable 'appearances'!), the working class will triumph 'in the end'. In such
assurances, the apparent defeat 'turns into is opposite' -- namely certain
victory!" [Rosenthal (1998), p.197, note 2.]
That agrees with my own experience, and, indeed, with evidence presented in this
Essay.
Also compare this with the
following words taken from the Preface to the second edition of
RIRE:
"Ted Grant was an incorrigible optimist all his
life. Marxists are optimistic by their very nature because of two things: the
philosophy of dialectical materialism, and our faith in the working class
and the socialist future of humanity. Most people look only at the surface of
the events that shape their lives and determine their destiny. Dialectics
teaches one to look beyond the immediate, to penetrate beyond the appearance of
stability and calm, and to see the seething contradictions and ceaseless
movement that lies beneath the surface. The idea of constant change, in which
sooner or later everything changes into its opposite enables a Marxist to rise
above the immediate situation and to see the broader picture." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
'The dialectics of history, the general
crisis of capitalism, are far more powerful than all the bureaucrats. If the
crisis accelerates the death of the reformist forest, it will -- if
revolutionary socialists adopt a correct strategy and tactics -- accelerate the
growth of the green shoots of rank and file confidence, action and
organisation.'" [Birchall (2011), p.466, quoting Cliff from 1979. Bold emphasis
added.]
2.
This isn't to suggest that Lenin didn't mention dialectics at all before
1905. Clearly
he did (for example, in What The 'Friends Of The People' Are And How They Fight The Social-Democrats
and
One Step Forward Two Steps Backward),
but
this theory only assumed a centrally important role for Lenin after 1905, but
more particularly after the Second International abandoned Internationalism in
the face of WW1.
Which is, of course, why he spent months studying Hegel's 'Logic'. [On that, see
below, and
here.]
Evald Ilyenkov
(in Ilyenkov (1982b)), argues that Lenin had been interested in dialectics all his mature life (p.9ff),
and cites
Krupskaya's
memoirs in support.
"In the evenings Vladimir Ilyich usually read books on
philosophy -- Hegel, Kant or the French materialists -- and when he grew very
tired,
Pushkin,
Lermontov
or
Nekrasov."
[Krupskaya (1970),
p.40.]
This passage doesn't in fact support Ilyenkov's specific assertion that Lenin
studied Hegel's
Phenomenology of Spirit, and the "classics of world philosophy" (p.10).
At best it provides only weak support for his claim
that Lenin was interested in dialectics in general back then. Even so, this "interest" was
clearly re-kindled after his arrest and exile to Siberia. In which case, given the line
taken in this Essay, it is hardly surprising that Lenin looked for philosophical consolation
while incarcerated in Shushenskoe
in 1897. So, if anything, this lends support to
the thesis maintained here: that
philosophy and dialectics become important for petty-bourgeois
revolutionaries in times of disaster, defeat and set-back, whether or not the
latter were personal
or organisational reversals.
It is worth adding that Krupskaya's memories record both her own and
Lenin's continuing interest in philosophy (which passage does lend support to Ilyenkov's
claims, as well as mine):
"A volume entitled Studies in the Philosophy of
Marxism appeared in Russia containing essays by Bogdanov, Lunacharsky,
Bazarov, Suvorov, Berman, Yushkevich and Gelfand. These Studies were an
attempt to revise the materialist philosophy, the Marxist materialist conception
of the development of humanity, the conception of the class struggle.
"The new
philosophy was a loophole for a hodgepodge of mysticism. Decadent moods among
the intelligentsia during the years of reaction were favourable to the spread of
revisionism. Obviously the line had to be drawn.
"Ilyich had
always been interested in questions of philosophy. He had studied it closely in
exile, was familiar with everything that Marx, Engels and Plekhanov had written
in that field. He had studied Hegel, Feuerbach and Kant. While still in exile in
Siberia he had had heated discussions with comrades who inclined towards Kant,
he followed all that was written on the subject in the Neue Zeit, and
was on the whole fairly well-grounded in philosophy.
"The story of
his differences with Bogdanov was told by Ilyich in his letter of February 25 to
Gorky. Ilyich had read Bogdanov's book Fundamentals of the Historical
Conception of Naturein Siberian exile, but Bogdanov's position at the time
had been a stage in his transition to his later philosophic views. In 1903, when
Ilyich was working with Plekhanov, the latter had often criticized Bogdanov for
his philosophic opinions. Bogdanov's book Empiriomonism appeared in
1904, and Ilyich told Bogdanov outright that he considered Plekhanov's view
right and not his, Bogdanov's." [Ibid.,
pp.179-80. Bold emphases
alone added.]
Krupskaya's comment that 'left'
intellectuals turn toward mysticism in periods of isolation, defeat and reaction further confirms the judgement expressed in this Essay.
However, it is also clear from what she says that Lenin became much more
focussed on Hegelian Philosophy after 1908 (here speaking of the period they
both spent in Berne in 1914-1915):
"While waging a passionate struggle
against the betrayal of the workers' cause on the part of the
Second International, Ilyich at the same time began an article on 'Karl Marx'
for Granat's Encyclopaedic Dictionary as soon as we arrived in Berne. This
article, dealing with the teachings of Marx, opens with an outline of his
philosophy under two headings: 'Philosophic Materialism' and 'Dialectics,'
followed by an exposition of Marx's economic theory, in which he describes
Marx's approach to the question of socialism and the tactics of the class
struggle of the proletariat.
"Marx's
teaching was not usually presented in this way. In connection with the chapters
on philosophic materialism and dialectics, Ilyich began diligently to reread
Hegel and other philosophers, and kept up this study even after he had finished
the article. The object of his philosophic studies was to master the method of
transforming philosophy into a concrete guide to action. His brief remarks
on the dialectical approach to all phenomena made in 1921 during the
trade-union
[sic] controversy with Trotsky and Bukharin best testify to the great benefit
which Ilyich derived in this respect from his philosophic studies begun upon his
arrival in Berne; they were a continuation of his philosophic studies of
1908-1909, when he had combated the Machists.
"Struggle and
studies, study and research with Ilyich were always strongly linked together,
and closely bound up between themselves, although they may have appeared at
first sight to run in parallels." [Ibid.,
pp.295-96. Bold emphases
and link added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Two minor typos corrected.]
On why Lenin became an avid student of Hegel in 1914-15, see
here.
2a.Anderson went on to claim that Lenin's detailed study of Hegel informed his
classic work on Imperialism (i.e.,
Lenin (1975)), but he was
also forced to
admit the following:
"The relationship of the text of Lenin's Imperialism
to the Hegel Notebooks is not immediately apparent and must be excavated. First,
it must be said that unlike the Essay 'Karl Marx' (1914), for example, this book
does not have a section on dialectics or even one on philosophy. Nor does it
even mention the issue of dialectics...." [Anderson (1995), p.128. Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Italic
emphasis in the original, bold emphasis added.]
This isn't surprising; as this Essay and Part One have shown,
it
isn't possible to apply the dialectic in practice -- except, perhaps,
negatively, to create confusion, incomprehension, or in support of opportunism
and factionalism. No wonder
then that Lenin kept it well away from that
classic work.
Lars Lih's comments on this period in Lenin's life are also worth
reporting:
"Lenin's hectic activities during the first seven months
of the war bear little resemblance to the picture given us by writers who
imagine Lenin going through a period of agonising rethinking. According to these
writers, Lenin was utterly isolated politically, even from his closest allies;
he retired for a space from political activity in order to rethink the
foundations of Marxism; he then came up with his political programme only after
reading Hegel's Logic. In reality, Lenin had his political programme
ready literally from day one, and he immediately plunged into intense political
activity to publicise his standpoint and to ensure official party support, which
he received." [Lih (2014). Quoted from
here. Accessed 27/04/2014.]
It looks like this is yet another DM-fable we should now
consign to the dustbin of history.
Lenin clearly studied Hegel in order to find post hoc philosophical
justification for decisions already taken for political reasons.
And
as far as this claim of Anderson's is concerned:
"Once he arrived in Bern,
Lenin moved quickly in two seemingly contradictory directions: (1) he spent
long weeks in the library engaged in daily study of Hegel's writings, especially
the Science of Logic, writing hundreds of pages of notes on Hegel, and
(2)...he moved toward revolutionary defeatism...." [Anderson (1995), p.3.]
Another of Lih's remarks is worth reproducing:
"Two other candidates for a unifying theme are
'imperialism' and 'conversion of the imperialist war into a civil war'. As
important as these themes are, they do not cover all four levels of the scenario
of global revolutionary interaction. 'Revolutionary defeatism' is a non-starter
as a candidate, if only because the phrase cannot be found in Lenin." [Lih
(2014). Quoted from
here. Accessed 27/04/2014.]
3.
Hegel's
work
can itself be seen as a response to the failure of the
French
Revolution, prompting his own retreat into "Dialectical Mysticism". There is
an admirably clear account of the demoralisation of
'intellectuals' that swept across Europe at the turn of the 18th
century -- in TAR
itself
(pp.13-54)! Clearly, its author, John Rees, failed to notice the obvious
connection between Hegel's demoralisation and his subsequent search for consolation in the
sort of Christian Mysticism he so
effortlessly conjured
out of
(literally) "Nothing"
--
later to be appropriated and given a full 360 degree
flip (not the reputed 180) by Marxist dialecticians suffering from the
same sort of malaise.
[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution, i.e.,
Rees (1998).]
Incidentally, the last
twenty or thirty years have witnessed a significant stampede 'back to Hegel'
among Academic Marxists (many of whom I have characterised as
HCDs).
This is clearly connected to the change in the balance of class forces that has
taken place internationally since the mid-, to late-1970s. [Chris Arthur
(no doubt
inadvertently) plots its course in Arthur (2004), pp.1-16.]
Academics, it seems, require a far 'superior' source of
consolation; none of the cheap opiates beloved of
LCD comrades for them!
The 'revival' of almost pure and unadulterated Hermetic
Mysticism in the halls of Marxist academe has also found expression in journals
like
Historical Materialism, Radical Philosophy
and (on-line) Cultural
Logic. It can also be seen in the recent foundation of the (insular)
Marx &
Philosophy Society, as well as in (insular) books like Marx and
Contemporary Philosophy (i.e., Chitty and McIvor (2009)), which manage to
omit all mention of the vast bulk of Contemporary Philosophy (except,
there is one chapter devoted to
Analytical Marxism -- a now defunct 'tradition', which, even
at its 'height', was a back-water of
Analytic Philosophy
-- in the aforementioned book).
If these characters had set out to be totally irrelevant
-- at least as far as much of Modern Philosophy is concerned -- they succeeded
beyond their wildest dreams.
[One of the reasons for this selective blindness lies in
the fact that HCDs seem incapable of writing
a single clear sentence
(except, perhaps, as part of their job applications). But, just try telling any of them
this! (Of course, this is an exaggeration, but only a slight one.)]
Moreover, we encounter similar episodes
in
subsequent generations of revolutionaries, which reveal the historical and ideological connection
that exists between German Mysticism
and
Dialectical Marxism itself -- that is, between the class-origin of
the DM-classicists
and their fondness for Traditional Philosophy,
particularly in times of isolation, defeat and retreat.
Indeed, and as a matter of
fact, the above classicists were drawn exclusively from petty-bourgeois and/or
de-classé circles. Of course, such a background is no defect in itself. But, the founders of
Marxism didn't live in air-tight containers, hermetically
sealed against contemporary social and ideological influence. The latter clearly
found a sympathetic echo in the theoretical work of these pioneer dialecticians.
[I explain why that is so
later on in this Note and
later in this Essay.]
Hence, early DM-theorists -- living in a
semi-feudal Germany, intellectually dominated by Mysticism and Idealism -- found
themselves in a society with no developed or assertive working class
from which to learn. Workers
themselves couldn't provide a materialist counter-weight to the natural Idealist
inclinationsof
these intellectual pioneers. This meant that the theories
developed by the very first DM-classicists would automatically bend far too much
toward ideas that have always dominated
traditional theory and traditional theorists -- that is, toward the ruling-class forms-of-thought current in Germany and
Europe at the time. Workers in Germany and Russia were far too weak,
disorganised, and certainly too few in number in the nineteenth century to mount a significant challenge to the
confident ruling-classes of their day -- or, indeed, impact on the concepts that early
DM-theorists began to import into the movement, and then develop in the
direction of DM.
[On this, see Note 13a2. Why I have used the
phrase "natural Idealist
inclinations" in relation to the DM-classicists will be explained presently.]
Moreover, ever-present disappointment with
the very class upon which the hopes of European and Russian radicals were pinned
must have been a constant factor influencing revolutionary thought during this
period. Repeatedly dashed hopes and expectations (that a revolutionary workers' movement would
emerge in mid-to-late 19th
century Europe) meant that the tendency to seek consolation in mystical philosophy clearly became
irresistible.
And this isn't mere speculation; we knowthatthis is
precisely what happened -- and is still happening. These facts are clear
enough from the biographies of European radicals (including those of Marx and
Engels, and later those of Lenin and Trotsky -- and even later, in the thoughts
and careers of
more recent
dialecticians).
An unshakable faith in workers' revolutionary potential
coupled with a belief in the proximity of the
revolution (which is clear for all to see, for example, in the Marx-Engels correspondence, and
elsewhere), alongside the certainty that there would be a terminal crisis of
Capitalism in the near future -- all these ideas had to face disconfirming
material reality many times over, month in, month out, decade
after decade.
[The effect on Marxists (including Marx, Engels and the other
classicists)
of the varying economic fortunes of capitalism (in the 19th
and early 20th
centuries) is traced rather well in Gouldner (1980), pp.32-150 (albeit interpreted
as a form of 'scientific socialism' or even as a 'Critical Theory'). While there is
much that I disagree with in Gouldner's analysis, he seems to me to get this
part of the story right.]
Naturally, the wide disparity between
theory and reality -- which is more like a yawning gap of Grand Canyon
proportions -- requires an explanation of some sort. If 'underlying
reality' differed so
markedly from 'appearances', then a theory that bases itself precisely on this premise-- which held that a surface view of reality is misleading and that
underlying 'essence' is in fact the opposite of what merely
seems to be
-- would immediately appeal to anyone subject to such long-term disappointment and
demoralisation. And this would be all the more true of those who, because of their education
and socialisation, had ruling-ideas already
planted in their heads, and which therefore 'naturally' predisposed them to think this way about
high theory and low appearances.
Nevertheless, an explanation for failure and defeat is one
thing, but the enormity of these set-backs as they unfolded needed something a little
stronger; it required an industrial strength palliative.
Constantly dashed hopes would call for something far more soothing and
consoling, something absolutely reassuring. Those subject to permanent
disappointment would need a concentrated dose of a
potent
narcoleptic-- Dialectical Methadone --, a powerful ideological hit supplied by a doctrine
based on
the supposed 'contradiction' between 'appearance and reality'.
As Max Eastman
argued:
"Hegelism is
like a mental disease--youcan't know what it is until
you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it." [Eastman (1926), p.22.]
In this way, and to change the image, the
gravitational pull of the Black Whole of Hegelian Idealism would become
irresistible --, indeed, as Hegel himself foresaw:
"Every philosophy is
essentially an idealism or at least has idealism for its principle, and the
question then is only how far this principle is carried out." [Hegel
(1999),
pp.154-55; §316.]
How else
are we to account for Engels's own 're-discovery' of dialectics
later in life, after a brief
youthful dalliance and subsequent rejection of it in the 1840s (alongside Marx)?
How else can we make sense of an analogous course taken by Lenin and Trotsky?
Admittedly, it isn't easy for Marxists to
accept the accuracy of this depiction of the founders of our movement, in view of the almost god-like stature these
comrades have assumed over the years. That, of course, is part of the problem!
It prevents revolutionaries thinking for themselves in this direction -- lest they are
branded "Revisionists!", or traitors to the cause -- which helps
guarantee that they
too put a slavish adherence to
tradition
ahead of a search for truth.
Nevertheless, this goes some way toward explaining Engels's
later drift toward Hegelian Idealism. In his case, it accounts for his
use of Hegel's obscure concepts as a "master key"
to unlock nature's underlying
secrets -- which secrets supposedly govern all of material reality for all of time
-- even while he
denied he was doing just
that!
This also helps account for the fact that
subsequent generations of revolutionaries have uncritically accepted a
demonstrably, if not lamentably, weak
theory, and one that
has now presided over decades of failure.
These theorists and activists have
unfortunately displayed a level of philosophical gullibility that is
impossible to explain in any other way -- especially in view of the fact
that elsewhere they think and behave like
hard-headed materialists --, except we appeal to extra-logical factors, such
as their class origin and their need for some form of consolation in the face of long-term failure.
Since
these comrades were, and still are, subject to the sorts of pressures that weigh upon ordinary
human beings (in addition to those generated by continually dashed hopes), the need to
invert material reality to fit an Ideal image of it clearly was, and still is, irresistible.
Decades of defeat and set-back, the almost total failure to win over even
a significant minority of the toiling masses, compounded by splits, betrayals,
back-stabbing, sectarian in-fighting, and bureaucratic inertia, compounded by implacable opposition from the
class enemy -- to say nothing of the other alienating forces at work in
capitalist society -- all these have taken (and are still taking) their toll on
generations of the very best revolutionaries.
[Again, please note, I am not complaining; I
expect this level of abuse, opposition, and vitriol -- even indifference. If I didn't receive it,
or wasn't subject to it, I would
immediately conclude I was doing something wrong!]
DM has such
comrades in its grip because,
given their material and social circumstances, it encapsulates the way they
were socialised to see the world -- that is, as ultimately Ideal. As
children, reared in bourgeois or petty-bourgeois households and benefiting from
a superior education, they were taught that there is an invisible world underlying
'appearances' that
is more real than the universe we see around us, which is accessible to
thought alone -- core ideas that belong to most religions and traditional
philosophies. In this way, they had "ruling ideas"
installed in their brains from the get-go -- which thought-forms they later
imported into
the workers' movement. Hence, given this socialisation,
petty-bourgeois dialecticians clearly thought there is absolutely nothing wrong with
traditional forms
of a priorithesis-mongering. In fact,
given this background, nothing else would count as 'genuine Philosophy', since,
as noted above, this
orientation toward to High Theory has been a key
feature of 'Western' (and 'Eastern') thought for
nigh on 2500 years.
This approach has such a grip on those in held its thrall that it is literally impossible
to shake them free (as Lenin
inadvertently admitted,
and as Marx himself pointed
out).
[Here
and
here are two recent examples of this phenomenon.]
This means that DM-theorists find
they just can't
abandon -- they can't even bring themselves to think about abandoning -- the traditional idea that Marxism needs
a philosophy of some sort, and react with genuine shock, amazement and horror at anyone
who suggests
otherwise. Indeed,
they tend to defend this traditional belief with no little vehemence,
waxing
indignant (if not abusive) toward
anyone who thinks to question it.
As noted in
Essay Two, traditional thought finds
its most avid fans, and most resolute defenders, among those who claim
to be inveterateradicals.
Another neat unity of 'opposites' for readers
to ponder.
[This topic will be explored at greater
length in Essays Three Part Six, Twelve
Part One, and Fourteen
Part Two, where the usual rationalisations dialecticians offer in order to explain why
they
still think Marxism needs a philosophy (despite
Marx's
trenchant criticisms) will be
examined and then neutralised.]
Small wonder then that revolutionaries seek
reassurance in the idea that the most fundamental 'Laws' of 'Being' are on the
side of, or they are strongly pre-disposed toward, their cause. Once made, this
is an ideological
commitment to which such comrades desperately cling; few want to sever the cord
that binds them to their Dialectical Mother.
An emotive response is, of course,
predictable
fromCognitive Dissonance
theory.
[On that, see the classical account in Festinger
(1962), and Festinger et al (1956). See also Travis and Aronson (2008). There is a useful summary
here.
See also
here, which illustrates perhaps why so many comrades readily follow, and
rationalise, the 'Party Line'.]
This unhealthy syndrome was dramatised a few
years ago in a 'true-to-life' film,
Promised A Miracle (1988), which told the story of an evangelical couple who believed
their diabetic son could be cured by faith alone, and hence they rejected medical
attention and treatment. These two unfortunates continued to believe this
even as their son was clearly dying. They accounted for his apparently worsening condition
by reasoning that the 'Devil' was falsely creating certain symptoms in the child to test their faith.
So, for them 'appearances' were deceptive!
Even
after their son had passed away, they continued to believe he would come back to them
on the fourth day (mimicking the return of
Lazarus). The
more their beliefs were shown to be mistaken, the more powerfully they
believed the opposite.
In this case, their minds were clearly in the
grip of a deleterious form of Christian Mysticism, which convinced them to believe the
opposite of what their eyes told them. DM-fans likewise rely on a different, but
no less pernicious version of the same opiate (which, unsurprisingly, is based
on Hegel's brand of Christian and Hermetic Mysticism
(upside down, or the 'right way up')).
[In connection with the vehemently negative (if
not arrogantly dismissive) attitude dialecticians almost
invariably display toward any comrade who criticises or rejects DM, it is also worth consulting the work of
Milton
Rokeach on "Open and Closed Minds" (which was itself partly based on
Adorno'sAuthoritarian Personality -- i.e., Adorno (1994)); cf., Rokeach (1960),
and Lalich (2004).]
4.
On this period, see
Paul Foot's magnificent book, Foot (2005), pp.125-70.
To be sure, Trotsky did
mention DM in short articles and speeches in the 1920s (but even they date from a time
when he was being slowly elbowed out of the Party) -- for example,
Trotsky (1925) --, but his comments are few in number, rather brief and even
then they only seem to relate to Engels's First 'Law', the transformation of
Quantity into
Quality.
As noted earlier, this isn't to suggest that such comrades showed no interest at all in
dialectics in previous years, only that this 'theory' assumed a much more
prominent and important role in their lives and in their thought in periods of
isolation, defeat, and
set-back.
Moreover, as we will see, in the case
of the Stalinists and Maoists, this 'theory' also became a highly useful way of
rationalising (i) The party's autocratic domination over the working class, (ii)
The
denial of inner-party democracy, (iii) Regular, almost over-night U-turns in strategy and
tactics, and (iv) Opportunistic class compromise.
The
former WRP
were past masters in the art of
dialectical disputation. Long
articles by Gerry Healy
(or one of his sidekicks) regularly regaled readers of
Newsline with detailed solutions to questions that constantly vex
ordinary workers -- such as: 'Does motion precede matter, or does matter precede
motion?'
Perhaps the "either-or of formal thinking" corrupted the minds of these
hardcore Hermeticists; surely the 'dialectical' answer is:
both!
"A
contradiction!", you say?
Well, you clearly don't 'understand' dialectics!
[Many of these articles are now being posted
here.]
The WRP were fanatical defenders of every last dot and
comma of this 'theory' -- reaching a level of commitment and
fidelity that surely puts to shame
most MISTs --, along with practically everything Trotsky ever scribbled on the back of
cigarette packets.
[Proof? Read Healy (1982, 1990). Much of this material can now be accessed
here
(and at the link posted above).
If that doesn't work,
check this out.]
[MIST = Maoist
Dialectician.]
The depth of dialectical devotion
like this can be seen, for example, in the review of
Callinicos (1982)
that appeared in
Labour Review, Volume 6, number 1, May 1982, pp.40-48 [i.e., Pilling
(1982a)]. There, the reader will encounter the same tired old
clichés and articles of faith, dusted-off and given yet another airing almost
as if they had been discovered only the night before -- andas if
Callinicos hadn't heard them a million times already!
[See also,
Labour Review
Volume 6, number 2, July 1982, where
Geoff Pilling
also gamely attempts to defend
MEC -- Pilling
(1982b). (On MEC, see Essay Thirteen
Part One.) One of the
spin-off organisations that was left after the Healy franchise atomised is no less
dialectically-devoted. (That should help seal its fate!)]
Now that the
Militant Tendency
has self-destructed, it seems that up until his recent death
Ted Grant
had
inherited Healy's
Hermetic Halo (passed down to him after the sad death of the High Priest Himself), and proudly
wore the hallowed Dialectical Mantle as a purveyor of the latest
re-hash of DM, unfortunatelybased on ideas that were already
unscientific 200 years ago!
Alan Woods
now
appears to be Grant's successor as
Dialectical Pontiff, ready and willing to pass the sacred word on to anyone ready to listen.
Oddly enough, rather few workers so far.
Scant consolation, too, one might feel, for the
abject failure of
'Entryism'
into the old UK Labour Party.
Anyway, these two comrades have
published a book that celebrates
the glitzy 'scientific' nature
of DM by, among other things, repackaging the mystical19th century
musings of Hegel andEngels -- but, with no hint
of irony. The result? That monument to philosophical and scientific superficiality, Woods and Grant
(1995/2007).
[Cf., also Woods (ND). Some of their ideas have already been discussed
here,
here and
here; their work will become the
main topic of Essay Seven Part Two, to be published
at this site in the next few years.]
The
UK-SWP's
're-discovery' of DM is more recent, however. The line taken in Socialist
Review in the early 1980s, for example, was that while there might be a
dialectic operating in class society, there wasn't one at work in nature.
[That approach was a direct consequence of the influence of
Lukacs
and, to a lesser extent,
Althusser, on leading SWP theorists at the time.]
As Ian Birchall
put
things (somewhat inaccurately):
"Firstly,
Stalinism transformed Marxism from a critical revolutionary theory into the
ideology of the Russian ruling class. As part of this process, Stalin invented
something called 'dialectical materialism' (snappily abbreviated to 'Diamat'), a
set of quasi-religious formulae. (Marx never used the term 'dialectical
materialism'; Stalin took it from Plekhanov.)
"In the
hands of a pig-ignorant bureaucrat like Stalin, dialectics was a gift for
explaining away the barbarities of the new regime. In 1930 Stalin told the
Sixteenth Party Congress:
'We are for the withering away of the state, and yet
we also believe in the proletarian dictatorship which represents the strongest
and mightiest form of state power that has existed up to now. To keep on
developing state power in order to prepare conditions for the withering
away of state power -- that is the Marxist formula. Is it "contradictory"? Yes,
"contradictory". But the contradiction is vital, and wholly reflects the Marxist
dialectic.'
"The Great Helmsman, Chairman Mao, added his
contribution to the great tradition by inventing the concept of
'non-antagonistic contradiction', as a nice way of saying 'class collaboration'
(the bourgeoisie are the class-enemy, but we won't fight them.) [Birchall is
mistaken; as we will see, 'non-antagonistic
contradictions' were invented by the Stalinists -- RL.]
"The second problem that has dogged the argument is
the famous debate about the 'dialectics of nature'. Engels was fond of
illustrating his account of dialectics from quantity to quality by comparing it
to the boiling or freezing or water; water gets progressively warmer or colder,
then at a given point turns to ice or steam.
"The
Stalinists eagerly latched on to this method. The French philosopher
Georges
Politzer tells us that when a chicken comes out of an egg, it negates the
egg; but then the chicken grows into a hen and negates itself. So here we have
the 'negation of the negation'.
"The trouble with all this is that it
both oversimplifies and
mystifies. To derive the laws of dialectics from inanimate nature leads to
denying the role of human agency in the historical process.
"The
question of the 'dialectics of nature' must be handled carefully. In his last
year Engels, a keen but amateur student of natural science, wrote extensive
notes on dialectics in relation to various branches of science. Since he rightly
gave priority to working on Marx's unfinished Capital, Engels
never completed these notes for publication. The posthumous volume that appeared
under the title Dialectics of Nature should be seen as no more
and no less than the interesting but fragmentary speculations of a gifted
thinker.
"Since
Engels' time many notable scientists, from
J.D.
Bernal to the French physicist
J.-P.
Vigier, have claimed that the dialectical method has helped them in their
work. It would be foolish to claim that dialectics has no place in the study of
natural science -- but equally dangerous to claim that the validity of
dialectics as a method of social enquiry depends on the correctness or
incorrectness of a theory about nature.
"After all,
it is conservative, bourgeois thought that tries to see society as subject to
the same laws as nature. We’ve all heard of the economic 'climate', something
unchangeable, for which no-one is responsible. As Marx, quoting
Vico,
points out, 'human history differs from natural history in this, that we have
made the former, but not the latter.' To derive the laws of dialectics from
inanimate nature leads to denying the role of human agency in the historical
process.
"What,
then, is dialectics? The term was first used by the Greek philosopher,
Plato. For him it
meant the process by which pure thought advances towards the achievement of
coherent knowledge. Over two thousand years later, Hegel took up the term to
refer to the movement of ideas which, for him, was the driving force of human
history. For Marx and Engels, dialectics came to be the processes by which human
history itself developed.
"Since
Marx's day, many people have tried to codify dialectics into a set of laws.
However, no two seem to agree as to what the laws are, nor even whether there
are three or four of them. Dialectics is, in fact, an extraordinarily slippery
subject; attempts to explain it almost always end up in either incomprehensible
jargon or banal platitudes."
[Birchall (1982),
pp.27-28. Bold emphases in the original; links added.]
Even
the late
Chris
Harman didn't think DM important enough to mention in print (as far as I
can determine) until the late 1980s. For instance, in his reply to an article written
by Alex Callinicos
[Callinicos (1983b)], Harman largely restricted his use of the term
"contradiction" to the following (in the midst of adding several
objections to Callinicos's view of
Althusser):
"'Turning
Hegel on his head', meant for Marx, freeing Hegel's attempts to integrate these
partial truths from the compromise with mysticism and religion. It meant
'reading Hegel' from the point of view of a new revolutionary class which had
nothing to fear from further historical change -- the working class.
Contradiction then becomes contradiction inside capitalist society. The
transformation of quantity into quality becomes the way in which bourgeois
society itself throws up new elements it can't control. The negation of the
negation becomes the creation of a class by capitalist production which is
driven to react back upon that production in a revolutionary way. The behaviour
of that class can only be understood on the basis of its conditioning within
capitalism, but then it comes to understand its conditioning and consciously to
transform both society and itself." [Harman (1983), pp.73-74.
Bold emphasis added.]
Harman was strangely silent about the 'dialectic'
in nature in this
article, as were Alex Callinicos and
Peter Binns
in the same debate.
Indeed, Harman pointedly restricted dialectics to human social development (which is an indefensible
fall-back option, anyway, as these Essays have shown -- see also
Note 31). [Cf.,
Callinicos (1983b)
and
Binns (1982).]
This is quite inexplicable if we are now
supposed to accept the current UK-SWP line that
DM
is central
to Marxist Theory. In fact, it is even more puzzling when we recall that Alex
Callinicos had been severely critical of several core DM-theses in the
book under review in the above debate. [Callinicos (1982)]. Comrades in the
UK-SWP might
not have noticed it, but
WRP
writers certainly
did and laid
into Callinicos's 'anti-Marxist heresies' with no little vehemence,
as noted
earlier. Why didn't Peter Binns or Chris Harman mention such glaring
dialectical infelicities in that debate?
Update: Since writing the above the first
series of International Socialism has been made available on the Internet
(here,
here and
here). Its content confirms my allegation that DM was totally absent from the
UK-SWP's theoretical discussions
between 1958 and 1978. In the second series (1978-onwards), DM didn't begin to
appear until the early 1990s. Admittedly, dialectics is mentioned now and
again, but it doesn't seem to have been applied to nature before the late
1980s. Indeed, in his early
history of the International Socialists, Ian Birchall mentions DM not
once. [The latter can be accessed
here and
here.]
In 1975, Peter Binns even wrote this:
"For Engels direct acquaintance with the proletariat
overtook his involvement with literature, religion and above all
philosophy. For Marx it was the other way about. His involvements with religion,
Hegel's idealism and
Feuerbach's materialism were ended before he
became a revolutionary socialist. Intellectually he had already settled accounts
with them in a series of savage critiques. He never needed to re-open these
questions again, unlike Engels who devoted later works of dubious merit like Anti-Dühring and Dialectics of Nature to
them." [Quoted from
here. Emphases and link added.]
Except in letters to the editor --
many
of
whichremainunpublished,
anyway --
comments like this wouldn't be
permitted in SWP publications these days!
And then in 1976,
Binns added:
"But the dominant impression we get of Marx is of someone
who is so consciously trying to live down his Hegelian past that he 'bends the
stick' very much the other way -- endorsing Feuerbach's undialectical
materialism just because it provides a good (but temporary) stick to beat Hegel
with....
"But if class antagonisms are irreconcilable these
universal and supra-class rationalisations are quite empty, and must ultimately
lead us away from the task of helping the fight of the oppressed. That is why
from this point on Marx ceases to look for a philosophical base for proletarian
struggle. On the contrary it is proletarian struggle itself which will and must
provide the real and practical basis for the solution of the problems of ethics
and philosophy. What makes
The Holy Family
so interesting is
that it provides us with an answer which is an inconsistent mixture of both
the humanist and the class-struggle answer." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases and link added.
Italics in the original.
This isn't a million miles
distant
from certain aspects
of my own
argument!]
Furthermore,
Tony Cliff's
earlier work
(as
far as I am aware -- but see below) doesn't mention DM, and his lengthy political biographies of
Lenin and Trotsky are deafeningly silent on this issue (again, see below).
In fact, as
this thread confirms (specifically
here
-- (added later: unfortunately, the site to which this connects
the readers is now using new software,
so direct links to
specific comments have been lost),
Cliff mentioned this execrable theory in print only 3 times in 60 years (and even
then only in passing)!
Update: Since writing the above, I have
discovered a handful of references to dialectics (the
MD version -- i.e., that which is at work
in human history -- but not DM --, applied to nature) in Cliff's classic book,
Cliff (1988); on that see here. Even so,
dialectical concepts are nowhere near as prominent in
his work as they are in,
say, Ted Grant's. [On the latter, see below.]
However, I am assured by older members of the UK-SWP that Cliff used to lecture
on DM in earlier decades -- but apparently he didn't think it important enough
to put any of his ideas on this in print. Be this as it may, the point is, of course, that DM only became an
overt mantra in SWP
publications after 1985.
In addition, there is a passing mention of "dialectical
contradictions" in Cliff (1989), p.58. Birchall (2011) -- see next
paragraph but one -- records several other places where Cliff uses dialectical jargon.
Even so, he does precious little with it.
Eric
Petersen adds these pertinent comments about Cliff biography of Trotsky:
"Tony Cliff's
biography of Trotsky's politics as a critical devotee, but uncritically endorses
his dialectical materialism. Cliff writes of Trotsky's plunge into philosophy in
1925:
'Scientists'
practical work consistently proved the veracity of dialectical materialism, yet
most of them failed to recognise this and opposed the ideas of Marxism
ideologically. Trotsky therefore sat at their feet for the study of different
branches of science, but felt obliged to act as their tutor when it came to
locating science in the broader scientific ambience.' [Cliff
(1991), p.120.]
"This
dialectical materialism makes its first appearance, bereft of definition,
halfway through the third volume of a four-volume biography -- Cliff's Trotsky
got that far without needing it. How exactly was dialectical materialism
constantly proved? Did the scientists derive any demonstrable benefit from this
tutoring? Cliff however spends no time on these questions, and quickly departs
from the scientific ambience to return to politics." [Petersen (1994), p.163.
Italic emphasis in the original. Formatting conventions modified to agree
with those adopted at this site.]
Update January 2012: I have just received a copy of
Birchall (2012), which confirms my own impression of Cliff: "Cliff rarely
resorted to dialectical terminology...." (p.308).
However, Birchall adds the following comment:
"At several Marxisms [the annual theoretical conference
organised by the SWP -- RL] there were heated debates about whether the laws of
dialectics applied to the material world or only to human history. Cliff never
expressed a view, though John Rees is confident that Cliff did believe there was
a dialectic in nature." [Birchall (2011), p.516.]
Even so, if Cliff did believe there was a dialectic
in nature, there would surely be more than one comrade who would be able to
attest to that fact -- and someone, too, who had no axe to grind, like Rees.
[Nevertheless, Birchall's book confirms several of the allegations
advanced in this Essay (i.e., concerning the overt and covert hostility
and animosity that exists between
comrades -- even those who belong to the same party!): i.e., that prominent SWP comrades actually
viewed one another as enemies. One only has to read, say, Higgins (1997) --
now Higgins (2011) -- to see this
allegation is readily confirmed.
Higgins's comments about Chris Harman and Lindsey German, for example, are
hardly models of comradely banter. The break-up of Respect back in
2007/08 wasn't known for its moderatelanguage and temperate self-restraint,
either!
Any who doubt this should read, for instance, the comments sections over at
Socialist Unity back in 2007/08, or in the intervening years. The current crisis in the
UK-SWP also has had its fair share of individuals (who are in fact still comrades)
who seem
quite
happy to bad-mouth, bully and malign one another. On this, see
here. The
same happened in the
break-up of
the UK-SWP in early 2013.]
Similar comments also
apply to other prominent
UK-SWP theorists.
For example, and as far as I can ascertain,
Duncan Hallas
doesn't mention DM at all in
any of his
writings. Again, this is rather odd if this theory is as 'central' to
UK-SWP thought as some would now have us believe. It is possible -- nay, it
is highly
likely -- that Hallas's solid
working class roots inured him to this mystical theory.
Correction: I have come across one mention of DM
in Hallas's writings --, in an article, oddly enough, about
sectarianism! Anyway, he is merely quoting Trotsky, and does nothing with
the idea himself.
The change in line was heralded by two short articles; one written by Chris Harman -- which appeared in
Socialist Review in 1988 [Cf., Harman (1988)] -- the other by
John Molyneux
--
which appeared in Socialist Worker (see below).
Since then, several SWP
comrades have joined the stampede back to the
Hermetic Quagmire
Hegel laid in the path of the unwary:
John Rees [Rees (1989,
1990, 1994, 1998, 2008) -- but
Rees has now resigned from the SWP, so he is no longer an SWP theorist!]; John Molyneux [Molyneux (1987,
2012),
see also his
blog]; Paul McGarr
[McGarr (1990,
1994)]; and
Phil Gasper
[Gasper (1998)]
-- although, now that the US wing (the
ISO) of the IST
has
been
expelled, Phil is no longer an SWP/IST-theorist,
either! Cf., also Paul
Kellogg's
review
of a recent book on Engels,
'The Demon Marxist', and subsequent
letters.
[Paul
Kellogg has since resigned from the Canadian International Socialists
in protest over the UK-SWP's handing of accusations of rape.]
[Update:
Apparently, the US and UK wings of the ISO/IST are
now on friendlier terms! The ISO's stance on the latest UK-SWP crisis might put
a stop to that, though -- on that, see
here,
here, and
here. Some of the background to the above expulsion is outlined
here.]
See also
my
letter to the
International Socialist Review, which was written in response to an
article by Brian
Jones. [Jones
(2008)]. Comrade Jones attempted to mount a surprisingly weak and rather superficial
defence of dialectics, to which I have replied
here. [Readers need to be made aware of the fact that that response was based on a
copy of comrade Jones's reply to me, posted at RevLeft
by another
comrade who made several typing errors in reproducing it. A more considered version of my reply
has now been published
here.] A similar letter sent to Socialist Review
by a supporter of this site wasn't published. It can be accessed
here.
Even Alex Callinicos has softened his
anti-DM stance of late. [Callinicos (1998) and (2006); on the latter, see
here.] Before this, he had been openly
critical of DM; see, for example, Callinicos (1976), pp.11-29; (1978),
pp.135-84; (1982), pp.55, 112-19; (1983a), pp.54-56, 61-62; (1987), pp.52-53;
(1989a), pp.2-5.
It is quite clear that the downturn in the
movement since the 1970s, and particularly after the defeat of the UK miners in
1985, meant that the above comrades began to feel a pressing need to enrol
themselves on a sufficiently powerful Dialectical Methadone
programme.
Mercifully, DM has yet to appear
in Socialist Worker on a regular basis. As far as I am aware, it has only
featured once in the paperin the last 30 years -- in an article
written by John Molyneux (the reference
for which I have unfortunately lost, although Eric Petersen gives it as January 1984)
-- subsequently reprinted in Molyneux (1987), pp.49-51. [Cf., Petersen (1994),
p.158. Petersen also references a letter sent to Socialist Review,
written by a supporter of this site, Nemesis, in response to Harman's
article, pp.160-61. (Cf., John Rees's dismissive 'response' can be found in Rees (1990),
p.134, note 3.)]
Given the fact that workers are 'supposed' to
assent to DM readily when they encounter it, or, according to
Trotsky, they are said to use
its concepts unwittingly/"unconsciously" all the time, the above omission is
highly puzzling, especially if DM is as central to revolutionary theory
and practice
as SWP-dialecticians would now have us believe. Why hasn't Socialist Worker
assumed the
Dialectical Mantle once worn so proudly by
Gerry Healy and Newsline?
The answer isn't difficult to
figure out. The editors of Socialist Worker aren't idiots, unlike their
counterparts at Newsline. They surely know that DM is a
complete turn-off for workers. Even Socialist Review
largely ignores this supposedly central tenet of Marxism -- probably for the same reason.
[However, in November 2008, it published an article on
"Quantity and Quality", by John Rees (i.e., Rees (2008)). More about that later.]
But, if DM is to be brought to workers, how might that be achieved if the
revolutionary press (in the shape of, say, Socialist Worker) totally ignores
it? It is difficult to see how DM could ever "seize the
masses" if 'their paper' omits all mention of it.
Update September 2012:
In view of the recent crisis that swept over the SWP, and its
subsequent haemorrhaging of members, one should expect Dialectical Mysticism to make a
strong comeback in UK-SWP publications. And that is exactly what we find in the
shape of John Molyneux's latest book -- The Point Is To Change It, An
Introduction To Marxist Philosophy --
alongside (i) An article in a recent edition of
Socialist Worker, and (ii) Two longer articles in International
Socialism --
Royle (2014), and
Sullivan (2015). Molyneux's book also received a favourable
-- and predictably uncritical -- boilerplate response in
Socialist Review.
Alas, Molyneux's work makes all the usual mistakes
(several of which had already been pointed out to him) -- indeed, as do the two articles
in International Socialism. A supporter of this site
has sent letters to the editors of both SWP publications about this.
However, there
isn't a cat-in-the-hot-place's chance
they will be published. Be this as it may, all three are classic examples of
what I have termed 'Mickey
Mouse Science'.
[The aforementioned letters have now been posted
here. I will also write a longer reply to
Molyneux's book in a separate Essay sometime in the future. In the meantime, see my comments over at
Molyneux' blog -- at the foot of the page -- and
here.]
"The 'strategic perplexity' of the left
confronted with the gravest crisis of capitalism in generations has been hard to
miss. Social democracy continues down the road of social liberalism. The
far-left has struggled to take advantage of ruling class disarray. Radical left
formations have tended to stagnate at best." [Seymour
(2012), p.191. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site.]
In early March 2013, the
UK-SWP called a Special Conference to discuss the growing internal crisis in the
party. In the Pre-Conference Bulletin, the Central Committee had this to say:
"In our view, some of the issues are
the result of frustration felt across the party due to the failure of struggle
to break through after 2011. Indeed, the wider problem of the downturn in
industrial struggle that took place several decades ago, and which has not
subsequently been wholly reversed, despite many hopeful signs, is implicated in
the internal crises the party has faced since 2007.
"Three splits -- first, by a very
small group of comrades who sided with George Galloway during the
Respect
crisis; second, by the group that broke away to form
Counterfire; third by
the group concentrated in Glasgow who broke to form the
ISG
--
reflected, in different ways, attempts to find shortcuts to overcome the low
level of workers' struggle.
"Forms of voluntarism, whether
expressed through electoral shortcuts, movementism, attempts to substitute
students, unemployed youth and a supposed 'precariat'
for workers, and so on, are a price we have paid for a long period of a
generally low level of class struggle. The revival of ideological radicalism, in
a context where organisations orientated on workers and socialism are especially
weak, and the halting pattern of one-day strikes, can reinforce these
tendencies." [Quoted from
here, p.7.
This links to a PDF; accessed 06/03/2013. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Links added.]
However, its authors forgot to
mention this latest set of reverses has motivated the need for yet another hit of Dialectical
Dope -- one of the chief sources of which is assumed the shape of Molyneux (2012).
International Socialism
now appears to be the only UK-SWP publication 'radical'
enough to push DM-Crack-Cocaine
on a regular basis.
Admittedly, few workers read this otherwise excellent journal -- and that
probably explains why the editors find they can peddle this theory.
In addition, meetings at Marxism
(the annual SWP theoretical conference) regularly discuss
DM
(although only a couple of hours over four or five days each year are devoted to
this allegedlycore theory).
[Some of this material can be accessed
here,
although it now features on the
UK-SWP's TV
Channel over at YouTube. Predictably, the 'dialectical' videos attract
very few
hits. Not much 'seizing of the masses' going on here, one feels -- on a site that attracts
tens of millions of hits a day! (A report concerning the discussion of dialectics at Marxism 2007
can be found here.)]
This phenomenon is reasonably easy to explain: it is
plainly
a rather weak and attenuated
gesture toward orthodoxy. However, there are relatively few such meetings
(and, as noted above, the videos on dialectics attract very few hits); they relate to little of the political
content of other meetings
(which, given the criticisms
advanced
in this Essay, and in
Part One, isn't all that surprising; on the other
hand, considering the alleged centrality of
this theory, it is surprising).
Nevertheless, the contrary view
(i.e., anti-dialectics) certainly isn't allowed
adequate time to mount an effective case for the prosecution (or any at all).
The following was written by a supporter of this site ('Nemesis'):
At Marxism 1990, in separate meetings on dialectics I was given two,
three minute impromptu slots in the discussion period at the end. It is only possible to make highly superficial
points in such short intervals, which, because they challenge fundamental
beliefs, are quite easy to dismiss. However, the level of argument advanced in response to
what I had to say
was truly lamentable; in fact it was difficult to believe that one comrade (Seth
Harman) had listened to a word I had uttered, given the irrelevant comments he
made. Indeed, after the meeting had finished, I put him on the spot
by shouting across the auditorium: "Hey, Seth! Is that the best you can do?"
The main speaker (John Molyneux) even took it upon himself to interrupt me
several times at the beginning of my first three minute spell, until I silenced him with a
joke. In my opening remarks, I was in the middle of saying that my attack on DM
was not an attack on
HM,
when he interjected loudly over the
microphone that it was. I denied it. He re-asserted it. I denied it again. He
re-asserted it once more. I then turned to the audience and said "There you go,
comrades, a contradiction within the first thirty seconds!" The subsequent
laughter drowned out any further response John thought to make.
However, the reception I received from the audience for my brief intervention (a
loud and prolonged applause --, indeed, upon request, they even voted for me to be
given an extra minute to speak) indicated that there were many comrades in the SWP who
held similar views to mine. There is no
way I'd experience such a reception these days. The dialectical rot has set
in too deep.
After the meeting, John Molyneux put me on the spot by
asking me which classic of revolutionary theory had been written by an anti-dialectician,
and to what successes could anti-dialecticians point. I made a lame reference to Jerry Cohen's book (Karl
Marx's Theory of History, A Defence), which he found easy to ridicule.
However, it later occurred to me that on this basis we should accept the
validity of Newton's mystical
writings since his scientific work was highly successful. Indeed, I should have put
him on the defensive by asking him for a currently successful example of
a dialectically-inspired socialist state (or even movement!). Indeed,
as Rosa's
Essays show,
Dialectical Marxism is now almost synonymous with abject failure. Moreover, the vast
majority of Marxist classics ignore DM, while those that don't are distinctly
inferior works. [On this, see
Note 28 and
Note 30 --
RL.]
My second intervention the next day -- in a meeting given by
John Rees -- was far less successful.
In fact, I was only able to make a few superficial points since I was keen not
to repeat what I had said the day before. However, I did manage to tell John that,
in his articles on dialectics in
International Socialism,
he had managed to publish several whoppers
about formal logic. Given the fact that he later repeated these howlers in TAR,
my comments plainly failed even to go in one ear!
In the refectory after the second meeting, I engaged in
debate with Andy Wilson (who is now no longer in the SWP, but manages to sniff
around its periphery on several internet blogs/boards -- and now in
International Socialism itself (IS
133, in fact) --
who attempted unsuccessfully to explain what a
'dialectical contradiction' is. His example (that the revolutionary party both
is and is not a part of the working class) was easy to dispose of as an
undischarged ambiguity. That is, the revolutionary party is part of the working
class in so far as..., while it isn't part of the working class in so far as....
(Readers can fill in the blanks according to their own theory of the party.) But
this is no more a contradiction, let alone a 'dialectical contradiction', than
this would be: Das Kapital is part of my personal
library and not part of my personal library. It is part of my library in so far
as I have a copy of the book on my shelves. But, it isn't part of my library in so far as the actual book Marx wrote (in
his own hand-writing) is not on my shelves. [Compare this with the
examples Rosa gives of ambiguous pseudo-contradictions in
Essay
Five.]
Incidentally, Andy Wilson's 'dialectical manners' have now
degenerated to such an extent that the only remarks he can bring himself to post about Rosa's
ideas in the comments sections of the various blogs and internet sites he frequents (until
recently, particularly Socialist Unity)
are as inane as they are abusive. [On this, follow, for example, the links to a
debate at the aforementioned site given
here
and
here. (Andy used to post
there as 'Karen Elliott'. This isn't to 'out' his identity, since he's
openly admitted this on-line.) In the current crisis in the UK-SWP, Wilson is
now apparently part of the
Democratic Renewal Platform,
and the
International Socialist Network.]
Of late (i.e., circa 2003-11), even
International Socialism has largely dropped this 'hot' topic (except for
this
article written by Chris Harman in his review of a recent book by Alex Callinicos,
i.e., Harman (2007a), and possibly
this
one, too -- i.e., Harman (2007b) -- and the two articles
mentioned earlier).
This dearth of dialectics is probably because of the
turbulent international situation created by a resurgence of US and UK Imperialism, and
the massive anti-war
response this has
provoked across the globe. It isn't easy to argue with newly radicalised youth that "Being is identical with
but at the same time different from Nothing, the contradiction resolved in
Becoming..." and hope to appear either relevant or sane!
These questions in fact answer themselves -- DM is
totally irrelevant.
One should be able to predict that, as the current wave of
radicalisation declines, and as the fortunes of recently fragmented
Respect and the hastily-formed (and then dissolved)
Left List
continue to fade, dialectics should rear its ugly head in SWP publications
again. The above reappearances in
International Socialism (and those recorded below), alongside Molyneux
(2012), are perhaps an early
indication of this
trend.
Update, Winter 2008: Sure enough, dialectics re-surfaced
in
Socialist Worker! (Details can be found here.)
Once more, as noted above, this is probably because
UK-SWP has not made a significant political break-through (or any at all), despite their prominent role in
the UK Anti-war movement, and perhaps also because the latter is now in steep decline.
[Update March 2009: Also see
Harman's comments on a
recent article
(written by
Guglielmo Carchedi)
about Marx's
Mathematical Manuscripts. Harman is clearly unaware of the serious flaws
in Marx's analysis (as it seems is Carchedi, too); on that, see
here.]
Another
example appeared in an article on Engels, by Simon Basketter. [Basketter
(2008).] I have already sent a letter to the paper about this -- we'll see
if it is published.
[Update: No such luck! In fact, it now looks
like even my e-mails
are being
blocked! See also Note 16,
below.]
Idealism, too -- evidenced by
this
example of the
'triumph of the will'
-- is once more on in the ascendancy, it seems!
[On that, see the discussion
here,
where normally sane and sober comrades appear happy to eulogise the sort of stunts
we usually associate with anarchists! (Alas, this link no longer works! Some of
that discussion can be accessed
here.)]
Finally, we can see how important DM is when it comes to interfacing with the general public, on-line.
On the
Theory
page of
the UK-SWP's site, dialectics receives not one mention.
HM, on the other hand,
is present there in all its glory, all the time.
Update 09/02/2013:
The above crisis has deepened alarmingly since the
SWP's NC met over the weekend of the 2nd and 3rd of February, to such an
extent that leading members of the party have now declared a faction in open
defiance of (some interpretations of) the party's constitution. On that see
here and
here. [The first of these links to a PDF.]
The CC has now relented and agreed to call a
special conference (on March 10th) to discuss this crisis --
a crisis which they
mysteriously failed to notice a week or so earlier!
Update 16/02/2013: I have now added
several comments about the above crisis in the UK-SWP,
here,
here, and
here.
The Special Pre-Conference Bulletin can be accessed
here.
Update 10/03/2013: The Special
Conference met today and has
voted to back the CC's line. This means that widely held and deeply felt concerns
in the party (in relation to what might very well have amounted to the rape and
sexual abuse of a female comrade -- and possibly even two) have now been swept under the
dialectical carpet. Doubtless this will
prompt a mass exodus from the
SWP,
seriously weakening the UK revolutionary left. This mass exodus is also
likely to be repeated right across the
IST, which will thus have the same effect internationally.
Update January 2017: As far as I
am aware, this didn't emerge. The international reaction inside the IST was
somewhat muted, although there were some
resignations in Canada. Given the nature of the allegations, that is a
problem in itself!
So, here we have
yet another self-inflicted wound -- and this time it could prove
to be fatal.
[I am recording some of these resignations
and the reasons given for them,
in
Appendix G.]
Update 20/03/2013:
A series of short essays dealing with this crisis, and how it developed -- written
by someone whose opinion I trust -- is now being posted
here,
here,
here, and
here.
Update 10/07/2013: The SWP break-away
'faction' -- the IS Network [ISN] --
is now experiencing the tensions to which I have
alluded
below, between centralisation and democracy. This latest 'difficulty' revolves around the thorny
question whether or not the ISN should appoint a paid employee! Note the vitriolic tone and the threats to "leave" if this move is
implemented. Reports suggest they have already lost half their members (and
these are mainly younger comrades).
As I have
explained: fragmentation is an
inherent feature of this corner of the radical market. That is why such
parties in the end err on the side of anti-democratic centralisation, and
then face damaging splits.
Centralisation aimed at
preventing splits in the ends up causing them! Another enigmatic 'unity of
opposites'?
~~~~~~oOo~~~~~~
Indeed, if
this article is to be believed, the ISN might also be about to
splinter.
[Ignore
the comment that Richard Seymour is a 'reformist'. Nothing could be further from
the truth!]
Update 26/01/2014: As
predicted, the ISN has
suffered its most serious split since it was formed. Those who have departed
report the same sort of 'difficulties' we have seen are endemic on the
far-left:
"At issue here is not just the conduct or content of
recent discussions or even the political direction of the ISN, but the question
of making a habitable culture of discussion on the Left. When some of us
recently wrote an article criticising a politics of anathema within the ISN, we
were derided by opponents who denied any such thing exists. Unfortunately, it
does. One SC [Steering Committee? -- RL] member has recently publicly insisted
that 'no one is being targeted personally'. The very same SC member recently
seconded a denouncement on Facebook, by another SC member, of several of us as
'arrogant fucks' and 'bad rubbish' to whom 'good riddance'. One leading member
expressed a desire on Facebook to strangle one of us -- referring to her as a
'nauseating tosser' -- and not one of the SC members to whom she said this
suggested it was an inappropriate comment to make. Several SC members
openly expressed their agreement with a status referring to us as
'parasites'. Another SC member wrote 'they should count themselves lucky they
haven't been expelled' -- particularly galling to two of the 'Facebook Four'
involved in our thread. There are further examples, but this culture is one in
which we can no longer work: we also would like comrades to consider whether
left organisations can hope to attract a new generation of members if they treat
each other in this way.
"We look forward to working in a left culture that has
ended certain practices inherited from the SWP. These include moralistic
browbeating; the implicit claim that various controversial topics are
inappropriate for discussion; that certain comrades can not be argued with on
them; and that dissenters from these nostrums deserve to be attacked in
personalised terms. We know many ISN members look forward to this with similar
enthusiasm." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 26/01/2014.
Bold emphases added.]
In fact, my comments at the ISN's website are being routinely deleted (even when they aren't about dialectics), and I have
now been barred from posting there! The
ISN seems to have inherited the incipient Stalinism of the old UK-SWP!
Update 03/01/2014:
As expected, the ISN, is now experiencing the centrifugal forces that afflict
all Dialectical Marxist tendencies:
"In the early days of the ISN, and now again among the
recent SWP leavers, there is the idea that we will clarify our ideas over time
-- that whatever we set up, the most important question is not organisational
but the politics we share. Well, yes and no. While we may all be on a journey
towards clarity, we are also travelling on different trajectories. In the ISN,
some have become more orthodox Trotskyist, some more left communist, some more
anarchist. Some see the best hope as the construction of a new approach fit for
2013, based on contemporary theoretical work instead of a return to any
particular canon. (Yes, I see myself in the latter group.) As we followed the
logic of our new courses, the political space between us has widened....
"It seems more likely than not that these informal
groupings will continue to develop their politics in different ways. That
dynamic could, if we are not careful, see the various ex-SWP groupings split
into a dozen shards within a few years. (Look at the fate of the fragments of
the Workers Revolutionary Party to see where this can end....)" [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
The ISN finally
voted to
disband in April 2015, about which, Richard Seymour, one of the founding
members of the ISN, had this to say (in February 2017):
"Those
of us who left the party [the UK-SWP -- RL] were simultaneously dazed by the
experience, and left desperately trying to work through what it all meant. That
this could happen, surely said so much. We had to go back to first
principles, review our entire political tradition, rethink our attitude to
feminism, read up, form new alliances, and digest all the emerging ideas about
'intersectionality' and 'privilege' politics. Above all, we tried to begin the
process of rebuilding. The SWP was surely dead as a viable organisation, we
reasoned, and so it should be. Something else -- more democratic, more
intellectually open, more honest, more feminist, less bureaucratic, less
defensive, less dogmatic -- would have to emerge. Why? Because the field of the
British left, at that point, was not exactly crowded with effective, democratic
organisation. And without something like that, the rump SWP, with its funds and
discipline, would continue to dominate the terrain, even if not to the same
extent. Some of us thought it was our responsibility to try to assemble the most
forward-thinking parts of the left in a new organisation.
"To that end, I was one of the founders of a
small splinter organisation with (for me, at least) grand ideas about realigning
the left. In that false spring, many many good people approached us, wanting to
work with us, and maybe even be part of anything we might set up. There was an
exuberant moment of 'unity' and hope. But despite our early buoyancy, we
underestimated just how fucking traumatised we all were by the shock, and how
difficult what we were trying to achieve was, how small the window of
opportunity and how large the obstacles. And all we did for months afterwards
was tear each other to pieces, often over imaginary or overblown offences and
perceived political dangers. We had been united only by our common fight against
the unacceptable: rape cover-up and the sexist apologetics propagated in its
defence. Beyond that, we were pulling in radically different directions and we
were shocked to discover how much we hated each other. And bitterly
depressed to harvest nothing but ashes for our trouble. Some time after I left
that splinter, I found out that it had its own rape cover-up." [Quoted from
here; accessed 05/02/2017. Bold emphasis alone added. Minor typo corrected.]
Update 30/10/2013: It looks
like the party is about to fragment even further. Several SWP members have asked for
a
censored pre-conference Bulletin article (which was highly critical of the
CC's handling of the recent rape accusations debacle) to be published in
full at the Socialist Unity website (a site that is openly hostile to the
SWP and its politics), rather than at the
SWP-break-away ISN site, or even at the SWP's own
internal
faction site. This is almost guaranteed to lead to their expulsion, which
will in all likelihood be followed by another mass exodus.
Even more shocking, this was reported to have
been said at the conference:
"We aren't rape apologists
unless we believe that women always tell the truth -- and guess what, some women
and children lie." [Quoted from
here. Several other sources on
Twitter confirmed this.]
And, what is
perhaps worse,
it received a round of
applause!
Update 30/12/2013: Indeed,
there has now been a
mass resignation of 165 members from the SWP.
One
thing these comrades did not, and apparently won't, do: apply a Marxist analysis to what has happened,
despite being advised to do so by yours truly. And after being told to expect
more splits just like this!
However, to those left inside the SWP, this
will just confirm the impression that there is a political
desert outside their party, which will further accelerate its degeneration
into a cult.
Of course, that hasn't stopped those
belonging to the many fragments that have emerged (as a result of this crisis)
from theorising what went wrong, but other than reaching for rather desperate
reasons why it occurred -- ranging from
blaming the CC to blaming 'human fallibility' --, no
one has even so much as
attempted to develop a historical materialist explanation why this always
seems to happen to 'dialectical', petty-bourgeois Marxists.
From this, one gets the distinct impression
that many ex-SWP-ers are simply running around like headless chickens, afraid to
apply Marxism to Marxism itself!
9.
This isn't strictly true; since writing this I have come across somewhat
similar (but far less detailed) conclusions in Max Eastman's work. Eric Petersen
has also made a somewhat similar point:
"In their
incomplete philosophical studies, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky all have one thing
in common: they commenced this work after massive defeats for the working class:
Engels after the Paris Commune was drowned in blood in 1871; Lenin after the
catastrophic collapse of the socialist movement in August 1914; Trotsky's 1925
writings on science followed the political flogging he received in 1924 and
accompanied his own withdrawal (temporarily) from public political struggle in
Russia; his 1928 fragment followed Stalin's triumph over the Left Opposition [I
think Petersen is referring to 'Philosophical Tendencies of Bureaucratism' in
Trotsky (1981), pp.389-409 -- RL] and Chiang Kai Shek's beheading of the Chinese
working class in 1927; and his Notebooks were written shortly after
Stalin and Hitler inflicted, in 1933, this century's greatest defeat of the
European working class.
"It is no
coincidence that Engels's, Lenin, and Trotsky usually turned to natural
dialectics only when their class was nursing its wounds.
"Trotsky wrote
once: 'the harsh and tragic dialectic of our epoch is working in our favour'. It
might also include speculation a bit further afield: perhaps the universe is
also working in our favour. After all, it too is dialectical." [Petersen (1994),
pp.210-11. Underlining in the original.]
9a. "What mistakes?", I hear someone ask.
Well, perhaps that word is far too mild; "culpable blunders"
and "dogmatic
blindness" might be more apposite. What these are will be detailed
below and in Essay Ten
Part One.
10.I do not propose to document the history
of every attempt made by STDs
and
OTs
to invert reality to accommodate
theory (or, indeed, to save face) -- but, see below.
Fortunately, the UK-SWP, up
until recently(!), was easily the most honest and self-critical tendency in this
tradition (no sarcasm intended -- on that, see Note 16 for an example of how honest
they are; I can't think of any other Marxist party that openly admits to such
inner-party disputes, or in such detail). Certainly, they used to be willing to acknowledge at
least some of their errors. [Cf., Cliff (1999, 2000).]
Whether this means that the DM-credo will ever be
abandoned is anyone's guess -- but I, for one, won't be holding my breath.
11.Several books document these highly ritualised
'debates'.
Helena Sheehan's is perhaps one of the best [Sheehan (1993)]. [See also Gouldner
(1980), and Note 38,
below.] In addition, cf., Bakhurst (1991), Graham (1971, 1987, 1993), Joravsky (1961), Krementsov (1997),
MacIntyre (1980), Pollock (2006), Reé (1983), Vucinich (1981, 2001), Werskey (1988), and Wetter
(1958).
12.As noted above, with respect to
OTs,
this is well illustrated in Cliff (1999, 2000). A recent and excellent example of a
MIST
with his/her head
buried deeply
in sand can be found
here.
Nevertheless, the following represent a few of the literally thousands of on-line references to this 'theory' (and
its truly miraculous powers) from various wings of Dialectical Marxism,
all of whom claim to represent the 'True Gospel':
[Unfortunately, one or two of the above links
are now dead, and several have changed since this was originally written. I have
listed a dozen or more extra examples in
Essay Two.]
Each of these, of course, has the correct, 'orthodox' dialectical line on everything from the Big Bang to the price of
pork.
[OT = Orthodox
Trotskyist.]
With scores of parties and tendencies 'testing'
their theories in practice (but,
oddly enough
ignoring
the
results!), and deciding, in their own case, they
are
the non-existent deity's gift to success -- whereas the rest are all abject,
anti-dialectical flops --, one would be forgiven for concluding there ought to be a few more workers' states on the
planet than there appear to be right now -- which was, alas, zero at the last count.
[Plenty more examples of this phenomenon can be found here.]
13.Admittedly, this isn't the first time this particular accusation has been
levelled against Marxist revolutionaries. However, on this occasion it is worth
highlighting the following significant differences:
(1) It is being claimed here that only DM (not
HM) functions in this way.
(2)
Dialectical Marxism isn't a
religion; it merely operates in a way that makes it analogous to
one. Just as religious
alienation finds theoretical expression in Theology, so revolutionary political
alienation finds it in DM.
(3) There are other respects
in which DM is analogous to Theology: (a) Both depend on, or utilise,
metaphysical theories; (b) Both
hold on to dogma that none dare question, but which no one can explain; (c) Both
possess Doctors of Divinity/Dialectics who not only help preserve the faith, but
who are also skilled at complex sectarian/casuistical disputation; (d) Both
offer their acolytes some form of consolation; (e) Both dull the critical faculties by
means of mantra-like liturgies; (f)
Both have their sacred books.
(4) These accusations aren't being
advanced by an enemy of Marxism, but by a Marxist who harbours serious concerns
about the influence such ruling-class ideas have had on our movement, and which
will only help guarantee that the long-term failure of Dialectical
Marxism will extend into this new century; perhaps beyond if humanity survives that
long. The aim of this
critique isn't, therefore, to rubbish Marxism, but to help make it more
successful.
However, since religious belief will only
disappear when its social, economic and political causes have been eliminated,
the hold this mystical creed has on the majority of dialectically-distracted comrades
will only vanish when the working-class succeed in changing society for
them.
Dialecticians will thus have to have their
heads extracted from the mystical sands in which they have been inserted by
a successful workers' revolution.
My Essays can no more do this (i.e.,
extract these class-compromised heads from the local sand dune) than we can hope
to
argue the god-botherers of this world out of their faith. This means that, just like religionists,
dialecticians
will require a
very real, materialist cure -- not an Ideal one -- provided by the revolutionary
proletariat. So,
these Essays will only make sense to such comrades when the
Owl of
Minerva has finally been shot, plucked and then stuffed by a workers'
militia -- should that ever come to pass.
Nothing short of this will
bring and end to the alienation that induces comrades to lose themselves in dialectical
daydreams. Of course, if the above revolution never comes to pass, dialectical mystics will
doubtless continue to perfect their
ostrich impressions right up until the point where the planet finally sinks into
barbarism, or worse. These Essays won't shift them in the least, for such
comrades cling to dialectics for non-rational reasons. [On that, see
here,
here,
here, and Note 13a2.]
13a00.
I hasten to add that I most definitely do not think revolutionary socialism is a lost cause;
quite the reverse, in fact. But, if we retain a commitment to DM, it could very
well turn out to be just that -- unless, of course, the working class rescue
Dialectical Marxists
from themselves. [On that, see Note 13
and Note 13a2.]
13a0.
This might sound rather
Machiavellian, and in some sense it is. Nevertheless, anyone who finds this
comment unacceptable is encouraged to shelve those qualms until
later on in this
Essay, where it will be substantiated.
[It is also worth
pointing out that the basis for advancing allegations like this was established in Essay Nine
Part One.]
13a01.
Of course, there are exceptions to these sweeping statements -- but, they are just
that, exceptions.
13a1.
Since writing this I have come across another analysis of
petty-bourgeois intellectuals in Löwy (1979), pp.15-90. However, It doesn't appear to add
much, if anything, to what I have to say in this Essay. I have also just recalled
that there is a lengthy analysis in Draper (1978).
[I will add some comments
on this in a future re-write of this Essay.]
13a2.
I have summarised this argument elsewhere in the following way (partly in
answer to the question "Why is
DM a world-view?"):
The founders of this quasi-religion
[Dialectical Marxism] weren't workers; they came from a class
that educated their children in the Classics, the Bible, and Philosophy. This tradition
taught that behind appearances there lies a 'hidden world', accessible to thought
alone, which is more real than the material universe we see around us.
This world-view was concocted by ideologues of the ruling-class, initially over
two thousand years ago. They invented it because if you belong to, benefit from,
or help run a society which is based on gross inequality, oppression and
exploitation, you can keep order in several ways.
The first and most obvious way is through violence. This will work for a time,
but it is not only fraught with danger, it is costly and it stifles innovation
(among other things).
Another way is to win over the majority -- or, at least, a significant
section of 'opinion formers' (bureaucrats, judges, bishops, 'intellectuals', philosophers, teachers, administrators,
editors, etc.)
-- to the view that the present order either: (i) Works for their benefit, (ii) Defends 'civilised
values', (iii) Is ordained of the 'gods', or (iv) Is 'natural' and so can't be
fought against, reformed or negotiated with.
Hence, a world-view that rationalises one or more of the above is necessary for the ruling-class to carry on ruling
"in the
same old way". While the content of ruling-class thought may have changed with
each change in the mode of production, its form has remained largely the same
for thousands of years: Ultimate Truth (about this 'hidden world') can be
ascertained by thought alone, and therefore
may be imposed on reality dogmatically and
aprioristically.
{Some might think this violates central tenets of
HM, in that it asserts
that some ideas remained to same for many centuries; I have addressed
that concern, here.]
So, the non-worker founders of our movement -- who had been educated from
an early age to believe there was just such a 'hidden world' lying behind
'appearances', and which governed everything -- when they became
revolutionaries, looked for 'logical' principles relating to this abstract world
that told them that change was inevitable, and was part of the cosmic order.
Enter dialectics, courtesy of the dogmatic ideas of that ruling-class mystic,
Hegel. The dialectical classicists were quite happy to impose
their 'new' theory on the world (upside down or the "right way up") -- as we saw in
Essay Two --
since that is how they had been taught 'genuine' philosophers
should behave.
That 'allowed' the founders of this
quasi-religion to think of themselves as special, prophets of the new order,
which workers, alas, couldn't quite comprehend because of their
defective education, their reliance on ordinary language and the 'banalities
of commonsense'.
Fortunately, history has predisposed these dialectical prophets to ascertain truths about
this invisible world on their behalf, which implied they were the
'naturally-ordained' leaders of the workers' movement -- indeed, 'Great Helmsmen'. That in turn meant that
they were also teachers of the 'ignorant masses' who
could thereby legitimately substitute themselves for the unwashed majority -- in
'their own interests', of course -- since they have been
blinded by 'commodity fetishism', 'formal thinking', or they have been bought off
by imperial 'super profits'. In which case, 'the masses' are 'incapable' of seeing the truth for themselves.
Unfortunately, these self-appointed
leaders will need (materialist) workers to rescue them from themselves. Transforming
the
material conditions
that give rise to such alienated thought-forms is the only way that Dialectical
Day-Dreaming like this can be consigned to the dustbin of history.
Dialectical Mystics are just going to
have to rely on the material force of the working class to save them from the
consequences of importing this virus of the mind.
13a3.
Any who object to my quoting Max Eastman need
recall that I only agree
with his criticism of 'the dialectic' not his subsequent anti-Marxist views. Nor is
it true that those who abandon 'the dialectic' soon abandon Marxism. On
that, see Note 17.
13a.
Workers, if and when they become déclassé revolutionaries, soon distance themselves from the
collective discipline of the workplace, and can thus quickly fall prey to this
regressive creed. [On that, see here.]
It could be objected that this paints an incorrect picture of the dynamic inside
the working class. As Tony Cliff argues:
"In Lenin's view...capitalism tended to organise
the proletariat for the class struggle. However, it also constantly disrupted
the unity of the working class, creating centrifugal forces. The daily struggle
for immediate economic demands constantly unites sections of the class, but this
does not last; quite often, in fact, it prevents the unity of the class as a
whole. The dialectical contradiction between the unifying and disruptive
tendencies creates the need for a revolutionary party which embraces only a
minority, perhaps a very small one, of the working class. Without such an
organisation, with its clear ideological demarcation and discipline, the
socialists will tail-end the class, with all the variety of views influencing
it, with the great majority dominated by the prevailing ideas in society, in
other words bourgeois ideas. There is nothing élitist, or substitutionist, in
Lenin's view of the revolutionary party." [Cliff (1989), p.58.
Bold emphasis added.]
Several points are worth making about the above:
(1) Very few working-class Marxists have
ever led revolutionary parties, and I can think of none that have helped shape their
core ideas (i.e., those encapsulated in DM) -- this is not even true of Dietzgen.
(2) Both Lenin and Cliff emphasise the material
roots of the forces that move workers to unite or divide, but neither of
them even so much as mentions -- it doesn't even make the edge of the radar
screen! -- the material forces that similarly operate
on the non-working class elements in the Party, which, in general,
comprise its 'leading'
figures and most important theorists.
To be sure, worker revolutionaries will come from
the "advanced battalions" of the class and will have had democratic ideals
instilled in
them by struggle, which they will bring with them into the movement. But, what about the dominant
non-working class elements in the Party?What material forces influence
them? What do they bring with them into the party? From what we can
ascertain about this layer -- and from what has been written by them!
--
it seems that in their own eyes they are
superhuman beings who are moved solely by progressive ideas, which
have
either descended from on high, or which have been appropriated from earlier
non-working class
theorists, like Hegel -- who were similarly blessed with immaculate, or
near-immaculate, concepts. In that case, unless we
are prepared to accept
an Idealist view of these non-working class comrades (arguing that they
are moved solely and uniquely by such pristine and untainted thoughts), we are forced to
look elsewhere for the social, political and ideological source of the tendency,
possessed of every single one of the parties they
form, or join, to fragment and split,
which is a characteristic of the far-left that is so well documented it is in no need of further
proof.
I have
attempted to outline what these factors are in this Essay.
(3) To continue the above point: Cliff doesn't say how Marxist intellectuals
and other non-working class elements in the Party are able to resist, almost
heroically, the influence of
bourgeois ideology. From what he says, it seems that workers are all too easily
duped in this regard, whereas Party intellectuals float sublimely above such
mundane concerns. In that case,
and in relation to the Party Elect, do we
not now have to appeal
to a dialectical version of the
Immaculate Conception of Ideas in order to locate a source pure enough for
these non-working class comrades to have tapped into in the formation of their
ideas? Have their thoughts 'popped,
de novo,
into existence'
untainted by boss-class ideology?
Are these comrades the only individuals in human history to whom Marx's famous
words (i.e., "social being determines consciousness") fail to apply?
But, it isn't as if we don't already know where
these comrades derived their core philosophical ideas. They inherited themfrom a well-entrenched, mystical, ruling-class
tradition. Dialectically distracted comrades not only openly admit this,
they revel in it,
and see themselves as part of an ancient and noble tradition:
"The theory of socialism,
however, grew out of the philosophic, historical, and economic theories
elaborated by educated representatives of the propertied classes, by
intellectuals. By their social status the founders of modern scientific
socialism, Marx and Engels, themselves belonged to the bourgeois
intelligentsia. In the very same way, in Russia, the theoretical doctrine of
Social-Democracy arose altogether independently of the spontaneous growth of the
working-class movement; it arose as a natural and inevitable outcome of the
development of thought among
the revolutionary socialist intelligentsia." [Lenin
(1947), pp.31-32. Bold emphases added.]
"[T]he genius of Marx consists
precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the
foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate
continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of
philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive
and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable
with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It
is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth
century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and
French socialism." [Lenin,
Three Sources
and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone
added.]
[This
theme will be expanded upon in Essay Fourteen Part Two. I covered this point in
more detail
earlier
in this Essay.]
Moreover, when workers join the Party (and are
largely unaware of these more 'sophisticated' ruling-ideas), they invariably
have to have them rammed down their throats. [Witness the force-feeding DM to
students and schoolchildren in the fSU, Eastern Europe and China.] In which case, it is a
bit rich of DM-fans pointing to the ideologically-compromised 'consciousness' of
workers when the Party itself is awash with alien-class ideology, promoting a
set of doctrines
that these petty-bourgeois comrades will defend to the death
-- of the movement and/or the planet --, if necessary!
We also already know about the fragmentary and
atomised nature of the petty-bourgeoisie, from which class most
leading Marxists have been recruited, or into which they are soon inducted as
"professional revolutionaries", "intellectuals", "full-timers" or
"party functionaries".
[As
we have seen, the phrase "professional revolutionary" isn't synonymous with
the other three terms.]
So,
unless we are prepared to argue that these individuals were in fact "born again" when they
became Marxists -- the effects of their "social being" having
been somehow
miraculously wiped from their brains and their personalities --, we
are forced to apply a Marxist analysis to expose the effect boss-class ideas
like these have had on
Dialectical Marxism in general, and these comrades in particular.
Once more, only unrepentant Idealists will take exception
at this juncture.
It is also worth pointing out once again that this isn't to
adopt a naive view of workers, nor is it to advocate some form of spontaneism
independent of the party;
but this topic was discussed in more detail In
Part One of this Essay.
After reading the above, some might be tempted to
ask: If, according to Ms Lichtenstein, we are all in thrall to bourgeois
ideology, how come she isn't, too?
Maybe I am, maybe I am not. But, one thing is for
sure, I am not dominated by ideas drawn from Mystical Christianity. Moreover,
since I base my ideas on the language of the working class, on the vernacular,
as Marx suggested we should, and on common understanding,
and I reject all forms of Traditional Philosophy as
incoherent non-sense, the influence of
boss-class ideology, if there is any, is much more attenuated as a result. [Common understanding
must not be confused with common sense. On that, see Note 51.]
It could be objected that ordinary language is
itself ideologically tainted. I have batted that idea out of the park
here, and in
Essay Thirteen Part Three
-- here and
here. However,
I will address this topic in much more detail in Essay Twelve Part Seven (when it is
published), where I will show that the defence of ordinary language and common
understanding is a class issue. [Until then, the reader is re-directed
here.]
One of the clearest recent examples of
this phenomenon (i.e., internecine warfare, open hostility, and uncomradely back-biting)
was the dramatic
implosion of the old UK-WRP.[See
Appendix A.] Another is the collapse of the old
Militant Tendency (the relevant, and by-now-standard-issue if not clichéd, mud-slinging
that ensued can be read in all its glory,
here and
here).
Documents relating to the recent punch-up in the
IST (which also seems to
be based on a catalogue of misunderstandings and false accusations) can be
accessed
here.
Somewhat
similar events have
overtaken the
Australian ISO, and the subsequent formation of
Socialist Alternative, which also later
split!
Another
excellent example can be found
here in the
2007 split of the US
Communist League, complete with the usual hackneyed
accusations and counter-accusations. See also the degeneration of the Fourth
International (albeit told from one perspective, that of the old WRP), laid out
in painful detail for all to see, in Slaughter (1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1974d, 1975a, 1975b).
Incidentally, the long slow decline of the US-SWP also witnessed (and was
aggravated by)
similar antics:
"Except for a few old-timers in 1981, leaders of the SWP exhibited no dissent,
and mostly genuine zeal, as they embraced an optimistic perspective of permanent
student radicalization (1971), sterile orthodox 'Leninist-Trotskyism' (1973), a
'turn to the working class' (1976-79), a 'turn within the turn' (1981), and
increasing ruptures with Trotskyist theories and affiliations (most explicit in
1982 and 1990). At this point,
CEOBarnes
is nearly the sole survivor at the top, having beguiled budding new layers of
SWP junior executives to purge their predecessors through procedures that would
give even the appellation 'Kangaroo Court' a bad name.
"There are surely valid reasons for questioning the SWP's earlier, pre-1970s,
internal life from the point of view of permitting wide-ranging democratic
debate. But the two recent memoirs, Outsider's Reverie and
North Star, by SWP veterans Leslie Evans (b.1942) and
Peter
Camejo
(1939-2008), indicate a creeping crescendo to
bizarre authoritarianism after Barnes consolidated his reign in 1972.
"This was not accomplished single-handedly. For the years immediately before and
decades after, the varying individuals backed by Barnes for leadership positions
in the SWP more and more operated as a political aristocracy and secret society,
a 'Bolshevik' version of the Skull and
Bones. There are surely unique and particular facets
of the rise and fall of the SWP, but the reader familiar with the history of
other political organizations (not all of them Left-wing) will be tempted to
quote
Mark Twain: 'History doesn't repeat itself but it does
rhyme.'
"The narratives by Evans and Camejo also indicate that the group finally went
over the edge in some qualitative way during the 1980s. One gets the sense that
the SWP has become a creepy sect claiming to be 'communist' but operationally
suggestive of the
Church of Scientology. This is certainly the
impression communicated by the online postings of former members....
"[Another] is a 2009 widely-reviewed book, Said Sayrafiedeh's When
Skateboards Will Be Free: A Memoir Of A Political Childhood. The author, the
disillusioned son of two long-time SWP cadres, claims that there was a cover-up
regarding his sexual abuse by an older member. If only one-tenth of
Sayrafiedeh's overall portrait of the dismal and deluded lives of
rank-and-filers is true, North Korea may serve not only as a template for
Barnes' personal leadership aspirations but also as a fitting index of the brand
of 'socialism' experienced by recent SWPers." [Quoted from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this
site. Italics added only to the last paragraph. Bold emphases and links
added.]
As we
have seen, not only
is DM highly repetitive, its
acolytes also behave and argue as if they were clones of each other
--
even while the parties to which they belong are continuing to fragment (as the rest of the above article
confirms).
Another example of this phenomenon is the
poisonous
punch-up that
broke out
recently in
UK-Respect, which seems to have progressed along well-worn, left-wing
tramlines: claim and counter-claim, allegation and counter-allegation, with calls
for unity on the back of covert (or even overt) manoeuvres to split -- all compounded by gossip,
lies, and innuendo treated as fact, further aggravated by an open distrust of,
and hostility toward, comrades who only a week or so earlier were viewed and
treated in
exactly the opposite manner, etc., etc.
And yet,
despite this latest debacle, comrades still
refuseeven to consider the class origins of those engaged in these break-ups
as a facto --, or
examine their core theory (DM) -- for any clues why there is this ever-present
tendency for such rancorous splits to form every few years right across the
entire movement. This isn't just the
elephant in the room, it is the Blue Whale in the fish tank!
As of February 2008, it also looks like a serious feud is
developing in the Maoist
RCP-US. All justified
'dialectically'..., of course.
Several more
examples can be found in Tourish and Wohlforth (2000), and Tourish
(1998), as well as
here.
[I distance myself, however, from Tourish's comments about Leninism.]
For
Stalinists and Maoists (mostly those active a few generations ago), such splits
were often drowned in blood (although supporters of my site, who live in Bengal,
tell me this is still the case in their neck-of-the-woods, and live in fear
of
their own lives as a result of threats of violence from fellow
communists). The vehemence of some of
the
internet attacks on yours truly suggest that some DM fans would make short work of
me if
I ever fell into their hands. Indeed, as noted above, one prominent Marxist
Professor of Economics expressed the desire (in an e-mail) that I should "Eat
sh*t, and die!", or drink some
hemlock, since
I had the gall to question the sacred dialectic.
[Such
vitriol is ubiquitous on the far left, and the left in general. More details
here,
here, and the
Appendix.]
In the
2013 spilt forming inside the UK-SWP,
Alex Callinicos referred to "lynch mobs" comprised of supporters of the
CC-faction as part of their reaction to the 'dissidents' in the same
party. Of course, this might have been an example of unwise hyperbole, but given
the violent history of
Dialectical Marxism,
it might very well not have been had the UK-SWP actually been in power at the
time! These things have a dynamic of their own, as we saw in the French
Revolution, and the degeneration of the Russian Revolution when the
Stalinists wiped out most of the old Bolshevik Party -- not to mention that car
crash,
Mao's Cultural Revolution.
"The Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution was a
decade-long period of political and social chaos caused by Mao Zedong's bid to
use the Chinese masses to reassert his control over the Communist party. Its
bewildering complexity and almost unfathomable brutality was such that to
this day historians struggle to make sense of everything that occurred during
the period. However, Mao's decision to launch the 'revolution' in May 1966
is now widely interpreted as an attempt to destroy his enemies by unleashing
the people on the party and urging them to purify its ranks.
"When the mass mobilisation kicked off party
newspapers depicted it as an epochal struggle that would inject new life into
the socialist cause. 'Like the red sun rising in the east, the unprecedented
Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution is illuminating the land with its
brilliant rays,' one editorial read. In fact, the Cultural Revolution crippled
the economy, ruined millions of lives and thrust
China into 10 years of turmoil,
bloodshed, hunger and stagnation. Gangs of students and Red Guards attacked
people wearing 'bourgeois clothes' on the street, 'imperialist' signs were torn
down and intellectuals and party officials were murdered or driven to suicide.
After violence had run its bloody course, the country's rulers conceded it
had been a catastrophe that had brought nothing but 'grave disorder, damage and
retrogression'.An official party reckoning described it
as a catastrophe which had caused 'the most severe setback and the heaviest
losses suffered by the party, the country, and the people since the founding of
the People's Republic' in 1949." [Quoted from
here; accessed 01/03/2017. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added; paragraphs merged to save
space. Links in the original.]
Unlike us Trotskyists, Stalinists and Maoist
don't split so much as slaughter one another.
For example, at RevLeft, in the
Dialectical Materialist Group, we find members who are Left
Communists, Libertarian Communists,
OTs, NOTs, STDs, or MISTs,
who all agree with one another over core DM-theses, and who will defend them
along the same lines (repeating almost identical arguments, often using the very
same sentences) even though they are bitter enemies
over
practically everything else!
To cap it all, they will then cynically use the
very same 'dialectical method' to prove that every other tendency is anti-Marxist
when they engage with one another in the Politics section!
[This is a continuation of
Note 16. I have concentrated on the UK-SWP, not because it is particularly
cursed in this respect (it isn't, I could have focussed on many other
revolutionary parties), but because material about them is more readily
available on
the Internet and in other publications. So, many of the conclusions drawn below
could very well, and do, apply to most far left parties.]
Having said that,
the
serious difficulties revolutionary parties face -- in their openly avowed
desire to be fully democratic
(howsoever that phrase is understood)
while remaining organisationally intact
-- can be seen, for example, in the problems the UK-SWP are facing right now (June
2009) over deciding how to reform their internal party structure, in
particular the election of a new Central Committee [CC]. This debate was initiated
because of the debacle that followed upon the collapse of Respect, a
debacle compounded
by the peculiar idea that the latter was founded on a "united
front of a special type". In fact, that strategy was 'justified'
by John Rees on the
grounds that it
was a "unity
of opposites" -- a rather timely reminder, once more, that DM can be used to rationalise anything whatsoever; in this case
a 'united front' comprised of revolutionaries and
those who were
later described using the derogatory term, "communalists".
Currently,
at its Annual Conference, the
UK-SWP CC presents the party with a slate of approved candidates for election to
the CC, and chosen by the CC, which
many inside the party felt was part of the reason why: (i) A self-perpetuating, semi-authoritarian regime had descended on the party, (ii)
The CC had remained largely unchanged for many years, (iii) The Respect debacle
had been badly handled,
and why (iv) So few members of the CC have any experience of work outside the party,
and
thus have no first hand experience of the class war, or, indeed, of workers
themselves. [On the origin of the
slate system, see
Appendix D.
See also here.]
In
relation to several of the above points, the following was noted earlier in this
Essay (slightly edited):
One young comrade hit on
part of the [problem]:
"The CC now unfortunately
represents a conservative layer now firmly ingrained in the party and focused on
preserving its position. Many of its members have worked for the party for a
decade or more, they rely on the party as an income (sic) and have become career
bureaucrats entrenched in their jobs. Somewhere along the way the leadership
stopped being a group of leading revolutionaries and started to be a
self-serving political class in their own right. Now more than ever the party
needs effective and democratic leadership made up of the best people in the
class, not people who haven't set foot in a workplace for decades and who are in
my opinion totally divorced from the class." [Quoted from
here; 14/01/2013. Bold emphasis added. Minor typo corrected.]
A few days after the above appeared on-line,
another comrade posted an analysis of this malaise that in fact
mirrors
several aspects of
the analysis found in this Essay:
"The SWP has a particular
understanding of the role of the bureaucracy within trades unions.
We view them as neither workers nor bosses, but rather as a
vacillating force between the two. The bureaucrat is insulated from
the day-to-day life of the worker -- of having the boss breathing
down their neck, and from the collective interest that workers have
within workplaces. They depend for their continued existence, this
insulation, and the level of prestige they hold, on the continuation
of the capitalist system -- if there were no longer any capitalist
class to negotiate with, there would no longer be any need for the
bureaucrats. Nothing terrifies a bureaucrat more than being chucked
back into the same world the rest of us, as workers, inhabit. There
is an old story of an
RMT NEC member
many years ago (before
Bob
Crow) who wished to support a strike ballot that the General
Secretary opposed. The General Secretary advised him that if he did
so, he'd be back working on the tracks within days. The NEC member
withdrew his support for the ballot.
"And it is this recognition
that the interests of the bureaucracy are not those of the working
class that leads us as revolutionary socialists to believe the only
truly effective way to organise inside trades unions is on a rank
and file basis. We are with the bureaucrats for as long as they
support our demands -- we fight without them when they don't. And we
recognise a bureaucratisation that takes place when workers are
removed from the shop floor -- which is why, for example, it is
officially only in exceptional circumstances that SWP members are
allowed to take elected trade union positions on 100% facility time.
Because we recognise that you cannot act in the interests of the
working class if you exist separately from it. I want to illustrate
that a failure to apply this analysis to the SWP itself is at the
root of many of the problems we now face.
"While very limited steps
have been taken in recent years to address this, the Central
Committee is made up almost entirely of full-time party workers (and
it is notable that of the two CC members removed from the preferred
slate 48 hours before conference, one is a respected trade unionist
and the other is centrally involved in arguably the broadest united
front the party is engaged in). This is a separation from the
outside world, and the experiences of the membership. Worse, the
slate system as currently constituted is designed to prevent any
alternative leadership from emerging -- as we are told to correct any
error we must replace the CC wholesale; very difficult if they are
also the party workers who run the apparatus. As pretty much the
only way to be elected to the CC is to be nominated by the existing
CC, this means CC members owe their positions to the other CC
members, not to the party membership. And this means that, despite
the party's Democracy Commission passing policy in favour of it,
disagreements on the CC are not aired in front of the party
membership, but rather are usually dealt with privately, with the
first most members know of it being when a CC member mysteriously
disappears off the slate. I would argue the loyalty to each other
this creates amongst CC members leads to many situations, such as
those around Comrade Delta and the expulsions of the
Facebook Four, being dealt with bureaucratically and behind
closed doors and then presented to the party as a fait accompli.
Party policies and 'turns' are decided in similar fashion, with a
National Committee or Party Council presented with a CC document
that is discussed and then invariably approved, usually without any
discussion in the wider party, let alone the class.
"This also has the effect of
encouraging sycophancy, Comrades who wish to develop their standing
in the party, be selected for slates in trade union elections, be
added to the CC themselves, or be touted as a public speaker, do so
by developing a position of ultra-loyalty to the CC (these are the
party members who some refer to as 'hacks'). Party workers are all
appointed by the CC, not by the membership, and are threatened with
the sack if they dare venture their own political ideas that run
contrary to those of the CC. All of this has more in common with the
organisation of Stalinist Parties than with the libertarian roots of
the IS tradition. The party actually starts to become the caricature
painted of it by sectarians and red-baiters.
"At its most extreme, the
sycophancy appears cult-like. A number of CC members are big fans of
jazz music. Under their leadership over the past few years,
the party has organised a number of (mostly loss-making) jazz gigs
as fundraising events. Regardless of their own musical tastes,
comrades were told they were disloyal if they didn't purchase
tickets. This elevates the cultural tastes of the official
leadership to a point of political principle; and clearly is not in
any way a healthy state of affairs." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases and links added. Minor typo corrected.]
The above echo Trotsky's analysis of
substitutionism (covered in
Part One of this
Essay), but they omit (i) Any mention of the wider
structural problems our movement faces (i.e., the fact that the situation
described by the above comrade has been an integral feature of Marxist parties for
well over a hundred
years), and they completely ignore (ii) The historical and ideological
roots of this malaise -- nor do they consider (iii) Why this keeps happening,
and not just to the UK-SWP, but right
across the Marxist left.
Nevertheless, as one
delegate (to the aforementioned Conference) put things:
"There was a common feeling [at the January conference]
that the crisis round Respect revealed a culture of top-down leadership."
[Socialist
Worker, 2155, 13/06/2009, p.10.]
The problems connected with
the prospect of setting-up a new system for electing members of the CC were outlined
in the following manner:
"The longest
and most controversial discussion was over how the CC should be elected. Under
the existing system the outgoing CC puts forward a recommended slate for the new
CC during annual conference. This system
has hardly ever led to contested elections and all agreed that it needed
changing. However,
members of the Democracy Commission [DC -- RL] had been unable to agree a new system and
two competing proposals were debated. The first was
presented by Alex [Callinicos -- RL] from the CC and the DC. He put forward a modification of the
existing system that would still use slates.
"Alex said, 'To
make contested elections easier, the CC should announce a provisional slate at
the start of the pre-conference discussion. This would allow scrutiny of who was
being proposed. The CC is a
working group. To organise itself it has to operate as a unit. A slate system is
necessary for that.'
"Alex argued
that the second proposal would make CC elections, 'depend on atomised individual
decisions. It is open to becoming a popularity contest.' He argued it would make
it harder for people in unpopular jobs, such as treasurer, to get re-elected or
for new and relatively unknown people to advance onto the CC.
"John
[Molyneux -- RL] from
Portsmouth, who was also on the DC, moved proposal two. He argued for a system
which began with slates, but where the final selection was done by voting for
individual candidates. He said this 'makes it slightly easier to contest slates
and more possible to have real elections'.
"He said that
under proposal one, anyone who put forward an alternative slate would appear to
be taking on the whole CC. Proposal two would make it possible for individuals
to step forward. 'The CC will
still have a slate and three months to argue for it. This is not about strong or
weak leadership. Members of the CC will be stronger if they have been elected. Nor is it
about Leninism. The Bolsheviks used individual voting to elect their CC.'
"In a lengthy
debate there were an equal number of speeches for each proposal. Several
delegates argued that individual elections would produce factionalism and an
incohesive leadership. Others said that arguments demanding a cohesive
leadership were really opposing any kind of election. Estelle from
central London argued that she could, 'realistically look at 12 people and weigh
up the options of whether they would make a balanced leadership.' Karen from
Manchester said, 'Individual elections don't solve the problem of members not
being able to have their say in the party. There is a risk that a minority can
put someone on the CC that the majority do not want.'
"At the end of
the debate proposal one received 130 votes and proposal two 88 votes. Three
delegates abstained. The modified slate system will be used to elect the SWP CC
in the future." [Ibid.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.
Several paragraphs merged to save space.
Bold emphases added.]
This once
again illustrates the bind in which all (democratic centralist) revolutionary
organisations find themselves when they aren't mass parties, and are thus divorced from the
unifying forces that operate on the working class. Can anyone realistically see
a mass working class party accepting a slate system? The Bolsheviks in Lenin's
day certainly didn't.
In the above, it is plain that
leading comrades just do not trust the membership
to do 'the right thing' and avoid fragmentation. So, they have to
suppress their own democratic
socialist instincts that tell them to rely on the majority to decide who leads them. The democratic part of democratic centralism
is thus merely formal, and has to be suppressed.
[Clearly
this is what underlies the widespread suspicion that all Leninist parties will
sooner or later adopt some form of substitutionism
(I hasten to add that this isn't how I view things; on that, see
Part One),
as Trotsky himself argued at one point:
"In the internal politics of the Party these methods lead,
as we shall see below, to the Party organisation 'substituting' itself for the
Party, the Central Committee substituting itself for the Party organisation, and
finally the dictator substituting himself for the Central Committee...."
[Trotsky, Our Political Tasks,
Part 2. Bold emphases
added.]
Given the
rise to prominence of one particular leading UK-SWP comrade in the run up to the
Respect debacle, Trotsky's words are somewhat prophetic. We have also
seen Trotsky's prediction come to pass in many other Leninist (and
Trotskyist) parties, too.
Compare
the above with the following comments (from 2002) jointly authored by Sue
Blackwell and 'Rehan Hafeez' (the latter is a pseudonym), two long-standing,
ex-members of the UK-SWP:
"We
would like to imagine that most experienced, self-reflecting SWP members
would agree (at least to themselves) that the SWP has a democratic deficit. But
a deficit implies an excess of negatives over positives. The trouble is that in
terms of party democracy, there is very little on the positive side, that is,
there is not just a democratic deficit but an almost complete absence of
democracy. Compounding this is also the absence of democracy's twin,
accountability. Let us explain why we make this assertion.
"We acknowledge
that there is a trade-off between individual desires and beliefs, and the need
for discipline and unity in a political organisation -- so that it becomes an
effective instrument for fomenting change. Therefore, the individual gives up
some liberties for this wider good. But if one has a consistent democratic input
in the debate and decision-making process then, providing there has not been a
breach of fundamental principles, a member can abide by the decisions taken,
even where he or she has disagreed. This, of course, is the essence of
democratic centralism, the organising principle which the SWP purportedly
advocates. The reality, however, is very different. Democratic debate,
discussion, and decision-making necessitate voting -- yet party members within
the organisation rarely vote. Moreover, there are practically no democratic
levers available to alter the structures and institutions, including the
behaviour of full-timers and the leadership. It is a ferociously hierarchical,
top-down organisation: the 'line' is set by the Central Committee (CC) and
enforced on the ground by full-time organisers. So, rather than democratic
centralist it is, in fact, 'command centralist'. Disagreement with the line
incurs the wrath of the organiser and the admonishment: 'this is democratic
centralism'. But it is emphatically not: centralism without the democracy is
what characterises Stalinism. Of course it is taboo to use the S-word about a
Trotskyist organisation, but there is no better name for it.
"Indeed, for
most members, their contact with the party's structures is dominated by the
relationship with the organiser, who exercises a great deal of political power
over them. Yet the organiser is not elected by the members -- rather is imposed
by the centre. Furthermore, there are no party mechanisms for controlling
his/her actions, demanding accountability, or procedures for his/her removal.
Hence, knowing that they are untouchable by grassroots members and invariably
given full support by the CC, organisers tend to be characterised by astonishing
insensitivity and arrogance. [This wasn't my experience in the SWP; the
organisers I met and knew were eminently reasonable -- but I recognise that this
wasn't the case with every organiser -- RL.] It is important to recognise that the relationship
between organisers and the CC is mutually reinforcing. Because the former are
appointed by, and report to, the latter, their loyalty is cast iron. Similarly,
because the CC appoints and directs organisers, they back them to the hilt. And
because practically all CC members are cocooned in an office in London, they
rely on organisers (with usually a small group of 'leading' activists with whom
they work closely) for information 'on the ground'. Not surprisingly,
information travelling up to the centre tends to be massaged to fit in well with
the CC's 'perspectives' and 'party lines' -- and of course mistakes and errors
of judgement are not likely to be admitted. In regard to admitting mistakes, the
same applies,a
fortiori, to the CC -- to the point of infallibility. The
undemocratic/unaccountable nature of this key party nexus explains well the
disastrous behaviour of the party in Birmingham.
"The
counter-argument is that the organiser is chosen by the CC whose members have
been elected, so that there is a democratic input. But this is a flimsy defence
-- in fact there is no defence against the charge. This takes us on to the
election of the CC itself -- the highest body of the party. The obvious question
to ask is: how democratic is the process for electing the CC? The answer is that
it is a sham democracy. Ostensibly, the CC is elected at the annual conference
by delegates sent by the branches (or districts, or whatever format is in
existence at the time): usually one delegate for every 10 members. But what
invariably happens is that the CC recommends a 'slate' of candidates, and asks
whether there are any other slates. We have never known of an alternative slate
being put forward, so that in effect the CC elects itself. So, for example, when
Tony Cliff or another CC member presented a slate to conference, everyone
quietly nodded and matters could quickly proceed to the next agenda item.
Occasionally, one or two members of the CC are removed and replaced by new
members but, operating remarkably like thenomenklaturasystem of the Stalinist states, this is done by the CC itself. They earmark who
can be 'brought on' (invariably from the pool of existing full-timers and
organisers) and the leading members quietly cast aside those who are felt no
longer to be suitable. We have come to the conclusion that this slate system is
intrinsically undemocratic.
"The
composition of the CC is never announced to the membership [this is no longer
the case -- RL], nor are the
political reasons for any change in its personnel ever provided -- confirming
again the lack of democracy and accountability. It is no surprise that under
this self-selecting system, so many CC members have been in post for over ten
years, and some for over twenty years. In fact we know of no other party in
Britain that has members in leading positions for such long periods. It could be
argued that if the CC is doing a good job, then why change it. Fine, except that
given the lack of accountability, there is no way to assess what a good job is,
let alone whether it has been done or not. But the more fundamental problem is
that this method strongly acts against the democratic spirit and stamps out
critical thinking. This helps explain why members tend to become submissive,
passive, and hidebound -- being spoon-fed the politics without thinking or
evaluating counterarguments. What happened to Marx's dictum 'doubt everything'?
It certainly does not get applied to the party line. And when the CC railroads
through a line with undemocratic practices such as packing meetings, most
members meekly accept the argument -- popular with Stalinists in the past --
that 'it had to be done': a mantra that excuses away the most nefarious of
practices. In consequence, members end up with the position, 'see no evil, hear
no evil: my party is always right, no matter how wrong'. Alas, such blind
loyalty was precisely the position of members of Stalinist parties that the SWP
had so powerfully and rightly railed against. In our view the end never
justifies undemocratic, abusive, means. If you do not fight for socialism by
democratic and inclusive methods, what you will end up with will certainly not
be socialism.
"When it comes
to the editorship of the party's publications, democracy is completely out of
the question. The argument seems to be that editors should be drawn from the CC
(though this is not made clear so we are guessing somewhat), and their authority
stems from conference. In reality, the jobs are farmed out between CC members or
those very close to them -- and as with the very long period of CC membership,
so it is with editorship (15-25 years so far for the three main publications).
Again, how many other publications' editors can claim such longevity? But there
is a pernicious aspect to this undemocratic closed shop: critical articles (from
a left perspective by party and non-party contributors alike) can be kept out so
that there is a subtle and indeed not-so subtle form of censorship at play. Very
occasionally, critical articles appear in the Pre-conference Bulletins (for
members only), but these tend to be tangential and coded rather than a frank
expression of doubt, disagreement, or misgivings. The vast bulk of the
membership, even when having grave doubts about policies and structures, would
never dream of raising their head above the parapet. Fear of rocking the boat
quickly becomes ingrained, and acts as a powerful control on dissent.
"The party
continuously advocates the principle 'never lie to the class'. But in Birmingham
we have witnessed the most flagrant of lies by party members that have been
defended by the leadership. The party has also espoused another principle: never
tell the truth to members regarding membership figures. It has been years since
these have been revealed (even when they were, anyone who had been a branch
membership secretary knew they tended to be grossly inflated). The reason for
this, we believe, is that the party membership has declined enormously from
about the mid-1990s -- we estimate its size to be about a third to a half of
what it was then. The same is true for the numbers attending the annual
'Marxism' event -- numbers seem to have inexorably fallen. A democratic,
accountable, organisation would regularly reveal the true membership figures to
its members as of right, and if they have fallen, provide an explanation for
this. It would also enable ordinary members to demand accountability and, if
need be, allow for the removal of CC members deemed responsible. But alas, none
of this happens and SWP members quietly accept what is not given to them....
"The truly
bright sparks in recent years on the international horizon for left politics
have been the anti-globalisation and anti-war movements. What is crystal clear
from these is that millions of people wish to see an alternative to the sham
democracy (or no democracy) of the present world. They are certainly not going
to tolerate undemocratic and authoritarian practices of left organisations --
and this perhaps helps explain why they have not joined those such as the SWP in
any significant numbers. The lesson is abundantly clear: without a relentless
commitment to genuine democracy, accountability, and civilised debate, the
project of winning a better world will remain grounded. The SWP shows no signs
of understanding this." [Quoted from
here;
quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.
Minor typo corrected. Bold emphases and links added. More details
here.]
[The
reader shouldn't assume I agree with everything expressed in the above comments, or
those posted at the second of the two links that appear at the end.
This passage has only been quoted since its words proved to be remarkably prescient, and not
just because they anticipated the bitter internal debate in the UK-SWP,
reported above. Had they
been acted upon earlier, the Respect debacle might have been avoided,
and the same can be said about the recent crisis in the party.
(See also Anna Chen's
article,
posted here,
as well as Neil Davidson's
critical article, written in 2008). Another blog along the same lines
(posted by an ex-SWP member) can be accessed
here.)]
Add to
the above, Ian Birchall's assessment of the state of democracy in the UK-SWP
several years later:
"To sum up. The SWP has suffered from a serious lack of
internal democracy. This was not simply imposed by the leadership -- though it
took advantage of the lack of accountability -- but was a result of a membership
which, understandably but wrongly, wanted interventionist politics and was
satisfied if it got results. Hence the lack of democracy which produced such
catastrophic consequences when
the Delta affair exploded was a question of the
culture inside the organisation much more than of constitutional structures, and
there was no simple solution in terms of constitutional change which could
remedy the situation." [Quoted from
here; accessed 15/12/2014.
Link and bold emphasis added]
[Incidentally, in his recent and lengthy account of why he thought the UK-SWP
had brought the 'delta' affair crisis on its own head, Ian missed a golden
opportunity to develop an
HM-analysis of this debacle; he never asks why this keeps happening on
the far-left, and has been doing so for over a century. So, this isn't an
ephemeral feature of Marxist politics, a side issue; nor is it confined to the
UK-SWP. In which case, his analysis of the problems in the party is on a level
with one that seeks to blame, say, the
sinking of the Titanic on the number of available lifeboats, or the
poor training of the crew. (I have chosen that particular example because, if
the number of films, TV programmes and newspaper articles about this tragedy are
anything to go by, one would be forgiven for thinking it was one of the most
important events in human history!)]
The
pressing need to forestall and prevent the formation of factions (and thus the inevitable splits) in such parties means that the "democracy"
part of the couplet "democratic centralism" has to be manipulated so that the
'correct' decision is always reached in and by the vast majority of those
casting votes. Small wonder then that it is a constant
complaint -- as it will continue be in the UK-SWP, and elsewhere -- that
a tendency toward autocracy is the norm, not the exception.
Hence,
the need for a
"cohesive" CC -- i.e., one that won't fragment -- implies that the membership
can't
be trusted to get its composition 'right', which in turn means they must be
presented with 'approved' slates -- backed up where necessary by packed meetings -- year in, year out.
The many
and varied ways that revolutionary parties have tried to avoid these perennial pitfalls
resemble, somewhat uncannily, the
impossibly
complex method of dividing the loot devised by a group of characters near the beginning
of the film,
It's A Mad Mad Mad Mad World. [The scene in question occurs about 22 minutes
into the movie and lasts for about 5 minutes, and is broken into two parts. Unfortunately, the
full video is no longer available on YouTube. Below
are two rather low-quality clips, which is all that is available right now.]
Videos Three And Four: It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad...,
Er..., Party
Alas, long experience has
taught us that the struggle between autocratic and democratic forces in
Bolshevik-style parties constantly tips them in the direction of the former and away from the latter.
There is in fact no solution
to this conundrum that doesn't on the one hand threaten to expose each party
to fragmentation, while on the other saddling them with the sort of 'top down'
regime that helped
strangle, for instance, the
Socialist Alliance,
Respect, and now the UK-SWP itself (to name just three recent
examples).
As one participant in the recent debate over the crisis that hit
the UK-SWP in January 2013 admitted:
"I don't know if you have
permanent factions within ISO -- my experience of the movement is that they are
a disaster. I assume you have a constitution, rules for members to abide by and
a disciplinary procedure to deal with those who deliberately flout them. So do
we, and surely you respect our right to act accordingly." [Jeffrey Hurford,
quoted from
here;
accessed 07/02/2013.]
And, as
Alex Callinicos argued (which was part of the UK-SWP CC's response to the crisis
that engulfed the party):
"For over forty years we have refused to follow other
currents on the far left (for example the Fourth International) in allowing
permanent factions. These inhibit the free-flowing debate through which comrades
can develop the party's perspectives and shift their positions towards a better
understanding of the tasks ahead. Moreover, as the partial breakup of the New
Anticapitalist Party in France has shown, a regime of permanent factions can
lead to a situation in which members put their faction first rather than the
organisation as a whole. This is why the constitution requires factions to
dissolve after conference." [Quoted from
here; accessed 01/03/2013. As
Mike McNair
has pointed out, Callinicos was mistaken about the break-up of
the New Anticapitalist Party in France.]
The above
sentiments were repeated in the Special Pre-Conference Bulletin (March 2013):
"We are against permanent factions because
they institute a regime of permanent oppositions and of continual divisions on a
factional basis. Every issue becomes a matter of 'our' faction's victory or
defeat. This would hamper our ability to engage in serious debate and
discussion." [Quoted from
here, p.5. Accessed 06/03/2013. Quotation marks altered
to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Another
contributor (who was a long-serving member of the party) added:
"I am strongly opposed to permanent
factions, which I think actually impede healthy debate and generally lead to
splits.... I also support the slate system, not
with any great enthusiasm, but because the alternatives are worse." [Ian B,
quoted from
here, p.23.]
This is
quite remarkable! Apparently, the only thing preventing the party from fragmenting
is a
raft of anti-democraticand bureaucratic rules -- i.e., protocols banning permanent factions, which also
help preserve a slavish adherence to the slate system. This is tantamount to admitting that the 'natural' state of
Bolshevik-style parties is fragmentation. More debate is somehow supposed
to lead to less debate!
[By "natural state" I mean no
more than this: without bureaucratic protocols like the above such parties will always
have a tendency to split.]
The
irony is that
they split anyway!
Video Five: Neil Davidson Surveys The Sinking
Ship
Nevertheless,
we are given to believe that the vote mentioned earlier was 'open', but we have no way of knowing if, or to what
extent, the CC packed the meeting with those it could trust to vote the 'right'
way (allegedly a widely used tactic in the Respect split,
andelsewhere
-- and not
just by the UK-SWP) -- although Ian Birchall's report suggests that this is
indeed what happened:
"The conference preparation was a
dispiriting affair. Delegates were elected on the basis of a grossly unrealistic
set of membership figures, so that it was highly questionable whether they
represented the real membership. The CC sought to stifle debate, not encourage
it, by limiting opposition speakers to a mere six minutes. Every effort was made
to exclude opposition supporters from attending conference. When I pointed out
that in the past, Cliff and his CC had made efforts to ensure that articulate
oppositionists attended conference in order to ensure that the real debate was
had, I was accused by comrade Callinicos, in tones of snarling aristocratic
contempt, of trying to present a 'cuddly Cliff'. Cliff, as I knew all too well,
was far from 'cuddly', but he had the political confidence to want open debate
at the highest level.
"I won't go into detail about the
pre-conference period. Some supporters of the CC acted extremely badly -- for
example making fraudulent phone calls to cancel room bookings for perfectly
legitimate opposition meetings. Maybe the CC did not positively encourage such
actions, but it made no attempt to rein in its more enthusiastic supporters.
However, it seems to be a fact of history that in faction fights everybody
behaves badly, and doubtless some opposition members conducted themselves in
less than an ideal fashion.
"The CC won the conference, with
many
supporters of the majority doing their best to encourage the opposition to
leave, with moronic foot-stamping -- something I do not remember from party
events in earlier years. Not surprisingly some hundreds of members decided to
depart." [Quoted from
here; accessed 30/12/2015. Quotation marks altered to conform with
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
As anyone who knows the
detailed history of Bolshevik-style parties (and, indeed, the same of other
far-left tendencies) will attest, these anti-democratic and underhand antics
aren't unique to the UK-SWP.
Ex-CC member, Pat Stack, also confirmed that bureaucratic tactics like these were used in the run-up to the Special Conference the
UK-SWP called to discuss the looming crisis in the party:
"I have to say
that coming out of conference our implementation has seemed greatly at odds with
this approach. If 48 per cent of a conference votes against a measure and over
500 people (at the time of writing) join a faction, conviction is clearly a
problem, and the leadership must either convince or strive to reach agreement.
Ours have done neither. Rather they have tried to just tell the 48 percent of
the conference -- the 500 plus members of the faction -- to put up and shut up.
"Furthermore,
the approach since emergency conference was called has amplified this approach.
Aggregates where the CC get a 25 minute introduction, a ten minute summing up
and an extended contribution whereas the faction speaker gets six minutes and no
right of reply, hardly suggests a process of fair open discussion. Apparently
the speaking ration will be much the same at the conference itself.
"Furthermore, is
drawing up delegate election lists in a way that seeks to ensure the 40 per
cent will be woefully under-represented at conference really a good example of
democratic centralism in action? Or is it likely to lead a whole swathe of
younger members to think that the term is just cover for bureaucratic manoeuvre.
(It also suggests a very brittle and unconfident leadership, but that's another
question.) If that conclusion is drawn, the CC will have done our tradition a
huge disservice." [Quoted from
here, p.25. Several minor typos corrected.
See also
here. (Indeed,
this
is how the Special
Conference
was finally structured.)]
[Similar
allegations were levelled in relation to the December 2013 Conference.]
As others
have pointed out, the problem with this belated conversion to openness is that
comrades who now argue along these lines were remarkably quiet when similar
tactics were used to silence critics in the party during, say, the Respect
debacle -- with cries of "Witch
Hunt!", for example.
Having said that, and to its considerable credit, the UK-SWP is almost unique in openly reporting
on many (but not all!) such matters.
Can you imagine the old WRP being
this honest? Or the CPSU
or the
CCP? Or even the
Spartacists?
[Although, as
Ian Birchall has pointed out, the UK Communist Party were remarkably open in
their discussion of the crisis following on the Soviet invasion of Hungary in
1956.]
Even so,
the UK-SWP aren't nearly as open as the pre-Stalinist Bolshevik Party were,
which not only allowed permanent factions (for a while), they
even allowed the theses,
resolutions and manifestos of their various Congresses to be published
-- cf., Holt
and Holland (1983) -- along with open disagreements between CC members, and much
else besides. As
Labour Party
Marxist,
Stan Keable pointed out:
"Freedom to form
factions, with freedom of discussion in public, not just
internally, was the norm for the Bolsheviks when they made the revolution in
1917, just as Bolshevik-led revolutionary Russia was the most democratic country
in the world, until the revolution was isolated and crushed from without, and
finally reversed from within by Stalin's bureaucratic counterrevolution."
[Quoted from
here; accessed 07/02/2013. Emphases in the original. See also
here and
here.]
Indeed,
much of the internally-generated material that appears in this Essay (in relation to the crisis in the
UK-SWP) had to be leaked. So, despite their attempt to be open, a cloak of secrecy still
covers this cataclysmic crisis in the UK-SWP.
[On
Stalin's views, see
here. Several of the issues discussed in this part of the present Essay were also anticipated in Michels
(1916).]
[I
will add some comments about Michel's book at a later date; in advance, it is
important to add that I distance myself from Michel's dismissive and
openly contemptuous attitude toward ordinary workers and their parties.]
Update
December 2011: As a
recent article confirms, the above 'structural problem' is still a live
issue in the UK-SWP, and threatens to continue into 2012. This article in fact
rehearses a series of what are updated arguments of the sort that have been aired (on the far-left)
in every decade since the 1900s -- again, and not just in the UK-SWP. This phenomenon it seems is endemic:
"The problem in the SWP is not to be located in specific
organisational structures, although these may or may not be appropriate for the
period we are passing through, but was correctly identified by
Harman
as a
problem of the party's culture. The top down approach that characterised the
group for many long years, especially during the period when John Rees seemed to
be first among equals, is only one aspect of this culture if the most obvious
one. More importantly it also coloured and continues to colour the manner by way
of which the group's militants relate to allies on the left. If a certain
degree of sectism [sic] was a product of the Downturn years [i.e., from the mid
1970s to at least the mid 1990s -- RL] then such attitudes need
to be jettisoned in the changed and far more positive circumstances of today.
"It is however all too easy to blame
individual leaders for the poor culture long prevalent in the group. Events
since the departure of John Rees have however shown that not even he can be held
to be the sole cause of the rot which set in long before he was elevated to the
CC. Rather than seek to discover which individuals are responsible for the
group's damaged culture we need to ask what were the objective factors, far more
powerful than the role of individuals after all, which shaped that culture. The
answer that it was the Downturn simply will not suffice, albeit it is correct in essence
(sic). We need to
take a short look at the group's history....
"The above can be seen all too clearly in the manner by
which the organisation was led during the period when John Rees was a leading
member. At this point I should note that the personality of Rees is of no
importance as the entire leadership followed and argued for a political line
which I assume was authored by Rees and his closest allies. What can't be
denied is that at the time of the turn to building Respect, ludicrously
described as a United Front
sui generis, many comrades had serious doubts which
led to them abstaining from joining or building that formation in any way.
But
the leadership commanded that such was the political line to be followed and not
one comrade challenged them publicly although a lot of grumbling took place in
pubs the length and breadth of the country. Whether or not the Respect line was
wrong, was it not a disgrace that not one comrade felt able to challenge the
leadership on it?
"Was it any surprise then that when the party changed
course, due to the entirely predictable betrayal of its erstwhile ally
George
Galloway, that not only were a small number of comrades lost to the
sub-reformism of Respect (Galloway), but a line that had obviously failed was
continued in the form of the Left Alternative. And worse, was it a surprise that
differences within the leadership remained opaque, concealed from the membership
to the point that it took some considerable time before the ranks of the party
were aware that the Rees minority had considerable differences with the majority
of the CC. Although even when the Rees minority briefly surfaced as a formally
constituted faction -- there is no question they had functioned as such for much
longer -- there was little on the face of it to differentiate their politics
from that of the CC majority.
"Many comrades have argued that Rees stood for Rees and
nothing else. This is a nonsense that demonizes the man and prevents a proper
discussion of the political issues at stake. And the political issues are not to
be confined to the group's political line but also concern organizational
questions, too, including the question of internal democracy. For revolutionists
questions of organisation are of the utmost political importance whether it
be
when to form workers' councils or internal democracy within the revolutionary
party. Which is why the Democracy Commission was such a damp squib as it began a
discussion and just as swiftly ended it before any answers had been arrived at
and separated questions of democracy and politics in a typically Zinovievite
manner. A manner John Rees might have been proud of in fact.
"So inconclusive was the Democracy Commission and so
little did it change as to the group's internal functioning that the resignation
of a faction around
Chris Bambery
was a
shock only in the sense that it had not already happened. What disappointed many
comrades was that he had been allowed to pursue his factional activities under
cover of his responsibility as a member of the CC for the party in Scotland. And
this despite a leadership that had placed a renewed stress on the need for
active functioning branches and was arguing for the need for systematic cadre
education in order to raise the cultural level of the party." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases and links added. Minor typos
corrected.]
[It is also hardly coincidental that John Rees was one of the
leading UK-SWP comrades at the forefront of the stampede back into the mystical
past, as the Party 're-discovered' DM in the late 1980s. Plainly, "Dialectics" and "Dictatorship" share more
than just a capital "D".]
However, the above
quoted passage glaringly failed to consider the
class origin, class position and ideological orientation of leading party members
(i.e., those who control its
ideas and organisational structures). As usual, these factors fail to merit
even a brief mention! In which
case, good as it is, the above article is seriously flawed as a Marxist
analysis. I have attempted to rectify that omission in the present Essay.
Update December 2012:
According to a
Preconference Internal Bulletin, it looks like moves to augment the internal
democracy of the UK-SWP have stalled once again, and the Party is retaining
the 'slate' system for CC elections. The autocratic tendency is still in the
ascendancy, it seems.
Update
January 2013:
This dispute is clearly rumbling on into the new year, with a temporary faction
called the "Democratic
Opposition" (formed by at least 80 members) pushing
for 'reform'.
Here is one account of the internal strife that led up to this
crisis, written by ex-members of the UK-SWP Central Committee, who formed part of the
"minority" referred to below, and who
resigned from the SWP in 2010:
"As the minority warned Alex Callinicos and Martin Smith
in December 2007, an attack of this kind would, first, irreconcilably split the
leadership; second, it would split the party; and, third, it would 'unleash a
factionalism into the bloodstream of the party that would prove impossible to
remove'. That prediction proved depressingly prescient. Suspensions and
expulsions preceded conference in January 2010, again with private online
discussions used as a pretext. For the first time the CC used secret caucuses of
its own supporters against the minority. This was the first time too someone was
instructed to stop running a website. Email accounts were hacked to gain
'evidence' for expulsions. Students who disagreed were invited to leave the
party before they were expelled....
"The SWP has never recovered from the crisis of 2007. Far
from it: the organisation has been locked, as predicted, in a permanent
factional paroxysm. There are no real prospects of its recovery." [Counterfire, quoted from
here; accessed 19/01/2013. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site. Minor typo corrected; bold emphasis added.]
If the above contribution is correct
(and there is
little sign to UK-SWP has recovered in the intervening years), it
reprises the anti-democratic practices we have witnessed
for generations on the revolutionary left -- again,
not just in the UK or even in the UK-SWP, but right across the planet,
right across the movement. Here, for example, is Louis Proyect on his time in the US-SWP:
"Just over
30 years ago the
American SWP was going through a profound crisis
involving the democratic
rights of its membership. The
Barnes
leadership had decided to dump
Leon Trotsky's theory of permanent revolution
overboard in a bid to make itself more acceptable to what it saw as an emerging
new revolutionary international with Havana functioning as a pole of attraction.
When many long-time members, including those who had worked closely with
Trotsky, fought to have a debate over this change, Barnes decided to forgo a
constitutionally mandated party convention and began expelling members on
trumped-up charges.
"I had
left the SWP by this point but was so disturbed by these developments that I
began calling comrades I respected. Les Evans was a member of a group of
expelled members who hoped to resurrect the 'good, old SWP', a task tantamount
to reassembling Humpty-Dumpty.
"My next
phone call was to
Peter Camejo,
who had been expelled mostly because he was an independent thinker popular with
the membership -- a terrible threat to the SWP's leader. After he began figuring
out that the party he had belonged to for decades was on a suicidal sectarian
path, he took a leave of absence to go to Venezuela and read Lenin with fresh
eyes...." [Quoted from
here. Accessed 30/01/2013.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Links added.]
Anyone familiar with the history of Marxism
is well aware thatthis isboth an international and an endemic 'problem' on the far-left.
Is the revolutionary
left just unlucky?
Or,
are there deeper, ideological, structural and class-based
reasons that are at least partially to blame?
Update 18/10/2013:
It is now looking increasingly likely that a serious split will take place in
the UK-SWP, sooner rather than later. This is strongly suggested by an
acrimonious discussion that has just surfaced in International Socialism [ISJ] -- concerning the CC's handling of the aforementioned
allegations of rape and sexual harassment levelled against a former CC member
(who has now
resigned
from the party,
probably to avoid having to face
yet more accusations of rape!):
"As members of
the editorial board of International Socialism we wish
to disassociate ourselves from the recently published
article, 'The
Politics of the SWP Crisis',
written by the journal's editor and the national secretary of the Socialist
Workers Party (SWP). It purports to offer a summary of the recent disputes that
have divided the organisation along with an overview of the party's trajectory
over the past decade. The article's account of both processes is partial and
misleading. More than this, however, we believe that the political stance
adopted by the authors will, if left unchecked, destroy the SWP as we know it
and turn it into an irrelevant sect.
"The authors
find much that is 'shocking' about the dispute. They
bemoan the 'falsehoods' that circulated about it and the
fact that people behaved 'shamefully' or 'outrageously'.
Yet their anger is exclusively reserved for the way
details of the case filtered out to the party membership
and the public at large. They have nothing to say about
the treatment meted out to the two women complainants,
nothing to say about the campaign orchestrated by
leading party members to undermine them, nothing to say
about the denigration of these women as 'jilted lovers'
and 'liars' carrying out a vendetta against a
CC...member because they were motivated by 'feminist',
'autonomist' and 'movementist' deviations. Indeed, the
authors have nothing to say about the second complainant
at all, aside from an oblique reference to 'a subsequent
hearing'. She remains, as far as they are concerned,
invisible.
"Why is this
so? Have they forgotten that the CC was instructed to
apologise to the second complainant for distress
suffered as a consequence of her treatment following her
testimony in the first dispute? Have they forgotten that
the 'subsequent hearing' ruled she had provided enough
evidence of sexual harassment to require the former CC
member to answer the case against him should he ever try
to rejoin the SWP? Why is there no mention of any of
this?
"For many
hundreds of party members the gap between the party's
politics on women's oppression and its practice in this
case boils down to a simple fact: when confronted with
evidence of sexual harassment presented by two women on
the one hand, and the word of one CC member on the
other, the Disputes Committee (DC) -- mainly composed of
current or former CC members -- came to a verdict of
'not proven'. In the process they subjected one woman to
questions about her sexual history and the other to
questions about her drinking habits....
"A first step in taking
political responsibility for this situation would be to offer a
simple apology to the two women complainants for shortcomings in the
disputes process -- shortcomings identified by the party's own
disputes commission. Acknowledging these mistakes would in turn
allow us to begin addressing flaws in the party's operation.
Ultimately we want structures and a daily functioning that develop
conscious and effective means of confronting the various challenges
this period presents for a revolutionary organisation. This does
indeed mean that the party, and its leadership, must begin 'to air
the political differences on every side, to thrash these out openly
in the party.'
"The CC majority, which
the authors lead, refuses to do this. It continues, as the article
demonstrates, to indulge in, 'Papering over political differences'
in order to hold the CC together. It is this, not the alleged
shortcomings of the faction that 'heightens the likelihood of a
split'. The CC has consistently refused to reveal political
differences among its own ranks and lay them before the party. This
is what lay behind the Respect crisis: real questions about the
political direction of the party were obscured behind evasive
insinuations and coded messages that meant what was really at stake
only emerged in hindsight. The CC has repeatedly allowed successive
factions to develop within its own ranks, precipitating splits. But
in each case it has concealed internal divisions from party members,
and maintained a facade of unity.
"It is doing precisely the
same thing today, ignoring the democracy commission's recommendation
that such divisions should be explained to members. As 'The Politics
of the SWP crisis' makes clear, the CC majority is pandering to the
notions put forward by a sectarian faction, operational since at
least the end of 2012, which has consistently peddled the myth that
the complainants and those who support them are motivated not by
justifiable concerns but by a dissident political agenda. [This was
a ploy used by the 'defend Healy faction' in the WRP debacle 28
years earlier -- RL.] For all
its bluster about the dangers of permanent factionalism, dangers
which most opposition comrades are fully alive to, it has rewarded
the supporters of the sectarian minority on the CC by inviting one
of its leading members to join the ranks of the leadership. This will ensure factional division remains part of the
life of the organisation for at least another year.
"For all its
unsubstantiated claims about the Rebuilding the Party faction being
led by the nose by a minority that wants to leave, it is the CC
majority that is being driven by the imperatives dictated by
sectarian voices in its own ranks. This approach is leading the
party into further retrenchment and isolation from the broader
movement. It will ensure that the cycle of splits that have occurred
since 2007 will continue, not because of some hidden hand of
movementism, but because the party leadership is incapable of
looking reality in the face and dealing with it. This is the
direction of travel pursued by the authors of this article. They
present themselves as drivers of a car, eyes fixed in the rear-view
mirror, passively observing the mistakes that lie in their wake,
eyes averted from the crash they are blindly directing the party
towards. All those who want to see the SWP survive as a viable
organisation must now unite to help the party steer a different
course." [Quoted from
here; accessed 19/10/13.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site. A reply to this article can be accessed
here.]
Once
again, it is to the considerable credit of the UK-SWP that dissention like
this has been aired in public (at
its website, but
not in the print version of the ISJ itself). Having said that, because the
'dissenting faction' inside the UK-SWP is so large and has within its ranks many
long-standing and prominent members, the CC plainly had no option but to air
their grievances. This can
be seen from the fact that since the spring of 2013 a semi-permanent faction
(represented by the 'dissenters') has been allowed to remain in place within the
party (and
to
have its own website), in defiance of the party's constitution.
Sad though it is to say, we can safely predict much the same
future for the organisation that produced the analysis quoted
a few paragraphs
back (i.e., Counterfire -- and probably for any
other formations that
fragment further from the UK-SWP as a result of this crisis). And that is
because the 'leading lights' of that organisation are big fans of 'the dialectic',
too --and are no less petty bourgeois. Indeed, as noted earlier, TAR was actually written by one of these 'leading
lights', John Rees.
[TAR = The Algebra of Revolution (i.e.,
Rees (1998).]
The Counterfire analysis continues:
"Ian Birchall's excellent recent biography of Tony Cliff
[i.e., Birchall (2011) -- RL] made clear what those gains are. Cliff and the
International Socialist tradition were never an orthodoxy. Quite the opposite:
they stood opposed to others claiming an allegiance to Leon Trotsky, in which
the writings of a select canon of masters were treated as if Holy Scripture. The
IS was heterodox, seeking to use the best elements of the Marxist tradition to
analyse changed circumstances -- the better to change them. The analysis of
state capitalism in Russia was one part of that; deflected permanent revolution
another; the permanent arms economy a third. More importantly for today, efforts
were made in the 1960s and 1970s to understand how changes in working class
forms or organisation, particularly around the development of the shop stewards'
movement, could provide the class basis for a revolutionary socialist
organisation. Understanding properly that fundamental relationship between
organisation and the wider class was central to Cliff and the IS' (sic)
approach, alongside the wider theoretical work.
"That tradition of independent thinking has now fossilised
into an orthodoxy of theory and organisational practice." [Quoted from
here; 19/01/2013.]
The author of the above forgot to mention that when it
comes to a commitment to DM, it is hard to distinguish the above from the
devotion to the latter theory displayed
in general by OTs, MISTs,
and STDs. [On that, see here.]
One only has to look at the
theory
section over at the Counterfire website, for
instance, to see this; when it comes to
Philosophy, these comrades are just as devoted to ossified dogma as the
UK-SWP, OTs, MISTs and STDs, and just as resistant to any attempt to think
independently about Philosophy -- especially along the lines expressed at this site.
"There is a wider problem on the radical left in Britain,
in which old organisations have not been able to respond to a new radicalism.
Evidence of growing polarisation and radicalism is clear across Europe. But the
organised left, with rare exceptions, is not growing.... Some of this
contradiction has taken a generational form...." [Quoted from
here; 19/01/2013. Bold emphasis added.]
We are never told why this is a 'contradiction'. It is left as unquestioned dogma,
a clear nod toward orthodoxy and tradition. [On that, see
here.]
"...According to the theory, conference discusses and decides
(democracy) and then comrades, including those who opposed the agreed position,
carry out the decisions (centralism). Fine: but what does conference actually
decide? It is presented with a series of general perspective documents which are
usually so bland and platitudinous that it is virtually impossible to disagree
with them: the economic crisis is not going to be resolved, times are hard but
there are also opportunities, we must not be complacent over the threat of
fascism, and so on. To agree with this kind of statement is not to make a
decision over strategy or tactics, or anything specific enough for the CC to be
held to account. The real decisions about actual policy -- to establish united
fronts, to join electoral coalitions -- are almost always made by the CC itself
between conferences, with conference asked to ratify them after the event.
"The second is in relation to the composition of the CC. The
CC self-selects: it has an agreed political perspective; when someone dies or
resigns it chooses as replacements comrades who agree -- or who are thought to
agree -- with that perspective; at no point is the chain ever broken by open
political debate. And if the perspective is wrong? The problems extend to the
membership of the CC. What are the requirements of a potential CC member? There
are apparently two: that they should live in or around London and that -- with a
handful of exceptions -- they are full-time employees of the party. So -- the
comrades who are eligible for membership of the CC are those who until their
selection have been paid to carry out the decisions of the previous CC and who,
because they tend to have been students beforehand, rarely have any direct
experience of the class struggle. How can a leadership this narrow be capable of
forming an accurate perspective?" [Quoted from
here; accessed 29/01/2013. Bold emphases added.]
Tinkering with the democratic forms of the party is hardly going
to eliminate the fundamental flaws apparent in this style of far-left politics,
any more than merely sweeping the streets would have helped the hapless residents of
Pompeii in 79 AD.
This is especially so when leading Bolsheviks express
an open and emphatic
distrust of democracy, caricaturing the views of those who maintain that there
should be open discussion in the workers' movement:
"[Y]ou
[James Burnham -- RL], likewise,seek an ideal party democracy which would
secure forever and for everybody the possibility of saying and doing whatever
popped into his head, and which would insure the party against bureaucratic
degeneration. You overlook a trifle, namely, that the party is not an arena for
the assertion of free individuality, but an instrument of the proletarian
revolution; that only a victorious revolution is capable of preventing the
degeneration not only of the party but of the proletariat itself and of modern
civilization as a whole. You do not see that our American section is not sick
from too much centralism -- it is laughable even to talk about it -- but from
a monstrous abuse and distortion of democracy on the part of petty-bourgeois
elements. This is at the root of the present crisis....
"Petty-bourgeois,
and especially declassed elements, divorced from the proletariat, vegetate in an
artificial and shut-in environment. They have ample time to dabble in politics
or its substitute. They pick out faults, exchange all sorts of tidbits and
gossip concerning happenings among the party 'tops.' They always locate a leader
who initiates them into all the 'secrets.' Discussion is their native element.
No amount of democracy is ever enough for them. For their war of words they seek
the fourth dimension. They become jittery, they revolve in a vicious circle, and
they quench their thirst with salt water. Do you want to know the organizational
program of the opposition? It consists of a mad hunt for the fourth dimension of
party democracy. In practice this means burying politics beneath discussion; and
burying centralism beneath the anarchy of the intellectual circles. When a few
thousand workers join the party, they will call the petty-bourgeois anarchists
severely to order. The sooner, the better." [Trotsky
(1971), pp.116-17. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site.]
The above reads all too uncomfortably like the
Thoughts ofThe Great
Leader Himself:
"The essence of Trotskyism is, lastly, denial of the
necessity for iron discipline in the Party, recognition of freedom for factional
groupings in the Party, recognition of the need to form a Trotskyist party.
According to Trotskyism, the CPSU(B) must be not a single, united militant
party, but a collection of groups and factions, each with its own centre, its
own discipline, its own press, and so forth. What does this mean? It means
proclaiming freedom for political factions in the Party. It means that freedom
for political groupings in the Party must be followed by freedom for political
parties in the country, i.e., bourgeois democracy. Consequently, we have here
recognition of freedom for factional groupings in the Party right up to
permitting political parties in the land of the dictatorship of the proletariat,
disguised by phrases about 'inner-party democracy', about 'improving the regime'
in the Party. That freedom for factional squabbling of groups of intellectuals
is not inner-party democracy, that the widely-developed self-criticism conducted
by the Party and the colossal activity of the mass of the Party membership is
real and genuine inner-party democracy -- Trotskyism can't understand." [Political
Reportof the Central Committee to the Sixteenth Congress of the CPSU(B),
June 27, 1930.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold
emphases added.]
And, here is what this Stalinist aberration meant in practice:
"The Party is a voluntary association of
people who agree to pursue the same task and fight the same enemy. In order to
be most effective they must keep order within their ranks. They will tolerate
differences of opinion but they will insist on unity of action. The individual
who disagrees with a decision is free to leave, but while he is a member, he may
not pursue his own road in contradiction to that of the Party. Freedom of
opinion exists as long as the Party has not formed its own collective opinion.
Once this has happened then opinions contrary to the Party's must not be spread
because that would be disruptive. The more unity and cohesion among the Party
members the greater the chances of success." [M. Olgin, writing in the 1930s,
quoted from
here. Bold emphasis
added.]
Sound familiar?
For some reason the following words of George Orwell's (from Animal Farm)
come to mind:
"The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from
man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say
which was which." [Quoted from
here.]
Trotsky's class position, alongside his commitment to this
contradictory theory, in the end led him to argue along the same lines
that Stalin had used against him ten years earlier!
Indeed, the passage above from Trotsky is now being used in the
factional battle inside the UK-SWP, as part of an attempt to stifle debate!
The same is true of the following remarks of Trotsky's -- taken from
The Revolution Betrayed --, but with the opposite intention: to
encourage open debate! (p.67):
"The inner regime of the Bolshevik party was characterized
by the method of democratic centralism. The combination of these two concepts,
democracy and centralism, is not in the least contradictory. [Compare this
with what
Stalin
said about this conundrum -- RL.] The party took
watchful care not only that its boundaries should always be strictly defined,
but also that all those who entered these boundaries should enjoy the actual
right to define the direction of the party policy. Freedom of criticism and
intellectual struggle was an irrevocable content of the party democracy. The
present doctrine that Bolshevism does not tolerate factions is a myth of epoch
decline. In reality the history of Bolshevism is a history of the struggle of
factions. And, indeed, how could a genuinely revolutionary organization, setting
itself the task of overthrowing the world and uniting under its banner the most
audacious iconoclasts, fighters and insurgents, live and develop without
intellectual conflicts, without groupings and temporary factional formations?
The farsightedness of the Bolshevik leadership often made it possible to soften
conflicts and shorten the duration of factional struggle, but no more than that.
The Central Committee relied upon this seething democratic support. From this it
derived the audacity to make decisions and give orders. The obvious
correctness of the leadership at all critical stages gave it that high authority
which is the priceless moral capital of centralism." [Trotsky
(1977), pp.94-95. Bold emphases added.]
Compare the above with the following, written several years later (quoted
earlier):
"Petty-bourgeois,
and especially declassed elements, divorced from the proletariat, vegetate in an
artificial and shut-in environment. They have ample time to dabble in politics
or its substitute. They pick out faults, exchange all sorts of tidbits and
gossip concerning happenings among the party 'tops.' They always locate a leader
who initiates them into all the 'secrets.' Discussion is their native element.
No amount of democracy is ever enough for them. For their war of words they seek
the fourth dimension. They become jittery, they revolve in a vicious circle, and
they quench their thirst with salt water. Do you want to know the organizational
program of the opposition? It consists of a mad hunt for the fourth dimension of
party democracy. In practice this means burying politics beneath discussion; and
burying centralism beneath the anarchy of the intellectual circles. When a few
thousand workers join the party, they will call the petty-bourgeois anarchists
severely to order. The sooner, the better." [Trotsky
(1971), pp.116-17. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site.]
Despite Trotsky telling his readers that "the combination of these two concepts,
democracy and centralism, is not in the least contradictory", his adherence to the 'dialectical method', which
welcomes, if not openly insists upon, contradictions, allowed him to
defend both of these diametrically opposed opinions -- (i) freedom of debate and
opinion, and (ii) heavily constrained debate and opinion -- at different times in
his life.
[Those who accept this theory insist on the presence of
'contradictions', since, if the world is indeed 'contradictory', then any
attempt to represent it accurately could only do that if it, too, is contradictory. Hence, anyone who adopts this
idiosyncratic, 'dialectical view' of reality almost feels obliged to develop a
contradictory analysis of the social and natural world or fail to be a
genuine Dialectical Marxist! (I have analysed this predicament -- which I
have called the Dialecticians' Dilemma --, in detail in Essay Seven
Part One.)]
Of course, the first quote above went in
one ear and out the other without engaging with a single 'dialectical brain cell' inside
the heads of the supporters of the CC faction in its transit. Once again,
this is exactly what happened inside the Stalinised Bolshevik Party post-1925.
Tony Cliff's comments also experienced
the same fate:
"The party has to be subordinated to the whole. And so the
internal regime in the revolutionary party must be subordinated to the relation
between the party and the class. The managers of factories can discuss their
business in secret and then put before the workers a fait accompli.
The revolutionary party that seeks to overthrow capitalism cannot accept the
notion of a discussion on policies inside the party without the participation of
the mass of the workers -- policies which are then brought 'unanimously'
ready-made to the class. Since the revolutionary party cannot have interests
apart from the class, all the party's issues of policy are those of the class,
and they should therefore be thrashed out in the open, in its presence. The
freedom of discussion which exists in the factory meeting, which aims at unity
of action after decisions are taken, should apply to the revolutionary party.
This means that all discussions on basic issues of policy should be discussed in
the light of day: in the open press. Let the mass of the workers take part
in the discussion, put pressure on the party, its apparatus and leadership." [Cliff
(2001), p.130. Bold emphasis alone added; quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site.]
However,
it is far from clear that either Cliff or the party he helped create always
adhered to these otherwise excellent principles.
[On the
Bolshevik Party under Lenin, see Liebman (1975).]
As one comrade in the UK-SWP
put it in the Special Pre-Conference Bulletin:
"'Leninism under Lenin' by Marcel
Liebman [is] 'one of a handful of outstanding studies of Lenin' and
if anyone is truly interested in the Bolshevik Party in 1917 that section of the
book is required reading.
"Here you get a picture of the real Bolsheviks with
differences being argued out in public, minority views being engaged with and
brought into the party apparatus, Lenin disagreeing with the policy of the
Central Committee and taking his arguments outside of that committee to other
parts of the organisation and the rank and file, major decision making being
opened up to the membership and much more." [Quoted from
here, p.68. Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis
added.]
Few (if any) Bolshevik-style parties have
even so much as
aspiredto achieve openness like this since then, but they all claim to be operating
in the tradition established by Lenin!
Of course, a little 'dialectics' will soon put that
right...
17. This accounts for another odd fact (and one
with which I am sure all who question this mystical creed will be familiar): each and every
prospective anti-dialectician is issued with an ominouswarning that to 'abandon the dialectic' will lead
anyone foolish enough to try it far from the 'one true path'.
That dire warning is
promulgated even though
the one issuing it will belong to a vanishingly small grouplet, and
who will also roundly condemn all those who don't belong to his/her micro-branch of
Dialectical Marxism (i.e.,
he/she will condemn all those
'benighted souls' in every other microscopic, competing grouplet), accusing them of "abandoning Marxism". Anathematisations like this will be propagated despite the fact that all those who have
been dammed in absentia fully accept
DM,
but who will (in like manner and in return) rebuke this censorious comrade, and everyone else, for the
very same reason: abandoning, distorting, or failing to "understand"
'the dialectic'!
[OT = Orthodox
Trotskyist.]
Anyone
who doubts this allegation can test it for themselves with the following impromptu experiment:
try telling the very next OT you meet (in person or on the Internet) that Stalinists and Maoistsalso
accept and use the dialectic. Then,
try telling the very next
Stalinist or Maoist you meet (in
person or on the Internet) that OTsaccept and use the dialectic, too.
Repeat this experiment with any Maoists/Stalinists you encounter, but now do it in
relation to the Stalinists/Maoists' -- tell the Maoists that the Stalinistsalso
accept and use the dialectic,
and vice versa with the Stalinists
vis-ŕ-vis the Maoists. Extend this impromptu survey and permute the name
of every tendency or group you can think of, telling each of them that all their opponents also accept
and use the dialectic. Now, unless you
are incredibly unlucky, you will be told the same thing over and over: "Those
other guys misuse, distort, or ignore the 'dialectical method'; they have all adopted
wooden, formulaic abstractions, yada, yada...".
[Dozens
of examples of
this phenomenon are given below and
in
Appendix B.
Indeed,
here is a recent, randomly-selected instance -- concerning the use of the
'dialectic'
by the late
Maurice
Cornforth, along with
my response -- which I can safely predict will be ignored -- and it was!
Compare the results of the above test (should
there be any) with the way that
sectarianChristians and
Muslims accuse
every other sect of their own respective faiths,
and everyone else, of
similar 'heresies'.]
In fact, there is no 'objective' way of deciding if,
when
or how 'the dialectic' has been, or can be used 'correctly'. Indeed,
as we have seen,
it can be, and has been employed in order to defend any theory a particular
party or sect finds expedient and its opposite, sometimes in the very
next breath andby the very same dialectician!
This means that for any
randomly-selected dialectician [RSD], there are countless thousands of renegade
'dialecticians' [RDs] who have 'betrayed' Marxism --, namely, all those
RDs who
aren't members of that RSD's
microscopic sect. This in turn means that there are countless thousands of
individuals who
have 'betrayed' Marxism (in the opinion of every RSD out there), who are all,
in fact, card-carrying,
orthodox, solid gold, diamond-studded DM-fans
(at least, in their own eyes)!
Clearly, 'abandoning the dialectic' is in the eye of the accuser.
But, do any of these
censorious comrades, these RSDs, draw that conclusion?
Are you joking!?
It turns out, therefore, that the
vast majority of those who have 'abandoned' the dialectic (the RDs) are in fact its
staunchest supporters!
A rather fitting 'contradiction' for readers to
contemplate.
The lesson here, plainly, is
this:
it isn't the
dialectic-as-such that one should never 'abandon', but the exact copy
of 'the dialectic' that any particular RSD, or censorious comrade has latched onto, which
version is
in fact
indistinguishable from all the other versions of the
very same theory adhered to by every other RD, censoriously-condemned, and condemning-in-return, comrade!
Now,
I double-dog dare you to put that to one of those RSDs.
If you are brave enough to
accept that further challenge, let
me warn you in advance to expect a lorry load of
scatological abuse,
at the very least.
A list (and a discussion) of
anti-DM theorists (many of whom don't go as far as I do in this direction), who didn't
abandon Marxism, can be found in
Petersen (1994), pp.164-70.
And, of course, there is always Plekhanov -- a 23 carat, solid gold
dialectician, who
later adopted Menshevism
--, but who clung to this 'theory' all his life.
Accusations that
Plekhanov 'abandoned the dialectic' are without foundation, except in the 'censorious'
sense outlined above (which would, naturally, be quite enough to brand Plekhanov an RD). Similar protestations that he didn't "understand" the
dialectic must also be waved aside on the grounds that no one actually 'understands'
this theory/method,
including any sad dialectical soul who might, or will, accuse you, dear reader, of not 'understanding'
it, too.
Finally,
Max
Shachtman was also an avid dialectician -- who later abandoned Marxism -- while
James Burnham was an anti-dialectician who did the same.
Conclusion?
Plainly:
adherence to DM is
no guarantee that the individual concerned will
always remain 'saved'.
[On this,
see also Note 19a. Cf., also the
detailed comments I have added to Essay Ten
Part One.]
18. Further confirmation comes from Max Eastman's
own testimony:
"Like many great men I have met he [Trotsky] does not seem
altogether robust. There is apt to be a frailty associated with great intellect.
At any rate, Trotsky, especially in our heated arguments concerning the
'dialectic' in which he becomes excited and wrathful to the point of losing his
breath, seems to me at times almost weak. He can't laugh at my attacks on his
philosophy, or be curious about them -- as I imagine Lenin would -- because in
that field he is not secure....
"...Yesterday we reached a point of tension in our
argument about dialectics that was extreme. Trotsky's throat was throbbing and
his face was red; he was in a rage...." [Eastman (1942), p.113. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
Anyone who has discussed dialectics face-to-face with certain
leading comrades alive today (whose names I won't divulge -- to save their
blushes), or who has challenged this 'theory' on-line, will no doubt recognise in the
above passage something that is all too familiar: the highly emotive,
abusive and irrational response one
receives from the faithful when the source of their 'opiate' is even so much as
questioned, let alone demolished.
[This follows my own
experiences (on-line) with such comrades, many of which 'encounters' have been recorded
here.]
However, Eastman is surely wrong about Lenin; anyone who reads
MEC, for example, will
discover how irrational he, too, could become in this respect. [On that see, Essay Thirteen
Part One.]
Unquestioning faith in this theory isn't confined to the past, either; we have already
seen this comment by Tony Cliff:
"But Cliff remained an incorrigible optimist...:
'The dialectics of history, the general
crisis of capitalism, are far more powerful than all the bureaucrats. If the
crisis accelerates the death of the reformist forest, it will -- if
revolutionary socialists adopt a correct strategy and tactics -- accelerate the
growth of the green shoots of rank and file confidence, action and
organisation.'" [Birchall (2011), p.466, quoting Cliff from 1979. Bold emphasis
added.]
In addition, we find the following passage in
the Preface to the new edition of RIRE (published in the summer of 2007):
"Ted Grant was an incorrigible optimist all his
life. Marxists are optimistic by their very nature because of two things: the
philosophy of dialectical materialism, and our faith in the working class
and the socialist future of humanity. Most people look only at the surface of
the events that shape their lives and determine their destiny. Dialectics
teaches one to look beyond the immediate, to penetrate beyond the appearance of
stability and calm, and to see the seething contradictions and ceaseless
movement that lies beneath the surface. The idea of constant change, in which
sooner or later everything changes into its opposite enables a Marxist to rise
above the immediate situation and to see the broader picture." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
And
we have this from a younger comrade (after attending an IMT Annual Conference):
"Having developed an
interest, through prior research, into Materialist
Dialectics attending the talk on Philosophy and dialectics
was a no-brainer. Covering everything from the nature of
Idealism and Empiricism to the limitations of Formal Logic
it was a most insightful event. Although the speaker is to
be commended for dealing so concisely with so vast a topic,
what impressed me most was his capacity to express the
complexity of the subject in such simple terms. Using for
example the three states of water to describe the
relationship between quantitative and qualitative change. [Well,
that's
never been argued before by anyone, has it? -- RL.]
"However, the discussion
remained true to Marx's own words: 'The philosophers have
only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to
change it'. The practical relevance of these ideas for
revolutionaries was elucidated. It was at this point that
Marx's true genius seemed to dawn upon me. Almost as if
by magicthe fallacious nature of our current ideology
was laid bare and left wanting. Yet, the insight granted
by the Dialectic Method did more to encourage than leave me
depressed in its wake." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
And
here is Alan Woods, DM-guru of the above party,
writing in the 2015 Introduction to the
e-book edition of RIRE:
"Reason in Revolt was written
at a time when the world revolutionary movement was in
retreat. The collapse of the Soviet Union created a mood
of pessimism and despair. The defenders of capitalism
launched a ferocious ideological counteroffensive
against the ideas of socialism and Marxism. They
promised us a future of peace, prosperity and democracy
thanks to the wonders of the free market economy.
"Two decades have passed since
then and a decade is not such a long time in the grand
scheme of history. Not one stone upon another now
remains of these comforting illusions. Everywhere there
are wars, unemployment, poverty and hunger. And
everywhere a new spirit of revolt is arising, not just
in Asia and Latin America but also in Europe and the USA
itself. The tide is turning, as we knew it must do.
And people are looking for ideas that can explain what
is happening in the world. The ideas of Marxism are
enjoying a renaissance. Support for these ideas is
growing stronger by the day....
"Marxism is much more than
a political doctrine, or a theory of economics. It is
the philosophy of the future. Dialectical
materialism allows us to study reality, not as a series
of dry, unconnected, senseless events or 'facts', but as
a dynamic process, driven by its internal
contradictions, ever changing and with an infinitely
rich content. The ideas of Marxism have never been
more relevant and necessary than at this time. The
advanced workers and youth of the whole world will
rediscover these ideas and reclaim them for themselves.
That is the only guarantee for the success of the
struggle for socialism." [Quoted from
here; bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered
to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
It looks, therefore, like this
criminally substandardopiate is
continuing to work its 'magic'.
[RIRE = Reason In Revolt; i.e., Woods and
Grant (1995/2007).]
18a. On the history of
the slate system, see
Appendix D.
However, anyone who reads
through the many accounts there are on-line (or which have been published in books and
pamphlets over the years) about such splits will soon see that one of the
main complaints
levelled by those involved concerns the lack of democracyin the party from
which they are splitting or have been expelled. [On this, see
Appendix F, too.]
This can't just be a
coincidence. Even the UK-SWP appointed (what now appears to have been) an
ill-fated
commission to try to improve
democratic accountability
in the party.
Despite what they say, it seems that petty-bourgeois
revolutionaries just can't tolerate any meaningful democracy.
[On this in general, see, for example,
here,
here and
here. More details
can be found in Note 16, above.
Concerning issues related to party democracy, see
the section on Stalinism and
Maoism, below.]
On the US-SWP, we have
these words from
James
Cannon (quoted earlier):
"We begin to recruit from sources none too healthy….
Freaks always looking for the most extreme expression of radicalism, misfits,
windbags, chronic oppositionists, who had been thrown out of half a dozen
organizations…. Many people came to us who had revolted against the Communist
Party not for its bad sides but for its good sides; that is, the discipline of
the party, the subordination of the individual to the decisions of the party in
current work. A lot of dillettantish (sic), petty-bourgeois minded people who
couldn't stand any kind of discipline, many of the newcomers made a fetish of
democracy…. All the people of this type have one common characteristic; they
like to discuss things without limit or end…. They can all talk; and not only
can but will; and everlastingly, on every question." [James P. Cannon, History
of American Trotskyism, pp.92-93, quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
Cannon obviously failed to notice that when he
wrote this he, too, was thoroughly petty-bourgeois and/or de-classé. Be
this as it may, the fact that he thought
that party democracy was a "fetish" tells us all we need to know. It is hard
to imagine either Marx or Lenin coming out with that phrase.
Tariq Ali's
comments merely underline how dire things are or have become:
"Repressed during the war and isolated in its aftermath,
most of the [Trotskyist] groups retreated into a complacent and self-satisfied
sectarianism, not dissimilar, in some ways, from the primitive Christian
sects or the later Jesuits. In Pakistan I had been asked about Trotskyism
and after my explanation a veteran cadre of the communist movement had laughed
and said: 'We've got enough here already. We've got Shias
and
Sunnis
and now
you want to bring the
Wahhabisin here as well...'. The Wahhabis are, in theory at least, an
ultra-orthodox and puritanical Muslim sect.
"...When I arrived at the Ninth World Congress [of the
Fourth International] in Rimini in 1969, the gathering was a strange mix of old and new in every sense....
[The new guard of the
American Socialist Workers Party] struck me as apparatchiks pure and simple,
obsessed with inner-party manipulations, factional intrigue and an
unbelievable sectarian attitude toward everyone else on the American left....
"When I had joined the
IMG
in Britain, I had been given a number of books to read.... Most were a
delight, but one had totally puzzled me and I wondered what I was meant to learn
from its pages. This was a volume by an American communist turned Trotskyist:
The Struggle For A Proletarian Party
by James Cannon. I had not expected
this to be non-fiction version of
Hemingway
or
Dos Passos, but the
single-minded and relentless pursuit of an oppositional current within the same
organisation until it was defeated, demoralized and expelled, had shocked my
sensibilities.... I later discovered [that this was] used as a 'key,
cadre-building text' by the American SWP, the British
SLL, and even the much-dreaded dogmatists of the
Lambertist
sect in France.... [T]he second generation, whom I met in Rimini
in 1969, seemed to be walking and talking parodies of Cannon. In the decades
that followed they would adopt internal party norms that made them virtually
indistinguishable from the Stalinism that they were supposed to be combating in
every way. In this fashion the hopes and aspirations of thousands of young
idealists were confiscated and crushed by men...whose control of tiny
apparatuses -- a printshop, a few dozen full-time workers, a building -- gave
them a power and authority which they shamelessly misused. It was a deadly virus."
[Ali (2005), pp.325-27. Bold emphases and links added. Italic emphases in
the original.]
[On this, it is also worth consulting
Wohlforth (1994).]
This seems to be the shared experience of many
who have passed through similar petty-bourgeois party machines. [The
recent crisis in the UK-SWP is, of course, just the latest example.]
Again,
is this just a coincidence?
Is it simply bad
luck? Or, is it not rather a direct result of the class origin and class position of
Dialectical Trotskyists/Marxists, seriously aggravated by a divisive theory inherited from
a gaggle of boss-class
mystics?
19.
I will say much more about this topic, why Leninism was able to chalk up a
major success in 1917, and how this turned into disaster in Essay Fourteen
Part Two. In the meantime, I have added a few comments on this
here, and a whole
section, here.
19a. This helps explain another odd
feature of
Dialectical Marxism, certainly one that had me
puzzled for some time: on discussion
boards -- some the best examples of which can be found
here -- comrades from every wing of
Marxism will defend DM in almost exactly the same way, agreeing with, supporting and quoting
one another
against any who attack their theory (from yours truly, or from others), despite the fact that these
comrades disagree about practically everything else. Thus, in relation to
dialectics, an out-and-out
Stalinist will agree with a Trotskyist, a Maoist will agree with a member of
the IST, 'Libertarian Marxists' will concur with the most
Neanderthal of
Hoxhaists, supporters of the
Juche Idea will welcome the thoughts of
ISO-ers,
Sparts will see eye-to-eye with
CWI honchos, and so on, in defence of the sacred dialectic. At other times, and over virtually every other issue, they will
be, and almost invariably are, at each others throats, often using dialectics to
lambaste and excoriate one another in the process! Indeed, on such occasions, each and every one of these sad
souls will point their
sectarian fingers at all the rest (and those with whom they have just
agreed over the defence of DM!) and claim in the next breath that not one of them
"understands" dialectics!
Even worse, when this is
pointed out to them, they all proceed to deny they
share the same ideas about the dialectic, even while they have all just agreed about
it in the above manner!
DM-fans contradicting themselves?
Who'd have thought...
20.
This was a burning question that seems to have worried The Guardians Of
The Flame over at the old WRP -- this was in fact the title of a major article
published in Newsline in the early 1980s.
As pointed out in Essay Three
Part Two,
despite claims to the contrary, DM-epistemologists have appropriated bourgeois individualist theories of knowledge (which
theories were themselves based on the
thought-forms
invented at, or around about the time of, the last major change in class power
approximately four hundred
years ago).
And we
can now see why this is so. Each DM-acolyte must stand on his/her own two feet before
Hegel's Absolute (upside down or the 'right way up'), relying on their own
personal "understanding" of the DM-Holy Books -- which is part of the reason
they accuse others, and one another, so readily of not 'understanding' this sacred creed. [More on this in Essay Fourteen Part Two.]
To be sure, DM-fans gesture toward the idea that knowledge is a collective
endeavour, but when their epistemology is examined in detail, what they
actually have to say undermines belief in the social nature of knowledge
and language. [On that, see here,
here and
here.]
21.Check
out this talk
-- the link
is located about a third of the way down the page --
by
ex-UK-SWPer, Mark Steel; in less than
one hour he makes
two such cracks, both of which go down rather well with his audience whochuckle knowingly.
[As noted earlier, Mark left the
UK-SWP nearly a decade ago; on this, see his recent book, Steel (2008). See also
here.]
22.
An excellent recent example of
such totally un-merited
hero worship can be found
here.
In August 2008, this appeared at the Revcom website:
"We are proud and thrilled to announce the posting
of important new talks by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP/USA, on bobavakian.net
and
revcom.us. These
talks are truly pathbreaking explorations in communist theory and its
application to a breathtaking range of questions, including political
questions which are urgently and sharply posed in today's situation. They are
also living laboratories in the communist method and approach to the world.
There is a scope and a depth to each talk, and the talks as a whole, that
is really unprecedented and extraordinary." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
[For more examples, and some analysis, see
here. However, on this, see Note 26,
below.]
Click on the website of practically any
Christian or
Muslim
sect to find similar language, pictures and servile
sycophancy -- only directed there at more ancient deities and contemporary 'holy' men/women.
[Anyone unconvinced of this should
watch, say, the videos posted
here. I hasten to add that they should do so only after
swallowing a powerful anti-emetic if
they want to hang on
to their last meal a little longer.]
On the DWP and Marlene Dixon, see Lalich (2004), pp.113-218, and
Tourish and Wohlforth (2000), pp.145-55.
23. Any
MISTs
who have made it this far should, I think, avert their eyes at this point,
since I am about to remind them that
Mao was no saint, and used female
comrades as others tend to use paper handkerchiefs; on this, see Zhisui Li (1996).
[This
is probably part of the reason why ardent Maoists tend to rubbish Zhisui Li's book.
However, Li's book should be read in
conjunction with Gao
(2008).]
Indeed, one commentator summed Mao up in the following terms:
"As
Eric Hobsbawm
has pointed
out in Revolutionaries, the widespread belief that there is some
connection between social revolutionary movements and permissiveness in sexual
behaviour actually has no basis in fact. Indeed, there is by contrast a strain
of Puritanism in many revolutionary movements. This seems to be particularly
true in the Maoist forms of revolution, since they have tended to focus on the
movement (as represented by for example the Chinese Communist Party or the
Angkar
of the
Khmer Rouge)
taking the place of the family. The young Chinese Communists who supported Mao
Zedong as he emerged as the leader of the movement were in fact positively
forbidden from any kind of personal intimacy. Despite the constant threat of
death or serious injury, not to mention capture by the enemy, the young men and
women had to endure without physical comfort from each other.
"This
restriction did not, of course, apply to Mao himself.
Anchee Min's
Becoming Madame Mao describes the sound of passion coming from Mao's
quarters, as he made love to
the young
actress who was to become the terror of the
Cultural Revolution, quite unnerving the young guards posted outside. Mao of
course was by then onto what was to become marriage to his third wife. However,
these marital liaisons were but one part of his sexual life. Throughout the
period of his ascendancy, as reports of his personal life have made clear, young
and virgin girls were brought to his bed on a regular basis. Agents, they might
equally be termed pimps, roamed the Chinese countryside searching for suitable
girls and explained the situation to their parents. They were sold the idea that
a great honour was being provided for them and their daughter. Perhaps financial
or material inducements were also provided at need. Presumably, there are a
number of these women living still in China with Mao's children, although this
is not a subject which is discussed very much in the public sphere.
"As for Mao
himself, an endless series of young girls and a sense of entitlement would be
strong enough inducements for most men but, in his case, he did seem to have a
genuine intent to reach an advanced age, which he managed to achieve to a
reasonable extent. There has been a longstanding belief in Chinese society that
men can reinvigorate themselves by absorbing life energy from younger women
through sexual contact. In fact, older women could receive the same favour from
younger boys but, apart from the
Empress Wu
and her like, much fewer have been able to take advantage of the possibility." [John
Walsh. Bold emphases and
links added. Italics in the original.]
[Maoist cadres were, of course, largely drawn from conservative middle class and
peasant stock, so it is hardly surprising they somewhat puritanical. Add to that
the fact that pregnancies and STD's during a revolutionary war would be highly
inconvenient, to say the least. By way of contrast, the sexually predatory
nature of
leading Russian
Stalinists is hardly a secret, nor is the
widespread use of rape by the Red Army toward the end of WW2. And, of
course, there was a genuine
wave of sexual liberation following on the Russian Revolution,
later reversed by Stalin.]
Gerry Healy was a far more substantial
dialectician than Mao ever was or could have been, but with respect to female comrades, he appears to have treated them
little better. [On that, see
here, as well as Tourish and Wohlforth (2000), pp.156-72.]
"Five months after Mark Stanton Curtis was arrested in
Des Moines on charges of sexual abuse and burglary, Detroit Mayor
Coleman A.
Young sent a letter to the authorities in Iowa charging frameup and police
brutality. 'As an early union organizer,' Young wrote on August 18, 1988, 'I am
concerned that Mr. Curtis may be being harassed for his political beliefs rather
than fairly investigated and brought to trial for actual criminal activity.'
"Young's
letter was one of hundreds sent to Des Moines that summer on behalf of Curtis, a
29-year-old-member of the [US-]Socialist Workers Party (SWP) and an employee at
the local Swift meatpacking plant. It echoed a Detroit City Council resolution
which stated there was 'no evidence' that Curtis beat and raped a 15-year-old
African-American girl in her home on the night of March 4, 1988, and referred to
'a brutal attack' on Curtis by 'law enforcement officials' of
Polk County. It
isn't often that the government of one American city accuses another of holding
and beating a political prisoner. So the retractions, when they came, were even
more startling.
"'I've done
some checking on my own,' wrote Detroit Councilman
Mel Ravitz, in a letter to
the victim's father, 'and have concluded that it is improbable that Mr. Curtis
was framed.' Councilmen John Peoples and Nicholas Hood also wrote personal
letters of apology for their support of Curtis.
"The
Socialist Workers Party has devoted an enormous effort to the Curtis case in the
three years since his arrest. It has gathered endorsements from more than 8,000
political activists and organizations in and around the world and raised, by its
own estimate, $150,000 in living room and union hall fundraisers, and by working
the crowds at peace and pro-choice rallies across the country. Past and present
Curtis endorsers include
Ed Asner,
Congressmen
John Conyers and
Ronald
Dellums,
Angela
Davis, the
Rev.
Daniel Berrigan, Detroit
Bishop
Thomas Gumbleton, several chapters of
NOW, the national chair of
Sinn Fein,
and members of [the UK?] Parliament and the
African National Congress.
"But while
endorsers around the world see Mark Curtis as a champion of civil rights, his
defense committee in Des Moines is picketed by the
National Black United Front. While Curtis claims he was framed because of
his fight for undocumented Latino workers, activists in the Des Moines Latino
community say they never heard of him until his arrest. While his supporters
contend Curtis was prosecuted as a warning to labour organizers everywhere, his
own union refuses to endorse the effort to free him. And while feminists from
North Carolina to Great Britain write letters of support, counsellors at the
rape crisis centre in Des Moines insist on his guilt, and accuse his defense
committee of harassing a teenaged rape victim.
"Critics
charge the Socialist Workers Party with perpetrating a hoax that is rapidly
becoming an embarrassing cause célčbre. Feminists in particular charge that the
success of the Curtis Defense Committee in winning financial and political
support reveals a deep streak of sexism among progressives, and an ignorance of
the realities of rape. What does it mean, they ask, when so many 'politically
correct' people are willing to take, at face value, the word of a white man
convicted of rape over that of his Black victim?
The case
against Mark Curtis rests on the accounts of two key witnesses, 15year-old
[sic] Demetria Harris [in order to protect her identity the victim's name has been
changed by the author of this article -- RL] and her 11year-old [sic] brother Jason.
According to their testimony, they were home alone on the evening of March 4,
1988, watching TV, when there was a knock at their door. When Demetria asked who
it was, a man answered 'Mark.' Thinking it might be their big brother Mark,
Demetria opened the door to see a 'tall and skinny' white man standing on the
steps outside their enclosed front porch, asking if 'Bonita or Keith' were
there, if this was 1545 IXth Street. The Harris home is at 1529 IXth Street --
just a few houses down. When Demetria told him he had the wrong address, the man
asked if her parents were home. Jason, getting bored, went back into the house
to watch TV. That's when 'Mark' pushed his way onto the porch.
"'He closed
the door behind him,' Demetria told the jury, 'and he told me -- threatened, he
said, "I have a knife. I'll hurt your brother and you if you don't cooperate.'
Demetria struggled, until 'Mark' began punching her in the face and head. Jason,
hearing the struggle, came to investigate. Opening the door a moment he saw
'Mark' on top of Demetria. Jason went back into the house, armed himself with a
kitchen knife, took the phone as far from the porch as he could, and dialled
911. 'This man is raping my sister,' he told police dispatcher Kim Manning.
Manning logged the call into her computer at 8:51 PM. She then radioed officers
Joseph Gonzales and Richard Glade, parked nearby. The officers arrived two
minutes later, pulled up silently. They walked to the front door and knocked.
"'Mark' put
his hands around Demetria's throat, 'and started choking me, and told me not to
say anything.' Gonzales and Glade pushed through the door, and 'Mark,' his pants
down around his legs, took off into the back of the house. Demetria, nude from
the waist down and bleeding from the face, told Gonzales, 'He just raped me.'
The assailant was cornered in a back bedroom, where, his pants still down around
his legs, Mark Stanton Curtis was handcuffed and read his rights....
"The jury
found Curtis guilty as charged. Curtis was sentenced by Judge Harry Perkins to
25 years in the Men's Reformatory in
Anamosa. In April 1990 the Iowa Court of
Appeals rejected his final appeal....
"In their
pamphlet, 'Who is Mark Curtis?' an SWP supporter is quoted saying, 'This is not
a case about rape.' But the Mark Curtis case is precisely about rape. It is
about the insidious and pernicious myths that work to silence rape survivors and
protect their abusers. It is about backlash against the stop-rape movement. It
is about how easy it is for a rapist and his friends to recruit allies in their
attack on a courageous young woman who dared to speak out against her abuser."
[Quoted from
here; accessed 04/01/2017. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Spelling modified to agree with UK English.
Several minor typos corrected. Links added. Paragraphs merged to save space.]
"Mark Curtis, recently released from the Iowa State
Penitentiary after serving seven and half years behind bars, addressed a crowd
of 70 people here. Curtis, who was a unionist and member of the Socialist
Workers Party in Des Moines, Iowa, was framed-up in 1988 and sentenced to 25
years for rape and burglary -- crimes he did not commit." [Quoted from
here;
accessed 04/01/2017.]
If only there were some sort of pattern
here...
[And,
"puritanical" isn't a word that would instantly spring to mind if I
were to describe my experience of UK
Trotskyism twenty-seven years ago.
Socialist females who are members of revolutionary
discussion boards will know of what I speak. Of course, the male
comrades who dominate such fora can't see this, and regularly scratch their heads and
wonder why there are so few
female contributors to their site. They then compound this wilful ignorance by dismissing, or rejecting, what they
have been told about their own insidious sexism by the few female members who
are brave enough to remain, often
accusing the latter of being 'hysterical'!]
There
is also this 1991
report from the Japanese section of the Fourth International [FI]:
"From 1982, the Japanese section of the Fourth
International had to confront a situation where the women members and women who
worked with the section in the Sanrizuka airport movement accused members of the
Japanese section of severe sexual discrimination, harassment and rape. The response of the JRCL and its leadership was to deal
with the accusations as individual cases. There was a lack of collective
understanding that these cases arose in a context of severe sexual
discrimination within the organization for which all male comrades bore
collective responsibility. Moreover, the individual cases were dealt with in an
uneven and inconsistent way.
"This led to the situation where almost all women comrades ceased regular
functioning within the framework of the JRCL. The inability to deal with the rape and discrimination
cases revealed and accentuated a general state of crisis which led to the split
of the JRCL into two groups (JRCL and National Council) with greatly weakened
national implantation.
"Around 30 women comrades are organized in the FI Women's Liberation Group,
whose principal activity as a group is to discuss what happened in the section.
Their outward political activity is carried out through the Socialist Women's
Association, a women's organization of around 130 members which was originally
founded by the JRCL in 1978 but today has no formal relationship to either of
the factions resulting from the split. This situation of division of the male and female members
into separate groups because the women comrades consider it impossible to
participate in a common organization with the men is extremely serious.
"It indicates a profound inability on the part of the male members to apply our
programme concerning the fight against women's oppression in the practice of the
organization. This deep contradiction between our programme and the reality of
these groups of male members make it impossible for us to consider these groups
as being in any way groups that represent the International or have any formal
status within it. The ability of members of the JRCL and National Council groups
to continue a discussion which increases their understanding of why these
problems arose and why their response was judged inadequate by the women
comrades will also depend on their developing activity within the Japanese
workers' movement challenging all manifestations of discrimination and
oppression of women." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added;
some paragraphs merged to save space.]
And the following comes from the Mexican section of the FI (this comes from 1989):
"The present document is a contribution from the PRT
Women's Commission to the thinking about a sanctions policy in relation to
women's oppression. We thought it was especially important to start the thinking
in writing now, since we decided at our last congress to initiate new efforts to
make this a feminist party. We believe that, since our last congress, women
militants have been feeling more confident about denouncing cases of aggression
against them, which motivates us to make the following observations with an eye
to continuing to deepening the discussion begun two years ago....
"Social control to protect women militants against
aggression by male comrades is not commonly accepted. In other words, feminizing
the public sphere (access for women to the leadership, delegates, etc.) is less
problematic than feminizing the private sphere. The biggest problem is that that
is where we find the worst of women's oppression....
"First of all we recognize the need for sanctions. The
sanctions are necessary to preserve the party, and this includes the women.
Minimum norms of respect are required among militants, minimal norms of
interacting, which give women a place to act politically in our country, with
certain confidence. We believe that these minimal norms can be listed in three
categories: Violence (threats and blows), sexual violence (harassment and rape)
and sexist verbal aggression (sexist remarks against comrades). Of course all of
these categories can be broken down a bit more, and they require different
levels and kinds of sanctions, but we consider them to be the minimum aspects
around which each man and women in the PRT should establish rules for working
together. If we fail to regulate these three aspects, women would be left
completely unprotected in our life in the party. The sanctions are a defensive
action so that we, as women can remain in the party with at least minimum
conditions guaranteed." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
23a0.
On this, see Note 16
and Note 18a, above. See also an
analysis that at least represents the beginning of an attempt to
understand along class lines
the malaise that afflicts our movement,
here.
23a.
Dialecticians often reject this allegation, but the only practical applications
of DM that they generally offer in response are taken from HM, not DM -- or,
believe it or not,
from the Biological Sciences! But, as we saw in
Essay Seven, even there DM doesn't in fact apply -- or it has simply been
read into the phenomena in the
usual manner. [Also see Essay Four
Part One.]
"[Lenin] showed how quantitative changes in capitalism,
the concentration of production and the growth of monopolies, led to a
qualitatively new stage in capitalism -- imperialism -- and how that new stage,
far from overcoming the system's internal contradictions, reproduced them on a
new level, thus laying the basis for the imperialist world war." [Molyneux
(2012), p.59.]
However, as Anderson himself
was forced to admit:
"The relationship of the text of Lenin's Imperialism
to the Hegel Notebooks is not immediately apparent and must be excavated. First,
it must be said that unlike the Essay 'Karl Marx' (1914), for example, this book
does not have a section on dialectics or even one on philosophy. Nor does it
even mention the issue of dialectics...." [Anderson (1995), p.128. Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Italic
emphasis in the original; bold added.]
So, DM has to be read into
Lenin's book, too, and not just foisted
on nature
and society! To be sure, Lenin does
use the word "contradiction" fourteen times throughout that work, but he nowhere
says anything like this:
"...far from overcoming the system's internal
contradictions, reproduced them on a new level, thus laying the basis for the
imperialist world war." [Molyneux, op cit.]
Indeed, Lenin's employment of this particular word follows
a well-worn tradition, where DM-authors simply help themselves to this word and
then do very little, or
nothing, with it. As such, this is plainly an affectation, a move that is
more of a nod toward orthodoxy, and an indication that the one using this word has
remained
faithful to 'dialectical tradition' than it is a
genuine use of DM. Again, this is plain from the fact that Lenin's
employment of it is sketchy
(at best) and he too does nothing with it. Indeed, given the additional fact
that these 'contradictions' are never derived logically from the phenomena to
which they supposedly relate, they can't be 'dialectical contradictions', to
begin with. Compare this with they way that the existence of the proletariat is
of a piece with that of the bourgeoisie -- in that they both imply one another
and cannot exist without each other, so we are told. DM-fans never even so much
as attempt to do likewise with the many 'contradictions' they claim to be
able to see all over the place. [For example, in the list below, check out how
many such 'contradictions' Lenin attempted to derive. (In what follows, readers mustn't assume that I disagree with
Lenin's analysis of Imperialism! I am only concerned to show that DM not only
wasn't, it couldn't have been used by Lenin to develop his theory.)]
Here are the fourteen passages where this word occurs:
"The growing world proletarian revolutionary movement in
general, and the communist movement in particular, cannot dispense with an
analysis and exposure of the theoretical errors of Kautskyism. The more so since
pacifism and 'democracy' in general, which lay no claim to Marxism whatever, but
which, like Kautsky and Co., are obscuring the profundity of the
contradictions of imperialism and the inevitable revolutionary crisis to
which it gives rise, are still
very widespread all over the world.... (p.8.)
"...The result is a slurring-over and a blunting of the
most profound contradictions of the latest stage of capitalism, instead
of an exposure of their depth; the result is bourgeois reformism instead of
Marxism. (pp.110-11.)
"...Evasion of existing contradictions, forgetting
the most important of them, instead of revealing their full depth -- such is
Kautsky's theory, which has nothing in common with Marxism. (pp.111-12.)
"...Kautsky's utterly meaningless talk about
ultra-imperialism encourages, among other things, that profoundly mistaken idea
which only brings grist to the mill of the apologists of imperialism, i.e., that
the rule of finance capital lessens the unevenness and
contradictions inherent in the world economy, whereas in reality it
increases them. (p.113.)
"Finance capital and the trusts do not diminish but
increase the differences in the rate of growth of the various parts of the world
economy. Once the relation of forces is changed, what other solution of the
contradictions can be found under capitalism than that of force?...
(p.116.)
"...As we have seen, the deepest economic foundation of
imperialism is monopoly. This is capitalist monopoly, i.e., monopoly which has
grown out of capitalism and which exists in the general environment of
capitalism, commodity production and competition, in permanent and insoluble
contradiction to this general environment.... (p.119.)
"...Instead of an analysis of imperialism and an exposure
of the depths of its contradictions, we have nothing but a reformist
'pious wish' to wave them aside, to evade them. (p.135.)
"Kautsky's theoretical critique of imperialism has nothing
in common with Marxism and serves only as a preamble to propaganda for peace and
unity with the opportunists and the social-chauvinists, precisely for the reason
that it evades and obscures the very profound and fundamental contradictions
of imperialism: the contradictions between monopoly and free competition
which exists side by side with it, between the gigantic 'operations' (and
gigantic profits) of finance capital and 'honest' trade in the free market, the
contradiction between cartels and trusts, on the one hand, and
non-cartelised industry, on the other, etc. (pp.141-42.)
"Kautsky's obscuring of the deepest contradictions
of imperialism, which
inevitably boils down to painting imperialism in bright colours, leaves its
traces in this writer's criticism of the political features of imperialism.
Imperialism is the epoch of finance capital and of monopolies, which introduce
everywhere the striving for domination, not for freedom.... (p.146.)
"Kautsky's theoretical analysis of imperialism, as well as
his economic and political critique of imperialism, are permeated through
and through with a spirit, absolutely irreconcilable with Marxism, of
obscuring and glossing over the fundamental contradictions of imperialism
and with a striving to preserve at all costs the crumbling unity with
opportunism in the European working-class movement. (p.148.)
"The extent to which monopolist capital has intensified
all the contradictions of capitalism is generally known. It is sufficient
to mention the high cost of living and the tyranny of the cartels. This
intensification of contradictions constitutes the most powerful driving
force of the transitional period of history, which began from the time of the
final victory of world finance capital." (p.150.)
[Lenin
(1975). Quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Italic
emphases in the original; bold emphases added.]
As far as can be determined, no other dialectical jargon appears
in the book. And, as we can now see, Lenin doesn't even attempt to show how the
two 'halves' of these 'contradictions' logically imply one another.
Indeed, as we saw was the case with
MEC, Lenin plainly
thought it sufficient to
keep repeating the same assertions if he wanted to
establish a certain point.
But, nowhere does Lenin "show" that the things he calls 'contradictions' are contradictions, or
even
how they are capable of doing the things Molyneux alleges of them.
The closest Lenin came to "showing" that imperialism lays "the basis for the imperialist world war"
was in the following passage:
"Finance capital and the trusts do not diminish but
increase the differences in the rate of growth of the various parts of the world
economy. Once the relation of forces is changed, what other solution of the
contradictions can be found under capitalism than that of force?..."
(p.116.)
In fact, Lenin "shows" no such thing, he merely asks a question
-- and he certainly doesn't "show" it 'dialectically'. Question and assertion
do not amount to "showing".
Moreover, he also failed to "show" this:
"...how that new stage, far from overcoming the system's
internal contradictions, reproduced them on a new level...." [Molyneux, op
cit.]
In fact, Lenin nowhere mentions this "new level" -- let alone
"show" how the alleged 'internal contradictions' of capitalism led to it.
Hence, Molyneux completely failed to make his case.
But, what about the following?
"[Lenin] showed how quantitative changes in capitalism,
the concentration of production and the growth of monopolies, led to a
qualitatively new stage in capitalism -- imperialism." [Molyneux, op cit.]
Again, Lenin nowhere mentions, or even alludes to,
Engels's first 'law',
the supposed change of 'quantity into quality'. We have already seen that
DM-fans employ this 'law' subjectively, using it when and where it suits
them, ignoring the many cases where it fails to work.
That is partly because the vast majority of them leave the terms
"quantity" and "quality" hopelessly vague. Indeed, Molyneux is no less
hazy
about this 'law', too (cf., pp.48-52). What is the "quantity" here in
Lenin's work, according to Molyneux? And what is
the "quality"? We aren't told. But, are we really supposed to believe that when
a monopolistic form or stage of capitalism has been reached, one more added unit of
capital suddenly precipitates (i) Investment in India, (ii) The invasion of Africa, or
(iii) The
firing of a gun in Sarajevo? But, it must do one or more of these -- or
it must precipitate whatever other events constitute a 'dialectical' change or 'leap' from the Monopoly, to
the Finance, and then to the Imperialist stages of Capitalism if Molyneux is to
be believed.
As is usually the case in this area of
Mickey Mouse Science,
we are left to guess the details. And yet when we do try to guess, the ridiculous nature of this 'law'
soon becomes apparent.
So, if, say, the Finance stage of Capitalism is constituted by
C
units of Capital, and the Imperialist stage by C+1 units, must we assume
that when that extra unit has been added, the capitalists concerned (or their
political representatives) suddenly start casting covetous eyes at (a) their
neighbours' colonial possessions, (b) the investment possibilities offered in,
say, Argentina, or
(c) the need to build another
Dreadnought?
Again, this is precisely what should be the case if Engels's 'law' is in any way applicable
here:
"With this
assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further
about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a
thinker who had traced the evolution of the world back to its self-equal state,
and is so much at home on other celestial bodies, would have known exactly
what's what also on this point. For the rest, however, the assurance he gives
us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of
measure relations which has already been mentioned. In spite of all gradualness,
the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a
decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial
bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally
true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of
molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper: heat,
light, electricity, magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics
of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided
leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary
chemical action to the chemism of albumen which we call life.Then within
the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible.
--
Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring." [Engels
(1976),
pp.82-83. Bold emphasis added.]
"It is said, natura non facit saltum [there are no leaps in nature]; and
ordinary thinking when it has to grasp a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be, fancies it has done so by representing it as a gradual emergence or disappearance. But we have seen that the alterations of being in general are not only the transition of one magnitude into another,
but a transition from quality into quantity and vice versa, a
becoming-other which is an interruption of gradualness and the production of something qualitatively different from the reality which preceded it. Water, in cooling, does not gradually harden as if it thickened like porridge, gradually solidifying until it reached the consistency of ice; it suddenly solidifies, all at once. It can remain quite fluid even at freezing point if it is standing undisturbed, and then a slight shock will bring it into the solid state."
[Hegel
(1999), p.370, §776. Bold emphasis alone added.]
But, water is still H20
either side of the liquid/gas boundary, and Imperialist capitalism is still
capitalism. So, nothing substantially new has emerged -- if, that is, we adhere to Hegel's
definition of "quality":
"Each of the three spheres of the logical idea proves to be a systematic whole
of thought-terms, and a phase of the Absolute. This is the case with Being,
containing the three grades of
quality, quantity
and
measure.
"Quality is, in the first place, the character identical with being: so
identical that a thing ceases to be what it is, if it loses its quality.
Quantity, on the contrary, is the character external to being, and does not
affect the being at all. Thus, e.g. a house remains what it is, whether it be
greater or smaller; and red remains red, whether it be brighter or darker."
[Hegel (1975),
p.124, §85.]
The Glossary
over at the Marxist Internet Archive adds the following:
"Quality is an aspect of something by which it is what it is and not something
else and reflects that which is stable amidst variation. Quantity is an aspect
of something which may change (become more or less) without the thing thereby
becoming something else.
"Thus, if
something changes to an extent that it is no longer the same kind of thing, this
is a 'qualitative change', whereas a change in something by which it still the
same thing, though more or less, bigger or smaller, is a 'quantitative
change'.
"In Hegel's
Logic,
Quality
is the first
division of
Being, when the world is
just one thing after another, so to speak, while
Quantity
is the second
division, where perception has progressed to the point of recognising what is
stable within the ups and downs of things. The third and final stage,
Measure, the unity of
quality and quantity, denotes the knowledge of just when quantitative change
becomes qualitative change." [Quoted from
here.
Accessed August 2007. This definition has been altered slightly since.]
But, nothing substantially new emerges, in this instance. Of course, this depends on what we mean by
"new"; but, and once more, DM-fans are remarkably coy about such 'pedantic'
details. [This is a brief summary of the argument presented in Essay Seven
Part One. Readers are referred there
for more details.]
It could be objected that the above is a
crude caricature of the practical application of DM presented in Lenin's
book. Well, until we see the 'sophisticated version' -- and we have only been waiting for seventy or eighty
years -- certainly Anderson (1995) failed to produce it --, it will have to do.
So, not only did Lenin not
apply this 'law' -- it is far
too vague and confused for anyone to apply it, which is, of course, what
has been alleged all along about DM at this site.
In which case, Lenin's classic book can't be
chalked up as an
example of the practical application of DM.
Molyneux's other examples (i.e., the use to which DM is put in
Lenin's
The State and Revolution,
The April Theses,
Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder,
and Trotsky's
The First Five Years of the Communist International
-- pp.59-61), are no
less fanciful. Sceptical readers are encouraged to check for themselves, and if
they still disagree with my estimation, they can e-mail me
with their own example of a (positive) practical
application of this dialectical fairy-tale. As noted elsewhere, I have
been challenging DM-fans to produce just such examples for a couple of decades;
deafening silence has been their only response.
24.
An excellent example of this phenomenon can be found
here; several
more, here.
This
is, of course, the dialectical equivalent of the 'pie-in-the-sky' myth that
Christian preachers feed the alienated and the gullible.
Naturally,
the argument is never put as
crudely as this, but it is implied by the sorts of things
DM-classicists do assert (on this, see Essay Ten
Part One). How and why
this is so will form much of the content of Essays Three Parts Three and Five,
and Fourteen Part Two.
25.
Examples of this tactic will be given below.
There, we will see that in the eyes of its acolytes the fact that DM is contradictory constitutes one of its most
potent selling points!
The same 'defect' is, however, regarded as a
fatal weakness
when it afflicts competing theories, even those that are advanced by rival dialectical
dogmatists.
For example, below we will witness Maoists accuse Stalinists of being contradictory, even while
they proudly announce how contradictory their own theory is! We will also
see the same is true of Trotskyists, who will accuse fellow Trotskyists -- or
Maoists, or
Stalinists -- of the very same sins, who for their part will aim the same barbs in like manner
at
Trotskyists, and even at each other, as well as anyone and everyone who has
attracted the ire of their very own sanctified DM-Guru.
After all, what could be more contradictory
than to claim that being contradictory is both a fatal defect in other
theories and your own best asset?
[This is indeed how
Buddhists
(but, particularly
Zen Buddhists) deal with the
contradictions in their own belief system. Examples of the latter tactic can be found
in McFarlane (2002), where this irrational defectis also viewed as one of
Buddhism'sunique strengths.]
A dialogue in Price (1990)
nicely illustrates this bankrupt form of 'rationality' (otherwise called "Nixoning",
in Essay Eight Part One):
"Me: 'Fred is in the kitchen.' (Sets off for kitchen.)
"You: 'Wait! Fred is in the garden.'
"Me: 'I see. But he is in the kitchen, so I'll go there'
(Sets off.)
"You: 'You lack understanding. The kitchen is Fred-free.'
"Me: 'Is it really? But Fred is in it,
and that's the important thing.' (Leaves for kitchen.)" [Price (1990), p.224. I
owe this reference to Grimm (2000). p.70.]
Arguing with DM-fans and Buddhists is rather like this,
except this confusion is far more convoluted and involved in their case when
compared with the above fictional example -- bothhold fast to contradictory ideas and see
this as a
badge of honour!
As noted above: except when and where these "contradictory ideas"
appear in the theories of those that DM-fans perceive as political enemies,
whose
'contradictions' are bellowed from the rooftops. Two relatively recent examples of this phenomenon
can be found
here and
here. More recently still we find the late Chris Harman, for instance, doing
something similar
here
[i.e., in Harman (2007b), pp.113-15]. We have already seen
Tony Cliff use this tacticin orderto argue that it is still possible to have a
dictatorship of the proletariat when there is no proletariat!
25a. On a personal
note, I have lost count of the number of times dialectically distracted comrades
have said to me (mostly on the internet): "Who are you, Ms Lichtenstein, to question
Engels/Lenin/Trotsky/Mao...?" Of course, this is the dialectical equivalent of "If
it was good enough for my grandfather...".
With that attitude, we would still be living in caves!
To this I often reply: "You strike me as the modern-day
equivalent of those Roman Catholic Priests who might have said to
Galileo:
'Who are you, Galileo Galilei, to question Aristotle or
Ptolemy...?'"
And can you imagine anyone even so much as suggesting
that Stalin or Mao should have their work 'peer reviewed'? To say nothing of
Enver Hoxha's or Kim Il-Sung's? "Chickens voting for an early Xmas" oddly comes
to mind here.
This helps account for the almost
god-like status of 'Party Leaders' in the fSU,
China, North Korea, Vietnam, the Eastern European 'Peoples' Democracies', Cuba, some
OTGs, and other
revolutionary groups (e.g., the
WRP
and the
DWP). The correlation between the existence of a
personality cult and the extent to which DM is
accepted as unquestioned dogma by a particular revolutionary tendency is quite
striking; the two seem to be
directly proportional to one another.
[On the sycophantic adulation of no marks like Bob
Avakian and Marlene Dixon, see Note 22.]
Naturally, this aspect of the
cult of the individual is closely linked to political expediency (as it was/is
in, say, the fSU, Eastern Europe, Cuba, China, and North Korea, etc.); if a
regime is going to subject its citizens to vicious forms of repression and
super-exploitation, that will, of course, massively increase the alienation in that population. If that society or party is also at least nominally
atheistic, more than one surrogate for frustrated religious adulation and
veneration is going to be required. Similarly, if a nonentity, or a
sociopath, leads a party, almost supernatural powers will have to be
attributed to that individual otherwise the game will be up; and that is
especially so if the rank-and-file have to give body and soul (and all, or most,
of their money) to the party (as is the case with many Trotskyist and Maoist
sects) and are thus held fast by an authoritarian power structure. [On this, see
Lalich (2004), Tourish (1998), and Tourish and Wohlforth (2000).]
Hence, the cult of the Saints is required by most DM-dominated
parties and countries.
Moreover,
criticism of this
phenomenon in this Essay is independent of whether or not the individuals lionised in this way were in
favour of it, or even encouraged it (or, indeed, whether or not they make, or
made, a few
weak attempts to reject or disown it). What is important is the fact that those constituting the power
structures surrounding these individuals found it expedient to beatify them for
the sort of political reasons adverted to above. Having said that, the mystical
nature of DM certainly enabled that 'theory'/'method' to function as a
highly effective ideological legitimator of the
exalted and remote status of these 'heroic'
'Leaders'
--
in movements supposedly 'of the people' --, since, as is the case with assorted
Popes, Bishops, Grand Imams and Dalai Lamas, these 'Great Helmsmen' possessed, among other
things, a hot-line to 'dialectical truth' not shared by the rest of us mere mortals.
So, there were, and
still are, political reasons for these National Cults (the
details surrounding which I will not enter into in
this Essay -- but on that, see
here);
the point is that dialectics certainly helped rationalise anti-Marxist
posturing like this, just as it helped cloud the critical faculties of those held in
its thrall --, and to
such an extent
that these sad souls either fail to notice it, deny it exists, or refuse
even to be told. [Up until recently, I had a link to a Marxist discussion board
frequented by individuals who were classic examples of this
affliction, but it has now folded. Even so, this unhealthy phenomenon is not difficult to confirm.
Here is a another recent example, along with my
response.
(This link is also now broken!)
Here is an even more extreme example of the deleterious effects this
'theory' has on the mind of a contemporary Maoist. This cultish phenomenon also tends to surface
regularly over at the
Soviet Empire Forum.]
Some
Stalinophiles quote this comment (which appears in a letter written to one
Shatunovsky in August 1930):
"You speak of your 'devotion' to me. Perhaps it was
just a chance phrase. Perhaps.... But if the phrase was not accidental I would
advise you to discard the 'principle' of devotion to persons. It is not the
Bolshevik way. Be devoted to the working class, its Party, its state. That is a
fine and useful thing. But do not confuse it with devotion to persons, this vain
and useless bauble of weak-minded intellectuals." [Stalin, quoted from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site.]
As
one commentator has noted:
"However, surely the humility and modesty of what
Stalin is saying only contributes to the image of Stalin as the perfect
Bolshevik? It would be unlikely for him to write 'This is a cult I have
constructed around myself, I have fabricated history so that I look like Lenin's
successor. That is the true Bolshevik way.' Also, if his works were intended for
public consumption, it would make sense to take his rhetoric with a pinch of
salt. There is no way to confirm that his this quote represents Stalin's genuine
views, and that it was not part of the wider construction of his cult of
personality." [Julia Kenny, quoted from
here; accessed 23/01/2017. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Add
to that the mountain of contrary evidence that shows that Stalin and his image were
lionised, if not worshipped, especially after WW2 -- some of which has be aired in this
Essay. [I will also add several more videos and pictures to Appendix Two
to this Essay -- as well as the
naming a city
after Stalin (now called Volgograd), and
the notorious doctoring of
certain photographs.]
"The fact that a) Stalin's image was imposed upon
visual culture and implanted into education as part of an intensive propaganda
campaign and b) Stalin tried to rewrite history and portray himself as having
been consistently close to Lenin, tampering with photographs to legitimise
himself as Lenin's successor would suggest that there was a cult around Stalin,
and one that he intended to create. Tampering with history seems like a
deliberate and incriminating action of someone who is keen to construct a public
image." [Ibid.]
If
Stalin was so adamantly against this cult, then he was either (i) Totally
incompetent in his endeavour to eliminate, or oppose, it -- compare this, for
example, with his regime's other attempts to remove, prosecute, imprison and
execute all those 'Trotskyite Wreckers' in the 1030s -- or (ii) Duplicitous in
the extreme. Which horn of that dilemma Stalinophiles are prepared to grasp is,
of course, their problem.
One
such Stalinophile has mounted a forceful defence of his hero, quoting other
passages where Stalin airs similar claims to 'modesty', but he signally fails to
say which horn of the above dilemma was more acceptable to him. Nevertheless, as
noted above:
[C]riticism
of this phenomenon in this Essay is independent of whether or not the individuals lionised in this way were in
favour of it, or even encouraged it (or, indeed, whether or not they make, or
made, a few
weak attempts to reject or disown it). What is important is the fact that those constituting the power
structures surrounding these individuals found it expedient to beatify them for
the sort of political reasons adverted to above.
The
aforementioned Stalinophile, indeed, half admitted this:
"Still, an important
question remains. If the cult of personality did not arise from the conscious
decisions of Stalin and the Party, where did
it come from? There is a great deal of evidence to support the idea that cults
of personality served a material purpose. Scholars since
Max Weber
have observed that cults of personality can unify a group in times of crisis and
inspire them to action. The cult of personality around Stalin rallied the masses
around a common cause. It inspired them to not only win the war against the
fascists, but also to rebuild their decimated economy after they had done so.
These specific material conditions necessitated the development of a personality
cult." [Quoted from here; accessed 23/01/2017. Italic emphasis in the
original; link added.]
Of
course, even though this have conceded that such cults did exist in the
fSU (as the above individual admitted in the
same article), and that there were clear political reasons for this, one
wouldn't expect Stalinophiles to accept the allegation that the oppression and
super-exploitation of the working population of the fSU meant that such cults
became politically and socially necessary; but we already know they are
impervious to the lessons
of history.
However, the above Stalinophile's argument is suspect on other grounds. If, as
he admits, there were understandable reasons why it was important for such cults
to arise when the fSU was under attack, then surely Stalin would have been
aware of this. If so, why the attempt to absolve him of involvement in this
cult? Either (i) Stalin didn't actually want to defend the fSU, or (ii) He was
being hypocritical when he only appeared to reject the cult that formed
around him.
Finally, Stalin can't have been unaware of the
cult around Lenin -- involving the erection of
huge statues all over the fSU,
naming
a city after him (which has now reverted to its old Tsarist name, Saint
Petersburg), the millions spent on Lenin's
mausoleum, and the religious awe with which his writings are viewed (indeed,
Stalin was particularly adept at quoting Lenin as the final authority).
How could he have been unaware? In fact,
Stalin helped manufacture it! [This
links to a PDF.] So statements like the following are disingenuous in the
extreme:
"[S]uch undertakings
lead to the strengthening of a 'cult of personality,' which is harmful and
incompatible with the spirit of our party." [Stalin, quoted from
here. Accessed 23/01/2017.]
The
post-Lenin Bolshevik Party was (somewhat fittingly, one feels) the exact
opposite of this. Yet another 'Unity of Opposites'?
Anyone familiar
with 'Marxist' iconography and
hagiography -- particularly the images of the Dialectical Saints that
adorn the banners carried on
parades by assorted Stalinists, Maoists and Kim-Jong-Il-ists (the
latter of whom in fact regard the birth of members of the
Kim Dynasty as
miraculous, and who also think their leaders are
immortal) -- will know of what I speak.
Figure Ten: There Is No
Cult Of The
Saints In Dialectical Marxism
Figure Eleven: Any Suggestion
To The Contrary Is A Bourgeois
Lie!
Figure Twelve: As The Above
Images Clearly Show
Figures Thirteen, Fourteen And Fifteen:
So Let's HearNo More About It!
Just as they will know all about 'Socialist
Realism', with its craggy-jawed, muscle-bound proletarians,
striking heroic poses, or sporting permanently ironed-on, white toothed grins --
especially when they are reading the world-shattering, and
highly
lucrative 'thoughts' of
Chairman Mao.
Figures Sixteen And Seventeen: Daily Life On
'Planet Dialectics'
Figures Eighteen And Nineteen: A
Workers' Paradise? Ye! -- But
Alas Only For Body-Builders!
Moreover, the 'success' of the
'unremitting struggle' against the
cult of the individual in China can be seen from the size of the portrait of Mao
that still dominates Tiananmen Square:
Figure Twenty: The Unflagging Struggle Against Hero
Worship
[This statue was later
removed because it lacked "official approval".]
[There might be good
reason why the Chinese authorities removed Mao's statue -- they are explored
here.]
Video Six: Mao
Emphatically And Strenuously Fights The Personality
Cult
That Surrounds Him
Compare, for example, the above images with
these
-- as well as those to be published in Appendix Two.
Then
there was the mass hysteria around 'Mao's Mangoes' -- which were, at one
stage, regarded with almost semi-divine awe:
Figure Twenty-Two: Wax Replica
Mangoes On Silk Cushions, Conveyed In Glass Cases
During The Re-Enactment Of
Beijing's National Day Parade In Harbin, October 1968 --
Notice The Figurine Of Mao At
The Front -- Not At All Reminiscent Of Roman Catholic Processions
Figure Twenty-Three: As This
Photograph Clearly Shows
Figure Twenty-Four:
"Worker-Peasant Propaganda Team In Qinghua Cheers The Gift Of Mangoes --
The Ribbon Reads
'Respectfully Wishing Chairman Mao Eternal Life'"
Anyone interested can read
about these 'Holy Mangoes',
here.
Just be sad, and a little annoyed, you missed these monumental, 'sacred happenings':
"Zhang Kui, a worker who occupied
Qinghua, says that the arrival of one of Mao's mangoes at his workplace prompted
intense debate.
"'The military representative came
into our factory with the mango raised in both hands. We discussed what to do
with it: whether to split it among us and eat it, or preserve it. We finally
decided to preserve it' he says. 'We found a hospital that put it in
formaldehyde. We made it a specimen. That was the first decision. The second
decision was to make wax mangoes -- wax mangoes with a glass cover. After we
made the wax replicas, we gave one to each of the Revolutionary Workers.'
"Workers were expected to hold the
sacred fruit solemnly and reverently, and were admonished if they failed to do
so. Wang Xiaoping, an employee at the Beijing No 1 Machine Tool Plant, received
a wax replica. The fruit itself was destined for higher things. 'The real mango
was driven by a worker representative through a procession of beating drums and
people lining the streets, from the factory to the airport,' says Wang. The
workers had chartered a plane to fly a single mango to a factory in Shanghai. When one of the mangoes began to rot,
workers peeled it and boiled the flesh in a vat of water, which then became
'holy' -- each worker sipped a spoonful. (Mao is said to have chuckled on
hearing this particular detail.)
"'From the very beginning, the mango
gift took on a relic-like quality -- to be revered and even worshipped,' says
Cambridge University lecturer Adam Yuet Chau. 'Not only was the mango a gift
from the Chairman, it was the Chairman.' This association is reflected in a
poem from the period:
'Seeing that golden mango / Was as if
seeing the Great Leader Chairman Mao!
'Standing before the golden mango / Was
like standing beside Chairman Mao!
'Again and again touching that golden
mango: / the golden mango was so warm!
'Again and again smelling the golden
mango: / that golden mango was so fragrant!'
"The mangoes toured the length and
breadth of the country and were hosted in a series of sacred processions. Red
Guards had wrecked temples and shrines, but destroying artefacts is easier than
erasing religious behaviour, and soon the mangoes became the object of intense
devotion. Some of the rituals imitated centuries of Buddhist and Daoist
traditions, and the mangoes were even placed on an alter to which factory
workers would bow." [Quoted from
here.
Accessed 11/02/2016. Several paragraphs merged to save space. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases
added.]
"All
the peoples of our Motherland and the working people all over the world are
today doing honour to their great leader, wise teacher and best friend,
Comrade Stalin, on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. Comrade Stalin
has been fighting for the happiness of the working people, for over fifty years.
His life has been one of self-sacrificing effort, and is an inspiring
example for all Soviet people, and for the working people of the whole world.
Comrade Stalin's name is most precious and dear to the heart of all toiling
mankind; Stalin -- is the symbol of all that is advanced and progressive.
"Stalin is the genius, the continuer of Lenin's immortal cause, the inspirer
and organizer of the building of Communism in our country. Stalin is the creator
of the Soviet Armed Forces; he is the greatest military leader of modern times.
It was under his guidance that our Armed Forces were created, grew and gained
strength. It was under his leadership that they routed the enemy in the period
of the Civil War (sic -- RL!), upheld the freedom and independence of our
Motherland in the Great Patriotic War, and saved the people's of the world from
the menace of enslavement to German fascism. Stalin is the creator of the
advanced, Soviet military science." [Nikolai
Bulganin, quoted from
here. Bold emphases added. The above continues in the same vein for many
more, bucket-filling paragraphs.]
"Comrade Stalin, as nobody else, profoundly understood Lenin's inspired ideas
on the Marxist Party of a new type, upheld the purity of the Marx-Engels-Lenin
teaching, developed the Marxist-Leninist theory, steeled the Party in the
struggle against numerous enemies, and forged and trains cadres capable of
furthering the cause of our Party. The whole world saw Stalin's greatness at
the sharp turning-points of history: in October, 1917, during the Civil War
[editing Trotsky out again -- RL], in the years of the intervention, when
together with Lenin, he led the Socialist Revolution (sic!) and the struggle to defeat
the enemies of the Soviet Power, and in the Great Patriotic War, when Comrade
Stalin led the routing of the strongest enemies of our Motherland....
"Comrade Stalin is rightly regarded as the great and loyal friend of the
peace-loving peoples of the countries of people's democracy, liberated from
the yoke of Fascism, of the peoples of China and North Korea, who have for ever
thrown off the yoke of the imperialists. That is why the peoples of the
Soviet Union and all progressive mankind see in the person of Comrade Stalin
their recognised leader and teacher. That is why today they express with
particular warmth their affection and devotion to Comrade Stalin, and put on
record his great services in the struggle for a happy life for the people, for
peace among the nations. [Georgy
Malenkov, quoted from
here. Bold emphases added. This, too, continues for many more nausea
inducing paragraphs.]
"Revolutionary students from east, northeast, north, central-south, southwest
and northwest China...declared:
'We feel boundlessly happy now that we stand by the side of our respected and
beloved leader Chairman Mao. We are here to learn from the Red Guards of the
capital. We are here to learn successful experience. We are determined to carry
back with us the dauntless revolutionary spirit of Peking's Red Guards, the
spirit of daring to think, to speak out, to do, to break through and to make
revolution so that all of China will be set ablaze by the revolutionary flame
of Mao Tse-tung's thought.'
"These revolutionary students said:
'With the great helmsman Chairman Mao steering for us and with the brilliant
Mao Tse-tung's thought lighting our way of advance, we are dauntless. We are
fully confident and resolved to create a completely new world with our own
hands. Through this great proletarian cultural revolution, we shall eradicate
the roots of revisionism in our country so that our beloved motherland will for
ever keep its bright red colour!'
'The banner and arm band of the Red Guard fighters are a bright red, and so are
our hearts. Completely loyal, we'll follow the Party and Chairman Mao for
ever to make revolution and carry it through to the end!'
'We Red Guards follow Chairman Mao's teachings most faithfully. We'll
work hard to learn from the People's Liberation Army. We'll seriously study the
16 Points, know them well and apply them. We'll persist in carrying on the
struggle by reasoning and not by coercion or force. And we pledge to carry the
great proletarian cultural revolution through to the end.'" [Peking
Review, 9, 37, 09/09/1966, pp.5-9.
Bold emphases added.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
"The
New Year has arrived at a time when several hundred million people of our
country are triumphantly marching forward along the road of the great
proletarian cultural revolution charted by Chairman Mao. We wish long, long
life to Chairman Mao, our great teacher, great leader, great supreme commander,
and great helmsman! We salute the workers, members of the people's communes,
revolutionary students and teachers, and revolutionary intellectuals and
revolutionary cadres of the whole country!
"In the course of the revolution, this great spiritual force of Mao
Tse-tung's thought is turning further into a new tremendous material force. In
the year just past, our whole army, holding high the great red banner of Mao
Tse-tung's thought, has faithfully implemented the five-point principle, put
forward by Comrade Lin Piao, for giving prominence to politics. It took an
active part in the great proletarian cultural revolution and won great successes
on both the ideological and material fronts. The mass movement of studying
and applying Chairman Mao's works in a creative way surged ahead, each wave
higher than the preceding one....
"Whatever our army has achieved is due to Chairman Mao's brilliant leadership
and the implementation of the directives of Comrade Lin Piao and the Military
[Affairs] Commission of the Party's Central Committee. It represents a shining
victory for giving prominence to proletarian politics, a shining victory for the
great proletarian cultural revolution, a shining victory for the great
thought of Mao Tse-tung!
"...We must really turn our army into a great school of Mao Tse-tung's
thought, meet the new situation of the great proletarian cultural
revolution, and the new situation in which the whole Party and the whole
nation are studying Chairman Mao's works in a big way. Therefore, in the
months ahead we must hold higher than ever before the great red banner of Mao
Tse-tung's thought and bring the mass movement of creatively studying and
applying Chairman Mao's works to a new and higher stage, in accordance with
Comrade Lin Piao's directive. [Peking
Review, 10, 3, 13/01/1967, pp.8-13.
Bold emphases and link added.]
"Chairman
Mao is the very red sun that shines most brightly in our hearts. He is the
great, teacher, great leader, great supreme commander and great helmsman
selected by the proletariat and the revolutionary people of China and the world
in the course of their protracted revolutionary struggles. He is the authority
of the world proletarian struggle in the present era.... He has the most
profound Marxist-Leninist wisdom and the richest experience in struggle....
Chairman Mao is the greatest Marxist-Leninist, the most outstanding
proletarian leader and the greatest genius of our era....
"Comrade
Lin Piao says that a genius like Chairman Mao appears in the world only once in
hundreds of years, or in China only once in thousands of years. Chairman Mao is
the world's greatest genius.... Chairman Mao will always be our supreme
leader, our supreme commander and the red sun shining most brightly in our
hearts. Without him, there would not be the great Party we now have, nor our
great army and great country; the Chinese people would have nothing, and the
people of the world would find it impossible to achieve their liberation.... We
will always follow him closely and thoroughly establish the absolute authority
of our great supreme commander Chairman Mao. We pledge our lives to defend
Chairman Mao's position as the supreme leader. Anyone who opposes Chairman Mao
stands condemned by all of us, the whole Party; he will be denounced by all of
us, the entire nation...." [Yang Cheng-wu: 'Thoroughly Establish the Absolute
Authority of the Great Supreme Commander Chairman Mao', Peking Review,
46, 1967; pp.17-18, 19, 20, quoted from
here. Bold emphases added. Minor typo corrected. (I have informed the
editors over at the Marxist Internet Archive.)]
"Chairman
Mao is the greatest Marxist-Leninist of our era. Every sentence uttered by
Chairman Mao is truth.... Therefore we must act according to Chairman Mao's
instructions whether or not we have already fully grasped its significance....
A proletarian party must have its own true outstanding leader and it is
necessary to establish his absolute revolutionary authority throughout the
party." [Lin Chieh,
ironically in an article entitled 'Down With Slavishness'! Quoted from
here, where there is plenty more sycophancy like this. Bold emphases
added. (I have posted more of this stuff
here.) The cult goes into hyperdrive
here (this links to a PDF).]
Sycophantic adulation like this isn't
confined to the cult of Stalin and Mao; here is more of the same heaped on the heads of
those towering no-marks, Bob Avakian and Merlene Dixon:
"But
Bob Avakian is more than that. He is someone who has persisted in confronting
the hardest, most excruciating questions before humanity. In so doing, he's
taken the communist understanding of the world and how to change it to a new
place. The answers he's brought forward and the pathways he's forged demand
a serious look -- a deep engagement -- from everyone concerned about the future
of humanity....
"Avakian has broken new ground on the important role of ethics and morality
in a revolutionary society. He's analyzed how the basic relations of today's
society drive people to confront each other as 'owners of things' and forces
them to strive to profit at each other's expense....
"This restless search for the truth has often led Avakian to 'go against the
tide.' He has stood up for truth and refused to back down, even in the face
of tremendous and fierce opposition, including, at times, from within the
communist movement. It's a question of whether you want revolution badly
enough, he has said, to be rigorously scientific about it." [Quoted from
here, where there is plenty more of this sort of material. Bold emphases added;
quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
"Historic Talks by Bob Avakian. Get The Word
Out!
"We are proud and thrilled to announce the posting of important new talks
by Bob Avakian, Chairman of the RCP/USA, on bobavakian.net and revcom.us.
These talks are truly pathbreaking explorations in communist theory and its
application to a breathtaking range of questions, including political
questions which are urgently and sharply posed in today's situation. They are
also living laboratories in the communist method and approach to the world.
There is a scope and a depth to each talk, and the talks as a whole, that is
really unprecedented and extraordinary." [Quoted from
here; bold emphases
added.]
"In Bob Avakian, the Chairman of our
Party, we have the kind of rare and precious leader who does not come along very
often. A leader who has given his heart, and all his knowledge, skills and
abilities to serving the cause of revolution and the emancipation of humanity....
"He has deeply studied the experience of revolution -- the shortcomings as well
as the great achievements -- and many different fields of human endeavour,
through history and throughout the world -- and he has brought the science
and method of revolution to a whole new level, so that we can not only fight
but really fight to win. Bob Avakian has developed the scientific theory and
strategic orientation for how to actually make the kind of revolution we need,
and he is leading our Party as an advanced force of this revolution. He is a
great champion and a great resource for people here, and indeed people all over
the world. The possibility for revolution, right here, and for the advance
of the revolution everywhere, is greatly heightened because of Bob Avakian and
the leadership he is providing. And it is up to us to get with this
leadership…to find out more about Bob Avakian and the Party he heads…to learn
from his scientific method and approach to changing the world…to build this
revolutionary movement with our Party at the core…to defend this leadership
as the precious thing it is…and, at the same time, to bring our own
experience and understanding to help strengthen the process of revolution and
enable the leadership we have to keep on learning more and leading even
better....
"We must spread the word to every corner of this country…." [Quoted from
here; bold emphases added. Spelling modified to agree with UK English.]
"ComradeMarleneand the
Party are inseparable; [and] her contribution is the Party itself, is the
unity all of us join together to build upon. The Party is now the material
expression of that unity, of that theoretical world view. That world view is the
world view of the Party, its central leadership and all of its members. And
there will be no other world view…. This was the unity that founded the Party,
this was the unity that safeguarded the Party through purge and two-line
struggle, and this is the unity we will protect and defend at all costs. There
will be no other unity." [Quoted from
here.
This passage in fact appears in Lalich (2004), p.164.
Bold emphasis added.]
Thus
was
also created the cult of the Central
Committee, built upon the aforementioned Leadership Cult,
the Dialectical Guru. Alongside this comes the doctrine that
only a few (oracular) individuals (or committees) are fountains of 'dialectical
truth', are 'Great Teachers' and can be quoted as such -- and are quoted as such --, over and over again to
confound waverers and infidels.
An excellent example of this theological frame-of-mind
is exhibited in Healy (1990), where it seems
sufficient for Healy to quote Lenin, Engels or Trotsky to settle every dispute (even
where Healy arguing with, or addressing, non-Marxists!). Of course, Healy was following
a tradition
established by Lenin himself,
who, at the beginning of
MEC thought it acceptable to argue as follows (indirectly with an unnamed
"lecturer", although the Foreign Languages Press edition tells
us that Lenin wrote this in May-June 1908, and it formed "the thesis for a
speech given by I F Dubrovinsky (Innokenty), member of the Bolshevik centre and
one of the editors of the newspaper Proletary, on a philosophical
symposium sponsored by A Bogdanov, in Geneva" (p.440); presumably this renegade
Bolshevik was the
eponymous 'lecturer'):
"1.
Does the lecturer acknowledge that the philosophy of Marxism is dialectical
materialism?
"If he does not, why has he never analysed Engels' countless statements on
this subject?
"If he does, why do the
Machists
call their 'revision' of dialectical materialism 'the philosophy of Marxism'?
"2.
Does the lecturer acknowledge Engels' fundamental division of philosophical
systems into idealism and materialism, Engels regarding those
intermediate between these two, wavering between them, as the line of
Hume
in
modern philosophy, calling this line 'agnosticism' and declaring
Kantianism
to be a variety of agnosticism?
"3.
Does the lecturer acknowledge that recognition of the external world and its
reflection in the human mind form the basis of the theory of knowledge of
dialectical materialism?
"4.
Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels' argument concerning the
conversion of 'things-in-themselves' into 'things-for-us'?
"5.
Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels' assertion that the 'real
unity of the world consists in its materiality'? (Anti-Dühring, 2nd ed., 1886,
p.28, section I, part IV on world schematism.)
6.
Does the lecturer acknowledge as correct Engels' assertion that 'matter
without motion is as inconceivable as motion without matter'? (Anti-Dühring,
1886, 2nd ed., p.45, in part 6 on natural philosophy, cosmogony, physics and
chemistry.)
"7.
Does the lecturer acknowledge that the ideas of causality, necessity, law,
etc., are a reflection in the human mind of laws of nature, of the real world?
Or was Engels wrong in saying so? (Anti-Dühring, S.20-21, in part III on
apriorism, and S.103-04, in part XI
on freedom and necessity)...." [Lenin (1972),
pp.1-2. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site.]
It isn't easy to believe that someone as sophisticated as Lenin
was capable of thinking that this sort of challenge would have had any effect on
anyone other than a sycophant or a simpleton. Of course, Lenin was
playing to the gallery here, hoping to expose this lecturer's fall from DM-grace
in the eyes of the party faithful; and it could be argued that Healy was doing
this, too. Nevertheless, it is still the case that rhetorical flourishes like
this are as common as dirt in DM-circles, and that only the terminally gullible
will swallow them whole.
27.This, of course, becomes a self-certifying argument:
D3:
So, no
genuine socialist will think to question it.
D4:
In that case, it must be unquestionable.
D5:
Hence, anyone who has the temerity to question it must have questionable motives themselves.
The full weight of this class-compromised and
servile tradition is then dropped onto these unfortunates from a great height.
[See also Note 25a, above.]
In fact, D5 is often the
very first accusation be levelled at malcontents, by-passing the other four. The
hapless, targeted 'doubter' is
automatically regarded as guilty for even thinking to question the ideas of
the founding fathers.
[Here
is a recent example of this, along with my reply.
(Unfortunately, this link is now broken.)
Here is another even more recent example. There are plenty more
to be found
here.]
But, it never occurs to those pointing this rather
grubby finger
at critics like me that the best way to dishonour Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Trotsky and Luxembourg -- to say nothing of the countless thousands of revolutionaries who have
contributed to, and have died for, socialism -- is to
adhere slavishly to a monumental error just because it is 'traditional' to do so.
Now,
that would be to spit on their graves.
28. This also
helps explain why
the DM-classics are easily among the very worst literary products in the
entire Marxist
cannon. Despite this, these books are treated with a degree of
reverence normally reserved for the 'sacred' texts treasured by the genuine
god-botherers amongst us. These 'classics' include Dialectics Of
Nature, Anti-Dühring, Ludwig Feuerbach And The End Of Classical
German Philosophy, Materialism And Empirio-Criticism,
Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, several sections of Trotsky's In Defense
Of Marxism, Mao's On Contradiction, as well as the many hundreds of
secondary works that feed off them, and which are in many cases almost indistinguishable from
the 'classics' -- such as the
work of Plekhanov,
Dietzgen and Stalin. [On this, see Note 30.]
29. Naturally, Hegel, who was at least an open and honest
mystic, was quite happy to trace many of his core ideas back to the ramblings
of
previous mystics and obscurantists -- see, for example, the three volumes of his
Lectures on the History of Philosophy -- i.e., Hegel (1995a, 1995b,
1995c).
[Oddly
enough, DM-fans are also
happy to do likewise; see, for example,
Thalheimer (1936). This
topic will be tackled in more detail in
Essay Fourteen Part Two (see also
here). In the meantime, the reader should check
this,
this
and
this
out.]
29a. Anyone who doubts this should read
a few more revolutionary papers (particularly those published by
OTs) to see how things
are routinely
talked up. Hence, protests are
always "growing"; anger is always "intensifying"; movements always "building";
meetings are always "historic", "significant", "exciting", "thrilling" or
"marvellous".
Indeed, when 300 or so comrades are gathered together in an
obscure hotel, in some 'god'-forsaken town in the middle of nowhere -- and over
150 years after the Communist Manifesto was first published --, this
will be hailed in the
following, glowing terms:
"In the first week of August 2004 a meeting of
almost 300 Marxists from 26 countries, including Venezuela and Cuba, met in
Spain to discuss the world situation and the tasks of the international
revolutionary Marxist tendency. This was for many reasons an historic turning
point that registered a qualitative advance of the forces of Marxism on a world
scale." [Quoted from
here.
Bold emphasis added.]
And, two years later,
there was more of the same from the same:
"July 30, the 2006 World Congress of the
International Marxist Tendency
opened in Barcelona. This was a truly
amazing congress, characterized by terrific energy, enthusiasm, and optimism
combined with an extremely high level of political discussion and debate. Above
all, there was a firm determination to build the International in the coming
period. It was the largest congress ever, with 320 present, cramming the meeting
hall almost to capacity....
"This world congress is dedicated to the memory
of
Ted
Grant and we pledge ourselves to continue in his work. I will finish
with the words inscribed on the tomb of
Wren, the great architect: 'If you want
a monument, look around you.'" [Quoted from
here.
Bold emphasis added.]
If you patrol
little other than the flatlands of failure, then, when you stop to "look around you",
every molehill will indeed look like a mountain, and 320 comrades seem a big
deal.
Revolutionary chest-beating like this is
depressingly common on the far-left. [More on this in Essay Ten
Part One. See
also here.]
30.The
uncritically reverential attitude adopted by revolutionaries toward the third-, and
fourth-rate works listed in Note 28,
above -- in inverse proportion to their genuine value -- is one of the more
remarkable features of
Dialectical Marxism, the worst aspect of which is that
those held in its thrall seem quite incapable of recognising this craven attitude for
what it is: servile devotion to tradition in a
movement that boasts its own healthy opposition to tradition!
Another rather odd
unity of opposites, to be sure.
[If
DM-theorists examined these fourth-rate works with the same critical eye, or
attention to detail, that some of them devote to my work, they would perhaps see this
incongruity for themselves.]
None of this sits at all well with Marx's
favourite aphorism -- recorded by one of his daughters --, which was: "Everything
should be doubted" (reported in Wheen (1999), p.388). This spirit of scepticism
harmonises rather awkwardly with the way his own writings (and, even more so,
the dialectical musings of Engels, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Trotsky) have been ossified into Holy Writ by subsequent
generations of DM-fans.
30a. It could be objected that this
is precisely what Ms Lichtenstein does -- i.e., she quotes Marx, Engels, Trotsky,
and Lenin when it suits her. If it is OK for Ms Lichtenstein to do this, why is
it a problem for dialecticians to do likewise in support of their views?
That
is a fair point. However, the difference is that, unlike LCDs, (i) I don't
accept as Gospel Truth everything Marx, Engels, Lenin and Trotsky had to
say. That, after all, is part of the reason I set this site up. And, (ii) I use
the writings of these classicists to expose the inconsistencies in DM, since
LCDs -- at least nominally -- accept them as authorities. Plainly, quoting
those they don't accept in this regard would be so much wasted effort.
31.
The
rationale behind this idea is difficult to grasp;
why should Hegel's 'logic' (upside down, or the 'right way up') apply only
to human affairs and not to nature in general? If it doesn't apply to nature,
that would seem to imply that humanity itself isn't part of nature. This is indeed how
Gramsci saw things; here is how John Molyneux put the idea (in response to
Lukács's claim that Marx himself didn't apply the dialectic to the entire
universe):
"Human
beings emerge out of nature and remain part of it and therefore Gramsci's
objection to
Lukács that 'If his assertion proposes a dualism between nature and man he is
wrong' (A Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks,...p.448) is
valid.
"Marxism
is not only a critique of capitalism but, as Gramsci says, 'contains in itself
all the fundamental elements needed to construct a total and integral conception
of the world, a total philosophy and theory of natural science' (A Gramsci, as above,
p.462)." [Molyneux (2012), p.56. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Apart from such ex
cathedra pronouncements, 'buttressed' by the usual set of quotations from the classics, we are never
presented with even a cursory attempt at providing a proof that dialectics must apply to nature (or indeed, to
anything at all!). To be sure, we are confronted with the same hackneyed examples
that supposedly illustrate the truth of this theory (and Molyneux's book is just
the latest work to surface in this long and sorry tradition), but, at best,
this evidential display is accurately described a yet more
Mickey Mouse Science.
Be this
as it may, and references
to Marx's
humanistic method --
ŕ la Lukács -- to one side (which itself should surely be based on something
more substantial than Marx's towering authority alone),
to what can the average
HCD
appeal to justify
the break in continuity here except Engels's dubious 'First Law'?
That is, HCDs will have to appeal to the idea that during our
evolution, as the complexity built into our species increased (both biologically and
socially), at some stage a new sort of being, or group, came into
existence. At
this point, there was a
"leap", and modern humans suddenly emerged -- or, soit would seem.
[More on this
in Essay Thirteen Part
Three.]
If this weren't so,
and humanity were
continuous with
nature (i.e., if there were no such "leap"), and if DM applies to our
species, it must apply to nature, too.
Now, in order to forestall that
inference, the only principle to which HCDs can appeal is this rather shaky
'Law', with its "leaps".
Unfortunately, the consequences of adopting
this approach are equally damaging to the line HCDs seem to take, as we are about to see.
Let us first of all assume for the sake of
argument that this shaky 'Law' is 100% sound (at least when applied to human
beings and/or their social development). On that basis, if it applies to the linking stage between
humanity and whatever came before the aforementioned "leap", then it must apply (one
supposes) to both sides of that "leap" (or we might have to stop calling it a
"Law", or even a "leap"). Out, too would go "gradualness":
"It is said, natura non facit saltum [there are no leaps in nature]; and
ordinary thinking when it has to grasp a coming-to-be or a ceasing-to-be, fancies it has done so by representing it as a gradual emergence or disappearance. But we have seen that the alterations of being in general are not only the transition of one magnitude into another,
but a transition from quality into quantity and vice versa, a becoming-other which is an interruption of gradualness and the production of something qualitatively different from the reality which preceded it. Water, in cooling, does not gradually harden as if it thickened like porridge, gradually solidifying until it reached the consistency of ice; it suddenly solidifies, all at once. It can remain quite fluid even at freezing point if it is standing undisturbed, and then a slight shock will bring it into the solid state."
[Hegel
(1999), p.370, §776. Bold emphasis alone added.]
"With this
assurance Herr Dühring saves himself the trouble of saying anything further
about the origin of life, although it might reasonably have been expected that a
thinker who had traced the evolution of the world back to its self-equal state,
and is so much at home on other celestial bodies, would have known exactly
what's what also on this point. For the rest, however, the assurance he gives
us is only half right unless it is completed by the Hegelian nodal line of
measure relations which has already been mentioned. In spite of all gradualness,
the transition from one form of motion to another always remains a leap, a
decisive change. This is true of the transition from the mechanics of celestial
bodies to that of smaller masses on a particular celestial body; it is equally
true of the transition from the mechanics of masses to the mechanics of
molecules -- including the forms of motion investigated in physics proper: heat,
light, electricity, magnetism. In the same way, the transition from the physics
of molecules to the physics of atoms -- chemistry -- in turn involves a decided
leap; and this is even more clearly the case in the transition from ordinary
chemical action to the chemism of albumen which we call life.Then within
the sphere of life the leaps become ever more infrequent and imperceptible.
--
Once again, therefore, it is Hegel who has to correct Herr Dühring." [Engels
(1976),
pp.82-83. Bold emphasis added.]
"The 'nodal
line of measure relations'... -- transitions of quantity into quality....
Gradualness and leaps. And again...that gradualness explains nothing
without leaps." [Lenin (1961),
p.123. Bold emphasis alone added. Lenin added in the margin here: "Leaps! Leaps! Leaps!"]
"What
distinguishes the dialectical transition from the undialectical transition? The
leap. The contradiction. The interruption of gradualness. The unity (identity)
of Being and not-Being." [Ibid.,
p.282. Bold emphasis added.]
"The identity
of opposites (it would be more correct, perhaps, to say their 'unity,' --
although the difference between the terms identity and unity is not particularly
important here. In a certain sense both are correct) is the recognition
(discovery) of the contradictory, mutually exclusive, opposite
tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature (including
mind and society). The condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world
in their 'self-movement,' in their spontaneous development, in their
real life, is the knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the
'struggle' of opposites. The two basic (or two possible? Or two historically
observable?) conceptions of development (evolution) are: development as decrease
and increase, as repetition, and development as a unity of opposites
(the division of a unity into mutually exclusive opposites and their reciprocal
relation).
"In the first
conception of motion, self-movement, its
driving force, its source, its motive, remains in the
shade (or this source is made external -- God, subject, etc.). In the
second conception the chief attention is directed precisely to knowledge of the
source of 'self'-movement.
"The first
conception is lifeless, pale and dry. The second is living. The second
alone furnishes the key to the 'self-movement' of
everything existing; it alone furnishes the key to 'leaps,' to the 'break in
continuity,' to the 'transformation into the opposite,' to the destruction of
the old and the emergence of the new." [Ibid.,
pp.357-58. Bold emphasis alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted
at this site.]
If the human race arose because of a long and
complex series of gradual changes, which at some point "leapt" to produce
homo sapiens, then this 'Law' must apply to whatever it was that preceded
modern humans. If we then extrapolate backwards, this argument must apply to the
origin of whatever preceded homo sapiens, and so on until we reach the
origin of life, and then beyond.
If so, and this 'Law' is assumed to be 100%
valid (in the above sense), then the argument developed earlier shows that it must apply to nature
and to the origin of
human beings and their social development. Of course, if this 'Law' doesn't
apply here -- i.e., if there was no such gradual change, followed by a "leap",
producing homo sapiens --, then that would threaten Darwinism, too.
In order to see this more clearly, let us call whatever it was that existed on the 'far'
side of the "leap", "PH1"
(short for "pre-human1"), and whatever emerged on the 'near' side, "H1" (for
"human1", of course). So,
it seems that the
first 'Law' must have applied to the transition from
PH1
to
H1,
since this transition was a "leap".
Naturally, if this 'Law' didn't apply to this
transformation, then
these stages must have been qualitatively the same, implying there was no
evolution!
[Let us also assume that in both the human and the pre-human stages we
include any relevant social, quasi-social, and/or pre-social relations. These must
have experienced a "leap", too. If so, that means this 'Law' will
apply
there, as well.]
The question now becomes: Precisely what
governed the transition from whatever precededPH1
(say, PH2)
to PH1
itself? If there was no "leap" here, then, once more, these two stages must be qualitatively the
same, and there was no difference between them, and
hence no evolution.
On the other hand, if these stages were
'qualitatively' different, then this 'Law'
must apply to the transition from PH2
to PH1.
By n applications of this argument, this
'Law' will apply to the transition from PHn-2
to PHn-1
-- otherwise there was no evolution.
If we now make n sufficiently large, that will take us back, at least, to the
'Big Bang'!
So, if Engels's shaky 'Law' applies anywhere, it applies everywhere (if we
extrapolate the above back far enough in the above manner, and generalise it to
every process in nature).
On the other hand, if this 'Law' applies nowhere
in this chain of events, then HCDs will have no 'law-governed'
explanation for the uniqueness of humanity, our evolution, or for the emergence of the qualitatively different social and biological stage,
H1
-- undermining Darwinism into the bargain.
In that case, if this 'Law'
doesn't
apply to the development of H1,
then the dismissive attitude HCDs usually display toward to their lowly
LCD
brethren is disingenuous,
even if only here. At least LCDs have a shaky 'Law'
which they apply consistently. HCDs simply have a surfeit of jargon, but no 'laws' (in this
sense).
[Unless, of course, we suppose this 'Law' is
itself subject to this 'Law', and
also emerged as a result of a "leap" of some sort. That would mean that, at one
moment, this 'Law' didn't exist, then the next it
did. But, if that is the case, this 'Law' itself would have to exist before it
existed, otherwise it couldn't have engineered its own 'qualitative' emergence!]
The reader must not assume I have suddenly
'seen the light', back-sassed, and now accept the validity of this aspect
of Engelsian Hermetic Hokum (i.e., his First 'Law'). The above dilemma is based on the
assumption that Engels's
shaky 'Law' makes some sort of sense. If we assume it does, that
assumption has then
been used to put pressure on the ability of HCDs to explain where human
uniqueness came from. And that in turn was done in order to demonstrate that
the adoption of a
single Hegelian idea spells doom for any theorist foolish enough to do so.
This Hermetic virus is no respecter of theories, or theorists.
Of course, if this shaky 'Law' makes no sense
at all (as Essay Seven
demonstrates -- that
is, Essay Seven revealed that this 'Law' is far too vague for anyone to be able
to decide if it is true or false),
then it can't be used to account for human development anyway. In that
case, the entire Hegelian baby can be thrown out with the Hermetic bath
water -- more particularly since Hegel's entire system is
based on a series of
egregious logical blunders.
If 'truth
is the whole', then the Hegelian Whole goes out of the window as a job
lot -- including the odd idea that 'truth is the Whole'.
Incidentally, the above argument can be
extended to cover other Hegelian principles which HCDs also apply exclusively to human society.
[I will substantiate that
allegation at a
later date, in Essay Twelve Part Five.]
In which case, the
'inner-development' of these 'concepts' only succeeds in shifting them into auto-destruct mode.
31a.
At this point, a quotation from
Nietzsche
comes to mind:
"Those who know that they are
profound strive for clarity.
Those who would like to seem
profound to the crowd strive for obscurity. For the crowd believes that if it
cannot see to the bottom of something it must be profound." [Taken from
here.]
Chomsky's comments on this strain of philosophical confusion are
also worth noting:
"I've returned from travel-speaking, where I spend most of my life, and found
a collection of messages extending the discussion about 'theory' and
'philosophy,' a debate that I find rather curious. A few reactions -- though I
concede, from the start, that I may simply not understand what is going on.
"As far as I do think I understand it, the debate was initiated by the charge
that I, Mike, and maybe others don't have 'theories' and therefore fail to give
any explanation of why things are proceeding as they do. We must turn to
'theory' and 'philosophy' and 'theoretical constructs' and the like to remedy
this deficiency in our efforts to understand and address what is happening in
the world. I won't speak for Mike. My response so far has pretty much been to
reiterate something I wrote 35 years ago, long before 'postmodernism' had
erupted in the literary intellectual culture: 'if there is a body of theory,
well tested and verified, that applies to the conduct of foreign affairs or the
resolution of domestic or international conflict, its existence has been kept a
well-guarded secret,' despite much 'pseudo-scientific posturing.'
"To my knowledge, the statement was accurate 35 years ago, and remains so;
furthermore, it extends to the study of human affairs generally, and applies in
spades to what has been produced since that time. What has changed in the
interim, to my knowledge, is a huge explosion of self- and mutual-admiration
among those who propound what they call 'theory' and 'philosophy,' but little
that I can detect beyond pseudo-scientific posturing. That little is, as I
wrote, sometimes quite interesting, but lacks consequences for the real world
problems that occupy my time and energies....
"The proponents of
'theory' and 'philosophy' have a very easy task if they
want to make their case. Simply make known to me what was and remains a 'secret'
to me: I'll be happy to look. I've asked many times before, and still await an
answer, which should be easy to provide: simply give some examples of 'a body of
theory, well tested and verified, that applies to' the kinds of problems and
issues that Mike, I, and many others (in fact, most of the world's population, I
think, outside of narrow and remarkably self-contained intellectual circles) are
or should be concerned with: the problems and issues we speak and write about,
for example, and others like them. To put it differently, show that the
principles of the 'theory' or 'philosophy' that we are told to study and apply
lead by valid argument to conclusions that we and others had not already reached
on other (and better) grounds; these 'others' include people lacking formal
education, who typically seem to have no problem reaching these conclusions
through mutual interactions that avoid the 'theoretical' obscurities entirely,
or often on their own. Again, those are simple requests. I've made them before, and remain in my
state of ignorance. I also draw certain conclusions from the fact.
"As for the
'deconstruction' that is carried out (also mentioned in the debate), I can't
comment, because most of it seems to me gibberish. But if this is just another
sign of my incapacity to recognize profundities, the course to follow is clear:
just restate the results to me in plain words that I can understand, and show
why they are different from, or better than, what others had been doing long
before and have continued to do since without three-syllable words,
incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that (to me, at least) is largely
meaningless, etc. That will cure my deficiencies -- of course, if they are
curable; maybe they aren't, a possibility to which I'll return.
"These are very easy requests to
fulfil, if there is any basis to the claims
put forth with such fervour and indignation. But instead of trying to provide an
answer to this simple requests (sic), the response is cries of anger: to raise these
questions shows 'elitism,' 'anti-intellectualism,' and other crimes -- though
apparently it is not 'elitist' to stay within the self- and mutual-admiration
societies of intellectuals who talk only to one another and (to my knowledge)
don't enter into the kind of world in which I'd prefer to live. As for that
world, I can reel off my speaking and writing schedule to illustrate what I
mean, though I presume that most people in this discussion know, or can easily
find out; and somehow I never find the 'theoreticians' there, nor do I go to
their conferences and parties. In short, we seem to inhabit quite different
worlds, and I find it hard to see why mine is 'elitist,' not theirs. The
opposite seems to be transparently the case, though I won't amplify.
"To add another
facet, I am absolutely deluged with requests to speak and can't possibly accept
a fraction of the invitations I'd like to, so I suggest other people. But oddly,
I never suggest those who propound 'theories' and 'philosophy,' nor do I come
across them, or for that matter rarely even their names, in my own (fairly
extensive) experience with popular and activist groups and organizations,
general community, college, church, union, etc., audiences here and abroad,
third world women, refugees, etc.; I can easily give examples. Why, I wonder.
The whole
debate, then, is an odd one. On one side, angry charges and denunciations, on
the other, the request for some evidence and argument to support them, to which
the response is more angry charges -- but, strikingly, no evidence or argument.
Again, one is led to ask why.
"It's entirely possible that I'm simply missing something, or that I just lack
the intellectual capacity to understand the profundities that have been
unearthed in the past 20 years or so by Paris intellectuals and their followers.
I'm perfectly open-minded about it, and have been for years, when similar
charges have been made -- but without any answer to my questions. Again, they
are simple and should be easy to answer, if there is an answer: if I'm missing
something, then show me what it is, in terms I can understand. Of course, if
it's all beyond my comprehension, which is possible, then I'm just a lost cause,
and will be compelled to keep to things I do seem to be able to understand, and
keep to association with the kinds of people who also seem to be interested in
them and seem to understand them (which I'm perfectly happy to do, having no
interest, now or ever, in the sectors of the intellectual culture that engage in
these things, but apparently little else).
"Since no one has succeeded in showing me what I'm missing, we're left with
the second option: I'm just incapable of understanding. I'm certainly willing to
grant that it may be true, though I'm afraid I'll have to remain suspicious, for
what seem good reasons. There are lots of things I don't understand -- say, the
latest debates over whether neutrinos have mass or the way that Fermat's last
theorem was (apparently) proven recently. But from 50 years in this game, I have
learned two things: (1) I can ask friends who work in these areas to explain it
to me at a level that I can understand, and they can do so, without particular
difficulty; (2) if I'm interested, I can proceed to learn more so that I will
come to understand it. Now
Derrida,
Lacan,
Lyotard,
Kristeva, etc. -- even
Foucault,
whom I knew and liked, and who was somewhat different from the rest -- write
things that I also don't understand, but (1) and (2) don't hold: no one who says
they do understand can explain it to me and I haven't a clue as to how to
proceed to overcome my failures. That leaves one of two possibilities: (a) some
new advance in intellectual life has been made, perhaps some sudden genetic
mutation, which has created a form of 'theory' that is beyond quantum theory,
topology, etc., in depth and profundity; or (b)...I won't spell it out.
"Again, I've lived for 50 years in these worlds, have done a fair amount of
work of my own in fields called 'philosophy' and 'science,' as well as
intellectual history, and have a fair amount of personal acquaintance with the
intellectual culture in the sciences, humanities, social sciences, and the arts.
That has left me with my own conclusions about intellectual life, which I won't
spell out. But for others, I would simply suggest that you ask those who tell
you about the wonders of 'theory' and 'philosophy' to justify their claims --
to do what people in physics, math, biology, linguistics, and other fields are
happy to do when someone asks them, seriously, what are the principles of their
theories, on what evidence are they based, what do they explain that wasn't
already obvious, etc. These are fair requests for anyone to make. If they can't
be met, then I'd suggest recourse to
Hume's
advice in similar circumstances:
to
the flames.
Specific comment. Phetland asked who I'm referring to when I speak of
'Paris
school' and 'postmodernist cults': the above is a sample.
He then asks, reasonably, why I am
'dismissive' of it. Take, say, Derrida...one of the grand old men. I thought I ought to at least be
able to understand his
Grammatology, so tried to read it. I could
make out some of it, for example, the critical analysis of classical texts that
I knew very well and had written about years before. I found the scholarship
appalling, based on pathetic misreading; and the argument, such as it was,
failed to come close to the kinds of standards I've been familiar with since
virtually childhood. Well, maybe I missed something: could be, but suspicions
remain, as noted. Again, sorry to make unsupported comments, but I was asked,
and therefore am answering.
"Some of the people in these cults (which is what they look like to me) I've
met: Foucault (we even have a several-hour discussion, which is in print, and
spent quite a few hours in very pleasant conversation, on real issues, and using
language that was perfectly comprehensible -- he speaking French, me English);
Lacan (who I met several times and considered an amusing and perfectly
self-conscious charlatan, though his earlier work, pre-cult, was sensible and
I've discussed it in print); Kristeva (who I met only briefly during the period
when she was a fervent Maoist); and others. Many of them I haven't met, because
I am very remote from these circles, by choice, preferring quite different
and far broader ones -- the kinds where I give talks, have interviews, take
part in activities, write dozens of long letters every week, etc. I've dipped
into what they write out of curiosity, but not very far, for reasons already
mentioned: what I find is extremely pretentious, but on examination, a lot of it
is simply illiterate, based on extraordinary misreading of texts that I know
well (sometimes, that I have written), argument that is appalling in its casual
lack of elementary self-criticism, lots of statements that are trivial (though
dressed up in complicated verbiage) or false; and a good deal of plain
gibberish. When I proceed as I do in other areas where I do not understand, I
run into the problems mentioned in connection with (1) and (2) above. So that's
who I'm referring to, and why I don't proceed very far. I can list a lot more
names if it's not obvious. For those interested in a literary depiction that reflects pretty much the
same perceptions (but from the inside), I'd suggest
David Lodge. Pretty much on
target, as far as I can judge.
"Phetland also found it
'particularly puzzling' that I am so 'curtly
dismissive' of these intellectual circles while I spend a lot of time 'exposing
the posturing and obfuscation of the New York Times.' So 'why not
give these guys the same treatment.' Fair question. There are also simple
answers. What appears in the work I do address (NYT, journals of opinion, much
of scholarship, etc.) is simply written in intelligible prose and has a great
impact on the world, establishing the doctrinal framework within which thought
and expression are supposed to be contained, and largely are, in successful
doctrinal systems such as ours. That has a huge impact on what happens to
suffering people throughout the world, the ones who concern me, as distinct from
those who live in the world that Lodge depicts (accurately, I think). So this
work should be dealt with seriously, at least if one cares about ordinary people
and their problems. The work to which Phetland refers has none of these
characteristics, as far as I'm aware. It certainly has none of the impact, since
it is addressed only to other intellectuals in the same circles. Furthermore,
there is no effort that I am aware of to make it intelligible to the great mass
of the population (say, to the people I'm constantly speaking to, meeting with,
and writing letters to, and have in mind when I write, and who seem to
understand what I say without any particular difficulty, though they generally
seem to have the same cognitive disability I do when facing the Postmodern
cults). And I'm also aware of no effort to show how it applies to anything in
the world in the sense I mentioned earlier: grounding conclusions that weren't
already obvious. Since I don't happen to be much interested in the ways that
intellectuals inflate their reputations, gain privilege and prestige, and
disengage themselves from actual participation in popular struggle, I don't
spend any time on it.
"Phetland suggests starting with Foucault -- who, as I've written repeatedly,
is somewhat apart from the others, for two reasons: I find at least some of what
he writes intelligible, though generally not very interesting; second, he was
not personally disengaged and did not restrict himself to interactions with
others within the same highly privileged elite circles. Phetland then does
exactly what I requested: he gives some illustrations of why he thinks
Foucault's work is important. That's exactly the right way to proceed, and I
think it helps understand why I take such a 'dismissive' attitude towards all of
this -- in fact, pay no attention to it.
"What Phetland describes, accurately I'm sure, seems to me unimportant,
because everyone always knew it -- apart from details of social and
intellectual history, and about these, I'd suggest caution: some of these are
areas I happen to have worked on fairly extensively myself, and I know that
Foucault's scholarship is just not trustworthy here, so I don't trust it,
without independent investigation, in areas that I don't know -- this comes up
a bit in the discussion from 1972 that is in print. I think there is much better
scholarship on the 17th and 18th century, and I keep to that, and my own
research. But let's put aside the other historical work, and turn to the
'theoretical constructs' and the explanations: that there has been 'a great
change from harsh mechanisms of repression to more subtle mechanisms by which
people 'come to do' what the powerful want, even enthusiastically. That's true
enough, in fact, utter truism. If that's a 'theory,' then all the criticisms of
me are wrong: I have a 'theory' too, since I've been saying exactly that for
years, and also giving the reasons and historical background, but without
describing it as a theory (because it merits no such term), and without obfuscatory rhetoric (because it's so simple-minded), and without claiming that
it is new (because it's a truism). It's been fully recognized for a long time
that as the power to control and coerce has declined, it's more necessary to
resort to what practitioners in the PR industry early in this century -- who
understood all of this well -- called 'controlling the public mind.' The
reasons, as observed by Hume in the 18th century, are that 'the implicit
submission with which men resign their own sentiments and passions to those of
their rulers' relies ultimately on control of opinion and attitudes. Why these
truisms should suddenly become 'a theory' or 'philosophy,' others will have to
explain; Hume would have laughed.
"Some of Foucault's particular examples (say, about 18th century techniques of
punishment) look interesting, and worth investigating as to their accuracy. But
the 'theory' is merely an extremely complex and inflated restatement of what
many others have put very simply, and without any pretence that anything deep is
involved. There's nothing in what Phetland describes that I haven't been writing
about myself for 35 years, also giving plenty of documentation to show that it
was always obvious, and indeed hardly departs from truism. What's interesting
about these trivialities is not the principle, which is transparent, but the
demonstration of how it works itself out in specific detail to cases that are
important to people: like intervention and aggression, exploitation and terror,
'free market' scams, and so on. That I don't find in Foucault, though I find
plenty of it by people who seem to be able to write sentences I can understand
and who aren't placed in the intellectual firmament as 'theoreticians.'
"To make myself clear, Phetland is doing exactly the right thing: presenting
what he sees as 'important insights and theoretical constructs' that he finds in
Foucault. My problem is that the 'insights' seem to me familiar and there are no
'theoretical constructs,' except in that simple and familiar ideas have been
dressed up in complicated and pretentious rhetoric. Phetland asks whether I
think this is 'wrong, useless, or posturing.' No. The historical parts look
interesting sometimes, though they have to be treated with caution and
independent verification is even more worth undertaking than it usually is. The
parts that restate what has long been obvious and put in much simpler terms are
not 'useless,' but indeed useful, which is why I and others have always made the
very same points. As to 'posturing,' a lot of it is that, in my opinion, though
I don't particularly blame Foucault for it: it's such a deeply rooted part of
the corrupt intellectual culture of Paris that he fell into it pretty naturally,
though to his credit, he distanced himself from it. As for the 'corruption' of
this culture particularly since World War II, that's another topic, which I've
discussed elsewhere and won't go into here. Frankly, I don't see why people in
this forum should be much interested, just as I am not. There are more important
things to do, in my opinion, than to inquire into the traits of elite
intellectuals engaged in various careerist and other pursuits in their narrow
and (to me, at least) pretty uninteresting circles. That's a broad brush, and
I stress again that it is unfair to make such comments without proving them: but
I've been asked, and have answered the only specific point that I find raised.
When asked about my general opinion, I can only give it, or if something more
specific is posed, address that. I'm not going to undertake an essay on topics
that don't interest me. Unless someone can answer the simple questions that immediately arise in the
mind of any reasonable person when claims about 'theory' and 'philosophy' are
raised, I'll keep to work that seems to me sensible and enlightening, and to
people who are interested in understanding and changing the world.
"JohnB made the point that
'plain language is not enough when the frame of
reference is not available to the listener'; correct and important. But the
right reaction is not to resort to obscure and needlessly complex verbiage and
posturing about non-existent 'theories.' Rather, it is to ask the listener to
question the frame of reference that he/she is accepting, and to suggest
alternatives that might be considered, all in plain language. I've never found
that a problem when I speak to people lacking much or sometimes any formal
education, though it's true that it tends to become harder as you move up the
educational ladder, so that indoctrination is much deeper, and the
self-selection for obedience that is a good part of elite education has taken
its toll. JohnB says that outside of circles like this forum, 'to the rest of
the country, he's incomprehensible' ('he' being me). That's absolutely counter
to my rather ample experience, with all sorts of audiences. Rather, my
experience is what I just described. The incomprehensibility roughly corresponds
to the educational level. Take, say, talk radio. I'm on a fair amount, and it's
usually pretty easy to guess from accents, etc., what kind of audience it is.
I've repeatedly found that when the audience is mostly poor and less educated, I
can skip lots of the background and 'frame of reference' issues because it's
already obvious and taken for granted by everyone, and can proceed to matters
that occupy all of us. With more educated audiences, that's much harder; it's
necessary to disentangle lots of ideological constructions.
"It's certainly true that lots of people can't read the books I write. That's
not because the ideas or language are complicated -- we have no problems in
informal discussion on exactly the same points, and even in the same words. The
reasons are different, maybe partly the fault of my writing style, partly the
result of the need (which I feel, at least) to present pretty heavy
documentation, which makes it tough reading. For these reasons, a number of
people have taken pretty much the same material, often the very same words, and
put them in pamphlet form and the like. No one seems to have much problem --
though again, reviewers in the Times Literary Supplement or
professional academic journals don't have a clue as to what it's about, quite
commonly; sometimes it's pretty comical.
"A final point, something I've written about elsewhere (e.g., in a discussion
in Z papers, and the last chapter of Year 501). There has been a
striking change in the behaviour of the intellectual class in recent years. The
left intellectuals who 60 years ago would have been teaching in working class
schools, writing books like 'mathematics for the millions' (which made
mathematics intelligible to millions of people), participating in and speaking
for popular organizations, etc., are now largely disengaged from such
activities, and although quick to tell us that they are far more radical than
thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there is such an obvious and growing
need and even explicit request for the work they could do out there in the world
of people with live problems and concerns. That's not a small problem. This
country, right now, is in a very strange and ominous state. People are
frightened, angry, disillusioned, sceptical, confused. That's an organizer's
dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground for demagogues and
fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial popular support
with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in somewhat
similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could again.
There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left intellectuals
willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It has ominous
implications, in my opinion.
"End of Reply, and (to be frank) of my personal interest in the matter, unless
the obvious questions are answered." [Quoted from
here. Spelling
adjusted to agree with UK English, formatting and quotation
marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Italic
emphases in the original; links added. Some paragraphs merged to save space.]
The above neatly sums up my attitude, too -- except
I wouldn't be quite as pleasant, tolerant or accommodating as Chomsky is
with the work of these charlatans..., er..., "theorists" and "Paris intellectuals".
To be sure, it
could be argued that Chomsky's
comments might equally well apply to
HM,
but that isn't so.
HM can be explained in simple, everyday terms, free from 'High Theory' (even if
it rarely is, or has been), its theses supported by evidence from history and contemporary
events (and whose implications are contestable, just like those found in any science). The main
thrust of Chomsky's argument revolves around the avoidance of "'theoretical'
obscurities" and a request that 'High Theorists' should:
"...just restate...to me in
plain words that I can understand, and show why they are different from, or
better than, what others had been doing long before and have continued to do
since without three-syllable words, incoherent sentences, inflated rhetoric that
(to me, at least) is largely meaningless, etc."
This, of course, is possible with
respect to HM,
especially if Hegelian and 'philosophical' jargon are excluded.
[Cohen
(2000) is a good place to start -- if, that is, we ignore the author's
Functionalism and
Technological Determinism.]
Be this as it may, bitter experience has taught me that
comrades who are enamoured of 'High Theory' tend to have too much 'theoretical
noise' in their heads -- as
Peter Geach
once described this phenomenon -- to appreciate what Chomsky is saying;
indeed, as he himself
indicated.
Chomsky
has elsewhere complained that Marxism can't be counted as a science because
no science names itself after a man/woman (!!) as Marxism has. There is even a
thread devoted to this hot topic,
here. This is how I replied to it (slightly edited):
Not sure
why this thread begins with Chomsky's thoughts on 'Marxism' since, as he admits,
he isn't an expert on Marx's writings. And it shows.
He makes a few insubstantial points, however:
1) Why call Marxism 'Marxism'? Science doesn't work this way. Who names
Einstein's theory 'Einsteinianism'?
Well, of course, Marx's theory is scientific only in the wider German sense of
the word, as linguist Chomsky should know. It is also a political theory, and
part of a political movement. The term 'Marxism' distinguishes it from other
versions of socialism. This is quite apart from the fact that Einstein's theory
is named after him, as is Newton's. And there was an identifiable Newtonianism
in the 18th century, just as there was one named after Darwin in the 19th and
20th; who has never heard of Darwinism?
2) He seems to think Marxism has stood still for 150 years. This is the sort of
'analysis' one finds in the tabloid press. Why is shoddy commentary like this
taken seriously?
3) He says Marx said little about socialism. Chomsky is unclear what he meant by
this. Did he mean Marx said little about the fight for socialism, or about a
future socialist society? If the latter, there was good reason for this: he
wasn't a utopian. It was up to the working class to define what sort of society
they wanted, not Marx. The only thing that it is up to them is the fight to
establish it, not an elite band of socialist warriors who would do it for them.
Throughout his life Marx not only wrote about the fight for socialism, he also
fought for it, so Chomsky is wrong about that, too.
Chomsky would be the first to complain about ill-informed criticisms of his own
work, especially those based only on a superficial acquaintance with it. [From
here.]
One
or two 'Chomskyans' took exception to my response. The ensuing debate can be
accessed
here.
Nevertheless, the following cartoon
puts Chomsky's earlier point rather well, one feels:
Anyone who doubts this, should check out the
following (mercifully brief) examples of HCD gobbledygook:
"Indeed dialectical
critical realism may be seen under the aspect of Foucauldian
strategic reversal -- of the unholy trinity of
Parmenidean/Platonic/Aristotelean
(sic) provenance; of the
Cartesian-Lockean-Humean-Kantian
paradigm, of
foundationalisms (in practice, fideistic foundationalisms)
and irrationalisms (in practice, capricious exercises of the
will-to-power or some other ideologically and/or
psycho-somatically buried source) new and old alike; of the
primordial failing of western philosophy, ontological
monovalence, and its close ally, the epistemic fallacy with
its ontic dual; of the analytic problematic laid down by
Plato, which Hegel served only to replicate in his actualist
monovalent analytic reinstatement in transfigurative
reconciling dialectical connection, while in his hubristic
claims for absolute idealism he inaugurated the
Comtean,
Kierkegaardian
and
Nietzschean
eclipses of reason,
replicating the fundaments of positivism through its
transmutation route to the superidealism of a
Baudrillard."
[Roy Bhaskar, quoted from
here.
Links added.
In fact, I could have quoted almost any paragraph from
Bhaskar (1993).
That book must surely win Gold in this event.]
"The move from a structuralist account in which capital is understood to
structure social relations in relatively homologous ways to a view of hegemony
in which power relations are subject to repetition, convergence, and
rearticulation brought the question of temporality into the thinking of
structure, and marked a shift from a form of Althusserian theory that takes
structural totalities as theoretical objects to one in which the insights into
the contingent possibility of structure inaugurate a renewed conception of
hegemony as bound up with the contingent sites and strategies of the
rearticulation of power." [(Zap! Pow! Take that ruling-class!) Judith Butler, quoted from
here.]
And then we have this from a
book aimed at clarifying -- plainly with no hint of irony! -- Roy
Bhaskar's corpus of knotted dialectical spaghetti (aka "Critical
Realism"):
"We have now considered how Bhaskar
launches his dialecticisation of critical realism and his 'critical realisation'
of dialectics. In terms of the MELD schema, these are essentially 2E moves based
on negativity. Dialecticising critical realism by integrating absence and being,
and 'critically realising' dialectic to produce a materialist conception of
diffraction, both concern real determinate non-being in the world. In the
process, however, both moves point beyond negativity to a third level of
analysis, that of totality. Thus to think of the spatio-temporal causality of
human being (sic)...is to think of the presence of the past in the present and
the future, and of the relationship between identity and its outside. Similarly,
to think of materialist diffraction of dialectic is to think...of how
fragmentation and fracturing are ultimately the relata of a structured,
contradictory whole.... 2E negativity in its various forms entails 3L totality,
so in terms of the MELD schema, we move from 1M perduring non-identity to 2E
real negativity, and on to 3L open totality...before moving...to 4D agency."
[Norrie (2010), p.86.]
Anyone interested can find page-after-page of obscure dogmatic apriorism,
expressed in academic-looking gobbledygook, 'supported' by yet more of the
same, throughout the rest of Norrie's book.
An 'explanation' of the odd
abbreviations in the above passage can be found in the opening pages of Hartwig (2007), a book that
plumbs even greater depths of obscurity in its earnest endeavour further to confuse those already reeling from having ploughed through Norrie
(2010). Incidentally,
both of these books were published by Routledge; apparently Bhaskarean
'dialectic', coupled with these brave attempts to make his thoughts more opaque still,
aren't an "abomination" for at least this wing of the bourgeoisie. Clearly,
those in charge at Routledge have concluded that if the revolution depends on
philosophical goulashof this consistency, their class has little to fear.
Plainly, this spectre isn't haunting Europe, it is far too busy haunting Academic Marxism.
As
Lenin noted:
"The flaunting of high-sounding phrases
is characteristic of the declassed petty-bourgeois intellectuals." ["Left-Wing"
Childishness. Bold emphasis added.]
I
have added, to Essay Two,
a series of
equally impressive obscurities that Zizek thought it wise to inflict on his unfortunate readers
-- taken from his recent book, Less Than Nothing
-- i.e.,
Zizek (2012),
pp.364-67. (This
links to a PDF.) He has now added to the confusion with Zizek (2015).
[This Essay would be tens, if not hundreds of thousands of
words longer if even a tiny fraction of every example of leftist, 'post-modernist'/'post-structuralist'/post-comprehension
gobbledygook like this were to be included.]
As one critic -- in response to
Butler's argument that difficult ideas can't be expressed in simple prose
-- noted:
"More generally, against
Butler's claim that difficult subjects require difficult or specialized
language, there is the obvious truth that many -- indeed, most -- generally
recognized 'great thinkers' have been clear and lucid in their writing. This is
especially true in Butler's field, the humanities.
Freud
won the Goethe Prize
for Literature.
Bertrand Russell,
Jean-Paul Sartre, and
Henri Bergson
won the
Nobel Prize for Literature. Hume, Descartes, Plato, Darwin,
Berkeley,
Pascal,
Rousseau,
Augustine, and Marx are all models of literary style of the
Orwellian
sort, plain, elegant, clear of expression." [Roney (2002). Quoted from
here. The author is referring to
Orwell (1946). Links added.]
To which list one can perhaps add the names of Engels
(for the most part, when he avoided dialectics),
Christopher Caudwell, Trotsky,
Moore,
Ryle,
and the later
Wittgenstein
-- and, indeed, most Wittgensteinians
who aren't
postmodernists or social scientists!
And, I find it difficult to disagree with
this comment:
"If you don't know who
Slavoj
Žižek
is, my first piece of advice would be that you should treasure your
ignorance. In my view he's an utterly absurd figure, but this view is not
universal. Credulous people -- people who are basically intelligent but assume
that anything expressed in incoherent but resonant terms by a professor with an
eccentric manner and a central European accent must be profound truth -- have a
nasty habit of anointing him some kind of guru for the left. This would be funny
(he's like a cartoon leftist made flesh, even down to the beard) if it weren't
so counterproductive." [Quoted from
here.]
Except I would add:
"Credulous people -- people
who are basically intelligent but assume that anything expressed in incoherent
but resonant terms by a professor with an eccentric manner and a central
European or a French accent must be profound truth...."
As I noted in Essay Thirteen Part Three:
An apposite quotation from Larry Laudan (although
this time aimed at French Philosophers) springs to mind, here:
"Foucault
has benefited from that curious Anglo-American view that if a Frenchman talks
nonsense it must rest on a profundity which is too deep for a speaker of English
to comprehend." [Laudan (1977), p.241. I owe this reference to Kitcher (1998),
p.55. Link added.]
Readers can now generate their very own
profoundlyimpenetrable pseudo-Marxist and postmodernist
gobbledygook by visiting
this page. Each
visit generates another slab of 'profound-looking', but meaningless, prose.
Or, they can simply follow this piece of sound
PoMo
advice:
"Here is a quick guide, then,
to speaking and writing 'postmodern'.
"First, you need to remember that plainly expressed language is out of the
question. It is too realist, modernist and obvious. Postmodern language requires
that one uses play, parody and indeterminacy as critical techniques to point
this out. Often this is quite a difficult requirement, so obscurity is a
well-acknowledged substitute. For example, let's imagine you want to say
something like, 'We should listen to the views of people outside of Western
society in order to learn about the cultural biases that affect us'. This is
honest but dull. Take the word 'views'. Postmodernspeak would change that to
'voices', or better, 'vocalities', or even better, 'multivocalities'. Add an
adjective like 'intertextual', and you're covered. 'People outside' is also too
plain. How about 'postcolonial others'? To speak postmodern properly one must
master a bevy of biases besides the familiar racism, sexism, ageism, etc. For
example, phallogocentricism (male-centredness combined with rationalistic forms
of binary logic).
"Finally 'affect us' sounds like plaid pyjamas. Use more obscure verbs and
phrases, like 'mediate our identities'. So, the final statement should say, 'We
should listen to the intertextual, multivocalities of postcolonial others
outside of Western culture in order to learn about the phallogocentric biases
that mediate our identities'. Now you're talking postmodern!
"Sometimes you might be in a hurry and won't have the time to muster even the
minimum number of postmodern synonyms and neologisms needed to avoid public
disgrace. Remember, saying the wrong thing is acceptable if you say it the right
way. This brings me to a second important strategy in speaking postmodern, which
is to use as many suffixes, prefixes, hyphens, slashes, underlinings and
anything else your computer (an absolute must to write postmodern) can dish out.
You can make a quick reference chart to avoid time delays. Make three columns.
In column A put your prefixes; post-, hyper-, pre-, de-, dis-, re-, ex-, and
counter-. In column B go your suffixes and related endings; -ism, -itis,
-iality, -ation, -itivity, and -tricity. In column C add a series of
well-respected names that make for impressive adjectives or schools of thought,
for example, Barthes (Barthesian), Foucault (Foucauldian, Foucauldianism),
Derrida (Derridean, Derrideanism).
"Now for the test. You want to say or write something like, 'Contemporary
buildings are alienating'. This is a good thought, but, of course, a
non-starter. You wouldn't even get offered a second round of crackers and cheese
at a conference reception with such a line. In fact, after saying this, you
might get asked to stay and clean up the crackers and cheese after the
reception. Go to your three columns. First, the prefix. Pre- is useful, as is
post-, or several prefixes at once is terrific. Rather than 'contemporary
building', be creative. 'The Pre/post/spatialities of counter-architectural
hyper-contemporaneity' is promising. You would have to drop the weak and dated
term 'alienating' with some well suffixed words from column B. How about
'antisociality', or be more postmodern and introduce ambiguity with the linked
phrase, 'antisociality/seductivity'.
"Now, go to column C and grab a few names whose work everyone will agree is
important and hardly anyone has had the time or the inclination to read.
Continental European theorists are best when in doubt. I recommend the
sociologist Jean Baudrillard since he has written a great deal of difficult
material about postmodern space. Don't forget to make some mention of gender.
Finally, add a few smoothing out words to tie the whole garbled mess together
and don't forget to pack in the hyphens, slashes and parentheses. What do you
get? 'Pre/post/spacialities of counter-architectural hyper-contemporaneity
(re)commits us to an ambivalent recurrentiality of antisociality/seductivity,
one enunciated in a de/gendered-Baudrillardian discourse of granulated
subjectivity'. You should be able to hear a postindustrial pin drop on the
retrocultural floor.
"At some point someone may actually ask you what you're talking about. This risk
faces all those who would speak postmodern and must be carefully avoided. You
must always give the questioner the impression that they have missed the point,
and so send another verbose salvo of postmodernspeak in their direction as a
'simplification' or 'clarification' of your original statement. If that doesn't
work, you might be left with the terribly modernist thought of, 'I don't know'.
Don't worry, just say, 'The instability of your question leaves me with several
contradictorily layered responses whose interconnectivity cannot express the
logocentric coherency you seek. I can only say that reality is more uneven and
its (mis)representations more untrustworthy than we have time here to explore'.
Any more questions? No, then pass the cheese and crackers." [Taken from
here. Accessed 31/05/2014. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Spelling mistake corrected.]
32.
This age-old malaise is amply illustrated, too, in and by
the numerous passages taken from DM-texts
-- none of which make any sense -- quoted in previous Essays
--, and which because of that can't be acted upon.
33.I do not
want to enter into this complex issue in any detail
here (much more has been said about it in Essays Twelve
Part One and Thirteen
Part Three).Briefly: if a putative 'thought' is expressed by a sentence that violates
certain linguistic rules (i.e., normative social practices), which we ordinarily follow,
or observe, in
the formation of sentence
tokens, then
extensive stage-setting or 're-interpretation' will be necessary before
sense can be attached to it or made of it. The extent to which this will need to
be done
clearly depends on each individual case.
[Incidentally, this is one of the
few places where surrounding circumstances can be used to help determine
the sense of what was written or said. More on that in Essay Thirteen
Part Three.]
If the linguistic expression of just such a
supposedly empirical thought appears to be in the
indicative mood
(that is, if the sentence concerned is supposed, or meant, to be fact-stating, and
whose main verbs/verbs are in the indicative mood), but that
expression is itself incapable of being true or incapable of being false (that
is, if
for some reason either or both of these options is
closed-off), then
that
apparent mood is plainly misleading. Clearly, this would
render such a
sentence problematic if it is still meant to be taken literally. In that
case, exactly what 'thought' (if any) is attributable to the one uttering such a
string of words -- or noises -- is no longer the sole right of its
originator to decide (coded messages to one side, of course).
For example, if someone uttered the following
('indicative') sentence:
N1: "The Tower of London is in my calculator's will",
but insisted they really
'meant':
N2:
"Today is your birthday",
then, coded messages to one side once more, we
wouldn't be able to understand such a person (save we attribute certain
incidental aims and intentions
to them -- such as a desire to confuse or entertain their listeners, or,
indeed, an intention make the points being advanced here), or how N1 could
possibly be connected with N2 in the suggested manner. That is, no more than we would
be prepared to countenance the
Crab Nebula, say, as payment for a year's subscription to
the New Statesman, or comprehend the existence of "off-side"
in golf, chess or poker.
Typically, individuals can no more establish
the sense of a sentence
than they can decide the (public) value of a unit of currency, or the rules of an already
established game. This is, of course,
integral to the idea that language is a social phenomenon.
[On that, see Hanna and Harrison (2004).]
34. This idea
is examined in extensive detail in
Essay Thirteen
Part Three.
35. Once
more, this will be discussed in more detail in
Essay Thirteen
Part Three.
35a. A trivial example
of this would be if, say, someone read M1a (below) and actually tried to think it
or its supposed content (i.e., the state of affairs that would make it true). If
they then failed to notice that it (or its content) falls apart upon actually being thought, they
might then recommend it to a third party as a Law of some sort (as both Engels
and Lenin attempted to do).
Of course, it could be objected that this is a
caricature of the complex way
that Marxists actually argue and reason dialectically.
But,
this is precisely the point at issue. No one doubts that
Marxists both can and do argue in a more sophisticated manner using ideas and
concepts drawn from HM.
The question is: Does a single dialectical concept add anything practical, or
rational, to such deliberations?
"The
ICFIdoesn't simply talk about the dialectical method. It seeks to apply it
as an instrument of political analysis. For example, in a lecture on the nature
of trade unionism given in Australia in 1998, I sought to demonstrate how
dialectical logic sheds light on the nature of this complex social form:
'It must be kept in mind that when we set out to study trade unionism, we are
dealing with a definite social form. By this, we mean not some sort of casual,
accidental and amorphous collection of individuals, but rather a
historically-evolved connection between people organized in classes and rooted
in certain specific relations of production. It is also important to reflect
upon the nature of form itself. We all know that a relation exists between
form and content, but this relationship is generally conceived as if the
form were merely the expression of content. From this standpoint, the social
form might be conceptualized as merely an outward, plastic and infinitely
malleable expression of the relations upon which it is based. But social
forms are more profoundly understood as dynamic elements in the historical
process. To say that "content is formed" means that form imparts to the
content of which it is the expression definite qualities and characteristics. It
is through form that content exists and develops.
'Perhaps it
will be possible to clarify the purpose of this detour into the realm of
philosophical categories and abstractions by referring to the famous section
in the first chapter of the first volume of Capital, in which Marx
asks: "Whence, then, arises the enigmatical character of the product of labour,
so soon as it assumes the form of commodities? Clearly from the form itself."
That is, when a product of labour assumes the form of a commodity -- a
transformation that occurs only at a certain stage of society -- it acquires a
peculiar, fetishistic quality that it did not previously possess. Once products
are exchanged on the market, real social relations between people, of which
commodities are themselves the outcome, necessarily assume the appearance of a
relation between things. A product of labour is a product of labour; and yet,
once it assumes, within the framework of new productive relations, the form of a
commodity, it acquires new and extraordinary social properties.
'Similarly,
a group of workers is a group of workers. And yet, when that group assumes
the form of a trade union, it acquires, through that form, new and quite
distinct social properties to which the workers are inevitably subordinated.
What, precisely, is meant by this? The trade unions represent the working class
in a very distinct socio-economic role: as the seller of a commodity, labour
power. Arising on the basis of the productive relations and property forms of
capitalism, the essential purpose of the trade union is to secure for this
commodity the best price that can be obtained under prevailing market
conditions.
'Of course,
there is a world of difference between what I have described in theoretical
terms as the "essential purpose" of trade unions and their real-life activities.
The practical reality -- the everyday sell-out of the most immediate interests
of the working class -- corresponds very little to the theoretically conceived
"norm." This divergence does not contradict the theoretical conception, but is
itself the outcome of the objective socio-economic function of the trade union.
Standing on the basis of capitalist production relations, the trade unions are,
by their very nature, compelled to adopt an essentially hostile attitude toward
the class struggle. Directing their efforts toward securing agreements with
employers that fix the price of labour power and determine the general
conditions in which surplus-value will be pumped out of the workers, the trade
unions are obligated to guarantee that their members supply their labour-power
in accordance with the terms of the negotiated contracts. As
Gramsci
noted, "The union represents legality, and must aim to make its members respect
that legality."
'The defense
of legality means the suppression of the class struggle, which, in the very
nature of things, means that the trade unions ultimately undermine their ability
to achieve even the limited aims to which they are officially dedicated.
Herein lies the contradiction upon which trade unionism flounders. [Marxism
and the Trade Unions, accessible at the World Socialist Web Site, here.]'"
[North
(2007), pp.22-24. Bold emphases added; italic emphasis in the original.
Spelling modified to conform with UK English; quotation marks altered to agree with
the conventions adopted at this site.]
However, apart from the clichéd reference to "contradictions"
near the end, no 'dialectics' as such appears to have been employed in the above
passage. And,
of course, as we have seen, the things North calls "contradictions"
aren't even
remotely like contradictions. Just like other DM-fans, he has simply
helped
himself to this word.
It could be argued that those parts of the above passage which
have been highlighted in bold (and perhaps others) show where dialectics has
been applied -- but that isn't so. An Aristotelian or even a Kantian could have
written those sections. Once more, there is nothing unique to DM in this quotation --
and, as we have just seen, even the alleged 'contradiction' isn't
in fact a contradiction!
To
be sure, concepts from HM
have been used, but HM isn't the same as DM. In that case, we still await an example of the (positive) practical use of
dialectical concepts, as opposed to the
actual use of HM-concepts. Indeed, if North wanted to make sense, as he
plainly did, he found he had to use HM-concepts. Had he tried to rephrase what
he wanted to say using Hegel-speak (upside down or the 'right way up'), no one
would have been able to follow him. Or, he would have ended up saddling his readers with
the sort of gobbledygookHCDs
and WRP-adepts regularly churn
out.
[Compare North's clarity
with that of
Gerry Healy, who continually wrote and talked fluent Hegel-speak
(on that, see the above WRP link). See also
here for several examples of the alleged practical
applications of DM suggested by John Molyneux.]
This is typical of DM-fans; they tell us 'the dialectic'
is of inestimable value, but when we examine the assembled article, we find
either (i) It hasn't actually been used, (ii) Its alleged use turns out to be an
empty gesture (as we found was the case with the above example from North), (iii) We are presented with hardcore Healy-esque or
Bhaskhareangobbledygook,
or (iv) HM has been employed.
[Those who think HM and DM are one and the same should read
this, and
then perhaps think again. Incidentally, anyone who still thinks they are
identical (after having read the argument presented at the above link) has clearly not "understood" dialectics, since,
according to the Dialectical Prophets,
nothing is identical with anything else. So, if DM is true, HM and DM
can't be the
same! Such are the consolations of Diabolical Logic.]
Of course, the purpose of these Essays is to show that
DM-theorists not only don't, they can't use
--
except negatively -- concepts and theses drawn from DM
in their practical deliberations, and thus in their political activity. Indeed, it will be claimed that dialectical concepts in
fact function (a) As window dressing, (b) As proof or as confirmation of
'orthodoxy', or as (c)
In-group/out-group identity markers. In addition, they
are often used (d) In petty, sectarian point scoring, or (e) To 'justify'
substitutionism, (f) Defend, rationalise or provide a smokescreen for
opportunism, (g) 'Excuse' or explain away political treachery, corruption and
double-dealing, (h) 'Justify' oppression, (i) Rationalise class-collaboration,
and (j) Provide consolation for
past failures and screw-ups.
In short,DM can only have negative
practical effects.
[Evidence for all these will be presented later on in this
Essay, and in other Essays
-- especially Ten Part One. See
also
Note 37a, below.]
36.These comments
shouldn't be read as a denial that context matters, they merely
seek to remind us that
the use of the words "NN thought that…" can't perform magic and turn non-sense
into sense. [See Note 33, above.]
This controversial claim in fact follows from all that has gone
before in the Essays posted at this site. It will be examined in more detail later.
37a. It could be
objected that these examples are far too crude; no militant in his or her left
mind would use them. This is doubtless correct, but that just shows how
useless DM-theses
are in
relation to the
class struggle. Since this was discussed in more detail in Essay Nine
Part One, the
reader is referred there for more dialectically-depressing details. [See also
Note 35a, above, and
here.]
37b. As
I have pointed out several times (for example
here): I have been asking
dialectically-distracted comrades now for well over 25 years (in person and on the
Internet) for asingle example of a
DM-proposition or argument that has any positive practical use or impact (other than
trivial).
No luck so far!Nor is thereeven so much as one such
instance to be found in the DM-classics.
[Again,
if anyone
can come up with a viable example, please e-mail
me!
(Concerning John Molyneux's recent suggestions, see
here. See also here, and
here.)]
38.A survey of the theoretical arguments
that focus on the precise nature of
DM,
which have dominated Marxism for over one hundred years, can be found in Sheehan (1993).
Unfortunately, all that Sheehan has succeeded in doing is inadvertently
revealing the monumental waste of time and effort that DM-fans have inflicted on
themselves, the parties and tendencies involved, as well as on others, by their
loyalty to this 'theory' -- and the pointless and destructive consequences
Hegel's ideas have had on the entire movement -- although, these are, of course,
my conclusions, not Sheehan's!
[An excellent recent example of this can be found
here, but there are literally hundreds of examples on the Internet.]
Discussing how many angels can do the Polka on a pinhead would be a more
profitable way to spend one's time, it seems. [On this, also see Note 39,
as well as
here
and
here.]
39.By
"used", here, I mean, of course, someone who has "spoken or
written down one or more traditional
DM-phrases", to whatever end.
As
far as can be ascertained, the negative effect on workers of all this bickering
has largely gone unnoticed, or unremarked on, by DM-fans who are too busy infighting to realise how un-seized
"the masses" have become by internecine warfare like this. Much of this bickering was, and still is, fuelled by obscure differences over minute changes of emphasis
inflicted on the wording of this or that incomprehensible dialectical thesis. I mean, who gives George Dubbya
whether opposites are "identical" or "united"?!
"The critics of the [UK] SWP's position have organised themselves under the slogan
'firm in principles, flexible in tactics'. But separating principles and tactics in
this way is completely un-Marxist. Tactics derive from principles. Indeed
the only way that principles can become effective is if they are embodied in
day-to-day tactics.' [This is a quote from the UK-SWP -- RL.]
"In contrast, Socialist Worker -- New Zealand sees
Respect -- and other 'broad left' formations, such as
Die Linke
in Germany, the
Left Bloc in Portugal, the
PSUV
in Venezuela and
RAM
in New Zealand
-- as
transitional formations, in the sense that Trotsky would have understood.
In programme and organization, they must 'meet the class half-way' -- to provide a dialectical unity between
revolutionary principle and reformist mass consciousness. If they have an
electoral orientation, we must face the fact that this can't be avoided at this
historical point. Lenin said in 'Left-Wing' Communism that
parliamentary politics are not yet obsolete as far as the mass of the class are
concerned -- this is not less true in 2007 than it was in 1921. The question is
not whether Respect should go in a 'socialist' or 'electoralist' direction, but
in how Respect's electoral programme and strategy can embody a set of
transitional demands which intersect with the existing electoralist
consciousness of the working class." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Page after
page of material like this can be found in the archives of every tendency
within
Dialectical Marxism,
about which Richard Seymour recently admitted:
"In the
argot
of Trotskyist dialectics, I could never work out whether principles determined
tactics, or tactics were independent from principles. It was definitely one or
the other, depending on what ineffective tactic had to be defended -- by means
of what was euphemistically called 'hard arguments'." [Quoted from
here; accessed 05/02/2017. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Link added.]
To cap it all, comrades who dote on this material
--, or,
indeed, who write it --,
have the cheek to turn around and complain about my alleged 'pedantry'!
[Several
more examples of 'dialectical
casuistry'
and Hermetic hair-splitting like this are given below.]
Much of
it resembles yet another scene from Monty Python's Life of
Brian:
Should we
follow the gourd, or remove a shoe?
Shoe
Follower: He has given us...his shoe!
Arthur:
The shoe is the sign. Let us follow His example.
Spike:
What?
Arthur:
Let us, like Him, hold up one shoe and let the other be upon our foot, for this
is His sign, that all who follow Him shall do likewise.
Eddie:
Yes.
Shoe
Follower: No, no, no. The shoe is...
Youth:
No.
Shoe
Follower:...a sign that we must gather shoes together in abundance.
Girl:
Cast off...
Spike:
Aye. What?
Girl:
...the shoes! Follow the Gourd!
Shoe
Follower: No! Let us gather shoes together!
Frank:
Yes.
Shoe
Follower: Let me!
Elsie:
Oh, get off!
Youth:
No, no! It is a sign that, like Him, we must think not of the things of the
body, but of the face and head!
Shoe
Follower: Give me your shoe!
Youth:
Get off!
Girl:
Follow the Gourd! The Holy Gourd of Jerusalem!
Follower: The Gourd!
Harry:
Hold up the sandal, as He has commanded us!
Video Seven: The Founding
Conference Of The Sixth
International?
Admittedly, the 'dialectical' debates between Marxists enamoured
of this 'theory' are in
general far more
sophisticated than this, but the small-minded back-biting and sectarian psychology
illustrated in this clip isn't
all that far removed from what passes for polemic in DM-circles.
To be sure, such internecine, sectarian warfare
has genuine social and political roots, but DM
has made
these disputes not just vastly more poisonous -- as will be demonstrated
below --, it has rendered them permanently
irresolvable.
As noted earlier, an excellent recent example
of this can be found
here. [Unfortunately, the comments at the latter site
have vanished!] The
comrades locked in discussion here are not only trapped within a traditional approach to the question
under discussion -- which is dominated, and has been seriously aggravated, by
the confused ideas imported into Marxism from
assorted (contemporary)
French 'Philosophers', 'postmodernist' and
'post-structuralist' theorists -- their insistence
on using language in a cavalier and sloppy manner condemns such debates to endless disputation,
reminiscent of
early
Christian arguments overt the precise
nature of
Christ. That is because, if they misuse ordinary language (as
Marx
reminded us they are), they are sailing in uncharted waters, as it
were, outwith the social conventions that lend to most of their words any meaning
at all. [Many of the other words they employ are either meaningless or are far
too vague to do much with.] In that case, there is little common ground between disputants since they
are all, as it were, making the rules up as they go along. The result is
the same as it would be if those engaged in a game of chess, for instance,
ignored the rules and moved the pieces as the whim took them, or introduced new
'pieces' as they saw fit. The 'game' would be as endless as it was pointless.
[When I say that certain words are meaningless, I do not, of
course, intend to suggest that they fail to possess 'meaning' in senses (1) or
(2), listed here, but that it is impossible to explain what they
do in fact mean without
appealing to another set of similarly semantically-challenged terms. This would be like someone trying
to explain the Jabberwocky
along lines illustrated
here. The 'explanatory terms' seem to make sense, but the explanation
itself in the end makes absolutely nothing clear, as anyone reading the 'explanation' given
at the above link will soon see for themselves.]
That is, of
course, just one of the reasons why not one single philosophical problem has
been solved in two-and-half thousand years; indeed, we are no nearer to
solving them than Plato was. [More on that here,
and here.]
While not
significant in itself, DM-squabbling like this can't fail to have affected the
view workers have formed of
Dialectical Marxism -- and more specifically
their opinion of STDs,
MISTs, NOTs, and OTs. At the very least, such bickering has
seriously diverted the energy of
the vast majority of revolutionary theorists and parties into empty disputation (again, on
a par with the
apocryphal tale that medieval philosophers and theologians debated how many
angels could dance on the head of a pin), thus surrendering the minds of the
proletariat to the ideologues our class enemies -- who, unfortunately, possess a far less confused
set of ideas
and a much more focussed agenda.
[STD = Stalinist
Dialectician; MIST = Maoist Dialectician; OT = Orthodox Trotskyist; NOT =
Non-OT.]
Chomsky made the above point in the following
way:
"There has been a striking change in the behaviour of the
intellectual class in recent years. The left intellectuals who 60 years ago
would have been teaching in working class schools, writing books like
'mathematics for the millions' (which made mathematics intelligible to millions
of people), participating in and speaking for popular organizations, etc., are
now largely disengaged from such activities, and although quick to tell us that
they are far more radical than thou, are not to be found, it seems, when there
is such an obvious and growing need and even explicit request for the work they
could do out there in the world of people with live problems and concerns.
That's not a small problem. This country, right now, is in a very strange and
ominous state. People are frightened, angry, disillusioned, sceptical, confused.
That's an organizer's dream, as I once heard Mike say. It's also fertile ground
for demagogues and fanatics, who can (and in fact already do) rally substantial
popular support with messages that are not unfamiliar from their predecessors in
somewhat similar circumstances. We know where it has led in the past; it could
again. There's a huge gap that once was at least partially filled by left
intellectuals willing to engage with the general public and their problems. It
has ominous implications, in my opinion." [Quoted from
here.]
In the
age of Donald Trump and
right-wing populism, Chomsky's words were prophetic.[This links to a PDF.] How many workers
(either side of the Atlantic) listen to
HCDor LCD
'intellectuals'?
Finally,
as we will see, DM enabled anti-Marxist tactics
and theories to be sold all the more readily to supine cadres.
[Naturally,
the 'leader' mentioned in the main body of this Essay could be a group or
an individual.]
40a.
This frame-of-mind seems to be more obvious and up-front among Maoists. [As we will also see, the so-called 'mass
line' is more accurately to be described as 'the
mass lie'. Unsurprisingly, there is no evidence that
the masses were ever asked what they thought. If anyone thinks there is,
e-mail me with the details.]
This doesn't mean that DM-theorists haven't tried to
explain their theory to workers. Far
from it. [However, DM seldom puts in an appearance in their newspapers. Why that
is so was revealed
here.] The vast majority of books and articles on this theory take the form of
Introductionsto DM, aimed at workers or other interested parties. The
problem with these 'Introductions' is that despite their
having been written (by-and-large) in what appears to bethe vernacular, what they
actually have to say is as clear as mud
-- as the
Essays published at
this site have shown.
[It is as if someone attempted to explain the 'Incarnation
of Christ' in ordinary language!]
Again, it is the odd use of what appears to be ordinary language
that finally renders these 'Introductions' incoherent. [Since I have
covered this at length in Essay Twelve
Part One, the reader is
directed there for more details -- or
here for a summary.]
More importantly, as
Part One also demonstrated, DM-theses
can't be comprehended by workers on the basis of their own experience, so it has
to be introduced to them theoretically -- i.e.,from the 'outside',
from outwith their experience. In stark
contrast, HM -- which
does represent a generalisation of their experience, even though
Marxists have had to systematise it -- is introduced to workers from
the inside, as it were.
41.
This otherwise edifying homily shouldn't be news to most Marxists; however,
substitutionist ideas have other implications and ramifications that are
all too easily missed, to be outlined presently.
42. This
theme (i.e., concerning two incompatible views of language: the traditional, individualistic,
representationaltheory versus the Marxist and/or Wittgensteinian communicational/communitarian
model) will be explored at length in the later Parts of Essay
Twelve and in Essay Thirteen
Part Three. [Aspects of it have already been addressed in Essay Twelve
Part One.]
42a.
Of course, dialecticians claim that the Hegelian 'concepts' they use have been rotated
through 180 degrees, and now proudly stand 'on their feet', the 'right way up'. However, as the Essays
published at
this site have shown, the angle through which these Hegelian 'concepts' have been
spun is in fact the full360.
[I will go into more details in Essay
Twelve Part Four, when it is published sometime in 2018.]
43.
In short, I accept the classical Leninist theory of the
Party; I just reject
the dialectical dogma that is usually superimposed upon it. On this, see
Appendix E.
43a. It might be
wondered how dialectical concepts can have any use at all in view of
earlier comments about the
impossibility of putting such concepts into practice. In fact, those comments
were qualified by the addition of the phrase "other than negative". The import
of that particular codicil will become clear as this main sub-section unfolds.
43a0. And we find
the same argument in the following
OT
text:
"To organize itself for carrying out this world-historic
aim, the working class in each country must construct a revolutionary socialist
party in the pattern developed by Lenin; that is, a combat party capable of
dialectically combining democracy and centralism -- democracy in arriving at
decisions, centralism in carrying them out; a leadership controlled by the
ranks, ranks able to carry forward under fire in disciplined fashion." [Socialist
Equality Party (UK), quoted from the World Socialist Web Site,
here. Bold emphasis added.]
The
Socialist Equality Party (UK) is one of the microscopic fragments formed
after the break-up of the old WRP,
affiliated with the
ICFI. As we will see, when it comes to 'applying dialectics' --
and despite the fact that a wide chasm separates them politically -- there is little
difference (in this respect) between Stalinists, Maoists and Trotskyists.
[On this, see also
Appendix D.]
In
addition, we find
a dialectician of the stature of
Ted
Grant arguing along similar lines, too:
"The whole contradiction, a contradiction
within the society itself and not imposed arbitrarily -- is in the very concept
of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If one considers the problem in the
abstract, one can see that this is a contradictory phenomenon: the
abolition of capitalism yet the continuation of classes. The proletariat does
not disappear. It raises itself to the position of ruling class and abolishes
the capitalist class...." [Ted
Grant. Bold emphases
added.]
And,
almost predictably, we find Maoists criticising Trotsky (and perhaps also
Trotskyists in general) along similar lines, using DM to that end:
"Contrary to what is often thought, democratic
centralism concerns questions of elaboration of the party line and leadership
more than questions of organisation. A centralised party is necessary to
unify and co-ordinate all the people's struggles, to centralise and systematise
them after studying the correct ideas of the masses (sic), to mobilise the masses
around slogans corresponding to the tasks of the moment, to assess constantly
the experience gained in the struggles as a whole, and to educate the masses in
the spirit of scientific socialism so that they can carry through the revolution
to the end. None of these objectives can be achieved if this leadership is
not carried out democratically.
"Trotsky's positions on this issue varied considerably during his life. We
see him oscillate from one extreme to another because of his inability to grasp
the dialectical link uniting these pairs of opposites: the distinction
between the party and the class and its fusion with it; the authority of the
centre and its monitoring by the militants; the need for statutory rules and the
fact that they must be subordinated to 'revolutionary opportunity', as Lenin
said." [Kostas Mavrakis, quoted from
here. Bold emphases added.]
Others have joined the dialectal chorus line:
"Democratic
Centralism is the name we give to the Leninist (i.e. Marxist) theory of
organisation. These two words, which have diametrically opposite meanings,
express the dialectical character of the Marxist approach to this question.
"In simple
terms, it means: 'full freedom in discussion, complete unity in action'. But
these two opposite poles -- democracy and centralism -- cannot be mechanically
combined, but are in fact in a continual 'struggle', the 'balance' between
democracy and centralism tipping to one side or the other, depending on
conditions democracy the means of building centralism; centralism the means of
achieving democracy." [Taken from
here; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site. Bold emphasis added.]
"Democratic
centralism is a method of organization that embodies two elements, democracy and
centralism, in an ever-changing dialectical relationship of struggle and unity.
Thus, there is no formula for the 'correct' proportions of democracy and
centralism. Instead, communists must determine the synthesis of the two that
enables their organizations to provide coherent and decisive leadership to the
working class." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
"The
democratic centralism of the Comintern (SH) [Stalinist-Hoxhaist -- RL] as the
central head quarter of the world proletariat must be dialectically combined
and be brought into accordance with the democratic centralism of the Sections as
the Comintern's detachments of the proletariat in the countries." [Quoted
from here.
Bold emphasis added.]
"The CPGB [Communist Party of Great Britain -- RL] is organised on
the basis of democratic centralism. Democratic centralism is a form
of organisation and a political principle. Democratic centralism entails
the subordination of the minority to the majority when it comes to the
actions of the party. That does not mean that the minority should be
gagged. Minorities must have the possibility of becoming the majority.
As long as they accept in practice the decisions of the majority, groups
of comrades have the right to support alternative platforms and form
themselves into temporary or permanent factions and express their views
publicly. Democratic centralism therefore represents a dialectical
unity entailing the fullest, most open and frank debate, along with the
most determined, selfless, revolutionary action." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added. Paragraphs merged to save space.]
"Thus
in the dialectical relationship between democracy and centralism,
Mao showed that the correct method was ‘first democracy, then
centralism’. He also showed the crucial importance of democratic
centralism both inside and outside the party. He showed how correct
democratic centralism was essential for the consolidation of the
dictatorship of the proletariat, and, therefore, the establishment of
socialism and the prevention of the restoration of capitalism." [Quoted
from
here. Bold emphasis added.]
"Democratic
centralism is the principle governing activities of the Communist Party
of Vietnam (CPV). To build the Party strong and pure, especially
during the time when party congresses are convened at all levels in
preparation for the 12th National Congress of the Party, there should be
proper awareness and serious implementation of this principle. First, it
is necessary to promote education, to enhance awareness of cadres and
party members, especially the key cadres, member of the party committees
at all levels so that they can have correct and full awareness on the
nature, contents and dialectical relations of the principle. The two
factors, namely 'democracy' and 'centralism' of the principle are not
separated but intertwined. Centralism is based on democracy and
democracy is put under the direction of centralism." [Taken from
here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
If this wasn't clear enough by now, the
above should underline that, for DM-fans, the word "dialectical" (and
its cognates) works like a magic wand, once waved it dispels all doubt,
and silences every question.
43a00.
This helps explain why Trotskyist dialecticians haven't
widely adopted -- that is, as far as I can determine --, the distinction between 'external' and 'internal' contradictions
(although
Trotsky himself appears to have used both terms), or
even 'antagonistic' versus 'non-antagonistic' contradictions. Perhaps
that is
because these dubious notions were themselves unknown to Hegel, Marx, Engels,
Plekhanov and Lenin -- and, oddly enough, as this more recent Russian author
himself points out (although I must apologise in advance for the
obscurity of expression; anyway, those familiar with DM will already be
inured to
verbal spaghetti of this consistency):
"But the
point is that antagonism is not analogous to dialectical contradiction.
In a
dialectical contradiction of opposites is expressed the inner, essential
condition of some phenomenon, while antagonism express the occurrence of
confrontation, resistance of opposite social, socio-economic, and
socio-political forces, social classes, social strata and groups, on the basis of
such contradictions in social life.
"Here are
the essential and substantial characteristics of antagonism. First, it is not
individual, but social antagonism. Second, it is manifested in relationships as
particular, specific forms of the development of social production. Third,
social antagonism has a historically transitory character, originating with the
phenomenon of private-property-owning, exploiting society, and disappearing
with the destruction of the last such type of society -- capitalist society....
In exploiter society, antagonism expresses the main mode of its basic
dialectical contradiction in social areas.
"The
presence of the struggle of opposites includes the formal coincidence of
dialectical contradiction and antagonism. But in general it should not be
possible to identify them, as is done rather often. Between dialectical
contradiction and social antagonism, there exist essential and derivative
relations, inner causes and social effects. Indeed by means of the resolution of
social class antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a result
of class struggle and socialist revolution the contradiction between social
production and private appropriation is resolved. In its turn, on the basis of
the resolution of the given deep inner dialectical contradiction, both of the
opposite sides of the social class antagonism are eliminated: the bourgeois
class and all other exploiting elements are eliminated, and the proletariat is
qualitatively transformed into the ruling, leading class of socialist society.
"Consequently, the struggle of social forces...causing the given deep
dialectical contradiction is resolved, and the resolution of that contradiction
leads to the removal also of social antagonism. Having been resolved, the
dialectical contradiction changes into a qualitatively different content,
displaying unity and struggle in the conditions that have arisen of social
ownership of the means of production, but not reproducing in this any social
class antagonism, which comes to an end under socialist conditions. Thereby the
social dialectic is cleansed of antagonisms.
"This
means that between dialectical contradiction and social antagonism, there are
essential differences of general and particular, universal and specific, inner
content and external form, essential and derivative, inner cause and social
environment, historically permanent (non-transitory) and historically
transitory. As Lenin wrote, Marxist theory 'directly sets itself the task of
revealing all forms of antagonism and exploitation in contemporary society,
tracing their evolution, indicating their transitional character, avoiding
showing them in other forms.'
[V. I. Lenin, Full Collected Works, (Russian
Edition), volume 1, p. 340.]
"Such
essential qualitative demarcations of dialectical contradictions and social
antagonism excludes the possibility of applying them to one another and
spreading specific features of antagonism into the universal-general and
essential, deep character of dialectical contradictions. This means that a
dialectical contradiction cannot be characterized as an 'antagonistic
contradiction' or as a 'non-antagonistic contradiction.' It is remarkable that
the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, and V. I. Lenin do not contain the expressions
'antagonistic contradiction' or 'non-antagonistic contradiction,' to which many
authors are attracted.
"We share
the position of those Soviet authors and philosophers from the socialist
countries who employ the concepts 'contradiction' and 'antagonism,' but do not
unite them.
[See, for example, G. S. Batishchev, 'Protivorechia
i antagonizm, Problemy dialektiki,' in Vyp. III: Voprosy
dialektiko-materialisticheskoi teorii protivorechiia, Leningrad, 1973.]
"(In this
connection it must be said that in a series of earlier publications, the author,
together with many Soviet scholars, used the concepts of 'non-antagonistic' and
'antagonistic' contradiction).
"With
regard to the point of view of scholars distinguishing dialectical contradiction
and antagonism, or uniting them by using the concepts of 'antagonistic
contradiction' and 'non-antagonistic contradiction,' the present position is
most fully set out in the work of A. A. Khamidov. [A.
A. Khamidov, 'Kategoriia dialekticheskogo protivorechiia i poniatie antagonizm,'
Printsip protivorehiia v sotsial'nom poznanii, Alma-Ata, 1982,
pp.51-139.] In a thorough analysis of the present problem, he sets
out the view that 'dialectical contradiction and antagonism are phenomena of a
different order,' that the expression 'antagonistic contradiction' 'plainly
does not occur' in the classic works. 'There are none in the works of Marx and
Engels, nor in the works of Lenin, nor even in...Plekhanov's works.' [Ibid.,
p.121.]
"In the
conditions of the new society, there is no transition of dialectical
contradictions from 'antagonistic contradictions' to 'non-antagonistic
contradictions,' but rather the liberation of dialectical contradiction from the
social antagonisms that accompany them in exploitative society. Dialectical
contradiction appears in its proper, 'pure,' essential type, without any
additional particular antagonistic form and concrete antagonistic manifestation,
and on a qualitatively new level, as a united and universal impulse of social
self-movement.
"The inner
source and common initial motive force of social development in socialist
conditions is only a dialectical contradiction in a qualitatively new condition,
but still not anything analogous to 'non-antagonistic contradiction.'" [Excerpts
from V. S. Semenov, Dialektika razvitiia sotsializma [Dialectics of Socialist
Development], Moscow: "Mysl'," 1987, quoted from
here.
Formatting and quotation marks modified to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site. Minor typos corrected. Italic emphases in the original; bold
emphases added.]
[It isn't easy to see how 'external contradictions' can be
rendered
compatible evenwith an 'upside-down'/'right-way-up' version of
Hegel's system (let alone 'antagonistic' versus 'non-antagonistic'
contradictions). Indeed, I have yet to see a single one of those who think there are, or
can be, any such 'external contradictions' show how they can be based on even a
'rotated' form of Hegelianism. In fact, 'external contradictions' would
undermine key features of
Hegel's response
to
Empiricist criticisms of Rationalist theories of causation. (The comments of at
least one dialectician -- and a
MIST, too -- who seems to recognise this incongruity can be found
here.)]
However, the rejection of the distinction between
'external' and 'internal' contradictions would leave Dialectical Trotskyists in
something of a bind, since it would suggest that nothing can have an effect on
anything else, and that everything was 'self-moving', as,
indeed, Lenin
suggested. Hence, and as a consequence of this (Leninist) theory, while you might think that a baseball bat striking a ball
moves that ball, the ball in fact moves itself as a result of its own 'internal
contradictions'.
[Having said that, I have recently come across at least
one Trotskyist
who now appears happy to talk about 'primary contradictions'.]
Since I have discussed these distinctions at length in Essay Eight
Part One,
the reader is directed there for more details. [See also
here
and
here.]
43a1. It could be
argued that Stalin was in fact arguing the opposite in this passage: that the victory of socialism
requires the revolution to be spread internationally (which was, of course, the classic Leninist line):
"If
the possibility of victory of socialism in a single country means the
possibility of solving the internal contradictions which can be completely
overcome in a single country (we are of course thinking about our own country),
the possibility of the definitive victory of socialism means the possibility to
overcome the external contradictions between the country of socialism and the
countries of capitalism, and these contradictions can only be overcome thanks to
the victory of the proletarian revolution in a certain number of countries".
[XVth conference of the CPSU. Quoted from
here. This link is now dead!]
But, he is clearly arguing for a
stagiest programme:
(1) That the
'internal contradictions' of the
fSU can be "overcome", meaning that
socialism could be created in one country before the revolution is
spread. The victory of socialism wasn't therefore intrinsically connected with the
international revolution; the two were conceived as different stages.
Indeed,
Stalin went on to declare
that this had in fact been achieved in the 1930s:
"Since then fourteen years have elapsed. A period long
enough to test the experiment. And what do we find? This period has shown
beyond a doubt that the experiment of forming a multi-national state based on
Socialism has been completely successful. This is the undoubted victory of
the Leninist national policy....
"Our Soviet society has already, in the main, succeeded
in achieving Socialism; it has created a Socialist system, i.e., it has brought
about what Marxists in other words call the first, or lower, phase of Communism.
Hence, in the main, we have already achieved the first phase of Communism.
Socialism. (Prolonged applause.) The fundamental principle of this
phase of Communism is, as you know, the formula : 'From each according to his
abilities, to each according to his work.' Should our Constitution reflect this
fact, the fact that Socialism has been achieved? Should it be based on
this achievement? Unquestionably, it should. It should, because for the U.S.S.R.
Socialism is something already achieved and won." [Stalin,
On the Draft Constitution of the USSR,
Report Delivered at the Extraordinary Eighth Congress of Soviets of the
U.S.S.R., 25 November 1936. Italic emphasis in the original;
bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site.]
(2) That the "definitive"
victory of socialism will then require a solution of these 'external contradictions'.
Now, this may be a matter of semantics, but in practice it meant that:
(3)
The international revolution was secondary to the formation of socialism
in the fSU, not integral to it, as Lenin had maintained.
However, it is worth reminding ourselves that:
(4) Any
attempt to create socialism in the fSU was bound to fail -- as Lenin
predicted would happen -- if the revolution wasn't spread.
Now,
I don't want to enter into this knotty problem in any
great detail here (however, I have added several more comments
below); Trotskyists will
ingeneral
agree with the above, anyway (even if they disagree with what I have to
say about the role of dialectics in all of this), while Stalinists and Maoists
won't -- whatever I say.
Even so, and as far as the latter are concerned, as I noted in the main body of this Essay:
Anyone who thinks these comments are prejudicial to Stalinism
(and/or Maoism) should reflect
on the fact that the contrary idea -- that socialism could be built in
one country -- has been refuted by history.
What was that again about truth being tested in practice...?
43b.
Weston goes on
to list several other dialecticians writing in the 1930s who concurred with,
or
elaborated upon, this new and convenient re-definition of the word "contradiction" (p.441).
Also at his
site,
Weston has very helpfully posted English
translations of numerous
STD-texts
(from the 1930s to the present day -- one of these has already been quoted in
Note 43a00, above), which
substantiate many of the allegations made in this Essay (i.e., that dialectics
was used to rationalise contradictory decisions that had already been taken for
hard-headed political reasons). Several other texts are slowly beginning to appear at the
Marxist Internet Archive.
Here is the first of these, which manages to rationalise both the class
war against the Kulaks and the economic and social compromise Lenin had to make (in
the NEP) to stabilise the Russian economy
--
all the while succeeding in criticising Bukharin and Trotsky (who plainly didn't "understand dialectics"), into the
bargain:
"Thus all
development is reduced to a 'triad,' the triad is reduced to equilibrium, its
disturbance and re-establishment, and synthesis is reduced to the reconciliation
of opposites. It is understandable that Bukharin does not solve the problem of
the new. We already know what political conclusions his theory of equilibrium
and reconciliation of opposites led Bukharin toward. The theory of a snails pace
on the path to socialism, the growth of the kulak cooperative nests into
socialism, equilibrium in the struggle of the two sectors in the USSR,
reconciliation in the class struggle of the proletariat and the bourgeoisie --
this is the historical synthesis, which also had to denote a new basis of
development. Under the first successes of socialist construction, which evoked
furious resistance from the class enemy, rightists began to shout about the
disturbance of equilibrium and of the necessity of its re-establishment.
Synthesis must happen on a new basis. This 'new' basis, in the opinion of the
rightists, was a return to the NEP of 1923. In reality
such synthesis is a reactionary justification for the necessity of remaining in
the old framework and merely touching up the old....
"Negation of
the negation, synthesis, the new -- these arise not by means of simple
unification, agreement, reconciliation, or combination of opposites. This
mechanical interpretation of synthesis is nothing other than eclecticism. When
Lenin describes the discussion on the trade unions and brings out two basic
struggling points of view, he clearly emphasizes eclecticism of Bukharin, who
made the proposal to unify the thesis approved by the Central Committee and
Trotsky's thesis. Lenin pointed out that the essence of the question was not in
the means to unify the two points of view. Every object and phenomenon has many
contradictory sides and definite characteristics. However, in a concrete
situation it is important to find the new, that leading element that enters into
the interaction of these sides. An eclectic does not know how to reveal this
new, leading source.
"Synthesis is
historical synthesis. Only a concrete analysis can show how opposites are
overcome in synthesis and to what extent they are 'preserved.' Analyzing the
theory of knowledge of dialectical materialism, we are convinced that it is not
at all a synthesis of empiricism and rationalism. Dialectical materialism
overcomes the one-sidedness of empiricism and rationalism, pulling apart the
experiential and logical moments of a single process of cognition. Dialectical
materialism does not negate the empirical and rational moments in cognition, but
by no means preserves empiricism and rationalism as tendencies. It is quite
characteristic of Menshivist (sic) idealism that, while criticizing those who
saw 'triadness' (sic) in the law of the negation of the negation, it did not manage to
pose the question of synthesis correctly itself.
"Thus the
essence of synthesis consists in this, that it expresses the origin of the new.
The new arises through a jump. The negation of the negation also expresses this
break in continuity, manifesting new developmental tendencies, which overcomes
the old form of the contradiction. The old contradiction is overcome in
synthesis.
"The NEP was
the negation of
War
Communism. But the NEP did not mean the negation of socialist construction,
but only a particular form of its development. Socialism in its developed form
overcomes a contradiction, and signifies the negation of the negation. But if
the negation of [the negation? -- RL] took place on the basis of the developmental tendencies of the
transition period, then the negation of the negation means the transition to new
developmental tendencies, those of socialism."
"Selections on
the concept of synthesis, from Dialekticheskii materializm [Dialectical
Materialism], by A. Aizenberg, K. Egorova, M. Zhiv, K. Sedikov, G. Tymianskii,
and R. Iankovskii, under the general editorship of A. Aizenberg, G. Tymianskii,
and N. Shirokov, Leningrad: ORGIZ-Privoi, 1931, written as a textbook. This work
was translated into Chinese by Li Da and Lei Zhongjian in 1933, and studied by
Chinese Marxists, including Mao Zedong." [The latter comments are Weston's, not mine
-- RL.
Quoted from
here. (This links to a PDF.) Quotation marks altered to
conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Minor typo corrected; bold emphases
added.]
[We
can see in the above the beginnings of the distinction between 'principal' and
'secondary' contradictions. Concerning Lenin's 'dialectical' criticism of
Bukharin and Trotsky, and the mess he got himself into as a result, see
here.]
This
passage
is in fact very similar to a more lengthy presentation in Shirokov (1937),
pp.359-87. The latter, however, adds the following rather ominous note:
"In NEP, the
contradictions of the transitional period are fully developed, because a
fierce class struggle still goes on for the final eradication of the class enemy....
As the energizing negative of the contradictions of NEP, socialist
reconstruction emerges, negating in its very movement the given form of its
development, i.e., NEP. The entry into the period of socialism is the entry into
the period of final resolution of the basic contradictions of NEP. Whereas the
'negation' of war communism proceeded on the basis of the law-systems of NEP,
the 'negation of the negation' denotes the transition to the new law-system of
socialism, on the basis of which the movement of the whole system of social
relationships in the USSR is proceeding, the capitalist classes are being
liquidated and the edifice of socialist society is being raised." [Shirokov
(1937), p.378. Bold emphases added. This text is now accessible
here.]
Readers will no doubt notice that it is the
(assumed) 'contradictory' nature of
this theory (or 'reality' --, or, indeed, both) that 'permits' these authors to derive
whatever they want from it.
Here is another:
"Antagonistic
contradictions are those contradictions in social life which bring out the
fundamental oppositions of classes and the fundamental difference of interests
of those classes, and which can only be overcome through irreconcilable class
struggle….
"Non-antagonistic contradictions are of a completely different character from
antagonistic ones. Hostile classes with directly opposed interests do not stand
behind such [non-antagonistic] contradictions in social life. The
contradictions, for example between the working class and the labouring
peasantry are non-antagonistic. Although their class positions are opposed to
one another in capitalist society, they become joined into one single powerful
camp under the leadership of the working class through their common interests in
the struggle against capitalist exploitation and against misery and
impoverishment, a struggle directed against the camp of the exploiters.
"The
antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions naturally have different
content, and therefore the ways and means of overcoming them are also
different….
"The
development of antagonistic contradictions leads unavoidably to an ever deeper
division of society into powers opposed to each other, powers which fight each
other in a life-and-death struggle. Antagonistic contradictions are not evened
out or lessened in the process of development, but are deepened and take on
sharper and sharper forms.
"These
contradictions appear very abruptly, especially in the relations of production.
The growth of contradictions between the forces of production and the relations
of production reaches a point in every antagonistic society where they can no
longer exist in the previous frame of relative unity. The sharpening of
contradictions in the relations of production is expressed in the class
struggle. The presence and the sharpening of class struggle does not lead, as
all representatives of vulgar theories assume, to the ruin of society. The
struggle of oppressed classes against the exploiting classes does not destroy
society, but drives it forward to higher and higher forms….
"The overcoming
of antagonistic contradictions can…only succeed by way of the revolutionary
overthrow of existing exploiter regimes, but [by? -- RL] way of revolutionary class
struggle….
"During the
transition period from capitalism to socialism in the USSR, there was also a
contradiction of a different kind, the contradiction between the working class
and the peasantry. This contradiction consists in the fact that, in opposition
to the proletariat, which possess no private property in the means of
production, the peasant class constructed their economy on the basis of small
private property, a source which feeds capitalism. It is not possible to
construct socialism, however, if the peasantry is not convinced of the necessity
of the transition to large-scale socialist agriculture, if its consciousness as
an owner of private property is not changed.
"Stalin's
historical service consisted in his having taken Lenin's work further, having
treated the problem of the particular, non-antagonistic character of the
contradictions between the working class and the peasantry, and having advocated
the only correct path which leads to the overcoming of these contradictions." [M.
M. Rosental, 'The Marxist Dialectical Method,' translated from the German
version, 'Die marxistische dialektische Method,' Berlin: Dietz Verlag,
1953, pp.274-75, 288-89, 291-12, 293, 294-95. This work was in turn translated
from 'Marksistskii dialekticheskii metod,' Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1952.
[Quoted from
here.
This links to a PDF; spelling adjusted to agree with UK English, minor typos
corrected. Page references and quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Italic emphases in the original; bold
emphasis added.]
Of course, we all know that Stalin 'resolved' this particular contradiction
with extreme 'sensitivity' -- just as we also know that Stalin's name was dialectically-edited out of the story a few years
after the above
had been
written:
"During the
transition period from capitalism to socialism in the USSR, there was also a
contradiction of a different kind, the contradiction between the working class
and the peasantry. This contradiction consists in the fact that, in opposition
to the proletariat, which possess no private property in the means of
production, the peasant class constructed their economy on the basis of small
private property, a source which feeds capitalism. It is not possible to
construct socialism, however, if the peasantry is not convinced of the necessity
of the transition to large-scale socialist agriculture, if its consciousness as
an owner of private property is not changed." [Ibid.]
How this 'contradiction' could fail to be 'antagonistic' the
above author failed to say. Did the peasants volunteer to give up their land?
Were they persuaded or were they forced? These questions in fact answer themselves -- but we
can console ourselves with the thought that a different set of conclusions is
easily obtained if we throw some dialectics at it, as we are
about to see. The above author now continues (also using dialectics to make
a few petty, sectarian points
along the way):
"'We have,'
said Comrade Stalin in his report 'On the Results of the Work of the 14th
Conference of the CPR(B)' in 1925, 'two main classes before us: the proletarian
class and the class of private-property-owners, i.e., the peasantry. Hence,
contradictions between them are inevitable. The whole question is whether we
shall be able by our own efforts to overcome the contradictions that exist
between the proletariat and the peasantry. When the question is asked: can we
build socialism by our own efforts? what is meant is: can the contradictions
that exist between the proletariat and the peasantry in our country be overcome
or not?' [J. V. Stalin, 'Results of the Work of the Fourteenth Conference of the
R. C. P. (B.),' Works, Foreign Languages Press, Moscow, 1954, volume 7,
p.111.]
"A bitter
struggle took place in our party between the Leninists and the opportunists over
this question. The various positions taken on this question and its solution
clearly reveal the difference between the dialectical world view of the party,
and the metaphysical essence of opportunism of all sorts.
"How did the
Trotskyists, who hid behind a 'Left' mask, stand on this question? The
Trotskyists held that the peasantry was a completely homogeneous reactionary
mass, a class which contained no inner contradictions. They did not see the dual
nature of the peasantry and did not distinguish what makes the peasant a man who
works hard and what makes him a small property owner. They threw these two
sides together and drew the conclusion that the peasantry is a power hostile to
the working class, and that a collision between the working class of our
country, which had taken the power into its hands, and the peasantry, is
unavoidable. [Er..., where did Trotsky
say this? What he (and Lenin) said was that this endeavour was doomed to fail unless
the revolution was spread -- RL.] The general conclusion that resulted from this
was that it is impossible to construct socialism on our country.
"What position
did the Right take on this question? These enemies of the party also considered
the peasantry in a purely metaphysical way. Since they did not see the
peasantry's contradictoriness in the essence, they left the side of the peasantry
as small property owner wholly unconsidered, consciously blurred the difference
between the working peasant and the kulak, and denied the presence of
contradictions between the peasantry and the working class. From this
resulted a whole series of Right opportunist measures which were based on the
metaphysical 'equilibrium' theory, according to which not the struggle of
opposites but their reconciliation, kulakism 'growing into' socialism, is the
source of the 'development' to socialism….
"Comrade
Stalin revealed the characteristic mark of the non-antagonistic contradiction
between the proletariat and the peasantry when he showed 'that, besides
contradictions between the proletariat and the peasantry, there are also common
interests between them on fundamental problems of development, interests which
outweigh, or, at all events, can outweigh those contradictions, and are the
basis, the foundation, of the alliance...between the workers and the peasants.'
[ibid., p.112]....
"In any case,
the overcoming of all non-antagonistic contradictions takes place through the
path of struggle. Stalin's 1925 characterization of the particular features of
the non-antagonistic contradiction between the working class and the peasantry
had the result that in addition to the bond between these classes, a 'struggle
inside the alliance' also existed, 'a struggle whose importance is outweighed by
that of the community of interests, and which should disappear in the future,
when the workers and the peasants cease to be classes -- when they become
working people of a classless society.' [J. V. Stalin, 'Questions and Answers:
Speech Delivered at the Sverdlov University, June 9, 1925,' Works, volume
7, p.179.]
"That was the
struggle over the question of prices, about taxes, the struggle against the
influence of the kulaks on the middle peasants, the struggle against the
instinct of private ownership, concerning the socialistic re-education of the
labouring peasantry.
"But the
overcoming of non-antagonistic contradictions proceeds completely differently
from the case of antagonistic contradictions. In the first publication of
Stalin's 'Letter to Comrade Ch,' in volume 13 of Stalin's collected works,
Comrade Stalin shows very clearly the different possibilities for resolving
non-antagonistic and antagonistic contradictions. These Stalinist indications
are important mainly for understanding the particular nature of different types
of contradictions. Stalin spoke of contradictions between the proletariat and
the labouring peasantry and showed as a result that 'it is a matter of the
contradictions [inside the smychka] (the union, the bond between the
proletariat and the peasantry -- M. R.), which will be evened out and overcome
satisfactorily as industrialization increases, that is, as the strength and
influence of the country's proletariat grows.' [J. V. Stalin, 'Letter to Comrade
Ch,' November, 1930, Works, 1955, volume 13, p.21.]
"The
contradiction between the proletariat and the kulaks, that is, the antagonistic
contradiction, develops in a completely different way. Here the subject is
'contradictions between the proletariat and the kulaks, thus, contradictions
that lie outside the scope of the bond [between workers and peasants] and will
grow and become more acute until we eliminate the kulaks as a class.' [ibid.,
pp.21-22.]
"Consequently
antagonistic contradictions increase in the course of struggle and become
sharper, until one of the opposite powers is removed. Conversely,
non-antagonistic contradictions become evened out and moderated in the course of
struggle, and find a satisfactory solution in the interests of progressive
development.
"The program of
socialist re-education of the peasants achieved a complete victory in the course
of the struggle for the collectivization of agriculture. In his report 'On the
Draft Constitution of the USSR' Comrade Stalin explained that the economic and
political contradictions between the working class and the peasantry 'fall away
and disappear,' that from the essence of these classes new classes have come
about, classes of socialist society.
"The overcoming
of the contradictions between the working classes and the old, small capitalist
peasantry in our country has showed [sic] the people of the world for the first time
that contradictions are resolved through the re-education of a whole class and
its being convinced of the appropriateness and necessity of a new path of
development, not on the basis of a bloody and deadly struggle. Such a resolution
was possible since the contradiction between the working class and the peasantry
has a non-antagonistic character." [Ibid.
(This links to a PDF.) Spelling altered to agree with UK English, minor typos
corrected. Bold emphases alone added. Page references and quotation marks altered
to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Link added.]
Neutral observers, who might still doubt the allegation that DM
can be used to justify anything you like, will find all the proof they need in
the passage above.
However, just how one 'persuades' peasants to relinquish
their
land the above author left in the dark; and no wonder. If peasants can be
'persuaded', why not the Kulaks, and why not the capitalist class in general?
This is, of course, why ACs and
NACs were invented in the first place -- to
'excuse' and rationalise policies that had been decided upon in advance for hard-headed
political reasons, and in defence of the class interests of the bureaucratic clique
around Stalin. Indeed, here is a leading Stalin groupie, Mitin:
"In
capitalist society, the bourgeoisie and the proletariat are opposites which
are external and hostile to one another. However, these classes are
indissolubly connected to each other in the economic structure of capitalism,
and the presence of one class is a condition for the existence of the other.
Just as it is not possible for capitalism to exist without the bourgeoisie,
it cannot exist without the proletariat. The creation by the working class,
which has been deprived of the means of production, of surplus value for a
bourgeoisie which buys its labour power, and of the exploitation of labour power
by the bourgeoisie which owns the means of production, is a single process that
conditions the very existence of capitalist society. At the same time, the
relative character of this unity, 'mutual penetration', is obvious: by no means
is there any unity of interests of both classes. It is not the coinciding of
class interests, but, on the contrary, their struggle which is the basis of
social development. The strengthening of the proletarian state, as Comrade
Stalin points out, prepares the conditions for its withering away in the future.
The strengthening of the dictatorship of the proletariat and the future
withering away of the state in this way are not external opposites. The
strengthening the dictatorship of the proletariat is identical with the
preparation of its future withering away. It would be the greatest mistake,
however, to forget the opposition of these stages and merely identify the two
processes, to consider that with the withering away of the proletarian state
results directly from its strengthening.
"At bottom,
contemporary mechanism, Menshevist idealism and views like it fundamentally distort the correct Leninist understanding of the unity and
mutual penetration of opposites. Mechanists, from Dühring to Comrade
Bukharin, regard every kind of opposites found in a unity as forces external to
one another, oppositely directed against one another. The mechanists identify
every unity of opposites, every contradiction, with external contradictions,
with antagonisms of hostile forces, while they explain the coexistence of
these forces and the preservation of the contradiction as the equilibrium of
opposites. Engels ridicules Dühring's trivial conception of oppositely directed
forces. Lenin pointed out to Comrade Bukharin, while reading his Economics of
the Transition Period, that it is incorrect to identify contradiction and
antagonism, that under socialism, for example, class antagonisms will disappear,
but contradictions between nature and society, and between the relations and
forces of production will still occur.
"Antagonism
is a particular aspect of a contradiction, in which the sides are related to
each other as irreconcilable extremes.
"The best
example of antagonism of a social character is the class contradictions between
exploited and exploiting classes. But in a dialectical understanding
of contradictions, we also have to look for and find the possible inner
connections even between antagonistic opposites, since otherwise any protracted
coexistence of these extremes in one object, phenomenon, society, etc., would be
unthinkable (see above, the example of the bourgeoisie and working class). The
antagonism of dying capitalism and of socialism, born in revolution, permeates
the entire transitional epoch. That is no less true of the early stage, of the
restoration period, the stage of the NEP.
"Lenin
regarded it as possible to use the method of state capitalism, controlled by the
dictatorship of the proletariat, to use the bourgeoisie the
NEP [New Economic Policy -- RL] in order to increase and develop the
production forces under conditions of their complete subordination to
proletarian laws, at the same time limiting and supplanting them. The period
of socialist reconstruction and the offensive of socialism on every front sets
out the task of the liquidation of the kulaks as a class, of the abolition
of the remainder of capitalism in economics and in people's consciousness: The
antagonism of capitalist elements and the socialist order already makes their
further coexistence impossible, and class struggle intensifies. Right
opportunism, which identifies antagonisms and contradictions, and which
describes contradictory development as equilibrium of antagonistic forces, has
emerged with a sermon of reconciliation, of the equilibrium of the struggling
forces, and of capitalist and socialist sectors, and of the theory of the
damping down of class struggle in the Soviet economy in the process of this
'balancing' of the sectors.
"Menshevism
and Menshevist idealism also distorts a correct understanding of the unity of
opposites. Menshevist idealism understands it as 'flexibility, subjectively
applied,' as sophistry and eclecticism. They view the unity of opposites as
their eclectic conjunction. Menshevist idealism, departing from the Leninist
formulation of the law of the unity of opposites, outlines a completely
mechanistic scheme, according to which at the beginning, we have difference,
then opposition, and then contradiction. They do not understand that
contradiction already resides in each difference. Like Plekhanov, they limit
the universal character of the law of contradictory development. Meanwhile,
Lenin, on the contrary, emphasizes the conditional, temporary, relative
character of the unity, identity, and mutual penetration of opposites, and the
absolute character of their mutual negation, of the mutual exclusion of
opposites, of their struggle, which is the source of development." [Mitin
(1931), pp.148-50. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site. Bold emphases and link added. Spelling modified to agree
with UK English.]
[Also see Afanasyev (1968), pp.100-02, Kharin (1981),
pp.171-93, Krapivin (1985), pp.165-71, Kuusinen (1961), pp.97-99, and Yurkovets (1984), p.99. Cf., also Maoist theorist
Ai
Siqi (1957). (This links to a PDF).]
[I will post other passages that appear
on-line -- and which seem relevant to the aims of this Essay -- in the Appendix
at a later date.]
Incidentally, readers who know anything about the sophisticated argumentative
gyrations of
Protestant
Millenarianism (where every line of the Bible is interpreted as if it
foretold
whatever these groups and their leaders have done, are doing, or are about to do) will recognise the
similarities between these sad Christians and the first two of the above
DM-texts.
A particularly good, example of this phenomenon can be
found in the musings of
The
Lord's Witnesses (henceforth "LWs", a break-away sect from the
Jehovah's Witnesses
[JWs];
incidentally, the JWs are almost as adept at this form of
post-hoc adaptive sophistry as the LWs). I
have been following the interpretive antics of the LWs for several years; every
minor twist and turn in their own fortunes and those in the world around them is squeezed into the interpretation of some obscure biblical text or other
(including, believe it or not, the
Fukushima nuclear disaster, predicted (yes, you guessed it!) by yet another
suitably opaque text in the
Bible (1 Kings 18, in fact;
how could you possibly have missed it!)).
When their predictions fail to pan out, as they always do, these passages are then
skilfully re-interpreted so that this "new truth" fits, too.
These numpties even list all their failed predictions of
nuclear explosions (now running at over 500!),
here.
Their latest
'prediction' is as follows:
"We now
expect the first of these twin nuclear terrorist attacks to occur one on
Manhattan producing a rising mushroom cloud of 1Kings18 from the Hudson and the
other on London producing a rising mushroom cloud of 1Kings18 from the Thames
near Dartford. These 2nd and 3rd fire signs of 1Kings18 will occur during
2016Shebat20-22, which is 2017January23-26. We expect the 2nd and 3rd fire signs
to fall on 2016Shebat21 (2017January24/25), the 77th contest BLC Pentecost from
2006Sivan12, our first prediction failure which was the start of the contest.
"So we must
in all seriousness advise everyone in Manhattan or in Dartford, UK with faith in
God to leave or to limit as far as possible the time they spend in these two
areas, until after these fire signs have occurred."
Don't say you haven't been warned!
Readers are encouraged to check the LW's site out for themselves
-- begin
here (but down a couple of neat whiskeys first; the
site is virtually unreadable, and has plainly been constructed by someone with
an insecure grip on both sanity and reality!), where they will no doubt recognise many familiar
dialectical twists and turns (but, mercifully, of a less ominous nature). Except,
of course, the LWs don't have the benefit of DM-concepts -- such as 'dialectical contradiction',
UO
and
NON --
to which they can appeal, which means that when their predictions fail they have
to refer to human error or to the fact 'God' is testing
them.
[This is
hardly surprising; such antics originate in the same petty-bourgeois mind-set
analysed earlier. After all, 'The
Lord' works in no less a mysterious way than the 'The Divine Dialectic'.]
This puts DM-fans at a distinct advantage, since they can
attribute the contradictions in their own theory, and their numerous, overnight changes
in direction etc., to the 'contradictory nature' of reality, as opposed to those
inherent in 'God'.
We witnessed (no pun intended) an even more recent example of
this phenomenon over the failed 'Doomsday' predictions of
Harold
Camping. From his reading of the Bible, this confused
individual predicted
that the end of the world would commence with a series of global catastrophes
beginning at
exactly 18:00, 21/05/2011 (local time). True to form, when this
failed to
materialise,
some of his followers began revising the date, or explaining away the
'error'.
Perhaps us doubters just don't 'understand' the Lord's Dialectic...
In fact, and in line with the predictions of Cognitive Dissonance
Theory, Camping revised his ideas; instead of May 21st being a literal
'Day of Judgement', he informed eager humanity that it was a "spiritual"
'Judgement Day'. The new date is, so we were told, 21/10/2011.
Update May 2012: Camping
has now conceded that he was "mistaken". Had he access to the
Hegelian dialectic (upside down or the 'right way up'), he could have powered
through these relatively minor set-backs with ease, blaming it all on the
'contradiction' between appearance and 'essence', or some such.
[This is precisely the tactic adopted by the JWs when their
predictions concerning the
Second
Coming of Christ in 1914 failed to materialise; they then argued that
Christ had returned 'invisibly', in 'Heaven'! Except, they managed to argue
'dialectically' in this way without knowing too much Hegel. Perhaps they are
the Christian equivalent of Dietzgen?]
A brief
Internet search will reveal countless 'predictions' like these.
This one, for instance, tells us The End will definitely take place
on May 27th, 2012.
44.
A 'dialectical' analysis in the hands of Stalinophiles 'allows' them -- even now
-- to
reject Hungary 1956 as an example of a workers' revolt. Of course, only
those who don't 'understand' dialectics will think to disagree.
Here follows a selection of passages
from several STD-texts,
which demonstrates that Cornforth's 'analysis' isn't
unique to him -- beginning with Shirokov:
"The mechanistic theory of
development permeates reformist sociology, which holds that the simple
quantitative growth of monopoly and of finance-capital signifies the growing of
capitalism into socialism, that the simple growth of bourgeois democracy is an
ever greater winning of power by the working class, etc. These philosophers have
thrown aside he theory of movement by means of contradictions as too
revolutionary. A mechanistic principle of development also penetrates the views
of Trotskyism; for instance its acceptance of the superficial view that
capitalism was planted in Russian by the West a view which ignores the
development of capitalism that proceeded among us on the basis of the break-up
of the peasant community. [Er..., where did Trotsky, or subsequent Trotskyists,
assert this? -- RL.] The Trotskyist theory of the impossibility of a
socialist victory in one country alone proceeds from its ignoring of the
unevenness of the development of capitalism and of the internal laws of
development of the U.S.S.R. which have by the operation of new internal forces
made it possible to resolve those contradictions of the proletariat and the
peasantry that obstruct the building of socialism. This theory holds that the
external contradictions of capitalism and the U.S.S.R. are the determining
factor in our development, and that the course, of development of the
environment (capitalism) determines the course of development of the system,
i.e. the U.S.S.R....
"The antagonism between the
interests of the proletariat, the owners of socialistic industry, and the
capitalistic elements -- elements which have been in part already expropriated
since the October Revolution and put to rout in the civil war, but are not yet
finally liquidated, and in part are being born anew on the basis of
N.E.P.
on the basis of individualist, small-scale, peasant economy.
"This contradiction was resolved by
the proletariat on the lines of the general policy of the party which was the
industrialization of the country and the socialist recasting of peasant economy;
different methods were required at different stages of the revolution-ranging
from the policy of curtailing and expelling the capitalist elements to the
liquidation of the kulaks as a class and the establishment of all-round
collectivization....
"On the mechanistic understanding of
contradictions is constructed the Trotskyist theory that
denies the possibility of a socialist victory in one country. Trotsky
recognizes, as basic and decisive in this question, not the internal
contradictions of our Soviet economy (which are being
resolved within the country), but the external contradictions the contradictions
between the Soviet Union and capitalist countries.
Trotsky holds that it is these last that determine the development of soviet
economy and so only a resolution of these contradictions can lead to a complete
victory of socialism in our country.
"Bukharin, like all mechanists,
identifies contradiction with antagonism. That is wrong. Those contradictions
(carefully distinguished by Marx and Engels in their analysis of the complex
forms of development of class society) are antagonistic, in which the struggle
of indissolubly connected opposites proceeds in the form of their external
collisions, which are directed on the part of the dominant opposite so as to
preserve the subordination of its opposite and of the type of contradiction
itself; and on the part of the subordinated opposite -- to the destruction of
the dominant opposite and of the contradiction itself as well.
"The contradiction of any process is
resolved, not by some external force, as think the mechanists, but by the
development of the contradiction itself. This is true also in regard to
antagonistic contradictions. But in the course of development of an antagonistic
contradiction at its different stages, only the premises for its
resolution are prepared and ripen. The contradiction itself at every new stage
becomes ever more intensified. An antagonistic
contradiction does not pass beyond the stages of Its partial resolution.
"Thus the periodic crises of
capitalism are a violent form in which the contradictions of a given cycle of
capitalist reproduction find their resolution; but in relation to the
contradictions of the capitalist means of production as a whole, these crises
emerge only as landmarks of the further intensification of these contradictions
and of the ripening of the forces making for the violent overthrow of
capitalism.
"Antagonistic
contradictions are resolved by the kind of leap in which the internal
opposites emerge as relatively independent opposites, external to each other, by
a leap that leads to the abolition of the formerly dominant opposite and to the
establishment of a new contradiction. In this contradiction the subordinated
opposite of the previous contradiction now becomes the
dominant opposite, preserving a number of its
peculiarities and determining by itself the form of the new contradiction,
especially at the first stages of its development.
"But in contradictions that do not
have an antagonistic character, the development of the contradiction signifies
not only the growth of the forces making for its resolution, but each new step
in the development of the contradiction is at the same time also its partial
resolution.
"Not all contradictions are
antagonistic. Thus the relationships of the proletariat and the peasantry are
not of an antagonistic character -- in both classes we find a number of common
interests. In a class society the contradictions of the basic classes are
antagonistic and are resolved in antagonistic form. In developed socialist
society there will be no class struggle, no class antagonism. 'It is only in an
order of things,' says Marx, 'in which there will be no more classes and class
antagonism, that social evolutions will cease to be political revolutions.' [Poverty
of Philosophy; i.e.,
Marx and Engels (1976), p.212 -- RL.]
"But Bukharin, because he identifies
contradiction with antagonism, holds that in general there will be in this case
no contradictions at all. This is what Lenin wrote in answer to that assertion:
'Quite wrong. Antagonism and contradiction are by no means the same. Under
socialism the first will vanish, the second will remain.'
"If in developed socialism there were
no contradictions -- contradictions between productive forces and
relations in production, between production and demand, no contradictions in the
development of technique, etc. -- then the development of socialism would be
impossible, then instead of movement we should have stagnation. Only in virtue
of the internal contradictions of the socialist order can there be development
from one phase to another and higher phase.
"But each step in the development of
socialism will denote not only a ripening of the forces making for a
developed communist society, but also an immediate partial resolution of
the contradictions of socialism. Just in the same way, each new stage in the
transitional period denotes not only a growth of the forces making for
socialism (which can enter into being once the leap to a new order is made), but
also an immediate construction of socialism, a partial resolution of the
most basic contradiction of the transitional period.
"The identification of contradiction
with antagonism leads on the one hand to the Trotskyist assertion that the
contradictions between the proletariat and the peasantry are of the same
character as those between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, i.e. are
relations of class antagonism. On the other hand, it leads to right-opportunist
conclusions. The right-opportunists maintain that the
relations of these classes are not antagonistic and are, therefore, not even
contradictory." [Shirokov (1937),
pp.138-39,
157,
173-76.
(These link to PDFs.) Italic emphases in the original; bold and links added.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
As we
saw in Essay Eight
Part One,
Shirokov is only able to argue this because of the equivocation between a
spatial and a dialectical-logical interpretation of "internal" and "external".
This is obvious from the following comment:
"On the mechanistic understanding of
contradictions is constructed the Trotskyist theory that
denies the possibility of a socialist victory in one country. Trotsky
recognizes, as basic and decisive in this question, not the internal
contradictions of our Soviet economy (which are being
resolved within the country), but the external contradictions the contradictions
between the Soviet Union and capitalist countries."
[Ibid. Bold added.]
As I
have pointed out elsewhere (here,
here,
and
here), if DL is to
be believed, then there can't be any 'external contradictions'.
"The following types of
contradiction are usually distinguished: internal and external, essential and
non-essential, basic and non-basic.
"The interaction of the
opposite aspects inherent in one and the same phenomenon is called an internal
contradiction, whereas that of the opposite aspects inherent in different
phenomena is called an external contradiction....
"Contradictions between
classes or other social groups that have opposite interests are antagonistic.
"Contradictions between
slaves and slave-owners, peasants and landlords, the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie are antagonistic, while contradictions between the working class and
the peasantry, and between various socialist countries are non-antagonistic.
"Antagonistic contradictions
are characterised by the fact that when they are resolved the unity within which
they existed is eliminated. Thus, the resolution of the contradiction between
the proletariat and the bourgeoisie brings about the transformation of
capitalism, in which this contradiction was inherent, into socialist society.
"The situation is quite
different with non-antagonistic contradictions. Their resolution does not
eliminate the unity within which they existed, but rather strengthens and
consolidates it....
"Since irreconcilable class
interests underlie antagonistic contradictions, the latter, as a rule, have a
tendency to intensify. It does not follow, however, that this tendency manifests
itself in all cases, under all circumstances. Conditions may obtain which
paralyse this tendency and the antagonistic contradiction, resolved step by
step, will ease off, rather than intensify. The development and resolution of
the antagonistic contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the working
class in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is a relevant example. The above
contradictions ease off as they are gradually resolved.
"In contrast to antagonistic
contradictions, non-antagonistic ones do not tend to intensify. On the contrary,
since the social groups representing the aspects of these contradictions are
interested in ensuring society's further progress, the contradictions tend to
ease off, smooth out and become resolved, without reaching extreme forms.
"Antagonistic contradictions
are resolved through acute class struggle, whereas non-antagonistic
contradictions are overcome by persuasion, criticism and self-criticism. This in
no way means that such methods can't be employed under certain conditions to
resolve antagonistic contradictions. When the bourgeoisie realises the
senselessness and futility of resisting the advance of society toward socialism,
the antagonistic contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat may
be resolved by peaceful means (sic!), by resorting to persuasion and re-education on a
wide scale of that section of the bourgeoisie that accepts socialist
transformation and cooperates on a voluntary basis with the proletariat and
other groups of working people. The experience of transforming private
capitalist enterprises in the German Democratic Republic and the Socialist
Republic of Vietnam are examples of the widespread use of persuasion and
re-education in overcoming antagonistic contradictions." [Sheptulin (1978),
pp.268-73. Italic emphases in the original. Bold added.]
Lest you are tempted to think this
completely undermines the difference between ACs
and NACs, or you were to conclude that the distinction
between them and that between "internal" and "external" contradictions, is entirely
subjective, may I remind you that if you were to voice such concerns, you would be in serious danger of being accused of not
"understanding" dialectics.
It is also worth warning you,
dear reader, not
to allow the word "reformism" to cross your mind when reading the last paragraph
of the above passage! Or, indeed, swallow the equally odd idea that it would be possible
to argue the bourgeoisie out of their wealth and power -- which reminds me of the
old communist joke:
Novice: "Comrade, does the revolution have to be violent
or can we expect a miracle of some sort?"
Old Communist: "If Jesus Christ returns to earth and
attempts to take the wealth and power off the bourgeoisie, we can expect a
fight. On the other hand if they give up without a fight, that will be a
miracle."
But, we note once again that Sheptulin was able
to derive the 'contradictory' conclusion that the class war can be terminated
peacefully by a convenient use of -- dialectics. No doubt, had he been required
to do so, he could easily have obtained the opposite result on the same basis
(indeed, as we have seen many others do).
However, Sheptulin and the other
STD-worthies
quoted in this section offer their readers no materialist explanation how or why such
contradictions must behave in the way they say they do. Nor is the distinction between
ACs and NACs easy to harmonise with other aspects of DM.
For example:
"The interaction of the
opposite aspects inherent in one and the same phenomenon is called an internal
contradiction, whereas that of the opposite aspects inherent in different
phenomena is called an external contradiction....
"Contradictions between
slaves and slave-owners, peasants and landlords, the proletariat and the
bourgeoisie are antagonistic, while contradictions between the working class and
the peasantry, and between various socialist countries are non-antagonistic."
[Ibid. Italic emphasis in the original.]
And yet, what
exactly constitutes a separate "phenomenon" in a world where
everything is supposedly interconnected? Indeed, what constitutes a single "phenomenon"?
And why aren't various "socialist countries" part of a single "phenomenon" (the
'non-capitalist world', perhaps?), when the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
already are?
It could be replied that the proletariat and the bourgeoisie are united
opposites, which means they do indeed form a single phenomenon. Maybe so,
but if they are opposites, they are opposite "phenomena" too, and if that is so,
there are two "phenomena" here, not one. [This is just a particular example of a
more general and fatal defect lying at the heart of this 'theory', exposed in Essays
Seven
Part One and
Eight Part One. (Notice the
subjective way I have used dialectics to derive the result I wanted? Readers are
now invited to use the same theory to derive the opposite result -- or,
indeed, any they care to dream up, and its opposite.)]
Moreover, if the various "phenomena" that constitute these NACs
don't struggle with one another,
they can't change -- that is, if we are to believe what the
dialectical classics
tell
us. In
that case, the peasantry (in 'socialist' states) can't change, given this view!
In fact, the idea that contradictions can be
"overcome" is foreign to Marx, Engels and Lenin, too -- even though Hegel seems to
have characterised them this way. [On this, and Marx's view, see Weston (2008),
pp.428-33.] Not that this is a
decisive factor in itself, but it does weaken somewhat the claim
STDs often make
that their theory is faithful to the ideas of the dialectical classics, while those of,
say, OTs (most of whom
reject this classification of contradictions, anyway) are not. [More on this
below.]
Having said this, Weston seems to think
Marx did argue that 'contradictions' can be 'resolved' (but not "overcome") -- in
Weston (2012).
[I will comment on this in a future re-write of this Essay.]
[Concerning Weston's substantive claims about Marx's use of "contradiction", see
Essay Eight Part Two, here,
here,
here,
here,
here, and
here.]
Despite this, STDs and
MISTs
distinguish between the different categories
of contradiction (mentioned above) in order to account for the wide variety of
changes that occur in nature and society. But, because they also say they don't adhere to "fixed" and "rigid" dichotomies
(even while they obviously do),
this allows them to adapt as
circumstances require.
[Incidentally, this tactic is otherwise known to those of us who don't to
"understand" dialectics as "opportunism".]
Now, the
(ironic) fact that the
resulting theory turns out to be of great use to
opportunists and class-collaborators of every stripe is, I am sure, just another
amazing coincidence.
Cynics mustn't assume that this is
the real reason these convenient distinctions (which, incidentally, have no other
rationale) were in fact invented by STDs.
The very idea!
Unfortunately for STDs and MISTs, the accuracy of the above cynical conclusion has
been confirmed by the disappearance of most of the former communist
states -- and not least by the fact that the "German
Democratic Republic" (GDR -- referred to by Sheptulin, above) has since ceased to
be of much concern to the Dialectical
Deity, having self-destructed, too.
In that case, the surviving elements of the bourgeoisie were plainly not convinced
by the "arguments" they were fed, meaning that the resulting
'contradictions' weren't "overcome", after all -- as Sheptulin assured us they
had been.
Incidentally, this looks like a historically unique example of profound
social change (i.e., the 'return to capitalism') that wasn't initiated by
'antagonistic contradictions' (since, so we were told, there were none in the
former GDR). Either that, or -- shock, horror! --, there were some 'antagonistic
contradictions' in the GDR, after all. [Perhaps Sheptulin doesn't "understand"
dialectics.]
"The contradictions internal to a phenomenon are normally
the
causes of its course of development while the contradictions external
to the phenomenon are the
conditions of its development. Thus, for
example, in explaining the rise of revisionism in the Soviet Union it is to
internal contradictions rather than external contradictions, such as imperialist
encirclement, that we need to look in order to produce an explanation. However
there can be occasions when an external contradiction becomes principal as
possibly was the case when the Soviet Union was attacked by Nazi Germany in
1941. It might be argued that at that point the contradiction between the
proletarian state and the imperialist states became the principal one
determining the development of the contradictions internal to Soviet society."
[Harry Powell, quoted from
here.
Underlining in the original replaced by italics.]
Cornforth is even more unequivocal:
"The second dogmatic
assumption of mechanism is the assumption that no change can ever happen except
by the action of some external cause. Just as no part of a machine
moves unless another part acts on it and makes it move, so mechanism sees matter
as being inert -- without motion, or rather without self-motion. For
mechanism, nothing ever moves unless something else pushes or pulls is, it never
changes unless something else interferes with it. No wonder that, regarding
matter in this way, the mechanists had to believe in a Supreme Being to give the
'initial push'....
"So in studying the causes of
change, we should not merely seek for external causes of change, but should
above all seek for the source of change within the process itself, in its own
self-movement, in the inner impulses to development contained in things
themselves...."
"...'[S]truggle' is not
external and accidental. It is not adequately understood if we suppose that
it is a question of forces or tendencies arising quite independently the one of
the other, which happen to meet, to bump up against each other and come into
conflict. No. The struggle is internal
and necessary; for it arises and follows from the nature of the process as a
whole. The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other, but are
inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single whole. And they operate
and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process
as a whole.
"Movement and change result
from causes inherent in things and processes, from internal
contradictions. Thus, for example, the old
mechanist conception of movement was that it only happened when one body bumped
into another: there were no internal causes of movement, that is, no 'self-movement',
but only external causes. But on the contrary, the opposed tendencies which
operate in the course of the change of state of a body operate on the basis of
the contradictory unity of attractive and repulsive forces inherent in all
physical phenomena....
"Why should we say that
contradiction is the driving force of change? It is because it is only the
presence of contradictions in a process which provides the internal
conditions making change necessary.... It is the presence of contradictions,
that is of contradictory tendencies of movement, or of a unity and struggle of
opposites, which brings about changes of movement in the course of a
process. [Cornforth (1976), pp.40-43; 90, 94. Italic emphases in the original.
Bold emphases added. Paragraphs merged to save space.]
Here,
too, is Krapivin:
"Internal contradictions are of decisive
importance in the development of any object or phenomenon, for they are
connected with its content, its essence, and are pivotal to its change and
development....
"External contradictions affect the
development of objects and phenomena, often exerting a considerable influence
on the resolution of internal contradictions. That is why they should be taken
into account in the study of various development processes.
"The experience of the socialist countries
shows that successful socialist construction involves resolution of internal
contradictions, the most important of which are those between the working
people and the overthrown exploiter classes. External contradictions -- those
between socialism and capitalism -- also influence the course of socialist
construction, but their resolution mostly depends on the internal development of
socialist and capitalist countries." [Krapivin (1985), pp.165-66. Bold emphases
added.]
That is because "internal contradictions"
supposedly 'determine' the "essence" of each particular object, process or "form of
motion":
"First, the contradiction in each form of motion of
matter has its particularity. Man's knowledge of matter is knowledge of its
forms of motion, because there is nothing in this world except matter in motion
and this motion must assume certain forms. In considering each form of motion of
matter, we must observe the points which it has in common with other forms of
motion. But what is especially important and necessary, constituting as it does
the foundation of our knowledge of a thing, is to observe what is particular to
this form of motion of matter, namely, to observe the qualitative difference
between this form of motion and other forms. Only when we have done so can we
distinguish between things. Every form of motion contains within itself its
own particular contradiction. This particular contradiction constitutes the
particular essence which distinguishes one thing from another. It is the
internal cause or, as it may be called, the basis for the immense variety of
things in the world. There are many forms of motion in nature, mechanical
motion, sound, light, heat, electricity, dissociation, combination, and so on.
All these forms are interdependent, but in its essence each is different from
the others. The particular essence of each form of motion is determined by
its own particular contradiction. This holds true not only for nature but
also for social and ideological phenomena. Every form of society, every form
of ideology, has its own particular contradiction and particular essence." [Mao
(1961), p.320. Bold emphases added.]
However, it could be argued that on the basis of
comrade Powell's comments that the 'external contradictions' resulting from the actions of the
imperialist powers did indeed become the 'principal contradictions' in this
case, causing the internal changes (i.e, "essential changes") we saw in the
fSU and Eastern Europe between 1989 and
1991.
But, this response is double-edged: if
the above is
correct, then Lenin was right after all: socialism can't be
built in one country -- or, indeed, in several --, if the core economies of world capitalism
were left intact.
[How the above is supposed to work in dialectical
terms, was, alas, left entirely mysterious by comrade Powell.
Indeed, as we will soon see, these
changes not only didn't, they couldn't take place if DM were true. Anyway,
MISTs are happy to use the argument that
the 'internal contradictions' in a country determine the way it develops when it
suits them.]
Isn't this an example of "reformism" in reverse?
Might this not be an example of the 'un-negation of the "negators"' at work here? Or, is
this
a case of the
're-appropriation
of the
"expropriators"'? Has the spectre that used to haunt Europe/Asia
finally been exorcised by the demise of these former 'socialist' states? It
certainly looks like it, given Sheptulin's version of this 'theory'.
This is no doubt because the proletariat in the
former 'socialist' states must have preferred the older, harsher form of class-war-driven
ACs to the cuddly and fluffy
NAC Stalinist 'contradictions' on offer. And
since the working class is supposed to be the ruling-class in all such states, the communist regime (which runs, for example, the 'Socialist
Republic of Vietnam' on behalf of this ruling-class -- i.e., on behalf of the workers
and peasants, again)
plainly did as it was told by the working class (i.e., it must have been told by itself!), and
proceeded to enact the above
market 'reforms'.
All of these 'reforms' were, of course,
based on "argument" and "discussion" (as Sheptulin, again, assured us they must)
--
and were in no way a response to the pressure of world
capitalism --, nor were they a result of the un-reconstructed class nature of these states.
Perish the thought, once more!
Here is Spirkin:
"Contradictions are resolved, overcome in
struggle. They and their resolution stimulate motion. The interaction of
opposites, as a contradiction and its resolution, is what awakens every seed to
growth and every bud to unfold as a leaf, a flower, or a juicy fruit.
Contradiction and its resolution lend motion to things great and small and are
revealed in the regular 'reasonable' order of the universe. They account for the
unity of life and death, the beating of the pulse, the motion of forces released
in crystals, in plants, animals, human beings, society, and in the whole
universe. Unless resolved, contradictions do not 'spur on' development, they are
a necessary but not sufficient condition for development.
"There are many ways of resolving contradictions
and they depend on various conditions, including the character of the contesting
parties in the case of contradictions in the life of human beings and society.
In some cases one side of the contradiction perishes and the other triumphs, in
others both sides perish, exhausting themselves in the struggle. There may also
be a more or less prolonged compromise between the contestants. The resolution
of a contradiction may be complete or partial, instantaneous or by stages. Let
us take, for example, the present age. It is full of contradictions of every
type and variety. On the socio-political plane the situation is dangerously
tense because of the unrestrained arms race initiated by imperialism, which
forces the socialist countries to take measures to strengthen their defences.
Relations between some countries are badly strained. A fierce ideological
struggle is going on between the countries of socialism and capitalism. What do
the peoples of the world desire? What is their main concern? Everyone knows what
it is and it was stated in full at the
26th Congress of the CPSU -- to achieve
detente. The Soviet leadership has affirmed by positive action that it is
seeking not to build up contradictions between the world of socialism and
capitalism but to resolve existing contradictions by peaceful political
means....
"The character of contradiction depends on the
specific nature of the opposed sides and also on the conditions in which their
interaction takes place. Internal contradictions are interaction of opposite
sides within a given system, for example, within a certain animal species
(intraspecific struggle), within a given organism or society. External
contradictions are the interaction of opposites related to different systems,
for example, between society and nature, the organism and the environment, and
so on. In the final analysis, the decisive contradictions in development are the
internal ones.
"Antagonistic contradictions are interactions
between implacably hostile classes, social groups and forces. As a rule, they
build up to the point of conflict and are resolved in social and political
revolutions. Non-antagonistic contradictions are interactions between classes
whose basic interests and aims coincide. The socialist revolution resolved and
thus eliminated antagonistic contradictions, but it did not eliminate
contradictions in general. Socialism has its contradictions, for example, those
between developing production and increasing demands, between the advanced and
the backward, between creative thinking and dogmatism. The main contradiction is
the one which in a whole set of contradictions plays the decisive role in
development." [Spirkin
(1983), pp.147-48. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions
adopted at this site. Bold emphases and link added.]
Sheptulin's "phenomena" have now been replaced by
"systems" in
Spirkin's analysis (which
alternative still suffers from the fatal defects outlined in Essay Eight
Part One). Even so, Spirkin fails
to explain how different classes can have interests that don't clash, nor does he tell us how something can become the "main
contradiction" (which seems to be the same as the "principle contradiction"
that Mao
employed in order to excuse class collaboration; on that, see
below) without some sort of internal
struggle taking place in this "main contradiction" itself.
Or, has
this particular change itself failed to 'understand' dialectics, too?
Similar 'revisionist' thoughts
(to those expressed by Cornforth, Spirkin and Sheptulin) were
also advanced by Afanasyev:
"External contradictions can
facilitate development or impede it, lend it different shades of forms, but
usually are unable to shape the main course of a process or of development as a
whole. The victory of socialism in the Soviet Union, for example, was ensured by
correctly resolving the internal contradictions, above all the antagonism
between the bourgeoisie, which has been overthrown but not yet fully abolished,
and the proletariat. But the advance to socialism was also affected by the
external contradictions between the Soviet state and the capitalist countries,
which did everything in their power to restore the capitalist system in
Russia....
"Non-antagonistic
contradictions are contradictions between classes and between social groups
whose fundamental interests coincide. These contradictions are gradually
eliminated and are not resolved though a social revolution....
"The Communist Party of the
Soviet Union approaches the contradictions of social development concretely,
takes into account historical conditions, singles out the chief contradictions
and employs the main forces and resources to resolve them. In the first years of
Soviet power the contradiction between the advanced political system established
in the country and the backward economy inherited from tsarist Russia made
itself felt very strongly. This contradiction was resolved in the process of
industrialisation, but as the industrialisation made headway, the contradiction
between socialist industry and peasant farming became more and more acute. This
contradiction too was resolved by the efforts of the people and the Party
through the organisation of the peasants in collective farms. The elimination of
these contradictions was of decisive significance in building socialism in the
Soviet Union." [Afanasyev (1968), pp.99-104. Bold emphases added.]
Readers will no doubt note
that Afanasyev's description of the 'peaceful' manner in which the "contradiction
between socialist industry and peasant farming" was "resolved" by the forceful
collectivisation of the peasantry. No doubt, too, the peasantry saw this development
the same way,
since, as we know, the interests of the peasantry and the proletariat are always
and under all circumstances the same (or they can both be 'talked' into thinking they
are the same by a silver-tongued DM-proselytiser).
Or -- just maybe --, is this why they
had to be forced into collective farms, and didn't propose this policy
themselves, and weren't
even consulted?
More of the same sort of
material can be found
in Kharin (1981), pp.132-35, 192,
Konstantinov et al (1974), pp.146-52, 588-89,
Kuusinen (1961), pp.91-99, and Yurkovets (1984),
pp.96-100.
Even so, the earlier sabre-rattling words of
the 1930s, which were also 'solidly based' on 'dialectics', have now been quietly
dropped (replaced by 'peaceful means'
and detente):
"Antagonistic
contradictions are those contradictions in social life which bring out the
fundamental oppositions of classes and the fundamental difference of interests
of those classes, and which can only be overcome through irreconcilable class
struggle….
"Non-antagonistic contradictions are of a completely different character from
antagonistic ones. Hostile classes with directly opposed interests do not stand
behind such [non-antagonistic] contradictions in social life. The
contradictions, for example between the working class and the labouring
peasantry are non-antagonistic. Although their class positions are opposed to
one another in capitalist society, they become joined into one single powerful
camp under the leadership of the working class through their common interests in
the struggle against capitalist exploitation and against misery and
impoverishment, a struggle directed against the camp of the exploiters.
"The
antagonistic and non-antagonistic contradictions naturally have different
content, and therefore the ways and means of overcoming them are also
different….
"The
development of antagonistic contradictions leads unavoidably to an ever deeper
division of society into powers opposed to each other, powers which fight each
other in a life-and-death struggle. Antagonistic contradictions are not evened
out or lessened in the process of development, but are deepened and take on
sharper and sharper forms.
"These
contradictions appear very abruptly, especially in the relations of production.
The growth of contradictions between the forces of production and the relations
of production reaches a point in every antagonistic society where they can no
longer exist in the previous frame of relative unity. The sharpening of
contradictions in the relations of production is expressed in the class
struggle. The presence and the sharpening of class struggle does not lead, as
all representatives of vulgar theories assume, to the ruin of society. The
struggle of oppressed classes against the exploiting classes does not destroy
society, but drives it forward to higher and higher forms….
"The overcoming
of antagonistic contradictions can…only succeed by way of the revolutionary
overthrow of existing exploiter regimes, but way of revolutionary class
struggle….
"During the
transition period from capitalism to socialism in the USSR, there was also a
contradiction of a different kind, the contradiction between the working class
and the peasantry. This contradiction consists in the fact that, in opposition
to the proletariat, which possess no private property in the means of
production, the peasant class constructed their economy on the basis of small
private property, a source which feeds capitalism. It is not possible to
construct socialism, however, if the peasantry is not convinced of the necessity
of the transition to large-scale socialist agriculture, if its consciousness as
an owner of private property is not changed.
"Stalin's
historical service consisted in his having taken Lenin's work further, having
treated the problem of the particular, non-antagonistic character of the
contradictions between the working class and the peasantry, and having advocated
the only correct path which leads to the overcoming of these contradictions." [M.
M. Rosental, 'The Marxist Dialectical Method,' translated from the German
version, 'Die marxistische dialektische Method,' Berlin: Dietz Verlag,
1953, pp.274-75, 288-89, 291-12, 293, 294-95. This work was in turn translated
from 'Marksistskii dialekticheskii metod,' Moscow: Gospolitizdat, 1952.
[Quoted from
here.
This links to a PDF; spelling modified to agree with UK English, minor typos
corrected. Page references and quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Italic emphases in the original; bold
emphases added.]
We also find the following gems on the
Internet
-- quoted here to confirm the allegation that the sorts of things that were argued by earlier generations
of STDs
and MISTs (in support of the idea that socialism could be built in one
country, and in order to show that Trotsky and his followers just did not
"understand" dialectics (etc., etc.)) are still alive and well, and are just as 'dialectical'
(and just as repetitive!):
"One reason for the advanced workers to oppose
the claim that Trotskyism is the 'Leninism of today', stems from our
determination to uphold dialectical logic. Anyone who upholds dialectical
reasoning and practice can't simultaneously argue that Trotskyism represents
Leninism, or take Trotsky's side in the theoretical disputes, which divided the
communist movement after the death of Lenin. This letter will briefly outline
the general features of the two important issues of the immediate post-Lenin
period. At the heart of the post-Lenin disputes in the Communist Party of the
Soviet Union (CPSU) was the question of whether or not to pursue a dialectical
or non-dialectical approach regarding the nature of the world revolutionary
process.
"Unlike Lenin, Trotsky's theory of the world
revolutionary process was of a pseudo-leftist character, having certain
similarities with Lenin's position, although a different theory. The simple
procedure of applying dialectic logic to the world revolutionary process
compels Marxist-Leninists to reject the either world revolution or socialism in one
country thesis of Trotsky and his followers....
"Whatever one may think of Trotsky's version of the theory
of permanent revolution, it is clear that Trotsky's either/or methodology is a
repudiation of dialectics in that it applies an anti-dialectical method to a
dialectical process. Regardless of the views that some people may have of
Stalin, he led the grouping that maintained a Leninist dialectical approach to
the world revolutionary process, in which the part, socialism in one country,
was never separated from the whole, i.e., international revolution. Following the death of Lenin in 1924, Trotsky sought to
polarise, or split communists on an anti-dialectical basis. This is to say that
the arguments he used were not based on Leninism or dialectics.
"Trotsky wanted communists to take sides, or choose
between what he considered two diametrically opposed lines. For Trotsky, this
was 'either' you support socialism in one country, or you support world
revolution (i.e., Trotsky's permanent revolution theory). Trotsky saw socialism
in one country as opposed to world revolution. On this issue, dialectics never
came into his thinking at all. Later, the whole international Trotskyist movement based
itself on a fundamental repudiation of dialectical logic, failing to see that it
was never a question of socialism in one country versus world revolution....
"The 'either' socialism in one country 'or' world
revolution position was clearly to apply an anti-dialectical approach to a
living dialectical process. If matter moves dialectically, how can one apply
non-dialectical concepts to itand hope to capture the real movement? It is the
dialectical movement itself that should, and does, suggest a dialectical
approach. I believe that dialectical logic, the dialectical
approach, is the foundation of both Marxism and Leninism, and it is clear from
his writings that Trotsky only began to study dialectics at a very late date in
his political evolution. (See Trotsky's: In Defence of Marxism).
"Although dialectics is the foundation of Marxism and
Leninism, this does not preclude communists making mistakes, but we should all
be guided by dialectics. This is why it is necessary to oppose Trotsky and those
who have been blinded by him to viewing the dialectical world revolutionary
process in a non-dialectical way, as socialism in one country or world
revolution. Simply put, socialism in one, or several countries and the world
revolution are different sides of the same coin. The Trotskyists toss this coin
and call out head or tail, but in reality, both sides are inseparably linked.
"It was wrong and counterrevolutionary to needlessly
split, or try to split, the international communist movement on an argument
based on a repudiation of dialectics. The heads or tails approach
can't be
applied to the dialectical process of world revolution. For the dialectician it can never be a question of
'socialism in one country or the international revolution'. Thus, only people
not versed in elementary Marxist-Leninist dialectics could countenance Trotsky's
approach. The world revolutionary process unfolds through the
particular transforming itself into the universal. Hence arises the possibility
of socialism in one country, resulting from uneven development, leading on to
the international, or world revolution.
"Without a doubt, Marxism-Leninism has been vindicated as
regarding the dialectical nature of the world revolutionary process. Only those who reject dialectical logic, or perhaps are
unconscious of it, would oppose Lenin, who dialectically viewed socialism in one
country as an integral part of the world revolutionary process. The slogan of
the CPGB (Weekly Worker) or the SWP [i.e., UK-SWP -- RL], that socialism is 'either' international
'or' is nothing stems from a profound rejection of dialectics. Such slogans have nothing to do with Leninism or dialectics....
"Because for Marxist-Leninists, the world revolutionary
process is a dialectical process, whereby the particular, socialism in one
country, is transformed into the universal, i.e., world revolution, this
dialectical world revolutionary process requires dialectical thinking. Lenin,
correctly, had earlier warned against those who neglected dialectics in his
remark that:
'Dialectics is the theory of knowledge of (Hegel and)
Marxism. This is the "aspect" of the matter (it is not "an aspect" but the
essence of the matter) to which Plekhanov, not to speak of other Marxists, paid
no attention.' (V. I. Lenin: cw.vol.38; p.362 -- in fact this should be
p.360 -- RL).
"As already pointed out, Trotsky rejected the dialectical
nature of the world revolutionary process; demanding communists make a choice
between world revolution and socialism in one country. Had the Soviet leadership
made such a choice it would have constituted a crass repudiation of both
Leninism and dialectical logic and practice....
"The whole essence of Stalin's struggle against Trotskyism
in the Soviet Union can be summed up as the struggle to silence
Trotskyist/Menshevik defeatism about the possibility of building socialism in
the Soviet Union. Certainly, Stalin derived a great deal of Kudos (sic) from the fact
that Lenin had indicated that it could be done. Who can doubt that all those
siren voices protesting against the possibility of building socialism in the
Soviet Union were in fact serving the interest of the bourgeois
counterrevolution, even if some of them did so unconsciously?
Stalin defended Leninism, not Trotskyism, and this
included the question of the dialectical nature of the world revolutionary
process. Stalin was perfectly correct, from the standpoint of dialectics, to
oppose Trotsky's either/or methodology. To side with Stalin on this issue was
therefore to side with dialectics." [Tony
Clark, 2004. Bold emphases and link added. Minor typo corrected.
Some paragraphs merged to save space.]
This comrade is clearly a Maoist, and is,
therefore, probably impervious to reason. [That is no exaggeration and can
readily be confirmed by anyone who reads
this or
this, or, indeed, by anyone who tries to argue with a Maoist.]
That might be why he seems not have noticed that history
has in fact vindicated Trotsky's 'non-dialectical' approach to world revolution. Indeed,
Clark's own implicit adherence to the eminently un-dialectical formula -- either
socialism can be created in one country or it can't -- is, in the
event,
doubly ironic. Naturally, the impertinent
answer to this and other such Dialectical
Doozies is, of course, "both".
"Trotsky spoke in
favour of dialectical materialism, but he frequently made use of undialectical
ways of reasoning and judging political events. This is notable
among Trotskyists to this day.They replace dialectics with a
mechanical way of reasoning, and they replace investigation of the concrete
circumstances of a situation with appeals to what's true of the world situation
in general....
"Trotsky recognized
materialism in theory, but negated it in practice.... Thus, his adherence to materialism was
skin-deep, and he pooh-poohed materialism in practice....
"Perhaps the key
dialectical aspect of dialectical materialism is that it focuses attention on
the internal contradictions that in large part determine the character of a
thing or process. For example, a country, a party, a
government, and so forth are affected by other countries, parties and
governments that oppose them, and this is recognized by mechanical materialists
as well as dialectical materialists.But dialectical
materialism highlights the internal conflicts and opposing forces that exist
inside a country, party and so forth, and that account for why they react to
external pressures the way they do. Mechanical materialists
often overlook such things, and in a number of crucial situations, so did
Trotsky.
"For example, seeing
that the old ruling class was overthrown and thus had lost its control over the
state sector, Trotsky regarded that [sic] the state sector of the Soviet Union was
inherently socialist.He didn't see the importance of the
internal contradictions in the state sector....
"Trotsky repeatedly denounced
the idea of 'democratic dictatorship' of the workers and peasants as an
algebraic formula, for example, he might say that it had 'a certain algebraic
quality, which had to make way for more precise arithmetical quantities in the
process of historical experience', this arithmetic allegedly showing that the
idea was wrong. Thus he contrasted algebraic formulas to good
old, time-honoured, solid arithmetic.
"It has since become
something of a shibboleth of Trotskyist reasoning to refer to certain political
terms as 'algebraic formulas'; this is usually meant as a
denunciation, but it is also conceded that certain demands must, alas, have an
algebraic character for the time being. But the difference
between algebra and arithmetic is precisely that algebra is more dialectical
than arithmetic. So Trotsky's elevation of arithmetic over
algebra is about as close as one can get to seeing someone who claims to be a
dialectical materialist attack dialectics." [Joseph
Green. Bold emphases added.]
All this dialectical finger-pointing even though
Trotsky himself repeatedly referred to the
'internal contradictions' in the fSU
in order to derive diametrically opposite
conclusions!
Still attempting to reconcile the
irreconcilable -- i.e., proletarian democracy with increased centralisation -- by the
use of 'dialectical concepts', on sound Stalinist lines, we find this additional
(MIST) critique of
Trotsky (partially quoted earlier):
"Contrary to what is often
thought, democratic centralism concerns questions of elaboration of the party
line and leadership more than questions of organisation. A centralised party is
necessary to unify and co-ordinate all the people's struggles, to centralise and
systematise them after studying the correct ideas of the masses, to mobilise the
masses around slogans corresponding to the tasks of the moment, to assess
constantly the experience gained in the struggles as a whole, and to educate the
masses in the spirit of scientific socialism so that they can carry through the
revolution to the end. None of these objectives can be achieved if this
leadership is not carried out democratically.
"Trotsky's positions on this
issue varied considerably during his life. We see him oscillate from one extreme
to another because of his inability to grasp the dialectical link uniting these
pairs of opposites: the distinction between the party and the class and its
fusion with it; the authority of the centre and its monitoring by the militants;
the need for statutory rules and the fact that they must be subordinated to
'revolutionary opportunity', as Lenin said....
"We have just alluded to the mass line, the
developed form of democratic centralism. Here is how Mao Tse-tung defines it:
'In all the practical work of our Party, all
correct leadership is necessarily "from the masses to the masses". This means:
take the ideas of the masses (scattered and unsystematic ideas) and concentrate
them (through study turn them into concentrated and systematic ideas), then go
to the masses and propagate and explain these ideas until the masses embrace
them as their own, hold fast to them and translate them into action, and test
the correctness of these ideas in such action.... And so on, and over and over
again in an endless spiral, with the ideas becoming more correct, more vital and
richer each time. Such is the Marxist theory of knowledge.' [This is from Mao's
'Some
Questions Concerning Methods of Leadership' -- RL.]
"It follows from this text and from all the
others in which Mao formulates his idea of the mass line that democratic
centralism presents a dialectical contradictory unity: 'Within the ranks of the
people, democracy is correlative with centralism and freedom with discipline.
They are the two opposites of a single entity.'"
[Kostas
Mavrakis. Bold emphases added.]
[We will have occasion to examine Mao's attempt to reconcile the dictatorship over the proletariat with 'proletarian
democracy' later on. Again, "The mass line" is more appropriately to be called
"The mass lie", and far from it being "From the masses to the masses",
it was more like "From the Party to the masses." On that, see
here.]
On the role that 'principal' contradictions
have played in rationalising class compromises..., er..., sorry, alliances, we find this
convoluted and tortured 'dialectical-argument':
"Studying
the revolutionary process from the point of view of diachrony, Trotskyism
emphasises continuity and the possibility of making non-stop progress: 'The
living historical process always makes leaps over isolated "stages" which derive
from the theoretical breakdown into its component parts of the process of
development in its entirety' (this
is from Trotsky's Permanent Revolution-- RL); and also the interpenetration, the 'telescoping'
of stages, since, according to it, socialist transformations are the order of
the day even before the tasks of the bourgeois revolution are completed. Lenin,
on the contrary, as a good dialectician, has the correct priorities, putting the
emphasis on discontinuity.
'Of course, in
actual historical circumstances, the elements of the past become interwoven with
those of the future; the two paths cross.... But this does not in the least
prevent us from logically and historically distinguishing between the major
stages of development. We all contrapose bourgeois revolution and socialist
revolution; we all insist on the absolute necessity of strictly distinguishing
between them.' [This
is from Lenin's
Two Tactics of Social-Democracy in the Democratic Revolution-- RL.]
"If this is not done it is no longer possible to
distinguish between the principal contradiction and the secondary
contradictions, it is impossible to determine the class alliances required by
the tasks of the stage, the location of the line of demarcation between friends
and enemies; the result is that it is impossible to carry out a correct united
front policy which assumes that the contradictions which are secondary
objectively are kept so by making concessions to one's allies; thus the
proletariat is prevented from taking the leadership of the united front, it is
isolated and condemned to impotence.
"Trotsky's unilateral
emphasis on continuity is the sign of the incomprehension of the Marxist
dialectic which led him to ignore the essential implications of the law of
uneven development. This law signifies not only that the imperialist powers and
monopolies grow at an unequal rate, but also that, in each social formation, the
economic base and the political and ideological superstructures evolve at an
unequal rate and by leaps, that these instances possess a relative autonomy and
a peculiar temporality, and that in each of them the contradictions and their
aspects shift (are transformed into their opposite). The revolution explodes
when the principal contradiction reaches an explosive phase. The displacement of
its aspects then brings about a restructuration of the whole. This contradiction
is the nodal point where all the others converge. That such a convergence occurs
in the sense of a rupture is rare, as will be clear, and all the more so in
several countries at once. This is why, according to Lenin, the victory of the
proletariat in one country is the 'typical case', while revolution in several
countries can only be a 'rare exception'.
"In 'Results and Prospects', Trotsky prophesied
the extension of the revolution throughout Europe when the victorious Russian
proletariat called on its brothers throughout the world for 'the last fight'.... For Trotsky, society has
a simple structure in which the principal contradiction 'de jure'
(proletariat-bourgeoisie) is always and everywhere principal 'de facto' during
the whole period of the transition. That is why he saw only the world revolution
(and also saw it 'sub specie aeternitatis'). He imagined it as unfolding in a
continuous and homogeneous socio-historical time-space. The underground work of
the 'old mole', the structure and the articulation of the strata which it has to
get through were invisible from the ethereal heights he occupied.
"The Trotskyists are ignorant of the dialectic of
continuity and discontinuity which is as necessary for an understanding of
history as it is for one of microphysics. They roar with laughter when they hear
talk of the uninterrupted revolution by stages. For them, it is a contradiction
in terms. We know that the concept of the 'break' which
Althusser
borrowed from
Bachelard was inspired in the latter by that of 'discontinuity' in particle
physics. If one can't even grasp the universality of contradiction demonstrated
by the unity and opposition of continuity and discontinuity in all the sciences,
how could one penetrate its specificity in historical materialism?
"It was clear at the time of the campaign which
the Trotskyists launched in 1971 against China's international policy that they
approached problems in an absolutely unilateral, metaphysical way. They do not
understand that a state like Cambodia before
Sihanouk's overthrow, or Pakistan,
can have a dual nature: progressive, in so far as it defends its autonomy
against the superpowers; reactionary, in that it oppresses the people. For them,
reactionaries are reactionaries and it is not permissible to apply different
policies to them, taking into account their differences so as to isolate the
principal enemy of the moment." [Kostas
Mavrakis. Bold emphases and links added.]
This comrade (no doubt
unwittingly, once more), failed to notice that the concept of "principal" and "secondary"
contradictions was foreign to Lenin (and, indeed, foreign to Hegel, Marx, Engels, and
Plekhanov...). Does this
perhaps make comrade Mavrakis a -- shock, horror! -- Revisionist?
[More on
this below.]
It is also worth pointing out
that the only substantive arguments the above comrades can cobble-together against Trotsky
are
based on yet more dialectics, just as we will find the same -- in reverse
-- is the case with Trotskyists who make exactly same complaints against
NOTs,STDs and
MISTs,
arguing in favour of the
opposite conclusions from equally 'dialectically-sound' premisses.
Anyone with a cast iron stomach can
read more of this stuff
here -- in this case, inflicted on humanity by no less a dialectician than
Charles Bettelheim,
who,
as a MIST-MeisterExtraordinaire, was keen to reveal to an
eagerly expectant world exactly why
Ernest Mandel, the doyen of
Trotskyist dialecticians, was wrong to ignore 'principal' contradictions,
among other things. [This might be because
Marx, Engels and Lenin ignored them, too. Just a thought.]
Here is a taste of comrade Bettelheim's wise words (however, any readers who
take exception to
this seemingly needless repetition should read this and then
perhaps think again):
"The
fundamental and 'specific' difference between Marxist analysis and
pre-scientific (ideological) analysis is that the former recognises that the
field to which it is applied is a 'complex whole structured in dominance' (to
use the expression of Louis Althusser, in his article on materialist dialectics
in La Pensée, No.110, August 1963, reproduced in Pour Marx, Edit.
Maspero, 1965: Eng. edn., For Marx,
Allen Lane, 1969) and that it therefore uses concepts which are linked together
dialectically, their inter-relation expressing the relations and contradictions
of the very field to which it is applied. This means that it does not proceed
dogmatically and 'abstractly', because the very concepts which it employs teach
that the 'principal' contradiction in a given concrete situation,
and the principal aspect of any contradiction, may vary from one moment to
another.
"This is
why one must always find the principal contradiction in each situation, and the
principal aspect of each of the various contradictions (this is the problem of
the 'decisive link' or the 'leading link'). It is clear that one cannot 'grasp'
this link 'mechanically', that to do it requires a series of mental efforts,
which eventually make possible a conceptual structuring that gives as faithful
an expression of reality as can be achieved....
"However,
contradictions must not be studied in themselves (in the Hegelian manner); they
need to be considered as forming part of 'the very essence of things', as Lenin
puts it. This is
where the specificity of the contradiction lies, in Marxist dialectics. It is
this specificity that brings it about that, in dialectical materialism, every
contradiction reflects the existence of a complex process and constitutes one
contradiction amid a series of others. This is also why, in the totality of
contradictions that makes up a structured whole, there is always one
contradiction which is the principal one. As Mao Tse-tung says:
'In the
process of development of a complex thing, many contradictions exist; among
these, one is necessarily the principal contradiction....' (Mao Tse-tung,
On
Contradiction, p.55: Eng. version from
Selected Works, Vol. II, p.35.)
"From this there also follows the necessary distinction between the principal
aspect and the secondary aspect of the contradiction, which is merely the
reflexion 'within each contradiction of the complexity of the process, that is,
the existence within it of a plurality of contradictions, one of which is
dominant...' (cf. Louis Althusser, La Pensée, August 1963, 'Sur la dialectique
matérialiste', p.27).
"Materialist
dialectics is thus something very different from the simplifying abstraction,
remote from the historical, the complex and the concrete, which Ernest Mandel
offers us as 'Marxist dialectics'. This kind of abstraction is not even at the
level of idealist dialectics in its most finished form (the Hegelian form), but
it starts, like idealist dialectics, from the basic presupposition of a simple
contradictory unity which develops within itself by virtue of the negative
element in it, so that the 'concrete' totality that results from this
development always brings us back to the original simplicity. It is especially
important to stress that the desire to consider only 'simple' categories, to
refuse theory access to the concrete, leads precisely to the errors that it is
sought to avoid.
"Take, for
example, the problem posed by the fact that the proletarian revolution has been
victorious in a number of countries with relatively underdeveloped productive
forces. Confronted with this situation, an attitude which does not correspond to
that of dialectical materialism can lead, and does in fact lead, to two sorts of
'explanation', neither of which has anything in common with Marxism, and which,
furthermore, though mutually exclusive, are both sometimes accepted by those who
decline to recognise the specificity of Marxist dialectics:
"(a) The
first 'explanation' leads to declaring that, though the productive forces of the
under-developed countries were in themselves too weak to provide the source of
the revolutionary movement, it was nevertheless the contradiction between
productive forces and production-relations that was the source of the revolution
that occurred in these countries, because what counts is not the 'local' or
'national' level of the productive forces but the world contradiction between
productive forces and production-relations.
"This way
of allegedly 'solving' the problem brings in, first of all, a purely idealistic
relationship between what is internal and what is external, and, in addition, it
reveals that those who offer this 'explanation' have not understood that the
contradiction between the level of development of the productive forces and the
production-relations, although it is the fundamental contradiction, is only one
of the contradictions in the complex situation of the country where the
revolution has occurred, and is not necessarily, and even, generally speaking,
does not constitute the principal contradiction. The latter may be found at
quite a different level. It was constituted, for example, by the revolt of the
Russian peasant soldiers against continuing the imperialist war. This war
itself, of course, resulted from the contradiction, on the world scale, between
the level of development of the productive forces and the production-relations;
but this contradiction had attained its maximum sharpness only in the most
highly developed countries.
"This
contradiction existed, too, though to a lesser extent, in the countries where
the revolution occurred, and this was what made it possible for the revolution
to assume a socialist character. However, the revolution took place in these
countries not because the contradiction between productive forces and
production-relations had reached maximum sharpness there, but because there was
a principal contradiction (not identical in each country) which had become very
acute, and because the revolutionaries of these countries were able to lay hold
of this contradiction so as to effect a radical transformation. This
transformation assumed a socialist character in so far as these revolutionaries
did not confine themselves to acting upon the principal contradiction (guiding
the masses in their struggles for peace, or for freedom, or for land) but
undertook the task of resolving the fundamental contradiction of our age.
"(b) The
other 'explanation' of the development of the revolution in countries where the
productive forces have not yet reached a high level of development leads (and
this is the idealist alternative) to a denial of any role to this contradiction
between productive forces and production relations, and explaining the
revolutionary process by revolutionary consciousness alone, by the example set
by the socialist countries, and so on. We thus
see how refusal to appreciate the complex and concrete character of Marxist
analysis leads either to idealistic positions or to mechanistic ones. It is
noteworthy that all the conceptions which depart from Marxism in this way
finally end up in eclecticism.
"Actually,
if, as Mandel thinks, Marxism were incapable of analysing 'real capitalism as it
has developed historically...as it has developed concretely...' but only a 'pure
and abstract capitalism...' (art. cit., pp.9-10), it would provide us merely
with a 'pure' and 'simple' theory which would therefore be remote from concrete
conditions, which are particular, historical, contingent and accidental. These
conditions, while they are those of practice, would thus elude the grasp of
theory. Hence forth, as the well-known expression has it, 'the necessary would
make itself felt through the accidental', and the latter would therefore have
either to be ignored or else made the object only of short-sighted practice, of
empiricism.
"A
conception like this can obviously provide no guidance for effective practice,
since, if it is to be effective, theory must be capable of grasping the
allegedly 'accidental', that is, of conceiving reality as a complex, structured
whole, involving a totality of contradictions which are never congealed once for
all in an immutable hierarchy. This is what Lenin expresses when he says:
'Concrete analysis of the concrete situation is the soul of Marxism.' This is so
because Marxism is not an 'abstract' theory but a theory which leads to the
concrete, and which therefore can be a guide for practice. Thanks to this,
Marxist practice in the economic and social spheres can operate upon all the
contradictions. It is able to do this because it enables us to grasp the links
that exist between all the contradictions, and to ascertain what, at any given
moment, is the principal contradiction, which is such because by acting upon it
one can eventually act upon all the contradictions.
"For
Marxist analysis there is not, on the one hand, an abstract model functioning in
the realm of ideas, and, on the other, a reality which comes more or less close
to this model, and includes, besides the categories of the 'model', some
'accidental conditions', that is, some purely 'external' factors. Marxism does
not lead to such a superficial view of things. It considers every reality as a
structured whole which has to be analysed as such, with its principal and
secondary contradictions.
"Lenin
provides a precise theoretical explanation of the October Revolution by taking
account of the totality of the conditions that existed at the time of that
revolution, that is, the real, historical, concrete conditions. Only thus can
one understand why the socialist revolution, dictated fundamentally by the
contradiction between productive forces and production relations, broke out, not
in the countries where this contradiction had been brought to its maximum
acuteness, but in those where a number of historical and concrete 'conditions'
came together. An explanation which resorts to taking account of these
'conditions' can avoid eclecticism and empiricism only if these conditions are
theoretically reintegrated in the overall conception of a structured complex
whole. More precisely, these conditions have to be understood as they are, that
is, as the conditions of existence of a complex whole, taken in its totality.
"If, in
the name of the 'purity' and 'simplicity' of theory, one leaves the conditions
out of account, then one is left operating outside reality, which is always
complex, historical, concrete and structured, and always includes principal and
secondary contradictions, and contradictions whose 'order of importance' changes
with changing circumstances.
"So long
as one remains at this level of ideological abstraction, one can know only a
'pure' capitalism, on the one hand, and a 'pure' socialism on the other. On the
political plane this can lead either to 'ultra-leftism' (for instance, with the
slogan, mechanically applied in all circumstances, of 'class against class') or
to opportunism, waiting indefinitely for real capitalism to become sufficiently
'pure' for the coming of 'pure' socialism to be inevitable.
"When what
is on the agenda is building socialism, the 'purest' conception of socialism is
of only limited value, because history is never 'pure', nor is it 'straight and
even as the Nevsky Prospekt' (which means, among other things, that the features
which will characterise developed socialist society are not only not all
necessarily to be observed in the society of transition, but that it may even
happen that, during certain stages of the development of this transitional
society, some features that one may expect to be possessed by the socialist
society of the future will temporarily become blurred, and will not at all
necessarily become increasingly clear-cut).
"What
matters, therefore, if theory is to be capable of throwing light on the way
forward for the transitional society or the conditions for the building of
socialism, is analysis of the concrete conditions of this transitional society
or of this building of socialism, in a particular country. This analysis must
obviously deal with the significant wholeness of the situation. Here again it is
a question of analysing the totality of the contradictions, bringing out the
principal contradiction and the secondary contradictions, and the principal and
secondary aspects of the contradictions. Only thus can the specific character of
a situation be brought out, with the specific character of the contradictions
that are characteristic of it.
"The
specific character of the contradictions (in a given country at a given time) is
only the reflexion of the conditions of existence of this country (the level of
development of its productive forces, its culture, its traditions, its size, the
level of consciousness existing at a particular moment) on the contradictions in
general, and the principal contradiction in particular. This is precisely why
socialism is not being built under the same conditions in Cuba, in the USSR, in
China, and so on. Whoever refuses to take account theoretically of these
'specificities' is not a Marxist. That is where one falls into empiricism and
eclecticism, because one wants to keep theory outside of history.
"Except
from the point of view of ideology, practice and theory are never outside of
history. What they have to deal with, in reality and in thought, is never a
'pure' mode of production but always an historically given social formation,
with all its specific contradictions, its principal and secondary
contradictions, and so on. Marxism is the only theory that enables us to deal
practically and theoretically with a reality like this (which is what Mandel
refuses to do, not only theoretically but also practically).
"With a
living approach like this, of course, the contradictions and categories are no
longer univocal; they do not have one fixed role and meaning, given once for
all. At the same time, they are not 'equivocal', for, while they are no longer
determined once for all in their role and essence, 'they show themselves to be
determined by the structured complexity' which assigns them their role (cf.
Louis Althusser, art. cit., p.37).
"The
problem of dialectical materialist analysis is precisely that of revealing why
and how it is that successively dominant contradictions do not follow each other
in an arbitrary way: and the problem of Marxist practice is to grasp what at
each moment is the principal contradiction, and how by acting upon it (that is,
by acting on what Lenin called the 'decisive link') one can pass from a
situation dominated by one contradiction to a situation dominated by another.
"The
generality from which the scientific approach starts is not itself the outcome
of an abstracting process, but of complex social processes taking place at the
level of technique and ideology. It is upon these abstractions that science
works in order, gradually, to go forward to fresh abstractions, enriched by
increasingly 'concrete' knowledge, and thus forging scientific concepts (which
will eventually become the negation of the ideological and technical concepts
with which investigation began).
It is
this process of enrichment (of progress towards the concrete) that is the
essence of scientific thought and of the dialectical materialist approach. One
must avoid substituting for this scientific and dialectical approach the
simplifying procedures of deduction, that is, of mere formal logic."
[Bettelheim, quoted from
here.
Formatting and punctuation marks modified to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site. Bold emphases alone added. Some paragraphs merged to save space.]
The above is as
good an example of the use of dialectics to 'prove' whatever is expedient as one
could wish to find.
Here is yet more
dialectical double-think (mercifully, this example constitutes perhaps the final reductio ad absurdum of this entire dialectical-sectarian genre):
"Too frequently, the question of the nature
of the Soviet Union and 'existing socialism' (perhaps it should now be called
'previously existing socialism') is approached in a mechanical and metaphysical
manner: the Soviet Union either is socialist, or it is not; its bureaucracy
either is a ruling class, or it is not. The antidote to such thinking, of
course, is dialectics. The Soviet Union both is, and is not, socialist; its
bureaucracy both is, and is not, a ruling class. 'Existing socialism,' in other
words, must be viewed dialectically, not just in terms of what it is, but what
it has been and what it is becoming, and in terms of its interconnections with
the global sweep of modern social change." [Eugene
Ruyle.
Bold emphases added.]
There is plenty more of this
stuff on the Internet, just as there are countless pages of similarly mindless Trotskyist
diatribe arguing along equally sound 'dialectical' lines for the opposite conclusions.
[On the latter, see
here.]
Naturally, these characters were simply following in the
footsteps of the Great Leader Himself, who, quoting Lenin, used similar
rhetorical flourishes against Bukharin:
"It is said that Bukharin is one of the theoreticians of
our Party. This is true, of course. But, the point is that not all is well with
his theorising.... Yes, Bukharin is a theoretician; he is a theoretician who has
much to learn before he can become a Marxist theoretician.
"Reference has been made to the letter in which Comrade
Lenin speaks of Bukharin as a theoretician. Let us read this letter:
'Of the younger members of the Central Committee...I
should like to say a few words about Bukharin.... Bukharin is not only a very
valuable and important theoretician in our Party; but it is very doubtful
whether his theoretical views can be classed as fully Marxist for there is
something scholastic in him (he has never studied and, I think, has never fully
understood dialectics)...'.
"Thus, he is a theoretician without dialectics. A
scholastic theoretician. A theoretician about whom it was said 'It is very
doubtful whether his theoretical views can be classed as fully Marxist.' That is
how Lenin characterised Bukharin's theoretical complexion.
"You can well understand, comrades, that such a
theoretician has still much to learn. And if Bukharin understood that he is not
yet a fully-fledged theoretician, that he still has much to learn, that he is a
theoretician who has not yet mastered dialectics -- and dialectics is the
soul of Marxism -- if he understood that, he would be more modest, and the
Party would only benefit thereby." [Stalin
(1929), pp.354-55. Bold emphases added.
Italic emphasis in the original (i.e., they are Stalin's italics, not
Lenin's). Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
Apparently, in order to prove you have 'mastered dialectics' you had to be able to (i) Rationalise whatever decisions had already been
taken (by Stalin or his henchmen and their successors), and/or (ii) Derive any conclusion
whatsoever and its opposite without breaking into a sweat. Clearly,
Bukharin never quite managed to master the first of these relatively easy tricks and was murdered for his
pains before he could do much with the second.
Of course, Stalin never explained why Bukharin wouldn't, and couldn't, be
inducted into the Pantheon of The DM-Saints; it was enough for Lenin to have
anathematised him in this regard. Nor did Lenin explain why Bukharin was to be
turned away at the gates of DM-Valhalla. He wasn't Lenin, and that was
enough.
45.
A long list of quotations from Lenin along the same lines, revealing his deep
and consistent commitment to the international revolution, and opposition to the
idea that socialism could be built in one country, can be accessed
here. [See also
my earliercomments.]
The fact that
Lenin and Trotsky were right can be seen from the present state of Russia, China, Eastern Europe, Cuba and Vietnam, for
example. [On this, see here.]
Unfortunately for STDs,
Stalin himself adopted this
Leninist line (in the first edition of his book, Foundations of Leninism):
"The overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and the
establishment of a proletarian government in one country does not yet
guarantee the complete victory of socialism. The main task of socialism --
the organisation of socialist production -- remains ahead. Can this task be
accomplished, can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained,
without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several advanced countries?
No, this is impossible. Tooverthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of
one country are sufficient -- the history of our revolution bears this out. For
the final victory of Socialism, for the organisation of socialist
production, the efforts of one country, particularly of such a peasant country
as Russia, are insufficient. For this the efforts of the proletarians of
several advanced countries are necessary.
"Such, on the whole, are the characteristic
features of the Leninist theory of the proletarian revolution." [Stalin.
Bold emphases alone added.]
So, either Lenin changed his mind
posthumously, or Stalin dropped an inadvertent clanger, here -- or, what is even more likely,
he accurately reported Lenin's position until it became politically expedient
to make a U-turn and then
misrepresent
him.
"By far the most important such amendment was the
theory of socialism in one country, first promulgated by Stalin in autumn 1924.
The introduction of this theory needs to be considered from a number of angles:
how it was done, why it was done, the social interests it served, and its
consequences.
"First Stalin's method. 'Socialism in one country'
marked a dramatic break with the internationalist position formulated by Marx
and Engels as early as 1845 and 1847,
(94)
and tirelessly repeated by Lenin in relation to the Russian Revolution. (95)
It also contradicted what Stalin himself had written in The Foundation of Leninism as late
as April 1924:
'The main task of socialism -- the
organisation of socialist production -- still remains ahead. Can this task be
accomplished, can the final victory of socialism in one country be attained
without the joint efforts of the proletariat of several countries? No, this is
impossible.' (96)
"Stalin 'solved' this contradiction by rewriting
this passage to read the opposite ('After consolidating its power and leading
the peasantry in its wake the proletariat of the victorious country can and must
build a socialist society' (97))
and having the first edition withdrawn from circulation. There was no new
analysis, simply the assertion of a new orthodoxy (retrospectively grafted on to
Lenin). Indeed, apart from this one passage the rest of the text was left
unchanged, including passages which clearly reflected the earlier perspective. (98)
Only later were 'analyses' concocted to justify the new line.
"This procedure was not an isolated example,
rather it was typical. When Social Democracy (according to Stalin) changed from
an ally (1925-27) to 'the main enemy' (1928-33) and then back to an ally again
(1934-39), the change of line was not based on any new analysis of Social
Democracy. It was simply a fiat to which analysis had to accommodate
itself afterwards. The 'secret' of this method is not that Stalin had no
analysis but that the analysis he had could not be spoken publicly, because its
real criteria, and real purposes, had ceased to be those of the theory whose
language it retained.
"What then was Stalin's reason for introducing
socialism in one country in 1924? Clearly it was a response (a defeatist
response) to the failure of the German Revolution in 1923 and the relative
stabilisation of capitalism that followed. Stalin had never been much interested
in world revolution (he was by far the most insular of the leading Bolsheviks)
and now he wrote it off entirely, but this alone does not explain why he didn't
simply continue to pay lip service to the old internationalism. The answer is
that socialism in one country fitted exactly the needs and aspirations of the
bureaucrats now dominating the country. They longed for business as usual,
uncomplicated by international revolutionary adventures. At the same time, they
needed a banner around which to group themselves, a slogan defining their goal.
As Trotsky put it, socialism in one country 'expressed unmistakeably the mood of
the bureaucracy. When speaking of the victory of socialism, they meant their own
victory.' (99)
It was to the bureaucracy what 'All power to the soviets' was to the working
class in 1917.
"As we have seen, Stalin introduced his new
theory with the minimum of fuss (precisely to disguise its newness) yet in
reality it marked a decisive shift in orientation which had the most
far-reaching consequences. The Soviet Union was isolated in the face of a
hostile capitalist world -- a world which had already demonstrated its eagerness
to strangle the Revolution by its intervention in the
Civil War, and which, as
Lenin emphasised, remained economically and militarily stronger than the young
workers' state. The strategy of the early years of the Revolution -- the
strategy of Lenin and Trotsky -- included, of course, the most determined
military defence but ultimately it relied on stimulating international
revolution to overthrow capitalism from within. The policy of socialism in one
country changed this emphasis. It replaced reliance on the international class
struggle with reliance on the power of the Soviet Union as a nation state, and
this decision had its own implacable logic.
"The defence of the Soviet state demanded armed
forces equal to those of its enemies and in the modern world that meant an
equivalent industry and an equivalent surplus. Engels had already grasped this
crucial fact of 20th century economics and politics in 1892:
"From the moment warfare became part
of the grand industrie (iron clad ships, rifled artillery, quickfiring
and repeating cannons, repeating rifles, steel covered bullets, smokeless powder
etc.)
la
grande industrie, without which all these things can't be made, became a
political necessity. All these things can't be had without a highly developed
metal manufacture. And that manufacture can't be had without a corresponding
development in all other branches of manufacture, especially textiles.' (100)
"Stalin's grasp on this reality was no less firm:
'No comrades...the pace must not be
slackened! On the contrary, we must quicken it as much as is within our powers
and possibilities.
'To slacken the pace would mean to lag
behind; and those who lag behind are beaten. We do not want to be beaten. No, we
don't want to. The history of old...Russia...she was ceaselessly beaten for her
backwardness.... For military backwardness, for cultural backwardness, for
political backwardness, for industrial backwardness, for agricultural
backwardness....
'We are fifty or a hundred years behind the
advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten years. Either we do it
or they crush us.' (101)
"But Russia was poor, compared with its rivals
desperately so, and its productivity of labour was low. To industrialise it
required massive investment and without international aid there was only one
possible source for this investment, the labour of its workers and peasants. A
massive surplus had to be extracted and ploughed back into industrial growth.
But with the majority of the population living not much above subsistence level
there was no way such a surplus could be extracted and set aside voluntarily by
collective decision of the associated producers. It could be done only through
forcible exploitation and that in turn required an agency to apply this force --
a social class freed from the burdens, but reaping the benefits, of the process
of capital accumulation -- a class playing the same historical role as the
bourgeoisie had done in western Europe. Thus the consequence, in practice, of
socialism in one country was its direct opposite, state capitalism in one
country.
"Socialism in one country also had theoretical
consequences. It could not be confined, much as Stalin may have wished it, to a
minor amendment to the orthodoxy. In Russia the overwhelming majority of the
population were not workers but peasants. Marx and Lenin, although they
recognised the possibility of a revolutionary alliance between workers and
peasants to overthrow the capitalists and landlords, always insisted that the
peasantry was not a socialist class. 'The peasant movement...is not a struggle
against the foundations of capitalism but a struggle to cleanse them of all
survivals of serfdom.' (102)
But if Russia, by itself, was to accomplish the transition to socialism, then
this attitude to the peasantry had to be revised. So for a period Stalin (and
his ally Bukharin) advanced the notion of the peasantry 'growing into'
socialism. In practice of course the peasantry was crushed by the
forced
collectivisation of 1929-33, for it constituted an obstacle not only to
socialism but also to state capitalism, but not before the blurring of the
distinction between the working class and the peasantry had passed into
Stalinist ideology....
"Finally the logic of socialism in one country
played havoc with the Marxist theory of the state.
By 1934 Stalin was claiming
that socialism had been established in Russia. This was on the basis that with
the transformation of the peasantry into state employees, classes no longer
existed -- the bureaucracy of course was not a class for Stalin. According to
Marxism, the state, as an instrument of class rule, was destined to wither away
under socialism, but Stalin's state had not the slightest intention of withering
away, and this was a fact that no amount of propaganda could hide.
"Stalin fielded this particular contradiction
by asserting that Marx and Engels had expected the state to wither away because
they viewed socialism as an international phenomenon, whereas when socialism
existed only in one country the state had to be strengthened.
(104)
It was the kind of circular argument that works well when anyone who points out
the circularity is a candidate for the firing squad.
"But if this argument justified the existence of
the state it still left unsolved the problem of the class nature of this state.
It could not be a specifically workers' state if Russia was a classless society
-- and precisely this was involved in the claim that Russia was socialist. The
only solution was the notion that the Soviet state had become a state of 'the
whole people', a thoroughly bourgeois view of the state vigorously attacked by
Marx in his
Critique of the Gotha Programme
and by Lenin in
The State
and Revolution. Moreover it was a view of the state adopted by the
Stalinist bureaucracy for exactly the same reason that the bourgeoisie has
always viewed their state as a state of the whole people, namely its refusal to
acknowledge its own existence as a ruling class."
[Molyneux
(1983), pp.30-33. Bold emphases and links added. Italic emphases in the
original. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Some links added.]
Of course, Molyneux forgot to mention that Stalin's
line makes perfectly good 'dialectical sense' (indeed, as does its opposite!),
just as he neglected to mention that this is precisely how this
counter-revolutionary ideology was sold to the
communist party world-wide.
[We have already seen how STDs, for example, spoke about
the 'dialectical' nature of the peasantry,
which 'allowed' them to
argue along lines required
by the bureaucracy.]
But, Molyneux's omission is only to be expected, since he is a dialectician, too.
However, it would be interesting to see how Stalin
himself rationalised this change of emphasis. In his pamphlet, Concerning
Questions of Leninism, written in 1926, he argued as follows:
"The
pamphlet
The Foundations of Leninism
(May 1924, first edition) contains two
formulations on the question of the victory of socialism in one country. The
first of these says:
'Formerly, the victory of the revolution in one country was considered
impossible, on the assumption that it would require the combined action of the
proletarians of all or at least of a majority of the advanced countries to
achieve victory over the bourgeoisie. Now this point of view no longer fits in
with the facts. Now we must proceed from the possibility of such a victory, for
the uneven and spasmodic character of the development of the various capitalist
countries under the conditions of imperialism, the development within
imperialism of catastrophic contradictions leading to inevitable wars, the
growth of the revolutionary movement in all countries of the world -- all this
leads, not only to the possibility, but also to the necessity of the victory of
the proletariat in individual countries' (see The Foundations of Leninism).
"This
thesis is quite correct and needs no comment. It is directed against the theory
of the Social-Democrats, who regard the seizure of power by the proletariat in
one country, without the simultaneous victory of the revolution in other
countries, as utopian.
"But the
pamphlet The Foundations of Leninism contains a second formulation, which
says:
'But
the overthrow of the power of the bourgeoisie and establishment of the power of
the proletariat in one country does not yet mean that the complete victory of
socialism has been ensured. The principal task of socialism -- the organisation
of socialist production -- has still to be fulfilled. Can this task be
fulfilled, can the final victory of socialism be achieved in one country,
without the joint efforts of the proletarians in several advanced countries? No,
it cannot. To overthrow the bourgeoisie the efforts of one country are
sufficient; this is proved by the history of our revolution. For the final
victory of socialism, for the organisation of socialist production, the efforts
of one country, particularly of a peasant country like Russia, are insufficient;
for that, the efforts of the proletarians of several advanced countries are
required' (see The Foundations of Leninism, first edition).
"This
second formulation was directed against the assertions of the critics of
Leninism, against the Trotskyists, who declared that the dictatorship of the
proletariat in one country, in the absence of victory in other countries, could
not 'hold out in the face of a conservative Europe.'
"To that
extent -- but only to that extent -- this formulation was then (May 1924)
adequate, and undoubtedly it was of some service.
"Subsequently, however, when the criticism of Leninism in this sphere had
already been overcome in the Party, when a new question had come to the fore --
the question of the possibility of building a complete socialist society by the
efforts of our country, without help from abroad -- the second formulation
became obviously inadequate, and therefore incorrect.
"What is
the defect in this formulation?
"Its
defect is that it joins two different questions into one: it joins the question
of the possibility of building socialism by the efforts of one country -- which
must be answered in the affirmative -- with the question whether a country in
which the dictatorship of the proletariat exists can consider itself fully
guaranteed against intervention, and consequently against the restoration of the
old order, without a victorious revolution in a number of other countries --
which must be answered in the negative. This is apart from the fact that this
formulation may give occasion for thinking that the organisation of a socialist
society by the efforts of one country is impossible -- which, of course, is
incorrect.
"On this
ground I modified and corrected this formulation in my pamphlet
The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian Communists
(December 1924); I divided the question into two -- into the question of a full
guarantee against the restoration of the bourgeois order, and the question of
the possibility of building a complete socialist society in one country. This
was effected, in the first place, by treating the 'complete victory of
socialism' as a 'full guarantee against the restoration of the old order,' which
is possible only through 'the joint efforts of the proletarians of several
countries'; and, secondly, by proclaiming, on the basis of Lenin's pamphlet On Co-operation, the
indisputable truth that we have all that is necessary for building a complete
socialist society (see The October Revolution and the Tactics of the Russian
Communists).
"It was
this new formulation of the question that formed the basis for the well-known
resolution of the Fourteenth Party Conference 'The Tasks of the Comintern and
the R.C.P.(B.),' which examines the question of the victory of socialism in one
country in connection with the stabilisation of capitalism (April 1925), and
considers that the building of socialism by the efforts of our country is
possible and necessary.
"With
regard to the presentation of the question of the victory of socialism in one
country, this pamphlet states:
'Our
country exhibits two groups of contradictions. One group consists of the
internal contradictions that exist between the proletariat and the peasantry
(this refers to the building of socialism in one country -- J. St.). The other
group consists of the external contradictions that exist between our country, as
the land of socialism, and all the other countries, as lands of capitalism (this
refers to the final victory of socialism -- J. St.).'...
'Anyone
who confuses the first group of contradictions, which can be overcome entirely
by the efforts of one country, with the second group of contradictions, the
solution of which requires the efforts of the proletarians of several countries,
commits a gross error against Leninism. He is either a muddle-head or an
incorrigible opportunist' (see The Results of the Work of the Fourteenth
Conference of the R.C.P.(B.).)
"On the
question of the victory of socialism in our country, the pamphlet states:
'We can
build socialism, and we will build it together with the peasantry under the
leadership of the working class'...for 'under the dictatorship of the
proletariat we possess...all that is needed to build a complete socialist
society, overcoming all internal difficulties, for we can and must overcome them
by our own efforts' (ibid.).
"On the
question of the final victory of socialism, it states:
'The
final victory of socialism is the full guarantee against attempts at
intervention, and hence against restoration, for any serious attempt at
restoration can take place only with serious support from outside, only with the
support of international capital. Therefore, the support of our revolution by
the workers of all countries, and still more the victory of the workers in at
least several countries, is a necessary condition for fully guaranteeing the
first victorious country against attempts at intervention and restoration, a
necessary condition for the final victory of socialism' (ibid.).
"Clear,
one would think.
"Such are
the facts.
"These
facts, I think, are known to all the comrades, including Zinoviev.
"If now,
nearly two years after the ideological struggle in the Party and after the
resolution that was adopted at the Fourteenth Party Conference (April 1925),
Zinoviev finds it possible in his reply to the discussion at the Fourteenth
Party Congress (December 1925) to dig up the old and quite inadequate formula
contained in Stalin's pamphlet written in April 1924, and to make it the basis
for deciding the already decided question of the victory of socialism in one
country -- then this peculiar trick of his only goes to show that he has got
completely muddled on this question. To drag the Party back after it has moved
forward, to evade the resolution of the Fourteenth Party Conference after it has
been confirmed by a Plenum of the Central Committee, means to become hopelessly
entangled in contradictions, to have no faith in the cause of building
socialism, to abandon the path of Lenin, and to acknowledge one's own defeat.
"What is
meant by the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country?
"It means
the possibility of solving the contradictions between the proletariat and the
peasantry by means of the internal forces of our country, the possibility of the
proletariat seizing power and using that power to build a complete socialist
society in our country, with the sympathy and the support of the proletarians of
other countries, but without the preliminary victory of the proletarian
revolution in other countries.
"Without,
such a possibility, building socialism is building without prospects, building
without being sure that socialism will be completely built. It is no use
engaging in building socialism without being sure that we can build it
completely, without being sure that the technical backwardness of our country is
not an insuperable obstacle to the building of a complete socialist society. To
deny such a possibility means disbelief in the cause of building socialism,
departure from Leninism.
"What is
meant by the impossibility of the complete, final victory of socialism in one
country without the victory of the revolution in other countries?
"It means
the impossibility of having a full guarantee against intervention, and
consequently against the restoration of the bourgeois order, without the victory
of the revolution in at least a number of countries. To deny this indisputable
thesis means departure from internationalism, departure from Leninism....
"You see
that this clear thesis of Lenin's, in comparison with Zinoviev's muddled and
anti-Leninist 'thesis' that we can engage in building socialism 'within the
limits of one country,' although it is impossible
to build it
completely, is as different from the latter as the heavens from the earth.
"The statement quoted above was made by Lenin in 1915 [quoted earlier by Stalin -- RL], before the
proletariat had taken power. But perhaps he modified his views after the
experience of taking power, after 1917? Let us turn to Lenin's pamphlet
On
Co-operation, written in 1923.
'As a
matter of fact;' says Lenin, 'state power over all large-scale means of
production, state power in the hands of the proletariat, the alliance of this
proletariat with the many millions of small and very small peasants, the assured
leadership of the peasantry by the proletariat, etc. -- is not this all that is
necessary for building a complete socialist society from the co-operatives, from
the co-operatives alone, which we formerly looked down upon as huckstering and
which from a certain aspect we have the right to look down upon as such now,
under NEP?
Is this not all that is necessary for building a complete
socialist society?
This is not yet the building of socialist society, but it is all that is necessary and sufficient for this building'
(see Vol.
XXVII, p.392). [Stalin's italics, not Lenin's. This pamphlet in fact appears in
Volume 33 of the Collected Works at the MIA -- RL.]
"In other
words, we can and must build a complete socialist society, for we have at our
disposal all that is necessary and sufficient for this building.
"I think
it would be difficult to express oneself more clearly." [Stalin
(1976c), pp.207-17. Formatting and punctuation
adapted to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Stalin's footnotes not included, several links
added. Italic emphases added only to the titles of books and pamphlets;
bold added.
Compare the above with the remarks Stalin made
here
(section IV.]
So, although Molyneux's political assessment of Stalin's change
of line seems to be formally correct, he is a little unfair to Stalin, who openly
admitted he had changed emphasis; he didn't try to cover it up. Indeed, it
formed an integral part of the convoluted 'dialectical' gyrations 'justifying'
these changes.
The new line emphasised the final or
"complete" victory of socialism. For Stalin, while it was possible to build
socialism in one country, its final victory couldn't be achieved until the
threat of external, anti-socialist forces had been neutralised, and that could
only happen with the assistance of the proletariat of several other countries.
In this we can see the point Molyneux was making, that the entire international
communist movement would now become an extension to Soviet foreign policy. The
international revolution, instead of being integral to the fight for socialism,
would become secondary to it. Its main aim would now be geared toward the
preservation of the new, and now transformed, Soviet State.
So,
despite these DM-gyrations, the politically significant section of the
above is this:
"It means
the possibility of solving the contradictions between the proletariat and the
peasantry by means of the internal forces of our country, the possibility of the
proletariat seizing power and using that power to build a complete socialist
society in our country, with the sympathy and the support of the proletarians of
other countries, but without the preliminary victory of the proletarian
revolution in other countries." [Ibid.]
In
this passage the Stalin inadvertently lets the cat out of the bag, for he
declares that "a complete socialist society" can emerge in the fSU even if
there is no"victory of the proletarian revolution
in other countries."
That is, this socialist society could be shielded from the sea of
capitalism surrounding it. The final victory of socialism could, therefore, be
kicked down the road, off into the distant future; the fSU would be quite
safe in the meantime. The practical import of all this was that the
international revolution was subordinate to the formation of socialism in
the fSU, and, as things turned out, it finally sacrificed -- in China and Spain,
for example.
All
of this was justified, of course, byyet more dialectics:
"Our
country exhibits two groups of
contradictions. One group consists of the internal contradictions that exist
between the proletariat and the peasantry (this refers to the building of
socialism in one country -- J. St.). The other group consists of the external
contradictions that exist between our country, as the land of socialism, and all
the other countries, as lands of capitalism (this refers to the final victory of
socialism -- J. St.).....
"Anyone
who confuses the first group of contradictions, which can be overcome entirely
by the efforts of one country, with the second group of contradictions, the
solution of which requires the efforts of the proletarians of several countries,
commits a gross error against Leninism. He is either a muddle-head or an
incorrigible opportunist." [Ibid.]
Once again, we see how DM can be put to use 'justifying' any course of action, even if it
contradicts Marxism -- and,
indeed, Leninism. In fact, the more it appeared to do this, the more
'dialectical' it seems to be!
I have outlined some of the background theory
to Stalin's change of direction -- which, despite the above attempt to 'justify'
it 'theoretically', was made for political reasons --, and how it is inconsistent
with Lenin's theory of change,
here. [The latter forms part of
my reply
to a video criticising my Essays
posted on
YouTubein 2015.]
45a. There are many
histories of this dark period of our movement, but the best is, I think,
Gluckstein (1999) -- which, incidentally, also fails to mention the impact this contradictory
'theory' had on the policies the
KPD
adopted -- or, were forced to adopt because of the points
made, for example, at the end of Note 45, above.
46. We
also find
this 'dialectical' justification for the change from the 'social fascist'
redoubt to the Popular Front 'love-in' -- in direct
'contradiction', of course, to what had gone before:
"Others argue that, since the
establishment of the united proletarian front meets in a number of countries
with the resistance of the reactionary part of Social-Democracy, it is better to
start at once with building up the People's Front, and then develop the united
working class front on that basis.
"Evidently both groups fail
to understand that the united front and the anti-Fascist People's Front are
connected by the living dialectics of struggle; that they are interwoven, the
one passing into the other in the process of the practical struggle against
fascism, and that there is certainly no Chinese wall to keep them apart." [Georgi
Dimitroff, General Secretary of the Communist International, 1935. Bold
emphasis added.]
So, here we see yet more dialectics employed to excuse a compromise
with those who were formerly (i.e., only a few months earlier!) depicted as 'social fascists'.
Here is
Ernst
Thälmann (leader of the
KPD in the early 1930s), writing what turned out to be an inadvertent suicide
note:
"In his pamphlet on the question, How will National
Socialism be Defeated?, Trotsky gives always but one reply: 'The German
Communist Party must make a bloc with the social democracy...' In framing this
bloc, Trotsky sees the only way for completely saving the German working class
against fascism.
"Either the Communist Party will make a bloc with the
social democracy or the German working class is lost for 10-20 years. This is
the theory of a completely ruined fascist and counter revolutionary. This theory
is the worst theory, the most dangerous theory and the most criminal that
Trotsky has constructed in the last years of his counter revolutionary
propaganda." [Quoted from
here. Italic emphasis in the original.]
A few months later, Thälmann was arrested by the Nazis
and shot in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944. Negation of the
negator?
46a0. Some might
regard this accusation as yet another gross exaggeration, but without the use of
dialectics it would have been considerably harder to sell these
suicidal about-turns to communist cadres world-wide. In that case, this theory
must take its fair share of the blame.
46a.
On this, see Chan
(2003), Knight (2005), and Tian (2005). [It is worth noting that these authors
Anglicise Ai's name to "Ai Siqi".]
Here is the CCP (from 1956), with yet more
dialectically-motivated bickering:
"Such naive ideas seem to suggest that
contradictions no longer exist in a socialist society. To deny the existence of
contradictions is to deny dialectics. The contradictions in various societies
differ in character as do the forms of their solution, but society at all times
develops through continual contradictions. Socialist society also develops
through contradictions between the productive forces and the relations of
production. In a socialist or communist society, technical innovations and
improvement in the social system inevitably continue to take place; otherwise
the development of society would come to a standstill and society could no
longer advance. Humanity is still in its youth. The road it has yet to traverse
will be no one knows how many times longer than the road it has already
travelled. Contradictions, as between progress and conservatism, between the
advanced and the backward, between the positive and the negative, will
constantly occur under varying conditions and different circumstances. Things
will keep on like this: one contradiction will lead to another; and when old
contradictions are solved new ones will arise. It is obviously incorrect to
maintain, as some people do, that the contradiction between idealism and
materialism can be eliminated in a socialist or communist society. As long as
contradictions exist between the subjective and the objective, between the
advanced and the backward, and between the productive forces and the relations
of production, the contradiction between materialism and idealism will continue
in a socialist or communist society, and will manifest itself in various forms.
Since man lives in society, he reflects, in different circumstances and to
varying degrees, the contradictions existing in each form of society. Therefore,
not everybody will be perfect, even when a communist society is established. By
then there will still be contradictions among people, and there will still be
good people and bad, people whose thinking is relatively correct and others
whose thinking is relatively incorrect. Hence there will still be struggle
between people, though its nature and form will be different from those in class
societies. Viewed in this light, the existence of contradictions between the
individual and the collective in a socialist society is nothing strange. And if
any leader of the Party or state isolates himself from collective leadership,
from the masses of the people and from real life, he will inevitably fall into
rigid ways of thinking and consequently make grave mistakes. What we must guard
against is that some people, because the Party and the state have achieved many
successes in work and won the great trust of the masses, may take advantage of
this trust to abuse their authority and so commit some mistakes.
"The Chinese Communist Party congratulates the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union on its great achievements in this historic
struggle against the cult of the individual (sic!). The experience of the Chinese
revolution, too, testifies that it is only by relying on the wisdom of the
masses of the people, on democratic centralism and on the system of combining
collective leadership with individual responsibility that our Party can score
great victories and do great things in times of revolution and in times of
national construction. The Chinese Communist Party, in its revolutionary ranks,
has incessantly fought against elevation of oneself and against individualist
heroism, both of which mean isolation from the masses (sic!). Undoubtedly, such things
will exist for a long time to come. Even when overcome, they re-emerge. They are
found sometimes in one person, sometimes in another. When attention is paid to
the role of the individual, the role of the masses and the collective is often
ignored. That is why some people easily fall into the mistake of self-conceit or
blind faith in themselves or blind worship of others. We must therefore give
unremitting attention to opposing elevation of oneself, individualist heroism
and the cult of the individual." [The
Historical Experience of the Dictatorship of the Proletariat.
Bold emphases added.]
"In his way of thinking, Stalin departed from
dialectical materialismand fell into metaphysics and subjectivism on certain
questions and consequently he was sometimes divorced from reality and from the
masses. In struggles inside as well as outside the Party, on certain occasions
and on certain questions he confused two types of contradictions which are
different in nature, contradictions between ourselves and the enemy and
contradictions among the people, and also confused the different methods needed
in handling them. In the work led by Stalin of suppressing the
counter-revolution, many counter-revolutionaries deserving punishment were duly
punished, but at the same time there were innocent people who were wrongly
convicted; and in 1937 and 1938 there occurred the error of enlarging the scope
of the suppression of counter-revolutionaries. In the matter of Party and
government organization, he did not fully apply proletarian democratic
centralism and, to some extent, violated it. In handling relations with
fraternal Parties and countries, he made some mistakes. He also gave some bad
counsel in the international communist movement. These mistakes caused some
losses to the Soviet Union and the international communist movement." [On
The Question of Stalin. Bold emphases added.]
Once again, we can see how dialectics was used as the only
legitimate and decisive weapon of criticism in order to rationalise
political decisions taken for other reasons -- simply because of a commitment to the existence of 'contradictions'.
There are 66 pages of such material in
the following rather odd article (which is mostly devoted to the obscure idea
that there is an "identity" between "thinking" and "Being" --
an
idea invented by ancient mystics
-- here bizarrely linked to Mao's 'Great Leap Backwards'):
"Between 1949 and 1964, three
major struggles of principle took place on China's philosophical front, centring
around the question of China's economic base and superstructure, the question of
whether there is identity between thinking and being, and the question of one
divides into twoor 'combine two into one.' These struggles were provoked
one after another by Yang Hsien-chen, agent of the renegade, hidden traitor and
scab Liu Shao-chi in philosophical circles, at crucial junctures in the struggle
between the two classes (the proletariat and the bourgeoisie), the two roads
(socialism and capitalism) and the two lines (Chairman Mao Tse-tung's proletarian
revolutionary line and Liu Shao-chi's counter-revolutionary revisionist line).
They were fierce struggles between dialectical materialism and historical
materialism on the one hand and idealism and metaphysics on the other, and were
a reflection on the philosophical front of the acute class struggle at home and
abroad....
"Yang Hsien-chen arbitrarily declared: 'Identity
between thinking and being is an idealist proposition.'He raved that 'identity
between thinking and being' and 'dialectical identity' did not mean the same
thing, that they belonged to 'two different categories.'Viciously distorting
Marxism-Leninism, he tried to set the identity between thinking and being
against the materialist theory of reflection, alleging that, with regard to the
question of the relationship between thinking and being, 'materialism uses the
theory of reflection to solve it, while idealism solves it by means of
identity.'
"Materialist dialectics teaches us that the law
of the unity of opposites is universal. The identity of opposites, that is,
their mutual dependence for existence and their transformation into each other,
is undoubtedly applicable to the relationship between thinking and being.
By
denying the identity between thinking and being, Yang Hsien-chen was denying
that the two opposite aspects of the contradiction, thinking and being, depended
on each other for their existence and could transform themselves into each other
in given conditions. If Yang Hsien-chen's assertion were true, the law of the
unity of opposites as taught by dialectics would not be universal.
"Yang Hsien-chen metaphysically negated the
interconnection between thinking and being, regarding them as absolute
opposites. Thus he sank into dualism and, from there, into subjective idealism.
He denied the dynamic role of revolutionary theory and opposed the revolutionary
mass movement. He exaggerated the non-essential and secondary aspects of the
revolutionary mass movement to the point of absurdity. He concentrated his
attack on one point to the complete disregard of the rest, closing his eyes
completely to the essence and the main aspects of the revolutionary mass
movement. He even had no scruples to palm off his counter-revolutionary
subjective perceptions as the objective reality. He did all this in a vain
attempt to overthrow the dictatorship of the proletariat and restore capitalism.
"By denying the dialectical
identity between thinking and being, Yang Hsien-chen was, in the final analysis,
opposed to arming the masses with Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tsetung Thought and using
it to actively transform the world, that is to say, he was trying to hoodwink
the masses with counter-revolutionary revisionist ideas and attempting to
transform the world with the reactionary world outlook of the bourgeoisie. It
was precisely this reactionary theory of Yang Hsien-chen's
that provided the
'theoretical basis' for Liu Shao-chi's slavish
comprador
philosophy and his
doctrine of trailing behind at a snail's pace.
"Backed by Liu Shao-chi, Yang
Hsien-chen started preaching this reactionary theory in 1955. In 1957, he went
so far as to flagrantly demand that those opposing his trash and consistently
advocating the identity between thinking and being be labelled 'Rightists.' In
1958, he knocked together his sinister article 'A Brief Discussion of Two
Categories of "Identity,"' branding as 'subjective idealism' the scientific
thesis that there is identity between thinking and being; then he ordered his
men to write articles to propagate his reactionary theory. Chairman Mao sharply
pointed out the reactionary essence of Yang Hsien-chen's fallacy in October the
same year, but the latter resisted for all he was worth. Also, when giving
lectures in November 1958, Yang Hsien-chen vilified the theory of the identity
between thinking and being as 'sheer nonsense and out-and-out reactionary
theory.' And between 1959 and 1964, in close co-ordination with Liu Shao-chi's
counter-revolutionary activities for capitalist restoration, he repeatedly waged
counter-attacks against Mao Tsetung Thought on this particular question. But all
these schemes fell apart one after another under the crushing blows from the
proletariat.... (sic!)
"Chairman Mao pointed out:
Chairman Mao's brilliant thesis that one divides into two is a
penetrating and concise generalization of the law of the unity of opposites;
it
is a great development of materialist dialectics.
"Acknowledging that one
divides into two means acknowledging the existence, in socialist society, of
classes, class contradictions and class struggle, the struggle between the
socialist road and the capitalist road, the danger of capitalist restoration,
and the threat of aggression and subversion by imperialism and
social-imperialism. To resolve these contradictions, it is essential to continue
the revolution under the dictatorship of the proletariat....
"Thethree major struggles in
the field of philosophy all ended with resounding victories for Chairman Mao's
philosophical thinking. But class struggle has not ended. The struggle between
materialism and idealism and between dialectics and metaphysics will always go
on. We must carry on deep-going revolutionary mass criticism of the idealism and
metaphysics spread by Liu Shao-chi and other political swindlers, and eradicate
whatever remains of their poisonous influence....
"In 1958, Chairman Mao
formulated the general line of going all out, aiming high and achieving
greater, faster, better and more economical results in building socialism.
He issued the call to do away with all fetishes and superstitions, emancipate
the mind and carry forward the communist style of daring to think, speak and
act. Again and again he stressed that we must persevere in putting politics in
command and give full play to the mass movement in all our work. The people's
revolutionary enthusiasm and creativeness were enormously mobilized by Chairman
Mao's revolutionary theory and revolutionary line. And the great leap forward
emerged all over the nation and people's communes were set up throughout the
rural areas. The great victory of Mao Tsetung Thought aroused mad opposition by
the class enemies at home and abroad. Answering their needs, Yang Hsien-chen
racked his brains to systematize his 'there is no identity between thinking and
being' rubbish and came up with his reactionary article 'A Brief Discussion of
Two Categories of 'Identity.'" In it he opposed the Marxist theory of knowledge
and attempted to deny fundamentally the general line, the great leap forward and
the people's commune." [Three
Major Struggles On China's Philosophical Front. Bold emphases and links added.]
"A new and
heated polemic has developed on the philosophical front in China; it concerns
the concepts of 'one divides into two' and 'two combines into one.' This debate
is a struggle between those who are for and those who are against materialist
dialectics, a struggle between two world outlooks -- the proletarian world
outlook and the bourgeois world outlook. Those who maintain that 'one divides
into two' is the fundamental law of things stand on the side of materialist
dialectics; those who maintain that the fundamental law of things is that 'two
combine into one' stand in direct opposition to materialist dialectics. The two
sides draw a clear line of demarcation between themselves and their arguments
are directly opposed to each other. This polemic is an ideological reflection of
an acute and complex class struggle now being waged both internationally and in
China.
"Counting
from May 29, the date of publication in the newspaper Guangming Ribao
of the article '"One Divides Into Two" and "Two Combine Into One,"' by Comrades
Ai Heng-wu and Lin Ching-shan, this debate has already been going on for three
months. In order to get a better understanding of the present state of this
polemic and in order to promote it, the Hongqi [Red Flag] Editorial
Department organized a forum on August 24-25 attended by cadres and students
from the Higher Party School. Our correspondent subsequently interviewed a
number of the comrades concerned....
"Recalling
events in the last few years, they all noted that, in line with the situation in
the class struggle at home and internationally, the Party had strengthened its
propaganda on the dialectical materialist concept that 'one divides into two.'
Our Party has pointed out that everything tends to divide itself into two. And
theories are no exception; they also tend to divide. Wherever there is a
revolutionary, scientific theory, its antithesis, a counter-revolutionary,
anti-scientific theory, is bound to arise in the course of its development. As
modern society is divided into classes and as the difference between progressive
and backward groups will continue far into the future, the emergence of such
antitheses is inevitable.
"The Party
has further pointed out: The history of the international communist movement
demonstrates that like everything else, the international working-class movement
tends to divide itself into two. The class struggle between the proletariat and
the bourgeoisie is inevitably reflected in the communist ranks. It is inevitable
that opportunism of one kind or another should arise in the course of
development of the communist movement, that opportunists should engage in
splitting activities against Marxism-Leninism and that Marxist-Leninists should
wage struggles against opportunism and splittism. It is precisely through such
struggles of opposites that Marxism-Leninism and the international working-class
movement have developed.
"The Party
has criticized the so-called 'new concept' advanced by modern revisionism with
regard to the current international situation, pointing out that this concept
implies that in the present-day world antagonistic social contradictions of all
kinds are waning, and that contradictory social forces are tending to unite
themselves into a single whole. For instance, they hold that the conflicting
forces represented by the socialist system and the capitalist system, by the
socialist camp and the imperialist camp, by one imperialist country and another,
by the imperialist countries and oppressed nations, by the bourgeoisie on the
one hand and the proletariat and other labouring people on the other in the
capitalist countries, by the different monopoly groups in the imperialist
countries, as well as the contradictions within socialist countries -- that all
these are uniting or on the way to uniting into a single whole.
"The
revolutionary dialectical method summed up in the concept that 'one divides into
two' has been grasped more and more fully by our comrades and the masses to
become a powerful ideological instrument for achieving a correct understanding
of the present situation in the class struggle both domestic and international.
It helps people to recognize that the contradiction and struggle between
imperialism and the revolutionary people of the world are irreconcilable, and
that the contradiction and struggle between Marxism-Leninism and modern
revisionism are irreconcilable. It enhances people's courage in opposing
imperialism, the reactionaries in various countries, and in fighting modern
revisionism. It increases people's confidence in victory. But, while our Party
is strengthening its propaganda on the revolutionary dialectics of 'one divides
into two,' Comrade Yang Hsien-chen talks a lot about the concept of 'two combine
into one,' thus setting up another platform opposite to that of the Party.
"Comrade
Yang Hsien-chen's idea of reconciling contradictions and negating struggles was
formed a long time ago. In November 1961 when lecturing in the Higher Party
School, he said: 'The unity of opposites, the unity of contradictions means: The
two opposites are inseparably connected.' 'What we want to learn from dialectics
is how to connect two opposite ideas. Since the Party strengthened its
propaganda on the concept of 'one divides into two,' Comrade Yang Hsien-chen has
disseminated his idea of reconciling contradictions with even greater zeal. In
November 1963, he generalized his idea as 'two combine into one,' and made this
public while lecturing in the Higher Party School. In April 1964, in a lecture
to a class of Sinkiang students at the Higher Party School, he further developed
this thesis, making it more 'systematic,' and more 'complete.' Subsequently, he
attempted by every means to propagate this thesis, trying to thrust in his
anti-dialectical viewpoint wherever possible....
"After the
article by Ai Heng-wu and Lin Ching-shan was published in Guangming Ribao,
the leading comrades in the Higher Party School, seeing that the debate involved
a matter of principle and that it was a debate between revolutionary dialectics
and anti-dialectics, asked the Research and Teaching Group in Philosophy to hold
a discussion on it. When Comrade Yang Hsien-chen was told of this by Li Ming, he
was very displeased and angry. On July 17, Comrades Wang Chung and Kuo Pei-heng
wrote an article in Renmin Ribao, exposing and criticizing Yang's
concept that 'two combine into one.'...
"Comrade
Yang Hsien-chen's concept that 'two combine into one' has also evoked a great
deal of controversy among the general public. Some people support it; but, many
criticize and reject it. Up to the end of August, more than 90 articles on the
subject had been published in newspapers and in magazines, both national and
local. Theoretical workers in Party schools, universities and colleges, and
research institutes in various places have held forums on it. At the present
time the central question in the debate is whether or not to recognize the law
of the unity of opposites as the fundamental law of objective things, and
materialist dialectics as the world outlook of the proletariat.
"The
majority of the students and staff workers of the Higher Party School have come
to see clearly from the words and deeds of Yang Hsien-chen and others that it is
not fortuitous that Comrade Yang Hsien-chen should at this time have made public
the concept that 'two combine into one.' He has done this with the aim and plan
of pitting the reactionary bourgeois world outlook against the proletarian world
outlook of materialist dialectics.
"Participants in the forum pointed out that Yang Hsien-chen had all along,
repeatedly and painstakingly, propagated the idea that 'the tendency in
everything is for "two to combine into one."' He had talked with great zeal
about 'the inseparable connection' between antitheses, the 'inseparability' of
things, and asserted that the task of studying the unity of opposites lies
solely in seeking 'common demands,' or 'seeking common ground while reserving
differences.' If things are viewed in the light of his concept that 'two combine
into one,' their internal contradictions disappear and the struggle of opposites
within them disappears; the concept that one side of a contradiction must of
necessity overcome the other side, that the outcome of struggle is the
destruction of the old unity and the emergence of a new unity, and that old
things are replaced by the new -- all this, too, disappears. In this way,
Marxist-Leninist materialist dialectics is completely negated.
"The
concept that 'one divides into two' is the kernel of the revolutionary
philosophy of materialist dialectics, the world outlook of the proletariat.
Using this world outlook to apprehend things, the proletariat recognizes that
contradictions are inherent in everything, that the two sides of a contradiction
are in a state both of unity and of struggle, and that contradiction is the
motive force in the development of things. While the identity of opposites is
relative, their struggle is absolute. Therefore, the task of materialist
dialectics has never been to cover up contradictions, but to disclose them, to
discover the correct method for resolving them and to accelerate their
transformation, in order to bring about the revolutionary transformation of the
world. Using the world outlook of materialist dialectics to analyze class
societies, the proletariat recognizes class contradiction and class struggle; it
recognizes class struggle as the motive force of social development; it firmly
maintains that the proletariat must carry out the class struggle through to the
end and so bring about the transformation of society. But to view relations
between the various classes of society in accordance with the concept that 'two
combine into one' as advocated by Comrade Yang Hsien-chen will inevitably lead
to obscuring the boundaries between classes, and to repudiating the class
struggle, and thus lead to the theory of class conciliation.
"Comrades
Yang Hsien-chen, Ai Heng-wu and Lin Ching-shan gave an intolerably distorted
picture of the basis on which the Party maps out its principles, lines and
policies. They arbitrarily asserted that the Party's general line for socialist
construction, the principles of political life of the Party and the State, the
Party's economic, foreign and cultural policies, etc., were all worked out in
accordance with their concept that 'two combine into one.' Thus, they themselves
have raised a fundamental question of political principle. However, the
defenders of Yang Hsien-chen's concept that 'two combine into one' are unwilling
to admit that a question of political principle is involved. Actuated by
ulterior motives, they have even said that an academic question should not be
turned into a political question.
"Some
comrades maintain that Comrade Yang Hsien-chen described the concept that 'two
combine into one' as a matter of world outlook and the concept that 'one divides
into two' as a matter of methodology, and point out that this runs completely
counter to the materialist theory of the unity of world outlook and methodology.
The fact that Comrade Yang Hsien-chen has time and again stressed that the aim
of studying the dialectical method 'is to acquire the ability to unite into one
two opposite ideas.' This precisely shows the complete unity of his world
outlook and his methodology; both conform to the concept that 'two combine into
one.'
"Comrade
Mao Tse-tung has taught us:
'It is only
the reactionary ruling classes of the past and present, and the metaphysicians
in their service, who regard opposites not as living, conditional, mobile and
transforming themselves into one another, but as dead and rigid, and they
propagate this fallacy everywhere to delude the masses of the people, thus
seeking to perpetuate their rule.' [This was taken from
Mao (1961), p.340 -- RL.]
"Comrade
Yang Hsien-chen's concept that 'two combine into one' treats the connections
between the two sides in a contradiction as precisely 'dead and rigid things.'
Utilizing every opportunity to disseminate this kind of view, he has tried to
mislead many people, thus playing a role which serves the reactionary classes.
In the debate, some people made statements which, though differing slightly,
coincide in the main with Comrade Yang Hsien-chen's concept that 'two combine
into one.' For example, some said that the controversy is merely concerned with
phraseology or usage; and added that anyone can make a slip or two when
lecturing in the classroom. Others, pretending to be fair and to see the
question from all sides, have advanced the idea of using the concept that 'two
combine into one' to supplement the concept that 'one divides into two,' thus
making the former into one aspect of the law of unity of opposites; they assert
that only in this way can we avoid 'one-sidedness.' Others again, pretending to
make a concrete analysis of contradictions, divide contradictions into two
types: Those which have 'unity as their main feature,' and those which have
'struggle as their main feature,' claiming that the concept that 'two combines
into one' should be used in handling contradictions which have 'unity as the
main feature.' Still others describe the concept that 'one divides into two' as
a means of analysis and the concept of 'two combine into one' as a means of
generalization, asserting that each is a component part of the dialectical
method of cognition. All these assertions, however, are nothing but attempts to
defend the thesis that 'two combine into one.'
"Many
comrades pointed out that the Marxist-Leninist concept that 'one divides into
two' has its definite meaning and that the concept that 'two combine into one'
put forward by Yang Hsien-chen, likewise, has its definite meaning. As a
technical term, 'one divides into two' very accurately, vividly and colloquially
expresses the kernel of dialectics, that is, the essence of the law of the unity
of opposites, whereas the concept that 'two combine into one' put forward by
Yang Hsien-chen is systematic metaphysics from beginning to end. These are two
fundamentally opposite world outlooks. How can one possibly mix them together
and not distinguish the one from the other?...
"Philosophy
is a part of social ideology; it has its distinct Party character, that is,
class character. The struggle on the philosophical front invariably reflects
class struggle on the economic and political fronts. In class struggle,
different classes, proceeding from their respective class interests, are bound
to put forward different points of view and make philosophical generalizations
of these viewpoints, which are either revolutionary or reactionary. There is the
revolutionary philosophy of the proletariat, and there is the reactionary
philosophy of the bourgeoisie. Thus, the struggle between the two antagonistic
groups is reflected on the philosophical front. Those individuals within the
ranks of the proletariat who have a bourgeois world outlook or who are
influenced by the bourgeois world outlook, likewise often use bourgeois
philosophy to oppose the revolutionary philosophy of the proletariat.
"At the
present time, internationally, the revolutionary struggle waged by the people of
various countries is developing vigorously against imperialism, headed by the
United States, and its lackeys. Inside the international communist movement, a
fierce struggle is being waged between Marxism-Leninism and modern revisionism.
In our country, the class struggle between the proletariat on the one hand and
the bourgeoisie and the remnant feudal forces on the other, as well as the
struggle between the socialist and capitalist roads have advanced to a new,
deep-going stage. Confronted with this situation in the class struggle
internationally and at home the Central Committee of the Party and Comrade Mao
Tse-tung place great emphasis on using the concept that 'one divides into two'
and the Marxist-Leninist theory of the class struggle to combat modern
revisionism and to arm our people and have proposed to crush the offensive
launched by the bourgeoisie and the remnant feudal forces by carrying out a
widespread movement for socialist education in the cities and the countryside.
Comrade Yang Hsien-chen's propagation of the concept that 'two combine into one'
at such a time is precisely and deliberately designed to meet the needs of
modern revisionism and aid the modern revisionists in their propaganda for class
peace and class collaboration, and also for the theory of reconciling
contradictions. It is at this same time deliberately designed to meet the needs
of the bourgeoisie and the remnant feudal forces at home by providing them with
so-called theoretical weapons for resisting the movement for socialist
education. It has already become very clear that this new polemic, that concerns
the question of who will win over whom on the philosophical front, is a serious
class struggle in the realm of ideology.
"That such
a debate should have arisen on our philosophical front is not difficult to
understand. History has shown that whenever a sharp class struggle develops in
the political and economic fields, there is bound to be acute class struggle in
the ideological field as well. Social life in the Soviet Union was in a period
of drastic change towards the end of the 1920s. The unfolding of the movements
for agricultural collectivization and socialist industrialization and the
desperate resistance put up by the kulaks and the bourgeois forces has made the
class struggle in Soviet society very acute. At that time the anti-Party group
of Trotsky and Bukharin emerged within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
The deeper the socialist revolution went on the economic and political fronts,
the greater the shock it caused ideologically to various classes and strata. It
was at this crucial moment that Deborin's anti-dialectical philosophical views
became the ideological weapon of the anti-Party group, while the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union headed by Stalin sharply
criticized and rejected the philosophical position of the Deborin school. That
struggle in the realm of ideology was precisely a reflection of the acute class
struggle in Soviet society.
"At the
present time, the debate which has started on the philosophical front in our
country is continuing. In terms of numbers of participants or of its widespread
influence and great significance, a debate such as this has rarely been seen in
our academic circles for many years now. It seems that it is still far from
being concluded. Step by step, it is deepening, truth always develops in
struggle. Through this debate, the dialectical way of thinking will certainly
triumph over the anti-dialectical and the political and theoretical level of our
people will be greatly raised." [Quoted from
here. Formatting and quotations marks modified to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Spelling adjusted to agree with UK English.
Several paragraphs merged to save space. Minor typo corrected.]
It is hard to believe that intelligent human
beings can produce such low-grade gobbledygook, but material like this poured out of China for decades.
Small wonder then that the Chinese working population ignored it (even if they
knew anything about it).
In that case,
DM certainly was an "abomination" to this 'ruling-class' -- i.e.,
Chinese workers!
But, please,
don't even attempt to
tell a Maoist this or you risk yet more abuse -- "You running-dog, imperialist lackey, Capitalist-Roader..."
[Yes, I know, even dialectical abuse
remains the same year in, year out! So much for 'universal change'.]
Update November 2012:
Much more of
this sort of material has appeared in English on the Internet since the above was
written, for example,
here.
The articles posted at that site are as good an example of scholastic
hair-splitting as one could wish to find.
47.
Mao also tried to justify class-collaboration
with his invention of "principal" and "secondary" contradictions:
"1. As the contradiction between China and Japan
has become the principal one and China's internal contradictions have dropped
into a secondary and subordinate place, changes have occurred in China's
international relations and internal class relations, giving rise to a new stage
of development in the current situation.
"2. China has long been in the grip of two acute
and basic contradictions, the contradiction between China and imperialism and
the contradiction between feudalism and the masses of the people. In 1927 the
bourgeoisie, represented by the Kuomintang, betrayed the revolution and sold
China's national interests to imperialism, thus creating a situation in which
the state power of the workers and peasants stood in sharp antagonism to that of
the Kuomintang, and, of necessity, the task of the national and democratic
revolution devolved upon the Chinese Communist Party alone.
"3. Since the Incident of September 18, 1931 and
especially since the Northern China Incident of 1935, the following changes have
taken place in these contradictions:
"(1) The contradiction between China and
imperialism in general has given way to the particularly salient and sharp
contradiction between China and Japanese imperialism. Japanese imperialism is
carrying out a policy of total conquest of China. Consequently, the
contradictions between China and certain other imperialist powers have been
relegated to a secondary position, while the rift between these powers and Japan
has been widened. Consequently also, the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese
people are faced with the task of linking China's anti-Japanese national united
front with the world peace front. This means that China should not only unite
with the Soviet Union, which has been the consistently good friend of the
Chinese people, but as far as possible should work for joint opposition to
Japanese imperialism with those imperialist countries which, at the present
time, are willing to maintain peace and are against new wars of aggression. The
aim of our united front must be resistance to Japan, and not simultaneous
opposition to all the imperialist powers.
"(2) The contradiction between China and Japan
has changed internal class relations within China and has confronted the
bourgeoisie and even the warlords with the question of survival, so that they
and their political parties have been undergoing a gradual change in their
political attitude. This has placed the task of establishing an anti-Japanese
national united front before the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people.
Our united front should include the bourgeoisie and all who agree to the defence
of the motherland, it should represent national solidarity against the foreign
foe. This task not only must, but can, be fulfilled.
"(3) The contradiction between China and Japan
has changed matters for the masses throughout the country (the proletariat, the
peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie) and for the Communist Party, and it
has changed the Party's policy. More and more people have risen to fight for
national salvation. The policy proclaimed by the Communist Party after the
September 18th Incident was to conclude agreements with those sections of the
Kuomintang which were willing to co-operate with us for resistance, subject to
three conditions (stop attacking the revolutionary base areas, guarantee the
freedoms and rights of the people, arm the people), and it has developed into a
policy of establishing an anti-Japanese united front of the whole nation. This
is the reason for the following steps taken by our Party: in 1935, the August
declaration and the December resolution; in 1936, the abandonment of the
'anti-Chiang Kai-shek' slogan in May, the letter to the Kuomintang in August,
the resolution on the democratic republic in September, and the insistence on a
peaceful settlement of the Sian Incident in December; and in 1937, the February
telegram to the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of the
Kuomintang....
"(5) In terms of relative political importance
the development of the national contradiction between China and Japan has
demoted the domestic contradictions between classes and between political
groupings to a secondary and subordinate place. But they still exist and have by
no means diminished or disappeared. The same is true of the contradictions
between China and the imperialist powers other than Japan. Therefore, the
Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese people are faced with the following task
-- to make the appropriate adjustments with regard to those internal and
external contradictions which can and must be adjusted at present so as to fit
in with the general task of unity against Japan. This is the reason for the
Chinese Communist Party's policies of peace and unity, democracy, bettering the
life of the people and negotiations with foreign countries that are opposed to
Japan....
"11. For the sake of internal peace, democracy
and armed resistance and for the sake of establishing the anti-Japanese national
united front, the Chinese Communist Party has made the following four pledges in
its telegram to the Third Plenary Session of the Central Executive Committee of
the Kuomintang:
"(1) the Communist-led government in the
Shensi-Kansu-Ningsia revolutionary base area will be renamed the Government of
the Special Region of the Republic of China and the Red Army will be
redesignated as part of the National Revolutionary Army, and they will come
under the direction of the Central Government in Nanking and its Military
Council respectively;
"(2) a thoroughly democratic system will be
applied in the areas under the Government of the Special Region;
"(3) the policy of overthrowing the Kuomintang by
armed force will be discontinued; and
"(4) the confiscation of the land of the
landlords will be discontinued." [Mao
(1937a), pp.263-69. Bold emphases added. Confusingly, in the printed
version, several of the numbers in brackets have been replaced by letters in
brackets!]
Class collaboration makes eminent good sense if one accepts
DM.
Eric Petersen's criticisms are well aimed, therefore:
"Mao's criterion of truth has the undisguised
purpose of revealing the falsity of the 'Left Opportunists' with whom Mao had
some disagreement in either 1937 or 1950, or both. The context of this
disagreement was the drastic change of CCP policy between the Soviet Period
(a period of CCP-led armed insurrections in 1928-29) and the Yenan Period
(when the Red Army merged with the army of
Chiang
Kai-shek). Opponents of the change are, to Mao, 'dogmatists who will not
change their position....':
'In a revolutionary period the situation changes
very rapidly; if the knowledge of revolutionaries does not change rapidly in
accordance with the changed situation, they will be unable to lead the
revolution to victory.' [Mao
(1937b), p.306.]
"...This essay gives no real explanation of
the relation between practice and knowledge. It boils down to this: Japan has
invaded; let's form a United National Front with the Kuomintang against
Japan;...but don't listen to the dogmatists who go on about the
Kuomintang being murderers and butchers. The essay 'On Contradiction' is also directed
against the dogmatists....
"[There] the dialectic is a
battle between contradictions, one of which wins. The contradictions, instead of
comprising each other in a continual state of flux and development, are in Mao's
view rigidly defined and separated. In this viewpoint the result of the struggle
of opposites is not an eventual transcending of the dialectic and its
replacement by a new one -- as is the viewpoint of Lenin -- but simply the
victory of one side....
"What is the purpose of this
analysis?
'The question is one of
different kinds of contradiction.' [Mao.]
"What different kinds? These include, for
example, Universality of Contradiction and the Particularity of Contradiction,
and the distinction between Primary contradiction and Secondary contradiction. Particularity means more than the concrete
material content of any particular contradiction. It means that dialectics, as a
law of movement and development has no consistent meaning at all. It means in
practice that a particular contradiction can be redefined by giving it a
different political label....
"As Mao further describes these 'different kinds'
of contradictions, we see that he has turbulent recent history to explain:
'...[W]e must not only observe them in their
interconnections or their totality, we must also examine the two aspects of each
contradiction.
For instance, consider the Kuomintang and the
Communist Party. Take one aspect, the Kuomintang. In the period of the first
united front, the Kuomintang carried out
Sun Yat-sen's Three Great Policies of
alliance with Russia, co-operation with the Communist Party, and assistance to
the peasants and workers; hence it was revolutionary and vigorous, it was an
alliance of various classes for the democratic revolution. After 1927, however,
the Kuomintang changed into its opposite and became a reactionary bloc of the
landlords and big bourgeoisie. After the Sian Incident in December 1936, it
began another change in the direction of ending the civil war and co-operating
with the Communist Party for joint opposition to Japanese imperialism.' [Mao.]
"Thus 'each aspect' can freely change and even
reverse its nature if Mao requires it. The class content of the Kuomintang is in
Mao's view determined by its policy -- particularly by its attitude to the CCP.
The Kuomintang, in historical fact, never ceased to be an alliance of landlords
and prospective industrialists, resentful of any move by the Chinese peasants
and workers that could threaten their methods of exploitation. In Mao's
philosophy, however, the criterion is not what the Kuomintang is, but what it
says." [Petersen (1994), pp.119-21. Quotation marks altered to conform with
the conventions adopted at this site. Links added. Paragraphs merged to save
space.]
Once more, we can see how political decisions, taken for other reasons
(in this case, those involving class collaboration and the consequences this
brought in its train), were 'justified' by dialectics.
Nevertheless, Petersen goes on to argue that had this change
of direction been caused by actual events, as opposed to being the cause of them, it might be possible to
call this a
materialist sort of explanation. Yet, for Mao:
"Kuomintang policy is the determinant
of its contradictions:
'For instance, in the period
of its first cooperation with the Communist Party, the Kuomintang stood in
contradiction to foreign imperialism and was therefore anti-imperialist; on the
other hand, it stood in contradiction to the great masses of the people within
the country -- although in words it promised many benefits to the working people,
in fact it gave them little or nothing. In the period when it carried on the
anti-Communist war, the Kuomintang collaborated with imperialism and feudalism
against the great masses of the people and wiped out all the gains they had won
in the revolution, and thereby intensified its contradictions with them.' [Mao.]
"When the other aspect of the
contradiction, the CCP, is discussed, the interpretation is entirely idealistic:
'...[I]t [the CCP]
courageously led the revolution of 1924-27 but revealed its immaturity
in its understanding of the character, the tasks and the methods of the
revolution, and consequently it became possible for Chen Tu-hsiuism,
which appeared during the latter part of this revolution, to assert itself and
bring about the defeat of the revolution. After 1927, the Communist Party
courageously led the Agrarian Revolutionary War and created the
revolutionary army and revolutionary base areas; however, it committed
adventurist errors which brought about very great losses both to the army
and to the base areas. Since 1935 the Party has corrected these errors.'
[Mao;
Petersen's added emphases.]
"Mao's criterion for
correctness or error is very appropriate to his own version of events. The CCP's
military insurrections after 1927 were dictated by the short-term desire of the
Stalin-Bukharin leadership of the Russian Communist Party to cover up for the
disaster of the
CCP-Kuomintang alliance, [which] were beyond the objective possibilities in
China at that time, and were doomed from the start.... Those responsible for the
disastrous policies of 1924-1927 are excused. Then the loss of military base
areas is dumped upon 'adventurists' instead of upon Chiang's extermination
campaigns (the Kuomintang has become 'vigorous'). Moreover, the 'adventurist
errors' have been corrected since 1935 when Mao became leader.
"Mao's description of 'the
two aspects of a contradiction' allows any subjectivist interpretation of the
contradiction to be made because neither aspect is determined by its objective
material base. This treatment of contradiction is not a mere vulgarisation of
Engels. It is an attempt to justify with philosophical authority the actions of
the CCP, and to blame past disasters upon scapegoats (including Chen-Tu-Hsiu who
opposed the disastrous strategy of alliance with the Kuomintang) whose
ideas...allegedly caused the defeat of the Red Army.
"The division of
contradictions into Principal, 'whose existence and development determine or
influence other contradictions' and Secondary is...unique to Mao. [However, as
we have seen, STDs
were quick to appropriate this distinction -- RL.] What
criterion...separates contradictions into 'Principal' and 'Secondary'? This is
unexplained. However, the practical effect of the distinction is made clear by
the example given:
'When imperialism launches a
war of aggression against such a country, all its various classes, except for
some traitors, can temporarily unite in a national war against imperialism. At
such a time, the contradiction between imperialism and the country concerned
becomes the principal contradiction, while all the contradictions among the
various classes within the country (including what was the principal
contradiction, between the feudal system and the great masses of the people) are
temporarily relegated to a secondary and subordinate position.' [Mao;
I have corrected Petersen's transcription errors.]
"Mao having said that
contradiction is everywhere, has introduced a distinction that allows him to
ignore most of those contradictions (e.g., those between classes); only the
Principal (the war against Japan) matters. It is however a historical
fact that some members of some classes still want to fight the Secondary class
war. Chiang Kai-shek for example fought Chinese trade unionists with greater
ferocity than he fought Japanese armies. Why does he ignore the Principal
contradiction? The causes are subjective not material:
'Chang Kai-shek's betrayal in
1927 is an example of splitting the revolutionary front.' [Mao.]
"This raises more questions
that it answers. Who or what distinguishes between Principal and Secondary? How
and why does a Principal suddenly revert to a Secondary? Why do some betray? Mao
can't answer this at all, though a historical materialist approach would
suggest the explanation that Chiang's class consciousness always told him that
'the main enemy was at home'. Why call anyone a traitor for placing the
interests of their class above the alleged interests of a nation that contains
antagonistic classes?
"...After discussing various
'types' of contradiction 'On Contradiction' concludes that they can and
should be 'resolved'. This idea was a recent invention at the time [this] essay
was written. It came into general use in the official Russian philosophy of the
late 1920s. (Such an idea was unknown in the dialectics of Hegel and Marx. --
However, as we
have seen, Marx does speak about 'contradictions' being 'solved',
as does Engels
-- RL)."
[Petersen (1994), pp.122-24. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphasis and links added. Paragraphs
merged to save space.]
As Petersen goes on to point out, the only
contradictions that appear to matter here are those of concern to the CCP, and
he adds
that no materialist reason was given by Mao why some contradictions are
"antagonistic" while others
aren't (pp.125-31).
However, this 'allowed' the CCP (after the
1949 revolution in China, just as it
'allowed' the CPSU after 1924/25 in the USSR) to ignore
-- or, rather, pretend to ignore -- the class tensions that emerged between their status as
a new ruling-class and the working class itself, simply carrying on as before,
oppressing and exploiting the proletariat.
It
also 'allowed' those who resisted the CCP and its use of this theory to be branded as "enemies" (or as
"right-", or "left-", "deviationists"), their opposition labelled
"antagonistic". In this way, this
approach helped
stifle and then suffocate any
form of socialist democracy.
"Mao's definition of
antagonistic class contradictions in contemporary China, Hungary or Russian is
tautological: they are antagonistic because they can't be ignored and need
handling or 'vigilance.'" [Ibid., p.127.]
[Readers are encouraged the consult the rest
of this chapter in Petersen's book for a longer analysis of the political background which made the
adoption of dialectical concepts so useful to the CCP. It
should be added, however, that Petersen doesn't view dialectics in the way I do -- his
approach and my
own appear to be about 75% identical. For example, Petersen accepts there is a
dialectic at work in human history, but not in nature.]
Nevertheless, this sort of contradictory,
MIST-approach to theory
and practice makes perfectly good sense to those who believe that everything in
reality is contradictory.
[The best account of Mao's China is
Harris
(1978) -- the most relevant section to the aims of this Essay (Part IV) can
be found here. I
must however distance myself from Harris's philosophical remarks. Also worth consulting: Hore (1987, 1991).]
But, how can contradictions themselves change?
How do 'principal contradictions' change into 'secondary contradictions'? If they
are subject to change, they too must be
UOs
themselves,
or part of a UO.
[UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Here
is Mao:
"Engels said,
'Motion itself is a contradiction.' Lenin defined the law of the unity of
opposites as 'the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory, mutually
exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of
nature (including mind and society)'. Are these ideas correct? Yes, they
are. The interdependence of the contradictory aspects present in all things
and the struggle between these aspects determine the life of all things and push
their development forward. There is nothing that does not contain contradiction;
without contradiction nothing would exist....
"The law of contradiction in things, that is, the law
of the unity of opposites, is the fundamental law of nature and of society and
therefore also the fundamental law of thought. It stands opposed to the
metaphysical world outlook. It represents a great revolution in the history of
human knowledge. According to dialectical materialism, contradiction is
present in all processes of objectively existing things and of subjective
thought and permeates all these processes from beginning to end; this is the
universality and absoluteness of contradiction. Each contradiction and each
of its aspects have their respective characteristics; this is the particularity
and relativity of contradiction. In given conditions, opposites possess
identity, and consequently can coexist in a single entity and can transform
themselves into each other; this again is the particularity and relativity
of contradiction. But the struggle of opposites is ceaseless, it goes on both
when the opposites are coexisting and when they are transforming themselves into
each other, and becomes especially conspicuous when they are transforming
themselves into one another; this again is the universality and absoluteness of
contradiction". [Mao
(1961), pp.316-46.
Bold emphases alone added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
[Dozens of quotations
have been posted
here
that show that Mao and all of the other DM-classicists believed that (i) Change is the result of
the struggle between UOs, and that (ii) All objects and processes
inevitably turn into their
opposites. As
Essay Seven Part Three
demonstrates, this would in fact make change impossible. The argument below is just a
particular application of the general points made in that Essay.]
So,
if Moa and the other DM-classics are correct, everything in the universe (a)
changes because of a struggle between 'opposites', and (b) changes into that
opposite. Hence, everything changes into that with which it struggles.
There are no exceptions.
Let us
assume that for some reason, under certain
circumstances, the 'principal' contradiction, P1,
changes into 'secondary' contradiction, S1. But, what brings this
development about?
Given the DM-theory of
change, P1
must itself be composed of at least two further opposites, or opposite
'tendencies', P* and P**
(otherwise, according to the aforementioned classicists, it couldn't change) --
one of whichP1
must turn into (since, as we
have
seen,
this theory tells us that everything changes into its opposite).
Either that, or
P* must change into P**, and vice versa. But, that would
leave P1
itself unchanged! That is because P1
was already composed of P* and P** before it 'changed' and
it is still composed of these two after that 'change'!
[Recall,
P* must change into P**, and vice versa, meaning there is
in fact no change.On this view, P1
is still composed of
P* and P**!]
Putting this minor problem to one side for now, there are thus
three possibilities if
P1
is to change: it must (i) turn into P**, (ii) turn into
P*,or (iii) P*
must change into P** (and vice versa).
But, why does P1
change into P**, or P* turn into P**?
Well,if the
dialectical classics are to be believed, this
must be because there is a 'contradiction' (a) between P1
and P*/P**, or, perhaps, (b) between P* and
P**.
If (b) is the case, and
if all things turn into their opposites, P* must change into
P**, too! But, P** already exists,
so P* can't turn into
it!
IfP**didn't already
exist,
P* couldn't
'struggle' with it, and hence couldn't change. As Mao himself argued:
"The fact is that no contradictory aspect can
exist in isolation. Without its opposite aspect, each loses the condition for
its existence. Just think, can any one contradictory aspect of a thing or of a
concept in the human mind exist independently? Without life, there would be no
death; without death, there would be no life. Without 'above', there would be no
'below'.... Without landlords, there would be no tenant-peasants; without
tenant-peasants, there would be no landlords. Without the bourgeoisie, there
would be no proletariat; without the proletariat, there would be no bourgeoisie.
Without imperialist oppression of nations, there would be no colonies or
semi-colonies; without colonies or semicolonies, there would be no imperialist
oppression of nations. It is so with all opposites; in given conditions, on the
one hand they are opposed to each other, and on the other they are
interconnected, interpenetrating, interpermeating and interdependent, and this
character is described as identity. In given conditions, all contradictory
aspects possess the character of non-identity and hence are described as being
in contradiction. But they also possess the character of identity and hence are
interconnected. This is what Lenin means when he says that dialectics studies
'how opposites can be and how they become identical'. How then can they be
identical? Because each is the condition for the other's existence. This is the
first meaning of identity.
"But is it enough to say merely that each of the
contradictory aspects is the condition for the other's existence, that there is
identity between them and that consequently they can coexist in a single entity?
No, it is not. The matter does not end with their dependence on each other for
their existence; what is more important is their transformation into each other.
That is to say, in given conditions, each of the contradictory aspects within a
thing transforms itself into its opposite, changes its position to that of its
opposite. This is the second meaning of the identity of contradiction.
"Why is there identity here, too? You see, by
means of revolutionthe proletariat, at one time the ruled, is
transformed into the ruler, while the bourgeoisie, the erstwhile ruler, is
transformed into the ruled and changes its position to that originally occupied
by its opposite. This has already taken place in the Soviet Union, as it will
take place throughout the world. If there were no interconnection and identity
of opposites in given conditions, how could such a change take place?" [Mao
(1961), pp.338-39). Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform
with the conventions adopted at this site.]
So did Engels:
"And it is just as impossible have one side of a
contradiction without the other, as it is to retain the whole of an apple in
one's hand after half has been eaten." [Engels (1891b), p.496.]
Similarly, if (a) were the
case, then P1
couldn't
turn into P*/P** since they already exist, too.
For either of these to work it seems
there must be twoP**'s -- say P**a
and P**b
--,for both of these (i.e.,
P1
and P*) to turn into, collectively or severally.
So, one or both of P1
and P* must turn into one or other of P**a
or P**b,
while P** remains the same.
And yet, in that case, P** would
be either
changeless, or it must change
into one or other of P**a
or P**b,
too.
But, once more, P**a
and P**b
already exist, so P** can't change into either or both of them!
[It is worth recalling at
this point that dialecticians are equally unclear whether or not 'internal'
opposites are logically-'internal' to, or spatially-internal to objects and
processes. This was discussed in detail in Essay Eight
Part One. The argument
in this section
leaves these issues unresolved; it can however be re-jigged so that it applies to both
options. That won't be attempted here.]
So, either P1
and P*merge into one entity (as they both become P**), or they
turn into one or other of P**aorP**b
-- or, maybe a third P**-sort-of-possibility
(a new opposite, perhaps P**c)
pops into existence as they (both?) change into it!
But, in that case, the changes wrought in
P1
and P* can't be the result of a 'struggle of opposites', since
this new opposite (i.e., P**c)
does not yet exist!
On the other hand, if P**cdoes exist (so that it can 'struggle' with one or both of the
other two, and thereby cause the given change),neither P1
nor P* can change into it since P**c already exists!
Either that, or there must be
something else for one or both to change into. But, even then the same
problems would simply return. [The reader is left to work these out for herself.]
In that case, this 'theory'
seems to imply that things either merge, disappear, or are created ex nihilo --
or, of course, that they don't change!
Anyway, why should anything
change from a P-type-, into an S-type-contradiction, to begin
with? [That is, from a 'principal' into a 'secondary' contradiction?]
Given this theory, that could
only happen if, say, P1already 'contained' (as an 'internal opposite') an S-type contradiction for it to change into.
[Recall this 'theory' holds
that internal opposites cause change, and that things also change into
these opposites! That is, they change into that with which they struggle, and
they struggle with that with which they change into.]
But, where on earth did thatS-type
'internal contradiction' come from?
Given the above reasoning, for that to happen, P** (from earlier) must be an S-type
contradiction, otherwise P1
(or P*) couldn't change into it! But, as we saw, P** already
exists, so nothing can change into it!
So,
the following appear to be
the only three options left available to
MISTs:
(1) Either P1
(or P*) merges with P**, or,
(2) It (or they) disappear into
thin air, or,
(3)
There are at least 3 versions of P**
(i.e., P**a,
P**b
and P**c)
for one or other to change into.
But, these
three (P**a,
P**b
and P**c)
can't exist, since if they did, P* and P1
couldn't change into them. And, if they don't exist, they can't struggle with
one another, or with anything at all, in order to bring about the required change!
Hence,
if this
theory were true, nothing would change!
In that case, not only can
this scenario not work, we still don't know why anything should
alter from the one into the other sort of contradiction, or, indeed, why
anything should/could change into anything else, to begin with.
It
could be argued that a P-type
contradiction and an S-type contradiction change because other things
around them change. [We will see examples of this below.]
But, if that is so, then these contradictions won't
change because of any struggle they are involved in, but as a result of other
struggles going on around them. This makes a mockery of what we read in the
DM-classics and in Mao's writings about change.
But,
let us suppose that some way can be found of avoiding the above impasse, and
that P-type
and S-type contradictions
change because of other struggles going on around them. However, as Essay Seven
Part One has shown, this escape
route leads into yet another impasse. Readers are directed there for more
details.
Now, these difficulties don't
go away if concrete examples are substituted for the schematic letters used
above.
So, for example, if we ask: why did the "principal contradiction" between China and
Japan (referred to by Mao) itself change? On sound dialectical lines, it could only
do so as a
result of its own 'internal contradictions'. In that case, this "principal
contradiction" --, call it C/J --, must have had its own internal
opposites, say, C/J*
and C/J**.
If so,
the rest follows as before: C/J*
can't change into C/J** since it already exists, etc., etc.
[Here, using "C" for China, and "J" for
Japan, and "/" for the 'contradictory' relation between them.]
It could be objected that the above abstract argument misses the
point; in the real world things manifestly change. For instance, to use Mao's
example, peace changes into war; love can change into hate, and so on.
No one doubts this, but DM is
manifestly incapable of explaining why this happens.
Indeed, if DM were true, such things couldn't happen!
So, for peace to change into war, it would have to struggle with it. Has anyone
witnessed this odd event? Can an abstraction like this actually struggle with
another abstraction? And yet, both Mao and Lenin were quite clear:
"The
identity of opposites…is the recognition…of the contradictory, mutually
exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and processes of nature…. The
condition for the knowledge of all processes of the world in their
'self-movement', in their spontaneous development, in their real life, is the
knowledge of them as a unity of opposites. Development is the 'struggle' of
opposites…. [This] alone furnishes the key to the self-movement of everything
existing….
"The unity…of opposites is conditional,
temporary, transitory, relative. The struggle of mutually exclusive opposites
is absolute, just as development and motion are absolute…." [Lenin (1961),
pp.357-58.
Bold emphases added.]
"The
universality or absoluteness of contradiction has a twofold meaning. One is
that contradiction exists in the process of development of all things, and the
other is that in the process of development of each thing a movement of
opposites exists from beginning to end.
"Engels said, 'Motion itself is a contradiction.' Lenin defined the law of the
unity of opposites as 'the recognition (discovery) of the contradictory,
mutually exclusive, opposite tendencies in all phenomena and
processes of nature (including mind and society)'. Are these ideas
correct? Yes, they are. The interdependence of the contradictory aspects
present in all things and the struggle between these aspects determine the life
of all things and push their development forward. There is nothing that does not
contain contradiction; without contradiction nothing would exist....
"The
contradictory aspects in every process exclude each other, struggle with each
other and are in opposition to each other. Without exception, they are contained
in the process of development of all things and in all human thought. A
simple process contains only a single pair of opposites, while a complex process
contains more. And in turn, the pairs of opposites are in contradiction to one
another.
"That is how all things in the objective world
and all human thought are constituted and how they are set in motion....
"War and peace, as everybody knows, transform
themselves into each other. War is transformed into peace; for instance, the
First World War was transformed into the post-war peace, and the civil war in
China has now stopped, giving place to internal peace. Peace is transformed into
war; for instance, the Kuomintang-Communist co-operation was transformed into
war in 1927, and today's situation of world peace may be transformed into a
second world war. Why is this so? Because in class society such contradictory
things as war and peace have an identity in given conditions.
"All contradictory things are interconnected; not
only do they coexist in a single entity in given conditions, but in other given
conditions, they also transform themselves into each other. This is the full
meaning of the identity of opposites. This is what Lenin meant when he discussed
'how they happen to be (how they become) identical -- under what
conditions they are identical, transforming themselves into one another...'.
"Why is it that 'the human mind should take these
opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, transforming
themselves into one another'? Because that is just how things are in objective
reality. The fact is that the unity or identity of opposites in objective things
is not dead or rigid, but is living, conditional, mobile, temporary and
relative; in given conditions, every contradictory aspect transforms itself
into its opposite. Reflected in man's thinking, this becomes the Marxist
world outlook of materialist dialectics. It is only the reactionary ruling
classes of the past and present and the metaphysicians in their service who
regard opposites not as living, conditional, mobile and transforming themselves
into one another, but as dead and rigid, and they propagate this fallacy
everywhere to delude the masses of the people, thus seeking to perpetuate their
rule....
"All processes have a beginning and an end,
all processes transform themselves into their opposites. The constancy of
all processes is relative, but the mutability manifested in the
transformation of one process into another is absolute.
"There are two states of motion in all things,
that of relative rest and that of conspicuous change. Both are caused by the
struggle between the two contradictory elements contained in a thing. When
the thing is in the first state of motion, it is undergoing only quantitative
and not qualitative change and consequently presents the outward appearance of
being at rest. When the thing is in the second state of motion, the quantitative
change of the first state has already reached a culminating point and gives rise
to the dissolution of the thing as an entity and thereupon a qualitative change
ensues, hence the appearance of a conspicuous change. Such unity, solidarity,
combination, harmony, balance, stalemate, deadlock, rest, constancy,
equilibrium, solidity, attraction, etc., as we see in daily life, are all the
appearances of things in the state of quantitative change. On the other hand,
the dissolution of unity, that is, the destruction of this solidarity,
combination, harmony, balance, stalemate, deadlock, rest, constancy,
equilibrium, solidity and attraction, and the change of each into its opposite
are all the appearances of things in the state of qualitative change, the
transformation of one process into another. Things are constantly transforming
themselves from the first into the second state of motion; the struggle of
opposites goes on in both states but the contradiction is resolved through the
second state. That is why we say that the unity of opposites is conditional,
temporary and relative, while the struggle of mutually exclusive opposites is
absolute.
"When we said above that two opposite things can
coexist in a single entity and can transform themselves into each other because
there is identity between them, we were speaking of conditionality, that is to
say, in given conditions two contradictory things can be united and can
transform themselves into each other, but in the absence of these conditions,
they can't constitute a contradiction, can't coexist in the same entity and
can't transform themselves into one another. It is because the identity of
opposites obtains only in given conditions that we have said identity is
conditional and relative. We may add that the struggle between opposites
permeates a process from beginning to end and makes one process transform itself
into another, that it is ubiquitous, and that struggle is therefore
unconditional and absolute.
"The combination of conditional, relative
identity and unconditional, absolute struggle constitutes the movement of
opposites in all things." [Mao (1961),
pp.316, 337-38, 339-40, 342-43. Bold emphases alone added; quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
If the above DM-classicists are right, how can peace change into war unless it "struggles" with it?
It
could be argued that the contradictory
aspects (or underlying processes/tendencies) of a given society, or
societies -- which might give the
appearance of peace -- are what turn peace in to war; it is the mutual
struggle of these contradictory aspects (or underlying
processes/tendencies/forces) that change the one into the other.
In
that case, let us call these underlying contradictory
aspects (or underlying
processes/tendencies/forces) UA and UA*, respectively. If the
above is correct, it is the struggle between UA and UA* that
changes Peace (P) into War (W). And yet, if that were indeed so,
the DM-classics would be wrong; P and its opposite, W, don't
actually struggle with one another -- even though they are opposites and
should struggle with one another (if the DM-classics are to be believed).
What changes P into W is a struggle between their
non-opposites,UA and UA*. Furthermore, if either UA or
UA* changes
P into W, then one or both of them must be the opposite(s)
of P, and if they are the opposite(s) of P they should change into
P! Either that, or the DM-classics were mistaken, once more.
On
the other hand, if UA and UA*
are indeed opposites of one another, they should change into each other.
But, they can't do that since they both already exist!
Yet
again,we hit the same
non-dialectical brick wall.
Of course, this doesn't deny change, only that if
and when it occurs, neither Mao
nor dialectics can account for it.
Alternatively, if DM were true, change
would be impossible.
47a.
As has already been pointed out, a dialectician of the stature of
Alex
Callinicos failed to notice the irony when he argued as follows:
"There is, moreover, a third respect in which the
classical Marxist tradition is relevant to understanding the Eastern European
revolutions. For that tradition gave birth to the first systematic attempt at a
social and historical analysis of Stalinism. Trotsky's
The Revolution
Betrayed
(1937) pioneered that analysis by locating the origins of the
Stalin phenomenon in the conditions of material scarcity prevailing in the
Civil
War of 1918-21, in which the bureaucracy of party officials began to develop. He
concluded that the USSR was a 'degenerated workers' state', in which the
bureaucracy had succeeded in politically expropriating the proletariat but left
the social and economic foundations of workers' power untouched. The
contradictions of that analysis, according to which the workers were still
the ruling class of a state which denied them all political power, did not
prevent Trotsky's more dogmatic followers extending it to China and Eastern
Europe, even though the result was to break any connection between socialism and
the self-emancipation of the working class: socialism, it seemed, could be
imposed by the Red Army or peasant guerrillas. The Palestinian Trotskyist
Tony Cliff
refused, however, to accept this line of reasoning. Trotsky's insistence on
treating the USSR as a workers' state, despite the dominance of the Stalinist
bureaucracy, reflected, according to Cliff, the illicit conflation of the legal
form of state ownership of the means of production with the relations of
production proper, in which the working class was excluded from any effective
control of the productive forces. The USSR and its replicants in China and
Eastern Europe were, he argued, bureaucratic state-capitalist societies, in
which the bureaucracy collectively fulfilled the role performed under private
capitalism by the bourgeoisie of extracting surplus-value and directing the
accumulation process." [Callinicos (1991), pp.18-19. Bold emphasis and
links added;
minor typo corrected.]
The irony is that the contradictions
Callinicos highlighted are precisely the contradictions one would expect
if Trotsky's theory faithfully represented the contradictory nature of social
reality -- as Trotsky himself argued (and as his 'orthodox' epigones
were quick
to
point out). Picking
and choosing which contradictions are acceptable and which aren't (and on what
appears to be an entirely
subjective basis) is no way for an academic dialectician like Callinicos to
proceed.
Or,
maybe it is?
As I have shown, this theory can be
used to derive the opposite conclusion from the one that Trotsky
obtained (or, indeed, from any conclusion that could be obtained by someone else). If the
fSU was indeed 'contradictory', then it would make
just as much
dialectical sense to suppose the fSU wasn't a degenerated workers' state
(but was
State Capitalist, even if there were no competing capitalists in the fSU), as it
was to suppose it was a degenerated workers' state where the proletariat (the
supposed ruling-class!) were denied power. What
could be more 'contradictory', therefore, than a form of capitalism with no
capitalists, or a form of workers' power with no workers' power?
[I hasten to add that I fully accept Cliff's theory, but not
on the basis of dialectics, but on the basis of this revision to classical Marxism. (Or,
rather, on the basis of its reconfiguration in the light of events.)]
48.
The invasion of Finland is still defended to this day by
OTs. A recent example
of tortured OT 'logic', employed to explain away the class treachery of the
Hitler/Stalin pact, can be found
here:
"One final instructive historical debate that highlights
the role of the dialectic occurred within the [US-]Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in
1939 and 1940. Up until that time the generally accepted position of the party
called for the 'unconditional support of the Soviet Union.' This orientation
flowed from an analysis that concluded that the Soviet Union was a 'workers'
state,' meaning that the economy had been nationalized so that capitalists could
no longer operate. However, the Soviet Union was also categorized as a
'deformed' workers' state because Stalin had crushed all democratic impulses,
instituted a totalitarian regime, and stifled dissent. In a genuine socialist
society workers as a class control the state so that the majority truly rules,
and with that crucial stipulation absent, the [US-SWP -- RL] was not prepared to designate
the Soviet Union a 'socialist' society. The concept of a 'workers' state'
signified that a crucial step had been taken in the direction of socialism with
the nationalization of the economy, but only a step. Consequently, the SWP
defended the Soviet Union with respect to its nationalized economy but at the
same time called for a political revolution to overthrow the Stalinist
bureaucracy and institute a state democratically controlled by the working
class.
"But in 1939 the SWP was convulsed by internal debate,
prompted by the Hitler-Stalin pact, which included the division of Poland
between Germany and the Soviet Union. This historic event triggered the creation
of a minority within the SWP, led by Shachtman, Burnham, Abern and Bern, who
challenged the party's established position on the Soviet Union on several
different fronts. Their position demanded that, because of Stalin's pact with
the devil, as it were, the party must cease defending the Soviet Union, despite
the nationalized economy. This conclusion was also based on the conviction that
the Soviet Union had become 'imperialist.' However, they disagreed among
themselves on the question of whether it was still a workers' state. Burnham
argued that it was not, on the grounds that genuine workers' democracy was
absent. Shachtman was prepared to retain the designation of 'workers' state,'
but with the attached provision that it was imperialist.
"Trotsky, who was very close to the party, vigorously
defended the established line of the SWP. In the course of the debate he accused
the opposition of failing to approach the questions at hand dialectically.His
opponents countered that dialectics was either irrelevant or inimical to a
scientific analysis. It will be instructive to examine these charges and counter
charges more closely. As we shall see, although both sides appear to be using
the same words, they were speaking two fundamentally different languages.
"Trotsky's position rested on the conviction that the
achievement of socialism is a protracted struggle. Burnham, demanding instant
results, refused to applaud even partial steps in a progressive direction,
and in this respect his analysis was undialectical. Because the Soviet Union
was not a consummate socialist society, it was not one at all. But profound
transformations are never linear. The construction of a revolutionary society
with a new culture at times will encounter setbacks, especially when the
bourgeoisie is struggling desperately to regain power and the world imperialist
powers are threatening at the gates. In fact, the Soviet Union had already been
invaded by western imperialism, with the United States in the lead, shortly
after the revolution, contributing to a bitter civil war. The west also slapped
an economic embargo on its revolutionary enemy that at times paralyzed the
economy. Having lost many of its most dedicated revolutionaries during the civil
war, the Soviet Union could not help but falter as it staggered forward toward
the dawn of a new historical period. Burnham, however, remaining blind to this
larger context, was content to dispense judgments as if the course of the
revolution flowed directly and exclusively from the moral fibre of its leaders.
[We can see from
Appendix C
that this isn't even remotely correct -- RL.]
"Shachtman, while maintaining that the Soviet Union was a
workers' state, argued persistently that it was nevertheless implementing an
imperialist agenda and for this reason should not be defended with respect to
these kinds of adventures:
'It is entirely correct, in my opinion, to characterize
the Stalinist policy as imperialist, provided, of course, that one points out
its specific character, that is, wherein it differs from modern capitalist
imperialism.... Stalin has showed himself capable of pursuing imperialist policy.
That is the fact.... Like every bureaucracy, the Stalinist is interested in
increasing the national income not in order to raise the standard of living of
the masses but in order to increase its own power, its own wealth, its own
privileges.'
"In order to understand why this is not a dialectical
analysis, one must return to the classic Marxist theory of imperialism,
which Trotsky championed. Marx argued that because capitalists compete with one
another, each must strive to minimize production costs. This means procuring the
cheapest labour and raw materials available. When these assets are located in
less developed countries, capitalists from advanced industrialized nations
readily resort to military force to seize control of them, thereby assuring
their survival in the face of intense competition. In other words, the
contradictory interests among capitalists propel them onto the road of
imperialism, making imperialism the logical consequence of capitalism.
"Shachtman conceded that what he called Soviet imperialism
was fundamentally different from all other examples of modern imperialism since
it was not linked to capitalism. But when it came to giving this designation
some kind of historical footing, Shachtman was at a complete loss. He could only
explain it in terms of psychological impulses, such as the bureaucracy's desire
to 'increase its own power, its own wealth, its own privileges,' impulses that
could conceivably arise at any time in history. There was no grounding of this
analysis in a historically specific economic base. There was no attempt to
organically link it to other social domains. Instead, the term dangled alone,
detached, and so simply became another way of referring to the greed of specific
individuals, which hardly amounts to an analysis at all. In this respect, the
approach was entirely undialectical.
"Like Burnham, Shachtman seemed incapable of understanding
the Soviet Union in light of the larger imperialist context. Although the major
western capitalist countries were prepared to fight among themselves over the
acquisition of colonies, they were united in their determination to destroy the
Soviet Union. Even the best of Soviet governments would have been compelled to
play one capitalist government off against another, simply in order to stall for
time in the hope that other revolutions would break out in advanced
industrialized countries, enabling it to escape its isolation. Stalin's pact
with Hitler for the division of Poland was certainly in part an effort to keep
German imperialism from taking all of Poland, which would have brought it flush
with the Soviet border. It was as if the minority was intent on condemning
an individual for running a few stop signs while failing to take into
consideration the car had been hijacked and a gun was pointed at the driver's
head. [This is a 'dialectical' explanation, then? -- RL.]
"Trotsky's analysis, consistent with the Marxist emphasis
on the economic foundation of society as the propelling force of historical
change, placed the primary contradiction between western
capitalist-imperialist countries on the one hand and the Soviet Union with its
nationalized economy on the other, the fundamental historical struggle was being
waged between these antagonists. Although Trotsky condemned the Hitler-Stalin
pact, he nevertheless situated it within, and subordinated it to, this broader
context and was thus still prepared to defend the Soviet Union in relation to
imperialist aggression. The Shachtman opposition, however, ignored this
broader historical struggle in favour of a moral condemnation of the Soviet
Union's foreign policy. Hence the Hitler-Stalin pact offered sufficient grounds
in the eyes of the minority for abandoning the defense of the Soviet Union
altogether. In this way the minority failed to provide any analysis of the
fundamental contradictory forces at play at this historical conjuncture,
including any indication of the direction in which events were likely to unfold.
[In the event,
Burnham's analysis
proved far more perceptive, while
Trotsky's was as wrong as an analysis could be
-- RL.] In fact, they viewed calls for consideration of this historical context as a
kind of dodging the question of the significance of the Hitler-Stalin pact, upon
which they launched their attack. For them, the crucial question was posed in
these terms: 'What is the character of Russia's role in the present war -- not
the war as it was foretold on this or that occasion, and not the war into which
this one may or will be converted, but the present war?'
"So the members of the minority, instead of viewing
themselves as part of a historical process, withdrew themselves from the
collective struggle and assumed the role of the spectator on the sidelines,
dispensing moral pronouncements as they pleased. Although many have found such a
role to be egotistically gratifying, they seldom, if ever, contribute to the
advance of history. Here the isolated ego becomes the point of departure for all
judgments, not humanity in the process of creating a better world, and for this
reason the chasm between Trotsky and the majority on the one hand and the
minority on the other became unbridgeable. The latter soon split altogether."
[Ann Robertson, quoted from
here; bold emphases and
links added. Spelling adjusted to agree with UK
English; quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this
site.]
Of course, readers will have noticed the "undialectical" approach
of comrade Robertson, who seems to think Imperialism is an unchanging feature of
the world (so that Marx's analysis is rendered eternally valid, frozen in
theoretical space), just as they
will no doubt have registered the fact that the only rationale offered
by Robertson for her defence of the Imperialist aims of the
fSU
is predictably -- dialectical.
It could be argued that Robertson, like Trotsky, appealed to the
nationalised economy in the fSU as proof that it was still a workers' state. Maybe so, but that
on its own can't be used to prove a state is a workers' state. [The Roman Catholic Church in the
Middle Ages controlled extensive property and wealth (commanding the labour of
countless thousands of workers), but it belonged to no individual. Did that make
the Church a workers' state? Or 'a step on the road to socialism'?] Indeed, as should seem obvious, a state can't be a
workers' state if workers hold no power. Now the only way that this
counter-argument can be neutralised is to invoke dialectics and the
'contradictory' nature of the
fSU. Which is precisely what Trotsky, Robertson
and subsequent OTs do.
It is worth adding, too, that in later years the
US-SWP also split many times -- as did the
tendency to which comrade Robertson belongs. Hence,
deep dialectical devotion is
no guarantee against fragmentation; if anything, it helps make it more likely.
[Exhibit A for the prosecution is
Dialectical
Trotskyism itself.]In which case, comrade Robertson's caustic observation that the "minority" later
split is somewhat ironic; DM-fans are notorious split-oholics!
Also worthy of note is the fact that
Shachtman was (at the time) a
keen dialectician, and fully capable of using this 'theory' to justify
anything he liked, as was Trotsky --, and now Robertson.
However, it isn't my place to defend Shachtman; but I for one
can find no 'moralistic' analysis in what he wrote; in fact, it would be
interesting to see what comrade Robertson imagines the motives were that
guided the Stalinist bureaucracy.
It could be countered that Shachtman was being moralistic
-- for example, in
this passage:
"It is entirely correct, in my opinion, to characterize
the Stalinist policy as imperialist, provided, of course, that one points out
its specific character, that is, wherein it differs from modern capitalist
imperialism.... Stalin has showed himself capable of pursuing imperialist policy.
That is the fact.... Like every bureaucracy, the Stalinist is interested in
increasing the national income not in order to raise the standard of living of
the masses but in order to increase its own power, its own wealth, its own
privileges." [Quoted in ibid.]
But this is hardly moralistic, any more than Marx's comments
about the motivations that drove Feudal Lords to accumulate wealth was moralistic. Shachtman is simply
pointing out that in order to compete with other capitalist regimes, and
thus prosecute imperialist wars, the soviet bureaucracy would have to increase its
power and wealth (and reinvest the latter in heavy industry -- as, indeed, Engels
had pointed out in general).
Now, this is OK as far as it goes, and it will need supplementing with a much
deeper analysis -- indeed, on the lines that Cliff advanced. [See also
above.] However, the superficial nature
of Shachtman's comments hardly qualifies them as 'moralistic'.
Be this as it may, OT critics of the theory of
State Capitalism, for example, were quick to remind Tony Cliff of a handful of
rather stale dialectical
nostrums in order to
'refute' his theory, as if Cliff had never heard of them before.
"In the transition from one society to another,
it is clear that there is not an unbridgeable gulf. It is not a dialectical
method to think in finished categories; workers' state or capitalist state and
the devil take any transition or motion between the two. It is clear that
when Marx spoke of the smashing of the old state form in relation to the
Commune, he took it for granted that the economy would be transformed at a
greater or lesser pace and would come into consonance with the political forms.
We will see later in relation to Eastern Europe that Cliff adopts the same
formalistic method....
"Thus, one can only understand class society
if one takes into account the many-sided dialectical inter-dependence and
antagonisms of all the factors within it. Formalists usually get lost in one
or other side of the problem....
"The
whole contradiction, a contradiction
within the society itself and not imposed arbitrarily -- is in the very concept
of the dictatorship of the proletariat. If one considers the problem in the
abstract, one can see that this is a contradictory phenomenon: the
abolition of capitalism yet the continuation of classes. The proletariat does
not disappear. It raises itself to the position of ruling class and abolishes
the capitalist class....
"...To abstract one side must lead to error. What
is puzzling about the Russian phenomenon is precisely the contradictory
character of the economy. This has been further aggravated by the
backwardness and isolation of the Soviet Union. This culminates in the
totalitarian Stalinist regime and results in the worst features of capitalism
coming to the fore -- the relations between managers and men, piece-work, etc.
Instead of analysing these contradictions Comrade Cliff endeavours as far
as possible to try and fit them into the pattern of the 'normal' laws of
capitalist production....
"This whole formalistic method is the fatal
weakness of Cliff's case. It would have been impossible for Trotsky in the early
stages to deal with the problem in the abstract. He had to deal with the
concrete situation and give a concrete answer. But the further degeneration
posed the problem in an entirely different way. Once it had been established
that it was impossible to reform the Stalinist party, that it was impossible to
reform the Soviet state (we assume that Cliff also believes this was the task
since up to 1928 since he says Russia was a degenerated workers' state),
then the question had to be viewed in a somewhat different light. It is foreign
to the Marxist method to search for isolated contradictions, real or apparent. What is required is an examination of a theory in its broad general
development, in its movement, and its contradictions...."[Ted
Grant. Bold emphases added; italic emphases in the original.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
As we saw above with Trotsky and Robertson, apart
from a reference to the state ownership of property (see below,
here
and
here), the only criterion
to which Grant can appeal is 'the
dialectical method' -- and thus the 'contradictory' nature of the fSU -- in support
of his argument against Cliff (who, oddly enough, also appealed to dialectical concepts,
which 'allowed' him to derive the
opposite conclusion!).
For example, we find Cliff arguing
along the
following lines:
"Dialectical historical development, full of contradictions and surprises, brought it about that the first step the
bureaucracy took with the subjective intention of hastening the building of
'socialism in one country' became the foundation of the building of state
capitalism." [Cliff
(1988), p.166.]
"The regulation of economic activity by the state
is, in itself, a partial negation of the law of value, even if the state is, as
yet, not the repository of the means of production.
"The law of value assumes the regulation of
economic functions in an anarchical way. It determines the exchange relations
between the different branches of the economy, and explains how relations
between people appear, not as direct, crystal clear relations, but indirectly,
lost in mysticism. Now, the law of value holds absolute sway only under
conditions of free competition, i.e., when there is free movement of capital,
commodities and labour power. Therefore, even the most elementary forms of
monopolistic organisation already negate the law of value to a certain extent.
Thus when the state regulates the allocation of capital and labour power, the
price of commodities, etc., it is most certainly a partial negation of
capitalism....
"State capitalism and a workers' state are two
stages in the transition period from capitalism to socialism. State capitalism
is the extreme opposite of socialism -- they are symmetrically opposed, and they
are dialectically united with one another." [Ibid., pp.171,
174.]
"History often leaps forward or backward. When it
leaps backward, it does not return directly to the same position, but goes down
a spiral, combining the elements of the two systems from which and to which the
society passed. For example, because in the state capitalism which is an
organic, gradual continuation of the development of capitalism, a form of
private property would prevail in the ownership of shares and bonds, we must not
conclude that the same will apply to state capitalism which rose gradually on
the ruins of a workers' revolution. Historical continuity in the case of state
capitalism which evolves from monopoly capitalism, is shown in the existence of
private property (bonds). Historical continuity in the case of state capitalism
which evolves from a workers' state that degenerated and died, is shown in the
non-existence of private property.
"The spiral development brings about the
synthesis of two extremes of capitalist development in Russia, a synthesis of
the highest stage which capitalism can ever reach, and which probably no other
country will ever reach; and of such a low stage of development as has yet to
demand the preparation of the material prerequisites for socialism. The defeat
of the October revolution served as a springboard for Russian capitalism which
at the same time lags well behind world capitalism." [Ibid.,
p.188.]
"From the standpoint of formal logic it is
irrefutable that if the proletariat can't gradually transform the bourgeois
state into a workers' state but must smash the state machine, the bureaucracy on
becoming the ruling class also can't gradually transform the workers' state
into a bourgeois state, but must smash the state machine. From the standpoint of
dialectics, however, we must pose the problem differently. What are the reasons
why the proletariat can't gradually transform the bourgeois state machine, and
do these continue as an immovable impediment to the gradual change of the class
character of a workers' state?" [Ibid.,
p.194.]
"The historical task of the bureaucracy is to
raise the productivity of labour. In doing this the bureaucracy enters into deepcontradictions. In order to raise the productivity of labour above a certain
point, the standard of living of the masses must rise, as workers who are
undernourished, badly housed and uneducated, are not capable of modem
production. The bureaucracy approaches the problem of the standard of living of
the masses much in the same way as a peasant approaches the feeding of his
horses: 'How much shall I give in order to get more work done?' But workers,
besides having hands, have heads. The raising of the standard of living and
culture of the masses, means raising their self-confidence, increasing their
appetite, their impatience at the lack of democratic rights and personal
security, and their impatience of the bureaucracy which preserves these burdens.
On the other hand, not to raise the standard of living of the masses means to
perpetuate the present low productivity of labour which would be fatal for the
bureaucracy in the present international situation, and would tend to drive the
masses sooner or later to revolts of despair." [Ibid.,
pp.271-72. Bold emphases added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
"Those who believe that the 'People's Democracies' are
workers' states, and after 'diplomatic' avoidance of the issue will in due
course say that Mao-tse Tung's China is also a workers' state, claim that this
is not undermining our position on Stalinism and the consistency of our world
programme, any more than the social revolution (according to Trotsky) brought
about in Eastern Poland and the Baltic countries in 1939-40 did. (Trotsky did
not cease to call Stalin the 'grave-digger of the socialist revolution', and
Stalinism a socially counter-revolutionary force, in spite of the transformation
of Eastern Poland and the Baltic countries into workers' states.) They say that
this argument is as good today as it was then, even though it leads to the
assumption that half Europe and half Asia have been transformed into workers'
states by Stalin. This is simply nonsense, and contrary to the basic law of
dialectics about the change of quantity into quality. Let us examine the
argument more closely." [Cliff (1950), p.64; accessible
here. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this
site. Bold emphases added.]
There are many other passages that could have been quoted
from Cliff's work. [However, I have yet to find in anything in Cliff's
writings that commits him to a dialectic in nature. (That comment has now been
heavily qualified; on that, see here.)]
Even so, this
passage is rather odd:
"From the standpoint of formal logic it is
irrefutable that if the proletariat can't gradually transform the bourgeois
state into a workers' state but must smash the state machine, the bureaucracy on
becoming the ruling class also can't gradually transform the workers' state
into a bourgeois state, but must smash the state machine. From the standpoint of
dialectics, however, we must pose the problem differently." [Cliff (1988),
p.194.]
Unfortunately, Cliff neglected to explain what
FL has got to do with
the gradual transformation of the bourgeois state by the proletariat -- indeed,
and like other
dialecticians, Cliff seems to have had an idiosyncratic 'understanding' of FL
which wasn't handicapped by any obvious acquaintance with it.
[FL = Formal Logic; DL =
Dialectical Logic.]
In fact, FL has nothing to say about the transformation of
the bourgeois state (any more than
botany and
campanology have), so it can hardly tell us what can or can't happen in
this respect, contrary to what Cliff asserts. However, using
Modal
and
Temporal Logic, it might be possible to formalise
aspects of this
transformation, but the effort isn't worth the candle since it is far
easier to explain such changes using HMand ordinary language -- indeed, as most books and
articles written by Marxists on this subject attest. Few of the latter,
except where they are attacking other rival accounts of this transformation
(as we have seen), rarely, if ever, mention DL, let alone use any.
Furthermore, contrary to what Cliff also says, the introduction
of dialectics here would be unwise, since, as we have also seen, it can be used to
'prove' anything you like and its opposite -- by the very same author.
Anyway, not happy with Trotsky's analysis,
as noted earlier, Grant invented
another (suitably) contradictory concept: the idea that regimes (like those in the
fSU
and China) were "Proletarian Bonapartist"!
"The question of the class
nature of Russia has been a central issue in the Marxist movement for decades.
Now, with the collapse of the USSR and the movement in the direction of
capitalism, this question assumes an even greater importance. It is not possible
to grasp the processes that are taking place in Russia from the point of view of
formal logic and abstract definitions. In elementary chemistry, a simple litmus
test is sufficient to reveal whether a substance is acid or alkaline. But
complex historical processes do not admit such a simple approach. Only the
dialectical method, which takes the process as a whole and concretely
analyses its contradictory tendencies as they unfold, stage by stage, can shed
light on the situation.Endless mistakes occur when we attempt to base
ourselves on chemically pure abstractions instead of real historical processes.
Thus, we know what a trade union and a workers' party is supposed to look like.
But history knows of all kinds of weird and wonderful variants, of the most
monstrously bureaucratised trade unions and corrupt reformist parties. A
workers' state is roughly like a trade union in power. Under conditions of
extreme backwardness, such a state can experience a process of bureaucratic
degeneration. Stalinism, as Trotsky explains, is a peculiar variant of
Bonapartism -- a regime of proletarian Bonapartism.... [In what way was the
state in the fSU 'proletarian' under Stalin? -- RL.]
"Likewise, the political
counter-revolution carried out by the Stalinist bureaucracy in Russia completely
liquidated the regime of workers' Soviet democracy, but did not destroy the new
property relations established by the October Revolution. The ruling bureaucracy
based itself on the nationalised, planned economy and played a relatively
progressive role in developing the productive forces, although at three times
the cost of capitalism, with tremendous waste, corruption and mismanagement, as
Trotsky pointed out even before the war when the economy was advancing at 20 per
cent a year. The problem which we now face was also faced by Trotsky in the
1920s and 1930s, when he had the task of analysing the phenomenon of Stalinism.
For certain ultra-lefts, the problem was a simple one. The Soviet Union, in
their opinion, was already a new class society as early as 1920. All further
analysis was therefore superfluous! There was a fundamental difference
between this formalism and the careful dialectical method of Trotsky. He
painstakingly traced the process of the Stalinist counter-revolution through all
its stages, laying bare all its contradictions, analysing the conflicting
tendencies both within Soviet society and within the bureaucracy itself, and
showing the dialectical interrelation between developments in the USSR
and on a world scale....
"What defines the class
nature of the state from a Marxist point of view is undoubtedly property
relations. However, here too, the relation is not automatic, but
dialectical....
"There were many
turning-points on the road of the bureaucratic counter-revolution in the period
1923-36. This was by no means a preordained event. The final victory of Stalin
was not determined in advance. As a matter of fact, up till 1934, Trotsky held
the position that it was possible to reform both the Soviet state and the
Communist Parties, a position that led to frequent conflicts with the
ultra-lefts. Trotsky's dialectical method was one of successive
approximations, which followed the process through all its stages, showing
concretely the relation between the class balance of forces in Russia, the
different tendencies in the Communist Party and their relationship to the
classes, the evolution of the world situation, the economy, and the subjective
factor. It is true that he varied his analysis at different times. For
example, he initially characterised Stalinism as bureaucratic centrism, a
formula which he later rejected in favour of the more precise proletarian
Bonapartism. These changes do not reflect any vacillations on Trotsky's
part, but only the way in which his analysis accurately followed the process of
bureaucratic degeneration as it unfolded....
"In the Preface to the
Critique of Political Economy, Marx explained that the sum total of the
relations of production constitutes the real foundation upon which all aspects
of social life -- the state included -- are grounded. Property relations is
merely a legal expression for these relations of production. However, this
relationship is neither direct nor automatic. If that were the case, revolutions
would not be necessary. The whole history of class society proves that this is
not the case. On the contrary, for long periods the superstructure can stand in
open contradiction to the demands of the productive forces. Nor does the state
at all times directly reflect the ruling class in a given society, as we saw in
the first part of the present work. The relationship is complex and
contradictory, in other words dialectical....
"The Soviet Union is a
good example of this dialectical relation.The nationalised planned economy
was in contradiction to the bureaucratic state. This was always the case. Even
in the period of the first Five-Year Plans, the bureaucratic regime was
responsible for colossal waste. This contradiction did not disappear with the
development of the economy, but, on the contrary, grew ever more unbearable
until eventually the system broke down completely...." [Ted
Grant. Bold emphases alone added.]
However, the bemused reader will search in vain
through Trotsky's writings for this mis-begotten concept -- 'Proletarian
Bonapartism' -- even though he does
use the word "Bonapartist" is relation to the
fSU.
"Orthodox Trotskyists
outside the
USFI
have attempted similar balancing acts to Mandel's, with equal lack of
success. When the British
RCP
anticipated the
FI's
development by declaring the
Eastern European 'buffer zone' workers' states in 1947–8 (see
Section 2.2
above), Ted
Grant had formulated the concept of 'proletarian Bonapartism'. This was an
interesting example of what
Lakatos
(1976: 20ff., 83ff., 93ff.) called
'concept-stretching', where a theory is defended from refutation by the
extension of its concepts to cover apparently aberrant cases. Marx had coined
the term 'Bonapartism' to describe regimes where the state, while not controlled
by the bourgeoisie, acted in the latter's class interests (Draper 1977: Bk II).
Grant (1989: 231), following but developing formulations of Trotsky's, extended
the concept from capitalist to workers' states, and advanced the general
proposition that '[f]or quite a lengthy period, there can be a conflict
between the state and the class which that state represents'. 'Stalinism',
Grant (1989: 302) argued, 'is a form of Bonapartism that bases itself in the
institution of state ownership, but it is different from the norm of a workers'
state as fascism or bourgeois Bonapartism differs from the norm of bourgeois
democracy'. On this basis, Grant (1989: 350) was more generous than the USFI
about the successes of 'proletarian Bonapartism' in the Third World, in 1978
describing China, Cuba, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Syria, Angola, Mozambique,
Aden, Benin, and Ethiopia as deformed workers' states. Although criticized by
other orthodox Trotskyists, the list reflected Grant's relatively consistent use
of statization of the economy as the criterion of the existence of a workers'
state. He resisted, however, the temptation to welcome the makers of these
revolutions into the Trotskyist camp -- for example, in 1949 attacking the
IS's
treatment of
Tito as 'an unconscious Trotskyist' (Grant 1989: 298).
The pressure
towards
substitutionism nevertheless found political expression. Having joined
the Labour Party with the rest of the
RCP
majority in 1949, Grant became the
principal figure of the
Militant Tendency, which emerged as the strongest
organized left grouping inside the Labour Party at the end of the 1970s.
Practising a far more long-term version of entrism than anything envisaged by
Trotsky, Militant supporters expected catastrophic economic crisis to radicalize
the Labour Party and provide mass support for a left government which would
effect '[a]n entirely peaceful transformation of society' by means of
large-scale nationalization authorized by Parliament through an Enabling Act
(Taaffe 1986: 25 and passim). On this scenario, a transformed social
democracy would play the kind of role which other orthodox Trotskyists thought
some versions of Stalinism would perform (McGregor 1986)." [Callinicos
(1990), pp.48-49. References
can be found
here. Bold emphases and links added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
And, here are Woods and Grant on the 'abuse' of dialectics (this
time, supposedly inflicted on DM by the Stalinists):
"One of the
things which created all kinds of misconceptions about Marxism was the way that
it was presented by the Stalinists. The ruling elite in Russia could not
tolerate freedom of thought and criticism in any sphere. In the hands of the
bureaucracy, Marxist philosophy ('diamat' as they called it) wastwisted into
a sterile dogma, or a variety of sophism used to justify all the twists and
turns of the leadership. According to
Lefebvre,
at one point things got so bad that the Soviet army high command insisted that
lessons on formal logic be put back on the curriculum of military academies
because of the shameful confusion caused by the teachers of so-called 'diamat.'
At least lessons in logic would teach the cadets the ABCs of reasoning. This
little incident is enough to expose the caricature nature of the 'Marxism' of
the Stalinists.
"Under Stalin,
scientists were forced to accept without question this rigid and lifeless
caricature, as well as a number of false theories with no scientific basis which
happened to suit the bureaucracy, such as
Lysenko's
'theory' of
genetics. This discredited the idea of dialectical materialism in the
scientific community to a certain extent, and prevented a fruitful and creative
application of the method of dialectics to different fields of science, which
would have made possible serious advances both in the sciences themselves and in
the further elaboration of the philosophical ideas which Marx and Engels
explained in outline, but left to future generations to develop and fill out in
detail." [Woods
and Grant (1995), p.391;
p.393 in the second edition.
Bold emphasis and links added. Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
Although these two were happy to criticise the Stalinists for their
use of dialectics to justify whatever they found expedient, they mysteriously failed to
mention their own opportunist leanings
in this
direction. And, as far as the "sterile dogma" the Stalinists allegedly substituted
for 'Marxist dialectics' is concerned, the reader is directed
here for a different
perspective. Of course, Woods and Grant also failed to notice the "sterile
dogma" with which they
too
wished to
saddle the
workers' movement.
Ernest Mandel similarly laid into State Capitalist theory,
attributing its errors to:
"A schematic system of thought which only
operates in black and red and which is the prisoner of outrageously simplistic
abstractionsincapable of handling the categories of 'transition', of combined
and uneven development' and of 'contradictory reality'. In other words,
such thought isundialectical. This unfortunately is the way in which
Tony Cliff and Chris Harman think, at least when dealing with general problems." [Mandel (1990), p.54; Mandel and Sheppard
(2006), pp.28-29. Bold emphases added.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.
(Mandel's words can now be accessed
here.) This criticism is
uncannily like those
advanced against Trotsky by assorted
Stalinists and Maoists.]
The problem is, of course, that the economy of the
fSU was "hybrid and contradictory", which UK-SWP theorists
inexplicably failed to notice -- Ha! Some hope!!
Mandel employed this critique to justify his characterisation of
various third-world revolutions (and,
unsurprisingly,
movements that weren't led by workers) as legitimate examples of Trotsky's theory of
Permanent Revolution (in contrast to
Cliff's revision of the same thesis), the bottom line of which was that other
forces can be substituted for the working class in the struggle for
socialism. [On that, see, Mandel (1992), pp.157-65.]
Substitutionism justified by dialectics
-- just like Grant.
And, here is Mandel criticising Callinicos's analysis of his own work:
"The underlying differences in method, schematic
formalism and dogmatism as opposed to scientific dialectical thinking, are
clearly revealed in Callinicos's critique of our analysis of the Second
World War as 'five years in one'. Again trying to turn our strong points against us,
Callinicos accuses us of 'syncretism' and 'scholasticism':
'the subtle skills of a medieval school man to
distinguish the relevant factors -- for example, to distinguish no less than
five distinct wars within the Second World War.... The effect is to deprive
social theory of the interaction with potentially disconfirming observations.'
"The last sentence is a perfect non-sequitur, and a
near perfect refutation of the dialectic. If you note contradictory elements
of society, you are supposed to 'deprive social theory of the interaction with
potentially disconfirming(?) observations'.You are forbidden to start from
the assumption that reality is contradictory and condemned to assume that really
existing contradictions automatically 'disconfirm' social reality. All
references made to formalistic monocausal schemas, i.e., preconceived dogmas,
not to the real living world and to attempts to develop 'social theories' which
take into account the existence of these contradictions and to try to explain
them. The rejection of dialectical thought is finally based upon the
rejection of the dialectical nature of objective reality itself." [Mandel
(1992), p.157. Bold emphases added.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Two paragraphs merged to save space.]
Mandel failed to notice that his own assumption that the world is
dialectical is no less dogmatic and
had also been imposed on reality, as,
indeed, we saw
in Essay Two. Even so, the relevant
point is that he was quite happy to derive contradictory consequences from his
contradictory assumptions -- which conclusions can't be derived in any other way.
Moreover, and once more, that is why this 'theory' is so useful: anything and its opposite can be
derived from it by the very same author, often in the same sentence or paragraph.
[Callinicos replied to Mandel
(in Callinicos (1992)), but that
response was, for him, rather weak.]
Here is another
OT
also criticising Cliff on 'sound' dialectical
lines:
"It is when Cliff comes to analyse the internal mechanism
of a workers' state, i.e., a transitional economy, that his basic methodology is
revealed. This methodology is undialectic (sic), being a form of formal
logic, one that admits to no unity of opposites or contradictory totalities.
He says:
'State capitalism and a workers' state are two stages in
the transitional period from capitalism to socialism. State capitalism is the
extreme opposite to socialism -- they are diametrically opposed, and they are
dialectically united with one another.' [Cliff,
Russia: A Marxist Analysis, p.113.]
"This passage confuses stages, which by their nature are
intermediaries, and phenomena that are opposites, and exposes the linear
concepts underlying such thinking. Moreover, it confuses form and content.
A
workers' state is a synthesis of previous contradictions, because a workers'
state abolishes state capitalism (i.e., those property forms which are state
owned but subordinated to the needs of monopoly capitalism),
along with the expropriation of the bourgeoisie. The formal and judicial forms
have deceived Cliff. When Cliff says that state capitalism and a workers' state
are two stages in the transition to socialism he shows clearly that he is an
economic determinist not a historical materialist. Looked at from Cliff's point
of view, capitalism is 'only' a stage between feudalism and socialism! To talk
of stages in this way betrays a fatalistic view of history, of inevitability in
a very crude form.
"...To play around with words by saying state capitalism
and socialism are 'diametrically opposed, and they are dialectically united'
is to make nonsense of dialectics. That they are diametrically opposed is
quite true, state capitalism (in the sense used above) pushes the capitalist
relationships to their extreme. The nationalisations that take place under a
capitalist regime are not such as to weaken the bourgeoisie's rule, rather they
serve to strengthen it. Politically under a social-democratic government they
have served to impart illusions among the working class, economically they have
enabled unprofitable industries to be taken over and put in order to serve the
monopolies. The nationalisations of a workers' state may only seem to push these
forms further, but their content is of a completely different order, because the
nature of the state that undertakes them is an expression of a changed
relationship of classes. In these circumstances the bourgeoisie is expropriated,
its hands are wrenched from the levers of power. Far from being a stage in
development, i.e., one that has direct and palpable links with what went before,
it represents a sharp break, a dialectical leap, not dialectical unity....
"Cliff's whole theory, so impressive at first sight, is on
close examination seen to be a set of eclectic ideas gummed together with yards
of quotations. At heart this failure is one of a lack of understanding of
dialectics, the dialectics of transitional societies. He is unable to
view matters in anything but a black or white, formal logical view. Trotsky once
remarked that Marxist theory without dialectics was like a clock without a
spring, never was it more apt than in this case. Cliff's 'clock' has shown
the same time for the last twenty years or more, it bears all the marks of the
times of its birth. That was a time of retreat and isolation for revolutionary
Marxists. The communist movement was, in the large majority, still in the icy
grip of Stalinism, and imperialism seemed to be all-powerful. It was little
wonder that the times produced such theories of despair. For make no mistake
about it, this particular theory is fundamentally one of despair. Each victory
for the international revolution has been seen as a victory for state
capitalism! So preoccupied with victories for the 'bureaucracy,' that the
defeats of imperialism seemed to have been half-forgotten." [Ken
Tarbuck. Bold emphases added; quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site. Minor typos corrected.]
Once again, we can see that the only
'substantive' argument against Cliff depends on the application of yet another dollop of
'dialectics'.
In the next passage, we will see it argued that the contradictory nature of the
fSU is consistent with its being a
transitional regime, after all. Same theory, but it is now being used to derive
the
opposite conclusion:
"The problem of determining the
nature of the USSR was that it exhibited two contradictory aspects. On
the one hand, the USSR appeared to have characteristics that were strikingly
similar to those of the actually existing capitalist societies of the West.
Thus, for example, the vast majority of the population of the USSR was dependent
for their livelihoods on wage-labour. Rapid industrialisation and the forced
collectivisation of agriculture under Stalin had led to the break up of
traditional communities and the emergence of a mass industrialised society made
up of atomised individuals and families. While the overriding aim of the
economic system was the maximisation of economic growth.
"On the other hand, the USSR diverged
markedly from the laissez-faire capitalism that had been analysed by
Marx. The economy of the USSR was not made up of competing privately owned
enterprises regulated through the 'invisible hand' of the market. On the
contrary, all the principal means of production were state owned and the economy
was consciously regulated through centralised planning. As a consequence, there
were neither the sharp differentiation between the economic nor the political
nor was there a distinct civil society that existed between family and state.
Finally the economic growth was not driven by the profit motive but directly by
the need to expand the mass of use-values to meet the needs of both the state
and the population as a whole.
"As a
consequence, any theory that the USSR was essentially a capitalist form of
society must be able to explain this contradictory appearance of the USSR.
Firstly, it must show how the dominant social relations that arose in the
peculiar historical circumstance of the USSR were essentially capitalist social
relations: and to this extent the theory must be grounded in a value-analysis of
the Soviet Union. Secondly it must show how these social relations manifested
themselves, not only in those features of the USSR that were clearly capitalist,
but also in those features of the Soviet Union that appear as distinctly at
variance with capitalism....
"The more sophisticated Trotskyist theorists have criticised the method of state
capitalist theories of the USSR. They argue it is wrong to seek to identify
an abstract and ahistorical essence of capitalism and seek to identify its
existence to a concrete historical social formation such as the USSR. For them
the apparent contradiction between the non-capitalist and capitalist aspects of
the USSR was a real contradiction that can only be understood by grasping the
Soviet Union as a transitional social formation....
"We shall return to consider this
question of 'empty capitalist forms' later. What is important at present is
to see how the Trotskyist approach is able to ground the
contradictory appearance
of the USSR as both capitalist and non-capitalist in terms of the transition
from capitalism to socialism. To this extent the Trotskyist approach has the
advantage over most state capitalist theories that are unable to adequately
account for the non-capitalist aspects of the USSR. This failure to grasp the
non-capitalist aspects of the USSR has been exposed in the light of the decay
and final collapse of the USSR." [Quoted from
here; bold emphases added.]
Here
the theory that the fSU was capitalist and its opposite (that it was also
non-capitalist) were both 'justified' by the use of yet more DM.
In 2006/07, a 'dialectical punch-up' broke out in
one of the US wings of the old
ICFI (although, it seems to have been brewing for several years); details
here,
here and
here. Anyone who reads these documents will see that each side openly accuses
the other of not using, or of not "understanding", dialectics, exactly as predicted
by
this Essay. The main political problem (in this case) seems to revolve
around
"internal party democracy" (no surprise there, then!), but expressed in
obscure
philosophical language.
An
even earlier dialectical dog-fight has
been recorded in detail for posterity in North (1988, 1991), Healy (1990), and
Slaughter (1974a, 1974b, 1974c, 1974d, 1975a, 1975b). In this case, the various
factions/individuals of the highly friable ICFI argued that every other
faction/individual has an insecure or 'abstract' grasp of dialectics in contrast to
the 'correct' view entertained by each particular accuser.
I will now add a few passages that further
illustrate this seemingly universal dialectical phenomenon.
For example, in his
study of the political degeneration of Gerry Healy,
David North had this to say about
the "opportunism" of the former
Socialist Labour League (SLL), the forerunner of the old
WRP:
"The political retreat of the [SLL] from the struggle
against opportunism led to a decline in the theoretical level which had been
established during the fight against the
SWP-Pabloite reunification. Increasingly abstract references to the necessity of a struggle
for dialectical materialism became a substitute for the actual development of
revolutionary perspectives. Moreover, as the pressure of petty-bourgeois
radicalism produced signs of political divisions within the
International Committee and the SLL, the formal invocation of dialectical
materialism became more and more a means of avoiding concrete issues which
confronted the Trotskyist movement. The WRP leaders utilized the phraseology of
dialectics while engaging in practices which were inimical to the critical
spirit of Marxism. The 'holding fast of opposites', a phrase which Healy had
extracted from Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks, was converted into an
organizational principle which justified all sorts of rotten compromises within
the central leadership. Thus dialectics was converted into a system of
sophistries which provided an imposing cover for the evasion of political
responsibilities and the betrayal of principles.
"By the early 1970s, the SLL began developing a theory of
'dialectical cognition' [see
Figure Twenty-Six, below -- RL] which reflected and justified the drift toward
opportunism. Healy played a significant role in this enterprise, but the
revisionist innovations which led to the 'practice of cognition' were, like the
positive work of the previous decade, the outcome of a collaborative effort
involving the principal leaders of the [SLL]. As we have previously noted,
Slaughter
asserted following the split with the
OCI
that the experiences of party building in Britain had demonstrated 'that
a thoroughgoing and difficult struggle against idealist ways of thinking was
necessary which went much deeper than questions of agreement on program and
policy.' He argued that the 'fight for a deepening of the understanding of
dialectical materialism as the theory of knowledge of Marxism' meant that it was
necessary 'to redirect the movement towards the fundamental questions involved
in the nature of consciousness, of what is meant by a "leap" in
consciousness....' (Slaughter (1975b, p.83).
"The content of the consciousness-raising exercise
proposed by Slaughter emerged in the polemics produced after
Alan
Thornett
was expelled from the WRP. The party proceeded to mystify the
essential political issues underlying the split by presenting the dispute as an
epic battle between irreconcilably opposed epistemologies. Banda's magnum opus
Whither Thornett?was largely devoted to 'exposing' Thornett's 'total
rejection of the Marxist theory of cognition,' as if the
Cowley
auto worker was a renowned disciple of
Bertrand
Russell
or
Ludwig Wittgenstein....
"Anticipating what was to become the standard fare of
Healy's future lectures and writings, Whither Thornett? presented
abstruse descriptions, weighed down with Hegelian phraseology, of the 'moments'
of the cognitive process, starting with 'living perception' of nature and ending
with practical action....
"These and other passages of the book were certainly
incomprehensible to most members of the [WRP]. The use of pretentious and all
but incomprehensible jargon was itself an indication of a shift in the class
axis of the WRP. The document was not written to clarify either the membership
or the advanced workers who studied the political literature of the WRP. The
mystifying language was intended to obscure the really opportunist implications
of the new philosophical positions being staked out by the WRP. Few suspected or
were in a position to understand that concealed within the pretentious and
mystifying jargon employed by Banda, Geoff Pilling and Slaughter was a bitter
denunciation of the political priority which the Fourth International has
traditionally given to the defense of its program." [North (1991), pp.80-82.
Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold
emphases added.]
While North acknowledges the unique role that dialectics
can play -- via the "holding fast of opposites" -- in justifying "opportunism"
and political compromise, he failed to notice that
dialecticians in general use this 'theory' to justify whatever they like and its
opposite (more again on that
later). To be sure, the use of dialectics by the old WRP was an extreme
example of this tactic, but this only serves to underline the approach
advanced in this Essay: no other theory is as useful as DM in this respect
(except, perhaps, Zen Buddhism -- but, plainly, its
religio-philosophical dogmas can't be used on Marxists). That
is part of the reason why all dialecticians
not only appeal to DM, they cling to it like grim death.
As North goes on to point out (pp.69-74), Healy's
dive into the deep-end of dialectical dissembling 'allowed' him to
rationalise the WRP's adulation of prominent members of the Arab ruling classes (such
as
Gaddafi and
Saddam
Hussein -- on this, see
Appendix A):
"The more Healy turned away from the basic task of
resolving the crisis of leadership in the working class and depended upon
alliances with nonproletarian forces, both inside and outside the party, the
more obsessed he became with acquiring vast resources -- presses, motorbikes,
vacant buildings, and all sorts of expensive electronic gadgets and security
paraphernalia. He had convinced himself that all the contradictions within the
party and the difficulties it confronted in establishing a strong base within
the mass organisations of the working class could be overcome simply through the
growth of the party's assets, regardless of how they were acquired. Indeed,
Healy no longer recognised the essential historical link between the growth of
the revolutionary party and the development of Marxist consciousness in the
working class. Rather the perpetual accumulation of resources was seen as a
substitute for the training of a working class cadre." [Ibid., p.74. Bold
emphasis added.]
This political and theoretical degeneration finally culminated in Healy's
rapprochement with 'de-Stalinised' Stalinism (in the form of 'Glasnost')
alongside his infatuation with
Gorbachev. Healy had come full circle, as North accurately describes: from his
indefatigable opposition to the Stalinisation of the ICFI in the 1950s and 1960s (under
the influence of Pablo, and then
the US-SWP), to accommodation with the last dying embers
of Russian Communism. Indeed, North (1990) is largely devoted to this particular theme. And yet,
he fails to notice once more that dialectics is uniquely placed to 'excuse' any
number of U-turns (as we saw was the case with the
old CPSU and the
CCP), alongside any and all ideological compromises
necessary to rationalise them.
[Incidentally, this is just one more example of
the use of dialectics to justify substitutionism. Healy (1990) is almost
entirely devoted to this; Lotz and Feldman (1994) is an extended
hagiographical attempt to defend and rationalise this class-compromised line, 'dialectically'.
(See also Redgrave
(1994).)]
How did Healy respond to these attacks from
North & Co? No prizes for guessing the answer: he appealed to yet more dialectics! For example, in the
following:
"In the 'split' that took place in the [WRP] in the late
autumn of 1985, the opportunist attempt was made to split the dialectical
from the historical. It was falsely alleged that the author of these
articles on the 'Theory of Knowledge' was guilty of the 'crime' of Hegelianism
in his work on materialist dialectics; that he 'ignored' historical materialism.
Such a division between dialectical and historical materialism was not
accidental. In the case of Slaughter and the American D. North, they had never
participated in the day to day practice of Party building, either the
[ICFI] and the [WRP] or, in the case of North, a party in the United States.
Slaughter, from 1966 to the time of the split, adopted an eclectical
attitude towards theory whilst he completely evaded practice of any kind towards
the building of the [WRP].
The American, D. North, when he became General Secretary
of the section of the [ICFI] in the USA, acquired a section with well over 100
members, which was built mainly by
Wohlforth,
who deserted to the US State Department controlled [US-SWP]....
"The attempt by the Banda, Slaughter, North clique to
separate dialectical from historical materialism was a most reactionary approval
of subjective idealist image making. These were to be pasted over the objective
reality of the world class struggle as it is now unfolding....
"Hegel analyses such a process in a philosophical concrete
way when he turned to the writings of
Johann Gottlieb Fichte
(1762-1814):
'The infinite limitation or check of Fichte's idealism
refuses, perhaps, to be based on any Thing-in-itself, so that it becomes purely
a determinateness in the Ego. But this determinateness is immediate and a
limit to the Ego, which transcending its externality incorporates it; and though
the Ego can pass beyond the limit, the latter has in it an aspect of
indifference by virtue of which it contains an immediate not-Being of the Ego
though itself contained in the Ego.' [Pow! Take that Banda! Blam! Eat that,
North! Zap! You, too, Slaughter! -- RL.]
"Let us now analyse this paragraph sentence by sentence so
that we may understand the subjective idealist method of Fichte, the Bandas,
Slaughter, Hunter and Co.
'a) The infinite limitation or check of Fichte's idealism
refuses, perhaps, to be based on any Thing-in-itself, so that it becomes purely
a determinateness in the Ego.'
"Here Fichte was determining his Ego in word forms which
were empty without any Thing-in-itself for content. For over three
decades the Bandas and Slaughter assembled their word forms to the
requirements of the historical propaganda needs of the [ICFI], the [SLL] and
the [WRP], which was founded in 1973.
'b) But this determinateness is immediate and a
limit to the Ego, which transcending its externality incorporates it; and though
the Ego can pass beyond the limit, the latter has in it an aspect of
indifference by virtue of which it contains an immediate not-Being of the Ego
though itself contained in the Ego.'
"The empty word form 'is immediate and a limit
to the Ego', because it does not contain a content. Nevertheless, the
Bandas, Slaughter, Hunter and Co. carry on stringing together 'empty word forms'
in requirement with historical and propaganda needs of the ICFI and the Party. What they fail to realise is that
these empty word
forms contain a content of 'Not Being' -- the everchanging
world economic and political crisis, whether they are aware of it or not. The
build-up of such countless 'not-beings' have their revenge when the
multitude of 'empty word forms', without them being able to recognise their 'not-Being'
content blow up in their face [sic], leaving them totally unprepared....
"Then they rush to form a 'clique alliance' with the
American pragmatic hustler, North, who immediately sees the opportunity to do
some pragmatic leg-work for the 'good old USA'! They dispatch him on a tour of a
handful of German pragmatists whilst he is in constant contact with an equal
handful of Ceylonese and Australian pragmatists. At the Tenth Congress of the
ICFI in January 1985, it was disclosed that in the 1984 November General
Elections in Australia, they took state aid to help finance their election
expenses. When this was criticised by Banda and Slaughter using their usual
'empty word forms' of criticism, Mulgrew, Beams and Co. admitted the gross
opportunism of their action. After the split was over the pragmatist North lined up
the small groups of pragmatists from West Germany, Ceylon, Australia and, of
course, his own 80 members and proceeded to expel Slaughter and Band for being
accomplices to 'immorality'. In this case it was a win 'on points' for US
pragmatism over Fichtean subjective idealism." [Healy (1990), pp.49-52. Bold emphases
in the original; italic emphases added. Punctuation errors and typos corrected.
Paragraphs merged to save space.]
Well, I'm sure that Healy's use of Hegel's
critique of Fichte put the above "clique" in its
place, all the while totally refuting those impertinent, peremptory and baseless accusations of 'Hegelianism'
advanced by Healy's critics!
Even so, anyone who reads this material will
scratch their heads and wonder how on earth the ICFI, or, indeed, the old WRP,
failed to be a monumental,
world-wide success, just as they will be completely mystified that workers in
their hundreds of millions totally ignored these deranged dialectical dope dealers.
Healy made an even more pointed attack on this
"clique" of Fichtean Idealists:
"When North speaks of establishing through the class
struggle in the [USA] the revolutionary independence of the great American
working class, these are just 'left' words. They have absolutely no content.
North as a petty bourgeois is incapable of building a section of the [ICFI]
either in the USA or in any country of the world.... Both North and Slaughter have one thing in common -- both
are abstract propagandists who are utterly incapable and totally unable, because
of their abstract propagandism, to penetrate the working class and the youth....
"North, Slaughter and the Bandas are now retreating so
rapidly from the effects of the world capitalist crisis that they have
collectively embarked on a course of liquidating the WRP into the Labour Party
as rapidly as possible and virtually abandoning the class struggle. They have
abandoned the dialectical materialist method of training and have replaced it
with 'left' opportunist propagandism.... The political instrument for the destruction of the WRP
and the [ICFI] is the characterisation of their opponents as 'Hegelian
idealists'! It is a lie from beginning to end....
"A new WRP is already well under way to replace the old.
Its cadres will be schooled in the dialectical materialist method of training
and it will speedily rebuild its daily press. It will be a new beginning, but a
great revolutionary leap forward into the leadership of the British and the
international working class. It will be a revolutionary leap forward for the
[ICFI]." [Healy's 'Interim Statement' 24/10/1985. reproduced in Lotz and Feldman
(1994), pp.334-36. Quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted
at this site. Bold emphasis added. Paragraphs merged to save space.]
Just how great a "leap" forward and just how
effective these re-born Dialectical Day-Dreamers proved to be can be judged from the
fact that the 'new' WRP soon split again, and then again, and is now tiny
sectlet of truly impressive irrelevance. Do these highly "trained" Dialectical
Dope-Heads draw the obvious conclusion that this theory has repeatedly been
tested in practice and has left them with a consistent pattern of results -- splits,
internecine warfare, dwindling party membership and long-term
failure --, which means it has plainly been refuted by history?
"The Norths, Slaughters and Bandas have come to the end of
the opportunist, propagandist road. The teachings of Leon Trotsky were
throughout his life on the dialectical materialist method of training. A brief
glance at
In Defence of Marxism
will demonstrate this beyond question. Let Trotsky
answer North, Slaughter, the Bandas and Co....
[There then follows a page and a half of quotes from the
Dialectical Gospels which, mercifully, I won't inflict on the reader -- RL.]
"When North, Slaughter and the Bandas speak about
'historical materialism' their method is that of the opportunist impressionists
which means the abandonment of the of the dialectical materialist method of
training and empirically reacting to the objective situation as they drift
rightwards to political disaster...." [Ibid., pp.336-38. Quotation marks altered
to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Bold emphases added.]
Apologies are once more owed the reader for the
mind-numbingly repetitive nature of this stuff. Again: this material
has only been reproduced here to underline the true nature of this 'theory' and
the deleterious effect it has had on these sad characters (Healy perhaps being the
saddest of the lot). However, the reader should in return spare a thought for yours truly;
over the last twenty-five years I have had to trawl through this guff countless
times in the hundreds of books and articles I have had to read devoted to this 'theory' and its
main use in (i) sectarian point-scoring and (ii) rationalising
dialectically-inspired U-turns.
[On the corruption of the WRP, see
below, and
Appendix A.]
"Far from serving as a methodological instrument to
analyze objective reality and orient the party, Healy's 'dialectics' served
as a factional weapon whose purpose was simultaneously to obscure politics,
justify the leadership's grotesque opportunism and confuse the cadre. Hegelian
categories were regularly hauled out to sanctify the betrayals of the trade
union bureaucrats with whom Healy had made unprincipled deals. For example,
after the TUC and
NGA has sold out the strike against the Stockport Messenger and paid
off fines levied by the Tory government, Healy drafted a Central Committee
resolution which attempted to prove that the actions of the bureaucrats were the
inevitable and necessary outcome of the moments of cognition.
'Wednesday December 14, 1983 marked the negation of
Semblance into Appearance when the General Council voted 29 to 21 to abandon the
NGA and uphold the Tory Employment Act.
'The Appearance manifested on December 14 continued to
develop through a series of events which finally forced the NGA on January 19,
1984 to legally purge its contempt and pay the fine. At this point appearance as
the unity of semblance and existence turns into actuality.' [Fourth
International, Summer 1986, p.92.]
"In order to keep the membership in a state of utter
confusion, Healy, with the help of Slaughter and the other high priests of
the WRP, began to devise a sacred pseudo-philosophical language which replaced
normal English as the tongue in which political discourse -- or at least what
passed for it -- was officially conducted. Rather than challenge the
political line developed by the leadership, members were led to believe that
they were simply not smart enough to understand it. For example, what was
the average WRP member to make of the following explanation concocted by Healy's
'Central Committee Department' of the party's political work:
'The four resolutions adopted by the 6th Congress are what
the Congress "asserted." In dialectical materialist terms they are the "OTHER OF
THE FIRST, (OTHER OF THE 6TH CONGRESS)....
'From the 6th Congress decisions (assertion) to unity
with immediate being through contradiction (asserted). The presence of the
positive in the negative (absolute essence) will denote recognition of the
changes which have taken place since the Congress was held. This denotes both
Semblance and Absolute Essence which is negated in anti-thesis through negation
of the negation into our "theory of knowledge" consisting of the "logical" and
the "historical" analysis of events.
'A synthesis is formed through essence in existence in
which as a result of analysis those parts of Congress resolutions which
have become most urgent, together with the "changes" emerge as essence. We must
counterpose these same "parts" which have changed in essence, sharply to one
another in order to determine the essence of the changes which have taken place.
'Congress proceeding through the antithesis of negation of
the negation, which establishes the synthesis, allows analysis firstly to
establish more clearly the importance of the abstract nature of the 6th Congress
Resolution becoming more clearly revealed in the apprehension of the movement of
dialectical thought' [Ibid., p.89.]." [North (1991), pp.92-94. Bold emphases and
some italics added. Block Capitals in the original. Quotation marks
altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Links added.
North's
comments were echoed by an ex-WRP member,
quoted
earlier in this Essay.]
The WRP were, of course, situated at the extreme end of the
LCD
spectrum, but the
low grade gobbledygook presented above differs little from Hegel's tortured prose,
or, indeed, from that of manyHCDs. In Healy's case,
as North points out, the 'dialectic' was used to mystify; with HCDs it
both confirms and underlines a particular theorist's academic credentials -- i.e., as a genuinephilosopher.
And, here is further proof that
an acceptance of DM can result in a
severe attack of
Cognitive Dissonance:
"Healy's insistence of philosophical training, and his
determination that the practice of the Party must be inseparably connected with
it, engendered opposition, much of it in the form of unspoken resentment from
those who could not master their own subjective idealism. Cliques began to form
and in 1985 the Party suffered a serious split following the intense struggles
surrounding the miners' strike of 1984-5 which heightened all the contradictions
contained in the Party. In a six part series written for the Party's daily
paper, by now re-named the News Line and printed in full colour on new
presses, Healy explained that the leaders of the split were fighting shy of
training themselves and the members in materialists dialectics, regarding it as
something to mention in passing when making speeches. For their part the leaders
of the split were incapable of any attempt to analyse and make serious reply to
Healy's views and could only resort to ludicrously false accusations as to his
personal integrity.
"Such theoretical short-comings quickly caused a second split
in 1986, the objective cause this time being the developments in the Soviet
Union under the leadership of Gorbachev, who was struggling to restructure the
government and economy, to restore soviet democracy and reveal the truth of what
had happened under the dictatorship of Stalin. Healy, who was already aware that
vital theoretical developments had been made in the Soviet Union by philosophers
such as E. V. Ilyenkov, insisted that the political revolution, long ago
predicted by Trotsky, was unfolding in the Soviet Union, and that the consequent
overthrow of the Stalinist bureaucracy was a great step forward for the world
social revolution. However, his opponents saw these dramatic changes as the
restoration of capitalism and the disagreement was deep enough to cause a split.
(Capitalism was of course restored later when Boris Yeltsin overthrew
Gorbachev's government in a coup in 1993, but at that time Healy was correct in
his analysis.) Following this second split only a minority remained with Healy,
those who had consistently taken the theory and practice of dialectical
materialism seriously, and these formed themselves into a new organisation
called the Marxist Party. Its first practice was a series of cadre training
classes, and soon a new theoretical journal, the Marxist Monthly,
appeared, but by now Healy had been suffering poor health for some years, and he
died on December 14, 1989.
"This appreciation of the life and work of Gerry Healy would
be incomplete without an account of what happened to the organisation he left
behind. Shortly after his death the Marxist Party split again. Those who
separated from the Marxist Party continued to organise according to his method
and published a political biography, Gerry Healy, A RevolutionaryLife...[i.e.,
Lotz and Feldman (1994) -- RL], and continue to re-publish his work. With Healy gone the
leaders of the side that inherited the party name and publication, the
Marxist Monthly, proved unequal to the challenges of new developments.
"It became clear that they had not really grasped Healy's
dialectical analysis of the changes taking place in the Soviet Union. The
contradictory situation there contained both a revolutionary and a
reactionary moment. Reactionary because of the tendency to the restoration of
capitalism, and revolutionary because of the inevitable defeat of the
Stalinist bureaucracy. The essence of Healy's position was that even in the
event of a restoration of capitalism the revolution would at the same time
receive a mighty impetus because the greatest obstacle in its path, the
Stalinist bureaucracy, would be removed. When the political revolution which had
begun in the Soviet Union was defeated and capitalism was restored by the
counter-revolutionary coup led by
Boris Yeltsin
during the period 1991 to 1993,
a deep pessimism descended over the Party. Cadre training steadily fell into a
state of dereliction and finally ceased completely and the Marxist Party
degenerated into an opportunist clique with individuals who knew nothing of
Marxism in leading positions. Shortly before his death, in an article entitled 'Sceptics and the Political Revolution' in the November 1989 issue of Marxist
Monthly, Healy, writing from long experience, described just such situations
as this:-
'Sceptics
can be arrogant and assertive towards internal party relations or passive
towards materialist dialectics. In this way they achieve "peace of mind" by
concealing their real sceptical differences from their political colleagues. But
the sceptics themselves by no means refrain from decision-making when they
consider it politically suits them. Their organisational manifestation is their
clique or "personal ties" relations. In this way, they have almost a tribal
instinct for self-preservation. Their basic outlook is that the interests of the
clique come first, especially that of their "leader", who is the political guru
whose ego demands unconditional support and political adulation. This is indeed
an absolute precondition for being recognised by the clique as one of their
"trusties".'
"There could
not have been a better characterisation of the leadership of the Marxist Party
during its final years. It is no surprise that they could not live with the
Party's
democratic centralist constitution which was later
abandoned for a system of formal rules which better suited their authoritative
methods. In 2001 the Party adopted an anti-Leninist, social-chauvinist
manifesto calling for armed forces to be retained for 'the legitimate defence of
a population from a threat from a more powerful neighbour' and for 'self defence
at home', with only one member voting against, the writer of these lines. In
July 2002 its leading member publicly repudiated dialectical materialism in the
capitalist press, and another of its leaders accepted a CBE for 'services to
acting' and allowed herself to be described as 'a great admirer of Prince
Charles' in a glossy magazine interview. Voting became a matter of hand raising
in favour of the perspectives put by these leaders, who, after
Protagoras,
imagined themselves the measure of all things. The magazine Healy had founded
ceased publication in 2003, following an abortive attempt to transform it into a
commercial publication. The death of the Marxist Party came in 2005 when it was
liquidated into a single issue organisation campaigning for peace and the
retention of existing legal rights under the name 'Peace and Progress'. No
mention of Marxism or even the class division of society was made in its initial
manifesto or any subsequent statement; indeed all attempts at retaining Marxist
organisation and training of any kind were ignored and suppressed." [Terry
Button, quoted from
here.
Bold emphases and links added;
quotation marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at this site.]
The above confirms yet again how this theory can be used, by
the very same author, to argue for anything that author chooses and its
opposite:
"It became clear that they had not really grasped Healy's
dialectical analysis of the changes taking place in the Soviet Union. The
contradictory situation there contained both a revolutionary and a
reactionary moment. Reactionary because of the tendency to the restoration of
capitalism, and revolutionary because of the inevitable defeat of the
Stalinist bureaucracy." [Ibid. Bold emphasis added.]
Finally on this, here is that other Guru of the
UK far-left,
Sean
Matgamna, painting a slightly different picture of Healy:
"Healy was always, even in his
best days, given to paranoid self-importance and paranoid fear of the
State, and now his derangement got completely out of control. A terrible
panic seized him during the 1974 miners' strike that led, on February
28th, to the dismissal of the Tory Government by the electorate. At one
stage members of the organisation were instructed to hide their
'documents' because a military coup was only days away. Then Healy 'discovered'
that other Trotskyists who opposed him, such as Trotsky's one-time
secretary
Joseph Hansen, were really secret 'agents' of
the US or Russian governments, or both. A great barrage of lies and
bizarre fantasies...poured out.
"A vast world-wide campaign --
the Healyites had small groups in many countries -- was launched to
'explain' much of the tortured history of Trotskyism as a convoluted spy
story. All of the world, and much of recent history, was reinterpreted
as an affair of 'agents' and double-agents. Perhaps as part of the
eruption of his paranoia, Healy now transmuted into a 'philosopher.'
"Living the life of a
millionaire if not a pasha, while members of the SLL/WRP often went
short so that they could finance the organisation, and it was not
unknown for full-time workers for the organisation to go hungry,
Healy concentrated more and more on expounding a pseudo-Marxist,
pseudo-Hegelian gobbledegook reminiscent, despite its verbiage about
'dialectics' and so on, of nothing so much as
L
Ron Hubbard's dianetics, around which the
Church of Scientology
has
been constructed. This stuff mixed oddly with his continuing 'political'
concerns and the lines were often crossed: it was not unknown for the
WRP press to denounce someone as both a police agent and a
'philosophical idealist.' By the mid-1970s the
organisation was in serious decline, financially over-extended, and
threatened with collapse.
"At this point, Healy sold the
organisation to Libya, Iraq and some of the sheikhdoms as a propaganda
outlet and as a jobbing agency for spying on Arab dissidents and Jews
('Zionists') in Britain! Arab gold flowed into the shrunken and isolated
organisation. Printing presses were bought, more modern than those on
which the bourgeois papers were printed. To get away from the London
print unions, they were installed in Runcorn, Cheshire anticipating by a
decade
Murdoch's move from Fleet Street to Wapping. [On this, see
Appendix A -- RL.]
"They churned out crude
Arab-chauvinist propaganda lauding Saddam Hussein and Libya's ruler
Colonel Gaddafi and denouncing Israel and 'Zionism.' Numerically still
in serious and progressive decline, the organisation nevertheless built
up a property empire of bookshops and 'training centres' around Britain.
To earn their wages, they, still calling themselves Trotskyists,
publicly justified Saddam Hussein's 1980 killing of Iraqi Communist
Party members, and provided reports on London-based Arabs and on Jewish
capitalists. The organisation, as
Socialist Organiser
insisted at the time -- paying-for our
insistence with a costly libel case -- could now no longer be considered
part of the labour movement. In fact it was still widely accepted as
part of the labour movement, but that's another story.
"The final act came in October
1985. Healy, who had run the organisation by personal terror, was now
72, weakened by age and by a bad heart. He was suddenly denounced as a
rapist of 20-something female comrades and expelled from the
organisation! Exactly what happened is still not entirely clear, but,
with Healy dithering on the margin between retirement and full guruship,
the WRP imploded. Faced with continued decline and, despite the Arab
gold, a new financial crisis, the WRP apparatus divided. Healy himself
was probably getting ready for a purge. The organisation fell apart in a
great outburst of hysteria. The subgroups which Healy had kept in line
fell on each other, and on Healy, who had disappointed their political
hopes." [Quoted from
here. Bold emphasis and links added; quotation marks and formatting altered
to conform with the conventions adopted at this site. Minor typos corrected.
Paragraphs merged to save space.]
Another dialectical dog-fight
(this time Maoist) has just flared-up (in 2007-08) in the
US-RCP over Mike Ely's 'Nine Letters'; details
here and
here (the latter links to a PDF).
Clearly the recent downturn after the massive
radicalisation of the anti-war movement of 2003-09 has had its effect on
comrades world-wide, requiring several sizeable hits of Dialectical
Dopamine, as the
movement begins to fragment (again!). The split in
UK-Respect is just one more example -- although dialectics doesn't appear
to have had much to do with it (indeed, this split seems
to be a purely petty-bourgeois affair); much of it did, however, centre around
allegations of inner party democracy (advanced by the break-away
Respect
Renewal faction), as might have been expected (given the analysis advanced in the
main body of this Essay). This is, of course, in addition to the
on-going fragmentation of the UK-SWP.
To be sure, it isn't all bad news; in Australia,
three former splinter groups from the
IST have just
re-united.
Bets are now being taken on how long that will last.
[There is plenty more material like this on the Internet,
whose authors all use 'the dialectic method' to derive whatever
he/she finds convenient, or its opposite. I have added some of it to
Appendix B.]
49. These
passages have been
quoted from the following: [1] Jackson (1936), p.626; [2]
Konstantinov, et al (1974), pp.126-27; [3] Novack (1971), p.70; [4]
Cornforth (1976), pp.71-72; [5]
Rees (1998), pp.5-7; [6] Afanasyev (1968), pp.84-89; [7]
Ilyenkov (1982a), p.160; [8] Guest (1939), pp.52-53; [9] McGarr (1994),
pp.153-55; [10] Trotsky (1971), p.65; [11] Trotsky (1986), pp.86-97; [12]
Stalin (1976b), pp.837-40; [13] Woods and Grant (1995), pp.42-44, 156; [14] Mao
(quoted from
here); [15] CPGB (quoted from
here); [16] A break-away from The Fifth International (quoted from
here); [17] Trevor Rayne, an
RCG author (taken from
here). [Quotations marks altered to conform with the conventions adopted at
this site. Emphases in the original.]
In this brief selection, we
have at least
eight Stalinists, one Maoist, seven Trotskyists, and one ex-Trotskyist.
[We have already seen (here
and
here) how the vast majority of dialecticians, from all
wings of Marxism (and this includes Hegel, too), mis-characterise the LOC, LEM and LOI
-- once more, often using almost
exactly the same wording each time. We have also seen how they speak about
'universal interconnection' in the same terms (here
and here), as well as
the nature and
universal ubiquity of UOs and the
role they play in development
and change. Many more examples (where such theorists agree -- almost
down to the
letter -- over other core DM-principles) have been given throughout this site.]
[LOC = Law of Non-Contradiction; LEM =
Law of Excluded Middle; LOI = Law of Identity; UO = Unity of Opposites.]
Spot the difference!
49a.
Indeed, as noted
earlier, over at RevLeft, unreconstructed
Stalinists, Maoists, Left Communists,
OTs
and
NOTs, among others, have
all joined the
Dialectical Materialism Group. However, when it comes to politics these
comrades disagree over practically everything, but with respect to dialectics,
it is as if they are all singing from the same hymn sheet!
49b. I have been
studying this 'theory' now for over thirty years and I have yet to come
across a single unambiguous (positive), practical application of
DM. During this
long and tedious meander through these dialectical wastelands; I have also
asked (any who will listen) for a single example of the positive practical application
of DM, just as I have asked the same of comrades on the
Internet over the
last six or seven years.
No luck so far!
If anyone reading this knows of
even one such instance, please e-mail me
with the details!
I have considered two suggested examples of the practical
application of DM,
here and here
-- where both have been shown to fail.
50.DM
has to be
consigned to the dustbin of history first. Only then may reconstructive surgery begin on ailing
HM. More about
that another time.
51.
The phrase "common understanding" must not be confused with "common sense";
the former
will be explained in a later Essay.
"ComradeLuxemburg commits exactly the same basic error. She repeats naked words
without troubling to grasp theirconcrete meaning. She raises bogeys without
informing herself of the actual issue in the controversy. She puts in my mouth
commonplaces, general principles and conceptions, absolute truths, and tries to
pass over the relative truths, pertaining to perfectly definite facts, with
which alone I operate. And then she rails against set formulas and invokes the
dialectics of Marx!It is the worthy comrade's own article that consists of
nothing but manufactured
formulas and runs counter to the ABC
of dialectics. This ABC tells us that there is no such thing as abstract truth,
truth is always concrete. Comrade Rosa Luxemburg loftily ignores the concrete
facts of our Party struggle and engages in grandiloquent declamation about
matters which it is impossible to discuss seriously. Let me cite one last
example from Comrade Luxemburg's second article. She quotes my remark that the
way the Rules of Organisation are formulated can make them a more or a less
trenchant weapon against opportunism. Just what formulations I talked about in
my book and all of us talked about at the Congress, of that she does not say a
word. What the controversy at the Party Congress was, and against whom I
advanced my theses, she does not touch on in the slightest. Instead, she favours
me with a whole lecture on opportunism...in the parliamentary countries!! But
about the peculiar, specific varieties of opportunism in Russia, the shades
which it has taken on there and with which my book is concerned, we find not a
word in her article. The upshot of all these very brilliant arguments is: 'Party
Rules are not meant in themselves [?? understand this who can!] to be a weapon
of resistance to opportunism, but only an outward instrument for exerting the
dominant influence of the actually existing revolutionary-proletarian majority
of the Party.' Quite so. But how this actually existing majority of our Party
was formed Rosa Luxemburg does not say, yet that is exactly what I talk about in
my book. Nor does she say what influence it was that Plekhanov and I defended
with the help of this outward instrument. I can only add that never and nowhere
have I talked such nonsense as that the Party Rules are a weapon 'in
themselves'." [Collected Works, Volume VII; quoted from
here. Bold emphasis added; quotation marks altered to conform with the
conventions adopted at this site.]
It is quite apparent from this that despite saying "understand
this who can!", Lenin's last few words:
"I can only add that never and nowhere have I talked such
nonsense as that the Party Rules are a weapon 'in themselves'"
indicate that he understood perfectly well what Rosa Luxemburg
was saying and was simply point-scoring.
Be this as it may, the reader will note
once again that dialectics was used by both sides in this dispute to 'prove' that
the opposite view held by their opponent is incorrect/un-dialectical.
[Yet more dialectical bickering can be found in
Appendix
B.]
Incidentally, we have already seen that Lenin's claim that all
truth is concrete (a dogma he nowhere tries to justify -- that is, over and above merely
quoting Hegel, who similarly failed to justify it) self-destructs, along the
following lines:
L1: There is no such thing as abstract truth.
L2: L1 is an abstraction -- it certainly isn't
concrete.
L3: Lenin holds L1 true.
L4: But, since L1 is an abstraction, it can't be
true. [By L1 and L2.]
L5: If L1 is false, then there can be abstract
truths. [Of course, this assumes that there are only two truth values available
here: true or false.]
L6: But, all truth is concrete.
L7: L6 is an abstraction.
L8: L6 can't be true (by L1).
L9: So, not all truth is concrete. [By L8 and the
assumption recorded in L5.]
L10: Assuming there are only abstract and
concrete truths, then there can be abstract truths. [By L9.]
L11: Either way, there can be abstract truths.
[From L1 and L6.]
L12: Therefore, there is at least one abstract
truth, namely L11.
Clearly, Lenin inadvertently exposed his
philosophical and logical
naivety in the above passage.
52. The infelicity of the word
"algebra" may have escaped some readers of
TAR
-- as
seems to be the case with its author. If both reflect on the attitude that most
workers have toward algebra (when at school and subsequently) the unfortunate connotations
conveyed by this word might become a little clearer.
However, the title of TAR is
unfortunate in other ways. Alan Wood [not the same person as Alan Woods!] brings this out
well:
"The terms
'dialectical method' and
'dialectical logic' are apt to mislead. Neither in Hegel nor in Marx is
dialectical thinking really a set of procedures for inquiry, still less a set of
rules for generating or justifying results. Only harm can be done by
representing dialectic as analogous to formal logic or mathematics (witness
Alexander Herzen's famous but asinine description of the Hegelian dialectic as
the 'algebra of revolution')." [Wood (1981), p.190. Link added.]
The problem with the phrase "the algebra of
revolution" is that it does indeed suggest there is a well worked-out body of theory,
which is clear, precise, possessed of rigorous proof structures, and which generates determinate results.
None of these is even remotely true of dialectics. Readers searching through TAR
(or the vast majority of DM-texts) hoping to find anything even vaguely algebraic (or
systematic) will look long and hard, and to no avail.
Perhaps worse still, the word
"algebra" implies that the results of the revolution can be calculated in a
formal manner before the event has taken place, and that all the steps leading
up to the final QED
at the end
will decide the result -- even if the author of TAR
might strongly repudiate such an implication.
If it doesn't imply this,
why use the term?
On reflection, therefore, Rees might have thought better
of the title he gave his book.
Indeed, because of its
close links with German
mysticism -- mediated by DM -- a more accurate title would have been:
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