Non-Leninist Marxism: A Philosophy of Revolution

[FalceMartello]

http://web.archive.org/web/20010803232303/...87/nonlenin.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20010803232303/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/nonlenin.htm)

A friend reccommended this book to me a few weeks ago. I just finished tonight. This is, I think, one of the most well written, comprehensive, and indepth papers on Leninism I have ever read. It has influenced me greately and I believe will do the same to others. I'm curious as to what others, such as RedStar2000 think of this, especially in regard to it's mention of the dialectic and attack on economic determinism.

[Ownthink]

The link doesn't load for me. Anyone else with this problem?

[Morpheus]

yes

[red_che]

Same here.

[Clarksist]

Yeah I did some extensive Googling, and I repeatedly found the same non-functioning link.

And I am interested too. :(

[redstar2000]

The link just worked for me...probably the site was down briefly for maintenance.

In any event, Lenny Frank Jr. has come up before.

I'm sure he means well.

But his failure to confront and reject "dialectical" mysticism has led him "into the swamp" of mysticism in general.

TAO OF MARXISM: Marxian Dialectics and the Asian Tradition (http://web.archive.org/web/20011210205116/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/tao.htm)

You know there's "not much hope" when people get "into" that stuff. :lol:

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[Proletar]

damn dont work for me.. im very interestet

[FalceMartello]

http://web.archive.org/web/20010609224049/.../1587/index.htm (http://web.archive.org/web/20010609224049/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/index.htm)

Try this one instead. If there are still problems, then I'll post it in full...it's fairly short...would probably make a 100 page book or so.

[YKTMX]

It is my conclusion that the Leninists, in all of their various forms, cannot serve as a model for a successful anti-capitalist revolution, and that they need to be opposed by working class militants to the same extent as the capitalists. My motto is: "Never talk to a Trot without an ice pick in your pocket".

And we're supposed to take this shite seriously, are we?

[JC1]

It is my conclusion that the Leninists, in all of their various forms, cannot serve as a model for a successful anti-capitalist revolution, and that they need to be opposed by working class militants to the same extent as the capitalists. My motto is: "Never talk to a Trot without an ice pick in your pocket".

I never met a working class anarchist, and most of the Leninist's I met were Working Class or lumpen.

[FalceMartello]

And we're supposed to take this shite seriously, are we?

Yes, I don't see why not.


most of the Leninist's I met were Working Class or lumpen.

What would a worker and especially a lumpen proletariat gain from being a leninist? Actually, quite the opposite is true. Leninists, are primarily white white collar workers who come from a background which is generally regarded as "middle class" and have a very petty bourgeioise outlook and the only reason they are interested in communism to any degree is due to a philanthropatic of "liberating the working class" as they feel pity for them. However, there are few exceptions.

And where did the topic of anarchists come up?

[FalceMartello]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 08:31 AM
The link just worked for me...probably the site was down briefly for maintenance.

In any event, Lenny Frank Jr. has come up before.

I'm sure he means well.

But his failure to confront and reject "dialectical" mysticism has led him "into the swamp" of mysticism in general.

TAO OF MARXISM: Marxian Dialectics and the Asian Tradition (http://web.archive.org/web/20011210205116/www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1587/tao.htm)

You know there's "not much hope" when people get "into" that stuff. :lol:

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I don't see Lenny Frank as a major dialectician. He does make use of it, however. But RedStar, what do you think of his attacks on economic determinism and such? (from chapter 3 mostly on his the chapter on Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony)

[barista.marxista]

Perhaps RedStar would consider looking at the work in question, instead of disregarding it upon seeing the title of another work that he has not read? That's a very ignorant and dogmatic attitude.

[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 04:44 AM
I never met a working class anarchist, and most of the Leninist's I met were Working Class or lumpen.
I've never met a working class leninist.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 04:00 PM
Perhaps RedStar would consider looking at the work in question, instead of disregarding it upon seeing the title of another work that he has not read? That's a very ignorant and dogmatic attitude.
This is, after all, the "age of information" in which we are flooded with claims on our attention.

We cannot read everything...it's physically impossible.

So we all use "short-cuts" to decide what's worth our focused attention and what can "safely" be disregarded.

I've had the online experience -- and maybe all of us have -- of having someone dispute my views by quoting some "authority" that I've never heard of. :o

So I've taken to looking them up on Wikipedia...and in seconds discovering that they're "Christian anarchists" or bemedaled darlings of the ruling class or some other equally wretched ideologue.

So I assume that it would be a waste of my time to even bother reading them.

Just as I assume that someone who is "into mysticism" cannot possibly have anything of interest to say.

Yes...this is dogmatic.

But we all have to do it! The differences lie in what we think is worth further exploration and what we assume is crap and not worthy of our time and energy.

Since FalceMartello is "pressing" me on Frank, I'll make an exception in this case.

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[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Frank+--> (Frank)The socialists of the Second International, faced with a decline in militant working class activity, were forced to focus their attention on the development of revolutionary theory. In the absence of an organized revolutionary movement, the German socialist movement became more and more divorced from reality, and eventually reduced all of Marx's profound insights into the simple formula, "Material economic conditions determine consciousness." In other words, these theorists concluded, Marxism was a positive science which described and analyzed the objective laws of human development just as Newton had studied physics and Darwin had studied biology. According to these "scientific Marxists" Marxism asserted that prevailing economic conditions directly determined all of the rest of societal organization, including the religious, political, legal and ethical spheres, and that the actions of the economic sphere were automatic and eternal, unaffected by human wishes or desires.[/b]


Marx
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. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or — this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms — with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. -- emphasis added.

Words like "automatic" and "eternal" rather overstate the case, but it seems to me that Frank attributes to the 2nd International a view that Marx himself explicitly expresses.

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[Morpheus]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 01:13 AM
So I've taken to looking them up on Wikipedia...and in seconds discovering that they're "Christian anarchists" or bemedaled darlings of the ruling class or some other equally wretched ideologue.

So I assume that it would be a waste of my time to even bother reading them.

Just as I assume that someone who is "into mysticism" cannot possibly have anything of interest to say.
Couldn't the same logic be used to justify disregarding Marx? He was into dialectics so therefore he's not worth reading?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by Morpheus
Couldn't the same logic be used to justify disregarding Marx? He was into dialectics so therefore he's not worth reading?

I imagine that there actually are quite a few intelligent people who dismiss Marx for that very reason.

And it's tough to "blame" them for that. Anyone who first encounters "dialectics" is almost certain to wonder what the fuck is this weird shit?.

It may well turn out that all of Marx's discussions of "dialectics" will eventually be sent to the "basement stacks" of the revolutionary library and only his explicitly historical materialist works will be read.

In fact, the very word "Marxism" may eventually fall from favor and be replaced with historical materialism...that part of Marxism which is really useful in explaining things.

After all, no one cares now about Newton's interest in The Book of Daniel or Darwin's conviction that Europeans were "a more evolved race". So why should we care about "dialectics"?

But until that happens, your point is well taken. You can see where "dialectics" led Frank...out of the Leninist bog and into the mystical swamp.

Sad. :(

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[barista.marxista]

Originally posted by Marx - 18th [email protected] Chapter 1
Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

I think this is an excellent example of the method of dialectical materialism which Marx employs. RedStar seems to believe it is some kind of mysticism that guides the universe, and thus is a superstition and should be denounced. Dialectical materialism isn't mystical: it's a method of analysis. It's been perceived as such since Euthyphro and through Kant is being a method of analyzing movement and change through conflict. And obviously when two things are in conflict, one of them cannot reign ultimately supreme until they resolve. This is exactly why Marx employs dialectics in the analyzation of humans and their material conditions. Human consciousness is a product of the material conditions in which it evolved, but those material conditions are shaped by consciousness. As no part of society is the product of an isolated, omnipotent power, all of civil society, economics, and history are a product of human social relations. Thus to say "material conditions dictate humanity" is to fetishize the material conditions, exactly what Marx criticized about religion. Thus dialectics aren't mystical, because that is also to fetishize, but instead are just a method of analyzing change through conflict.

I'm also surprised about how many people are simply reading that Trot line at the start of the page. How about you quit being dogmatic and read the 10-page section called "Hegemony and Counter-Hegemony" and then make a statement? It's minimal effort, and it keeps you from looking like an ignorant jackass.

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by barista.marxista
I think this is an excellent example of the method of dialectical materialism which Marx employs.

We've had four recent threads on "dialectics" in the Philosophy forum...in which "dialectics" has been properly hammered.

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=44759

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=44445

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=43292

http://www.revolutionaryleft.com/index.php?showtopic=42399

If you want to contribute to the futile efforts to salvage "dialectics", I invite you to contribute to one or more of those threads.


Human consciousness is a product of the material conditions in which it evolved, but those material conditions are shaped by consciousness. As no part of society is the product of an isolated, omnipotent power, all of civil society, economics, and history are a product of human social relations.

Well, that's not what Marx actually said...but that's not the real question, is it?

Is your statement true?

Are material conditions "shaped by consciousness"?

Well, some of them are. We know that in very early times, some human became conscious of the idea of the wheel and decided to make one...thus revolutionizing the means of production of pottery and then transportation.

We know that the existence of certain kinds of class societies encourages or discourages technological innovation...thus speeding or retarding the progress of those societies.

But we also know (or should know!) that the attempts to consciously impose a given set of social relationships succeeds or fails according to objective material conditions.

A simple example: one of the conscious goals of the Nazis was to return female Germans to their "traditional role" of wives and mothers in the home. And they took a number of institutional steps to "make that happen"...such as sharply reducing the number of women admitted to universities.

How did it go? Well, the number of German women who worked in industry and commerce actually increased in the Third Reich...even before the war.

It just didn't increase as fast as it had during the Weimar years.

The Nazis tried to consciously reverse a trend that had been underway for a long time due to changes in the means of production...and failed!

Your idea that "human social relationships" have a kind of "feedback effect" on material conditions is not "wrong"...but it can certainly be misleading.

The central thesis of the historical materialist paradigm is that material reality prevails while "civil society, economics, and history" are best understood as derivative phenomena.

Indeed, this is where "dialectics" really lands people in the shit. If one posits a "dialectical relationship" between material conditions and "human social relationships", then it logically follows that either can prevail depending on their relative strengths in specific situations.

You "can go" from feudalism to communism..."if enough people really want to do that".


It's minimal effort, and it keeps you from looking like an ignorant jackass.

I'm afraid that's an "occupational hazard" of entering the arena of public discourse. One always takes the chance of "looking like an ignorant jackass"...at least to some.

The only "safe course" is to always remain silent.

But, as you've gathered, that option doesn't appeal to me much. :lol:

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[YKTMX]

I've never met a working class leninist.


It depends on where you live.

In America and to some extent Britain, it's only really reformists who have any influence on the class - though we have the SSP in Scotland. If you go to Europe, India, parts of the Middle East, Marxists have a real working class base.

As I've said, it's not important what class an individual revolutionary is from, the only thing that matters is building a revolutionary majority in the working class. And that is more about the economic and social position of capitalism.

[barista.marxista]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15 2006, 07:15 PM
Your idea that "human social relationships" have a kind of "feedback effect" on material conditions is not "wrong"...but it can certainly be misleading.

The central thesis of the historical materialist paradigm is that material reality prevails while "civil society, economics, and history" are best understood as derivative phenomena.

Indeed, this is where "dialectics" really lands people in the shit. If one posits a "dialectical relationship" between material conditions and "human social relationships", then it logically follows that either can prevail depending on their relative strengths in specific situations.

You "can go" from feudalism to communism..."if enough people really want to do that".
Anything is misleading when taken out of context, so that's hardly an argument. And the fact that Marx's theory is called dialectical materialism shows the emphasis on materialism, but also the lack of dogmatism that materialists like Feuerbach suffered from. Thus material conditions do shape human consciousness, which can then reshape aspects of material conditions. It can happen in more isolated incidents such as the rise of anti-semitism and the subsequent genocide in Nazi Germany, or it can happen in widespread instances, such as revolutions. But to say that material conditions always dictate ideas, and ideas never can even begin to manifest themselves again in the material conditions, is dogmatic, and, if it were true, would mean that the material conditions would never significantly change in regards to human evolution and history. Dialectics, again, isn't mysticism, it's a methodology for studying change and movement through conflict. Dialectical materialism, then, doesn't allow for people to go from feudalism to communism "if they really want to do that," but revolutions don't happen unless revolutionary ideas, as a result of material conditions, take hold of the peoples' minds.

So why don't you read a bit of Flank's book, instead of dogmatically denouncing it?

[redstar2000]

Originally posted by barista.marxista+--> (barista.marxista)And the fact that Marx's theory is called dialectical materialism shows the emphasis on materialism, but also the lack of dogmatism that materialists like Feuerbach suffered from.[/b]

Well, as it happens, Marx never used the phrase "dialectical materialism" to describe his own method of investigation. I don't know who coined the phrase, though I've seen it attributed to Engels, to Plekhanov, and to some obscure German social-democrat in the late 19th century.

In my view, it's an oxymoron...the semantic equivalent of saying "idealist materialism".

Marx's Theses On Feuerbach (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/index.htm) was written in 1845...and is certainly a "milestone" in the development of Marx's thought.

But Marx does not criticize Feuerbach for "dogmatism"...but rather for the "abstractness" of Feuerbach's materialism.

Marx does say something which could be interpreted as implying an "equality" between material and non-material causation...


Originally posted by [email protected]
The materialist doctrine that men are products of circumstances and upbringing, and that, therefore, changed men are products of changed circumstances and changed upbringing, forgets that it is men who change circumstances and that the educator must himself be educated. Hence this doctrine is bound to divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-change can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice.

I think this shows Marx "on the edge" of historical materialism but not yet "fully immersed".

Marx was 27 years old when he wrote the Theses on Feuerbach...with perhaps a "little more ground to cover" before his conception of the world was fully "Marxist".

It seems to me that "self-change" (in any significant sense) derives from changes in material circumstances...and not the other way around.

The reason we want to "change the world" is not because of an "abstract ideal" that just happened to "pop into our heads". We both experience and observe real material conditions and derive from those experiences and observations what seem to us to be "ideas" for rational improvements. Then we seek to implement those "ideas"...and our efforts, to the degree they are successful, will effect some change (not necessarily the intended one) in material conditions that will result in new experiences and observations, prompting new "ideas" on how things might be improved.

The process is not "dialectical", it's iterative. Material change -> change in "ideas" -> material change -> change in "ideas" -> material change -> change in "ideas" -> material change...etc.

What I think is crucial to understand is that in every stage of this process, it is the material changes (intended or unintended) that dominate the outcome.


barista.marxista
But to say that material conditions always dictate ideas, and ideas never can even begin to manifest themselves again in the material conditions, is dogmatic, and, if it were true, would mean that the material conditions would never significantly change in regards to human evolution and history.

Now, I didn't say that "ideas never can even begin to manifest themselves again in the material conditions".

Technological innovation in the means of production can have a very strong effect on material conditions up to and including the complete overthrow of an entire ruling class and its replacement by a new one.

But that's not what's usually meant in this context. What is more or less implied in this sort of discussion is that "revolutionary consciousness" (however defined) can "overcome" material conditions if it's "strong enough".

And the Leninists actually go so far as to imply that such "consciousness" can be "manufactured" by the "correct" application of "dialectics" to strategy and tactics.

That's not wrong simply because it contradicts the historical materialist "dogma"; it's wrong because it contradicts historical experience.


Dialectics, again, isn't mysticism, it's a methodology for studying change and movement through conflict.

A modest ambition...but unfortunately, it furnishes no useful tools to carry out the project -- just arbitrary labels pasted on social (or natural) phenomena to serve someone's political convenience.

If you really want to explore the murky depths of this metaphysical swamp, I invite you once more to contribute to one or more of the threads on this subject in the Philosophy forum.

It's really no longer relevant to modern revolutionary theory.


So why don't you read a bit of Frank's book, instead of dogmatically denouncing it?

Because I don't have time for mystics.

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