Die Neue Zeit
11th December 2008, 23:37
http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/749/againstphil.html
The party we need must be based on a Marxist programme, argues Mike Macnair, not ‘Marxist philosophy’
Excerpts:
Comrade Robinson argues that “no organisation is capable of leading a communist revolution unless it is firmly based on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism)”. In particular, he quotes Trotsky for the proposition that: “Scientific socialism (Marxism) is the conscious expression of the unconscious historical process; namely, the instinctive and elemental drive of the proletariat to reconstruct society on communist beginnings.
[...]
These ideas are profoundly mistaken. In the first place, an organisation “firmly based on Marxist philosophy” cannot possibly lead a communist revolution. To base an organisation on commitment to specific philosophical ideas is to build a sect of the sort condemned by Marx and Engels and to follow the path of Bogdanov, not Lenin.
[...]
The point Lenin made is, in fact, a little stronger. On March 24 1908, he wrote to Gorky arguing that the fight over philosophy must be kept separate from the Bolshevik faction and its publications. “A fight” over the philosophical issues, he says, “is absolutely inevitable. And party people should devote their efforts not to slurring it over, putting it off or dodging it, but to ensuring that essential party work does not suffer in practice ...”
[...]
As a Stalinist and therefore a believer in the myth of Bolshevik party continuity between 1903 and 1917, Althusser slightly misunderstood the political context. Lenin was, in fact, in process of making a political split with the Vpered tendency led by Bogdanov, to which Gorky and other advocates of a philosophical criticism of Marx belonged. But the underlying point is true. Lenin’s philosophical work which accompanied the split, Materialism and empirio-criticism (MEC), was not the ground of the split. This ground was political: the Vpered tendency advocated a return to the tactic of boycotting duma elections, and on this question Lenin and his co-thinkers were in (partial) agreement with the Menshevik faction.
[...]
A party founded on philosophy will therefore inevitably be a party of one. Of course, this is not invariably manifest. An individual may found a ‘school’ or cult, like religious prophets. Or an individual may become the guru of the group originally founded for political purposes, like Gerry Healy in the Workers Revolutionary Party or Kanichi Kuroda in comrade Robinson’s favourite group, the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Kakumaru). The guru is a philosopher king - as Plato imagined the role of Dion of Syracuse, and with the same disastrous results. In the end, only one mind can fix meaning to philosophical ideas. If philosophy is to be a direct guide to the action of more than one individual, other minds must be subordinated to this one mind.
[...]
In this context open discussion and democratic decision-making yield a better, more effective understanding of the world and more ability to change it.
The maintenance of philosophical ‘orthodoxy’ under the philosopher-king yields the exact opposite. What is reported upwards to the guru will be only what he wants to hear: indeed, he will filter out information which does not fit with his philosophy. The result is GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Put another way, it is the grotesqueries of Stalinist ‘planning’; or the ridiculously exaggerated claims of groups like the JRCL (Kakumaru) or the British WRP or Socialist Workers Party, as to their own social weight and political importance.
As individuals we cannot, of course, avoid ‘doing philosophy’ or arguing about philosophical questions. The moment of abstraction - thinking about or imagining what we are about to do - is an unavoidable element of pretty much all action except sleepwalking, etc. But we can avoid creating a philosophical orthodoxy, which inherently imports the role of the philosopher-king. We can organise, not on the basis of theory, but on the basis of programme: concrete proposals for how to change the world.
Hence I reject out of hand comrade Robinson’s idea that “no organisation is capable of leading a communist revolution unless it is firmly based on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism)”. The reverse is the case. An organisation founded, as such, on philosophical commitments (or on other very precise theoretical commitments, like ‘orthodox Trotskyism’) leads only to small-scale imitations of Stalinism.
[This is something for me to think about when reflecting upon the slogan "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." I used this slogan in my earlier theoretical pamphlet, and I may have to make a criticism in my programmatic work-in-progress.]
The party we need must be based on a Marxist programme, argues Mike Macnair, not ‘Marxist philosophy’
Excerpts:
Comrade Robinson argues that “no organisation is capable of leading a communist revolution unless it is firmly based on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism)”. In particular, he quotes Trotsky for the proposition that: “Scientific socialism (Marxism) is the conscious expression of the unconscious historical process; namely, the instinctive and elemental drive of the proletariat to reconstruct society on communist beginnings.
[...]
These ideas are profoundly mistaken. In the first place, an organisation “firmly based on Marxist philosophy” cannot possibly lead a communist revolution. To base an organisation on commitment to specific philosophical ideas is to build a sect of the sort condemned by Marx and Engels and to follow the path of Bogdanov, not Lenin.
[...]
The point Lenin made is, in fact, a little stronger. On March 24 1908, he wrote to Gorky arguing that the fight over philosophy must be kept separate from the Bolshevik faction and its publications. “A fight” over the philosophical issues, he says, “is absolutely inevitable. And party people should devote their efforts not to slurring it over, putting it off or dodging it, but to ensuring that essential party work does not suffer in practice ...”
[...]
As a Stalinist and therefore a believer in the myth of Bolshevik party continuity between 1903 and 1917, Althusser slightly misunderstood the political context. Lenin was, in fact, in process of making a political split with the Vpered tendency led by Bogdanov, to which Gorky and other advocates of a philosophical criticism of Marx belonged. But the underlying point is true. Lenin’s philosophical work which accompanied the split, Materialism and empirio-criticism (MEC), was not the ground of the split. This ground was political: the Vpered tendency advocated a return to the tactic of boycotting duma elections, and on this question Lenin and his co-thinkers were in (partial) agreement with the Menshevik faction.
[...]
A party founded on philosophy will therefore inevitably be a party of one. Of course, this is not invariably manifest. An individual may found a ‘school’ or cult, like religious prophets. Or an individual may become the guru of the group originally founded for political purposes, like Gerry Healy in the Workers Revolutionary Party or Kanichi Kuroda in comrade Robinson’s favourite group, the Japan Revolutionary Communist League (Kakumaru). The guru is a philosopher king - as Plato imagined the role of Dion of Syracuse, and with the same disastrous results. In the end, only one mind can fix meaning to philosophical ideas. If philosophy is to be a direct guide to the action of more than one individual, other minds must be subordinated to this one mind.
[...]
In this context open discussion and democratic decision-making yield a better, more effective understanding of the world and more ability to change it.
The maintenance of philosophical ‘orthodoxy’ under the philosopher-king yields the exact opposite. What is reported upwards to the guru will be only what he wants to hear: indeed, he will filter out information which does not fit with his philosophy. The result is GIGO (garbage in, garbage out). Put another way, it is the grotesqueries of Stalinist ‘planning’; or the ridiculously exaggerated claims of groups like the JRCL (Kakumaru) or the British WRP or Socialist Workers Party, as to their own social weight and political importance.
As individuals we cannot, of course, avoid ‘doing philosophy’ or arguing about philosophical questions. The moment of abstraction - thinking about or imagining what we are about to do - is an unavoidable element of pretty much all action except sleepwalking, etc. But we can avoid creating a philosophical orthodoxy, which inherently imports the role of the philosopher-king. We can organise, not on the basis of theory, but on the basis of programme: concrete proposals for how to change the world.
Hence I reject out of hand comrade Robinson’s idea that “no organisation is capable of leading a communist revolution unless it is firmly based on Marxist philosophy (dialectical materialism)”. The reverse is the case. An organisation founded, as such, on philosophical commitments (or on other very precise theoretical commitments, like ‘orthodox Trotskyism’) leads only to small-scale imitations of Stalinism.
[This is something for me to think about when reflecting upon the slogan "Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement." I used this slogan in my earlier theoretical pamphlet, and I may have to make a criticism in my programmatic work-in-progress.]