Thursday June, (near the end)
My dear Rae,
I have now been playing hide and seek with Lenin on Dialectics1 p. 81, Vol. XI. I compare it with the section on Dialectics in the Essay on Karl Marx.2 Read them. There is a million years between them. That is the arena. I seem to see that L's best ideas came from reading the History of Philosophy.3 I see a lot of the notes from there in this summation. He seemed to put down there the things he had learnt since the essay on Marx. He was a good guy, L, he had every stage down in order.
(If you are in difficulties for L's concept of the progressiveness of capitalism, I can give you quotes. They are all in Vol. XI, and should be used, in summary, almost verbatim).
Now. Reading L on Marx (July-November 1914)4 he singles out as Marx did, 3 phases. Simple cooperation, Division of Labor; large-scale machinery. L has added one stage more: Monopoly. That's all. And he has omitted one thing: the effect on the proletariat in production of monopoly, i.e. state-capitalism. That has been our task. But precisely because of STATE-monopoly, the psychological, political and economic become fused. I cannot help noting how nowhere does L really talk about the thing Marx made the climax of Vol. I - the degradation of the laborer. He speaks more about the high cost of living. This is to be born in mind as we try to see him in 1914, using ourselves in 1949 as the ultimate logical peak, the concrete inevitability of soc.5 so to speak with enables us to place him.
This is important because L himself emphasizes the relativity (within the Aboslute) of human knowledge, of how constantly new sides are being developed, which bring us nearer to the absolute truth. He posed state-capitalism and the Soviets. It was a new aspect of the absolute. But he only began. We are now working that out, analyzing fully sate-cap; economic analysis; reaction of masses, state, party, etc. Bear these broad developments in mind. Trace the dialectic of each aspect - state, political economy; party, etc. through each stage. Then you will see L in all his fullness, and his inevitable limitations. In fact only in view of '49 can we really see what he discovered and what he stood for.
I am still eaten up with L's rejoicing over his discovery of abstract and concrete. Abstract is the law, the generalization, the theory. The new abstract for L is monopoly, and all the shades of meaning, antagonisms, etc. he drew from it. Just for fun, look again at Vol. XI,6 p. 748. the emphasis, the violence of the language is almost incredible. Again on p. 750. The para. beginning "It is clear..."
All this is his abstract, his law, his generalisation, the new one. (Remember, by the way, that each stage of the Notion, say, each stage of capitalism is an absolute; and a tremendous knowledge of method is to be gained, by watching each stage, and seeing what happened to abstract and concrete then: Cap. at the time of the 1st Int. Cap. at the time of the Second,7 etc. etc. What was the relation then between abstract and concrete. That will help us to pin down L's great discovery. But I cannot stay here. I have bigger game in view).
Now yesterday I insisted that we deal with this broadly, against the bourgeoisie and not tangle up the general public with wire-drawn dispute between Lenin and Bukharin, etc.). I suggested how these should be dealt with. By bourgeoisie I mean radical bourgeois. But - I warned that to get this right WE have to trace the shades inside the movement clearly for each shade represents a facet of bourgeois ideas.
Now: who is Lenin attacking when he says: concrete not abstract?
In general he is theoretically raging against the people who will not even try to see the connection between opportunism and imperialism.
This is a strictly theoretical question.
But (again Vol. XI,8 761) he says about opportunist parties. "There is not the slightest reason for thinking that these parties will disappear before the social revolution". And then says that they will probably play a greater role in the revolutionary crisis (I suspect, I think I remember another translation in Vol. XIX9 where the same article appears). Here enters what he calls practice. If you go on with that article and a superb article it is (for us) you will see that he reinterprets the word mass. In the most violent manner he denies the very term mass organisation to the Second International. We cannot tell for certain, he says, what proportion of the masses will come with us. This is practice. The two together, the theory and the practice, make the truth at a given moment, i.e., the Absolute Idea.
We have:
a) The Absolute, the struggle of classesb) This struggle under capitalismc) Its form, centralization of capital, socialisation of labord) Its new category. Monopoly with all its crimese) Monopoly is the transition. Pure theory this is.f) It brings with it the Second International devoted to cap'm.g) The new category of labor which is to negate this form of capitalism is unknown.h) It can be found only in concrete struggle which is opposed (must be opposed) by the masses.i) The Soviet solves this. Therefore the New International, the Third, will exist to represent the idea and as soon as possible the embodiment of the Soviet.
Watch something here. Lenin has made the most concrete analysis of the new category of capitalist system and the transitions, sides etc. which flow from it. But what he has to propose seems entirely abstract, -- the masses will do something. This is a very contradiction. No wonder he is ridiculed. ((There is a whole lot of ideas contained here: objective and subjective - the use of the words. G perhaps will do something if she thinks it worth while)). But L's analysis is abstract. He has pulled himself away from the whole, got his categories clear, pinned down the old dead categories and now is moving into his concrete, mass action. The Second Int. is a dead category - finished.
So far against capital.
But L's program for the workers. That, too, is an abstraction, and abstract Universal. It can be summed up in the phrase: all types of struggle for a New International. Now L is very conscious (Vol. XI,10 p. 81) of the opposition between a sentence like the tree is green. He deals with it fully. Between his program and the concrete masses is another opposition. If there weren't an opposition there would be complete identity. The program therefore becomes a bridge from the concrete to a higher stage of the concrete, its realisation, as a concrete opposition and negation to the Second International.
Now once more, who were the others who did not see this. Rosa? Bukharin? I cannot help coming back to the theses that L was attacking and clearing up the errors primarily of himself. Why had he failed to see the collapse of the 2nd Int.?
He had:
a) failed to analyze capitalb) failed to see the connection of the 2nd Intl. with itc) failed to see this as an inevitable trend which was bound to grow.
He had accepted a series of abstractions, party, mass, revolution, etc. and had never contrasted these with the concrete struggle of the real revolutionary masses, these masses and one of the mutually exclusive fundamental antagonisms or the Absolute. He has neglected Marx's attitude in the struggle for the working-day. He had neglected Marx and Engels' consistent ATTACKS upon the British bourgeois trade unions.
I cannot stay to tie this up to his analysis of Capital, his analsysis of philosophy (Plekhanov), the things we have talked about.
Can we bring them all into these categories of abstract and concrete, concrete being always an ever-closer approximation of what constitutes the real, the genuine revolutionary masses. There is something unresolved here, but I am, equally sure that I can resolve it. The essence of the matter is here tho. The thing begins with the mutually exclusive Absolutes, capital and labor; but these soon become capital at a precise stage, and the revolutionary masses. This needs constant redefinition. God help you if you live in the abstract, one type of (outmoded) category; or even when you draft your program, not recognise that this is and must be abstract in relation to the concrete struggle.
To be continued
J.
1 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: 'On the Question of Dialectics' (written 1915, published 1925).
2 Lenin, 'Karl Marx', (1915).
3 This appears to be a reference to Hegel's Lectures on the History of Philosophy, (1805-06).
4 Lenin, 'Karl Marx', (published 1915, written in 1914).
5 socialism
6 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism', (1916).
7 Capitalism at the time of the First International (International Workingmen's Association). Capitalism at the time of the Second (Socialist) International.
8 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism', (1916).
9 The editor has been unable to identify this text.
10 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: 'On the Question of Dialectics' (written 1915, published 1925).