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Arguments for Revolutionary Socialism
THE MOST obvious obstacle to the socialist transformation of society is the simple fact that most workers are not socialists. Indeed most workers accept capitalism, believe it can’t be changed, and view socialists who want to change it as idealists or troublemakers.
So what does Marxism have to say about this crucial problem? Why do workers so often accept reactionary ideas, and how can this change?
It is one of the most basic propositions of Marxism that it is not ideas that shape the state of society, bur the state of society that shapes ideas. The generally-held ideas of society reflect the way society is organised. In feudal society there was a rigid division between lords and serfs. This was therefore generally accepted as natural and inevitable; to use the language of the time, something ‘ordained by God’. Capitalist society is founded on the profit motive – and therefore this is thought of as ‘natural’. In fact such ideas do more than simply reflect society; they justify it. They justify the current class divisions. As Marxists put it: ‘the ruling ideas of any age will be the ideas of the ruling class’.
If we look at capitalism today we can easily see how this can be so. The ruling class controls the channels for the formation and propagation of ideas: the education system, the newspapers, the television stations and all other means of mass communication, and its ideas are dominant in all these. But the power of ruling-class ideas does not arise simply from a ‘conspiracy’ of rich newspaper proprietors, publishers and university professors, ministers and civil servants and so on. Capitalist ideas seem to make sense because they reflect the world as we experience it. Businesses are run for profit and society is divided into classes – so to believe these things are ‘natural’ and ‘true’ seems simple common sense.
So for Marxists there is nothing particularly surprising about the working-class Tory or the sexist trade unionist. If capitalist ideology didn’t dominate workers’ thinking in this way capitalism couldn’t survive at all.
Similarly socialist ideas will only acquire such ‘obviousness’ when a socialist society exists. So this faces us with an immediate dilemma: if, as we say, socialism cannot be created on behalf of workers, but must be the act of the working class itself, how can this happen when the working class is dominated by capitalist ideas?
Workers’ ideas clearly cannot simply be changed on a mass scale by socialist propaganda. A socialist newspaper such as Socialist Worker can’t match the operations of the millionaire press. The spread of socialist ideas on a mass scale must have a material base; just as capitalist ideas dominate workers’ thinking because they reflect their daily experience, so the spread of socialist ideas will reflect changes in that daily experience.
Here it is necessary to clear up a widespread confusion. It is often supposed that the more people suffer, the more revolutionary they become. But if this were so, then the revolution would have happened long ago. In fact it is not suffering, but the experience of fighting against suffering that forms the material basis for the growth of socialist ideas.
If the level of workers’ struggle is low, and results largely in defeat, then workers – with little control over their own working lives – feel that society cannot be changed. But if the level of struggle is high, and victory follows victory, then workers’ confidence in their ability to change their own lives rises, and they become more able to see that alternatives to capitalism are possible. If the level of class struggle is so high that it threatens the existence of the bourgeois state, then socialist ideas can spread like wildfire.
None of this means that the attempt by socialists to spread their ideas through newspapers, pamphlets and books is irrelevant or unnecessary. Workers do not have to be socialists before they engage in battles that challenge the ruling class – but their ability to win those battles is closely linked to their level of political consciousness. Mass strikes, workplace occupations and demonstrations create conditions in which it is possible for socialist ideas to spread, but – as the example of the trade union Solidarity in Poland proves – it is impossible for workers to improvise, suddenly and in the heat of battle, a fully worked-out socialist understanding of the world.
The socialist ideas have to be there, ready to inform those struggles, to articulate and generalise from these new experiences, and ready to prove their practical relevance by pointing to the way forward.
Marxism is a general theory of society from the point of view of the working class. It includes and integrates into a single whole theories of history, economics, politics and philosophy.
The philosophy of Marxism is usually called ‘dialectical materialism’. Marxism is materialist since it regards the production of the necessities of life as the basis on which ideas arise, rather than vice versa. But what does dialectical mean?
There is a difficulty here because it is obviously not a term used in everyday speech, nor, naturally, is it explained in school. It is a philosophical term deriving originally from ancient Greece, and developed by the great German philosopher Hegel at the end of the 18th century.
Dialectics is the logic of change, of evolution and of development. Its starting point is the idea (and the fact) that everything changes and is involved in an ongoing process of coming into being and ceasing to be. To understand the significance of this compare it with what is known as ‘formal’ logic (originally developed by Aristotle and usually thought of as the rules of sound thinking). The basic idea of formal logic is that something either is the case or is not the case, but that it can’t be both at the same time. For example, the cat is either on the mat or is not on the mat.
For many purposes formal logic is useful and necessary. But as soon as you take movement and change into account, it ceases to be adequate. A cat moving goes through a moment when it is in the process of passing onto the mat or in the process of passing off it – when it is both on and off the mat. Dialectics is in advance of formal logic because it enables us to grasp this contradiction.
This really matters when we come to analyse social development and, in particular, how the transition takes place from one form of society to another. Ruling classes believe in die fixed eternal nature of their form of society. The feudal lords believed feudalism was ordained by God and would last forever. Today’s ruling classes believe capitalism reflects a fixed human nature and will similarly survive forever. Dialectics, however, insists that nothing is fixed or lasts forever. Feudalism arose historically and was destroyed historically. Likewise capitalism is a historical product with a beginning and, sooner or later, an end.
This brings us to the second fundamental proposition of dialectics. This is that social change occurs through internal contradiction, through the struggle of opposites. A given society forms a whole or totality, but within that whole there are antagonisms and opposing forces. The change from one form of society to another is the result of the dominant element being overcome by its antagonist or opposite.
It is no accident that dialectics was developed by Hegel at the time of the French Revolution – the greatest, most radical social upheaval the world had then seen. The dialectical theory of development through contradiction was the philosophical expression of the French Revolution.
But because the French Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, one led by lawyers and intellectuals, it necessarily appeared to Hegel that the driving force of history was the struggle between opposite ideas (between the idea of monarchy and the idea of a republic, between the idea of aristocracy and the idea of equality, etc.). Marx, coming 50 years later and taking the standpoint of the working class, was able to go beyond Hegel and show that this struggle of ideas was a reflection of a struggle of material forces. With Marx the dialectic became the logic of class struggle.
A third proposition of dialectics is that quantitative changes become qualitative ones. Within a particular framework of society changes occur. With capitalism, for example, the forces of production advance and grow bigger and the working class grows more powerful. For a time these changes are quantitative – they modify society but don’t transform it. But sooner or later the changes become too great to be confined within the existing framework. For development to continue, this framework has to be broken and a new social order established.
Thus dialectics is not only the logic of change and of class struggle, but also the logic of revolution. Despite its obscure philosophical origins, it is a powerful practical tool enabling Marxists to grasp the inner dynamics of the working-class struggle.
‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’
These celebrated lines from the American Declaration of Independence are typical of the ringing proclamations produced by the bourgeois revolutions that paved the way for the development of modern capitalism – typical in three ways.
First, they concentrate on supposedly universal and absolute, but abstract, truths and rights, rather than on anything specific. Second, in the context of the times, when absolute monarchy was the order of the day in most of the world, they were immensely progressive and genuinely radical. Third, even at the time of writing they were being systematically violated by their bourgeois revolutionary authors – the independent United States continued to practice and tolerate slavery for another ninety years.
Today capitalist propaganda and ideology continue, rather perfunctorily, to proclaim these same universal principles, but the practical violations remain, and the radical progressive content has long since disappeared.
Marx, as the theorist of working-class revolution, developed an entirely different attitude to both ‘truth’ and ‘rights’. For Marx there are no absolute or universal truths, for in the last analysis die test of truth is always practice. A proposition is true in so far as it enables human beings to perform certain practical operations in the world. ‘Truth’ is therefore historical and above all concrete. A proposition is true in relation to specific circumstances. Change the circumstances sufficiently and it ceases to be true.
Similarly with ‘rights’. For Marxists there are no god-given rights that all human beings are born with. People, or more particularly groups and classes, have only such rights as they are able to win and defend in struggle.
Whether or not Marxists support these ‘rights’ depends on which classes are involved and what they will use the ‘rights’ to do. Thus we are for ‘the right to work’ when it is a demand around which the working class can be mobilised to fight capitalist unemployment. We are against the ‘right to work’ when it is a justification for scabbing.
Whenever the bourgeoisie and its media hangers-on talk about ‘freedom’ and the like, Marxists will always inquire ‘whose freedom? Freedom to do what?’ It is no coincidence that the bourgeois French Revolution was fought under the banner of a set of abstractions – ‘Liberty, Equality, Fraternity’ – whereas the working-class Russian Revolution fought for specifics – ‘Bread, Peace and Land’.
Another illustration of this point is the question of freedom of speech. The ruling class continually stress that this must be seen as a fundamental human right. In fact, it is a right which in capitalist society is subject to a thousand and one restrictions and limitations. Just try exercising it if you are a soldier, a school student, a civil servant or with your boss at work. Moreover, history has shown that the bourgeoisie are perfectly ready to dispense with any commitment to this right when they feel this is necessary to preserve their rule.
What then is the Marxist attitude to ‘freedom of speech’?
In general we defend it, not because it is some divinely bestowed right, but because it is greatly to the advantage of the working class under capitalism that there should be a free flow of ideas and debate (and this will be true for people under socialism also). Indeed we make a point of defending it precisely where capitalism restricts it. What an excellent thing it would be if soldiers could freely criticise their officers, school students their teachers and workers their bosses, without fear of reprisal.
We do not, however, pretend that freedom of speech can be an absolute or universal right. We do not, for example, defend the right of the National Front to incite racial hatred or indeed to spread their Nazi ideas in any shape or form. Nor, in a workers’ state, would we grant the displaced capitalist class the right to urge insurrection and counter-revolution.
But we do not make a fetish of this denial of freedom of speech, even for racists. It is not for us a matter of absolute principle to stop the mouth of every single fascist or racist regardless of circumstances, still less to ban every point of view we find obnoxious. It is always a matter of strategic and practical judgement.
But how to explain the difference between the bourgeoisie’s apparent commitment to universal rights and principles and the Marxist insistence that all rights and principles are historical and dependent on circumstances? Is it a matter of hypocrisy versus honesty? Yes, but the hypocrisy and the honesty are class-based. The bourgeoisie are obliged to be hypocritical because they are a tiny minority able to rule only if they can pass their interests off as the interests of ‘the whole people’.
Marxism, however, represents the working class, who are in the immense majority and therefore have no need to disguise their specific class interests. On the contrary, a clear understanding of exactly what their interests are is precisely what the working class need to achieve their freedom.
‘The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways – the point is to change it.’
So runs the most famous of all Marx’s quotations and, appropriately, it is carved on his gravestone in Highgate cemetery. What the quotation makes clear is that Marx was first and foremost a revolutionary whose primary concern was to participate in the overthrow of capitalism.
Yet it is also clear that Marx was very interested in ‘interpreting the world’. After all, he spent the best years of his life sat in the British Museum working on an ‘interpretation’ of the laws of motion of capitalism. So what is the relationship between theory and practice in Marxism?
Marxism stands for the unity of theory and practice. Revolutionary theory is necessary for revolutionary practice. Revolutionary practice is necessary for revolutionary theory. At one moment the emphasis may be on theory, at another on practice, but in the long run, each is impossible without the other.
Let us deal first with the importance of theory for practice. The working class needs theory, its own theory, because without it it is bound to be dominated, to a greater or lesser degree, by the ideas of the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeoisie. Everybody, consciously or unconsciously, is guided by certain general ideas about the world. If these ideas are not socialist they all inevitably turn out to be capitalist or semi-capitalist, for as Marx put it, the ruling ideas are always the ideas of the ruling class.
If workers do not believe the emancipation of the working class is the act of the working class, then they will look for salvation from above, or, worse still, come to the conclusion that no emancipation is possible at all. If workers lack a Marxist analysis of the economic crisis they will accept one or other of the various bourgeois explanations on offer: ‘it’s an act of god’, ‘it’s all the fault of lazy workers’ or ‘powerful trade unions’. At best it’s due to ‘government mismanagement’ and the solution is to elect a better government.
In other words, a working class not guided by Marxist theory is bound to play into the hands of its enemies.
To take two examples; in both Iran and Poland the mass of workers fought magnificently against their oppressors, but lacked any worked-out socialist theory. In both cases the gap was filled by religion. In Iran this meant the people, having overthrown one tyrant, raised another in his place, this time with the blessing of Allah. In Poland it meant the workers, and especially their leaders, were susceptible to the church’s calls for peace and moderation in the face of an opponent that was preparing to strike a decisive blow.
Theory, then, is vital to effective practice. But the converse is equally true: practice is vital for the development of theory. Indeed theory derives from the problems encountered in the practical effort to change the world. It was because Marx was engaged in the struggle to change society that he needed to understand how it worked. It was because he had taken the side of the working class that he was able to analyse the workings of capitalism.
Practice is also essential as the test of theory. No theory, however sophisticated, can ever be a perfect representation or reflection of all the complexities of reality.
Theory is always a simplification and a generalisation. Whether it is a valid simplification depends ultimately on whether it stands the test of practice: on whether it helps or hinders humans to shape and control their world.
There have always been some would-be Marxists who have sought to separate theory and practice, to develop theory for its own sake. They have tried to achieve this without involving themselves in working-class struggles. They are destined to disappointment. They cut off theory from both its real source and from the necessary discipline of the attempt to implement it.
All the real advances in Marxist theory have come as a response to developments or problems encountered in the class struggle. Marx’s pamphlet the Civil War in France was produced as a result of the Paris Commune, Trotsky’s theory of permanent revolution from the 1905 revolution in Russia. Lenin developed his theory of imperialism in response to the First World War and wrote State and Revolution during the 1917 revolution.
All the outstanding figures of the Marxist tradition have been both major theorists and active revolutionaries. Theory is essential, but our aim is the unity of theory and practice in practice. The point, as we said at the start, is to change the world.
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Last updated: 5 June 2015