Sojourner Truth Organization: How to Think
Posted by Mike E on July 11, 2010
Lenin once wrote to Inessa Armand:
“People for the most part (99 percent of the bourgeoisie, 98 percent of the liquidators, about 60‑70 percent of the Bolsheviks) don’t know how to think, they only learn words by heart.”
* * * * * * *
The following is a contribution to our ongoing discussion of “what to study” and “how to study.”
Several themes are worth engaging here: This piece starts by assuming a critical view of inherited communist texts — examining both what they are saying but also whether it is true. In form, this piece suggests that communist study include well-prepared lectures, rather than mere facilitators and “going around the room” study groups — arguing that many important works are too difficult for everyone to understand or discuss deeply without such prepared explanation. In other words it includes a concept of teacher and student — not assumed equality before the text. And there is a wide ranging drawing of sources, not a more narrow offering of the “canon” from a few main Marxist Leninists (that is often done removed from a study of surrounding history, alternative views and problems).
It is from the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO), a revolutionary organization of the 1970s and 80s with a particular legacy of a new examination of the role and oppression of African American people. This particular essay appeared on Ralph Dumain’s Audodidact Project. Other works can be found in the STO archive.
How To Think
by Sojourner Truth Organization
MARXIST EDUCATION
The outline study guide which follows is based on classes conducted by Sojourner Truth Organization over the past two years. The original draft has undergone substantial modification as a result of the classes, and there is undoubtedly room for considerable improvement still, but its basic shape has worn well.
Each time we have taught the material; that is, we have had three or four “teachers” presumed to be more familiar with a broader range of Marxist doctrine and five to eight “students.” “Students” one time become “teachers” in later sessions. Each part is introduced with an overview from a “teacher” and then the “students” give prepared answers to the study questions which are thoroughly discussed and debated, “student” reactions first. Of course, in each session the “teachers” have been learners as much as the “students,” sometimes more so.
We think this is the best way to learn these lessons, in contrast to the study circle approach which has been a popular bequest of the New Left and which has characterized so much radical education during the past decade. This is partly because of the intrinsic difficulty of some of the materials, such as the texts by Hegel and Althusser. “Teachers” who are versed in the terms of the debates surrounding these thinkers can steer the discussion to useful conclusions and debates that may not emerge in discussions solely limited to the assigned materials.
There is another aspect which has proven to be the decisive consideration for us. Some concepts—often central to the entire program of study—are sufficiently subtle that they will not necessarily emerge even from a very careful study group. One example, probably the most important one, will illustrate. In Part One, study question four says:
The Guardian and the Weather Underground state that the fundamental contradiction of modem capitalism is that between the proletariat (“working. class as a whole”) and the capitalists (“imperialist bourgeoisie”). Prairie Fire says it is “the contradiction between social production and private appropriation.” Who is right? Why?
In our view, the correct answer is “neither of the above.” Yet it is not necessarily clear from the texts why this is so, though the necessary explanations are provided.
According to Marx, the social contradiction which can only be resolved by revolution is that between the forces of production and the relations of production. The most common Marxist interpretation of this assertion is that forces of production means capital (sometimes our latter‑day Marxists implicitly limit this to technology, so that the “full development of the forces of production” is interpreted solely as the presence of advanced, highly productive machinery) while relations of production means the system of production, appropriation, and exchange.
In reality, Marx meant something quite different. Forces of production includes both capital and labor, while relations of production includes capitalists and workers. Thus the proletariat is an essential of both sides of the antagonism—on one side as the creator of use value, on the other as wage laborer. The contradiction is therefore internal and essential to the working class itself, and cannot be resolved externally. STO’s political line—in particular our understanding of the role of white skin privilege—is based on this recognition of the conflict internal to the proletariat.
The Guardian/Weather Underground view is wrong because it sees the essential contradiction as between workers and forces external to their class, rather than seeing the necessary embodiment of that conflict within the workers themselves. Political concepts which are derived from a faulty understanding of this process, such as class consciousness, will be warped in a similar direction.
The Prairie Fire interpretation suffers from a different problem. Unlike the Guardian/Weather Underground mistake, the Prairie Fire statement can be textually supported; it is a summary of the position argued by Engels in Anti‑Duhring. But the situation more or less accurately described by Engels was a historically specific example drawn from pre‑imperialist, pre‑state‑capitalist capitalism. Prairie Fire’s mistake is to presume that Engels’ observation can be generalized without regard for the stage of capitalism, and then substituted for the general form of the contradiction described by Marx. Ironically, Engels himself in the same book demonstrated that private‑property capitalism could be superseded by nationalization without abolishing capitalist exploitation. Usually those who talk about the contradiction between social production and private appropriation today are doing so for a political reason—to exclude from consideration the contradiction between forces and relations of production in the “socialist” countries.
If the participants entered these classes with a tabula rasa, the most reasonable interpretation of the readings might readily emerge from unassisted collective study. But they don’t. Nearly all are experienced leftists who have assimilated the various distortions of Marxism which constitute the conventional wisdom. These, more than the difficulties and complexities of the concepts, are the reasons for furnishing experienced help to guide the learning process.
Some material critically important to our classes has been superseded. In the STO study, one whole segment of each session was devoted to a critique of Stalin’s Dialectical and Historical Materialism.
There were two study questions:
1. List everything that is inadequate or wrong in Stalin’s pamphlet. Be ruthless, and as complete as possible.
2. Why has no one ever published a serious critique of the Stalin pamphlet, in spite of its being probably the most widely distributed work on the subject of dialectical materialism?
Each of these was assigned to an individual who made a presentation which was followed by a general discussion. With the publication of Lance Hill’s article in this issue of Urgent Tasks, we are replacing that session of the study program with a comparable one on Mao Tse‑Tung. Lance Hill was one of the “students” (who became one of the “teachers”). His article is an individual product except to the extent that he chose to incorporate ideas from the general discussion. In editing the article for publication, no attempt was made to have it conform to any official position.
Other areas of study, begun in the classes, have led to expanded discussion and elaboration in STO’s Internal Bulletin and in Urgent Tasks—for example the symposium on Louis Althusser’s politics in Urgent Tasks number four. We think the basic readings and discussion are sufficiently enlightening to warrant retaining them, using the later materials as supplements.
We have found that thirty to sixty days of student/teacher preparation followed by five days and evenings of uninterrupted discussion classes is required to accomplish satisfactorily the aims of this program. It poses serious problems to a small organization, most of whose members are workers and all of whom are engaged in political work. Under such circumstances the classes cannot succeed unless the political decisions personal and organizational—are taken seriously and firmly, even ruthlessly, enforced. During the pre‑class period, participants must be sufficiently free from other political obligations to concentrate on study; for the classes themselves, held in rural retreats, people often have to spend most of their annual vacation time. Comrades not involved in the same session have to pick up the slack in political work and personal responsibility.
We feel it has been worth the investment, and would caution others against attempting shortcuts. If theoretical work is a prerequisite to building a revolutionary movement, as Lenin argued, a thorough grasp of How to Think is the first step in developing the ability to do that work.
Many of the readings are available in dozens of editions. Those that can easily be found are not referenced to a specific edition. In some cases we have chosen a particular, easily obtainable edition of a work, in order to provide uniformity when citing multiple excerpts. Copies of out‑of‑print readings may be obtained from STO—contact us for costs. Groups should also feel free to contact STO if teachers for this study program are desired.
We strongly recommend the following study habits to students: Keep a notebook of your studies. Make a note every time you have a question about anything, even if it is merely the definition of a word that you look up in the dictionary, or even if it is a concept that you expect will be clarified in a later passage or a subsequent reading.
As soon as you have finished a reading, record what you didn’t like about it. In the cases of excerpted materials, for example, it is likely that earlier parts that are not included here will contain information which is vital to a full grasp of the selected fragment. What terms ought to be included in a supplementary glossary? What individuals or historical events should be identified? What kind of supplementary materials would be helpful? Should this particular selection have been omitted? Why or why not? Answer each of these questions before proceeding to the study questions for the particular reading.
— Education Committee
Sojourner Truth Organization
HOW TO THINK
A Guide to the Study of Dialectical Materialism
Introduction
We begin with Lenin’s observation to Inessa Armand:
“People for the most part (99 percent of the bourgeoisie, 98 percent of the liquidators, about 60‑70 percent of the Bolsheviks) don’t know how to think, they only learn words by heart.” [35:131 Lenin's emphasis]
It is our purpose in this study program to impart an ability to evaluate political situations critically and to decide independently on proper courses of action. Our aim is to elevate the effectiveness of our political work by elevating the quality of our “product.”
The skills of which we speak are theoretical, but theoretical in the broadest sense. We are not concerned here with abilities to operate an offset press or marshal a picket line, but we are concerned with the organization and presentation of criticism, whether of strategy, general tactics, or issue‑oriented practical work. Our conception of criticism does not rest on the application of general rules and abstract principles, but on mastering the approach summarized by Lenin:
“Dialectics is the teaching which shows how Opposites can be and how they happen to be (how they become) identical,—under what conditions they are identical, becoming transformed into one another,—why the human mind should grasp these opposites not as dead, rigid, but as living, conditional, mobile, becoming transformed into one another.” [38:109]
In some ways what we are attempting to accomplish is the Marxist equivalent of a Berlitz class in a foreign language. We are not striving to be comprehensive, but we are attempting to impart a functional ability to use Marxism. This is quite different from the usual introductory course which intends to convince the newcomer of the value of Marxism and to familiarize her/him with its terms and scope, but on the whole to leave the important decisions to the more advanced.
Since this is a short course, it would be wrong to view it as an end in itself. If it fails to inspire further study of works like The Poverty of Philosophy, The German Ideology, the Grundrisse, Capital, Anti‑Duhring, Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks, Gramsci’s writings, and so forth, then it is not fulfilling its long‑term purpose and ought to be re‑evaluated in that light. Still, at present our emphasis has to be utilitarian.
The purpose of all this study is not abstract or millennial. If after all this you cannot explain how labor unions can be the greatest obstacle to class struggle or why Communist Parties can fiercely oppose proletarian revolutions, we will have failed. But understanding of this type is also armament, preparation for battle. The test of that will be in our political practice.
Base and Superstructure in Motion
Readings:
Karl Marx, Preface” to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
Frederick Engels, Letter to Schmidt (August 5, 1890); Letter to Bloch (September 21, 1890), Letter to Schmidt (October 27, 1890), MESW: 694‑9
Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Martin Nicolaus, trans. (New York: Vintage Books, 1973), pages 305‑7, 310, 452‑3, 462, 488, 705‑6
Discussion:
This part includes two very well‑known selections from the writings of Marx and Engels, and several that are less familiar. One might say that the “Theses on Feuerbach” represent the “voluntarist,” the “Hegelian,” the “dialectical” side of Marxism, while the “Preface” shows the “determinist,” the “scientific,” the “materialist” side.
We have included these together to show, from the beginning of the course, the roots in Marx’s writings of two diverging trends in Marxist thought, and to demonstrate from the outset the dangers of failing to consider Marx’s writings as a totality. Engels’ letters represent his conscious attempt to correct what was a one‑sidedness in the socialist movement of his day. The significance of the Grundrisse selections we leave to the discussion to determine.
Questions:
1. Marx states that social existence determines the consciousness of people. What is meant by social existence? How are the circumstances of social existence changed?
2. What is the conflict that leads to social revolution? How does it develop under capitalism?
3. What does the passage from the Grundrisse [705‑6] say about how the forces of production are fettered by capitalism?
4. The Guardian and the Weather Underground state that the fundamental contradiction of modem capitalism is that between the proletariat (“working class as a whole”) and the capitalists (“imperialist bourgeoisie”). Prairie Fire says it is “the contradiction between social production and private appropriation.” Who is right? Why?
5. Is Engels’ treatment of the relationship between the economic base and the political superstructure of society, as expressed in his letters to Bloch and Schmidt, adequate?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The German Ideology
2. Karl Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy
3. Frederick Engels, Anti‑Duhring
4. Frederick Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach
Part II: The Marxist View of Change
Readings:
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach
Karl Marx, Grundrisse: 88‑94, 99‑102
G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic, A. V. Miller, trans. (London: Allen & Unwin, 1969; New York: Humanities Press, 1976), pages 44‑59
G. W. F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Mind, J. B. Baillie, trans. (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1967), pages 80‑84
V. I. Lenin, “On The Question of Dialectics,” 38: 357‑61
V. I. Lenin, Elements of Dialectics, 38: 220‑2
V. I. Lenin, Once Again On the Trade Unions, 32: 92‑4
C. L. R. James, excerpts from Notes on Dialectics
Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I (New York: International Publishers, 1967, New World edition), pages 177‑8
Discussion:
These readings constitute essential statements of Marxist dialectics, yet nearly every attempt to popularize them winds up grossly falsifying them (as in the writings of Mao Tsetung, Stalin, and Maurice Cornforth).
This whole problem will be developed later; here we will give one illustration. The most widely used introductory textbook for studying Marxist “philosophy” is Maurice Cornforth’s Materialism and the Dialectical Method. Cornforth writes,
“At bottom, idealism is religion, theology. ‘Idealism is clericalism,’ wrote Lenin. All idealism is a continuation of the religious approach to questions, even though particular idealist theories have shed their religious skin. Idealism is inseparable from superstition, belief in the supernatural, the mysterious and unknowable.” [page 18]
Contrast that statement with the full Lenin citation from which Cornforth drew his fragment:
“Philosophical idealism is only nonsense from the standpoint of crude, simple, metaphysical materialism. From the standpoint of dialectical materialism, on the other hand, philosophical idealism is a one‑sided, exaggerated, uberschwengliches [over‑extended] (Dietzgen) development (inflation, distention) of one of the features, aspects, facets of knowledge into an absolute, divorced from matter, from nature, apotheosised. Idealism is clerical obscurantism. True. But philosophical idealism is (“more correctly” and “in addition”) a road to clerical obscurantism through one of the shades of the infinitely complex knowledge (dialectical) of man.” [38:361 Lenin's emphasis]
Does not Lenin say exactly the opposite of what Cornforth concludes? This illustrates a potentially paralyzing problem of Marxist study. If a beginner studies easy‑to‑read popular pamphlets in order to learn what Marxism is, she/he may learn only much later (if ever) of this type of deception. It may be more difficult to read the original presentations of these ideas, but it is the only certain way to eliminate counterfeit Marxism.
Questions:
1. What is the relationship between philosophical idealism and dialectical materialism? Between dialectical materialism and materialism? How does Marx characterize Feuerbach’s philosophical errors in the Theses?
2. What is the essence of dialectics? How can it be tested?
3. Why is it difficult to simplify the study of dialectics?
4. Ted Allen has written that the policy begun in colonial Virginia conferring a privileged status on EuropeanAmericans in relation to African‑Americans was the “invention” of the white race. What do you think of the notion that the white race was “invented”? Is it possible to speak of “race” as having an origin in historical times?
5. Lenin connected the “betrayal” of the Second International to the new stage reached by capitalism. Would the failure of the Communist parties after 60 years to establish socialism in any country constitute conclusive evidence of another change in historical stages? (Debate over the definition of socialism is not the intended focus of this question, although it obviously must be considered part of the discussion.)
6. How does the process of production in the U.S. today shape workers’ attitudes toward consumption? What was different during the Great Depression? How will communism be different?
7. Is the U.S. working class backward? Explain your answer.
8. What is meant by “negation of the negation”? Give examples. Is this a conservative or a revolutionary concept?
9. Find applications of Lenin’s elements of dialectics in the Grundrisse passages in this and the previous session. Give particular attention to any examples of the “negation of the negation.”
10. What is the Marxist organization and who are we?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. George Plekhanov, The Materialist Conception of History
2. V. I. Lenin, Philosophical Notebooks
3. C. L. R. James, Notes on Dialectics: Hegel and Marxism
Part III: From Hegel to Marx
Readings:
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind, pages 228‑40
David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770‑1823 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1975), pages 557‑64
Karl Marx, Capital I: 19‑20, 177‑8
Karl Marx, Grundrisse: 100‑1
Karl Marx, Letter to Engels (January 14, 1858) in Marx and Engels, Selected Correspondence (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1965), page 100
Karl Marx, Collected Works 3: 331‑3
George Lichtheim, Introduction to Hegel’s Phenomenology of Mind, pages xxv‑xxx
Roman Rosdolsky, The Making of Marx’s “Capital” (London: Pluto Press, 1977), pages xi‑xiv
V. I. Lenin, excerpt from “Conspectus of Hegel’s Science of Logic,” 38: 208‑19
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks (New York: International Publishers, 1971), pages 345‑6, 444‑8
Discussion:
Hegel sees a duality in each level of self‑consciousness. Each level of consciousness contains its own opposite. He carries this argument through to its most extreme statement: each self‑consciousness can only fully emerge through a life and death struggle: “it is solely by risking life that freedom is obtained.” [page 233] When Hegel differentiates the master and the bondsman it becomes clear that the master’s “independent existence” and “power” are not equivalent to freedom. The bondsman’s “negative attitude,” the result of his “self‑consciousness in a broad sense” rooted in participation in productive labor, becomes the condition for genuine freedom.
“But just as lordship showed its essential nature to be the reverse of what it wants to be, so, too, bondage will, when completed, pass into the opposite of what it immediately is: being a consciousness repressed within itself, it will enter into itself, and change round into real and true independence.” [page 237] (Gramsci has carried this further still: “the more an individual is compelled to defend his own immediate physical existence, the more will he uphold and identify with the highest values of civilization and humanity, in all their complexity.” [Prison Notebooks, page 170]
Marx has called Hegel’s Phenomenology “the true point of origin and the secret of Hegelian philosophy.” [Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, page 136] Engels referred to it as “a parallel of the embryology and paleontology of the mind, a development of the individual consciousness through its different stages through which the consciousness of man has passed in the course of history.” [Ludwig Feuerbach, page 14] Since Engels wrote this very late in life, and after Marx had died, it is worth remembering when one is told that Marxism is a complete rejection of Hegel.
Questions:
1. In the conflict between master and slave described by Hegel, at what points can each be described as “class conscious”?
2. “My dialectic method is not only different from the Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the life‑process of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking, which, under the name of “the Idea,” he even transforms into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real world, and the real world is only the external, phenomenal form of “the Idea.” With me, on the contrary, the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought.” [Capital I: 191 What, then, is the relationship of Marx to Hegel?
3. Compare Lenin's statement that "the result of activity is the test of subjective cognition and the criterion of objectivity which truly is" [38:219] with his statement that the essence of dialectics “must be tested by the history of science.” [38:357] Would Gramsci agree with Lenin’s tests?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. C. L. R. James, “The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slavery” in Amistad 1
2. C. L. R. James, “Colonialism and National Liberation in Africa” in Miller and Aya, eds., National Liberation
Part IV
How Revolutionaries Are Made
Readings:
George Plekhanov, excerpt from The Role of the Individual in History
Rosa Luxemburg, “Stagnation and Progress of Marxism”
Sidney Hook, excerpt from Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx, “The Quest for Marx”
George Rawick, “The Historical Roots of Black Liberation,” Radical America, Volume 2, Number 4 (July‑August 1968)
Noel Ignatin, Black Worker/White Worker
Mark Twain, excerpt from Huckleberry Finn, Chapter XXXI
Lerone Bennett, excerpt from “Tea and Sympathy: Liberals and Other White Hopes”
Frantz Fanon, Wretched of the Earth (New York: Grove Press, 1966, first Evergreen Edition), pages 27‑38
Discussion:
If Hegel is difficult, Plekhanov is a pleasure to read; it is no mystery why his writings are responsible for the early popularization of Marxism in Russia. This statement is an excellent summary of the orthodox view of the relations between individual character, society as a whole, and “historical accident.” Though Luxemburg and Plekhanov were later to diverge politically, there is a certain similarity in the views they expressed in the selections included here. The Rawick, Ignatin, Twain and Bennett selections all deal with the development of consciousness through an internal dialectic.
Questions:
1. What determines the extent to which an individual can influence society? What is the influence of “accidents” on history? Are Plekhanov’s positions on these questions right? What about Engels’ [see the letters in Part I] ?
2. Why cannot human nature account for the course of history? Or can it?
3. What accounts for the stagnation of Marxism described by Rosa Luxemburg?
4. Luxemburg says that the third volume of Capital far exceeded the theoretical needs of the proletariat of her time. Is she right?
5. Why are people of great talent often the contemporaries of others with similar talents?
6. What is the limit of individual power? In what sense can a person “make history”?
7. Does Lerone Bennett mean the same thing as Hegel by “free”? Is freedom, to Hegel, “just another word for nothin’ left to lose”? Does Frantz Fanon agree with Hegel’s definition?
8. Compare Shields Green and Huck Finn. Do the same for John Brown and Jim.
9. What does George Rawick mean that “one can never remove culture, although one can transform it” [page 8]? What represents the negation of the negation in Black culture today?
10. What insight is shared by Hegel, Bennett, Twain, Rawick and Ignatin? How is it missing from Elkins and Genovese (based on the Rawick reading)?
11. What does it mean to “construct acts to the end”?
12. How do characters like Shields Green, John Brown, Huck Finn, and Jim affect everyone else? What is it that “few American white men” can resist?
13. Is George Rawick a racist? Is Mark Twain? Is Stanley Elkins? Is Eugene Genovese?
14. What is self‑activity? How is it relevant to revolution? Who is a revolutionary?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. W. E. B. DuBois, John Brown
2. Autobiography of Mother Jones
3. Autobiography of Malcolm X
4. Franz Mehring, Karl Marx
5. James Forman, The Making of Black Revolutionaries
6. Tony Cliff, Lenin
7. Paul Frolich, Rosa Luxemburg
8. Peter Netti, Rosa Luxemburg
9. Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi
10. Matthew Ward, Indignant Heart
11. Hakim Jamal, From the Dead Level
12. Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice
13. Fred Beal, Proletarian Journey
14. Hosea Hudson, Black Worker in the Deep South
15. Richard Wright, Native Son
16. B. Traven, The Death Ship
(Obviously a list like this can go on forever, but these should be suggestive.)
Part V
How Revolutions Are Made
Readings:
W. E. B. DuBois, Black Reconstruction (New York: Atheneum, 1969), chapter IX
C. L. R. James, Black Jacobins (New York: Vintage Books, 1963), chapters IV, V, and XII
Discussion:
The two readings are models of the application of dialectics to the study of history. Both are examples of the universality of the dialectical method: the ability to recognize common themes and interconnections between seemingly isolated events, and to discover “the contradiction in the very essence of things.”
Questions:
1. Who were the Jacobins? Was James justified in referring to the Saint Domingue revolutionaries as “Black Jacobins”?
2. Do you agree with DuBois’ statement [page 358] that Reconstruction was an attempt at a dictatorship of labor?
3. Compare DuBois’ remark [pages 319‑20] about the attitude of white Americans with James’ description of Parisian attitudes [pages 139‑40]. How do you explain the transformations in the thinking of the white masses? How do you explain their later relapse?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. Karl Marx, The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
2. Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States
3. Karl Marx, The Civil War in France
4. Leon Trotsky, History of the Russian Revolution
Part VI
The Marxist Method
Readings:
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks, pages 323‑43, 462
Georg Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness, Rodney Livingstone, trans. (London: Merlin Press, 1971), chapter “What Is Orthodox Marxism?”; also pages 50‑1, 204‑6
Karl Marx, Capital I: 75‑6; III: 817
Sidney Hook, excerpt from Towards the Understanding of Karl Marx
Ken Lawrence, excerpt from January 25, 1973 memorandum to the Southern Conference Educational Fund (SCEF)
Discussion:
In some ways Gramsci and Lukacs sharply diverge from Engels and Lenin. The latter two viewed dialectical materialism as a universally useful theory of knowledge, as applicable and important to the study of chemistry and physics as to problems of human society. Gramsci limited his concerns to questions of politics and culture, a situation largely forced upon him by his imprisonment. Lukacs specifically rejected the applicability of dialectics outside the realm of human social experience. These matters have been and continue to be the subject of heated debate, but they need not directly concern this course of study as long as we are generally aware of them.
Gramsci is well known to STO and our friends, but some background on Lukacs may be helpful. Lukacs had a checkered political career; because he deliberately accommodated to Stalin with consciously hypocritical tactical self‑criticisms, there has always been some ambiguity concerning his own attitude toward his theoretical work. On the other hand, after Lenin’s criticisms shattered his early ultra‑”left” and sectarian views, he was always firmly in the right wing of the Comintern, and his premature fight for his line—the “Blum Theses” he submitted to the Sixth Congress of the CI—were the cause of his political downfall, not his opposition to Stalinism. By the time Dimitrov’s Popular Front (virtually identical to the Blum Theses) was adopted at the Seventh Congress, Lukacs’ retreat from political life had been totally accomplished.
Thereafter he confined his writings to cultural matters. He emerged from seclusion to become the Minister of Culture in the short-lived Hungarian revolutionary government of 1956 headed by Imre Nagy; following its overthrow by the Soviet army, he returned to even greater seclusion, but emerged to condemn the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. Lukacs argued that his hypocrisy was fully justified because it was better to live under the worst socialism than the best capitalism. It is this ambiguity of his work, even more than its right‑wing political line, that renders it so attractive to scholastic Marxists. It is therefore wise to approach it with a large measure of caution. [It is interesting to note the contrasts and similarities in Marxist writings under the shadow of censorship—Lenin's Imperialism under the tsar, Gramsci under Mussolini, and Lukacs under Stalin.]
On the other hand, Lukacs was no party hack, grinding out “philosophy” to justify the party line. He retained his critical approach throughout his career, giving his work a value that is usually missing from the Marxist writers of any country. This is the independent significance of the revived interest in his writings.
The essay “What Is Orthodox Marxism?” is a product of Lukacs’ early years, under the influence of the European revolutions. Examining it in 1967, 48 years after he wrote the first draft, Lukacs reaffirmed his belief that it is “not only objectively correct but also capable of exerting a considerable influence today when we are on the eve of a Marxist renaissance.”
Questions:
1. What is philosophy? What is a philosopher?
2. What is the relationship of language to philosophy?
3. How does consciousness shape personality? Is “proletarianization” a justifiable kind of “conformism” for an individual? for a communist organization?
4. During World War II an overwhelming majority of United Auto Workers’ members voted in a referendum to abide by a no‑strike pledge agreed to by the union’s leadership. Before, during, and after the passage of the referendum a majority of the union’s membership participated in wildcat strikes. Was this hypocrisy? Explain it in Gramsci’s categories.
5. Under what conditions can intellectuals propagate their views among the masses? Under what conditions can the revolutionary party?
6. Gramsci says Marxism seems like a philosophy of intellectuals separated from common people and from common sense. Is he right?
7. What, according to Gramsci, is the conflict within the consciousness of the average person? Relate this conflict to the contradictions discussed in earlier sessions.
8. Would Gramsci agree with Rosa Luxemburg’s statement that the working class cannot create its own culture under capitalism? Do you agree with Luxemburg?
9. Gramsci writes [page 334], “Critical self‑consciousness means, historically and politically, the creation of an elite of intellectuals.” Was Gramsci an elitist?
10. How does the “average person” retain his/her views in the face of a superior intellect? How does she/he change views?
11. Why are new converts to Marxism often extremely unstable? What should we do about it?
12. Reread the second paragraph on page 341 of Gramsci’s Prison Notebooks. One reader, commenting on the passage at the end of that paragraph, asked if Gramsci is “taking back with the left hand what he gave with the right.” How do you interpret this passage? (Remember that Gramsci often uses “intellectual” in a double sense to refer to the revolutionary party.)
13. What is orthodox Marxism? Was Marx an orthodox Marxist? Is Lukacs correct in saying that even if every one of Marx’s individual theses could be disproved, Marxism would still be valid?
14. In a speech Lenin said, “A journal of the Communist International recently appeared under the title of Narody Vostoka. It carries the following slogan issued by the Communist International for the peoples of the East: ‘Workers of all countries and all oppressed peoples, unite! ‘ ‘When did the Executive Committee give orders for slogans to be modified?’ one of the comrades asked. Indeed, I do not remember that it ever did. Of course, the modification is wrong from the standpoint of the Communist Manifesto, but then the Communist Manifesto was written under entirely different conditions. From the point of view of present‑day politics, however, the change is correct.” [31:453] Was Lenin an orthodox Marxist?
15. Explain the distinction between the “real existence” and the “inner core” of facts.
16. How would you understand the ideas of “imputed class consciousness” [Lukacs, page 51] and “identical subject‑object” [Lukacs, page 206] ? How are they related to each other?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. Georg Lukacs, Lenin
2. Antonio Gramsci, The Modern Prince
3. Rosa Luxemburg, Reform or Revolution
Part VII
Louis Althusser’s Philosophy
Readings:
Louis Althusser, For Marx (New York: Vintage Books, 1970), pages 38‑9, 89‑90, 111‑3, 164‑73, 182‑93, 227‑231
Karl Marx, Grundrisse: 100‑2
G. W. F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind: 80‑4, 141‑2
Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks; 351‑7, “What is Man?”
Re‑Read:
Frederick Engels, Letter to Bloch, September 21, 1890
C. L. R. James, excerpt from Notes on Dialectics
Karl Marx, “Theses on Feuerbach”
Discussion:
Any doctrine which can claim millions of adherents throughout the world will necessarily be subject to differing—even violently conflicting—interpretations. Christianity is an obvious example; Marxism is no exception. In addition to differing interpretations which stem from the wide variety of attempts to extrapolate contemporary adaptations from century‑old insights, there is another aspect.
Hal Draper has truthfully written, “What goes by the name of Marxism nowadays, like as not, has little to do with Marx’s views, in general or on any particular subject. This is a penalty for the ‘success’ of Marxism—that is, its widespread appeal—in spite of the periodic pronouncements of its death, which are almost as frequent as of yore. This parasitic disease—cooptation by alien elements—attacks all world outlooks that encompass a whole era.” [Karl Marx's Theory of Revolution, Part 1. State and Bureaucracy, pages 17‑18]
It is this latter consideration with which this section is primarily concerned. We take for granted that everyone engaged in this study has a degree of familiarity with the spectrum of Marxist opinion in the U.S. today as manifested in various left parties and publications.
We believe that Althusser’s theoretical work is fatally flawed by his importation of a purportedly scientific method—rationalism—as a substitute for the notion of the self‑emancipation of the working class. The reason for examining his work here is because it is a serious attempt to confront Marx’s writings, rather than a faked version of dialectical materialism, as in Cornforth, or a trivialized version, as in Stalin.
Questions:
1. What do you think of Althusser’s statement that in order to identify the “real, mature” Marxist concepts which are to be found in Marx’s writing one must activate “provisional Marxist theoretical concepts”?
2. Compare Althusser’s “dialectical circle” with Hegel’s explanation of the concept.
3. What is the difference between Althusser’s and Gramsci’s interpretations of the Sixth Thesis on Feuerbach? Who seems more correct?
4. Define Althusser’s Generalities I, II, and III. Define “concrete” as used by Marx in the Grundrisse passage.
5. “How is it possible, theoretically, to sustain the validity of this basic Marxist proposition: ‘the class struggle is the motor of history’ . . . when we know very well that it is not politics but the economy that is determinant in the last instance?” [Althusser, page 215] Althusser regards these statements as inconsistent. Do you? Explain your answer.
6. Criticize Althusser’s proposition (2) stated on page 185. In doing so, compare Althusser’s quote from Marx, “this concrete‑real ‘survives in its independence after as before, outside thought’,” with the same statement as it appears in the Grundrisse selection.
7. Lukacs summarized his outlook by saying, “Rightly or wrongly, I had always treated Marx’s works as having an essential unity.” Althusser argues the opposite, yet both Marxists have similar followings among purely academic Marxists. Why?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. “The Politics of Louis Althusser: A Symposium,” in Urgent Tasks number four, Summer 1978
2. David McLellan, Marx Before Marxism
3. David McLellan, ed., The Grundrisse by Karl Marx
Part VIII
The Philosophy of Mao Tse‑Tung
Readings:
Mao Tse‑Tung, On Practice
Mao Tse‑Tung, On Contradiction, chapter IV, “The Principal Contradiction and the Principal Aspect of a Contradiction”
Mao Tse‑Tung, Where Do Correct Ideas Come From?
Martin Glaberman, “Mao as a Dialectician”
Discussion:
In the sixties it was the writings of Mao Tse‑Tung that steered the Black Panther Party and Students for a Democratic Society to Marxism. All over the United States these groups distributed Quotations from Chairman Mao by the thousands, while in their study circles nearly all of them read and discussed Mao’s philosophical writings, whatever else the direction of their study. The greatest irony of the left today is that these writings, which brought so many young revolutionaries to Marxism, now stand as one of the main barriers to their deeper understanding. Martin Glaberman’s essay is probably the most substantial Marxist critique of Mao’s philosophy published to date.
Questions:
1. List everything that is inadequate or wrong in On Practice. Be ruthless, and as complete as possible.
2. How useful are Mao’s concepts of “principal contradiction” and “principal aspect of a contradiction” to an understanding of Lenin’s “Elements of Dialectics”?
3. Is Martin Glaberman correct to conclude that Mao’s contributions have nothing to do with philosophy?
4. Where do correct ideas come from?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. Karl Korsch, Marxism and Philosophy
2. Karl Korsch, Three Essays on Marxism
3. George Plekhanov, The Materialist Conception of History
4. George Plekhanov, Fundamental Problems of Marxism
5. Victor Serge, From Lenin to Stalin
Part IX
Totality and Universality
Readings:
C. L. R. James, Modem Politics (Detroit: Bewick/ed, 1973)
William M. Ivins, Jr., Prints and Visual Communication (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953), pages 1‑20
George Plekhanov, Unaddressed Letters (Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House, 1957), “First Letter”
Ken Lawrence, “Behind Tutankhamun’s Treasures,” Urgent Tasks number four, summer 1978
Discussion:
Marxism is a proud theory, claiming for itself a general applicability. Even while continuing to dodge the question of its applicability in the realm of natural science, there is a duality to the broad value of the theory: on the one hand its result, though derived from an examination of particular examples of human struggle, if valid, can be applied (generally) to every instance; on the other hand, the method itself is applicable to investigations of every kind of human endeavor. These claims are important enough to serve reflexively as the ultimate test and vindication of the theory itself.
Questions:
1. What is art?
2. How does Plekhanov propose to prove the correctness of the materialist view of history? Does he succeed? Is there a better way?
3. What determines what people find to be esthetically pleasing? How do you explain the esthetic pleasure that people in the 20th century gain from ancient Greek art?
4. Was Plekhanov a racist?
5. What does Plekhanov mean when he says that the increased division of social labor among different classes leads to a disappearance of the direct dependence of art on technology and mode of production? Is he right?
6. Whose assessment of ancient Greece seems more correct to you, James’ or Ivins’? Is the difference between the two more than a question of fact?
7. Why were Griffith, Chaplin, Eisenstein and Picasso able to produce works of undying vision while the finest modern writers produced only a picture of gloom, degeneration and decay?
8. Do you agree with Ken Lawrence’s thesis that changes in mass consciousness can be anticipated by expressions in popular culture?
Supplementary or Future Recommended Readings:
1. C. L. R. James, The Future in the Present
2. John Berger, Success and Failure of Picasso
3. John Berger, Art and Revolution
4. John Berger, Ways of Seeing
5. E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class
6. T. O. Ranger, The African Voice in Southern Rhodesia
7. C. L. R. James, Mariners, Renegades, and Castaways
8. C. L. R. James, Beyond a Boundary
9. Leon Trotsky, Literature and Revolution
10. George Plekhanov, Art and Social Life
Sojourner Truth Organization. “Marxist Education” and “How to Think: A Guide to the Study of Dialectical Materialism”, Urgent Tasks, no 7, winter 1980, pp. 18-19, 19-29.
100 Years of C.L.R. James
Sojourner Truth Organization – Building Workers’ Power and Fighting White Privilege – Urgent Tasks
Stalin’s Little Book on Philosophy by Lance Hill
Gio said
For years now, Bring the Ruckus and former STO members have been running intensive dialectics classes on this model, and using as much as possible the STO syllabus and study questions.
Please contact us if you would like our pretty dialectics packet, which collects these readings into a single PDF, or if you would like help setting up a dialectics class.
Mike E said
send it, we will post it.
ShineThePath said
I find it funny that the introduction by Kasama to this set of studies done by STO confuses the ideological dogmatics of essentially the type around “Johnson-Forester” tendency. This rethinking of the question already has set to it a very basic conclusion already led by its questions…which is ultimately basically a bad infusion into communist politics, the philosophy of German Idealism – especially the themes which run through Young Hegelians and Feurebachian thought (which in my opinion runs on themes which are even pre-Hegel).
If this is being drawn against the Fight-Back! study as more advanced, I would argue differently. There is of course novelty to this because of the relative unknown history of this intellectual trend, but it is as ideologically stringent as the “Marxist-Leninist” classics of Fight Back!
Tell No Lies said
STP,
I’m not exactly clear on what your beef here is. Is it with the inclusion of CLR James or Hegel? And what specifically is your complaint? Of the three main figures in Johnson-Forest, I would only consider characterizing one, Dunayevskaya, as a dogmatist. Grace Lee Boggs and CLR James can be criticized on other scores but I don’t think either can fairly be accused of dogmatism. On the question of the value of “textbooks” raised in another thread, I think Grace Lee and James Boggs “Evolution and Revolution in the 20th Century” is a great intro to revolutionary theory.
ShineThePath said
TNL,
I don’t have a “beef” as more as I will just say what needs to be said. People can have a readily hood-winked conception of this study as “critical,” whereas its conclusions are already drawn based upon the ideological grounding of the tradition that comes out of the Johnson-Forest tendency.
It is easy to bash on Dunayevkaya (which I won’t) because of her organization News and Letters, but how is she more “dogmatist” than either CLR James or Grace Lee & James Boggs? In fact, her work is likely the most apt to put forward the theoretical basis for what was always the underlying basis for the thinking of those inviduals…if anything her work should be treated as the most advanced of them.
I’ll just draw out a particular example within this study – looking at Mao Zedong, the use of Martin Glaberman, another individual from the Johnson-Forest tendency, as the only other piece alongside Mao and his own works…with the added notes that Mao’s theory is a burden to the development of a revolutionary movement…is essentially just a predrawn conclusion about Maoism, to which anyone engaged in such a study (new to revolutionary theory) would simply redraw these conclusions as well.
My contention is that this study is an ideologically cemented study within the tradition of “Marxist-Humanism.” Just as the “Marxist-Leninist” study is ideologically cemented within the tradition of (for lack of a better term) Stalinism. The only real difference is that because of the novelty and and obscurity of the individuals work being used as the pre-eminent line within the STO study, it is ready to be seen and wants to be seen as critical reassessment…but its not.
Mike E said
I think STP is raising a very important point when he writes:
First, each of the many approaches we encounter comes with an embedded “inherited Marxism” or other coherent worldview. This is inevitable and probably universal.
And most of them are not arriving “new” — i.e. they are presentations of previously existing views.
So that the STO approach was “critical” of orthodox Comintern ML, but no necessarily a “new run” at the problems.
Now I don’t think of a “critical approach” meaning magically ideology-free or verdict-free or separate from the past. I think it is actually the approach we take towards our own ideologies, verdicts and past — as well as the ideologies, vericts and past of others.
And I don’t think, for a second, that we should dump all past verdicts, and pretend we are “starting from ground zero” — I don’t think it is necessary or positive.
And further, we are at some special point where all ideologies or previously existing Marxisms are now “equal” and equally flawed.
On the contrary, the problems of anarchism are there as much as they were in the 1890s or 1930s — and they are deep conceptual problems (where the assumptions of anarchism misjudge how revolutionary processes and change function). And Trotskyism has not (suddenly) become a promising contender on a “level playing field” — on the contrary, Trotskyism (as a school of thought) has not done well over its century of existence and has never been a promising approach to the politics of radical change.
My own view is that we have much more to learn from revolutionary Leninism and Maoism than from other trends, and that there is value (and necessity) to actually building on that foundation. And I am trying to differentiate between what has “passed as Maoism” in many places — in contrast to what Mao actually did (which was one of the most breathtakingly works of revolutionary creation.)
For example, the STO discussion of Mao’s philosophy is intended to debunk Mao as schematic, superficial and formulaic — by comparing Mao’s essays on dialectics and practice to the elaborated and nuanced work of Hegel or Lenin. And there is some value to making a deep analysis of Mao’s essays (in contrast to the RCP’s current method of rejecting Mao for “class truth” and for needing an epistemological break, without any real discussion or explanation). And there would be value in examining afresh Mao’s theory of principal contradiction as a theory etc.
But it is also important to note that Mao’s main work on dialectics was not his essay “On contradiction” but rather the Chinese revolution itself (which is a master work of materialist dialectics that deserves to be analyzed from that perspective).
And the process of “reconception” of communist theory should not be conceived as some new universe where all ideas are suddenly equal, and all old verdicts are suddenly discardable, or our task is to create something out of whole cloth anew.
In regard to STO: I think that the structure of their discussions has something we can learn from (competing texts, a discussion which solicits critical examination of the texts), but that doesn’t mean I have any eagerness to adopt their specific politics and verdicts (including the diverse elements of the old Johnson-Forest tendency).
To be clear: a “critical” analysis does not mean “an analysis that criticizes.” It means an analysis that starts with an approach that does not assume correctness — a fresh and openminded examination/evaluation of the theses — with comparison to reality and other theses. A critical approach to (say) Maoism may lead to some criticisms — but it may also lead to a profound affirmation. And (as I said elsewhere) we are not on some easter egg hunt for hidden “errors” embedded in a field of “good theory” — the process of evaluation involves the whole as well as the part, and theory (at its best) tends to be integrated — so that its errors (however secondary) are not somehow isolated or simply separatable from larger assumptions.
And a critical analysis does not mean that we come as a “blank slate” — without our own developed world outlook and verdicts. We are not school children. We are not at the pre-history of the socialist process. We have a great deal of knowledge and theory at our disposal, and are building upon literally a century of debate, exploration and practice.
Sam Emm said
I’ve participated in one of these classes and am currently helping to organize one in my region. I found the experience incredibly useful and think it’s very important for revolutionaries, whether Marxist, Anarchist, or any other label, engage with this stuff.
We have tended to skip the sections on Mao, so I can’t really speak to the critiques. I do think it’s something worth engaging in and would want to grapple with the “dialectical naturalism” of Murray Bookchin as well.
It’s also important to keep in mind that the STO framework is/was not meant to give the “students” a complete understanding of this stuff in four days. It’s nothing more than an intensive starting point.
John Steele said
Sure, this study guide is drawn up from a particular standpoint, which is strong on emphasizing the Hegel in Marx. (And the Glaberman article on Mao is pretty bad, imo, more a statement of condemnation than a critical analysis. And yet — and this is a striking and scandalous fact — how many critical examinations of “On Contradiction”, or even in-depth examinations informed by a knowledge of Hegel and philosophy or dialectics within the Marxist tradition, have come out of the Maoist tradition, or even from the broader revolutionary left for whom this essay was important, from the ’60s through the ’80s?)
One thing that struck me is the quotation from Hal Draper in the discussion under Part VII:
Such a prime statement of the notion of a purity of doctrine, put forward by the founder (Marx), whose purity has been compromised (by “alien” and “parasitic” elements, no less)! Of course it’s exactly this notion which is the object of critique in the recent “layer cake” and “bush” posts.
nando said
Marxism is not the same thing as “what Marx said.” And giving the name “Marxism” to a large historic evolving body of communist theory opens us up to a purist confusion — that everything we INSERT into Marxism is open to the backward looking complaint that it “has little to do with Marx’s views.”
So, for example, we develop a theory of communist planning, or a military doctrine for defending socialist states — these become part of Marxism but “have little to do with Marx’s views.”
Draper calls that “a penalty for the success of marxism” — but in fact we need such development, and the success of communist revolution will (hopefully) produce many such penalties.
And these new problems (and new theoretical developments) will inevitably bring new controversies (erupting from “within” marxist ranks and within Marxism itself) since you can’t develop a theory of communist planning without (in reality) having several contending theories of communist planning being tested over long periods of time (none of which are found, even embryonically, in Marx himself.)
We can’t solve controversies we face by looking back to “the classics” — and we can’t have the assumption “if it isn’t there, it isn’t communist” and “if it is there, it’s probably right.” That is fundamentalism, not science.
Often there are rich early observations and verdicts in the great arc of major communist analyses. But their particular claims and theses also have to stand the test of time — and the specific test of our own critical assimilation.
And of course, on the other side of this, we can’t get all-American on this, and assume (for a second) that only the new is correct, and that the old is always decrepit.
Bill Martin makes an interesting and passionate argument for not dismissing the insights of Kant, Plato or Rousseau lightly (and is quite angry about their undialectical dismissal by communists, for example the RCP).
The fact that someone is a “dead white guy” does not mean that there isn’t more to learn. And often that very American impatience to only focus on the newly minted is now often dressed out in identity politics — i.e. that we can tell the relevance of a work by scanning the identity (and nationality and gender) of the author. So we do also need to affirm the importance of particular “straight dead white guys” — Marx, Engels, Lenin, Althusser, Darwin, Colletti, Lukas, Bebel, Hegel, Kant (even dare I mention Freud to American readers?) etc. as well as the communist writers who came from other quarters (Mariategui, Mao Zedong, Rosa Luxemburg, and many more).
John Steele said
In response to a note, Don Hammerquist, a prominent member (while it existed) of the Sojourner Truth Organization, had some thoughts (as follows) on this discussion. (Don has given his permission to post this here.)
In response to your note, I follow Kasama closely and have read all of the discussions on the STO dialectics educational and the related topics. I thought I might mention a few factual things as a prelude to raising a question about an element of Kasama’s approach – perhaps I should say that of some main participants on the site – to revolutionary history and theory.
So first, there is common assumption in the Kasama discussion and in a recent discussion on a related topic on the Advance the Struggle site, that STO was a part of the Johnson/Forrest political tendency. This was never true notwithstanding the handful of contemporary left formations within the Johnson/Forrest tradition that have embraced a severely truncated version of what they understand as STO politics. The only overlap with Facing Reality, Ken Lawrence, did not join STO until a number of years after it was formed, and he explicitly rejected both the Johnson/Forrest theory of state capitalism, and the so-called “recognize and record” approach to revolutionary organization and role that is identified with the workerism of Facing Reality. The rest of us, with maybe one or two exceptions, were completely ignorant of the entire tendency. After the breakup of STO some previous members drifted towards a more overtly Jamesian politics, but the large majority of the organization throughout its existence, definitely including Lawrence, was Marxist and Leninist, certainly anti-Stalinist and definitely critical of ‘actually existing socialism’, but not adherents of the central ideas of the James’s, the Boggs, Dunayevskaya, Rawick and Glaberman.
The dialectics exercise was not an attempt to push the Johnson/Forrest position. Rather it was motivated by the felt need to challenge the prevalent anti-intellectualism in the organization, a ‘theory is bullshit’ attitude, during a relatively quiet political period when the movements of 68 had pretty much run their course. (If any theoretical ‘line’ was being “pushed”, it would be a particular conception of Gramsci.) We knew that Facing Reality had done a collective study of dialectics based on the early manuscripts and Lenin’s Philosophical Notebooks, and thought that a similar focus would help initiate a more serious approach to revolutionary theory. The dialectics class was intended to be complemented by an intensive study of Capital and the Grundrisse in the light of the socio-economic conditions at the end of the 70s, but we never really got to that part.
So it is a minor irritation to see the study guide presented as a promotion of a school of radical thought that we did not mean to promote. Particularly so when this appears to include the implication that STO was loading the discussion without being honest about our political assumptions and intentions.
A few more points that might be helpful: After not looking at the material for a few decades I’m a bit embarrassed by the self congratulatory tone of the material for this class. That said, I confess to participating in about 20 of these sessions over a period of a few years, and having had quite a bit to do with the study outline, reading selections, and discussion questions. These changed a lot over the life of the activity and I haven’t looked at the currently published version or Bring the Ruckus’s update to compare them to what we actually wound up using. I can say that to my knowledge the section on Mao and Glaberman’s dismissal of Mao as a philosopher were never used. I led most of the sessions that dealt with the Althusser material. These frequently used Glaberman’s critique of Althusser as an example of bad theory – a critique that failed to confront the actual underlying questions; that presented a questionable alternative view, in this case a workerist determinism, as if it were demonstrably true; that reduced serious theoretical positions to crass imputed political motives, frequently displaying a complete lack of knowledge about the actual political debates that were relevant to the positions…etc. However, I recognize that the organization contained major differences of estimate of both Althusser and Glaberman.
Over a period of time a number of us developed a fairly basic critique of this “How to Think” approach in terms of its impact on revolutionary work. We felt that it tended to bring along some substantial intellectual elitist baggage that became a real political obstruction at crucial moments. This is one reason that my wife and I – along with some others – have not participated in the recent sessions despite being asked and have suggested that there might be other things that are more important to do.
Now to the point: This is an excerpt from M. Ely’s response to ‘Shine the Path’ in this discussion. (From the above you can see what that I think that STP doesn’t know nearly as much as he thinks he does about the topic.)
I don’t have a problem with Ely’s mistaken assertions about what the “STO discussion…intended” This is certainly what Glaberman (and Dunayevskaya as well) intended and it is reasonable to conclude based on this course outline that we had the same thing in mind. But am I wrong to see a reluctance to put a priority on considering the Mao essays on their merits and in their historical context? Certainly Mao’s elimination of the concept of supercession from the dialectic is a major move, one that, as Althusser notes approvingly, was an innovation of Stalin’s conception of dialectics. Certainly there are outstanding issues about the conception of subjectivity relative to the voluntarism about which you have written.
This brings me to my question/criticism which is centered on the meaning of the final sentence. I don’t argue the legitimacy of looking to the “Chinese revolution itself” rather than the specific philosophical essays for Mao’s full conception of dialectics. That is certainly how I would look at Lenin, for example. Even Marx’s positions on philosophical issues can perhaps be best understood through his non-philosophical writings. However, I don’t think it is defensible to look at the Chinese Revolution which is so intertwined with Maoism, as if only the parts you want to embrace reflect Mao while everything negative is explained by objective difficulties or the success of opposing political positions. Doesn’t such an exercise imply some pre-existing criteria for evaluating what is and what is not Maoist in the same way that Althusser claimed access to a set of ‘provisional Marxist concepts’ as a method for demarcating the pre-Marxist Marx from the genuine article? And doesn’t it also restrict an actual consideration of some very important issues to the ‘theoretical practice’ of a quite restricted circle of experts with sufficient specialized knowledge to allow them to place these issues in the context of a prolonged and complicated revolutionary process?
You may have noted that I attempted to raise similar issues in what I wrote on Lenin last year. Maybe I was too subtle, although that’s not normally a strong point.
Don
Tell No Lies said
Don’s comments are useful and illuminating. I got my hands on a copy of this study program about 20 years ago and while I never participated in an organized running of the thing, it was very helpful to me then. While there are undoubtedly more valuable things that any of us might be doing it seems to me a good thing that people are taking this on, though it would probably worth doing some major updating of the thing. I’d be interested in Don’s further thoughts on the problems of intellectual elitism that attached to the study and how else to overcome the still quite intense anti-theory bent of most of the revolutionary left. The virtue of a study like this in my view is precisely that it concretely takes responsibility for raising up the ability of more people to participate in more theoretically heavy discussions. Maybe thats not how things went down in practice, but I’d like to hear some summation of that so that we can learn from this experience.
I came along too late to be part of STO, but they had a big impact not just on my political thinking broadly but on my ideas of what the intellectual culture of a revolutionary organization needs to be like. I’m sure they had many deficiencies, but am hard pressed to think of a more impressive organization on that particular score.
Jan Makandal said
STO said:
According to Marx, the social contradiction which can only be resolved by revolution is that between the forces of production and the relations of production. The most common Marxist interpretation of this assertion is that forces of production means capital (sometimes our latter‑day Marxists implicitly limit this to technology, so that the “full development of the forces of production” is interpreted solely as the presence of advanced, highly productive machinery) while relations of production means the system of production, appropriation, and exchange.
First, I would like to clarify my position on the relation of the productive forces to the relations of productions. I just hope forces of production, STO definition, is equal to productive forces.
1- the economic system (structure and practices):
The economic level encompasses the structure and practices that involve the production and distribution of material goods and services.
We can identify two intertwined processes in the production process: the work process and the distribution process.
The work process is the process through which productive labor, using available work instruments, transforms raw materials into finished goods. The distribution process distributes the value produced between the various agents of production and ensures the reproduction of the work process trough the replenishment of the productive forces (labor, raw materials and work instruments).
The means of production refer to the work instruments (land, tools, machinery…) and the raw materials. Together with productive labor, these combine to make up the productive forces.
We can distinguish between three different levels of relations existing in the productive process between the agents of production and the means of production; we can refer to these as the relations of production:
1- direct labor: that is the relation between the direct producers, those who work to manipulate the work instruments to produce finished goods.
2- Possession: this refers to the control of the work process, the work schedule, the rhythm of work, and the quality of work…
3- Ownership: the overall control of the productive process (management), including the work process and the distribution process.
There are two main components of the economic structure: the system of productive forces and the system of relations of production. There is a dialectical relationship between these two systems that make up the economic structure. In its early stages, Marxists privileged the role of the productive forces in the development of the relations of production. Theoreticians such as Marx, Engel and Lenin insisted on the influence of the productive forces on the development of the relations of production. They showed how the development of productive forces preconditioned the economic development of societies. For Marx, the primitive accumulation of capital was a precondition to the development of capitalist production: there had to be the creation of a group of dispossessed laborers together with a group of owners of capital available to enable the emergence and the development of capitalist production. In the various societies where capitalism has developed, these two criteria had to be met. Historically, there were various ways through which poor peasants were dispossessed towards the end of feudal times and these dispossessed laborers became an available workforce for capitalist merchants investing their profits in industrial production. These events also coincided in Western society with the emergence of new means and methods of production, the steam engine, mills… the so-called industrial revolution”.
On an even more basic level, Marx and Engel showed how the development of productive forces to leading to the consistent production of a social surplus was also a precondition to the division of societies into classes of exploiters and exploited. Without a consistent social surplus, such a division cannot take place.
This conception of the role of productive forces as a precondition to certain stages of economic development has played an enormous role politically. We can trace this conception to many classic documents such as the Communist Manifesto and Lenin’s thesis on the State and Revolution. We can also recognize the influence of this conception in the political lines of the Soviets and of the Chinese Communists. It was widely held that the development of the productive forces was a precondition that would enable the establishment of a communist society: the management of the productive process by the state would ensure the development of the productive forces, which in turn would yield “abundance” and “collective wealth” and thereby enable the establishment of the ideal communist relations: from each according to their abilities and to each according to their needs. These conceptions neglected to recognize the fundamental role of the relations of production throughout this process, and led to underestimating the need to transform the relations of production throughout the process of socialist construction.
Proletarian revolutionaries nowadays have learned from these experiences. [By the way one of the contributions of the Chinese revolution.] We can now recognize the fundamental and determinant role of the relations of production in the economic structure on the whole. In the dialectical relation between these two pillars of the economic structure, the relations of production globally and fundamentally determine the productive forces, they determine the nature and character of the productive process: is it one of exploitation? What kind of exploitation is taking place? What is being produced? How is this production-taking place? Who benefits from this production? The relations of production, on the whole, also determine the development of the productive forces: how are the goods produced being distributed between the various agents of production and what is being provided for the replenishment and development of the productive forces?
The fundamental objective of socialist construction on the economic level is the transformation of the relations of production. Their socialist transformation, enabled by the political domination of the proletariat, will in turn determine the transformation of the productive forces and engender the blossoming of proletarian ideology.
Socialist economic transformation is linked to the elimination of all forms of economic exploitation and domination. Economic domination exists whenever those who perform the labor are not empowered to also control and manage the productive process as a whole. Those exploiting classes who control or manage the productive process use their economic domination to extract surplus value from the laborers. They use their control and private ownership of the means of production to force the laborers to turn over to them (the non-laborers) the surplus value the laborers have produced. Exploitation exists anywhere there is a class of non-producers that use its ownership or the means of production (economic domination) to extract surplus value from another class of producers. This class of non-producers, through its control of the distribution process, is able to appropriate the surplus value produced.
The historical development of productive forces and of relations of production has resulted in a social division of labor leading to the relative specialization of certain groups in various kinds of specialized production, or to the relative specialization of various kinds of tasks in the production process.
STO said:
The contradiction is therefore internal and essential to the working class itself, and cannot be resolved externally. STO’s political line—in particular our understanding of the role of white skin privilege—is based on this recognition of the conflict internal to the proletariat.
In this case, STO is defining a sub ideological element, racism, as a fundamental contradiction. Does that means the proletariat will need to have an internal revolution to address racism different form of its manifestations including white skin privileges? Racism, in capitalist mode of production, is a secondary contradiction that could only be addressed and resolved by addressing the fundamental contradiction of capital and labor. Only the struggle of workers against capital, an existing tendency, is able to construct the unity of workers.
This definition of the STO will lead to an erroneous political line. The African American, a social category meaning social agents originated from different classes confronting similar problems due to ideological and political problems. The position of the STO doesn’t quite demonstrate the level of class struggle existing in that social category base on different class interest even if apparently there is a level of unity. The interest of the African American petit bourgeoisie is quite opposite to the interest of the African American workers, even if both are facing racism. Since and before the civil rights movement the African American bourgeoisie and reformist sector the petit bourgeoisie want acceptation and the workers want change in resisting exploitation. Class struggle is well alive among the African American; it also reflected the type and forms of organizations existing in that social category from reactionaries’ organization, reformist organizations to radical and proletarian organizations. Class unity is fundamental.
Of course, they are contradiction among the people camps, among the fundamental masses, these contradictions needed to be resolved from the general interest of the international working class. The resolutions of these contradictions are for the objective of constructing the peoples camp’s against the fundamental enemy. The political line guided to level these contradictions have to be non antagonistic and are secondary to the fundamental contradictions.
The practice of the working class has already demonstrated, in its lower political form, the path taken to address the unity of the workers and at the same building proletarian ideology that will cement the unity of the class. Class unity and class struggle against capital is the answer to racism…
sarda said
This is just one’s Filipino’s point of view, I do not speak for all.
Translations:
Bihira is a Pilipino word meaning “rare”.
Karaniwan is a Pilipino word meaning “ordinary”, “common”, or “plain”.
“tao ka lang katulad ko!” is a Pilipino phrase meaning “you’re only human like me!”.
Although this posting may seem insignificant to some I still hope that others may learn from it.
Bihira and Karaniwan
I am not a leftist, nor a rightist, nor a centrist, and neither
am I neutral. I only see the world on two sides. One side is the
Karaniwan, and the other side the Bihira. The logic is, if you are
not bihira, then you are karaniwan, and if you are not karaniwan,
then you are bihira.
We say that a person is bihira when he/she has the character of being
way past above the ordinary. Heroes, saints, and martyrs are the best
examples of being one. The virtues that we see in them are the kind
we always look for in a perfect leader. Whomever they may be, they
must be Bihira.
While the karaniwan, as we always hear from them “we’re just ordinary
people”. Let me put this another way, “It is not our job to be
heroes, martyrs, and saints, those jobs are reserve for the Bihiras”.
So to call on the karaniwan to go out there and march, sacrifice
their lives and limbs, will only be an exercise in futility, but to
call on the Bihiras is a sure guarantee that they will be there, if
only they are easily found. They are rare aren’t they?
The Bihiras and the Karaniwans have a differrent point of view. The
Bihiras have always have in their mind that they have the rights and
ability to change the world they live in and so took it upon
themselves that it is their task to put the world or society in the
proper order, in whatever means necessary. Their world is ideal, and
to make their ideal world a reality is that they should rule over
and impose it on the people. And so they did.
In so doing, the Order that the Bihiras laid upon the people have now
become a big problem, a burden, to the Karaniwans which already have
established an Order of their own. The Order of the Bihiras and that
of the Karaniwans now exist side by side with each other, putting the
people in a more confused state. The Bihiras want to lead and rule
over the country but expect the Karaniwans to follow them, sacrifice
their lives if necessary, just to achieve their goal.
But the Karaniwans have exactly the same thing in mind, they expect
the Bihiras to sacrifice their lives just like the heroes and
martyrs they are supposed to be, a true leader.
As I have said, the Karaniwans have already their own established
Order and is based on a very simple principle, that is, of being “Tao
lamang”. The Karaniwans are natural materialist, because it is really
what just being only human is all about. Being “tao lamang”, and
being karaniwan, responsibility to the family and to oneself comes
first, that is, go earn a living! And so we come to the Karaniwans’
established Order, and that they are, what else, the principles of
daily, ordinary life, the workers’ principles, which are,
1) Don’t be a burden!
2) Be independent!
3) Strive for equality!
4) Be practical!
5) Learn and improve!
This is the way to exist in a real material world.
The workers are the new karaniwans who are the true advocates of
those five principles. If you don’t have those principles in you,
if you don’t like them, if you don’t agree with them, then you are
not a worker, you are not karaniwan.
This the the way the workers treats everyone, in a materialistic
way, as being only human. Theirs is the materialist concept of being
human, “Tao ka lang katulad ko!”, so you hear them say.The Bihiras may think of
themselves as being humane, but the Karaniwans think of themselves
as being only human.
The Leftist, the Rightist, and the Centrist are the Bihiras I’m
talking about, they advocates the principles of being Bihira. You
don’t have to take my words for it, just go and try it. I’m not
preventing anyone from trying to become one, nor am I asking to
choose sides. Just to let you know what side you are with.
As for me, I said, I’m not neutral, so I will tell you where I’m
siding. I am on the Karaniwan side, the majority side. You can call
my kind Karaniwan, don’t call my kind by any other name. What I
would like to see is a Karaniwan revolution.
“We cannot make any changes unless we accept it” Carl Jung
“Unity is knowing what is common among us”
—–sarda– -