What role for revolutionary theory and practice? In this debate, Matan Kaminer takes ROAR founder Jerome to task for resurrecting obsolete prejudices.
Matan Kaminer criticizes ROAR founder Jerome Roos for some of the conclusions he draws in his latest piece on the Egyptian revolution, relating especially to the importance of Marxist theory in the revolutionary process. Jerome responds to Matan’s criticism below. Please feel free to share your thoughts!
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Matan Kaminer: “Revolution at the Armchair — a Response to Jerome Roos”
In a piece celebrating the spirit and determination of the Egyptian revolutionaries, Jerome has decided to incorporate some harsh criticism of Marx and his legacy, as expressed in the contemporary work of people working in the Marxian tradition. Jerome does not mince his words: Marx is “fat” and “old” (crimes against the people if there ever were any), Slavoj Žižek a narcissist and “thinker” (scare quotes in the original), Jacobin editor Bhaskar Sunkara an “armchair socialist”. All and sundry are dismissed for forcing a stale “ideational legacy” on a revolutionary process from which they are, presumably, entirely disconnected.
These accusations seem to be based on a willful misreading, or in the case of Marx himself, no reading at all, as the only citation of him is to an apocryphal remark “allegedly” made to Engels. Žižek does not fare much better; he is accused of condemning the Egyptian Revolution to failure, where he has done no such thing. In the piece linked to, the closest he comes to such an assertion is the following passage, which describes the experience of 2012:
What are we to do in such depressive times when dreams seem to fade away? Is the only choice we have the one between nostalgic-narcissistic remembrance of the sublime enthusiastic moments, and the cynically-realist explanation of why the attempts to really change the situation had to fail? … The first thing to state is that the subterranean work of dissatisfaction is going on: rage is accumulating and a new wave of revolts will follow. The weird and unnatural relative calm of the Spring of 2012 is more and more perforated by the growing subterranean tensions announcing new explosions; what makes the situation so ominous is the all-pervasive sense of blockage: there no clear way out, the ruling elite is clearly losing its ability to rule.
Clearly Žižek is in no way arguing that 2011 was a failure or making some abstruse, speculative point; he is summing up the mood of the year in what appears to me a perspicacious fashion. His refusal of both “nostalgic-narcissistic remembrance” and “cynically-realist explanation” is a practical, political injunction geared at rescuing what is valuable and enduring in the experience of 2011, while recognizing that in most places the tide has ebbed. Nowhere does he rule out the kind of resurgence we are now witnessing in Egypt.
The attack on Sunkara is in a similar vein. The closest thing I could find to the putative intellectualist defeatism in the op-ed linked to is a recognition that a survey of the political landscape in America, despite Occupy’s emergence in 2011, is bleak:
The labor movement has shown some signs of life, especially among public sector workers combating austerity, but these are at best rearguard, defensive struggles. Unionization rates continue to decline, and apathy, not revolutionary fervor, reigns.
I am no expert on the USA, but after a residence of five months in the Midwest, Sunkara’s summary rings rather true to me. Jerome is entitled to differ, of course, but nowhere does he make an argument to that effect.
What this tirade in fact amounts to is a rehashing of the crusty feud between Marxists and anarchists. Marxists once stereotyped anarchists as feeble-minded, hot-headed provocateurs and anarchists returned the favor by caricaturing Marxists as disconnected, mystically inclined intellectualists more interested in scholastic nitpicking than in actual revolution. Thankfully, the twentieth century is over and this ongoing spat is irrelevant. People working within the Marxian tradition recognize that the theory and practice of revolutionary politics must incorporate resistance to hierarchy of all kinds if we are not to repeat the dire disasters of Stalinism. Activists inspired by the anarchist lineage now realize the practical importance of theorization in such supposedly obscure fields as political economy and the philosophy of the subject.
We must, all of us, reject the dichotomy between thought and action (admittedly the scion of a distorted Marxism). Thought is a social, material process, embodied in such things as books and blogs. As we all know, much work and much exploitation is carried out today at the “armchair” – though more often it is an Ikea Klemens rather than an ornamental Louis XV. It is likewise with revolutionary practice – we are building the common space we need to fight from with our fingertips as well as our feet. We have time to write and time to occupy, time to talk and time to pull up barricades. What we do not have time for is resurrecting obsolete, wrong-headed prejudices.
Matan Kaminer has been active in the conscientious objection movement, in migrant solidarity work and in municipal and student politics in Israel. He is currently a doctoral candidate in anthropology at the University of Michigan.
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Jerome Roos: “Armchair at the Revolution — a Reply to Matan Kaminer”
In theory, theory and practice are the same. In practice, they are not.
~ Albert Einstein
I am glad my polemic on the Egyptian revolution stirred the still waters of Leftist self-criticism enough to elicit this well-written response from Matan. Before I start, allow me to remark that my old housemate Noa (who introduced me to Matan in Jaffa early last year) can attest to the long nights I spent struggling with all three dreadfully written tomes of Marx’s Capital. While I undoubtedly learned a lot about the internal contradictions of capital accumulation, I am proud to — just like Matan — have picked up most of my activist lessons in the streets, squares and squats, and not in some dusty publication from the 19th century. So now that Matan has had the opportunity to accuse me of being an anarchist who hasn’t read his Marx, I am glad to de-polemicize my own speech (although I will probably fail at that effort), and focus on the real issues at stake here (I promise I’ll try to be more serious at that).
While I basically agree with Matan’s conclusions on the inseparability of theory and practice, our core disagreement seems to revolve around their relative importance. For Matan, my polemic reinforces the dichotomy between the two, thereby “resurrecting obsolete, wrong-headed prejudices.” It seems like a slightly awkward critique to level at someone who in two years wrote over 300.000 words of theoretical reflections on a movement in which he actively participated from the very start (while simultaneously trying to write a 100.000-word PhD thesis on the structural power of capital), but as a Dutch disclaimer for financial investment commercials rightly underscores, “past performance is no guarantee for future gains,” so I will write once more. Let me be clear: I agitate not against those who theorize, but against those who over-analyze. Surely, I was deliberately being polemic — and for that Matan is right to fire back in indignation. But still, Matan’s criticism of my piece appears to hinge entirely on my accusation of Marx being a fatty (which is true!), and the two links I provided to armchair socialist Bhaskar Sunkara and narcissistic thinker Slavoj Žižek.
My critique of Sunkara was straightforward: I just don’t understand why anyone claiming to be a revolutionary socialist would use the opportunity of a Guardian publication on January 25th to extol the ideational legacy of a man who died 130 years ago. Of course Marx’ ideas are still relevant; to anyone with even the faintest revolutionary inkling that observation constitutes as much as a self-evidence. So why not use the occasion of the Tahrir anniversary to celebrate the legacy of the hundreds of Egyptians who gave their lives trying to bring about a revolution in our lifetimes? Last time I checked, it was terribly quiet at Highgate Cemetery. Tahrir Square, however, remains embellished in the flames of revolutionary rage. To understand why, we should listen to the parish; not idolize the priest.
My frustration with Sunkara arises from the fact that he pretends to know a lot about things he appears to have very little experience with. Theorizing without practical experience is ultimately just as dangerous as acting without theoretical understanding. Sunkara, for one, always preferred his books over the barricades. As he just told the bourgeois New York Times in a flattering interview, he “traces his politics less to experience than to reading.” Critical question: since when did the Jacobins relegate themselves to the status of a reading club? I guess the haunting legacy of the Reign of Terror had something to do with it? Perhaps retreating to the quiet comfort of theorizing helped them forget about the bloody lessons of their own history? Well, at least one thing we have to praise Sunkara for is that he is honest in his assessment of the current state of the Left. In his editorial accompanying the issue ‘Praxis’ of Jacobin, he readily admitted that, “So far, the creative tactics and the grunt work of coalition building in Occupy have come largely from anarchists, not the socialist left.”
As for the critique of Žižek, let me admit my one big mistake: I was too lazy to find the proper quotes and articles to accompany my frustration with his seemingly endless and utterly vacuous theoretical masturbation. I remembered having read about Žižek’s defense of theory at the expense of practice, but since the man is a master at contradicting his own statements I couldn’t quite remember where I had read it. Now that Matan (rightfully) forces me to be a bit more academic in my referencing, let me cite and link to proper references (I think I might start failing even more dramatically in my attempt to de-polemicize here):
- Žižek as “narcissistic intellectual”, hoping to enlighten the unconscious masses through his “revolutionary” writings, apparently believes that “humanity is okay, but 99% of people are stupid idiots.” I guess that makes him part of the 1%. While we stupid idiots try to organize a revolution from below, we look forward to reading the cover description of his next 900-page book.
- Žižek as “depressed pessimist”, who gave up on the Egyptian revolution the moment he realized it was not going to unleash some epic singular Event of Biblical proportions, purging humanity from 300 years of capitalist sins: “Unfortunately, the Egyptian summer of 2011 will be remembered as marking the end of revolution, a time when its emancipatory potential was suffocated.” Yes, Slavoj — this was the end of the revolution on your TV screen. On the ground, it was the beginning of an endless struggle in which thousands of activists continue to risk their lives every single day to realize the dreams of their martyred comrades.
- Žižek as “disconnected theorist”, who scorns action not just as irrelevant, but as dangerous, urging us not to act, and just to think. Indeed, insofar as we should act, Žižek urges us to be very careful and follow the example not of the Egyptian revolutionaries, but of heroic revolutionary vanguards, like Barack Obama, whose efforts to pass universal healthcare constitute a great example of anti-capitalist contestation (let’s just conveniently forget about the fact that Obamacare basically stripped away hundreds of billions of dollars from hospitals and donated them as profits to Big Pharma and Wall Street insurance companies).
On the latter point, it may be worth citing Žižek in full:
“My advice would be — because I don’t have simple answers — two things: precisely to start thinking. Don’t get caught into this pseudo-activist pressure. ‘Do something. Let’s do it, and so on.’ So, no, the time is to think. I even provoked some of the leftist friends when I told them that if the famous Marxist formula was, “Philosophers have only interpreted the world; the time is to change it” . . . thesis 11 . . . , that maybe today we should say, “In the twentieth century, we maybe tried to change the world too quickly. The time is to interpret it again, to start thinking.”
So let’s be clear on this: just because Žižek doesn’t have any simple answers, all of us should stop acting and start thinking? Just because Marx got it all lopsided in the 19th century — and revolution through the party-state (predictably) failed in the 20th — all of us should sit on our hands and wait for someone like Žižek to come up with the new theoretical models of the 21st? Just because past revolutionary vanguards “tried to change the world too quickly” — unleashing revolutionary terror from Robbespierre (Žižek’s favorite historical figure); to Stalin (whose murderous face lightens up Žižek’s bedside altar); to Mao (whose Cultural Revolution was praised by Žižek and Badiou as “the last truly great revolutionary explosion of the twentieth century”) — the rest of us should hold back and theorize while the Giant Vampire Squid of global capitalism sucks the last remaining blood out of humanity and the planet?
“Ah,” we can hear the old Marxists grumble in the background, “let them eat books!”
I applaud those like Matan who reflect upon their own actions and act upon their own reflections. There is a reason that one of the first things that arose at #OWS was a library — and there is a reason that the non-violent tactics of the so-called ‘Book Bloc‘, inspired by Italian activists who started confronting riot police with shields resembling books, has gone viral around the globe. But that said, Marx remains a dead old fatty and Žižek is still little more than a clever comedian spouting pop-philosophy to the mainstream media. In my spare time, I greatly enjoyed reading about half a dozen of his books, and I’m sure that — together with his favorite armchair and vanguardist vanities — they will make for an excellent bonfire over at the barricades.
Please feel free to share your thoughts and contribute to the debate!
{ 22 comments… read them below or add one }
We must always be suspicious of philosophies of history, but if history does teach us anything then it must be that we cannot seek to impose a rigid theory on the dynamism of practical action.
Personal, paradigm rebellion is the transition from personal experience into the realm of ideas and revolution is fitting those ideas into a frame. Let the Terror serve as a apt reminder, just as if one attempts to force a picture into a frame that doesn’t fit, the picture will be damaged, if one attempts to force the world into a theoretical frame that it is not fitted to, the world will be damaged. We cannot afford to turn our emancipatory ideas into a new doctrine or dogma; theory must serve as a guide, not a dictator. One must adapt and alter the theoretical frame as paradigms change during the revolution.
Interesting pieces.
It would’ve been nice to see a fuller reply to the suggestion you’re rehashing the stale old Marxian – Anarchist debate – perhaps some discussion of prefiguration linked to the questions of theory, practice and revolution without hierarchy.
You slightly contradict yourself, Jerome, in saying that Sunkara’s inclusion of Marx is irrelevant, but that Marx is always relevant. It also seems a little unfair to attack his understanding of the world on the basis that he reads more than he pickets – protests like occupy only make a difference if that communal, self sufficient mindset lasts by inculcating into normal behaviour en-masse, beyond the camps – academics like this help bridge that gap.
And you’re smart enough to know you’re being unfair to Zizek – that quote you’ve mauled mercilessly doesn’t suggest we fools should wait until he has made up his mind, he simply says that fools rush in – and when a lot of revolutionaries don’t understand the system they’re trying to do away with, let alone have a coherent vision for the future – that seems like a fair point. As to the rest of your critique, the man isn’t on trial – he’s a public philosopher – he’s allowed to be contradictory, provocative – indeed he should be. If it gets his audience to think and pay attention to the world in any small way… and doubtless he’s amusing himself too – people still do that, right?
Thanks Tom. I don’t think I contradict myself: I make it very clear that I think Marx’ ideas remain relevant, but that his legacy is self-evident to all those involved in the struggle — meaning that anyone spending his or her time regurgitating his ideas is merely preaching to the converted and rehashing ideas that have long since found their way into the very fabric of social, cultural and political critique.
Taking Marx’ relevance as a given, I would say this: rather than continuing to idolize the man himself, we should emphasize his “theory of praxis” and remain fiercely committed to “changing the world” rather than merely interpreting it, as Zizek unequivocally suggests here. But crucially, within this theory of praxis, I urge for an abandonment of the party-based and state-oriented form of organizing that drove both Marx and the revolutionary vanguards of the 19th and 20th centuries.
I believe in the importance of theory, but I would like to see some more emphasis among Leftist intellectuals on the “propaganda of the deed” — not in its violent form of bombings or assassinations, but rather in its non-violent prefigurative form, as you mentioned. That’s where the action is, that’s where the ideas are first born, and that’s where future theorists will ultimately draw their inspiration from.
It’s nice to see some anarchistic impatience for change. Truly.
Marx is a divisive kettle of fish isn’t he? I think his detractors and proponents both tend to forget he was a human – but my favourite quote on Marxism is that one about it being a critique of capitalism – which will as such be somewhat relevant as long as capitalism exists. That said, I don’t think his revolutionary ideas were right at all. Too class focussed, that needs breaking down not reinforcing. But we could back & forth on the man all day & not agree, & I bet he’d be smiling in his grave!
I’m going to hazard a guess that you’ve read some Bookchin – & wonder what you make of his ideas in relation to this discussion.
To be fair, Marx’s “theory” was just as nonsensical 130 years ago as it is now, but now it has far fewer armored divisions to give it philosophical heft. Marx was a brilliant pundit, of course, and we can learn from his punditry, but Marxology, like Calvinism, Arminianism, Manichaeanism, etc., no longer stands outside history like a shepherd watching over the sheep: it’s now within the fold of history.
ROARMAG is the most pertinent source of information since the ice age
Oh where to begin?
First, what a great blog! Great work JR.
@ Matan: I agree with yr complaint about Jerome’s calling Marx “fat.” I don’t understand his seeming obsession with Marx’ girth. It does seem oddly [and uncharacteristically] malicious of him. I doubt Jerome has ever called the equally corpulent Bakunin “fat” and “old.”
And I doubt very much if Marx made the statement Jerome alleges he might have, as, publicly at least, he cautioned the French working class that the time wasn’t right for rebellion given the war with Prussia [not that that wasn't ridiculous itself].
But beyond that you seemed to have engaged in precisely the type of harangue of which you accuse Jerome.
Moreover, the quotes you present seem to substantiate Jerome’s argument, particularly the one from Sunkara, which is just as the former suggests.
More to the point, your response highlights and fortifies Jerome’s case. The “spat”, as you called it, is indeed “crusty” and “ongoing,” but it is you, at least as much as Jerome, who has “rehashed” it, thereby undermining your contention that it is” irrelevant.” Certainly if the intellectual clown, the celebrity radical song-and-dance man Zizek is calling for a time-out to rethink our resistance then the question is anything but irrelevant.
Of greatest importance, you really stepped in it here: ” People working within the Marxian tradition recognize that the theory and practice of revolutionary politics must incorporate resistance to hierarchy of all kinds if we are not to repeat the dire disasters of Stalinism. ”
Don’t you mean Leninism? As it happens most “people working within the Marxian tradition” are acolytes of that most devoted practitioner of authoritarian, steeply vertical hierarchy. That you, like so many Marxists don’t seem to recognize that Stalin was a Leninist and Lenin was the original Stalinist again reinforces Jerome’s main points above and demonstrates beyond dispute that these issues are not behind us or “irrelevant.”
For the last few years I have been trying to bring about a reunification of the Left. My efforts have met with little success. One suggestion I have made is to reestablish the International Workingman’s Association, but this time with all radical tendencies represented. The last time, as you may recall, Marx and Engels intrigued to keep the Lasalleans out, attempted to keep the anarchists out [and resorted to reprehensible sabotages to do it], and kept the then numerous Blanquists out by charting a course disagreable to them. [In fairness to Marx it was Blanqui who advised his followers not to join because as he rightly observed
Marx' program as to how to effect the revolution was utopian and counterproductive.] Eventually, by more unscrupulous intrigues, Marx succeeded in driving out the anarchists. So the then main currents of socialist thought and practice were kept out of the International. This was narcissistic madness, and caused the collapse of the International. Yet most Marxists are STILL unwilling to unite with non-Marxists and make common cause. THAT is Marx’ legacy! And it is utter nonsense to say it is irrelevant.
@Jerome: Your response was absolutely brilliant. That is one of the best pieces of Libertarian writing I have ever read. Bravo!
With regard to the Occupy- Movement: We are getting slandered everywhere in the bourgeois press, and even from some Leftist circles. There was a ghastly piece written by Thomas Franks in the Baffler[http://thebaffler.com/past/to_the_precinct_station] which was posted at a radical blog, I wrote a brief response [http://saveourcola.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/a-defense-of-the-occupy-movement/] which might be of interest to ROARers as it deals with some of the issues discussed above.
Hi Dave,
Thanks for your thoughts. I would be curious to hear more about how you think Sunkara misrepresents the US situation. Like I said, I am new here and definitely not an expert and would love to hear more analysis on the current state of Occupy and the left more generally.
I would be hard put to defend Slavoj Zizek’s work as a whole, given his known penchant for contradicting himself, repeating himself and making a fool of himself. Speaking of Occupy, I found his speech at Zucotti Park particularly cowardly. However, I also greatly enjoyed his recent crusty tome on Hegel. As for the particular call to step back and think – I think Zizek was wrong to say anything that could be construed as a call for people who are up in arms and in the street to go home. I don’t think that’s what he meant but I hardly feel like defending him on that. As I wrote, I think his analysis of the pervasive mood of 2011 was on point – he is quite good at catching gists and geists.
By “Stalinism” I was referring shorthandedly to all the crimes and misdemeanors of World Communism in the 20th century. Not only Stalin but also Kronstadt, Catalunya, the Khmer Rouge and Chernobyl. Now that responsibility has been taken, the task (which I shall not take up here) is analysis. And saying that Stalin was a Leninist and that’s why everything went down the way it did is some very shoddy analysis and idealistic in the worst sense of the word.
Practically speaking I am afraid that I am more anarchist than thou. I am very wary of the party form – Leninist, reformist and other – and am very interested in innovative thinking on organization, some of which is coming from anarchists (other important sources are feminism and autonomist Marxism). Resurrecting the First International seems like rather an oddball idea to me, but I would be happy to hear more about it. In any case we could all do with some more respect and cordiality for each other. For the time being our “organization” consists mainly of person-to-person connections (like mine and Jerome’s) and we had better be very very meticulous about nurturing those.
Hi Matan,
Re Sunkara: I could only reiterate what I said above…
Re Zizek: I agree with all the unfavorable things you said above, and disagree with all the favorable things. Zizek is a buffoon posing as an knight-errant, or the other way around. I can never be sure. Moreover, i think his description of the “pervasive mood” was inaccurate and, academically at least, tendentious. He’s making social phenomena comport with his life’s work in social theory, which is the worst sort of narcissism, and the worst sort of treachery.
Re the Internationale: My hought is that together we would be stronger than as endlessly fissiparous warring camps. And I do not want to revive the First International–that’s precisely what I do not want–but to reestablish the International. The problem, or the greatest resistance, comes from the Leninists. For them it is heresy even to entertain that the socialist movement could benefit from non-Marxist thought or that Marx could have acted in such an unscrupulous manner.
Perhaps you might direct your admonitions about cordiality and comradery to them.
Re Stalinism: That is quite a shorthand Matan! The great bulk of Leninists insist that Stalin represents a break with the theoretical contributions of Vlad the Impaler. I must confess that even I would not include Chernobyl on a list of Leninist atrocities.
Now to the crux: “And saying that Stalin was a Leninist and that’s why everything went down the way it did is some very shoddy analysis and idealistic in the worst sense of the word.”
First, Stalin WAS a Leninist, get over it. Second, I did not say that because Stalin was a Leninist was why things went down the way they did. I say that because Lenin and his successors were LeniNazis socialism was defeated in the 20th century. Maybe we would have been defeated anyway, but Leninism made success impossible.
Third, you cannot just say that my analysis is shoddy and idealistic, you have to make a case. Why is it shoddy? As for idealistic: It is, and unabashedly so. This is another manifestation of the negative effect of Marxism-Leninism. You say socialism is a science, I say it is an ideology. It is as a science that Marxist thought breaks down and leads to the kind of counterrevolutionary nonsense perpetrated by M and E and later by L, T, and S. If you have a mandate from history, if you view the subject as an inexorable eventuality, then you can act in as underhand fashion as befits you. You become synonymous with the project. The line from Marx to Stalin is a direct one. The line from Marx circulating letters thru the International accusing Bakunin of treachery knowing the charges were false, to Stalin forcibly disarming/torturing/murdering the anarchists and POUM of Spain is just as direct.
Lastly, You are more of an anarchist than I? You obviously don’t understand anarchism, probably because you have been listening to the Leninistas too long. As I said above, for I did try to unite the Left. I started a collaborative blog [which I haven't visited in some time] and there you will find a brief essay entitled something like Leninism and Anarchism. May I suggest you read it.[http://revolutionology.blogspot.com/]
During and after Occupy- we were assailed by wonks from the Democratic Party who tried hard to undermine…er…recruit us. One lunatic wrote something which was truly absurd about Seattle anarchists, and I wrote a response. May I also suggest you read it too if you do see yourself as an anarchist. [http://www.opednews.com/articles/On-the-Appeal-of-Anarchism-by-Dave-Fryett-120918-538.html]
I believe the problem with Marxism and the practice it engenders today is not a question of theory versus practice, but a question of Marxism’s very wrong theory–specifically its wrong view of ordinary (e.g. working class) people, and its consequently wrong understanding of what class struggle is fundamentally about. I will summarize my views here, but I encourage you to read about them in the book, We CAN Change the World, by Dave Stratman, online at http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/Revolution/We%20Can%20Change%20the%20World%20book.pdf, specifically the Introduction ( http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/Revolution/WCCTW.intro.htm ), Chapter 7 Communism and Counterrevolution ( http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/Revolution/WCCTW-Ch7.htm ) and Chapter 8 From Marx to Lenin ( http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/Revolution/WCCTW-Ch8.htm ).
To summarize, Marxists fail to see (and when confronted with its assertion typically deny) that the class struggle is fundamentally about what values should shape society: the working class values of equality (including democracy in decision making) and solidarity versus the capitalist values of inequality and domination of the many by the few.
Marxists insist that there is no conflict of values, that ordinary working class people are “dehumanized by capitalism” and they are motivated by self-interest every bit as much as capitalists, that their selfishness manifests as “racism” and “homophobia” and that class conflict is simply a conflict between classes whose self-interests conflict due to one owning the means of production and the other owning only its labor power to sell to the former for wages (and under working conditions) that one class in its self-interest wants lower (and worse) and the other class in its self-interest wants higher (and better.)
This wrong and very negative view of ordinary flesh and blood people is in contrast with the view that Marxists have of the working class in the abstract, as a historical social force whose liberation requires the liberation of all humanity (the point of the Communist Manifesto). Marxists do not think that today’s flesh and blood workers are fit to rule society; they believe that a Communist Party must rule society in behalf of the historical mission of the working class, and that the Party must use social engineering to create a new Socialist Man who, unlike today’s workers, will subjectively want communism.
Marxists, however, believe that todays actual working people have no subjective desire for an egalitarian society. In fact it is a premise of Marxism that people cannot want an egalitarian society until scarcity is eliminated. This is the basis for Lenin’s famous equating of socialism with Bolshevik rule and electrification (industrialization) of Russia, and why he was a great advocate of the capitalist method of making workers work harder known as Taylorism and why he opposed workplace democracy.
In the U.S. the Marxists virtually all accept the ruling class’s elitist dismissal of working class people as racist and homophobic. Workers who oppose government-sponsored racial discrimination (“Affirmative Action” initiated by Richard Nixon to destroy the solidarity between black and white workers [e.g."I'm so sorry we couldn't hire you; we had to give the job to a less qualified black person" and ditto for school admissions] that had developed during the earlier Civil Rights movement led by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. against racial discrimination–a goal that most white as well as black people thought entirely just) are labelled as “racist” in the mass media and also in the Marxist press.
Likewise, workers who believe that the welfare of a child trumps the desire of adults and who, for that reason, oppose same-sex marriage because its legalization would endorse the practice of using third-party gamete donation to conceive children (because this is the only way a same-sex couple can produce a child of their own and a marriage license constitutes social approval for a couple to produce a child of its own), children who are, by design, prevented from knowing and being known by their biological mother (or father as the case may be)–these working class people are denounced by Marxists as well as the corporate elite as “homophobic” bigots. I spoke to one Marxist shortly after the vote on same-sex marriage in California in which 70% of African-Americans voted against same-sex marriage, and I asked this Marxist if he thought these African-American Californians were fit to rule society and he told me, “No, but one day they will learn in the course of the struggle to be fit and to reject their current homophobia.”
This elitism, and contempt of ordinary people, prevents Marxists from seeing that most ordinary people–in the small corner of the world over which they have any control, and in the actions of their everyday lives that are typically not noticed by people outside this small corner, and without consciousness of the revolutionary significance of their acts–try to shape the world with values of equality and concern for one another that are implicitly anti-capitalist and hence implicitly revolutionary. The Marxists fail to see that the basis for hope in creating an egalitarian classless society is not impersonal economic laws but rather the subjective desires and values of most working class people today. The Marxists fail to see that revolution means the shaping of the world on a large scale with the very values that most working class people are trying to shape it with on a small scale today.
The legacy of Marxism is that it’s theory has led its practitioners (like Lenin) to define the goal of revolution in a thoroughly anti-democratic manner–as the attainment of power by a small Communist Party and not as the attainment of power by ordinary working class people. The inherently anti-democratic Marxist theory and its anti-democratic practices led to the creation of Marxist dictatorships in Russia and China and elsewhere that have, in turn, persuaded hundreds of millions (perhaps billions!) of people that the very idea of revolution for a better world is dangerous. Marxism is one of the chief obstacles to revolution today–both its theory and its consequent practice.
Please see Thinking about Revolution (at http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/thinking.pdf ) by Dave Stratman and myself.
John Spritzler, editor http://www.NewDemocracyWorld.org and author of The People as Enemy: The Leaders’ Hidden Agenda in World War II.
[posted using Firefox browser this time]
Interesting post. Enjoy yr website and enjoyed People very much. My only complaint with it was that you insisted upon seeing the national bourgeoisie v national bourgeoisie interpretation of the war as being in conflict with the international bourgeoisie v the international proletariat, whereas I do not. You made an excellent case though, and the book is a valuable contribution to Left literature.
Regarding racism: congrats on your canny observation on the most reactionary (and most euphemistic) civil rights initiative–Affirmative Action–yet devised by the enemies of social revolution. But it seems that you and I are in very small minority indeed. We had race problems in Occupy- here in Seattle. I have lots to say abt this, but this is not the place.
Loved what you wrote above, with the sole caveat that it seems that like the M’ists you seem to believe that revolution is a definable, quantifiable thing which can and MUST be properly understood, to which there is A proper path. I see it as a much more fluid and amorphous process.
Nevertheless, I commend your insistence that workers are innately anarchistic and revolutionary, and, unlike what the LeniNazis would have us believe, do not need to be TRANSFORMED; that worker values, such as they are, are all that are necessary to effect, defend, and preserve revolution.
Hi Dave,
Thank you for your comments–much appreciated.
Re the path to revolution being definable, I see the task as de-stigmatizing the idea of revolution with an inspiring vision about what it can be. As my son puts it, “People don’t get on a bus when they don’t know where it is going.”
Nice metaphore John! Unfortunately I’m afraid, however, that there will never be a bus that says “Stateless Communism”. I suggest we build our own means of transport and find the way as we go. The revolution is a road trip — we’ll undoubtedly take countless wrong turns along the way, but as long as our journey remains open-ended and we never commit to a dogmatic destination, we can all collectively decide on what exactly the inspiring vision will be and where it will take us.
The NY Times is a dreadful newspaper to refer to, but a recent article just nicely worded my own views on the revolutionary process. In the words of a Syrian comrade:
“The revolution is like a baby,” Rami, a Syrian activist, said in an interview on Sunday in a Beirut cafe. “You can’t say if this baby is going to be a doctor or a lawyer, smart or dumb. Even if this baby throws his mother’s purse, I can’t complain — he’s a baby.”
Rami, who asked that his last name not be used for safety reasons, said he expected the revolution to include wrong turns.
“In revolution we destroy, we build,” he said. “Sometimes we get a distorted shape which will automatically be torn down.”
Everyone has made good points in defense of their vision of social revolution. Now the task is to unite internationally and discuss how we get there. How about resurrecting the International (as a think tank) along the lines suggested by Benoit Malon. Think of it as a giant umbrella group in which every effort will be exhausted to find a theoretical basis for joint revolutionary activity, but one which tolerates/encourages independent activity . What harm can come from getting together and talking about it? We already hate each other, what do we have to lose?
We cannot have another Kronstadt.
In a Revolution there are many buses, some on the road and some off it.
Hi Jerome and Dave,
I think we are engaging here in a discussion of a very important question: Do we need of vision (general principles, not detailed blueprint) of a new and better world? But this question is being conflated with a very different one: Do we need a detailed PATH TO a better world spelled out in advance?
I think the answer to the first question is Yes and the answer to the second question is No.
Dave, you contrast “A proper path” versus “a much more fluid and amorphous process” and say you favor the second. I interpret this as answering No to the second question, and so I agree.
Jerome, you write,”The revolution is a road trip — we’ll undoubtedly take countless wrong turns along the way, but as long as our journey remains open-ended and we never commit to a dogmatic destination, we can all collectively decide on what exactly the inspiring vision will be and where it will take us.” Here you seem to be arguing not only against a predetermined path but also against the idea of having a vision–even just the general principles–of a new and better world. Your phrase “dogmatic destination” suggests to me that you think advocating such a vision today is a bad thing. You apparently want the vision (even just general principles) to be something that is determined in the future, not by us today. At least this is what I take from your use of the future tense in “we can all collectively decide on what exactly the inspiring vision will be.”
I think we need an inspiring vision (general principles, not blueprint) today. Here’s why.
The lack of an inspiring vision today is arguably one of the chief obstacles to revolution against the capitalist system. Margaret Thatcher’s famous TINA (There Is No Alternative) assertion is widely accepted as true, in the sense that there is no alternative to capitalism ( with its attendant inequality and other negative features). The only alternative that most people are aware of is Communism, which is thoroughly discredited as hopelessly anti-democratic at best and economically impractical as well. This is why most people do not think about how to build a revolutionary movement, and why they think in terms of defensively trying to just make things less bad with small reforms of capitalism.
As I discuss in my article, “Lessons for Today from the Spanish Revolution 1936-9″ (which you can find online by googling the title in quotes; but I don’t include the url here to avoid this going into ROAR’s spam filter) a key element in explaining the enormous size and strength of the Spanish Revolution was precisely the widespread vision–”The Idea” as many called it–that Spanish workers and peasants had of a new and better egalitarian world. For all of its internal weaknesses (that tragically led to its defeat) the Spanish Revolution was (with the possible exception of the Taiping Rebellion) the largest and best effort of people in history to create an egalitarian society on a large scale. If a vision of such a society played an important role in making this revolutionary effort possible, then I think we should not make the mistake of dismissing the importance of such a vision.
The consequences of the absence of a vision based on good principles, and its inevitable replacement, therefore, by a vision based on bad principles, can be seen in the experience of the Communist revolutions. The vision of the Marxist revolutionaries was an end to economic scarcity, achieved by any means necessary, including the use of anti-democratic rule by a Communist Party and the use of inequality to make people work harder. The Marxist vision of an egalitarian (classless) society was not the vision that guided Marxist revolutionary practice, because they believed such a society could only exist after economic scarcity was eliminated. (This notion stems directly from the negative view of ordinary flesh-and-blood people [as opposed to the "historical working class" in the abstract] as motivated only by self-interest, a view that is at the root of the entire “science” of Marxism.)
There is no reason not to, and every reason to defend and advocate today a vision of a better world that explicitly is based on key principles: equality; mutual aid; sharing according to need (instead of buying and selling) among people who contribute reasonably (i.e. no exploiting class of capitalists or aristocrats or slave owners etc. who take but don’t give); laws made only at the local level by meetings that all who support equality and mutual aid can attend and have an equal say at [i.e. rejection of the hierarchical principal that whoever gets control of the central government must be obeyed unquestioningly by all the millions of other people in the land and also rejection of the principle that people who want inequality and who reject mutual aid deserve to have a say in shaping society] ; voluntary federation the basis for large-scale planning and coordination.
If we don’t fight for this vision, then other visions, fought for by other people, will take its place, with bad consequences!
Fighting for this vision should not be equated with having a pre-conceived path to its achievement spelled out. The vision and the path to achieving it are two different things. We need to promote a huge public discussion of the vision today or else there won’t be a significant number of people trying to figure out the path to achieve it tomorrow.
Everything above sounds fine to me, consider me on board, but if you will permit me a few tepid misgivings.
The terms ‘vision’ and ‘paths’ are vacuous, sweeping, and romantic enough to cause concern. You cite the Taiping Rebellion, but wasn’t it led by a man who considered himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus? [Or something like that, as I recall.] It is such people as he who have ‘visions.’ Saint Simon, Cabet, Colins, Fourier et alia had visions, all of them better than capitalism but none to my liking. You talk about general principles, which is considerably more to my liking. The distinction is more than semantic. As somebody once said: The terms we use are important because words control ideas and ideas control people. The Right understands this, and uses it to good advantage. We need to as well. I don’t mean manipulation, just expressing our ideas in the least equivocal and most accessible manner. “Vision” sounds a bit messianic.
Is structure a “path” and hence impermissible? If we need to promote our principles, does that not imply some form of organization. If so, then we run headlong into what might be called a “path,” and the same old acrimonious debates which have hamstrung the Left since Proudhon and Marx stopped talking to each other. This begs the question: Are we to promote our vision in opposition to other Leftist visions [say the ISO or SWP], or will our principles be some sort of hybrid of both visions, assuming the latter is possible?
And if some sort of structure is necessary, will we promote it as prefigurative of the “vision”?
The terms we have thus far used are vague, and the devil is in the details. To implement your suggestions require more specifics, and that’s when the obstacles will be encountered. But, again, everything above sounds good such as it is stated.
Whatever the vision is or will become, I hope that it
a, Include some kind of theoretical framework for parameters on what is revolutionary, and what constitutes, before, during, and after the event, counterrevolutionary activity. This will be a daunting, bitter task, but it would behoove us to set some criteria to, as Manya Gordon put it, tell the difference between reaction and progress.
b, Enable us to discuss what will weaken capitalism and hasten its demise. It is astonishing to me just how little attention has been paid to this critical aspect of revolutionary praxis. What political and economic actions/policies are we to support or counter which will advance our cause. I think that thus far we as a Left have done a poor job of this.
c, Discuss what can we do in advance of the revolution to survive the counterrevolution from within and without which is sure to follow. Imho, we’ve done a lousy job of this too.
Are such structures which might form in which such issues as these are discussed”vision” or “path”?
Hi Dave,
You raise excellent points for discussion, in my opinion.
Regarding the word, “vision.” You’re right, the connotation it may have of a “vision from God” is not what I want to convey with the word. And you’re right about the Taiping Rebellion. I only mentioned it parenthetically because I was making a strong assertion about the Spanish Revolution being the largest and best attempt to achieve a large scale egalitarian society and I am ignorant enough of the Taiping Rebellion to not be sure if maybe it was the largest and best. (I’m reading a book on it now and will know more I hope when I finish it.)
When Dave Stratman and I wrote Thinking about Revolution (online at my website) our main purpose was to persuade people that TINA (There Is No Alternative to capitalism) is false and that it made sense to build a revolutionary movement against capitalism. We wanted people to have a vision (sorry, but that word has some good connotations too) with minimal detail but still sufficient provide confidence that TINA was false, that a different and better egalitarian world really was a practical possibility. And we wanted to answer the main questions people have about the _possibility_of revolution. (Lots of people want one, but few think it is actually possible.)
So we wrote about how ordinary people are a positive, implicitly revolutionary, force because the values they share are the opposite of capitalist values and are the basis for a better, egalitarian, world. We wrote about how a sharing economy based on equality and mutual aid would actually work, and how a genuine democracy would actually work, with an emphasis on the principles but also with some “vision” and minimal description so that people could “fill in the gaps” with their imagination enough to be confident that, yes, this is something realistic and possible enough to fight for.
Here is one experience I had that made me sharply aware of the need for a vision, and made me aware of how absent from the U.S. is any vision that could make a revolutionary movement possible. Shortly before writing Thinking about Revolution some friends and I went to a talk given by a Marxist professor at the nearby Boston College. He had just written a new book and he spoke to an audience of about a hundred people about his book–an analysis of society. Then there was a Q&A session and after a few questions a woman said, “This analysis of what is wrong with our society is all very fine and good, but what kind of society to we WANT?” There was then dead silence. The silence went on and on and on. Nobody expressed a single word in answer to her question. I don’t see how a movement that cannot say with some confidence what it is for can ever attract people and accomplish anything.
Regarding your points a, b and c.
a. I agree completely. I think it was precisely the absence of prior widespread agreement that the criteria for what is revolutionary are i) promoting equality and ii) promoting mutual aid that enabled the Bolshevik criteria (promoting economic production and promoting Bolshevik Party control) to dominate the Russian Revolution.
b. Again, I agree completely. We try to do this as best we could in Thinking about Revolution. We focus on a two part strategy based on seeing ordinary people as the solution, not the problem: 1) Spread and deepen the idea of revolution, by calling on people to critically examine every aspect of today’s society in light of a possible democracy; 2) Recruit people to the revolutionary movement, to spread revolutionary literature and ideas for its realization among their friends, family, co-workers—wherever they can connect with other people.
c) Again I agree completely. I think that making the criteria for what is revolutionary widely and clearly known is the main way to defeat counterrevolution from within, because when people are clear on these criteria then they will be most able to identify when so-called revolutionary leaders are actually pursuing counterrevolutionary aims. Absent clarity on these criteria it is very difficult to prevent counterrevolution from within. As for counterrevolution from without — i.e. repression–I think the first point is that we cannot prevent repression but we can make the revolutionary message so clear and widely known that repression will anger the public and result in growing support for the revolutionary movement. I am sure there are many other important things (organizational, for example) that need to be worked out and discovered in this regard, and I am an inexperienced novice in this area, to be frank.
I agree we need to build revolutionary organizations to discuss and do all of the above. I would say this is “path.” It’s a path I am just embarking on with a dozen or so people here in the Boston area. We have only the most embryonic organization. We call ourselves People for Democratic Revolution and our basis of unity is the This I Believe statement that is online at my website. We are collecting signatures (standing on the sidewalk in various towns around here) for this explicitly revolutionary statement and making posters with the signatures to display in public to let the public see they are not alone in having revolutionary aspirations. (About 75% of the people who stop to read the statement sign it, by the way.) We are also collecting donations to pay to print 10,000 copies of the online leaflets “What is Democratic Revolution?” and “Should We Pay Back the Debts?” (online at my web site) to pass out in the Boston area. We have had public discussions in the public library, and we join each other and invite friends to join us for informal conversation every Tuesday evening at a convenient Chinese restaurant. People seem to like that a lot, and it has helped us develop greater cohesion.
This “path” stuff is pretty much trial and error. I would like to hear what others are doing along these lines.
–John
Best of luck. You seem to be having some success. I lived the first 28 years of my life in Somerville, Cambridge, Brighton and J.P., so I know what you are up against.
I’ve read your essay on the Spanish Revolution and enjoyed it. I’ve long been suggesting that we should make an effort to re-establish the Radical Library of Hyman Weinberg and de Claire. Everybody seems to agree but it never seemed to get off the ground. We have an Autonomia Center here in Seattle which has a radical library, but it is not quite the same thing as I envision [and there have been legal problems and other issues which are ongoing so I'd rather not go into detail]. We will of course face the same reactionary forces they did, but I think there is nothing to lose in the effort. [Save the occasional tooth to a police baton.]
Apropos, on a small scale, I recently began a blog for reviews of books and films of interest to radicals. It’s brand new and there isn’t much there. I really haven’t told many people about it yet, but the comments made on this page highlight the need for it [and much, much more]. I’ve been an anarchist for decades, and have been interested in history and social theory for even longer. Moreover, I couldn’t be more interested in the Spanish Revolution, yet I had not heard of Mintz’ book until I read your article. And I now realize that the Taiping Rebellion is of greater relevance than I had thought. If anybody reads or sees something that they think would be of interest to other radicals, please consider sending a review to the Reviews for Radicals Blog.
I’m off to LA on vacation, so I won’t be commenting here again, at least not for a while. Thanks for the great conversation.
PS No conversation about S.R. historiography is complete without a nod of the head to Chris Ealham’s Anarchism and the City.
“You cite the Taiping Rebellion, but wasn’t it led by a man who considered himself to be the reincarnation of Jesus? [Or something like that, as I recall.]”
“P’eng Tse-i described the Taiping Rebellion as the last peasant Revolution in Chinese history and as a Revolution characterized by nationalism and the positive nature of a utopian communism. It was a religious Revolution, a social Revolution, and an ethnic Revolution… P’eng Tse-i says the Taiping Rebellion was more tham a war against the Manchus or a war of the peasants against the feudalistic system; it was also a movement to emancipate the people from all kinds of bondage, including those imposed on the Chinese by foreign nations.”
- The Taiping Ideology, Shih
Thx Cornet. You and John have certainly piqued my curiosity for this event.
The last peasant rebellion in Chinese history? Presumably that was written long ago.
According to Wiki:”The Taiping Rebellion was a massive civil war in southern China from 1850 to 1864, against the ruling Manchu-led Qing Dynasty. It was led by Hong Xiuquan, who announced that he had received visions in which he learned that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. About 20 million people died, mainly civilians, in one of the deadliest military conflicts in history.[2]”
Perhaps I let this put me off, and shouldn’t have.
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