Essay Nine Part Two: Dialectics -- The Opiate Of Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionaries
This Essay was written long before the recent crisis in UK-Respect, but that crisis was predictable given the things you will read here.
Anyone who cannot be bothered to plough through all this material (this Essay is after all nearly 66,000 words long!) can use the Quick Links below, or go to the summaries of key points I have posted here and here.
A very basic summary of my overall views can be found here, and the reasons why I embarked on this project can be accessed here.
Those worried about the unremittingly hostile tone I have adopted (toward dialectics) should read this first.
Readers need to make note of the fact that this Essay does not represent my final view on any of the issues raised. It is merely 'work in progress'.
This particular Essay has suffered more than most for being published far too early. As I noted on the opening page:
"I am only publishing this on the Internet because several comrades whose opinions I respect urged me to do so, even though the work you see here is less than half complete. Many of my ideas are still in the 'infancy' stage, as it were, and need much work and time devoted to them to mature."
However, anything I allege here will be backed-up with evidence, or it will be withdrawn.
Nevertheless, this Essay was written from within the Trotskyist movement, but because I have found that my work is being read by other Marxists, I have had to incorporate an analysis of the influence of dialectics on Communism and Maoism. Since I am far less familiar with those two traditions, much of these comments are as yet tentative. I will add more material as my researches widen.
A word of warning: this Essay should be read in conjunction with Essay Nine Part One, where many of the things I seem to take for granted here were discussed in detail --, and Essay Ten Part One, where this part of the story is concluded.
It is important to add that I am not here arguing that 'Materialist Dialectics' has helped ruin Marxism and therefore it is an incorrect theory. The reason this Essay is well down the list of those I have so far published is that my argument is in fact: because 'Materialist Dialectics' makes not one ounce of sense, it is no wonder it has helped cripple our movement. Nor am I blaming all our woes on this theory (note the italicised word in the previous sentence!) -- anyway, that is the topic of Essay Ten.
[The earlier Essays posted here (i.e., Essays Two through Eight Part Three) were aimed at showing why I think 'Materialist Dialectics' makes no sense.]
Once more, this Essay is nearly 66,000 words long; a summary of its main ideas can be found here.
Quick Links
Anyone using these links must remember that they will be skipping past supporting argument and evidence set out in earlier sections:
(1) Are Leading Marxists In Effect Class Traitors?
(2) Alienation And Its Dialectical Discontents
(a) The Dialectics Of Consolation
(c) The UK-SWP 'Discovers' Dialectical Materialism
(f) Reality 'Contradicts' Appearances
(b) Fragmentation And The Petty-Bourgeois Personality
(d) Trotsky's Quasi-Religious Fervour
(e) Bukharin Too
(a) Dialectical Druggies Snort The Correct 'Line'
(b) The Road To Dialectical Damascus
(c) Defeat And Dialectical Druggies
(d) Disaster Central
(f) Social Psychology Does Not Apply To Dialecticians!
(5) Dialectics And De-Classé Marxists
(a) High Versus Low Church Dialectics
(b) In The Lurch
(a) Dialectics And Revolutionary Practice
(d) The Dialectics Of Mystification
(e) Installing The New Program
(7) Case Studies
(a) Dialectics Compromises Communism
(b) Dialectics Messes With Maoism
(c) Dialectics Traduces Trotskyism
(8) Refuted In Practice
(a) Dialectics: The Rotten Fruit Of A Diseased Tree
(b) Official: Dialectical Marxism Has No Cult Of The Saints
(9) Notes
(10) References
Abbreviations Used At This Site
This Essay deals with some of the background reasons behind the long-term failure of DIM. This explanation is a continuation of the argument developed in Essay Nine Part One, and further elaborated upon in Essay Ten Part One, where the usual replies given by dialecticians to my criticisms are neutralised and more general theoretical issues are aired. In the latter Essay, I also try to show why my claim that DIM has been such long-term and abject failure is no exaggeration.
[DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist; DM = Dialectical Materialism; HM = Historical Materialism.]
Cut To The Chase
This Part of Essay Nine aims to show how and why DM has been detrimental to Marxism, how it has assisted in the fragmentation of our movement, and how it helps convince comrades that on the one hand there is in fact no problem, while on the other that even if there were, dialectics (our core theory!) has had nothing whatsoever to do with it.
Part One of this Essay demonstrated that DM not only does not, but it cannot represent a generalisation of workers' experience, nor can it express their "world-view", whoever tries to sell this theory to them. Worse still, it cannot even represent the experience of the revolutionary party.
In addition, it was shown that DM cannot be "brought" to workers "from the outside" (as Lenin seemed to indicate); that is because it has still to be brought to a sufficient level of clarity so that even its own theorists can begin to understand it -- before they think to proselytise unfortunate workers.
In a sense, therefore, dialecticians are still waiting for their own theory to be "brought" to them -- from the "inside"!
Are Leading Marxists In Effect Class Traitors?
It was alleged earlier (in Essay Twelve (summary here), and in other Essays posted here and here) that DM is a form of Linguistic Idealism (LIE) and as such, reflects key features of ruling-class ideology.
However, what has not been established yet is how it is even conceivable that generations of revolutionaries with impeccable socialist credentials could have imported into the workers' movement ideas derived from the class enemy --, or at least from Philosophers who gave theoretical voice to the interests of that class. Surely, this alone shows that the allegations made in these Essays are completely misguided. Or so it could be argued.
Of course, even its own most loyal supporters cannot deny that dialectics had to be introduced into the socialist tradition from the outside; neither Hegel, Feuerbach, Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, nor Trotsky were proletarians. Moreover, there is no evidence that workers in the 19th century were all that interested in Hegel's Logic. [The claim that Dietzgen, for example, was an exception to this rule was batted out of the park here.]
As is well-known, Hegel's system is the most absolute form of Idealism ever invented, and it is one that is situated right at the heart of an ancient ruling-class tradition (aspects of which are examined in detail in Essay Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here and here)).
Lenin admitted as much, perhaps without realising the full significance of what he was saying:
"The history of philosophy and the history of social science show with perfect clarity that there is nothing resembling 'sectarianism' in Marxism, in the sense of its being a hidebound, petrified doctrine, a doctrine which arose away from the high road of the development of world civilisation. On the contrary, the genius of Marx consists precisely in his having furnished answers to questions already raised by the foremost minds of mankind. His doctrine emerged as the direct and immediate continuation of the teachings of the greatest representatives of philosophy, political economy and socialism.
"The Marxist doctrine is omnipotent because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious, and provides men with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any form of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism." [Lenin, Three Sources and Component Parts of Marxism. Bold emphases alone added.]
Despite this, the importation of Hegel's ideas into Marxism is often justified by comrades on the basis that he lived at a time when the bourgeoisie were the revolutionary class, and so his ideas were not ideologically-tainted to the same extent as those of later thinkers.
Now this excuse might work with theorists like Smith and Ricardo, but it cannot work with Hegel. Not only did he live in politically backward Germany, where there was no such revolutionary bourgeois class, his ideas represented both a continuation of ruling-class thought and a throwback to earlier mystical ideas about nature and society. [On this, see Essay Twelve Part Five and Essay Fourteen (links above).]
Moreover, by no stretch of the imagination were his ideas scientific, unlike those of Smith and Ricardo.
Nor can it be argued that Marx derived HM from Hegel; the fact is (as Lenin himself half admits) that both were influenced by the Scottish Historical Materialists, Ferguson, Millar, Hume, Robertson, and Smith. [On this see Meek (1967).] If anything, Hegel's work actually helped slow down the formation of Marx's scientific ideas, mystifying them.
It could be argued that Marx derived other important concepts from Hegel (such as alienation, and species being), but these (or one's like them) can be derived from Rousseau, Fichte and Schelling (far clearer thinkers). Moreover, these concepts are replaceable with materialist analogues -- which explains why Marx subsequently dropped these terms, but adopted others. On this, see White (1996).
Finally, no dialectician, as far as I know, would argue the same for other figures who were writing at this time, and who were much closer to the class action (as it were). Does anyone think this of Berkeley? And yet he was in and around the leading capitalist country on earth at that time. Or of Shaftesbury and Mandeville? Slap bang in the middle those two.
And it is little use pointing out that this pair wrote shortly after the reaction to the English Revolution, since Hegel did so too, after the French. Nor is it any use arguing that these two were card-carrying ruling-class hacks, since the same can be said of Hegel --, or even that one of them was an aristocrat; it may be news to some, but Hegel was not a coal miner!
Indeed, the only reason Hegel is chosen for special treatment is because of contingent features of Marx's biography. Had Marx's life taken a different course, does anyone think we'd now be bothering with this mystical buffoon? It is no surprise then to find Marx himself moved away from Hegel all his life. [These controversial claims are substantiated in detail in Part One of this Essay.]
In that case, and contrary to what Lenin said, we might want to exclude Marx himself from this seriously compromised ruling-class pedigree.
Independently of that, it could be objected that this allegedly class-compromised background is not sufficient reason to condemn DM/Materialist Dialectics. After all, it could be argued that the advancement of humanity has always been dependent on practices, concepts and theories developed by those freed from the need to toil each day just to stay alive (for example, scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, technologists, and the like). Surely, this does not automatically impugn every idea drawn from outside the workers' movement. Neither does it mean that such philosophical notions are of no use to revolutionaries. Indeed, denouncing certain beliefs just because they are alien to the working-class is inconsistent with key ideas found in HM itself. In that case, the fact that Materialist Dialectics is based on Hegel's system does not automatically malign it, especially if it has been given a materialist make-over (as Marx himself argued), and subsequently tested in practice.
Furthermore, the origin of Materialist Dialectics goes back many centuries, and is thus related in complex ways to the development of class society itself. Admittedly, this implicates this process in the formation of ideas representing the theoretical interests of former and current ruling-classes. But, even granting that, such ideas have also featured the overall development of human knowledge -- indeed, many of these have been integral to the advancement of science itself. Considerations like these do not compromise Materialist Dialectics in any way; on the contrary, as Lenin noted, this complex set of connections (with the very best of human endeavour) is one of its strengths. Dialectical thought is not only part of the theoretical maturing process of humanity, it is a vital component in its future development.
Or so it could be maintained.1
However, dialectics is not so easily exonerated.
First, DM-theses make no sense. Anyone who thinks otherwise is invited to say clearly, and for the first time ever (in well over a hundred and forty years), what sense they do make. As the Essays posted here show, those attempting to perform this modern-day labour of Sisyphus will have an impossibly difficult task ahead of them.
Second, DM-ideas hinder the development revolutionary theory and practice. We saw this in more detail in Essay Ten Part One, in connection with Lenin's advice relating to a certain tumbler. [Other examples will be given below.]
Third, DM is locked into a tradition of thought that has an impeccable ruling-class pedigree. No wonder then that it hangs like an albatross around our necks, to say nothing of the negative effect it has had on generations of comrades (these are detailed below, too).
Fourth, although many claim that science is intimately connected with earlier philosophical and religious/mystical forms-of-thought, this is in fact less than half the truth. Indeed, materialist and technological aspects of science have not been as heavily dependent on such ruling-class ideas as many believe. [That bold claim will be substantiated in a later Essay.]
Fifth, DM-concepts undermine ordinary language and common understanding; this means that workers have to have its alien ideas inserted into their heads against the materialist grain, as it were. As such, DM fosters substitutionist ideology and exacerbates sectarianism.1a [More on these below, and in Part One.]
Sixth, the materialist flip allegedly performed on Hegel's system, so that its 'rational core' may be appropriated by revolutionaries, has been shown in these Essays not to have been the 180 degree rotation, as claimed, but a full 360. [On this, see especially Essay Twelve Part One.]
Finally, and more importantly, DM has played its own not-inconsiderable part in not only rendering DIM the long-term failure we see before us today, but also in exacerbating the serious personal and political problems that generations of petty-bourgeois input into revolutionary socialism has brought in its train.
These are serious allegations; those that have not already been substantiated (in other Essays) will be defended in what follows.
In spite of all this, it could be argued that the above counter-response does not account for the fact that some of the best class fighters in history have not only put dialectics into practice, they have woven it into the fabric of each and every classic Marxist text. How could this be even remotely possible if the above accusations are correct? And what alternative theory and/or literature (that has been tested in the 'heat of battle', as it were) can Ms Lichtenstein point to, to recommend her ideas as superior to those of this proven tradition, one stretching back now over 150 years?
Most of the above volunteered response is demonstrably wrong; the link between 'Materialist Dialectics' and (successful) practice was irrevocably severed in Essay Ten Part One (and will be undermined further below).
Moreover, very few of the 'classic' texts (outside the DM-cannon) mention this 'theory' (except in passing). Indeed, as Part One of the present Essay (here and here) showed, Das Kapital itself is largely a 'Materialist Dialectics'-free zone. But, even if this were not so, the fact that DIM has been such a long-term failure ought raise serious questions about the malign influence that 'Materialist Dialectics' has had on HM.
In addition, a commitment to dialectics just because it was good enough for the 'ancient worthies' of our movement (and for no other reason) is itself based on the sort of dogmatic and conservative faith one finds in most religions.
There is, indeed, something decidedly unsavoury in seeing erstwhile radicals appeal to tradition alone as their only reason for accepting ideas from the past, especially those that have not served us too well, and which remain unexplained to this day.
Which brings us to the next point.
Alienation And Its Dialectical Discontents
As it turns out, the reason why the majority of revolutionaries have not only unwittingly accepted the alien-class ideas encapsulated in 'Materialist Dialectics', but have clung to them like terminally-insecure limpets, is connected with the following considerations:
(1) Marx's own analysis of the nature and origin of religious alienation.
(2) Lenin's warning that revolutionaries may sometimes respond to defeat and disappointment by turning to Idealism and Mysticism.
(3) The personal biographies and class origins of all leading Marxists.
(4) The fact that this theory helps mask the long-term failure of DIM itself, and provides consolation for unrealised expectations and dashed hopes.
[Other counter-claims recorded above will be tackled later on in this Essay.]
Dialectics
And Consolation: The Irrational Kernel Hidden Beneath A Quasi-Religious Shell
Item One: Concerning religion, Marx famously argued that:
"The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man -- state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point d'honneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion.
"Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.
"The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo." [Marx (1975b), p.244. Bold emphasis alone added.]
Of course, no one is suggesting that DIM is a religion -- but it is analogous to one. That serious allegation and the materialist background to it will now be explained.
Plainly, revolutionaries are human beings, with ideas in their heads, and every single one has a class origin. The vast majority of those who have led the movement or who have influenced its ideas have not come from the working class. Even worker-revolutionaries, if they are full-time or 'professional revolutionaries', thereby become de-classé, or even petty-bourgeois Marxists. And yet the accusation that all such comrades harbour ruling-class ideas for the same reason that the religious hold onto their beliefs -- and that this is partly because of their class origin or current class position -- is regarded by dialecticians as so obviously wrong it is treated with contempt, and the one making the allegation is often counter-accused of "crude reductionism". This suggests that dialecticians see themselves as exempt from a Marxist analysis of the origin of their own ideas, and that they thus think they are immune from the material constraints that affect the rest of humanity.
It will be maintained here that the above comrades do indeed hold on to ruling-class ideas, even if they are not aware of this, and they do so for at least two reasons:
First: because of their petty-bourgeois or non-working class origins, and as a result of the superior education they generally receive in bourgeois society, the vast majority of Marxists have had "ruling ideas", or ruling-class forms-of-thought, forced down their throats. [More on that below. This was also analysed in detail in Essay Two, and in Essay Three Parts One and Two.]
Second: because DIM is so unbelievably unsuccessful, revolutionaries need to convince themselves that this is not so, that the opposite is the case, or that it is only a temporary state of affairs --, or they'd just give up. Dialectics, because it teaches that appearances are "contradicted" by underlying "essences", fulfils a unique role in this regard, since it is able to provide comrades with much needed consolation in the face of such long-term failure. This 'allows' DIMs to ignore this failure, rationalising it as a mere "appearance" (and hence false, or illusory), or the opposite of the truth. Hence, faced with any and all set-backs, revolutionaries almost invariably respond with a "Well that does not prove Marxism wrong!".
So, just like the religious who can look at the evil in the world and still see it as an expression of the 'God of Love' who will make all things well in the future, dialecticians can look at the last 150 years and still see the 'Logic of History' moving their way, and that all will be well in the end, too. This means that the theory that prevents them from looking at reality objectively is also the theory that helps guarantee another generation of failure by masking it. [This theme is developed below, and in Essay Ten Part One (where the usual objections to this way of seeing things are neutralised).]
Despite this, it might still be wondered how this relates to anything that is even remotely applicable to the theories entertained by hard-headed revolutionary atheists. Surely, it could be argued, tracing a commitment to Materialist Dialectics to its alleged origin in alienated fantasy is both a reductionist and an idealist explanation?
Fortunately, Lenin himself supplied a materialist answer to this apparent conundrum, and John Rees kindly outlined it for us when he depicted the period following the failed 1905 Russian revolution in the following terms:
"[T]he defeat of the 1905 revolution, like all such defeats, carried confusion and demoralisation into the ranks of the revolutionaries…. The forward rush of the revolution had helped unite the leadership…on strategic questions and so…intellectual differences could be left to private disagreement. But when defeat magnifies every tactical disagreement, forcing revolutionaries to derive fresh strategies from a re-examination of the fundamentals of Marxism, theoretical differences were bound to become important. As Tony Cliff explains:
"'With politics apparently failing to overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of philosophical speculation became the fashion….'
"Philosophical fashion took a subjectivist, personal, and sometimes religious turn…. Bogdanov drew inspiration from the theories of physicist Ernst Mach and philosopher Richard Avenarius…. [Mach retreated] from Kant's ambiguous idealism to the pure idealism of Berkeley and Hume….
"It was indeed Mach and Bogdanov's 'ignorance of dialectics' that allowed them to 'slip into idealism.' Lenin was right to highlight the link between Bogdanov's adoption of idealism and his failure to react correctly to the downturn in the level of the struggle in Russia." [Rees (1998), pp.173-79, quoting Cliff (1975), p.290. Bold emphases added. (However, I can find no reference to "dialectics" in Cliff's book.)]
As Cliff goes on to argue:
"With politics apparently failing to overcome the horrors of the Tsarist regime, escape into the realm of philosophical speculation became the fashion. And in the absence of any contact with a real mass movement, everything had to be proved from scratch -- nothing in the traditions of the movement, none of its fundamentals, was immune from constant questioning.
"...In this discussion Bogdanov, Lunacharsky, Bazarov and others tried to combine marxism with the neo-Kantian theory of knowledge put forward by Ernst Mach, and Richard Avenarius. Lunacharsky went as far as to speak openly in favour of fideism. Lunacharsky used religious metaphors, speaking about 'God-seeking' and 'God-building'. Gorky was influenced by Bogdanov and Lunacharsky....
"Lenin's reaction was very sharp indeed. He wrote to Gorky, 'The Catholic priest corrupting young girls...is much less dangerous precisely to 'democracy' than a priest without his robes, a priest without crude religion, an ideologically equipped and democratic priest preaching the creation and invention of a god." [Cliff (1975), pp.290-91. Bold emphasis added.]
It is quite clear from this that the experience of defeat (and a lack of materialist input from a mass working-class movement) redirected the attention of certain revolutionaries to Idealism and toward searching for a mystical explanation for the serious set-backs Russian Marxists witnessed after 1905. In addition, and because of this, that search provided these comrades with some form of consolation -- just as Marx alleged of religion, pure and simple.
But, there is another outcome that Rees and others have failed to notice: this major set-back turned Lenin toward Philosophy and dialectics. These were subjects which he had largely ignored up until then. While it is true that Bogdanov and the rest turned to Mach, Berkeley, Subjective Idealism, and to other assorted irrationalisms, it is equally clear that Lenin too reverted to Hegel and 'objective' Mysticism.2
Nevertheless, Lenin's warning clearly indicates that revolutionaries themselves are not immune to the pressures that lead human beings in general to seek consolation in order to counteract disappointment, demoralisation and alienation. As we have seen, he was well aware too that alien-class ideas (which 'satisfied' such needs) could enter the workers' movement from the "outside" at certain times.
Is it possible then that revolutionaries of the calibre of Engels, Lenin, Plekhanov and Trotsky were tempted to seek metaphysical consolation of some sort? Is it conceivable that they opened themselves up to the alien-class ideas ultimately expressed in 'Materialist Dialectics', and for these reasons?
As we have seen in other Essays posted at this site (especially Three Parts One and Two, Twelve and Fourteen (summaries here and here)), and as Lenin himself admitted, dialectics is shot-through with ideas, concepts and modes-of-thought borrowed from traditional Philosophy (which ideas, concepts and modes-of-thought were in turn invented by theorists who undoubtedly had material interests in rationalising the status quo). Indeed, in many places it is hard to tell the difference between DM and open mysticism (as Essay Fourteen will show (summary here)).
All this strongly suggests that the above accusations are not completely wide of the mark. On the contrary, as we will see, they hit the bull's eye every time.
But, as was alleged earlier, is there anything in the class origin and background of leading comrades that pre-disposed them toward such an unwitting adoption of this rarefied form of ruling-class ideology? Does defeat automatically lead to DM?
Does DM in fact stand for Demoralised Marxists?
The first of these questions can be answered quite easily by focussing on item Four above, and then on the periods in which revolutionaries invented, sought out, or returned to the classical concepts found in DM. Upon examination, a reasonably clear correlation can be seen between periods of downturn in the struggle and subsequent 're-discoveries' of Hegel and DM by avid dialecticians (with the opposite tending to happen in more successful times).3
Hence, most (if not all) of Engels's work on the foundations of DM was written in the post 1860's downturn (after the massive struggles for the vote (up to the Reform Act of 1867) in the UK, following on the demise of the Chartist Movement and after the Paris Commune had been defeated in 1871).4
Similarly, Lenin's philosophical/dialectical writings were largely confined to the period after the defeat of the 1905 Revolution, and before the short-lived successes of 1917.
Trotsky's commentaries (including his Notebooks and his wrangles with Burnham) date largely from the 1930s after the major reverses in the post 1917-1923 period in Europe (and internationally in China) and later in Spain, and alongside his own isolation and political quarantine, in the 1930s.5
Stalin himself only became obsessed with Diamat after the defeat of the Deborinites post-1929, and after the failure of the Chinese and German revolutions. Likewise, Mao discovered a fondness for this Hermetic creed after the crushing defeats of the 1920s.6
More recently, the obsessive devotion shown by certain OTs toward the minutiae of DM follows a similar pattern. Because OTs invariably adopt a catastrophist view of everything that happens (or is ever likely to happen) in capitalist society, they cannot fail to be disappointed all the time. Naturally, such levels of constant disillusionment require regular and massive doses of highly potent DM-opiates. Nevertheless, to take one example, even an OT of the stature of Ted Grant only succeeded in 're-discovering' hardcore DM, alongside Alan Woods, in the shape of RIRE, after his own party booted him out and the catastrophic collapse of the Militant Tendency.7
[OT = Orthodox Trotskyist; NOT = Non-orthodox Trotskyist; RIRE = Reason In Revolt, i.e., Woods and Grant (1995).]
This regressive doctrine does not just afflict the minds of OTs; NOTs show similar, but less acute signs of dialectical debilitation.
For example, the overt use of DM-concepts in the SWP-UK (a NOT-style party) only began in earnest after the downturn in the class struggle in the late 1970s, and more specifically right after the defeat of the National Union of Miners in 1985. In this respect, therefore, TAR itself represents perhaps the high-water mark of this latest retreat into consolation by leading figures in the SWP-UK. The fact that this new-found interest in DM has nothing to do with theoretical innovation (and everything to do with repetition, consolation and reassurance) can be seen from the additional fact that TAR adds nothing new to the debate (on DM), it merely repeats significant parts of it, albeit from a different perspective --, but for the gazillionth time.8
Given the overwhelming experience of defeat and set-back faced by the international labour movement and the revolutionary tradition over the last 150 years, these correlations are quite striking (even if they are not the least bit surprising) -- for all that no one seems to have noticed them before.9
If the movement has known little other than defeat (as Essay Ten Part One shows), then it becomes vitally important for revolutionaries to account for and re-interpret this depressing history.
[IO = Identity of Opposites; NON = Negation of the Negation.]
Among Maoists, Stalinists and Trotskyists (OTs and NOTs alike) this tactic has often assumed a thoroughly dishonest form, one that has frequently sought to re-classify defeats as hidden victories (involving a novel use of the IO dodge, and a quasi-religious use of the NON ploy; examples of these will be given below). Clearly, this has allowed factors other than the failings of the parties involved to be blamed for any of the setbacks our side has faced.
As should seem obvious, a movement cannot learn from its mistakes if it 'never' makes any (or never admits to making any)! Amazingly, from the record, it certainly looks like DM-theorists are the only sentient life-form that not only does not, but cannot learn from recalcitrant reality. As we will see, the NON and the belief that appearances contradict underlying "essences" stand in the way of most dialecticians emulating the rest of us mortals, in that most of us do manage to learn from some of our mistakes.
Even Amoebae, it seems, learn quicker than dialecticians!
Figure One: A Non-Dialectical Fast Learner
Despite frequent claims to the contrary, the above dodges have meant that significant parts of our movement have engaged in a deliberate dialectical inversion of material reality so that their version of Hegelian Idealism can remain on its feet. Instead of rotating Hegel, material reality has been up-ended so that it now conforms to certain comforting ideas held about it.
Hard-headed Marxists have thus flipped reality through 180 degrees, stuck their own theoretical feet in the air, inserted their heads in the sand, and proclaimed that, despite the fact that practically every aspect of revolutionary practice has failed, and in the face of the grim reality that the vast majority of workers ignore 'Materialist Dialectics', DIM has been tested successfully in practice, and now represents the "world view" of the proletariat!10
Marx once claimed that Philosophy stands in relation to the sciences as masturbation does to sexual love. Clearly, overindulgence in Dialectical Masturbation has not just made revolutionaries short-sighted, it has rendered them theoretically blind.
Theoretical Onanism of this level of intensity has unsurprisingly encouraged a headlong retreat into fantasy (of the sort noted above, and worse). Such flights-of-fancy have been amply reinforced by the profound narcolepsy induced in comrades by the constant repetition of the same old formulae and hackneyed phrases. Simple but effective Dialectical Mantras, internalised and regurgitated by all serious adepts, have helped insulate radical minds from material reality. In such a traditionally-motivated and Ideally-constituted world, annoying facts are simply ignored -- or turned upside down to become their opposite.
Anyone who doubts this should try the following experiment: chose any randomly-selected, dialectically-distracted comrade and attempt to persuade her/him to acknowledge the long-term failure of their own strand of Marxism. Unless you are extremely lucky, you will soon discover how deep this particular head has been inserted in that particular sand dune.
[On the excuses usually given for the failure of DIM (that is, where it is actually acknowledged!), see Essay Ten Part One.]
To that end, stock phrases will be dusted-off and given another airing, almost as if they are still in mint condition. Even a cursory glance at the debates that have taken place over the last five revolutionary generations or so will reveal the spectacle of theorists mouthing slogans at one another as if the ones on the receiving end had not heard them a thousand times already, and the one chanting them had not intoned them even more often.11
This helps explain why we still encounter the constant rehearsal of the same tired old examples in DM-texts, involving the following hardy perennials: balding heads, John and his manhood, boiling water, Mendeleyev's Table, wave/particle duality, contradictory motion, "A is equal to A", a character from Molière who has spoken "prose all his life without knowing it", "Yea, Yea" and "Nay Nay", seeds negating plants, living/dying cells, Mamelukes, who have a somewhat ambiguous fighting record against the French, and so on -- despite it having been pointed out many times (and not just in these Essays) that these specially-selected examples do not work to begin with.
Reality 'Contradicts' Appearances
Alongside this there is a correspondingly robust refusal by dialecticians to face up to reality. This ostrich-like characteristic is found most glaringly among OTs, but it is similarly represented to varying degrees throughout the rest of the revolutionary/communist movement (with Maoists probably winning the Silver Medal in this event).12
As already noted, a good example of this is the knee-jerk quotation of the phrase "tested in practice" in support of the supposed (but imaginary) universal validity of 'Materialist Dialectics'. Although reality tells another story, we regularly encounter this sort of 'whistling in the dark' type of argument:
"There is no final, faultless, criterion for truth which hovers, like god, outside the historical process. Neither is there any privileged scientific method which is not shaped by the contours of the society of which it is a part. All that exists are some theories which are less internally contradictory and have a greater explanatory power…. [I]f the truth is the totality, then it is the totality of working class experience, internationally and historically which gives access to the truth…. [A theory's] validity must be proven by its superior explanatory power -- [which means it is] more internally coherent, more widely applicable, capable of greater empirical verification -- in comparison with its competitors. Indeed, this is a condition of it entering the chain of historical forces as an effective power. It is a condition of it being 'proved in practice.' If it is not superior to other theories in this sense, it will not 'seize the masses,' will not become a material force, will not be realized in practice." [Rees (1998), pp.235-37.]
[More of this sort of stuff here.]
However, the fact that Marxism (never mind Trotskyism) has never actually "seized the masses" -- it has never even got as far as lightly hugging them (not even in Russia in 1917!) -- that fact is not allowed to spoil the fun or interrupt the daydream. So, this inconvenient aspect of reality is simply inverted and the opposite idea is left standing on its feet (or it is simply ignored).
Failing that, of course, the happy day when 'Materialist Dialectics' finally manages to captivate the masses is projected way into the future, where it becomes a safe 'fact', insulated from easy refutation.
Of course, beyond blaming the mass of the population for their own failure to appreciate this pernicious theory (a tactic beloved, for example, of Maoists), few DM-fans have ever paused to wonder why the overwhelming majority of workers/human beings stubbornly remain locked in 'un-seized mode', so deep in the sand is this collective Hegelianised brain now wedged.
Since 'Materialist Dialectics' is regarded as the very epitome of scientific knowledge (an "Algebra of Revolution", if you will), the fault cannot lie with the theory, so it must be located elsewhere. The 'solution' is no less difficult to find: the masses are to blame! They are gripped by "false consciousness", trapped in a world dominated by inadequate, everyday "formal" thinking. "Static" language and "categories" dominate their lives, this sorry state of affairs compounded by the "banalities" of "commonsense". Indeed, they have been seduced by "commodity fetishism", or have been bought off by imperialist "super-profits".
Material reality is once more inverted so that a comforting idea is allowed to remain on its feet. A vanishingly small fraction of humanity is in the right, the vast majority of working people are wrong --, this peremptory judgement itself justified by a theory that not one of its acolytes can explain!
Such is the deleterious effect on Marxists of a diet rich in Silicates.
Figure Two: The DIM Guide
To Clarity-Of-Vision
Naturally, this means that dialectics must be brought to the masses "from the outside", whether they like it or not.
[Up to present, however, the signs are that this has been a consistent "not".]
But the conclusion is never drawn (it doesn't even make the list) that workers will never accept a theory that clashes with their materially-grounded language, and which runs counter to their understanding and experience -- and which, because of this, is not even a materialist theory!
To be sure, it could be argued that in a revolutionary situation, daily experience and commonsense aren't sure and safe guides to action. Hence, a revolutionary party needs a theory, one that goes way beyond the immediate.
But, HM itself provides us with just such a theory. Even better news: its concepts clash neither with the vernacular nor with common understanding. Quite the contrary, HM depends on them.
On the other hand, with respect to concepts drawn from DM, the above rejoinder is as misguided as it can be. As Part One of this Essay has shown, not one single thesis drawn from DM relates to anything a human being, let alone a worker, could experience. In that case, it cannot express the experience of the party. Moreover, as Essay Twelve shows (summary here), DM is based on concepts derived from centuries of ruling-class thought.
Small wonder then that it fails to mesh with material reality, and hence can't be used to help change it.
Nor, it seems, has anyone even considered the effect that DM has had on the standing of revolutionaries in the eyes of ordinary workers, or on the latter's respect for Marxists, whose parties are now widely regarded as little other than warring sects with obscure and irrelevant ideas.
Still less thought has gone into the extent to which DM (with its appalling logic) has undermined Marxism's claim to be regarded as a science, just as precious little attention has been paid to the fatally-compromised credibility of anyone who accepts DM.
Well, would you listen to and respect the opinions of those who accept the theoretical equivalent of flat-earth 'science'?
However, as noted in the Introduction, revolutionaries are unlikely to abandon DM in spite of the noxious effect it has had on HM, or the steady blows that yours truly rains down upon it.
Whether or not DM spells the Death of Marxism is obviously not a relevant consideration for those held in its thrall. This is hardly surprising: it is difficult to see clearly with your head stuck in the metaphorical equivalent of the Gobi Desert.
The Opiate Of The Party
Method Transformed Into Methadone
It is maintained here that DM satisfies the contingent psychological needs of certain sections of the revolutionary movement: those comrades who, because of their class origin/position, and because of the constant failure of DIM, cling on to DM in a manner that makes a drowning man look positively indifferent in his response to any straws that might randomly drift his way.
As noted earlier, this is because dialectics works in a manner that is analogous to the affect that religious dogma has on believers: that is, it acts as a form of consolation for unrealised hopes, a defence against disillusion and as a handy way of re-configuring defeat so it can be viewed as its opposite -- in the way that religionists also end up regarding suffering as beneficial.13
In other words, DM is the "opiate" of the Party, the heart of a seemingly hopeless cause.
For those Marxists who live and work outside the world that workers largely inhabit -- i.e., those who are removed from the material world of toil --, HM is clearly not a fundamental enough theory. In fact, revolutionaries who are cut-off (for whatever reason) from the day-to-day material world of labour manifestly require their own distinctive world-view, one that has itself been abstracted (cut-off) from the world of 'appearances', and thus from material reality, too.
This theory must be one that adequately represents the (now) alienated experience of these erstwhile 'radicals'; it must be divorced from material language and working class forms-of-thought. Moreover, this theory must underline and confirm the pre-eminent position held by such 'radicals' -- that is, as leaders of the class, to which post they have appointed themselves --, and it must be a theory that they alone can "understand".
What better to fit the bill then than the incomprehensible theory Hegel dreamt-up?
DM is thus beyond workers' experience -- not by accident --, but because it is meant to be that way.
Naturally, this not only makes this theory immune from refutation, but it also makes it well-suited to the task of getting things the wrong way round (or indeed upside down). It is in fact an ideal tool for keeping 'reality' Ideal.
But, this 'theory' also helps insulate dialectical minds from the setbacks revolutionaries constantly face.
DM is thus not just the opiate of the party, it expresses the soul of the professional revolutionary. Abstracted not just from the class, but also from humanity itself, this faction within the labour movement finds abstraction conducive to the way it sees the material world -- and the way it regards workers (as the objects of theory, not the subjects of history).
That explains, at least, the fairy-tale that DM is the "world-view" of the proletariat -- but only in so far as this is an abstract class of proletarians.
It also accounts for its long-term minority appeal among workers.
Fragmentation And The Petty-Bourgeois Personality
All of this is connected with the way that such comrades find their way into the revolutionary movement.
Unlike most worker-revolutionaries, such 'professional revolutionaries' have joined, or have been recruited into the socialist movement (by-and-large) as a result of their own personal commitment, as an expression of their rebellious personality, because of individual alienation from the system, or for other contingent psychological reasons --, but not as a direct result of the class war (i.e., not through participation in collective action, in strikes, at their places of work etc., since they do not work).
This means that from the beginning (again, by-and-large), such comrades act and think like individuals. This colours all they do inside the movement, and it affects the relationships they form with other revolutionaries.
These comrades thus enter the movement committed to the revolution as an idea, as an expression of their own personal integrity and goals in life. They are not revolutionaries for materialist reasons, that is, as a result of their direct experience of collective action, or as a direct consequence of working class response to exploitation.
So, when these comrades encounter DM, it is 'natural' for them to latch on to its a priori theses. This is because they have already been atomised by capitalist society, and have had their heads filled with "ruling ideas" (often as part of their 'superior education'). In which case, they appropriate the dogmatic theses they encounter in dialectics with ease; the thought-forms this theory encapsulates seem at once to be both certain (i.e., a priori, and thus self-certifying) and radical (because they have arisen from within what looks like a radical political movem