16-09-02 -- Summary Of Essay Nine Part Two:
Militants On Methadone
These are Introductory Essays, which have been written for those who find the main Essays either too long, or too difficult. They do not pretend to be comprehensive since they are simply summaries of the core ideas presented at this site. Most of the supporting evidence and argument found in each of the main Essays has been omitted. Anyone wanting more details, or who would like to examine my arguments and evidence in full, should consult the Essay for which each is a précis. [In this particular case, that can be found here.]
In Part One of this Essay it was argued that (1) DM has to be substituted into workers heads from the "outside" since it is based on incomprehensible forms of ruling-class ideology, (2) DM depends neither on the experience of the Party, nor on that of the working class (because of point (1), above), and therefore that (3) DM forms the ideology of substitutionist tendencies in the workers' movement.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism.]
In Part Two of this Essay I aim to show why leading Marxists have swallowed this theory, how this is related to their class origins, education and world-view, and how it has helped ruin Marxism.
Consolation And Dialectics
In Defeat, Don't Organise -- Speculate!
Marxists are well aware of the fact that in defeat those in the movement who are looking for consolation often find it in Mysticism and Idealism. However, those (like Lenin) who point this out are themselves only immune to the attractive influence exerted by this metaphysical black hole if they can show that they are above the material constraints reality places on everyone else --, which, clearly, they are not, and hence plainly they cannot.
As we will see, dialecticians have regularly turned to consolation in defeat --, something they experience nearly all the time. They do this by turning to a theory that reassures them with comforting news that Marxism is in fact a ringing success; this is because dialectics teaches that appearances are "contradicted" by underlying realities. Hence, even though Marxism might appear to be an abject failure, to those with a well-focussed dialectical 'third eye', it is the very epitome of success.
[Essay Ten Part One is devoted to substantiating these allegations.]
[NON = Negation of the Negation.]
There is in fact no reasoning with this sort of pathological optimism, since it depends on a level of dislocation from material reality that would shame a coma victim -- as anyone who has tried to slap some material sense into dialectical day-dreamers can well attest. The fact that we have witnessed little other than defeat, retreat and set-back since the 1920s is brushed off as a mere blip. The dialectic will "spiral" back to save the day, under the watchful eye of the NON, of course.
While revolutionaries drawn directly from the working-class appear to be less susceptible to this intellectual malaise, those entering our movement from other layers of society are, it seems, highly vulnerable. [Why this is so will be outlined presently.] Unfortunately, the authors of the DM-classics weren't workers -- and neither were the Hermetic Philosophers upon whose ideas they relied. And, in general if we are honest, neither are those who lead the revolutionary movement today, or at other times, and who thus control its ideas.
DM provides this professional layer with a form of intellectual consolation, which among other things reassures them that history is on their side --, this despite the many material realities which every day openly contradict this rosy view. DM helps them account for, and then reconfigure their experience of constant defeat, rejection and failure; it does this by re-presenting it as its own internal opposite: as success in disguise, or as success about to happen.
In this way, recalcitrant experience does not refute dialectics, it confirms it!
Dialectics thus helps insulate militant minds from the unwelcome fact that their Idealist theory is refuted daily by intransigent 'appearances'.
Failure, even if it is acknowledged, is blamed on 'objective' factors, or other those other 'sects' -- who, oddly enough, do not have the right "dialectical method", even though they say more or less the same thing about their accusers, too!
However, on the few occasions when our movement has notched up a success, this is unfailingly attributed to the "dialectical method".
Material reality is thus inverted so that in an ideal form it now conforms to theory. Dialecticians ignore or explain away whatever fails to fit the Hermetic script written by that waffle-meister, Hegel. Naturally, this ostrich-like stance also serves as a defence-mechanism, protecting militant minds from the fact that workers in general reject the philosophical gobbledygook that the 'orthodox' constantly churn out.
Figure One: Dialectician Looking For
"Underlying Essences"
But, by doing this, dialecticians have only succeeded in engineering their own continued rejection (why this is so explained in Part One), ensuring that those who remain in the thrall of this divisive theory waste their time pootling about in small, insular ineffective grouplets -- whose over-inflated view of their own historical significance ironically runs in inverse proportion to the genuine impact they have on the class struggle.
In this way, DM succeeds in negating in an ideal form its own very real rejection by workers; it does this with some neat, internally-generated dialectical spin. Viewing things from beneath these dialectically-constructed sand dunes, DM-adepts can pretend to themselves that workers en masse do not really reject dialectics. Far from it, they are in fact blinded by "empiricism" and "commodity fetishism" -- or they have been bought off by Imperialism with its super-profits; indeed, they suffer from "false consciousness".
Anything, rather than question the sacred dialectical mantra.
Indeed, anything rather than admit that the dialectical gospel is a fraud. Hence, unlike every other science known to humanity, 'Materialist Dialectics' has never once been revised to accommodate reality; reality has been continually adjusted to conform to its eternal verities.
Ironically, this means that in dialectics, lack of theoretical change is secured internally -- the internal contradictions of DM produce no development, just more 'epicycles'.
Thus, according to the faithful (or at least, according to the way they re-process failure), the only thing in the entire universe that does not change through internal contradictions is DM itself!
Any other ordinary (or even scientific) theory that suffered continual refutation of this order of magnitude, and for so long, would be stone dead by now. But not DM; it remains miraculously the same generation on generation.
Dialecticians are thus living disproof of their own ideas: these apostles of change never change.
Substitutionism Once More
Certain Marxists (for reasons of their class-origin) have found Hegelian ideas conducive to their own contingent view of the world. In that case, the explanation for the importation of non-materialist ideas into Marxism given below is consistently materialist -- since it is based on the class origin of DM-classicists themselves.
This also helps explain why those who have tried to substitute themselves for workers -- be they STDs, MISTs, professional revolutionary (i.e., dé classé) intellectuals, activists, Marxist academics, or even OTs -- are among the most avid DM-addicts. [The situation with NOTs (like the UK-SWP) is less clear.]
[STD = Stalinist Dialectician; OT = Orthodox Trotskyist; MIST = Maoist Theorist; NOT = Non-Orthodox Trotskyist.]
If, for whatever reason, it is thought that the working-class cannot bring about a socialist society on their own, dialecticians have almost invariably concluded that the proletariat need the help of other social forces, be they Russian tanks, Maoist guerrillas, "progressive" bourgeois nationalists, professional representatives in Parliament, students, "rainbow alliances", hardened cadres of conspiratorial comrades, or Marxist intellectuals.
In such circumstances, therefore, a ruling-class theory that situates the proletariat right at the bottom of the social and intellectual pecking order is going to look very appealing. Or, more realistically, such a theory is going to prove highly useful in helping to rationalise the further exclusion of the working class from power in their very own State -- and obscure enough to justify their subsequent and continued oppression --, which is a political contradiction that only those who "understand" dialectics are capable of "grasping".
[As we will see, this is exactly how Stalin and Mao, among others, argued.]
Indeed, what better than a philosophical theory that appears to have Marx's stamp of approval on it (even though there is precious little hard evidence that he accepted it): DM?
Dialectical Prozac
To support these contentious claims it is then pointed out that revolutionaries of the calibre of Engels, Lenin and Trotsky only turned to overt forms of DM when the workers/revolutionary movement was in retreat. [The same is true of Stalin and Mao.]
Indeed, as should have been clear to all, Hegel's original theory was itself invented to help account for the defeat of the French revolution, and hence the rise of Napoleon.
Dialectics is thus at once the daughter of defeat and the father of failure.
In stark contrast, OTGs (i.e., the old WRP (re-configured now as the MSF, among others), modern-day Spartacists, the scrag-end of the old Militant Tendency (more pointedly, Woods and Grant), and other assorted Trotskyist grouplets (like the AWL) etc.) constantly appeal to DM because their catastrophist view of everything puts them in a permanently heightened, quasi-numinous state of mind. With nothing but failure staring them in the face, regular high doses of dialectical dope are essential if the idée fixe is to be maintained that the revolution is just around the corner --, despite appearances to the contrary.
[OTG = Orthodox Trotskyist Group; DIM = Dialectical Marxism/Marxist.]
To that end, it is worth noting that Gerry Healy -- surely until his death in 1989 the annual winner of the Dialectical Gold Medal in all events -- went into frenetic, dialectical overdrive soon after his party booted him out in 1985.
The result? That towering monument to designer gobbledygook: Healy (1990).
Read it only if you run out of Mogadon.
This accounts not only for the extra level of religious fanaticism displayed by most OTs in defence of their beloved "dialectics", it also explains their fondness for quoting DM-Scripture at erstwhile critics -- and at one another (over and over again, and then once more for good measure). Just like the Occult, novelty is the main enemy here -- except, in DIM, novelty is called "Revisionism".
[MISTs are also particularly good at this 'radical' form of Bible-bashing.]
The Dialectical Hierarchy
There are in fact two main types of DM-adepts:
(1) Low Church Dialecticians [LCDs]: Comrades in this category cleave to the original, unvarnished truths laid down in the sacred DM-texts (written by Engels, Plekhanov, Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, or Mao). These simple souls are highly proficient at quoting endless passages from the holy books in answer to everything and anything, just like the faithful who bow to the East or who fill the gospel halls around the world. Their unquestioning faith is as impressive as it is un-Marxist.
LCDs are, by-and-large, active revolutionaries, and committed to "building the party". More on that presently.
(2) High Church Dialecticians [HCDs]: These Marxists are in general openly contemptuous of the 'sophomoric ideas' found in most of the DM-classics.
More often than not, they reject the idea that the dialectic operates in nature, just as they are equally dismissive of these simple LCD souls for their adherence to every word in the classics.
[Anyone who knows about High Church Anglicanism will know of what I speak.]
HCDs are mercifully above such crudities; they prefer the mother lode -- direct from Hegel, Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks and/or the writings of assorted latter day Hermeticists like Raya Dunayevskaya, CLR James, Tony Smith, Tom Sekine, Robert Albritton, Chris Arthur and Bertell Ollman -- sometimes cut perhaps with a few kilos of hardcore jargon straight from that intellectual cocaine-den, otherwise known as French Philosophy, or, perhaps, that hot-bed of systematic confusion, the Frankfurt School.
Or even worse, that haven of intellectual heroin: the work of Heidegger.
HCDs are generally, but not exclusively, academic. Tortured prose is their forte, and pointless existence is their punishment.
Both factions are, however, well-stocked with conservative-minded comrades, happy in their own small way to copy the a priori thought-forms of two-and-a-half millennia of boss-class theory, seldom pausing to give any thought to the implications of such easily won knowledge. If knowledge of the world is a priori, and based solely on armchair speculation, reality must indeed be Ideal.
Even this simple truth will sail over their heads, so deep have ruling ideas sunk into their class-compromised brains.
This has meant that the baleful influence of Hegelian Hermeticism becomes important at key historical junctures (i.e., those involving defeat or major set-back), since it acts as a materialist-sounding alternative to traditional philosophical theory.
Dialectics (especially those parts infected with the HCD-strain) thus taps into thought-forms that have dominated intellectual life for 2500 years -- i.e., those that define the boundaries of theoretical 'acceptability', and thus those which are concerned with a priori thesis-mongering and the invention of 'sagacious' but nonetheless dogmatic theory.
Hence, because of its thoroughly traditional nature, DM is able to appeal to the closet "god-builders" and dialectical mystics that revolutionary politics seems to attract -- and who, alas, appear to congregate mostly at the top of this ever-growing mountain of long-term failure.
Militant Martinets
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, etc.).
This means that from the beginning, 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 movement --, alas, here they are quite happy to accept appearances at face value!).
Manifestly, dialectical concepts could only have originated from traditional sources (workers do not dream up such nostrums), which had already been tainted by centuries of ruling-class theory. Plainly, once more, this is because not only is traditional thought the only source of developed 'high theory', it contains the sort of ideas to which this social layer is most susceptible.
The background and education of such comrades means that ruling-class ideas already dominate their minds. This new, Hermetic batch, therefore, hardly raises an eyebrow. Indeed, it alights on ready soil.
Initially, very little specialist knowledge is needed to 'comprehend' this theory; indeed, no expensive equipment or time-consuming experiments are required. And yet, within hours this superscientific 'theory' can be grasped by most eager novices (since it seems to 'follow' from thought alone, and thus appears to be 'self-evident'). Literally, in an afternoon, an initiate can study and learn a handful of theses that claim to be able to explain all of reality for all of time.
[Just try learning Quantum (or even Newtonian) Mechanics that quickly!]
Contrast that with the many months, or years of hard work it takes to grasp the genuine science of Marxist economics, for example. Contrast it too with the detailed knowledge one needs to understand, say, the class basis of the ancient world, and how that affected the way it developed. No 'self-evident' truths there!
Moreover, because this 'theory' is connected with wider historic or even romantic aims (explored briefly below), such comrades soon become wedded (nay, super-glued) to this doctrine. They become converts.
This subjective response to such an easily accessed 'door of perception' now connects dialectics with the revolutionary ego, for it is this theory that guarantees for such comrades that their existence, their anger at injustice, and all their hard work are not in vain.
On the contrary, this theory guarantees that their lives are capable of assuming cosmic significance. Dialectics places the militant mind at the very centre of the meaning universe -- for it seems to give such social atoms universal meaning, with a set of eternal 'truths' to prove it.
The heady romance of being a revolutionary and of playing an active part of the cosmic drift of the entire universe now takes over.
The dialectic now expresses (in its earthly form) cosmic forces that have governed material reality from the beginning of time (and which are thus written into the fabric of nature, like the word of 'God'). A veritable, de-personalised 'semi-divine' force, if you will.
Or, at least, that's how the DM-Faithful picture it to themselves (on that, see here).
By becoming slaves to the mysterious 'mediations' that emanate forth from the "Totality" (which, like 'God', cannot be defined), through revolutionary 'good works' ("activity") and pure thoughts ("non-Revisionism"), by joining a movement that cannot fail to alter fundamentally the course of human history, the petty-bourgeois ego is 'born again' to a higher purpose, and with a cosmic mandate.
The former novitiate now emerges as a professional revolutionary --, sometimes even with a shiny new name to prove it.
But, certainly with a new persona.
The scales now drop from its eyes.
The Hermetic virus has found another victim.
As Max Eastman noted:
"Hegelism is like a mental disease -- you cannot know what it is until you get it, and then you can't know because you have got it."
This now provides such comrades with well-known social psychological motivations, inducements and reinforcements --, which in turn help convince these Hermetic victims that:
(1) They as individuals can become key figures in history -- actually helping to determine the next direction social evolution will take.
(2) Their personal existence is not meaningless or for nought.
(3) Whatever caused their alienation from bourgeois society, it can be rectified, reversed or redeemed through the right sort of acts, thoughts and deeds -- somewhat reminiscent of the way that Pelagian forms of 'muscular Christianity' taught that salvation might be had through pure thoughts, good works, and severe treatment of the body.
[Which explains all that emphasis on "activity".]
Dialectics now takes on a role analogous to that occupied by religion in the minds of the masses, giving cosmic significance to its petty-bourgeois victims.
Same cause, similar palliative drug.
Social Atoms Trying To Act Like Molecules
However, because they have not been recruited from the working class, social atoms like these need an internally-generated unifying force -- one provided by a set of self-certifying ideas -- to bind them to the international workers' movement. As such, they need a Whole to make sense of their social fragmentation. In that case, the mysterious "Totality" fills the bill quite nicely -- but, so mysterious is this 'Being' that not a single one of its slaves can tell you of its nature, even though they all bend the knee to its contradictory will.
In stark contrast, those involved in collective labour have unity forced on them by well-known, external material forces. These compel workers to combine, they do not persuade them to unite as a result of some theory or other. Workers are thus forced to combine out of material necessity, unity being externally-imposed upon them --, which means that this is a material, not an Ideal force.
In contrast once more, in the case of petty-bourgeois revolutionaries, dialectical theory replaces material struggle as the unifying force; petty-bourgeois/de-classé Marxists are united by a set of ideas. The forces that operate on them are thus quintessentially individualistic, compromisingly ideal, and dangerously centrifugal. But, without this 'theory', the rationale underlying the romantic idea that these comrades stand right at the philosophical centre of the dialectical universe would disappear.
Moreover, because dialectics provides them with a seemingly coherent, but paradigmatically traditional picture of reality (i.e., as an a priori theory), it supplies each one with a unique set of motivating factors, which, because it is represented individualistically inside each brain, only serves to help divide each 'dialectical disciple' one from the next (for reasons spelled-out below).
Divide And Rule
Dialectics, the theory of universal opposites, goes to work on militant minds and helps turn each into an inveterate sectarian and dedicated faction fiend.
Collective discipline is paramount inside Bolshevik-style parties. But, the strong-willed, petty-bourgeois militant this style of politics attracts is not used to this form of externally-imposed regimentation (since these comrades are attracted by internally-processed and self-certifying ideas), and so fights soon break out, often over minor, even personal issues.14
These comrades have been socialised think like social atoms, but in a party they have to act like social molecules (which is a psychological feat that lies way above their class position). Hence, such disputes are easy to re-configure as political differences (which, once more, are differences over ideas) that require, and are soon given, theoretical justification.
[If you listen to how they argue, dialecticians are always complaining that everyone else's analysis suffers from a "lack of politics".]
Unfortunately, these individuals are socially-conditioned egocentrics who, in their own eyes, have a hot-line to dialectical truth (hard-wired into each brain by those self-certifying Hegelian ideas, once more) -- and they cannot help but exploit that fact (since this is what defines them as a revolutionary).
In such an environment, driven by ideas, the DM-classics, just like the Bible and other assorted Holy Books, soon come into their own.
Ruling-class theorists have always made a name for themselves by criticising the ideas of other theorists; this is, after all, part of establishing their reputation, or an essential component in promoting their careers -- or, indeed, for defending a patron or some other beneficent section of the ruling-class. Just as petty-bourgeois capitalists rely on their individual efforts to make their way in the face of Big Capital, so, too, do these unfortunate characters --, but armed only with ideas.
Petty-bourgeois dialecticians trade in similarly soiled goods, and so it is that they have brought with them (into Marxism) this divisive trait.
The fact that they have very strong characters (otherwise they'd not survive) merely compounds the problem. In order to make their name, and advance their 'revolutionary careers', it becomes vitally important that they disagree with every other theorist, which they then almost invariably proceed to do. But, what better theory is there to facilitate endless disputation than one that is as contradictory and incomprehensible as 'Materialist Dialectics' -- or, indeed, one that informs all who fall under its hypnotic spell that progress may only be had through "internal contradiction"?
In that case, it becomes almost a mortal sin not to follow the dictates of this divisive gospel. After all, if you "understand dialectics", you just have to start contradicting all and sundry.
For social atoms like these, the drive to impose one's own views on others becomes irresistible; doctrinal control (i.e., the control of all those inner, privatised ideas in every other atomised party skull) now acts as a surrogate for external control by material forces.
But, just as traditional religionists soon discovered, mind-control like this is easier to secure if appeal is made to impenetrably mysterious doctrines that no one understands, but all must accept, and which have to be repeated constantly to dull the critical faculties.
Hence, because the party cannot reproduce the class struggle inside itself, and thus force materialist unity on its cadres externally, it can only control political thought internally (in each head) by turning it into a mind-numbing mantra, insisting on doctrinal purity, and accusing all those who do not conform to such Ideal Standards of not "understanding" dialectics.
In this milieu, an authoritarian personality-form soon emerges to enforce orthodoxy (disguised as part of an endeavour to keep faith with "tradition", which is, not un-coincidentally, a noxious trait shared by all known religions). This now becomes a watch-word to test the doctrinal purity of party members -- especially those who might stray too far from the narrow path which alone leads the select few toward revolutionary salvation.
This naturally helps inflame more disputes and thus more splits.
[History has indeed shown that the inter-atomic forces of repulsion that exist between such comrades dominate the entire movement.]
All this explains why, to each DM-acolyte, the dialectic is so personal, and so intimately their own possession, and why you can almost feel their hurt when it is comprehensively trashed, as it has been here.
Hence, any attack on this 'precious jewel' is an attack on the revolutionary ego itself, and must be resisted with all the bile at its command.
And that explains, too, all the abuse you will get if you think to challenge the dialectical ideas of a single one of these Hermetic Head Cases.
"Building The Party" -- Through Constant Splits
Lord Acton was wrong when he said:
"Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."
This gets things completely the wrong way round. As Tony Cliff remarked (in a talk), it is lack of power that corrupts. It corrupts the working class, and that in turn allows the members of the ruling-class to get away with whatever they can (thus corrupting them in return).
Similarly, a passive working class allows revolutionaries (or, rather, their 'leaders') to get up to all kinds of mischief. So they become corrupted, too.
Among the many different forms this takes is a fondness for the lack of any sort of democratic control (on such 'leaders').
To this end, small now becomes beautiful -- nay highly desirable. This is because it allows for maximum thought-control. In small parties, the 'purity' of the 'revolutionary tradition' is easier to enforce.
Sectarianism is thus an intrinsic feature of the political and organisational practice of socially-engineered atoms such as these.
Hence, the aforementioned Authoritarian Personality soon ensures that democratic accountability is at best merely formal, thus becoming an early casualty of this polluted backwater of the class war. Democracy is, after all, an external constraint, favoured by the majority, for obvious reasons, but equally feared by this Idealist minority, and for the same reasons.
In petty-bourgeois, DIM parties, democracy directly threatens the internally-enforced control that the professional revolutionary invariably prefers.
That is, after all, why Capitalists themselves need the state to impose bourgeois rule on otherwise democratic workers (and why they also need to call upon various idealist nostrums to convince the recalcitrant that all this is for their benefit). It is also why DIMs need the "centralist", but not the "democratic" part of democratic centralism, and why the latter is dispensed with so readily -- and so often.
This is not to suggest that these political tumours grow independently of external forces. As noted above, the malignant features of Dialectical Dementia tend to dominate when the materialist counter-weight provided by the working class is much more attenuated, or when it is totally absent (in periods of defeat and "downturn"). This is, of course, exactly when Dialectical Druggies tend to 're-discover' this 'theory', and when all of them attempt to snort along the same correct party line.
Small wonder then that these victims cling to 'Materialist Dialectics' like drunks do to lampposts --, and just like the religionists mentioned above cling to their opiates.
All Hale The Great Splitter
'Materialist Dialectics' now dominates and shapes the personal and party identity of such comrades. Any attack on this sacred doctrine is an attack not just on the glue that holds each individual together, but on the glue that holds the party and the whole "tradition" together.
The implication of all this is that, in their own eyes, these professional (petty-bourgeois) revolutionaries are special; they live -- no they embody -- the revolution. They have caught the tide of history, they must keep the faith. Commitment to the revolution on these terms soon creates militants who, for all the world, appear to suffer from the dialectical equivalent of a personality disorder -- chief among which is the Leader Complex.
All this helps explain why, among dialecticians, disagreements become so personal so quickly, and why factionalism is so rife -- and why strong characters, like Ted Grant, Gerry Healy, Michael Pablo, Tony Cliff, Ernest Mandel, Pierre Lambert, and host of others, formed splits and divisions in the movement almost from the get-go.
As noted above, fragmentation is now virtually synonymous with DIM itself (witness the well-aimed jokes in Monty Python's Life of Brian about the Judean People's Front, etc.).
DIMs soon transform themselves into militant Martinets, expelling anyone who fails to tow the 'correct line'. Often these individuals have very powerful personalities, something they can use to good effect in the small ponds they invariably patrol --, and clearly prefer. Expulsions, splits and bans keep such grouplets small, and thus easier to control, as noted earlier.
In that case, and in this way, the petty-bourgeois revolutionary ego keeps our movement fragmented, small, insular and ineffectual --, in preference to its being democratic, outward-looking and effective. No wonder then that in such circumstances, democracy goes out the window along with reasonableness --, and, of course, along with any significant political impact.
In this way then, ruling-ideas have come to rule Marxism; and this has helped ruin our movement by allowing those with a need to divide, rule.
The Road To Dialectical Damascus
In furtherance of the class war, each dialectical ego imagines that it alone has direct access to the exact meaning of the dialectic (which individualism mirrors petty-bourgeois Protestantism, where believers have to find their own way to 'God', via the Bible, or who are individually 'saved' by an act of 'grace'). Hence the intense and interminable debates over vacuous Hegelian concepts (rather like those that exercised the medieval schoolmen). Of course, this helps explain why each supplicant thinks that no one else "understands" the dialectic.
Thus, every opponent is branded in the same way (on this see below): all fail to "understand" the dialectic -- that is, all except the blessed soul that made that claim!
It is almost as if such comrades had received a personal visit from the Self-Developing Idea itself. Indeed, the road to Damascus and the road to Dialectics have more in common than just a capital "D".
Defeat And Dialectical Druggies
In defeat, such comrades turn once more to Dialectical Methadone to insulate their minds from reality and constant failure. And by all accounts this opiate does an excellent job. Anyone attempting to argue with any of these Dialectical Druggies would be far better occupied head-butting a Billy-goat, for all the good it will do. [That allegation is easily confirmed; check this out.]
However, narcoleptic stupor of this level of intensity -- and the lack of clarity required to maintain it, alongside the divisions it foments -- only helps engineer more defeats, thus creating the need for another sizeable hit, and so on.
This is the real dialectical spiral on 'truth' -- the spiral on opiate dependency --, not the up-beat one we read about in the official brochure.
No wonder Marxism is to success as religion is to peace on earth.
Disaster Central
DM has thus infected our movement at every level, for far too long, exacerbating sectarianism, factionalism, exclusivism, unreasonableness, dismissive haughtiness (this most notably on the part of the High Church Faction), and extreme dogmatism (bordering, it seems, on clinical paranoia in some cases), which dialectical vices have introduced into each and every tiny sectlet in the movement an open and implacable hatred of practically every other sectlet, and in some cases, every other comrade.
If faults such as these were to afflict an individual, they would provide sufficient grounds for sectioning under the mental health act. The unfortunate result is, of course, that the ruling-class do not need to divide us in order to help consolidate their rule; we are quite capable of doing that ourselves.
Everyone in the movement is painfully aware of this predicament (some even joke about it -- again, along Monty Python lines!); others excuse it or explain it away with yet more 'dialectics'.
But, no one confronts it at its poisonous source in the class origins of the petty-bourgeois personality, with its fondness the divisive doctrines of latter-day Hermeticism.
The Dialectal Magus
If doctrinaire Marxism is the final result of this mystical creed, it needs a Guru to interpret it aright, rationalise the constant failures and justify the regular splits -- and, of course, to create yet more.
Enter the cult of the personality with all its petty, nit-picking, small-minded, little pond megalomania. Enter the "Leader" who knows all, reveals all, expels all (and in notorious cases, kills all): the Dialectical Magus.
As observers of religious cults have noted, even the most mundane and banal of statements put out by such leaders are treated with inordinate respect, almost as if they had come down from off the mountain itself, and were thus possessed of profound mystical significance.
Figure Two: Gerry Healy Receives The Word --,
Or Is It Bob Avakian?
Witness the inexplicable and excessive praise heaped upon the dialectical meanderings of Mao and Stalin, or those of Kim-II-sung, Kim-Jong-iI and Enver Hoxha. Note, too, the adulation of comrade Healy (by prominent members of the old WRP). Witness also the wholly un-merited semi-worship of Bob Avakian.
This also helps account for the personal and organisation corruption revolutionary politics has witnessed over the years (ranging from Mao's use of female comrades to the same with respect to Healy -- but there are many other examples), which is partly the result of the noxious effect this doctrine has had on otherwise radical minds. [If 'The Leader' is of The Elect, other comrades are simply means to an end.]
In this way, we have seen Marxism replicate much of the abuse -- and most of sectarianism -- found among all forms of religion. And no wonder: both were spawned by similar alienated patterns of ruling-class thought and social atomisation --, compounded, of course, by a cultic mentality, aggravated by an adherence to a divisive Hermetic 'theory' that rationalises it all!
Social Psychology Does Not Apply To Dialectical Divinities!
As far as the DM-'faithful' are concerned, all this will fail to go even in one ear, let alone straight out through the other. This is because they refuse to accept that any of the pressures that bear down on the rest of us ordinary mortals could possibly have any effect them, the DM-elect. In that case, social psychology does not apply to such demi-gods.
However, dialecticians are quite happy to reduce their opponents' ideas to their class origins; indeed they do this all the time. In contrast, any attempt to do the same with respect to the philosophical ideas they have imported from ruling-class thought --, which attempt seeks to trace their fondness for Philosophy to the class origin and class position of leading dialecticians --, is rejected out-of-hand as "crude reductionism".
Indeed, Lenin was quite happy to 'reduce' his opponents' political stance to their class position. [Lenin (1947), pp.66-67.]
In that case, it is quite alright to 'reduce' one's enemies' and opponents' ideas to their class position, but not one's own.
If that is so, the only conclusion possible is that it must be a sheer coincidence that revolutionary parties the world over have replicated, time and again, practically every single fault and foible that afflicts the god-botherers among us -- even down to their reliance on an obscure book about an invisible 'Being' (i.e., Hegel's Logic).
So, while all these faults and foibles have well-known material causes when they descend upon the superstitious, they apparently have no cause whatsoever when they similarly grace the sanctified lives of our very own Dialectical Divinities. These faults and foibles can thus safely be ignored, never spoken about in polite company.
Until, that is, such comrades are caught with their dialectical pants down -- and even then this can be brushed aside as yet more "bourgeois propaganda".
Naturally, this just means that the dialectical merry-go-round takes another spin across the flatlands of failure, its participants ever more convinced of their semi-divine infallibility.
Same Old Same Old?
Of course, as the above will seem (to some) to suggest this analysis resembles those that critics of Marxism have often strung together. However, the difference here is that this attack is being launched only against DM (not HM), and by a fellow revolutionary. It is also backed-up by an analysis that is fully compatible with HM, even if it is completely destructive of traditional forms-of-thought.
Case Studies
In Essay Nine Part Two, in order to show that the above comments are not merely abstract, I have detailed three case studies that confirm these indictments. They have not been included in this summary for reasons of space.
Fully-Humanised Marxism
According to HM, humanity will rid itself of class oppression only through the collective action of ordinary human beings, not because of the operation of metaphysical laws found in DM, and put into practice by a 'revolutionary elite'.
In their own small way, therefore, these Essays are aimed at ending the baleful influence on revolutionary socialism of this regressive anti-materialist theory (DM), so that HM can at last begin to stand for a fully Humanised Marxism.
Word Count: 6390
Latest Update: 26/05/08
© Rosa Lichtenstein 2008
Hits Since 31/03/08: