From: dr.bedggood-AT-auckland.ac.nz
Date: Sat, 1 Feb 1997 15:48:08 +0000
Subject: M-I: conscious dialectics.


I have only just caught up with some of the exchanges on dialectics.
It seems to me that this discussion is of itself undialectical 
because it reproduces the separation of theory and practice. 

Marx did'nt write his "3 printers sheets" on dialectics for a good reason. 
Dialectics was already in his method, and he didnt have any reason to believe 
that latter-day marxists would fail to understand his method and be in need of 
a primer on dialectics. It was Lenin who had to go back to dialectics to restore 
Marx's method after the damage done by the `revisisonists'.  But since Lenin 
claimed that we had to read the `whole of Hegel's logic' to understand Marx,
the  Grundrisse has been published. The Grundrisse is the work which shows 
most clearly how Marx employed his dialectical method and explains  the 
changes he made afterwards. We also have the lessons of revolutionary 
marxism which are an application of Marx's method  to guide us - more below.
These are our Marxist primers on dialectics.

In Grundrisse Marx talks of his method of abstraction, which means 
going from the concrete to the abstract in order to reconstitute the 
concrete in thought. But he still begins his formation of categories as the 
level of `general abstractions', that is, human society in general. 
He later realises that his real starting point, a given mode of 
production, must also be his methodological starting point. Real 
abstractions refer only to a given historical mode of production, 
capitalism. To the extent we know anything about past modes or 
future modes it is only through their survivals or pre-figurations 
under capitalism. This is because the method of abstraction when
applied in `general', can only be as a  result of abstracting a 
trans-historical essence outside the concrete reality of capitalism.

For Marx then, dialectics necessarily requires the unity of objective 
and subjective realities. This can only happen in a real society 
composed of forces of production,  social relations and the 
corresponding ideal and political forms which form a contradictory 
totality. Thus the objective forces/relations contradiction can 
only be motivated by subjective class struggle over the share of the 
product. While this subjective struggle may be alienated or reified, 
the purpose of Marxist dialectics is to reconstitute the conrete in 
the form of `class consciousness' to render society transparent and 
to bring about social revolution. The defining feature of Marxist 
dialectics over Hegelian dialectics is that for Marx the conscious, 
subjective/objective  production and reproduction of humanity 
under specific social relations is the cause of social development, 
and not the alienated god. More about this below.

As Andrew makes clear knowledge of `nature' must also occur by the 
same method. Nature is rendered social because it can only be known 
socially. That knowledge of nature which we call science is generated 
as part of the forces of production under given social relations. To the 
extent that knowledge allows an  appropriation of nature, then it is dialectical. 
Without this objective/subjective unity we cannot say that Nature obeys 
the laws of dialectics.  With this unity, dialectics of nature are integral to 
society - hence Mark's point about the end of DNA evolution is one 
where a non-dialectical process becomes subordinated to a dialectical law.  
`Human nature' which can only be expressed under concrete
historical conditions, is part of a larger nature which is humanised in the service 
of human nature.  We can apply `general abstractions' and say that  a `nature' 
preceded humanity, and exists independently, but those abstractions are not 
dialectical. Why? Because we cannot subjectively unite with such ahistorical 
abstractions.

Marx's critique of political economy based on his dialectical method 
showed how ahistorical abstractions rendered bourgeois society 
universal, through its alienated forms. This includes all forms of 
the Transcendental Subject  which is no more than an alienated 
ahistorical abstraction, whether god for Hegel and Kant, or humanity for 
Feuerbach. But while Marx provided the broad method, subsequent 
marxists have bastardised this method to hell.  Conscious dialectics 
for Marx means applying Marxism as the critique of bourgeois ideology 
that will liberate the working class as the revolutionary class. How 
can be do this when most modern marxists do not understand Marx's 
method, and have no idea how to apply it. 

To overcome these barriers we have to see Lenin and Trotsky as the 
major exemplars of 20th century Marxism. Lets start by recognising 
that Lenin and Trotsky worked to complete the analysis of capital by 
"reconstituting the concrete" in all its compexity as a world system made 
up of nation states, international trade and international relations.  
What else are "Imperialism" and "The state and revolution" but applying 
the Marxist method to the particular conditions of Russia as a semi-colony 
within an imperialist world economy dominated by monopoly capital and a few 
powerful states? 

 For Lenin the truth was concrete. This can only mean that dialectics 
is abstracting from surface appearances to real determined 
abstractions and back to the surface in the form of real complex 
concrete realilty.  This provided the knowledge of the complex 
concrete totality within which the development of Russia was 
occuring. Taking this analysis further Trotsky developed his 
understanding of the imperialist world order as one of "uneven and 
combined development", in which imperialism developed the world 
unevenly, partly as the result of combining pre-capitalist modes 
with colonial and semi-colonial capitalism.  Out of this analysis 
came programmatic  and organisational consequences. Even though Lenin 
and Trotsky were at odds on these questions until 1917 there were 
nonetheless breakthroughs. 

Most important these developments  showed that the Marxist method 
applied under revolutionary conditions in Russia was a victory for 
dialectics over the ossified, conservative and ultimately 
counter-revolutionary European Marxism.  While in Europe, so-called 
marxists adapted to imperialism as `social imperialism'; that is,  
colonisation was the price of maturing capitalism until it was ripe 
for socialism, Trotsky recognised the reality that in a weak, backward 
semi-colony where the bourgeoisie could not fight for independence from 
imperialism, this task would fall to the working class and must necessarily 
call for the transformation of the bourgeois revolution into a socialist revolution. 

The second major development was in party organisation. If dialectics 
enabled revolutionaries to understand the concrete truth of the unity 
of objective and subjective conditons, then how could they  mobilise the 
working class to rise to a  socialist revolution?  The only answer 
that is consistent with conscious dialectics is a vanguard party 
which embodies a Marxist method, theory and programme and which is 
organised in such a way as to mobilise the masses around this 
programme.  The organisational principle which reflects conscious 
dialectics is democratic centralism.  How else can method, theory and 
programme be consciously applied in such a way as to advance the 
class struggle unless by this principle?  First,  it is the members of 
the vanguard, the cadres trained in Marxist method, who must 
democratically decide on programme.  Then, this programme must be 
applied in a disciplined way to test its validity. As the result of 
such revolutionary leadership the unconscious, alienated struggle becomes
a conscious struggle and it capable of transforming the working class into a 
revolutionary class.

The Marxist revolutionary tradition demonstrates clearly what the 
dialectical method is, and the programmatic and organisational gains 
that have been won as a result must be defended at all costs. This 
is why a discussion of dialectics which does not reproduce the whole 
objective/subjective unity of marxist theory and practice, and learn 
and  apply the important lessons, is not dialectical.

Dave


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