The position that theoretical work is primary in this period of party building, (originally put forward in the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement by the Ann Arbor Collective M-L) has now been accepted by a great many of the groups within the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement. This acceptance in words has yet to be followed by a real change in the practice of many groups. In fact, the whole “theory question” seems to be little understood by many of the forces groping towards a clean break with dogmatism.
The position that theory and its development must be primary in the current stage of the party building process cannot be adequately understood until (1) theory is properly defined, (2) its present state of existence among the party building forces is analyzed, and (3) collective work has begun on its production.
Marxist-Leninist theory consists of two distinct but interrelated disciplines: a science – historical materialism; and a philosophy – dialectical materialism. The object which historical materialism studies is the different social structures and practices (the economic, legal-political, ideological). These are connected, yet distinct, and their combination constitutes a particular mode of production (i.e., the feudal mode, capitalist mode, etc.) and a social formation (a particular society). In other words, the Marxist science produces theoretical concepts and knowledge about societies (in all their aspects) which serves the class struggle of the proletariat. Dialectical materialism, on the other hand, has as its object the way in which knowledge is produced, and the structure and functioning of the process of thought. Put another way, dialectical materialism serves the communist movement by providing it with the theoretical tools by which it can ensure the scientificity of its theoretical activity. Bourgeois society spontaneously produces ways of looking at the world and at social relations which serve to mask the exploitive and oppressive character of these relations. Only by making those thought processes explicit, and by providing scientific concepts and methodology in opposition to them, can communists make a decisive break with bourgeois ideology. Such is the task of Marxist philosophy.
The task of Marxist science is to produce knowledge about the world in which we live in order that we are better able to change it, to make revolution. But inasmuch as the world is constantly changing, theory too must change. As Louis Althusser puts it: “A science which repeats itself without discovering anything is a dead science, it is not even a science but a fixed dogma. A science does not live except in its development, that is, through its discoveries.”[1]
Marxist science and philosophy was first produced by Marx and Engels and later carried further by Lenin, but in each case only the cornerstones of these two disciplines were laid out and only then at the price of enormous theoretical labor. It must never be forgotten that Marx spent 30 years oh the writing of Capital, a work which was uncompleted when he died. Lenin, too, always insisted that only the beginning of scientific socialist methodology and its conceptual system had been developed in his lifetime.
These beginnings had to be carefully nurtured while at the same time communists had to go forward both in terms of advancing theory itself and of applying it to the changing reality of the world. Lenin repeatedly spoke to communists of the necessity of independently advancing the science of Marxism and applying it to their own unique conditions, and warned against complacency and the mechanical copying of the experience of other parties and revolutions. Nowhere is this advice more appropriate than to the Marxist movement in the USA, which historically has failed in its obligations to elaborate a scientific program of proletarian revolution in keeping with the unique conditions and history of US capitalism.
The newly formed communist parties that emerged out of the crises that followed World War I and the breakup of the Second International were faced with a critical twofold task: that of advancing Marxist-Leninist theory, and of applying it toward the production of revolutionary programs for the world proletariat. By the end of the 1920’s, the theory and practice of the “Third Period” in the Comintern resulted in the leadership of the world communist movement consolidating around the Stalin leadership in the Soviet Union. This signaled the consolidation of something more – a predominantly dogmatist approach toward theory, toward the theoretical tasks facing the world communist movement, and toward the very relationships between theory and practice itself.
This dogmatism manifested itself in the repression of scores of Marxist theoreticians, in the failure of the various parties to provide the necessary conditions for genuine theoretical production, and in the whole manner in which theory came to be regarded. During this period, theory was characterized by two features. First, instead of serving as a guide to practice, it more and more came to serve as a justification for the requirements of practical expediency. In this way, theory functioned as a facade masking the real character of the practice it was invoked to justify. This role blunted theory, robbed it of its critical edge, and reduced it to a state where it was incapable of playing the central role Lenin ascribed to it when he wrote “without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” As a result of this situation, a second feature of theory in this period naturally arose.
Any independent theoretical practice was regarded with profound suspicion. Theoretical activity was reduced almost entirely to the endless repetition of historical discoveries and the contemporary policies of the parties to which such theoreticians belonged. Both the forward development of theory and the independent (independent of practical expediency) elaboration of Marxism-Leninism to concrete conditions was blocked. Theory lost its scientific character and became more and more an ideological system whose principal aspect was a dogmatist method and a static conceptual framework. By means of its domination, dogmatism acted to envelope and transform the revolutionary discoveries of Marx and Lenin which remained within it, into harmless and abstract ideas divorced from the actual political and ideological practice of the communist and workers’ movements.
Only in isolated areas, in the mountains of China with Mao Tse-tung, and the fascist prisons of Italy with Antonio Gramsci, were real advances made in Marxist theory in the 1930’s and 1940’s. For the rest of the world, the dogmatism which passed for theory served to raise generations of communist militants, militants who today fill leadership positions in the communist parties of the world today. For fifty years this caricature of theory replaced the real theoretical system and its discoveries which Marx and Lenin had so laboriously worked to create. The USA, with its Communist Party, certainly illustrates this truth. The Browder period is rich with lessons on the poverty of communist theory in the 1930’s, ’40’s and ’50’s.
Yet there are still forces in our movement which want to argue that it was only in 1957 that the Communist Party (USA) suddenly ceased to maintain a correct theoretical orientation in favor of opportunism. These forces are unable to see that in 1957 what occurred was the shifting from a primarily dogmatist theoretical facade which had historically justified the party’s practice, to primarily revisionist positions, which more closely corresponded to the actual practice of the party in the working class and mass movements. This was not only a result of pressures from within its own ranks, but also from the shift in the world communist movement and Krushchev’s anti-Stalin campaign. If there are any doubts on this point, we have as an authority no other than Earl Browder himself to explain not only the role of theory, but also the character of communist practice in the 1930’s and ’40’s: “The Communist Party.. .gradually merged with the organized labor movement and the New Deal in all practical activities, while retaining the facade of orthodox Marxism for ceremonial occasions.”[2]
In summary, it would be accurate to say that for almost fifty years the world communist movement has operated virtually unguided with no science and philosophy capable of maintaining its revolutionary proletarian character. Is it any wonder that this movement was thrown into turmoil by two great events: Krushchev’s revelations about the Stalin period, and the Sino-Soviet split culminating in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution?
Under the impact of these two events and a whole series of others, the previously unchallenged political hegemony of dogmatism was broken. But the end of dogmatist domination and the reopening of all the questions which were closed for so many years did not end the theoretical crisis facing the world communist movement. As Louis Althusser correctly points out, all it did was to restore to us: “the right to assess exactly what we have, to give both our wealth and our poverty their true names, to think and pose our problems in the open, and to undertake in rigor, a true investigation.”[3]
We in the Tucson Marxist-Leninist Collective have attempted this assessment. The result is a realization that there are three paramount tasks before our movement. These tasks flow from the reality that the US communist movement has no real communist theory, either to fuse with the workers movement or to serve as a basis from which to develop an analysis of US capitalism in its specificity, and to evolve a program for proletarian revolution in the USA.
1.) Our first task is to rediscover the theory and theoretical practice of Marx and Lenin and the other founders of scientific socialism, uncontaminated by the use to which they were put in the long years of dogmatism. This means, above all, reading the classics in a new way, in the way Marx and Lenin themselves read, which stands in contradiction to the non-critical quasi-religious reading which is inherent in dogmatism. This reading method does not come naturally, but is the product of a theoretical struggle itself. Included in this task is the need to rescue from obscurity those theoretical works which were buried in the dogmatist period, in spite of their contribution to our theoretical heritage, Of particular relevance here are the writings of Antonio Gramsci, whose original contributions on the activity of communists in advanced capitalist countries has immediate significance for party building and communist work here in the USA.
2.) Simultaneously, our second task is to grasp the new and important contributions made to Marxist-Leninist theory in the recent period. The suspicion of anything new and original, so typical of dogmatism, is quite widespread in the USA today, even in the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement. While a flood of revisionist and bourgeois theories claiming to be Marxist has helped to fuel this suspicion, it has also been condoned by pragmatism, anti-intellectual views, and the refusal on the part of many in the communist movement to undertake difficult and unfamiliar problems.
Nonetheless, in the face of the dogmatist past and the current hegemony of revisionism and opportunism, Marxist-Leninist theoreticians, in recent years, have added invaluable contributions to the theoretical arsenals of our movement. The following are contributing to the rebirth of the living science and philosophy of Marxism-Leninism: Louis Althusser, in the areas of philosophy, ideology, and epistemology; Charles Bettelheim, in the field of political economy and history; Nicos Poulantzas, on problems of politics and the state. To cut ourselves off from such contributions not only dooms our movement to the repetition of mistakes which could otherwise be avoided, but it also deprives us of some of the tools without which we cannot join in the task of creating a genuine communist party.
The first two tasks require of us a tremendous and difficult theoretical labor. Like the production of anything else, the production of theory at every stage requires the necessary raw materials, conditions of work, skill, and exertion. We in the USA are lacking any real tradition of theoretical production, and so this task will be even more difficult for us. Yet it is indispensible, for without it we will not have the theory necessary to complete our third theoretical task.
3.) Our third theoretical task is the application of Marxism-Leninism to the specific conditions of the USA and the development of a program of revolution appropriate to it.
Some forces in the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement are of the opinion that the third step is the only important one for party building. These forces would prefer to skip over the necessary first two tasks and plunge immediately into the struggle to apply Marxism-Leninism to reality. The current movement toward a national center is a manifestation of this error. By so doing, these forces are acting to deprive our movement of the basis from which to make this application scientific and revolutionary.
Recently, part of the “trend” in the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement (Philadelphia Workers Organizing Committee, Potomac Socialist Organization, Detroit Marxist-Leninist Organization, Socialist Union of Baltimore) put forth a statement of their views on theoretical struggle and the need for a center for our movement. Entitled “A Draft Resolution for a Leading Ideological Center”, (hereafter referred to as the Draft Resolution) this document accompanies the 18 points of unity which these groups issued in January, 1977, along with El Comité/MINP. Together they constitute the basis from which the Trend proposes the development of a new communist party.
The Draft Resolution contains many valuable and important ideas. It recognizes the embryonic state of the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement. It discusses the fundamental importance of “the independent elaboration of Marxism-Leninism on the specific conditions in the US.” It also insists that this undertaking is inseparable from a consistent struggle against opportunism. What is lacking, however, is precisely an understanding of the means by which this two-fold task can be accomplished.
The resolution of the Trend majority presents us with both organizational and theoretical solutions to this problem. Unfortunately the organizational aspect receives primary emphasis, with the assumption that if only the organizational form (a national center) were present, this would be a major step toward the centralization and organization of theoretical work which at present is going on locally. While it is true that such a national center would represent an advance for our movement, in and of itself, organizational forms can guarantee nothing. Not the further organizational consolidation of present theory, but the critical examination of that theory and its weaknesses must take precedence if we are to really go forward. To concentrate on the organizational aspect when theoretical poverty characterises our movement seems to imply that the principles of Marxism-Leninism already exist in a form which will on the one hand combat opportunism and on the other, serve for the elaboration of a communist program for the USA. These forces see our movement needs only to state these principles and give them an organizational form for us to be on the right track.
We assert, however, that such Marxist-Leninist principles do not now exist but must be produced through a difficult process of theoretical production. What must function as principles in the immediate period are only the first gropings toward such principles. The basis for the party can only be the product of full theoretical struggle and advanced practice.
An assumption of the Trend’s 18 points illustrates their inability to develop Marxist-Leninist principles which will serve the needs of the US communist movement. Out of the 18 points, 16 are virtually indistinguishable from those found in the programs of the various dogmatist sects. Only two (the statement that US Imperialism is the main enemy, and the one which characterizes dogmatism as the main danger in our movement) represent a break with contemporary dogmatist conceptions. However, and this is what is important, the 18 points do not represent a clear break with dogmatism as such.
The illusion that if one criticizes dogmatism, one is immune from its effects, appears in the Draft Resolution as well, where the Trend majority repeats the cherished myth of the dogmatists that the Communist Party (USA) was a real communist party until 1957. It says this because up until that date the Communist Party continued to pay lip service to the same general principles which the Trend is trying to now reuse for the formation of the new communist party. But as Lenin pointed out, people must be judged not by their words but by their deeds. The practice (theoretical and otherwise) of the Communist Party (USA) before 1957 shows that it had not been a real communist party at least since the Browder period. The maintenance of this myth indicates to us the failure of the Trend to make a critical double break; both with the dogmatism of the Communist Party (USA) in the pre-1957 period, and with the dogmatist mythology of the new communist movement.
We likewise find the 18 points lacking in the second demand which the Trend majority requires of its principles; that they serve the application of Marxism-Leninism to US conditions. Take for instance the point which insists on the necessity of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Here we have a statement on the need to smash the bourgeois state and replace it with a proletarian dictatorship. This could have been written by any dogmatist group and while true, it is merely a repetition of a few lines from Lenin. Can anyone seriously think that in this form, ideas are adequate to serve the construction of a communist party in the USA?
What is needed is an examination of Lenin’s thinking on this question during the struggles of the 1920’s. What is needed is a study of Gramsci’s contribution to the problem of proletarian hegemony in advanced capitalist countries. What is needed is the most thorough study of the negative lessons of the practice of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the Stalin period. Then and only then can we produce a concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat which not only demarcates us sharply from the dogmatists but also is specific enough to have theoretical relevancy to the problem of the struggle for the dictatorship of the proletariat here in the USA today.
One would never expect a dogmatist to waste his time with such matters when a quote from Lenin could serve instead. But from those who claim to represent the most advanced fighters against dogmatism and for “living Marxism” we have a right to expect better. Instead, we all too often are getting something less. In their effort to struggle against dogmatism, many communist groups have fallen into the opposite but related error of empiricism. As Althusser explains:
If we were to consider science as absolute knowledge, perfected, which poses no problems to be developed or investigated, then we would be treating Marxist science in a dogmatic manner. Equally given that science gives us knowledge of the real, we could believe that it reflects it directly and naturally...without taking into account the enormous work of theoretical production necessary to advance knowledge – then we would be treating science in an empiricist manner. These two interpretations, dogmatist and empiricist, give us a false idea of science, inasmuch as they consider knowledge of truth as a pure given although it is, on the contrary, a complex process of the production of knowledge.[4]
The empiricist deviation in Marxism-Leninism is characterized by the notion that the conclusions which Marx and Lenin came to as a result of their theory and practice directly and naturally present us with a true picture of the world. These conclusions, taken together, constitute for these empiricists the “historical legacy of Marxism-Leninism.”
Our theoretical tasks, say the empiricists, are to “elaborate” this legacy in the specific conditions of the USA. By this they mean that the conclusions of Marx and Lenin have to be supplemented, by empirical data drawn from contemporary US reality.
But Marxist-Leninist theory is not a body of ahistorical conclusions which only need to be supplemented from time to time with empirical data. In fact, the value of the Marxist-Leninist legacy lies not so much in its conclusions as in the method, concepts, and practice which it provides us. These are the tools which we must use to make our own analysis of the contemporary world, tools which can only produce knowledge when employed in a complex labor of theoretical production.
Our theoretical tasks cannot be reduced to the collection of empirical data. What we require is the mastery of Marxism-Leninism, free of empiricism and dogmatism. This alone can guarantee that we will correctly understand the empirical reality which we have to grasp in order to produce a scientific program for revolution in the USA.
The empiricist deviation is characterized by two errors: a) it fails to adequately understand the value of the Marxist-Leninist legacy, clinging to the results of theoretical practice, while remaining oblivious to the method of theoretical practice itself; and b) it reduces our movement’s theoretical tasks to the gathering of empirical data to supplement previous theoretical conclusions, instead of actively applying theory to produce the knowledge and program required by our movement.
The presence of empiricist thinking in the Resolution of the Trend majority prevents it from being able to resolve the many problems it has observed in our movement. The proposal for a leading ideological center, however welcome, is without foundation as long as the conditions for genuine theoretical production are not guaranteed.
We too are in favor of such a center and want to see the anti-dogmatist, anti-revisionist communist movement advance, but we have seen too many failures from previous attempts. There has been no conception of what leading our movement entails, nor of the theoretical difficulties and responsibilities which are inherent in such a center. The Tucson Marxist-Leninist Collective and others are striving toward such a center – one, however, that will have a solid foundation from which to build a genuine communist party.
[1] Louis Althusser, “Teoria, practica teorica y formacion teorcia, Ideologia y lucha ideologica,” Casa de las Americas (VI, 34) Jan.-Feb. 1966, p. 14, (our translation).
[2] Earl Browder, Socialism in America, (1960) p. 102. Perhaps it will be argued here that the mistakes of the Browder period were corrected with his expulsion. Not only does all the evidence contradict this assertion, but also the activity of scores of communist militants who left the party in this period in protest against “Browderism without Browder”.
[3] Louis Althusser, For Marx, (Pantheon, 1969), p. 30.
[4] Althusser, “Teoria, practica teorica, etc,” pp. 12-13.