{Applogy: Becaus of my fucking eyes I can't even find this book on the shelf, let alone quote exactly from it. Later I will look up the exact words and post them.}
In Revolutionary silhouettes, Lunacharsky makes an interesting comparison of Lenin & Trotsky. Lenin, he says, was more "opportunist" in a special sense, while Trotssky was the more orthodox Marxist. By "opportunism" he he means readiness to seize the opportunty as one shows itself, without letting doctrine get in the way. An incident from WW 2 may illustrate the distinction being made here. When the German Engineers failed to completely destry the bridge at Remagen (w?) an opportunity opened up for crossing the Rhine, which ahd to be seized at once because the damaged bridge might collapse at any time. But this involved a radical change of plans, including major shifting arund of troops, etc., and that change in carefully laid plans, some of Eistenhower's generals believed, would cause too much trouble. They favored proceeding with original plans to avoid too much confusion. Other generals said _seize_ the opportunity, which is what Eisenhower chose, with a result that very possibly shortened the war and definitely decreased casualties. This is not a bad illustration of theory versus concrete analysis of concrete situations.
As a matter of fact, in the past Lou has criticised Trotsky for sending messages from Mexico dictating daily tactics to his followers in Spain. But Trotsky was merely being a good orthodox Marxist: he believed there was a Marxist revolutionary theory and that that theory could dictate the correct tactics regardless of special local circumstances. Similarly the 'orthodox' U.S. generals who opposed using the bridge had a long-established military theory as to the correct way to make an assault over a river, and their plans had been drawn up accordingly. Another way of putting this, is that they assumed there to be a direct relationship between theory and praactice: abstract theory could dictate detailed tactics in all situatios. (Assuming a direct relation of theory to practice is, I think, the most useful definition of "dogmatism.")
That is probably true in the more rigorous physical sciences. It is true for _some_ cooking_: There are many items for which you can go to the cookbook (theory) and followiing it directly will come out with the same results everytime. But this is not true, for example, in kneading bread: there is no way theory (a manual) can dictate to you this process, since it has to be known in the fingers, so to speak, rather than merely in the brain. The ability to judge the relevance or irrelevance of theory (recipes) in various contects is as vital in politics as in cooking!
The spectre that looms over all "Marxist" political theory/thought is, of course, WITDBD, and WITBD has been seen almost wholly in the light of one fateful sentence: "There can be no Revolutionary Party withut a Revolutionary Theory." All varieties of "Leniniism" derive from treating this ne sentence as Scripture. Though Lenin himself seemed to be able to proceed quite happily without further recourse to this bit of Scriptural Wisdom. That is the reason Lenin himself is so superior to the "Leniniism" created by Stalin and Trotsky. But the if...then of Lenin's sentence is in fact valid. There can be no Revolutionary Party without a Revolutinary theory. And since there can be no Revolutionary Theory, it follows that in fact there can be no Revolutionary Party -- no Vanguard possessing the scientific truth. And there has been no Revolutionary Party in history. There have been, and there will be a gain, parties including many members who, when the revolutionary moment suddenly emereges will be among the leaders of those who seize the occasion. But parties can only operate in the concrete context of non-revolutionary 'terrains,' setting themselves, as best as they can various interferences with the smooth working of capitalist power and capitalist ideology.
Now, why there can be no revolutionary theory. Partly this depends on how narrowly one wishes to use the term "theory." (Given the limits of any language including English, one will of curse often have to use a given word in many contexts where its rigorous sense is irrelevant. That is a matter of usage.) Here I suggest the word should closely correspond to its usage in the 'hard' sciences. A Theory of Gravity applies to the whole universe, regardless of time and place. A social theory, if one exists, will of course have less reach, but nevertheless ought to hold over some extensive period of time and across national borders. Kark Marx's Critique of Political Economy conforms to that requirement: Focused as it is on an "ideal" capitalism, it applies to _all_ capitalist societies, passt and present, as well as future, around the globe, but does _not_ provide an empirical descdription of _any_ capitalist society (though its illustrations were drawn from a particualr one, English capitalism in the mid-19th century). For example, the distinction between productive and unproductive labor holds in the abstract capitalism Marx presents, but in any actual society numerous complications and contingencies and the actual configurations of actual business enterprises so jumble the two forms of labor that the distinction becomes empirically meaningless. Nevertheless, a failure to understand the distinction is a barrier to a full understanding of Marx & of th e dynamics of any capitalist economy, past, present, future. Robert Albritton posits a "Mid-Level Theory," also abstract, but focusing on particular capitalist periods. And he offers "histry" as the label for studying concretely a given economy, such as the present. Clearly these two "levels' will lack the rigor of the abstract theory to be found in _Capital_.
The concept of Revolutionary Theory (not, I think, actually held by Lenin himself but created for their political purposes by Stalin and Trotsky) implies that there exists a real abstract Revolution (just as there exists a real abstract Capitalism) and that one can theorize that Revolution in such a way as to make the theory adequarte to any socialist revolution in an capitalist nation at any time; that one can abstract, for example, from the experience of the Russian Revolution a series of abstract principles which will operate rigorously in subsequent revolutions or revolutionary movements. A Revolutionary Party, then, is one which has grasped this Universal Truth and which imbues each of its members with an adequate understanding of this True Theory of Revolution. And it is by virtue of grasping this theory that each member is a Revolutionary. (This also implies the existence of a Marxism which goes far beyond the Critique of Political Economy of Marx & is a regularization of the totality of his thought on every subject. This toatlity then is named Dialectical and Historical Materialism and is a complete account of human activtity, now and in the future. I reject this "worldview Marxism." Marx's thought is _always_ of great interest, and I in fact agree with a great deal of it, but it is only his Critique of Political Economy, which is not incidentally a critical political economy, that I see as a rigorous Theory as described in this post.)
Lou committed himself to such a Revolutionary Theory, good for all times and places, when he wrote:
"My approach to force and violence is informed by the concept of defensive formulation. For example the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917 to defend Soviet legality not to "smash the Czarist state". When Malcolm X was asked if he favored violence, he said no. He only advocated that Black people defend themselves against the criminal violence of white racists. "
(This, incidentally, was _exactly_ the principle put forth by the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, as indicated by the veryname of the Party, yet the Panthers have been periodically dismissed on this list as so man adventuriests or ultra-leftists.)
It's a pretty good principle or, better, rule of thumb. But it is not a valid theory, and cannot be applied at a distance (as Lou tries to do in reference to the Chicago case, as well as Quebec and Toronto, of none of which he probably knows as much concretely as Trotsky knew of what was going on in Spain. Yet he has mocked Trotsky for this in the past but now is repeating theidentical mistake. And that it is a mistake is shown by among other things the immediate discussion which ensued of what events were defensive. "Defensive" is a high level abstraction, and there are no signs that automatically identify a situation as a "defensive" one: it is always a subjective judgment, depending on unforseeable contingencies.
I think what Lou calls an "approach" could, emulating the Chinese, be called _Thought_; the thinking out (theorization in a weaker sense) of concrete conditions in order to formulate a response to those conditions, an analysis which of course has to be roughly consistent with ongoing goals -- but those goals are only hypothesized, not _given_ by some abstract theory of revolution. Rosa Luxemburg posited one "final" goal, the seizure of power, specifically rejecting makign some vague conception of socialism that goal. Seizure of power, hypotheisized abstractly, was a goal that did not depnend on empirical prediction.
-- To be continued (I hope).
Carrol
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