Dimitrios Patelis | Revolutionary Unification (Greece)
Contents
Part 1
• Introduction. World War III, crisis and the split of the revolutionary movement.
• Which Side Are You On in WWIII? Division, polarisation and confusion in between.
• No more illusions. The struggle of the WAP against the imperialist axis of aggression and its opportunist servants.
• The characteristics and the Symplegades of opportunism today.
• On the revolutionary theory of Marxism.
Part 2
• The comfort of opportunism: Between Scylla of dogmatism and Charybdis of revisionism.
1) Dogmatic certainties.
2) Revisionist uncertainties.
3) How dogmatic practices pave the way for revisionism.
4) Loss and bureaucratic management of the truth.
5) Abuse and destruction of the systematic approach and method.
6) Theory and critique in the whirlwind of negative mutual opposite definitions.
7) Entrapment in the present as an escape into the indeterminate future and the opposite… Metaphysics of ends and means: means as ends in themselves.
8) The shared metaphysical methodology as a basis for complementarity, supplementarity, synergy and leaps.
9) Opportunist apostasy, ideological degeneration and the abandonment of the revolutionary perspective.
10) Healthy elements within the dynamics of the development of knowledge and practice, and the fall into morbid deadlocks.
• A few conclusions.
The comfort of opportunism: Between Scylla of dogmatism and Charybdis of revisionism.
1) Dogmatic certainties.
As far as the theory of Marxism is concerned, opportunism first manifests itself as dogmatism, to then evolve into skepticism and revisionism[1].
Dogmatism and revisionism are two seemingly opposing and mutually exclusive tendencies of the degeneration of revolutionary theory. In reality, they are both doctrines and ideological constructions invented and recruited by opportunists to justify their respective drifts towards positions that serve the interests of the class enemy of the workers’ revolutionary movement.
Dogma is the uncritical acceptance of the absolute truth of an idea without conditions or limits. An archetypal historical form of dogma and dogmatism is religion as a form of social consciousness.
Within the framework of dogmatism, Marxism is seen exclusively as a complete, exhaustive, uniform, closed and self-sufficient system in which one can find ‘answers’ to all probable and improbable questions/problems! The dogmatist claims the unconditional and unlimited absolute validity of their ‘truth’ in everything and always, reducing revolutionary theory to a reserve of fragmentary, unconnected, ahistorical and irrefutable texts and ‘positions’, e.g. passages from the works of the classics of Marxism, ripe for every use… In this way, the dogmatist adopts only those elements of the theory that are considered complete and mature, while rejecting the earlier, less developed (and therefore more contradictory) but indispensable stages of its development, as is predicted by historical law. In this way, they cut off and absolutise the present of Marxism’s theoretical acquis from its past. Their theory, understood as a fixed and closed system, is thus projected only as a rejection, a negation, a discontinuity (epistemological, political, etc.), an ‘epistemological break’ (as in Althusser’s revision of Marxism) in relation to its past and to the acquis of the history of civilisation. For example, the contradictory relationship between Marx and Hegel, i.e. the culmination of pre-Marxist dialectical logic and methodological thought, is rejected.
This view not only cuts Marxism off from its dialectical relation to its historical past, but also rejects a priori any qualitative (let alone essential) differentiation, difference (let alone antithesis and contradiction) within its ‘Marxism’. However, there can be no development without the existence of
1. A certain source of development; and
2. An internal contradictory nature (in which its contradictory relation to its external environment and to its past is dialectically sublated).
‘Marxism’, viewed in this way, projects itself as an explicitly ahistorical phenomenon, which emerged without known origins and which exists as a given.
The most dynamic and essential aspect of Marxism, its dialectical method, is either subordinated to the conservatively fixed ‘system’ (transformed into a typical formality of statements, into dogmatic scholasticism) or rejected altogether. The dialectical method, however, the methodology of the organic whole, constitutes the developmental aspect of theory par excellence; in other words, it is the theory (the system) itself, from the point of view of its movement, its development, always within the context of its specific historical conditions and limits. It is the means, paths and ways of the movement of thought within the cognitive/research process (if we emphasise the theory) on which the subject’s action is based (if we emphasise its practical, transforming and organising activity), the means, paths and ways of the transformation of the object by the subject.
Thus dogmatic ‘Marxism’, detached from its past and internally fixed, can have neither a living present nor a future. The only relation that this ‘Marxism’ can have with the future is a certain mechanical and linear transfer, a extrapolation in time of the conservatively fixed state of Marxism currently embraced by the dogmatist.
In some cases, it is common for the dogmatist to idealise a historical phase/state of past Marxism as ‘complete’, unquestionably ‘correct and ideal’, and to view regression, the total restoration to that ‘authentic and ideal’ state of the past as ‘development’! Time freezes, while regressive stagnation suppresses movement and eradicates any progress.
This is particularly evident in the way the dogmatists deal with the current crisis of theory. For them, by definition, there can be no such crisis. In their view, the entire problem lies in the fact that Marxism once reached (they don‘t know how) the height of its glory and splendour, but unfortunately ‘when it fell into the hands of some ‘deceivers’, ‘traitors’, ‘revisionists’, ‘impostors’, ‘bearers of a false line’, etc., it suffered breakdowns and damage, deformations and distortions! ….
Therefore, it is sufficient to return to ‘authentic Marxism’ (which many variants of dogmatism identify at different stages of its history, in the work of various Marxist leaders, or in various interpretations of it) in order to solve the problem, because back then, there were, still are and always will be comprehensive and complete answers, even to questions that had not yet come to the foreground of history at the time of Marx, (see, for example, the question of the fundamental contradiction and the general law-governed contradictions of socialist construction, the question of the modern phases of development of scientific and technological progress, automation, biotechnology, space technologies, etc.)! So simple!
2) Revisionist uncertainties.
All revisionism seeks to move in the opposite direction to that of dogmatism. The dogmatist is quick to preserve in Marxism even those elements which no longer correspond to the new context and engages in a conservation/taxidermy of Marxism, isolating it from the ever-changing life; the revisionists, by invoking new facts (what they perceive as ‘new facts’), reject as parts of Marxism even those parts which are proven to retain their relevance even in changing circumstances, dismissing elements which they consider to be finite and clearly obsolete elements of its most fundamental positions and acquis (if not of Marxism as a whole)!
This unscientific total rejection of the acquis and valid positions of Marxism in the name of ‘historicity’, in the name of its historical relativity, condemns the theory (or rather what is left of it after the revisionist ‘purgatory’) to the a priori inability of our revolutionary theory to provide a complete, valid and sufficient for the subject’s action description, explanation/interpretation and prediction of reality!
From the perspective of historical relativism, the revisionist reduces Marxism to a predominantly (if not absolutely) historically limited phenomenon of minor scope, a ‘material’ (stock of ‘positions’, statements, etc.) open to revision and therefore constantly revised at will. Unlike the dogmatist, the revisionist ignores the qualitative (and essential) difference between Marxism and both earlier and contemporary opposing theories, ultimately diffusing Marxism into them, dismantling the historical continuity in the process of the emergence, formation and development of Marxism. In this way, in Marxism itself, the revisionist reduces its most developed and mature elements to its most inferior and immature, thus rendering the boundaries between Marxism and earlier or rival, opposing, etc. concepts from vague and muddled, to non-existent.
In promoting their ‘anti-dogmatic’ and ‘renovationist’ stance, the adherents of this tendency refer to the rapid changes of today and the alleged inherent inability of Marxism to anticipate them. Sometimes, certain revisionists point to weaknesses within Marxism, highlighting its insufficiently refined aspects (this may appear to some as a step forward in comparison to dogmatism). For example, they point to some inadequacies on the question of the inverse effect of social consciousness on social being, of the superstructure on the economic base. This question becomes particularly important in the transition of society to a communist society, which (unlike, for example, the transition from feudalism to capitalism) is only possible consciously, on the basis of scientific planning, and not spontaneously.
3) How dogmatic practices pave the way for revisionism.
Historically, the ‘work’ of dogmatism usually prepares the ground for resentment, revulsion and rejection of Marxism, or more precisely of the caricatured, distorted image propagated by the dogmatists. This contributes to the spread of views for the subsequent complete rejection of this dogmatically mummified version of Marxism by the revisionists.
What, then, is the de facto prelude to the onslaught of revisionism, on the side of the dogmatists? Practices linked to the dogmatic detachment from the context and historical conjuncture of knowledge of the emergence and formulation of certain positions of Marxism, to their schematisation and mechanistic classification, as if they were dogmas of a religious metaphysical cut, destined for mechanical repetition, memorisation and reproduction/mystification, as was the case with the ecclesiastical catechism in the feudal Middle Ages, or as if they were incantations, sacred phrases, syllables, words or verses, considered to have mystical or spiritual powers in their ritual repetition (such as the mantras of Hinduism and Buddhism), especially when this practice is combined with bureaucratic formalism, formal evaluations, the reinforcement of external motivation (rewards and punishments), etc. This was the kind of formalistic teaching of Marxism as an official ideology in the educational system of the last decades of the USSR, which eventually led to a turning away from Marxism and a rejection of Marxism.
A typical example is the treatment of the question of whether social processes are governed by dialectical laws. Processes subject to dialectical laws, causality and causation are generally perceived by the dogmatist in the spirit of the Laplacian type of mechanistic determinism, as linear and absolute necessity without randomness, without a trace of contingency, probabilism, dialectics or historicity[2], as if there were no spectrum of possibilities in history, the outcome of which depends on the increasing degree of involvement of the subject. The revisionists, who are known to prioritise the issues of the ‘subjective factor’ (as seen in the bourgeois pluralistic ‘factor theory’ many of them espouse), revolt against this cartoonishly dogmatic interpretation of causality, not to advance the scientific (dialectical and historical) conception of Marxism, but to totally reject any form of social causality and dialectical law! All in all, the revisionists do not understand that in this way society cannot even represent an object of scientific research, and is thus reduced to a playing field for a multitude of uncontrollable, irrational, etc. forces and ‘agents’, of which there is no end…
The following phenomenon involving the fluctuations of psychology is now almost within the scope of the predictive qualities of dialectical law: dogmatists who are confronted with events (‘lived experience’) which shock them, which cause them to waver in their conviction in the absolute validity of their dogmas, trap themselves in a never-ending process of total rejection of these dogmas, in locked course of transition to erratic revisionism! All too often, the very ‘patriarchs’ of dogmatic distortion who present their ideological constructions as the ‘only correct line’ and as the ‘orthodoxy of Marxism’, at the slightest change of circumstances, engage in a mocking treatment of their own caricatured ‘creation’, to which they themselves have reduced their own ‘Marxism’ and which they equate with actual Marxism. The conviction of some, for example, that there can be no other type of causation than mechanistic causation, must have become an unshakable certainty, so that they can easily move on to the rejection of all social causation.
‘Marxism’ thus viewed, is directly opposed to the immediate, empirical reality of the ‘present’, a present which is examined exclusively from the point of view of everyday consciousness, of the common sense, i.e. as a given, a priori, as it is, as a chaotic, static (i.e. quantitative) accumulation of new facts and fragmentary elements. Such ‘scientific’ processes supposedly demonstrate the total insufficiency, inadequacy and inability of this type of ‘Marxism’ to interpret the ‘present’, so the revisionists proceed to revise and ‘upgrade’ it with a multitude of ‘modern’―i.e. bourgeois―mainstream concepts. For example, revisionists are discovering ‘moral socialism’ of the Kantian type, ‘democratic socialism’ or ‘socialism with a human face’, ‘communism for renewal’, ‘eco-socialism’, ‘positivist Marxism’, ‘structuralist Marxism’ (Althusser), ‘poststructural Marxism’ (Foucault), ‘existential Marxism’, ‘postmodern Marxism’, ‘feminist socialism’, ‘LGBTQ Marxism’, ‘convergence theory’, etc. They do not understand that Marxism in itself represents a total revolution within the foundations of the sciences, inaugurating the ‘synthetic science of the future’ (Marx). It constitutes a dialectical system with an internal cohesion of its dialectical concepts, categories and laws on the basis of the cohesion of the dialectical logic and methodology of the organic whole during research and in the presentation of the results of research. This system does not lend its body to the arbitrary splicing and stitching together of unrelated and discordant elements.
This ‘modification’ of Marxism ultimately leads to its rejection and replacement by an eclectic patchwork of bourgeois and petit-bourgeois positions. In this way, the pretence of ‘renewal’, the illusion of ‘modernisation’ based on a ‘realistic’ approach to the present and the fetishisation of evolution (of quantitative linear changes against the backdrop of an unchanging quality and essence) lead de facto to the rejection of the revolutionary theory and methodology of Marxism. This is the only way in which revisionists understand ‘development’ and ‘renewal’, thus taking two steps back from the dogmatists and effectively returning to pre-Marxist, obsolete forms of thought. The present is examined from the point of view of bourgeois evolutionism, from the positions of capitalist apologetics, according to which capitalism is supposedly the ‘insurmountable peak of evolution’, that is, from the point of view of the interests of a class that has long since fulfilled its progressive historical role and has become a force for the conservation, regression and destruction of humanity. Thus, the ‘pragmatic’ commitment of revisionism to the present, to the ‘here and now’, becomes a defence of the historically obsolete capitalist system, i.e. the past, on a global historical scale. This is the tragicomic result of revisionism.
In their attempt not to be left behind by the fetishised evolution of the present, they reject all fundamental theoretical research. Anxious to appear modern, they become postmodern… Creeping empiricism becomes the ideological background of the absence of strategy, of the rejection of the end goal. In this way, revisionism, enslaved by the fetishism of the present, ultimately rejects progress and even seeks to ‘abolish’ any alternative path to the future.
4) Loss and bureaucratic management of the truth.
If the dogmatists do not seek the truth because they never doubt that their own ‘Marxism’, as the embodiment of absolute truth, can easily provide answers to any question at any moment, the revisionists also do not seek the truth because they always doubt and question everything. That is to say, if the former detach from the unified, contradictory, dialectical process of knowledge and absolutise the element of truth, the latter adopt the other extreme, i.e. absolutise the element of relativity of all knowledge. Thus, while the dogmatists seek to impose their own line, a monolithic unanimity (based on the certainty that the answers provided by their ‘Marxism’ far exceed all possible questions), the revisionists are content with ‘polyphony’, ‘pluralism of opinions’. For the latter, since knowledge is only relative, what counts is only the identification of certain problems, the formulation of questions and different opinions, while the truth always remains unattainable and rejected.
However, despite the historically defined mirages that ideologically reinforce and reproduce these fallacies, there is a single objective truth. This truth is discovered, substantiated and developed by science, by empirical and theoretical research, and subjected to the trials and tribulations of social practice. In creative Marxism we are not concerned with answers as prophecies, nor with dispersion into a maelstrom of problems, doubts and concerns. On the contrary, we seek the development of knowledge through the process of theoretical immersion, which presupposes the diagnosis of the concrete and historically determined dialectical unity of absolute and relative truth[3].
Therefore, by excluding the search for objective truth from the scope of theoretical research and the necessary foresight for practice, both dogmatism and revisionism reduce the whole problem to a question of bureaucratic/administrative management, with a strong stigma of the law of bourgeois society, i.e. of what is forbidden or allowed. The dogmatic bureaucrat, on the one hand, authoritatively imposes the one and only truth, the approval and adoption of which is ultimately left to the decisions of the party or even state leadership (as the administrator by proxy of the ‘appropriate’ truth, as the embodiment of the ‘collective wisdom of the party’ in the KKE variant), prohibiting any deviation, while on the other hand, the revisionist bureaucrat demagogically declares doing us a favour by generously ‘allowing’ the expression of every opinion and point of view, ‘freedom of speech’ according to the liberal bourgeois principle of ‘pluralism’, ‘unlimited dialogue’, in the context of which all opinions and points of view are formally equally acceptable and valid (and therefore equally rejectable and invalid). In both cases, it is the bureaucratic leadership that has the final say and imposes its predetermined decisions. In both cases, we have an external and crude interference in the research process: for the dogmatists and revisionists, the ‘correct line’ is not a matter of scientific research and discovery of the truth, nor of a collective decision-making process based on rational arguments, but a matter of power and imposition!
Of course, actual Marxist researchers seek the creative development of Marxist theory on the basis of its internal laws, on the basis of the real deeper needs of society and the revolutionary movement, bypassing such destructive external interventions in science. However, as long as some leaderships have real power in the correlation of forces, control the mass media, the funding of scientific institutions, centers, etc., they can exert a destructive influence on science and thereby disarm the movement, for example through the systematic silencing and misrepresentation of unpalatable ideas, but also through the denigration and subversion of dissidents.
5) Abuse and destruction of the systematic approach and method.
What the dogmatists and revisionists refer to as Marxism can only be euphemistically described as a system. The ‘Marxism’ of dogmatism, as absolutely differentiated and delimited from its past (from its presuppositions and environment, its ‘otherness’) and as internally absolutely undifferentiated, absolutely identical with itself and non-contradictory (as a set of distilled truths of equal validity and relevance), can have neither its own logical structure nor any dynamic development, since there is no movement without dialectical contradiction as an internal driving force. It consists only of a chaotic sum, a jumble, a ‘heap’ of statements. Therefore, any logical method of its formation can only be imposed from outside and from above. And, of course, the only appropriate method for this level of approach to theory is formal logic, that is, the logic of pre-dialectical cognition, of the intellect[4], which here plays the role of the external ‘unifying’ and classifying principle. The attentive reader will have noticed that the structure of dogmatic textbooks is based mainly (if not exclusively) on the external classification of their level of material (of categories, laws, etc.), as reflected―in the best case―in the book’s table of contents.
The revisionists deny a priori any structure, logical coherence and consistency to their ‘Marxism’ and consider any practical and theoretical/intellectual discipline to be ‘dogmatic authoritarianism’ and a ‘violent exercise’. This tradition is particularly strong among the French, who, as Hegel wrote, ‘call ‘systematique’ the dogmatic doctrine and ‘systeme’ the doctrine in which all terms are therefore derived from one definition, hence the term ‘systematique’ is for them synonymous with unilateralism’[5]. Every reference by the revisionist to the word ‘system’ is intended to emphasise its absolutely ‘open’, ‘unrestricted’, ‘free’, etc. character. This ‘methodology’ leads to the contemporary ideology of being systemically anti-systemic, to irrational ‘intertextuality’ and to the equal validity of all ‘narratives’, i.e. to ‘postmodernism’.
However, if a system, a whole, is absolutely open and unlimited, without conditions or limits, this means that it refers to its past, to its otherness, only as defined by its opposite and not at all as self-defined, as self-determinated. But this means that this ‘system’ is―ultimately―self-defeating, self-dissolving, subordinating itself to its otherness and ultimately merging with it. Thus, Marxism can at best be regarded by the revisionist as one of many cultural traditions, one of many value, moral, etc. approaches, highly indeterminate and ‘malleable’ at will.
This is why the revisionist is sometimes quick to declare that the ‘method’, as opposed to the ‘system’, is of paramount importance. One should not imagine that what is being discussed here is the critical and revolutionary dialectic method of creative Marxism. The relationship between method and system here is identical to that which E. Berstein saw between the movement and the end goal: ‘To me, that which is generally called the ultimate aim of socialism is nothing, but the movement is everything’ That is, the method of the revisionist is not a law-governed, dialectical development of theory (in other words, the system itself from the point of view of its internal movement as an intellectual reconstruction of the object itself), but a chaotic, arbitrary and eclectic stitching together of heterogenous positions, both scientific and commonplace ideas of everyday consciousness, of common sense. This is why the writings of dogmatists and revisionists are reminiscent of two different kinds of school essays. The dogmatists engage in the scholastic ‘interpretation’ of the central idea (dogmatic concession) or in the convergence of things, situations, relations and ideas with ‘the scriptures’, with their dogmas, while the revisionists engage in the arbitrary juxtaposition of disparate opinions and sophistries.
Typical is the popular ‘method of proof’ of the dogmatists. It is the arbitrary and selective quotation of passages from the classics of Marxism, but also from those official party texts in which the ‘correct line’ is formulated. This is the infamous ‘quotation medley’. But the selective, ahistorical and fragmentary use of passages from the classics (whose works were formulated in specific historical conditions and frames of reference, dealing with various aspects of a multitude of problems of theory and practice, texts of various kinds and levels of argumentation, dialogue with other thinkers and dialectically contradictory statements) can be used to ‘substantiate’ any irrational position. That is why revisionists often resort to the ‘method of proof’ of the dogmatists, ‘enriching’ it, of course, with ‘authentic’ (preferably bourgeois and petit-bourgeois) ideas of various origins.
6) Theory and critique in the whirlwind of negative mutual opposite definitions[6].
The dogmatists are confident that ‘we have enough theory!’ The only role reserved for the ‘theorist’ is to choose at any given moment, the place, time, manner and dosage of delivering this ‘eternal truth’ to the ignorant, in order to meet the current needs of ‘ideological work’. They do not need research. Theory can only be reduced to the current needs of propaganda, i.e. ‘how do we respond to the opponent’[7]. But the reduction of theoretical research to ongoing criticism and propaganda, to the vulgar, superficial slogan as a response to the opponent, leads to the degeneration of Marxism.
The highest level of criticism of opposing ideas, positions and theories is the positive resolution of debated issues of theory and practice. The mere adherence to the spontaneous nature of propagandistic criticism, the one-sided reliance on the direct ‘logic’ of debating the opponent’s positions, leads to the abolition and annulment of fundamental research. The latter is not possible as long as external motives prevail, including the expediency of vulgar mainstream ‘answers’ to questions and, in general, on the basis of an ‘agenda’ imposed on research from the outside and from above, in a context of vulgar verbal confrontation for ‘living space’…
The dogmatist ‘theorists’ tend to focus their criticism on lesser (if not completely cartoonish) representatives of the opposing theoretical camp, against whom the triumphant superiority of their own ‘theory’[8] can be effortlessly demonstrated. If such an opponent does not exist, there is no problem: the dogmatist bureaucrat will either choose to ignore (Marx and Engels called the attitude of the bourgeois ideologists towards Marx’s Capital a conspiracy of silence), or he will turn a tough opponent into a ‘straw man’ by portraying a caricature of the person and his ideas in order to display his own eloquence to his audience… If these wretched practices fail, there are others in his arsenal, such as the vilification and slander of his opponent. In this way, the dogmatists, in their attempt to defend Marxism, to demonstrate the unquestionable superiority, purity and self-sufficiency of their ‘system’, as long as they limit themselves to the propagandistic ‘logic of the counterargument’ to the opponent, their positions eminently stem from the opposition to the views and ideas of the opponent. This argumentation moves primarily in the opposite direction to the opponent’s views, thus constituting a fruitless negation, i.e. (although marked with the opposite sign) it remains bound to the opponent’s logic, thus making the opponent its determining system of reference. This practice objectively functions as a means to transform communists into followers of the dominant ideology and practice, into prisoners of the strategy and tactics of the bourgeoisie[9]. When one is drawn into such counter-arguments, the content, direction, essence and timing of which are determined by the opponent, one is practically invalidated as a subject, transformed into a follower of the opponent with a negative sign… The communists who engage in this debate are incapable of ever gaining the strategic initiative of action, incapable of leading a victorious revolutionary mass movement, because they become, by definition, defeated followers of the dominant order of things, of the agenda set by the actual or imaginary opponent[10]…
7) Entrapment in the present as an escape into the indeterminate future and the opposite… Metaphysics of ends and means: means as ends in themselves.
While the revisionist fetishises the ‘here and now’, reducing politics to a game ruled by the present moment (see The Realpolitik of the Second International and the ‘Art of the Possible’), the dogmatists tend to fetishise the distant future, transforming it into a teleological, eschatological ideal, which―through the well-known process of switching from dogmatism to revisionism―is ultimately transformed into an endless end, an unattainable dream, a utopian flight into an imaginary beyond, in order to avoid a real revolution, which they have practically abandoned in this world (as is the case with the metaphysics of strategy without tactics, the rejection of the law-governed movement in stages, etc.) in the context of the opportunist metaphysics of the KKE)… Reality has to conform to this ideal. Should reality at this moment refuse to submit to this ideal, the problem does not concern our dogmatist: so much the worse for reality!
In his ethics, then, the dogmatist activist tends to be a Jesuit: his holy end justifies all means! As the holder of ‘absolute truth’, by definition, he believes that he is entitled to impose his view, his ‘eternally correct line’, wherever he can with the power at his disposal! He has a constant tendency to rush things, to ‘force’ things to their conclusion. He is using casuistry to obtain justifications for any unjustifiable action. The absolute of his ‘pure’ theory appears in the field of ethics as a ‘categorical imperative’, as a metaphysical deontology that sanctifies every whim of the volontarism of his practice.
In practice, the revisionists reduce the whole affair to an enterprise (business as usual). In their vulgar, mainstream and flawed petit-bourgeois consciousness, political and theoretical decisions have to be made on the basis of the ‘law’ that they believe regulates their ‘eternal’ and beloved market, bargaining: the law of supply and demand. Their only concern is to ‘produce’ and barter for something that will ‘sell out’ within their political territory and beyond. So, they evaluate every step they take in terms of profitability and profiteering, while playing the game without moral qualms, without principles, accepting the rules of the opponent (who, of course, gradually ceases to be considered an opponent). This can be seen even in their formulations, e.g. ‘marketplace of ideas’: equating the domination of commodity and monetary relations with ‘culture’ and ‘freedom of choice’, claiming that the bourgeoisie is merely a ‘social partner’ but presenting themselves as the ‘rivals’ of the ‘dogmatists/leftists’, etc. Thus, while the revisionists are unscrupulously engaged in the dismantling and debasement of Marxism (as Lenin demonstrated for the leaders of the Second International), the dogmatists, regardless of their intentions, are ready to ruthlessly violate Marxism and history (always in the name of one and the other), all the while asserting their virginal purity.
With these ‘interpretations’ of Marxism and on the basis of their practicism, dogmatists and revisionists carry out an astonishing ideological inversion: both reduce the means to an end in themselves. The means cease to be means to the achievement of the revolutionary objective, the content of which is either distorted (by the Jesuitical use of means incompatible with it) or abolished (by the mainstream fetishisation of ‘movements’ and ‘activism’ of revisionism). All that remains is the ‘seeing and doing’ of immediate tactics, vulgar tacticism[11]…
Once freed from the Marxist commitment to the dialectical link between means and ends, the opportunist bureaucrat (dogmatist, revisionist or in transition from the former to the latter) is transformed into a morally and politically deceitful Machiavellian, ready to employ any means to achieve his opportunist ‘great’ ends in the political struggle, justifying the disregard of any moral norm and the systematic fraud/deception in the struggle for power (within the party, within the bourgeois political system and in international relations).
8) The shared metaphysical methodology as a basis for complementarity, supplementarity, synergy and leaps.
Here lies the touchstone, the core foundation of kinship, the common denominator of revisionism and dogmatism. For all their apparent rivalry, their methodology of thought and action bears a striking resemblance. This is because both are incapable of transcending the necessary to certain stages of the developing cognition but inadequate limits of the common mind, the everyday mainstream consciousness and the pre-dialectical level of cognition, the intellect (Verstand). The only logic the existence of which they acknowledge, as do all metaphysicians, is the formal logic of absolute disjunction. Not a word about the backbone of Marxism, dialectical logic. So, short-circuited to the pre-dialectical stage of cognition, they are both trapped in anti-dialectical and metaphysical thinking. As Lenin showed, when we lose sight of the fact that Marxism ‘is not a dogma, but a guide to action (Engels). […] we turn Marxism into something one-sided, distorted and lifeless; we deprive it of its life blood; we undermine its basic theoretical foundations—dialectics, the doctrine of historical development, all-embracing and full of contradictions; we undermine its connection with the definite practical tasks of the epoch…’[12]
The revisionists, following the bourgeois, professorial ‘science’, also throwing themselves ‘into the swamp of philosophical vulgarisation of science, replacing “artful” (and revolutionary) dialectics by “simple” (and tranquil) “evolution”.’[13] This methodology, shared by revisionists and dogmatists alike, is also ultimately rooted in the petit-bourgeois character of their positions.
Two tendencies which describe themselves as diametrically opposed in terms of attitude to life (the absolute negation of capitalism and the acceptance in practice of the absolute and insurmountable character of capitalism) lead to two versions of petit-bourgeois socialism (of pre-Marxist origin): ‘barracks communism’ and the reformist ‘modernisation’ of total integration into the capitalist regime.
Both are based on practicism, tacticism, creeping empiricism and political pragmatism. The common methodology and (after all) class origin of dogmatism and revisionism make it very easy to shift from the former to the latter, especially in periods of crisis and defeat of the revolutionary movement, as happened with the unprecedented counter-revolution and capitalist restoration that took place in the USSR and the European countries of early socialism. A similar escalation of such transitions was observed during the escalation of the Third World War.
It is no coincidence that the dogmatist who finally comes to question the ‘irrefutable validity’ and the ‘absolute truth’ of his dogmas, leaps with admirable ease into irrational and unbridled revisionism. Indeed, the history of the communist movement is full of such examples of flip-flopping. One example is the noisy march of the former champion of French dogmatism, Roger Garaudy, towards other dogmas (Islam, Tibetan mysticism, Holocaust denial, etc.), i.e., towards erratic revisionism. These conversions are by no means due to the personal qualities of the individuals concerned.
9) Opportunist apostasy, ideological degeneration and the abandonment of the revolutionary perspective.
The law-governed path from dogmatism to revisionism manifests itself on a massive scale in times of crisis and war. The view, for example, that the counter-revolution initiated with perestroika or the right-wing shift of a large part of the left in Greece is entirely due to the subjective betrayal perpetrated by the protagonists of these processes is highly subjectivist/idealist (without, of course, underestimating that aspect). This perception prevents the scientific study of the deeper (international, class, organisational and ideological) causes of these phenomena, conceals their root causes and objectively contributes to their escalation and reproduction. No teratogenesis is a product of immaculate conception.
The experience of the degeneration of entire mass parties―not excluding the Social Democratic Party of Germany, founded under the direct leadership of Marx and Engels―of the Second International, and the analyses of the classics on these phenomena are particularly relevant today. As the study of the history of the degeneration of the KKE[14] confirms, the escalation of the total conversion of communist parties to revisionism begins with the essential opportunist drift towards pro-regime positions, with the practical adoption of reformism by the leadership, which verbally proclaims (with increasingly vague and ambiguous statements) its commitment to ‘strategic’ goals and ‘Marxism-Leninism’, and retains the traditional party symbols (its past martyrs, its name, the hammer and sickle, etc.), the ‘icons’[15], as one of the historic former secretaries-general of the KKE, Charilaos Florakis, used to say), which activate deep historically conditioned reflexes, associative emotional charges, capable of cultivating the illusion that the original revolutionary traditions are still continuing, despite the fact that the opportunist mutation, the rot, is now imminent and irreversible. These symbols take the form of ritualistic/religious ‘icons’. It is possible, of course, that some communist aims (or, more precisely, proclamations that appear to be communist) remain sealed in the ‘iconostasis’ of the programme. But as Engels used to say, ‘the official programme of a party is less important than what the party does in reality’[16]. There may be some semblance of proletarianism, but the leadership treats the terms ‘proletariat’ and ‘working class’ with a similar demagogic flattery to that of bourgeois politicians, sanctifying the word ‘people’ and ‘substituting revolutionary development for revolutionary development with phraseological hypocrisy about revolution’[17].
In effect, however, for them ‘…the overthrow of the capitalist system is unattainably remote, and therefore has absolutely no significance for practical present-day politics; one can mediate, compromise and philanthropise to one’s heart’s content. It is just the same with the class struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie. It is recognised on paper because its existence can no longer be denied, but in practice it is hushed up, diluted, attenuated…’[18] Here we are dealing with ‘people who under the pretence of indefatigable activity not only do nothing themselves but also try to prevent anything happening at all except chatter; the same people whose fear of every form of action… obstructed the movement at every step and finally brought about its downfall; the same people who see a reaction and are then quite astonished to find themselves at last in a blind alley where neither resistance nor flight is possible; the same people who want to confine history within their narrow petty-bourgeois horizon and over whose heads history invariably proceeds to the order of the day.’[19]
The gradual addiction of the party base to the opportunistic pursuit of micro-politics of the moment, the intense ideologisation of this practice with its torrential promotion (by the party and the bourgeois media) as the only ‘realistic’ alternative and concrete proposal, and the systematic elimination of any serious opposition (from above, through distortion, silencing and ideological terrorism leading to fanaticism, inactivity and finally abstention from social issues altogether) will eventually lead to the clear and explicit rejection of even these remaining symbols/‘icons’. The pace, rhythm, and concrete steps towards the degeneration of the traditional revolutionary parties are always chosen with a view to exercising a controlled manipulation of the consciousness and behaviour of the masses through ideological and practical mithridatism, based on the well-known bourgeois conditioning method, the ‘Overton window’. It is typical, for example, that the first person to try to answer Bernstein’s revisionist attack in the name of Marxist orthodoxy was Kautsky, who later became a proponent of ‘social imperialism’ and an enemy of the Bolshevik revolution, but who until the end of his life maintained the pure and honest intentions of his ‘Marxist orthodoxy’, his belief in ‘pure class struggle’, and so on. Yet, ‘This forgetting of the great, the principal considerations for the momentary interests of the day, this struggling and striving for the success of the moment regardless of later consequences, this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present, may be ‘honestly’ meant, but it is and remains opportunism, and ‘honest’ opportunism is perhaps the most dangerous of all!’[20]
10) Healthy elements within the dynamics of the development of knowledge and practice, and the fall into morbid deadlocks.
It should be noted that we are pointing out the characteristics of these two currently dominant tendencies of Marxism in a kind of ‘typical pure form’. In fact, there are several variants and intermediate types which can essentially be traced back to the two above.
Apart from the conscious bearers of bourgeois ideology, the apologists for the modernisation of capitalism and the bureaucratised and degenerated (former) workers’ parties, a lively critical mood, a certain healthy questioning and skepticism can occasionally manifest itself among some people who are friendly to revisionism. If these signs are only elements of a certain phase/stage in the process of deepening their worldview, under certain conditions, with strong intervention by communists, they can develop into critical revolutionary, i.e. creative positions (if, of course, the revisionists do not short-circuit the consciousness of these people with their disruptive propaganda).
If we exclude the bureaucratic apologists, whose self-interest is to justify and ensure their existence and function within the apparatus by reproducing the bureaucratic structures they serve, using a dogmatised ‘Marxism’ as an ideological cover for their actions, in the context of the dogmatic tendency, in situations of confusion and disintegration, a defensive tendency of ‘adherence and loyalty to principles’ is sometimes observed by honest ordinary people, well-intentioned and attached to dogmatism, precisely because of the harsh conditions of class struggle they are experiencing. Such people were and still are those who unyieldingly resisted the escalation of bourgeois counterrevolution in the states and countries that emerged from the bourgeois counterrevolution in the USSR, who opposed the newly emerging bourgeoisie and its revisionist opportunist allies. From this tendency (if it is not short-circuited, dismantled, etc.) it is also possible to move to positions of creative Marxism.
In the field of science, in theoretical activity, a certain ‘dogmatism’ often plays the role of a healthy and reasonable ‘conservatism’, resisting the disintegrating current of ‘hyper-revolutionism’, ‘methodological anarchism’[21], postmodern irrationalism and the tendency to deny, dismantle and destroy the scientific acquis. In other words, it acts as a counterweight to the tendency to reject the foundations of science and rationality itself. However, this ‘conservatism’ may well turn into pure conservatism and dogmatism if scientific activity is disconnected from new facts and limited to ‘mere stereotypical reproduction’ of existing knowledge/theory, without producing new knowledge through the interpretation of these facts and critical reflection on the acquis of science.
In different historical phases of the movement, one or the other of the above tendencies becomes dominant. In conditions of revolutionary upsurge, revolutionary situations, sharpening of class struggle, during illegal underground operation, etc., the dogmatic left tendency prevails. However, in long, mild, evolutionary and peaceful periods of capitalist society or in the defeat of the global revolutionary movement by the counterrevolution, especially in the countries of imperialism, the revisionist tendency prevails. This tendency is particularly established in the left movements of the capitalist countries with a high or average level of development, which is also linked to radical changes in the conditions and way of life of the workers (due to the possibilities offered to the ruling classes by their technological etc. superiority over the weakly developed countries, due to the fact that the working class aristocracy is bought off with a share of the monopoly super-profits that they siphon off from the whole planet, and so on).
It should be pointed out that, from the point of view of revisionism, every creative consistent Marxist appears to be dogmatic. And conversely, from the point of view of dogmatism, every creative Marxist tendency is characterised as revisionist… The superficial, metaphysical categorisation that characterises both these tendencies is also activated here at the level of automatic instinct, of conditioned reflex…
A few conclusions.
As we have seen, the escalation of the Third World War inevitably leads to the polarisation and division of the global anti-imperialist and revolutionary movement. The relentless conflict between the forces of the imperialist axis of aggression, led by the USA, and the forces of socialism and anti-imperialism is also flooding the movement. Degenerative trends that have been going on for decades―if not centuries―are manifesting themselves explosively and accelerating. Try as they might, the forces of today’s most dangerous opportunism are no longer able to effectively disguise their complicity with the attacking imperialist axis.
In this text we have outlined the theoretical and practical features of the relationship between opportunism and dogmatism and revisionism by examining some key issues:
• how do they view the theoretical system of Marxism and its relation to method, to dialectics?
• what is their de facto (and not proclaimed) methodology?
• what is their relationship to the origins of Marxism and to the tendencies opposed to it?
• how do they examine the past, present and future of theory and political practice?
• what are their epistemological positions and how do they deal with the question of scientific truth?
• what are their social/class origins and their de facto role in the balance of class forces?
• what is their moral philosophy?
• what kind of politics do they practice?
• how they relate strategy to tactics, means to ends, etc.
These are not, of course, questions of ‘academic’ interest.
Obviously, of crucial importance in the degenerative process of integration of a party into the capitalist regime is the gradual shift of its practical and organisational action in the direction of undermining and invalidating the revolutionary subject and the anti-imperialist popular forces, in the direction of acting in the interests of imperialism within the movement. This degeneration is organically connected with the devaluation and disregard of the leading role of the revolutionary theory and methodology of Marxism-Leninism, with the severing of its organic connection with the labour/people’s movement, with the abandonment of the revolutionary goal of its creative development. However, the creative development of Marxism is its only form of its existence: to renounce this creative development is to transform Marxism into something else. This is why opportunists are forced to metaphysically separate theory from practice, while reducing scientific theory to vulgar and mainstream propaganda ideological constructions in order to cover up their opportunist/pro-regime drift. In doing so, they de facto reject and abandon both revolutionary theory and revolutionary practice, since, as Lenin stated, ‘Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement. […] the role of vanguard fighter can be fulfilled only by a party that is guided by the most advanced theory.’[22] This is why the opportunists replace revolutionary theory with arbitrary ideologies in order to propagandistically invest their practices that undermine the movement, occasionally crawling between Scylla of dogmatism and Charybdis of revisionism, between the supposedly unconditional and boundless ‘loyalty’ and ‘defence of positions’ of their mummified metaphysical dogmatic distortion and unstable deconstruction of Marxism and its substitution with all kinds of bourgeois, metaphysical ideological constructions/dogmas.
As we have seen, precisely because of their class standing, which is internally linked to their metaphysical methodology, these two tendencies prove to be extremely fruitless and incapable of developing revolutionary theory, incapable of contributing to the enrichment, to the development of the revolutionary movement. The realisation of this conclusion is a necessary condition for the creative development of Marxism, but not a sufficient one.
The task of the World Anti-Imperialist Platform is to broaden and deepen its action and influence in the work of coordinating the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism into a united victorious front, to expose and crush the most subversive and destructive forces of opportunism within the movement and to contribute to the restoration and development of the leading role of the consistent communist forces in the struggle. This extremely complex and vital duty for the survival and progress of humanity requires an upgrading of the research and development of revolutionary theory and methodology.
An indispensable condition for the unmasking and crushing of opportunism, which acts as an agent for the strategic interests of the axis within the movement, is the scientific identification of the mechanisms that link opportunism with the two main versions of the distortion and destruction of revolutionary theory and practice: dogmatism and revisionism. A relentless struggle is needed to expose the real role, to unmask, to theoretically, ideologically, morally, and organisationally crush the venomous, destructive apostasy of the opportunists-renegades, under whatever dogmatic and/or revisionist toxic machinations they may disguise their subversive role.
Such knowledge of these mechanisms makes the deceptive subversive moves of the opportunists more predictable, helps to expose and crush the enemy that has infiltrated the ranks of the movement and equips the WAP to escalate its struggle more effectively until the final victory of the forces of anti-imperialism and socialism.
Notes
[1] Elements of this study were first articulated in a manuscript/monograph I wrote in Moscow in 1989. Parts of this discourse have been published below: Д. Пателис, М.Дафермос, П. Павлидис, Буржуазная контрреволюция и некоторые итоги развития марксизма. (К вопросу о стратегии и тактике революционного исследования), in: Труды Международной Логико-Исторической Школы (МЛИШ). ИСТОРИЯ И РЕАЛЬНОСТЬ: УРОКИ ТЕОРИИ И ПРАКТИКИ. ВЫПУСК 2 (Москва, 1995)
[2] Mechanistic determinism of this type relates to certain levels of the natural sciences and their corresponding worldview. See V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1972, Moscow, Volume 14, pages 17-362, and the related works of E. Bitsakis and J. D. Beernal.
[3] See V. I. Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-criticism, Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1972, Moscow, Volume 14, pages 17-362
[4] ‘Reason and Intellect, concepts which express two mutually necessary aspects of development of scientific knowledge, and also moral and artistic thinking, two mutually helping abilities. The intellectual ability is characterized by the fact that notions within it are not in the process of transformation and remain stable, and act as ready-made theoretical “yardsticks” for empirical material and for constructing results. Hence, the abstract character of intellectual operations and their results, which gives ground for the cult of abstractions and for ascribing to them an independent
creative role. Armed with I. alone man makes his life increasingly more intellectual―a sphere of rationality. On the contrary, reasoning ability is characterised by the fact that notions enter the process of transformation. Aims and values are seen in the process of their change, and the theoretical process is directed to a specific ideal, leading to the development of the subject of knowledge, of values, etc. If scientific research based on intellectual ability alone is contrary to morality and art, R. creates the atmosphere of their communion…’. (Reason and Intellect, in: Dictionary of Philosophy, Edited by I. Frolov, English translation, Progress Publishers, 1984 Moscow, Progress, p. 352).
[5] G. Hegel, Lectures on the history of Philosophy, book 2, vol. 10, Moscow 1932, p. 321.
[6] Translation note: direct translation of the Greek term ‘ετεροπροσδιορισμός’ is ‘opposite definition’, meaning the process by which something or someone becomes defined by the very thing they are opposed to.
[7] One can, of course, proclaim to be in favour of the development of theory, but by always promoting the ‘current issues’, the ‘practice’, they make their proclamations an empty hypocrisy.
[8] Bukharin, for example, often did this. The range and depth of a theorist, of a theory, is determined, among other things, by whom, what and why he chooses to make the object of his critique. For the classics, critique is never an end in itself. It is always an organic component of research, whether dictated by the need to overcome or even crush tendencies dangerous to science, society and the movement. It is no coincidence that revolutionary theory and methodology were developed by the classics of Marxism through research, through critical absorption of the most advanced acquis of the classics of their time, in confrontation with the pioneers, the titans of classical bourgeois science of the time in all fields: political economy, philosophy, utopian socialism, history, anthropology, natural and mathematical sciences.
[9] The same is true of those tendencies which have occasionally broken away from the degenerated workers’ parties and have focused their attention primarily on differentiating themselves from these parties, typically bearing the permanent mark of the phase of their own differentiation, confrontation and ‘severing of the umbilical cord’ with the historical party…
[10] Often the negative opposite definition of trends, organisations and tendencies is also in the foreground, in which they are labelled with the prefix ‘anti-’ (‘anti-capitalists’, ‘anti-Soviets’, ‘anti-Stalinists’, ‘anti-revisionists’, ‘anti-Maoists’, ‘anti-Zahariadists’, recently ‘anti-sexists’, etc.).
[11] The character of a ‘movement’ taken on by various groups wanting to define themselves as being to the left of the degenerated, ‘pro-establishment’ parties, etc., leaves the way open for their own right-wing degeneration…
[12] ‘Certain Features of the Historical Development of Marxism’ Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, [1974], Moscow, Volume 17, pages 39-44.
[13] V.I. Lenin, ‘Marxism and Revisionism’ Lenin Collected Works, Progress Publishers, 1973, Moscow, Volume 15, pages 29-39.
[14] On the degeneration and the danger that the KKE’s framework of opportunism/revisionism represents for the world movement, see also: ‘The political stance of the Communist Party of Greece … a communist stance?’ by the Chilean Communist Party (Proletarian Action), WAP organ, July 2023 edition, as well as their entire series of articles on the topic.
[15] Translation note: The word ‘icons’ is used here as a reference to the religious iconography of the Orthodox Church.
[16] See Engels’ letter of 18-28 March 1875 to August Bebel.
[17] See ‘Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne by Karl Marx 1853’
[18] Marx-Engels Correspondence 1879 Marx and Engels to Bebel, Liebknecht, Bracke and others
[19] Same as above.
[20] Engels, ‘A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Program of 1891’
[21] The title of the relevant work of P. Feyerabend ‘Against Method: Outline of an Anarchistic Theory of Knowledge’ is indicative.
[22] V.I. Lenin, ‘What Is To Be Done? Dogmatism And ‘Freedom of Criticism’ pt. D. ‘Engels On the Importance of the Theoretical Struggle’