Need For Developing Revolutionary Theory: The case of Alasdair Macintyre

[p017] The Need for Developing Revolutionary Theory The Case of Alasdair Macintyre WITHOUT a continuous struggle to develop revolu- tionary socialist theory there can be no revolutionary socialist movement. This has always been true but there are special reasons which make the question of theory of exceptional importance for the Marxist movement in 1962. Without this struggle for theory the movement cannot grow but must remain as a number of separate sectarian groups, each attempting unsuccessfully to carry on new struggles with old and outworn slogans. ‘ Philosophy [theory] finds its material weapon in the proletariat, as the proletariat finds its spiritual [theoretical] weapons in philosophy.”! In the first place the Marxist movement is basic- ally and essentially an international one. This means that all the turbulent experience in recent years of the proletariat in Russia, US, Germany, France, Italy, China, Japan, Cuba, Algeria, India and Africa has to be studied, criticized, assessed and what is important in it assimilated by the vanguard party of the inter- national proletariat. Without a coherent and con- sistent theory this cannot be done. The international working class of today contains forces of immense strength; this strength will not be deployed success- fully for the overthrow of the capitalist class until all that past experience has been grasped and under- stood. In the second place, the political situation in this country confronts the British section of the Marxist movement with formidable tasks. The crisis of capitalism on a world scale discredits increasingly the traditional leaders of the bour- geoisie in a declining capitalist state such as Britain. They depend more and more on the right-wing leaders of the Labour Party and the trade unions to control the proletariat. And these, too, in their turn are becoming exposed more clearly as the agents of 1. Karl Marx, Contribution to the Critique of Hegel, ‘Philosophy of Right’, in On Religion, Moscow 1957, p. 57. by James Baker the bourgeoisie. The developing crisis of the bureau- cratic caste in the Soviet Union makes it more difficult for the leaders of the Communist Party in Britain to pose as the party of the socialist revolution. The working class is left in a militant mood but without militant leadership. This is a situation which can be advantageous for the building of the Marxist movement, but only if there is a thorough grasp of Marxist theory and of the means of applying that theory. Finally, the Marxist movement in Britain is still small and is still engaged in a struggle for the leadership of the proletariat and against tendencies which would divert it from the path of revolution. At a time when the large masses of the working class are still relatively quiescent the crisis of capitalist society has thrust large sections of the middle classes, and particularly of middle-class youth, into action. The Aldermaston marches, the anti-bomb sit-downs, the anti-ugly and anti-apartheid movements, the rise in the Liberal vote at recent by-elections, the threatened strikes of school and university teachers and nurses, these are all examples of this tendency. Another is the appearance of an angry and dissident intelligentsia, many of whom are of working class or lower middle class origin. They have begun to make names for themselves in drama, the novel, the cinema, painting and the arts generally (Wesker, Osborne, Sillitoe, Braine, Barstow, Richardson, Centre 42, The First Group, etc.). Some of them may join the Marxist movement and a few will make good revolutionaries. On the whole, however, this intelligentsia is characterized by its lack of confidence and even contempt for the working class, and by its rejection of ‘politics’ including the politics of class struggle. Nevertheless, it remains true that in a capitalist society, there can’ be no real mass movements until broad sections of the working class are involved; the proletariat is the only force capable of extending its struggles from

[p018] 56 a narrow sectional basis to a national and later to an international level, and of organizing itself in mass parties. As the crisis deepens and as the moment of revolutionary upsurge approaches it will be necessary for the vanguard party to be on its guard against democratic illusions, to establish and preserve the class independence of the Marxist party and to prevent class demands and slogans from being diluted with the opportunism of the petty-bourgeois intelligentsia. Here again theory will be of the greatest importance. THE FOUR MAIN COMPONENTS OF REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST THEORY Most of the prominent present-day bourgeois scholars and publicists—from Malcolm Muggeridge to Karl Popper—are agreed that Marxism has been refuted. Most do not even discuss it in their University courses or in their TV frolics. A few of the younger generation, however, members of the same angry intelligentsia referred to above, are per- mitted and even encouraged to develop existentialist or other idealist distortions of Marxism. The fact that they may have undergone some kind of battle innoculation in the Marxist movement may even tell in their favour and lead to fellowships in the ancient seats of learning, trips to the United States and other such perquisites. Because of the general theoretical weakness of the Marxist movement, resulting in part from the wide dissemination of the crude dogmas of the Stalinist clique, the ‘new’ Marxism which stresses the humanistic and moral aspects at the expense of the revolutionary content, and which praises the ‘young idealist’ Marx in order to discredit the ‘old revolutionary’ Marx, has acquired a certain amount of popularity. It is difficult to deal adequately with complicated theoretical issues in the space of a short article. I begin, however, by asking: how is revolutionary theory created? It is, I suggest, the crystallization of the experience of the proletariat as the oppressed class in capitalist society. As capitalist society has evolved that experience has evolved, too, and con- tinuous additions to the theory are needed to bring it up to date. Revolutionary theory, therefore, although associated with the name of certain exceptionally gifted individuals, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and others, is the creation, not of those individuals, but of the class struggles of the pro- letariat. Because those individuals took a leading part in these struggles they were able to express in abstract and general terms for the whole proletariat the concrete and particular experience of particular sections of the proletariat. As Marx wrote: LABOUR REVIEW—Summer, 1962 The Young Marx: by the time he was 30 years of age, he had completed the ground- work for trans- forming Socialism froma utopia to a science. ‘It is not a question of what this or that proletarian or even the entire proletariat envisages as the goal at any particular time. It is a question of what the proletariat is and of what it will have to do historic- ally judged by the conditions of its existence.’2 (My emphasis—J.B.) Thus, to use a contemporary metaphor, revolution- ary theory is an experimental missile, a weapon directed against the capitalist class, in which are embodied inventions derived from the experiments of past class struggles and to which new additions must continually be made in order to maintain the effectiveness of the missile in the present conditions of struggle. This weapon is the most precious possession of the proletariat and the only guarantee of its final victory over the bourgeoisie. It is a weapon, also, which must be tested continuously in action or it will fall to pieces. It is made up of a very large number of intricately interlocked parts, all of which are essential to its effective operation. For purposes of clear exposition, however, I shall concentrate attention on what I believe to be the four principal components of revolutionary theory today. These are: ‘historical materialism’, ‘dialectics’, ‘democratic centralism’ and ‘The Fourth Interna- tional’. Marx ‘discovered’ historical materialism by extending the materialist methods of the natural sciences to the study of history and social phenomena generally. He ‘discovered’ also how to make use in a materialist way of the methods of dialectics which Hegel had used previously in an idealist fashion. He and Engels together transformed socialism from a utopian dream into a materialist science; they laid out the foundations of this science and indicated the way in which its development would take place. They demonstrated its effectiveness both in ‘practice’ 2. Karl Marx, The Holy Family, 1845.

[p019] Literature and Marxism