In the previous sections, we have analyzed the ideological and political basis of the Economist political line expressed in the X/Y paper. Now we will try to explore the theory of knowledge, the concept of the relationship between the ’objective’ real world and the ’subjective’ consciousness which is a reflection of it, that underlies this political line.
X/Y sum up the main point themselves in their first paper: “The difference is between an orientation which stresses subjective consciousness of workers and an orientation which stresses objective forces and contradictions.” Contrast this with Marx’s famous assertion in Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, “Just as our opinion of an individual is not based on what he thinks of himself, so we cannot judge of such a period of transformation by its own consciousness; on the contrary this consciousness must be explained rather from the contradictions of material life...” (Selected Works, Moscow, 1935, vol. 1, p. 356)
This is the basic content of “class struggle, anti-imperialist politics”, a line which is consciously refashioned from the “subjective consciousness of workers”, not rooted in the scientific analysis of “objective forces and conditions”. For Marxists, it is not a question of either/or, but of what is primary. For X/Y it is the “subjective consciousness of workers” which is primary.
But to say that in the relationship between theory and practice consciousness (mind) is primary and objective reality (matter) is secondary’ would be an open admission (to themselves as well as others) of idealism.[1]
The real content of the X/Y theory of knowledge and the approach to the development and application of political line that it justifies is thus hidden behind a number of veils.
The first is the presentation of a false choice; either “all practice and no theory”, or “all theory and no practice”. We are given an image of the “holy alliance of the left” including the “sectarian groups” and the “self-cultivating petty-bourgeois” who have no political practice, conduct no investigation but only study and publish dogma. Hence “failure to include the subjective side of things results in left opportunist practice, which is still the most dangerous error we are prone to make”. This sterotype is a substitute for a concrete analysis of the political movement in Canada which, as Dave Paterson’s article in Canadian Revolution documents, allows the justification of nght opportunist lines and practice by a false analysis of what the dogmatism of groups like CPC (ML) is based on? [2] This approach views the ’left’ as static as well as undifferentiated; instead of an assessment of the contradictions in the theory and practice of one local Study Group (the implicit reference in X/Y) and the putting forward of criticism and actual proposals indicating how to preserve what is progressive and eliminate what is reactionary and develop something better we get the argument that we must choose either “to help to preserve an existing political culture” or “to advance (and) broaden the movements”.
But let us not be unfair to X/Y. It is an overstatement to say that they consciously uphold the line of “all practice and not theory” based on a subjective overreaction to the contradictions within the revolutionary left in Canada. Rather they put forward the idea that “practice should guide theory”, that political line should be developed on the basis of mass line. Thus the method proposed for arriving at a minimum program to guide the political work of the Voice collective in building a network of politically defined working relationships with “militant and/or politically conscious workers” is to consistently sum up our investigative work, to elaborate policies generated in the network committees.
This approach turns the dialectical materialist theory of knowledge (that theory is a guide to action) upside down behind the guise of insisting that in the relationship between theory and practice, practice is always primary and plays the leading role. It is precisely this rigid notion that Mao criticises in On Contradiction:
Some people think that this is not true of certain contradictions. For instance, in the contradiction between the productive forces and the relations of production, the productive forces are the principal aspect; in the contradiction between theory and practice, practice is the principal aspect; in the contradiction hehiiem the economic base and the superstructure, the economic base is the principal aspect; and there is no change in their respective positions. This is the mechanical materialist conception, not the dialectical materialist conception. True, the productive forces, practice and the economic base generally play the principal and decisive role; whoever denies this is not a materialist. But it also must be admitted that in certain conditions, such aspects as the relations of production, theory, and the superstructure in turn manifest themselves in the principal and decisive role. When it is impossible for the productive forces to develop without a change in the relations of production, then the change in the relations of production plays the principal and decisive role. The creation and advocacy of revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role in those times of which Lenin said, “Without revolutionary theory there can be no revolutionary movement.” When a task, no matter which, has to be performed, but there is as yet no guiding line, method, plan or policy, the principal and decisive thing is to decide on a guiding line, method, plan or policy. When the superstructure [politics, culture, etc.] obstructs the development of the economic base, political and economic changes become principal and decisive. Are we going against materialism when we say this? No. The reason is that while we recognize that in the general development of history the material determines determines the mental and social being determines social consciousness, we also – and indeed must – recognize the reaction of mental on material things, of social consciousness on social being and of the superstructure on the economic base. This does not go against materialism and firmly upholds dialectical materialism. (Selected Readings, Peking 1971, p. 116)
The purpose, we repeat, of citing this long passage from On Contradiction is to make clear that it is mechanical and false to counterpose theory to practice and say that the development of political line must be based on one or the other. It is equally false to say that workers cannot be mobilized by advanced ideas but only by (the lessons of) their experience of practical struggles. Canada is in the “particular conditions” cited by Lenin when the development and propagation of revolutionary theory, the promotion of ideological struggle by widespread political propaganda among the workers movement, and the winning of advanced workers to communism, is the principal task among the various tasks facing communists, which also include linking up to the masses and practical struggles, agitation and winning over ’middle’ and ’backward’ elements.
But the line that “practice must guide theory” is not only wrong in “particular conditions” where “the creation and advocacy of revolutionary theory plays the principal and decisive role.” In the sense that X/Y use it, it is wrong in all conditions. The point is that, although practice is the source and the means of verifying and refining the truth of a theory, it is not idealist but materialist to say that advanced ideas based on the partisan ideology of a definite class, the scientific theory of Marxism-Leninism, must be a guide to action, the basis of development of a political line and its application in practice.[3]
Defenders of the X/Y line may argue that they are not opposed to any theory guiding action, just to Marxism-Leninism, but we will get to the question of their using “class struggle, anti-imperialist politics” as a guide later. The problem is that X/Y confuse two types of knowledge, perceptual knowledge and rational knowledge, and limit the application of rational knowledge to guiding action by the degree of the development of the “subjective consciousness of workers” gained from the practical struggle. This, in turn, becomes a justification for basing the development of political line on “perceptual” knowledge alone, or as X/Y would have it, on “practice” alone.
Mao explains the dialectical materialist approach to knowledge in On Practice, where he explains that “theory is based on practice and in turn serves practice.” But his explanation of this relationship is very different from what X/Y lead us to understand. He talks of the two stages of knowledge. The first is the stage of sense impressions and perceptions where man sees only the phenomenal side, the external relations of things. The second is the stage of conception, judgement and inference when there is a qualitative “leap” in consciousness so that the mind grips the essence, the totality, the inner relations of things.
In Mao’s words, “To think that knowledge can stop at the lower, perceptual stage and that perceptual knowledge alone is reliable while rational knowledge is not, would be to repeat the historical error of ’empiricism’. This theory errs in its failing to understand that, although the data of perception reflect certain realities in the objective world.... they are merely one-sided and superficial, reflecting things incompletely and not reflecting their essence.” (Selected Readings, 75). This essence is not a static thing; on the contrary reality is nothing but matter in motion and motion is itself a contradiction – even simple mechanical change of place cannot come about without a body being at one and the same time in one and the same place and not in it.
Man’s knowledge of matter is knowledge of its forms of motion, of the general laws which independent of our consciousness of an object determine the general course of its development. This does not mean that Marxism is like a horoscope or a magic formula that, once learned, can be used to predict the future, or describe the particular essence (contradiction) of a particular thing. But it is the necessary basis for making that specific analysis correctly.
When we talk of making an analysis of something, we mean to penetrate to this essence. “Dialectics in the proper sense is the study of contradictions in the very essence of objects]”(Lenin quoted in op. cit., 85)
...in order to understand the development of a thing we should study it internally and in its relations with other things; in other words, the development of things should be seen as their internal and necessary self-movement, while each thing in its movement is interrelated with and interacts on the things around it. The fundamental cause of the development of a thing is not external but internal; it lies in the contradictoriness within a thing. This internal contradiction lies in every single thing, hence its motion and development. Contradictoriness within a thing is the fundamental cause of its development, while its interrelations and interactions with other things are secondary causes... It is evident that purely external causes can only give rise to mechanical motion, that is to changes in scale or quantity, but cannot explain why things differ qualitatively in thousands of ways and why one thing changes into another. As a matter of fact, even mechanical motion under external force occurs through the internal contradictoriness of things... Does materialist dialectics exclude external causes? Not at all. It holds that external causes are the condition of change, and that external causes become operative through internal causes. In a suitable temperature an egg changes into a chicken, but no temperature can change a stone into a chicken, because each has a different basis. ” [ibid..., 87-89]
No summing up of a collection of facts, or perceptions of the external relations between these facts and events can contribute to a scientific understanding unless the analysis is guided by a scientific theory founded on dialectical and historical materialism; in social science, there is only one such theory – Marxism-Leninism.
One further point: the X/Y position by seeking to guide investigation on the basis of negative stances like anti-imperialism, anti-capitalism, anti-revisionism, which end up being very subjective and half-assed sets of policies and principles, deny the necessity of starting with the summation of the lessons of the history of the struggles of the international proletariat, the coherent ideology of Marxism-Leninism. Remember the confusion about what should be the basis and guidelines for staff study, the search for a non-existent theory and method which was anti-revisionist but not Marxist-Leninist led to the dropping of the project altogether as hopeless.
As Mao points out, “All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience. But we cannot have direct experience of everything; as a matter of fact, most of our knowledge comes from indirect experience.” (ibid., 71) – from listening to others, from readings books where others relate their experience and so on.
A worker cadre, Ni Chih-fu, describes the impact of Marxism-Leninism on his own practice and understanding in “Overcoming Empiricism – Notes on studying Lenin’s ’Materialism and Empirio-Criticism’ ”. We recommend this article to those who wish to further pursue these questions. (Peking Review, no. 43, Oct. 27, 1972, 5-7).
One might be able to argue whether or not membership in the WESTERN VOICE collective should be open to non-Marxist-Leninists, but there is no basis for anyone who accepts Marxism-Leninism as a scientific theory and method to argue that any other “method” could be the basis for development and application of our political line. As Che Guevara put it, “I can’t help if reality is Marxist.”
Let us now examine whether there is any such thing as a scientific theory which could guide action contained in the notion of “anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist, class struggle” politics. The obvious question is if the content of your politics is against imperialism and against capitalism, what are you for?
What X/Y propose is evident by the stand taken by one of them in the debates on the line of the anti-imperialist committee in the winter of 1974. It was argued that “Countries want independence, nations want liberation people want revolution” could not be the guiding line for the development of policy in the committee. The reason? This was a Marxist-Leninist position and therefore could not be a ’mass line’. At best we could argue the first two parts of the slogan as a general line while supporting in practice, but not in theory particular instances of ’people wanting revolution’, i.e. mainly in the Third World or perhaps even when (after?) revolution was clearly imminent in Second World countries.
As far as struggles in Canada go we could not base ourselves on a theory or political line that was Marxist-Leninist, advocate socialism (the dictatorship of the proletariat) and proletarian revolution. Furthermore, we could not insist that the general line of the anti-imperialist committee and its “basis of unity” include agreement that the Soviet Union was capitalist but only social-imperialist.
If we had applied the truncated slogan which followed from X/Y during the 1930’s and ’40’s we would have equally supported the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang in the Anti-Japanese War or even the Soviet Union and its ’allies’ in the Second World War without at the same time distinguishing the proletarian viewpoint on the alliance, its relationship to the immediate and long-term interests and objectives of the proletariat and its stable allies (poor and middle peasants in China, the anti-fascist resistance in Europe, etc.) The Chinese went through, as did the Vietnamese and Cambodians, a series of united fronts with different objectives and membership.
Lenin’s dictum on this point is still very relevant to modern-day struggles: “While pointing to the solidarity of one or the other of the various opposition groups with the workers, the social-democrats will always single out the workers from the rest, they will always point out that this solidarity is temporary and conditional, they will always emphasize the independent class identity of the proletariat who tomorrow may find themselves in opposition to their allies of today. We shall be that ’such action will weaken the fighters for political liberty at the present time.’ We shall reply that such action will strengthen all the fighters for political liberty. Only those fighters who are strong rely on consciously recognized real interests of certain classes, and any attempt to obscure these class interests, which already play a predominant role in modern society, will only weaken the fighters. ” (Of course, to flip to the opposite extreme of “all struggle, no unity” might even be worse than “all unity, no struggle.” The Marxist view is “Both unity and struggle”.)
In their second paper X/Y properly state that not all anti-imperialist struggles, such as struggles against the two superpowers by a national bourgeoisie, are anti-capitalist struggles. What then is the content of the political line of supporting “anti-capitalist struggles”?
X/Y say only that its content is such that it would exclude from membership in the collective “People who, according to a communist analysis, hold parliamentary illusions (as long as) they are opposed to capitalist eonomic and political and cultural organization of our societies.” This was hurriedly amended to include the qualification “as long as they are not objectively anti-communist”, after it was pointed out that the definition embraced not only revisionists who supported our lists of policies or disagreed with the practice of revisionist groups, but also fascists.
It is obvious that “class struggle, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist politics” is not a theory, scientific or otherwise, which can guide action or the development and application of political line. At best it is a catch phrase for a set of policies and practical stand arrived at by the network committees for one arbitrary reason or another which can serve as a ’guide’ to the editorial committee as to what politics or theory should be censored Out for violating the ’basis of unity’ of the “united front”.
[1] “Materialism, in full agreement with natural science, takes matter as primary and regards consciousness, thought, sensation as secondary, because in its well defined form sensation is associated only with the highest forms of matter (organic matter), while in the “foundation of the structure of matter” one can only surmise the existence of a faculty akin to sensation.” (Lenin, Materialism and Empirio-Criticism, Collected Works, Moscow 1962, p. 46). “Materialism is the recognition of “objects in themselves”, or outside the mind; ideas and sensations are copies or images of these objects. The opposite doctrine (idealism) claims that objects do not exist “without the mind” objects are just “combinations of sensations”. The materialist theory, then, the reflection of objects by our mind, is here presented with perfect then, the theory of reflection of objects by our mind, is here presented with perfect clearness: things exist outside us. Our perceptions and representations are their images, the distinction of true and false images, is given by practice.” (ibid)
[2] “CPC(ML) has been able to achieve organizational hegemony in English Canada with a bourgeois nationalist line on the national question and a tailist-idealist approach to the trade union struggle precisely because these lines are still dominant among the majority of (would-be) Marxist-Leninists. The criticism which has been advanced here of. CPC(ML) must also be understood as a criticism of the Marxist-Leninist movement of Canada. Too long we have avoided the development of a correct program. We have liquidated the question of building the party, and we have shied away from the difficult task of actually applying the science of Marxism-Leninism to the concrete conditions of Canada. We have, in the Marxist-Leninist movement, been the soil of opportunism out of which CPC[ML] has sprung. Where errors in CPC(ML) have been pointed out, there also lie weaknesses in the Marxist-Leninist movement. It is our task, now, to fight opportunism in our ranks and instigate the struggle to build the genuine party of the proletariat.” (CR, vol. 1, no. 2, p. 20; our emphasis)
[3]In Dialectical and Historical Materialism, Stalin exposed how the Economists and Mensheviks denied the organizing and transforming role of advanced theory: “Thus social ideas, theories and political institutions, having arisen on the basis of the urgent tasks of the development of the material life of society, the development of social being, themselves then react upon social being, upon the material life of society, creating the conditions necessary for completely carrying out the urgent tasks of the material life of society, and for redering further development possible. “In this connection, Marx says – Theory becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. “The fall of the Economists and Mensheviks was due among other things to the fact that they did not recognize the mobilizing, organizing and transforming role of advanced theory, of advanced ideas and, sinking to imlgar materialism, reduced the role of these factors almost to nothing, thus condemning the Party to passivity and inaction.” (in History of the CPSU [B] Short Course, Moscow, 1939, p. 117.)