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H. W. Edwards, The Anatomy of Revisionism (Stockholm: Aurora, 1979)
Current chapter: (Introduction) Basic Principles of Marxism
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INTRODUCTION
BASIC PRINCIPLES OF MARXISM
Modern Revisionism is a form of Social Democracy.
In an article written in 1967, an American philosophy professor discussed the "Great Debate" between Russia and China. According to him:
"revisionism may be conceived as any effort to moderate the critical and revolutionary thrust of Marx's method. Verbal adherence to philosophy without corresponding practice is one of the more subtle instances of contemporary revisionism ... interpreted ... as masking a fear and dislike of revolutionary action."1
This boils down to saying that, for Marxist-Leninists, Revisionism is any theory or practice which, in the name of Marx or Lenin, changes or distorts certain basic unalterable principles, among which – regardless where scientific socialism may function – the following are indispensable:
1. A complete body of scientific theory guides all action, especially that directed toward revolution. It is universally applicable, and it is the duty of those who espouse it to apply it where they function by "interpreting their own world" so as "to change it."
On the theoretical side: called dialectical materialism, this theory amounts to a science of change. It postulates material conditions (especially, but not solely, society's economic life) as basic to all happenings, with ideology derivative. Under certain conditions and for specific periods, ideological factors may supersede material ones as the major motive force in society. In addition, though derivative, ideas always affect material conditions. Dialectical materialism's theory of development holds that every material phenomenon, including history, contains inner contradictions and external ones, the struggle among all of which (with inner contradictions primary) causes motion. At each given period, one contradiction internally, and¬
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one externally, will be the main ones in each sphere. The development of these main contradictions leads to revolution – the changing of the old to the new – resulting in attainment of a new level wherein former, once-lesser, contradictions now become the main ones, leading to another (higher) stage of development, and so on, ad infinitum. Marxism holds that, besides main and subordinate contradictions, there are also antagonistic and non-antagonistic ones, the latter likely to become antagonistic when not understood and properly dealt with.
For Marxism, theory is never an end in itself, but the chief means toward revolution (social change), leading to emancipation; primarily, for the "proletariat," but through it, for all oppressed classes and people internationally.
On the practical side: Marxist insistence on the need for scientific theory to guide all action implies that, in implementation, (a) the theory must fight for and maintain its basic principles intact against any and all distorters; (b) unity with distorters is impossible; (c) the theory itself must be consciously and assiduously spread among oppressed classes and peoples in order to enable them to understand their own conditions and, applying to them Marxist principles, thus free themselves; (d) vigilance must be strict against alien ideology, with emphasis on being able to counter bourgeois dual tactics: force and violence as ruling class main tactic, with "killing revolution by kindness" as the other.
Furthermore, Marxist theory not only can be universally applied, but must be, before action is taken. Application, that is, derives from a class analysis of existing material and ideological conditions and forces and their inter-relations. Failure to make such an analysis constitutes "spontaneity," leaving revolutionaries at the mercy of laws which operate in favor of the bourgeoisie, whether such laws are understood or seen or not.
2. The need for a vanguard party. In theory: To ensure the fruition of revolutionary theory as emancipation, it is indispensable for the revolutionary class to organize a vanguard party, based on the industrial working class, in alliance¬
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primarily with any working peasantry; but also, from time to time, with any class which, in any given epoch on any major issue, takes a historically progressive stand. This party leads the political revolution. Thereafter, it guides that revolution into its economic and ideological stages. Since, objectively, the working class is international (see 3, below), it follows that its vanguard party must be likewise.
In practice: to guarantee revolution's success, (a) the existence of the vanguard party must be protected against "liquidators;" (b) to maintain ideological "purity," no one whose ideas oppose Marxism may be a member; (c) as long as antagonistic classes exist (especially, as long as imperialism exists), such a vanguard party must continue to guide and protect the revolutionary class and its revolution, meaning: until after the victory of communism. The practical result of the vanguard party's internationalism is mutual cooperation between national parties: NO party is, or can be, the source of all wisdom, nor "marches at the head" of the international working class movement.
3. Attitude toward class struggle. In theory: for Marxist science, history is based on real events and the study of these is called historical materialism, which declares that social history is the chronicle of class struggles. Each class society is divided into opposing classes, struggle between the major two of which, for the given era, decides the direction of history. Class struggle includes the ideological plane, which becomes decisive whenever "ideas seize hold of the masses." Until the victory of socialism, all ruling classes have been minority classes, reigning by ideologically dividing the subjugated majority. Socialism, however, for the first time in history, produces a majority ruling class – the proletariat. No longer pretending like its bourgeois predecessors to give "democracy" to the old class enemy, this majority now suppresses the former ruling minority by armed force: "the dictatorship of the proletariat."
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The proletariat itself is composed of and based on industrial workers who, in capitalist society, were the principal but not the only subjugated. Class struggle does not die away with the triumph of socialism; class antagonisms continue, in a new form, inside the new society; also outside, influencing internal events by the pressures of an antagonistic, moribund social system as long as imperialism exists.
In practice: implementation of these principles requires recognizing the irreconcilability of opposing class forces (implying that not all non-working-class classes are necessarily hostile to the proletariat). Class analysis decides which classes are hostile in any given society; which means that, under capitalism, no compromise with the bourgeoisie on principles is allowable (though other compromises may be made as required). It then follows that class collaboration with the bourgeoisie is specifically rejected. That, in turn, determines when to make agreements with any class, as well as what kind to make.
While irreconcilable vis-a-vis any antagonistic class, toward its own class and all those closely allied, the proletariat practises proletarian internationalism, which is world working-class brotherhood. This includes support for the just demands and struggles (including wars) of all oppressed classes and for national independence for all subjugated peoples.
4. Ownership of the social means of production. In theory: Historical materialism proves that the material basis on which minorities were able to rule whole societies was their ownership of the social means of production: in slave society, the slaves; in feudal society, the land; in capitalist society, land, factories and machinery.
When socialist revolution triumphs, it expropriates from the ex-rulers the social means of production; i.e., it takes them away without compensation, replacing formerly private with social ownership via the proletarian state. This is not synonymous with government ownership, even though that is the general form social ownership of means of production has taken under socialism thus far. Included with¬
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government ownership, the products of government-owned production must also be the property of the new ruling class if the system is to qualify as socialist. This must be stipulated because "government ownership" is also used to save capitalism, as in Britain and elsewhere.
In practice: this theory demands a complete, even if gradual, break with capitalist economics: the withering away of commodity production and the market mechanism; central planning, to engender rational use of socially-owned means of production; absolute control of social distribution; and the substitution of collective for individual methods throughout production, distribution and consumption. All these are measures without which ownership of means of production will inevitably revert to former owners and revolution will be destroyed.
5. Theory of the state; the dictatorship of the proletariat. In theory: Marxism holds that all states are aggregate apparatuses of force, designed to protect ruling class ownership of social means of production by suppressing the ruled, so ensuring continued political, economic and social power for the rulers. Government not only is not the same as the state, but only a subordinate segment thereof. The major content of any state is its instruments of force: the army, police, prisons and laws. Therefore, there is no way to make a revolution without violence. Corollary: having triumphed over the old state, the new ruling class must smash it and substitute its own, serving its own interests.
With the success of the socialist revolution, the absolutely indispensable aggregate apparatus of force of the new, majority, ruling class is the dictatorship of the proletariat. Its principal content is the armed people.
Since the existence of any state expresses the irreconcilability of opposing classes; since expropriation of the social means of production increases the determination of the former ruling class to bring about counter-revolution; and since the former ruling class can draw upon the enormous resources of parasitic imperialism,¬
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the dictatorship of the proletariat cannot be dispensed with before the achievement of communism.
In general, the requirement to smash the old state means that under very few conceivable circumstances can power be won by bourgeois-controlled elections.
In practice: to implement the Marxist theory of the state, conditions are: immediate recallability of any elective representative; absolutely no special privileges or immunities for such representative; and the reduction of all payment to "servants of the state" to the level of those earned by the highest-paid non-state worker. The new state must also, immediately on formation, destroy the old standing army and replace it by the armed people. It must then destroy the bureaucracy.
6. Attitude toward wars. In theory: Marxism accepts the dictum of the famous bourgeois military genius Clausewitz that "wars are continuations of politics by other means." Imperialism's major contradictions make wars of all kinds inevitable as long as that "highest stage" of capitalism exists. As with the state, this fact merely again expresses the irreconcilability of contradictions in class societies. Each war must be specifically examined in terms of the politics it serves: as corollary, scientific socialists must support all those which serve revolutionary politics and oppose those serving reactionary politics. In this context, while imperialism lasts, peace can never be an end in itself, but always a means toward the main objective: overthrowing the international bourgeoisie. Only universal revolution can guarantee real peace. Similarly, peace treaties and the struggle for disarmament are subordinate aims because they always grow out of wars and/or prepare the way for new wars under imperialism.
In practice: This theory results in the practical rejection by Marxists of pacifism ("peace at any price"). Yet, Marxists definitely should lead the struggle for peace, but in the same way as they support reforms of the existing system: (a) in the interests of the working class; and (b) by informing the workers of the limits – without overthrowing the¬
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system – of such struggles, which must be seen as incapable of solving working class problems created by imperialism.
7. Attitude toward imperialism and colonialism. In theory: because economic parasitism never stops growing as imperialism decays, Marxism pin-points colonialism as imperialism's main method of operation, whereby the rulers most rapidly increase their profits: (a) by exporting capital, which squeezes super-profits from colonial labor power; and (b) uses part of these super-profits to bribe a portion of "its own" working class so as to split the main antagonistic class threatening its continued control of society. The resulting labor aristocracy then acts as imperialism's splittist agent inside the world working class movement.
A supplementary principle is that Marxists must support without qualification the right of every oppressed nation to self-determination, up to and including its right to separate from the "mother" country, but not making the break itself into a principle. It is, instead, only a means to that eventual international comity which will finally eliminate nationalism as we know it.
In practice: this part of Marxist theory, plus those on class struggle and the state, determine which practical measures of foreign policy the working class should support before and after the triumph of socialism, in principle opposing and completely unmasking all racist and/or chauvinist ideology or practice.
If these are the main Marxist principles of theory with their practical expresssions, then it also has to be stipulated that failure to support any single one of the theoretical positions immediately brands the proponents of such failure as unscientific and non-Marxist in toto.
We shall, therefore, examine modern revisionism in the light of each and every one of them. But first, we will establish the positions of Social Democracy on them, in order, when the examination of revisionism has been completed, to prove our original statement that modern revisionism is a form of Social Democracy.