Re: World Party of Socialist Revolution

[Shane Hopkinson <s.hopkinson@xxxxxxxxxx>]

  From: Jose G. Perez

   >> Because at least the way it is usually presented --as a general
principle--
     >> the bit about there being no revolutionary movement without
revolutionary
     >> theory is WRONG. It is *not* a Marxist, a materialist position.
The
     >> *Marxist* position is that revolutionary theory *arises from*
the
     >> revolutionary movement, not the other way around.

Ben wrote:

>Revolutionary theory arises from the revolutionary movement? Without a
    > theory--Marxist or otherwise--how does a movement become
revolutionary?
     >I'm quite sure that Marxism doesn't arise from the spontaneous
movement
     >of the working class, if that's what you mean. I agree with Lenin
on
     >that. And Marxism itself arose from the studies of two bourgeois
     >intellectuals over 150 years ago. Of course Marxists are hardly
     >deserving of the name if they don't participate in and learn from
the
     >existing movement, and Marx and Engels themselves did do that of
course.
     >It's obviously a dialectical concept. If that's all you meant then
I
     >agree. But the way you've categorically stated it, I disagree.


There was a lot that I liked in Jose's comments and in Ben's reply but
given my time constaints can only respond at present to this section
which touches a bit of a nerve with me I guess.  To me its important
that the worker's movement gives rise to the ideas.  Marx may have
articulated it but the practice is given in worker's actions and then
they are articulated into theory.  Without worrying about the phrase
it seems to me that there is a principle involved.  Socialism embodies
the idea that the mass of working people can (and should) take over
and run society in their own interests.  While intellectuals are allies
in
this process it is the masses themselves that must find their way. I
see this in Marx who was loath to articulate a vision of the future
but when he did it was from the worker's practice. The Paris
Commune and the lessons we take from that were not there in
theory and practiced by Communards but vice versa. Marx
articulated their practice as a guide to how the new society would
look.  Likewise no-one had Soviets in their Party Program in 1917
- that is ti was not part of anyone's theory, despite the fact they had
first emerged in 1905 no one saw their significance.  It was Lenin's
genius in 1917 to "see" in this practice the germ of the future worker's

power and to articilate it.  I think that theory follows practice.

Jose commented that he wasn't sure in what context Lenin said this.
It is in 'What is to be done?' Draper makes the argument that a lot
of what Lenin says here is actually Kautsky whose authority Lenin
is using to buttress his argument - but even then the whole history
of these concepts is skewed.  So I think Jose intuition is right.

Check it out in:

The Myth of Lenin?s ?Concept of The Party?
http://www.marxists.org/archive/draper/works/1990/myth/


Enough for now

Shane


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