[Marxism] The Marxist monopoly on social revolution

[Joaquín <jbustelo@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

"Leon Trotsky" writes that Marxists "do have the monopoly on social
revolution."

This is an interesting assertion because it so perfectly captures the
sectarian spirit of more than one poster on this list. That our ersatz
"Trotsky" followed this assertion with a typically anarchist rant about the
need for Marxists to "promote atheism" in his next post is a very good
illustration of what this sectarian spirit leads to, and I contend it is not
Marxism.

The religion point has been answered with admirable brevity by Jim Craven
and it is worth quoting because it is an example of the materialist method
applied to what at first appears to be something in the most rarefied of
ideological spheres: 

"Marx was also clear that the best way to attack religion ... is to attack
the conditions and contradictions that give rise to the perceived need for
it. You attack religion by attacking capitalism not the reverse of attacking
religion to attack capitalism."

*  *  *

The idea that Marxists have "the monopoly on social revolution," if it is a
meaningful statement, says that the adherents of a specific ideological
outlook have this monopoly.

As such, it is an idealist statement, a non-Marxist statement, for if
anything should be obvious from the most brushing acquaintance with the
theory, it is the proposition that in the sphere of the class struggle,
ideology is not decisive: ideology is shaped by and expresses material facts
on the ground.

It is also a statement subject to verification by checking historical facts.
These, however, do not bear out the assertion, quite the contrary. And I am
not talking about going back centuries to the French Revolution or something
like that, although that is another demonstration of the falsity of the
statement.

But take, for example, the Cuban Revolution, one closest to us in historical
terms and one that has been extensively documented. The ostensible Marxists
in Cuba were represented by the pro-Moscow People's Socialist Party. This
group did not play a major role in the revolutionary overthrow of the
Batista dictatorship, and in the couple of years that followed and
culminated with the expropriation of the bourgeoisie as a class as an
ideological formation it hardly played a vanguard role, though its ranks did
provide many valuable and self-sacrificing cadre to the revolution. 

As late as the summer and fall of 1960, while Che Guevara was suggesting
that the Cuban Revolution was Marxist because it had discovered through its
own experience the validity of what Marx had said, the PSP staunchly
defended the theses that the socialist transformation of society was not on
the agenda, the Cuban Revolution was limited to anti-imperialist and
democratic tasks. The PSP, of course, reserved the monopoly on social
revolution for itself.

It can easily be argued that ideologically the PSP was Stalinist or
Revisionist, and should not be considered Marxist at all, most obviously
from the way it posited some sort of struggle against an "imperialism" that
did not involve, in the end, taking on capitalism, as if imperialism were
something other than simply the highest stage of capitalism.

But that argument very quickly reduces itself to the argument that the only
real Marxists are the members --all 152 of them-- of the One and Only Truly
Revolutionary Party, which, oh happy coincidence, just happens to have the
honor of having oneself as a member.

Either way, however, the hypothesis that Marxists have a monopoly on social
revolution  is refuted, unless one wants to argue that the Cubans, the
Yanqui imperialists and the overwhelming majority of political actors on a
world stage for half a century have had it wrong, and in reality, nothing
much of transcendent significance took place on that island beginning in
1959.

*  *  *

I suggest that rather than trying to establish an intellectual property
monopoly in the social revolution field, we would be better served if folks
on the list went back to the founding Manifesto of the Communist movement
and reread especially the first few paragraphs of the section on Communists
and Proletarians.

"In what relation do the Communists stand to the proletarians as a whole?
The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to the other
working-class parties. 

"They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as
a whole. 

"They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape
and mold the proletarian movement.

"The Communists are distinguished from the other working-class parties by
this only: 

"(1) In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different
countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the
entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 

"(2) In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working
class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and
everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole. 

"The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand practically, the most
advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country,
that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand,
theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the
advantage of clearly understanding the lines of march, the conditions, and
the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.

"The immediate aim of the Communists is the same as that of all other
proletarian parties: Formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of
the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the proletariat. 

"The theoretical conclusions of the Communists are in no way based on ideas
or principles that have been invented, or discovered, by this or that
would-be universal reformer."

*  *  *

Thus far Marx and Engels. Far from claiming a monopoly on social revolution,
or even specifically proletarian revolution, Marx and Engels say that the
immediate aim is one they share with other proletarian parties, so much so
that the Communists do not form a separate party . The big "advantage" the
Communists have over the rest of the participants in the proletarian
movement is simply "clearly understanding"; this allows them to be in
practice "the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class
parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others."

As an ideological trend, revolutionary Marxism has been so denatured by its
admixture with nascent Stalinism in the form of what's been called on this
list "Zinovievism" that Marx and Engels's straightforward propositions seem
hopelessly outdated, even fantastic.

Marx and Engels's strategic line was "formation of the proletariat into a
class," by which clearly here is meant a conscious political force, not its
further development as a socio-economic class, the distinction Marx makes in
earlier writings with the terms "class in itself" and "class for itself."

The strategic line followed by the Communist movement since 1917 has largely
been different,  trying to win the workers to a certain party. 

Most soi-disant "Leninists" view the two ideas as being the same, the latter
(the "Leninist Strategy of Party Building") being simply a way of going
about the former ("formation of the proletariat into a class"). But I think
in reality they are two entirely different approaches.

The Marx-Engels approach has as its starting point the real living movement;
the Zinovievist approach, the party's program and ideology.

It was precisely this adherence to the latter approach that caught my eye in
our ersatz Trotsky's comments.

Joaquín


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