[Marxism] Partisanship and Objectivity in Theoretical Work

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

4. Dogmatism and revisionism

In contradiction to the openness and objectivity of the partisanship in
Marxist theoretical work, Marxism is customarily accused by bourgeois
ideologists of being itself a closed and restrictive system.

It may at once be admitted that the way some Marxists carry on does
sometimes give some substance for this accusation. In this connection, a few
words will be apposite on so-called "dogmatism" and "revisionism" in
Marxism.

"Dogmatism" has been variously described: reducing Marxism to a few
formulas dogmatically asserted; failing to see what is new in developing
situations, but continuing to apply to them ideas belonging to the past.

But its real essence is: bringing into Marxist ideology from
exploiting-class ideologies the ways of prohibiting and banning questions
characteristic of those ideologies.

In its so-called "struggle" against bourgeois ideology, dogmatism
introduces a kind of tit-for-tat exchange: "You ban this question, so we
shall ban that." Typical of dogmatism was Stalin's announcement (in an
article denouncing one Slutsky who had imprudently raised some questions
about Leninism) that there are certain "axioms" which must not be
questioned, one of which was that Lenin was always right.

This dogmatism is contrary to the open scientific nature of Marxism. Marx
himself declared: "De omnibus dubitandum." We must never stop our
questioning.

For our partisanship demands questioning. Questioning must go on, in order
that the working-class movement shall find its way to conduct its struggle.

So dogmatism is only a kind of sham partisanship. Dogmatists shout very loud
about "partisanship". But the noise they make holds up and restricts the
movement.

And they play right into the hands of the enemy, who can very easily
discredit their dogmatic pretensions. Dogmatists ban certain questions. It
is very easy for the enemy to stir up those very questions, leaving the
dogmatists with no defence.

Anyone raising questions is apt to be dubbed "revisionist" by the
dogmatists.

But if Marxism is scientific, and if continual questioning is revisionism,
then Marxism is by nature revisionist. Indeed, all scientific theory is and
always must be constantly under revision. And if revision is stopped,
scientific theory is stopped with it.

There is nevertheless a proper use for the opprobrious epithet
"revisionism" as there is for its opposite, "dogmatism". The term was used
in the Second International by so-called "orthodox" Marxists first of all
against Bernstein, and then used by Lenin (see, for example, his Marxism and
Revisionism), in a definite sense derived from the terminology of current
international politics, where "revisionism" meant revising frontiers. So the
term "revisionism" was used to attack those who wanted to
blur the difference and opposition between Marxist and various kinds of
bourgeois theories - to revise their frontiers.

There are such "frontiers" between Marxism and bourgeois social
theory.

Lenin insisted on three main "frontiers" of Marxism: (1) materialism as
opposed to idealism in all theory; (2) the dictatorship of the proletariat
as the necessary condition for effecting the transition from capitalism to
socialism and communism; (3) the organisation of a vanguard working-class
party.

Questions have indeed continually to be raised about all these. But when in
such questioning people pass from materialist theory to various forms of
idealism, from considering the forms to be taken by the dictatorship of the
proletariat to saying that no such thing is necessary, and from criticising
the organisation and policy of the party to saying that we do not want a
party - that is anti-Marxist revisionism.

For it means going back from Marxist theory to bourgeois theory - which is
not the product of objective consideration and analysis of all questions
about the social situation, but only of avoiding, dodging and covering up
essential facts of the social situation.

The answer to revisionism is always to show up its one-sided, partial,
unobjective, unscientific bourgeois presuppositions.

Dogmatists, for their part, never "refute" revisionism. All they succeed in
doing is to provoke and encourage it.

But dogmatism and revisionism are alike importations into Marxism of
bourgeois ideology, and its corruption by the influence of bourgeois
ideology - dogmatism by its refusal of questioning, revisionism by its
refusal to probe deeply and to take account of what has been established by
considering facts as they really are.

The Marxist opposition to revisionism is not dogmatic, and is paralleled in
science generally. For when, as a result of thoroughly investigating certain
questions, general conclusions on them have become scientifically
established, then science is opposed to
questioning these conclusions in order to revert back to earlier views that
were formed in error before the original questioning was conducted - though
not, of course, opposed to continuing to raise and to investigate questions
arising from the scientific conclusions.

Thus, for example, Galileo was once in trouble for raising questions about
the movement of the earth, in opposition to the Church which forbade such
questions because it taught that the earth is stationary at the centre of
the created universe. As a result of his and many others' work on these
questions, it has by now become scientifically established that the earth
spins on its axis as it moves around the sun.

Science is far from banning all further questions about the movement of the
earth. But it is opposed to questioning whether the earth moves at all, so
as to reintroduce ancient errors about the stationary earth - simply because
it is so well established, as the result of scientific questioning, that, as
Galileo said, "it does move".

Natural science must continue to consider any attempt to reinstate the
Ptolemaic theory as transgressing the frontiers of science. And it is just
the same with Marxism and revisionism.

5. Levels of ideology

There are two other aspects of the topic of partisanship and objectivity
that are, I think, worth mentioning.

The first arises from a point made by Gramsci, about the different social
"levels" at which ideology operates.

It was specifically in connection with the activities of the Roman Catholic
Church that Gramsci pointed out the role of the "top" intellectuals in the
continual elaboration of theory.

He pointed out that, as they produce it, theory is just theory for the top
intellectuals. It is their special province. For the masses, and to
influence the masses and serve their daily lives, there is a lower-level
theory - the mass teachings.

These levels are connected. The subtleties of the Schools are not
comprehensible to the masses and so mean little to them. But the Schools'
debates are not unconnected with what the schoolmen consider should be
taught to the masses - to put them on the right path and correct their
dangerous heresies. The subtle doctrines are brought down to the masses in
versions more suited to the mass level.

But whereas there is this connection between the levels, there can
at the same time be wide divergences. In particular, what is
presented to the masses as a very simple truth is made into something quite
different and even contradictory at the top level. For example, a reading of
what the great schoolman Aquinas had to say in his Summa Theologica about
the relationship of the soul and the body reveals that, in its subtleties,
it contradicts what the village priests customarily teach.

There are and must be different levels of ideology with Marxism likewise.
This follows, indeed, from what Engels said: "If socialism is a science it
must be studied."

Our Marxist partisanship and objectivity is shown not only in the work of
Party intellectuals in keeping the theory going and developing it in ways
required for the class struggle. It is shown in the relationship between
levels.

The "higher theory" of Marxism must never lose its relevance for the
masses. This does not mean that it must not deal with difficult specialised
scientific and philosophical questions. It must. But the relevance must not
be lost. And it must serve continually to foster and inform the fighting
consciousness of the masses.

When such relevance and service is lost, then partisanship is lost too. And
so is scientific objectivity. Theory then becomes "merely abstract",
irrelevant, out of touch with reality.

And there is another consideration too.

With the Catholic Church there is often a divergence amounting to
contradiction between the higher theory and the mass teachings or mass
propaganda. And this can happen, and sometimes does happen, with a Marxist
party.

It happens when assertions are made at the mass level which at the top
intellectual level are so qualified as to become quite different, or are
even at that level considered to be false.

Thus for "political" reasons awkward questions are covered up in the
Party's propaganda, facts swept under the carpet, things presented
differently from how they are known to be. But the awkward questions are
recognised at the top, the facts are known, and the bias of the propaganda
is known but not corrected.

Marxist theory, its partisanship and objectivity and, indeed, communist
politics in the proper sense, always demand that the Party should always
"come clean", so to speak, with the masses to whom it seeks to give service
and leadership.

Comrades dubbed "intellectuals" are often known to be "awkward" in the
Party. This is bound to happen if there is anything to be awkward about. But
only if the intellectuals are thoroughly imbued with true Marxist scientific
partisanship and objectivity, which requires great intellectual effort from
them combined with the proper humility of learning Marxism in the Party, not
intellectual conceit or arrogance, can this "awkwardness" be helpful.

6. Valuations in social theory

Finally, I want to touch on the question of partisanship and objectivity in
valuations (value judgements).

In all social theory valuations are made, in the sense of evaluating what is
done and being done, and also in the sense of evaluating social aims and
saying what ought to be aimed at and ought to be done.

In the theories of the natural sciences this valuation is absent. One does
not, for example, in considering the motion of atoms and electrons, arrive
at judgements like "that's a good electron", "that was well done by that
atom", or "that combination was a dirty reactionary one".

One does not reach any conclusions about what atoms and electrons ought to
do, as distinct from what they do do, or about what ends they should seek to
achieve. Obviously, all such judgements of value would be totally
meaningless in the context of natural sciences.

But the opposite is true when it is ourselves and our own motions and
intentions that are under consideration. Then judgements of value are
appropriate. And we are always making them. This is an essential difference
between natural and social science.

According to the latest bourgeois theory, judgements of fact and judgements
of value are quite independent the one of the other. Science is one thing,
value judgement quite another. And social science is exactly like natural
science in that value judgements do not come into it.

This separation of fact and value is a very important element in the
ideology of monopoly capitalism today. It enables the bourgeois value
judgements to be propagated without any awkward contradictions of them being
allowed to come up from objective considerations about social reality.

But for Marxism, the scientific understanding of social reality is the basis
for value judgements, and is incomplete without them.

This can be seen clearly, for example, in Capital. Marx did not only
deliver an objective analysis of capitalist society but a
condemnation of it, based on that very objective analysis. And he
did not only make a scientifically-based prediction about socialism
but a call to fight for it with a practical policy for doing
so.

For this reason, Capital is said to be slanted, biased,
unscientific. But on the contrary, the fact that its analysis is so
scientific and objective is what makes these value judgements come up so
clearly in it and from it.

It is said that if we want to consider human affairs objectively,
scientifically, we should make no value judgements. But when we do
consider them objectively and scientifically, then we do make value
judgements. And these judgements are objective rather than being
merely products of emotions, sentiments and particular class or personal
interests.

So the combined partisanship and objectivity of Marxism is expressed in the
combined partisanship and objectivity of the value judgements contained in
Marxism.

Our partisanship is shown by our value judgements, made from the standpoint
of working-class revolutionary struggle - judgements of approbation and of
disapprobation, and about the ends and means of struggle. This partisanship
itself demands the objectivity of scientific communism.


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