[Marxism] Permanent Revolution

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Lause
Carrol Cox wrote, "The assumption that there is some general theory that
will act as a concrete guide to each nation's revolutionary struggle is bad
theory, and has caused a great deal of nonsense and confusion over the last
50 to 80 years."

Absolutely.  And it goes back to the very problematic nature of the
nineteenth century idea of "social science."  It is a pretentious and
ultimately bourgeois notion.

There are general lessons having to do with structures in the messiness, but
very few that have clear meaning, and none without reference to contexts and
structures.

Solidarity!
Mark L.

^^^^^
CB: Does Permanent Revolution take place through a series of temporary
theories and theoryless times, new theories running in and out of the heads
of the revolutionaries ? What's permanent in it ?

Reminds of Bernstein's "struggle" without goals, aims, ends,strategy,
purposes. The struggle continues; victory is certain. But what would a
victory be ?

History is a history of class struggles.  The working classes wage the
revolutionary struggles. This is general internationally.

"Workers of the world , unite !  " unites theory and practice in a slogan,
or mandate to action. The theory is that division of the working class on
national and racial lines is divide and rule tactic of the capitalist ruling
class. This theory is valid internationally right now, today.

Also, general theory in the era of capitalism is that the capitalists are
the ruling class, and revolution consists in displacing the capitalists from
ruling class power.

There are other propositions of generally valid in capitalist times.

There are also nationally specific theories, and temporarily valid theories
within the capitalist era.

Marxist literature is full of mention of the need to understand the
relationship between the general and the specific, the universal and the
particular. It is not a Marxist position to say there is no general, rather
to determine the relationship between the general and the specific,
including the international and the national.

Engels gave us the aphorism that Marxism is not a dogma, but a guide to
action. This does not dispense with theory.


Yes, lots of things will be spontaneous. There is nothing theoreticians can
do or would do to stop spontaneous actions by masses - civil disorders in
the city, whatever. But we don't surrender to spontaneity and activistism (
see Featherstone , Henwood and Parenti :>))


Some social theories will be wrong in specific situations; have been wrong.
How do we know ? They failed in practice.

Just like lots of specific natural scientific theories have been wrong. That
doesn't become a reason to reject theory, in general, in theory !

More theory, more socialism !





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