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philosophy of marxism
PART THREE - Revolutionary Role of the Proletariat
I will begin with a short quote from the first page of Chapter I of the "Communist Manifesto." It's titled, "Bourgeois and Proletarians":The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.
Freeman and slave, patrician and plebian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in the revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes.
I want to call your attention to the main idea in this quotation. And that is the idea that each time the class struggle ends, it ends either in social revolution or the ruin of the contending classes.
The collapse of the Roman Empire, which was based on chattel slavery, was a case in point. While the slaves of Roman society were fully capable of rebellion, they were incapable of initiating a revolutionary reconstitution of existing society.
The reason for this is that neither the slaves nor any other class in Roman society represented an alternative system capable of expanding the level of the productive forces.
Thus, as it turned out, the slave system ended in the "mutual ruin of the contending classes" and Roman civilization disintegrated.
Feudalism too, was based on slavery, but of a different kind. Under the Roman system of chattel slavery, the total product of the slaves' labor was the property of the slaveowner. However, under the feudal system, the lords of the land claimed a right to only half the product of the serfs' labor. But it was slavery, nonetheless.
But while the serfs were also in unending conflict with their oppressors, they, like the slaves before them, were not the bearers of an alternative mode of production and their rebellions led them into a blind alley. However, in the towns and cities of feudal society a new class, the bourgeoisie, emerged that did represent a higher economic system.
And it's a matter of history that the bourgeois class in the feudal cities mobilized all sectors of the population in town, city and countryside around the revolutionary slogan of Liberty! Fraternity! Equality!
The bourgeoisie thereby succeeded in leading all those oppressed by the feudal lords in the revolutionary reconstitution of society. Feudal society, based on the predominance of landed property right over all other rights, was overthrown. Capitalist property and capitalist production became dominant and opened the door to the vast expansion of the forces of production.
The socialist revolution begins
With the conquest by capitalism over feudalism, a new struggle began. Along with the explosive expansion of the productive forces set into motion by the capitalist revolution, the working class grew and the struggle between capitalists and workers expanded in scope and in intensity.
And just as the bourgeois revolution grew inside the womb of feudal society, so too did the proletarian revolution also begin to gestate inside the womb of capitalist society.
Now, to understand the source of the revolutionary potential of the proletariat, it's vital for revolutionary socialists to understand how capitalism actually socializes productive relations in the workplace and, in the process, develops the proletariat into the revolutionary class.
Thus, strange as it may seem, all capitalists, in course of advancing their own narrow class interests, must compel their workers to cooperate. Every worker in every separate capitalist enterprise is assigned a set of tasks-each worker being compelled by the boss to act in close cooperation with all others in the various stages of the production of commodities.
In other words, capitalists impose a consciously organized system of socialized productive relations to be carried out by their wage workers for the sole benefit of their employer.
Next time you go for a hamburger at MacDonalds, you can see such a highly organized, cooperating collection of socialized workers in action carrying out the plan of and for their capitalist.
At the same time, the socialized labor process in each factory is diametrically opposed to the anarchic system of capitalist production outside each plant-that is, in the economy when it is considered as a whole.
Now think what that means! It means that inside the factory, the conflict is between workers and bosses. But, at the very same time, outside the factory there is a relentless competitive struggle between each capitalist against all others.
The collectivization of the labor process in the capitalist factory has an even more important revolutionary consequence. The system of socialized production creates an intuitive sense of collective ownership among workers.
This seemingly strange and paradoxical result of the socialized productive system inside the capitalist workplace derives directly from the alienation of workers from the product of their individual labor.
While there are few workers who understand how the seemingly fair exchange of labor power for wages is robbery, they feel it, nonetheless. It's intuitive-that is, workers know that somehow or other the bosses who do no work wind up with everything, while they-in their great majority-end up empty-handed after a lifetime of hard work.
That's why in good times, when workers have jobs and can pay their bills, they tend only to struggle for higher wages, shorter hours, better working conditions and other reforms.
However, in bad times, when warehouses are glutted with unsold goods and factories start shutting down, and the army of unemployed swells, everything changes. Workers begin seeing things in the light of the new conditions. They tend to feel that they have no choice but to challenge the system that has left them on the edge of permanent pauperization and homelessness
But what contributes heavily to the revolutionary character of the proletariat is that they are the only class that has the raw economic power to turn the tables on the capitalist class. This power derives primarily from their strategic position at all the points of production, transportation, communication and distribution. If the workers as a class say stop, everything stops!
Of course that isn't the end of the story, not by a long shot. Revolutionary leadership is indispensable for making the most out of any situation and avoiding all the traps set for them by the capitalist class and its agents inside the ranks of the working class.
There is another, no less important factor contributing to the revolutionary potential of the working class. Workers have been trained by the capitalist mode of production to be disciplined, punctual, exceedingly cooperative, and aware of the importance of planning and centralized command-all this training, of course, to be carried out for the sole benefit of the capitalist and the maximization of profits.
However, workers throughout the history of capitalism have turned the skills taught them by capitalists to their own purpose and to the advantage of their class.
Working-class organizations, like trade unions and workers' political parties, tend to be organized according to the principles of efficient cooperative action they were taught in capitalism's mines, mills, factories, and railroads. But with a big difference: all skills learned in the school of capitalist production are applied by workers, for the exclusive benefit of workers-not capitalists.
Moreover, just as workers can only reclaim the full product of their labor collectively, so too their organizations must be commanded collectively-that is, democratically and by the workers themselves.
And like the revolutionary bourgeoisie of the 17th and 18th centuries, who reconstituted society by subordinating landed property to capitalist property, the working class is the only section of society with the power to carry out a revolutionary reconstitution of society on a socialist basis.
In other words, that's why the nationalization of industry organized according to a plan integrating every sphere of production, distribution, and communication for the production of things needed by society is called socialism. And the only class capable of leading the human race toward that goal is the working class.
The class of chattel slaves and serfs had no alternative social system to slavery and feudalism-that is, they had no alternative form of property ownership peculiar to them as slaves and serfs to put in the place of the existing social order.
But as we have seen, the working class does indeed have an alternative social order to put in place after the revolutionary overthrow of the capitalist class. And socialism-a society based on production for us-is in every way superior to the capitalist system of production for profit.
Strange as it might seem at first sight, the socialized system of production in a typical well-organized large capitalist industrial enterprise serves as a model for the socialist organization of the economy as a whole. We need only to apply the planned and cooperative organization of production inside the capitalist enterprise to the economy as a whole.
But instead of capitalists doing the planning, elected representatives of the workers in every industry would come together to work up a plan for the production of all the things needed in a modern industrial society.
That's what Lenin called the third component part of Marxism-the revolutionary character of the working class.
The dialectics of class struggle
The last topic I will discuss now is the application of dialectical materialism to political problems in the class struggle and the question of revolutionary leadership.
Leon Trotsky, for instance, in his book "In Defense of Marxism," went into great detail regarding the many conflicting forces involved in the global class struggle preceding and during World War II. It would take too much of the time left to me today to even so much as list them all.
But I will tell you a couple of thought-provoking ideas he presents in that book. Trotsky explained that every important political problem related to proletarian internationalism and the world proletarian revolution was fundamental.
But, he explained that while nationalism is in polar opposition to internationalism, the struggle of the oppressed nationalities against the ruling capitalist oppressor is an organic part of the class struggle.
As you can see, I'm talking about the nationalism of the oppressed, which is diametrically opposed to the nationalism of the oppressor.
But it can sometimes be difficult to determine when the nationalism of the oppressed and proletarian internationalism are in harmony or not; and most importantly, the question of which may take precedence in any given concrete situation.
And finally, a correct solution to the problem depends on the overall context of the given problem, and after all factors are taken into consideration-in a word, when considered from the viewpoint that the thing as a whole is qualitatively greater than the sum of its parts.
For instance, what should we say and do when two oppressed nationalities find themselves at cross purposes? That's often a very difficult problem, and there's no rule that applies in all cases.
On the other hand, what does apply in every instance is whether or not it advances or retards the overall class interests and unity of the workers of the world.
After all, that's why Trotsky called the world movement he founded "the world party of socialist revolution." Moreover, the Second and Third Internationals were founded on essentially, the same idea.
And that's why Lenin and Trotsky in the Soviet Union led the break from the Second International to found the Third International, and why Trotsky and James P. Cannon in this country led the break from the Third International to found the Fourth International.
The terrible plight of the nations of Africa, all of which are oppressed by world imperialism, is another case in point. There, we can see case after case of dominant nationalities oppressing those under their sway.
And, while chauvinism is always wrong and we are always in principled opposition to ethnic oppression, at the same time we should never lose sight of the role of imperialism that sets it all in motion.
World imperialism, for instance, raped, murdered and pillaged the peoples of Africa and imposed the world's most appallingly miserable conditions of life on all the oppressed nations of Africa. At the very same time each of the world's imperialist powers were in an economic war with all others to cut out for themselves as large and juicy a piece of Africa as possible.
And from time to time, like a pack of hyenas devouring the carcass of their killed animal, they snarl and snap at each other. But unlike hyenas, imperialists-like all capitalist predators-are greedy. They use their military power to settle disputed claims among them over the hunks of the captive peoples in the neocolonial world.
Two world wars, and many smaller wars, before and since, were fought by competing packs of imperialist hyenas for the largest and choicest morsels of Africa, Asia, and South America. And always for the highest possible humanitarian motives.
So, you can see, that so long as imperialism is allowed to relentlessly suck Africa dry, the lives of ordinary people become as desperate as those in the proverbial lifeboat adrift and helpless on a vast ocean.
Thus, while the nationalism of the oppressed and their resistance to oppression is entirely just, it's a long way away from a solution. And worse: In such situations it can became a substitute for a common struggle by all the super-exploited and oppressed against the imperialists who oppress them all!
The only real and lasting solution is a struggle by all the exploited and oppressed in Africa and in the world as a whole against capitalist imperialism, which feeds on us all. And need I say, without the slightest regard for the fate of the meal they are devouring.
"Humanitarian" imperialists? "Good" capitalists? Now, those are good examples of a contradiction in terms!
My emphasis throughout this talk, as you could not help but notice, has been on Lenin's profoundly simple description of the essence of the dialectic-that it is "the cognition of the one and its division into antagonistic parts."
The dialectic of the revolutionary workers' party
That takes me to the final and most important example of the dialectic of the revolutionary proletarian party. How does the democratic process in Socialist Action work? How do we decide on what to do next and then how to carry it out?
Our democratic system is based on the Leninist organizational concept called democratic centralism. Democratic centralism has absolutely nothing to do with the Stalinist bureaucratic perversion of Leninism. In fact, democratic centralism is diametrically opposed to the bureaucratic centralism of Stalinism. Genuine Leninist organizational principles are in every way more democratic than any other form of democracy.
Democratic centralism is not an equivalent to an Orwellian contradiction in terms such as the very well known, Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. No, that is a beautiful example of sharp criticism by an effective satirist getting to the heart of the inconsistency of such expressions as "humanitarian imperialist," or "pro-labor capitalist."
But rather than proving the difference purely by abstract analysis, let's take a look at how it works in real life to see the internal organic consistency of the term, democratic centralism.
I give the following example of how democratic centralism works because it is the way union's function-at least where strikes and other class actions are concerned. Trade unionists, however, would never dream of calling their democratic system by any such a term.
This is how it works in many unions to this day, despite more than a half century of bureaucratic and corrupt misleadership. When a majority decision to strike has been made in a union with an average membership, every member is obliged to do their level best to secure the goals of their strike.
The minority that might have voted against the decision to strike are free to disagree, but they are nonetheless obliged to abide by the decision of the majority.
Thus, in practice, any member of the given union-or anyone else for that matter-who attempts to cross the picket line set up by striking workers has put themselves on the side of the class enemy in the course of a class battle. And you can be sure that workers know by tradition and intuition how to stop scabs from breaking their strike.
Whether the strike succeeds or not depends on many factors. As a general rule, striking workers unable to keep out strikebreakers tend to lose their strike, all other factors being equal. But on the other side of the question is the fact that those who succeed in shutting production down tight have tended to be victorious.
What may seem most remarkable, however, is that neither Lenin nor Trotsky claimed credit for inventing this democratic centralist organizational principle. That, in fact, is simply because this principle was first deduced by Lenin from careful study of the history of the workers' struggle. But even that is dialectical if you think about it a little bit.
That's it, that's the philosophy of Marxism. And that's what this party is based upon. We invite you to find out more about what it means to join Socialist Action and/or Youth for Socialist Action. The days ahead are sure to be more fateful and world historic in their significance than you might imagine.
