A Rational Critique of Marxism and Communism - VIII
(Selected Passages from the book:
"Beyond Communism" by M. N. Roy.) - 3
1. "The philosophical point of departure of our politics is derived from the eleventh thesis of Karl Marx on Feuerbach: until now, philosophers have interpreted the world; now they must remake it. So, to have some clearly defined philosophical principles as the basis of a political theory is not deviation from Marxism. Commenting upon Marx, we say that until now politics has been practiced by loafers and charlatans; now some principles will have to be introduced in it by men who are guided by a philosophy." (Page : 25)
2. "The Marxist analysis ignored the numerous and important middle class in capitalist society. In the period of decay, the middle class loses its faith in capitalism, but it is not proletarianised, not in the intellectual and cultural sense, at any rate. It remains loyal to the values of bourgeois culture even when losing faith in capitalist economy. It also demands, at least feels the necessity of, a social revolution, though not of the proletarian type. This change in the social orientation of the middle class is the conclusive evidence of the decomposition of the capitalist order. It is the Nemesis – own blood turning against oneself.
Exactly that is happening to-day. But because this very significant process was not visualized in the Marxist scheme of the dissolution of bourgeois society and the resulting revolutionary crisis, orthodox Marxists of our time blinded by their orthodoxy, would not take notice of it, even when it takes place under their very nose. The middle class, though still loyal to the tradition of the so-called bourgeois culture, is actually revolting against the economic relations and political practices of the passing bourgeois society. It has become an active factor of the impending social revolution. The middle class is dissatisfied with the established order. They do not want to rehabilitate it. But they are not prepared to accept orthodox Marxist ideals: they are repelled particularly by communist political practice, and the negative attitude to cultural tradition and ethical values.
Proper appreciation of this development, which no longer permits of the doctrine that the proletariat is the only revolutionary class, is the crying need of the moment. The army of revolution has swelled; but the unexpected (by Marxist orthodoxy) accession of strength must be properly evaluated and skillfully integrated. That cannot be done on the basis of an antiquated theory of the relation of forces in the social crisis of our time. Marxist economism cannot move the middle class towards the ideal of social reconstruction. The cultural tradition of modern civilized mankind and universal ethical values must be given their due importance in the philosophy of the revolution of our time. Nobody has as yet raised the philosophical platform on which the greatly swelled army of revolution can stand together." (Pages : 27, 28)
3. "Freedom is a human ideal, whereas truth is a metaphysical category. How can we deduce the one from the other? Quest for freedom in human evolution is purposive. The struggle for existence is no longer carried on by mechanical adaptation. On the human level, it is carried on by purposive efforts for the conquest of nature. What differentiated man from his immediate ancestor? ……………………………………………………… ……………………..The moment an ape discovered that he could break a branch and pluck fruits with it, the process of mechanical evolution ended; purposiveness became the basic feature of the subsequent biological evolution. Man's struggle for the conquest of nature began. The struggle of existence became quest for freedom. From that very modest beginning, we have come to the twentieth century with its modern technology; powerful instruments for conquering nature, all invented by man, no longer for mere existence, but in quest, from freedom. Science is a search for truth, and it is the result of man's quest for freedom. Therefore we say that search for truth is the corollary to the quest for freedom. In quest of freedom, ever since biological evolution became purposive, man strove for the conquest of nature; knowledge of nature was a precondition for the success of that striving. Science was thus a by-product of man's quest for freedom, and science reveals truth." (Pages : 30, 31)
4. "Truth is correspondence with objective reality. Scientific knowledge does give us at least an approximate picture of what we are studying, either of the whole of nature or of any particular sector thereof. Therefore we say that truth is the content of knowledge. We have the knowledge that two plus two is four. That is a truth. You can take any two things and add two more things, the result will always be four things. That is an invariable phenomenon. It happens under all circumstances. We might say that truth is a mathematical concept. But mathematics is only a manner of measuring things, otherwise immeasurable, of judging statements of facts beyond the reach of direct experience. Thus, quest for freedom does result in knowledge, and the content of knowledge is truth; knowledge always is acquaintance with reality. Truth being correspondence with reality, the content of knowledge is truth." (Page : 31)
5. "A physiological process can be reduced to chemical and physical processes, and they again, ultimately, to atoms or electrical fields. So the origin of mental activities can be traced in the physical background of the living world. Ideas are not sui generis metaphysical entities which somehow interject themselves into the material make-up of man; nor are they a priori ethereal forms pre-existing or existing simultaneously with the events of the material world. So, as regards the origin of ideas, there is no dualism in our philosophy. As foundation of a philosophy, monism is preferable, but it would be naïve to apply it to the multifarious manifestations of the phenomena of life. In formulating the fundamental principles of our philosophy, we only say that, while ideas do not grow by themselves, they can be traced to the background of the physical Universe; once they are formed, they have an existence of their own. After the generation of ideas, the single basic current of physical events bifurcates, so to say; the biological world, on the higher levels of evolution, is composed of a double process – dynamics of ideas and succession of physical facts. Mind and matter can be reduced to a common denominator; but, as such, they are two objective realities. Descartes went halfway – as far as to recognize the objective reality of matter; but he failed to find the bridge over the apparent gulf between mind and matter. Ever since, scientific philosophy was vitiated by dualism. Reading Descartes more closely, we learn that he did discover the bridge; but courage failed him at the bridgehead. He would not go over it. He went as far as to declare that animals were machines. Are not human beings also animals? Descartes begged the question, because he could not reasonably give a negative answer. It is not generally known that one of his disciples carried the master's revolutionary thought to its logical consequence. De la Metrie wrote a whole book called "L' Homme Machine" (Man is Machine). Biological knowledge, vastly enriched since the days of Descartes, has made his arbitrary dualism utterly untenable.
With the help of scientific knowledge, philosophy can go beyond Descartes, abolish his arbitrary dualism, and build the bridge over the gulf which seems to separate the mental world from the material world. But even with scientific knowledge, philosophy could not break out of the vicious circle of dualism, unless and until it was realized that monism did not exclude the pluralism of the phenomenal world. We show that by saying that ideas once formed, exist independently as objective realities, governed by their own laws. Any attempt to deny the objective reality of ideas only vulgarizes monism. The problem was to explain the genesis of ideas without going outside the physical world. We have solved the problem by tracing the double process (mental and physical) of the biological world, including the process of social evolution, to a common origin." (Pages : 32, 33)
6. "To the extent that Idealism claims autonomy for the mental world, we agree. Without denying the creativeness of the human mind, the objective reality of ideas cannot be disputed. Monism cannot be strictly applied to history from the economic point of view, you see only one aspect of it. History must be studied as the process of integral human evolution – mental, intellectual, social. We must trace the parallel currents of ideal and physical events. Connecting new ideas causally to eatablished economic relations, we put things on their head. It is an experience of history that invariably a new ideology rises to herald a new social order. New ideas inspire action for the destruction of established economic relations and the creation of new ones. Karl Marx himself could not deny that. So, we shall have to answer the question: How does a new revolutionary ideology develop? A new system of ideas grows out of older systems. That is to say, ideas have a history of their own. The relation between the growth of a new ideology and the rise of a new social class is not causal, either way; it is accidental. A new ideology expresses the urge for human progress. The same urge also expresses itself in social dynamics through the rise of a new class, which finds in the new ideology a justification for its strivings and incentive for action." (Page : 34)
7. "Materialist philosophy; as I understand it, does not warrant the contention that ideas do not have an independent existence of their own: we can trace the development of ideas as a logical process from the birth of humanity until our days, without referring it anywhere causally to social movements. I categorically reject the view that ethical values, cultural patterns, movements of ideas, are mere ideological super-structures raised to justify established economic relations. It has been asserted that causal relations between ideas and historical events can be established. Yes, but in the reverse direction, not in the Marxist sense. If you mean that sort of causal connection, where ideas have the causative force, then you throw away the economic interpretation of history."(Pages : 37, 38)
8. "Once again, I say, I am a confirmed, unmitigated, materialist, philosophically. I am of the opinion that Materialism is the only philosophy possible; any other philosophy, in the last analysis, takes us outside the physical Universe, into the wilderness of a mystical metaphysics over which presides God; it makes no difference if creation out of nothing is conceived mathematically (a contradiction in terms) or anthropomorphically, or pantheistically, or in any other of the subtle and sophisticated ways which modern men in search of God imagine to have discovered. The result in each case is the end of man's freedom on this earth. If philosophy, that is, an explanation of being and becoming, cannot free us from the freezing grip of fate, why not remain satisfied with the honest religious mode of thought? All systems of philosophy other than Materialism are dishonest religion; they smuggle religiosity in through the backdoor; perhaps their founders and propounders do not realize that; but that does not alter the significance of their intellectual gymnastics. Once the significance dawns on them, and they have the intellectual honesty, all non-materialist or ant-materialist philosophers must echo Kant's famous declaration: philosophy ultimately reaches a point where it must yield place to faith. Perhaps that admirable intellectual honestly of Kant is to be traced to the materialist point of departure of his philosophy also.
But prejudice apart, Materialism has been brought to disrepute by its fanatical defenders who are simply incapable of thinking philosophically, because they cannot appreciate the supreme importance of the human spirit (please note the word, human) and implicity deny the creativeness of man's mind. Materialism must be raised above the level of the vulgarity of dogmatic orthodoxy, and developed so as to conform with the advancing knowledge of nature, from physics to psychology, if it is to carry conviction to all thinking minds, and be generally accepted as the gospel of freedom – of course, only by the lovers of freedom." (Pages : 38, 39)
9. "Much evidence can be adduced in support of the contention that gaps in social and political history can be filled in by deductions from the history of thought. That can be done because movements of thought always preceded epoch-making social and political events. Let it be repeated that, at no point of history, ideas were divinely inspired. From any point of their history, ideas can be traced back to their biological origin, which is embedded in the background of the physical Universe. To illustrate my argument, I may refer to the history of the Renaissance and Reformation. Both are considered to be bourgeois movements. That is to say, those ideological ferments were produced by the rise of the commercial classes. That is simply not true historically. Genoa was the most prosperous trading Republic of the time; it did not produce a single man of the Renaissance. It was untouched by the spirit of Humanism. So was Venice until the late Renaissance. On the other hand, Florence, where the great Men of the Renaissance were born, was not a trading Republic. The Medicis were not bourgeois; socially, they were classical representatives of medievalism. There was no connecting link, no causal connection, between Renaissance Humanism and the rising bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie of the time did not support the Renaissance. Therefore, some modern sociologists have condemned the Renaissance as a reactionary aristocratic movement. But if we want to regard history as a progressive process, we shall have to look for the source of inspiration of the Renaissance. It was in the ancient pagan culture of Greece and Rome. The Renaissance was the revolt of man against God; as such, it heralded the modern civilization and the philosophy of freedom, Materialism."(Pages : 40, 41)
10. "Malinovski or Westermark define superstition as misapplied rationalism; economic interpretation of history similarly is often misapplied determinism. Two things happen together, and it is maintained that one is caused by the other. Great confusion is created consequently." (Page : 41)
11. "As against the exploded Marxist Utopia of a stagnant society or the reality of a permanent dictatorship, we revert to the humanist ideal of freedom. I am not ashamed to say that I derive my inspiration from the Renaissance. Karl Marx was also a humanist. His followers have forgotten that he declared man to be the root of mankind. I do not think that anything more can be said with reference to the doubt about the relation between the movement of ideas and the operation of material social forces. As a materialist, I regard them as two currents in the integral process of human evolution; the two together constitute human evolution. In so far as our philosophy traces the origin of human evolution to the background of the physical Universe, it is Materialism. But it differentiates itself from Marxist materialist determinism by recognizing the autonomy of the mental world, in the context of physical nature. In building up a social philosophy on the basis of Materialism, we do not allot a subsidiary role to ideas. Originating in the pre-human stage of biological evolution, emotion and intelligence are decisive factors of social and historical progress. The behavior of human beings is determined by the autonomous movement of ideas as well as the dynamics of social evolution. They influence each other continuously; history can be regarded as an organic process only in that sense." (Pages: 42, 43)
12. "In biology, we come up against such terms as instinct, intuition, impulse, etc. Are they all elementary indefinables? Are they just given a priori? Materialism knows no elementary indefinable. It reduces everything to the common denominator of the physical Universe, subject to its fundamental law. Not finding a rational explanation of reason in biology, I go farther. The entire physical Universe is a determined process – of becoming. Therefore, I identify reason with determinism in nature. All biological processes, including man's mental activities, take place in the context of the physical Universe, being integral parts thereof. So reason is a property of physical existence. It is neither metaphysical nor a mystic category.
The physical Universe is law-governed; nothing happens without a cause; it is rational. Thus, we place reason in the physical Universe. Only when biological processes are discovered to be a continuation of determinism in physical nature, does it become possible to explain rationally such mysterious phenomena as instinct, intuition, impulse, etc. They can be traced to their origin in the mechanism of pre-human evolution. Tracing the rational thread further downwards, we come up against the problem of another missing link in the chain of evolution: the origin of life. How does life grow out of the background of inanimate nature? Unless that problem is solved, you cannot reduce reason to determinism in the physical Universe. The problem is no longer baffling, even if we take an extremely skeptical attitude towards the suggested solution. The first appearance of life out of certain chemical processes can be theoretically conceived, though it may not yet be experimentally demonstrated.
There is an unbroken chain connecting the elementary indefinables of psychology with physics; it runs through physiology, cytology and chemistry. Once the rationality (determinateness) of the mysterious phenomena of instinct, intuition, impulse, etc., is revealed, the chain can be traced to the other direction also – to the highest expressions and greatest creations of the human mind. There is an unbroken chain of evolution from the vibratory mass of electric currents to the highest flights of human intelligence, emotion, imaginanation – to abstract philosophical thought, recondite mathematical theories, the sublimest poetry, the master works of arts. Only the materialist philosophy, call it by any other name you may prefer – such as Physical Realism, Scientific Rationalism, Materialist Monism – can trace this red thread of unity running through the entire cosmic system of being and becoming. Unless that is done, we cannot explain history. If we cannot explain man, if we cannot show that man is an instinctively, naturally, rational being, history cannot be explained. History is a rational process because it is made by man. If you can never know how man will behave in a given situation, you cannot make a science of history."(Pages : 44, 45)
13. "To eliminate the present inequities of life, society should be economically reconstructed in a certain manner. But we do not assert dogmatically that abolition of private ownership, nationalization of the means of production, planned economy, will necessarily establish an equalitarian social order; and remove all restrictions for the unfolding of human potentialities. The misgiving is no longer theoretical; there is the Russian experience to learn from. Our critical attitude to Russia is entirely objective. Personally, I would go to the extent of saying that the Russians could not do anything else. But the fact remains that they have done what has actually happened, not what was desired, nor as is still imagined by blind believers. After that experience, it will be sheer dogmatism to say that, if Indian society was reconstructed according to a certain plan, the pattern of the future would be predetermined. The variables of the equations of social science are not infinite, but they are innumerable. It is not possible to take them all into account at any given moment. Therefore, with all the concreteness of a political programme and economic plan, one cannot foresee exactly what will be the relation of forces after the revolution, how the post-revolutionary society will be actually constructed; numerous uncalculated and contingent forces having come into operation in the meantime, what will be the ambition of men at that time? How can we say now if then there will be one or ten political parties? We can only say that we shall not be there."(Pages : 48, 49)
14. "Political practice need not be motivated by the lust for power. The Radical Democratic State, being based on the widest diffusion of power, power actually wielded by the entire people, will leave no opportunity for any party to capture power in the name of the people or a particular class. A party working for the establishment of such a political order will naturally be composed of detached individuals. Why is it so difficult to imagine a detached individual? In Marxist parlance, we have the word declassed individuals. You come from the bourgeois class. You break away from that class and join another class. The proletariat. But then you are no longer declassed. You attach yourself to a new class. Karl Marx was not so primitive. He could not elaborate the idea. The idea of declassed or detached individuals can be traced back to Plato, who was the first to realize that a society could be ideal if it had completely detached individuals for its rulers – the so-called Philosopher-Kings. The Marxian scheme of proletarian dictatorship had a striking resemblance with the Platonic utopia. According to Karl Marx, the Communist Party was to be composed of the philosophers of the proletariat. Revolutionary vanguard of the class is not just a verbal cliché. Their purpose would be to establish an ideal society. The utopian idea of the State withering away has a profound significance which has been missed by its protagonists. It was that the proletarian State was not to be a vested interest; it should be only the means to an end – an instrument in the hand of detached individuals who did not wish to hang on to power. As soon as the end of communist society was reached, the instrument should be thrown away. That supreme act of sacrifice could be performed only by individuals with no attachment, by philosophers pursuing the urge for freedom. Therefore, Marx expressly wrote that the time had come for philosophy to remake the world. Only through philosophers could philosophy perform the mission Marx entrusted to her.
Unfortunately, carried away by his idea of class struggle, Marx used wrong words to express his great idea of power being vested in detached individuals during the transition period. If a class captured power to suppress other classes, it can never be divested of power. Therefore, dictatorship of the proletariat was a palpably inappropriate term to express Marx's idea; it was bound to defeat its end. Exactly that has happened. The Communist Party did not rise as an association of philosophers, acting as instruments of philosophy remaking the world; to reconstruct the world rationally as a common-wealth of free moral men replacing the greedy economic men of the modern fable. Instead of becoming an association of spiritually free men striving to make others conscious of the urge for freedom inherent in themselves, the Communist Party was fascinated by the prospect of capturing power and wielding it dictatorially in the name of the proletariat. A party deliberately forged as the instrument for capturing power could not possibly help its members to grow up to the stature of free men. Thirsting for dictatorial power, it voluntarily submitted itself to an internal dictatorship. The magic word "discipline" did the trick. The individuality of its members was sacrificed at the altar or the collective ego of the party; and a party is the archetype of the society it proposes to build."(Pages : 49, 50, 51)
15. "The future society which we propose to establish will depend on the number of detached individuals who have inherited the humanist tradition. I believe that is possible. The decisive factor is education. Such a high degree of education cannot be obtained before the revolution for all individuals; not before the Radical Democratic State is established. But in a vast country like India, a sufficiently large number of men and women, moved by the urge for freedom, can educate themselves. And once that preliminary condition is created the process will accelerate under its own momentum. The revolution will take place as a matter of course." (Page : 51)
(to be continued)
New Orientation
M.N.Roy
Ajanta Publications (India)
Jawahar Nagar,
Delhi – 110 007
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment