RATIONALISM AND COMMUNISM - X

A Rational Critique of Marxism and Communism - X

(Selected Passages from: "Anthology of M. N. Roy's

Writings: Essence of Royism")

1.    Marxism and Philosophy

 "Marxism revolutionizes philosophy itself. It sets new tasks to philosophy; previously philosophy has simply tried to explain the world, but in future it must point out the way to a reconstruction of the world". (Page:139)

 2.    Marxism - Intelligent Understanding

 "Its mechanical orthodox protagonists regard Marxism as the philosophy of the proletariat. If that was a correct appreciation of Marxism, if it was the ideology only of the proletarian revolution, Marxism would be of no immediate use for us in this country. We cannot take up that position, because our point of departure is acceptance of Marxism, and that is not a mechanical acceptance. We do not profess Marxism fanatically as converts to a new religion. Our profession is based upon an intelligent understanding. Therefore, we cannot be forced to the position where Marxism appears to have no practical application to the problems of the Indian revolution". (Page:139)

 3.    Two Pictures

 "In the capitalist society, the Marxian view would be that the proletariat is the only revolutionary class. But socially, we are not living in the twentieth century. We are living in an earlier epoch. Let us remember the fundamental principle of Marxism: Consciousness is determined by existence. In India, we are having our political being in the social atmosphere of the seventeenth or sixteenth century. Our political consciousness therefore, must be determined by that particular nature of our social being. The idea that the proletariat is the most revolutionary class cannot spontaneously grow in us; it can only be artificially cultivated. Because, our appreciation of the roles of the various social classes in contemporary India must be determined by their actual position. It would be completely un - Marxian to assert that in India today the proletariat is the most revolutionary class, and that the other classes cannot have any revolutionary role. That idea cannot enter in our mind in the scientific process of ideation; at best it is an idealistic proposition. Instead of looking at the thing as it is, and letting environments react on our consciousness, thereby determining the process of our thought, we would be cramping our mind with what we have read in books." (Page:142)

 4.    Philosophical Radicalism 

"What is called philosophical Radicalism, that is, the philosophy of the bourgeois revolution, was a revolutionary ideology in a social atmosphere which happens to be also our environment in India today. That being the case, it should not be difficult for us to reconcile our Marxist conscience with what is known as the philosophical Radicalism of the bourgeois revolution.

 Things must be connected directly. A certain mode of thought is liquidated by another mode of thought which immediately follows it. The religious mode of thought was liquidated by the rationalist mode of thought which resulted from a change in social environments brought about by the development of science. Today we know that bourgeois Radicalism was defective. It did not go very far. It had still some connection with the religious mode of thought, and ultimately became itself a form of religion. Even the modern idealist philosophy is only a form of rationalized religion. Nevertheless, it is equally true that philosophical Radicalism was the solvent for the religious mode of thought. It was the direct outcome of scientific knowledge and of the changes brought about by it in the social atmosphere, namely, the revolution in the process and means of production.

 The religious mode of thought still prevails in our country. The popular mind is still swayed, consciously or unconsciously, by religious prejudices. So much so, that even Marxism, somehow or other, has been transformed into a sort of religion. It is conceived as a creed or held as a faith. In the ideological field we have still to dissolve and liquidate the religious mode of thought. Before that is done, any other form of thought or any other philosophy will simply not be understood. Therefore, the intervening period of philosophical Radicalism must be there. It is the intervening link. There must be a connection between the past and the future." (Pages:143,144)

 5.    No Inevitability 

"Marxism knows no inevitability. The belief in inevitability is fatalism. Marxism knows only necessity. That which is determined takes place. But a thing or event is determined by a number of causes. Its fructification or its abortion may have been determined by some additional causes unknown to us. Therefore, nothing can be inevitable. Nowhere in Marxism is it asserted that Socialism becomes inevitable at a certain stage of social development. Marxism only says that at a stage of the evolution of society socialism becomes necessary for further development. If by some other reason any particular community has been doomed to disappear, the change to Socialism will not take place. There will be no further development, but disintegration. That has happened in history. Marxism does not allow the assertion that a similar tragedy will not happen again." (Page:144)

 6.    Our Inverted Projection

 "Only as Marxists we can be the representatives of the proletariat as well as of the bourgeoisie. Here the principle of identity is in operation. Marxism enables us to see that there are two relations in society: one of antagonism and the other of identity. At a later stage, there will be a conflict between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. But today, in the atmosphere of the sixteenth or seventeenth century’s social conditions, in which we are having our being, the actual identity is much greater than the would-be difference. Consequently, as Marxists, it becomes permissible for us to advocate a programme of social revolution which under normal conditions would mean the establishment of capitalist society.

 Marxism thus being a sort of inverted projection with us, we are the bearers of a light projected from the future, as far as our country is concerned. That appears to be a rather strange position. For us, as social beings, to be Marxists should appear anomalous. Because we are trying to apply Marxism to the problems of a time before Marx lived. In a sense for us, Marx is still to be born. How can we, then, call ourselves Marxists? We can do so only by differentiating Marxism from the personality of Karl Marx." (Page:144, 145)

 7.    French Revolution 

"The French Revolution was not an accident. It was not an isolated event. It was part of a whole process. The period of revolution, which culminated in the French Revolution, actually began as far back as the fourteenth century, even earlier. The germs of the bourgeois revolution, which undermined religion, as well as overthrew feudalism, sprouted in the Christian monasteries. The process continued for several hundred years before it broke out into momentous events which took place much earlier than the French Revolution. The latter generally believed to be the beginning of a period of mischievous events in Europe, was preceded by great revolutions in England as well as the American Revolution. England had experienced political revolution even earlier. The Magna Carta was the result of revolution. On the Continent of Europe, great revolutionary outbreaks had occurred during three hundred years before the process culminated in the French Revolution. The most outstanding among them were: the foundation of the Italian Republics; the heretical movement and uprising in central and eastern Europe; the Garman Peasant War; and the rise of the Dutch Republic." (Page:159,160)

 8.    Jacobinism 

"If we wish to find a historical analogy to the task set to ourselves, we should fix upon neither the Russian Revolution nor any other revolution of our time. We shall have to go further back and find our prototype in the Jacobins of the French Revolution. The Social foundation of the party we propose to organize is very analogous to that of the Jacobins. The leading cadre of our party will be to a very large extent come from the identical class. The Jacobins carried through the bourgeoisie revolution in the teeth of the opposition of the bourgeoisie. The representatives of the bourgeoisie, who had heralded the revolution, went over to the camp of counter-revolution, and the Jacobins carried it through against the feudal aristocracy as well as the big bourgeoisie. The relation of classes in contemporary India is somewhat analogous. But the analogy is bound to be incomplete. There is a difference of nearly two hundred years.

 For the ideology of Jacobinism, we must turn to the French    Materialists of the eighteenth century "the Physiocrats and the Encyclopedists" and they were the direct predecessors of Marxism in the line of philosophical ancestry. On the other hand, in Jacobinism, the rationalist philosophy culminated and exhausted itself. Jacobinism made a Goddess of reason; a religion was made of Rationalism. Rationalism played its role as a solvent of the religious mode of thought. But in Jacobinism, it exhausted all its possibilities and opened the way for the development of eighteenth century Materialism towards Marxism. Historically, in the philosophical sense, we in India today are standing in such a period of transition. We are very much influenced by the scientific mode of thinking. We are also attracted by the materialistic philosophy. But at the same time, as a whole, the people who will take part in this revolution, and even many of those who will constitute its leadership, may be attracted rather by Rationalism than by out and out Materialism." (Page:147,148)

 9.    Twentieth century Jacobinism 

"Another characteristic feature of the tendency we represent is that it is a tendency towards a direct development in the direction of socialist reconstruction of society. That tendency was there also in Jacobinism. It was represented by Baboeuf and his followers. They also were the product of that period of the French Revolution which was under the leadership of the Jacobins. But at that time, the tendency could not assert itself, because consciousness – the ideas and thoughts – had to be determined by the environments of the time. The bourgeoisie were afraid. They could not carry through the revolution. The petit-bourgeoisie, which at the time of the French Revolution included the working class just as is the case in India today, carried through the revolution. But once the revolution was carried through, it was the bourgeoisie who came into power. Nevertheless, the tendency to develop directly towards Socialism was there all the time, represented first by Baboeuf, and later on by Blanqui and others, and ultimately by the Paris Commune. The tendency did not disappear with the failure of Baboeuf. It manifested itself throughout the entire period of the French Revolution, and disappeared only with the fall of the Paris Commune.

     The Indian Revolution is taking place in an entirely different period of history, when the relation of classes on the world scale has completely changed, and the economic conditions and technological development necessary for the reconstruction of the world as a socialist society have been created. Therefore, once the revolution takes place in our time, though with a Jacobin ideology and with a Jocobinist programme, the tendency towards a direct development in Socialism, which was inherent in Jacobinism, will most probably prevail in our country. For all these reasons, I would suggest that our ideology, the ideology of the party which is to lead the Indian Revolution, be named Twentieth Century Jacobinism. I make the suggestion tentatively. It is made pending the formulation of some other name which may be more appropriate. Marxism applied to a bourgeois democratic revolution, Marxist theory applied in practice to the problems of the bourgeois democratic revolution, is Jacobinism. Therefore, Marxism applied to the social problems of the seventeenth and eighteenth century, to be solved in the atmosphere of the twentieth century, can be called Twentieth Century Jacobinism.

 An orthodox exposition of Marxism, of the Anglo-Saxon or German or Russian variety, will not help us, I want to make you understand this point; we have the privilege – history has given it to us – of not only carrying through a peculiar, a new and unprecedented type of revolution and create a new form of State opening up the possibility of a new line of development as transition to socialist society; we are also privileged to make some original contribution to what is known as Marxism. If we do not do that then we have no business to call ourselves Marxists.

 The point is that we are functioning in a very peculiar situation, living simultaneously in two periods of history. This peculiarity of our being must determine our thought, which therefore, cannot fit into any of the known patterns. We approach every problem from the point of view of a philosophy called Marxism. In my opinion, it is not a narrow philosophy of any particular class, but the quintessence of the entire process of human development. The result of our Marxist approach may, and I am inclined to believe that it is bound to be, an amplification of Marxism. Don't be hidebound in the belief that the whole truth has already been discovered, that the text should not be changed, and that we can only interpret it. That is scholasticism. Marxism is something entirely different.

 After all, Marxism is not a body of dogmas. It is rather a method. As such, it has a permanent abiding value; As a method of approach to all the problems, it holds good for all time and under all circumstances. The method is applicable to the problems of two thousand years ago, and will be equally valid for an approach to problems of two thousand years hence. But the formulas of Marxism or the peculiar prescriptions of Marxism may not be immutable, and may have to be changed from time to time." (Page:148,149,150) 

                                                                                        (to be continued)

Anthology of  M.N. Roy's Writings :

ESSENCE OF ROYISM

Compiled by G.D. Parikh

Nav Jagritisamaj Publication

J - 149, Lokmanya Nagar

Mahim,

Bombay - 400 016

(First Edition : December 1987)