HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS WHAT IS ORTHODOX MARXISM? discovery of the class-outlook of the proletariat provided a vantage wledge of reality provided by the dia of social socialism is a pseudo-problem. 3. For, the Marxist method, the only possible because for the proletariat the ledge of reality, can arise only from total knowledge of its class-situation was a vital necessity, a e point of view of a class, from the point of view of the struggle matter of life and death: because its class situation becomes com- of the proletariat. To abandon this point of view is to move away rehensible only if the whole of society can be understood; and from historical materialism, just as to adopt it leads directly into ecause this understanding is the inescapable dition of its actions. Thus the unity of theory and nly the reverse Historical materialism grows out of the"immediate, natural side of the social and historical life-principle of the proletariat; it means the acquisition of tot s own point of view self-knowledge nowledge of reality from this one point of view. But it do the subject l%o that the proletariat is at one and the same time ollow from this that this knowledge or this methodological object of its own knowledge attitude is the inherent or natural possession of the proletariat The mission of raising humanity to a higher level is base as a clas t alone of as Hegel rightly observed4(although he was still concerned with t is true that the proletariat is the conscious subject of total nations), on the fact that these"stages of evolution exist as im. social reality. But the conscious subject is not defined here as in mediate, natural principles"and it devolves upon every nation(i.e class) ect' is defined etched spectator of the Marx concretises this idea with great clarity by applying it to process. The proletariat is more than just the active and pass social development: 36 If socialist writers attribute this world of this process: the rise and evolution historical role to the proletariat it is not because they believe ctual rise and evolution in the course of history are just the two that the proletariat are gods. Far from it. The proletariat can and different sides of the same real process. It is not simply the, case must liberate itself because when the proletariat is fully developed nat the working class arose in the course of spontar uncon- its humanity and even the appearance of its humanity has scious actions born of immediate, direct despair (the Luddite become totally abstract; because in the conditions of its life all destruction of machines can serve as a primitive the conditions of life of contemporary society find their most advanced gradually througl nhuman consummation; because in the proletariat man is lost where it formed itsclf into a class. But it is no less to himself but at the same time he has acquired a theoretical proletarian consciousness of social reality, of its consciousness of this loss, and is driven by the absolutely imperious lass situation, of its own historical vocation and the materialist expressio view of history are all products of this self-same process of evolu which can no longer be ignored or whitewashed, to rebel agains this inhumanity. However, the proletariat cannot liberate itse for what it really is for the first time in history without destroying the conditions of its own life. But it cannot do Thus the Marxist method is equally as much the product of hat without destroying all the inhuman conditions of life ass warfare as any other political or ontemporary society which exist in the proletariat in a concen- same way, the evolution of the proletariat reflects the inner ed form tructure of the society which it was the first to understand."Its Thus the essence of the method of historie al materialism is result, therefore, appears just as constantly presupposed by it as its separable from the practical and critical, activity of the presuppositions appear as its results. "37 The idea of totality which proletariat: both are aspects of the we have come to recognise as the presupposition necessary to
WHAT IS ORTHODOX MARXISM 22 HISTORY AND prehend reality is the product of history in a double sense. The practical danger of every such dualism shows itself in the First, historical materialism became a formal, objective possibi loss of any directive for action. ou abandon the ground of reality that has been conquered and reconquered by dialectical he proletariat did emerge (i.e. at a materialism, as soon as you decide to remain on the ' natura evelopment), and because the subject and object of the know ground of existence, of the empirical in its stark, naked bruta ledge of social reality were transformed. Second, this formal ou create a gulf between the subject of an action and the milieu possibility became a real one only in the course of the evolution of the"in which the action unfolds so that they stand opposed of the proletariat. If the meaning tory is to be for to each other as harsh, irreconcilable principles. It then becomes tble to impose the subjective the facts or to discover in them any directive for action. a mythological ethical meaning foisted on to recalcitrant with a relatively advanc tion in which the facts' speak out unmistakably for or against awareness of its own position, i.c. a relatively advanced prolet definite course of action has never existed, and neither can or iat, and, therefore, a long preceding period of evolution. Thepath will exist. The more conscientiously the facts are explored ken by this evolution leads from utopia to the knowle their isolation, i.e. in their unmediated relations-the less com reality; from transcendental goals fixed by the first great leade pellingly will they point in any one direction. It is self-evident that fthe workers'movement to the perception by the Commune a merely subjective decision will be shattered by the pressure of 871t hat the worki "no ideals shes only"to liberate the c nts of the new society". It Thus dialectical materialism is seen to offer the only approach he path leading from the "class opposed to capitalism"to the Seen in this light the revisionist separation of movement and ultimate goal represents a regression to the most primitive stage of the working-class movement. For the ultimate goal is not a state appear strange when they are comprehended in their coherent lity, in the relation of all partial aspects of the movement and the path leading up to it. It is not a condi but hitherto unelucidated roots in the whole: we then ion which can be happily forgotten in the stress of daily life and the tendencies which strive towards the centre of reality, to what ares. Nor is it a'duty,, an idca' designed to regulate the real we are wont to call the ultimate goal. This ultimate go truth and bstract ideal opposed to the process, but an aspect of ality(to reality. It is the concrete meaning of each stage rcached and an the whole of society seen as a process), through which every aspect integral part of the concrete moment. Because of this, to compre of the struggle acquires its revolutionary sip hend it is to recognise the direction taken(unconsciously) by events and tendencies towards the totality. It is to know the direction but only consciousness makes it real and so confers reality on that determines correct course of action at any given moment- of the interest of the total hus it elevates mere existence to reality. Do not let us forget However, the of socicty constantl cither that every attem ceof the proletariat from every impure contac and the whol practical,critical relapse into the utopian dualism of subject and object, of theory resplendent light, the meaning of the process sd nore deep and practice to which Revisionism has succumbed. as patio-temporal character of phenomena. The pat
WHAT IS ORTHODOX MARXISM ss throughout the course of history does not become But it must be borne in mind that scientific eractituc but on the contrary ever more arduous and exacting. For son the task oforthodox Marxism, its victory over revision pianism can never mean the defeat, once and for all 四二 p. 205. Similarly also pp. 47-8 and 307. The distinc- ruggle ag 4 ects of bourgeois ideology on the thought of the proletariat. exist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally the conceptual framework of Capital is based on these distinct vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of riff is also to be found in hege the immediate present and the totality of the historical process. litical Econom, p. 293. Hence th doxy and of its representatives, the Communists, have lost neither 273. The category this a also derives their relevance nor their value: The Communists are distin- guished from the other working-class parties by this only: 1. In the tional struggles of the proletarians of the different countrie tons whole forn entire proletariat, independent of nationality. 2. In the variot tages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to rough, they always and present the interests of the movement as a whole also, treated the wake i\, Pins fr. (The quotations from the den mehrwert, Stuttgart, 1905, Il, I1, March 1919. 3059 NOTES Contributor to Poine pn d934. 1 The Critique of Heget's in Early Writings edited 20e Classical German Philosophy, in S.W. Il, slated by N.I. 6 A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economit first inC.A 25 Heye, T e Philosophy of Right, trans. T.M. Knox, Oxford, 1942, the very point where marx radically he interaction ossible to undertake a detailed analysis of these questions here pp.298- the fate and the obj of the state. For Cunow, Marx is ntroduction to The Class Struggles in France in SW.I,p. 110
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS inferior to Hegel on this point because he regards the question tically and not from the standpoint of the sociologist Cunow, It is evident that all Marxs efforts to overcome ey do not return to vulgar materialism or to The Marxism of sa lux evolutionary dialectics from M ude towards national in this context.( Philosophy of Right,8 189 )He clearly sees that the problem of chance and ne of the Family S W. Il, P. 293 and relations themselves are produced, that is Rao the historical movement that gave them birth 29 Engels, Letter to J. Bloch, 2I September 1890, S.w. Il, p. 443 Ruge(r843) IT is not the primacy of economic motives in historical explana The Philosophy of History ion that constitutes the decisive difference between Marxism 32 Theses on Feue 33 See the essay Class Consciousness for an explanation of this situa- and bourgeois thought, but the point of view of totality. The category of totality, the all-pervasive supremacy of the whole 34 The Philosophy of Right, $ 346-7 over the parts is the essence of the method which Marx took 33. [The Holy Family, Chapter 4 over from Hegel and brilliantly transformed into the founda tions of a wholly new science. The capitalist separation of the Zinoviev's polemics against Guesde and his attitude to the producer from the total process of production, the division of the war in Stuttgart. Gegen den Strom, pp. 470-1. Likewise Lenin's process of labour into parts at the cost of the individual humanity of the worker, the atomisation of society into individuals who sophy of capitalism. Proletarian science is revolutionary not ju ionary ideas which it opposes to bourgeois society, but above all because of its method. The primacy of the category of totality is the bearer of the principle of revolution in science. The revolutionary nature of Hegelian dialectics had often n recognised as such before M nding Hegel's own conservative applications of the method. But no one had converted this knowledge into a science of revolution. It wa Marx who transformed the Hegelian method into what Herze described as the algebra of revolution. It was not enough however, to give it a materialist twist. The revolutionary prin- ciple inherent in Hegel's dialectic was able to come to the surfac itself, because of that than because of the validity of the method viz. the concept of totality, the subordination of every part
HISTORY AND CLASS CONSCIOUSNESS THE MARXISM OF ROSA LUXEMBURG to the whole unity of history and thought. In Marx the soluble contradictions and pseudo-problems. Marx's Capital repre- nethod aims at understanding society as a whole. sents a radical break with this procedure. Not that he acts the thought concerns itself with objects that arise either part of an agitator who treats every aspect exclusively from the proletarian standpoint. Such a one-sided approach would only of labour and specialisation in the different disciplines. It holds esult in a new vulgar economics with plus and minus signs abstractions to be ' if it is naively realistic, andautonomous reversed. His method is to consider the problems of the whole if it of capitalist society as problems of the classes constituting it, the Marxism, however, simultaneously raises and reduces all classes being regarded as totalities. My aim in this essay is to point to This is not to deny that the process of abstraction and hence th methodological problems and so it is not poss Marx's method throws a completely new light on a whole series of problems, how new problems emerge which classical economics and whole areas of study is of the very essence of science. But was unable even to glimpse, let alone solve, and how many hat is decisive is whether this process of isolation is a means their pseudo-problems dissolve into thin air. My aim here is to towards understanding the whole and whether it is integrated elucidate as clearly as possible the two premises of a genuine within the context it presupposes and requires, or whether the application of the dialectical method as opposed to the frivolous abstract knowledge of an isolated fragment retains itsautonomy se made of it by Hegel's traditionalist successors. These premises and becomes an end in itself. In the last analysis Marxism does re the need to postulate a totality firstly as a posited object and not acknowledge the existence of independent sciences of law, en as a positing subject. economics or history, etc: there is nothing but a single, unified- dialectical and historical--science of the evolution of society as a The category of totality, however, determines not only the object of knowledge but also the subject. Bourgeois thought takes up the problem at this juncture after decades of vulgarised or unconsciously, naively or subtly, consistently from the standpoint of the individua into a bourgeois'science'was expressed first, most clearly and No path leads from the individual to the totality; there is at best frankly in Bernstein's Premises of Socialism. It is anything but an accident that the chapter in this book which begins with an the most part, 'facts'bare of any context, or to abstract, special laws. The totality of an object can only be posited if the positing should end by branding Marx as a Blanquist. It is no accident subject is itself a totality; and if the subject wishes to understand because the moment you abandon the point of view of totality self, it must conceive of the object as a totality. In modern you must also jettison the starting point and the goal, the assump- society only the classes can tions and the requirements of the dialectical method. When this By tackling every problem from this angle, above all in Capital happens revolution will be understood not as part of a process Marx supplied a corrective to Hegel who still wavered between the "great individual and the abstract spirit of the people. Although his successors understood him even less well here of Marx are really just a relapse into the primitive period of the than on the issue of idealism' versus'materialism' this corrective workers'movement, i.e. Blanquism. The whole system of Marxism proved even more salutary and decisive. ands and falls with the principle that revolution is the product Classical economics and above all its vulgarisers have always of a point of view in which the category of totality is dominant considered the development of capitalism from the point of view Even in its opportunism Bernstein,'s criticism is much too opportun- of the individual capitalist. This involved them in a series of in- istic for all the implications of this position to emerge clearly