CHAPTER TWO

REVOLUTIONARY THEORY, STRATEGY, AND PRACTICE: METHODOLOGY FOR OUR CRITICAL INVESTIGATION

• Theories
• Strategy
• Practice
• Political Consciousness
• Classical Marxism Leninism

What a man sees depends upon both what he looks at and also what his previous visual-conceptual experience has taught him to see. In the absence of such training there can only be in William James's phrase, "a bloomin' buzzin' confusion." 1

Thomas Kuhn

People answer these questions many different ways. We base ours on a general store of scientific training and on an extension of Thomas Kuhn's analyses of similar issues, precisely because those analyses seem the most accepted, the most suited to our ends, and the most correct of any available.

Kuhn says the natural sciences move toward by way of alternating evolutionary and then revolutionary periods. During evolutionary development a widely held collection of thoughts, methods, beliefs, and so on, are advanced in accord with their own internally determined dictates. During revolutionary development the same consciousness collection, or, as Kuhn calls it, the same paradigm, is overthrown, which is to say. advanced by negation and replacement due to developments lying outside its own previous visions and criteria.

In the evolutionary period there is what Kuhn calls normal science. The generally accepted paradigm is applied to ever greater numbers of phenomena. Scientists improve, verify, enlarge, and adapt it by constant reapplications. Essentially, in Kuhn's words, they engage in "puzzle solving." They try to fit the world to their paradigm's category/dynamic expectations. They guide their efforts according to their paradigm's dictates. They approach problems because their paradigm orients them so, and because it says they can succeed in finding solutions.

Closely examined, whether historically or in the contemporary laboratory, that enterprise seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. 2

Many practitioners, then, simply put the problems aside (and often don't even recognize them in the first place) due to their normal-science faith in their well-tested beliefs. Others however can't help but see the importance of the new problems and begin trying to alter their paradigms in accord. Then normal science reaches what Kuhn calls a state of crisis activity.

Resolution comes by way of supercession of old paradigms by new ones. The scientist who saw reality in terms of one set of beliefs, concepts, and methods before such resolution sees it by a different set after. In a sense, practitioners' world views alter. The debate between old and new during transition is generally extremely impassioned and confused. Each side initially approaches issues differently. What one says is important evidence in favor of its paradigm is irrelevant to the other and vice versa. Nonetheless, by dynamics Kuhn describes, in revolutions there is a gradual transition to a new paradigm and then to a new normal science. 3

Probably the single most prevalent claim advanced by proponents of a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that have led the old one to crisis. When it can legitimately be made, this claim is often the most effective one possible. 4

There are three questions that must be answered in the application of Kuhn's model to our subject. First, what is the purpose of a revolutionary paradigm and of each of its parts? Second what are the parts in more detail, including potential roots of strengths and weaknesses? And third, how do the parts interrelate to form a whole and what are its specific dynamics?

A physics paradigm of the kind Kuhn centers his studies on informs its holders about the real physical world and gives them ways of understanding and affecting it. It guides their endeavors by giving methods and directions of concern.

Similarly a revolutionary paradigm informs its holders about the socio-political-economic world, gives them ways of understanding and affecting it, and guides their efforts by providing methods and directions of concern.

Yet even though each seems to do pretty much the same things for its practitioners) the ultimate purposes of the two types of paradigms are somewhat skewed from one another. Thus with the physics paradigm the ultimate emphasis is on knowledge; whereas with the revolutionary paradigm the ultimate emphasis is on change.

For both the physicist and the revolutionary, knowledge and activity are to serve each other. Each must provide guidelines and ways of improving the other. And yet in the last analysis, the physicist experiments to further knowledge; while the revolutionary uses knowledge to further experiment, which is to say struggle.

There is a critical inversion of theory/practice priorities and it is this that complicates a Kuhnian analysis of socio-political paradigm development, and that must be recognized, to answer the question, "What is the purpose of revolutionary paradigm?" and to get at the more detailed analysis of the purposes of revolutionary theory, strategy, and practice.

Normal science is in the revolutionary context the process by which Marxist Leninists, Anarchists or Maoists pursue studies of the world and engage in practice in accord with their own ideology's dictates. Thus each group sees things somewhat differently from the others, employs different priorities, and so on, but at least when functioning normally, each moves steadily and calmly forward in what are generally self-consistent ways. Like for the hard scientist functioning normally, day-to-day revolutionary practice encounters few surprises and is essentially a puzzle solving (and doing) dynamic that occurs very much in expected and preordained ways.

Crisis science is, on the other hand, the process by which the paradigms struggle with one another and with non-revolutionary alternatives for social dominance. They generate debate about each others' suppositions, and even more than with the hard sciences (because of the extra involved interests) the debate is a tortuous one in which no side gives much credence to the formulations of any other.

Resolution in the area would be the success of any one revolutionary paradigm in gaining full domination over all the others.

For the purposes of this book, however, we begin by asserting such a resolution, with Clasical Marxism Leninism as a core around which normal activities now proceed. Later, after dealing with Classical Marxism Leninism as if it were the only ideological possibility, we admit the existence of Anarchism, Maoism, and some contemporary neo-Marxist views and consider them too.

Thus for the moment our available revolutionary paradigm is Classical Marxism Leninism. We feel a definite crisis. The anomalous problems to which it denies importance, and, in any case does not help solve, revolve around useability, racism, sexism, authority, socialization dynamics, the relationships between consciousness and general day-to-day activity, the dynamics between social and movement relations and people's consciousnesses, the nature of bureaucracy, the ability of people to understand local situations and analyze local tactics, and so on.

According to Kuhnian logic our task is to therefore define our Classical paradigm precisely and then examine it with reference to its various problems. We try to discover how the paradigm might yet eventually solve them, or how, if it can't, some other altered one might. In the latter event we could then try as our first tentative alternatives the Anarchist and Maoist paradigms, to either adopt one or reject both, while learning still more about what a finally successful paradigm would have to be like.

Our critical study is thus justified by the state of crisis we perceive in Classical Marxism Leninism's abilities to handle today's crucial revolutionary problems. A good result of our study would be either a recognition of how the Classical paradigm can finally solve its problems or of why it can't and how an altered new paradigm might be able to. And how then should we proceed with our critical study? In what order should we approach the body of Classical Marxist Leninist thought? What should we emphasize and what should we only gloss over? To answer requires a better understanding of the internal relations of any revolutionary paradigm's three component parts: theory, strategy, and practice; an understanding will tell us how to study each part with an eye toward most readily discovering from where the whole's 'anomalous' weaknesses are derived.

THEORIES

What are theories, how are they constructed and used, what are the loci of their strengths and weaknesses, and how might they be studied most effectively, especially when one is looking to 'overthrow' them and their whole parent paradigm?

Theories are collections of ideas people use to understand the realities they encounter. Theories have one part which describes the elements of reality and another part which talks about how those elements interact, thereby allowing predictions concerning what they will do in varying situations.

Social theories refer to realities of people and institutions, but are necessarily abstract: they do not explain everything in their reference systems but only those parts considered important. Thus 'what is important' and included in discussion, and 'what is unimportant' and abstracted out, become crucial questions in social theorizing. As Paul Sweezy writes:

The legitimate purpose of abstraction in social science is never to get away from the real world but rather to isolate certain aspects of the real world for intensive investigation. When, therefore, we say that we are operating at a high level of abstraction we mean that we are dealing with a relatively small number of aspects of reality; we emphatically do not mean that those aspects with which we are dealing are not capable of historical investigation and factual illustration. 5

But this suggests a problem. How does one determine what is essential before having a theory which explains the whole? The best way around the enigma is caution and a flexible willingness to reformulate one's views over and over as one's insights grow more and more complete. The usual subjective and obviously flawed way around the enigma is to determine what is important on the basis of self-interested speculations, and to then bend everything to suit that first determination rather than vice versa.

For example: a factory owner runs his enterprise according to a certain social economic theory of business. It produces well, profits continually rise, his life goes according to plan, and he is reasonably content with the whole situation. He doesn't notice his factory's effects on his employees' lives, or on their families, or on the ecology, or on the consumers. Others bear the costs of his profit-taking and he goes unaware of all that occurs outside the abstractions of his business-school theories of life. Then his workers strike and he alters his views somewhat by including references to salaries in his calculations. Then consumers protest and ecologists clamor and again he adapts his theories precisely to the extent to which he is forced.

The lesson of our capitalist's behavior is relatively clear. Social theories are often rooted in self-interested desires. They are often narrow but nonetheless the users usually convince themselves the theories are not narrow but complete. They get away with this self-interested self-deception prescisely because their theory's narrowness obligingly hides from view, in a sense behind its own absent elements.

Narrow theories often seem complete because they are logically sound and force their practitioners to overlook such narrowness by steering their attentions away from the ensuing flawed results. Narrow theories appear good to their believers because they are looked at through self-created blinders especially adapted to block out all that is flawed.

All of this applies to leftists as well as to capitalists. When revolutionists use a narrow theory they too can be expected to create partially counter-productive programs that ignore certain relevant aspects of the total spectrum of effects of their implementation. Narrow-minded revolutionists function very similarly to narrow-minded capitalists. They too blunder on in their mistakes, blind to the realities around them, precisely because their theories so constrain their perceptions.

Theories can therefore be weak in at least three different ways. They can have inaccurate or incomplete descriptions of important realities; they can have incorrect understandings of the ways important realities interact; or they can be too narrow, they can exclude from consideration details actually intimately connected to the results a practitioner's actions might have. Thus social theory must correspond to social reality as closely as possible; all its lacks of correspondence must be well understood by practitioners. Its positive assertions and its abstractions must be equally justified.

To construct a social theory we should try to organize our efforts in light of these insights. In criticizing a theory we can profitably do the same. We will set out descriptions of Classical Marxism Leninism's views of world reality and of world interactions, we will examine the relations between its theory and its practitioners, and we will take into account the accuracy and justification for abstractions of all types.

But just understanding, even in rather deep complexity, is never quite enough; one wants also to affect. Marxist Leninists with goals and general theoretic understandings form more or less detailed plans of action or strategy. To have a full program for analyzing the Marxist Leninist paradigm we must also know how we should approach its strategic aspects.

STRATEGY

Strategies guide us toward desired goals. How well do they derive from theory, do they get us where we wish to go, and do they minimize 'expenses' and side complications? These are our criteria for judging strategies and they are certainly easy enough to apply, at least if one is an objective and well informed evaluator rather than participant in a specific set of events.

The communist, for example, feels that the capitalist's approach to transportation problems is idiotic precisely because it creates even larger problems than those it was aiming to solve. The communist thinks that capitalist strategy is poor and would at least in some cases explain it by saying that capitalist theory is self-interestedly narrow. On the other side of the coin, the capitalist feels that communist strategy is ridiculous because even if it does solve a few social inadequacies it does so at too great a cost in never-to-be-regained human freedoms. Here too the smart capitalist would probably find the roots of the problem in self-interestedly narrow authoritarian theory rather than in the incompetence of the theory's practitioners.

Strategies move from vagueness to preciseness as their practitioners learn more and more about the systems on which they are working, the goals they are seeking, and the tools they are using. Strategy emerges from theory. The more comprehensive the theory, the more potentially precise the strategy. The more incomplete the theory, the more vague the strategy greater the need for constant enhancement.

So analyzing strategies is essentially a problem of seeing whether they really do fit the environs they are applied to and aim at the goals they are supposedly seeking. The problem exists in translating an understanding of a theory's strengths and weaknesses to the level of its compatible and thus similarly powerful or afflicted strategy.

PRACTICE

Practice is a favorite word of leftists, usually used in reference to the activities of people trying to change their environments and in turn being changed by those environments.

Tactics, another often used word, are well defined ways of practicing that occur over and over whenever roughly the same conditions arise. So there are military tactics, race car driving tactics, medical tactics, business tactics, house painting tactics, production line tactics, literary tactics, and revolutionary tactics; most practice is simply the application of variations of such tactics in concrete active situations.

Tactics are chosen because of the ways they fulfill strategic dictates. When there is no strategy, practice often becomes problematic and thus ineffectual. Strategy affects tactics and vice versa. Strategy allows a rational choice of tactics, and knowledge of all available tactics allows formulation of the most economical strategies. Consider two military strategists. Confronted with obstacles and a goal, effective strategist has a knowledge of available tactics and a theory for understanding the whole situation and the varying effects that differing chosen acts would have upon it. The ineffective one does not. The effective one forms a strategy based on a complete understanding and begins implementing it and thus moving toward inexorable success. The ineffective one perhaps forms a plan that depends on tactics that aren't even available options, or whose effects are misunderstood, or perhaps forms no plan at all, merely blundering ahead in redundancy and error.

POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS

Good strategy uses whatever is available to accomplish as much as possible. Knowledge of tactical options and their likely outcomes provides a foundation for creating powerful strategy and good strategy then in turn provides general criteria for deciding what tactics to actually use in what sequences.

But even when a practitioner has a highly accurate theory, a good knowledge of tactics, and a good strategic sense, things are never likely to occur exactly as planned, if not because of error, then certainly because real practice often leads to unforeseen developments which then demand changes in theory or strategy.

The militarist comes up against an unforeseen situation in the field and alters strategy, or someone discovers new forms of weaponry and that leads to an enrichment of military theory. Or similarly for the painter, or doctor, or revolutionist, or whatever...

In general, social theories are incomplete and depend upon descriptions of very complicated 'objects'. They must constantly be adapted in accordance with new experiences and insights discovered through on-going normal practice. Only then can they approach correctness and provide a basis for ever enriching strategy.

In summary, strategy provides criteria for choosing tactics. Practice is the means for implementing and correcting theory and strategy. Theory provides the framework within which strategy and tactics function, a means for anticipating their various possible effects, and a means for understanding what goals are realistic for any whole situation.

Revolutionaries are usually concerned with changing the whole natures of their societies. In their work they want the smallest possible margin of error, and especially of the repetition of error. They thus require that the flow from theory to strategy to practice and back include effective corrective mechanisms.

Ideally the revolutionist functions with a good social theory and a broad flexible strategy for change. He or she develops a full understanding of as many tactics as possible, (strikes, boycotts, parliamentary electoral tactics, ways of organizing and communicating, civil disobedience, marches, sabotage, styles of behavior and living, etc.) and of the ways their use affects various relevant situations, and then engages in self-conscious practice. Again ideally the revolutionist learns more and more about tactics while constantly refining strategy and theory to make them more accurate and richer in content.

So, good revolutionary theory, strategy, and practice, or good revolutionary politics and practice is a totality which is always incomplete but constantly going forward, each aspect providing the criteria for the worth and growth of the others. Theory provides world view. Long term strategy provides guidelines for activity. In conjunction with goal, theory, and strategy together compose a revolutionary paradigm which guides revolutionary thought, analysis, planning, and action.

To minimize errors and dogmatism such a consciousness must be self-correcting and growth-oriented. It must not stagnate. It must alter to fit changing realities rather than to merely rationalize changing realities in order to preserve itself. It must be rational verifiable rather than irrational 'religious'.

Though a revolutionary ideology may have weaknesses, it should eliminate them over time. Indeed, good revolutionary consciousness should have a tendency toward continual re-alteration built right into methods and especially into strategy and associated practice.

CLASSICAL MARXISM LENINISM

Classical Marxism is a revolutionary social theory and Classical Marxism Leninism is a revolutionary ideology or paradigm. Virtually all Marxist Leninist organizations I have had contact with consider their social theory and strategy immutable, and indeed seem to get their identities and authority from that avowed permanence. This constitutes a dismal state of affairs, not only because of the stagnation involved, but also because the theory and strategy are actually flawed. Our purpose is to formulate one version of Classical Marxism Leninism in as clear a manner as we can so that we might discover what parts of it are useful, what parts are not, and in what ways it might be enriched or altered. To the same ends we shall also talk about Maoism and Anarchism.

Since we already know that present consciousness needs and correlated immediate revolutionary crises revolve in, part around our getting new methodologies as well as new, very organic, useable understandings of racism, sexism, authority, consciousness, and motivation in general, our expositions of Classical Marxism Leninism, Anarchism, and Maoism, are organized in accord. We go step by step examining those aspects reflecting most on our particular needs, eventually building edifices in which the origin of the strengths and weaknesses with regard to those needs is clearly evident.

Thus as an answer to our definite need for a 'plan of approach' we first present Classical Marxist Leninist theory and strategy, and then criticize practice, strategy, and theory in sequence, with a final summary for clarification. The middle three chapters presenting Classical Leninism, criticizing Bolshevism, and criticizing Classical Leninism have considerable overlap, but it is to be hoped that that aggravation will be offset by the gain in logic of exposition, and by the fact that the material discussed is not very well known.

In the end we hope we will have some agreement about the weaknesses of the Classical Marxist Leninist paradigm. Then after discussion of the Anarchist and Maoist alternatives we hope we'll also have some agreement about where to jump off in forming a new revolutionary paradigm that could more effectively guide future revolutionary practice than any other past ones -- it is necessary for us to move energetically but also competently. As Fidel Castro put it:

The duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution. It is known that the revolution will triumph in America and throughout the world, but it is not for revolutionaries to sit in the doorways of their houses waiting for the corpses of imperialism to pass by. The role of Job doesn't suit a revolutionary. Each year that the liberation of America is speeded up will mean the lives of millions of children saved, millions of intelligences saved for culture, an infinite quantity of pain spared the people. 6

FOOTNOTES

1. Thomas S. Kuhn in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Chicago Press, Chicago, Ill, 113.

2. ibid. 24.

3. Perhaps one of the most important criticisms to be made of Kuhn's study is that it implies that the kind of science and scientific study that has gone on so far is the only kind that can ever go on. It seems quite palatable toTne that in future contexts scientists can be rather more flexible, rather more able to use a paradigm and simultaneously be quite open to and even anticipate its demise than they ever have been in the past. Concomitantly the dynamic of upholding one's immediate paradigm that Kuhn attributes to some kind of logical necessity of the whole scientific process actually has at least as much to do with weak identities, and strong material and vested ego interests of all previous scientists, Kuhn probably, and most others now engaged certainly, included.

4. Kuhn, op. cit. 153

5. Paul Sweezy in The Theory of Capitalist Development, Monthly Review Press, New York.

6. Fidel Castro in Fidel Castro Speaks, Grove Press, New York.

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