Axel is wrong, this 'theory' did not help win a revolution (if he is referring to 1917), it was never used in 1917.
As I have argued elsewhere:
Quote:
The Bolsheviks were successful in 1917 because they could not, and did not, use dialectics (either in its DM- or MAD-form). To be sure, this claim is controversial, but only because no one has thought to question this shibboleth before.
[DM = Dialectical Materialism; MAD = Materialist Dialectics; HM = Historical Materialism.]
In fact, the material counterweight provided by the soviets prevented the Bolsheviks from employing this useless theory. Had they tried to propagandise/organise Russian workers with things such as "Being is identical to but at the same time different from Nothing...", "The whole is greater than the sum of the parts...", or "Matter without motion is unthinkable" (and the like), they'd have been regarded as complete lunatics, and rightly so.
On the other hand, they could, and did use ideas drawn from HM to help organise the soviets.
And it is no use arguing that dialectical concepts were used 'implicitly' (or that they 'informed' the tactics that Lenin and his party adopted, somehow operating 'behind the scenes'). Since MAD-concepts can be used to justify anything and everything (being inherently and proudly contradictory), had they been used, they could only have been used subjectively (since there is no objective way to tell these incompatible applications apart).
Anyone who takes exception to the above will need to show precisely how Lenin and the Bolsheviks explicitly used dialectical-concepts --, as opposed to their actual employment of HM-concepts (based on a concrete class analysis of events in 1917, and on years of experience relating to the working class). They will thus need to produce written evidence of the Bolshevik's use of MAD-ideas, and then show how they could possibly have been of any practical benefit to workers in struggle.
Now, I have trawled through the available minutes and decrees of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party (from August 1917 to February 1918), and I have so far failed to find a single DM-thesis, let alone a MAD-one. [Bone (1974).] To be sure, it is always possible that I have missed something, but even if I have, this Hermetic creed hardly forms a prominent part of the day-to-day discussions of active revolutionaries. [In fact I have now gone though the available documents twice -- still no sign of this Hermetic virus!]
In fact, it is conspicuous by its absence.
Hence, the evidence suggest that active revolutionaries made no use of this 'theory'.
Incidentally, although I am still in the process of checking later years, I can find very little mention of this 'theory' in subsequent deliberations. I will, however, publish the results of that search as more of it is completed.
Indeed, I have now checked the Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of The Third International [Holt and Holland (1983)], and the only sign of dialectics is a couple of dozen mentions of 'contradictions' in capitalist society (etc.) in over 400 pages. No other example of dialectical jargon appears in the entire volume, and even the word "contradiction" is not used to explain anything, nor does it seem to do any work. Most of its 'mentions' appear to have been made by Zinoviev; as far as I can see, Lenin does not use that term in this book.
Moreover, in Trotsky's The Third International After Lenin [Trotsky (1974)], dialectics is mentioned only fourteen times in nearly 300 pages, and then only in passing. It does no work there either.
And it is even less use someone requiring of me to produce proof that Lenin and the Bolsheviks did not use MAD-ideas. Since there is no written evidence that he/they did, as the above indicates. Hence, the contrary case goes by default. Of course, all this is quite independent of the proof offered in these Essays that not a single MAD-concept is useable; after all, even Lenin got into a serious muddle when he tried to play around with such ideas, let alone attempt to apply them.
As we will soon find out, when MAD-ideas are in fact used, they can be made to justify anything whatsoever (no matter how contradictory that "anything whatsoever" might otherwise appear to be; in fact the more contradictory it is, the more 'dialectical' it seems!) -- and it can be, and was used to rationalise any course of action, including those that are both counter-revolutionary and anti-Marxist.
In fact, shortly after the revolution, many younger comrades and Russian Bolshevik scientists, argued at length that all of Philosophy (and not just dialectics) was part of ruling-class ideology (which is in fact a crude version of my own thesis!). It was not until the Deborinites won a factional battle in 1925/26 that this trend was defeated (and that was clearly done to help pave the way for the further destruction of the gains of October). More on this later.
[On this see Bakhurst (1991), Joravsky (1961), Graham (1971), Wetter (1958).]
So, 1917 cannot be chalked up as a success for this strain of Hermetic Mysticism.
However, we will see that the disintegration of the results of 1917 can partly be put down to dialectics.
Bakhurst, D. (1991), Consciousness And Revolution In Soviet Philosophy. From The Bolsheviks To Evald Ilyenkov (Cambridge University Press).
Bone, A. (1974), The Bolsheviks And The October Revolution. Central Committee Minutes Of The Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party (Bolshevik) August 1917-February 1918 (Pluto Press).
Graham, L. (1971), Science And Philosophy In The Soviet Union (Allen Lane).
Holt, A., and Holland, B. (1983), Theses, Resolutions and Manifestos of the First Four Congresses of The Third International (Ink Links).
Joravsky, D. (1961), Soviet Marxism And Natural Science 1917-1932 (Routledge).
Trotsky, L. (1974), The Third International After Lenin (New Park).
Wetter, G. (1958), Dialectical Materialism (Routledge).
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11th November 2007, 13:45
