Dogmatism and Marxism (fwd)

of course, secterian  positions are always dogmatic. Lenin, for example,
called those who struggled for "economic freedoms" only "simple trade
unionists". simple trade unionism was also vulgar economist because it
wanted to seperate economic and political struggle: "let the workers
struggle for economic freedoms and the marxists merge with
liberal intelligensia." Lenin knew that trade union conciousness was not
necesarrily the same with socialist conciousnes if the clas struggle  was
not in the mean time nurtered by revolutionary consciousness.there are many 
bourgeois trade unions around; they are not necessarily socialist in the
way that I describe above. Chartists in britain is a perfect example.
day-to- day struggle of workers is very important but it should
be organized under a "party" in order to transcend particularism, economic
vulgarism and  "narrow craft mindedness"-- petty bourgeois mentality--, so
to say, as Lenin criticized. In that sense, Kautsky's vulgar orthodoxy can
be described dogmatic too. he put forward a fatalistic, mechanistic, and
metaphysical interpretation of historical materialism, which, definetely,
was NOT what marx or Lenin had in mind.
 
Lenin also chacecterized the anarchist rejection of any order as
secterian. secterianism is inherently reactioanry and dogmatic because it
limits the socialists struugle to particular (exclusive) goals while it
misses the big picture, that is capitalism and imperialism. Maoist
anarchists (artisans) with whom Foucault allied against the french
communist party were secterians too. it is precisely capitalism that
causes false conciousness and pits workers againts each other by injecting
the ideology of profit among workers. to do this, it finds petty-bourgeois
allies _within_ and _outside_ the working classes ie., intelligentsia. 
what we need to do is as marxists is strongly  adhere to the principle of
true "universality", reject the liberal intelligentsia, and raise above
secterian positions, against capitalism, sexism, racism, both national and
international..


given that marxism can never be a DOGMA, secterian positions can only
become a dogma and they are *not* marxist by definition. i do not call
them as "dogmatic marxist" because it causes terminological confusion.
Lenin would not call Trot "dogmatic marxist", but secterian. it
is better to call them "dogmatic", non-marxist, petty-bourgeois,
etc..marxism and dogma do not go hand in hand. marxism makes everthing the
object of its criticism, including secterianism, unlike dogma that closes
the possibility to any critical thinking at all. it is  these secterian
positions (post-modernsits, radical centrists, etc.) who dogmatize marxism
by calling communists, marxist-leninists as "dogmatic marxists" and
themselves as non-dogmatic marxists or leftists. if you ask what
"dogmatic marxism" looks like, they give "false" charecterizations-- you
are  absolute believers, we are tolerant and democratic marxists" jazz-- 
the kind of statements, which neither lenin nor marx had in mind. did they
ever the read the constitution of Russia after the revolution and its
susbtance? they equate leninism to totalitarianism or deviated
marxism, which i call "liberal" tactic of establishing quilt by
association. where do they learn these quick charecterizations for my
sake? in which books? "who" are they to claim authority over marx? why do
they persistently call communists the enemy of the people, rights and
liberties? this IS the US ideology; that is what i say, and i have only
seen among the marxist here! even the turkish social democrats are more
progressive then liberal marxists here.. they, at least, pretend to deal
with distributional questions..



thanks,

Mine

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 16:50:13 -0600
From: Spectors <spectors@netnitco.net>
To: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu, WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Subject: Dogmatism and Marxism

I agree with the main part of what Mine has said, but I would like to add
that there are certainly some people WHO CALL THEMSELVES MARXIST who are
very dogmatic. For example, I knew someone from a USA trotskyist sect who
said that a worker could never be a fascist because fascism was the ideology
of the capitalist class and a worker couldn't be a capitalist (or something
like that!) and I knew someone else from a different group who argued that
international union leaders (such as Meany, head of the AFL-CIO or Woodcock,
head of the UAW) could not be called class enemies because they were members
of the working class, even though he admitted that they "pursued bad
policies."  That's what I'd call a really dogmatic collapsing of all social
factors into a one-dimensional interpretation of economics! These two union
leaders were a more important part of the capitalist State than perhaps 95%
of the actual capitalists.)

I know some people who believe that because Marx said that capitalism
precedes socialism-communism, that therefore, today, Marxists should fight
for the full development of capitalism in some places, rather than struggle
to eliminate it. Or that because Marx (& Lenin) supported some
anti-imperialist movements for "national liberation", that therefore,
Marxists today are duty bound to publicly support the Kosovar Albanians from
Serbian domination, or Milosevic, from NATO domination, or every guerilla
group that picks up the gun anywhere. (However, I would agree that
anti-imperialism should be a point of principle for Marxists (and anyone
else!))

So those would be my examples of dogmatism, the mechanical application of
abstract theory, by people who CALL THEMSELVES MARXIST.  I suppose Marxists
could just say that those dogmatic people aren't really Marxists. That's
what I might tend to do. But really, I have no illusions that such a
semantic technique resolves the issue in any kind of serious way. Whatever
kind of wording we might want to use, there clearly are many people who CALL
themselves Marxist who engage in dogmatic theorizing and behavior.

By the way, these errors are not just confined to those who might be
associated with the more revolutionary wing of Marxism. There are plenty of
moderate socialists (as well as just mainstream pro-capitalist theorists)
who engage in all kinds of dogmatic phrase-mongering.

Perhaps the most common form of dogmatism is the narrow minded,
unquestioning way they make the assumption that their more revolutionary
opponents are automatically dogmatic while they, the moderates, are simply
looking at objective facts, with no partisanship influencing their
conclusions. If I could be permitted to quote Lenin (& others who have made
similar statements): "Facts are stubborn things."

In the end, we still have to argue the facts, as well as the methodology (I
think Marxism works) to interpret that data.

Alan Spector



-----Original Message-----
From: md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu <md7148@cnsvax.albany.edu>
To: WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK <wsn@csf.colorado.edu>
Date: Thursday, January 20, 2000 4:08 PM
Subject: Re: Historic spirals (fwd)



labeling one-self as a "non-dogmatic marxist" is itself a
self-affirmation of "dogma", accepting, by definition, the ideological
(false) distinction between "dogmatic" and "non-dogmatic marxism". it is,
itself,a product of "dogmatic reasoning"...


there is nothing like "dogmatic marxism". it is a false label and
ideology aimed to stigmatize communists by anti-communists. Since MARXISM
IS NOT A DOGMA, there is no point in arguing that "i am a non-dogmatic
marxist". people who argue this are IDEOLOGS par-exellence!! They
are imputing value judgement to their definition of marxism. They act like
agent prevacatours in marxism list servs to divide marxists!!


Mine