Lukacs Flashcards
(152 cards)
1
Q
What is orthodox marxism?
A
“Orthodox Marxism, therefore, does not imply the uncritical acceptance of the results of Marx’s investigations. It is not the ‘belief’ in this or that thesis, nor the exegesis of a ‘sacred’ book. On the contrary, orthodoxy refers exclusively to method. It is the scientific conviction that dialectical materialism is the road to truth and that its methods can be developed, expanded and deepened only along the lines laid down by its founders. “
2
Q
What do dialiectics do?
A
“By contrast, in the teeth of all these isolated and isolating facts and partial systems, dialectics insists on the concrete unity of the whole. Yet although it exposes these appearances for the illusions they are—albeit illusions necessarily engendered by capitalism—in this ‘scientific’ atmosphere it still gives the impression of being an arbitrary construction.”
3
Q
What are facts the product of?
A
“The historical character of the ‘facts’ which science seems to have grasped with such ‘purity’ makes itself felt in an even more devastating manner. As the products of historical evolution they are involved in continuous change. But in addition they are also precisely in their objective structure the products of a definite historical epoch, namely capitalism. “
4
Q
What does science do when it claims to deal with facts?
A
“hus when ‘science’ maintains that the manner in which data immediately present themselves is an adequate foundation of scientific conceptualisation and that the actual form of these data is the appropriate starting-point for the formation of scientific concepts, it thereby takes its stand simply and dogmatically on the basis of capitalist society. It uncritically accepts the nature of the object as it is given and the laws of that society as the unalterable foundation of ‘science’.”
5
Q
What is needed to percieve facts truly?
A
“In order to progress from these ‘facts’ to facts in the true meaning of the word it is necessary to perceive their historical conditioning as such and to abandon the point of view that would see them as immediately given: they must themselves be subjected to a historical and dialectical examination. “
6
Q
What is the goal of dialiectics?
A
“Thus we must detach the phenomena from the form in which they are immediately given and discover the intervening links which connect them to their core, their essence. In so doing, we shall arrive at an understanding of their apparent form and see it as the form in which the inner core necessarily appears.”
7
Q
How do we gain knowledge of reality?
A
“Only in this context which sees the isolated facts of social life as aspects of the historical process and integrates them in a totality, can knowledge of the facts hope to become knowledge of reality.”
8
Q
What do vulgar materialists such as Bernstein do?
A
“They imagine that they are being quite extraordinarily ‘exact’ when they simply take over these determinants without either analysing them further or welding them into a concrete totality. They take the facts in abstract isolation, explaining them only in terms of abstract laws unrelated to the concrete totality.”
9
Q
What does a failure to link things to the totality lead to?
A
“The crudeness and conceptual nullity of such thought lies primarily in the fact that it obscures the historical, transitory nature of capitalist society. Its determinants take on the appearance of timeless, eternal categories valid for all social formations. “
10
Q
What happened with the loss of the dialectical method?
A
“The dialectical method was overthrown and with it the methodological supremacy of the totality over the individual aspects; the parts were prevented from finding their definition within the whole and, instead, the whole was dismissed as unscientific or else it degenerated into the mere ‘idea’ or ‘sum’ of the parts.”
11
Q
What governs reality?
A
“Concrete totality is, therefore, the category that governs reality. “
12
Q
What does proper theory do?
A
“When theory (as the knowledge of the whole) opens up the way to resolving these contradictions it does so by revealing the real tendencies of social evolution. For these are destined to effect a real resolution of the contradictions that have emerged in the course of history.”
13
Q
What must the bourgeosie do to survive?
A
“For the latter it is a matter of life and death to understand its own system of production in terms of eternally valid categories: it must think of capitalism as being predestined to eternal survival by the eternal laws of nature and reason. Conversely, contradictions that cannot be ignored must be shown to be purely surface phenomena, unrelated to this mode of production. “
14
Q
What does the category of totality do?
A
“We repeat: the category of totality does not reduce its various elements to an undifferentiated uniformity, to identity. The apparent independence and autonomy which they possess in the capitalist system of production is an illusion only in so far as they are involved in a dynamic dialectical relationship with one another and can be thought of as the dynamic dialectical aspects of an equally dynamic and dialectical whole.”
15
Q
What example does Lukacs give of fetishism and a failure to see things in their totality?
A
“A cotton-spinning jenny is a machine for spinning cotton. Only in certain circumstances does it become capital. Torn from those circumstances it is no more capital than gold is money or sugar the price of sugar.”
16
Q
What does a dialiectical conception of reality allow us to do?
A
“This is why only the dialectical conception of totality can enable us to understand reality as a social process. For only this conception dissolves the fetishistic forms necessarily produced by the capitalist mode of production and enables us to see them as mere illusions which are not less illusory for being seen to be necessary. “
17
Q
What is seen when we simply take things in isolation?
A
“They are, therefore, objects of knowledge, but the object which is known through them is not the capitalist system of production itself, but the ideology of its ruling class. “
18
Q
When does historical knowledge become possible?
A
“Only when this veil is torn aside does historical knowledge become possible. For the function of these unmediated concepts that have been derived from the fetishistic forms of objectivity is to make the phenomena of capitalist society appear as supra-historical essences.”
19
Q
What does the fetishistic illusion conceal?
A
” This concealment is made possible by the fact that in capitalist society man’s environment, and especially the categories of economics, appear to him immediately and necessarily in forms of objectivity which conceal the fact that they are the categories of the relations of men with each other. Instead they appear as things and the relations of things with each other. Therefore, when the dialectical method destroys the fiction of the immortality of the categories it also destroys their reified character and clears the way to a knowledge of reality.”
20
Q
What became an ethical problem for Lukacs? (Eva Karadi)
A
“After 1915, the ethical problem of terrorism was an important component of Lukacs’s ethics”
21
Q
How does Lukacs view the morality of Russian revolutionaries? (Karadi)
A
“Lukacs interprets the morality of the Russian revolutionaries as a logical extension of Dostoevsky’s teachings, as an ethic of taking sin on oneself and sacrificing one’s own moral purity for the sake of others”
22
Q
What did reason achieve in historical materialism? HCC
A
“Thus in historical materialism reason “which has always existed though not always in a rational form”, achieved that ‘rational’ form by discovering its real substratum, the basis from which human life will really be able to become conscious of itself. “
23
Q
What is man confronted with in capitalist society? HCC
A
“Man finds himself confronted by purely natural relations or social forms mystified into natural relations. They appear to be fixed, complete and immutable entities which can be manipulated and even comprehended, but never overthrown.”
24
Q
What does the evolution of the proletariat reflect?
A
” In the same way, the evolution of the proletariat reflects the inner structure of the society which it was the first to understand.
“
25
What is the goal of consciousness? HCC
"The ultimate goal is rather that relation to the totality (to the whole of society seen as a process), through which every aspect of the struggle acquires its revolutionary significance. This relation informs every aspect in its simple and sober ordinariness, but only consciousness makes it real and so confers reality on the day-to-day struggle by manifesting its relation to the whole."
26
What has never existed regarding facts? HCC
"A situation in which the ‘facts’ speak out unmistakably for or against a definite course of action has never existed, and neither can or will exist"
27
What does it mean to explore facts in their isolation?
"in their isolation, i.e. in their unmediated relations"
28
What determines the correct course of action? HCC
" It is to know the direction that determines concretely the correct course of action at any given moment—in terms of the interest of the total process, viz. the emancipation of the proletariat."
29
What does orthodoxy mean as Lukacs sums up?
"Marxist orthodoxy is no guardian of traditions, it is the eternally vigilant prophet proclaiming the relation between the tasks of the immediate present and the totality of the historical process. "
30
What is the difference between marxism and bourgeois thought?
"IT is not the primacy of economic motives in historical explanation that constitutes the decisive difference between Marxism and bourgeois thought, but the point of view of totality"
31
What is totality?
" The category of totality, the all-pervasive supremacy of the whole over the parts is the essence of the method which Marx took over from Hegel and brilliantly transformed into the foundations of a wholly new science.
"
32
What does the primacy of totality lead to?
" The primacy of the category of totality is the bearer of the principle of revolution in science.
"
33
How does bourgeois though interpret objects?
"Bourgeois thought concerns itself with objects that arise either from the process of studying phenomena in isolation, or from the division of labour and specialisation in the different disciplines"
34
What does marxism not acknowledge the independent existence of?
"In the last analysis Marxism does not acknowledge the existence of independent sciences of law, economics or history"
35
What is the only science according to marxism?
"there is nothing but a single, unified—dialectical and historical—science of the evolution of society as a totality."
36
From what standpoint does bourgeois thought judge things and with what result?
"Bourgeois thought judges social phenomena consciously or unconsciously, naïvely or subtly, consistently from the standpoint of the individual. No path leads from the individual to the totality"
37
How does the world appear to the capitalist?
"economic reality has the appearance of a world governed by the eternal laws of nature, laws to which he has to adjust his activities."
38
What does a view that lacks a totalising perspective result in?
"For the destruction of a totalising point of view disrupts the unity of theory and practice"
39
Who is the subject of history?
the proletariat
40
What form does class consciousness take?
the party
41
What did Rosa Luxemburg grasp more than others?
"Rosa Luxemburg had grasped the spontaneous nature of revolutionary mass actions earlier and more clearly than many others"
42
What does the party represent to mechanical materialists?
"For the mechanical vulgarisers the party was merely a form of organisation—and the mass movement, the revolution, was likewise no more than a problem of organisation."
43
What role does the party play?
"In this process which it can neither provoke nor escape, the Party is assigned the sublime role of bearer of the class consciousness of the proletariat and the conscience of its historical vocation."
44
How does the proletariat view the party?
" It is nourished by the feeling that the party is the objectification of their own will (obscure though this may be to themselves), that it is the visible and organised incarnation of their class consciousness."
45
How do objects appear at an earlier period of knowledge?
"The objects of history appear as the objects of immutable, eternal laws of nature. History becomes fossilised in a formalism incapable of comprehending that the real nature of socio-historical institutions is that they consist of relations between men"
46
What do men fail to see according to Marx?
"people fail to realise “that these definite social relations are just as much the products of men as linen, flax, etc.”"
47
What is capital according to marx?
" Capital and with it every form in which the national economy objectifies itself is, according to Marx, “not a thing but a social relation between persons mediated through things”.
"
48
What is mediated through objects?
Social relations between men
49
What is consciousness not?
"This consciousness is, therefore, neither the sum nor the average of what is thought or felt by the single individuals who make up the class"
50
What does everything hinge on in action?
"Everything hinges on the extent to which they can become conscious of the actions they need to perform in order to obtain and organise power"
51
What did bourgeois thought in the nineteenth century try to do?
"The whole of bourgeois thought in the nineteenth century made the most strenuous efforts to mask the real foundations of bourgeois society"
52
What does the bourgeosie have over the proletariat and what does this mean for it/
"As the bourgeoisie has the intellectual, organisational and every other advantage, the superiority of the proletariat must lie exclusively in its ability to see society from the centre, as a coherent whole. This means that it is able to act in such a way as to change reality"
53
What is ideology for the proletariat?
"‘Ideology’ for the proletariat is no banner to follow into battle, nor is it a cover for its true objectives: it is the objective and the weapon itself. "
54
How does Lukacs describe the capitalist world's appearance?
"the reified relations of capitalism have the appearance of a natural environment"
55
Where does the strength of class consciousness lie?
" The superior strength of true, practical class consciousness lies in the ability to look beyond the divisive symptoms of the economic process to the unity of the total social system underlying it.
"
56
What is the basis of the commodity structure of society?
" Its basis
is that a relation between people takes on the character of a thing and thus
acquires a ‘phantom objectivity’, an autonomy that seems so strictly
rational and all-embracing as to conceal every trace of its fundamental
nature: the relation between people."
57
What does Lukacs' reification base itself on?
"Our intention here is to base ourselves on Marx’s economic analyses and
to proceed from there to a discusssion of the problems growing out of the
fetish character of commodities, both as an objective form and also as a
subjective stance corresponding to it. "
58
How does Marx describe reification? HCC
" Marx describes the basic phenomenon of reification as follows: “A
commodity is therefore a mysterious thing, simply because in it the social
character of men’s labour appears to them as an objective character stamped
upon the product of that labour...It is only a definite social relation between men that assumes,
in their eyes, the fantastic form of a relation between things.”"
59
What is of central importance in reification?
"What is of central importance here is that because of this situation a
man’s own activity, his own labour becomes something objective and
independent of him, something that controls him by virtue of an autonomy
alien to man. "
60
How does man appear in the process of labour in capitalism?
"Neither objectively nor in his relation to his work does man
appear as the authentic master of the process; on the contrary, he is a
mechanical part incorporated into a mechanical system. He finds it already
pre-existing and self-sufficient, it functions independently of him and he
has to conform to its laws whether he likes it or not."
61
What are the things in capitalism that it produces?
" quantifiable ‘things’
(the reified, mechanically objectified ‘performance’ of the worker, wholly
separated from his total human personality)"
62
Why does reification require a society based on commodity exchange?
So that everything can be reduced to objects to be sold
63
How dow this reifying process of making things obects to be exchanged alter mans consciousness?
"his qualities and abilities are no
longer an organic part of his personality, they are things which he can ‘own’
or ‘dispose of’ like the various objects of the external world. And there is
no natural form in which human relations can be cast, no way in which man
can bring his physical and psychic ‘qualities’ into play without their being
subjected increasingly to this reifying process"
64
What does the division of labour in capitalism do for reification?
" It is at the same time the product of
the capitalist division of labour. It has already been pointed out that the
division of labour disrupts every organically unified process of work and
life and breaks it down into its components."
65
How does the reified world appear?
"The reified world appears henceforth quite definitively—and in philosophy,
under the spotlight of ‘criticism’ it is potentiated still further—as the only
possible world, the only conceptually accessible, comprehensible world
vouchsafed to us humans."
66
Why are theory and action the same?
"Theory and praxis in fact refer
to the same objects, for every object exists as an immediate inseparable
complex of form and content."
67
What is the characteristic features of capitalist society?
" We have already described the characteristic features of this situation
several times: man in capitalist society confronts a reality ‘made’ by
himself (as a class) which appears to him to be a natural phenomenon alien
to himself; he is wholly at the mercy of its ‘laws’, his activity is confined to
the exploitation of the inexorable fulfilment of certain individual laws for
his own (egoistic) interests. But even while ‘acting’ he remains, in the
nature of the case, the object and not the subject of events. The field of his
activity thus becomes wholly internalised: it consists on the one hand of the
awareness of the laws which he uses and, on the other, of his awareness of
his inner reactions to the course taken by events."
68
What does a person under capitalism remain whilst he acts with regards to history and its movement?
"But even while ‘acting’ he remains, in the
nature of the case, the object and not the subject of events."
69
What is the only point of view from which understanding is possible?
"Instead, the concrete totality of the
historical world, the concrete and total historical process is the only point of
view from which understanding becomes possible.
70
What does it mean to be the subject of history?
"the doer of its deed"
71
Is reification the same for the proletariat and the bourgeoisie?
"Thus the proletariat shares with the bourgeoisie the
reification of every aspect of its life. Marx observes: “The property-owning
class and the class of the proletariat represent the same human self
alienation. But the former feels at home in this self-alienation and feels
itself confirmed by it; it recognises alienation as its own instrument and in it
it possesses the semblance of a human existence. The latter feels itself
destroyed by this alienation and sees in it its own impotence and the reality
of an inhuman existence.”"
72
How do Fraser and Wilde define commodity fetishism?
A definite social relation between people that assumes the fantastic form of a relation between things that mystifies the true nature of capitalism
73
What does it mean to leave empirical reality behind?
"But in fact, to leave empirical reality
behind can only mean that the objects of the empirical world are to be
understood as aspects of a totality, i.e. as the aspects of a total social
situation caught up in the process of historical change."
74
What does mediation mean?
"Thus the category of
mediation is a lever with which to overcome the mere immediacy of the
empirical world and as such it is not something (subjective) foisted on to
the objects from outside, it is no value-judgement or ‘ought’ opposed to
their ‘is’. It is rather the manifestation of their authentic objective structure."
75
What does it mean for something to be unmediated?
" objects are torn from the complex of their true determinants and placed in
artificial isolation"
76
What does quantifying objects do to them?
"The quantification of objects, their subordination to
abstract mental categories makes its appearance in the life of the worker
immediately as a process of abstraction of which he is the victim, and
which cuts him off from his labour-power, forcing him to sell it on the
market as a commodity, belonging to him.
77
What does the worker do when he sells his only commodity, his labour power?
"And by selling this, his only
commodity, he integrates it (and himself: for his commodity is inseparable
from his physical existence) into a specialised process that has been
rationalised and mechanised, a process that he discovers already existing,
complete and able to function without him and in which he is no more than
a cipher reduced to an abstract quantity, a mechanised and rationalised tool"
78
What is needed for a worker to become conscious of his existence?
"Above all
the worker can only become conscious of his existence in society when he
becomes aware of himself as a commodity"
79
What happens once the worker sees himself as a commodity in a system?
" existence integrates him as a pure, naked object into the production process.
Once this immediacy turns out to be the consequence of a multiplicity of
mediations, once it becomes evident how much it presupposes, then the
fetishistic forms of the commodity system begin to dissolve: in the
commodity the worker recognises himself and his own relations with
capital."
80
What happens to the workers knowledge when he sees himself as a commodity?
"his
knowledge is practical. That is to say, this knowledge brings about an
objective structural change in the object of knowledge. In this
consciousness and through it the special objective character of labour as a
commodity, its ‘use-value’ (i.e. its ability to yield surplus produce) which
like every use-value is submerged without a trace in the quantitative
exchange categories of capitalism, now awakens and becomes social
reality."
81
How does Lukacs describe the reification of labour as a commodity?
" The specific nature of this kind of commodity had consisted in the fact that
beneath the cloak of the thing lay a relation between men, that beneath the
quantifying crust there was a qualitative, living core. Now that this core is
revealed it becomes possible to recognise the fetish character of every
commodity based on the commodity character of labour power: in every
case we find its core, the relation between men, entering into the evolution
of society."
82
Why can only the proletariat acquire knowledge of itself as a commodity?
"For his work as he experiences it directly possesses the naked and abstract form of the commodity, while in other forms of work this is hidden behind the façade of ‘mental labour’, of ‘responsibility’, etc.
(and sometimes it even lies concealed behind ‘patriarchal’ forms)."
83
Whereas theworker experiences his position in the production process as uncertainty, how do other classes experience it?
"This stands in contrast to other groups
which have both the appearance of stability (the routine of duty, pension,
etc.) and also the—abstract—possibility of an individual’s elevating himself
into the ruling class."
84
What did Marx see in the silesian weavers revolt of 1844?
"Their
action revealed their “superior nature” for “whereas every other movement
turned initially only against the industrialist, the visible enemy, this one
attacked also the hidden enemy, namely the banker.”"
85
What is the highpoint of bourgeois thought?
"The view that things as they appear can be accounted for by
‘natural laws’ of society is, according to Marx, both the highpoint and the
‘insuperable barrier’ of bourgeois thought."
86
What do we see in the reification of objects?
"It is just in this objectification, in
this rationalisation and reification of all social forms that we see clearly for
the first time how society is constructed from the relations of men with each
other."
87
What do human relations appear as?
" But we can see this only if we also remember that these human
interrelations are, in Engels’ words, “bound to objects” and that they
“appear as objects”, only if we do not forget for a single moment that these
human interrelations are not direct relations between one man and the next."
88
What are 'facts' nothing but?
"Only then will it be understood that the
facts are nothing but the parts, the aspects of the total process that have
been broken off, artificially isolated and ossified."
89
What does bourgeois thought focus on?
" Thus bourgeois thought remains fixated on these forms which it believes
to be immediate and original and from there it attempts to seek an
understanding of economics, blithely unaware that the only phenomenon
that has been formulated is its own inability to comprehend its own social
foundations."
90
What does history become once consciousness is achieved?
" History is no longer an enigmatic flux to which men and things are
subjected. It is no longer a thing to be explained by the intervention of
transcendental powers or made meaningful by reference to transcendental
values. History is, on the one hand, the product (albeit the unconscious one)
of man’s own activity, on the other hand it is the succession of those
processes in which the forms taken by this activity and the relations of man
to himself (to nature, to other men) are overthrown"
91
Why can we not approach things empirically?
" What connects them is their place and function in the totality and by
rejecting the idea of a ‘purely historical’ explanation the notion of history as
a universal discipline is brought nearer.
92
what does the standpoint of totality lead to?
" From this standpoint alone does history really become a history of
mankind. For it contains nothing that does not lead back ultimately to men
and to the relations between men."
93
What happens when theory and practice combine?
"When
theory and practice are united it becomes possible to change reality and
when this happens the absolute and its ‘relativistic’ counterpart will have
played their historical role for the last time. "
94
Why can the individual not comprehend all things?
"For when the
individual confronts objective reality he is faced by a complex of ready
made and unalterable objects which allow him only the subjective
responses of recognition or rejection. Only the class can relate to the whole
of reality in a practical revolutionary way"
95
How does the individual see reified objects?
"For the individual, reification and hence determinism
(determinism being the idea that things are necessarily connected) are
irremovable. Every attempt to achieve ‘freedom’ from such premises must
fail, for ‘inner freedom’ presupposes that the world cannot be changed."
96
What must the class do to comprehend all things and the movement of histroy?
"And the class, too, can only manage it when it can
see through the reified objectivity of the given world to the process that is
also its own fate. "
97
What is reification and how can it be overcome?
" Reification is, then, the necessary, immediate reality of every person
living in capitalist society. It can be overcome only by constant and
constantly renewed efforts to disrupt the reified structure of existence by
concretely relating to the concretely manifested contradictions of the total
development, by becoming conscious of the immanent meanings of these
contradictions for the total development."
98
How do we judge if something is right or wrong?
" when judging whether an action is right or wrong it is essential
to relate it to its function in the total process."
99
What must actions serve to do?
"Whether an action is functionally right or wrong is
decided ultimately by the evolution of proletarian class consciousness."
100
What are we confronted with when we try to confront things cognitively?
"For every purely
cognitive stance bears the stigma of immediacy. That is to say, it never
ceases to be confronted by a whole series of ready-made objects that cannot
be dissolved into processes."
101
How has the role of historical materialism changed?
"Up to now historical materialism was doubtless a
superb weapon but from a scientific point of view it was hardly more than a
programme, an indication of the way in which history ought to be written.
Now, however, a further task devolves upon it: the whole of history really
has to be re-written; the events of the past have to be sorted, arranged and
judged from the point of view of historical materialism."
102
What did histroical materialism give the proletariat?
"And it is this that
gives the class struggle of the proletariat its special place among other class
struggles, namely that it obtains its sharpest weapon from the hand of true
science, from its clear insight into reality...By laying bare the springs of the historical process
historical materialism became, in consequence of the class situation of the
proletariat, an instrument of war."
103
What is the most important function of histroical materialism for the proletariat?
"The most important function of historical materialism is to deliver a
precise judgement on the capitalist social system, to unmask capitalist
society."
104
What has historical materialism been used to do to capitalist society?
"Throughout the class struggle of the proletariat, therefore, historical
materialism has constantly been used at every point, where, by means of all
sorts of ideological frills, the bourgeoisie had concealed the true situation,
the state of the class struggle; it has been used to focus the cold rays of
science upon these veils and to show how false and misleading they were
and how far they were in conflict with the truth"
105
Why did historical materialism exist?
"Historical materialism did
not exist for its own sake, it existed so that the proletariat could understand
a situation and so that, armed with this knowledge, it could act accordingly."
106
What is the essence of the class struggle?
"The essence of the class struggle of the proletariat
can in fact be defined by its union of theory and practice so that knowledge
leads to action without transition."
107
What had capitalist society given to economic life?
"Nor is it an accident that economics became an independent discipline
under capitalism. Thanks to its commodity and communications
arrangements capitalist society has given the whole of economic life an
identity notable for its autonomy, its cohesion and its exclusive reliance on
immanent laws. This was something quite unknown in earlier forms of
society."
108
What is nature?
"Nature is a societal category. That
is to say, whatever is held to be natural at any given stage of social
development, however this nature is related to man and whatever form his
involvement with it takes, i.e. nature’s form, its content, its range and its
objectivity are all socially conditioned."
109
What does every society do to its structure of production and with what consequences?
"And because every society
tends to ‘mythologise’ the structure of its own system of production,
projecting it back into the past, this past—and even more the future—
appear likewise to be determined and controlled by such laws. It is then
forgotten that the birth and the triumph of this system of production is the
fruit of the most barbaric, brutal and naked use of ‘extra-economic’
violence."
110
What does vulgar marxism deny the importance of and with what result?
" It is, however, on this very point that vulgar Marxist theory has
concentrated: it denies the importance of violence as an ‘economic power’.
The underestimation by theorists of the importance of violence in history
and the systematic denial of the role it played in the past form the basis in
theory for the tactics of opportunism of vulgar Marxism. By elevating the
laws of development specific to capitalist societies to the status of universal
laws it lays the theoretical foundations essential to its aim of conferring
immortality upon capitalist society in practice."
111
What does class consciousness allow the proletariat to do?
" It is not only the goal, but also the means and the weapon in the
struggle. And here the fundamental and qualitative novelty of the situation
is revealed: for the first time mankind consciously takes its history into its
own hands—thanks to the class consciousness of a proletariat summoned to
power. "
112
What is violence to the proletariat?
"For
violence is no autonomous principle and never can be. And this violence is
nothing but the will of the proletariat which has become conscious and is
bent on abolishing the enslaving hold of reified relations over man and the
hold of economics over society."
113
Where does the proletariat find its self consciouness? (LSUOHT)
Historical materialism
114
What is proletarian consciouness measured by? (LSUT)
"the extent to which he is able accurately to detect beneath the appearances of bourgeois society those tendencies towards proletarian revolution which work themselves in and through it to their effective being and distinct consciousness."
115
What is Lenin on account of his consciouness? (LSUT)
"By these criteria Lenin is the greatest thinker to have been produced by the revolutionary working-class movement since Marx."
116
What does the mediocre scholar do? (LSUT)
"only understand and differentiate between immediately given, isolated moments of the social process. When he wants to draw general conclusions he in fact does nothing more than interpret as 'general laws' , in a truly abstract way, certain aspects of phenomena limited in time and space, and apply them accordingly"
117
What is the core of Lenin's thought and link with Marx? (LSUT)
"The actuality of the revolution: this is the core of Lenin's thought and his decisive link with Marx"
118
What crises to vulgar marxists? (LSUT)
" For to a vulgar Marxist; the foundations of bourgeois society are so unshakeable that, even when they are most visibly shaking, he only hopes and prays for a return to 'normality', sees its crises as temporary episodes, and regards a struggle even at such times as an irrational and irresponsible rebellion against the ever-invincible capitalist system"
119
What development did marxism undergo through Lenin? (LSUT)
" The development which Marxism thus underwent through Lenin consists merely merely! -in its increasing grasp of the intimate, visible, and momentous connexion between individual actions and general destiny -the revolutionary destiny of the whole working class. It merely means that every question of the day -precisely as a question of the day -at the same time became a fundamental problem of the revolution. "
120
What had marxists before Lenin not been able to do? (LSUT)
" They were, however, incapable of applying it and using it to establish firm guide-lines for all questions on the daily agenda, whether they were political or economic, involved theory or tactics, agitation or organization. Lenin alone took this step towards making Marxism, now a quite practical force, concrete. "
121
Must a party also be illegal to be revolutionary?
"On the other hand, it is possible to imagine a situation in which the most
revolutionary and most uncompromising Communist Party may be able to
function for a time under conditions of almost complete legality."
122
Why can non-proletarian people and classes not free themselves from the old order of society?
"They need the evidence of
their own eyes to tell them which society really conforms to their interests
before they can free themselves inwardly from the old order"
123
Why is marxism revolutionary?
"Marxism is the doctrine of the revolution precisely because it
understands the essence of the process (as opposed to its manifestations, its
symptoms); and because it can demonstrate the decisive line of future
development (as opposed to the events of the moment)."
124
What does it mean to merely adopt a stance of opposition?
"For to adopt the stance of ‘opposition’
means that the existing order is accepted in all essentials as an immutable
foundation and all the efforts of the ‘opposition’ are restricted to making as
many gains as possible for the workers within the existing system.
"
125
What is the distinction between marxists and pseudo marxists?
"The great distinction between
revolutionary Marxists and pseudo-Marxist opportunists consists in the fact
that for the former the capitalist state counts merely as a power factor
against which the power of the organised proletariat is to be mobilised.
Whilst the latter regard the state as an institution standing above the classes
and the proletariat and the bourgeoisie conduct their war in order to gain
control of it."
126
What happens if the state is viewed as an object of struggle rather than an enemy?
"But by viewing the state as the object of the struggle rather
than as the enemy they have mentally gone over to bourgeois territory and
thereby lost half the battle even before taking up arms. For every system of
state and law, and the capitalist system above all, exists in the last analysis
because its survival, and the validity of its statutes, are simply accepted as
unproblematic. "
127
What is marxist theory designed to do?
"Marxist theory is designed to put the
proletariat into a very particular frame of mind. The capitalist state must
appear to it as a link in a chain of historical development. Hence it by no
means constitutes ‘man’s natural environment’ but merely a real fact whose
actual power must be reckoned with but which has no inherent right to
determine our actions."
128
What does it mean to prefer illegal methods because they are illegal?
"For to rebel against
the law qua law, to prefer certain actions because they are illegal, implies
for anyone who so acts that the law has retained its binding validity...Where this is not the case, where it is resolved to break the law with a
grand gesture, this suggests that the law has preserved its authority—
admittedly in an inverted form—that it is still in a position inwardly to
influence one’s actions and that a genuine, inner emancipation has not yet
occurred"
129
What does the question of legality and illegality reduce itself to?
"The question of legality or illegality reduces itself then for the
Communist Party to a mere question of tactics, even to a question to be
resolved on the spur of the moment, one for which it is scarcely possible to
lay down general rules as decisions have to be taken on the basis of
immediate expediencies."
130
Whose influence must the proletariat be free from?
"For the proletariat can only be liberated from its
dependence upon the life-forms created by capitalism when it has learnt to
act without these life-forms inwardly influencing its actions. "
131
If the state is not opposed and is instead seen as standing above classconflcits, what will it be able to do?
Squash class conflicts whenever they appear as its supremacy is seen as the state of normalcy to which matters revert to
132
Why is the struggle still unequal even after the proletariat has gained power?
"Having
accustomed itself to surrounding the institutions of capitalism with an aura
of legality it finds it difficult to view with detachment the surviving remains
which may endure for a very long time. Once the proletariat has gained
power it still remains enmeshed intellectually in the trammels woven by the
course of capitalist development."
133
In its first attempts at rule, how does the proletariat act?
"A usurper,
moreover, who inwardly, in thought, feeling and resolve, anticipates the
inevitable restoration of capitalism"
134
What does luxemburg emphasise?
" Rosa Luxemburg emphasises: “A socialist government which has come to
power must in any event do one thing: it must take measures which lead in
the direction of those fundamental prerequisites for a later socialist reform
of agriculture; it must at least avoid everything which may bar the way to
those measures.” "
135
Who does Luxemburg criticise and is it fair?
"And so she reproaches Lenin and the Bolsheviks with
having omitted to do this, indeed, with having done the opposite. If this
opinion stood in isolation one might confine oneself to pointing out that
Comrade Luxemburg—like almost everyone else in 1918—was
inadequately informed of the true events in Russia. But when we look at
this opinion in the context of her other views we can see at once that she
overestimates by a long chalk the actual power which the Bolsheviks had at
their disposal for choosing the form in which to settle the agrarian question."
136
What is the decisive point of luxemburgs misinterpretation?
"And this false assessment of the true driving forces leads
to the decisive point of her misinterpretation: to the underplaying of the role
of the party in the revolution and of its conscious political action, as
opposed to the necessity of being driven along by the elemental forces of
economic development."
137
What does Luxemburg do?
"She constantly opposes to the
exigencies of the moment the principles of future stages of the revolution." - she looks too far ahead instead of focusing on the immediate needs of the revolution in its fight with counterrevoltuionary forces
138
Where is revolutionary spirit found and what do parties do in Luxemburgs view?
"She maintains the opposite view that real revolutionary spirit is
to be sought and found exclusively in the elemental spontaneity of the
masses. Unlike them the central party organisations have always a
conservative, braking function."
139
What is the role of the party for Luxemburg?
"It is necessary only to ensure that the idea of
class struggle does not become adulterated and infected by petty-bourgeois
notions. In this the centralised organ can and should help. But only in the
sense that it should be “at most a coercive instrument enforcing the will of
the proletarian majority in the party”."
140
What msitake must the proletariat not make?
"The victorious proletariat must not make the mistake of
dogmatically determining its policy in advance either economically or
ideologically. It must be able to manoeuvre freely in its economic policy
(socialisation, concessions, etc.) depending on the way the classes are
restratified and also upon how possible and necessary it is to win over
certain groups of workers for the dictatorship or at least to induce them to
preserve their neutrality."
141
What function can only the revolutionary party perform?
"Only a revolutionary
party like that of the Bolsheviks is able to carry out these often very sudden
changes of front. Only such a party is sufficiently adaptable, flexible and
independent in judgement of the actual forces at work to be able to advance
from Brest–Litovsk and the war-communism of the fiercest civil wars to the
new economic policy. Only the Bolsheviks will be able to progress from
that policy (in the event of new shifts in the balance of power) to yet other
power-groupings while preserving unimpaired the essential dominance of
the proletariat."
142
What is the most important factor in determing the correct direct to take?
" Among the factors that determine the direction to be taken, the
proletariat’s correct understanding of its own historical position is of the
very first importance. The course of the Russian Revolution in 1917 is a
classic illustration of this. For we see there how at a crucial moment, the
slogans of peace, self-determination and the radical solution to the agrarian
problem welded together an army that could be deployed for revolution
whilst completely disorganising the whole power apparatus of counter
revolution and rendering it impotent. "
143
What does the communist party represent?
"the Communist Party is the organised form of the
conscious approach to this leap and hence the first conscious step towards
the realm of freedom."
144
What does freedom not mean?
"Above all one thing must be made clear: freedom here does not mean the
freedom of the individual. This is not to say that the fully developed
communist society will have no knowledge of the freedom of the
individual. On the contrary, it will be the first society in the history of
mankind that really takes this freedom seriously and actually makes it a
reality. However, even this freedom will not be the same as the freedom that
bourgeois ideologists have in mind today. "
145
Why is freedom of the individual today not the freedom that socialism aims for?
"For the ‘freedom’ of the men who are alive now is the freedom of
the individual isolated by the fact of property which both reifies and is itself
reified. It is a freedom vis-à-vis the other (no less isolated) individuals. A
freedom of the egoist, of the man who cuts himself off from others, a
freedom for which solidarity and community exist at best only as
ineffectual ‘regulative ideas’.17 To wish to breathe life into this freedom
means in practice the renunciation of real freedom." - it is a freedom from others, based on the unfreedom of others
146
What does freedom actually mean?
"It implies the conscious subordination of the self to that collective
will that is destined to bring real freedom into being and that today is
earnestly taking the first arduous, uncertain and groping steps towards it.
This conscious collective will is the Communist Party."
147
Why is discipline necesary?
"Only through discipline can the
party be capable of putting the collective will into practice, whereas the
introduction of the bourgeois concept of freedom prevents this collective
will from forming itself and so transforms the party into a loose aggregate
of individuals incapable of action."
148
How does the organisation of the party change action?
" This twofold meaning of activity—its simultaneous impact upon the
individual who embodies proletarian class consciousness and upon the
course of history, i.e. the concrete mediation between man and history—this
is the decisive characteristic of the organisation now being born. In the
older type of organisation, regardless of whether we include bourgeois
parties or opportunist workers’ parties under this heading, the individual
can only occur as ‘the masses’, as follower, as cipher. "
149
What sort of consciousness is reflected in seeing bourgeois freedom as true freedom?
"With this it
becomes completely clear that the forms of freedom in bourgeois
organisations are nothing but a ‘false consciousness’ of an actual
unfreedom; that is to say, a pattern of consciousness in which man
contemplates from a position of formal freedom his own integration in a
system of alien compulsions and confuses this formal ‘freedom’ of his
contemplation with an authentic freedom."
150
is something right today always right?
" Therefore,
what was right today can be wrong tomorrow"
151
What does the division of labour do?
"The
division of labour, alien to the nature of man, makes men ossify in their
activity, it makes automata of them in their jobs and turns them into the
slaves of routine. As against this it simultaneously overdevelops their
individual consciousness which has been turned into something empty and
abstract by the impossibility of finding satisfaction and of living out their
personalities in their work, and which is now transformed into a brutal
egoism greedy for fame or possessions"
152
How does the party overcome reification?
" Its closely-knit organisation with its resulting iron discipline and
its demand for total commitment tears away the reified veils that cloud the
consciousness of the individual in capitalist society."
