CB: Marxist unity of theory and practice is intended to be the theory and
practice united in communist workers.
However, it doesn't seem too plausible that many U.S.workers have a whole
Marxist theory of capitalist production.
***
WL: Communist workers are a rare breed and Marxist workers are even rarer. I
have a need to always be concrete. Over the past 150 years what has called
itself the communist movement in America were ideological groups, more than
less
sectarian, that espoused and believed in the ideas of communism. The unity of
theory and practice of these various communist grouping span the ideological
spectrum from militant Catholic workers to Marxist workers to our militant
anarcho syndicalist movement. That is to say that communism as a notion and
ideological striving is very ancient with some folks, myself included, tracing
these notions all the way back to the old Roman proletariat and militant
Christianity. Engels writes about this.
What has called itself the Marxist movement throughout the Western world
for the past 150 years has been individuals and ideological groups that
believed
in and espoused propositions of Marx, as they understood them.
I of course reject the notion that trying to explain a Marxist view point to
workers constitutes the unity of theory and practice in the Leninist meaning
or in the sense that Engels carried out his leadership role. Further an
understanding of Marxism is not a prerequisite for social and political
revolution -
insurrection. I do not imply that you stated the above sentence.
I serious doubt that a signifcant sector of the Socialist world had a whole
Marxist theory of capitalist production or rather, the industrial production
of commodities on the basis of the bourgeois property relations. In my
opinion we have just arrived at a point in history - during the past twenty
years,
where we can ascertain the gigantic dimensions of the bourgeois mode of
production as a whole; in theory and as practical politics of a social
movement.
We always need to be concrete as Marxists and never reduce our striving and
independent activity to the level of trade union politics. As Marxists
communists our task is to prepare the workers for the fundamental class
struggle in
the process of carrying out propaganda and agitation. Propaganda does not mean
explaining capitalist production as a whole. That is the role and task of
various party organizations after we recruit the advanced workers - leaders,
within our sphere. Agitation means fighting to ensure that what ever you are
doing
gets done or ensuring that the goals of a particular arena stay on course.
I believe that an understanding of insurrection as an art is necessary for
communist workers and revolutionaries to successively take power as the
culmination of a revolutionary crisis. In the absence of a revolutionary crisis
the
practice of Marxists insurgents has always been guided by the doctrine - not
theory, summed up as victory of the workers in their current struggle. If
this
means the fight for a freaking stop sign so be it.
What Karl Marx and Frederick Engels carried out as practical activity is to
consolidate the intellectual expression of the advanced segments of society
that could represent the spontaneous and long term interest of the working
class.
This hardly has anything to do with explaining job loss as such. The
documents of the First International and Marx and Engels early writings on the
Communist League describe their activity. Here is an example of the unity of
theory
and practice by Marx and Engels themselves.
What Lenin did was consolidate an advance strike forces - insurrectionary
force, as a basis to win over the leaders of the working class and indeed,
leaders from every segment of society, to carry out insurrection.
I agree that Marxist unity of theory and practice is intended to be the
theory and practice united in communist workers as an organized sector of
society, but this is to abstract and not reducible to explaining to workers
capitalist exploitation. Any trade union hack can explain this adequately and
toss his
hands up in the air and declare, but what can we do?
Workers in our country, across the board, already know that they are
exploited. Really. The guys and girls at McDonald know they are exploited by
capitalist relations of production, as do autoworkers, software workers,
teachers,
untenured professors and the thousands of farm workers, janitors and part time
workers. Something else is missing.
Pinpointing this something else is what separates the men from the boyz in
the hood.
Waistline
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