On The Problem Of Theory And Praxis

Just the other day I noticed that many Marxists who want to bring their ideas, or Marxism of course, into the masses are not quite clear about their own class position and the consciousness that has arisen from it. Isn't it strange that you start making other people class conscious when you don't know your class consciousness? Accordingly, I would like to present here the story about my studies of my own consciousness.

Of course, my studies started with the following question "Why am I a communist anyway?" 

The question was not easy for me to clarify, a long time I tried to think about it or to solve it in conversations with others for the time being unsuccessfully. I knew that part of it comes from my communist family history and my background, but as a materialist there must have been some material cause or some reason from my class base.

Then, after a long period of study (of Dialectical Materialism), I gradually came to the causes of my orientation. First, I found that I am definitely a petty bourgeois or a labor aristocrat, since I live in the First World and my living conditions are relatively good. I concluded this from my studies of "Unequal Exchange" and more generally, "Third Worldism." Thus I already knew that my real class interest was not the abolition of the system of exploitation, but its maintenance. This realization was brutal for me because it created a contradiction between my subjective, communist interest and my objective, capitalist interest (or rather: the contradiction existed but I only then became aware of it).

So now I had to find subjective factors that could blur out my objective interests, for this I found first my family history, then my position as Intelligentsia and the urge for a better world, where environmental problems, "common social diseases" like depression and social problems are solved. So, my orientation as a communist is based mainly on subjective factors and not on objective factors.

However, the most important thing was that I found out all these things by talking to someone from my home country and analyzing his class consciousness, but also his general statements and views, and then further investigating his class position. This friend showed me the difference between proletarian consciousness and my petty-bourgeois mindset (even though we were both communists!).

To anticipate a few questions up front: You can be a petty-bourgeois communist; pretty much all, if not then many, communists in the First World are petty-bourgeois. This is a fact that every sincere studying Marxist notices sooner or later, one could even argue that many communist parties are founded by people from the "intelligentsia", i.e. students, academics and literary active people, because only they have access to the theory, through their wealth and literary-academic knowledge. A worker has no proper access to such resources, mostly due to illiteracy, censorship and lack of money. 

The reasons why a petty bourgeois becomes a communist are also not, as in the case of proletarians, that he is exploited and that he has no other choice but to fight for his life and for better conditions, but adventurism. These petty bourgeois are looking for adventures to brighten up their boring lives. I think this is mostly true but not entirely. After their first real adventure, these types usually find that they arent quite as adventurous as they thought. The ones who stick it out were usually more committed (than perhaps even they thought) from the beginning. Many former Fedayan (Iranian communist guerrilla organization that was especially active in Iran in the 1970s, fighting against the Shah's government) were students and academics. They too sought adventure in Shahist Iran, but one could argue that they were also oppressed by the government apparatus and the contradictions between them and the ruling class visually boiled over, which is why such violent clashes occurred. In the First World, many self-declared "Maoists" would like to immediately build a Red base in their room and start the Protracted People's War from there in the city, these are also expressions of petty-bourgeois behavior, it is adventurism, instead of concrete, materialist analysis and tactics. I am not even criticizing the urge for praxis, but the senselessness of this specific kind of praxis.

Finally there are also communists in the First World or generally petite-bourgeois communists who roleplay as "Proletarians". They are not aware of their privileged position and have no idea of Lenin's theory of imperialism (which in itself is also somewhat problematic, but more on that another time). They are firmly convinced of having proletarian class interest and put themselves at the head of their small communist organisations with their -flawed- praxis and reject any form of criticism of their positions, because "they are doing praxis!" One can understand it well if one simply wants to throw books in front of these people, about Dependency Theory etc. so that they can finally understand their own class basis.

But why should we study them at all?

We communists work according to the praxis-theory scheme. So we first do praxis, gain experience in dealing with a subject/thing/etc. and from that we establish a theory that describes that thing. For example, we observe the sun and notice that our eyes hurt when we look into it for too long. We likewise look into a fire and notice that if we look into it too long, our eyes hurt (praxis). We conclude, "Looking too long into things with these properties (brightness) hurts our eyes." (theory). Now we apply the knowledge about "brightness", we try further what the fire does to our surroundings, it brightens them (praxis'). Thereupon we conclude, brightness can in moderation also illuminate rooms, so that we can see them (theory'). We go one step further, if the space is too large, the fire does not illuminate it completely, but only partially (theory''). "The space must be limited relatively small so that the brightness is correctly adjusted" (praxis''). So we keep expanding our knowledge of brightness through practical experience and use the knowledge gained from that for our advantage through enhanced praxis, from which we then gain more theoretical knowledge and so on.

This is exactly how our praxis works for gaining the "masses" (quotation marks, since the masses are bourgeoisified in the First World). However, when some roleplay as "proletarians" and consider the workers of the First World as exploited, their approach is fundamentally different than when we assume that the First World workers are bourgeoisified, the latter is now reality, those persons who claim otherwise live in their own illusory world (which funnily enough is a typical petty bourgeois behavior, namely "blatant idealism").

Really ironic, many of these points applied exactly to me at that time, of course there are other kinds of petty-bourgeois mindset and behavior, if I would enumerate all of them, I might as well write a book. Only by studying objective reality could I clarify my own class position, uncover the roots of my thoughts (regard the base-superstructure model of dialectics!) and thus eliminate possible errors and bourgeois deviation.

So my suggestion or rather critique to many self-proclaimed "communists" but also the general communist movement (and to my future self):

Don't read theory for theory's sake, or to feel good about defeating someone in a debate, but to get to the bottom of objective reality, to improve your praxis by clearing out deviations and wrong positions, and ultimately to help the communist movement move from being a specter going around the world to a true movement that the ruling class should tremble thinking of it. In particular, talk to communists from the Periphery ("Third World") and study other people's class position and their ideas, their theories, their consciousness, to get a better picture of your surroundings and of reality.

If you are armed with and have mastered Dialectical Materialism, the door to the world of scientific Marxism is wide open.