Change and Interconnection
7. Change and Interconnection
The Marxist dialectical method demands that we must always consider things, not in isolation, but in their interconnection with other things, in relation to the actual conditions and circumstances of each case; and that we must consider things in their change and movement, their coming into being and going out of being, always taking particularly into account what is new, what is rising and developing.
It follows that the Marxist dialectical method forbids the employment of “ready-made schemes” and abstract formulas, but demands the thorough, detailed analysis of a process in all its concreteness, basing its conclusions only on such an analysis.
Four Principal Features of the Marxist Dialectical Method
In his Dialectical and Historical Materialism Stalin said that there are four principal features of the Marxist dialectical method.
(1) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard nature as just an agglomeration of things, each existing independently of the others, but it considers things as “connected with, dependent on and determined by each other.” Hence it considers that nothing can be understood taken by itself, in isolation, but must always be understood “in its inseparable connection with other things, and as conditioned by them.”
(2) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics considers everything as in “a state of continuous movement and change, of renewal and development, where something is always arising and developing and something always disintegrating and dying away.” Hence it considers things “not only from the standpoint of their interconnection and interdependence, but also from the standpoint of their movement, their change, their development, their coming into being and going out of being.”
(3) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics does not regard the: process of development as “a simple process of growth,” but as “a development which passes from... quantitative changes to open, fundamental changes, to qualitative changes,” which occur “abruptly, taking the form of a leap from one state to another.” Hence it considers development as “an onward and upward movement, as a transition from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state, as a development from the simple to the complex, from the lower to the higher.”
(4) Contrary to metaphysics, dialectics “holds that the process of development from the lower to the higher takes place... as a disclosure of the contradictions inherent in things... as a struggle of opposite tendencies which operate on the basis of these contradictions.”
We shall postpone until the next chapter consideration of the latter two features, which concern the process of development from one qualitative state to another, from the lower to the higher. In this chapter we shall consider the first two features of the dialectical method, namely, that it considers things always in their interconnection and in their movement and change.
Considering Things in Their Interconnection and Circumstances
The dialectical method demands, first, that we should consider things, not each by itself, but always in their interconnection with other things.
This sounds “obvious.” Nevertheless it is an “obvious” principle which is very often ignored and is extremely important to remember. We have already considered it and some examples of its application in discussing metaphysics, since the very essence of metaphysics is to think of things in an abstract way, isolated from their relations with other things and from the concrete circumstances in which they exist.
The principle of considering things in relation to actual conditions and circumstances, and not apart from those actual conditions and circumstances, is always of fundamental importance for the working-class movement in deciding the most elementary questions of policy.
For example, there was a time when the British workers were fighting for a ten-hour day. They were right at that time not to make their immediate demand an eight-hour day, since this was not yet a realizable demand. They were equally right, when they got a ten-hour day, not to be satisfied with it.
There are times when it is correct for a section of workers to come out on strike, and there are times when it is not correct. Such matters have to be judged according to the actual circumstances of the case. Similarly there are times when it is correct to go on prolonging and extending a strike, and there are times when it is correct to call it off.
No working-class leader can be of very much value if he tries to decide questions of policy in terms of “general principle” alone, without taking into account the actual circumstances in relation to which policy has to be operated, without understanding that the same policy can be right in one case and wrong in another, depending on the concrete circumstances of each case.
Thus Lenin wrote:
“Of course, in politics, in which sometimes extremely complicated—national and international—relationships between classes and parties have to be dealt with... it would be absurd to concoct a recipe, or general rule... that would serve in all cases. One must have the brains to analyze the situation in each separate case.”[45]
This readiness on the part of Marxists to adapt policy to circumstances and to change policy with circumstances is sometimes called Communist “opportunism.” But it is nothing of the kind—or rather, it is the very opposite. It is the application in practice of the science of the strategy and tactics of working-class struggle. Indeed, what is meant by opportunism in relation to working-class policy? It means subordinating the long-term interests of the working class as a whole to the temporary interests of a section, sacrificing the interests of the class to defense of the temporary privileges of some particular group. Communists are guided by Marx’s principle that “they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.”[46] And this requires that, in the interests of the movement as a whole, one must analyze the situation in each separate case, deciding what policy to pursue in each case in the light of the concrete circumstances.
On general questions, too, the greatest confusion can arise from forgetting the dialectical principle that things must not be considered in isolation but in their inseparable inter-connection.
For example, the British Labor leaders once said, and many members of the Labor Party continue to say, that nationalization is an installment of socialism. They consider nationalization by itself, in isolation, out of connection with the state and with the social structure in relation to which nationalization measures are introduced. They overlook the fact that if the public power, the state, remains in the hands of the exploiters, and if their representatives sit on and control the boards of the nationalized industries, which continue to be run on the basis of exploiting the labor of one class for the profit of another class, then nationalization is not socialism. Socialist nationalization can come into being only when the public power, the state, is in the hands of the workers.
Again, in political arguments people very often appeal to a concept of “fairness” which leads them to judge events without the slightest consideration of the real meaning of those events, of the circumstances in which they occur. What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: that is the principle employed in such arguments.
Thus it is argued that if we defend the democratic right of the workers in a capitalist country to agitate for the ending of capitalism and the introduction of socialism, then we cannot deny to others in a socialist country the right to agitate for the ending of socialism and the reintroduction of capitalism. Those who argue like this throw up their hands in horror when they find that counter-revolutionary groupings in the U.S.S.R., who sought to restore capitalism in that country, were deprived of the possibility of carrying out their aims. Why, they exclaim, this is undemocratic, this is tyranny! Such an argument overlooks the difference between fighting in the interests of the vast majority of the people to end exploitation, and fighting in the interests of a small section to preserve or reintroduce exploitation; it overlooks the difference between defending the right of the vast majority to run their affairs in their own interests, and defending the right of a small minority to keep the majority in bondage; in other words, it overlooks the difference between moving forward and backward, between putting the clock ahead and putting it back, between revolution and counter-revolution. Of course, if we fight to achieve socialism, and if we achieve it, then we shall defend what we have achieved and shall not allow the slightest possibility of any group destroying that achievement. Let the capitalists and their hangers-on shout about democracy “in general.” If, as Lenin said, we “have the brains to analyze the situation,” we shall not be deceived by them.
The ‘liberal” concept of “fairness” has, indeed, become a favorite weapon of reaction lately. In 1949 and again in 1950, when the fascists decided to hold a demonstration in London on May Day, the Home Secretary promptly banned the workers’ May Day demonstration. If I ban one, I must ban the other, he blandly explained. How scrupulously “fair” he was!
The principle of understanding things in their circumstances and interconnections is likewise a very important principle in science. Yet scientists, who take things to bits and consider their various properties, very often forget that things which they may consider in isolation do not exist in isolation. And this leads to serious misunderstandings.
Soviet biologists, for example, guided by this first principle of dialectics, have stressed the unity of the organism and its environment. They have pointed out that you cannot consider the organism as having a nature of its own, isolated from its environment: that is metaphysics. Thus there is no such thing as a plant, for instance, isolated from its environment: such a plant is a mere museum piece, a dead plant artificially preserved. Living plants grow in a soil, in a climate, in an environment, and they grow and develop by assimilating that environment. Thus Lysenko defined the heredity, or nature, of an organism as its requirement of certain conditions for its life and development, and its responding to various conditions in a certain way. This understanding of the unity of organism and environment had important consequences. For it led to the expectation that by compelling an organism to adapt itself to and assimilate changed conditions, its nature could be changed. And this expectation has been verified in practice.
The biologists of the Mendel-Morgan school, on the other hand, treat the organism abstractly, metaphysically, as isolated from its real conditions of life. They conceive of the “nature” of the organism as quite independent of its conditions of life. Hence they conclude, in true metaphysical style, that the heredity of an organism “is what is,” and that it is no use trying to change it in the ways in which Soviet biologists have changed the heredity of organisms.
Considering Things in Their Movement,
Their Coming into Being and Going Out of Being
Let us now consider some examples of the second principle of dialectics, which demands that we should consider things in their movement, their change, their coming into being and going out of being.
This principle, too, is of great importance in science.
Soviet biologists, for example, guided by this principle of dialectics, have considered the organism in its growth and development. Thus at a certain stage of growth, the nature of the organism is still plastic; if you can modify it at that stage, you can often change its nature, give it a changed heredity. Something is newly coming into being in the organism, and that is the time to foster it and to give it a desired direction. But if that stage is passed, then its nature becomes fixed and you cannot change it. You must find just the right stage of growth if you wish to modify the heredity of the organism.
The biologists of the Mendel-Morgan school, on the other hand, consider the nature of the organism as given and fixed from the very start.
This second principle of dialectics teaches us always to pay attention to what is new, to what is rising and growing—not just to what exists at the moment, but to what is coming into being.
This principle is of paramount importance for revolutionary understanding, for revolutionary practice.
The Russian Bolsheviks, for example, saw from the very beginning how Russian society was moving—what was new in it, what was coming into being. They looked for what was rising and growing, though it was still weak—the working class. While others discounted the importance of the working class and finished by entering into compromises with the forces of the old society, the Bolsheviks concluded that the working class was the new, rising force, and led it to victory.
Just this same understanding of what was rising and growing and of what was disintegrating and dying away, was exemplified in Stalin’s leadership during the war, 1941-45. When the Germans were before Moscow in November 1941, and all the “allied military strategists” outside the Soviet Union considered that Russia’s defeat was certain, Stalin said that while the Germans were at the peak of their military power the Soviet forces, on the other hand, were still mobilizing and increasing. Therefore the defeat of the German fascists was certain.
“Germany, whose reserves of manpower are already being exhausted, has been considerably more weakened than the Soviet Union, whose reserves are only now being mobilized to the full.... Can there be any doubt that we can, and are bound to, defeat the German invaders? The German invaders are straining their last efforts. There is no doubt that Germany cannot sustain such a strain for long.”[47]
Similarly today, when press and radio are full of the boasts and threats of the American imperialists and their henchmen, we stress that which is rising and growing all over the world, the people’s camp of peace, which is bound to continue to grow and to overwhelm the imperialists in shameful disaster.
Again, in the fight for unity of the working-class movement, in relation to the British Labor Party and the affiliated trade unions, we pay attention above all to that which is arising and growing in the movement. Therefore we see a great deal more than the policy of the right-wing leaders and their influence. The right wing has its basis in the past, though it is still strong and dominant. But there are arising the forces of the future, determined to fight against capitalism and war.
Similarly in relation to individual people—we should foster and build on what is coming to birth in them, what is rising and moving ahead. This is what a good secretary or organizer does.
Such examples as these show that the basis of the dialectical method, its most essential principle, is to study and understand things in their concrete interconnection and movement.
Against “Ready-made Schemes”—“Truth Is Always Concrete”
Sometimes people imagine that dialectics is a preconceived scheme, into the pattern of which everything is supposed to fit. This is the very opposite of the truth about dialectics. The employment of the Marxist dialectical method does not mean that we apply a preconceived scheme and try to make everything fit into it. No, it means that we study things as they really are, in their real interconnection and movement.
This is something which Lenin insisted on again and again. Indeed, he proclaimed it as “the fundamental thesis of dialectics.” “Genuine dialectics,” Lenin wrote, proceeds “by means of a thorough, detailed analysis of a process in all its concreteness. The fundamental thesis of dialectics is: there is no such thing as abstract truth, truth is always concrete.”[48]
What did he mean by “truth is always concrete”? Just that we will not get at the truth about things, about either nature or society, by thinking up some general scheme, some abstract formula; but only by trying to work out as regards each process just what are the forces at work, how they are related, which are rising and growing and which are decaying and dying away, and on this basis reaching an estimate of the process as a whole.
So Engels said: “There could be no question of building the laws of dialectics into nature, but of discovering them in it and evolving them from it.... Nature is the test of dialectics.”[49]
As regards the study of society, and the estimate we make of real social changes on which we base our political strategy, Lenin ridiculed those who took some abstract, preconceived scheme as their guide.
According to some “authorities,” the Marxist dialectics laid it down that all development must proceed through “triads”—thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Lenin ridiculed this.
“It is clear to everybody that the main burden of Engels’ argument is that materialists must depict the historical process correctly and accurately, and that insistence on... selection of examples which demonstrate the correctness of the triad is nothing but a relic of Hegelianism.... And, indeed, once it has been categorically declared that to attempt to ‘prove’ anything by triads is absurd, what significance can examples of ‘dialectical’ process have?... Anyone who reads the definition and description of the dialectical method given by Engels will see that the Hegelian triads are not even mentioned, and that it all amounts to regarding social evolution as a natural-historical process of development....
“What Marx and Engels called the dialectical method... is nothing more nor less than the scientific method in sociology, which consists in regarding society as a living organism in a constant state of development... the study of which requires an objective analysis of the relations of production that constitute the given social formation and an investigation of its laws of functioning and development.”[50]
Let us consider some examples of what the “analysis of a process in all its concreteness” and the principle that “truth is always concrete” mean, in contrast to the method of trying to lay down some preconceived scheme of social development and of appealing to such a scheme as a basis for policy.
In tsarist Russia the Mensheviks used to say: “We must have capitalism before socialism.” First capitalism must go through its full development, then socialism will follow: that was their scheme. Consequently they supported the liberals in politics and enjoined the workers to do no more than fight for better conditions in the capitalist factories.
Lenin repudiated this silly scheme. He showed that the liberals, frightened by the workers, would compromise with the tsar; but that the alliance of workers with peasants could take the lead from them, overthrow the tsar, and then go on to overthrow the capitalists and build socialism before ever capitalism was able to develop fully.
After the proletarian revolution was successful, another scheme was propounded—this time by Trotsky. “You can’t build socialism in one country. Unless the revolution takes place in the advanced capitalist countries, socialism cannot come in Russia.” Lenin and Stalin showed that this scheme, too, was false. For even if the revolution did not take place in the advanced capitalist countries, the alliance of workers and peasants in the Soviet Union had still the forces to build socialism.
In Western European countries it used often to be said: “We must have fascism before communism.” First the capitalists will abandon democracy and introduce the fascist dictatorship, and then the workers will overthrow the fascist dictatorship. But the Communists replied, no, we will fight together with all the democratic forces to preserve bourgeois democracy and to defeat the fascists, and that will create the best conditions for going forward to win working-class power and to commence to build socialism.
Lastly, today we sometimes hear the argument: “Capitalism means war, therefore war is inevitable.” True enough, so long as capitalism, which has long ago entered its last (imperialist) phase, persists, there must inevitably be conflicts between the rival powers, and these conflicts are such as to entail the inevitability of imperialist wars. But the imperialists cannot make war without the people. The more they prepare war, the more open their aggressiveness becomes, the more one power attempts to impose its domination on another, and the more hardships they impose on the people, the more can the people be rallied to oppose their war. Therefore in any instance when war threatens, that war can be prevented and postponed. And by fighting to preserve peace, we can lay the basis for ending the conditions which pose the inevitability of war. Imperialist war plans can be defeated; they can be defeated if the working class rallies all the peace-loving forces around itself. And imperialism itself, with the consequent inevitability of war, can be ended. If we defeat the imperialist war plans, that will be the best road towards the ending of capitalism itself and the building of socialism. Imperialism will not be ended by waiting for it to wreck itself in inevitable wars, but by uniting to prevent the realization of its war plans.
In all these examples it will be seen that the acceptance of some ready-made scheme, some abstract formula, means passivity, support for capitalism, betrayal of the working class and of socialism. But the dialectical approach which understands things in their concrete interconnection and movement, shows us how to forge ahead—how to fight, what allies to draw in. That is the inestimable value of the Marxist dialectical method to the working-class movement.
[45] Lenin, Left-wing Communism, Chapter VIII, N. Y., 1934.
[46] Marx and Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Chapter II.
[47] Stalin, The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, Speeches of November 6 and 7, 1941, N. Y., 1945.
[48] V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 2, One Step Forward, Two Steps Back, Section R, “Something about Dialectics.”
[49] Engels, Anti-Dühring, Preface and Introduction.
[50] Lenin, Selected Works, Vol. 1, “What the Friends of the People Are and How They Fight Against the Social Democrats,” Part I.
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