Criticism and Self-Criticism
Maurice Cornforth
11. Criticism and Self-Criticism
Development through contradiction, the struggle between the new and the old, will continue to be the rule in the future development of communist society. But with the ending of all exploitation of man by man, this development will no longer take place through violent social conflicts and upheavals but through the rational method of criticism and self-criticism, which will become the new level of development.
From the whole discussion of the Marxist dialectical method the conclusion follows that Marxism is a creative science which must continually advance in application to new conditions of development. Criticism and self-criticism lies at the very heart of the Marxist dialectical method.
A New Type of Development
What, now, of the future development of society, after the stage of communism has been reached? Are we to suppose that the same dialectical laws of development will continue to operate? Or that development will cease?
Development will not cease. On the contrary, it is only with the achievement of communism that human development in the proper sense, that is to say, a development consciously planned and controlled by men themselves, really begins; all the rest was only the painful preparation for it, the birth-pangs of the human race.
When all the means of production are brought fully under planned social direction, then it may be expected that men’s mastery over nature will enormously increase, and the conquest and transformation of nature by man will in turn mean profound changes in men’s mode of life. For instance, ability to produce an absolute abundance of products with a minimum expenditure of human labor, abolition of the antithesis between town and countryside, abolition of the antithesis between manual and intellectual labor, clearly imply profound changes in social organization, in outlook, in habits, in mode of life generally. But the effecting of such changes cannot but involve, at each stage, the overcoming of forms of social organization, of outlooks and habits, belonging to the past. Development, therefore, will continue to take place through the disclosure of contradictions, the struggle between the new and the old, the future and the past. How else can we expect things to move forward? New tendencies will arise out of the existing conditions at each stage, which will come into contradiction with the existing conditions and hence lead to their passing and giving way to new conditions.
But there is no reason to expect that this development will take place, as hitherto, through violent conflicts and social upheavals.
On the contrary, with communism there will have taken place, as Engels expressed it, “humanity’s leap from the realm of necessity into the realm of freedom.” And that means that the elemental conflicts characteristic of the “realm of necessity” will give place to changes controlled and planned.
“The laws of his own social activity, which have hitherto confronted him as external, dominating laws of nature, will then be applied by man with complete understanding, and hence will be dominated by man. Men’s own social organization which has hitherto stood in opposition to them as if arbitrarily decreed by nature and history, will then become the voluntary act of men themselves... men with full consciousness will fashion their own history.”[71]
When men understand the laws of their own social organization and have it under their own co-operative control, when there is no exploitation of man by man, when what is new and rising and its contradiction with the old is fully understood, then it is possible to do away with old conditions and create new conditions in a deliberate and planned way, without conflict or upheaval. Contradiction and the overcoming of the old by the new remain; but the element of antagonism and conflict as between men in society disappears and gives way to the properly human method of deciding affairs by rational discussion—criticism and self-criticism.
This mode of social development is already beginning in the Soviet Union today.
“In our Soviet society,” said A. A. Zhdanov, “where antagonistic classes have been liquidated, the struggle between the old and the new, and consequently the development from the lower to the higher, proceeds not in the form of struggle between antagonistic classes and of cataclysms, as is the case under capitalism, but in the form of criticism and self-criticism, which is the real motive force of our development, a powerful instrument in the hands of the Communist Party. This is incontestably a new aspect of movement, a new type of development, a new dialectical law.”[72]
Human Perspectives
In the first phase of the transition from socialism to communism, development takes place through continued struggle against the old heritage of capitalism.
What will happen when the last traces of old class society have been obliterated throughout the world? We can at all events predict certain initial features of the development of world communist society—associated humanity. Thus the organization of the state and of a government party will become outmoded, and state and party will disappear. This was already foreseen by Marx and Engels.
Again, Stalin has pointed out that the fullest development of national cultures and national languages, which is the task first arising from the abolition of the national oppression of capitalism, will provide the basis for an eventual universal human culture and human language. When “socialism has become part and parcel of the life of the peoples, and when practice has convinced the nations of the superiority of a common language over national languages,” then “national differences and languages will begin to die away and make room for a world language, common to all nations.”[73]
As for the more remote future, we have no data on which to base predictions—though we can be quite sure that vast changes will take place, and that the people of the future, masters of nature and knowing no oppression of man by man, will be well able to look after the destinies of the human race.
Bernard Shaw, in his Back to Methuselah, speculated on the possibility of the span of human life being greatly extended, and eventually extended indefinitely. True, he thought this would happen through the mysterious operation of “the life force.” Yet it was a profound speculation, for such a result may well be brought about through the development of physiological knowledge and medical science. And Shaw was quite right in supposing that such a development would make a tremendous difference in the whole mode of human life and in all social institutions. This is, indeed, one of the ways in which the advance of science and of men’s mastery over nature (our own nature, in this case) could lead to developments of vast, transforming significance for human life and society.
At all events, we cannot set limits to the powers of human achievement. And bearing this in mind, we may well believe that our descendants a few hundred generations hence will in their manner of life resemble us far less than we resemble our own ancestors among the primitive savages.
Creative Marxism
With this, we may try to sum up the main conclusions about dialectics.
Dialectics is concerned with interconnection, change and development. Understood in the materialist way, dialectics is “the science of the general laws of motion and development of nature, human society and thought.”
The dialectical method is the method of approach by the application of which we advance our materialist understanding of nature and history, and all particular processes of nature and history. It is a method—not a general formula, and not an abstract philosophical system. It guides us in understanding things so as to change them.
Such being the nature of dialectics and of the dialectical method, it should be clear that the science of dialectics itself grows and develops, and that the method is enhanced and enriched with each further application. Every new social development and every new advance of the sciences and the arts provides the basis for enriching and extending the understanding of dialectics and of the dialectical method. We cannot understand and master new material simply by repeating what has already been learned, but on the contrary, we learn more, and extend, correct and enrich our ideas in the light of new problems and new experiences.
Thus Marxism is a developing, progressive science.
“There is dogmatic Marxism and creative Marxism. I stand by the latter,” said Stalin.[74]
Creative Marxism:
“Concentrates its attention upon... the path and means of realizing Marxism for various situations, changing the path and means when the situation changes.... It takes its directives and guiding lines not from historical analogies and parallels, but from the study of surrounding conditions. In its activities it relies, not on quotations and aphorisms but on practical experience, testing every step it takes by experience, learning from its mistakes and teaching others to build a new life.”[75]
“Mastering the Marxist-Leninist theory means assimilating the substance of this theory and learning to use it in the solution of the practical problems of the revolutionary movement under the varying conditions of the class struggle of the proletariat.
“Mastering the Marxist-Leninist theory means being able to enrich this theory with the new experience of the revolutionary movement, with new propositions and conclusions, it means being able to develop it and advance it without hesitating to replace—in accordance with the substance of the theory—such of its propositions and conclusions as have become antiquated by the new ones corresponding to the new historical situation.”[76]
Creative Marxism is the very opposite of revisionism. This must be stressed, because revisionism usually begins by announcing that Marxism “must not become a dogma.” Revisionism means going backward from Marxism: in the name of opposing dogmas, it abandons Marxism in favor of the dogmas of bourgeois theory. Creative Marxism preserves and cherishes the substance of the Marxist materialist theory. Thus Stalin said of Lenin:
“Lenin was, and remains, the most loyal and consistent pupil of Marx and Engels, and he wholly and entirely based himself on the principles of Marxism. But Lenin did not merely carry out the doctrines of Marx and Engels. He was also the continuator of these doctrines.... He developed the doctrines of Marx and Engels still further in application to the new conditions of development.”[77]
Criticism and Self-Criticism, a Lever of Progress
In order, then, to master the method of Marxism-Leninism, the method of dialectics, we must use it and develop it in use. And this demands criticism and self-criticism in all spheres of theoretical and practical activity.
Criticism and self-criticism, which belongs at the very heart of the Marxist dialectical method, means that theory and practice must always be matched up one with the other. Theory must not be allowed to lag behind practice; theory must keep not only level with practice but in advance of it, so as to serve as a true and reliable guide. Practice must not be allowed to grope in the dark without the light of theory, nor to be distorted by wrong and antiquated theory. And this matching up of theory and practice can only be achieved by constant alertness, by constant readiness to criticize and to learn, by continuous check-up of ideas and actions both from above and from below, by readiness to recognize what is new and to correct or cast aside what is old and no longer applicable, by frank recognition of mistakes. Mistakes are inevitable. But by the check up which recognizes mistakes in time, by examining critically the roots of those mistakes and correcting them, by learning from mistakes, we advance to new successes.
“A party is invincible,” wrote Stalin, “if it does not fear criticism and self-criticism, if it does not gloss over the mistakes and defects in its work, if it teaches and educates its cadres by drawing the lessons from the mistakes in party work, and if it knows how to correct its mistakes in time.”[78]
Mistakes are seldom mere accidental errors of judgment. Most often mistakes arise because we cling to old habits and old formulations which have become antiquated and inapplicable to new conditions and new tasks. When this happens, and when, as a result, things do not turn out as anticipated, then, if we are ready critically to examine what has gone wrong, we learn something new and grow in strength, stature and experience.
“We are advancing in the process of struggle, in the process of the development of contradictions, in the process of overcoming these contradictions, in the process of bringing these contradictions to light and liquidating them,” said Stalin.
“Something in life is always dying. But that which is dying refuses to die quietly; it fights for its existence, defends its moribund cause.
“Something new in life is always being born. But that which is being born does not come into the world quietly; it comes in squealing and screaming, defending its right to existence.
“The struggle between the old and the new, between the dying and the nascent—such is the foundation of development. By failing openly and honestly, as befits Bolsheviks, to point to, to bring to light, the defects and mistakes in our work, we close our road to progress. But we want to go forward. And precisely because we want to go forward, we must make honest and revolutionary self-criticism of our most important tasks. Without this there is no progress. Without this there is no development.”[79]
[71] Engels, Anti-Dühring, Part III, Chapter II; Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, Chapter III.
[72] Zhdanov, Essays on Literature, Philosophy, and Music, Chapter II.
[73] Joseph Stalin, The National Question and Leninism, N. Y., 1951.
[74] See History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Chapter VII, Section 4, N. Y., 1939.
[75] Joseph Stalin, Lenin, “Lenin as Organizer and Leader of the Communist Party,” N. Y., 1934.
[76] History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Conclusion.
[77] Stalin, Interview with the First American Labor Delegation, 1927.
[78] History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Conclusion.
[79] Joseph Stalin, Report to Fifteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.
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