The New and the Old
Maurice Cornforth
9. The New and the Old
The struggle of opposed forces which constitutes the driving force of development does not take place accidentally but on the basis of internal contradictions inherent in the very nature of the processes concerned. There arises a contradiction between the new and the old; that which is arising and growing contradicts that which is dying away and disappearing. And this fact is strikingly exemplified in the development of society.
In the process of development the new grows strong and overpowers the old, and this leads to the forward movement of development, in which each stage is an advance to something new, not a falling back to some stage already passed.
Since development proceeds by the overcoming and supplanting of the old by the new it follows that development can only proceed by the negation of the old and not by its preservation.
In the last chapter we considered how qualitative change is brought about by the struggle of opposed forces. This was exemplified equally in the change of state of a body, from liquid to solid or gas, and in the change of society from capitalism to socialism. In each case there are “opposite tendencies” at work, whose “struggle” eventuates in some fundamental transformation, a qualitative change.
This “struggle” is not external and accidental. It is not adequately understood if we suppose that it is a question of forces or tendencies arising quite independently the one of the other, which happen to meet, to bump up against each other, so to speak, and to come into conflict.
No. The struggle is internal and necessary; for it arises and follows from the contradictory nature of the process as a whole.
The opposite tendencies are not independent the one of the other but are inseparably connected as parts or aspects of a single contradictory whole, and they operate and come into conflict on the basis of the contradiction inherent in the process as a whole.
Thus the opposed tendencies which operate in the course of the change of state of a body operate on the basis of the contradictory unity of attractive and repulsive forces inherent in all physical phenomena. And the class struggle which operates in capitalist society operates on the basis of the contradictory unity of socialized labor and private appropriation inherent in that society.
This dialectical understanding of the internal necessity of the struggle of opposed forces, and of its outcome, based on the contradictions inherent in the process as a whole, is no mere refinement of philosophical analysis. It is of very great practical importance.
Bourgeois theorists, for example, are well able to recognize the fact of class conflicts in capitalist society. What they do not recognize is the necessity of this conflict; that it is based on contradictions inherent in the very nature of the capitalist system and that, therefore, the struggle can only culminate in and end with the destruction of the system itself and its replacement by a new, higher system of society. So they seek to mitigate the class conflict, to tone it down and reconcile the opposing classes, or to stamp it out, and so to preserve the system intact. And precisely this bourgeois understanding of the class conflict is brought into the labor movement by Social Democracy.
It is in opposition to such a shallow, metaphysical way of understanding class conflict that Lenin points out:
“The main point in the teaching of Marx is the class struggle. This has very often been said and written. But this is not true. Out of this error, here and there, springs an opportunist distortion of Marxism, such a falsification of it as to make it acceptable to the bourgeoisie. The theory of the class struggle was not created by Marx, but by the bourgeoisie before Marx and is, generally speaking, acceptable to the bourgeoisie. He who recognizes only the class struggle is not yet a Marxist; he may be found not to have gone beyond the boundaries of bourgeois reasoning and politics. To limit Marxism to the teaching of the class struggle means to curtail Marxism—to distort it, to reduce it to something which is acceptable to the bourgeoisie. A Marxist is one who extends the acceptance of the class struggle to the acceptance of the dictatorship of the proletariat. Herein lies the deepest difference between a Marxist and an ordinary petty or big bourgeois. On this touchstone it is necessary to test a real understanding and acceptance of Marxism.”[60]
In general, we understand contradiction as inherent in, belonging to the very essence of, a given system or process; the struggle through which development takes place is not an external clash of accidentally opposed factors, but is based on contradictions in the very essence of things; and thus is determined the necessary outcome, the necessary solution of the contradiction.
Of course, conflicts of an external, accidental character also occur in nature and society. But these are not of decisive importance in determining the course of development.
The Contradiction Between Old and New, Past and Future
If we consider a process of development as a whole, as, in Stalin’s words, “an onward and upward movement” involving at each stage “a transition from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state,” then it reveals itself as the continuous posing and solution of a series of contradictions.
The new stage of development comes into being from the working out of the contradiction and struggle inherent in the old. And the new stage itself contains the germ of a new contradiction. For it comes into being containing something of the past from which it springs and something of the future to which it leads. It has, therefore, its “negative and positive sides, a past and a future, something dying away and something developing.” On this basis there once again arises within it “the struggle between the old and the new, between that which is dying away and that which is being born, between that which is disappearing and that which is developing.”
Hence development continually drives forward to fresh development; the whole process at each stage is in essence the struggle between the old and the new, that which is dying and that which is being born.
This dialectical character of development is strikingly exemplified in social development—in, for example, the stage of development with which we ourselves are specially concerned, the development from capitalism to socialism.
The basic contradiction of capitalism is that between socialized production and capitalist appropriation. This itself is the contradiction between the new and the old in society.
Capitalist appropriation carries on the old institution of private property in the implements of production, under which the owner of the implements of production appropriated the product. The artisan owned his tools and his product. This private ownership of the implements of production and of the product by the individual producer is carried over and transformed into the ownership and appropriation by the capitalist. But while private ownership and appropriation is carried on from the former state of society, what is quite new, what is newly born, arising and advancing in capitalist society, is the socialization of production. The old, petty individual production is destroyed; production is carried on in a new socialized way in great workshops by hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands of workers. The old individual producer is expropriated from his means of production (the peasant is turned off his bit of land, the artisan loses his little workshop), yet the means of production are still privately owned and the product still appropriated—by the individual capitalist or capitalist concern. What the capitalist appropriates, however, is no longer the product of his own labor, but the social product of the social labor of others. Hence this private capitalist appropriation now contradicts the new socialized character of production. In this way, as capitalist society comes into being and develops, the old contradicts the new.
At first capitalism continues to expand, bringing all aspects of economy under its sway and extending its sway over the whole world. But then begins its process of decline. The contradictions reach a breaking point. Capitalism enters into its period of death throes, the general crisis of capitalism. A handful of great monopolists stands opposed to the working class in the capitalist countries; and not only to the working class in the capitalist countries but to the millions of oppressed peoples in the colonial territories. The old masters of the world stand opposed to its future masters—the past to the future. Moreover, rival groups of monopolists stand opposed to one another, as new imperialist claimants to world domination rise and confront the older-established powers. The system begins to break at its weakest points; first in one country, then in a series of countries, the capitalists are overpowered and the new system of socialism begins to arise, so that a new socialist power building up in part of the world confronts the old capitalist power dying but fighting for life in the rest of the world.
Thus the old goes down, fighting against the new. The new grows strong, overpowers and supplants the old. Such is the pattern of development.
The Forward Movement of Development
This pattern of development is the dialectic of forward movement—“in which,” as Engels said, “in spite of all seeming accidents and all temporary retrogression, a progressive development asserts itself in the end.”[61] The process moves forward from stage to stage, each stage being a genuine advance to something new, not a falling back to some stage already past.
In this process of development there are processes of advance, the birth and surging forward of the new, and processes of decay, the decline and fall of the old. Of course, there are times and occasions when the process of decay may become paramount, and when the forces of advance are not sufficiently strong to overcome the old and to supplant it. This has occurred in the past, for instance, in the history of society, when civilizations have disintegrated and disappeared, because they decayed and the forces of advance were not strongly enough developed in them to carry them forward. No matter. Despite such “temporary retrogression,” the “progressive development asserts itself in the end.”
At the present day there are people who talk about the likelihood of “the end of civilization.” If we considered only the capitalist forces, such an end might well be expected. If there were no Soviet Union, if there were no People’s China, if there were no organized working-class movement, no national liberation movement, no peace movement, then the capitalists would quite certainly destroy their own civilization. But in fact there have already risen and grown tens of millions strong the new forces which will carry civilization forward from capitalism to socialism.
The overall, long-term, forward-moving process of development takes place, not in a straight line, but in a series of zig-zags, of particular and seemingly accidental occurrences, of temporary setbacks; for the development as a whole is but the summation of an entire complex of infinitely various changes and interrelations. If, then, we want to understand how the development proceeds in the concrete case, we have to see it as taking its course through a series of particular, concrete events. On the other hand, if we want to understand these particular events themselves, we should understand them, not in isolation, but in their context within the process of development as a whole.
As concerns particular changes of particular things which take part in the process of development, they do not, of course, all fall into a single pattern of “forward movement.” There are manifold comings and goings and interactions of particular things, changes of form and changes of state, changes of one thing into another and destruction of one thing by another, cycles of change which revert again to the original starting point, and so on. Dialectics, as the study of processes in all their concreteness, in all their manifold changes and interconnections, is concerned with all these processes. Here, however, we are concerned with the general laws of the overall process of development, as an “onward and upward movement” manifested in a series of “transitions from an old qualitative state to a new qualitative state.”
The Role of Negation in Development
This general forward movement, as we have seen, infinitely complex as it is in detail, takes place through the struggle of the new and the old and the overcoming of the old and dying by the new and rising.
This dialectical conception of development is opposed to the older liberal conception favored by bourgeois theoreticians. The bourgeois liberals recognize development and assert that progress is a universal law of nature and society. But they see development as a gradual and smooth process, proceeding through a series of easy and imperceptible changes. They may recognize struggle where they cannot help but notice it; but to them it seems an unfortunate interruption of orderly progress, more likely to impede development than to help it forward. For them, what exists has not to be supplanted by what is coming into existence, the old has not to be overcome by the new, but it has to be preserved, so that it can gradually improve itself and become a higher existence.
True to this philosophy, which they took over from the capitalists, the Social Democrats strove to preserve capitalism, with the idea that it could imperceptibly grow into socialism; and thus striving to preserve capitalism, they end by fighting, not for socialism, but against it. When the struggle is on, these exponents of social peace and class collaboration cannot avoid struggle: they simply enter into it on the other side.
Comparing the dialectical materialist, or revolutionary, conception of development with this liberal, reformist conception of development, we may say that the one recognizes and embraces, while the other fails to recognize and shrinks from, the role of negation in development.
Of course, we cannot assert that the transition from the old state to the new, from one quality to another, must always take place in exactly the same way. For, as we have already seen, dialectics does not mean applying some preconceived scheme to every process, but, on the contrary, every process has its own dialectic, which must be deduced from the study of the process itself. Thus while dialectics teaches us to recognize how the old supplants the new in a sudden, revolutionary way, by a blow in which the old is abolished and the new established in its place, we must also take into account how the transition to a new quality takes place in a different way—not by a sudden blow, but “by the gradual and prolonged accumulation of the elements of the new quality... and the gradual dying away of the elements of the old quality.”[62] Both types of transition are exemplified in nature, and also in society. The gradual process is manifested, for example, as Stalin has recently pointed out, in the development of languages. And again, while fundamental changes in society take place through revolutionary upheavals so long as antagonistic classes exist, such revolutions are no longer necessary after antagonistic classes have been finally abolished in socialist society.
The liberal’s mistake lies, not in recognizing the occurrence of gradual changes, but in recognizing nothing else and failing to comprehend the role of negation in development. Dialectics teaches us to understand that the new must struggle with and overcome the old, that the old must give way to and be supplanted by the new—in other words, that the old must be negated.
The liberal, who thinks metaphysically, understands negation simply as saying: “No.” To him negation is merely the end to something. Far from meaning advance, it means retreat; far from meaning gain, it means loss. Dialectics, on the other hand, teaches us not to be afraid of negation, but to understand how it becomes a condition of progress, a means to positive advance.
[60] V. I. Lenin, The State and Revolution, Chapter II, Section 3, N. Y., 1932.
[61] Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach, Chapter IV.
[62] Joseph Stalin, Marxism and Linguistics, Chapter I, N. Y., 1951.
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