V. The way out
V. The way out
The test is not whether someone
is wrong. The test is whether they are reachable. The conscious
spreader is usually not. The unconscious carrier usually is—if the
conditions are right. We should make attempts to create those
conditions to make the cost of maintaining the illusion higher than the
cost of abandoning it, through theoretical clarity and practical
exposure.
That is not sectarianism.
That is ideological struggle in the correct sense: not the expulsion of
the mistaken, but the dissolution of the illusion.
The distinction between
function and intention prevents analysis from collapsing into
denunciation.
The way out is not to argue the facts one by one. It is to expose the framework — to show that the theoretical premises from which the sectarian concludes are not Marxist premises at all, but bourgeois premises in Marxist language.
The antidote is not more
democracy, which can become liberalism. It is genuine criticism and
self-criticism at all levels, institutionalized, with the understanding
that admitting error is a strength, not a weakness. This is easier said
than done. But it is the only way.
Lunacharsky's central
argument—developed in essays and speeches across the 1920s, particularly in
"Theses on the Problems of Marxist Criticism" (1928)—was that Marxist
criticism had to be criticism in the full sense, not merely political judgment.
The "art of
criticism" — Marxist criticism must be more than denunciation. It must
explain, persuade, and win people over. Criticism as pedagogy, not
excommunication. Criticism must understand before it judges. The
critic must enter into the work, grasp its internal logic, its historical
context, its aesthetic and intellectual claims—and only then evaluate it. A
criticism that skips this step is not criticism; it is denunciation.
Against vulgar sociologism.
Lunacharsky fought against the reduction of every cultural product to a direct
expression of class interest. He argued that this was a caricature of Marxism,
not Marxism itself. The connection between class position and cultural
production is mediated, complex, and requires concrete analysis—not formulaic
labeling.
Criticism as pedagogy. The
purpose of Marxist criticism is not to separate the pure from the impure, but
to educate—to help people understand what they are reading, seeing,
and thinking. It is a teaching practice, not a tribunal.
The critic must be
self-critical. The critic is not outside the process. Their own formation,
assumptions, and limits are part of what must be examined. Criticism that does
not include self-criticism is one-sided.
Lunacharsky represents something
important for the argument: a Marxist critic who understood that the goal is
not to defeat the erring comrade but to win them. That is the opposite
of sectarianism. And it connects directly to the point about shattering the
self-imposed illusion — which requires a
comradely alternative, not just correct facts.
He was not a liberal, but he
understood that a movement that cannot tolerate internal debate cannot grow. Tolerance
for intellectual diversity within a revolutionary framework is not a concession
but a condition of growth.
The model was not abstract. Lenin
criticized Lunacharsky sharply at times — over God-building, over Proletkult,
over his conciliatory tendencies — yet Lunacharsky remained within the party
and continued to work. This is "unity — criticism — unity" in
practice: the criticism was real, the unity was preserved.
The self-imposed illusion is
sustained in part by the expectation of excommunication. If I admit I was wrong
about China, I will be treated as a revisionist, a traitor, a fool. The
cost of admitting error is too high. So I defend the illusion.
The self-imposed illusion breaks
when three conditions converge:
- Theoretical clarity — the subject must be able
to see the illusion as an illusion. This is where ML criticism does
its work: not denunciation, but explanation of mechanism. Why does this
narrative exist? Who benefits? What are its class roots? What are the
facts it suppresses?
- Practical contradiction — the subject must
encounter a reality that the illusion cannot absorb. This is the
"practical experience" you mentioned. A crisis, a defeat, a
betrayal, a material interest that conflicts with the narrative. The
illusion can survive a lot, but not everything.
- A place to go — this is the one most leftists
ignore. If abandoning the illusion means losing your entire social world,
your friends, your identity, your sense of belonging, then the subject
will not abandon it, no matter how clear the facts. The illusion breaks
only when there is a comradely alternative available: a group, a
tradition, a practice that says, "you can be wrong and still be
one of us."
Lunacharsky's model of
criticism removes that cost. It says: you can be wrong, and we will explain
why, and you will still be one of us. The goal is not to defeat you but
to win you. That is what makes it possible for the illusion to break.
Lunacharsky provides the
theoretical and practical model for it.
On the ethics and norms
between communists
Some principles:
- Criticize the error, not the person. "This
position is wrong because..." not "You are a bad communist
because..."
- Assume the erring comrade is reachable until
proven otherwise. The burden of proof is on declaring someone an
enemy, not on treating them as a comrade.
- Self-criticism is strength, not weakness. A
movement that cannot admit error cannot correct itself.
- Organizational power must not settle theoretical
disputes. The cult problem you describe — a small group at the top
that never retracts an "assessment" — is precisely the fusion of
organizational power with theoretical authority. It is the death of
dialectics.
- The right to dissent within unity. Not the
right to factionalism, but the right to argue a position without being
excommunicated for it.
- Patience. Theoretical clarity takes time.
Practical experience takes time. The illusion breaks on its own schedule,
not yours.
The distinction that makes these
norms operational is the difference between a mistake and being wrong.
On the theoretical
distinction: mistake vs. wrong.
In the Marxist-Leninist
framework:
A mistake is an error in the application of a correct
line to concrete conditions. It is practical. It can be corrected
through self-criticism, experience, and adjustment of tactics. The line itself
remains sound.
Being wrong is a deviation from the theoretical foundation
itself—a break with the method, a capitulation to another class
standpoint.
If we apply this difference to
the current sectarianism against and pontification of foreign communist
parties, treating them as equivalent, we find ourselves in the ranks of the bourgeoisie echoing their narratives. In
order to determine a “mistake” made by a foreign Communist Party, one has to know the existing conditions, situations,
and the purpose better than the communists of the given country. That is a
utopia of an arrogant petty-bourgeois. Without having objective knowledge of that
country's culture, traditions, history, and conditions beyond what they
acquired from bourgeois sources, critics, pontification, and sophistry land them on
the side of anti-communists, fascists, monarchists, and imperialists against
the communists in most cases.
Self-imposed illusioned sectarians
criticize every Communist party, parties with socialist inclination and
direction, every anti-imperialist struggle, every anti-fascist struggle except those related to their own. They present that practice as an
“internationalist” duty. However, they forget Lenin’s statement that
"Socialists
in every country must expose their own government and their own
bourgeoisie...Lacking that, all talk of socialism, syndicalism,
internationalism is a sheer deception of the people... He is an internationalist who in a really
internationalist way combats his own bourgeoisie, his own social-chauvinists,
his own Kautskyites". Lenin, Theses for an Appeal to the International
Socialist Committee and All Socialist Parties
"Marxist criticism”, said
Lunacharsky, “is a science because it opposes subjectivism,
aestheticism, individualism, irrationalism, and other vices of bourgeois
aesthetics. Criticism, by its nature, cannot be only negative, aimed at
exposing some vicious concept. Even in denial, the Marxist critic
pursues positive goals and offers constructive solutions.
The Marxist critic "removes" the wrong conception in order to form
one that meets the interests of the proletariat.” Lunacharsky, the
formation of Marxist criticism
As far as the “wrongs” are
concerned, we should recall Lenin’s critique of Rosa Luxemburg related to her
major mistakes and “wrongs” and Lenin’s
approach.
“Eagles may at times fly lower than hens, but
hens can never rise to the height of eagles. Rosa Luxemburg was mistaken on the
question of the independence of Poland; she was mistaken in 1903 in her
appraisal of Menshevism; she was mistaken on the theory of the accumulation of
capital; she was mistaken in July 1914, when, together with Plekhanov,
Vandervelde, Kautsky and others, she advocated unity between the Bolsheviks and
Mensheviks; she was mistaken in what she wrote in prison in 1918. But in
spite of her mistakes she was—and remains for us—an eagle... And, of
course, in the backyard of the working-class movement, among the dung heaps,
hens like Paul Levi, Scheidemann, Kautsky and all that fraternity will cackle
over the mistakes committed by the great Communist.” Lenin, Notes of a
Publicist
As we see, Lenin did not take a
liberal stand against the mistakes of Rosa, but he did not take a sectarian
stand either.
The formula "unity —
criticism — unity" is the operational principle: start from unity of
class standpoint, engage in principled criticism, arrive at a higher unity.
Not unity without criticism (liberalism), not criticism without unity (sectarianism).
