23-06-2013

Is the influence of ideological and political opportunism underestimated as possible source of revisionism?

The Greek Communist Party, the KKE took the initiative of the “International Communist Review". In the EDITORIAL of the first issue of the «INTERNATIONAL COMMUNIST REVIEW» is said:
(T)he “International Communist Review” expresses the necessity of cooperation among theoretical and political journals of Communist Parties that have common positions on a series of fundamental theoretical and ideological issues.... (...), the defence of the principles of Marxism-Leninism, of proletarian internationalism, of the necessity of a socialist revolution, of the dictatorship of proletariat and of the construction of a socialist society.
We rally our forces to contribute to the theoretical and ideological reorganisation of the international communist movement on a stable Marxist-Leninist basis, despite our different approaches to tactical and strategic issues.

To expressly highlight the vanguard role of the working class in the revolutionary process, in conditions when a series of forces dispute the Marxist-Leninist criteria of belonging to the working class, consequently, its leading position in the struggle for social progress and in the revolutionary transition from capitalism to socialism as well.

To defend the Leninist principles on the party, in conditions of rising pressure on the communist parties for incorporation into the capitalist system.(...)

The theoretical and ideological reorganisation of the international communist movement cannot be fulfilled without firm confrontation against the currents that act within the labour movement such as social-democracy, all types of opportunism within the communist movement itself, revisionism, reformism, nationalism, cosmopolitism of the capital and liberalism.(...)

The Marxist-Leninist view and analysis (...) is decisive for drawing conclusions from the political struggle for the working class of each country and internationally, for the strengthening of the ideological and political front against reformist and opportunist proposals concerning the rationalisation of capitalism.
1
All the participating parties are considered as communist, applying Marxism being a part of an ideological and political front against reformism and opportunism. Differences in approach, analysis, are covered by “different approaches to tactical and strategic issues.”
So is it possible that a contribution of the WPB is accepted as a “contribution of a communist party”, while on its 8th congress in 2008 it accepted by majority, to follow no more “the Leninist principles on the party
Accepted is also a “rather general (and so dogmatic) analyse” which forms not in anyway a mobilisation for vanguard workers to join the vanguard organising (so communist -based on “the Leninist principles of the party”) organisation in order to mobilise the whole working class to fulfil their historical task: the overthrow of capitalism.
Generalism (which is in fact dogmatism) is opposed to real applying Marxism.
In fact Mao Zedong formulated it as:
When man attains the knowledge of this common essence, he uses it as a guide and proceeds to study various concrete things which have not yet been studied, or studied thoroughly, and to discover the particular essence of each; only thus is he able to supplement, enrich and develop his knowledge of their common essence and prevent such knowledge from withering or petrifying. These are the two processes of cognition: one, from the particular to the general, and the other, from the general to the particular. Thus cognition always moves in cycles and (so long as scientific method is strictly adhered to) each cycle advances human knowledge a step higher and so makes it more and more profound. Where our dogmatists err on this question is that, on the one hand, they do not understand that we have to study the particularity of contradiction and know the particular essence of individual things before we can adequately know the universality of contradiction and the common essence of things, and that, on the other hand, they do not understand that after knowing the common essence of things, we must go further and study the concrete things that have not yet been thoroughly studied or have only just emerged. Our dogmatists are lazy-bones. They refuse to undertake any painstaking study of concrete things, they regard general truths as emerging out of the void, they turn them into purely abstract unfathomable formulas, and thereby completely deny and reverse the normal sequence by which man comes to know truth. Nor do they understand the interconnection of the two processes in cognition-- from the particular to the general and then from the general to the particular. They understand nothing of the Marxist theory of knowledge.2
So the contribution of Peter Mertens (president of the WPB) “The end of the working-class?”3 in the 3th issue of the International Communist Review just SEEMS to be a “perhaps a little bit general, so dogmatic” analysis, but in fact it is a SUMMARY of a real revisionist analysis (“.Études marxistes n° 72, "La classe ouvrière à l’ère des entreprises transnationales", Peter Mertens, - here to read on marx.be)in which Peter Mertens try to convince all members and sympathizers of the WPB, that orientating the party on elections, and adapting the whole organisation to this, focusing on convincing the “working masses” (the electoral public of the WPB) to VOTE for the WPB and its programs of REFORMS is “just a tactic” of a communist party “with still a revolutionary strategy” (....but no one knows that concrete revolutionary strategy of the WPB! IN FACT IT DOES NOT EXIST!).. .....
Here the link to the elaborated analysis that I made of the turn to revisionism of the WPB, facilitated by a not-detected and not-fought but generals spread dogmatic conception by the majority of the members of what they call “applying Marxism”.

1http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue1/editorial1.html
2http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/volume-1/mswv1_17.htm, Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung Volume 1, “ON CONTRADICTION, August 1937. [This essay on philosophy was written by Comrade Mao Tse-tung after his essay "On Practice" and with the same object of overcoming the serious error of dogmatist thinking to be found in the Party at the time. Originally delivered as lectures at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in Yenan, it was revised by the author on its inclusion in his Selected Works.]
3http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue3/the-end-of-the-working-class.html, The end of the working class? Peter Mertens