Here is an early letter I stopped at. About July 2
Dear G:
Here is my miserable self once more - digging at this gold mine, for gold mine it is. To get something out of the way. whenever there is a false logical line it expresses itself politically in two ways, to right and to left. So Economists1 say no politics at all, but there was an economist trend which before 1905 propsed a) general strike for socialism. This is always so. (Also a good dialectic can be traced with an increased knowledge, about the dialectics of Economism, 1905, 1917, 1949).2
Now Bukharin logically was doing exactly what Kautsky was doing. He was organizing imperialism. Only the proletariat was to do it. Kautsky went to the right: Bukharin to the "left" (no self-determination; no democracy etc.). And also no "free competition" in the program. Same thing, as a Left-Communist; and same thing in 1920.
We have to drive home the aspect of Bukharin in opposition to L's supple dialectic. The things you say are good: the extracts too. Now all that remains is to put it in logical terms. Best way to do this? By doing an absolutely merciless critique of Vol. XI,3 p. 34. That is Bukharian and Hilferding but done by a revolutionary of unconquerable instinct.
I believe this page has plenty particularly the passages marked
(And by the way on your notes on p. 2, I see nothing "abstract". But that you will have to work out. By abstract I mean logical lines which make curves like this:
Instead of taking in all the material (or lots of it) like this:
The whole thing now can begin to revolve around Lenin's KM in 1914 and Imperialism and S & R and the Soviets.4 There are some important essays at the end of Vol. XI which sum up where he stood in 1914. Look at Vol. XI, p. 7385. Lenin of course always looked for basic causes, but between this and 1916 is a gulf. There is a grasp of one-sidedness (p. 740). But see his analysis of opportunism and this is 1910. It is pure "Trotskyism".
Note again that we have to make the connection between Menshevism in Russia and opportunism in Europe pre-1914 and post-1914.
Now for a leap.
L before 1914 had a very abstract conception of capitalism on a world scale. I have written of this in my last of which this is a continuation. Before we name it bourgeois, Economist or what, let us try to organize it - for investigation. I assume:
a) The false attitude to Capitalb) The false attitude to Philosophy (Plek)c) The false attitude to Kautsky & Co.
I assume. I assume.
All are the same mistake: the same fundamental logical error.
All we have to do is:1) point it out. (Ho! Ho! That is it. That's all, point it out)2) place it historically: period of capital and of labor movement3) place it logically4) show who held it, who changed, who did not change etc.
Now again: why did they all do it, Lenin on the left, but nevertheless one of them.
They did it because of Understanding.6 Yes, that old villain. Whenever there is serious trouble look for Understanding. Now Understanding can deceive us. He can divide into a Right-Wing (Bernstein), a centre (Kautsky), a left-Wing (Lenin) and the fighting can be sharp. But it is all Understanding. What Understanding? Understanding which at one time was the particular in which the Universal was closed. I hope there is no need to explain this, or say where to look, etc.
Now I think I should explain a few things here. What I have mainly in mind here is L's Notes.7 That after all is what all this is about. I am trying all the time to get clearly how the Notes and XI,8 p. 81 show the transition from Lenin of 1914 to Lenin of 1917. The Notes are the abstract of what became concrete in Imperialism and S & R. But I am doing more. I assume the things that L denounces in the Notes are the things they all were doing, the things he says are good in the Notes are the things he did. Put all this down simply, straightforwardly, concretely, historically and we have a masterpiece: beside which not a Goddam soul ever afterwards will dare to sneer at the Logic of Hegel. In addition to the marvellous demonstration of method. But it must all be very simple, very concrete. Everyone must be able to read it as easily as the paper. That depends on how far we penetrate into it. We have to sweat. And aren't we? But we are coming out little by little. With which homily I return to our method, internal method.
More later.
J.
1 Economism was the term used to refer to Social Democrats who theoretically limited the aspirations of the working class to an economic struggle for higher wages and better working conditions. Economists set up an intellectual division of labour between 'economic' struggles (for better wages and conditions), which was the focus of Social Democratic theory, and 'political' struggles (e.g. extension of the franchise), which was primary the role of the liberal bourgeoisie. In doing so, the Economists were against the importance of revolutionary theory and class-consciousness, and instead asserted that socialist ideology could arise out of the spontaneous movement of the working class.
2 1905 was the year of the first working-class Revolution in Russia. 1917 was the year of the two Revolutions in Russia. 1949 is the year in which this correspondence is taking place.
3 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be 'Karl Marx', (1915) and the specific section titled 'Socialism'. The essay was written for, and published in, the Granat Encyclopaedia, Seventh Edition, Vol. 28.
4 'Lenin's KM in 1914' is a reference to: Lenin, 'Karl Marx', (1915). 'Imperialism' is a reference to: Lenin, Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism, (1916). 'S & R' is a reference to: Lenin, State and Revolution, (1917). 'Soviets' is a reference to the soviets (workers councils) established by workers and peasants in Russia in 1917. The British left-wing journalist, Henry Noel Brailsford (1873-1958), wrote a book length study of the Soviets, How the Soviets Work, (1927). An article on the Soviets by the American journalist, John Reed (1887-1920), is available on the Marxist Internet Archive, 'Soviets in Action', (1918).
5 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be 'Differences in the European Labour Movement', (1910).
6 Understanding is a key concept in Hegelian philosophy. In Section 6, ('Logic defined'), of the Shorter Logic (Part One of The Encyclopedia of Philosophical Sciences), Hegel says:
"In point of form Logical doctrine has three sides: [a] the Abstract side, or that of understanding; [b] the Dialectical, or that of negative reason; [c] the Speculative, or that of positive reason. These three sides do not make three parts of logic, but are stages or 'moments' in every logical entity, that is, of every notion and truth whatever...[a] Thought, as Understanding, sticks to fixity of characters and their distinctness from one another: every such limited abstract it treats as having a subsistence and being of its own...[b] In the Dialectical stage these finite characterisations or formulae supersede themselves, and pass into their opposites...[c] The Speculative stage, or stage of Positive Reason, apprehends the unity of terms (propositions) in their opposition - the affirmative, which is involved in their disintegration and in their transition."
Understanding, in Hegelian philosophy, involves thinking with fixed and discrete categories (e.g. Being/Nothing; idealism/materialism). Dialectical thought, by way of contrast, recognises that categories are not discrete, but are interconnected. They are, for example, relational (e.g. the concept of 'being' relies on its contrast term 'nothing' for its definition; 'materialism' is defined against 'idealism'). In dialectical thought categories also have movement, they are not static or fixed. They, for example, pass over into their opposite (e.g. 'being' is an empty, or contentless, concept and in that sense it contains nothing; 'materialism' is way of thinking, not a sense object, and in that regard is 'idealist'). The process of dialectical thought overcomes the limitations of Understanding and recognises a higher order category which supercedes and contains the lower order categories (in Hegel's logic 'Becoming' is the category which contains and overcomes both 'being' and 'nothing'; in Marx's 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts essay, 'Critique of Hegel's Philosophy in General', he describes his own philosophy as a 'consistent naturalism or humanism [which] is distinct from both idealism and materialism, and constitutes at the same time the unifying truth of both').
7 This is a reference to Lenin's Philosophical Notebooks on Hegel.
8This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be: Lenin, 'On the Question of Dialectics' (written 1915, published 1925).