On the Poverty of Lefty Theorising

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The Poverty of Revolutionary Theorising

(Obviously this is addressed at lefties – but I’d welcome comments from any political perspective)

The Joy of what if?

Asked if the time was ripe for revolution in Ireland in 1915 James Conolly replied with:

“You never know if the time is ripe until you try. If you succeed the time is ripe, if not, then it was not ripe.” (James Connolly ‘A Full life’, p574)

Shortly after the deal with the IRB (for the doomed 1916 rebellion in Dublin which cost him and many others their lives) was reached, he wrote in the Workers Republic (Jan 26 1916)

“Revolutionists who shirk from giving blow for blow until the great day has arrived, and they have every shoe-string in its place, and every man has got his gun, and the enemy has kindly consented to postpone action in order not to needlessly harry the revolutionists, nor disarrange their plans - such revolutionists only exist in two places - the comic opera stage, and the stage of Irish national politics.”

I think the great Irish revolutionary has made a very interesting and very unusual point for a revolutionary theorist.
That is basically that revolution, when all is said and done, is that great kierkegaardian type “leap into the abyss”

After a revolution succeeds you may then admire the perceptivity of the great “Marxist” leader who read the tea leaves of the objective march of history etc etc and, in fact, history will be re written by them to reflect this perspective. (cf Stalinist Russia etc)

All lefty theory seems to start with some “need” to produce THE analysis of the workings of Capitalism – which will then lead to THE perfect blue print for revolution which with then say what, where and when.

But, of course, revolutions are a mass deployment of human subjectivity which proceed very quickly in time and which, without access to a dialectical super computer, may not be for the reasons or by the people that you expect.
But can it succeed?
Will you support it and participate in it?
Remember here your neck is now on the line and not just your fellow philosophers having a laugh at your ideas!

Also (and I think Marx, at least, via Hegel does get this!) a revolution is interpolated into what it comes out of the present and the next system are intimately linked (this won’t be emphasised when the revolutionary history is written!). They often start as evolutions e.g. little nodes and fractures from within what exists that quite suddenly and rapidly become “nucleation centres” around which a mass uprising condenses.

So the task is not simply to have a perfect description of state A = capitalism and a guaranteed method to attain state B = socialism by “any means necessary” (as laid out by the grand plan) but rather that theory be rough guide to when and where chances arise and that a bit of revolutionary common sense along with daring, will and courage are what’s really needed. More thought about revolutionary practise (one where anarchism has usually kicked lumps out of Marxism), sites of possible emergence within present day capitalism and revolution itself (as an act of collective willing) could help as much as the present hundreds of analysises of capitalism

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I think this really falls into a different area
then you think. It is not about revolutionary figures
and their drive for the revolution, but about
historical figures and their reaction to history.
Did Washington understand what he was unleashing in
this little ol political experiment called america.
Or Julius caesar when he called himself emperor
for the first time. Historical figures now have the sanctity
of time, but at the time of their actions, did they really
know what the hell they were doing?
I think they leaped into the abyss as well
as did Lenin and Hitler and Mao, Lincoln
and every other person who has acted in such historical
situation. You never really know what is going to happen
or if its going to turn out ok. Revolutionaries are not
the only ones who act without a benefit of a net.

Kropotkin

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Today at lunch time talked, with a friend about the of lefties Theorising on my country during the civil war and why Franco unfortunately won. We had family members in the two factions and was a hard sperience.

Our conclusion is that the anarchist and the republican revolutionist hadn´t poverty ideas they had the best ideas, but so utopics and they not were coherents in their life styles. (a example is Buñuel life) and the fascists had got a strong military organitation and helps from germany and italy…

at the moment i m reading a book so objetive and interesting, about this subject and compare the spanish revolution with the russian and the mexican …I promise when i ´ll finish it write the main ideas.

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Yo Prince K I think you’ve hit it absolutely on the nail. One thing revolutionaries need to acknowledge - as Connolly does there is that they are ordinary people with no real “crystal balls” and that ordinary people need to become revolutionaries. We need ordinary balls qua nuts!
And I agree exactly there are no garuntees - these out comes only later in the “writting up” process when everything is made to look “inevitable”

and on that point B-S I really, really like your quote from Nietzsche

One interesting wee thing on Ceaser is how it was the assination of Julius Ceaser (the individual) by a gang haping to abolish tryany that lead to the to the instutition of absolute rule by ceasers.
Zizek uses this example to flesh out one of Hegels nice ideas that its often the negatation of a particular example that a “universal rule” can be constituted around.
He takes his paradoxs very seriously does Z and has a lovely “open” view of Hegel

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lefties ???
Philosophy!!!
Can you be more general?
If Bush is the right, who is left not left.