(Translator’s preface: Lao Tian offers advice to
contemporary Chinese leftists on how to apply the mass line to doing political
work with young people and workers. There are lessons here for revolutionaries
outside China.)
2021-12-25 11:12:17 Source: red-song-society.com By Lao Tian
A few days ago, in the middle of a certain microgroup, a
university political science teacher who had not fully realized his
consciousness (I should say he had already realized most of it on his own, but
of course he was still missing the last part) was disliked by his groupmates.
Mr. Liu was the first to feel disgusted and withdrew from the group; Ms. Bai
was also disgusted and called me to complain and express her discontent; a Mr.
Yu engaged in a heated "barbarian debate" with him; Ms. Wen reacted
most positively and, dissatisfied, wrote a WG reminiscence of her own
experience and posted it in the group. This phenomenon is representative of the
fact that some left-wing comrades lack the psychological readiness and patience
for dialogue with young people who are not yet fully enlightened.
The problem has been around for a long time, but it is now a
serious one. At a time when young people are turning to enlightenment in large
numbers, some pioneers are too attached to the theoretical styles and narrative
methods of the past, failing to keep up with young people's modes of
understanding and actually encountering them before they are ready to engage in
a smooth dialogue with them. As Chinese society has fallen into decay, the
majority of people have in fact lost the way out of reality and urgently need
to hear new ideas and find a new way out; however, the left-wing group, as the
first to awaken, has still not been able to walk out of the small circle for a
long time, and has not been able to influence people outside the circle and
young people in a way that is commensurate with the seriousness of the problems
of the times.
I. Home speech is different from away speech: to learn to
speak to young people
To investigate and research, to gather new materials, to
learn new knowledge, to learn to speak to young people on your own initiative
with your own diligent study; not to wait for young people to learn to speak to
you on their own with the same old arguments, which is tantamount to giving up
the active effort to influence young people, and especially to giving up the
effective effort. For a young person to learn to dialogue with you is
tantamount to him coming to his own senses and turning left.
In those days, Chairman Mao spoke to the Party cadres and
the revolutionary masses, so he spoke on his "home turf"; now, when we
are speaking to young people, we speak on the road, learning to speak
effectively to the masters of the times, using the language they are used to
and a system of concepts they understand.
Subconsciously, some older comrades are actually reluctant
to admit that they have "lost the opportunity to speak on the main
stage" and are a bit emotionally uncomfortable - unwilling to speak
according to other people's routines and ways, which, at the same time, of
course, means a long and arduous "re-learning" process, which
involves a considerable amount of time and effort, as well as the
"involuntary" abandonment of one's past cherished learning. In other
words, it is not easy to make this transition.
Secondly, away speeches should focus on the different
levels of the "core ideological battlefield" and "effective
communication with workers".
2The former is an external battle, in which we have to argue
with the ideology of the ruling class and fight for ideological leadership and
interpretation in order to influence young people; the latter has to focus on
the plight of the workers themselves, and the rational understanding has to be
able to communicate and activate their concrete experiences in order to achieve
the goal of smooth dialogue and increased awareness. The common aspect of both
is that we ourselves have to study hard, take responsibility for our own
tuition and learn to communicate smoothly with the people we are speaking to,
rather than sit back and wait for others to learn to communicate with us.
In other words, in the theoretical speeches of the
competition for young people, the potential object of dialogue is the
ideological apologists of the ruling class - speaking on their home turf, which
requires speaking at the level of the opponent's conceptual system and
methodology in order to be able to achieve combat results. In the dialogue with
the workers, on the other hand, it is necessary to make a concrete analysis
from the workers' own experience and perceptual material, and to refrain from
drawing conclusions from books and then simply generalising them.
Therefore, there are two changes in the away speech: one is
the core ideological battlefield, such as university forums and mainstream
academic circles. This is the operation of the "ideological state
apparatus" that nurtures young people and uses continuous preaching to
deceive young people. field. On the battlefield at this level, there has been a
"social science transformation" after the 1980s. The original method
of speech—the method of analysing micro-facts with macro-concepts and then
explaining it—is no longer convincing to young people. The second was the need
to move up from the facts to a dialogue on intermediate concepts such as
management, economics, politics and sociology, rather than the old
macro-methodological language.
Moreover, many comrades, unwilling to face up to the new
changes and new problems of the capitalist system, and not paying attention to
new empirical materials and the concrete experiences of workers, use their very
poor general knowledge of Marxism-Leninism as secondary school students,
together with their imaginary additions and problem diagnoses, and then try to
force them on others, and if they do not accept them, they resort to all kinds
of moral abductions and personal attacks. This is an extremely bad style of
learning and sectarian party style, similar to Wang Ming's dogmatic sectarian
approach.
This is how we see the frequent war of words in micro-groups
with a large number of old comrades: using big concepts to analyse small
problems, with a certain degree of imagination to complete the global
diagnosis, and then forcing others to accept it, which leads to endless wars of
words. This is not to say that one can speak only if one is academically well
educated, but rather that it is important to revert to specific analysis of
specific problems, and that most people are still concerned about specific
things, and not always to override people with the face of a theorist and
recommend global diagnoses and remedies at every turn, which is hardly feasible
even among comrades.
The second level is that, even when speaking about theory,
there is a need to dialogue with the concrete experiences and experiences of
workers, with the aim, of course, of activating this part of the perceptual
material and experience and raising the consciousness of workers. Therefore,
theoretical understanding needs to be told in such a way that it can be
connected to the existing empirical material and perceptual understanding,
otherwise the various conclusions drawn from the macro-analysis of exploitation
and class alone will be "separated" from the concrete experience, and
it will be difficult to speak smoothly to the masses. Therefore, it is
necessary to start from the concrete experiences and experiences of the workers
and then to achieve a good dialogue with them. Only a rational understanding
that is able to connect with workers' perceptual materials and concrete experiences
is a qualified rational understanding possible.
Some comrades are always emphasising the need to "speak
like Chairman Mao and be popular", which on the one hand obliterates the
difference between the two battlefields, and on the other hand ignores the common
sense of "speaking to the target". This is a lazy man's idea:
firstly, he refuses to enter the main ideological battlefield of others and
re-learn how to speak in order to compete with young people; secondly, he
sticks to the same old methodological language and way of looking at things,
which does not dovetail with the sensual materials of the workers, and in fact
does not touch the itch of the workers and is less convincing to them.
The first battlefield requires updating one's knowledge and
learning to summarise and refine experience at the social science level in
order to educate young people, rather than sitting back and waiting for them to
turn left and then learn to talk to you. Secondly, we need to increase our
research, collect new materials and new problems, and to deeply grasp and
understand the plight, problems and worries of the new generation of workers,
and then, learn to help them become enlightened on the basis of their
experience by using theoretical and analytical methods to rise from perceptual
to rational understanding, so as to come to their senses. In this regard, it is
important to stop the bad learning style of drawing conclusions through the
same old methods and trying to sell them to others regardless of the facts.
3. Empirical analysis of relations of production and
political hang-ups remain central
The old comrades' experience and clear awareness of the
sharp contrast between the old and new times is a great advantage, and
sometimes telling a good story is far better than the communication effect of a
hundred essays.
At the same time, the old experience certainly needs to be
de-coupled and enhanced with the theories of Marx, Lenin and Mao. In this
respect, the Marxist critique of political economy - the analysis of the
relations of production - remains important as a theorisation of the working
experience and situation of workers, but it is necessary to find new key facts
to present in the light of the evolution of the times and to grasp the
representativeness and typicality behind the story; another major aspect is the
Chairman Mao's emphasis on the 'political leadership of the working masses'
(the 'two Leninist aspects' of both consciousness and organisation, formerly
known as the 'dictatorship of the proletariat') is a key aspect of the
political efforts of the people, which of course also needs to be refined.
The two aspects are, in fact, interlinked. The American
Marxist sociologist Mike Burawoy, who conducted fieldwork in factories in many
countries, pointed out that within the relations of production there were not
just economic relations, but that there was an internal state and an internal
ideology at work at the same time, in other words, the superstructure was not
external to the economic base, but worked directly within it; Burawoy later
developed the concept of the "polity of production" on this basis.
"The concept of the 'production polity' was later developed by Brouwer, in
terms of the 'policies and laws of the state', the 'competitive state of the
market', the 'reproduction of labour' and the 'regulatory process'. "This
is an effective way of communicating the workers' experience of the relations
of production and their perceptual material.
In other words, even for storytelling to be effective, it is
necessary to learn new theoretical advances and how to analyse the connotations
of the relations of production in the new era, which can be matched with the
concrete experience of workers. It is not enough to rely on the general
knowledge of Marxist economics previously learned together with some parts of
one's own imagination and play, but it is also still necessary to learn new
knowledge in order to better understand and tell about the new changes.
An empirical analysis of the relations of production and the
political leadership of the working masses, based on new academic advances, is
a very important approach, a key aspect of the junction between the turning
over of the working masses and their emancipation and, of course, the key to
telling the story of history and educating young people. This aspect is first
of all about learning new theories yourself and not being able to be satisfied
with the common knowledge and conceptual systems of the past. Moreover, it is
better to stop using macro-concepts at the level of methodology and learn to
descend to the intermediate level of the social sciences to tell the story,
and, of course, more importantly, to "read books without words" and
"learn by doing", as Chairman Mao said, to gradually progress and
improve through practice.
4. The most common type of "pure leftism" and
"taking things for granted"
During the Yan'an rectification period, Chairman Mao said
that the "only correct understanding" that Wang Ming's sect derived
from books and pushed so hard was worse than dog shit, which could also
fertilize the fields. The bias of the Wang Ming sect is that it misunderstands
Marxist-Leninist theory as a static "cultural capital" that
presupposes a process of mass mobilisation. In this way, the process of
mobilising and educating the masses is not about helping them to raise their
own awareness and draw their own conclusions, but about directly promoting the
cultural capital of the "only correct understanding" that they have
acquired.
In other words, the crux of the debate between the Maoists
and the Wang Ming sect is: does the process of enlightening the masses help the
masses to become enlightened themselves, or is it simply a matter of instilling
the masses with a correct conclusion? In this way, is Marxism-Leninism an a
priori truth based on a series of correct conclusions, or is it merely a
tool of awareness to help the masses achieve the process of enlightenment?
The other day I listened to a webinar organised by some of
the leading translators and researchers of Althusser's work in China, who,
based on their reading of the newly published late works of Althusser, offered
a new understanding of "Althusser in the seventies": Althusser
himself did not recognise such a thing as "Marxist-Leninist
philosophy" but only "to be a Marxist in the midst of
philosophy" and to fight as a true communist. This recognition by
Althusser was unbelievable and inconceivable to those who saw
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as a new kind of "cultural capital" or who
were ready to show off the "truth in their hands". But for true
communists, this is the way it should be, as Chairman Mao clearly pointed out
in his "Talk on Questions of Philosophy" on 18 August 1964: " The three basic constituents of Marxism
are scientific socialism, philosophy, and political economy. The foundation is social science, class struggle. There is a
struggle between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. Marx and the others saw
this. Utopian socialists are always trying to persuade the bourgeoisie to be
charitable. This won’t work, it is necessary to rely on the class struggle of
the proletariat. ...Those who engage in philosophy believe that philosophy comes first. The
oppressors oppress the oppressed, while the oppressed need to fight back and
seek a way out before they start looking for philosophy. It is only when people
took this as their starting-point that there was Marxism-Leninism, and that
they discovered philosophy. We have all been through this. Others wanted to
kill me; Chiang Kai-shek wanted to kill me. Thus, we came to engage in class
struggle, to engage in philosophizing."
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism is first and foremost a method for
helping workers to become aware and organise themselves for the revolution, not
a "knowledge" to be flaunted, but its truth is only in its
combativeness (exposing the ideological deceptions of the ruling class and thus
becoming aware) and its critique (organising to criticise the old world in
order to create a new society). Here, it is a false assumption that once the
left has reached the right conclusions, it is enough to promote them and have
them accepted by the masses; on the contrary, the truth and practicality of
Marxist-Leninist-Maoist theory lies only in its ability to help the masses to
become enlightened, not in the fact that a few people become enlightened and
then sell the conclusions to bring others to enlightenment.
According to this erroneous understanding, workers are not
to become enlightened themselves, but to be passively enlightened by a few
prophets and then receive the fruits of enlightenment on their behalf. During
the Yan'an Rectification Movement, Chairman Mao said that learning Marx and
Lenin could only be done from the perspective of "positions, views and
methods", not by rote. When studying Marxism-Leninism-Mao, for example,
whether the view they see is a "peak" or a "ridge", they
need to ask three questions: from which perspective are they looking? From
which perspective did they see it (proletarian or otherwise?) What did they
see? How do they see it? It is only after asking these questions that the main
points are learnt.
In other words, the value of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism lies
first and foremost in helping the masses to become more aware and organise
themselves in struggle, not in whether the conclusions and the process of
derivation are uniquely truthful. As Chen Zhengren, an old comrade from the
Jinggangshan period, later recalled, revolution and mobilising the masses is
not about telling the masses that this is right and that is wrong; the key aim
is to realise: do the masses want to organise themselves in revolt? Do they
want to pick up their guns and revolt? If the answer to both questions is yes,
then the construction of the base areas will be ready, and Chairman Mao's
saying that "if there are no people, we will have people; if there are no
guns, we will have guns” will be easily realised.
So there is no "only correct understanding" that
is divorced from the process of mass consciousness and organisation, and there
is no such thing as a "pure leftist" or a 100% Bolshevik. There is
only one reality: the revolutionaries who have achieved close integration with
the workers and peasants and have progressed and advanced with them.
December 19, 2021
老田：新形势下，左翼如何与年轻人对话？
- 学者观点 - 红歌会网
(szhgh.com)
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