A Short Ode to Marxism-Leninism: Modern Writings for a Renewed Outlook

Prelude

"Theorists" often scoff at the simplicity of Marxism-Leninism, at the "vulgarity" of communist states and at the dedication of its followers. The thesis of this short ode is this: what if this very characteristic is what vindicates this outlook? As we know through previous “ideologies”, simplicity is what vindicated them - whether communal, feudal or bourgeois. When communism becomes simple, we know that it has won.

Simplicity presupposes a profound mastery over a given historical situation. To communicate the communist position in three words, as the Bolsheviks did, is the goal.

Simplicity is only possible when you are perfectly able to continue your tradition. Revisionism takes the form of complexity - further separating the spheres of the division of labor for the gains of the petty bourgeois.

In fact, complexity is only a testament to the irreconciliation between the different spheres of the division of labor. This explains why “Western theory” is in contradiction with the communist movement. Simplicity is only possible when this reconciliation is presupposed - when it is clear to everyone.

Does this mean that complexity has no place? On the contrary, the complex development of theory is the beginning of simplicity. But complexity abstracted from its simple statement, as Marx and Engels did with the declaration of war against private property, is a testament to the incompleteness of the “complex theory”.

Hence, “simple statements” found throughout the works of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin and Mao are the conscious culmination of the reconciliation of the division of labor, of the reconciliation between mental representation and material act and of humanity with itself.

It has always been a criticism of Marxist theory that it was too “simple”, too “reductionist” and too “vulgar”. It didn’t consider “intersections”, “subjective positions”, “the complex human nature”, etc. But the truth is that these simple statements only arise from a thorough and extensive research into all the sciences of a given epoch. This is why they have such a clarifying effect on the whole of the people and the whole of humanity. If after this research, the revolutionary theory can not be summed up in a couple of phrases; the outlook has not reached its completion.

What do we find when we go deeper into this simplicity? What do we find when we go deeper into the Abolition of Private Property, Peace, Land & Bread and Bombard The Headquarters? We find the whole wealth of the Marxist-Leninist outlook. Let us then analyze the distinguishing features of Marxism-Leninism.

What distinguishes Marxism-Leninism?

At the level of appearance, Marxism-Leninism is distinguished by its simplicity.

At the level of its practice, Marxism-Leninism is distinguished by its ominous presence over communist aspirations, and its historical index.

At the level of essence, Marxism-Leninism is distinguished by the subjective position of “destitution”, sensibility for the people as a whole and the objective position of maneuvering the dialectic of form.

Introduction to the Dialectic of Form

We are nothing without universalism.

Understanding Lenin’s party-form, Stalin’s national question and Mao’s primary and secondary contradictions.

From class to country and from country to class.

Class: Fundamental determinant of man-to-man relations in general. Intrudes within every relation. Necessarily intrudes within antagonisms proper to national forms such as the state and civil society.

Country: The space within which class intruded/separated. Provides the “force” to the class determination, i.e., its wordly repartition and distribution. It also provides the movement of class. By worldly we mean territorial, conscious, in relation to power, in relation to resources, the division of labor, etc. A class can never eliminate the country even as it tries to. A national antagonism such as the people vs the state also corresponds to a class distribution since class distribution is a presupposition of the nation and vice versa. Every member of a class is defined by his class distribution, i.e., class tendency, which is its specific force within a country. Within every national struggle, there is class distribution and within every distribution, there is class struggle.

But what do we mean by class distribution? Class distribution here would be the middle term between the country and the class. Class distribution refers to the specific repartition of class over territory, over an institution, over a power relation, over the means of production, etc. Class distribution is not about how many empirical individuals compose a given (national) institution but how much that institution itself is subsumed (or created) by this or that class element.

Hence, every separation in the national institutions can be interpreted as a division between different class tendencies - not necessarily a class division. For example, in stable capitalism, the state signifies the class tendency of the middle bourgeoisie - as overcoming the petty and big bourgeoisie. Hence, within this very specific class distribution - we can get both the petty and big bourgeoisie to affect the class tendency of the state - and hence transform society. This generates a specific framing of capitalist politics; both the petty and big bourgeoisie are included within the overall stable bourgeois class tendency - represented by the middle class. Their politics are internal to the bourgeois class.

But what happens if this stability is reversed? Let us take a historical example with the rise of the rentier class - which is an outgrowth of the big bourgeois - and its subsumption of the state, specifically in imperialism. In this case, the class tendency of the state has been firmly established as one following the course of the financial bourgeoisie. Now that the class tendency is financial, the petty and middle bourgeois are considered to decay from the new organization of the tendency of development. Hence, their institutions fall outside the composition of the formal state. But what falls outside the bourgeois state can not be bourgeois. Thus, they are put in a contradictory position. Their class tendency gets subsumed by the only other class left: the proletariat. Since this is a tendency, not a defined institution, the representation of this is necessarily informal, i.e, it is universal.

Hence, we can interpret national phenomena such as populism, national liberation, anti-imperialist struggle, and cultural revolutions as shifts in the class tendencies of specific structures. The indeterminacy of these shifts is what allows for social transformation.

From base to superstructure and from superstructure to base.

Base: The determinant of the economic structure. Intrudes all the economy. The “commodity fetish” fits here, not in the superstructure.

Superstructure: The organization and human appropriation of the economic structure. Every superstructural antagonism tends towards a specific direction dependent on the base formation.

Forces and Relations

Forces: Production and consumption as it relates to universal humanity.

Relations: The organization of the forces - i.e. a particular (bourgeois) humanity. Every relation tends toward emphasizing a specific characteristic of the forces.

Why is there a contradiction between form and content?

In the case of class and country: the country is the repetition of the original class rupture. Class is the repetition of exhausting the country’s determination. These are two different registers that can not overlap. Not only do they not overlap, they contradict each other. This is because the repetition of a rupture is the destruction of an old exhaustion.

The state imposes the space of a rupture constantly; specific laws, specific geographies, and specific education. Class merely exhausts the space of this rupture.

Let us give an example. Let us say a state is settled on a specific land. Over time, capitalism develops on the land and there are clear class formations that appear. Then, the state discovers new land. The state starts to apply its legal and national power to populate that area. With this discovery, the class tendency of every member of society is put in the air; a new land is discovered. Every member can shift positions, every member is susceptible to falling to either a new bourgeois tendency or a new proletarian tendency. The state’s nature itself is put on hold as the informal ground of the start of civilization.

Thus, the class struggle is always within a specific national determination. Novel national determinations are always occurring - hence, novel terrains of the class struggle are always appearing. Novel national determinations can not be confined to a “bourgeois form of politics” since every bourgeois form contains the indeterminacy which gives rise to the proletarian interest and form. In other words, the “class tendency” of novel national determinations is always open. Not only is it open but it guarantees a novel structuring of the class struggle every time it appears.

But how do these “novel national determinations”, whether institutions, resources or cultural changes appear? They appear when a specific class arrangement encounters its limit. Hence, they designate a relative breakdown of class structures. Depending on the standpoint, these breakdowns can be seen as absolute. A relative breakdown is as much a breakdown of the bourgeois class as its relative reconstitution.

For example, with the appearance of imperialism, a novel national determination, politics encounters a division between imperialist and anti-imperialist politics. Imperialist politics unifies the financial and industrial bourgeoisie (for a more limited time than the financial bourgeoisie, which is the essence of imperialism) and anti-imperialist politics gathers the petty-bourgeoisie, the peasants and the proletariat. Within this specific national split, there is an openness to the class tendency which will define the split. Hence, the content of all these class formations is put on hold; their content could be fully proletarian if their specific class position becomes impossible in the era of imperialism. Now, their “form” might not be proletarian. If this contradiction between form and content did not exist, the proletariat would not be the essential representation of all humanity.

Hence, the “real class struggle” also becomes over who can win over as much as possible the “class tendency” of novel national determinations. The proletarian element of every division of bourgeois society must be taken hold of. The novel national determinations must always be painted as a relative breakdown of bourgeois structures from the perspective of a previous class rupture. It is within that old space that the proletarian element finds its vindication.

Introduction to the Historical Index

We are nothing without our history.

What type of historical index is Marxism-Leninism? Based on what was said previously, the Marxist-Leninist historical index is simply an index of the relative breakdowns of bourgeois forms. From within these relative breakdowns, there is simultaneously a relative proletarian position which is communicated and a relative socialist form which is built.

Party

Dual-power and the Party-form as the specific relative breakdown of the mental labor/manual labor distinction.

Imperialism

Imperialism as the breakdown of national capitalism and national commodity production.

Peasantry

The peasantry as a specific relative breakdown of the bourgeois national form, in the context of the contradiction of town and country. The transformation of the class tendency of the peasant towards the proletarian one.

Production

Transitional forms as specific relative breakdown of the value-form, money, private production and appropriation.

Culture

Bureaucracy as a specific relative breakdown of the bourgeois mediation between state and civil society. The cultural revolution as the communication of the socialist element emerging in contradistinction to the bureaucracy.

Modern Writings For A Renewed Marxist-Leninist Outlook

In the West, it is rare to find works which explicitly expound “philosophical Marxism-Leninism”. They most often defend positions contingent on Marxism-Leninism. Here is a collection of works of that sort. These works presuppose a familiarity with the classics of Marxism beforehand.

Marx’s Theory of the Revolution by Hal Draper

This book series expounds on Marx’s incredible flexibility of tactics and forms of organization when dealing with bourgeois society. It also deals with the Marxist justification of these tactics through its dialectical outlook. The second volume is especially prescient.

Lenin Rediscovered by Lars Lih

This work traces Lenin’s historical continuity with the Marxist tradition of his time. How Lenin specifically dealt with his own historical index must be our basis for today. It also showcases the logical continuity of the Soviet state.

Rethinking Mao by Nick Knight

This work refutes the academic misconceptions about Mao’s revolution, either of him being a bourgeois peasant revolutionary or of not grasping Marxist theory properly.

In Defence of Lost Causes by Zizek

This work introduces the political element of the dialectic of form and takes it to its subjective extreme.

Less Than Nothing by Zizek

This work introduces the philosophical basis of the dialectic of form and takes it to its objective extreme.

An American Utopia by Frederic Jameson

This work expounds an application of the dialectic of form to the American context.

Time, Labor and Social Domination by Moishe Postone

This work ironically serves as a Marxist-Leninist re-introduction of political economy even though it takes a critical stance towards “actually existing socialism”. The reason for this is that it undertakes a critique of all of Western Marxism with a “return to Marx” as Postone puts it - making it the subjective limit of Western Marxist political-economy. Only one step from this work is necessary to arrive at Marxism-Leninism; that the universalization of labor leads to the abolition of labor. Whereas with other Western Marxist political-economic texts, a whole bunch of misconceptions must be dealt with; the nature of value, the nature of the fetish, the nature of the money-form, the nature of capitalist growth, etc. This work solves these issues.

From all these works, if you had to start with one, I would say to start with Zizek’s “In Defence of Lost Causes”.