Steve Bloom identifies and critiques a ‘schematism’ he believes is implicit in the programmatic and theoretical documents of the Marxist Unity Group.
Introduction
The Marxist Unity Group puts the struggle for a “democratic socialist republic” at the center of its programmatic and theoretical work. In my Cosmonaut article titled “A Practical Roadmap for the Workers’ Movement in Taking Political Power,” written in response to Donald Parkinson’s “The Revolutionary Minimum-Maximum Program,”1 I raised a question about whether this concept, and the idea that flows from it of a two-stage revolutionary process, has risen to the level of a theoretical schema in the thinking of MUG. After reading everything in Fight the Constitution related to questions of “Democracy and the State” and “Party and Program,” along with MUG’s points of unity and other foundational texts, as well as sitting through the discussions at MUG’s recent national congress as an invited guest, there is no longer any question in my mind. MUG has indeed raised the “struggle for a democratic socialist republic” to the level of a theoretical schema, and this is having a negative impact on the group’s thinking about both immediate tasks—especially programmatic tasks—and long-term political goals.
To frame this discussion I will repeat the definition of “schematism” that I presented in my response to Parkinson:
What is “schematism”? It’s a process of thought which elevates our theoretical models (schemas) of what we expect a social process to look like and thereby blinds us to a proper assessment and understanding of whatever real processes might actually unfold in life, since revolutions in the real world generally fail to match our theoretical expectations. The clearest historical illustration is “third-camp” currents which, after 1959, considered the Cuban revolution and said: These events do not fit the model that our theory tells us a socialist revolution should adhere to. We therefore conclude that this is not a socialist revolution.
Please note that schematism can affect the thinking of revolutionaries before the advent of revolutionary events as well as after. Indeed, historically this is the most common variety, and it’s the variety MUG has fallen into with its concept of a “democratic republic” as the necessary and inevitable initial stage of the proletarian dictatorship.
But First a Thank-You
Before we begin an examination of the difficulty this creates, however, I want to start with a “thank-you.” I think MUG is doing a service to the revolutionary Left in the USA by raising this question, and I believe the critique of that left (which would include myself) for essentially ignoring the democratic republic as a programmatic element has merit. In this context, however, one distinction becomes essential: between a) the struggle for a democratic republic as a useful point in our program, and b) the democratic republic itself as an expected form through which the dictatorship of the proletariat will of necessity manifest itself. The schema arises from the second of these two elements, not the first.
I hope the rest of the present article will help us to focus on this distinction, and on understanding why it’s so important.
Theory and History
In “Lenin and the Class Point of View” Gil Shaeffer quotes favorably from Chris Maisano: “He ends with the assertion that the democratic republic is ‘the framework in which the transition from capitalism to democratic socialism will eventually be achieved’.”2 This poses the matter plainly enough. Note, in terms of the distinction just identified, that this formulation goes well beyond asserting the call for a democratic republic as an essential programmatic element. It projects an actual state form through which history is expected to unfold.
MUG theorists tell us that this approach is consistent with, and derived from, an understanding of the dictatorship of the proletariat as it was developed by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels. I do not dispute it. If we consider the list of programmatic tasks Marx and Engels presented in the Communist Manifesto, for example, it looks very much like the theory MUG is offering to us. Luke Pickrell in “Marxism and the Democratic Republic” stresses this point, quoting Engels: “Marx and I, for forty years, repeated ad nauseum that for us the democratic republic is the only political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalized and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat.”3
Still, scientific socialists do not rely solely or even primarily on our own theories—not even the theories of thinkers with the stature of Marx and Engels—in determining how we should understand and orient ourselves to the world around us. Just like scientists in any field we compare our theories to the actual experiences we have with whatever realities we are theorizing about and trying to influence, understanding full well as materialists that experience trumps theory whenever there is a conflict. We therefore always need to be adjusting our theories based on our experience.
It simply will not do in this case to dust off the conclusions Karl Marx came to about the dictatorship of the proletariat and be satisfied that we have, by doing so, developed a complete and thorough appreciation of all the essential elements, an appreciation that we then treat as timeless and therefore impervious to being influenced by events. Instead we have to ask ourselves this question: What has the actual experience of the working class been on a global scale with the process of establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat? Does it conform with and thereby confirm the theory that MUG derives from reading Marx and Engels? Or does it suggest the need to refine our theory?
Let’s consider four actual case studies which, I hope we will agree, represent actual real-life experiences in the dictatorship of the proletariat. All of them post-date the Communist Manifesto; three of the four also post-date Karl Marx: the Paris Commune, the Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution, the Cuban revolution.
Of these four case studies only the Commune conforms in any meaningful sense to the MUG model of a “democratic republic” as the initial form through which “socialism will eventually be achieved.” We cannot reasonably derive this idea from the experiences in Russia, China, or Cuba. The challenge MUG theorists have, therefore, is to reconcile the contradiction between their theory of a “democratic republic” and the actual lived experience of real revolutions in the 20th century. If they cannot do this, and personally I don’t see how they can, then the theory needs to be abandoned, even if it is 100 percent consistent with what we read in Marx’s collected works. We will, of course, excuse Marx for not developing his own theory in a way that would be consistent with a history that only revealed itself after his death. But we, who live in the 21st century, must demand something better of ourselves.
It’s also worth noting that our look at these four concrete experiences with the dictatorship of the proletariat underlines the distinction made above: between the “democratic republic” as a programmatic demand and the “democratic republic” as an actual living state form through which the dictatorship of the proletariat might make its appearance. In the programs of the Russian Bolsheviks, the Chinese Communist Party, and the July 26 Movement, the call for a democratic republic was a key element. It did not, however, turn out to describe the actual process through which the dictatorship of the proletariat was established in these three cases.
We will return to this essential question of historical experience and how it relates to our theory shortly. But first let’s prepare that discussion by exploring a couple of other problems that arise as we consider the theory of a “democratic republic” as MUG presents it to us.
Theoretical Difficulties Part 1—Where does political power come from?
The MUG theory of a “democratic socialist republic”—in particular of this republic as the first “stage” of the socialist revolution during which a political power in the hands of the working class will coexist for a period of time with an economic power still in the hands of the capitalist class—seems to be based on a belief that some inherent power actually resides in the government institutions that are established by any state. This is an illusion, however. The reality is that such institutions ultimately derive their power from that inherent in the ownership and control of the means of production. They rule, to the extent they actually do so, only with the consent of those who play a predominant role in economic life. Most importantly for our present conversation: government institutions cannot take any step that the capitalist class is resolved to stop so long as the capitalists maintain their economic power, because trying to do so will simply trigger a strike by capital. And a strike by capital can be far longer-lasting and therefore far more devastating even than a general strike of the workers, since the capitalists have a vastly superior ability to support themselves as they are bringing the rest of society to its knees. Think Chile under the Allende regime.
Despite Mao’s dictum that political power grows from the barrel of a gun—which is true, of course, in the sense Mao intended—it is even more true to say, therefore, that political power grows from the control of economic production. Thus any dictatorship of the proletariat arising strictly in the form of a “democratic republic” of the type envisioned by MUG, in which a working-class political power coexists with a capitalist economic power, can only be realized for the briefest possible historical moment. It must immediately, or almost immediately, begin the process of “despotic inroads” into capitalist economic power, taking control of at least the most decisive elements if it really wants to exercise political power in any meaningful sense. Should it fail to do this its political “power” is going to be decisively defeated by the capitalist economic power, and in a relatively brief period of time.
It’s interesting in this context to look again at the Paris Commune, our only real-life example of proletarian dictatorship that resembles the theoretical model developed by MUG. One lesson of history is that the Commune’s limited vision of itself as strictly a radical democratic republic, which would not undertake an immediate challenge to key aspects of the old order but would, instead, attempt to coexist with them, turned out to be the Achilles heel that led to the Commune’s bloody defeat. Proletarian state forms in the USA or any other country that expect to coexist with a dominant capitalist economic power for an undefined period of time face precisely the same dangers.
So we begin to understand, on a theoretical level, why the formula of a “democratic socialist republic” is, at the very least, inadequate as a self-contained political conception of the proletarian dictatorship, whatever Marx and Engels might have suggested to us in their writings.
Theoretical Difficulties Part 2—Levels of mass mobilization required to generate a constitutional crisis
A constitutional crisis that will generate the necessary level of mobilization to compel the creation of a democratic republic in the USA seems unlikely to arise strictly, or even primarily, as the result of mass intellectual dissatisfaction with the current US Constitution as a legal document. I cannot think of a single example in history where something like that has occurred. Instead, we should expect that such a constitutional crisis will be the outgrowth of other struggles.
In his article titled “Fight the Constitution! Demand a New Republic!” Ben Groves describes the process envisioned by MUG for the establishment of a new constitution. We quote one paragraph:
Meanwhile, the federal government would fund thousands of small-scale conventions so that all the citizens could participate in the reform process. Volunteers and repurposed federal employees would be sent to canvass across the country, inviting citizens to get involved. Online and electronic options would be offered free of charge to anyone unable to attend a physical meeting. Employers would be required to give their workers paid time off to take part in the conventions. The conventions would collaborate directly with the Assembly and be empowered to call a new national election at any time.4
Such a scenario presupposes a level of mass engagement in political life which goes far beyond anything we see today, or have seen at any time in the history of the USA. It resembles a level of political engagement that we generally experience during revolutionary periods. Such a level of mass political engagement is inconceivable without some kind of traumatic experience in the class struggle that ruptures complacency and impels millions into action. It is naive in the extreme (indeed, it’s an expression of a fundamentally idealist method of thought) to expect that such a mobilization will be stimulated by an intellectual argument from revolutionaries about how undemocratic the US Constitution is. As already noted, every case study we have where the call for a new constitution has found a meaningful echo among masses of people involves a tangible social crisis stimulated by some other issue—war, economic crash, military or other dictatorship, struggle of an oppressed people, etc. Such a crisis, which reflects mass discontent with one or more specific tangible injustices, can and often does generate a process through which the mass movement comes to demand a new constitution.
Thus a political orientation that focuses strictly or even primarily on the demand for a democratic republic as the core of our program, around which all other demands orbit, is going to miss the mark. The primary programmatic elements that a revolutionary current needs to be focused on if it wants to influence an upsurge of this kind will be those which directly address the injustices that are driving the social crisis itself, whatever they happen to be. The demand for a new constitution is appropriate, even essential, in this context. But it has to be subordinate to, and derived from, all the rest.
It also seems useful to pose this question: We can see that if we have a movement that rises to a level where it can compel the adoption of a new constitution, such a movement must already be conscious about other social contradictions and have at least a nascent power to address them directly—demanding specific laws or other social measures. Why, in that situation, would we propose that this movement step back from addressing those questions directly and settle, simply, for establishing a “democratic republic” as a means to address the underlying social issues indirectly? This is another train of thought which suggests that focusing our programmatic interventions on the constitutional question, asserting that this is the truly fundamental issue, is probably not the most useful approach.
The “Democratic Republic” and the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”
Let’s now return to our discussion of history and its relationship to theory. There is something else we know from our study of revolutionary and semi-revolutionary events during the 20th century: that in the course of struggles that are large enough and powerful enough to pose a constitutional crisis, but which are stimulated by more tangible issues as we have seen, it’s common for popular assemblies to arise that can already begin to act as alternative governing institutions—the Soviets during the Russian revolution, the Shoras during the 1979 Iranian revolution, etc. This immediately generates a dialectic that proponents of “a democratic republic” as the necessary and inevitable form of a proletarian dictatorship need to take into account. Yet the theory presented to us by MUG fails to even consider the reality that this poses for us.
We can illustrate clearly if we look at the Russian revolution: the Bolsheviks were among those who called most loudly and most consistently for the election of a constituent assembly in the days following the February 1917 revolution. And yet by the time the Constituent Assembly was actually convened, Soviet power had already been established as a result of the October revolution. With the full support of the Bolsheviks the Soviet government dispersed the Constituent Assembly—the very body that had been mandated to establish a “democratic republic”—by force of arms. Why? Because the Bolsheviks recognized that in this case the establishment of a “democratic republic” and the development of a new constitution through the Constituent Assembly would be a step backward for the dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia when compared to Soviet power.
It is more than reasonable to generalize from this experience. It’s not excluded that in some situations the “democratic republic” can indeed be the initial form taken by the dictatorship of the proletariat. But the Russian revolution proves that it isn’t a necessary and inevitable stage. Soviet power in Russia leapt over the “stage” of the “democratic republic.” This is not only a possible alternative in other revolutions, but, in my opinion, a likely one—given our understanding of the way mass movements develop and evolve into revolutionary movements. We will fall back on the “democratic republic” as the first stage of the proletarian dictatorship only in those cases where “soviet power” or its equivalent does not, in fact, establish itself first.
In the same article quoted above Luke Pickrell comments on the effect of the Russian revolution on Marxist theory, but without considering why the Russian experience had such a profound impact: “It’s as if everything Marx, Engels, and the 2nd International ever wrote about democracy, the democratic republic, and the state form of the dictatorship of the proletariat went out the window after the Russian Revolution.”5 Luke and MUG need to take a step back and consider why post-1917 theory in the Marxist movement developed in this way: because what had happened in Russia shed new light on historical possibilities. It was a living case study far more intense, widespread, and long-lasting than the Paris Commune and it offered a different picture of how the proletarian dictatorship might come to power.
As noted in my “thank-you” above, I am open to considering whether this shift in Marxist theory went too far, and whether we should re-examine the utility of the classical texts MUG prioritizes. But even if we agree that this is useful, we still cannot turn the clock back to the theoretical age before 1917, declaring that the theory developed by Marx, Engels, and the 2nd international is all we need today. No, the Russian revolution had an impact on Marxist praxis for a reason. It was the second experience in the history of the world with the proletarian dictatorship, and it was one which offered deep insights that correctly impelled a substantial theoretical development.
Exploring the Theoretical Alternatives
This leads us to a consideration of the theoretical alternatives to MUG’s approach. If, in the course of struggles that are large enough and powerful enough to pose a constitutional crisis, it’s commonplace for popular assemblies to arise that can already begin to act as alternative governing institutions, and if it’s possible for these alternative governing institutions to take power before any “democratic republic” is established, thereby making the “stage” of a “democratic republic” unnecessary, then this clearly defines one alternative possibility for the transition to socialism. It’s an approach that has been integrated into the theory of the Marxist movement through the concept of “dual power.” By understanding the nature and potential of “dual power” we are, post-1917, now able to define another “political form in which the struggle between the working class and the capitalist class can first be universalized and then culminate in the decisive victory of the proletariat.”
Note that we are not talking here about a “dual power” in the sense of political power on the one hand vs. economic power on the other, the way MUG’s theory poses the question, but a “dual power” in which the working class and the capitalist class are competing both for political power and for economic power at the same time. In this context we can understand why Rosa Luxemburg’s concept of the mass strike plays such a central role in the development of a “dual power” approach to socialist revolution. Such a mass strike is the bridge that allows events to cross over from simple economic/social protest, transforming itself into a mass project to take political power. It’s the keystone in an arc of events which, collectively, first poses and then resolves the question of power.
Luxemburg’s strike both reflects and, in its turn, deepens a broader social crisis, allowing that crisis to generate the potential of a struggle for political power based on whatever alternative governmental forms have either already arisen organically or can be created. The political solution to the social crisis is posed by the development of such new democratic institutions (by the development of a dual power) as part of the mass upsurge that also generates the strike, not so much by the strike itself. What the strike accomplishes is both raising mass consciousness about the need to take power and clearing the way for these alternative mass democratic institutions to actually do so. In addition, the mass strike helps neutralize the economic stranglehold of capital so that the old ruling classes will have considerably more difficulty if/when they attempt to undermine our newly-established dictatorship of the proletariat through an economic strike of their own—after whatever alternative forms that have arisen organically declare themselves to be the new government.6
In addition to this “dual power” theoretical approach to establishing the dictatorship of the proletariat we should also note that history offers a third potential pathway for the emergence of a working-class state: the direct military conquest of power. This was the road followed by the Chinese and the Cuban revolutions. It’s true that this pathway too requires a level of mass mobilization as a complement to the military struggle. But unlike in a “dual power” process, in China and Cuba the military struggle was predominant and the mass struggle was secondary. Since the way this road to power works is pretty straightforward I don’t think I have to say much more about it here.
The task, then, is to understand how and why history is pregnant with more than one potential road to working-class power. We have historical examples of each of the three that we have considered in this essay, and there may be others that we have—or (perhaps better) history has—not yet conceived. I don’t believe that MUG is the only current that falls into a method of thinking in schemas. A significant part of the Trotskyist movement, the tradition in which I learned my Marxism, held tightly to the “dual power” model as a schema, and this tended to disorient our thinking when confronted with events like the Chinese and Cuban revolutions—though the best Trotskyists did quickly embrace the Cuban revolution despite its challenge to our theory. Many during the 1960s and ’70s were guilty of following an “armed struggle” schema, attempting to duplicate the Chinese and/or the Cuban model, with more than a few disastrous results. So the problem of schematism is widespread and MUG is not alone.
The task, however, is to overcome this mode of thought and open our theoretical understanding to the diverse potentials for taking power that the process of proletarian revolution actually generates.
- From Fight the Constitution: For a Democratic Socialist Republic—Selected Writings from Marxist Unity Group (Cosmonaut Press, 2023).
- Fight the Constitution, p. 79.
- Fight the Constitution, p. 124.
- Fight the Constitution, p. 58.
- Fight the Constitution, p. 122.
- I thought to include this reference to Luxemburg because in his comments to the recent MUG national congress Mike Macnair criticized Luxemburg’s approach, explaining that by itself a mass strike cannot solve the question of political power. That’s certainly true, but it strikes me as also quite beside the point. I have since listened again to the talk Macnair gave to the congress which is available here, however, and do not find the reference. So I assume his comments about Luxemburg were in response to something raised in the question and discussion period. Without access to the video of that discussion I decided it was best to formulate the content of my article as a positive reference to Luxemburg rather than as a negative reference to something said by Macnair—which I am unable to check or document. But I do think it’s important to highlight, for readers of Cosmonaut, the fact that this seems to be an area of disagreement, at least between Macnair and me.