18. The Character of Stalin’s “Mistakes”
“There are mistakes and mistakes. In the various spheres of human thought, there can be very considerable mistakes which flow from the insufficient examination of the object, from insufficient factual data, from a too great complexity of the factors to be considered, etc. Among these we may consider, let us say, the mistakes of meteorologists in foretelling the weather, which are typical of a whole series of mistakes in the sphere of politics. However, the mistakes of a learned, quick-witted meteorologist are often more useful to science than the conjecture of an empiric, even though it is accidentally substantiated by facts.” (p 300)
On this later example, of course, it does not mean that empirics may not conflate correlation with causation, especially where it makes for a good sensationalist news story. For example, we can accept the science that tells us that we are experiencing “climate change”, i.e. a long-term change in the Earth's climate patterns, affecting global temperatures, air and ocean currents and so on, without confusing that with the day to day, or even month to month weather. The insistence of the media, in claiming that every storm, every forest fire is the result of this climate change is ridiculous hyperbole and sensationalism, based on empiricism not science, and so undermines the actual science.
For example, every Summer, particularly in hotter parts of the globe, grassland, heather and forests suffer dry conditions, and, in these conditions, fires can be more easily started. That the temperatures in these locations may be one or two degrees higher than in previous years, whether due to long-term climate change or not, does not really make a great deal of difference to the risk of forest or grass fires, because it is the dryness that is the determinant, and these areas get dry enough, every year, to be ignited. That some people misuse the science, in order to sensationalise events, however, does not mean that we should ignore or dismiss the science.
“But what should we say of a learned geographer, of a leader of a polar expedition who would take as his point of departure that the earth rests on three whales? Yet the mistakes of Stalin are almost completely of this last category. Never rising to Marxism as a method, making use of one or the other “Marxian-like” formulas in a ritualistic manner, Stalin in his practical actions takes as his point of departure the crassest empirical prejudices.” (p 300)
And, that has also been the method of the petty-bourgeois “Left”. It has proceeded on the basis of moralism not Marxism, and its attempts to grow its individual sects organically, by fishing in one liberal, middle-class pond after another, seizing on one ephemeral piece of middle-class angst after another, meshing into an underlying petty-bourgeois catastrophism, drove it further and further away, both from Marxism and the working-class.
This process is also described by Trotsky, identifying its material basis. In the post-war period, as the global economy expanded, the bourgeoisie consolidated its position, once more, under the hegemony of US imperialism. But, as Marx describes in “Wage-Labour and Capital”, this also forms the most advantageous condition for workers too. Employment expands, the reserve army is reduced and presses down less on wages. Capitals begin to compete amongst themselves for labour-power, pushing wages higher and enabling workers to become more confident, and rebuild their organisations.
This was the point made by Trotsky about the stabilisation, in China, after the betrayals and defeat of the 1925-7 Revolution. But, for a period, it is the bourgeoisie that feels stronger, and workers necessarily subdued. So, too, after WWII, and, similarly, in the period of stagnation from the 1980's. This ebbing of the tide for workers feeds through into its political organisations, and psychology of its members.
“... such is the dialectic of the process: these prejudices became Stalin’s main strength in the period of revolutionary decline.” (p 300)
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