A Red Flag Rises, Part VII: The Philosophy of Revolution

"The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims. They openly declare that their ends can be attained only  by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a Communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!" The Communist Manifesto

Today we look at item number four on our list, the inherent tendency towards revolution. While we know that Communism has often found success through revolution, it may be assumed that this is merely accidental, a result of varying factors of time, place, and personality. Through examining the underlying philosophical aspects of Communism we will be able to see that the revolutionary tendency is not accidental at all, but is rather an intrinsic aspect of Communist thought.

Since all of these posts have considered the impact of Hegel and Feuerbach on Marx, it is worth briefly comparing these three again on this point as well.

It should first of all be noted that the revolutionary tendency first appears in strength in Karl Marx, and then full-blown by the time of Lenin. Hegel and Feuerbach do not exhibit the revolutionary philosophy, at least in the material, militaristic sense. However, I think it is evident that the very nature of Hegelian dialectic is imbued with the spirit of revolution at its very center. Georg Hegel himself may not have been a revolutionary in the sense that Karl Marx was, simply because he was an idealist. His revolutions were struggles of the mind; his battlefield was the human spirit, not the body; and his goal was intellect, not a kingdom or society. Nor did Feuerbach, materialist though he was, intrude his dialectic upon the field of politics and economics, or infuse his sense of struggle with the elements of force and arms. It was left to Marx and his followers to do so.

Nonetheless, I repeat, the revolutionary tendency is in the philosophy of Hegel, in the very nature of his dialectic, patiently waiting till the followers of Marx would bring it into its own, and ravage the world with it. Even in the intellectual sense, no advancement, no good, can come in Hegelian dialectic without revolution. Let us consider for a moment the ideas of thesis and antithesis, in this light.

In Socratic dialectic we also will see the juxtaposition of contrary ideas. We can also call the first one the thesis, and its opposite the antithesis. We are also prepared to see a struggle between the two ideas, with the antithesis acting the revolutionary to the thesis' traditionalism. Yet the result is different, and it is in the difference between the results that we will see the necessity, or lack thereof, of the revolutionary force in the two different forms of dialectic.

In the Socratic dialogue, we discover that one idea or the other was right all along. When the smoke clears the victor that appears is no unfamiliar character. Thus we see that the struggle was not essential, the truth was already there all along, and would have remained even had it never been opposed. It is certainly true that the struggle may have sharpened or refined the idea, explored and probed its depths in some way, but this is only an indictment of the confusion and darkness of our own minds, or of some carelessness on the part of the one who first presented the idea. Simply put, truth stands on its own. It needs no struggle, opposition, or revolution, in order to be. It simply is, eternal and unchanging.

Not so with Hegelian dialectic. Here, in this relativistic construct, there is no absolute. Neither thesis nor antithesis represent actual truth. The only improvement, advancement, or actual good in the system comes in the form of the synthesis, an idea altogether new. The synthesis is the product, or offspring if you will, of the thesis and antithesis. Thus, in Hegelian dialectic, the struggle, the opposition, the revolution, is essential. If you recall Marx's idea of man as becoming, mentioned in the post on relativism, you will see how the struggle is even necessary for man to become. 

In Hegel, of course, this revolutionary element existed in the mind. But it is not difficult to see, once applied to the concrete world of politics and economics, how this dialectical reading of history almost automatically inspires revolution. Thus the revolutionary tendency of Marxism is, as stated above, integral to the system.

It should also be noted here, that the full blossoming of the violent revolutionary tendencies came even later than Marx, with Lenin under the inspiration of the oft-forgotten Sergey Nechayev, one of the most single-minded, virile, and hate-filled revolutionary minds in history. As the Canadian author, poet, and journalist Max Eastman wrote, "...the confluence of these two streams of thought (Nechayev and Marx) is one of the greatest disasters that ever befell mankind."

Communism is not revolutionary by accident. It will use whatever tools it must, but its heart is always towards violence to accomplish its ends. Its very language is the language of the revolutionary, it is conceived in anger, and born in blood.