Base and Superstructure

While the thinkers of an established ruling class are confined to continual elaboration in the realm of ideology, the thinkers of a rising class can begin to develop a scientific understanding of social development.

Our theory and theirs

A rising class' thinkers cannot simply proclaim that they have the truth. They have to prove it.

First, they have to show that they can take up and develop the insights which the thinkers of earlier rising classes made. So, for instance, Marx set out in his economic writings not simply to give his explanation of the workings of capitalism, but also to show how he could complete the work of classical political economy by solving problems it had set itself without success.

Second, it has to be able to show how the superficial social features which ideology deals with can be derived from the underlying social processes it describes. As Marx puts it, it has to be able to derive the `exoteric' from the `esoteric'. So a scientific Marxist analysis of any society has to be able to provide an understanding of the various ideological currents of that society, showing how they arise out of the real world, expressing certain aspects of it, but in a distorted way.

Finally, at the end of the day, there is only one real test of any science: its ability to guide practice. And so arguments within Marxism itself can only be finally resolved in the course of revolutionary working class struggle.

A very important point underlies all this discussion. Not all ideas about society are `ideological'. The scientific understanding which the thinkers of a rising class develop is not. Nor is the immediate awareness which people have of their actions. This only becomes `ideological' when it is interpreted through a framework of general ideas provided by an established ruling class. By contrast, if it is interpreted through the theory of a rising class, it is on its way to becoming the true self-consciousness of a society.

`Ideology' is part of the superstructure in the sense that it is a passive element in the social process, helping to reproduce old relations of production. But revolutionary self-consciousness is not. It is an active element, arising out of people's material circumstances, but feeding back into them to change them.

In the real world there are all sorts of hybrid sets of ideas which lie somewhere in between science and ideology, between true and false consciousness. People's experience can be of partial challenges to the existing society. They gain partial insights into the real structure of society, but seek to interpret them through piecemeal adjustments to old ideological frameworks.

Even the output of the ideologies of the existing order cannot be dismissed out of hand. The worst of them cannot completely ignore those experiences of the mass of people which challenge the ruling class's view of the world: their ideological function means they have, somehow, to try to prove that those experiences are compatible with the ruling class's view. So the worst hack journalists or TV commentators have to recognise that there is opposition to the ruling class, reporting on strikes, demonstrations and so on, if only to condemn such struggles and to isolate those involved in them. The worst pulp novelists have to start from some image of ordinary people's lives, however distorted, if they are to find a mass audience. The most reactionary priests are only effective insofar as they can provide illusory relief to the real problems of their parishioners.

This leads to all sorts of contradictions within the ruling ideology. Some of its most prominent proponents can be those who make most efforts to relate to people's lived experiences. The ideology itself encourages `social scientists', historians, writers, artists and even theologians to make enormous efforts to fit empirical observation and experience into their accounts of reality. But this inevitably leads to contradictory accounts, with some of the ideologues beginning to question some of the tenets of the established ideology. Marx recognised that a great writer or artist is able to reflect all the contradictory experiences that beset people who live in his or her society, and, in the process to begin to go beyond the limits set by his or her class position. In a few cases this even leads them to a break with their own class and to identify with the revolutionary opposition to it.

A scientific understanding of social development demands a complete break with the whole method of the pseudo-social sciences of those who defend the existing social order. But that does not mean that we can neglect the elements of truth that those who practise these disciplines stumble across. Still less can we ignore the often quite profound grasp of the social process to be found in certain non-Marxist historians or in great novelists like Balzac or Walter Scott.

Marxism shows its superiority over bourgeois thought not by simply treating all bourgeois thinkers with contempt, but rather by showing that it can encapsulate the advances made by bourgeois thinkers into its own total view of reality - something which no bourgeois `social scientist' can do and which no bourgeois thinker has attempted since Hegel.

The central role of class struggle

The Marxist approach begins, then, by pointing to the contradictory ways in which the forces of production and the relations of production, the base and the superstructure, material reality and people's ideas, develop. But none of these contradictions simply resolve themselves, as the mechanical materialists assert. Their resolution only takes place on the basis of the struggles of human beings, of class struggles.

Once you have societies divided between those who produce directly and those who live off a surplus product, any growth of the productive forces, however slow and piecemeal, leads to a corresponding change in the objective weight of the different classes in society. And some ways of developing the productive forces lead to qualitative changes, to new ways of extracting a surplus, to the embryos of new exploiting and exploited classes (and, eventually, to the formation of a class that can run society without exploiting anyone).

But the new ways of producing always face resistance from at least some of those whose interests lie in preservation of the old ways. The advance of every new mode of production is always marked by bitter class wars (even if, as with the religious wars of the 16th and 17th centuries, these ways do not always involve clean breaks between classes, but often complicated, cross-cutting alliances between the most dynamic section of the rising class and certain interest groups within the old order). Whether the new ways of producing break through depends on who wins these struggles. Economic developments are very important in this. They determine the size of the different classes, their geographical concentration (and therefore the ease with which they can be organised), their degree of homogeneity, the physical resources at their disposal.

Such direct economic factors can certainly create a situation in which the rising class cannot gain a victory, whatever it does. The objective balance of forces is too powerfully weighted the other way. But when the objective factors create a situation of near equality of forces for the rival classes, what come to matter are other factors - the ideological homogeneity, the organisation and the leadership of the rival classes.

For the mechanical materialist, ideas are simply an automatic reflection of material being. But in real historical processes of social transformation it is never that simple.

The institutions of the old ruling class are continually trying to define the ways in which people throughout society see themselves and their relations with others. The members of the rising class at first accept these definitions as the only ones available to them: so for instance, the early medieval burghers accepted the precepts of medieval Catholicism in their totality.

But the members of a rising class get involved in practical activity which cannot easily be encompassed by the old definitions. People begin to do things which the old world view says they should not. The institutions that enforce the old worldview then threaten punitive action against them.

At this point two options are open. Those involved in the new forms of activity concede to the pressures on them from the old order, and the new forms of activity cease. Or they generalise their clash with the old ideology, developing out of elements of it a new total worldview, behind which they attempt to rally all those in a similar objective situation to themselves.

A new system of ideas is not just a passive reflection of economic changes. It is rather a key link in the process of social transformation, mobilising those affected by cumulative small-scale changes in production into a force whose aim is to change social relations in their entirety.

Take, for instance, the classic debate on Protestantism and the rise of capitalism. According to opponents of Marxism, like Max Weber, it was the autonomous `non-economic' development of a new religious ideology which alone provided the ground in which new capitalist ways of producing could take root. Puritanism caused capitalism.

According to the mechanical materialists, it was the other way round. Protestantism was simply a mechanical reflection of the development of capitalist relations. Capitalism was the cause, Protestantism was the effect.

Each missed out a vital link in the chain of historical development. Protestantism developed because some people in a feudal society began to work and live in ways that are not easily reconcilable with the dominant ideology of medieval Catholicism. They began to reinterpret some of its tenets so as to make sense of their new forms of behaviour. But this led to clashes with the ideological guardians of the old order (the church hierarchy). At this point a series of figures emerged who tried to generalise the challenge to the old ideology - Luther, Calvin, etc. Where the challenge was unsuccessful or where those who made it were forced to compromise (as in Germany, France and Italy), the new ways of working and living became no more than marginal elements in a continuing feudal society. But where the challenge was successful (in Britain and the Netherlands) it liberated the new ways of working and living from the old constraints - it generalised bourgeois forms of production.

The same relationship holds between the workers' struggle under capitalism and the ideas of revolutionary socialism.

Initially, workers try to fit their experience of fighting back against aspects of capitalism into ideological frameworks that are bequeathed to them from the past. These frameworks shape the form their struggles take, so that the struggles are never a simple reflection of material interests. `The deadweight of the past hangs like a nightmare on the brain of the living', as Marx put it. Thе Еіghtееnth Brumаіrе оf Lоuіs Bоnаpаrtе іn Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Vоl. 11, p. 103. Іt іs nоnsеnsе fоr pоst-Аlthussеrіаns lіkе Gаrеth Stеdmаn Jоnеs tо clаіm thаt а Mаrxіst аpprоаch іnvоlvеs аn аttеmpt tо `dеcоdе… pоlіtіcаl lаnguаgе tо rеаd а prіmаl аnd mаtеrіаl еxprеssіоn оf іntеrеst', Lаnguаgе оf Clаss, оp. cіt., p. 21. But the process of trying to interpret their new experiences through old frameworks creates a tension within the old frameworks, which is only resolved as people try to change the frameworks.

As Antonio Gramsci put it, `The active man of the masses works practically, but he does not have a clear, theoretical consciousness of his actions, which is also a knowledge of the world insofar as he changes it.' So there are `two sorts of consciousness', that `implicit in his actions', and that `superficially explicit, which he has inherited from the past and which he accepts without criticism':

“This `verbal' conception is not without consequences; it binds him to a certain social group, influences his moral behaviour and the direction of his will in a more or less powerful way, and it can reach the point where the contradiction of consciousness will not permit any action… [Therefore] the unity of theory and practice is not a given mechanical fact, but a historical process of becoming.” Аntоnіо Grаmscі, “Аvrіаmеntо аllо Studіо dеllа Fіlоsоfіа dеl Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо” іn Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо (Turіn, 1948), trаnslаtеd іn Thе Mоdеrn Prіncе, Lоndоn, 1957, pp. 66-67.

Thus the Chartists of the 1830s and 1840s attempted to come to terms with new experiences through older, radical democratic notions. But this created all sorts of contradictory ideological formulations. That was why some of the most popular orators and writers were people like Bronterre O'Brien, Julian Harvey and Ernest Jones who began to articulate people's experience in newer, more explicitly socialist ways.

Marxism itself was not a set of ideas that emerged fully formed out of the heads of Marx and Engels and then magically took a grip of the working class movement. The birth of the theory was dependent on a distillation by Marx and Engels of the experiences of the young workers' movement in the years prior to 1848. It has been accepted by workers since then, insofar as it has fitted in with what struggles were already beginning to teach them. But its acceptance has then fed back into the struggles to influence their outcome.

The theory does not simply reflect workers' experience under capitalism; it generalises some elements of that experience (those of struggling against capitalism) into a consciousness of the system as a whole. In doing so, it gives new insights into how to wage the struggle and a new determination to fight.

Theory develops on the basis of practice, but feeds back into practice to influence its effectiveness.

The point is important because theory is not always correct theory. There have historically been very important workers' struggles waged under the influence of incorrect theories:

Proudhonism and Blanquism in France in the second half of the 19th century; Lassallianism in Germany; Narodnism and even Russian Orthodoxism in Russia in the years before 1905;

Peronism in Argentina; Catholicism and nationalism in Poland; and, of course, the terrible twins, social democracy and Stalinism.

In all of these cases workers have gone into struggle influenced by `hybrid' views of the world - views which combine a certain immediate understanding of the needs of class struggle with a more general set of ideas accepting key elements of existing society. Such a false understanding of society in its totality leads to enormous blunders - blunders which again and again have led to massive defeats.

In the face of such confusion and such defeats, nothing is more dangerous than to say that ideas inevitably catch up with reality, that victory is certain. For this invariably leads to a downplaying of the importance of combining the practical and the ideological struggle.

The role of the party in history

The other side of the coin to the mechanical materialists' downgrading of the ideological struggle has been a tendency for certain socialist academics to treat the ideological struggle as something quite separate from practical conflicts. This is especially true of the reformists of the now defunct Marxism Today and of the Labour left.

But the struggle of ideas always grows out of struggle in the world of material practice, where ideas have their root, and always culminates in further such material struggles. It was the everyday activity of craftsmen and merchants under feudalism which gave rise to heretical, Protestant, religious formulations. And it was the all too real activity of armies which fought across the length and breadth of Europe which, at the end of the day, determined the success or failure of the new ideology.

The new idealists often claim their theoretical inspiration from Antonio Gramsci, but he was insistent on the connection between theoretical and practical struggle:

`When the problem of the relation of theory and practice arises, it does so in this sense: to construct on a determined practice a theory that, coinciding and being identified with the decisive elements of the same practice, accelerates the historical process in act, makes the practice more homogeneous, coherent and efficacious in all its elements, that is, giving it the maximum force; or else, given a certain theoretical problem, to organise the essential practical elements to put it into operation.' Mаtеrіаlіsmо Stоrіcо, оp. cіt., p. 38.

If you want to challenge capitalism's ideological hold today, you cannot do so unless you relate to people whose everyday struggles lead them to begin to challenge certain of its tenets. And if you want to carry the challenge through to the end, you have to understand that the ideological struggle transforms itself into practical struggle.

The transformation of practice into theory and theory into practice does not take place of its own accord. “A human mass does not `distinguish' itself and does not become independent `by itself' without organising itself, and there is no organisation without intellectuals, that is, without organisers and leaders…” іbіd., trаnslаtеd іn Thе Mоdеrn Prіncе, оp. cіt., p. 67.

A rising class develops a clear set of ideas insofar as a polarisation takes place within it, and what is, at first, a minority of the class carrying the challenge to the old ideology through to its logical conclusion.

At a certain stage in the ideological and practical struggle that minority crystallises out as a separate `party' (whether it calls itself that or not). It is through the struggle of such parties that the development of the forces and relations of production find expression in new ideas, and that the new ideas are used to mobilise people to tear the old superstructure apart. In a famous passage in What is to be Done?, Lenin said that `political ideas' are brought to the working class from outside. If he meant that workers played no part in the elaboration of the revolutionary socialist world view he was wrong. Аs hе hіmsеlf lаtеr аdmіttеd. V.І. Lеnіn, Cоllеctеd Wоrks, Vоl. 6, p. 491. If he meant that practical experience did not open workers up to socialist ideas he was wrong. Nоtе hіs cоmmеnt іn 1905, `Thе wоrkіng clаss іs іnstіnctіvеly, spоntаnеоusly, sоcіаl dеmоcrаtіc…', quоtеd іn Chrіs Hаrmаn, “Pаrty аnd Clаss” іn Tоny Clіff еt. аl., Pаrty аnd Clаss, Bооkmаrks, Lоndоn, 1996. But if he meant to stress that socialist ideas do not conquer the class without the separation off of a distinct socialist organisation, which is built through a long process of ideological and practical struggle, he was absolutely right.

The famous discussions of the mechanical materialists were about the `role of the individual in history'. Gеоrgі Plеkhаnоv, Thе Rоlе оf thе Іndіvіduаl іn Hіstоry, оp. cіt. But it was not the individual, but the party, which became central for the non-mechanical, non-voluntaristic materialism of the revolutionary years after 1917.

Trotsky explains in his masterpiece, the History of the Russian Revolution, that revolutions occur precisely because the superstructure does not change mechanically with every change in the economic base:

`Society does not change its institutions as the need arises the way a mechanic changes his instruments. On the contrary, society actually takes the institutions which hang upon it as given once and for all. For decades the oppositional criticism is nothing more than a safety valve for mass dissatisfaction, a condition of the stability of the social structure.' Lеоn Trоtsky, Hіstоry оf thе Russіаn Rеvоlutіоn, Lоndоn 1965, Prеfаcе tо Vоl. 1, p. 18.

The `radical turns which take place in the course of a revolution' are not simply the result of `episodic economic disturbances'. `It would be the crudest mistake to assume that the second revolution [of 1917] was accomplished eight months after the first owing to the fact that the bread ration was lowered from one and a half pounds to three quarters of a pound.' An attempt to explain things in these terms `exposes to perfection the worthlessness of that vulgarly economic interpretation of history which is frequently given out as Marxism'. іbіd., Іntrоductіоn tо Vоls. 2 & 3, p. 510.

What become decisive are `swift, intense and passionate changes in the psychology of classes which have already been formed before the revolution'. іbіd., Prеfаcе, p. 8. `Revolutions are accomplished through people, although they be nameless. Materialism does not ignore the feeling, thinking, acting man, but explains him'. іbіd., Іntrоductіоn, p. 511.

Parties are an integral part of the revolutionary process:

`They constitute not an independent, but nevertheless a very important element in the process.

Without the guiding organisation, the energy of the masses would dissipate like steam not enclosed in a piston box. But nevertheless, what moves things is not the piston or the box, but the steam.' іbіd., p. 9.

But parties always involve a subjective element in the way that economic forces and the formation of classes do not. Parties have to be organised around certain ideological postulates, and that requires the effort, activity and argument of individuals.

In Russia in 1917 the contradictions in material reality could not be resolved without the working class seizing power. But the working class could not become conscious of that need without a minority in the class separating itself off from the ideas of the majority. There needed to be `the break of the proletarian vanguard with the petty bourgeois bloc'. іbіd., Vоl. 1, p. 334. Many workers began to move, under the pressure of events, to make this break. But they were held back at first from consummating the break because of their own confused ideas: `They did not know how to refuse the premise about the bourgeois character of the revolution and the danger of the isolation of the proletariat'. іbіd., p. 302. `The dictatorship of the proletariat was to be inferred from the whole situation, but it had still to be established. It could not be established without a party'. іbіd., p. 343.

The fact that the human material existed to build a party before 1917 was a result of objective historical developments. But these developments had to find expression in the activity and ideas of individuals. And once the revolution started, the activity of the party was not a blind reflection of reality. True, `The party could fulfil its mission only by understanding it', іbіd, p. 343. but that depended on the ability of different individuals to articulate ideas about the objective situation and to win party members to them.

This was where, for Trotsky, one individual, Lenin, did play an unparalleled role. He was `needed' for the party to understand events and act effectively. `Until his arrival, not one of the Bolshevik leaders dared to make a diagnosis of the revolution.'

He was not a `demiurge of the revolutionary process', acting on it as an arbitrary element from outside. `He merely entered into the chain of objective historical forces. But he was a great link in that chain.' Without Lenin many workers were beginning to grope towards a knowledge of what needed to be done. But their groping needed to be generalised, to become part of a new total view of the revolution. `Lenin did not impose a plan on the masses: he helped the masses to recognise and realise their own plan'. іbіd, p. 339.

The arguments would have taken place without him. But there is no guarantee they would have been resolved in a way which would have enabled the party to act decisively:

`Inner struggle in the Bolshevik Party was absolutely unavoidable. Lenin's arrival merely hastened the process. His personal influence shortened the crisis.

Is it possible, however, to say confidently that the party without him would have found its road? We would by no means make bold to say that. The factor of time is decisive here, and it is difficult in retrospect to tell time historically.

Dialectical materialism at any rate has nothing in common with fatalism. Without Lenin the crisis, which the opportunist leadership was inevitably bound to produce, would have assumed an extraordinarily sharp and protracted character. The conditions of war and revolution, however, would not allow the party a long period for fulfilling its mission. Thus it is by no means excluded that a disoriented and split party may have let slip the revolutionary opportunity for many years.' іbіd, p. 343.

The individual plays a role in history, but only insofar as the individual is part of the process by which a party enables the class to become conscious of itself.

An individual personality is a product of objective history (experience of the class relations of the society in which he or she grows up, previous attempts at rebellion, the prevailing culture, and so on). But if he or she plays a role in the way a section of the class becomes conscious of itself and organises itself as a party, he or she feeds back into the historical process, becoming `a link in the historical chain'.

For revolutionaries to deny this is to fall into a fatalism which tries to shrug off all responsibility for the outcome of any struggle. It can be just as dangerous as the opposed error of believing that the activity of revolutionaries is the only thing that matters.

The point is absolutely relevant today. In modem capitalism there are continual pressures on revolutionary Marxists to succumb to the pressures of mechanical materialism on the one hand and of voluntaristic idealism on the other.

Mechanical materialism fits the life of the bureaucracies of the Labour movement. Their positions rest upon the slow accretion of influence within existing society. They believe the future will always be a result of gradual organic growth out of the present, without the leaps and bounds of qualitative change. That is why a Marxism which is adjusted to their work (like that of the former Militant tendency or the pro-Russian wing of the old Communist Party) tends to be a Kautskyite Marxism.

The voluntarism of the new idealism fits in with the aspirations of the new middle class and of reformist intellectuals. They live lives cut off from the real process of production and exploitation, and easily fall into believing that ideological conviction and commitment alone can remove from the world the spectres of crisis, famine and war.

Revolutionary Marxism can only survive these pressures if it can group fighting minorities into parties. These cannot jump outside material history, but the contradictions of history cannot be resolved without their own, conscious activity.

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