Author's Preface to 1998 Edition of Necessity for Change
TML is reprinting below the Author's Preface to the 1998 Edition of the Necessity for Change! by Hardial Bains. The Necessity for Change! pamphlet, originally published in 1967, begins with a determined and thoroughgoing offensive against ideological subversion and block to development through social forms. It does so by giving the most revolutionary call, "Understanding requires an act of conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out," placing action in the first place and understanding in its service.
***
The year 1997 marks the
thirtieth
anniversary of the publication of the Necessity for
Change!
pamphlet by The Internationalists. It puts
forward the analysis that lays down ideological
remoulding as
the key to the uninterrupted advance and victory of
revolution.
Basing themselves on the concrete contemporary situation
and the
problems of the working class movement, The
Internationalists took up the questions of
organization
and the role of the individual in the revolutionary
transformation within the context of the work of the
collective.
To achieve this, The Internationalists launched
their
most resolute offensive against the prevailing culture in
ideological and social forms, so as to prepare the
subjective
forces for revolution in the course of waging the
revolutionary
class battles.
The creation of a new class, such as the working class, has brought forth its own ideology and social form with its own coherence. The ascendancy of the working class has left its imprint to the extent it is fighting for its own interests and its own new coherence. The most distinguishing feature of the working class, making it so distinct and radically different from all other classes, is that it cannot emancipate itself without emancipating the entire humanity. Thus, its new coherence has to be consistent with its aim of emancipating the whole of humanity.
The capitalist class, the old class, as it is passing away, has introduced its own notions of emancipation, its own corruption into the working class movement. It calls upon the workers to fight for "a bigger slice of the pie," for a redistribution of wealth, while keeping the old society intact. It has created an untenable situation whereby the working class finances its own leaders to fight against its own interests.
By 1967, these bourgeois tendencies had also entrenched themselves in the communist movement and brought it to the point of liquidation, against which a huge movement developed. A number of tendencies were taking shape in this struggle, from purely intellectualizing about what the "most correct" position should be, to merely linking with some centre whether in Moscow, Belgrade, Beijing, Europe or any other.
The Internationalists linked the ideological struggle and the struggle against bourgeois culture with the concrete work to build and strengthen an organization. The Necessity for Change (NFC) analysis was directed towards making people conscious about this approach. With its broad sweep, the analysis presented a vision that aroused everyone to undertake ideological work and take up the social forms consistent with their tasks. It was a clarion call for the activists, communists and those aspiring to be communists to break with the old conscience, the anti-consciousness, the "particular prejudices of society, transmitted through parents and social institutions." This call was linked directly with "seeking the truth to serve the people." The NFC analysis forcefully provided a world outlook based on Marx's dialectical and historical materialism as a guide to action and provided a solution to tackle the problems of ideological struggle and social forms.
The contemporary schools of irrationalism, which are so desperately promoted in the official circles, have one thing in common with what was being propagated in the sixties. It is their dogmatic assertions and the attitude of acting blindly. On the one hand, it is asserted that there is no real world and, therefore, the starting-point of gaining an outlook must be that the world does not exist. The same dogmatic notion appears in the form that the "real world" exists, but that it is impossible to transcend, thus causing "existential despair." In either case, reality is presented as a matter of interpretation and definition, and there is no action with analysis. By disclosing the relations of human beings with society and nature, the NFC analysis broke through all the irrationalist trends thrown at the people. Similarly, this analysis and ideology are needed today.
The NFC analysis begins with what is given. It analyses the given to overcome it and to establish what really is within those conditions. It establishes a valuable approach and provides a concrete way to tackle reality. It begins by taking up the important question of history. Under the section History-As-Such, the NFC puts forward the profound role of history, as opposed to what merely exists at the present time.
History, according to our historicism, begins from the present. It reveals in precise terms the problem, which has been brought forth for solution. It is the solution of this specific problem, which creates history. If the problem, as an historical problem, or, if the contradictions which are historical, are not resolved, there will be no forward march, and thus no history. The NFC analyses that a chronicling of history, which begins from the past and is written according to the interests of "various classes of people who have usurped power by force," is actually a device to stop people from really seeing how a problem was created and how it must be sorted out. The NFC analysis explains that the "human condition cannot be understood in terms of their definition of history as they are but the chroniclers of the activities of the ruling classes."
The NFC actually made history. It revealed how revolutionary forces could march from point A to point B, ensuring that each step becomes a cornerstone in the development of history. Today, as was the case in the sixties, the ideological struggle and culture in social form have assumed the first position in the building of a revolutionary organization and in the creation of subjective conditions for revolution. For instance, can a communist party be strengthened if it withdraws from the ideological struggle against the class enemy or wages it in an unprofessional, amateurish and spontaneous manner? The answer is no, it cannot strengthen itself. Can it have members who place the accumulation of private property or building their "careers" in the first place? Or can a Communist Party realize its tasks by having members whose culture in ideological and social form is bourgeois? The answers, again, are no. A Communist Party, if it is to realize its tasks in a mature, professional and on-going manner, must develop revolutionary culture in ideological form, on the one hand, and the revolutionization of culture in social form, on the other. The NFC analysis precisely establishes the framework for doing so. It sorted out the problem of revolutionary politics and bourgeois culture. This is why this work is called historic. It was history-making work and remains so. History will be made today as the people adopt the outlook of the NFC to resolve the existing contradictions. This revolutionary way of resolving the existing contradictions will be history-making.
By repudiating the idealism of Feuerbach, Karl Marx highlighted that "many philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it." Thus, he served notice that the Necessity for Change must be placed in the forefront of all work. Guided by this outlook, The Internationalists, as an organization, was able to strengthen itself in a step-wise manner. For The Internationalists, each period brought forth a crucial problem to be resolved. The Internationalists went ahead and sorted out that problem and strengthened itself in doing so. Since 1970, CPC(M-L) has also strengthened itself on this basis.
For over thirty years, the main task of these revolutionary organizations was to create the subjective conditions for revolution. At each point in the development of the work for its realization, the Necessity for Change brought forth the question specific to the time. Unless it is profoundly appreciated that there is a Necessity for Change at each point, and theoretical and practical measures are taken to bring about the change, there is no possibility of creating the subjective conditions for revolution.
The Internationalists waged the struggle in the sixties against the "idealist" anti-revisionists whose most characteristic feature was that they merely took the posture of anti-revisionism and did nothing to change the situation. The NFC analysis also gives notice to all who are posturing today or who may posture in the future and who proclaim they were or are members of The Internationalists or CPC(M-L) but in fact do nothing to change the situation.
A bourgeois party can have a member, and actually must have a member, who merely postures. Such a party is a party of the capitalist status quo; it cannot afford to have members who are dedicated to changing the situation from capitalism to socialism through revolution. CPC(M-L), on the other hand, cannot afford to have members who do not see the Necessity for Change and do not bring it about. The NFC analysis, for the first time, provided The Internationalists with an ideological stance and a method to actually build the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Party of the proletariat.
By beginning from history-as-such, the NFC analysis places the attitude, consciousness and work of the individual right at the centre within the context of the work of the collective. This individual is not for himself/herself but is a social class individual, an individual for the working class. The NFC analysis calls upon all class-conscious workers and revolutionary activists to become that individual, an individual with the consciousness and organization of the Necessity for Change, an individual who is indispensable to the creation of the subjective conditions for revolution. The NFC analysis has brought forth and established what kind of individual it is and of what stuff that individual is made.
The NFC analysis also provides a detailed picture of what kind of individual this existing society spontaneously creates. This individual has anti-consciousness, but this anti-consciousness is not a permanent feature. The brain reflects the sharpening class contradictions in the society and other developments. Either the individual transforms this reflection into social consciousness and becomes part of the human factor/social consciousness or remains part of the anti-human factor/anti-consciousness. The NFC analysis beckons everyone to go into this situation and not to fall into the trap of "going out."
The capitalist class claims that capitalism is the highest form of human society. Naturally, if this is the highest, then there are no history-making tasks. History has come to an end. People can indulge themselves within the existing possibilities of a society split into classes with the tendency of the rich becoming richer and poor poorer. But there is a higher form of human society, socialism, which is the transition between capitalism and communism. The NFC analysis calls upon people to take up the transformation from capitalism to socialism as their main task.
Revisionists and opportunists of various kinds, however, present the bourgeois social forms as the ideal motivating humanity. This form is based on subordinating all human beings to private property. Serving private property in this case becomes the highest ideal and the only aim of everyone alive. Besides fighting for "a bigger slice of the pie" and for job security which this system can never provide, these people, as dogmatists and fanatics, oppose everyone fighting for social revolution.
The NFC analysis set clear lines of demarcation between those who were revolutionist in the true sense of the word and the liberal and pacifist, the defenders of the capitalist status quo. It called for "a movement for the development of a new human person," a human person who can be created with the "complete elimination of the basis of this exploitation." For the first time, the NFC analysis placed the individual in the position he or she deserved and called upon each to create the new society as a precondition for the creation of a new human person. Anyone who took up this analysis was a new human person, and the creation of a new society was the precondition for all human beings to become this type of individual, or, even better, in terms of that quality born of the Necessity for Change.
The NFC analysis presents, as an integral whole, the entire ideological work, political struggle and organizational tasks, including the remoulding of the members, in order to transform them into militant revolutionary communists. At the same time, it brings forth the specificity of each struggle, the role each struggle plays in the creation of the subjective conditions for revolution. This complete picture of the struggle creates that consciousness which is indispensable for the development of the movement.
The offensive to establish an organization is the key thing, the most important element in the preparation of the subjective conditions for revolution. This organization is the most advanced and most revolutionary instrument of proletarian revolution in a society where such revolution has not yet taken place, and an instrument of expanding the power of such a revolution where it has. Reluctance, vacillation, amateurishness, spontaneity and aloofness about such a matter of creating that most advanced, most organized, vanguard of the working class would finish the revolution before it even got underway.
In a society where bourgeois individualism is presented as the highest development of humankind, the individual really has no place. This society curtails any individual initiative within the framework of the aim of the working class to emancipate itself. With its ideological subversion of individual initiative and its block against development through social forms, the prevailing culture is the front line to protect the capitalist-imperialist system against those fighting it.
The Necessity for Change! pamphlet begins with the most determined and thoroughgoing offensive against this ideological subversion and block to development through social forms. It does so by giving the most revolutionary call, "understanding requires the conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out," placing action in the first place and understanding in its service. In so doing, The Internationalists smashed the prevailing bankrupt notion of placing understanding as the prelude, a precondition to action. If an individual, collective, or both is to have any understanding, action is its precondition. This action is considered not merely a thing-in-itself divorced from everything else but "an act of conscious participation," "an act of finding out." This revolutionary pamphlet not only puts action in the first place but also stresses the quality of participation and the action according to a plan known as "Action with Analysis."
In Canada and other modern capitalist societies, the social process of production has placed the socialization of the means of production, an action by the entire collective for its own ends, for the emancipation of the working class and all humanity, as the most urgent strategic question for resolving the contradictions which give rise to anarchy, violence and plunder. Such a task of the collective, with its explicit aim, must be taken up consciously and with a plan. Such a consciousness and plan is not going to fall from the skies. It is not inherent to humankind nor does it develop spontaneously. The clarion call, "understanding requires the conscious participation of the individual, an act of finding out," provides the solution. The revolutionary forces must begin with their plan and their actions must be consciously carried out to realize it. The Necessity for Change analysis neither rejected the role of "understanding" nor exaggerated it, as did the prevailing culture in ideological and social forms. The Internationalists acknowledged it and assigned it to the place to which it belonged.
As in the sixties, so too today many people plunge into actions. This is literally the case of the millions who are participating in the struggle against the anti-social offensive and for the pro-social program which has erupted from coast to coast in Canada and internationally. Many of the activists who take up responsibilities to organize various actions come to see that their actions in themselves will not obtain the desired results. With these actions as an indispensable weapon for their work, they must create an organization, the most crucial subjective force to lead and steer their struggle to victory. Such work brings these activists face to face with the reality of ideological subversion of the class enemy who uses culture in social form as an obstruction to the achievement of a goal. If such a work is not done, the first fatality will be the new coherence. The Necessity for Change analysis given during the study program of the same name, which had its expression in the Necessity for Change! pamphlet, provided that new coherence, the Necessity for Change. People in action are not merely an occasion for organizing more of the same, but an occasion to organize themselves. This organizing part, this ideological edification of the struggle, this creation of new social forms, this creation of the new coherence at the heart of the new organization becomes the guarantee of success and final victory.
The Necessity for Change analysis electrified and radicalised the situation, with the work of The Internationalists taking off in its full majesty. After a period of over three decades, this organizing work continues as the guarantor of every victory. The Necessity for Change! pamphlet and the analysis which made it famous was thus not merely an essay for enlightening others, but an instrument for the momentous development of this work. Activists saw that merely participating in an action, in a strike struggle, a demonstration and a march was not enough; the organizing work as a guarantor of its victory is a first priority. The revolutionary force of this Necessity for Change analysis was such that it radically transformed the situation. The entire movement began buzzing with the words and phrases from this analysis and took up work for the building of the organization. Today, thirty years later, literally every day people write to CPC(M-L) wanting to join this work as more and more activists have begun to see that without this work there is no guarantee of victory.
The Necessity for Change analysis confronts head-on the pretensions of the capitalist class, which makes claims that it is for revolution, for change. The Internationalists were aware that the capitalist class is no longer revolutionary and that it preaches "individualism," "understanding" and an ideal struggle merely to create doubt amongst the people about their possibilities of achieving anything and to destroy their self-confidence. It deliberately confuses the people about culture in social form and pits the same against their own struggle and their own organizing work. The aim in doing so is to get the people to do what is most detrimental to their own interests. The working class cannot emancipate itself and the entire humanity without carrying out the organizing, without working out and establishing the new coherence, without smashing ideological subversion and the old conscience, which is thrown at them in order to disorient them. When The Internationalists placed the organizing work in the first place within the framework of the new coherence, words and phrases like History-As-Such, Anti-Consciousness, the Fascist "I" and others became the bombs and the machetes through which the path for the movement began to be opened. A new coherence began to spread contributing to the success of the work of The Internationalists.
One of the greatest contributions of the Necessity for Change analysis was the exposure that a human being with a brain, with all the attributes of a living person, has an objective place in the society. These living beings, these Homo Sapiens are humanized social beings. They are part of an objective world. Ideas, theory, social forms and the prevailing incoherence reflect the block against the further development of the society. The Internationalists recognized this block and worked out what was needed to smash it. The new coherence of The Internationalists, the product of smashing this block, arose as an objective, sensual, material activity, even though it is part of consciousness, the side of "understanding," the side of "an act of conscious participation," the side of "an act of finding out."
Activists of The Internationalists, the cadres and sympathisers, all of a sudden, rose out of their anti-consciousness, took their place in the society as revolutionists and created the subjective conditions for the development of the workers' and communist movement. They saw the subjective conditions as part of the world and that it is precisely that world which must be tackled. How irrational it is to say, as does the capitalist class, that those who are part of the world do not know what they are part of. Some have degenerated so far during the three decades of Necessity for Change analysis that they have begun to openly attack epistemology, theories of knowledge, which is the product of human circumstances. They insist that human beings must reject these theories of knowledge since, according to them, to have a theory of knowledge presupposes the existence of knowledge and its transposition over reality.
In fact, theories of knowledge come out of reality itself, that is the human and natural environment, and their validity is wholly and solely dependent on reality. They do not attack these theories for being inconsistent with reality. They attack the most human of human qualities, the ability to cognize. Their commandment is that "thou must not cognize." This same commandment demands action for action's sake and opposes organising work in the manner formulated by The Internationalists.
Using the lingo of that period, The Internationalists dealt with the most complicated and difficult question of the "I". It was very clear that unless this question is dealt with it was not possible to smash the block to the organizing work. The Necessity for Change analysis pointed out that "'I' is a relate or relationship. 'I' is not an abstraction, a mere product of thought, but a phenomenon, or something which sees the phenomenon and not only sees it but acknowledges it; not only acknowledges it but analyses it; not only analyses it but reflects it in return. 'I' goes out there and acknowledges the situation, reflects it, receives the reaction to the reflection and carries on. This 'I' is not a quality which will remain the same forever. In this regard, it cannot be said that it is a defined quality."
Leaving everything else aside for the time being, the Necessity for Change analysis made the statement that "'I' is a relate or relationship." For this relationship to assume its full vitality, there must be something in existence independent of this "relate or relationship" whose relate or relationship it is. "I" is a "relate or relationship" of the world, both social and natural, a relate or relationship of what is independent of itself. Nay more, "I" is dependent on the social and natural world. Arguing in this manner, the Necessity for Change analysis places the human being, in this instance, the working class, at the centre stage of all developments. The capitalist class places "I" in the first place and declares that this "I" can have whatever ideas it wishes. In the real world, this is not the case. "I" can be transcended but not the world. In fact, this "I" has not remained the same because the world changes, develops and moves with this "I". No, claims the capitalist class. It is "I" which determines what the world can be because the only thing which exists really is this "I" and all the world is merely the interpretation this "I" gives it. The Necessity for Change analysis debunked this assertion and called upon the activists to overcome this block by their "act of conscious participation," by their "act of finding out."
Does the "I" have any role in development? The Necessity for Change analysis answers this question in the affirmative, while the capitalist class, whose claim to fame is that it is for the individual, answers extremely vociferously in the negative. How is it that the "self-consciousness" of an historical period, the "I" or "relate or relationship" of that period, has no impact on that period? What kind of "I" is that? The Necessity for Change declares that an "I" which does not influence the world does not exist, while the capitalist class presents the "I" and the "world" as two separately existing entities. The Necessity for Change analysis strongly places the "I" and the world in their dialectical relationship of both unity and separateness, the "will-to-be" as the objective expression of the mode of this existence. An "I" with its "will-to-be" does influence the world in a very specific way. A successful revolution can transform the world in some very definite direction, but whether it will happen, in the final analysis, is still dependent on the world. It is this dependence of the "I" as a "relate or relationship" on the world which makes it possible for human beings to play their crucial role in the development.
"Do your own thing" was the battle cry of the capitalist class which claimed that this was the highest anyone could achieve, just as today this battle cry is expressed in the demand that everyone must fend for themselves, thereby denying the very conception of a society which is responsible towards its members. But the Necessity for Change analysis refutes this, pointing out that if such a thing is done the people are actually placed in opposition to their interests. The Necessity for Change analysis points out in depth that there also exists the egocentric "I" which is not a "relate or relationship." It does not depend on the social and natural world. On the contrary, it exists only because of the capitalist class. It is so temporary and partial that it will disappear with the disappearance of the capitalist class.
"Doing your own thing" is an extremely deceptive and harmful call, a piece of fiction, suggesting that the capitalist class is really interested in individual initiative. As long as "doing your own thing" means the rejection of the world, the capitalist class quite gleefully supports it. The NFC analysis fully recognized that there were many people participating in different struggles, many of which suffered from the illusion that just a demonstration here or a strike there would remedy the situation. The egocentric "I" kept demanding that they must remain aloof from the problems of building their organization, the most crucial subjective force for the realization of any of their tasks. This aloofness from building organization was accompanied by an extreme reluctance to take up the ideological content of opposing the status quo and having the appropriate social form, that is culture in social form, which would facilitate the organizing. In other words, this was an opposition to deep-going revolutionization in the course of the working class movement for emancipation, the precondition of its victory. It was extremely sad and tragic that millions of those who participated in the struggle remained aloof to building that organization which would facilitate its victory. This happened under the influence of the capitalist class.
The NFC analysis further reveals that there exists anti-consciousness-beyond-itself-in-itself. This is an illusion that the situation can be changed without the working class taking up the task to bring it about. Having gone into the depth and breadth of this problem, the NFC analysis clearly established that the most important factors for victory are organization and ideology, along with culture in social form, which facilitates the two. In the absence of this there is no way a revolutionary movement can be imbued with revolutionary theory. In fact, no organization can lead anyone to victory if it does not develop culture in its ideological and social forms in order to facilitate the development of the movement on an uninterrupted basis.
The crucial ingredient for victory is the human factor/social consciousness, but this factor cannot exist in a vacuum. This factor finds its highest expression in an organization, which is strengthened on an on-going basis with the sound foundation of a new, modern and revolutionary culture in ideological and social forms. The concrete conditions of the sixties brought forward the questions of organization, ideology and social forms for solution. The NFC analysis called upon the activists to go into these questions. It was a call to involve themselves in the social revolution instead of "doing their own thing" or "going out," hoping that the problem will disappear on the basis of "changing oneself" – which amounts to the same thing.
The NFC analysis provided sound arguments that there is something wrong with the world, while the capitalist class preached that there is something wrong with the people, especially the workers, women and youth. The battle cry of The Internationalists was "Change the World," while the battle cry of the capitalist class was "change the individual." The NFC analysis of the "I", of the existence of this "relate or relationship" placed the task of changing the world on a profound social basis.
A "relate" or "relationship," if it is to be true to itself, must be objective, independent of everyone and dependent on the world. This relate or relationship must be continuously discovered and rediscovered in the course of struggle. It constitutes the centre around which all other consciousness is placed. In the sixties, this relate or relationship was expressed by those who wanted change but remained indifferent to doing anything about it. The same is the case today. This is the same relationship, which reflects the drive of the capitalist class to organize all its forces against social revolution. This class dispatches its forces against people taking up the problems of organization and culture in ideological and social forms for solution. This class lures many young people away from taking up these problems, diverting them into activities harmless to the capitalists but destructive to themselves. The NFC analysis cut across all the bourgeois diversions and placed the solution of problems in the first place and actually did find solutions. Had The Internationalists not adopted the NFC analysis as its own, this organization would have had no future either. The same problem poses itself today.
The prevailing factor, that is everything that the capitalist class hopes would safeguard its future, can be summed up in its anti-human factor/anti-consciousness. The bourgeoisie has developed this factor by strengthening all its institutions and by enforcing the opinion that it is by strengthening and preserving these institutions and the arrangements they are established to ensure, that all problems can be "solved." According to the capitalist class, neither human beings nor their social consciousness play any role in solving problems. It places in the first place private property and the institutions created to defend it, along with the ideology of irrationalism. The bourgeoisie subordinates human beings and the human factor/social consciousness to them. The capitalist class uses the anti-human factor/anti-consciousness as a weapon against all social forces for change, development and motion. The NFC analysis is a great blow to the capitalist class; it refutes its claims that it is really for the individual and wants such an individual to be "free."
In all its work CPC(M-L) pays first-rate attention to the human factor/social consciousness. No work can be realized without bringing it into play. CPC(M-L) must be seen as the political party which has as its main interest to raise the ideological, theoretical and political level of the working class and people so that they themselves can work out and build that system which will enable them to exercise control over their lives. Whether it is consolidating an aspect of the work of CPC(M-L), fighting the anti-social offensive or winning the battle for a pro-social agenda, the first problem which arises is of the human factor/social consciousness. What is the state of the human factor/social consciousness? What is needed to bring it on par with what is required to make the work successful? Raising these questions and finding the ways and means of doing what is necessary is the beginning of the development of the human factor/social consciousness. The NFC analysis provides this problem with a solution.
Hardial Bains, May 2,
1997
This article was published in
Volume 54
Number 8 - August 2024
Article Link:
https://cpcml.ca/Tmlm2024/Articles/M540088.HTM
Website: www.cpcml.ca Email: editor@cpcml.ca