QUESTIONS OF MORALITY
p However it is not only the principally distinctive character of its own scientific underpinnings that distinguishes Marxist from bourgeois and all other “scientific” policies. Those who assume that the sole criteria of any scientific policy are the criteria and categories of science as such (rationality, 76 expediency and effective results) often recall Engels’ words: "...for me as a revolutionary all means serving the end are suitable, both the most violent and those which seem the most moderate.” In this context the introduction to his phrase is for some reason dropped. It reads: "Passing by the question of morality—about this we are not here concerned, and I therefore leave it to the side....” [76•1 But, moving from theoretical scientific analysis to social practice, Marxist policies never are distracted from questions of morality, never leave these questions to the side. Marxist policies are organically connected to the ideals of humanism and social well-being.
p Marx’s humanism does not proceed from the metaphysical essence of man. It is above all connected with the scientific discovery of the historic mission of the working class. Uncovering the objective content of proletarian demands, Marxists have established that the working class is incapable of freeing itself without simultaneously freeing all oppressed peoples and society as a whole. In other words it represents the class which is striving to implement the social and moral ideals, a striving stemming from its objective historical situation.
p As Lenin wrote, communist morality is closely bound to the interests of the class struggle of the proletariat and serves to elevate human society to a higher level.
p The moral thrust of Marxist policies is given definition by its ultimate goal. Communism represents the pinnacle of humanism for precisely communist society will create the most adequate conditions for human nature. It is precisely communism that guarantees the fullest and freest development of the personality and of the human faculties, which, according to Marx, represents an end in itself.
p History teaches that politics is that sphere of human relations in which not only general principles and final ends are important. Of great import also are the precise means and methods by which day to day political practice is carried out.
p In this connection particular significance is attached to the question of the stance taken to the object of the investigations conducted by the social sciences and to the object of scientific policies—the masses, their interests, historical initiative and creativity. This question has decisive importance for the moral foundation of politics as well.
p Politics, from the time it began to rely upon the social sciences, acquired certain of the characteristics of a scientific 77 experiment. If we understand by experiment (literally: proof, trial) not only as the method of studying phenomena, but also as the mode of influence exerted by an individual over an object, a mode of practical mastery over reality, then scientific politics may be considered in a certain sense as a distinctive social experiment. In any case, like the experiment of the naturalist, politics in one way or another relying upon science, has become an effective means of verifying proposed ideas.
p Incidentally, although there are a number of features approximating the social experiment with that of the natural scientist, the differences between them are also evident. The experiment conducted by the naturalist takes place as a rule in simulated conditions, and not for the satisfaction of the practical needs of mankind but rather with a scientific end in mind—the investigation of an object. The social experiment takes place in “natural” conditions and, as a rule, pursues specifically a practical goal. The experiment conducted by the naturalist represents a distinctive practical abstraction. Abstraction in the social experiment (particularly abstraction from the basic object—man) is extremely dangerous.
p The direct tie with politics and social practice places special requirements upon the social sciences. The study of social conditions encounters moral problems throughout the entire conceptual and investigative process—from the choice of object to the attitude of the scholar to the results achieved. For the natural scientist some discoveries bring social changes in their wake—and others fail to (at least for the time being). For the social scientist it is "human destinies" which represent the subject matter of science. The conclusions of the social sciences are in one way or another projected and applied to human relations. This is why a causal explanation of social phenomena does not replace moral evaluation and does not eliminate moral responsibility. In addition, people must not only know and understand the meaning of a social experiment, but must also have the opportunity of intruding upon its passage.
p In the contemporary world any given policy is implemented in the final result through the participation of the bulk of the people. But while Marxists regard the people to be the moving force of history, the bearer, voice and creator of the historical process, bourgeois political figures see in them only an object of manipulation. Trying to utilize the people for their own selfish aims, they quite willingly resort to the use of social mimicry by trying to present themselves as the “voice” of the "people’s interests" and at the same time as the "brain of the 78 nation”, whose mission is to do the thinking for and to manage society. The participation of the people in the political actions of the bourgeois state (we are speaking here of forms as widely divergent as election and wars) is today often the result of their "scientifically founded" ideological softening up. From the tribune of the Second All-Russia Congress of Soviets Lenin stated: "...it is time to cast aside all bourgeois cant when speaking of the strength of the people. According to the bourgeois conception, there is strength when the people go blindly to the slaughter in obedience to the imperialist governments. The bourgeoisie admit a state to be strong only when it can, by the power of the government apparatus, hurl the people wherever the bourgeois rulers want them hurled. Our idea of strength is different. Our idea is that a state is strong when the people are politically conscious. It is strong when the people know everything, can form an opinion of everything and do everything consciously.” [78•1
p The view holding that political management of society is the sphere of activity of only a limited group of professional politicians, that is, handing functions of government to a narrow circle of “competent” figures—appeared long before the time when the bourgeoisie began to maVe utterances about “scientific” policies. In 1917, when the Bolsheviks demanded the transfer of power to the hands of the working people, bourgeois ideologues opposing the Bolsheviks referred to the inability of the masses to conduct conscious political activities. The immense complexity of management and of social ties in contemporary conditions is utilized by bourgeois ideologues to provide a foundation for the same conclusion concerning the incompetence of the masses" in the sphere of politics. Such an understanding of "scientific policies" Lenin labelled as an extremely detrimental superstition.
p From the recognition of the people as the driving force of history, as the subject of the historical process, for the Marxist it also follows that not only science as such, but the masses themselves as well are capable of expressing the needs of social development.
p Marxist policies are designed to encompass the experience provided by history—the collective experience of mankind. But "collective experience" is reflected not only by science but also by the so-called ordinary consciousness. “Unreasonable”, “irrational” or “sentimental” demands from the people can 79 from time to time embody certain essential aspects of reality, which find no reflection in scientific and logical schemes. An important component part of collective experience is that time-honoured experience gained by the struggle of the working people and accumulated in the consciousness of the leading revolutionary class.
p The necessity of struggling for their own life interests, viz., for a change of the existing social order is experienced and formulated by the broad masses as the necessity of struggling for justice. It would seem that such an understanding of the goal has very little in common with scientific policies which base their decisions upon sober objective analysis of concrete socio-economic circumstances. However, working people’s conceptions of justice stem by no means from an abstract "ahistorical justice" but from the fully concrete and real conditions in which they live. For broad sections of the population, wrote Lenin, justice "...is not an empty phrase, but a most acute, most burning and immense question of death from starvation, of a crust of bread". [79•1
p The moral consciousness of the people apprehends in the given reality even the most remote signals of forthcoming historical change. Engels wrote: "If the moral consciousness of the mass declares an economic fact to be unjust, as it has done in the case of slavery or serf labour, that is a proof that the fact itself has been outlived, that other economic facts have made their appearance, owing to which the former has become unbearable and untenable.” [79•2
p Marxism discloses the objective content of proletarian demands and establishes that trie striving of the working class to the realization of its vital interests, driving to the heart of the matter, signifies in fact the striving to eliminate the historical injustice of capitalism. In this manner a Marxist party does not foist upon the proletariat specific normative conceptions of “happiness” or desired goals imposed extrinsically "from science”. It establishes the objective necessity, in other words, “legality” (conformity to laws) from the viewpoint of scientific substantiation of the strivings and hopes of the proletariat itself and of all working peoples, who in fact make up the majority of mankind.
p Among Russian Social Democrats there were those who at one time also assumed that one may take into account the 80 requirements of the masses only by conducting agitation, but by no means through drawing up a serious scientific programme for the party. During the discussion of the Party Programme at the Second Congress of the RSDLP (1903) one figure proposed the question: "Is the programme a direct conclusion from our basic notions of the economic evolution of Russia, the scientific forecasting of the possible and inevitable result of a political transformation.... Or is our programme a practical agitational slogan...?" In answer Lenin replied: "I must say that I do not understand the distinction.... If our programme did not meet the first condition, it would be incorrect and we could not accept it.” [80•1
p For the Marxist in fact "the contradiction between ... two alternatives is only a seeming one; it cannot exist in fact, because a correct theoretical decision guarantees enduring success in agitation". [80•2
p While presenting a critique of the Bolshevik agrarian programme (which envisaged the transfer of gentry land to the peasantry) certain opponents of Lenin asserted that he and his supporters were being misled by peasant superstitions, were retreating from Marxism and were adopting an “ethical” viewpoint, since they allegedly wanted to become concerned with the rectification of an historical injustice rather than proceed from real conditions in the countryside. In their opinion the transfer of genry land into the hands of the small-scale producer with his backward techniques and crop systems would result in a decline in agricultural production.
p Objecting to the position of his opponents, Lenin recalled Marxs words to the effect that the peasant is the bearer not only of superstitions, but also of reason. The peasant demand for the return of the land which the gentry has taken from him is perceived by the peasant as a struggle for justice. In this demand we may locate a fully concrete content. "Hence it is not a ghost we are fighting, but a real evil," [80•3 Lenin said.
p As far as the struggle for justice is concerned one must proceed from the concrete content of the injustice. This content differs. "There are such,” Lenin wrote, "which, as it were, keep aloof from the mainstream of history, do not check that stream or hinder its course, and do not prevent the proletarian class struggle from extending and from striking 81 deeper roots.” [81•1 There are other examples of historical injustice of the kind which directly hinders social development and the class struggle. In relation to injustice of the first type no party will refrain from its duty of protesting and lambasting the ruling classes for it. Still more important is the struggle for the abolition of injustice of the second type, for the refusal to rectify, when possible, such injustice would signify "defending the knout on the ground that it is a historical knout”.
p Thus, in supporting certain peasant demands Lenin proceeded from the acknowledgement of the fact that in these demands were expressed the requirements of social development. "...We do not make any plaint over a historical injustice the motivation of our demand,” Lenin wrote, "but rather the need to abolish the remnants of the serf-owning system and to clear the road for the class struggle in the countryside, i.e., a very ‘practical’ and very pressing need for the proletariat.” [81•2
p Marxist scientific policies are always a concentrated expression of the fundamental interests of the people as well as the realisation of their strivings and just demands. In this sense, speaking of the policies of Soviet power in October 1917 Lenin emphasised that this was riot a Bolshevik policy, not a “party” policy, it was the policy of the workers, soldiers and peasants, that is, the majority of the people.
p In a revolutionary era millions of people, at an earlier point politically somnambulent, vegetating in the torments of need and despair and divested of faith in the fact that they as people have the right to life, that the entire weight of the centralized state might in fact serve them, are now awakened to conscious political activity. This awakening flows over into the revolutionary creativity of the people. "...The revolutionary initiative of the masses,” wrote Lenin, "it is the awakening of the conscience, the mind, the courage of the oppressed classes; in other words, it is a rung in the ladder leading up to the socialist proletarian revolution.” [81•3
p Lenin mocked those political figures who drew their wisdom only from scholarly tracts and textbooks. He said that "...the minds of tens of millions of those who are doing things create something infinitely loftier than the greatest genius can foresee". [81•4 Further, the task of the policies of a proletarian 82 party and proletarian state as a whole consists in attracting the broadest sectors of the population into direct participation in the management of the state. The striking feature of Marxist policies, directly connected with its overall humanist orientations, consists in the fact that these policies are not only conducted in the name of and for the people but are also implemented by their conscious and creative activities.
p It was just this mass revolutionary initiative which created a new form of statehood—Soviets, implementing the dictatorship of the revolutionary people and principally distinct from dictatorship over the people. "We see the meaning and content of socialist democracy,"said Leonid Brezhnev at the 24th Congress of the CPSU, "in the increasingly broader participation of the masses in the administration of state and social affairs... This sort of democracy is vital to us and it is an indispensable condition for the development and consolidation of socialist social relations.” [82•1
According to Lenin politics is that sphere of human relations which is concerned not with individuals but with the millions. But this has never signified a disdainful attitude to the role and interests of the isolated individual. Marxism proceeds from the unity of interests between society and the individual, defining man not as an “historical”, “isolated” individual but instead as the individual in society. Communist social relations by no means presuppose a faceless and gray crowd, but rather an association of personalities, where the free development of each truly becomes the condition of the free development of all. In particular, in reference to politics, this signifies that the subject of the historical process is not only the broad masses of the people as a whole, but each individual citizen as well.
Notes
[76•1] K. Marx, F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 37, S. 327.
[78•1] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 256.
[79•1] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 26, p. 129.
[79•2] K. Marx and F. Engels, The Poverty of Philosophy, p. 9.
[80•1] V. I. Lenin, Collected Works, Vol. 6, p. 492.
[80•2] Ibid., pp. 492-93.
[80•3] Ibid., p. 494.
[81•1] Ibid., pp. 134-35.
[81•2] Ibid., p. 135.
[81•3] Ibid., Vol. 24, p. 318.
[81•4] Ibid., Vol. 26, p. 474.
[82•1] 24th Congress of the CPSU, p. 99.