The opportunity is marvellous for we do them together in the same script.
Then we do Early Marx and Dialectic:
Then we do pre-1914 Lenin, for example; briefly summarize L on:
a) organizationb) Capital (economics)c) philosophyd) the partye) socialismThen you give a summary, very cold of what L learnt chiefly from the Logic; you take them separately, maybe in order of importance. Then you apply.
ImperialismMarch RevolutionState and Revolution etc. etc.,weaving in: organization - party - socialism - dialectic etc.Leave October and 1923 till later.
Aim at no more than 1200 words to each major section. Do not "prove". State. But if you state clearly enough and in correct sequence your proof is practically there. You are not debating with Shachtman.1
I will forget for the time being the falling r of p. We are dealing with Lenin.
Now for some pointers. Strive to be understood, but you cannot write a serious theoretical study on the assumption that your reader knows nothing. In these preliminary drafts, state. If you need more space than 1200 take it. One can always cut down after. I have it at the back of the head that it is the opportunity of a lifetime to do together the Logic of Hegel and the Logic of Capital. I believe that it is an open question which should appear first in the script.
This is all very nice but I don't think a step should be begun until you have worked out the Syllogism carefully, abstractly first. I believe if G here is strictly abstract and philosophical and does a hard minute piece of work, R will "capitalise" it (forgive) quickly enough.
But before you do anything do this part.
You see Lenin says: Not abstract but concrete. That is it.
Work out very precisely the concrete circumstances of Engels' remark.
The whole of L's purely theoretical discovery in the Logic I believe revolves around that; the contradiction between the generalisation, necessary, and the concrete. How that works stage by stage is the syllogism problem.
My - let me say, opinion, is that this should be worked out thoroughly, and then the other sections written. It will take shape. For the time being I am avoiding the syllogism business.
Finally: to return to socialization of labor. Lenin on Socialism, Marx, July-Nov. 1914 should be scrutinized. But there is a deep problem, philosophical, and all-inclusive around "socialization of labor". S. of l. is capitalist category. I have thought of this almost continuously for hours & hours (whenever I had some time of course). The socialism is the revolt. Watch the His. Tendency of Cap. Accumulation.2
Transformation of means into means only workable in common etc. etc. - socialization of labor; at the same time one capitalist killing many. But with the usurping magnates grows the revolt of the w.c.. Now:
1) See how often, list, it is the revolt which causes a leap forward in capitalist production. The working day struggle. That is the revolt. The Logic of Capital will have very carefully to tabulate the stages of those revolts; and make them integral. Work out. Closely connected with this is Lenin on democracy and on bureaucracy: He says a lot against the Narodniki. We should have some logical development of his ideas on democracy. There is a dialectic of democracy from capitalist democracy to proletarian democracy which he found. It is connected with the revolt. Then you see, the 2nd Int. in suppressing the revolt is an obstacle to the law of motion.
Now here are some general points to help out in Imperialism. I am purposely keeping away from S & R. Of course Engels had gone to the limit - with state-cap. but L says no word about that.
Selected, Vol. V,3 Ch. V: combines control internal market "more or less completely". Lenin hesitates around this. then at a certain stage he does not hesitate at all. Yet in Vol. VIII the whole debate with Bukharin is very very important.
Interpolation
(And by the way, Rae, this is what I mean by not keeping up and being deflected by struggles of tendencies. Treat them only when needed and in passing. The point is that today they all seek peace and world-govt. by paper organizations & paper constitutions etc.. With force and yet with restraint you can show how L looked to the mass movement - to the concrete).
Back to Imp'm. Notes. Why do I insist on cutting Imp. away and analyzing it by itself. Your yesterday's letter shows once more how much he owed to the 1917 Soviets (Krupskaya). Therefore, glue the eyes to what he was thinking before. And note: he says the war accelerated from monopoly to state, but I think that the Soviets told him that henceforth there was no choice for the bourgeoisie either.
V. p. 80,
The transition to a higher system is being revealed; but also the reaction is being revealed.
p. 95,
Hobson is quite right. Unless, etc.. Now Hobson is quite wrong and so is L, despite Unless. There is plenty here, but the chief thing for us is to state the features L singles out in such a way as to be able (later) to show, that these changed also. Altho we 1949 are not going to appear, bear4 it in mind constantly.
Particularly valuable as an illustration, one, of this is p. 100.
A general enthusiasm about it in 1914.
Note p. 102. V. V. Impt.5
The reactionary features of Imp. are due among other things to the "elimination of free competition". Work out what he is thinking - the logic of his ideas.
And about stagnation. Note in Vol. III6 on credit and monopoly, p. 516 and again in those pages on the falling r of p.7 in Vol. III Marx speaks of the deadening effect of monopoly because the rate of profit is so small...
What does he mean (p. 115) by the prominent of parasitisms in American capitalism?8
Now here is another way of "attacking" Imperialism, if digging out its secrets. Lenin does not deal with the bureaucratization of production. Marx has the statements in Vol. I where the whole organization of capital becomes a mighty monster and the poor individual is helpless before it. Then in Vol. III, at the end, Conditions of Distribution, he says that Capital creates a hierarchy of rulers, which arises from the conditions of production, the real foundation of the social functions of the different classes. Lenin speaks of bureaucracy in S & R and he speaks of the bureaucrat in Will the Bolsheviks Maintain,9 but he seems to have in mind officials - outside of industry. His workers control of production seems to aim at national accounting and control first... Before we go to S & R, we should have all this very, very clear - and - implications etc.. It is amazing what you get when you get down to this.
Precision. Why? His use of monopoly should be contrasted with that of people like Theodore Roosevelt. NB that we are writing for the public - and a public that is willing to hear. We can adapt Bukharin etc. and L's conflicts (which we have to work out) to a means of explanation, emphasizing their differences with L and, in particular, where they expressed a bourgeois mode of thought.
The Taylor thing is wonderful in general and in that it shows how strictly capitalistic L was in Imperialism.
Now Vol. XI,10 p. 748
Again p. 748 monopoly v free competition
quintessence
I am not fully satisfied to why this enormous emphasis.
p. 749: private ownership
NB: note the conception: private always means decay; and we know that private means: not public
Rotting alive
Rentiers.11
Secondly.
Note the corruption of MONOPOLY
A very profound idea here.
Note p. 750 It is clear why...
Note that the "tremendous socialization of labor" means the same thing". Means what.
Again p.750
Finance capital over Industrial Capital
Fusion is state capital
762. "The essence of Marxian tactics"
Same page
"lower and deeper"
You see what is implied here & the sensation it could cause today. He says the same in another way in Left-Wing Communism.12
Note that this article is Autumn 1916.
He had just finished Imperialism. Look also at Marxism & Revisionism.13 Same volume, 1908. There you will see a remarkable concept of the dialectics of democracy & the political struggle.
Enough for quite a while now.
J.
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V, p. 178. Useful definition of dialectics. Note also p. 157. Comment on the importance of the word say "undergone a vital change, say,...". I would like to know the Russian word he uses.
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NB All through bear in mind that knowledge becomes always more concrete. L insists on that himself; and not only say it but show it, e.g. re L and the genuinely capitalistic bureaucracy.
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An idea, needed now, just struck me. In addition to a noble, a truly noble essay on the Logic in general, each section, Being, Essence, and Notion, as Lenin comes to them should have an introductory sketch, explaining what is needed to be explained for that section and for L's notes. This gives more scope to the opening essay which can be more generally history.
[...]14 What a volume this can be; Logic of Capital, Logic of Hegel, Imperialism, State & Rev.; theory of knowledge; and - behind it all revolutionary workers. And by the way stop at 1917 - no use tangling up NEP15 etc. I believe that we should exhaust Imperialism looking at it from 1914 - to the Feb. Rev. in 1917. We have July-Nov. 1914 essay on Marx. That is our concrete Absolute. Examine that carefully; link it up to Imp. and on to the Soviet. I believe L had learnt more than any other Marxist how progressive capitalism was, his past experience in Russia did this. Now, between there; and of course Dev. of Capitalism in Russia and his attacks on Narodniks, there is development. I would take p. 329 e.g. of the Syllogism and play with it, in itself and then using such terms as Monopoly, Free Competition, etc. - after G has worked out Syllogism theoretically. With all this after a week or so something will explode. Now absolutely must stop. This thing holds me by the throat and disrupts everything. I shall now put it out of my mind. But it will be hard. NB. Marcuse or no Marcuse, we will finish this Intro. Then we will go forth. Maybe a book, with Logic as appendix, articles in a mag; but we'll make the intro. The edition, that we cannot do without money; but the other thing - marvellous. And these things we have to do before the revolution. Why do I see it so clearly. Because nothing exists - nothing; because people want to know; and because we can say: this is it - nobody else knows, And,
L A S T L Y
That Syllogism business, abstract and concrete. Philosophical first but I believe in the treatment of Stalinism in the Nevada document (which must be read and re-read) we have abstract and concrete.
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Editor's footnotes
1 Max Schactman (1904-1971) was a major figure in the American Trotskyist movement. He was a leading figure in the 1940 split from the Socialist Workers' Party, that formed the Workers' Party. The Johnson-Forest Tendency were a faction within the Workers' Party until 1947, when they left and rejoined the Socialist Workers' Party.
2 Historical Tendency of Capitalist Accumulation.
3 This appears to be a reference to V.I. Lenin Selected Works Volume V: Imperialism and Imperialist War (1914-1917), published in English by International Publishers (NY) in 1935.
4 The word has been over-typed in the original.
5 very, very important.
6 Karl Marx, Capital: Vol. III.
7 falling rate of profit.
8 The original reads:
9 James appears to be referring to a text written by Lenin on the eve of the October Revolution. It is available on the MIA as: Lenin, Can the Bolsheviks Retain State Power? (1917).
10 This appears to be a reference to: V. I. Lenin, Selected Works, Volume XI: The Theoretical Principles Of Marxism, (International Publishers, 1939). The essay being referred to appears to be 'Imperialism and the Split in Socialism', (1916).
11 In the original the text "Rotting alive" and "Rentiers" overlap each other.
12 Lenin "Left-Wing" Communism: an Infantile Disorder, (1920).
13 Lenin, Marxism and Revisionism (1908).
14 Part of the text is obscured.
15 The New Economic Policy (NEP) was proposed by Lenin in 1921 in an attempt to revive the Russian economy after the civil war. It allowed a limited revival of free trade inside the Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic (RSFSR, which became the USSR in 1923). It was adopted by the Tenth Congress of the Communist Party of Russia, early in 1921, and reinforced at the Tenth Party Conference in May 1921.
