Can I get a cross-section view of Left-Marxists attitudes to Dialectics please

Dialectics is a method for presentation, not a science. I can say much more on it, but the first mistake many Marxists make is to overstate the significance of the dialectics, referring to it as some secret mystical force without actually knowing how Marx used it.

Pannekoek's 'Lenin as Philosopher' is interesting on this. I'm not really into philosophy though so not going to try to sum it up.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/1938/lenin/index.htm

I agree with what Khawaga said, to give some readings as well and my thoughts,

I don't think the line should be drawn on Lenin or the Second International, but at the stalinist distortions of dialectics as something it's not. I think Bordiga is pretty good at explaining it in his text On the dialectical method but also in Party and Class, echoing a lot of what Engels wrote in part one of Anti-Düring,

What in fact is a social class according to our critical method? Can we possibly recognise it by the means of a purely objective external acknowledgement of the common economic and social conditions of a great number of individuals, and of their analogous positions in relationship to the productive process? That would not be enough. Our method does not amount to a mere description of the social structure as it exists at a given moment, nor does it merely draw an abstract line dividing all the individuals composing society into two groups, as is done in the scholastic classifications of the naturalists. The Marxist critique sees human society in its movement, in its development in time; it utilises a fundamentally historical and dialectical criterion, that is to say, it studies the connection of events in their reciprocal interaction. Instead of taking a snapshot of society at a given moment (like the old metaphysical method) and then studying it in order to distinguish the different categories into which the individuals composing it must be classified, the dialectical method sees history as a film unrolling its successive scenes; the class must be looked for and distinguished in the striking features of this movement. In using the first method we would be the target of a thousand objections from pure statisticians and demographers (short-sighted people if there ever were) who would re-examine our divisions and remark that there are not two classes, nor even three or four, but that there can be ten, a hundred or even a thousand classes separated by successive gradations and indefinable transition zones. With the second method, though, we make use of quite different criteria in order to distinguish that protagonist of historical tragedy, the class, and in order to define its characteristics, its actions and its objectives, which become concretised into obviously uniform features among a multitude of changing facts; meanwhile the poor photographer of statistics only records these as a cold series of lifeless data. Therefore, in order to state that a class exists and acts at a given moment in history, it will not be enough to know, for instance, how many merchants there were in Paris under Louis XIV, or the number of English landlords in the Eighteenth Century, or the number of workers in the Belgian manufacturing industry at the beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Instead, we will have to submit an entire historical period to our logical investigations; we will have to make out a social, and therefore political, movement which searches for its way through the ups and downs, the errors and successes, all the while obviously adhering to the set of interests of a strata of people who have been placed in a particular situation by the mode of production and by its developments. It is this method of analysis that Frederick Engels used in one of his first classical essays, where he drew the explanation of a series of political movements from the history of the English working class, and thus demonstrated the existence of a class struggle. This dialectical concept of the class allows us to overcome the statistician’s pale objections. He does not have the right any longer to view the opposed classes as being clearly divided on the scene of history as are the different choral groups on a theatre scene. He cannot refute our conclusions by arguing that in the contact zone there are undefinable strata through which an osmosis of individuals takes place, because this fact does not alter the historical physiognomy of the classes facing one another

I.e it is not a force of sorts or something that tells you the exact future, it's a way to try and understand society as something that is moving and developing both in the now and historically, looking at how movements interact and clash. I think "marxists", or socialists in general, who just assume that all class struggle in the past as having been this static propertyless versus property owning class, which is something I've come across a lot, will quickly lose the plot while looking back at pre-capitalist history, also not understanding actors in civil wars as representatives of a class and mode of production. Like, in Sweden the "national liberation war" from the danish ruled Kalmar Unionen is often seen, even in the left, as just a nationalist project and something removed from class struggle while in reality it was a war between the Swedes and Hansa representing merchant capitalism while the danish represented feudalism. In this case the propertyless do not play any leading role, if they did the capitalist vanguard would have lost because the propertyless and poor peasants formed armed bands and fought for the danish. If we go further back in Swedish history again, there was a struggle between the slave owners, representing a mode of production based on slavery and the church, representing feudalism. The free farmers sided with the slavers under an anti-church program, while the plebeians and alike had no solid alliance.

Pannekoek's 'Lenin as Philosopher' is interesting on this

I've always wondered where the idea that leninism means a vanguard of intellectuals that commits coups separate from the working class, something I've seen from a lot of councilists, came from,

Here we see the possible significance of Lenin’s book for the future working-class movement. The Communist Party, though it may lose ground among the workers, tries to form with the socialists and the intellectual class a united front, ready at the first major crisis of capitalism to take in its hands the power over and against the workers. Leninism and its philosophical textbook then will serve, under the name of Marxism, to overawe the workers and to impose upon the intellectuals, as the leading system of thought by which the reactionary spiritual powers are beaten, Thus the fighting working class, basing itself upon Marxism, will find Lenin’s philosophical work a stumbling-block in its way, as the theory of a class that tries to perpetuate its serfdom.

"SPGB, Autonomist and Left-Com responses all welcome."

I'm scared of complicated words like dialectics and without being simplistic the SPGB has a easy-to-read pamphlet all about what causes change.

https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/historical-materialism

But from our A-Z

Dialectic. For Socrates, it was teasing out the threads of an argument by asking questions. In Hegel's philosophy, it was the development of the idea through history. With Marx and Engels, however, there is some dispute as to what their version of the dialectic means, or even if they were both talking about the same thing. This apparent confusion is compounded by Plekhanov's term ‘dialectical materialism’, a phrase not used by Marx or Engels, yet this was designated the official philosophy of state capitalist Russia in the years after the Bolshevik revolution.

For Marx, it seems that his dialectic has two main features. Firstly, it is a philosophy of internal relations. Capitalism is a system constituted by its social relations of production, and a change to one relationship will have consequences for the whole system. This philosophical viewpoint tries to understand that process. Secondly, it is a method of abstraction. The key social relationships of capitalism (e.g. value, commodity, class) depend upon, but are not reducible to, material objects. They can only be comprehended as abstractions but they are nonetheless real and can affect our lives profoundly when they mean that profit-making takes priority over human needs. According to Bertell Ollman:

‘Dialectics is not a rock-ribbed triad of thesis-antithesis-synthesis that serves as an all-purpose explanation; nor does it provide a formula that enables us to prove or predict anything; nor is it the motor force of history. The dialectic, as such, explains nothing, proves nothing, predicts nothing, and causes nothing to happen. Rather, dialectics is a way of thinking that brings into focus the full range of changes and interactions that occur in the world.’

That's a pretty good explanation you posted aajohnstone. I like Ollman's book on the dialectic (Dance of the Dialectic) andwhat you quote really cuts through the mystical bs of diamat as the official religion of M-L. If anyone ever tries to trump an argument saying it's "undialectical", you know they are believers in the dialectic rather than just understanding it's a method of presenting the messy interactions and relationships of social life.

LeninistGirl

I've always wondered where the idea that leninism means a vanguard of intellectuals that commits coups separate from the working class, something I've seen from a lot of councilists, came from,

By quoting the very last paragraph of that book (also hosted on libcom), I take it that you read whole thing? Do you find it to be an unsatisfying analysis of Lenin's own views?

Vlad The Inhaler

I don't want to reject Marxism if there's something to save but I'm reaching the point when it feels like there isn't.

I would recommend reading Michael Heinrich's short essay "Je ne suis pas marxiste" which "argues that Marx was not after a “Marxism” as an identity-defining “truth.” Rather, he was more interested in the critical business of undermining certainties". Other pieces written in similar vein include 'Between Marx, Marxism, and Marxisms - ways of reading Marx's theory' by Ingo Elbe, and 'Marx? Which Marx?' by Anders Ramsay.

Also written by Heinrich (but isn't tagged to him) is a piece titled 'Invaders from Marx: on the uses of Marxian theory, and the difficulties of a contemporary reading'. In this one, he writes the following:

A serious reading of Marx must not only take the textual context seriously; preconceived judgments concerning Marxist theory, mediated by school, the media and dealings with “Marxists” must also be called into question – starting with “-ism.” Contrary to the widely circulated talk of a “Marxist system”, Marx not only brusquely declared himself to be no Marxist[1], in his “Notes on Wagner” he also contested the allegation that he had created a “socialist system.”

The small-mindedness and distortions of the Marxist system builders, especially of many “Marxist-Leninists,” were too blatant. Hence today there are hardly any Marxisms without an appendage: there are only “non-dogmatic”, “open”, “pluralistic” or other such Marxisms. But all of these nice attributes cannot cover up the fact that the construction of an “ism” demands a criterion for distinction, which must either be dogmatically set, or so vague and undefined that it no longer says anything.

The linked short review of this book is worth a read on it's own. See here;
https://libcom.org/library/behind-crisis-marxs-dialectics-value-knowledge-guglielmo-carchedi

Edit :just to link this with one of Vlad's other questions, I'd point out that whilst LBird might dismiss Carchedi's defence of 'dialectics' in his work the review I mention here does indicate Carchedi's distinctive view of 'science' as not being class neutral in opposition to the views of Engels, Lenin and Gramsci and in opposition to Engel's attempted basing of 'dialectics' in nature and arguments that favour the claimed 'inevitability' of socialism.

Instead of only being a matter of presentation, I think it makes sense to see dialectics as a set of investigative views of the world, based on the notion of continual change. Metaphysical thought divides the world into categories that it thinks of as stable, self-identical essences, to be catalogued once and for all to describe the world. In contrary, dialectical thought in principle sees all phenomena as transient and containing opposites, or opposed forces, of which the phenomenon itself is only a temporary balance. This gives all phenomena (as parts) and the totality they make up a certain definite volatility, and a tendency to fall apart and to be superseded by new things, new unities as well as new opposites. Concepts and historical reality are seen as part of single, complex process of ongoing change.

I think there's a lot of wankery surrounding the term dialectics (not exclusively the result of the co-option of its terminology by state capitalism and its apologists) but this seems a fairly good starting point for investigating the world, social relations, the surpassing of capitalism, and so on.

Vlad, my boy, Dialectics is this: If Solid + Energy = Fluid, then Fluid - Energy = Solid. It is the art of the other way round - reverse!

To the other unimportant question you raise: "Your view on just how mechanical historical development is. How predictable and true to historical laws human groups and societies are.etc".

I will provide you with the definite answer: 100% predictable, as "in general" material stuff (everything) is just a bunch of electrons and other fellas i'd have to guess at, moving around in perfectly physical (the science!) ways.

Hoping to find your nerves well!

Just posted, a 1947 article

https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2018/07/dialectical-materialism.html

Just posted, a 1947 article

https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com/2018/07/dialectical-materialism.html

"cough*

Cheeky git.

it's the message not the messenger, 1904 :)

So to placate your ruffled feathers

hat tip to
http://socialiststandardmyspace.blogspot.com/

My seven year old is currently doing an impersonation of that kid from that old Twilight Zone episode so I'm taking it out on everyone . . . everywhere. You not providing the link for the sad sap who spent an age scanning and proofreading that article simply meant that I finally ripped out my last remaining feathers. (insert grumpy and sleep deprived emoji here.)

It's not a happy time for me on Libcom, either. I got pulled up for not providing links and now i'm pulled up for stealing your link...ahh, well...

i was up against "a holistic way of thinking" and received no likes only hate. story of my life.

I think best 5 pages written on dialectics comes from;

Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877
Introduction
General

Starting from a bit late in ;

…………In the contemplation of individual things it forgets the connection between them; in the contemplation of their existence, it forgets the beginning and end of that existence; of their repose, it forgets their motion. It cannot see the wood for the trees…

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/introduction.htm

Fred tends to ruin a lot of stuff by packing a load of shit at the beginnings, and in the middle, of things.

The book was written with Karl’s approval and oversight.

It is quite readable, worthy of discussion at least.

[ most people gag and choke at the idea of ‘dialectics of nature’ thing as if Fred had let an eggy one go in a lift – I think it is ok]

As I think will become clear most people now are already dialectians in their outlook so the difficulty is more about comprehending the non dialectic viewpoint which is a bit historically alien.

[I actually think the Emile Burns translation is much ‘better’ actually – couldn’t say why really as there isn’t much difference, by a strange accident I read it first after paying 50p for it.]

Incidentally I thought Anti-Dühring was one best books I have read on the state of or summary of scentific knowledge circa 1880.

I was quite surprised how far advanced they were; most of it is still ok.

Covering another thread Fred wrote the Housing Question which covered urban housing rent I think but there is a lot of blather in that as well.

I seem to remember that it was Karl who wrote this chapter?

It is in one of the prefaces somewhere I think?

Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877
Part II: Political Economy
X. From Kritische Geschichte

[ Fom The critical History]

Since political economy, as it made its appearance in history, is in fact nothing but the scientific insight into the economy in the period of capitalist production, principles and theorems relating to it, for example, in the writers of ancient Greek society, can only be found in so far as certain phenomena—commodity production, trade, money, interest-bearing capital, etc.—are common to both societies. In so far as the Greeks make occasional excursions into this sphere, they show the same genius and originality as in all other spheres. Because of this, their views form, historically, the theoretical starting-points of the modern science. Let us now listen to what the world-historic Herr Dühring has to say.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch22.htm

I see that the spgb have another go at a short explanation of dialectics and their use by Marx here;
https://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2019/no-1374-february-2019/whos-afraid-of-dialectics/
though we should be careful of the potential dangers of overusing analogies from nature bearing in mind also comments made about their use by Engels (see my earlier post #9 above).

Marxism is indistinguishable from the Dialectic he applied to Political Economy.

Marx was himself mystical in describing the process of communisation.

Religion and it's ally states and estates comprise an ideological tech wave.
Which Capitalism harnesses and exploits, I agree of the historical inevitability
of city centers concentrating culture and knowledge. I contest that it has other
than a base preference for the easy life. Hardly a defining class 'characteristic'.
Even by Marx own postulates, the Lumpenprole prefers comforts to burdens.

I'd say there's a real problem with assigning primacy of Political Economy to
man, we are greatly aided by the critique, I'm not sure the Proletarian Labour
solution to Political Economy has a definite feature. What happens if we win
and we don't care for power, or we care for it too much? Anti-Capitalism remains strong, but pro social dictate wavers. Money knows well what it wants, but the prole much less so.

I would caution all readers, to pay attention to sublation, synthesis, stored ideas
and continuous ones. Some needs and ways are concrete and coalesced, others mystical.
READ:
Polanyi and Baudrillard's The Great Transformation and Mirror of Production.

Marx was a stickler for the Fichtean Method known briefly as German Idealism
Most is an outcome of this form, with each divergence duly explained.
There's no Marxism without the Ideal-Materialism.

Marx' Mysticism is a result of his method,
which bears strong semblance to Religious Ideology,
functioning on a duality, leaving much interventions to
interpretation and humanistic will.

I would say there are strong trends and themes built in
to the Hyper-nested Urban-Elite and Mercantile Method,
which drive States and Corps toward financial development.

I do not attribute it specifically to Historical Materialism, every
class seeks somewhat better conditions. Specifically, the role
of science and knowledge base are obfuscated by capital fixation.

The deciphering of Marx is not wasted, as we're surrounded by
Political Economic intrusions into our life; However, Liberation
must consist of expanding personal use of all our faculties, the
perfection of Economia, at the cost of Man, is a wasted endeavor.

Much obliged my fine comrades.