Originally published in Rally, Comrades! Vol. 10, No. 6, December 1991, reprinted in Entering an Epoch of Social Revoluion, Workers Press, 1993.
Engels points out, "At certain definite nodal points, the purely
quantitative increase or decrease gives rise to a qualitative
leap." What is that leap? It is motion or change from one quality
to another. The leap that is just beginning is from the capitalist
form of slavery to communism. Philosophy indicates that we must
build a Party that will lead in the destruction of capitalism so
as to complete the leap. It is important that we understand this
process in order to develop revolutionary politics.
However, no change is simply a sudden change from one quality to
another. A qualitative change begins with the introduction of an
elementary stage or quantity of a different quality. Therefore,
the leap is a series of changes wherein one quality is replaced
quantitatively, or stage by stage, by another quality. These
quantitative substitutions take place more or less rapidly until
the new process is completely qualitatively different from the
previous process. This is the leap. We are seeing this happen in
the leap from electromechanics to electronics. Stage by stage
electronics is replacing mechanics. Once the transformation
started, all industry had to adopt the new methods and
quantitatively extend them or be driven from the market. We don't
know how long the transition will take, but we know it cannot stop
until it is completed.
As with all motion, the rapidity of the change in quality depends
upon the changes in the environment within which the change
occurs. Consequently, in nature and in society, the leap takes a
long time to complete. For example Soviet society is still in a
leap that has taken 75 years and for all we know might take a
hundred more. The fact that the environment -- the world
capitalist system -- has not quantitatively been destroyed in the
past forty years has prevented the continuance of the leap. The on
going Soviet experience also shows that the leap is not a straight
line. It is dialectical: leap forward, stagnation, back sliding,
crisis, polarization and leap forward. We emphasize that each
stage is a reflection of a stage of development of the
environment. We must not confuse the political seizure of power
with the social transformation. The seizure of power was as
instantaneous as an explosion. It is always very important to
carefully describe what process we are referring to.
Every internal process is the environment for some other internal
process. The earth is internal to the solar system. But the earth
is the environment for all earthly processes. The means of
production is the environment for society. Society is the
environment of the class struggle. The list is unending. This is
the way that nature is united into a whole.
Let us begin with the objective development of the means of
production as the environment for the subjective development of a
social system. What is the process?
The Capitalist system (and the system of state socialism)
developed upon and in compatibility with the industrial means of
production. A leap begins as qualitatively new means of production
are introduced into the industrial system. The intricate network
between industry and banking, between all the various forms of
buying and selling becomes disrupted as wage labor, the source of
increase of all wealth, falls in value and price. The highest form
of industry, electromechanics, cannot compete with the more
efficient new means of production.
Each invading quantity of the new quality further disrupts the
system. Since profit is surplus or unpaid labor time, and
machines, including robots, simply transfer their value to
production, the very high profitability in robotic production
comes from placing products, without labor power on the market at
the same price as commodities, that contain labor power. The
accelerating shift to electronics creates untold wealth along side
untold misery. The new electronics creates a hitherto unknown want
in the midst of a heretofore unknown plenty. More and more workers
are permanently unemployed and a polarization between absolute
wealth and absolute poverty begins. Unseen and often unknown
productive and social relations that correspond to
electromechanics are abandoned or begin a subtle transformation.
Economic life is the environment for the political thinking of the
workers. Without a change in the economic life it would be
impossible to have changes in the thinking of a large number of
workers. With such changes in the economy, changes in the
political thinking of the workers are inevitable. Such changes
take place according to the laws of dialectics. They occur as a
leap. The leap is the destruction of the old mode of thought and
the creation of the new. It starts with the introduction of an
elementary stage of the new quality of thought and the
quantitative struggle to destroy the old quality.
For a long time, bribery has stifled even reformist thinking
within the class. The struggles of the 1960s and 1970s were social
struggles for reform, not class struggles. These fights cut across
class lines and were fundamentally different than, for example, a
class struggle for the eight hour day.
Over the years, the ruling class has carefully developed an
"ethnic" form of struggle. It could take root in this country
because of the existing division between black and white. The
divisions within the working class are very deep and can only be
overcome through intellectual struggle linked to daily practical
experience. But as Engels points out, that process cannot begin
without the quantitative introduction of a new quality.
This task is more difficult and demands more creativity than most
comrades think. The Left in our country has always followed two
incorrect paths. One is tailism, urging the workers to do what
they are already doing, and the second is sectarianism, creating a
"Marxist" "correct" program and then struggling to win the workers
over to it. Their intellectual work amongst the masses has been a
reflection of these positions. However wrong they might have been,
reformism or left wing communism during the period of stagnation
could not harm much. During the leap, these errors are deadly. To
have a revolution, qualitatively different thinking on the part of
the workers must reflect each quantitative change in the quality
of the means of production. During the development of a process it
is leftishness and sectarianism to stress the qualitative aspects
of a struggle. Once a process is underway, the struggle is
concrete and therefore quantitative. We are good at this. We know
how to "agitate" and struggle around individual examples of
injustice. Our campaigns around Aldape Guerra in Texas or Johnel
Warren in Florida are examples of this. During a leap it is
tailism and reformism to stress the quantitative. Here we have to
stress the meaning of these struggles. The quality of the process
must be stressed. The Freedom movement of the 1960s was a
brilliant example of this. The fighters who rode the busses,
manned the picket lines and formed the ranks for the marches were
fighting for "Freedom" rather than any quantitative aspect. This
gave the movement moral superiority over their foe, who conversely
was forced to stress the quantitative aspects. We must prove that
capitalism is through, it is changing and we have to fight to
control that change. During the leap, the quantitative aspects of
the old are stronger than in the new. It is the strength of the
new quality that gives it victory. This means that every
revolutionary spontaneous activity, every struggle of the class
must be used to explain the quality of their activity. The only
way we are going to win them over to communism is to show that
they are the communists and what they are doing is communism. We
must convince the mass that history is moving toward communism.
Our first task is to make the fighting elements of the workers
class conscious. At this point social consciousness is barely
beginning to be a political force. It is being aroused through the
TV and the daily press. The bourgeoisie understands that some sort
of consciousness is going to emerge. They are already striving to
restrict it to social consciousness and reformism. We must block
them with the rational and dialectical position of class
consciousness and solidarity. We need to throw every available
cadre into this struggle.
Marx points out in the Manifesto, "Communists,... have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement." We need a conference to spell out in a general way the "line of march" of the revolution. This is the quantitative, concrete, political aspect. What we must do first and immediately is to address the problem of changing the minds of the people in the fight for their daily bread.
Our task is first to win the workers to communism on the basis of
the development of the productive forces -- not as some good idea.
Second, we have to convince them that their welfare lies in
seizing the political power that will enable them to use these new
forces in their interest. We have to explain that their
spontaneous efforts to house, feed and clothe themselves are in
flat contradiction to the capitalist system and especially it is
against the interests of the ruling class. In other words, our
task is to guarantee that an intellectual leap takes place as a
reflection of the leap in the objective sphere. Only the Marxists
can do this. We are the only ones who understand what is going on.
It doesn't help any if we understand something and won't do it.
Finally, during the period of a leap everything is unstable. It is
a time for audacity. Thus Marx writes, "Communists disdain to
conceal their views and aims." There is no way for us to one on
one and in secret get over this message. The press and the
comrades with the press are the major weapons for this struggle.
At this point things are on course but we need a series of well
thought out papers to prove that we are moving correctly in a
qualitative sense.
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