Stefan Engel
International Seminar on the System of the Basic Course “Learning the Dialectical Method in an All-Around Way” on 5 August 2008
Good morning,
Our topic today is the system for learning the dialectical method in an all-around way in the party work of the MLPD.
1. Starting point
Expressed in simple terms, we have two main sources that mold the individual in class society.
One is the material class relations and the other the struggle between bourgeois and proletarian world outlooks.
We looked into the question how the working class acquires consciousness.
We came to the conclusion that an important element that must be investigated in this context is the question of the mode of thinking, in which the entire social conflict is reflected.
We say that consciousness within the working-class movement is essentially the result of the struggle of world outlooks between proletarian ideology and bourgeois ideology, which finds expression within the working class as a struggle between the proletarian and petty-bourgeois modes of thinking.
Starting from Mao Zedong’s discovery of the objective law of the two-line struggle we tried to investigate more thoroughly the question of the struggle over the mode of thinking among the masses, within the party, and within the international Marxist-Leninist and working-class movement.
Above all we were able to derive various laws that can provide us guidance as to how we can exert a positive influence on the development of consciousness and also on the development of cadres.
This is the object of the struggle over the mode of thinking.
I do not think that we must argue about the fact that consciousness plays a decisive role in the class struggle.
The most conscious element in the working class is the party.
Class consciousness is farthest developed in the party, which of course is the basis for the leading role of the party within the working class.
This follows the cognition that everything people do must first go through their heads, must be done with a certain consciousness.
Of course, people also can develop spontaneously and just let themselves drift in society.
But this way they never will arrive at a proletarian revolution.
We start from the assumption that thinking is a material process and, like every material process in nature and society, is subject to laws which operate in that process and lead to concrete results in the thinking, feeling and acting of the masses.
Since human thinking, as Frederick Engels observed, is the most highly organized and most complex matter, it also has a very complex structure that is subject to a great many complex laws.
For idealists, thinking is higher than matter, is something supersensible.
For materialists, thinking itself is a material process, the result of which, of course, is theories.
In capitalism the struggle of world outlooks has become a very complicated matter.
What used to be discussed among philosophers is a subject of everyday discussion by the masses today.
The system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking has become one of the key methods of rule by deception in capitalism, the purpose of which is to bind the masses to the system, to block their path to revolution.
We have found that this problem cannot be solved by any other means today than by the dialectical method.
With his insights, Mao Zedong reemphasized the importance of the world outlook and of ideological struggle in general in the communist movement.
He recognized the great importance of the dialectical method not just for some leaders, but for the masses.
If we consider the Cultural Revolution not from the political side, but in relation to its ideological character, it was a movement of millions to learn and apply the dialectical method.
We have determined that the dialectical method is the core of the scientific proletarian mode of thinking.
Of course, it also has a class core, which is the proletarian class viewpoint.
Learning the dialectical method as core of the proletarian mode of thinking, one must strengthen its basis, the proletarian class viewpoint.
Because today the class struggle has become so complicated that it only can be conducted if the party learns and masters the dialectical method up to a certain level.
2. The basic dialectics course, its tasks, goals, methods and means
For this reason we took it upon ourselves to work out a set of courses.
This set of courses is entitled: “Learning the Dialectical Method in an All-Around Way”.
We have been holding these courses since 1997.
Each course has ten lessons.
The courses are structured in semesters, as at universities.
We have conducted more than 200 of these courses since 1997, and more than 6,000 people have participated in them.
The participants were mostly cadres and members of the party, but also workers, trade-unionists, women from the women’s movement, young people, people from a variety of movements and self-run organizations, who sense that they need a method in order to find their bearings on their own.
Cadres from the international Marxist-Leninist and working-class movement also have participated in some of these dialectics courses.
Everyone who attends these courses notices that, if they work with the course properly, they can cope better.
Surely you also have experience in the way one assimilates theory.
That in itself is a rather complicated problem because theory and practice simply are two different things.
The theory can impart only generalizations, laws.
Practice is determined by many chance occurrences that lay a veil over the law-governed course of things.
This is why a dogmatic method of schooling will not get us anywhere.
We must not learn theory by rote; we must always go back to practice.
That is a general problem in education, of course.
Such a dogmatic method of instruction leads straight to disaster, to sophistry, when learning the dialectical method.
Dialectics degenerates into a play with terms and concepts, something intellectuals like to do.
They bandy about concepts, engage in dialectical wordplay, but have no idea what dialectics really is, have no idea of the inner laws of nature and society.
So we thought:
Every person in society is molded by a world outlook.
This means that he or she has a very specific method of thinking.
Of course, in bourgeois society this method of thinking is mainly metaphysically influenced.
Not only metaphysically, because the concepts also bring forth dialectical forms of thinking, but this is not generally so, of course.
And so we developed a method of learning the dialectical method not through lectures, not through theorizing about dialectics, but through a systematic debate over the existing mode of thinking of the course participants.
This means that the most important thing the participants of the course must bring with them is their active participation; that they express everything that’s in their heads; this means that they disclose their mode of thinking; and that they are also willing to have a critical discussion about it.
Then the discussion is about what is in a person’s head, to what extent it is dialectical or metaphysical.
The primary thing is that everybody must understand that in this system people actually are not molded by a dialectical method, but by a metaphysical method.
Of course, this is true for Marxist-Leninists too, including leading cadres; this is nothing unusual.
The course does nothing else but discuss the concrete experiences in the class struggle, in party building, in nature, in society; and in doing so calls into question the applied mode of thinking that people have.
This is very important because it is helpful for changing one’s mode of thinking from a metaphysical mode of thinking to a dialectical mode of thinking.
Of course, the instructor must adhere to a specific system.
To date we have ten semesters [now twelve – note of RW editors June 2023] that is a total of 100 individual lessons.
This means you have to take the courses during five years and will have participated then in 100 lessons and will have dealt with the entire scope of our theory and practice under the aspect of the dialectical method.
It is important that the participants not merely listen, but organize an active process of self-transformation.
At the beginning of each lesson they always receive a piece of paper with nothing on it, the so-called learning material.
Everybody writes down here what they think about the discussion.
At the end of the lesson, everybody receives a summary of the most important theoretical questions. This is the teaching material.
The teaching material does not reproduce the discussion, however, but contains only certain guiding principles that the participants take home with them.
They can work through all of this again at home later on, examine and consciously evaluate all they have learned.
Everybody who is honest will realize what their metaphysical weaknesses are.
Only by overcoming the metaphysical mode of thinking can we learn the dialectical method!
The next lesson starts by repeating what we learned in the previous lesson; the repetition goes into it more deeply and we understand the problem even better.
This is a very laborious method, but we can be assured that we are really able to change our mode of thinking with it.
We deal with things everybody knows.
We discuss the practice of the comrades in their rank-and-file work, how they are currently working in the neighborhoods, in the factories and trade unions, and among the youth.
We apply this to current political issues and tasks, for example the development of class consciousness during the Opel strike in 2004, or the preparation of the big demonstration against the Hartz laws in 2005, or the preparation of the Third International Miners’ Seminar this year.
This way everybody can join in the discussion; the instructor has the task to lead the discussion in such a way that the participants become aware of the dialectical method and the metaphysical method is consciously criticized.
These courses play an important role for the organization, for our members, for our development of cadres, but also for the Central Committee.
I partly hold these courses myself, and it is a very important experience:
When you hold such courses you always know what’s going on in the organization.
You have an immediate analysis of the struggle going on between the proletarian and the petty-bourgeois modes of thinking regarding the most important problems that are being discussed at the moment and must be solved.
So it is not only a schooling method, but at the same time a method for the leading cadres to get to know the organization, to discover immediately the problems of the mode of thinking in the organization and influence them.
Every new situation gives rise to new questions.
It is characteristic of the struggle between the proletarian and the petty-bourgeois modes of thinking that it unfolds when new problems arise.
New problems can only be solved through a qualitative leap forward in our work.
And we as dialecticians know that a qualitative leap requires the unfolding of contradictions.
It is the task of the dialectical method to unfold the contradictions so that they develop in a controlled way, so that these contradictions do not develop in an antagonistic way, but in a non-antagonistic way.
This means that within the organization we do not need an antagonistic struggle over the line, but a non-antagonistic struggle.
Whenever we fail to deal with the problems consciously, antagonistic factors will develop in party work.
We cannot suspend the law of the unfolding of contradictions, instead we must be conscious of this:
A debate must be fought out here to achieve a new quality of work.
This is how the organization will take this step forward.
If I do not recognize the problems, the contradictions will unfold in an uncontrolled way and antagonistic moments will arise.
This can go as far as a split and liquidationism.
We experienced this not only in the party, but also in the Marxist-Leninist and working-class movement.
We know it from the International Conference.
The art of holding this Conference is actually the correct handling of contradictions.
If mistakes are made here then antagonistic contradictions arise.
But antagonism in the International Conference does not get us anywhere.
Since there are very different conditions in the individual countries, in the individual movements, there have to be contradictions.
But what we can do is find a method that helps us solve the problems in such a way that we achieve through it the unification of the international Marxist-Leninist and working-class movement; and through this process a force will emerge which can really confront the world system of imperialism.
We have made steps forward in this respect in the course of the International Conference.
Maybe you have seen a program of the Workers’ Education Center.
These courses are the central link of this program.
I am sure it has become very clear during the last few days: depending on the degree to which the party embraces the dialectical method at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking, it is able to develop the party further, lead the masses, and also avoid mistakes as much as possible.
These dialectics courses are far from complete; there are very many other fields of application.
But first we will concentrate on writing Revolutionärer Weg, Nos. 32–34, on the strategy and tactics of the international revolution; this includes, of course, the summary of our experience with the doctrine of the mode of thinking.
There are two forms of courses:
We have evening courses and week-long courses.
We have various facilities for holding them, in Alt Schwerin, here in Gelsenkirchen, in Stuttgart, in Berlin, in Truckenthal.
An evening course takes place every two weeks, ten times for each semester.
It takes about an hour and a half to two hours of an evening.
The other form is for people, for example youth, who normally do not have time for a course during an evening.
They can take a week off, for example at Easter or during the vacation period.
One semester is packed into a six-day course in such a case.
These courses simultaneously are a source of income.
But it is also true that the instructors of the courses are among those who have learned most from all course participants.
The courses also educate the central cadres.
As yet, not so very many comrades are able to hold such courses.
The courses were worked out by the Political Leadership of the CC, and more and more CC members are learning also to hold these courses.
In future we want to interpenetrate these dialectics courses more with the guidance and control and the work with the cadres of the intermediate levels, and they are to be passed on to the hands of the Land leaderships step by step.
Of course it is not easy to hold such a course.
In other kinds of courses I bring a paper with me prepared well in advance, and I know what’s inside; but in a dialectics course, during a discussion of a current problem, in fifty percent of the cases I do not know what will be said.
As an instructor I must have a full grasp of a topic to be able to apply it.
So it requires mastering the dialectical method at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking.
3. Presentation of the individual courses
Now we come to the structuring of the courses.
As said before, there are ten semesters.
The first three semesters deal with the fundamentals of the dialectical method.
The first semester begins with the objective dialectics in nature and society.
This is the introductory course, where the participants deal with objective dialectics in reality.
Everything that exists is material, and everything that is material functions according to dialectical laws of motion.
We apply this above all to the three main dialectical laws of motion which Engels summarized in his work Dialectics of Nature:
Constantly coming into being and passing away (negation of the negation) ever new forms emerge, are transformed (transformation of quantity into quality and vice versa) and, through their internal contradictions (struggle and unity of opposites), make the world develop to ever higher levels in an endless process.
We thus deal with the unity of these three main laws of motion of dialectics.
That, in one sentence, is what we discuss in this first semester, on various problems, over a period of six months.
The second semester is concerned with subjective dialectics; that is, with the scientific application of the dialectical method as developed especially by Marx, Engels and Lenin.
The level of application of the dialectical method is Lenin’s determinations of dialectics, which he elaborated in the Conspectus of Hegel’s “The Science of Logic”.
As you perhaps know, in 1915, after completing his work on imperialism, Lenin worked on a philosophical piece.
He had to discontinue this work, but his conspectuses on the subject are available, and it was clear that Lenin knew the importance of the dialectical method and was convinced that a new level of the communist movement also goes hand in hand with the mastery of the dialectical method.
These basic concepts of the dialectical method in this course at the level of Lenin’s Elements of Dialectics are the subject of the second semester.
We deal here with the struggle and unity of opposites, the negation of the negation, the transformation of quantity into quality, analysis and synthesis as method.
These are the main laws of motion, but there are also others.
We have worked out five rules of thumb for the application of the dialectical method:
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Dialectical mode of thinking |
Metaphysical countertendencies |
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1. Everything must be consciously thought through to the end. |
Routine, which assumes that there are no essential changes. |
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2. This means making clear to oneself the law-governed basis of the problem, studying its concrete historical development, the background and connections, cause and effect, etc. That is, a concrete analysis of the problem to be solved. |
Making rough guesses or only “starting to think” about something means to scratch at the surface of the phenomenon instead of penetrating to the essence. |
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3. An accurate assessment must be made, a correct qualification/definition. |
Stringing together various manifestations without qualifying their connection with the process as a whole. |
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4. The practical conclusion must be determined, i.e., an exact plan must be outlined. |
To content oneself with knowledge, as if theory were of greater value than practice. |
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5. The plan must be carried out with iron resolve; during implementation one must personally check whether it is correct, how it perhaps must be changed or developed further, and what lessons must be drawn. |
To rigidly adhere to a plan even when new developments occur amounts to idealism and a mechanical approach. To abandon the fixed plan on every occasion amounts to pragmatism. |
The third semester has the task of dealing with the further development of the dialectical method since Lenin and is concerned with the doctrine of the mode of thinking, the doctrine of the laws of motion in thinking, feeling and acting.
Lenin had 16 Elements of Dialectics; the doctrine of the mode of thinking has several hundred Elements of Dialectics.
Today, on the international level we have a social system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking whose corrosive effect on proletarian class consciousness makes several fundamental conditions necessary to enable establishing the superiority of the proletarian mode of thinking in struggle against the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
We have found out the following conditions for establishing the superiority of the proletarian mode of thinking in the struggle against the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
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The proletarian mode of thinking is superior to the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking only in conscious struggle. In the sphere of spontaneity, the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking asserts itself in a law-governed way because it is constantly reproduced by the dominating bourgeois ideology through the social system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
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Every issue must always be approached in a principled way, and we must make use of the all-around character of the ideological-political line of the MLPD. In contrast, the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking arbitrarily reduces itself to partial knowledge, thus reflecting reality in a distorted fashion.
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The proletarian mode of thinking can assert itself against the general superiority of the socially operative system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking only by concentrating forces strictly on the solution of those problems in which it can actually play off its concrete superiority at the appropriate moment.
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The proletarian mode of thinking is superior to the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking only in direct confrontation. The petty-bourgeois mode of thinking avoids open conflict, because it has its suitable medium in the form of adaptation.
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The proletarian mode of thinking must attack the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking; otherwise the latter encroaches, combined with a destructive effect on the proletarian qualities and forms of organization.
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The proletarian mode of thinking realizes its superiority against the fragmentation and disorganization caused by the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking only in a systematic and organized way. In the system of the work among the rank and file, this finds its concentrated expression in the all-around interrelationship of the Marxist-Leninist party and the promotion of the self-run organizations of the masses.
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The mastery of the dialectical method is the crucial capacity of the cadres to decide the struggle of the proletarian mode of thinking against the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
As most important lesson from the third semester, we called upon the comrades to deal with every issue from the viewpoint of the dialectical method and so make dialectics the practical tool of every comrade.
With the fourth semester the application semesters begin, which deal with how dialectics is used in the work today.
Semesters 4 to 6 deal with the struggle over the mode of thinking among the masses, in Marxist-Leninist party building and in the preparation of the international revolution.
We begin in the fourth semester with the concrete analysis of the concrete situation at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking.
The classics of Marxism-Leninism have always referred to the concrete analysis of the concrete situation as the “living soul of Marxism”.
They applied this to a very strong degree to the objective development, to economic analysis, to political analysis.
The advance now consists in that we also apply this to the thinking, feeling and acting of the masses, to the connections between objective and subjective dialectics, in which mainly the struggle over the mode of thinking is reflected.
Of course, the struggle over the mode of thinking is a reflection of the economic and political development.
In this analysis of the concrete situation at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking we investigated, for example, the processes that took place in the thinking, feeling and acting of the masses during the Opel strike, in order to influence them; the contradictions that develop in the unity of party and masses; how the workers come in correspondence with reality, but also how they are in contradiction to reality; how the petty-bourgeois reformist mode of thinking and the petty-bourgeois revisionist mode of thinking operate among the workers, and how the proletarian mode of thinking operates as well.
This concrete investigation served us as basis for our strategy and tactics in factory and union work.
During this strike we witnessed a rapid change in the mode of thinking of the masses, which again we constantly analyzed.
Every day we made an analysis of the mode of thinking of the Opel workers and then held a meeting of the Central Committee evenings at 11 p.m. to evaluate these new developments.
We encountered the three groups among the workers, the most advanced group, the middle group, the backward group.
This division was based on the assessment of their mode of thinking.
We know, of course, that in the mode of thinking of humans there is not only the proletarian mode of thinking and not only the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
This is only theoretical.
Theoretically, it is possible to separately grasp the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking and also the proletarian mode of thinking.
But in reality this is not so.
In human reality there is only the struggle between the proletarian and the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
There are always both.
There are no one-hundred-percent communists either.
Every human being is influenced by every mode of thinking, by the bourgeois, the petty-bourgeois and the proletarian mode of thinking.
This is reflected in the thinking and acting of every single person in a certain way.
I can grasp this only with the dialectical method and not with formulas.
We divided the workers into three groups and could then say:
The most advanced group, 500 workers at the start, was the active core.
They could initiate the strike, but at the beginning they were not at all able to lead it.
The reformist apparatus immediately came forward and took the lead.
Thus we had to develop the leading core.
We thought about how the workers could acquire the leadership.
In what way, under what conditions are the rank-and-file workers superior to these reformist leaders?
They are superior to them in production, in highly developed, highly organized production!
The workers are organized there, in Lean Production.
Every screw, every hand movement of the group there is coordinated.
The workers know each other, they work the same shift.
So we put out the slogan:
One must place the entire strike on the shoulders of these production units of the workers, away from the petty-bourgeois reformist leaders and also from the Left reformists.
For example, there was the assistant foreman from the door module unit who immediately understood this.
He promptly called his people:
“Colleagues, our shift begins at 6 a.m. tomorrow.
Everyone must come and sign in in the shift book.
We will take on the task of ensuring safety and order during the strike.”
All workers who otherwise always fit doors to the cars in production immediately assumed independent responsibility for safety and order in the strike.
That is to say, every production group had a fixed task of its own, and so the advanced group grew from 500 to about 3,500 people.
And it was no longer possible to take this struggle away from them.
On the fourth day of the strike, when the reformists wanted to finally put an end to the strike, they were not in the least able to do so.
This is an example of an analysis that was made in the Central Committee for the purpose of organizing the superiority of the proletarian mode of thinking in struggle against the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
It was decisive for consolidating the strike, for transferring the initiative to the production workers and isolating the reformists, for developing the close linkage with the MLPD to a higher level.
Because everyone knew that this was the tactics of the MLPD.
But they could not oppose anything to it because these tactics were taken up by the workers.
The workers wanted to be active.
They did not want to wait until someone told them what to do.
They wanted to lead their strike themselves.
This was a very basic example of concrete analysis.
We learn this here in relation to the struggle for peace, the youth movement, the women’s movement, etc.
That is the task, because we cannot lead these correctly without making a concrete analysis of them.
The fifth semester is concerned with the strategy and tactics in the struggle over the mode of thinking.
Malicious critics assert that the MLPD has replaced the revolution by the struggle over the mode of thinking and thus has reverted to the method of the Young Hegelians of the 19th century, who thought that the world must be changed through discussion and intellectual games.
The strategy and tactics in the struggle over the mode of thinking is not a substitute for, but a necessary complement to the proletarian strategy and tactics of the revolution.
It is concerned in particular with the way the consciousness of the masses develops, how the interrelation of party and masses develops in the course of the revolutionary process.
That is nothing fundamentally new.
The classics, Lenin, Stalin, Mao Zedong, already said that it does not suffice merely for the party to have a correct line and correct strategy and tactics.
This strategy and tactics of the party must become the strategy and tactics of the masses.
Only then will this strategy and tactics become a material force.
The strategy and tactics in the struggle over the mode of thinking deals with this contradiction:
How will our revolutionary strategy and tactics, which in Germany surely will assume the form of an armed uprising and armed struggle, become the strategy and tactics of the masses?
We applied this in this fifth semester to the three stages of the class struggle:
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Stage of the non-revolutionary situation: |
The system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking is the main obstacle to the development of the proletarian class consciousness of the working class and to the turning of the broad masses towards socialism.
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Stage of the acutely revolutionary situation: |
The system of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking massively loses effect.
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Stage of armed struggle and uprising: |
The superiority of the proletarian mode of thinking in the struggle against the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking is a reality in society as a whole.
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We have found that people must overcome various petty-bourgeois influences which today still keep them away from this revolutionary mode of thinking.
We have developed this strategy and tactics in factory and union work, in the work among women, in the work among youth.
These are the three fields in which we already practice this with success.
The sixth semester is concerned with the proletarian culture of debate.
The struggle over the mode of thinking requires a certain method, of course, suitable for resolving the contradictions among the masses, the contradiction between party and masses, the contradictions within the masses, the contradictions in the self-run organizations of the masses, the contradictions between the self-run organizations of the masses and the party.
This method is the method of the proletarian culture of debate.
It is nothing other than the conscious application of the dialectical method to solve problems of the mode of thinking in party building, in the class struggle, or also in the women’s movement, in the youth movement, etc.
This proletarian culture of debate is not only the method for solving contradictions, but with it we have also developed a method of leading without people getting the feeling they are being patronized, in the guidance and control of the party, between the party and masses, but also among the masses.
It is a scientific method of persuasion.
The central problem of the proletarian culture of debate is the correct handling of contradictions.
We started from Mao Zedong’s insights regarding the antagonism and non-antagonism of contradictions and their transformability.
That is the real problem.
There are no ‘only antagonistic’ contradictions, and no ‘only non-antagonistic’ contradictions.
There are always intermediate forms, and every contradiction can transform into another.
The proletarian culture of debate is a method how “contradictions among the people” – as Mao Zedong terms them – that is, among the masses and within the party, can be organized as a non-antagonistic process, and how simultaneously the antagonistic contradiction to the class enemy, to the dictatorship of the monopolies, to the state, can be intensified.
This is a dialectical process.
While the problems among the masses are to be solved in a non-antagonistic manner, to the degree this succeeds the class contradiction will be intensified.
Here we find some of the biggest problems of our comrades, very simplistic conceptions of antagonism and non-antagonism.
You must try to fully understand people if you want to convince them.
The proletarian culture of debate on the basis of a correct culture of debate, a correct cadre analysis, is a tremendously effective method of winning, mobilizing, developing people to the point of their conscious self-transformation.
The proletarian culture of debate in the party requires above all the conscious application of the dialectical method to the law-governed encroachment of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in party work in three stages:
“According to this law, the encroachment of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in party work proceeds in three stages.
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The first stage involves the appearance of single features of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in the daily theory and practice of party work. …
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But if …certain errors become entrenched and combine with others, if unsound developments occur, this signifies a second stage of the encroachment of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking. The petty-bourgeois mode of thinking now emerges as a tendency. …
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If fundamental errors instead are even justified and deepened, the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking can become dominant in party work. That concerns the transition to the third stage of the encroachment of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking: the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking systematizes itself into a petty-bourgeois line.” (Quoted from the "Blue Supplement" of Rote Fahne, No. 21, 1999)
For every qualitative stage of the encroachment of the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking there are corresponding qualitatively different general and concrete methods of the proletarian culture of debate.
A. Proletarian culture of debate in the first stage:
The proletarian culture of debate consists in the democratic unfolding of the members’ initiative to implement the unified decisions of the party in a creative manner. It aims at the critical and self-critical assimilation and creative application of the line in order to avoid mistakes.
Example:
The handbook for MLPD party-group leaders says on this:
“The party-group meeting focuses on discussion, decision-making and control of systematic rank-and-file work related to the common tasks of the concrete group. Everyone must know what they must do.”
B. Proletarian culture of debate in the second stage:
Here the task is to unfold principled criticism and self-criticism with the purpose to stop the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking, correct fundamental mistakes, and see to it that they are not repeated. The proletarian culture of debate guarantees the fundamental unity of criticism and self-criticism, and with it the further development of the party.
Example:
If a comrade acts in a dogmatic manner repeatedly and persists in it despite pointers and criticisms, it is necessary to get to the root of the matter. The proletarian culture of debate particularly educates people in principled self-criticism. In a letter, Willi Dickhut writes about this:
“Dialectical self-criticism analyzes the mistake, gets to the bottom of the problem, investigates the core as well as secondary phenomena, connections, contradictions, cause and effect, the objective and the subjective aspects, the situation, one’s own forces and counterforces, etc. In brief, it is an all-around investigation in order to correct mistakes thoroughly and quickly and to make provisions that the mistakes are not repeated.…
Dialectical self-criticism means self-investigation of how far one masters the dialectical method, because all the mistakes and shortcomings are violations of the dialectical method. The better one masters the dialectical method, the easier it is to recognize mistakes and shortcomings and correct them in time or not let them happen at all.” (Briefwechsel zu Fragen der Theorie und Praxis des Parteiaufbaus [Exchange of Letters on Questions of Theory and Practice of Party Building], pp. 235, 236)
C. Proletarian culture of debate in the transition to the third stage:
The petty-bourgeois line must be crushed, the proletarian line and organization defended and the principled unity of the party established. The main method for this is scientific polemics combined with administrative measures up to applying expulsion, the severest punishment of the party. The last mentioned must particularly take into account the subjective aspect, the extent to which enmity to the party has developed also subjectively. Here too one must guard against stereotyping.
Scientific polemics has the task to prove the hostile class character of the petty-bourgeois line in a convincing manner, must attempt to get the person concerned to abandon the petty-bourgeois line. It must tear the petty-bourgeois line to pieces in an all-around and persuasive way and must win over the members to attack the petty-bourgeois line on their own, assimilate the party line more profoundly, and draw practical conclusions for the self-transformation of party work.
The 7th to 10th semesters deal in particular with the conscious application of the systemic mode of thinking.
The seventh semester is entitled: “How to Work Scientifically”.
By that we do not mean the work in a biological laboratory or the work of astronomers, rather we mean how a comrade does his factory and union work, or the woman comrade active in the work among women, or the comrades who do work among youth – how these comrades work scientifically.
One must have an understanding of the three aspects of the relationship of scientific work.
Working scientifically has three main elements:
The first is the mode of thinking with which one approaches problems, the proletarian mode of thinking that we must learn here.
The second is a Marxist style of work, and the third is structures of a full-fledged organization in which all these things find their general condition and can develop.
That means: mode of thinking, style of work, organization of work as dialectical unity, as basis of scientific work.
We then discussed this in the course, taking a variety of problems: how one organizes a demonstration, how one builds up a movement, how one arrives at a correct view, how one arrives at an analysis, how one arrives at a theoretical organ – all these questions, which are still somewhat of a mystery to some people, are the subject of our training, and we help the comrades participate in them and put this on a scientific basis.
The eighth semester is concerned with the conscious application of the dialectical method
to organize the self-control of the party.
We developed it at the beginning of 2005 so that the entire party can draw fundamental and scientific conclusions from the crisis of the Central Control Commission.
So here we inaugurated a new era of the dialectics courses: the conscious application of the dialectical method at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking to deal with unsolved problems at focal points of the party’s development.
In 2005 alone more than 600 cadres of the party took part in this course, and undoubtedly it provided essential impulses enabling the CCC to overcome its deep crisis in the system of self-control, with the rank and file as main force and led by the Central Committee, and to regain its independence.
In proletarian control and self-control we have found a fundamental method with which the MLPD can successfully deal with the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
The general essence of proletarian control and self-control is identical with principled criticism and self-criticism.
At the same time, proletarian control and self-control is a further development of principled criticism and self-criticism as law of development of the party, because it not only learns from mistakes that are made so that they are not repeated; rather it is oriented to the future and the avoidance of mistakes.
Proletarian control and self-control are
the conscious application of the dialectical method
to cope with the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking
in Marxist-Leninist party building
for the purpose of avoiding mistakes, and
control and self-control form a dialectical unity
where one or the other aspect is emphasized
depending on the circumstances.
We then applied proletarian control and self-control to the MLPD’s system of self-control, to the dialectical interrelations of CC and CCC in the system of self-control, to the control from the bottom and to the self-control of the cadres.
The essence of the self-control of the cadres is a special strategy and tactics in the struggle over the mode of thinking for the purpose of dealing on one’s own with the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking.
It comprises three essential aspects as a dialectical unity:
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Revolutionary vigilance reveals the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking in all its aspects by bringing the subjective mode of thinking in accordance with objective reality through constant self-monitoring.
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To fight down the petty-bourgeois mode of thinking, the necessary self-discipline must be developed, for which proletarian ambition in struggle against petty-bourgeois ambition is the decisive driving force.
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Dialectical criticism and self-criticism continuously organize the willingness and ability for self-transformation in accordance with the never-ending process of further development of the struggle over the mode of thinking.
The ninth semester “Marxist-Leninist work among the youth” was worked out by us in early 2007.
It served to scientifically solve the most important unsolved practical problem of the MLPD’s work among youth.
Above all, clarity had to be created that the realization of the school for life of the proletarian mode of thinking among the masses of the youth requires coping successfully with modern antiauthoritarianism, something which only can be achieved in a comprehensive system of Marxist-Leninist youth work.
In contrast, in the party’s work among youth an ignorance of this conscious application of the dialectical method at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking had developed.
This course was an important incentive for reassimilating the youth policy line at the level of the doctrine of the mode of thinking and doubtlessly initiated a lasting solution to the problem of youth work.
As guidance for systematic work among youth by the comrades, in this course we also graphically represented the most important dialectical processes of Marxist-Leninist youth work as mass tactics of party building in the system of rank-and-file work.
When it was decided to reorganize the MLPD in Land and county organizations, which at the time involved the biggest change of cadres and organizational policy of the MLPD since it was founded, it became necessary to further develop the dialectical interrelationship of Central Committee, Land leaderships and country leaderships in a creative way.
This was somewhat disputed at first.
There was the metaphysical idea that the reorganization was a formal process which would mean changes only for the comrades of the intermediate levels, whereas the CC mainly could transfer tasks and the system of rank-and-file work at grassroots level would remain unchanged.
For this reason we developed training seminars under the direct leadership of the Political Leadership of the CC for learning Land leadership work on the basis of the proletarian mode of thinking.
We found out that the development of the MLPD to the party of the masses hinges on the higher development of Marxist-Leninist rank-and-file work as a system.
This seminar on the “system of Marxist-Leninist rank-and-file work” we now conduct as tenth semester of our series of courses in the entire organization.
The system of rank-and-file work guarantees that in the everyday party work of the MLPD all five fundamental aspects of party building are realized in their dialectical unity.
In this course we worked out the most important dialectical interrelations that we must observe in the system of rank-and-file work.
In the progress of this course we apply this to the dialectics of systematic party building and promotion of the self-organization of the masses, to factory and union work and neighborhood work and their dialectical interrelationship, to the work among youth, to apparatus and finance work in connection with the struggle against legalism, and also to the party’s system of self-control, the guarantee for Marxist-Leninist rank-and-file work on the basis of the proletarian mode of thinking.
That completes the presentation of this series of dialectics courses and its structure.
Thank you.