Ep 395 Ideology: What Is It? Why Have It?

Episode 395 of RevolutionZ continues our What Is To Be Undone sequence of excerpts to this time discuss ideology in general, not yet specific ones. Ideology decides what we pay attention to and what we miss. It tells us what we should call realistic and what we should instead consider impossible. It guides us concerning what and how to win. And that means that whether consciously or not ideology steers every plan we make. I (Michael Albert) step back from our frequent immediate concrete context to ask an abstract but nonetheless important question: what is ideology, what is it for, and when does it start producing the very failures it claims to prevent? 

To get started, I borrow Thomas Kuhn’s famous idea of paradigms in science and their long stretches of “normal” puzzle-solving inside a shared framework, followed by times of crisis when anomalies pile up and the framework can’t handle them. Then I apply that model to revolutionary politics, where paradigm becomes revolutionary ideology which is theory, strategy, and practice working together to understand society to change it. The shift from natural science to social change matters because the end goal of the latter is not just knowledge but transformation, so the loop between understanding and action has to be always self-correcting instead of sometimes self-protecting. 

The episode discusses how theory is built through abstraction, why narrow theories can look complete due to hiding what they leave out, and how that type blindness can distort left organizing just as easily as it distorts capitalist “common sense.” We also walk through how strategy should be judged, how strategy, tactics, and practice should inform each other, and why movements need built-in ways to learn from reality rather than defend a fixed line. We then close with a sharp set of questions for our current moment and a pointed song lyric that skewers vanguard certainty and sectarian habits. 

If you care about revolutionary strategy, political ideology, and building effective movements, I hope you will listen through to the end and let me know your reaction. Next week we will present Classical Marxism in what I hope is a fair and even an inspiring manner. 

Transcript

Why Talk About Ideology

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Hello, my name is Michael Albert, and I'm the host of the podcast that's titled Revolution Z. This is our three hundred and ninety fifth consecutive episode, and it talks about ideology. What is it and why have it? Do we know? Can we agree? Should we, before each of us considers and evaluates whatever concepts, views, aims, and strategies inform our own choices. Most of this episode, like the last three, was conceived and written back in the early nineteen seventies. It is excerpted from a book published in nineteen seventy four. The book was and is titled What is to be undone, which was a word play on Lenin's famous title. This is, however, a bit different than the earlier three excerpts, and even different from those to come. This one may feel sort of academic. The kind of thing some philosophy class or something like that might address, arcane and abstract. And since I can't go on forever, it may also feel like it lacks examples along the way, though those will come later. I'd react that way too, I suspect, but there is a reason in the madness. I want to soon look at classical ideologies in an effort to discern flaws we need to escape. I will be looking at them from the vantage I had in nineteen seventy two, seventy three. Why? Because that was when some think leftists took a wrong turn away from classical ideologies. Did we? It was when I got serious about trying to think about new ideology. I will, however, interject my more current takes on the material at times as we proceed. Okay, fine. But still, why this particular episode? Why talk about ideology in general in the abstract? Well, it is to get on the same page, or at least to know what page we are on as we start to get into more specific assessments. And it is also to get some idea of what kinds of assessments, what kinds of approach to take when thinking about ideologies.

Kuhn And How Paradigms Work

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At any rate, like each chapter in the excerpted book, this chapter two starts with an offset quotation. This time it is from Thomas Kuhn, and it goes like this What a person sees depends upon both what he looks at and also what her previous visual conceptual experience has taught him to see. In the absence of such training, there can only be in William James' phrase a bloomin' buzzin' confusion. Then the chapter proceeds. Wanting to get beyond confusion, we want to present and critique classical Marxism Leninism to develop insights for improving it to fit our own modern context. What should we study most? What aspects of the whole should we emphasize? In what order should we discuss various aspects? Can we give our study of Marxism Leninism or any proposed ideology a guiding thrust that will help organize our whole effort? And in a prior sense, can we even motivate studying classical ideology with a clear understanding about how theories are generally developed and judged? I wrote back then that people answer these questions many different ways. We base our approach on a general store of scientific training and on an extension of Thomas Kuhn's analysis of similar issues, precisely because those analyses seem the most accepted, the most suited to our ends, and the most correct of any available. I add, at least back in nineteen seventy two, seventy three. Kuhn says the natural sciences, like physic, chemistry, biology, and so on, move forward by way of alternating evolutionary and then revolutionary periods. During evolutionary development, a widely held collection of thoughts, methods, beliefs, and so on are advanced in accord with their own internally determined dictates. During revolutionary development, the same consciousness collection, or as Kuhn calls it, the same paradigm, is overthrown, which is to say, advanced by negation and replacement due to developments lying outside its own previous vision and criteria. In the evolutionary period, there is what Kuhn calls normal science. The generally accepted paradigm is applied to ever greater numbers of phenomena. Scientists improve, verify, enlarge, and adapt it by constant reapplications. Essentially, in Kuhn's words, they engage in quote puzzle solving. They try to fit the world to their paradigm's categories and dynamic expectations. They guide their efforts according to their paradigm's dictates. They approach problems because their paradigm orients them to do so, and because it says they can succeed in finding solutions. Closely examined, whether historically or in the contemporary laboratory, that enterprise seems an attempt to force nature into the preformed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies. I interject for social ideology, this was the orientation of a subset of new leftists who, on coming out of the sixties, and earlier too, looked to utilize classical ideologies, Marxism, Leninism, anarchism, Maoism, to continue their evolutionary journey. The chapter continues, but during the evolutionary period, as the many new problems to which any paradigm gives rise are being sorted out and solved, some prove quite intractable. Others, also intractable, are discovered accidentally, outside the realms toward which the paradigm actually pushes its practitioners. Eventually there is an accumulation of what Kuhn called anomalous problems, which practitioners find important and troubling, but which are seen as unimportant within the context of their paradigm, and are in any case unsolvable by it. Many practitioners, then, simply put the problems aside, and often don't even recognize them in the first place due to their normal science faith in their well tested beliefs. Other practitioners instead can't help but see the importance of the new problems and begin to try to alter their paradigms in accord. Then normal science reaches what Kuhn calls a state of crisis activity. Resolution comes by way of supersession of old paradigms by new ones. The scientists who saw reality in terms of one set of beliefs, concepts, and methods before such resolution sees it by a different set after. In a sense, practitioners' world views alter. I interject. For Kuhn, what he was looking at was things like the switch from classical to general the switch to relativity theory, or the switch from classical Newtonian mechanics to quantum mechanics. At any rate, the chapter continues. The debate between old and new during transition is typically extremely impassioned and confused. Each side approaches issues differently. What one says is important evidence in favor of its paradigm is irrelevant to the other, and vice versa. Nonetheless, by dynamics Kune describes, in revolutions there is a gradual transition to a new paradigm and then to a new normal science. I interject. My reaction to the problems of the sixties was that our ways of thinking and evaluating and so on were insufficient to prevent or word off problems that severely hurt our efforts. I had a feeling we needed a new paradigm ideology. I thought the way to decide if that was true was to look critically at those that were then available. Another option would have been to just double down with one of them, or to decide we don't need shared views and strategy at all. I opted to try to undertake a critical evaluation. The chapter continued Probably the single most important prevalent claim advanced by proponents of a new paradigm is that they can solve the problems that have led the old paradigm to crisis. When that claim can legitimately be made, it is often the most effective one possible. In moving the analysis from the hard to the social sciences or to the even softer ones that bear on social change, contours alter, but nonetheless, Kune's motto remains at least roughly applicable. Thus in revolutionary science, understanding the world to change it, paradigm equals ideology, and classical ideology equals theory, strategy, and practice. And that equals Marxism Leninism, anarchism, or Maoism, for example. There are three questions we need to answer to apply Keun's model to our subject. First, what is the purpose of a revolutionary paradigm and of each of its parts? Second, what are the parts in more detail, including potential roots of their strengths and weaknesses? And third, how do the parts interrelate to form a whole? And what are its specific dynamics? Are they working for us or are they failing

Translating Paradigms Into Revolutionary Ideology

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us? A physics paradigm of the kind Kuhn centers his studies on informs its holders about the physical world, the real physical world, and gives them ways of understanding and affecting it. It guides their endeavors by giving methods and directions of concern. Similarly, a revolutionary paradigm or an ideology informs its holders about the socio political economic world, gives them ways of understanding and affecting it, and guides their efforts by providing methods and directions of concern. Yet even though each type paradigm seems to do pretty much the same things for its practitioners, the ultimate purposes of the two types of paradigms, natural and social revolutionary are somewhat skewed from one another. Thus, with the physics paradigm, for example, the ultimate emphasis is on knowledge, whereas with the revolutionary paradigm, the ultimate emphasis is on change. For both the physicist and the revolutionary, knowledge and activity are to serve each other. Each must provide guidelines and ways of improving the other. And yet in the last analysis, the physicist does experiments to further knowledge, while the revolutionary uses knowledge to further experiment, which is to say, struggle. There is a critical inversion of theory practice priorities, and it is this that complicates a Cuneian analysis of sociopolitical paradigm development. And that must be recognized to answer the question, quote, what is the purpose of a revolutionary paradigm? And to get at the more detailed analysis of the purposes of revolutionary theory strategy and practice. Normal science in the revolutionary context is the process by which, for example, Marxists, Leninists, anarchists, or Maoists pursue studies of the world and engage in practice in accord with their ideologies' dictates. Thus each group sees things somewhat differently from the others, employs somewhat different priorities and so on. But at least when functioning normally, each moves steadily and calmly forward in self consistent ways. Like for the hard scientists functioning normally, day to day normal revolutionary practice encounters few surprises and is essentially a puzzle solving and doing dynamic that occurs very much in expected and preordained ways. Crisis science is, on the other hand, the process by which the paradigms struggle with one another, and with non revolutionary alternatives for social dominance. They generate debate about each other's suppositions, and even more than with the hard sciences, because of the extra involved interests, the debate is a torturous and even a violent one, in which no side gives much credence to the formulations of any other. Resolution would be the success of any one revolutionary paradigm and gaining nearly full domination over all the others, or at least full domination for some subset of actors. For the purposes of this book, however, we begin by asserting such a resolution, with classical Marxism Leninism as a core around which normal activities proceed. Later, after dealing with classical Marxism Leninism, as if it were the only ideological possibility, we admit the existence of anarchism, Maoism, and some contemporary neo Marxist views as well, and consider them too. Thus, for the moment, our available revolutionary paradigm is classical Marxism Leninism. And we, or at least I, in the early nineteen seventies, and now too, feel a definite crisis. The quote anomalous problems to which it denies importance, and in any case which does not help us solve related concerns revolve around usability, racism, sexism, authority, socialization dynamics, the relationship between consciousness and general day to day activity, the dynamics between social and movement relations, and people's consciousnesses, needs, and feelings, the nature of bureaucracy, the ability of people to understand local situations and analyze local tactics, and what we seek are vision. I interject a bit idiosyncratically, that while I recognize all this as having been on my mind back then, I notice a striking absence too. Where is class? I don't know if it is that I already had by then grave doubts or even strong new views regarding that dimension, which in time would occupy so much of my attention, or if I just had less awareness of difficulty. I guess we will see. And the same goes for vision not

Crisis Problems Classical Ideology Misses

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being listed prominently way back then. I did not take for granted that my intuition that there were serious problems was right, was right. That's why I undertook to try to critically evaluate existent paradigms. The chapter continues according to Cooney and logic, our task, remember, I interject, as seen in the nineteen seventies, by a young whippersnapper with considerable training in physics and math, but in little else, is to therefore clearly define our classical paradigm and then examine it with reference to its various problems. We should try to discover how the paradigm might yet eventually solve our unsolved problems, or how, if it can't, some other altered one might. In the latter event, we could then try as our first tentative alternatives the anarchist and Maoist paradigms, to either adopt one or reject both, while learning still more about what a finally successful paradigm would have to be like. Our critical study is thus justified by the state of crisis we perceive in classical Marxism Leninism's abilities to handle today's then and now's crucial revolutionary problems. I interject. This was as the problems existed coming out of the sixties, when, remember, one twenty twenty five interpretation of the emerging situation then was that we activists had made a mistake getting tricked into or coerced into or enticed into jettisoning too many classical insights. Now it is as the problem as exists now, coming out of a half century activism since back then, which gave us various very significant social gains, but also a current drift toward full on fascism. The chapter continues A good result of our study would be either a recognition of how the classical paradigm can finally solve its problems, or of why it can't, and how an altered new paradigm might be able to. So how then should we proceed with our critical study? In what order should we approach the body of classical Marxist Leninist thought? What should we emphasize and what should we only gloss over? To answer requires a better understanding of the internal relations of any revolutionary paradigm's three component parts theory, strategy, and practice. Such an understanding will tell us how to study each

What Theory Is And What It Hides

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part with an eye toward most readily discovering from where the whole's anomalous weaknesses are derived. So first, what are theories? How are they constructed and used? What are the areas of their strengths and weaknesses? And how might they be studied most effectively, especially when one is looking to overthrow them and their whole parent paradigm? Theories are collections of ideas people use to understand the realities they encounter. Theories have one part which describes the elements of reality, and another part which talks about how those elements interact, where the latter allows predictions concerning what they will do in varying situations. Social theories refer to realities of people and institutions, but are necessarily abstract. They do not explain everything in their reference systems, but only those parts considered important. Thus, quote, what is important and included in discussion, and quote what is unimportant and abstracted out, become crucial questions in social theorizing. As Paul Sweezy, who was, I interject, a central figure of Monthly Review Press back then, writes, quote, The legitimate purpose of abstraction in social science is never to get away from the real world, but rather to isolate certain aspects of the real world for intensive investigation. When, therefore, we say that we are operating at a high level of abstraction, we mean that we are dealing with a relatively small number of aspects of reality. We emphatically do not mean that those aspects with which we are dealing are not capable of historical investigation and factual illustration. Thus we have our first guideline for theory construction. For clarity, conciseness, and usability, one must abstract out all that is unimportant. For correctness and wholeness, one must include all that is important. One must abstract away the unessential while making sure not to eliminate from consideration anything essential. But this suggests a problem. How does one determine what is essential before having a theory which explains the whole? And essential to what? Well, in our case, essential to winning social change. The best way around this catch twenty two is caution and a flexible willingness to reformulate one's views over and over as one's insights grow more and more complete. The frequent subjective and obviously flawed way around the catch twenty two is to determine what is important on the basis of self-interested speculations, and to then bend everything to suit that first determination rather than vice versa. For example, a factory owner runs his enterprise according to a certain social economic theory of business. It produces well, profits continually rise, his life goes according to plan, and he is reasonably content with the whole situation. He doesn't notice his factory's effects effects on his employees' lives, or on their families, or on the ecology, or on his compute consumers. His theory obscures all that, effectively removing it all from his awareness, except to the extent any of it threatens his profits. Others bear the costs of his profit taking, and he goes unaware of all that occurs outside the abstractions of his business school theories of life. Then his workers strike, and he alters his views somewhat by including references to salaries in his calculations. Then consumers protest and ecologists clamor, and again he adapts his theories precisely to the extent to which he is forced. The lesson of our capitalist behavior is relatively clear. Social theories are often rooted in self-interested desires. They are often narrow, but nonetheless the user usually convinces themselves that the theories are not narrow but complete. They get away with this self-interested self deception precisely because their theory's narrowness obligingly hides from their view, in a sense, behind its own absent elements. Narrow theories often seem complete because they are logically sound and force their practitioners to overlook such narrowness by steering their attentions away from the ensuing flawed results. Narrow theories appear good to their believers because they are perceived through self-created blinders, especially adapted to block out all that is flawed. All of this applies to leftists as well as to capitalists. When revolutionists use a narrow theory, They too can be expected to create partially counterproductive programs that ignore certain relevant aspects of the total spectrum of effects of their implementation. Narrow minded revolutionists function in that respect very similar to narrow minded capitalists. They too blunder on in their mistakes, blind to the realities around them precisely because their theories so constrained their perceptions. I have to interject. Reading this, I suspect I had lurking in my mind even back then what would later become a central focus, that the classical theory included distorted class concepts that ignored and obscured the existence of a third class between labor and capital. Or perhaps I stumbled on to that recognition later because of a prior awareness of the kinds of flaw an ideology might have. Either way, the chapter from what is to be undone continued. Theories can therefore be weak in at least three different ways. They can have inaccurate or incomplete descriptions of important realities. They can have incorrect understandings of the ways important realities interact. Or they can be too narrow. They can exclude from consideration details actually intimately connected to the results a practitioner's re a practitioner's actions might have. Thus social theory must correspond to social reality as closely as possible, and all its lacks of correspondence must be well understood by its practitioners. Its positive assertions and its abstractions must be equally justified. To construct a social theory, we should try to organize our efforts in light of these insights, and criticizing a theory, we should profitably do the same. We will set out descriptions of classical Marxism Leninism's views of world reality and of world interactions. We will examine the relations between its theory and its practitioners, and we will take into account the

How Strategy Should Be Judged

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accuracy and justification for its abstractions of all types. But just understanding, even in rather deep complexity, is never quite enough. One wants also to affect. Marxist Leninists with goals and general theoretical understandings form more or less detailed plans of action or strategy. To have a full program for analyzing the Marxist Leninist paradigm, we must also know how we should approach its strategic aspects. Strategies guide us toward desired goals. How well do they derive from theory? Do they get us where we wish to go? And do they minimize expenses and side complications? These are criteria for judging strategies, and they are certainly easy enough to apply, at least if one is an objective and well informed evaluator rather than a participant in a specific set of events. The communist, for example, feels that the capitalist's approach to transportation problems is idiotic precisely because it creates even larger problems than those it was aiming to solve. The communist thinks the capitalist strategy is poor and would at least in some cases explain it by saying that capitalist theory is self-interestedly narrow. On the other side of the coin, the capitalist feels that communist strategy is ridiculous because even if it does solve a few social inadequacies, it does so at too great a cost and never to be regained lost human freedoms. Here, too, the smart capitalists would probably find the roots of the purported problem in self-interestedly narrow authoritarian theory rather than in the incompetence of the theory's practitioners. Strategies move from vagueness to preciseness as their practitioners learn ever more about the systems on which they are working, the goals they are seeking, and the tools they are using. Strategy emerges from theory. The more comprehensive the theory, the more potentially precise and accurate the strategy. The more incomplete the theory, the more vague the strategy and the greater the need for constant enhancement. So analyzing strategies is essentially a problem of seeing whether they really do fit the environs they are applied to and aim consistently at the goals they are supposedly seeking. The problem exists in translating an understanding of a theory's strengths and weaknesses to the level of its compatible and thus similarly powerful or afflicted strategy. What about tactics and practice? Practice is

Tactics Practice And Feedback Loops

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a favorite word of leftists, usually used in reference to the activities of people trying to change their environments and in turn being changed by those environments. Tactics, another often used word, are well defined ways of practicing that occur over and over whenever roughly the same conditions arise. So there are military tactics, race car driving tactics, medical tactics, business tactics, house painting tactics, production line tactics, literary tactics, and revolutionary tactics. Most practice is simply the application of variations of such tactics in concrete active situations. I interject. As I read this, I remember the times and circumstances. Did you notice in the list of type of tactics, house painting tactics? Where'd that come from? Well, I don't remember writing it, of course, but I do think now it was either the young whippersnapper having a bit of fun, since while I was writing this, Robin Hannell and I were working at yep, painting houses to get income. And I was often conversing with him about the ideas, sometimes with us each high up on ladders painting the side of a house. The chapter continues. Tactics are chosen because of the ways they fulfill strategic dictates. When there is no strategy, practice often becomes problematic and thus ineffectual. Strategy affects tactics and vice versa. Strategy allows a rational choice of tactics, and knowledge of all available tactics allows formulation of the most economical strategies. Consider two military strategists. Confronting with obstacles and a goal, an effective strategist has a knowledge of available tactics and a theory for understanding the whole situation and the varying effects that different chosen acts would have upon it. The ineffective one does not. The effective one forms a strategy based on a complete understanding and begins implementing it and thus moving toward inexorable success. The ineffective one perhaps forms a plan that depends on tactics that aren't even available options, or whose effects are misunderstood, or perhaps forms no plan at all, merely blundering ahead in redundancy and error. What about political consciousness? Good strategy uses whatever is available to accomplish as much as possible. Knowledge of tactical options and their likely outcomes provides a foundation for creating powerful strategy, and good strategy then in turn provides general criteria for deciding what tactics to actually use in what circumstances, in what sequences. But even when a practitioner has a highly accurate theory, a good knowledge of tactics, and a good strategic sense, things are never likely to occur exactly as planned. If not because of error, then certainly because real practice often leads to unforeseen developments which then demand changes in theory or strategy. The militarist comes up against an unforeseen situation in the field and alters strategy. Or someone discovers new forms of weaponry, and that leads to an enrichment of military theory. Or similarly for the painter, doctor, revolutionist, or whatever. In general, social theories are incomplete and depend upon descriptions of very complicated objects. They must constantly be adapted in accordance with new experiences and insights discovered through ongoing normal practice. Only then can they approach correctness and provide a basis for ever enriched strategy. In summary, strategy provides criteria for choosing tactics. Practice is the means for implementing and correcting theory and strategy. Theory provides the framework within which strategy and tactics function, a means for anticipating their various possible effects, and a means for understanding what goals are realistic for any whole situation. Revolutionaries are usually concerned with changing the whole natures of their societies. In their work they want the smallest possible margin for error, and especially for the repetition of error. They thus require that the flow from theory to strategy to practice and back include effective corrective mechanisms. Ideally, the revolutionist functions with a good social theory and a broad, flexible strategy for change. He or she develops a full understanding of as many tactics as possible strikes, boycotts, parliamentary, electoral tactics, ways of organizing and communicating, civil disobedience, marches, sabotage, styles of behavior and living, etc., and of the ways their use affects various relevant situations, and then engages in self-conscious practice. Ideally, the revolutionist learns more and more about tactics while constantly refining strategy and theory to make them more accurate and richer in content. So good revolutionary theory strategy and practice, or good revolutionary ideology and practice, is a totality, which is always incomplete but constantly going forward, each aspect providing the criteria for the worth and growth of the others. Theory provides a worldview. Long term strategy

Why Immutable Doctrine Fails Movements

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provides guidelines for activity. In conjunction with one's goal, what we seek, theory and strategy together compose a revolutionary paradigm which guides revolutionary thought, analysis, planning, and action. To minimize errors and dogmatism, such a consciousness must be self-correcting and growth oriented. It must not stagnate. It must alter to fit changing realities rather than to merely rationalize changing realities in order to preserve itself. It must be rational, verifiable, rather than irrational, religious. Though a revolutionary ideology may have weaknesses, it should eliminate them over time. Indeed, good revolutionary consciousness should have a tendency toward continual realteration built right into its methods and especially into its strategy and associated practice. So what have we? Classical Marxism is a revolutionary social theory, and classical Marxism Leninism is a revolutionary ideology or paradigm. Virtually all Marxist Leninist organizations I have contact with as of nineteen seventy four, and still as well, consider their social theory and strategy immutable, and indeed seem to get their identities and authority from that avowed permanence. This constitutes a dismal state of affairs. Not only because of the stagnation involved, but also because the theory and strategy are actually flawed. Our purpose is to formulate classical Marxism Leninism in as clear a manner as we can, so that we might discover what parts of it are useful, what parts are not, and in what ways it might be enriched or altered. To the same ends we shall also talk about Maoism and anarchism. Since we already know back then from our sixties experiences, that then present consciousness needs and correlated immediate revolutionary crises resolve in part around our getting new methodologies, as well as new, very organic, usable understandings of racism, sexism, authority, consciousness, and motivation in general, our expositions of classical Marxism, Leninism, Anarchism, and Maoism are organized in accord. We go step by step, examining those aspects, reflecting most on our particular needs, eventually building edifices in which the origin of the strengths and weaknesses with regard to those needs is clearly evident. Thus, as an answer to our definite need for a plan of approach, we first present classical Marxist Leninist theory and strategy, and then criticize practice, strategy, and theory in sequence, with a final summary for clarification. I interject. Again, I noticed back then a striking relative absence, vision, which in time became for me a central focus. In this discussion, so far goes, largely unmentioned. This was likely the flip side of the earlier noticed relative lack of reference to class. I think both were there, but not yet clear. In any case, the early seventies discussion continued. The chapters presenting classical Leninism, criticizing Bolshevism, and criticizing classical Leninism have considerable overlap, but it is to be hoped that that aggravation will be offset by the gain in logic of exposition, and by the fact that the material discussed is not very well known. In the end, we hope we will have some agreement about the weaknesses of the classical Marxist Leninist paradigm. Then, after discussion of the anarchist and Maoist alternatives, we hope we'll also have some agreement about where to jump off in forming a new revolutionary paradigm that could more effectively guide future revolutionary practice than any other past ones. It is necessary for us to move energetically, but also competently. As Fido Castro put it, quote, the duty of every revolutionary is to make the revolution. It is known that the revolution will triumph in America and throughout the world, but it is not for revolutionaries to sit in the doorways of their houses waiting for the corpses of imperialism to pass by. The role of job doesn't suit a revolutionary. Each year that the liberation of America is speeded up will mean the lives of millions of children saved, millions of intelligences saved for culture, and an infinite quantity of pain spared the people. I interject.

Old Ideologies Or A New One

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And so ended that chapter of what is to be undone. And so where are we at in our sequence of episodes about ideology that we have begun to try to address the questions is current left ideology, now in twenty twenty six, fine or flawed? Does it need continued allegiance or overhaul, or even replacement? Back in the early seventies, what is to be undone looked at the recent practice of the new left and found lots of problems. The question arose for some, did we need to merely do a better job understanding and applying Marxist Leninist or anarchist or Maoist insights and avoiding temptations or coercions that might divert us from the already available and worthy choice? Put differently, did we just need to do normal revolutionary pursuits better? Were our heads already on right? Or did we need to look closely at our then existent ideologies, which are still with us now, to discern their flaws and revolutionize our thoughts to find new ideology? Did we need to hunker down as we were, to persist with ideas from dead men's minds firmly cemented into our own heads? Or did we need to consult our own experiences and revamp our theory, strategy, and tactics, reorient our heads? Similarly, not then, but now, from within Trump's shadow, do we need to turn to classical Marxism Leninism or do we need to develop new ideology? I hope that question is meaningful for all who are hearing this. I hope whichever way you lean, you will want to do the work of thinking through the options like I am going to try to do in coming episodes.

Vanguard Satire And The Sign Off

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And to end this episode, here are the lyrics to a song titled Vanguard that we might want to keep in mind as we proceed. As you hear these lyrics, do you think this song is just off the rails? Just funny satire? Just good reporting? Or a serious entreaty? It is from singer songwriter David Rovics, and I think it was written roughly twenty years ago. It goes like this Workers World says they have all the answers, and Milosevic is a guy that they admire. The ISO says Trotsky is the man, and they'll debate it until they all expire. The industrial workers will lead the revolution, so claims the SWP. No, the truth lies among the lumpen. That's the RCP. The sports say the rest can go to hell, and everyone else is a Stalinist. The CP will just do their thing and pretend the others don't exist. Well I had a realization this morning when I looked into the red and dawning sun. I figured out the truth. Then I'm forming a party of one. I am the leader of the workers, and I'll tell you why the leftists suspect. Because there's something you don't understand. Only my line is correct, because I'm the vanguard of the masses, and all of you should just follow me. If you doubt my analysis, you must be in the petty bourgeoisie. But I am not sectarian, it's all the rest who are. I work fine in coalitions, as long as I'm the shining star. So bow down to your master, the latest VI Lennon, and off to the camps to all of you who'd say not this again. And I'll have no music at my protests and none of that goddamn puppetry. I'll just have some somber slogans, no decadent friviality. My chance will be the right ones, just the ones that should be said, and my banners will wave proudly just the proper shade of red. And I will build the party if it kills me. I am solely dedicated to the cause. If I have to stab you in the back, that won't give me pause, 'cause my platform will take us forward, and the ends always justify the means, but you must step aside behind me, be you Quakers, Jews, anarchists, or greens. I am the leader of the workers, and I'll tell you why the left is suspect. Because there's something you don't understand. Only my line is correct, because I'm in the vanguard of the masses, and all of you should just follow me. If you doubt my analysis, you must be in the petty bourgeoisie. That is from David Rovics, and this is Michael Albert signing off for Revolution Z, until next time, when we present what is to be on Dunn's presentation of classical Marxism as a positive theory that we can choose to adopt or to critique and perhaps reject.