“Let us not forget this: when 'I raise my arm', my arm goes up. And the problem arises: what is left over if I subtract the fact that my arm goes up from the fact that I raise my arm?”
“The events of the future cannot be inferred from those of the present. Superstition is the belief in the causal nexus.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein
Communists embrace the philosophy of historical materialism: that human activity determines the real history of any society. When confined to the economic sphere, this activity lies at the foundation of the struggle between the classes of capitalist society. According to orthodox Marxism, this struggle is the primary factor in shaping all social phenomena. Class struggle bounds all social reality; it constructs the horizons for every social contradiction. However, it is crucial to note that the class struggle has this role only in the last instance. Here, we can treat ‘instances’ as other determinations, explanations for the cause of something. This means that the economic ‘cause’ is always the final one. The different spheres of society have their own justifications for the causes of social phenomena, too, but, under the basic premises of historical materialism, all those justifications are conditioned by the determinations of class struggle. The economic cause, on the other hand, is therefore unconditioned.
The explicit connection made between the history of society, which is essentially human history, and human activity may strike the modern reader as obvious and therefore not worth mentioning these days. Is it not plainly clear, and more so unsurprising, that the things humans do determine human history? It’s right there in the name: human history! However, we need to overcome our contemporary biases if we want to grasp what was truly radical about the old concepts that emerged during specific periods in the past. Besides, we should acknowledge the main theoretical achievement of the work of Marx and Engels. The fact that historical materialism appears to be common sense today is a testament to its successful integration into our historical sciences, the fields of knowledge that structure our understanding of the past. However, when Marx and Engels formulated it in the late nineteenth century, it was quite radical, positing itself against other contemporary historical theories, such as Carlyle’s individualistic “Great Man Theory” and Hegel’s absolute idealist conception of world history.
Historical materialism implies that the masses make history, as the class struggle occurs within a social collective and not simply with a group of a few or even many individuals. This is a ‘bare’ set of people, conceptually conferred with no social-structural features or relations, other than the necessary relation of membership: the shared feature or identity that defines who is and isn’t in the bare group. An example to make this clear is to consider the bare group of left-handed people. They are all left-handed, but in terms of conceptual identification, the matter ends there. This is not the case with ‘class’ since that concept involves the relations of the means of production. I will use the term bare group in this essay to distinguish a bare set of people from a social collective, such as a class.
The difference is qualitative in that, for a bare group to become a social collective, there must be some further quality that binds all its members together. This quality has to be ontological - essential to the very being of society. In standard sociological analysis, a person's belonging to a particular class corresponds to their position in a basic socioeconomic hierarchy, understood in terms of wealth indicators such as ‘yearly income’ or ‘net worth’. With historical materialism, however, a person’s class identity isn’t defined solely by their personal ‘rung’ in the ladder of wealth. A person belongs to a class insofar as they represent that class in the dialectical struggle that drives history. This is all just to reinforce the main point: the masses make history.
If we accept the basic premise of classical historical materialism and therefore also accept its implication of a collective (instead that individualistic, rationalistic, metaphysical, spiritual, etc) framework of history, it follows that there isn’t a strong causal link between the types of praxis that communist organizers/activists participate in within an organization and the long-term success or short-term wins of the communist revolution.
By ‘strong’, I simply mean the straightforward acceptance of the notion of causality - it is saying that the general form of the proposition “X causes Y” is valid and needs no further detailing, investigation, or modification. In other words, present conditions always follow directly from some antecedent conditions in the past. It is a ‘strong’ notion of causality because it ‘asks’ for the basic form of the concept as it is, without too much fuss. A ‘weak’ notion would involve some criticism or revision of the notion as it stands in the basic understanding.
Nonetheless, to discuss causality critically raises the question: why bother examining it if the notion works just fine in everyday life? We’re totally fine if we just keep a calm demeanor and don’t think about it too hard. Don’t make a fuss where it doesn’t exist. I assume this is the general stance of the average American communist.
Ironically, however, the nonchalant and pseudo-practical casting aside of problems in philosophy amounts, sadly, to looping back around to being a plain old philosopher. And a slipshod philosopher at that: accepting and endorsing sweeping propositions on the nature of reality, promoting a notion of causality bundled with all the theoretical issues compiled over the history of Western thought—paradoxes, contradictions, refutations, challenges, debunkings, etc. Despite the ‘dramatic’ philosophical stakes at risk with accepting strong causality, the average American considers causality an objective truth. They view the notion as correctly reflecting an unproblematic feature of our world. No investigation into ontology required. Suddenly, the peculiar and challenging field of philosophy becomes crystal clear. All the great problems of Western thought are resolved and eradicated, all in one fell swoop - all you have to do is ignore them!
For most, the immediate perception of causally related events furnishes no reason to critique or reject causality. They are more than happy to accept it as an absolute feature of reality. Or they just don’t care to scrutinize the notion in the first place, so there's no real ‘acceptance’ either. It isn’t a positive affirmation of strong causality - the average American doesn’t speculate on the matter for some time and declares, “Aha! Strong causality is true! That’s my stance!”.
I’m painting the intellectual concerns of Americans with broad strokes just to provide the scaffolding for my critique of the concept of causality in American communism. Admittedly, I am making an assumption here that causality, at least in the American context, does not ‘cause’ much fuss. I would be highly suspicious of anyone trying to refute me by claiming that the concept of causality is even as much as a passing concern for anyone who isn’t explicitly interested in formal philosophy or the natural sciences. These are by no means niche fields, yet they are still too obscure to support the refutation that causality is a common topic of concern. And even if we suppose that a much greater number of people are concerned with causality than I give credit for in my skeptical hunch, I would argue that the concern is superficial, since it doesn’t really constitute any public discourse beyond the cramped halls of philosophy departments, which are barely public. Regardless, while apathy towards causality is more than fine for the average person, the communist revolutionary cannot afford that care-free luxury.
Revolutionary praxis does not directly ‘cause’ political victories. This is not for the typical reason that communists are a marginal political force. Anti-causality applies to the whole course of the social revolution, as well as at its ‘ruptural’ stages and moments. One such stage is the emergence of the socialist state, which is the most immediate expression of real, long-term working-class hegemony. Such hegemony cannot be obtained as a direct consequence of enough communists doing the right work. Nor will praxis be causally responsible for any future short-term wins, given that it hasn’t been causally responsible for any ‘wins’ ever. This is, again, not due to practical failure on the part of communist inefficiencies. What is untenable is considering communist praxis the antecedent condition of revolutionary political power.
Understanding the nature of causality is one of the profoundly ‘hard’ problems of Western thought. Causality is a notion whose ubiquity is incredibly hard to overstate. Our everyday experience of the material world appears to take the existence and basic validity of causal determinism for granted. It seems undeniable that an event, at a given time, is determined by some antecedent event at a time in the past. Not to mention the fact that most of modern science assumes that the concept of causal determinism is true, or at least objective enough for operational reasons. Causality is inherent to every aspect of scientific experimentation. To experiment, the scientist must induce a change so that they can later observe the results. To analyze data, it is assumed that the data were produced or caused by the results of the experiment. Experimental repeatability means that observed causal effects necessarily persist in the same way when the experiment is repeated.
Nonetheless, the all-encompassing appearance of causality is illusory - it obscures the fact that it can be both overapplied and misapplied. We have all been aware of this possible mishandling of causal relations since our high school science class - think about when your teacher repeatedly warned you to be cautious when analyzing experimental data, as correlation does not imply causation. In the case of mistaking correlation for causation, it isn’t that the concept of causation is false in all cases, but that its naive use is untenable for that experiment. That is where the heart of my criticism lies - the erroneous effect the causal attitude has on communist praxis. We participate in the same activities even when correlation has disappeared, as a habit operating on the long, unquestioned belief that our current revolutionary praxis is correct praxis and that once enough people are converted and participating in that correct praxis, then the revolution will advance and succeed. Such thinking also confuses quantitative and qualitative change by identifying revolution with a sufficiently large number of people practicing ‘correctly’.
An example of this is clear when we pick and choose which organization to join based solely on its political program. A good-looking program entices communists, especially young communists, because there is an implicit assumption that the program fosters correct praxis, which will in turn lead to successful politics and a successful revolution. A similar error occurs when the program's praxis is assumed to be correct, not due to the program itself, but rather to some other factor, such as the perceived revolutionary authenticity of the members compared to other, more ‘unserious’ organizations (“These guys are legit! They are the real revolutionaries! I’m joining them!”).
To bring the essay back to its start, historical materialism partially affirms my critique. The entire social revolution, its developments, and ruptures are all historical processes that are necessarily carried out by the masses. This automatically bars the possibility of there being any strong causal link between communist praxis and revolutionary success because communists do not constitute a class. So their praxis isn’t the activity of the masses. It is qualitatively distinct praxis due to communists being a simple ‘bare group’ but not a class or a social collective proper. Communists as a group are not engaged in a dialectical contradiction with the ruling class as a whole because the relation of contradiction requires interdependence, which can only be provided by an entire class. Classes only go toe-to-toe with equals.
Although bare groups like communist revolutionaries can orchestrate successful political maneuvers, mass participation verifies such maneuvers as not only successful but truly political and revolutionary. Any praxis devoid of the mass element cannot be conceived as a successful manifestation and must instead be considered marginal, isolated, and in most actual cases, effectively sectarian by virtue of sheer numbers. Such acts are permissible so long as the communist organizer treats this kind of praxis purely as organizational maintenance (organizations, political or otherwise, always have necessary, baseline ‘grunt work’ to ensure that it continues to operate) and does not conflate it with proper political advancement.
When marginal praxis loses sight of its own isolation and misrecognizes itself as something more hegemonic than what it actually is, a poisonous hubris emerges in the communist organization that stifles growth and ultimately obliterates the formation. The self-critical and necessary question of whether one's own praxis, or the praxis of the organization, is correct disappears from the conversation. In the shadows of self-correction arises a dogmatic devotion to the ’plan’ set forth as correct praxis some mythical time long ago, whether it was early last month or early last century. The communist member doubles down in commitment: he wears a veneer of extraordinary faith to cope with the reality that his organization is crumbling and he has very little to show for it. Out of anxiety, the communist falls into the trap of sunk cost: they remain in narcissistic, unchanging organizations because they are in denial that such activity amounts to a wasted life. This is not all the result of accepting strong causality. My point is that an anti-causal approach to political interpretation carries the general critical attitude towards communist praxis that safeguards against this organization-destroying tendency - this political solipsism that only deepens communist marginality and personal misery.
It is the masses that also declare any political maneuver done by a communist organization victorious. This isn’t a declaration in the literal sense - the masses don’t gather on a huge stage in front of communists and shout “We approve!”. This non-literal approval can only be conceived retroactively and passively, after the event in question has already happened and has already been registered in our political memory. The masses declare’ approval by continuing to work alongside a real communist movement that is perpetually embedding itself in mass politics and culture. If the audience of a discursive act is made up entirely of other communists and socialists, fellow members of that isolated and vague ‘umbrella’ movement for American ‘anticapitalism’, then that class didn’t affirm the discursive act. If the masses find no reason to link up with your specific praxis, then, for all intents and purposes, this is a disapproval.
So the ever-lingering question of communist praxis, “What is to be done?” cannot be answered in the same sense as any plain old causal situation, one from everyday life that we feel no inclination to investigate. If I’m hungry in the morning, I know the answer to the question of “What is to be done?” immediately: I need to make breakfast. Politics is infinitely more complicated than whipping up eggs and bacon. Politics admits its anti-causal character for an essentially negative reason - a strong causal understanding of political phenomena is practically impossible to maintain. Such a strict causal understanding of praxis and political success masquerades as a commonsensical view of politics. After all, why wouldn’t our actions simply cause our class to gain hegemony and move one step closer to liberation? This hides the fact that this approach is not only useless and unproductive but also destructive.
The assumption of strong causality is destructive because it encourages communist praxis that is overly instrumental, overly functional, and excessively pragmatic. The Communist revolution is reduced to merely causing political successes to happen through correct praxis. Every action taken by the organization will be evaluated against the vague idea that certain acts will inevitably “push the needle forward”. Again, as historical materialists, we know it is impossible to do this as a bare group of communists and not a class, that the class is always the one “pushing the needle forward”. At this point, when the organization views its task in the strict causal sense, activism rears its ugly head. Activistic practice is identified as the apparent “needle-pushing” activity that qualifies as revolution-causing praxis.
This needle-pushing attitude reaches its highest expression in organizations as the heroic-martyr-like imago of the activist in modern Western society. This ideological and cultural iconography lures revolutionaries into what amounts to a political career of individualism and vagabondism in the form of floating from one failing socialist organization to the next. All the while, the activist slowly grows into an inspirational public figure (usually with the help of incendiary social media posts), thus helping reproduce the very imago that trapped them into activism in the first place. To have an attitude, whether conscious or not, of causality regarding praxis and political achievement produces the activist who becomes an organizational expert. The activist chases events for the sake of instrumental political action. They fixate on effective organizing as a way of being and not a political objective. The concrete ideology that was once guiding their praxis slowly fades, transforming into a vague non-ideology of anticapitalism. Particular tasks replace the unified political project of party building and counter-hegemony for a few broad progressive social movements. In the end, activism leads to apoliticism and revolutionary defeat.
The explanation for any phenomena in the political sphere is a result of the evolving relations in that sphere, the relations and interrelations that constitute the ongoing dialectic between the determinations and consequences of politics. The issue with causality here is range: the political sphere stretches so widely over the whole manifold of society that to try to understand all its wild and chaotic relations and interrelations through strict causality, especially one where praxis is the determinant, is like trying to lasso a bull with a shoelace. And to posit a strict causality between the praxis of communist revolutionaries and the success of the revolution is like confusing the exhilarating yet simulated ride on a mechanical bull with the real thing. Political phenomena are so contingent and overdetermined that it is social practice as a whole, and not praxis confined to a small set of general actions made by a bare group (organizing, activism), that orders and structures the determinations and consequences of the political sphere.
We often learn and express history in a way that assumes and subconsciously posits these strong causal relations between political practice and the success of political movements. It is because of the Battle of Waterloo that Napoleon’s regime came to its end, isn't it? Waterloo certainly is political praxis - not just in the generalized sense of human activity within politics, but the application of a specific political stance, guided by a concrete ideology. But the end of Napoleon’s regime obviously could not have been directly linked to that defeat, as other conditions had to exist for the defeat even to be historicized as the cause of Napoleon’s fall. Napoleon must have lost favor with certain sections of the French people, as evidenced by the need for a pact between the European powers, etc. Even Corsica had to be isolated enough for the former French ruler to live out his last years quietly and without much fuss. Are these not all proper causes for the end of the Napoleonic era?
Despite the untenability of strong causality, there, in fact, is correct and incorrect praxis. But correction and incorrection can be understood only insofar as such praxis conditions the revolution and doesn’t cause it. In America, this translates to the conditioning of an intellectual culture that prefigures the emergence (really the re-emergence) of the vanguardist party. The masses make history, but the vanguardist party articulates this historical process in the form of a general discourse constituted by political activities, theoretical works, cultural narratives, myths, scientific conceptions, arts, public demonstrations, speeches, in a word, generalized discursive acts. The ideological role of the party is to give this historical process a direction.