This
piece is a memo to the Nigerian Left. In an ideal situation, on account of the
importance I attach to the subject, the document would have appeared, first, as
an internal memo to an appropriate organ of the
movement. For the same reason of importance, it would not have stopped at the
organ or leadership level. The memo would have passed to the movement as a
whole and, thereafter, to the public.
However, because the situation is not ideal—and this is the subject
of the memo—I am moving directly to the public. The message in the memo comes
at the end of the article. It is a short and direct one. I am therefore
utilizing the available space to reflect on a related issue of general
interest. The “related issue” supplies the title of the piece. And, “for the
avoidance of doubt” and “for completeness”, I define the Nigerian Left in this
historical epoch as the aggregate of Marxists, socialists and partisans of
popular democracy.
Found in one of the “mountains” of papers, drafts and study notes
left behind by Karl Marx at his death in 1883 was a rough document carrying a
series of his critical observations on the works of the materialist
philosopher, Ludwig Feuerbach. The discovery was made by Marx’s life-long
friend and collaborator, Friedrich Engels. The latter considered the note
important enough to be edited, titled and published post-humously as an article
and later used for a larger publication. This post-humous article, written by
Marx in Brussels in the first half of 1845, and published in 1888 by Engels,
has been passed to history and to us as Theses on
Feuerbach. In Engels’ view, the “note” which later became Theses on Feuerbach was “the first document in
which is deposited the brilliant germ of a new world outlook”, that is, the
Marxist theory of history and society. That is for interested students and
researchers to examine.
It may interest Nigerian Leftists, progressives, patriots and
radical democrats to know that I have also discovered important “theses” in the
papers left behind by a number of our departed comrades and compatriots. I have
drawn the attention of some comrades to this development. What is interesting
in the latter discoveries is that the “theses” have now shed more light on some
critical issues that were bitterly debated in the Nigerian Left some decades
ago. Some of these issues had led to seemingly irreconcilable divisions and
fights; others had led to frustrations, disillusionment, abandonment and
premature retirement from struggle.
Back now to Marx’s Theses on
Feuerbach. There are eleven of them, or rather, in my view,
Engels and latter editors handed over Marx’s theses on Feuerbach to us in
eleven segments of unequal lengths. Historically and in broad terms, Marx can
be classified, along with Ludwig Feuerbach, as a “materialist” philosopher in
contrast to “idealist” philosophers of whom the most famous and best known in
Europe of Marx’s time was Hegel. Marx, a student of philosophy and history,
started off as a radical or Left Hegelian.
From here he became a critic of Hegel and came under the influence
of Feuerbach, a radical anti-Hegelian. It was in the course of confronting the
“inadequacies” of Feuerbach that Marx formulated his “theses”. In these theses
he called Feuerbach’s materialism the “old materialism” or “mechanical
materialism” and his own “the new materialism”. The latter was later
codified—after Marx’s death—as Marxist theory of history and society.
I consider three of Marx’s eleven theses on Feuerbach—the second,
the third and the eleventh—as the most lucid and direct applications of
dialectics to the study of history and society. The second thesis can be
rendered as follows: “The question whether objective truth can be attributed to
human thinking is not a question of theory. It is a practical question. In
practice, a human being must prove the truth, that is, the reality and power of
his thinking. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking which is isolated
from practice is a purely scholastic question”.
The third thesis may be rendered like this: “The doctrine that human
beings are products of circumstances and education and that, therefore, changed
human beings are products of other circumstances and changed education forgets
that the educator himself needs educating. That doctrine
as presented by old materialism or contemplative materialism necessarily
arrives at dividing society into two parts—one of which is superior to the
other. That is not so. In reality the changing of circumstances and human
activity coincide; and the coincidence can be conceived and rationally
understood only as revolutionary
practice.”
The eleventh thesis is the most well-known and is often quoted by
revolutionaries and reactionaries alike: “The philosophers have only
interpreted the world in various ways; the point, however, is to change it”. To
these three theses we may add the following line from Marx’s The Holy Family written just before the Theses:
“If a human being is formed by his/her circumstances, then his/her
circumstances must be made human.”
We may now move to my message to the Nigerian Left—the main subject
of this piece. The message resolves into seven propositions.
The first is the “covering” proposition. It is general in nature. The
other six are specific. One: There
should be initiated in the Nigerian Left a process of internal criticism,
education and correction. It should be a process that ends in an organizational
leap. The process and the leap are now demanded more than ever before in our
post-Civil War history. Two: The
national situation in our country now strongly demands that the existing
political groups, organisations and parties of the Nigerian Left—as well as
unaffiliated Leftists— should combine to form a central political platform. Three: This platform should have a dual form:
electoral and non-electoral.
The fourth proposition
is this: Independently, Marxists within the Nigerian Left should establish an
educational-ideological centre with the capacity for minimum continuity. Five: The centre should be appropriately allied
to the political platform; and the two should support and nourish each other. Six: The Nigerian Left should articulate and
publish a manifesto that goes beyond being a general presentation. The
manifesto should take clear and precise positions on the burning questions of
the time. Seven: If the
Nigerian Left cannot meet these elementary conditions to confront the
challenges of the present stage of our history then it has no basis to enter
electoral politics or seek electoral alliance with anybody.
In May 1949, at the start of the anti-communist hysteria which swept
America after World War II, a number of American Marxists who were also
academics and public intellectuals came together and established an
enlightenment-ideological centre. The centre went on to establish a monthly
“independent socialist magazine” called Monthly
Review.
Paul Sweezy and Leo Huberman were the magazine’s co-founders and
foundation editors. Today, 69 years later, Monthly Review is not only
still appearing monthly and circulating all over the world, it had long become
a global institution—carrying out intellectual, academic and ideological
programmes and projects in all the continents of the world including America,
in particular. Among the articles that appeared in the foundation issue of
Monthly Review in May 1949 was one by the world-historic physicist, Albert
Einstein. The article was titled Why socialism?
In addition to the Monthly Review magazine, there are now Monthly
Review Press and Monthly Review Foundation. The Press publishes highly valued
books authored by writers spread across the globe and also distributing
important non-Monthly Review books. In other words, Monthly Review Organisation
has maintained what I call minimum
continuity through almost seven decades—influencing Left
and radical politics throughout the world, including America, in particular.
Madunagu,
mathematician and journalist, writes from Calabar, Cross River State, Nigeria.
No comments:
Post a Comment