The Philosophy of change and the character of a cadre of change

The question that has become so proverbial in the revolutionary circles is the Leninist one “What is to be done?” I want to further problematize this question by tellingly positing “Who has to do what has to be done?” In short, what is the “character of a cadre of change”?

In pursuit of whipping up people’s emotions to win their hearts, souls and minds, populist demagogues say that which the people will most likely fall in favour of. The conditions of the poor make them gullible to any rhetoric that purport to take them out of their economically and socially “sorry” conditions. Their gullibility supersedes any urge or energy to “think” twice about what those who promise to liberate them say.

In fact, the very gullibility of the majority of the black working class is less of mere ignorance than the gravity of the unbearable conditions in which they find themselves. Any accusation that they are ignorant would be gravely overlooking the very material basis of ignorance which goes far deeper than mere lack of knowledge but is rather mired in the complexities and intricacies of a particular social, ideological and political milieu

With the liberal constitutional democratic dispensation failing to bring a better “life to all”, we need to pose uncomfortable questions as part of developing a realistic appraisal of the prevailing social realities. Given the plight of the majority of the black working class families and communities, and with every political formation pursuing an “electoral share” out of them using liberational and socialistic rhetoric, how should genuine revolutionaries pursue a revolutionary agenda to constitute a new, creative politics consistent with the real interests of the exploited and the oppressed? Given the ideologically contested nature of our polity,

How should a communist cadre behave?

What do we mean by a ‘communist character’?

Do we behave well in the eyes of each other and the entire public and yet privately go about that which would not stand the communist test of character and revolutionary consciousness?

What would it mean to be advanced detachment of the working class that is arrogant, irresponsible, and insensitive? Would this not be a regressive contradiction in terms?

What makes a revolutionary who speaks about revolutionary socialist change be distinguishable from someone who uses socialistic rhetoric for personal private gains?

How should communist cadres behave towards their communities?

How should communist cadres combat temptations of political elitism and liberalism?

The answer to these questions will go a long way in influencing not only our political, pedagogical and programmatic approaches to questions of liberation but also the attitude and behaviour of the acclaimed revolutionary to socially and economically dis-enfranchised folks, beyond textual and rhetorical engagements.

With revolutionary texts in the world used, misused, and abused by those who claim to be “struggling to liberate” the exploited, I argue and thus believe that, a meta-philosophical (not anti-philosophical) and a meta-rhetorical political and ideological attitude is desperately needed, and that attitude is “practically living out what we believe in” instead of churning out passionate revolutionary texts without fearlessly committing to them, and selflessly putting them in action.

The way I understand and hence want to approach this, is not through the proverbial platitude of “we theorise but we do not implement”; because oftentimes, this platitude overlooks the question ‘what exactly is the material basis of the disconnection between theory and practice beyond any subjective reality’? No serious revolutionary would go against the fact that, at no point must there be a disconnect  between theory and practice; but what matters most beyond the textual and rhetorical engagements with reality, are one of the most important yet overlooked features of a communist cadre, thus humility, selflessness and honesty.

This is no mere behaviouralistic, attitudinalistic and moralistic critique of a communist life, but the most important, constitutive part of what can make or break revolutionary formations. The realization of this is born out of the fact that, exclusive focus on the philosophical, the ideological, the political, and the pedagogical “at the expense”, if not at the neglect of the behavioural and attitudinal - the way a cadre behaves having ideologically and epistemically appropriated revolutionary theory.

On hand one would argue and say “but the expectation” is that once you have captured and absorbed the political, philosophical, ideological as well as the pedagogical imperatives of revolutionary formation such as the Party, it would ipso facto translate into a particular communist behaviour, therefore, there is no need to theoretically dis-articulate the behavioural and the attitudinal from the “theoretical”, thus the ideological, the philosophical, and the pedagogical of any revolutionary is part and parcel of the total behavioural and attitudinal outlook of a revolutionary cadre.  And by the way this poses further questions, one of which is:

Is it possible and if so what does it mean to appropriate knowledge incommensurate to lived experiences? What in actual fact does it meant to acquire knowledge if it has no inherent ‘disciplining’ epistemic apparatus that shape the behaviour of the possessor of such knowledge: that is, an ideologue, activist and a leader of society?

Well, yes…fair enough as far as the questions are concerned, it would off course not be in the best interests of any revolutionary, communist cadre to produce a tyranny of dis-articulations antithetical to the totality of the lifestyle and lived experiences of a revolutionary cadre. However, the implication of such would be:

It is either the way we pursue our ideological and philosophical work does not go far to a point of productively heralding a commensurate responsive communistic political behavioural and attitudinal outlook, or that, there is indeed a need to work on the ethical and moral dimensions of a true communist, and not treat such as an epiphenomena of what is philosophical and ideological.

To me a reality of creating an epiphenomenon is more dangerous than any accusation of creating a tyranny of dis-articulations. What this means is that, an attempt to create a dialectical link between the theoretical and the behavioural, the attitudinal and the philosophical, the ethical and the epistemic at the risk of being charged with dis-articulating reality, is worth it than an attempt to prioritize one over the other, and by so doing collapsing the dialectical link, and sliding into a moribund formal logician cause and effect’ paradigm.

This is  neither an attempt to search for a perfect communist angel, nor to immunize, in absolute terms, communist cadres from the imperfections of the mundane, but rather to introspect, identify, and adopt a particular way of behaving both amongst ourselves  as Party cadres and towards the entire working class.

After all, is this not what the Organizational Renewal document of the Party requires out of us?  We need to traverse theoretically and practically the rocky and tricky terrains in pursuit of our true class selves if we are to make meaningful change in society, lest the trappings of the bourgeoisie establishment swallow us whole.

The decadence of the post-colonial consumerist, ‘compradorial’ political and economic elite, the ‘paper tigery’ of the anti-majoritarian liberal offensive, the hypocrisy of our political detractors can only be overcome by our praxiological and ideological commitment to an ethically and morally responsive communist way of living, which is characterized by humility, trustworthiness and compassion.

We are social beings existing in concrete realities of the way society is organized, we are not mere philosophical beings with abstract wings pompously flying above social reality. We, dialectically speaking, make and are made out of concrete realities of our historical, social and political milieu.

The intention of a communist philosophy is to ‘get rid of itself’ by breathing life to the working class, not by imposing its philosophical schema upon existential, material realities but by allowing such a philosophy to emerge as a result of the lived experiences of the oppressed and the disenfranchised, and locating such a ‘phenomenology of lived experiences’ into a materialist conception of the working class’s history, and social reality.

The existence of a communist philosophy and the idea which it exists for, I believe, cannot live together. The other must give way to the other. This philosophy’s task is to progressively loose its philosophy-hood, and become a transformed existential reality practically impacting on the lives of the working class. At no point should it aspire to maintain itself, and offer us some transcendentalism. I for one do not want philosophy-as-itself but rather want it as far as it is linked to how human beings create and re-create themselves.

The critical nexus between, if not the constitutive part, of the progressive collapse between the philosophy-hood of a philosophy and the lived experience of the people on a ‘humane’ basis is discipline, or should I say, the behavioural and attitudinal disposition of a revolutionary, communist cadre.

Who wants ideology as “an end in-itself”? Yes…who would want philosophy “in-itself”? Ideologies and philosophies are an attempt to make meaning of a particular reality so as to determine the fate of political subjectivity, and the extent and the power of subjectivity is depended on the character of a cadre of change.

Beyond our interest in the epistemic and ideological dimension of our Marxist-Leninist revolutionary struggle, the way we behave towards ourselves, our fellow cadres, and the entire working class is of utmost importance, otherwise the communist philosophical  and revolutionary speak will reach an ethical and moral iceberg, and the agenda of socialism will hopelessly fall flat on its face. In the end, ‘he who has to do what has be done must do what has to be done by responding to the task at hand through humble and responsive living in pursuit of socialism-cum-communism’.

Molaod Wa Sekake is a YCL SA National Committee Member and Head of Secretariat in the Office of the National Secretary of YCLSA. He writes in his personal capacity.

This article first appeared in Bottom Line, an electronic publication of YCL SA, 12 November 2015