Partisanship and Objectivity in Theoretical Work

by Maurice Cornforth

This article is the text of a lecture given to the Philosophy Section of 
the Communist University of London in July 1973. It was later published in 
Marxism Today, January 1974. 

1. The false antithesis of partisanship and objectivity

There is no such thing as "a theory" in the abstract.

Theory is made by people, used by people and kept going by people. Without 
people active in a society there is no theory. So the actual circumstances 
and interests of people and in particular of people socially related in 
classes determine how theories are worked out, what questions they deal 
with and what they say.

Marxism, then, is not just a set of propositions about the world and human 
society. It is the guiding theory, or ideology, of the world-wide 
revolutionary movement of communism. And as ideology, it took shape under 
the same social pressures of material circumstances as provoked the 
formation of a revolutionary movement.

In these circumstances, the development of Marxist theory has been 
formative of the revolutionary movement itself — by bringing to it the 
consciousness of the conditions, methods of organisation and struggle, and 
aims, without which there could be only sporadic protest and revolt but no 
effective comprehensive movement.

In this sense Marxism is very definitely partisan. It is a 
party theory — the theory of a movement, for a movement; the theory 
of revolutionary struggle for socialism and communism; the theory of the 
working class vanguard of that struggle; a class-biased and class-
interested theory.

Marxism is ideology. And its opposition to other theory is not just that of 
a "disinterested" debate about theoretical problems.

Against the theory of the revolutionary movement, which informs that 
movement, we see, and oppose, the theories of the existing establishment 
which has to be overthrown.

If this partisanship is lost sight of, and not deliberately espoused, then 
whatever theoretical activity and theory-building is done is not Marxism. 
On the contrary, in that case Marxism is being watered down, weakened, 
opposed or destroyed.

Does then this partisanship place Marxists in some sort of dilemma? 
Do we have to choose between partisanship and objectivity in 
theoretical work?

If we chose objectivity, are we then opting out of the class struggle or 
even taking the other side, and so giving up Marxism? And if we choose 
partisanship, are we then deciding only to make propaganda instead of 
seeking the truth?

These questions are the way bourgeois theorists put it. They say one should 
put objectivity above everything, and that we Marxists are merely partisans 
— and as such outside the pale of scientific theory and discussion.

One should never be taken in by such bourgeois attempts to put social 
theory into a dilemma. Like many antitheses posed by bourgeois theory and 
by bourgeois ideologists, that of partisanship versus objectivity is a 
quite false antithesis.

To be partisan of working class struggle one does not have to ditch 
objectivity. No, one has always to be as objective as one can in theory.

And we can explain why this is so.

Class struggle is an objective fact, the existence of which is evident in 
experience and can be demonstrated by science.

Exploitation of man by man is objective fact.

The fetters now placed by capitalist production relations on the 
development of production to satisfy human needs are a fact.

The necessity to overthrow capitalism, establish the dictatorship of the 
proletariat and advance through socialism to communism is a fact.

In stating these facts we are being objective, not disregarding the need 
for objectivity. At the same time, in stating them we are being partisans 
of the working-class struggle.

On the other hand, those who theorise in such a way as to cover up these 
facts are not being objective. They are objectively partisans of the 
bourgeoisie. And in their case, their partisanship shows itself by a 
disregard for objectivity.

It is an objective fact that all social theories are partisan. 
Our partisanship consists in recognising this objective fact. 
Their partisanship consists in denying it and trying to cover it up.

From the very nature of their class position, exploiting classes always 
have, in theory, to try to cover up the fact of exploitation and class 
struggle. They cannot recognise the fact of their own way of life, which 
consists in exploiting and oppressing others. They have to conceal this 
fact from the exploited. And they have to express their own class interests 
and aims in a way to make them appear other than what they are — class 
interests and class aims.

They are thus partisan in theory in ways that depart from objectivity. But 
they practice this partisanship by trying to make out that they espouse 
objectivity and not partisanship in theory.

This is indeed very cunning of them. It is our job always to expose this 
cunning deception — as the objective fact it is.

The working-class interest in theory is a different one. And this 
difference comes from the very nature of the case as a necessary 
consequence of the development of the working class and of working-class 
struggle.

We are in no way interested in covering up, distorting and falsifying 
social reality. On the contrary, we are interested in understanding it as 
it is, in order to be able to change it.

Evading the recognition of fact, distorting it, does not help the working-
class struggle at all. On the contrary, the interest is as 
scientifically as possible to recognise the facts and understand 
them.

So working-class partisanship demands objectivity.

And socialism becomes a science — to grasp and understand 
the objective conditions, the possibilities and necessities contained in 
them, and to work out, on that basis of scientific understanding of 
objective fact, what is to be done.

2. Misunderstandings about science and ideology

At this point a comment may be made on certain misunderstandings which have 
been introduced into this topic, especially by Louis Althusser.

These misunderstandings concern "science" and "ideology". They come from 
posing an antithesis between science and ideology. And when this antithesis 
is posed, it is said that science, one the one side, is objective, and 
ideology, on the other side, is partisan.

But the antithesis is a false one. For Marxist-socialist ideology is in 
fact scientific — and in this case we find that science is partisan.

Following up this pretended antithesis, Althusser proceeds to divide 
philosophy from science. Philosophy, he says, is class struggle, and so it 
is not science. Science, on the other hand, is not class struggle, and so 
it is not partisan.

It is quite true that natural science is not class struggle and is 
not partisan. And whenever class-ideology and partisanship is brought into 
natural science (as happens sometimes in scientific controversies) it is by 
way of an importation of philosophical preconceptions into science which 
have subsequently to be expelled in the development of science.

But the class struggle does come into science, in social 
science.

Althusser does not, in fact, sufficiently consider the relationships and 
differences in science between natural science and social science. But 
these are important.

Marx waged working-class struggle in his scientific work of establishing 
the scientific theory of historical materialism, and in writing 
Capital. In this scientific work it is evident that, as Lenin 
insisted, "science is partisan". Class struggle enters into the development 
of science.

Turning to natural sciences, we then find that one is not partisan on 
physics, say, in investigating elementary particles and quantum-mechanical 
interactions. But one is partisan in considering both the social use 
of physics and the social organisation of physical research through the 
management of scientific institutions. And physics as a science cannot 
develop without partisanship in the organisation of research and of its 
application.

From the very nature of the case, the effort to achieve rigorous scientific 
objectivity about social affairs is partisan. Such effort is a form of 
working-class struggle, or at least is in aid of it, in opposition to 
theorising which covers up or distorts the social facts.

And this effort to achieve rigorous scientific objectivity about social 
affairs is the basis for scientific objectivity — ideology based on 
scientific understanding of objective fact, about nature, about mankind, 
and about the relationship of man and nature.

Marxism is scientific ideology.

3. Partisan bans and proscriptions

One main way — perhaps the main way — in which partisanship is 
expressed in theoretical work is by imposing bans and proscriptions, on the 
one side, and fighting to lift them, on the other.

Theory is often presented simply as a set of propositions, as though rival 
theories simply presented contradictory sets of propositions.

But essentially, theory is theorising. And this does not consist just in 
stating propositions. Propositions answer questions. Theory and theorising 
is a process of asking questions and proposing answers. And the content of 
theory is largely determined by the questions asked.

To understand a theory one always needs to understand what questions it is 
meant to answer.

A very basic feature of the ideology of exploiting classes in general, and 
of bourgeois ideology in particular, is that, effectively, a ban is 
placed against certain questions. Namely, a ban is imposed on all 
questions that tend to the questioning of the real basis of class 
exploitation on which the exploiting class' way of life depends, and of the 
real, as distinct from the pretended, interests and aims of the class.

This is evident, for example, in bourgeois economics.

It is not so much that false propositions are asserted. For quite a lot of 
the propositions put forward are true, as far as they go.

The basic criticism that Marx always made of bourgeois economists was that 
they took capitalist relations for granted, did not analyse them, did not 
consider the nature of capitalist exploitation and its consequences, and so 
took no cognisance of what Marx called "the law of motion of capitalist 
society".

This means that any searching questioning on these matters is banned 
in bourgeois economics. Such questions are simply prohibited. They 
are not asked. The bourgeois economists are those whose whole way of 
social thinking contains a built-in inhibition concerning these 
questions, and an attitude of shock, rejection and 
disapproval towards the asking of them.

It is the same in philosophy. The bourgeois philosophers nowadays are 
concerned only with certain questions — especially, as it has worked out 
in their class ideology, certain questions about language. On these they 
have in fact done and continue to do quite good work. Not everything they 
teach is false, or even useless. Some of it is true and useful. But they 
simply rule out questions which we, Marxists, are concerned to ask. We 
Marxists who ask them are severely disapproved of, and dismissed as 
unphilosophical people with a political axe to grind.

An essential — perhaps the essential — thing about "an ideology" 
is not to be found in what it positively teaches but in what it bans and 
proscribes — the questioning it forbids, the inhibitions characteristic of 
it.

That is why the criticism of an ideology always come from a less 
constrictive ideology — one that is more free and more "open", in that 
it concerns itself with questions formerly prohibited and perhaps not even 
thought of at all.

Marxism is such a more "open" ideology, in relation to and in comparison 
with bourgeois ideology.

The point about Marxist partisanship in theoretical work is that, on behalf 
of the working class, we insist on the forbidden questioning. We open up 
forbidden ground.

And in doing that, our partisanship is equally our objectivity in 
opposition to bourgeois partisanship.

4. Dogmatism and revisionism

In contradiction to the openness and objectivity of the partisanship in 
Marxist theoretical work, Marxism is customarily accused by bourgeois 
ideologists of being itself a closed and restrictive system.

It may at once be admitted that the way some Marxists carry on does 
sometimes give some substance for this accusation. In this connection, a 
few words will be apposite on so-called "dogmatism" and "revisionism" in 
Marxism.

"Dogmatism" has been variously described: reducing Marxism to a few 
formulas dogmatically asserted; failing to see what is new in developing 
situations, but continuing to apply to them ideas belonging to the past.

But its real essence is: bringing into Marxist ideology from exploiting-
class ideologies the ways of prohibiting and banning questions 
characteristic of those ideologies.

In its so-called "struggle" against bourgeois ideology, dogmatism 
introduces a kind of tit-for-tat exchange: "You ban this question, so we 
shall ban that." Typical of dogmatism was Stalin's announcement (in an 
article denouncing one Slutsky who had imprudently raised some questions 
about Leninism) that there are certain "axioms" which must not be 
questioned, one of which was that Lenin was always right.

This dogmatism is contrary to the open scientific nature of Marxism. Marx 
himself declared: "De omnibus dubitandum." We must never stop our 
questioning.

For our partisanship demands questioning. Questioning must go on, in order 
that the working-class movement shall find its way to conduct its struggle.

So dogmatism is only a kind of sham partisanship. Dogmatists shout very 
loud about "partisanship". But the noise they make holds up and restricts 
the movement.

And they play right into the hands of the enemy, who can very easily 
discredit their dogmatic pretensions. Dogmatists ban certain questions. It 
is very easy for the enemy to stir up those very questions, leaving the 
dogmatists with no defence.

Anyone raising questions is apt to be dubbed "revisionist" by the 
dogmatists.

But if Marxism is scientific, and if continual questioning is revisionism, 
then Marxism is by nature revisionist. Indeed, all scientific theory is and 
always must be constantly under revision. And if revision is stopped, 
scientific theory is stopped with it.

There is nevertheless a proper use for the opprobrious epithet 
"revisionism" as there is for its opposite, "dogmatism". The term was used 
in the Second International by so-called "orthodox" Marxists first of all 
against Bernstein, and then used by Lenin (see, for example, his Marxism 
and Revisionism), in a definite sense derived from the terminology of 
current international politics, where "revisionism" meant revising 
frontiers. So the term "revisionism" was used to attack those who wanted to 
blur the difference and opposition between Marxist and various kinds of 
bourgeois theories — to revise their frontiers.

There are such "frontiers" between Marxism and bourgeois social 
theory.

Lenin insisted on three main "frontiers" of Marxism: (1) materialism as 
opposed to idealism in all theory; (2) the dictatorship of the proletariat 
as the necessary condition for effecting the transition from capitalism to 
socialism and communism; (3) the organisation of a vanguard working-class 
party.

Questions have indeed continually to be raised about all these. But when in 
such questioning people pass from materialist theory to various forms of 
idealism, from considering the forms to be taken by the dictatorship of the 
proletariat to saying that no such thing is necessary, and from criticising 
the organisation and policy of the party to saying that we do not want a 
party — that is anti-Marxist revisionism.

For it means going back from Marxist theory to bourgeois theory — which is 
not the product of objective consideration and analysis of all questions 
about the social situation, but only of avoiding, dodging and covering up 
essential facts of the social situation.

The answer to revisionism is always to show up its one-sided, partial, 
unobjective, unscientific bourgeois presuppositions.

Dogmatists, for their part, never "refute" revisionism. All they succeed in 
doing is to provoke and encourage it. 

But dogmatism and revisionism are alike importations into Marxism of 
bourgeois ideology, and its corruption by the influence of bourgeois 
ideology — dogmatism by its refusal of questioning, revisionism by its 
refusal to probe deeply and to take account of what has been established by 
considering facts as they really are.

The Marxist opposition to revisionism is not dogmatic, and is paralleled in 
science generally. For when, as a result of thoroughly investigating 
certain questions, general conclusions on them have become 
scientifically established, then science is opposed to 
questioning these conclusions in order to revert back to earlier views that 
were formed in error before the original questioning was conducted — 
though not, of course, opposed to continuing to raise and to investigate 
questions arising from the scientific conclusions.

Thus, for example, Galileo was once in trouble for raising questions about 
the movement of the earth, in opposition to the Church which forbade such 
questions because it taught that the earth is stationary at the centre of 
the created universe. As a result of his and many others' work on these 
questions, it has by now become scientifically established that the earth 
spins on its axis as it moves around the sun.

Science is far from banning all further questions about the movement of the 
earth. But it is opposed to questioning whether the earth moves at 
all, so as to reintroduce ancient errors about the stationary earth — 
simply because it is so well established, as the result of scientific 
questioning, that, as Galileo said, "it does move".

Natural science must continue to consider any attempt to reinstate the 
Ptolemaic theory as transgressing the frontiers of science. And it is just 
the same with Marxism and revisionism.

5. Levels of ideology

There are two other aspects of the topic of partisanship and objectivity 
that are, I think, worth mentioning.

The first arises from a point made by Gramsci, about the different social 
"levels" at which ideology operates.

It was specifically in connection with the activities of the Roman Catholic 
Church that Gramsci pointed out the role of the "top" intellectuals in the 
continual elaboration of theory.

He pointed out that, as they produce it, theory is just theory for the top 
intellectuals. It is their special province. For the masses, and to 
influence the masses and serve their daily lives, there is a lower-level 
theory — the mass teachings.

These levels are connected. The subtleties of the Schools are not 
comprehensible to the masses and so mean little to them. But the Schools' 
debates are not unconnected with what the schoolmen consider should be 
taught to the masses — to put them on the right path and correct their 
dangerous heresies. The subtle doctrines are brought down to the masses in 
versions more suited to the mass level.

But whereas there is this connection between the levels, there can 
at the same time be wide divergences. In particular, what is 
presented to the masses as a very simple truth is made into something quite 
different and even contradictory at the top level. For example, a reading 
of what the great schoolman Aquinas had to say in his Summa 
Theologica about the relationship of the soul and the body reveals 
that, in its subtleties, it contradicts what the village priests 
customarily teach.

There are and must be different levels of ideology with Marxism likewise. 
This follows, indeed, from what Engels said: "If socialism is a 
science it must be studied."

Our Marxist partisanship and objectivity is shown not only in the work of 
Party intellectuals in keeping the theory going and developing it in ways 
required for the class struggle. It is shown in the relationship between 
levels.

The "higher theory" of Marxism must never lose its relevance for the 
masses. This does not mean that it must not deal with difficult specialised 
scientific and philosophical questions. It must. But the relevance 
must not be lost. And it must serve continually to foster and inform the 
fighting consciousness of the masses.

When such relevance and service is lost, then partisanship is lost too. And 
so is scientific objectivity. Theory then becomes "merely abstract", 
irrelevant, out of touch with reality.

And there is another consideration too.

With the Catholic Church there is often a divergence amounting to 
contradiction between the higher theory and the mass teachings or mass 
propaganda. And this can happen, and sometimes does happen, with a Marxist 
party.

It happens when assertions are made at the mass level which at the top 
intellectual level are so qualified as to become quite different, or are 
even at that level considered to be false.

Thus for "political" reasons awkward questions are covered up in the 
Party's propaganda, facts swept under the carpet, things presented 
differently from how they are known to be. But the awkward questions are 
recognised at the top, the facts are known, and the bias of the propaganda 
is known but not corrected.

Marxist theory, its partisanship and objectivity and, indeed, communist 
politics in the proper sense, always demand that the Party should always 
"come clean", so to speak, with the masses to whom it seeks to give service 
and leadership.

Comrades dubbed "intellectuals" are often known to be "awkward" in the 
Party. This is bound to happen if there is anything to be awkward about. 
But only if the intellectuals are thoroughly imbued with true 
Marxist scientific partisanship and objectivity, which requires great 
intellectual effort from them combined with the proper humility of learning 
Marxism in the Party, not intellectual conceit or arrogance, can this 
"awkwardness" be helpful.

6. Valuations in social theory

Finally, I want to touch on the question of partisanship and objectivity in 
valuations (value judgements).

In all social theory valuations are made, in the sense of evaluating what 
is done and being done, and also in the sense of evaluating social aims and 
saying what ought to be aimed at and ought to be done.

In the theories of the natural sciences this valuation is absent. One does 
not, for example, in considering the motion of atoms and electrons, arrive 
at judgements like "that's a good electron", "that was well done by that 
atom", or "that combination was a dirty reactionary one".

One does not reach any conclusions about what atoms and electrons ought to 
do, as distinct from what they do do, or about what ends they should seek 
to achieve. Obviously, all such judgements of value would be totally 
meaningless in the context of natural sciences.

But the opposite is true when it is ourselves and our own motions and 
intentions that are under consideration. Then judgements of value 
are appropriate. And we are always making them. This is an essential 
difference between natural and social science.

According to the latest bourgeois theory, judgements of fact and judgements 
of value are quite independent the one of the other. Science is one thing, 
value judgement quite another. And social science is exactly like natural 
science in that value judgements do not come into it.

This separation of fact and value is a very important element in the 
ideology of monopoly capitalism today. It enables the bourgeois value 
judgements to be propagated without any awkward contradictions of them 
being allowed to come up from objective considerations about social 
reality.

But for Marxism, the scientific understanding of social reality is the 
basis for value judgements, and is incomplete without them.

This can be seen clearly, for example, in Capital. Marx did not only 
deliver an objective analysis of capitalist society but a 
condemnation of it, based on that very objective analysis. And he 
did not only make a scientifically-based prediction about socialism 
but a call to fight for it with a practical policy for doing 
so.

For this reason, Capital is said to be slanted, biased, 
unscientific. But on the contrary, the fact that its analysis is so 
scientific and objective is what makes these value judgements come up so 
clearly in it and from it.

It is said that if we want to consider human affairs objectively, 
scientifically, we should make no value judgements. But when we do 
consider them objectively and scientifically, then we do make value 
judgements. And these judgements are objective rather than being 
merely products of emotions, sentiments and particular class or personal 
interests.

So the combined partisanship and objectivity of Marxism is expressed in the 
combined partisanship and objectivity of the value judgements contained in 
Marxism.

Our partisanship is shown by our value judgements, made from the standpoint 
of working-class revolutionary struggle — judgements of approbation and of 
disapprobation, and about the ends and means of struggle. This partisanship 
itself demands the objectivity of scientific communism.