Saturday, June 6, 2009

36

But what is really going on when pro-revolutionaries begin their
back to basics campaigns? Our engagements with other pro-
revolutionaries on the issue of consciousness are always re-rerouted
in a "going back to see what Lenin (and Kautsky said". The
search for legitimizing authorities happens when there is nothing
else to say, when the most important thing is to silence those
people whose proposals are taking the issue terrifyingly beyond
the confines of the sacred tradition. The star is Lenin, the shore is
Lenin, the fetish is Lenin.

We are slightly disoriented by the need for Lenin, we do not
share it, we cannot empathize. In this deity, this heavenly body,
this mariners' dreamed for horizon, we see only a gaudy statue, a
hole in the sky, a treacherous reef. It seems, in moments of crisis
and doubt, that many communist turn for home, to where they feel
most comfortable. They fall back to the fortifications of previous
positions. Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom,
let it be. The comfort, the authority, the harbor's arms. When
communist theory degenerates it does so always along the same
lines, like in timelapse films of fruit rotting in a bowl. The ecstatic
rebellious moment is one thing but how long can it be sustained
against the onslaught of ceaseless experience.

Is not all 'movement' the progress of decay?

Retreat is the removal of oneself under pressure of hostile
circumstance to a place of relative safety. In ideological terms it is
more than this: retreat is falling back onto the political frames that
really shape the 'revolutionaries' ambition - retreat is the stripping
away of ideological gloss and becoming what you really are. Thus
the common practices of right and left totalitarianisms in the
1930's; 1960's radicals becoming stockbrokers or youthful rebels
turning out like their conservative fathers; we hear the radicals talk
of anti-capitalists but we see int heir actions the creation of
alternative markets: we have seen many pro-revolutionary groups
and individuals retreat into personal nastiness in response to our
critique and thus exposing their true characters. During critical
events, or over time, we see who people really are, the radical
guise is dropped because of a perceived urgency or simple
exhaustion at maintaining the pretence, the false prole accent

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