Rev Left Radio - The Principal Contradiction: Applying Dialectical Materialism

Episode Date: September 18, 2020

Torkil Lauesen joins Breht to discuss his newest book "The Principal Contradiction". In this discussion, Torkil and Breht discuss dialectical materialism, how it is applied in real world situations, and the role that contradiction plays in it all.  In the 1970s and 80s, Torkil Lauesen was a member of a clandestine communist cell which carried out a series of robberies in Denmark, netting very large sums which were then sent on to various national liberation movements in the Third World. Following their capture in 1989, Torkil would spend six years in prison. While incarcerated, he was involved in prison activism and received a Masters degree in political science. He is currently a member of International Forum, an anti-imperialist organization based in Denmark. Find more of his writings HERE Please Support Rev Left Radio HERE Outro Music: 'Dripping Sun' by Kikagaku Moyo LEARN MORE ABOUT REV LEFT RADIO: www.revolutionaryleftradio.com

The Principle, Contradiction. Around the year 1500, we can observe the beginnings of an all-encompassing world system. By the year 1900, it was well established due to global trade and colonialism. This global capitalism entailed a global division of labor, which became ever more pronounced over the centuries. If we look at the development of the capitalist world system, we find a single contradiction at each of its stages, always pushing it toward the next. We call this contradiction, the principal contradiction, as it affects. all others. It is therefore important with developing political and strategic analysis to determine the world's principal contradiction and its aspects. How things develop is primarily determined

by the dominant aspect in the contradiction. Like everything else, the principal contradiction changes during the course of history. Furthermore, the relationship between the principal contradiction and other contradictions is not one-sided. Particular or local contradictions always affect the principal contradiction as well. They can give it decisive pushes and change the power relations between its aspects. Mao had the following to say about the principal contradiction, quote, if in any process there are a number of contradictions, one of them must be the principal contradiction playing the leading and decisive role, while the rest occupy a secondary and subordinate position. Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or

more contradictions, we must devote every effort to finding its principal contradiction. Once this principle contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved, end quote. Now, the expression readily solved should be taken with a grain of salt, not least when talking about social problems and revolution in a country the size of China. What Mao means when he says readily is that you have a reliable guide for further analysis once you have identified the principal contradiction. In other words, problem in defining useful strategies, policies, means of propaganda, and military efforts is solved. The ultimate purpose in identifying the principal contradiction is to intervene in it. We cannot create principal contradictions, but we can influence the aspects of existing ones

so that the contradictions move in a way that serves our interests. Identifying the principal contradiction tells us where to start. General contradictions such as productive forces versus relations of production or proletariat versus bourgeoisie and imperialism versus anti-imperialism usually don't cause much controversy among Marxists. Disagreements begin with the details. For example, when we must identify the most important contradictions at a given time and place, the contradiction with the highest revolutionary potential. Note that Mao speaks of finding the principal contradiction in the quote above.

This cannot be based on speculation. Contradictions are concrete phenomena, and one of them is always the most important. Being unable to identify the principal contradiction has consequences. There are numerous examples of this. In the early 1960s, a contradiction emerged between the Soviet Union and China. It had several causes, one concerned the correct socialist line toward the USA. Due to economic challenges and the threat of nuclear war, the Soviet Union declared peaceful coexistence with the West and stopped supporting China's

nuclear program, but China had anything but peaceful coexistence with the USA in the 1960s. At the end of World War II, the USA had had concrete plans to intervene militarily in the war between the communists and Changkaisek. Since then, it had given Taiwan security guarantees. China had also been in direct military conflict with the U.S. during the Korean War of 1950 through 53. Furthermore, it supported communist movements in other countries, but the relationship with the U.S. was not the only source of friction between China and the Soviet Union. There were also domestic disagreements in Chinese politics, as well as ideological quarrels between the two countries. The latter became known as the big polemic. In the CPC, there were two lines in the early 1960s. Mao represented

the left-wing current, Li Shao Kui and Deng Xiaoping, the moderate one. Lau and Deng tried to out-maneuver Mao when the economic policies of his great leap forward ran into difficulties. Mao linked the conflict to the ideological dispute with the Soviet Union. According to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, there was no class struggle in the country. It had ended with the Russian Revolution and the Soviet state was a state of the people. Mao, however, insisted that the class struggle continued and that a new bourgeoisie had seized power.

Fearing similar developments in China, he launched the Cultural Revolution in 1966. There was a history of indirect criticism between the Soviet Union and China. One example concerns Tito's Yugoslavism. which China remained very critical of despite the Soviet Union's attempts to normalize relations in the 1950s. The Soviet Union, on the other hand, criticized Albania, which had good relations with China. In 1960, the divisions became clear during two communist congresses held in Romania and the Soviet Union. Nikita Khrushchev criticized Mao for irresponsible adventurism,

while the Chinese accused Khrushchev of revisionism and making concessions to imperialism. In 1964, Mao stated that there had been a... counter-revolution in the Soviet Union and that capitalism had been reintroduced. All official contact between China and the Soviet Union ended, and there were small military skirmishes along their border. History has shown that Mao was right, concerning both the Soviet Union and China. Class struggle did continue after the revolution, but the way in which the contradiction was handled during the 1960s split the socialist bloc and strengthened the U.S.'s vis-à-vis both the socialist bloc and the anti-imperialist movements in the third world.

In the mid-1970s, the Chinese critique of the Soviet Union was expressed in the three worlds theory. In a 1974 conversation with Zambia's president Kenneth Kaunda, Mao defined the three worlds in this way. Quote, I hold that the U.S. and the Soviet Union belonged to the first world. The middle elements, such as Japan, Europe, Australia, and Canada belong to the second world. We are the third world. According to the theory, the two superpowers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, were fighting for world domination. China saw the Soviet Union as the more aggressive of the two powers. The Soviet Union was no longer just revisionist.

It was social imperialist. It was so dangerous that the third world had to side with the second world in supporting the U.S. in its fight against Soviet imperialism. There is neither economic nor political evidence for the Soviet Union having been the most aggressive and dangerous power in an inter-imperialist rivalry in the 70s. The arms race had put the Soviet Union on the defensive. Yet by embracing the slogan, My Enemy's Enemy is My Friend, China supported anti-Soviet movements in the third world, even if they were allied to the U.S. In 1970, China's national interests also led to a minor war with its former ally, Vietnam.

The conflict erupted again in 1979 when Vietnam invaded Cambodia to chase Pol Pot, a Chinese ally, from power. China had watched Vietnam and the Soviet Union becoming very close, and took the invasion of Cambodia as an attack on its own interest. Beijing sent troops into Vietnam. They retreated after a few weeks fighting. In short, the national interests of the socialist countries got in the way of having a common strategy

against U.S. imperialism in the 60s and 70s. Their quarrels weakened the anti-imperialist movements that were shaking the world at the time. China was wrong in declaring the Soviet Union to be the aggressive and most dangerous aspect of what it regarded as the era's principal contradiction. the U.S. versus the Soviet Union. China had allowed its national, as well as regional contradictions,

to determine its analysis of the principal contradiction. But national and regional contradictions must always be analyzed in light of the principal contradiction if our analyses and related strategies are to prove effective. Theoretical knowledge about dialectical materialism cannot replace concrete study. Contradiction is an abstract concept, but real-life contradictions on the ground are very concrete.

If we simply copy our analysis of one country or time and apply it to another, we convoluted their respective particular contradictions. This leads to dogmatism. A simple example. It is pointless to apply Lenin's analysis of imperialism, which is based on the contradiction between colonial powers and colonies, to our situation, because this contradiction no longer exists. We must not be theoretically lazy. We must study the concrete expressions of capitalism at each given time and a place. We already mentioned that the most important general contradiction in capitalism is the one between the productive forces and the relations of production. This is characteristic of all societies.

The class expression of the contradiction in capitalism is bourgeoisie versus proletariat. But this doesn't mean that the productive forces versus relations of production contradiction is, at every given time and place, the most important one for the development of capitalism. It is true that without it we would not have capitalism, but it can very well be the case, and it is the case, that at certain times and places in capitalism's development, other contradictions have been more important in determining capitalism's course. Hello everybody and welcome back to Revolutionary Left Radio. On today's episode, we have on the author Torquil Lawson from Denmark to talk. talk about his newest book, The Principal Contradiction. So we spend the first half of the conversation kind of talking about the basics of dialectical materialism, contributions to it by Lenin and Mao, whether or not it can be applied outside of the social sciences to the natural sciences. And in the

second half, we tackle contradictions, thinking through capitalism's history, through the lens of the principal contradiction in any given epoch. And we sort of end it with where we are now and what we're looking at over the next several decades. Torkel is from Copenhagen. There is a little bit of an accent there. Once you get into it, it's very easy to tap into it. And I think it's an important, wonderful discussion. And, you know, as much as we talk about these things in this interview,

I think the book itself is really something that people who are at all interested in this topic or who at all are interested in understanding dialectical materialism at a deeper level should actually get the book itself. It's very accessible. It's only about 130, 150 pages long. And it's a really, really helpful text to understanding some of the basics of dialectical materialism, which it can be a difficult concept to grasp. It's not something that can be easily summarized in a quick and pithy definition.

You can't just Google what is the definition of dialectical materialism and get a succinct answer. And so if you're looking for that easy answer, you're probably not going to find it. It's a methodology. It's a form of analyses. and it can be very complex in that sense. So in any case, I hope people enjoy this conversation with Torkel. I know I did. And as always, if you like what we do here at Rev Left,

you can support us on Patreon. And in exchange, you get bonus monthly content. So without further ado, let's get into our discussion with Torco Lawson on his new book, The Principal Contradiction. Enjoy. Hello, and thanks for the, invitation. My name is Toki Lausen and I live in Copenhagen in Denmark. English is not my native language so you have to excuse me sometimes for my for my English. Well Denmark is a very

small country north of Germany. We are 5.5 million people and it's a so-called democratic welfare state. It was from Denmark that President Trump tried to buy Greenland a year ago. However, we have sold colonialism to the U.S. We sold some Caribbean islands, the Virgin Islands, to the United States in 1917 for $25 million. So actually, we have sold some real estate to America. But I came into politics in 68 and it was mainly due to the Vietnam War and the resistance against the Vietnam War.

And I was around 17, 18 years and I rather quickly became a member of a communist organization, a small communist organization. organization. The reason why I was attracted to this organization was that I like the attitude of the members I was in contact with. They were very serious people. They meant what they say and they acted accordingly to what they said. So I became member of this small organizations. We were around maybe 30 people or so. In the late 60s, it was a very dedicated and disciplined organization. And we was very busy, actually. We had a legal practice and illegal practice of supporting revolutionary movements in the third world. And we have a publishing house. We have a magazine. We were building an organization and learning skills. But we also took theory

and studies very important. Of course, we started the classic and political economy, but we also did a lot of empirical studies and we make a lot of trips to third world countries to meet liberation movements and to discuss with them and also to make studies of different countries. But we very much needed a tool to process and to analyze all this material from our study trips and our empirical studies. And so we also made a study circle about dialectic naturalism to improve our methods of analyzing. And thereby, making our political actions more effective. So this was the background. And

I have very much wanted to go back to this tool because I think that I need it very much also in the current situation to analyze it. It's because it's a very complicated situation we are in now. Yeah, absolutely. And so that really culminated in what we're going to be discussing today, which is your book titled The Principle, contradiction. So let's go ahead and dive into it because we have a lot to cover, and I completely agree that dialectical materialism is an essential tool to understand and to analyze complex geopolitical economic situations, global situations as you talk about in your book. But before we

get into the details, you know, I've found that the concept of dialectical materialism is one which many people struggle with, even those on the Marxist left. And for newer socialist coming up, I think it represents one of the more difficult things within Marxism to really understand. So in as simple a way as possible, can you maybe give us a basic definition of what we mean when we talk about dialectical materialism? Well, as I said, it's a method to analyze this word. And the book is very much a book about, it's a textbook about method. It's not so much a philosophical book. It's more a book of practical hands-on methods to use it.

And, well, dialectical materialism, it consists of difference concept and different rules. Materialist worldview understand matter. It's a strange world, this matter, but it is anything that exists objectively, and that is independent of human consciousness. In this understanding matter is not only physical things, a table or a cup, but it's also phenomena and processes and social relationships. And I think that, well, it is this objective matter who defines our consciousness and not the opposite.

So I think it's very important that we reflect on how our perception of the world is generated. You know, we have to reflect on where we get our information. It's often just a stream of inputs from medias and from social medias that we just consume. And I think it's very important that we stop and try to reflect. more consciousness about where we get our information from and how we proceed it. So this is one aspect of a dialectic and naturalism. And then it has some methodical rules also. Number one is that you have to see things in relation to other things.

Things are interconnected with other things. if you analyze the contradictions between labor and capital in the United States, you cannot do it isolate it. You have to see it in connection with other contradictions and connections with other things which is going around in the world. Everything has a cause and effect and everything is cause and effect. So this is one rule. You have to see things in connection with the other things. The second rule is you have to see things, processes, everything as developments. You have to see that matter is in constant motion.

Matter can take different forms, but it has an history. It has a beginning and an end. And it also applies to capitalism. I think it's important to remember that capitalism has a start in the sense. 17th century, but it also has an ending. Things are moving. Change is a constant phenomena. The third methodical rule is that these changes, this moves.

It happens in qualitative lips. It's not just going on on a line layer development. Things are moving in ruptures. And this is also very, important thing. And it's a personally, I think I have missed to take that in consideration in many, many times in my life. We think that things are just going on as they are now, but they changed. For instance, when I came into politics in the end of the 60s and the 70s, I think that the main contradiction, the principal contradiction at that time was between imperialism and

anti-imperalism. And this, I think, was a very important contradictions in what we can call the long 60s from the beginning of the 60s and maybe to the middle of the 70s, actually. So in this long 60s, we have this contradiction. But I personally, in many analysis as I made, thought that this contradiction just would continue and deepen and go on and go on. And this struggle between anti-imperalism and imperialism was a kind of the end struggle. But you know, suddenly from the middle of the 70s and through the 80s, this contradiction more or less disappeared very quickly,

and we came into another principal contradiction called neoliberalism. And then the same things happened, I think, in the 90s, I thought that this neoliberalism and globalization would, you know, just go on and go on and go on. And I was very intrigued by, you know, this negri and heart that you have this empire and you will have this global capitalist empire which also had a political structure and so on. But neoliberalism also suddenly came into a crisis and are in deep crisis now and I don't think it will continue as it has. So it's very important that we remember that

that things can change very quickly. Absolutely. Yes. But to go back to the rules and the fourth rule, well, this is about what makes this move, what makes this changes. And this is the contradiction. And it's very important to understand that the contradiction is inside everything. It's not between things. It's inside things.

And the contradiction is, has two aspects which struggles. And these two aspects, they complement each other. They both exclude and require each other at the same time. And the form and character of things depend on how these two aspects relate to each other, how they struggle and how they unite to give an easy practical

example. The earth rotates around the sun and this process is a contradiction between the power of gravity and the power of centrifugal force and so these two supplement

and exclude each other these two forces and define this solar system. If you take another example, you have the, what is the contradiction about the commodity in the capitalist world? It is that it have a use value and it has an exchange value. And they also supplement and exclude each other. And this is what give the process, which make it move and make it change these contradictions. So the world is interconnected, and it's contradictory, and it's changing.

Yeah, well said. So, yeah, just to summarize that incredibly quickly, you sort of summarized it at the end there, but the four methodological rules, everything is interconnected, everything is in constant motion and constant unfolding. Change happens not through some, you know, consistent linear process. but through qualitative leaps and ruptures, and contradiction is sort of the engine of dialectics, if you will, the coincidence of opposites and contradictions, as you point out, don't exist between things, but contradictions are already present in the thing when it manifests into the world.

Is that fair? Yeah, absolutely. So another way to get at this is to talk about the history of dialectics. And, you know, I myself, before I even got into Marxism, I was really interested in Eastern philosophy and Taoism and Buddhism. and so I was being trained to think dialectically before I even really knew what that meant. And dialectics has a long history in both the East and the West. So I was hoping that you could talk about how dialectics manifested throughout history up until Hegel and Marx. Oh, well, that's a long, that's a long history.

But it's, we have it in many common thoughts, you know, we, we have it. this statement that you cannot swim in the same river twice, you know, because everything is moving and going along. And we also have it in the Ying Yang. You have also this way of thinking. So it's very deep in many kinds of philosophies. That's correct. But it didn't came into use and social theory only with Marx. When capitalism was breaking through in the beginning of the 18th century, then it started to be used in different kinds of social studies. And I think this is the interesting thing.

I have not studied Hegel very much. I think it's very difficult to read, actually. So I will rather skip that point and go on. What I think is important is that Lenin and Mao came from a political and active basis. They were not academics, but they were very much people of action and practice. And this was very important to development of their use of dialectic. If we see at the development of Marxist theory, we will see that in the beginning, it was people who was very much into practice which developed Marxism.

Max himself didn't have an academic career and was very engaged in building. the communist movement. Lenin was also very much a man of praxis and Mao too. And also, for instance, Rosa Luxembourg and many of the, most of the people who developed Marxism and dialectic in this early stage of the 19th century and was people who have a practice. But in the last many, many years, I think that Marxism has mainly been developed in academic circles. And I think this have been a big problem because we don't have this cooperation between the academic sector and the people who are involved in practice is not very good.

I wrote a piece on radical theory and the academic with a friend of mine called Gabriel Kuhn some years ago about this problem of development of Marxism. So just to summarize where we were at right there, you know, dialectics has a long history in both the east and the west, ancient Rome, Greece, China. It comes up through Hegel, but then, of course, we know that Marx takes the dialectic that Hegel presents and materializes it, makes it not about ideas, but about the material. world and then Lenin and Mao through actual, you know, the combination of theory and actual revolutionary practice, develop dialectical materialism even further and sharpen it. And, you know, with Mao, the famous works are, you know, on practice and on contradiction, which we've done episodes on. And that sort of catches us up to today. But then you're saying that there's, you know, a silo effect where academics who work on this are sort of detached from real world struggle and

on-the-ground organizations, and you think, and correct me if I'm wrong, that there needs to be dialectical materialism needs to come into the hands of the people who are actually on the ground organizing against capitalism and all of its depravities today. Is that a fair way to put it? Yeah, and I also think it's very interesting that, you know, Lenin was sitting in Switzerland in in 1914 and experienced this huge disappointment that the working class, the workers' movement in both England, France and Germany turned pro-imperalism and pro-and-pro their, each of their national state and voted for the money to go into the First World War. and actually people was very enthusiastic about this world war before they ended in the trenches.

And he was very disappointed and this was a huge crisis for Marxism that you have this event. And in that period, you can see if you see what he did, he actually started dialectic naturalism. And he read Hegel and he was, if you see his collected words, you can see that period. He made some huge notebooks on dialectic materialism because he wanted to sharpen his, I think, his tool to make his crucial analysis later on on imperialism and the inter-imperalist war and also about the collapse of the second international. and so no. And he actually, I think he he shamed his tools. And also you can see in Mao, he was in 36 in this camp. And he was also in a very difficult position because it was the invasion of the Japan of China. And the communists have to change their strategy and cooperate with Sankai Sheik. on fighting against the Japan's, and this was a very complicated situation. And in that situation, what did he do? He lectures the catars in dialectic materialism, and he wrote his philosophical texts at that time

because he wanted to give them the tools for analyzing the situation. And I think this is examples of this interaction between praxis and what you can call high theory, which is very important. Absolutely. Yeah, so he wrote on practice and on contradiction while in a guerrilla camp, as you point out in your book. He was educating the cadre on dialectical materialism in various ways. And one of the reasons that on practice and on contradiction are so accessible is precisely because Mao was trying to. to take these high theoretical concepts and ideas and make it practical and accessible to regular, you know, working class people who are fighting in the Communist Party, right?

Sure. Yeah. Well, let's go ahead and move on a little bit. In your book, you make clear, and this might be a little detour of sorts, and I hope you don't mind, but in your book you make clear that your use of dialectical materialism will be constrained to social analysis and not to the natural sciences. Later on in the text, you point out, quote, Lukash saw dialectical. primarily as a scientific method to study human history.

He thought that Engels, following in Hegel's footsteps, made a mistake in applying dialectics to the natural sciences. Dialectics demands a relationship between subject and object, theory and practice. And this, according to Lukash, made it only relevant to the social sciences, end quote. So even though your book does not veer into this debate and you stay away from it, I'm still actually curious as to your thoughts here. Do you think Lakash was correct and Engels was wrong or is it more nuanced for you? Well, the question is, is dialectic materialism a universal method to be used in all kinds of science?

And I think it is actually, but I didn't want to take up this discussion because then we moved into a very philosophical issues. and I didn't want to move into this kind of things. And you also, it's very important when you deal with the dialectic naturalism that, you know, you have this very general concepts, abstract concepts. If you go to social science, it's a proletarian capitalist, imperialism, anti-imperalism, anti-imperalism. But when you go in political analysis and especially when you go into strategy and tactic, you cannot use this general and abstract concepts.

You have to specify and make concrete how they manifest in political movements, in political actions. Because it is in political movements and in political actions, can interfere and and you can make politics you can make it in in this and this is also if you go into to natural science you have to have how do these abstracts concept of dialectic naturalism how how do they manifest themselves in in specific and concrete things so you cannot just use dialectic materialism to solve problems in natural science without, you know, having a great knowledge of how these contradictions and aspects are in physics and nuclear physics or astrophysic or, I don't know, biological. famous Danish fissists called Nilsbora, which a Nobel Prize winner. And he was at dialectic fissets and used dialectic in his theory of the complementarity

to explain that matter can take the forms of waves or particles depending on one's perspective. and his motto was that opposite are complementary. So he, this is an example of a physicist who was a dialectic. But I think what's very important now is that, you know, we have this climate crisis and ecological crisis, which I think brings dialectic materialism, into both social studies and to natural science. If we take the extreme weather, it's the consequence of social and economic contradictions. Climate change is the consequence of contradictions in capitalism.

So in that sense, we now have, and we have to use dialectic naturalism, both in social science and in natural science, they kind of merge now with the climate crisis. And, you know, the effect of capitalism, it's not only on human history, but it's also on the history of the globe, on the history of the nature. So it kind of merges now, I think. Yeah, that's incredibly interesting. And that's certainly, that whole debate and discussion is a whole episode in and of itself. But I'm thankful that you gave me your thoughts on that. And thinking about climate change dialectically and through the lens of dialectical materialism is really interesting.

And just how, you know, that natural consequence happening in the environment is a direct result of the contradictions inherent in capitalist class society and the economic model that it proliferates. Trump's promise to make America great again rests on economic protectionism and military might. But Trump cannot just roll back 30 years of neoliberalism. Apple electronics, Nike shoes, and Levi's jeans will not be produced in the U.S. as long as U.S. wages are 10 times Chinese or Mexican wages. Tariffs can slow down the neoliberal machine, but they cannot stop it. Most likely, they lead to an economic crisis. In Britain and France, we see a similar nostalgia for the good old days

of the strong nation state. In the smaller European countries, the traditional political parties desperately try to walk a tightrope between the demands of neoliberal capital and the growing popular demand for a strong nationalist state. It is an impossible task. There are also left populist parties in Europe trying to reinvent old social democratic positions,

but in a world in which neoliberalism has removed many of the state's economic tools, it is difficult to reintroduce Keynesian policies. The nationalists seek to strike a new compromise, between capital and labor, not based on a social democratic mediation between classes, but on national unity between the conservative factions of capital and the right-leaning sectors of the working classes. Politically, this unity finds expression in the authoritarian state that is able to respond to increasing military conflicts in the world. Power that is geographically located, power over territories, regains importance vis-a-vis the power of the free and borderless

market. The contradiction between neoliberalism and nationalism is not confined to the global north. It has several manifestations in the global south. Narendi, Modi, and India, Jahir Bolsonaro in Brazil, Rodrigo Duterte in the Philippines, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Turkey. Nationalism is also increasingly expressed in new international institutions in opposition to neoliberalism's transnational institutions. Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa have come together under the acronym BRICS, establishing joint institutions, including a development bank to replace the World Bank. It is a highly diverse group of countries which nonetheless share a common desire for more independence from the neoliberal triad, the U.S., the EU, and Japan.

How the contradiction between neoliberalism and nationalism is going to play out in China will be crucial for the future of the world system. China's opening to the world market has created a class of capitalists strongly tied to neoliberalism. At the same time, China's still has an important state capitalist sector, and Chinese agriculture mainly satisfies national interests. Continued neoliberal globalization might fully integrate the Chinese bourgeoisie into capitalism, and therefore China as a whole. But neoliberalism's crisis also means that Chinese export rates are falling, which creates economic problems and sharpens the class struggle between the neoliberal bourgeoisie and the country's new proletariat. Increasingly,

Chinese workers themselves are demanding the goods they have been producing for consumers in the global north. An intensification of the class struggle in China will have significant global consequences, not least because strong left-wing working class movements in China would inspire similar movements across the global south. Wanghai, a prominent Chinese left-wing intellectual, says that the principal contradiction in China today is between entry into the capitalist world market globalization and the project of a democratic socialism. He explains, quote, From this primary contradiction, other contradictions arise, such as the developmental disparity between regions, China's eastern coastal region and provinces in the far interior, a disparity between rural and urban incomes,

and the growing disparity between the rich and the poor. Another disparity is the one between China's two development models, the Guangdong model focused on export-oriented development, and the Kongqing model focused on internally driven development. End quote. This means that in China, too, there is a shift toward the national. aspect, which in turn amplifies the contradiction between China and the U.S. A new Cold War could be in the cards, and someone might very well turn up the heat. The neoliberalism versus nationalism contradiction creates many additional problems for capitalism.

The institutions that were established to regulate global capitalism have been weakened. Donald Trump has criticized the WTO, NAFTA, and many other free trade agreements. The most recent G meetings were fiascos, mainly because of Trump's lack of global leadership. Even within NATO, there is growing discord between the U.S. and the European powers concerning strategy and the question of who is going to pay the bill for imperialism security. The Austrian economist Gerhard Hanapi describes the crisis of neoliberalism as a shift from the globally integrated capitalism under the hegemony of the U.S. to a disintegrated capitalism of rivals, not competitors. Both right-wing and left-wing populist nationalism are in opposition to neoliberalism, global chains of production, and transnational institutions. There is a growing rivalry between the U.S., China, and Russia.

The EU, which was hailed as a symbol of Europe's unity, shows signs of disintegration. Brexit is not an isolated example. Eurosceptics are on the move everywhere, from Italy, France, and Germany, to the Netherlands, Denmark, and Hungary. I see the move from integration towards disintegration. in the world system as an expression of the shifting balance of power between the aspects of the capital versus the state contradiction. In the 1930s, the state strengthened its position, as it provided a solution to the capitalist world crisis.

After World War II, it maintained its importance by establishing the capitalist welfare state, which reached its peak in the mid-70s. After that, Capital made a strong comeback in the era of neoliberalism. Today, the pendulum is swinging back to the state again. Let's go ahead and move on to the second half of this discussion, which focuses pretty much on contradiction and that element of dialectics. And before we get into the details, I know you mentioned it earlier, but maybe just remind us what a contradiction is and what role it plays in dialectical materialism before we move on from here. Yes, and I also want to mention, you know, the important contribution to dialectic naturalism of Mao was that he highlighted, you know, know, this principal contradiction, the most important contradiction, the main contradiction.

And what he meant with this was that there is a principal contradiction which affects all other contradictions. They do not determine all other contradictions because the other contradictions, they interact and have a feedback on the principal contradiction. but it's very important to identify the principle contradiction in your analysis. And I think that if we have a global capital system in the sense and a global world system in the sense of Samir Amin and Wallerstein, then this process have a principal contradiction.

then the global capitalist system is one process, and it's very important to identify the principle contradictions because it affects local and regional and other kinds of contradictions. Absolutely. So in your book, you do an amazing job tracing and identifying the primary contradictions at different stages in the U.S.'s history. In detail, this obviously takes many, many pages to go through, but I was hoping you could maybe summarize the highlights of this analysis

just to help people understand the contradiction and direct relationship to U.S. history and the development of capitalism. We're obviously a show coming out of the U.S., and so I think it might help ground people's understanding a little better. Yeah, yeah. No, actually, what I do in, it's in Chapter 3 in the book, is that I try to implement this theory of the principal contradiction on the history of capitalization.

And actually, I have drawn a map of the development of the principal contradictions and other main contradictions in time and space from the 15th century up until today, you know with the different principal contradictions and how they react. I didn't include that in the book because it's a poster size drawing, but I have actually put it on the internet and it's a kind of drawing, a figure of this chapter of the book, which is only, I think it's 30 or 40 pages, and it's the whole history of capitalism. So it's not very detailed.

It's absolutely the only the principle contradictions. But if we go to, you wanted me to say something about the contradictions in the United States and how they have developed. Well, actually, I think I messed up a little bit because, yeah, I think you're right. you're really tracing the primary contradictions throughout capitalism's history. You're not really necessarily focusing just on the U.S., but you make references to U.S. history, particularly, I think, because, I mean, the U.S. empire is obviously, at least at this point, you know, the sort of cutting edge,

or as the empire decays, perhaps it's going away, but U.S. history at its peak represented probably, you know, like the cutting edge of capitalism at that time. So I will say that for sure the United States enters the stage and have been part of the principal contradiction at least since the Second World War and maybe also before. But if we just, you know, take the contradictions in the North America regions, the main contradictions, well, it started that with that America was colonelized by first the Dutch and later the Englishmen and the Frenchmen. And at that time, I would say that if you go to North America itself, the contradictions was. between the colonial power and the native population, the original population of North America. And this was a kind of settler colonialism.

So they tried more or less to not to exploit the original population, but tries to actually exterminate them or get rid of them. So this was the main contradictions was between the colonial power and the original population. But, you know, it was this kind of settler colonialism. So soon we have the contradictions between the settlers and the old colonial power, which came into the establishment of the United States of America. And these settlers, some of them, turned into plantation owners and so on them turn into a capitalist. So we have a contradiction between these two sectors of capital.

And on the other hand, the slaves, the remaining part of the indigenous population and the immigrants coming into America. This is for a long time the contradictions which drive the economy of the United States forward. But you also have to see these contradictions in the light of the United States are trying to become the new hegemonic power after British imperialism and the British Empire. So there's a lot of things going on here in the First World War. And another very important contradiction comes into play with the big crisis in the 30s with the New Deal, because we see these contradictions between capital and a form of social states.

So this is a contradiction. It's also a contradiction which is seen maybe mainly in Europe, in Germany and Scandinavia and France and England between capital and the social state. You can see that the social state kinds of save capitalism at that time, but it also creates big tensions. And this contradictions plays a role later on, which is very important. But because when we go to the end of the Second World War, where the United States finally became the hegemonic power and take into possession the British Empire's old possession. The United States goes into three contradictions.

One contradiction is between the United States and what we can call the socialist bloc, the Soviet Union, shortly after China and Eastern Europe. And this is a problem for capitalism and U.S. capitalism because they kind of take one third of the world out of the capitalist swear. The other contradictions is between the United States and the old colonial power. The United States wants decolonization because they want to get in with their own capital. But they don't want decolonization if it goes on in communist or socialist direction, of course. So you have a lot of struggle going on. And then you have the developing contradictions between the U.S. and the third world. So you have this kind of three contradictions.

And in the first period from 1945 to, I will say, the middle of the 60, it's the contradictions between the U.S. and the socialist bloc, which is the principal contradictions in the world. later on from, I will say, from 65 to the middle of the 70s, it's the contradiction between U.S. imperialism and anti-imperalist forces. In that period, it's not only the Vietnam War. If you put small red pins where there is a strong anti-imperalist and socialist revolutionary force in a world map at that time you will have around 50 pins with

revolutionary movements from Thailand from the Philippines in the Middle East in Africa and the Portuguese colonies South Africa in Latin America

in Middle America there's a lot of strong revolutionary forces yeah absolutely and i could go on and then you have the main contradictions of if we have i i think in the end of of the 70s capitalism is under huge pressure it's still in conflict with the socialist bloc it has this confrontation with anti-imperalist forces and they're all also an economic crisis the old crisis and so and so it is It seems that capitalism is in deep crisis, and then it suddenly launches this new counterattack

in form of neoliberalism and globalization. I just want to summarize that in the sense that what was really being pointed out here is that the principal contradiction sort of shifts over time throughout capitalism's history, and there may be secondary downstream contradictions, but the principal contradiction is something that you need to identify a given epoch so that you can clearly understand the situation in a concrete way and understanding how the principal contradiction shifts over time throughout capitalism's development, I think is an important part of understanding that.

And so after that wonderful survey where you sort of highlight those big shifts in principle contradiction, you have a subchapter called The State Makes a Comeback in which you analyze the sort of current global situation and discuss the contradiction between neoliberalism and nationalism. Could you talk a little bit about that and explain sort of where we are today? Sure. You can say that if you have, for instance, in the First World War, you have this inter-imperalist struggle,

which is the principal contradictions between Germany and England, France, and so on. And actually, this contradiction, is very important for the Russian revolution. The Russian revolution would not have happened if we didn't have this inter-imperalist struggle. And if you go to the Second World War where you have this inter-imperalist struggle, again, it was very important for the Chinese revolution also. So you can see how this principal contribution has a huge effect on. on on the contradictions in china and on the contradictions in in russia you can see this and you know this

principal contradictions it also determined the whole period of of the decolonization a process and and in yeah but let me go back to this a new liberalism which we talked about and this is precisely before neoliberalism could launch this globalization process, it had to get the upper hand at home. It has to dissolve the social state. It has to get the labor movement under control as Thetcher did in England and Reagan did in the United States. It was the first target of neoliberalism, it was to secure the rare base and make it ready for the globalization process. It's needed to get rid of regulations against investment.

It has to get rid of trade union protecting its rights and its workplaces and so on. And after it managed that, it could launch. the globalization process. So neoliberalism is the contradiction between transnational capital and some kind of social state where transnational capital has the upper hand. And it has the upper hand until it ran out of steam, you know, in 2007 or eight or something. And then you started to have the reactions in the home base. They started to see the consequences of neoliberalism.

They saw that their workplaces and their industry was outsources to Asia. They saw the problems of immigration caused by the huge difference in living standard and wages in the world and all kinds of wars. and the catastrophes. And so the working class at home began to react on neoliberalism. And they started to rebuild the national state, but they didn't turn back to primarily the social state. They went back to a kind of right-wing national state.

It's the process of Trump. It's the process of Brexit in Britain. You see it also in France and you see it in Denmark. You see it everywhere, this kind of reaction to transnational capital by right-wing national forces. And that's what I mean with the return of the national state as a major player. Because what's interesting is that in this transnational capitalism, you know, they made investments and trade and even production. national in terms of this global production change, but they never made any strong political and institutional governance of global capitalism. They tried to build it by the European

state and they tried to build the double ETO and so on. So they tried. But the building stones of even that institutions were still the political parliaments of the national states. And this was the weapon which the right-wing nationalists had against transnational capital. It was their votes that they could vote into another government and other politicians. This was the tool they had to counter. It was that political, parliamentary force they used to counter globalization. If I could say a little more about the current situation, I think we could discuss a little about it because, actually, I think that we have to distinguish between the objective

and the subjective conditions for change. And actually, I think that the objective conditions are quite good. And what I mean is that actually, I think that capitalism is in a deep crisis. It's in a crisis which is economically.

It's a crisis which is politically and it's a crisis which is also ecological and environment. It's also a climate crisis. And I don't think that the capitalist system and here I agree with

Wallerstein very much. I don't think that it will survive this century, and I think it's in deep trouble. If we take the economic first, we have a situation where there is declining profit, and we have this huge amount of public and private debt, which is bigger and bigger and bigger. And especially now with this pandemic, they have made this debt enormously. It's a historical amount of money.

They have just let out and printed in form of a paper at the moment. And nobody wants, nobody knows what will happen if that bubble bursts. And this is a huge problem. Politically, I think that especially the United States is in huge problems. You have the alternative now between Trump and Biden and Biden. And none of them have any ideas and any vision how to solve all this crisis. And then you have this. And capital is very much divided.

You have the transnational capital of the computer business and Amazon and all this kind of Apple. And you also have Nike and you have all this which have outsourced their industry and have all their production in this global production change. And they want to go back to some kind of neoliberal globalization, which is very difficult to come back. because of the resistance of the nationalism. But they sit on the hardware. They actually have the production facilities and they run this production change. So they have all the hardware,

and it's very difficult for them to start to produce Apple in America. And they cannot change and they have no profit if they don't have this low wages in the global south. So capitalism is in very deep shit political also. And then on top of this, they have this pandemic and climate crisis, which is now turning back. Capitalism is in big trouble. So the objective condition,

for changes is very good. The problem is the subjective conditions very much because you have a lot of Ryans, you have a lot of unsatisfied people, but they don't have a vision. They are very, they are not very well organized and so on. And this is, I think, the main problem. Yeah. So the objective conditions are pretty ripe for some sort of, you know, left-wing intervention or rupture, but the subjective conditions are what you're considered, what you're kind of worried about, particularly, I mean, we can talk a lot about subjective conditions, but in America, people specifically are very sort of conditioned with ideology and brainwashed in very specific ways. And so we see a huge portion, for example, of the American right going to. off into complete conspiracy theories like Hew anon, for example. And so it just makes for a very volatile situation. And one thing you mentioned in your book, too, is that there's no guarantee, right? Dialectical materialism doesn't guarantee that there's a progress, right?

After capitalism comes socialism and communism, you say it could just as easily end in, you know, complete ruin or some sort of horrific, catastrophic ecological collapse. Do you want to talk about that a little bit before we wrap up? Yeah, but because of the... So there have been in some kind, in some areas of Marxism, there have been a theory that there is a kind of automatic or natural transference from feudalism to capitalism to socialism. It's a kind of Marxist pang to the development theory. You know that you have underdeveloped countries and then they go into. industrialization and they will have liberal politics and they underdeveloped countries will become

like America. You know, they have this theory after the Second World War of development. And it's more or less there was a Marxist version of this automatic thinking of the development like this. But I think that it's not true. There's no auto. thing, I think that it's probably capitalism will decline into some kind of chaos and it just collapses into some kind of chaos. And from that point, there can also be a socialist transformation, but if it will be a kind of lifeboat, socialism would have to pick up the pieces of a world which is in ruins. But there's also a big chance of, I think, of Wallerstein, say, a 50-50% chance that

some kind of organized social force can make a world which is more equal and it's more democratic. And I think that this is a probability which we have to, of course, work for. And I think it's possible to do that. And there are, I think, also positive forces. I think there are forces in South Africa. There are forces in the Philippines. And I think also there's forces in China, which work in that direction. So I'm not so pessimistic, actually. Well, yeah, that's a great sort of optimistic high note to end this discussion on. strategy the dialectical world historical process will not necessarily proceed from capitalism to socialism and finally to communism

dialectics points to praxis as mediating the historical process, but not with a predetermined outcome. However, action can be oriented towards explicitly defined goals as it has been by socialists and communists without losing itself in blueprints. In the previous chapter, I tried to illustrate how capitalism's general contradictions have expressed to themselves throughout history. We have seen how they have impacted both capitalists who want to see continued accumulation of capital and other classes, which are, dependent on capitalist production to maintain their living conditions. At the same time, classes impact the power relations within the contradictions. This is the importance of class struggle. It can steer contradictions in one direction or another.

The better you understand the contradictions, the more effectively you can intervene. Political practice is often the result of rather spontaneous reactions to economic hardship and social oppression. But without a proper analysis of the world we live in and an adequate strategy, one's political practice is unlikely to lead to change. Analysis requires a constant back and forth between empirical study and theoretical reflection. Strategy requires a constant back and forth between the results of our analyses and their practical application. The goal of a dialectical materialist analysis is to identify the conditions and events that will bring about a revolutionary situation,

and the practice that strengthens the aspect in the principal contradiction that is moving in the right direction. Once we have had some experiences based on this practice, it is time to reflect again and see what we need to correct. Sometimes it is time for action. Sometimes it is time for evaluation. Developing strategy implies developing analysis, but with the focus on a concrete time and place. Different practices do not apply globally, but the practices of one time and place can inspire and support others and thereby contribute to the creation of global movements. It is necessary to understand the general contradictions in capital,

but to develop strategy, it is the political expressions that are crucial. These expressions we can influence. The most important terrain is the class struggle, nationally and globally. Strategic analysis focuses on classes, their economic basis, their organization, their practices, their political alliances, and their struggles. Even for analysis of interstate rivalries, it is of utmost importance to understand the respective states' class base. We must know which movements, political parties, and countries have, common interests and which ones don't. But we must also remember that our enemy's enemy is not necessarily our friend.

Mao is often considered a volunteerist. It is true that he underscored the active role of humanity, but he situated the actors in the context of the field of contradictions past and present. To maximize the efficacy of political praxis, Mao emphasizes active reflection. Only when there is doing, which includes thinking, can the actor comprehend the network of contradictions transforming the society in which the actor is situated. The ongoing exchange between theory and practice requires taking into full account the specific circumstances and proper timing.

One of Mao's famous metaphors to explain this point is the arrow and target. Quote, how is Marxist-Leninist theory to be linked with the practice of the Chinese revolution? To use a common expression, it is by shooting the arrow at the target. As the arrow is to the target, so is Marxism-Lennon. to the Chinese revolution." Mao's bullseye has often been mistaken for the era without taking into consideration the specifics

of time and place. In the 1930s and 40s, Mao wrote many articles about military and political strategy based on class analysis. The situation in China was constantly shifting due to the Japanese occupation and the civil war, and the concept of contradiction proved to be a useful tool to make sense

of things. It led Mao to decide on a temporary alliance with the Kuomintang to fight the Japanese in 1930s. At that time, CPC cadres read and discussed on contradiction. To have the correct analysis was a matter of life or death, not just for the party, but for millions of people in the revolution's future. The CPC needed to identify the principal contradiction at each stage of the struggle and develop adequate strategies and practices. For revolutionaries in my part of the world in the year 2020, identifying the principal contradiction doesn't have the same urgency. There is no movement right now whose strategies and practices will decide the revolution's fate.

Still, it remains important to identify the principal contradiction because there is also plenty of work to do in non-revolutionary situations. Some aspects of capitalism's contradictions almost always lie in the center of the capitalist world system, and it is crucial to take a stand. This might not bring about revolution in our part of the world, but it can help create a revolutionary situation elsewhere. Furthermore, we are in a period of capitalism's history when conditions can change very quickly, and we need to be prepared. We need to have the right organizations and practices. Conclusion. While the subjective forces today are weaker than in the 1970s, the objective situation is promising.

Capitalism is in crisis, economically, politically, and ecologically. At a time when U.S. hegemony is declining and global power relations are complicated, we will see unexpected and rapidly shifting alliances. We must prepare for a dramatic era. We can only do this if we take a global perspective, identify the world's principal contradiction, and draw the right strategic and practical conclusions. There needs to be much improvement from where we're at today.

When discussing anti-imperialist strategy in the global north, I have often heard the arguments that the best way to fight imperialism is to fight the capitalists in one's own country, that when you weaken capital at home, you are contributing to the global anti-imperialist struggle. But this is not how things work in the world of globalized capitalism. Profit is not necessarily generated within each nation's borders, but to a large extent comes from low-wage labor in the global south.

A purely national struggle in the global north for a bigger share of profits in the form of higher wages and more welfare becomes a question of simply re-dividing the loot. The struggle has to be fought with a global perspective. Anti-imperialism is not a side issue, but is in fact the very essence of the struggle for socialism. Imperialist wars have sparked revolutionary change. World War I made the Russian Revolution possible.

World War II, the Chinese Revolution. Inter-imperialist rivalry led to decolonization and strengthened the national liberation struggles in the 60s and 70s. Today, nuclear weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles mean that an inter-imperialist war could mark the end of humankind. In a situation like this, the fight for peace has, has revolutionary potential. The growing environmental crisis could also spark revolutionary movements. We have entered a period in capitalism's history where the conflicts caused by its

contradictions are not about which class is winning, but about whether there will be any future for us and our planet at all. Analysis remains as important as ever, and so does the method of dialectical materialism. The goal is clear to change the world. Torkel, thank you so much for coming on and discussing this awesome work with me. I really enjoyed reading it. And, you know, at about 140, 150 pages, it's accessible, it's thrilling. And I think a lot of listeners could get a lot out of reading the text itself. So before I let you go, can you please let listeners know where they can find you and your work online?

Yes. Most of my books are published by Kurt Debeb. It's a publisher in Montreal. all and he also and they also have a website but a lot of my texts are also on online on on anti imperilist net something called anti imperilist net and i think you can just write my name on on the internet and a lot of these websites will will come up i i think yeah okay yeah perfect and i'll link directly to in the show notes I'll link to your work so people can find it

incredibly easy. So yeah, thank you again for coming on. Thank you for this wonderful book and yeah, stay safe over there in Denmark and we'll try to do the same over here in the US. Thank you for the opportunity to talk with you. You Duterte, do not do, too, do, do, do, two, side, he's at, gozat, chute, shun, reu, du, two, si,

he's at, go set, go sat, shud, shir, du, two, si, Two-two-shoe-no-h-h-a-co-sat-shoe-le-do-su-sai, heza-go-sat-a-go-sat-shu-l-do-shu-do-sci-sye. Takanakot kota kottokitoukita, but I'm nother, no, that's no, that no, so I'm sorry,

Kere Kro, too. Aka no-tokar-i-tut-n-tur-n-tur-kust-so-sai-kkne-net-tut-tou. I don't know Aka Kida To Nogina's Kota

Kov Keptan No Too Dutte Kora Kiddett Tarnet

Tum Kottish Aka Dess You Do Dish Thank you very

to second go should or quidoo haqana et t'ar a good

and a that a colu shudder to too a cold

and and a not the to get used to stay. Thank you. We're going to be. I'm going to be.

We're going to be. Thank you. I'm going to be. Too-to-do-s-sai, he-ta-na-cote-to-do-sai, too-do-to-do-ca, he-ta-nig-kid-kid-kid-kid, Rand-to-Tu-ta-S-no-no-kka-kka-kkdu-scii.

Thank you.