A Revolutionary Understanding

Lenin was very critical of Positivism

The major Wrong Turning at the beginning of the 20th Century within Physics (and then the other Sciences), was undoubtedly that taken by the Positivists, who were troubled by the increasing number of solely Empirical Laws arising within Modern Physics, which seemingly had no evident Physical Causes naturally available - as had always been the case with the usually historically-sought Causal laws. The advantage with those Prior Laws, was that they could be related to the involved componentsí Natural Properties, that also clearly held sway all the way from the Atomic & Molecular Level, to their performances in Bulk at a higher Level of Reality. So, in addition to any purely Quantitative Relations extracted, there was also always this Qualitative Information: so, together, they married Quantity & Quality into two-sided, Meaningful Laws! 

But, those New sort of relations, also emerging, though they involved similar numerical relations between certain evident variables, clearly DID NOT & COULD NOT ever relate these to any Qualitative relations, to, together, deliver meaningful Explanations of Real phenomena.

Now, before we go any further, we simply must make absolutely clear that the now usually achieved Totally Separate Quantitative & Qualitative Equations as such delivered NO PERFECT standard to mutually relate to! And, this inadequacy became a far more general attitude to behaviours well outside The Sciences too!

Once accepted as legitimate, ALL LAWS covering much wider areas of Reality also were acceptable as mere Quantative Relations having NO Qualitative Explanations!

And this was highly dangerous, for what effects they produced were seemingly Unknowable!

And they were only finally possible as Mankind developed the means to largely Control Limited Areas of Reality, extremely effectively, and, thereafter maintain that situation throughout subsequent variations within the Main Components, that would have to be clearly associated with certain actually consequent changes: and if these were then extracted as Laws they could effectively be used - BUT ONLY in Artificial Tightly-Controlled Production Methods.

That became their primary motivation!

For more genereally evident Quantitative & Qualitatative Relations were NOT there simultaneously available! And so NO Explanations were possible

You would imagine that the growth of The Sciences would simultaneously greatly enable Mankind in Explaining their World: BUT the Pluralist limitations caused by those tightly restricted conditions made it so the relations that they were limited to DID NOT reflect Reality-as-is, and was linked to Numeric Values rather than Explanations! And, it, inexhorably, began to move Human Society from merely taking Reality, exactly AS IT IS, to instead having to be able to direct, small parts of it into very useful chosen (and more-and-more-often), Entirely New Directions. 

The age of advanced technology effectively killed Science.

It wasnít so much a Revelation of Reality-as-is, as it was a ìNew Extracted and Totally-Controllable More-Limited Versionî, capable of empowering the Manufacture (but NOT the Understanding) of useful, artificially extracted & Transformed Additions - both as clean & unadulterated, as were most of the wholly Natural & Different Productions, independent of Man, within Reality-as-is!

Indeed, the New approach embodied a Veritable Revolution in the Capabilities and the assumptions of Mankind in order to achieve ONLY that & no other. But, it also originally explained Absolutely Nothing! For, it was situated only within a Parallel Artificial Domain, which was initially, at best, much more useful than it was informative.

But, Mankind saw, at least, the possibility of it delivering a great deal more, if, and only if, it could be married to its evident Properties with roughly-appreciated from already-known (for many Natural Phenomena) and their inter-relationships. But the two were only separately known. 

Of course, these ideas emerged as such, ONLY within the Working People of Society: for NO progress could possibly be made by those who didnít actually DO any such work! So, the initial gains were always made by the Artisans and their descendent Engineers and Experimentalists - the most skilled pragmatic workers in Society - whose knowledge of making things was Wholly Pragmatic, rather than Explanatory.

Now, simultaneously with these crucial developments, a very different Social Class had politically taken control of their individual Localities, (often by Force), and, thereafter, convinced the Populations which they now controlled, that they alone were ALSO both Capable Defenders of their now-subsevient charges, and were also absolutely necessary to stop even-worse-others (from elsewhere) taking away all that was now being achieved, and doing it by viscious-looting Force, and even killing any who got in their way, when they thought it necessary.

Now, such consequent internal social divisions, were never conducive to the increasing requirement for a real Understanding of what was currently actually being both pursued & achieved, and, by which the overall Level of Understanding AND Achievement could be extended.

Somehow, the false paths, and even the consequent wrong conclusions imposed by all the participators within so far experienced History, just had to be somehow transcended, if the many usual prematurely-terminated outcomes were to be avoided.

But, it, unavoidably, had to eliminate the usual consequences of a very poorly understood, and consequently always deteriorating situation, especially as the Ruling Classes (and their many privileged hangers-on), constantly used their limited Control to actually prevent the Real-if-hidden Truth being both considered and then developed effectively!

How are we to convince ordinary people of the Real Truth of the situation, when as individuals it will always be impossible, within such a situation, where every usual means of informing them, of what is possible, has been well-and-truly tightly controlled for centuries, if not actually millennia, by the Ruling Classís generally agreed self-centered means of dealing with all such features, while ALWAYS maintaining their CONTROL!

The consequently-developed route unavoidably-achieved, came to be via Wholly New Political Parties, along with Jointly-agreed actions, based solely upon their Own Class! But, those benefitting mostly from the current situations, would, in any Generally-Precipitated Crisis Situation, always turn to the much wilder, more direct Forms of Repression, such as Fascism & even naked Military Control of Society.

So, the best hope surely now, has to be to equip the Real Class Forces of Change to take maximum advantage of the Coming Inevitable Terminal Crises, by knowlegibly revealing the predictable Result, if the Forces of Reaction within the battle for The Minds AND The Forces necessary to impose their preferred outcome. As always, a union of The Working class Youth and the latest Marxist Theory - as spelled out, for exanple, in this Major Series of Essays, can be the only salvation.

But beware of false Prophets!

It is also very clear that the Stance fought for in these papers is neither complete, nor does it have sufficient Forces to achieve the Necessary Objective of providing what will be needed, to direct that Assault! Alliances with currently existing and tolerated organisations clearly presently, does the Very Opposite, and ALWAYS also undermines the only valid means of understanding the current Headlong Deterioration!

It IS NEVER mere Organisation that will equip the Necessary Forces of Social Revolution, BUT ONLY a genuine UNDERSTANDING of what drives such situations.

Not Alliances, but Understanding! 

And, currently, absolutely NONE of the current Claimed-to-be Left Parties have added significantly to the contributions of Karl Marx - the unavoidable limitations of a philosophic stance initially derived almost 200 years ago, will NEVER be sufficient to address TODAY!

That is why this research was begun, some 16 years ago, following an active participation in literally ALL the Parties of the LEFT, but also an increasingly a commitment to the essential Development of Marxism via the Sole attempt at a Dialectical Critique of both Social Development, and its inevitable Turning Points within Social Revolution.

BUT, and it turns out to be a very big BUT: the necessity of Theory involved which can NEVER EVER be developed by a single individual! It is far too big a risk to be the work of only a single contribution, as was clearly proved by the example of Marx himself!

Though the gains I have been able to contribute, have at least been significant, they have been so in spite of over 60 years commitment, which has NEVER been sufficient! And, in spite of my most productive contributions being in the last 16 years, amounting to over 1,600 papers, it has only been in the last couple of years that the most significant contributions have been produced.

It isnít the job for a single individual (no matter how committed), for it is without doubt, an approach which not only transcends any single discipline: but, indeed, needs to be adequately developed, it requires them all - and not just produced by real interest, but also, necessarily, by the required methods to breakthrough all the many constraints, implemented to simplify analyses!

For example, it has been the inclusion of the major discoveries in Systems Theory, by Biologist Denis Noble and others, that has for the first time also addressed several limitations in the ways Marxism has regularly pursued ever since - and including, Marx himself!

Now, this project, along with a series of others, has put into serious question, NOT just these type of problems, though also upon a much wider scale, in which the Whole set of ways that problems can occur - both in Reality-at-large, AND in the whole range involving both natural and consequent engineered problems, concerned with Explaining all that we now also see, as well as the full range of situations both now possible and also as newly evident, achievable Objectives in delivering what they all can do. For, in the past, a set of assumptions about what makes things the way that they are, have MOST CERTAINLY greatly over-simplified our Understanding.

The perceived basic (and invariably inadequately described) situations, have, almost always been believed to be those possible States - that some Natural, or even Man-Made Action or Event can actually exist within!

Indeed, on-going-investigations are always revealing New Forms, which could-and-often-did actually persuade Artisans that their objectives were impossible: especially as ìprecisely-knowingî the current state turns out to be never a simple task, as so many interactions frequently produce results that ìlook unchangedî and are in fact actually significantly-different, in a way which is not immediately evident.

Remember that Artisans have long established required conditions for certain processes WITHOUT a full theoretical basis for them, & their Laws reflect curtailed & severely limited Equations only!

The usual solution was always to so-greatly-restrict both the Context and Controllable Content, as to always produce a single, easily reproducible State, that could validly be considered One of the Many Basic States possible, which would always be taken as a legitimate extraction from all of the others known to be possible in that Context! For such always was the Primary Objective, as a starting point, in all Manufacturing - as the dependable Basis for all Subsequent Productions.

But that doesnít help us Understand complex, dynamic, Natural Systems - including those of Society itself. 

The Odessa Steps

The separately arrived at properties in Reality-as-is DO NOT just ADD UP - they DO NOT deliver the Full Set of possibilities. They are a Strictly Limited Set, selected for by the particularly severe constraints that had been imposed in order to extract them in the first place.

For the objective was NOT, and, indeed, was never intended to enable an Explanation of the subsequent performance, BUT, instead, only those required for Future Production of a Chosen Result.

And these two sets of conditions produce Very Different Possibilities!

The ones always chosen are just those with ONLY a Future Production in mind! Indeed, that objective is the ONLY One usually fulfilled: the whole Approach is solely directed towards Production, and NEVER Explanation!

And the Conclusions from this are that our assumptions are certainly NOT sufficient! Reality-as-is contains many other cases we are unaware of, and, they also affect one another, which would greatly complicate the then required processes yet to be implemented.

So, they donít even try!

So-called Physics is NOT what it is claimed to be: it is a SYSTEM for controlling Reality, solely designed to aid Production. 

The Required Revolutionary New Stance

Clearly, we have been well-schooled, in this Wrong Turning, for a very long historical period, and for what always were Very Good Reasons indeed!

You would not criticise a child for not dancing before it could even walk - NOR understand what you were saying before they could even talk!

There have been profound and unavoidable Purely Natural Reasons for the necessary route we have taken, which, if we are Now (and Subsequently) to avoid at least some of the consequent pitfalls, in our future updates upon our methods.

For, the problem emerges entirely from our distorted - yet completely understandable, Early Misconceptions of the True Nature-of-Things!

For, we, ourselves, actually also developed from a Whole Series of Lesser Forms, and many earlier solutions, within our then Primitive Thinking, only had to be close enough to Reality-as-is, to deliver an improved, and hence worthwhile, benefit! This, anyway, has always been the situation for Mankind: for settling upon the ìSupposed Truthî, long before anybody even had the required means to do so absolutely, or even partially! So, it NEVER delivers the required complete-and-wholly-correct Truth as its evidently, arrived-at conclusions.

Let us attempt to address this problem better NOW!

We will still NOT yet arrive at the Complete Truth (for it doesnít yet even ìexistî), BUT, we can eliminate just a few obvious very long-standing ìsupposed truthsî as now completely evident as errors.

The daddy of them all is the belief that The Truth is FIXED!

It isnít.

Indeed, Absolutely Nothing is!

But, it can certainly appear so in stable Systems, for some considerable periods of time, because even with apparently constant random variation, Really Significant Changes will only emerge when that ìseemingly undirected variationî, somehow, finally arrives, surprisingly, and at a Much Better State - and, thereafter, vigorously proliferates the New Form fast!

BUT NO External Judgement of Quality was necessary in this crucial transformation: its own increasing relative success, alone confers that by itself.

This is something like Darwinís notion of Natural Selection, but extending that to all Levels of Reality - all Natural Systems.

So to us, at our Level, , most things either continue to appear Fixed, or in ìGetting-Nowhere Randomnessî seemingly permanently! But, that isnít actually The Full Truth.

Yet, appreciating this, still doesnít indicate, in advance, exactly what Laws are going to emerge. On the contrary, to ensure Current Success, you simply always have to be maximally aware of what Laws seem, ìfor nowî, to be Fixed! But, the scientists who do ONLY that, will unavoidably be caught into getting nowhere, when suddenly a New Law finally does emerge!

So, instead of ONLY Subject-Based-Research: there, surely, has to be also Constant Background Research probing-deeply into the very important Dynamic Development of Laws.

A Final Aspect of this whole Approach, when generally-applied, concerns how the various well-established Laws, being unavoidably radically challenged by this Current Stance, occupied by almost Everybody Else with the argument that it most closely reflects what has been continuing to significantly Change. Laws that were usually considered as Forever Fixed now are more correctly seen as involving Whole Mixtures of Laws, most usually swamped by one that had previously emerged as totally naturally dominant.

This is a rarely appreciated feature of Reality-as-is, which is usually simplified into that which is currently dominant, so when circumstances begin to greatly amplify another element, it seems to have come in from outside of the System, whereas it was always a built-in, though currently suppressed, aspect of Reality-as-is that was therefore always totally hidden and ineffective previously, but in non-conducive condutions. It is clearly an important philosophic feature that was naturally, if mistakenly, assumed as such in the past.

For with the Long Established view determined by both tailored and rigidly maintained Fixed Sets of Contents, along with unchanging Contexts - they are all separately dealt with - each in its own required Context and Content, the resulting Laws, are then coupled with sets of another, Absolutely NEVER arrived-at in a Commonly occurring Situation - and in a Production always applied as part of a sequential Series, with each step in its own ideally necessary and maintained different Context.

So, clearly, that will constitute a wholly Artificial Union, and will never suffice if they were all applied in a singular Common Context - which is, of course, certainly mainly the case in Reality-as-is!

In Conclusion

So, in finnaly assessing what has ultimately been achieved, we must draw some general conclusions, primarily about the most important areas tackled in these essays.

The key objectives were always to deliberately target the absolutely necessary Philosophical Developments, which are particularly difficult when no longer addressing Restricted Contents & Contexts, as we always do in Mathematics: but, instead, approach the Real World-as-is - much of which still remains not only yet to be revealed, but also Explained in any way!

And, that, Iím afraid, is much easier said than done: for an Extremely Important Ser of Reasons:

Reality-as-is is NOT already fixed!

Neither does it change within limits!

It is an Evolutionary System - forever developing to the Wholly New!

So, they were here addressed hopefully to transform the underlying assumptions unavoidably-associated with the usually involved important Ideas and Methods, upon which our current Theories are always based.

But, unlike most Explanations that only ever deliver within Constrained Rationalities (like Mathematics), what we have to deal with is absolutely NEVER finished: for it creates the Wholly New regularly (if infrequently) and requires, instead, an Open-Ended System, integrating the Totally New, BUT also never as an Anything Taken-up Collection. It also has to fit!

But, in doing so, it adds more to have to relate predictably with every new addition! So, it involves a Rationality, which grows, amd though preserving the old, it also adds-in, an affecting, yet mostly conforming, NEW!

How about that for a truly demanding Discipline!? 

This article is taken from Issue 79 of the SHAPE Journal, and is the last in the series of papers called The Systems Theory of Everything.

Mechanisms of Development

Mechanisms of Development

& The Consequent New Structures of the Nature of Reality

There are many, long-held assumptions about the Nature of Reality - and these are understandably distorted by the often extremely slow tempo of the Qualitative Changes that occur. And this gives an initial impression of some essential Eternal Stability. on which everything else is built, with only inessential variations actually occurring.

However, such an environment, if it were to exist, would basically remain the same forever - maintained as such by a Fixed Set of Natural Laws. With this primary assumption, attempts to understand those Laws were well worth pursuing, if only to make sense of the full set of possibilities, so that the most conducive could be arranged for, and always kept that way, forever.

This was a relatively Static Conception of Reality, and what investigations were pursued, were NOT considered to be an infinite set: but, at least, a fairly large-yet- unchanging group of natural possibilities. All discovered Laws were assumed to then be available then, in exactly the same ways hence forward!

But after many millennia of study, there always seemed to be others - as yet unknown! The set was apparently getting ever-bigger, and a full definition of them all always appeared to be a long way off!

It never occurred to Mankind that Wholly New Laws were constantly developing, because NO possible mechanism for Production of The New seemed at all possible - beyond the divine.

And indeed, all discoveries were naturally-assumed to be merely different combinations of those already- known Laws: and there was an assumed Logic of such combinations. But all of this isn’t True! Indeed, there are situations, in which the Wholly New can be created for the very first time: and NOT merely from new combinations of previously existing Laws - and, hence, when such does happen, there is absolutely NO Way of ever predicting what they will be! They will most certainly NOT be mere combinations of past known Laws - for then they could easily be explained and always be completely predictable!

So, what occurs, are termed Emergences. They are NEVER predictable, and hence ALWAYS add Wholly New Possibilities to the Overall situation.

Reality-as-it actually-develops: we have the constant Evolution of Nature to attempt to understand!

All we can more generally say, about these Wholly New Emergences, is that they will, indeed, have “something” comparable in common with other prior Emergences - for example, how they may interact with other prior existing Laws, of all kinds! BUT, exactly what they themselves will contribute, will never be predictable, in advance of their first appearence, though more general roles to other prior Emergences will be obvious after the Event.

Now, all of this is clearly profoundly important - the great omission in modern Science is the paramount role of Emergences within Evolution. For, following their appearences, new directions will be possible, that were not available prior to such Events: and the most important of these will, most commonly, be when old- established features begin to be directly-contended, and, maybe, even actually eliminated.

Well established features can simply just vanish!

So, it would be totally mistaken, to assume that they would only Add to the possible range of outcomes: for, sometimes, they could most certainly Substract from prior possibilities too.

Now, as I have been at pains to fully appreciate the Important Role of Contention in complex situations, it becomes ever-clearer just how many surprising outcomes can result in well established, seemingly “stable” circumstances. And the Active Stabilities within the long periods between Revolutionary Events, are perhaps both the most important, AND by far the most difficult to explain! What actually delivers these Active Stabilitues, which are maintained for such exceptionally long periods?

It certainly isn’t a single overall condition that has to be precipitated into a General Collapse! It can, surely, only be a whole series of Separate Active Stabilities, which deliver the Obvious Overall Stability, due to the simultaneous stabilities of all the present sets. So, they have to be, at least close to individual collapses but surviving! The Revolution will be precipitated by first one individual Active Stability failing, and in doing so, trigger other Collapses, until the whole System is dissociated.

Now, there are still many more only half-answered features about the Nature of Reality, particularly concerning Electromagnetic Currents and Fields in Space, and relatedly also involved within the Sub Atomic regions within, and even without, Atoms. For things like Birkeland Currents cry out for further Explanation: as do many other related phenomena!

The classic “Chicken-and-the-Egg” Problems - relating Current and Fields, especially out in the vast expanses of seemingly Empty Space - originally conceived-of as a vaccuum devoid of matter - are still far from any satisfactory explanation, and are never considered as important when it comes to actual research of Space itself: while the Sub Atomic Spaces within Atoms are also ignored experimentally.

It could be that the usually available controls considered essential for ALL Earthbound Experiments, are clearly impossible in such areas, so literally Nothing is done there! In particular, the unexplained Nature and Description of the creation of the Birkeland Currents, coursing between

The Sun and The Earth: not to mention the now widely- suggested Hierarchies of several of these Currents, claimed to be actually Directing the arrangements of Stars, across Truly Vast Volumes of “Empty Space”!

How did these huge Systems Emerge, and what initially directed their creation and optimum positioning?

Clearly, the usual descriptions (as in the “See the Pattern”) make absolutely no attempts to address these questions, as has become the norm in most Electric Universe published ideas, as well as elsewhere in Physics.

But, all such assumptions-without-Explanation, simply must be investigated: yet all access to Experiments-in- Space seem to be totally non existent within this extensive Group, and wider too, it appears!

Indeed, there seems to be a surprising attitude to Theory - NOT, as the essential explanations of WHY things behave as they do, within carefully designed Investigative Experiments, but, alternatively, as self-consistent “Descriptions”, with absolutely NO naturally critical stance - as they surely should always be to finally arrive at The Truth!

Clearly, any still-remaining “Big Bang” ideas, give a Single Initial Source, for all Energy Requirements, but Reality is NOT a Running-Down Clock: it is a powerful- and-Continuing Creative Process, regularly producing The Wholly New - the evidence is all around us!

Along with the now universally-employed lop-sided account of the Ukrainian Conflict, the same kind of lop- sided accounts of Reality are similarly rampant too!

ASIDE: The above conclusion, which is certainly true about Modern Science, needs, I feel a concrete example of the increasingly employed alternative to experimentally-justfied Theory, to the now regularly- resorted-to alternative of more-detailed, and indeed useful, Descriptions, often employed in Science - as an alternative to Real Theory.

The example, that I am most familiar with, is the See the Pattern “Explanation” of the various forms of Atomic Nuclei - composed (for simplicity) by identical Spheres - representing Protons and Neutrons, and attempting to “explain” various features in terms of “Closest Packing” Forms!

It certainly isn’t a Scientific Explanation: it is a somewhat idealised Description ONLY, and explains almost Nothing of these crucial bits of Reality! It says absolutely Nothing about the Vital Properties of those different Atoms! The Science is omitted and “replaced?” by some Purely Descriptive Geometry.

The obvious and clearly very important Properties, known to be associated with these substances, all the way to their constituent Atoms, are NOT explained by this Closest-Packing Approach: so by far the most important and Causal features are simply NOT delivered.

The Persisting Myths involving the accumulation of only simple Quantitative Changes, within their Key Parameters, which being much too deficient to also include any Qualitative Evolutionary Changes, is therefore demolished! And Real Evolutionary Changes then actually construct a New-and-Necessary Totally Integrated System, in which the many contributions help to both support and mutually maintain one another.

But, by the very same relationships, many contributory elements are also eliminated, so, the overall prior System cannot recover, and step-by-step it dissociates into a complete Collapse: Stage One of a Revolution has occurred!

The Total Chaos that thereby results, however, is certainly NOT the end of the Process! For, wholly-automatically, a Whole New System then proceeds to construct a very different, and more appropriate sort of Active Stability. Stage Two of the Revolution is also complete!

Now, these Two Processes are always very Different: the Collapse is both swift-and-automatic: but the Re-Build, thereafter, has to find its optimum components, largely by trial-and-error, and that takes time!

Now, though Karl Marx recognised that these Revolutions regularly happened in Human History, AND hence were probably the usual Mechanism involved-in Real Qualitative Changes in Absolutely All Kinds of Developing Systems, his Primary Discipline was the study of Human Societies within History. And, that alone would require a truly massive amount of work to identify, describe, and crucially Explain all its vastly varying tempos, and the particular factors affected therewith.

Marx, though, intimated that such processes were almost certainly more general than being limited only to Human History: but he, personally, NEVER took his conceptions directly into the vast Range of Disciplines, where they would also be validly applicable!

Now, this was unavoidable, at that time, for both the tempos and the Qualities involved in Natural Systems, would be very different indeed, and, any wholesale- and-unmodified transfers, from say, History to Physics, would certainly be calamatous!

The Nature of what Marx called Dialectical Development, would, initially, at least, be limited to History and Economics - but the Philosophical reasoning behind his approach was much more general.

Now, the extension of this approach to all the other Disciplines is much Easier Said Than Done! For, starting with basic materials within Physics, will, in spite of the same general appoach, be necessarily profoundly different: if only because the ingredients in Physics are totally non-living objects, without any Conscious Reactions to what is going on!

The involved processes in such Systems, though still taking a related development path, will still be vastly more limited than the Processes in a History of Conscious Human Beings! It will be possible for such Human Physics Practitioners, to naturally attempt to build a Dialectically Developing version of Physics - BUT, it will look nothing like the Forms and Developments dominating Marx’s vision of History!

And, if it is to become THE general Way in all investigative Disciplines: they will ALL differ significantly - each with their own unique characteristics, even with a consistently Dialectical character assisting in our understanding of Change.

Indeed, this researcher as a qualified Physicist, and long-time critic of the usual ways that this important Subject has been developed. I disagreed with my Lecturers, from my very first term at University, and interestingly, on searching for an alternative approach in the exellent Library there, I found only one lone book presenting, what I believed, was a viable alternative. The book I found was in the Philosophy Section, and was called Materialism and Empirio Criticism - a work by the Russian Ulianov, who was the only one at all close to my own strongly held criticisms. I only, later, found out that Ulianov was better known as Lenin - the later leader of the successful Russian Revolution, and an avid follower of Karl Marx!

But, by the publication of this book Lenin amply demonstrated that Marx’s Dialectical Materialism could be applied powerfully and consistently to a very different Discipline to that of Marx, which in many clearly evident ways was considerably more Basic than History! Lenin knew that he personally could not take these ideas further: but he certainly proved it was possible, while at the same time very different to its application in the social world. And, he also proved his profound Marxist credentials, at many crucial junctures and Crisis Points within the Progress of the Revolution.

Many years ago I attempted to do the same job as Lenin (in Physics, not global Revolution!), but I couldn’t make any real progress, until I came across The Systems Approach, which alone significantly extended the range of Causal influences beyond the usual Properties of Atoms and Molecules to include Top-Down Systems Causes too! And, as mentioned elsewhere in these papers, Oxford Don Denis Noble has effectively included Systems Theory into his again very different Discipline of Biology!

Now, that there are three very different areas finally receiving necessarily extended approaches, we have produced, thereby, three different possibilities for new developments. For - in terms of Levels of Reality - below History we now have Biology, lacking the Conscious interventions of Mankind, but including Life and its basic development trajectories - and finally we have Physics, which now delivers the most basic Level of Reality that we can access.

And, these, together, have recently ushered-in various previously not-included factors, the Most Important being a general Systems Theory - and, for the first time, the acknowledgment of Top-Down Causalities, to add to the prior sole reliance upon reductionist Bottom-up influences.

And, what could, indeed, be added ON TOP of all of these, and influenced by them, as well assigning a wholly New Major Level of both Actions & Effects, consisting of Artistic Interpretation & Futher Explanation, across the whole set of the Arts, and a most profound disemination via the powerful revealing Media possible!

Now, in addition to what has been suggested above, yet another highly important aspect of the Key Processes involved, has-to-be the mechanisms that must be used to implement what is necessary! For these greatly influence just how these processes inflict the absolutely maximum effects! These unavoidably greatly concentrate these Effects in subtle Systems-Processing ways, ONLY evident when we correctly consider them acting upon various sets of Reactions, as finite CHAINS of separate processes.

For, though crucial, these are never regimented by waiting-in-line for their turn. For, the output from one process has to “find” the place to initiate the next process, and any movent involved, could also dissipate these comings together, and, in so doing, reduce the possibility of a completed CHAIN. So, perhaps surprisingly, the coming together always also elicits a reflected opposite action, from the recipient, and this dissipates the energy, in the form of an oscillation in-place! The complete CHAIN therefore happens, and so possibly dissociating energy happens in-place: and the overall result is the achievement of a kind of Active Stability, which allows all the required reactions to happen without dissociation! There are Two basic cases that must occur in the above described way:

1: THE LINE SHUNT Where whole chains of different processes, when disturbed in a single direction, nevertheless deliver a maintained two-way Oscillation, at the End of all the processes acting in a CHAIN

or
2: THE TWIN SHUFFLE When many such processes are acting simultaneously, a disturbance will cause multiple similar oscillations throughout the whole lot!

For, both of these intensify those Effects, which though seemingly one-way “shunts”, in fact actually cause movements both forwards-and-back, to deliver the possibility of maintaing an overall Stability, via a both ways maintained oscillations!

The reason for mentioning two different examples, is that while they deliver different situations, they still end up with a similar Active Stability, substituting Oscillations in place for translational movements.

This paper is taken from the ongoing series The Systems Theory of Everything, currently being published in SHAPE Journal. 

Systems-based Marxism

Hinting at a New Philosophy for both Science and Politics

There will be many who vigorously reject how the last essay in this important series ended, with Lenin standing on the rostrum of the All Russia Congress of Soviets, declaring “We shall now construct The Socialist Order!” I’m sure this radical and polemical tone will put many off what I have to say about Science.

Lenin has always been a divisive figure, but he had long understood the real universal significance of Dialectical Materialism - the most remarkable and indeed revolutionary contribution of Karl Marx. For, though Marx had never taken the crucial step of congenitally extending his profound philosophcial contributions into The Sciences, Lenin, did indeed know better!

For, very much earlier in the 20th century than the Russian Revolution, Lenin had himself, via his own brilliant book Materialism and Empirio Criticism, taken on the crucial task of debunking the contributions of Henri Poincare and Ernst Mach, the physicists who had insisted in their own version of Positivism, in which all the aspects of Physics which relied solely upon empirical evidence alone, with NO associated attempts at Explanation, should be given the Exact Same Weight and Status as the very different Causally Explained Laws, which always included full associated Explanations!

And, it was this undoubted major retreat, that finally “opened the door” to both Relativity and Quantum Theory, which were clearly “legitimised” if the claims of the positivists, were right!

When I arrived at University as a first year Physics student in 1958, I was immediately totally aghast, at literally everything my Physics Lecturers “taught”, who never made any attempt to Explain Anything: they merely gave empirical evidence and coupled it with the New clearly Positivist Stance, along with sophisticated Mathematics, which to them was wholly sufficient. But it wasn’t enough for me!

At school I had always been branded “the gifted mathematician”, who could “do it all” in that discipline. I had obtained 4 different “A” Levels in Mathematics, along with 3 others at the same Level. I had always found Mathematics very easy, and I was similarly successful in all of my subsequent three years of Mathematics at University! BUT, I had chosen Physics as my main subject there - because, it alone had always attempted to Explain Reality! I had eagerly looked forward to the much higher standard of Explanation that I thought I would get at University: but it turned out to be abysmal.

I endeavoured to get explanations, but the lecturers were never available - there were, after all, almost 100 students in my year, so such individual attention was NEVER available. We did, however, have access to post graduate Demonstrators, but they just dismissed my questions with “Is the Mathematics too difficult for you?”. And, at my insistence that it wasn’t that I couldn’d “do the math”, so, could they show me the required Explanations for why the Mathematics worked: they soon got angry, and, of course, always had the support of the other students present!

So, I took to long periods in the excellent University Library, but there was nothing available in the Physics Section that could give me answers. So I switched to Philosophy instead, and there I very quickly found Lenin’s aforementioned book on Physics.

I thought I had found the answer, but nobody on my Physics course wanted to know! So, I joined the Communist Party to try and find out more about Lenin’s work. But even there, I never found a single person who would even discuss it with me. So, I continued to seek more answers in Marxist literature, but Lenin’s Book was all I found there!

And all the other self-proclained Marxist tendencies were no better. Politics and Science, it seemed, were mutually incompatible (or taken together, appeared to be beyond any single consistent understanding).

But clearly, in the way that such Marxists seemed to argue, they always insisted that they were being “very scientific!” Clearly, what was being called “scientific” in their “Reasoning” was definitely something else! It appeared to involve only the Mathematical Rationality of the Greeks, along with most modern scientists, that is, of course, not-at-all Holistic, but definitely merely Pluralistic, involving exclusively Fixed Laws, due to the artificially imposed restrictions upon ALL of their studied Situations.

Literally all such “reasoning” was erroneous, as Marx’s criticisms of most reasoning tried hard to dispel - but, with Marx himself being an Historian and Philosopher, he did not comprehensively identify and codemn the still-remaining Plurality, as such, so he too was unaware of the still involved and numerous False Bases still used almost universally in most Consequent Reasoning.

Lenin’s crucial lesson, in his valuable book, was NOT yet integrated, as it should have been by then, into an appropriately revised Modern Dialectical Materialism.

He had been on his own in genuinely developing Marx’s work. It was, therefore, no surprise, on many subsequent key occasions, that Lenin, wholly alone, managed to correctly interpret dynamic situations, as were regularly proved correct by subsequent actual developments! Just telling everyone Newly Discerned Truths is never enough: they have, also, to realise why they usually got things wrong! Lenin, himself, always had his finger upon the true pulse of the Developing Revolution, and within the White Heat of constant, incipient Change, he was effectively forced to insist upon his arrived at analyses - there was no time for Education Classes!

But Lenin was no dictator: his credentials were always being confirmed by Events. While, far inferior leaders, like Stalin, also insisted upon their required conclusions! They seemed on the face of it to be like Lenin’s style of conclusions, but, in fact, they never ever were! And, with Lenin’s tragic and premature death, the most valuable link to the most developed Marxism was lost!

In a long career in Revolutionary Poltics, I rapidly achieved leadership positions, but was never, at that time, really educated into appreciating Lenin’s Developments in Marxism: so, I too suffered from the usual inadequacies. Indeed, only in retirement did I have the time to study Lenin’s methods properly. And, without the vital revelations of Modern Systems Theory I would not have cracked it yet!

For, so-called Science still was wholly restricted to the Bottom-Up Approach, which was supposed to reductively explain All Causality - but instead it was only by what happened at the Atomic and Molecular Level (initially only dealt with in Chemistry, but, thereafter, presumed to determine everything in all other Higher Levels too), and nothing created above that Level was considered to be Causally important, at all. But, that was obviously wholly incorrect, and many Levels both above and below the one in question are always causally-active - though involving Bottom-Up Causalities, actually only occurring within the Levels, BUT then delivering consequent Top-Down Causalities which were active Between the Levels!

And, such an Approach necessarily omitted all the significant Changes occurring in transforming Development, which are, therefore, NEVER predictable in advance of them actually happening (a vital aspect of all Bottom-Up Causality): for they alone deliver the Wholly New - such as Life, Man, Thinking and even Social Revolutions.

As they didn’t even exist before: they are clearly created for the very first time, along with and within the Wholly New Development!

You can see the difficulty here for Holistic Politicians - for they can never promise beforehand, all the anticipated and fought-for Revolutionary Gains! What they actually deliver, are always solely the consequences of the effective creative actions, which more than anything else equips Mankind to make the future, even though all they can say is that it will be better than the the System before.

Now, all the teaching I encountered in all of my own Education, as well as in every single post I obtained, as an educator myself, whether in Schools, Colleges or Universities, had everything generally still clinging to the established Pluralist Stance, in all the scientific subjects I had to teach.

And, of course, no developmental conceptions were even possible: for that stance could never actually explain any Real Qualitative Change! So, there was no such thing as the Emergence of the Wholly New; all Laws were necessarily Fixed, and, to ensure this, all experiments had to be severely restricted and rigidly controlled, so that the Laws - thereby revealed - would conform to the unavoidably involved agenda!

The Real Laws of Reality-as-is were never addressed, during six decades spent in Science Education!

Now, let us be crystal clear in this assessment, Plurality works very well for many things, which is why it is rarely if ever questioned - it works perfectly for Technology and seemlessly for Production, because we can rigidly control all of the Systems involved.

BUT, surely the crucial purpose of Science is not to merely make things but to Understand the Natural World, Understand the many Systems we don’t or can’t control, and to Understand Real World Causality. With Plurality that was impossible to ever achieve!

So, a Theoretical Explanation of exactly WHY things happened as they did could never be revealed by the usual scientific methods! And, of course, there were consequences for this dominant Philosophical Stance throughout the other major areas of Study too, such as History, Philosophy and, of course, Politics.

For, everything undoubtedy evolves, and the dynamics of all their changes are unobtainable with the usual Pluralist prejudices severely distorting All Real Qualitative Development!

And we need to Understand how Natural Systems evolve now, more than ever. We need to Understand how and why they fail... by far and away the most devastating avalanches of so-called Natural Crises, are now, all over the place, due increasingly to the many decisions that are attempts to solve other problems we don’t really understand, but actually only accelerate the speed of Natural Threats that, instead of being under our control, are now swooping headlong towards unstoppable disaster.

The most obvious of these problems is Climate Change - which is already very close to terminally undermining many of the Actively Balanced Systems of importantly maintained and life-preserving Stabilities, on which the Level of Human Civilization relies.

While, elsewhere the urgent push for ever higher profits, in order to allay possible economic collapse, is also simultaneously undermining the need for the better safety measures needed to deal with Climate Changes’s many damaging affects - such as flooding and pollution.

Attempts to balance the economic system without a working Systems Theory causes unforeseen problems at all different Social Levels. For example, over-zealous cuts in safety-measures within Maternity Hospitals in Shropshire, led to delays in essential Ceasarian Sections in problem Births, and the avoidable deaths of several babies.

And, of course, let us not forget the Covid Pandemic - which was very badly handled by pro Capitalist Governments the world over, and which inevitably led to thousands of deaths of old and infirm people! But you see, doing what was right for the majority of People was no good for Profits and an Economic System reliant on perpetual growth - so that largely determined Government policies including a rush to return to maximal profit making - much too soon. And the effect upon the Care Systems for the old, infirm and disabled not only made it widely inadequate, but also drove many of the very best carers to despair, and an increasing number of exits from that profession, into less upsetting and exploitative alternatives.

This is just one example of the many labour shortages caused by criminal mismanagement of the economic system during this period.

Sadly modern Marxists have no answers to any of these problems either. It is vital that we now take a Holistic and Materialist Systems Approach to both Science and Politics, before it is too late, and these life support systems collapse for good.

This short essay is taken from Issue 77 of SHAPE Journal - The Systems Theory of Everything II - It is also available on ResearchGate. 

Issue 73 of SHAPE Journal: Holist Science II

 

Issue 73

Understanding Reality

We attempt to understand our world in order to get the very best from it: but, it is certainly a breathtakingly difficult-to-understand world we find ourselves in. It is currently determinable only by two seemingly diametrically-opposite, yet generally-available overall systems of analysis, that directly appear to often effectively cancel each-other-out, and therefore consequently majorly undermine, both the possibility of understanding its underlying, driving trajectory - or even, alternatively, not being able to predict from any overall, perceived process, exactly what would happen next. So that, all attempts at revealing any particularly long-term set of objectives, at all regularly, appear to be always doomed to failure!

Yet, nevertheless, all short-term-and-local Realities do appear to follow some seemingly Fixed Natural Laws, but only if, along with such necessary time-and-locality constraints, so that we are constantly seeking out only Fixed Laws to enable such plans - until they, as is usually the case, finally fail.

Now, these two possible Stances were both established, at almost the very same time, some 2,500 years ago, but each of them, happening in very different areas of the World.

One of them, insisted that the Natural Laws were both Eternal and separable, but, as they were often acting simultaneously along with many others, one of the contributions was then usually largely Dominant, so that its outcomes would totally swamp all others, in their overall direct joint sum!

While, the alternative stance, instead, considered that the norm for all simultaneous contributions, was one of a constant variance of all acting Laws, so that outcomes were always changing, and all predictions just had to include an extended range of possible outcomes, with, in addition, a constant readiness to switch to an alternative, if a Key Indicator so suggested a sufficient change to merit the switch.

Certain extremes of these two, were undoubtedly delivered effectively: but, the bulk of cases were always very poorly served indeed!

The former case was later termed Plurality, and was attempted to be brought strictly to heel, by rigid and long-lasting controls upon idealised situations: but these still proved impossible, unless the number of active factors within a situation were significantly limited, which enabled a kind of Stability to be much more easily achieved-and-maintained.

Now, this was justified by the rapid and successful developments during the Greek Intellectual Revolution of that time, which ALSO kept the idea of all Natural Laws being Forever Fixed, but, as their contributions, to the overall sum, did vary in magnitude - that was the supposed to be the sole reason for the different outcomes, The Laws were still always Fixed, but their overall sum wasn’t.

That did not suit the alternative Stance, as its supporters insisted that the individual Laws themselves Varied Constantly to some degree. So that was seen as the reason for varying overall outcomes, as well as being the reason. for the Variety and Beauty of the Natural World, and, particularly, those involving all Living Things, which could never be seen as being due to Eternally Fixed Laws.

This view was later termed Holism.

But, of course, neither case delivered The Full Truth of Reality!

The problem was that simultaneously-acting Laws often affected one another, and changed their Effects. So, things were constantly in a moment-by-moment, consequent on-going, melee of multiple Changes in ALL contributions! This, initially, seemed to undermine all attempts to predict overall outcomes.

But that too could, and often was, also negated, by the fact of Temporary Stabilities, caused by the forms of the interactions going on within such multiple simultaneous sets of processes! For, though some of these, in turn, were caused by the Effects due to Diametric Opposites - but only ever within on-going, multiply-repeated processes.

For Cyclically-repeated processes involving such opposites, selectively eliminated all extraneous materials, so that ultimately, Pure, constantly repeating cycles were the main outcomes. And, these could balance with their equally Pure oppopsites to cancel-out. And, what also frequently “steadied-the-boat”, was the fact that in diverse bundles of such sets, including such Pure Processes, where stabilised sets simply repeated, whilever there were Correcting Processes for every change in an existing process, occurring within another of the same set.

So, constant repeating of effectively unchanging Cycles of the same contents, due to the above effects, necessarily delivered many Temporary Stabilities, as long as those conditions remained! For, in such constantly repeating Cycles of those processes, all Non-Opposite Processess would be effectively eliminated, leaving only the Balanced Opposite processes determining the consequent Stability.

When these did change, entirely-locally, they were termed Emergences: and when they changed much more generally, over wider, extensive Systems, they were sometimes called Revolutions!

Clearly Pluralist Science and Holistic Science are very different views of the same world!

NOTE:

It is clear, to this researcher, that, though the above does correctly show the effects of constantly repeating Cycles of processes, and, in so doing, selectively-eliminating chance ingredients, and even processes, to ultimately arrive at a constantly-repeating, overwhelmingly dominant unity of the same sort of processes - the actual mechanisms involved do not, at this stage, entirely satisfy!

And, in watching one of Gareth Samuel’s “See the Pattern” videos, about the processes taking place in the Sun, it became clear that he too was arriving at seemingly dominant sets of processes, that had been similarly refined into constantly repeating systems, that must have emerged from initially complex sets, that only gradually arrived at what he concluded were the final regular forms: so, it seemed likely, that these could have been arrived at in the same way as the processes I was considering.

In addition, it was clear that, in spite of their seemingly constant arrived-at state, they also were never permanent: so the ultimate transformations to other steady states might also reflect such changes elsewhere too.

What is usually generally called Science is actually no such thing: we might more accurately term it Technology, for as a wholly pluralist undertaking, it is not even derived from any dependable form of Science, which would have to be, to some degree, Holistic in its philosophical Stance, to be able to deal with Reality-as-is!

But, because that cannot be distilled into a collection of Pluralist Fixed Laws, the practitioners involved, by taking the route of greatly modified and controlled situations, did manage to effectively enable a Pluralist version, always limited to only very highly constrained situations - but sufficient to also deliver a wholly achievable, and increasingly broad and useable Technology.
But, of course, the required extension into a generally applicable Science, within which it was intended to reside a comprehensive and Explanatory Means, was always impossible! Indeed, researches have proved conclusively that a Science, based upon Plurality, can’t help us understand the natural world, even though a functioning Technology certainly gives us vast control over our environments - and has effectively transformed the world to suit our means of understanding it.

The revelation of these crucial flaws, were revealed very soon after the Greek Intellectual Revolution, by Zeno of Elea, who was able to demonstrate the failures of Pluralist Science in his work called Paradoxes, in which he was able to reveal irresolvable Contradictions in Movement, using the Rationality discovered legitimately in Mathematics, but then wholly illegally applied in both General Reasoning and the Sciences, and from which, they had done it, in spite of Zeno’s valid revelations.

In fact it wasn’t until the early 19th century, that Hegel took Zeno’s work and applied it more broadly to logical Opposites, that the truth was finally generally revealed, by Hegel’s follower, historian and philosopher Karl Marx, who began the mammoth task of applying those dialectical ideas, first to History in General, and then to a major Critique of Capitalist Economics! But, nevertheless, since Marx’s death in the 1880s, no-one has attempted the task of applying Marx’s Comprehensive Method to any of the Sciences, so that in spite of Lenin’s warning, in his book Materialism and Emporio Criticism, the most important areas have still NOT received the necessary treatment, resulting in the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory, and a similarly disabled Cosmology!

 
And, in fact, Modern Holistic Theory, which has been wholly a product of the 21st Century, has not been applied to anything comprehensively, though many individual papers have already been published here in SHAPE Journal - and in the near future the writer of this paper is nearing the completion of an alternative to Copenhagen. While a short pamphlet upon Holistic Science is also completed, and will be published, in print, this Spring. There is still much to do.

Intellectualism and Power

The supposed alternatives in tackling the Ruling Class in a Class Society

The problem, as it is seen by the participants from both sides of the Class Division in Society, arises primarily from the seeming impossibility of ever replacing the currently highly complex and increasingly global System of Capital. For, on one side it appears that way, for the dramatic losses that would be unavoidably suffered by those, who currently significantly benefit from their privileges under that System.  And also, on the other side, by the great majority, who see any significant wholesale transformation, first, as being totally impossible to even conceive of, and, thereafter, to implement. For, even the best of them have the worrying examples of Two World Wars (just concerned with which kind of Capitalists get to Rule), and then by the Long Cold War and innumerable Hot Wars aimed at either reversing the already revolutionary transformed states, or preventing actual social revolutions, in a whole series of different countries in crisis throughout the 20th century.

Both of these responses arise understandably from the immensity of such tasks! For they see Revolutions as Planned Operations, which really are always impossible, though planned Coups d'état by already powerful minorities are always possible.

For, NO Revolution is ever really planned!

The Revolutions that naturally occur always arise out of increasingly ever bigger Crises, wherein the unavoidable contradictions within any System, at some point, became both insurmountable, and naturally head for the Total Dissolution of the System.

Now, normally, the necessary transformations that make these systemic dissolutions unavoidable, also frequently result in consequent Dark Ages, which can last for long periods of time, but nevertheless, always ultimately generate the necessary solutions, for a recovery upon a wholly New Basis.

In the 19th century this historical Dynamic was uncovered by Karl Marx, who using the Dialectics of the Idealist philosopher Hegel, while studying significant and well-recorded Social Revolutions of the past, in great detail, and managed to see the Changing Dynamics involved, which prior Pluralist (Fixed-Law) Reasoning, had, in the past, made understanding such Qualitative Changes totally inconceivable!

Thereafter, such Marxists - as Marx's followers were termed - though they couldn't ever arrange for such a Revolution to happen themselves, could indeed monitor the naturally occurring inevitable series of Crises, and knew exactly when to intervene, to affect their possible individual outcomes with certain contained Phases.

But in a System like Global Capitalism, Major Crises occur, on average, every 4 to 7 years, and have, in fact done so throughout its 300 year History, but only very occasionally do they dissociate into a full-blown Social Revolutionary situation, when the whole System begins to Collapse!

Now, in many of these Crises, when the organisations of the Under Class forced compromise situations onto the Employing Class, political gains could be achieved by the Under Class, but they invariably merely prevented the situation deteriorating, for the Employers, into something much worse for them. And, over certain periods, such reforms could be established, but never forever. For, at the next Crisis the Employers would always attempt to remove such gains.

The Key confusion within the Working Class, was caused by the False Promise of such reforms ultimately achieving Justice, permanently, for the Working Class, so that the "Horror" of Social Revolution would NEVER be necessary.

But, that both deliberately ignores the real Dynamics of Social Change, and, at the same time, consciously by that always comparatively privileged layer, in the Middle Classes, opposing Revolution with absolutely everything that they do and say, and actually collect as many counter-arguments as possible - some of which appear very intellectual and "superior" to the reactions of "uneducated Workers"!

The commonest ploy of this group, is always to claim that they are "of the Left", and "prove it" by joining every kind of protest organisation, giving them a necessary Left Cover, while they seek their Ideal (Non Revolutionary) Formulations.

...

And a vital component, indeed The Touchstone, in the Theory of an aspiring Marxist Revolutionary has to be in the constant on-going analysis of Crises occurring worldwide: it is how the Penetrating Understanding that will be essentially required in the midst of a Revolution, can be honed to the state when-and-where it could be effectively used.

In the period, at the begining of the 20th century, after the failed 1905 Revolution in Russia, Lenin, a leader of the Bolshevik Party, had to leave Russia, and live full-time in Switzerland, in order to escape the attensions of the Czarist Police. Yet, by the beginning months of 1917, the Czar had been deposed - but his war with Germany continued -- though by April, Lenin knew he had to be back in Russia, as his own Party was supporting the War. He negotiated with the Germans to allow him to return to Russia, where he would pull Russia out of the War. Finally, they agreed, but only if it was via a sealed train through Germany. But, as soon as he arrived at the Finland Station in Petrograd, he immediately gave a speech condemning the War, and subsequently wrote his April Theses, arguing for a change in policy by the Bolsheviks. By July armed soldiers from Kronstadt arrived at Bolshevik Party Headquarters demanding that the Bolsheviks lead them to the Winter Palace to arrest the Provisional Government. Most of Lenin's colleages, knowing it was much too soon, were for sending the troops back to Kronstadt, but Lenin alone demurred! It was, indeed, too soon, he adnmitted, but when the right time came, THESE were the forces to arrest the Government, and Lenin convinced the Party to support them, with Trotsky to lead them. They marched to The Winter Palace, but were vastly outnumbered, and Trotsky was jailed, and immediately Lenin had to escape to Finland in disguise! But by October, with the right wing General Kornilov advancing upon Petrograd with a large force, the time had finally come. The Kronstadters were immediately sent to arrest the Provisional Government, which they did, and Lenin strode to the rostrum in the All Russian Congress of Soviets and declared -

"We shall now construct the Socialist Order!"

Lenin did not plan the Revolution: he knew he couldn't do that!

But, when it naturally occurred as the system collapsed, he was constantly identifying and interpreting the Phases of Development, and their current potentialities! Until Lenin and his Bolsheviks could intervene, WITH the support of the Workers and Peasants in arms, with the slogan "Bread, Peace and Land"

Now, Marx, in spite of his magnificent contributions to Dialectical Materialism, did not, in his lifetime, comprehensively extend it beyond a basically "Macro Approach" to History, and a similar, if more detailed and analytic approach to Capitalist Economics.

Indeed without its essential comprehensive application to the Primary repository of Knowlege and Understanding, as had been built up, in the Sciences and other Intellectual Disciplines, is Real Understanding would never be sufficient to become the default Approach to Understanding ALL of Reality-as-is.

Subsequently, the door to Idealist Alternatives would always not only be wide open, but also occasionally offer moments of Truth, that without the underlying Basis supplied by Materialism, would and indeed have, delivered a veritable avalanche of misleading alternatives, which have NO SUCH restriction upon Causality!

Whether it be via Writers, Commentators, Academics or Political Organisations, without a Comprehensive Dialectical Materialist Basis, their extractsed stance could only be some collection of Idealist Intellectual conceptions, and, consequently, would NEVER equip those involved to direct their subsequent effective interventions.

So, when the key times come, and desperately require appropriate informing intervention, what they extract-and-implement will never be effective, either in its built-in understanding, in its conceptions of what determines change within a Developing situation, like a Revolution!

Indeed, no matter how elevated, and imbued with Justice a political stance and programme is, it can never be based upon the ability to accurately predict the detailed future, but it simply MUST be capable of "interpreting Real Change" on the fly, and, changing emphasis as appropriate, in all the nuances of such Changes, in the remarkable Event that is a Social Revolution! Those organisations who participate in such an Event, with a "Now-and-Forever Programme", are bound to fail - for the Enemy Class will change its positions constantly - seeking to protect their weath and privilege, they will, as they always have done, con and mislead the People...

Dialectical Materialism as a Revolutionary political weapon is NOT a fixed and correct Stance, BUT, on the contrary, a constant means of addressing every problem as it arises dynamically, with a resounding Truth faster than the Enemy's Lies!

For apart from responding to their changes of direction, we must also be wrong-footing them with our own judgement of changes in the mood and temoer of our own Working Class : and ours will be principled, while their's will not!

Democracy, Socialism & Leadership

Is Capitalist Democracy even possible?

We live in a Capitalist Economic System, and have done so for such a long time that most people consider that it must be the best. It didn't seem to have been imposed by War, but ultimately by the clear successes of Capitalist Enterprises in competition with alternative forms of economic organisations: they evidently must have been victorious in the Market Place!

But, nevertheless, it was never ever a free choice of individuals - a genuinely democratic decision - as to what sort of Economic workplaces there would be. Such decisions were still only taken by people with sufficient Money and Power, who were in a position to make and implement such decisions for everyone else.

Even after the English Revolution in the 17th centiry, with the King executed, and Parliament victorious, the vast majority of ordinary people who had ensured that victory still had NO say whatsoever in what was to replace the Old Regime. Ordinary citizens had NO vote to elect Members of that Parliament, who exclusively represented those who already had wealth, but now also had the Power, which used to reside solely with the Monarch.

But now, Oliver Cromwell, a landowner in Parliament, and then a military leader of the New Model Army in the field, after victory became the Lord Protector of the New Regime, and had established that position by both Status, but also by Force! Many of the reins of power which had been in the hands of the King, were now in Cromwell's hands, and he was perfectly clear what he had to do with them.

And the Diggers and the Levellers who had fought alongside him against the King, were now his enemies, and absolutely nothing that they had fought for, was granted to them. For, once in power all the taxes, tariffs and other income of the State were now directed via Cromwell's priorities!

Diggers and Levellers

Parliament had been increasingly dominated by wealthy farmers, landowners and traders, and had never represented the bulk of Working people, so from their Victory in leading an "Alliance of All The People", they naturally set about what was in their own interests alone, and for many that enabled the beginnings of Capitalist production and organisation.

So, what was evidently continuing fight for Democracy all about? Was it ever, in the minds of its leaders, about "Power to the People"?

The answer must be clearly "NO!"

It must always look as though that was its objective, but in truth was only ever to be a facade, behind which the Wealth and Power of those now in charge was to be maintained and greatly enhanced.

And looking at the current Chaos in British Politics, is that not still the case?

And, once such a success had been achieved in Britain, it was evidently possible elsewhere too. So, the British colonists in North American were next, and then it was France, but the difference was now up-front and from the outset a clear promise of "Democracy For ALL!" was necessary to bring together the necessary Alliance to carry the Revolution to Victory.

But, of course, involving the enfranchisement of only those with the wealth to implement the now well-established objective of Capitalism!

Democracy

or

Liberté Egalité et Fraternité

were the necessary slogans, so may have been the marshalling demands for the People, but they were never the real intentions of the Revolutionary Leaders!

Indeed, some lessons were learned, so by the time of the 20th century Revolutions, indeed Vanguard Parties equipped with committed Marxist leaders were now not only inevitably involved, but were the only guarantors of the demands of the workers and peasants, and ultimately the only possible leaders. The Slogan of the Russian Bolshevik Party was

Bread, Peace and Land!

somewhat different, I think you will agree.

But notice that whatever was achieved, whether sufficient or not, now just had to be via a Revolution, and with a very different set of Alliances upon each side! It had to be led by a Vanguard Revolutionary Party, informed by a Marxist critique of Capitalism! And, no alliances with Liberals could any longer be trusted.

And even if such a Revolution were successfful, it would elicit invasions from Capitalist Nations on all sides, and if those failed, which they certainly did in the case of Russia, then such a Rogue State would be effectively isolated from trading worldwide. And, even long-duration pressures and defensive expenditures would be inflicted upon such a State as in the Cold War, could be, and indeed were implemented!

In the end only World Revolution could ever guarantee the success anywhere!

Now, the self-proclaimed Socialist Parties in the various combatants in the First World War, ALL supported their own individual countries. Whereas in Russia the Bolsheviks agittated vigorously againat the War, even within the Army and Navy of the Russian State . Only the Bolsheviks in Russia, on successfully taking the power, pulled out of that War between Capitalist Nations.

And, after the war, they re-named their Party The Communist Party, and set about the worldwide construction of an International Organisation of genuine Socialist Parties to replace the prior International that had been the objective of Marx himself, but which had been vigorously attacked from within by Anarchists and the Social Democrats, who had turned it into a toothless Talking Shop alone!

The Question was not only an appropriately theoretically-equipped Revolutionary Party, but also one having a resolute Anti-Capitalist Leadership!

And, even within Russia the Revolution was not yet assured.

For it had replaced the Capitalists with a State Appointed Bureaucracy, without extending Democracy into all the Workplaces nationwide: and the Bureaucracy, instead, established itself as a privileged Elite, rather than a real Socialist Leadership!

Two vital components must be ensured at the hearts of Revolutionary Parties worldwide.

• First, the commitment to the continuing development of the Philosophy of Marxism, termed by Marx himself as Dialectical Materialism (contrary to what many think, this did not happen in the USSR. 

Especially, in its crucial extension to The Sciences, which was never undertaken in the past!

• And Second, in its commitment to Workers' Control in their workplaces, to combat the emerging of a privileged Bureaucracy!

Finally, what is currently called Democracy, in literally all countries in the World, must be totally dismantled, as it is currently the stongest bastion to the Rule of Capitalism: as significant modifications have turned it into its very opposite!

Money now dominates everything!

The ones spending the most money selling themselves and manipulating communications get elected! Also, the electors have no means of questioning or even mandating their chosen representatives.

And instant re-call and replacement is totally impossible. Even the initial selection of Candidates for Office is now rarely left to the members of the Party Branch they are to represent if elected! And innumerable other changes, which have been instituted to concentrate power in a centralised elite within the Party.

Democracy itself must be renovated to deliver what it was intended to achieve in its conception!



Postscript:

But, there are still problems, that are not easy to address!

In the early 20th century, several leading Bolsheviks were impressed by the Empirio Criticism of physicists Henri Poincare and Ernst Mach, which was a Positivist alternative to strict Materialism, and it caused Lenin to immediately suspend other theoretical work to urgently write the book Materialism and Empirio Criticism, which emphatically condemned such a philosophical retreat.

And, it achieved two things: it pulled back those leading Marxists in the Bolshevik Party - realising their mistake! And also it confirmed the intellectual Leadership of V. I. Lenin in the Party.

Later, in July 1917, in the interlude between the two revolutions of that year, the Kronstadters arrived at Bolshevik Headquarters, armed to the teeth, demanding that a leading Boshevik to both lead and speak for them in making the demands upon the Kerensky Government to resign.

Literally everyone at Bolshevik headquarters were against it, knowing that it was too soon, and it would undoubtedly fail.

But Lenin disagreed!

These are our people, and when the time comes we will be able to count upon them - but if we tell them now to go home, we will rightly lose their trust.

Though warning it is probably too soon, they would nonetheless, be led to the Winter Palace by Trotsky, to show whose side we are on.

And that is what happened! It did fail, and Trotsky was jailed, and Lenin had to hide in Finland,

BUT, in October when the time was right! The Bolsheviks said "NOW!", and the Kronstadters stormed the Winter Palance, and the Second, this time Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, was carried through to success.

Again the tactical Leadership of Lenin was vital...

Switch to the present day in the UK!

Jeremy Corbyn gets elected to the Leadership of the Labour Party by an extended membership of the Party, and goes for Policies much further to the left than Party was used to.

But most of the Labour MPs in Parliament were NOT chosen by their Party Branch members! During the Leadership of Tony Blair, he had changed the rules, so that the central leadership provided all Party Branches with a list of suitable candidates as MPs - none of whom were remotely Left. He even renamed the Party New Labour!

And, their Blairite MPs were against Corbyn from the start - they did everything they could to remove him, and played a major role in Labour's recent historic defeat. They undermined the shift to the Left at every turn.

The necessary structures of a Real Democracy must support effective leadership, while opposing bureaucratic elites attempting to win power by NON DEMOCRATIC means!

Not easy. But vital.