The Dialectic in Marxism and Freedom for Today: The Unity of Theory and Practice and the Movement of Today’s Concrete Struggles

Abstract

Raya Dunayevskaya articulates Marx’s dialectical method and positions the worker as Revolutionary Subject, without whom the intellectual grasps only an abstract concept of revolution. Without direct understanding of the worker’s concrete reality and their activity for change (which involves both movement in consciousness and reality), the intellectual’s theorizing remains disconnected from the actual concrete conditions and desires of those who are actually moving. Furthermore, without the recognition of their capacity to move as human Subject, the intellectual denies their humanity and destroys the possibility of revolution. This chapter explores the dialectical relation between theory and practice and challenges the elitism that often infests movements spawned by “well-meaning” intellectuals, whose life experiences are often too far removed from the social conditions that both warrant the necessity for change and create the impetus to risk it all. It discusses Dunayevskaya’s insistence on the Black masses as vanguard as the historical Subject of revolution and extends this approach in light of today’s most important social movements. The particular focus of this chapter is the recognition of the revolutionary Subject as made in the process of struggle, the various structures of oppression that can become rallying points around which mass mobilizing can be dialectically developed, and the Woman of Color as “force and Reason” of revolution.