The Divergence Between Scientific Work and Political Action

Abstract

One of the central issues facing the left is the divergence of from practice. The gap exists on many levels and in innumerable contexts: new problems and theories are formulated by academics unconnected to a mass movement; empirical and historical researchers have little influence on the tactics and strategies of activists. Practice and theory (meaning both theoretical and empirical/historical analysis) have been separated at the cost of both. Activists, increasingly defined by empirical experiences in a world in which change both in the objects and instruments of history is accelerated, are left adrift reacting to past situations, incapable of seizing initiatives or creating the circumstances for their action. Theorists and researchers, on the other hand, stand passively by in various postures: (1) prophets of doom or oracles of success; (2) commentators on philosophical texts or on current events; and (3) grand theorists and analysts of historical processes dissociated from contemporary realities. The clear break between academic Marxists and revolutionary socialists is, of course, situationally determined. But in most cases it is a circumstance which finds its expression in one form or another, in varying degrees, in many countries. The stance of the academic leftist is that of the objective observer of the laws and processes of capitalism leading to the socialist revolution. The position of the revolutionary activist is that subjective insertion in the class struggle provides the knowledge and experience to resolve the contradictions. The loss of faith between one and the other is a by-product of the incapacity of the left to overcome three historical forces which have shaped the context of intellectual work and political struggle: (1) the rise of Stalinism and its