Can the arrest of the activist-intellectual Boris
Kagarlitsky help us in creating awareness of the present political
condition facing humanity? He is now in custody accused for terrorism
due to his resistance against the Russian war of aggression against
Ukraine. Many has acted against the war, at times hit harder
by repression than Kagarlitsky. He is anyway of importance to
highlight as a representative for all political prisoners in
Russia and those harrassed. The reason for this is that he also
address theoretically the roots of the war, the way it develops
and what comes next in both political and socio-economical terms.
His combination of theoretical understanding combined with political
action in the midst of a historical conflict may be of more general
interest for movements everywhere.
One of the problems facing
movements today is political apathy, a tendency in many parts
of the world from Argentina to Russia.
Kagarlitsky have consistently been addressing this apolitical
mood in Russia as an obstacle for social change. A similar mood
among many at least in the West is to say that it is easier to
envision the end of the world than the end of capitalism. What
is needed is cooperation with corporations and other parts of
the system to make incremental steps within seprate political
fields. Radical change of the system is impossible for overseeable
time.
Boris Kagarlitskij has dramatic tendencies in his
thinking and acting. In some ways one of very few revolutionaries
in our
time
in both political and socio-economic sense. This maybe led him
to support the Antimaidan uprising in Donbass in the hope for
this to catalyse also changes in Russia. He did see the problems
within the uprising. When generally speaking he says: ”the
inevitable inconsistency of any revolutionary process and sometimes
even the presence of reactionary tendencies in it” while
also saying this ”can always be used by the champions of
the ideological purity of the movement as a kind of ideological
alibi justifying their unwillingness to participate in practical
struggle.” He saw Antimaidan as a socio-economic response
to the aggressive neoliberal regime installed in Kiev in February
2014. When this proved to be wrong and Russia took more and more
control of the self proclaimed peoples republics Kagarlitskij
started to oppose the way Russia used the conflict in Ukraine
for its own purposes. He became one of the most vitriolious critics
of Putin and the oligarchs enabling with his socio-economical
criticism to contribute to enlarging the opposition against the
war. His focusing on the need to understand the political apathy
of the ”toiling masses” in Russia made him change
his position while inability of the system to change made expropriation
of the wealth of the oligarchs a necessity. This to stop not
only the war but also the socio-economic regime that made the
war a necessity.
But Kagarlitsky might be of help to us also
at micro level and not only a global macro level. Here we are
confronted with a
more advanced intellectual need to look at every situation were
we are faced with a possibility to act from a position beyond
dualistic thinking. Kagarlitsky sees the similarity in seemingly
opposing positions between utopianism and reformism. He criticize
both. ”The combination of highly moral utopianism with
absolutely down-to-earth pragmatism, not even of “small
deeds”, but of small momentary gains, predetermined the
fatal impossibility of any strategy.”
”Belief in a utopia may sustain enthusiasm,
but it cannot provide strategic guidance.” says Kagarlitsky
and continues ”Revolt
can be inspired by utopian ideas. On the contrary, politics begins
only where utopia ends. Politics simply must be concrete and
practical, because there is simply no other way of doing politics.
However, this does not mean at all that politicians (especially
those on the left) should limit themselves to the close horizon
of petty and immediate tasks. The struggle to transform society
itself opens up new perspectives. Only not through attempts to
fulfill utopian desires or idealistic dreams, but through concrete
work to solve specific problems, albeit very large-scale ones.”
Kagarlitsky
make use of György Lukács to explain
the core of the matter. Lukács assessed the discussion
between the revisionists, who criticized Marxism, and the dogmatists,
who defended it from any criticism, he did not see much difference
between them: the desire to protect ideological purity from the "defilement" associated
with the search for practical solutions "may eventually
result in such desecration" , leads to the same departure
from the comprehension of reality, from "practical-critical
activity”, to the same return to the utopian dualism of
the subject and object, theory and practice to which revisionism
has led".
In the world of today we can talk about both ideological
purity and utopianism as one important strand in the movements
demanding
the use of the correct words or that every action has to be an
example of the new utopian society. On the other hand to give
up every practical activity that is not limiting itself to incremental
gains within the present institutions.
Thus we see how abstract
theory and ”science” is
separated from exchange of experience among movements. Science
becomes a theoretical object produced in formal organisations
separated from the practical subject supposed to use the scientific
knowledge as if science can say how we can change society. This
dualistic utopianism becomes especially contradictory among organizations
defining themselves as left. On the one hand marxism is seen
as a theory that better can explain the present socio-ecological
condition than any else while at the same time left activists
oppose antineoliberal demands as well as demands against the
present military world order in the climate movement. They see
no way to expropriate the capitalists in the foreseeable future
nor uniting peace and environmnetal movement as an important
task. Their strategy is reformistic within the compartmentalization
of politics as it is organized in the present world order.
The
way Kagarlitsky simultanously criticizes isolation in a pure
ideological position or incremental steps within present institutions
is of wider concern than only for the left. The compartmentalization
of politics away from the experience of daily life may well
be one of the reasons for political apathy, not only in Russia
but
also many other places in the world. Kagarlitsky have shown
that it is possible to do politics beyond immediate concerns
also
under severe repressive circumstances. His intellectual understanding
during his experience with truth to use an expression from
Gandhi addressing the need for avoiding utopian dualism and separation
of theory and practice may be very useful for others as well.
