THEORY AND PRACTICE: An Introduction to Marxian Theory ROOT AND BRANCH # 8 (1979) Thus we do not confront the world dogmatically with a new principle, proclaiming: Here is the truth, kneel before it! We develop for the world new principles out of the principles of the world. We do not say to the world: give up your struggles, they are stupid stuff, we will provide you with the true watchword of the struggle. We merely demonstrate to the world why it really struggles, and consciousness is something that it MUST adopt, even if it does not want to do so. Karl Marx, 1843. (1) In his critique of the leftwing philosophies attacked as the "German Ideology," Karl Marx contrasted communist literature that can be thought of "merely as a set of theoretical writings" with that which is "the product of a real movement." In his polemic against the so-called True Socialists, he pointed out that theory, as an activity of particular people carried out in particular social...
