by Theresa Henry
Part Two: On the Idea of “Woman, Life, Freedom”
In the first part of this article, “Evaluating the Significance of the Jina Uprising,” I argued that the recent year of mass protests in Iran, sparked by the murder of the young Kurdish woman Jina (Mahsa) Amini, by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) so-called “morality police,” has social and political implications for the future of Iran but also the rest of the world. In this second and concluding part, I will argue that, to further the Idea of “Woman, Life, Freedom” (WLF), Marxist theorists must commit themselves to both the self-development of the movement and to the Idea.
Section A explains the sense in which I use the term “Idea” in this article and identifies both the seeds of the new society and of counter-revolution in the Idea of WLF. Section B demonstrates what it means to take both the philosophical concept of self-development and the self-development of the revolutionary movement in Iran seriously (and literally). Section C discusses the “free release” of the Idea as described by G.W.F. Hegel and Raya Dunayevskaya. I conclude the two-part article by outlining what I think the role of Marxist theorists is in assisting the revolutionaries in Iran.
A. The Idea of “Woman, Life, Freedom”
When I refer to the Idea of WLF, I use the term Idea in a particular way. By Idea, I do not simply mean thought or concept in the conventional senses. Rather, the way I am using it is indebted to both Hegel and Dunayevskaya. If I had to describe the Idea in a few words, I would say it is the movement of reality and thought comprehended. But let us take a closer look.
Dunayevskaya, in her 1953 letters on Hegel’s Absolutes, identified a “double movement in the final syllogisms of the Absolute Mind chapter” of Hegel’s Philosophy of Mind. The first movement is from Nature to Mind. The second is from Logic to Nature. The former is what Dunayevskaya refers to as “what was new” about her 1953 letters, a movement “from practice that is itself a form of theory“ to the new society. The latter is what she refers to as the movement “from theory that is itself a form of philosophy and revolution“ to practice. Later, it will be important to note that Dunayevskaya interprets the Hegelian categories of Nature, Mind, and Logic as practice, the new society, and theory, respectively.
For now, it is important to note that these two movements are not separate. In his article “Dunayevskaya’s 1953 Letters: Transcending Vanguardism & Spontaneism,” Andrew Kliman emphasizes that for Dunayevskaya, these two movements are unified with each other.[1] But, in Kliman’s words, the movements from practice and theory “don’t just co-exist.” Nor do they “fuse together.” Instead, they exist as two aspects of a larger totality, the Idea: “They are both appearances or manifestations of one and the same Idea.” In this interpretation, the significance is that the movement from theory and practice, when unified by sharing the same Idea of the new society, are “co-equal contributors to one and the same process of movement and development” of the new society. Thus, by the Idea, I mean the unity of the movements from theory and practice.
A graphic of Jina Amini floating above a crowd of people facing off the police. Credit: Amnesty International.
In Iran, the Idea that unifies the movements from theory and practice is WLF. Through the Jina Uprising, which itself transformed from a protest movement over the death of Jina Amini into a new chapter in the revolution against the IRI, WLF transformed not only into a global phenomenon, but into a projection of a new Iranian society in the form of reports, statements, and discussions. Simultaneously, WLF, as the animating idea of the Jina Uprising and the new society, transformed into practice in the form of women dancing in the streets, burning hijabs, and cutting their hair, but also in the form of new, explicitly feminist and revolutionary organizations that led protests alongside workers whose strikes grew to levels unmatched since the 1979 Revolution.
In my opinion, it is helpful to visualize the unity of these simultaneous transformations not so much in the shape of a circle as in the shape of DNA—the movements from practice and theory, each being a strand in the double helix, weaving in and out of each other. When visualized this way, we can see how WLF appears in two forms, as the activity and thoughts of the revolutionary forces but also as the new society “gestating in the old.”
Yet, while WLF is the unity of the movements of theory and practice and is an intimation of society after the fall of the IRI, it also holds the seeds of counter-revolution within it because these seeds, if not dug up, grow within the movements from theory and practice. For example, during the Slingers discussion mentioned in Part One, a member of the Javad Nazari Fatahbadi pointed out that in Iran, “the segment of the left that achieved theoretical hegemony” since 1988 perceived “organizational activity as synonymous with dictatorship, the erosion of individual rights, and the fragmentation of individuality.” The result is that “criticism of organizational practices shifted from a call for change within organizations to a complete rejection of organizations themselves.”
The immediate consequence of this rejection of organization is amateurism, which is especially dangerous when combatting an enemy as ruthless and ready to kill as the IRI.[2] The Zahedan Revolutionary Youth Core elaborated on this problem by stressing that “we do not have proper training and awareness … this weakness itself is caused by the lack of proper groups and organizations.” Of course, another consequence is that without organization, it is impossible to take collective responsibility for developing ideas and thus a vision of the new society and strategies of how to get there.
Other problems identified by the Street Militants Group include the lack of formal connections between the street protests and the labour movement and the intensification of anti-Arab racism. The Jiyan Group also identifies the problem of a “gap between our analysis and strategies and our way of organizing.” Another way to say this is that there is a potential for the movements from practice and theory to become dislodged from each other, resulting in mindless activism on the one hand and abstract theoretical generalities on the other hand. This last problem is significant because it is in the separation between a total philosophy of revolution and organizational principles and activities where reactionary tendencies develop, such as racism and the tendency to neglect the re-organization and re-definition of the purpose of production.
However, I am not bringing up these problems to condemn the movement in Iran. I bring them up to demonstrate that, in the Jina Uprising, the possibilities of revolution and counter-revolution existed from within the revolutionary forces and, therefore, within in the Idea of WLF. In other words, I am trying to draw attention to the motive forces in the self-development of the Idea. Let us now look closer at the concept of self-development.
B. The Self-Development of “Woman, Life, Freedom”
In Hegel’s Preface to the Phenomenology of Spirit, we find a particularly vivid (for Hegel) description of self-development:
The bud disappears in the bursting-forth of the blossom, and one might say that the former is refuted by the latter; similarly, when the fruit appears, the blossom is shown up in its turn as a false manifestation of the plant, and the fruit now emerges as the truth of it instead.
Hegel concludes that “these forms are not just distinguished from each other, they also supplant one another as mutually incompatible.” But this is not the whole picture. Hegel continues:
Yet at the same time their fluid nature makes them moments of an organic unity in which they not only do not conflict, but in which each is necessary as the other; and this mutual necessity alone constitutes the life of the whole.
It is important to note that Hegel does not say that the bud causes the blossom or that the blossom transitions into the fruit. He is showing that the fruit’s existence negates the blossom’s existence. But he also shows that this negation is a self-negation because the plant is doing this to itself. In other words, the development of the plant is not a result of some external mediation. The plant transforms itself through a series of self-negations.
I do not want to give the reader the impression that by discussing this example, I am handing over the master key to unlocking Hegel’s mystical philosophy. Every movement of self-transformation through self-negation must be grasped on its own terms. I discuss this passage to demonstrate that it is important to note that the dialectical understanding of self-development means self-transformation through self-negation. This conception of self-development has massive implications for engaging with social movements and the “forms of theory“ that emerge from them, such as the Idea of WLF.
Artist’s comment: “For Minoo Majidi, and for her daughter who has shaved all of her hair on her mother’s grave, and for the mourners who never mourn.” Majidi was killed by the IRI during the Jina Uprising. Credit: Woman-Life-Freedom-Art.
To comprehend the self-development of the Jina Uprising and the Idea of WLF in this way, for example, would mean several things. To be concerned with the self-transformation of the Jina Uprising and the Idea of WLF through self-negation would mean refusing to dismiss it outright as the Stalinists have done. This concern with self-development would also mean refusing to substitute one’s categories for the categories emerging from the movement—revolutionary committees, council formation and administration, and WLF, to name just a few.
This is because, if we conceive of self-development as articulated above, theorists and their intellectual products are not something “outside” the process of development in Iran. Therefore, theorists are a part or moment inside the totality of the practical and theoretical struggle for freedom in Iran. This does not mean we have to agree with everything that the revolutionaries in Iran say or do. It only means we must engage the revolutionary situation in Iran, critically and positively, on its own terms, i.e., the actions, thoughts, and aspirations of the people directly involved in it.
If we do not, we take our point of departure from something other than the developing reality in Iran. Thus, our ideas about the situation in Iran will inevitably be alienated from the movement’s self-development. In other words, if theorists do not engage with the Jina Uprising and the Idea of WLF on their own terms, we create the disunity of theory and practice that Marxism purports to overcome! We mutilate theory, transforming it from the truth of reality grasped in thought to an external imposition of private thoughts on reality. The consequence is that rather than further the Idea of WLF, we enchain it in our own alienated categories. What we must turn to now, then, is the “free release” of the Idea of WLF from these chains.
C. The “Free Release” of “Woman, Life, Freedom”
Near the end of her May 12, 1953 letter on Hegel’s Absolutes, Dunayevskaya is “talking” to Lenin, who did not think the final part of the last paragraph of the Science of Logic was important. She tells Lenin, “remember how transition was everything to you in the days of Monopoly, the eve of socialism. Well, Hegel has passed beyond transition.” She then quotes the last part of the Science of Logic: “the pure Idea, in which the determinateness or reality of the Notion is itself realised to the level of Notion, is an absolute liberation, having no further immediate determination which is not equally posited and equally Notion” and “the transition here therefore must rather be taken to mean that the Idea freely releases itself in the absolute self-security and self-repose.”[3] To understand this, we must understand what Hegel means by “Notion” here.
I understand “Notion” here to mean the movement and result of the logical movement described in Hegel’s Logic itself—the self-development of the Absolute Idea. In the paragraph right before the one in which Hegel discusses “absolute liberation,” he states that “Notion … in running itself as subject matter through the totality of its determinations, develops itself into the whole of its reality, into the system of the science [of logic].” From the very beginning of the Logic, all the way up to the Absolute Idea, we are taken through the self-development of Notion. But it is only when the Notion develops into its “whole reality” that it finally appears “transparently” to itself (and the reader) as Notion.
I think Hegel is saying the Idea is liberated because it sheds its limit and overcomes its internal opposition to itself.[4] The Idea sheds its limit by realizing itself as self-comprehending Notion, which is the movement, result, and totality of all the categories in the Logic. The Idea is the self-comprehending whole. Further, in the last paragraph of the Logic, Hegel describes the Idea as being in a state of freedom—”self-assurance” (or self-security) and “inner poise” (or self-repose)—and says that it “abides with itself.” This means that there is no opposition between its two appearances: the movements from practice and theory. The Idea, in realizing its own infinity and unity, thus “freely releases” itself from all limit and opposition; in its infinity and unity, the Idea simply is. In other words, the Idea is “the immediacy of being” or Nature.
If Notion develops into the Absolute Idea, or the “system of the science [of logic]” itself, and the Absolute Idea transforms into Nature, then the Notion develops itself into Nature. This means that Notion does not have a fixed “identity”; it is not a “thing” per se. Rather, it seems to be the subject that is developing itself, the process of self-development, and the result of this self-development. But this is all incredibly abstract! Thus, before concluding with the significance of all this, trying to “translate” some of it into more “materialist” language may be helpful.
Students take off their hijabs in a classroom. Source: from__Iran Instagram page.
Recall that Dunayevskaya interpreted Nature as practice and Logic as theory. Notion, then, at different points of its self-development, can be said to take the shape of practice—or, for our present case, revolutionary activity—and theory. But revolutionary activity does not conduct itself. Neither does theory. And revolutionary activity doesn’t transform into theory on its own, nor does theory transform itself into activity. Revolutionary activity is carried out by revolutionaries, and theory by theorists. In other words, it takes human beings for revolutionary activity or theory to develop and transform into one another.
For this reason, I conceive of Notion as human activity. Or, more precisely, human beings transforming the world in their struggle for freedom. Human beings engaged in the struggle for freedom are the subjects (or agents or protagonists) developing themselves. The human struggle for freedom is the process of human self-development. Human beings, albeit transformed, are the result of their own self-development. It is human beings who transform themselves through changing the world.
Now for what all this has to do with the “free release” of the Idea: Hegel says that the Idea freely releases itself, and passes over into Nature, when the Notion has developed itself to a point where the Idea is Absolute, free from any internal oppositions or limits. Another way to say this is that theory transforms into revolutionary activity when human beings struggling for freedom have developed themselves to a point where they can resolve the contradictions and overcome the limits of their vision of freedom—in thought and reality. In the present case, this means it is not the Marxist intellectual outside of Iran, like me, who will ultimately set the Idea free.
Instead, it is the women burning hijabs (or making their own choice to wear one), the workers and pensioners striking and protesting, the poor and the oppressed national peoples rebelling against the cost of living and exclusive national rights and privileges, the LGBTQ people fighting repression, and the youth engaged in street battles with the police state—from Mahabad to Tehran to Zahedan to the cities in the Gilan province—who will set the Idea free by transforming society in its image. They will transform reality in the image of the idea of WLF and thus transform the Idea of WLF into “the immediacy of being,” that is, revolutionary activity and, hopefully, reality itself. As for what sort of role Marxist theorists and our organizations play in this “absolute liberation” of the Idea, let us conclude by returning to Dunayevskaya’s 1953 letters.
Conclusion: The Role of the Marxist Theorist
I think two insights in Dunayevskaya’s May 12, 1953 letter are of particular importance here. The first is her identification of the proletariat—and women, oppressed nations and ethnic and national minorities, and youth—as “Subject” or “subjectivity.” The second is that, in Hegel’s discussion of the negative “mediating determination” in the transcendence of the distinction between “Notion and Reality,” a transcendence that “rests upon subjectivity alone” (S. 1797-1799), she finds the relationship of theoretical organizations to social movements.
Near the beginning of her letter, she discusses that it initially appears that the Absolute Idea’s “Other” in the Logic can be interpreted as “proletariat outside” the party because, in her interpretation, Hegel’s Absolute Idea is the “dialectic of the party.” However, she shows that if you follow the dialectic development further, it is revealed that the “Other … includes its own Other, and so is contradiction, or the posited dialectic of itself” (S. 1797). In Dunayevskaya’s words, the “Other turns out to be, not the proletariat outside, but the party itself.”
If the party (in our case, the organization of theorists) is revealed to be the “Other” of the proletariat, then the proletariat is revealed to be the “Subject.” Further, these passages suggest that the party “includes” the proletariat, i.e., that it is an expression of class struggle, and that the proletariat “includes” the party, i.e., theoretical organizations are part of the class struggle. I interpret this to mean that without either working-class self-activity or theoretical organizations, the class struggle is one-sided and incomplete.
Yet this does not mean that theoretical organizations are there to tell workers what to do. If the transcendence of the distinction between Notion and Reality “rests upon subjectivity alone,” then the proletariat, or the revolutionary “masses,” will bring forth the new society. Further, if the party is the “Other in its own self” (S. 1797) of the proletariat, then the theoretical organization is the “mediating” element within the class struggle or the “mediating determination” in the self-development of the revolutionary forces and their ideas. Put simply, theoretical organizations are there for social movements to be able to reflect on themselves in a collective and systematic way. They are there to dialogue with the “masses.”
In conclusion, I believe that the theorists’ role in the self-development of the revolution in Iran is not to try to lead the revolutionaries by telling them what we think they should be thinking or doing. In fact, as I have demonstrated, trying to do this just adds more obstacles to the movement’s self-development. Instead, our role is to assist in clarifying the seeds of the new society and counter-revolution in the revolutionary movement. This is impossible without establishing a dialogue between the revolutionaries in Iran and our organizations on the basis of what they are already thinking and doing.
Notes
[1] See especially the section entitled “Dialectical Mediation: Mind Itself as ‘the Mediating Agent.’”
[2] See especially the section entitled, “Iran is Leader in Unlawful Executions.”
[3] Emphasis added.
[4] This resembles a passage in Philosophy and Revolution (p. 15) where, in discussing Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit, Dunayevskaya states that “if there is finally to be a ‘release,’ a plunge into freedom, it can only through the overcoming of internal opposition.”
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