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The crisis of theory has its roots in the Marxist view of working class people and its view of how social change takes place. Marxist regimes have been undemocratic not just in the Soviet Union. The problem lies not in the specifics of the Soviet experience, but in what Marxist regimes share in common --Marxist theory. The absence of free speech for the working class in Marxist regimes reflects the Marxist view that workers are not, SUBJECTIVELY, a positive force: they are a positive force only in an abstract historical ("species essence", dialectical materialist) sense; but in terms of their subjective aspirations, they are dehumanized by capitalism, motivated only by self-interest, lacking "class consciousness" etc. Marxist theory warns its practicioners not to allow workers as they are today to have real power and control their own organizations or free speech or power independent of the Marxist-controlled state. This is the root of the crisis of theory. The solution to the problem is to articulate a very different view of workers and social change from the Marxist one. The Marxist theory that social change is driven by impersonal laws of economics & class interest towards results that are independent of people's subjective aims is wrong. The Marxist theory that economic development is key and must precede the creation of egalitarian social relations is wrong. The Marxist theory that workers today are not subjectively a force for a classless and egalitarian society and that they need to be transformed into "Socialist Man" (to use Che's phrase) in the future is wrong. These strands of Marxist theory all lead very logically towards anti-democratic practice by Marxist regimes. There will be no solution to the crisis of theory until the Marxist theory which points u
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s in the wrong direction is explicitly identified as the source of the problem and explicitly rejected for an entirely new paradigm of revolution: revolution is the success on a large scale of the countless efforts that ordinary people engage in everyday to try to shape the little piece of the world over which they have some control with the working class values of equality, solidarity, and democracy. This is a basis for hope in a revolutionary transformation of society that rests on respect for and appreciation of working class people as they are today, a respect and appreciation absent in Marxist theory. Changing the name of the Marxist paradigm to "proletarism" won't do anything to solve the problem. Most working class people will continue to sense that there is an anti-democratic paradigm behind the new name.