Dictionary of Revolutionary Marxism

—   R   —

RAND, Ayn   (1905-1982)
A quintessential bourgeois philosopher and novelist who actually sought to construct a philosophy (which she called “Objectivism”) based on the open glorification of capitalism and selfishness!
        See also: Philosophical doggerel about her.

RATIONALISM
The approach to the philosophy of knowledge which exaggerates the role of reason and underplays (or even entirely discounts) the role of sense perception, experience and investigation of the world. The opposite error is empiricism, which exaggerates the role of sense perception and experience while downplaying (or even entirely discounting) the role of rationalization of that experience. The dialectical materialist theory of knowledge stakes out a middle ground between these two very one-sided approaches.
        [More to be added... ]

RATIONALITY
[To be added... ]
        See also: WORLDVIEW

RAWLS, John   (1921-2002)
A very influential American bourgeois philosopher in the last half of the 20^th century who specialized in moral and political philosophy. He is basically a philosopher of bourgeois liberalism. He spent most of his teaching career at Harvard University, and is best known for what contemporary bourgeois philosophers consider to be his “magnum opus”, A Theory of Justice (1971).
        A Theory of Justice is, however, a confused and inconsistent work. Because there are many conflicting and fairly obscure threads in it, it is the sort of work that bourgeois philosophers love to discuss and “interpret”. One would think that a major work on moral philosophy (ethics) and political philosophy would begin by clearly stating what the foundations of morality are. But Rawls does not do that; his obsession is with the higher level principles of moral and political philosophy which depend on the foundations of morality which he never coherently establishes. Thus it often goes unnoticed that Rawls is pretty much just a Kantian when it comes to the foundations of morality. This is brought out more clearly in another of his books, Lectures on the History of Moral Philosophy (2000).

“As in all his writings, he [Rawls] gives pride of place in these lectures to questions about moral reasoning. He is concerned above all with the logic of morality, its presuppositions, its principles, and the basic legal and political institutions that flow from it. Rawls finds inspiration chiefly in the daunting writings of the great 18th-century German philosopher Immanuel Kant. He does discuss other thinkers. David Hume, with whom he begins, raised the question that Kant attempted to resolve: How can there be universal moral standards untainted by our passions and interests? Part of Kant’s answer is elaborated in the Critique of Pure Reason (1781): The very structure of reason, independent of our passions and interests, provides universal standards. Another part is found in ... his other works in which Kant develops the idea from a variety of angles that the universal moral standard takes the form of a law, the Categorical Imperative, which requires us to act according to a maxim that we could will to be a universal law. Rawls concludes with Hegel, who clarified, corrected, and supplemented Kant. But, as in Rawls’s other writings, Kant is the looming philosophical presence.
         “... [Rawls] turns to Kant in order to make sense of the moral life as it truly is. The implication is that the history of moral philosophy culminates in Kant and more or less comes to an end in the Kantian-inspired moral philosophy that Rawls’s own work exemplifies. What Rawls introduces as a circumscribed scholarly effort to understand Kant is actually a bold defense of the Kantian idea that the very essence of morality consists in reasoning correctly on the basis of universal moral laws.” —Peter Berkowitz, “John Rawls and the Liberal Faith”, in the bourgeois journal, the Wilson Quarterly, Spring 2002, pp. 61-62.

From the point of view of revolutionary Marxism, this so-called “bold defense” of universal moral laws is instead just another tiredsome repetition of Kantian doctrine that has long been seen through on our part as the idealist nonsense that it is! Since all of Rawls’s arguments in A Theory of Justice and his other writings are constructed on this Kantian basis, they are all essentially worthless from our point of view, and would still be so even if they weren’t so confused and obscure. All his endless discussions of the nature of “justice as fairness”, distributive justice (how goods should be fairly distributed in a society), and so forth are found to rest on idealist and bourgeois foundations. Rawls not only appeals to the quintessentially bourgeois “Social Contract” idea, but also affirms the “right” of individuals to own and control private property in the means of production as a basic principle of “liberty”, which is supposedly justified on the basis of human “moral capacities” and “self-respect”. Thus this supposed paragon of the defense of moral justice sees nothing at all wrong in the capitalist exploitation of the workers or the imperialist economic domination and exploitation of the world.
        Rawls’s conception of a “well-ordered society” is that of bourgeois liberalism (meaning “liberalism” in the contemporary social sense in the U.S., as opposed to conservatism and laissez-faire). Thus he favored the liberal’s notion of supposed social justice, the regulation of capitalism and the mere mitigation of some of its worst “excesses”. His whole career was devoted to giving a theoretical excuse for liberal capitalism.

RECAPITALIZATION
Expanding the capital of a bank or corporation to support the increased risk and threat of insolvency which has come to light, usually in a financial crisis. The trouble is that usually no one wants to invest in a bank or company that appears to be teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Thus recapitalization often means that there is a government bailout in progress. This in turn happens through the government doing one or more of the following: 1) taking over responsibility for some of the debt or risky loans that the bank or company made; 2) simply loaning or giving them money; or 3) through partial or complete nationalization (by the government purchasing the ownership, or part of it, of the bank or company which is near bankruptcy, usually at grossly excessive prices). A mixture of all three methods is being used in the current wave of bailout-recapitalizations of banks, other financial institutions and industrial corporations that began in the fall of 2008.
        See also: BANK CAPITAL

RECESSION (Economics)
Modern name (in the imperialist era since World War II) for the lowest part of the common capitalist economic cycle, in which many—but not all!—of the basic economic contradictions inherent in the capitalist mode of production come to a head. If all these contradictions, including the most fundamental of them, the contradiction between social production and private appropriation, fully come to a head, then we have a much more serious situation, a depression, rather than merely a recession.
        Bourgeois economists define a “recession” in a different and much more complex way, but basically as a period when the economy overall is shrinking rather than growing. By that standard there have been 25 recessions in the U.S. since 1896, including two during the Great Depression of the 1930s, and one continuing at present (which is said to have started in December 2007) when we are actually almost certainly in the beginning stages of the development of a new depression.

RECTIFICATION CAMPAIGN (China: 1942)
A campaign within the Communist Party of China launched in 1942 during the Yan’an Period. This campaign was for the purpose of combatting the lingering ideas and political line of Wang Ming and other erroneous lines, trends and influences within the CCP, including that of the bourgeois feminist writer Ding Ling. This overall and primary aspect of the campaign played a very positive role in the CCP. However, this rectification campaign also marked an early stage in the development of the cult of personality around Mao Zedong, something that proved to be not so positive in the long run.

“RED BOOK”
See: QUOTATIONS FROM CHAIRMAN MAO TSE-TUNG

RED GUARDS
Organizations of students and youth during the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China. [More to be added... ]

RED PAPERS
A sporadic theoretical journal published by the Revolutionary Union, predecessor to the Revolutionary Communist Party, USA. The issues and their topics were:
        #1 (Early 1969): Includes a statement of principles; an article in defense of Marxism-Leninism; and an article about how some RU members were attempting to bring revolutionary ideas to the workers in Richmond, California.
        #2 (Mid 1969): Main document was “United Front Against Imperialism: Strategy for Proletarian Revolution”.
        #3 (1970): “Women Fight for Liberation” (Entire issue devoted to issues related to women’s liberation.)
        #4 (1972): “Proletarian Revolution vs. Revolutionary Adventurism” (The documents from both sides in the struggle and split which occurred in the RU near the end of 1970.)
        #5 (October 1972): “National Liberation and Proletarian Revolution in the U.S.” (Mostly devoted to the Black National Question.)
        #6 (June 1974): “Build the Leadership of the Proletariat and its Party” (Includes articles on the importance of building a new revolutionary party; about a struggle in the RU around the national question; and summing up some practical work among the proletariat.)
        #7 (October 1974): “How Capitalism has been Restored in the Soviet Union and What this Means for the World Struggle” (Entire issue devoted to that topic.)
        In addition to these seven issues of Red Papers published by the RU, the Revolutionary Workers’ Headquarters organization, which split off from the Revolutionary Communist Party in early 1978, published one item, which they called Red Papers 8. It had sections attacking the “Gang of Four” in China; on their views of revolution in the U.S.A.; and on their split from the RCP.

REFLATION
Purposeful inflation (additional expansion of the currency supply) in order to stop deflation or even to prevent stable prices! (Most contemporary bourgeois economists believe that “mild inflation” is best for the economy!) “Reflation”, in other words, is—in the mouths of bourgeois economists—pretty much just a euphemism for inflation!

REIFICATION
To regard an abstraction (abstract entity) as a material or concrete thing. For example, someone who regards mathematical circles as existing in the world in the same sense that trees and houses do is reifying an abstraction that has been derived from extrapolating from the (more or less) round things we come across in the material world. (See Mathematical Platonism.)
        It is true, however, that philosophers and other intellectuals often get rather carried away in their charges of “reification” against others. It has been absurdly claimed, for example, that we should not talk about “class interests” and that doing so is a form of reification since supposedly only individuals can have interests, not groups of people. This particular argument relies on confusion between psychological interests (which only individuals with minds/brains can have) and beneficial interests, or things which benefit someone or a group of people! (For more on this specific point, see chapter 2, section 2.9C, of my work in progress, The Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Class Interest Theory of Ethics at http://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM-Ethics-Ch1-2.pdf —Scott H.)
        In most cases where a charge of “reification” is more justly brought it might still be more reasonable (and more comprehensible) to simple say that the person is confusing one sort of thing with a different sort of thing. Terms like “reification” are generally needlessly esoteric and pretentious.

RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION
The role or position of individuals and groups of people with regard to the ownership and/or control of the means of production and therefore with regard to the ownership or control of the economic surplus produced in economic production. The relations of production are thus the primary determinant of the class structure of any class society: which classes exist, and the nature of the political-economic relationships between the different social classes. Specifically, in every class society there is the central relationship of exploitation: one class exploits another, and thus lives off the labor of another.
        In capitalist society the relations of production are as follows:
        1) The bourgeoisie (or capitalist class) owns and controls the means of production, either as individuals, or in the form of corporations, or sometimes collectively at the state level (as with the U.S. Postal Service, or with all of industry as in the revisionist Soviet Union).
        2) The proletariat (or working class) has no ownership share or control over the means of production, and therefore to survive each proletarian must sell his or her ability to work to one or another capitalist or capitalist corporation or entity. There is thus an exploitative relationship between the the bourgeoisie and the proletariat: The capitalists exploit the workers, since the source of surplus value and capitalist profits is the labor of workers.
        3) The petty bourgeoisie (independent professionals and operators of very small businesses such as family-run restaurants) are more or less independent of both the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. They are neither directly exploited by the capitalists, nor do they (for the most part) exploit the working class.

“The defining anecdote in this final chapter is the tragicomic tale of a Mr Peel, who took with him from England to the Swan River district of western Australia £50,000 in cash and 3,000 working-class men, women and children. He overlooked only one thing: the need to keep his workers separated from the means of production. Finding land freely available in this empty region they abandoned their employer, leaving him without even a servant to make his bed or fetch him water from the river. ‘Unhappy Mr Peel,’ Marx writes, ‘who provided for everything except the export of English relations of production to the Swan River!’” —Francis Wheen, Marx’s Das Kapital (2006), p. 69, summarizing an historical incident described by Marx in Capital, vol. I, ch. 33.

RELATIVE SURPLUS VALUE
See: SURPLUS VALUE—Absolute and Relative

RELATIVISM
[To be added...]
        See also: ETHICAL RELATIVISM

REMOLDING ONE’S WORLDVIEW (or WORLD OUTLOOK)
Changing one’s viewpoint (worldview) from that of one class to that of another, generally assumed by Marxists to mean in the direction of a proletarian revolutionary outlook.

“How should a cadre look at himself? He should look at himself from the ‘one divides into two’ point of view. He may have his strong points, but he is sure to have shortcomings. He must not think he is always right. He must understand that remolding one’s world outlook is not something that can be completed once and for all. As long as classes and class struggle exist in society, the struggle of the two world outlooks will go on in people’s minds. Therefore, each of us faces the problem of eradicating the bourgeois world outlook and establishing a proletarian one in his mind. This matter of remolding one’s ideology is important both for new or old comrades, both for those in low or high positions. Furthermore, the heavier is one’s responsibility, the more important is such remolding, and the greater the need to remold consciously and be strict with oneself. Anyone who thinks he has no contradictions in his mind and needs no remolding is harboring a metaphysical viewpoint that is extremely harmful.” —“Maxims for Revolutionaries—The ‘Three Constantly Read Articles’”, an editorial in Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily], translated in Peking Review, vol. 10, #2, Jan. 6, 1967, p. 8.

RENMIN RIBAO
The Chinese name of the People’s Daily newspaper, published by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. (With tones indicated: Rénmín Rìbào.)

RENT
The income periodically received from allowing others the right to use capital, land or other property, which does not involve any participation in business activity on the part of those receiving the rent.
        See also: DIFFERENTIAL RENT.

REPEATED STUDY OF THE SAME POLITICAL WORKS
Many works of revolutionary Marxism, such as the major writings by Marx, Engels, Lenin and Mao, are worthy of not only careful study, but of repeated study. The first time reading a book like Marx’s Capital, for example, even a serious and dedicated reader cannot be expected to grasp and remember all the wealth of knowledge, make all the diverse connections between the multitude of ideas, and fully appreciate all the profundity that is included there. As Engels remarked, since socialism became a science it must be pursued as a science—that is, it must be studied. Science requires the extensive thought that comes from the repeated study of key works.
        On the other hand, our political study must not be limited to just a small number of works, no matter how important they might be, nor should it be limited to just the classics of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. During the late 1960s in China Lin Biao and his close followers argued that it was not necessary to read widely, but rather it was enough to constantly re-read Mao’s Red Book of quotations and a very few of his articles (such as the “three constantly-read articles”). In both their own study and in their political education of others, people were advised: “Don’t be afraid of repetition. Link up with reality, link up with ideology and link up with work, and we will no longer be repetitive.” [Peking Review, “Carry the Mass Movement for Creative Study and Application of Chairman Mao’s Works to a New Stage”, Oct. 14, 1966, p. 7.] It is true, of course, that study should be linked up with practice. But it is not true that only a limited range of highly repetitive political study is necessary. Moreover to argue that this is sufficient is in fact a way of opposing the broadening and deeping of everyone’s political education.
        We must both engage in repeated study of the most important revolutionary political, philosophical and economic works, and at the same time read and study much more broadly than that, so that we can not only truly grasp our existing science of revolutionary Marxism, but also help extend it and apply it to quite new situations.

REVERSE MORTGAGE
A special type of mortgage in which a homeowner’s equity is diminished by either a lump sum or by periodic payments (an annuity), which the mortgage holder pays to the homeowner. It is a way of selling your home to a bank or mortgage company which usually allows you to remain living in the home until you die. After your death the bank owns your home, or at least a large part of what it is worth.
        An ordinary mortgage is a loan which people take out in order to buy a house. They then typically spend decades paying off that loan, and if they finally do pay it off they end up actually owning the house for real. But many people, as they reach old age and are no longer able to work, do not have enough income to survive—even if they do actually own their home with the mortgage paid off. (People’s savings are most often inadequate, and Social Security payments are definitely paltry.) In this situation people may have no choice but to sell their home, either directly and immediately, or else via the mechanism of a reverse mortgage.
        While the idea of a reverse mortgage sounds good to many people, the banks or mortgage companies that issue them typically charge quite high fees and interest rates on their payments, thus victimizing people who are simply trying to remain in their own homes in their old age. Reverse mortgages are highly profitable loans for the banks.

“As all statistics show, the only significant asset that Americans accumulate during their working years is their home. The economic realities of our times now require that people draw down that asset via reverse mortgages to fund their post-retirement years. They will thus not leave their homes to their children. Meanwhile the mass refinancing of home mortgages by Americans during their working years is also reducing their home equity as they approach retirement.
         “The combination of refinancing and reverse mortgages is quickly eroding the historically short-lived period of mass home ownership in the U.S.” —Richard D. Wolff, Capitalism Hits the Fan (2010), pp. 29-30.

REVOLUTION, SOCIAL
The replacement of one socioeconomic formation with another, higher one. This implies the replacement of one class as the ruler of society by another (except in the change from primitive communal society to slave society, where there was originally no ruling class; and in the change from socialism to communism, where the proletariat gradually ceases to exist as a class.)
        Whereas bourgeois commentators often use the term “revolution” very loosely to mean any change of government except through established electoral procedures (and sometimes even including that!), Marxists reserve the term for genuine changes in the form of society, and moreover changes which are progressive and in the interests of the people (as opposed to counter-revolution).

“Marxism-Leninism consistently holds that the fundamental question in all revolutions is that of state power.” —A Proposal Concerning the General Line of the International Communist Movement: The letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China in reply to the letter of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union of March 30, 1963 (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1963), p. 21.

“Whatever his position, however long his experience in the revolution, or his age, every one of our cadres must see himself both as a motive force in the revolution and, at the same time, as a target of the revolution, and therefore must consciously wage revolution against himself. He must make the best of his strong points so as to be able to give his all to the revolution. He must also wage a constant struggle against his short-comings so as to adjust himself to the demands of the revolution. In the battle to remold himself to the depth of his soul, he should be a fighting commander who leads his men in the assault on the enemy citadel, not a coward filled with misgivings and fears. He must be a fearless and thoroughgoing materialist who is not afraid of being hurt, of losing face, of revealing his thoughts, of probing his soul, of affronts to his ‘dignity’ or of changing the old existing order; only so can he be completely emancipated from egoism.
        “Cadres at all levels should not only make revolution against themselves, but should also welcome the help of others in doing it.” —“Maxims for Revolutionaries — The ‘Three Constantly Read Articles’”, editorial in Jiefangjun Bao [Liberation Army Daily], in Peking Review, vol. 10, #2, Jan. 6, 1967, p. 8.

REVOLUTIONARY COMMUNIST PARTY, U.S.A.
A very small, nominally “Maoist”, revolutionary Party in the U.S., founded in October 1975 primarily from its predecessor organization, the Revolutionary Union. Its chairman and primary leader since its inception has been Bob Avakian, around whom an absurd personality cult has been erected and recently further intensified.
        While once a very promising revolutionary organization, the RCP today has degenerated into a tiny doctrinaire and sectarian cult with no prospects of ever leading a revolution in the U.S., nor even any longer of being any sort of serious political force on the left.

REVOLUTIONARY OPTIMISM
The positive and optimistic attitude among revolutionaries and the revolutionary masses which is one important factor in their success. Of course we need to do our very best to understand the world and the objective situation as it truly is, and not fool ourselves about the current situation or what can be accomplished at the present time. But on the other hand, precisely what can be accomplished at any given point is seldom completely clear and obvious. Moreover, if we undertake our work in a positive, optimistic spirit, we will be better able to make the very most of that situation, and accomplish all that really is possible within it. This will promote a more rapid development toward revolution, something which is so desperately needed!
        See also: “INEVITABLEISM”

REVOLUTIONARY SUCCESSORS
Those who will carry on the revolution and the world proletarian revolutionary process after the current generation dies. The development of revolutionary successors became a prominent concern in the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, and remains a major concern for all revolutionaries, especially as they get older.
        See also: FIVE REQUIREMENTS FOR SUCCESSORS TO THE REVOLUTIONARY CAUSE OF THE PROLETARIAT

“REVOLUTIONARY THREE-IN-ONE COMBINATION”
See: THREE-IN-ONE REVOLUTIONARY COMMITTEE

REVOLUTIONARY UNION
A U.S. revolutionary organization (not a labor union!) formed originally as the “Bay Area Revolutionary Union” in 1968 in the San Francisco Bay Area, which later spread around the country and transformed itself into the Revolutionary Communist Party in 1975.
        See also sub-topics below, and RED PAPERS.

REVOLUTIONARY UNION — 1970 Split
In late 1970 an ultra-“left” faction of the Revolutionary Union split off and then merged with a small Chicano revolutionary organization, Venceremos. This faction consisted of about one-third of the RU in the San Francisco Bay Area, and was led by the radical Stanford professor, H. Bruce Franklin. The Franklin group favored a revolutionary strategy that was inspired by Che Guevarra’s foco approach, but adapted to an urban setting, and therefore developing into urban guerrilla warfare. They viewed the basis for such a guerrilla movement to be the oppressed nationalities, and especially the lumpenproletariat among them, along with radicalized white students and ex-students.
        The larger part of the RU, led by Bob Avakian and Steve Hamilton, rejected that approach as infantile anarchist ultra-“leftism”, and favored sticking to the basic strategy upon which the RU was founded: a long period of merging of revolutionaries with the working class and raising their revolutionary consciousness, followed—at the appropriate time, and when conditions were ripe—by a co-ordinated national mass insurrection. Of course that approach is not only the traditional Marxist-Leninist one for advanced capitalist countries, it is also certainly the correct approach.

“By early 1970, there occurred an increasing polarization between the more clearly adventurist perspective represented by the Franklins and others in the RU leadership, and the more ‘economist’ perspective (as characterized by the opposition) of Avakian, myself, and the majority of the leadership. The issues crystallized when the former group submitted a position paper on armed struggle that described a scenario of ‘urban guerrilla warfare’ or a protracted ‘armed propaganda’ struggle and the clandestine formation of a ‘people’s army.’ Avakian countered in a paper that argued that such a perspective is impossible in an advanced capitalist country, that there must be a long period of essentially peaceful political struggle culminating in a rather sudden mass insurrection when a significant mass base exists that is supportive of revolution. (The principal documents in this struggle were reprinted in Red Papers 4.)
         “The adventurist line, which was possibly the dominant tendency in this period nationally [i.e., in the U.S. student-based revolutionary movement as a whole], was an inconsistent hodge-podge of Marxism and anarchism. It could be better understood as a mood, a mood of petty bourgeois impatience and romanticism that found its expression ideologically in a tendency to grossly exaggerate the readiness of objective conditions for revolution and consequently a tendency to project a totally unrealistic form and level of political struggle.
         “Absurd as this position may sound, it was not easy at the time to counter because the alternative view had to be posed in explaining why more slow patient struggle was necessary and at a much less ‘revolutionary’ level, which did not sound very exciting by comparison. The reason for this can be found in the lack of understanding of Marxist theory, and the class background and limited (limited to outside the working class, largely) political experience of those who were impressed by this sort of ultra-leftism.” —Steve Hamilton, “On the History of the Revolutionary Union (Part II)”, Theoretical Review: A journal of Marxist-Leninist Theory and Discussion, #14, Jan.-Feb. 1980, p. 9.

REVOLUTIONARY WORK IN OUR TIMES (RWIOT)
An irregular series of conferences and a continuing extremely loose federation of various small revolutionary-minded groups and individuals in the United States at the present time. RWIOT seems to be promoting the idea of “Left Refoundation”, or the reconstruction of a larger “Left” organization and movement in the U.S. based on some sort of vague “Left” consensus rather than MLM (revolutionary Marxist) principles. These folks are strongly opposed to “vanguardism”, sectarianism and dogmatism, which is all well and good—depending on precisely what they mean by these terms! At least some of the people involved would seem to wrongly extend these terms to cover many well-established and definitely correct Marxist-Leninist-Maoist principles, practices and organizational forms. All sins have opposite sins; and there are also opposite errors to “vanguardism”, sectarianism and dogmatism—even if the present-day language seems to have not yet created all the labels for them! For example, opposing MLM principles which have been proven to be correct over long periods of revolutionary history is wrong even if it is done under the rubric of “anti-dogmatism”. There is also a fairly widespread feeling outside of the organizations involved in RWIOT that this general trend strongly leans towards rightism or economism. On the other hand, it seems to have attracted a number of young people with limited political experience and education and whose basic political views are not yet settled.
        Among the organizations participating in RWIOT are: FRSO/OSCL, Solidarity, the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM), Left Turn, the League of Revolutionaries for a New America (LRNA), and the New York Study Group.
        The RWIOT web site is at: http://www.revolutionarywork.org/ and a discussion of the summer 2009 RWIOT conference (with about 200 attendees), written by one of the FRSO/OSCL folks, is at: http://freedomroad.org/content/view/665/228/lang,en/

REVOLUTIONARY WORKERS’ HEADQUARTERS
A group which split off from the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, in early 1978, and later merged with other groups to form the Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

RIGHT (Ethics)
In moral contexts, the word ‘right’ is normally used to characterize actions, and means “conforming to the standards we have for answering to the common, collective interests of the people for that sort of activity”. For further discussion of this word as it is used in ethics see section 2.8 in chapter 2 of my work in progress An Introduction to the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist Class Interest Theory of Ethics, at: http://www.massline.org/Philosophy/ScottH/MLM-Ethics-Ch1-2.pdf .

“RIGHTS”
[To be added...]
        See also: BOURGEOIS RIGHT, “NATURAL RIGHTS”

ROBINSON, Joan   (1903-1983)
A leading bourgeois economist during the middle part of the 20^th century. Taught at Cambridge University for 40 years. She was an associate and extender of Keynes, and was also somewhat influenced by Marx and later by Maoist political economy. Her book Essay on Marxian Economics (1942) brings out her rejection of the labor theory of value.
        See also: BASTARD KEYNESIANISM.

ROMANTICISM
A term which means related things in different spheres: in the arts generally; in music; in architecture; and in philosophy. Overall, Romanticism was a cultural movement which swept across western Europe (and to some degree the early United States) during the period of roughly 1775 to 1840 or so. It was in part a nostalgic and semi-religious reaction against the Enlightenment. In place of the ideas of reason, rationality and a scientific approach to the world that the Enlightenment championed, Romanticism favored the imaginative, the emotional, the inspired, the heroic, the nihilistic, the subjective, the self-centered focus on the “pleasure principle”, the psychological, and often the religious in various idealistic forms. While there are some positive aspects to this whole temperament, there are obviously also many negative aspects to it as well.
        Romantic art and literature emphasizes sweeping movement, allegory, imagination, fantasy, romance, mythic tales, and pilgrimages returning to a lost home or Eden. Romanticism in modern architecture means a flowing, open style, often based on natural materials and blending into the environment. (As with Louis Sullivan and Frank Lloyd Wright in American architecture, for example.)
        Romanticism in music refers primarily to European classical music of the first half of the 19^th century, and particularly the compositions of Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Chopin, Berlioz, Liszt, Verdi and Wagner. It has its inspiration both in literary Romanticism and also (somewhat in conflict with that) with the new ways of thinking opened up by the great French Revolution. It is characterized by the expression of the emotions and outlook of the composers together with the somewhat opposed notion that music can and must express the spirit of the age.
        There are many admirable examples of Romanticism in art, architecture and music; however, in philosophy the situation is quite different. In this sphere Romanticism is virtually always intellectualized religion (philosophical idealism) and reactionary in its essence. Not too surprisingly, Kant is a major figure or influence here, such as with his idealistic distortion of the concept of free will, but more centrally with his conception of reality as fundamentally “unknowable” and ultimately spiritual. Other philosophers or thinkers more commonly referred to as Romantics, such as Schelling, are even more blatant: With him nature is a creative spirit aspiring to an ever more complete self-realization. Supposedly human knowledge of this “spirit” (or “the Absolute”!) cannot be acquired by rational or scientific means, but only through “intuition” (and even then only by a select few). This is the sort of incoherent nonsense that characterizes Romanticism in philosophy.
        Politically, the Romantic movement was a rather mixed bag. One current within it was reactionary; it viewed the triumph of capitalism with disdain, but constructed an imaginary historic ideal of what Medieval (feudal) society was like, and longed for a return to it. But another, probably larger current within Romanticism, also reacting negatively to the new capitalist world, longed to transform it into something better. Among the more progressive Romantics were Byron, Victor Hugo, Chopin, Berlioz and Liszt. While their political activities were generally limited and often merely vaguely radical or utopian, they did strongly sympathize with the masses and their miseries in capitalist society.

ROUSSEAU, Jean-Jacques   (1712-1778)
French philosopher, and democrat, who was one of the great figures of the Enlightenment. He was an ideologist of the Petty Bourgeoisie.
        See also: GENERAL WILL, SOCIAL CONTRACT and philosophical doggerel about Rousseau.

RSS (Rashtryiya Swayamsevar Sangh)
See: HINDUTVA

RULING CLASS
The class that dominates a particular society and through its political party or parties (and other institutions) controls the state, and especially the armed forces of the state. Normally (that is, except briefly at times of revolutionary transition) the class which rules is the economically dominant class, the one which owns and controls the means of production.
        It is very important for the rulers to convince the other classes either that the actual ruling class has the sole right to rule (as supposedly specified by the gods, perhaps!), or else that (contrary to the real situation) they are not the exclusive rulers of the society. In capitalist society the ruling class is the capitalist class, the bourgeoisie. And it is especially important for them to try to hide their class rule from the vastly larger working class. Multi-party bourgeois democracy has been created for this purpose. Through their control of all the major parties and virtually all of the media and the major social institutions (churches, schools, etc.), the capitalists remain the ruling class. But they are for long periods able to fool the working class and the poor into thinking that “there is no ruling class”, and that everyone has an equal say in how society is run.

RUSSELL, Bertrand   (1872-1970)
One of the best known bourgeois philosophers of the 20^th century, and one of the most overrated. He was constantly changing his mind about almost every topic, philosophical and political, so it is hard to summarize his “ideas”. For example, at one time he advocated an unprovoked nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, and a few years later championed the “better red than dead” anti-nuclear movement. For more about his philosophical flightiness, see the philosophical doggerel page on him.

RUSSIAN SOCIAL-DEMOCRATIC LABOR PARTY (RSDLP)
The umbrella Marxist socialist party in Russia which eventually included the Bolsheviks, the Mensheviks, the Bund and other sections, all of which actually operated as independent political parties much of the time. After the Bolshevik Revolution (in November 1917), the Bolsheviks soon came to completely dominate the RSDLP (at least within Russia), and the name of the Party was later changed to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. [More to be added... ]
        See also sub-topics below, and: BOLSHEVIKS, BUND, MENSHEVIKS, and COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE SOVIET UNION

RWIOT
See: REVOLUTIONARY WORK IN OUR TIMES

RYM II   (REVOLUTIONARY YOUTH MOVEMENT II)
A faction of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) during the late 1960s in the United States. [More to be added... ]

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