‘Dialectical-Materialism’ of
‘Dialectical-Materialism’ of the kind that used to be spread by the ‘communist’ parties is a sham and a fraud, its no wonder people are suspicious of it.The same can be said for Rosa Lichenstein and her crusade.If you want to know about dialectics read Dietzgen, it’s a shame he has pretty much dropped off the radar.As a review in the October 1998 Standard put it “dialectics means that, in analyzing the world and society, you start from the basis that nothing has an independent, separate existence of its own but is an inter-related and interdependent part of some greater whole (ultimately the whole universe) which is in a process of constant change.”This holistic view has pretty much been incorporated into mainstream science these days, so nothing particularly controversial there.The controversial aspect is the notion of ‘contradiction’ There’s a review of Pannekoek’s ‘Lenin as Philosopher’ which deals with this here: http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2000s/2003/no-1187-july-2003/book-reviewsSo there is something in what Lichenstein is saying but she just gets lost in long and boring rants and hasn’t really studying her subject well enough.