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Title: Pseudo-Scientific Aberrations
Author: Errico Malatesta
Date: November 1925
Language: en
Topics: science, scientific socialism
Source: The Anarchist Revolution: Polemical Articles 1924–1931, edited and introduced by Vernon Richards. Published by Freedom Press London 1995.

Errico Malatesta

Pseudo-Scientific Aberrations

According to the Franco-Russian socialist, Frederic Stackelberg, who is

well-known not only for his political activity but for his valuable work

in popularising astronomy:

‘socialism is nothing more than the biological monism* of the arts and

sciences of the 19^(th) century and the astronomical monism of the

Renaissance, confirmed by recent astronomical discoveries.’ (Le Semeur

de Normandie, 25^(th) October).

In ordinary vulgar language this means that if recent discoveries were

to give rise to biological theories that differ from the dominant

theories of the nineteenth century, and if astronomical research were to

show that the stars were composed of matter different from our own

planet’s, there would be no point in socialism existing and socialists

would be wrong!

Now Stackelberg is not just an astronomer who lives with his head in the

clouds and the kind of snob-socialist who talks about socialism without

knowing what it really means. He is, or was, a militant socialist (who

at one time flirted with anarchism). He made his contribution to the

struggle for human liberation and still has a passionate interest in

social questions. In point of fact, in the same article from which we

have drawn that bewildering definition of socialism we also find that:

‘The programme, the immediate aim of scientific Socialism and Communism

is:

The common ownership of the land and all means of production;

The emancipation of women in terms of civil, political and economic

equality, with men, which will put an end to the old moral code of our

ancestors;

The replacement of the rule of man over man by the worldwide

administration of production based on equivalence of labour.’

So far so good. But what does astronomy have to do with it?!

We would not have raised the matter if it had simply been some isolated

example of academics who, tormented by the need to search for a

universal formula that would explain everything that the senses

perceive, that thought conceives and that life actually does, allow

themselves to be drawn into making rash statements and grotesque

judgements.

But unfortunately the habit is widespread, perhaps especially in our

milieau.

Our desk is littered with the writings of good comrades who feel the

need to give their anarchism a ‘scientific base’ and who consequently

fall into the sort of traps which would seem ridiculous were they not

rendered pathetic by the obvious efforts they have made in the sincere

belief that they are furthering their cause. And most pathetic of all

are the many who make excuses for not doing better ... because they

haven’t had the opportunity to pursue their studies.

But why get bogged down in things one doesn’t know about, instead of

making sound propaganda based on human needs and aspirations?

Clearly it isn’t necessary to be a learned scholar to be a good and

useful anarchist. On the contrary, being a scholar can sometimes be a

positive hindrance. But to talk about science it would perhaps be

advisable to know a little about it!

And let no one accuse us, as a comrade did recently, of having scant

respect for science. On the contrary, we know what beauty, greatness and

power there is in science. We recognise the part it plays in the

liberation of thought and in the triumph of humankind over the hostile

forces of nature, and we therefore hope that we and all comrades will be

able to form a clear and coherent idea about Science and deepen our

understanding of it in at least one of its innumerable branches.

Our programme does not only include bread for all, but also science for

all. But it seems to us that in order to speak at all usefully about

science we first need to clarify what its aims and its functions are.

Like bread, science is not a free gift of Nature. It must be conquered

by struggle. And we are fighting to create the conditions which give to

all the possibilities of joining in the struggle.