Daniel Little: Is history probabilistic?

Daniel Little asks Is history probabilistic?

However, there are several crucial flaws in this analysis. First, the picture is flawed by the fact that history is made by purposive agents, not algorithms or mechanical devices. These actors are not characterized by fixed objective probabilities. Historical actors have preferences and take actions to influence outcomes at crucial points. Second, agents are not fixed over time, but rather develop through learning. They are complex adaptive agents. They achieve innovations in their practices just as the engineers and bureaucrats do. They develop and refine repertoires of resistance (Tilly). So each play of the game of political history is novel in important respects. History is itself influenced by previous history.

Finally, there is the familiar shortcoming of simulations everywhere: a model along these lines unavoidably requires making simplifying assumptions about the causal factors in play. And these simplifications can be shown to have important consequences for the sensitivity of the model.

So it is important to understand that social causation is generally probabilistic; but this fact does not permit us to assign objective probabilities to the emergence of central states, dictatorships, or democracies.

Emphasis Mine

This is a very important part of Lennist Party theory. A revolutionary party must attract and develop cadre who are able to intervene at critical points in the development of the consciousness of the proletariat. And, in doing so, the cadre develop themselves and othe party members by reflecting upon their collective experience.

This is also why the revolutionary party is always the subject of intense survellience and intervention by state security appartuses. The prime example is COINTELPRO that was run by the FBI.

The development of the proletarian consciousness has to consider the history of the society in which they operate. Consciousness is not made in a vacuum. Consciousness is built through experience, reflection, and action.