Date: Mon, 9 Dec 1996 16:01:54 -0500 (EST)
From: louisgodena-AT-ids.net (Louis R Godena)
Subject: Re: M-I: marxism



Angelo Novo asks,  simply:

>[Whose] marxism?

And,  after some irrelevant amenities,  gets down to cases:

>I am absolutely perplexed that [Louis Godena] can permit himself doubtful
(if not
>altogether sceptical) considerations about the working class beeing
>revolutionary... and still consider himself a marxist. This is very...
>un-marxist indeed.

I maintain,  in my own defense,  that the constant evolution of doctrine in
response to changing conditions is itself a canon of Marxism.    Marxism was
never offered to the world as a static body of received wisdom.    And Marx
himself once confessed that he was no Marxist.    

But,  go on:

>Marxism is not some intellectual armour that whoever can use for
>revolutionary purposes. Marxism is the self-reflexion of the historical
>experience of the proletariat. Sure, it has been used by thirld-world
>bourgeoisies in quest for national emancipation, peasent wars, ...

But,  my dear Angelo,  it is precisely in this context,  innocent of any
substantial working class base,  that Marxian revolutions have met with the
greatest success.    I feel tempted to say that the Bolsheviks won their
victory in 1917,  the Chinese Communists in 1949,  the Vietnamese in 1951,
and the Cubans in 1959,  not in spite of the backwardness of their
respective economies and societies,  but because of it.     I think we have
to consider seriously the hypothesis that the world revolution of which the
October Revolution was the first stage,  and which will complete the
downfall of capitalism,   will prove to be the revolt of the colonial
peoples against capitalism in the guise of imperialism rather than a revolt
of the proletariat of the advanced capitalist countries.     That is one of
the reasons why the questions Louis Proyect has chosen to explore in this
seminar are so profoundly important

Angelo then offers up the old formulae: 

>...But [Marxism?] not for sale or rent. And it
>will keep on being there, long after its users will have droped it, as
>long as there is a class that, selling its labour force by wages,
>produces the material means of existence of the whole society.
>If you're a marxist you have to think in terms of classes, of material
>forces in movement within society. These are the ones that really
>produce all the bright ideas. This is not some mechanichal process and
>subjective factors (with its aleatory character) do count, of course. 

But this entire cyberseminar,  including my own modest effort,  has been
about the relationship between classes. And there is no quarrel with the
widely accepted truth that the working class is the author of all wealth.
This factor alone renders it a key role in society,  but not necessarily the
leading role in that society's transformation.    The working class is,  as
I think history has shown,  most effective when it is part of a *bloc* of
classes,   itself armed with a disciplined sense of class-consciousness,
and of suffficient military prowess to successfully execute the
revolutionary overthrow of society.       

>It can even be claimed that Marx and Engels came too soon, far in advance
>within the developping historical process of working class revolution.
>However, this particular suit fits the proletariat and no-one else. They
>are the ones whose emancipation will be their own making. 

A great deal has occurred within the development of classical Marxist
doctrine in the past 150 years.    Your formula belongs to the first draft
of the *Manifesto*,   which owed as much to its predecessors and
contemporaries as most great pronouncements.    Babeuf,  who also called his
proclamation a "manifesto",  had announced the final struggle between rich
and poor,  between a "tiny minority" and "the huge majority".   Blanqui had
anticipated the class interpretation of history and the idea of the
dictatorship of the proletariat (the phrase was not used by Marx himself
untl 1850).    Lorenz von Stein had written that the history of freedom,
society and political order was essentially dependent on the distribution of
economic goods among the classes of the population.    Proudhon also knew
that  "the laws of political economy are the laws of history"  and measured
the progress of society "by the development of industry and the perfection
of its instruments";  and Pecqueur had predicted that,   with the spread of
commerce, "the barriers between nation and nation will be broken down" until
the day when "every man becomes a citizen of the world".    Such ideas were
current coin in advanced circles when Marx wrote.    The *Communist
Manifesto* -- or the ideas of Marx and Engels -- did not fall full-blown
>from the sky; they were written in a specific context and owe much to the
work of others.

Accordingly,  it is more appropriate today to study Marxism in the light of
its one hundred and fifty years of influence on posterity,  rather than as a
canonical text to be memorized for all eternity.    Marx himself (as well as
Lenin) would have recoiled at such a prospect.     Marxism has yet to appear
in its fully developed form.    Thus, to speak of the industrial proletariat
in the same sense in which it was exposited by Marx is not only
ontologically incorrect,  it dishonors in spirit the very ideology you
profess to uphold.   

Angelo continues:

>You don't have a certain theoretical set hanging around idly in thin air
until someone
>comes along with a revolutionary disposition and picks it up for its
>use. To use the International Socialists therminology, this will be, at
>best, "socialism from above". There are works of Hal Draper and David
>McNally about it somewhere on the web. About this issue, however, I
>would like to recommend the very best contemporary stuff I have read in
>the WWW - the interviews and speaches of Mansour Hekmat on the site of
>the Worker-Communist Party of Iran at http://www.wpiran.org/index.html .
>I think everybody in these lists should read, at least, "Our
>differences" and "Marxism and the world today".

I am innocent of the texts in question.    And I find the International
Socialists --with their enthused support for reaction everywhere on the
globe -- loathesome in the extreme.    I would no more refer to them in a
Marxist context than I would the American Nazi Party or the Klu Kluz Klan.
I prefer -- warts and all -- the ruminations of people who have actually
*done* something; run a government,  met a payroll,  led a revolution.
(Or even witnessed one). 

Angelo notes, ironically:

>Now, I'm not all that blinded by dogmatism. I know there are a number of
>problems (wich Lenin tried to solve in a too expedient manner) in
>elevating the bulk of the working class to its own revolutionary
>self-conscience. This will probably need yet some historical maturation
>around three main poits: 1) further developpment of the forces of
>production, resulting in bigger qualification of the working force and a
>more acute disadjustment of the relations of production; 2) creation,
>through organizational links of economic and political character, of a
>really international unified working class and 3) the good leadership
>thing, yes. 

Again,  this is regurgitated formulae.    "Marxism" shorn of its Marxian
content.    As for 1) the working class is becoming more diffused,
segmented,  and disheveled,  its leadership docile,  defeated,  lachrymose
and base.   Your talk of "unity"`and "leadership" rings hollow in an actual
purposive context;  there is nothing to "unify" or to "lead".    As we would
say on the graveyard shift: "You're blowing smoke out your ass".    Number
2) is painfully optimistic;  the draw of nationalism,   including a deeply
ingrained racism and parochialism,  mitigates strongly against a
revolutionary formation of this type.   This is "Amsterdam International"
stuff.    3) Good leadership -- it's wonderful.   

An apocalyptic vision:

>What I can say for sure right now is that marxism will stand
>by the working class and - in triumph or defeat - perish with it 

It will do no such thing.    Marxism is not about heroics.    Like water,
it will always seek its own level in politics.    It is applicable to any
number of scenarios,  with an infinite number of re-configurated class
models.    Marxism is a method.    It is evolutionary and inanimate at the
same time.    It is not to be reified or "fetishized",  as you are doing here. 

>If Louis Godenna is thinking "the working class will never do it", well,
>all he has to conclude, from his standpoint (wich I assume is not that
>of a worker) is - Damn it, I've been studying this guy (Marx) for all
>these years and he's a fucking looser. If this is so, I would advise him
>other stuff equally exciting and demanding intellectually, and with a
>rebel appeal on it too: Nietzsche, Freud, post-structuralism. There is
>another theory of History in Max Weber. Just... hands off Marx. As they
>say in a popular festivity on my neighborhood here in Portugal: "He's
>our saint, not yours'".

Three thoughts for Angelo:    First of all,  I work the night shift in
Central Falls,  Rhode Island as a millwright out of Local 94,  United
Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners,   AFL-CIO,  the same local that
counted my father,  grandfather, six uncles,  eleven cousins,  a
brother-in-law,  two lovers,  and roughly two dozen friends as members.    I
will be unemployed for at least part of this winter.   I am a high-school
drop-out and Vietnam veteran (enlisted,  Air Force).    I am a worker,  if
nothing else,  and it is from this "standpoint" that I write to this list.

Secondly,  I never thought of Marx (or Marxists) as losers.   I think we
have some awful people who are claiming to be leaders headquartered in these
pathetic little sects (whose names we are all by now dreadfully familiar
with).   You may even be one,  for all I know.

Thirdly,  as far as "hands off Marx"--- don't go giving me any more advice.

Finally,  this:

>In the sixties suddenly all intellectuals with some ambition or
>self-respect were "marxists" of some kind. Some talk was even raised
>that we were becoming "hegemonic". Luckily enough this nonsense is now
>long over and we are left on our own, among ourselves. "Marxisms" of all
>brands have been kicked out of all (continental) european universities.
>I understand this is not quite so in the U.S. academy.
>In no way I'm an anti-intellectual and, in any case...   


This is interesting.   Maybe you could write about it.


Louis Godena



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