File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/97-02-05.012, message 69


Date: Tue, 4 Feb 1997 16:36:59 -0500 (EST)
From: Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Nietzsche and Mariategui (lnp post #1)


What a treasure marxism-international is! Before I got on the Internet, I
used to visit an old friend in LA every so often who used to be a big
muck-a-muck in the SWP. We'd sit around in his living room listening to Bob
Wills or Tampa Red on his stereo, drink wine and chat about exactly the same
things we talk about here. We may be lacking the good sounds and the brew,
but I am enjoying the same sort of conversation I used to have only once a year.

The Nietzsche thread is just superb. It has brought out the best in us, I
believe. It started out with Foucault, who we declared guilty with
extenuating circumstances, then moved on to Nietzsche who we found just
plain guilty. Except for Justin, most of us can see the connection between
his fascination with the "blonde beast" and Hitler's racial ideas.

I want to throw another light on Nietzsche that we haven't considered. It is
clear that Nietzsche, through Sorel, has been a major impact on the great
Peruvian Marxist Jose Carlos Mariategui. Mariategui influenced the
Sandinistas, and the Communist Party of Peru, as well as many other Latin
American revolutionary currents. What is the connection with Nietzsche? The
answer to this is found in the introduction by Michael Pearlman (not the
PEN-L'er) in his edition of "The Heroic and Creative Meaning of Socialism,
selected essays of Jose Carlos Mariategui." (Humanities Press, 1996)

Pearlman:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
One aspect of Mariategui's thought that continues to draw attention is his
'idealist' emphasis on the spiritual, voluntaristic aspect of political
action, exemplified in his admiration for the French syndicalist
theoretician Georges Sorel and his ideas on 'heroic myth.' It might at first
seem strange that someone so committed to the study of the material,
economic basis of society would be so open to the influence of a wide
variety of idealist thinkers, from Nietzsche to Bergson to Gentile...

...This tendency should be understood as a reaction (similar to that of the
young Lukacs and Gramsci) to the positivist determinism of the Second
International, against which Mariategui polemicized in the philosophical
essays that were published posthumously as Defense of Marxism. For example,
he [Mariategui] writes:

"The voluntarist character of socialism is really no less evident than its
determinist foundation, even if it is less understood by critics. To give it
its true value, though, it is nevertheless enough to follow the development
of the proletarian movement from the actions of Marx and Engels in London at
the origin of the First International to the present, dominated by the first
experience of a socialist state: the USSR. Every word, every act of Marxists
in this process has a resonance of faith, of will, of heroic and creative
conviction, whose impulse it would be absurd to seek in a mediocre and
passive determinist sensibility."
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Now it is not necessary to read Nietzsche to believe in the importance "of
faith, of will, of heroic and creative conviction," but it seems that it
some respects that Marxism has suffered from a "mediocre and passive
determinist sensibility." Mariategui is referring to the 2nd International,
but is obvious that these terms apply to the 3rd and 4th Internationals as
well. Perhaps the socialist movement has to re-discover the original faith
and will that inspired the Paris Commune. Nietzsche and Sorel seemed to have
provided this inspiration for Mariategui who in turn inspired a new
generation of revolutionaries in Latin American. One thing is clear,
however. The "mediocre and passive determinist sensibility" that aggravated
Mariategui is still a problem for the revolutionary movement.


Louis Proyect



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005