File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9706, message 104


Date: 07 Jun 97 17:38:20 EDT
From: neil <74742.1651-AT-CompuServe.COM>
Subject: M-I: state capitalism


dear Andrew A.

You are using an a-historical method in your quotes
from the Communist Manifesto of 1847-8.

At that time Marx/engels (M-E) were trying to draw 
distinction between the UTOPIAN socialists,
St. Simon, Fourier, Owen, etc. and the Marxist
trend of  SCIENTIFIC socialism based on the 
workers and the class struggle against exploitation. 

Also M-E never claimed that the needed transition
period after siezure of  power was "socialism" achieved
as you claim. This period they called the Dictatorship
of the Proletariat in which capitalist social relations
are paired down and abolished paving the way to
socialism/communism.

You aver that you are the undogmatic marxist  in
opposition to your polemical opponents here but 
you should know that M-E themselves repudiated
parts of the  1848 Manifesto  as outdated after the experience 
of the 1st international and especially the Paris 
Commune and the rise of the Socialist parties in
Europe.

If your stand on Socialism being a distinct stage as
opposed to Communism rings true then why did 
M-E as  activists of the German Social Democrats (SDP)
not demand that the (SDP) change their name to "Communist"
in the 1870s-80s to differentiate themselves from the
'utopians" and "middle class' forces?

(In 1914 the revolutionaries did work for this change after the
corrupted SPD and other European  SPs backed the
First imperialist war, backed bourgeois terror,
 and repressed the working class in blood.)

On your stalwart defense of 'socialist commodity production"
of the stalinist regimes, you also to be consistent, would 
also have to back the corallary, continued domination of
 their waged labor , money, and accumuation by the state
cap ruling class.  Over all here your muddle seems to  be
that your argument gets tangled in your own state cap 
commodity fetishism!

Your defense is also  flawed openly by your  mirage of a state cap
 'transcendence'  of exchange relations . In the real world,
 exploitative economic raltionships are not passively "transcended' .
 In  a real DOP  transition period,  exchange realtions are 
consciously  defeated by the active intervention of socialist 
workers in a class  conscious  revolutionary way.
Andy, What you need to "transcend' is your  legalistic worn out alibais 
for stalinist state capitalism and take up the study and intervention
in the class based on authentic  Marxism.

Marx never called for any transition to your "socialist commodity
production", he clearly advocated for the transition period to
phase out and abolish capitalist exchange relations, wages,
commodities, money, etc. to get to 'free access".

Your revisionist challenge alleging that Marx claiming the intial stage
of Communism having  'characteristics of bourgeois social
relations"  is not backed up by any M-E  quotes or from experience
so i will say here that is is you sir who needs to either 'shit' or get
off your state cap pot. 
Also if your interpretation are correct here, you have to explain why did
M-E spend 25 years writing CAPITAL? This was their most powerful 
polemic against the wages system and its commodity production
dominance.

Your barbs  aimed at Engels "the member of the bourgeoisie" 
are real distortion. Engels used up most of the profits from his
inherited factories to finance Marx, publishing CAPITAL , and for
 the budding socialist/communist movement . Again i suggest you 
get your historical facts straight , The factories in question were in 
England where Engels had taken  exile with a price on his head
 in some German states for his revolutionary activities. So Engels
was not  'exploiting" German workers as you stated.

Also you should know that Engels was an excellecnt  artillerist
 in the risings of 1848-9 in  the Prussian  states on the side of
the anti-feudalists and against  capitulatory bourgeois forces
allied to the monarchies..
There is much written about this and Engels was known 
to have served with honor and valour in battles.  Good artillerists
were much needed by the masses then, when they had to face
the, musketry , cavalry of the Kings lancers, and the bayonet charge
of soldier professionals.
Your bile pured out on Engels  as just another " member of the bourgeoisie" 
 is a  cheap shot & probably comes out your hatred for his own esposure 
of state capitalism in his time in which he was quite pre-scientific. 

Neil







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

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005