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to your polemical opponents here but you should know that M-E themselves repudiated parts of the 1848 Manifesto as outdated after the experience of the 1st international and especially the Paris Commune and the rise of the Socialist parties in Europe.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