Date: Mon, 30 Jun 1997 21:21:28 +0100
From: Lew <Lew-AT-dialogues.demon.co.uk>
Subject: M-I: Socialism and Communism


A couple of weeks ago Andrew Wayne Austin Wrote:

>There is a collection of Engels' essays from 1871 through 1875 entitled
>*Internationales aus dem Volksstaar* (1894). In the forward to the
>collection Engels argues that the term "socialism" is unsuitable "for a
>party whose economic programme is not merely socialist in general but
>specifically communist, and whose ultimate political aim is to overcome
>the entire state." Does this sound like Engels held the two to be
>synonymous, Lew

I replied:

It doesn't, but I'll have to suspend judgement until I can get a copy of
the essays. This is the first time I have seen this quote.

Now:

Not one of Engels' most popular works: I have been unable to find an
English translation. What I have found is a French version of the same
passage from Engels' 1894 Preface to his booklet "Internationales aus
dem Volkstaat" (not Volkstaar, incidentally). Translated into English
(ie a translation of a translation) it reads:

"In all these writings I never describe myself as a social-democrat [the
word democrat is underlined] but as a communist [also underlined] . . .
For Marx as for me, it is absolutely impossible to employ so elastic an
expression to designate our own conception. Today, it can at the limit
pass, although it is inappropriate for a party which is not simply
socialist in general, but whose aim in politics is to go beyond the
whole state and so also democracy. But the names of political parties
never really concord, the party develops, the name remains".

This confirms my suspicion that the word at issue was not "socialism"
but "social-democracy"; in fact it seems to have been "democracy" rather
than even "social". Engels, seeing democracy as a form of the state (ie
confining its sense to political democracy) is saying that, strictly
speaking, the word is inappropriate in the title of the German Social
Democratic Party which stands for communism (or socialism?) where
there'll be no state and so no political democracy either (this bit
about democracy has been cut out of Andrews' quote). This being so, the
passage has nothing to do with the socialism/communism issue. By
suggesting that the word Engels was objecting to was "socialism" rather
than "democracy" has changed, not to say distorted Engels' meaning.  

-- 
Lew


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