Date: Thu, 01 Aug 1996 13:48:35 -0700
Subject: Re: Marxism: meat and potatoes questions


To Mark Adkins

I could not resist replying to at least one of your enquiries about 
Marxism. However, I must preface my reply by stating I am a complete 
novice to the Internet and therefore apologise beforehand for any breach 
of manners in its use. Also at this stage I am not sure that I have read 
all the correspondence you have received so what I have to say may be out 
of place. 

You raised a number of difficulties with the explanations given you so 
far. I would like to point out however that many of the questions you 
have posed, if you thought carefully about them, are based on rather 
silly assumptions. If I were to ask the question “was the Roman Empire 
under Constantine Christian?” would I deserve an answer? How could anyone 
answer such a question in the terms that it is posed. You complain that 
you are given book references, but if I had asked the above question of a 
historian the only answer would be to point me to a pile of books and 
suggest I should start reading - for the answer is in reality that I 
should pose more sensible and informed questions, not the yes or no reply 
you seem intent on soliciting.

You invent a term “democratic socialism” which you fill with nice things 
and counter-pose this to the “catastrophic means” which you have already 
associated with us. I like nice things as well, peace, sweet reason and 
good will could be added to the list, but what has this to do with 
reality? Marxists, on the whole have no great love for the gun, 
historically we have been on the receiving end far more often than on the 
trigger side. Any slight acquaintance with history will show that even in 
your country any actual threat to the ruling class, no matter how 
peaceful, will bring down violent force.  But only an American could be 
so blind to the endless day to day bloodshed that your state unleashes 
around the world, the brutal regimes installed and supported, the methods 
of torture taught by your intelligence agencies, the masses of money 
which come from your state into the pockets of right-wing parties, this 
list could be added to almost endlessly. Do you believe that by making 
‘peaceful means’ a major article of faith is anything other than a 
delusion. Peaceful reform may be possible (I dearly hope it is) but the 
choice is not ever ours. You condemn Marxists for recognising this fact, 
how do you expect us to reply?

Many of your questions seem to stem from a confusion with the English 
language where the same word in different contexts can mean different 
things. Revolution for instance in one context means violent seizure of 
power. Revolution in another context means a change from one thing into 
another. I might point out to you that the two things need not be 
connected, that most social revolutions have taken place without anyone 
realising at the time and only by reflecting on the past has it become 
obvious that society had fundamentally changed. Some political 
revolutions have resulted in very little change, or in changes which no 
one intended to bring about. Where do Marxists stand in this? To say we 
are after the latter form of revolution but recognise the possibility 
that the former may be required doesn’t say very much at all, but you can 
take it for what it is worth.

Marxists often talk about one thing being revolutionary and another not, 
personally I do not find it particularly useful, but what is being 
discussed is simply whether one thing opens up the possibilities of 
working class struggle or another limits such possibilities. It is this 
struggle which Marxists hope to aid (it goes on whether Marxists are 
involved or not). However, being human many Marxists get a little carried 
away with high sounding phrases which can give the impression that we are 
far more sectarian than is actually the case. Becoming enmeshed in 
verbiage, mistaking expression for content and ideas for reality is just 
as rampant amongst Marxists as anyone else I only hope that we become 
ever more vigilant in this regard. Personally I like to adopt a far 
calmer mode of expression and try and avoid unnecessary jargon where 
possible in an effort to keep a tighter rein on my own limitations, but 
one person’s moderation is another’s excess. Passionate debate does not 
equal sectarianism.

You also have a real problem with words like communism, which in this day 
and age is hardly surprising. What a regime chooses to call itself has 
absolutely nothing to do with Marxism I believe Joe Stalin declared the 
USSR communist as a reward and a false sense of achievement after his 
first five year plan (I stand to be corrected on this historical detail). 
Declaring a country a communist state has had a certain popularity, but I 
think you will find that this declaration more often is applied by the 
enemies of particular states than it is declared by the states 
themselves. Then there is communism used in the context of an organised 
militant movement which aims at establishing a new order (a term used 
well before Marx). Then there are communist parties which through one 
means or another can all be traced back to the Third International (I 
also include the “Trotskite” parties in this). Then there are individuals 
who declare themselves communist without being in any particular 
organisation, nor necessarily being at all Marxist. Then there are all 
those many movements throughout history (including many religiously 
inspired ones) which term themselves or are termed by others as 
communists. 

Finally there is the historico-philosophic term of communism which 
postulates a stage in social evolution which follows on from the logic of 
capitalism’s development (socialism is put forward as the transitional 
phase between the two, but I would add that we are talking about long 
term historical developments - no one alive today could expect to see 
communism, indeed in all probability nor would our children or our 
grandchildren, even if everything went well from tomorrow morning 
onwards). Enthusiasm has tended to compress these stages within the minds 
of many, and thanks to a tangle of historical traditions and other 
factors many Marxists just get confused on the issue. However major 
historical changes are measured in lifetimes, things may be different for 
the next stages of human social evolution but neither Marx nor any theory 
since has suggested any real reason why such massive changes should move 
any faster than any in the past. Ask yourself when did feudalism become 
capitalism and you will find that you will have at least two hundred 
years of transition before we even reach the beginnings of the industrial 
revolution.

I can state categorically that any Marxist who talks about having a 
revolution in order to establish communism is in error, however, the 
offence may only be a loose use of words (that damn English language 
again!).

Next you seem to be demanding that we somehow indicate what part of dear 
old Karl’s legacy we would wish to chuck out. Have you ever read him? 
Most of his writing is on historically themes, either of the past or on 
then contemporary issues, what would you have us do? Declare it out of 
date? Deride it for not commenting on Clinton’s chances in the next US 
election? Or do you believe that we stand ready to defend Paris against 
the armies of Napoleon III, based on Marx’s dictates? Yes there are 
things which Marx wrote that I disagree with and do not take on board but 
how am I to measure this for you (all the bits I don’t understand + the 
bits I misunderstand + the bits I disagree with for good reason + those 
bits I am not particularly interested in = what I would chuck out?). Your 
question is based on the assumption that Marx left a set of instructions, 
or a rule book, which we have hidden away - fortunately such a reference 
does not exist.

Do you perhaps desire us to toss away his philosophic writings of which I 
include his major work Capital. Unfortunately philosophy rarely lends 
itself to a bits and pieces approach. Philosophic writing (that is 
worthwhile philosophy) exists as a whole, as a single complex concept in 
which the reader is expected to exercise their brain and to disagree, 
modify, adapt and transform, but consistently by means of the logic 
expressed by the work. At the point at which the logic fails so does the 
whole work. In other words good solid philosophy can be endlessly 
modified, revised and renovated inline with changing conditions of 
reality, but the logic remains and its is this logic which is the 
author’s contribution. In this sense no Marxist worth their salt can say 
that Capital is wrong unless they have exhausted its logic and shown the 
flaw in it (I know of no such declaration which has stood up to close 
examination and there have been many). 

One day someone will compose a greater logic which will absorb and thus 
overcome Marx’s contribution, but the possibility also remains that 
someone may compose such a logic which excludes Marx’s contribution 
(after 150 years of well published attempts to do so I have never come 
across anything that has come close to making a dent, but we live and we 
learn). 

Consider that modern biological evolutionary theory still rests on 
Darwin, we know so much more then he yet the logic he first expressed is 
still valid. Consider also that we can express opinions quite contrary to 
those that Darwin held in his time (such as punctuated evolution) yet put 
this new understanding forward while resting completely on the logic 
which Darwin supplied. Consider how genetics found its place in Darwin’s 
theory even though he was long dead before the word gene was first 
muttered. Do you consider it a sensible and useful thing to ask a modern 
palaeontologist what part of the Origin of Species can no longer be 
supported? 

Darwin has also had his fair share of would be assassins, but again no 
one to my limited knowledge has ever successfully faulted the logic of 
his position, although many have misrepresented it in order to put 
forward their own pitiful understanding as an alternative (re Dawkins 
“The Selfish Gene”). The analogy with Darwin could be extended to include 
Newton and Einstein, etc., etc. Unfortunately ruling culture has so 
closely associated science with empirical methods that very few people 
realise that the basis of each science is in fact its philosophical logic 
(its theory) which is the part that has the ability to rationally embrace 
phenomena as extensions of itself (thus science extends knowledge by 
applying rationality to ever greater diversity of phenomena, if this 
rationality fails then the science as a whole falls - hence the decline 
of phrenology as a science, despite the accumulation of mountains of 
apparently confirming evidence). 

Be warned there is no such thing as treading lightly over the field of 
the philosophy of science, one step and you will be dragged under by 
people like myself who are all to eager to fill up pages on the subject. 
Out of respect to those others downloading this file I will not go 
further in this well churned pool but instead strike out on what I 
believe is your major misunderstanding about the Marxism enterprise.

There is one question you have raised also underlies many of your other 
questions. If your enquiry is genuine I assume you are trying to find a 
politically defining element which makes Marxism distinct from all other 
political creeds. Assuming this to be the case then that critical element 
is not hard to identify - it is the “dictatorship of the proletariat”. 
The other claims that can be made for Marxism in regard to its method and 
philosophy will mean very little to most intellectuals until the 
political nature of Marxism is made explicit - if post-modernism proves 
anything it is that rational philosophic dissertation counts for little 
these days.

This concept of a class dictatorship lies at the heart of Marxism’s 
political theory and is what differentiates it from all other political 
creeds. It is not just the case that no-one else uses the term, but that 
it also lies at the heart of the Marxist/Communist enterprise. 
Unfortunately, as with most critically important concepts in this world 
(especially the political ones), the very centrality of the notion has 
led it to be also one of the most misunderstood and distorted. For many 
it has simply been converted into the idea of a party dictatorship and at 
least for a time it became the equivalent of a personal dictatorship 
(i.e. Joe Stalin). In response to these historical distortions some have 
attempted to drop the term altogether while others have felt the need to 
rush in with airy assurances and pretty pictures of ultra-democracy and 
workers councils (both of which are attractive but essentially beside the 
point). Ironically, the “dictatorship of the proletariat” is a historical 
abstraction devoid of any particular content, the hard to resist tendency 
to fill it up with economic and constitutional models only corrupts its 
purpose. 

The importance of the concept lies in its historical relationship to past 
and present class dictatorships. As we currently live under the 
dictatorship of the bourgeoisie the term should lose its frightening 
overtones because all that it implies is a society where the determining 
interest is that of one class as against all the other  classes in that 
society. Dictatorship is therefore an accurate description of the 
political direction of a particular society’s development (dictators are 
never free from the need not to offend too many people at the same time - 
otherwise they don’t survive. The same goes for class dictatorships). 
However having a society’s direction dictated by the interests of a class 
is so broad that it implies no particular political institutions.  Hence 
in the interest of the bourgeoisie (international and national) we 
already have all manner of regimes from the most liberal to the 
excessively repressive. 

A period of class dictatorship (including that of the working class) will 
be influenced by historical contingencies and thus the political 
institutions constructed will in this sense be unpredictable. For 
instance, the initial determining factor will have little to do with 
Marxists or the working class for this will always be a direct result of 
the reaction of the challenged ruling class to the demands of a rising 
class power. One does not have to be a historian to see this particular 
thread wending its way through much of the history of the 20th century. 

Brutal truth is always more pleasant in the end than sugary fairy tales 
so before you start eulogising on the virtues of liberal democracy you 
might first examine how secure this is in the present climate and 
contemplate the fact that many of those countries which enjoy such luxury 
have done so on the basis of actively denying it to the rest of the world 
(I write this on the night the Indonesian army has declared a shoot on 
sight policy against an opposition party - the PDR. To belong to the 
communist party in Indonesia still carries a death penalty. This, by the 
way, was a government placed in power with US and Australian connivance 
and aid in 1965. A regime inaugurated with the massacre of over 500,000 
unarmed people).

The reason why the concept of the dictatorship of the proletariat 
politically differentiates Marxism from every other ‘ism’ is simple and 
elegant. Practical Marxism has no other platform or aim other than doing 
whatever is necessary to ensure that the interests of the working class 
become expressed as the socially dominant interests of society as a 
whole. Marx himself stated this clearly in the Communist Manifesto and it 
still remains the surest method of sorting the sheep from the goats. 

Needless to say such a broad and empty historical concept in itself does 
not supply a workable practical and political platform and it is at this 
point that so many get the Marxist enterprise arse about tit. In order to 
realise the aim of the dictatorship of the proletariat it is obviously 
necessary to raise the immediate interests of the working class as a 
political platform expressing the interests of society as a whole. At 
various historical moments different demands and reforms are necessary 
and these often simple and straightforward objectives have a tendency to 
become identified with and then supplant the abstract notion of the 
dictatorship of the proletariat. 

Hence the problem of social-democracy was not that it went for reforms 
(many of which were absolutely necessary for social progress as a whole) 
but these reforms and the means by which they were obtained (i.e. through 
parliamentary power) supplanted the greater aims of the working class and 
 thus the leadership and organisation social-democracy began more and 
more to work against the interests of the very class which they were 
suppose to represent.

What can get confusing for someone approaching Marxism with such 
questions as yours is that the critical idea (dictatorship of the 
proletariat)  is barely mentioned before one or another political 
platforms push it aside - this is in fact an error. It is an error which 
stems from the history of the communist movement where the political 
platform was originally moulded in an age of classical capitalism. 
Platforms which in all their varieties and responses to one another have 
for most Marxists, I suspect, displaced the notion of the dictatorship of 
the proletariat with what now have become little utopias and dry 
formulas. 

The collapse of the Soviet Union has finally exposed to the world that 
such platforms are politically redundant and much that was seen as 
achievements were in fact mere illusions (this strikes at both those that 
were critics as well as supporters of the USSR). Marxists, I believe, are 
slowly acknowledging this fact but it will take some time yet for a new 
generation to arise and the old to throw off out-worn ideas. You ask us 
what we politically stand for and in reply you hear mentioned planned 
economies, worker’s councils and the end of exploitation - they all 
contain grains of truth but they are the voices of the past and cannot 
help but sound quaint and unpersuasive. That you are confused as to what 
communists are after should not be a surprise, you ask this question when 
the communists themselves are confused and have not yet freed themselves 
>from the intellectual debris of the past, let alone outline a program for 
the future.

But make no mistake, however much Marxism has been distorted by history, 
the theory itself, or rather the logic of that theory, is clear (this is 
where a little concerted reading effort would pay off). Socialism as the 
dictatorship of the proletariat will re-assert itself, for the logic if 
not the theory resides in every pore of present society. One does not 
have to be well read, or indeed aware of Marxism at all, to know that 
society’s best long term interest lies in it being directed by those who 
work (actually do something practical) for a living. If you listen 
carefully to the opinions of ordinary people you will hear the same 
demand stated time and again. 

>From the tone of your correspondence I cannot help but think you are 
attempting to take the Mickey out of us, nevertheless it is as good of an 
excuse as any to air a little heresy. In defence of my comrades I would 
point out that historical and political analysis suggests that certain 
elements are characteristic of a period directed by the interests of the 
working class (i.e. socialism) - this is where planning, worker’s 
councils etc., come in. However in criticising some of their explanations 
I would also underscore the fact that none of these characteristics are 
fixed and all of them to one extent or another are perfectly compatible 
to existent capitalism. Nationalisation, planning and even worker’s 
control of industries can be and have been accommodated to bourgeois 
rule. This may sound odd at a time when most advanced states are busily 
busting unions, privatising everything in sight and tearing down the 
welfare and economic infrastructure as if there is no tomorrow, but it 
perhaps just in such a self-destructive phase that it is possible to 
clearly see just how far late capitalism has advanced from its classical 
form.

What then is Marxist socialism (here begins the heresy)?  I would suggest 
that at least in terms of the economy in early proletarian socialism is 
nothing more than state capitalism. In terms of the political and 
cultural it is of course another world altogether. In other words, many 
of the necessary economic institutions for socialism have already been 
created within fully blown late capitalism. In fact I would go as far as 
to state that we are already living within a form of “socialism” albeit 
in bourgeois corporate form. For instance, even in my country (Australia) 
the only capital (i.e. machinery, raw materials and wages) that remains 
in purely private hands belongs exclusively to the petty bourgeois. The 
bourgeoisie have socialised their ownership of capital through share 
issues to such an extent that while individuals may be extremely wealthy 
they do not in fact now control that capital in any meaningful way (it is 
mediated through boards of directors, financial insitutions and the 
thousands of other devices that the rich mobilise to protect their 
income). The potential for proletarian political power to direct a 
productive and humane economy has never been greater because the economy 
has become highly integrated and thus more socialised.

Thus to demand today to nationalise or socialise the means of production 
is not the same as making the same demand at the beginning of this 
century - few Marxists seem to have realised this at the moment. For 
instance it may be far more effective under present conditions to insist 
on closer scrutiny of company directors by the state, effective judicial 
measures and a reformulating of their legal responsibilities. Thus 
production could, by a worker’s government, be more effective in 
realising proletarian interests than by raising a demand which would 
serve only to unite every shareholder (in my country a good many workers 
fit into this category by way of retirement schemes) into protecting 
their dividend payouts. This example is used merely to illustrate that 
what communists may raise as their political platform will and should 
change with changing conditions.

I hope this reply will to some extent answer your questions and also 
perhaps solicit further responses to what I believe is a vital question. 
The example used above has been specifically chosen for its reformist 
overtones (after all putting up legal reforms of corporation law as a 
major part of communist platform is hardly revolutionary sounding!). The 
revolutionary bit has never been the program itself, Lenin’s April Thesis 
only contains sensible reforms which are well within the interests of an 
enlightened bourgeoisie to adopt in a backward Russian environment. The 
revolutionary bit has always had to do with the self-organisation of the 
working class.

PS I know this has been excessively lengthy however I do intend to keep 
any future contributions (if you will have me after this) down to a 
reasonable size.

Greg Schofield
Darwin, Australia.



     --- from list marxism2-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---