Date: Tue, 17 Sep 1996 10:10:05 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: Marx - not a Marxist? 


Justin wrote:

> He repeats this anecdote in another letter I can't locate just now, also
> from '90s.

This is discussed in _Rubel on Karl Marx_, p. 20 (footnote). It is a
pretty long footnote so I won't reproduce it here.

> The way it's usually used today, e.g. by Jerry or me, is to underline the
> idea that it run's contrary to Marx's scientific and critical spirit to
> treat everything he said as gospel.

Indeed! That was precisely the meaning I intended.

Yet, it should be noted, that this uncritical dogmatism is not limited to
some contemporary and past Marxists. A similar transformation followed the
deaths of Lenin and Trotsky (among others). Lenin, who never said that he
was a Leninist, had his life's work and thought transformed into dogma by
some of the "Leninists" (in this connection, it is interesting to note
that Lenin's explicit requests that no statues be built with his figure or
cities named after him was ignored by some of those like Stalin who
claimed to be "Leninists"). As for Trotsky, he never referred to himself
as a Leninist or a Trotskyist -- but as a Marxist and a Bolshevik.

Once thy are buried in their graves, some of their followers -- the
epigones, the dogmatists, and the vulgar Marxists -- transform what they
have said into a religion of sorts. In  Marx's (unfortunate) case, this
transformation began already in his own lifetime.

Jerry





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