A CENTENARY OF TWO RUSSIAN REVOLUTIONS AND THE MAIN ERROR OF MARXISM

[Victor Artsimovich]

 

Men at most differ as Heaven and Earth,

But women worst and best as Heaven and Hell.

(Alfred Tennyson, Merlin and Vivien)

 

1. PREFACE

 

This 2017 year marks a centenary of the developments that shook the whole world at that time. I mean the ruin of the Russian Empire and what is called the February and the Great October Socialist Revolution in Russia.

 

Socialist ideas and people who followed them are known to have played a great role in those developments. Moreover, by no means only adherents of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (bolshevik) (RSDLP (b)), i.e. the bolsheviks followed them, but also the mensheviks did so. Also, there existed a Socialist Revolutionary Party. As one can see just from the name, it practised the socialist ideas too. It also played a great role in those developments. As a matter of fact, Alexander Kerensky, a minister at first, and the Minister-Chairman of the Provisional Government afterwards, was its member. Anarchists were also rather influential. Although there was no word 'socialism' in the name of that ideological movement, it, nevertheless, also adhered to the socialist ideas. It was a well-known fact.¹ The anarchists and bolsheviks had a common ideal, viz., society without State. The difference was only in their method to achieve that ideal, the anarchists advocating its immediate implementation, whereas the bolsheviks believed it to be necessary to set up the so-called dictatorship of the proletariat at first and to implement the ideal only later when the State withers away by itself because of its uselessness. In the year of that revolutionary upheaval and later during the civil war an impact of the anarchists was very considerable.

 

In 1991, after 74 years of the attempts to implement the socialist ideas in Russia, they were rejected by the leadership of the New Russia.

 

But they are undoubtedly still alive and have not been overcome yet. The Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), the successor of the RSDLP (b) and the Communist Party of the Russian Federation (CPRF), has a rather large electorate and is represented in the State Duma (Gosduma) of Russia. In the Russian media and especially in article comments, one often observes glorifications of the 'Great October Socialist Revolution'. Not seldom one hears slogans of studying writings of Marx, Engels,² and Lenin, those of resurrection of socialism in keeping to allegedly pure Marxist ideas, rather than their deviations in the Soviet Union. One L. Danilkin has published a big apologetic screed entitled Lenin: Pantocrator of Solar Dust Particles. Therein he has dared to level God with Lenin.³ Not seldom one hears statements that socialism was the most human social system, which eliminated exploitation of man by man, that socialism was a true freedom, etc.

 

'The Centenary of two revolutions and the civil war is an important occasion to ponder over the future',⁴ as the leader of the CPRF G. Zyuganov has told. And therein I agree with him in full. Well, so I have also made up my mind to ponder over it. But the future is based on the past. One should therefore gain insight into the past at first, i.e. into the socialist ideas.

 

Igor Shafarevich has pinpointed 4 main ideas not only of Marxism, but also of all socialist ideology, which has been existing for many millennia:

 

• • Equality, elimination of hierarchy;

  • Elimination of private property;

  • Elimination of religion;

  • Elimination of family.⁵

I have no doubt whatsoever that Shafarevich is absolutely right in having pinpointed the above 4 ideas. I have some material and considerations, which can help to confirm his rightness and to replenish him as well as to give an opportunity to a new sight of some aspects of the socialist ideology.

 

2. ELIMINATION OF HIERARCHY

 

It is a long time since I paid attention to the following text from the first volume of Capital by Karl Marx:

 

'Equality and equivalence of all kinds of labour insofar as they are human labour in general, this secret of the expression of value can be deciphered only when the idea of human equality has already acquired firmness of a popular prejudice'.⁶

 

I noticed this phrase as early as in 1981. I read then Marx in the original German and translated it as follows:

 

'The secret of the expression of value, equality and equivalence of all kinds of labour as and insofar as they are human labour in general can only be deciphered as soon as the notion of human equality already possesses firmness of a popular prejudice (Vorurteil)'.⁷

 

In my opinion, my translation is better than the official one, in which the order of words has not been followed without any tangible ground, nor is there any word-for-word accuracy.⁸ This is confirmed by the official English translation, which, even though not being flawless too,⁹ is still better than the official Russian one.

 

As one can see, I have translated the main sense-bearing word milder than in the official Russian translation. However, I have indicated the original German word Vorurteil in the brackets. As a matter of fact, it may be translated in two ways, viz., prejudgement or prejudice.

 

But this is not very important by itself. In any case, the text shows perfectly clearly that, first, it is precisely the idea of human equality that lies at the root of Marxism, and that, second, it has been taken as an axiom, i.e. without any proof.

 

But is this prejudgement or prejudice really popular? For example, I have nothing similar, even in spite of the fact that I have gone through a considerable indoctrination in this direction when studying at school and university. But, as a matter of fact, I am also a representative of people.

 

Have there been similar ideas in literature? Yes, there have been similar ideas in the Ancient World, Middle Ages, Early Modern and Modern Periods.

 

In the Ancient World, one should give, of course, the first place to the philosopher Plato with his State, although he was not the only herald of the idea.

 

However, since the very antiquity there have also been other thinkers who have not shared the idea of equality of people and other socialist ideas at all. For example, the Plato's State with its socialist ideas can be opposed by Aesop's fables. Human inequality, rather than equality is manifested in his fables. Meanwhile, pursuant to the tradition, Aesop was a slave. This fact is therefore all the more surprising because he who was a slave, in conformity with the socialist ideas, as one would think, must have supported equality. But there is nothing similar in his fables.

 

One may also refer to the famous Homer with his Iliad and Odyssey. As a matter of fact, even the single personalities of the ingenious Odyssey and his faithful wife Penelope entirely contradict the idea of human equality.

 

It is also possible to mention the amazing book Metamorphoses or Golden Ass by Apuleius as an example. Real people of antiquity with all their wickedness and virtues are shown therein in a fantastic form, just as in Master and Margarita by M. Bulgakov with regard to the USSR of the 30th years of the 20th century. No equality is definitely visible therein.

 

Nothing similar is also visible in the famous antique historians Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, Plutarch, Polybius, Titus Livius, Tacitus, Flavius Josephus, etc. The socialist idea of human equality was thus obviously not prevalent at that time.

 

In the Middle Ages, Holy Scriptures, wherein people were divided into good and evil, were naturally a cornerstone of social thought. That is why one could not speak of any human equality, with exception of equality before God. Neither Peter Abelard, nor Thomas Aquinas, nor even the reformer Luther naturally knew any other equality. Only heretical movements, such as Cathars, Brothers of the Free Spirit, etc. were noted for socialist inclinations at that time. It was in those heretical movements that all socialist ideas, inclusive of community of wives, were available.¹⁰

But one can hardly speak of predominance of such ideas in people.

 

The number of heralds of the socialist ideas obviously increased in modern history. Such ideas were expressed by Thomas More, Campanella, Winstanley, Rousseau, Meslier, Morelly, Mably, Babeuf, Saint-Simon, Fourier, Owen, etc. However, I. Shafarevich's statement that ‘the socialist world-view became a trend and force towards the end of the 17th century and in the 18th century, and most thinkers were under its influence at that time’ is a little doubtful. Nobody seems to have exactly counted how many at least famous creative minds were pro and contra, not to mention the simple folk. This question is likely to be in need of a research. However, I have no doubts that, e.g., the great writers of world significance in the 18th century, such as Daniel Defoe and Johnathan Swift did not pertain to them. Also the Russian historian of the 18th century Karamzin did not pertain there.

 

In the 19th century when K. Marx and F. Engels wrote one feels from the first glance that socialist ideas were not prevalent. A great number of writers and philosophers in that century obviously did not share that ‘popular prejudice’ of K. Marx at all. One may refer here to such authors as Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas (Sr.), Fenimore Cooper, Mark Twain, etc. in the world literature as well as Pushkin, Krylov, Griboyedov, Stanyukovich, etc. in Russia.

 

In the fiction, good and evil, decent and indecent persons usually fight. I have no doubts that the vast majority of fiction writers in the world both in the 19th, and later did not have that ‘popular prejudice’.

 

Moreover, in the foregoing it was spoken of outstanding intellectuals only. Meanwhile, people at large were then and are still adherents of the great traditional religions. But nothing similar was then, and is still today, therein either. In contrast, therein, just as in fiction, good fights against evil, there are virtuous people and villains.

 

Then why is the word 'popular' used here? At that time one could only refer to a comparatively small amount of adherents of the socialist idea of equality and its derivatives. They were, as a rule, intellectuals who obviously reflected the opinion of the majority of the people, whom nobody asked, very weakly, if at all.

 

I have read many of them. Their typical feature consists in their also just postulating the idea of human equality, just as Marx did. As a matter of fact, their idea was also a prejudgement (prejudice), although they did not directly use the word used by K. Marx. In other words, it means that it is an axiom, i.e. a statement without any proof. But what if the axiom is false? Meanwhile, it is obviously the case because it contradicts, first of all, the everyday human experience. People constantly encounter deceivers, swindlers, hooligans, thieves, slanderers, envious persons, tyrants, maniacs, etc. But this means that their axiom is false. What equality can exist between the above-mentioned evil-doers with a simple toiler, except for equality before God? And, as it de facto turns out, there is no science therein, but it is a blind irrational faith, a symbol of such a faith.

 

Moreover, the notion of human equality in socialists is often so stupid that even a barely literate person will hardly agree with them, provided that he has even a small life experience. For example, most socialists denied even the presence of different personal abilities.

 

By the way, it was also typical of earlier writings by K. Marx and F. Engels. For instance, equal intellectual aptitude of people was postulated in The Holy Family. By God, I should have been very willing to ask them, 'Have you accidentally not fallen from the moon to the earth, Messrs. Marx and Engels'? The thing is that no normal person, even one who has not gone to school, but has encountered other people in everyday life obviously can state such a thing. One person has musical abilities. Another person has artistic ones. A third person has technical ones. A fourth person those of a joiner and carpenter. A fifth person has linguistic ones etc. At the same time, they are very different even in one and the same category. Why, even animals differ in their intelligence, e.g., puppies of the same dog-parents can have different mental abilities. By the way, my aunt has told me of an extraordinarily gifted pig, which understood human speech and carried out her orders. She even has shown me this pig. Meanwhile, these Messieurs claim that people have no differences in their intelligence!

 

By the way, traces of such an attitude can be also found in later writings of the classical Marxist authors. For example, in Anti-Dühring, F. Engels fulminates against any division of labour. But, in fact, it is clear that it would have been possible to abolish the division of labour only provided that there had been no individual differences of people in intellectual abilities. However, F. Engels, e.g., wrote as follows:

 

'… a person who gives instructions as an architect for half an hour, will also push a trolley for some time, until his activity as an architect is needed once again. Fine sort of socialism that perpetuates professional pushers of trolleys!'¹¹

 

Halloo, where are you, those who are willing to return to the pure Marxism? Do you really want to live without division of labour? Well, do so, but, please, only without me. I am neither a utopian, nor a dreamer, in contrast to Messrs. K. Marx and F. Engels. I am a realist and I prefer to live in normal, rather than in a utopian and fantastic society. I cannot worship pantocrators, i.e. all-owners, of lunar dust particles.

 

But what about the well-known slogan ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’? Of course, the classics of Marxism should have been congratulated on the fact that, after a long wandering through the jungle of denial of differences between people in abilities, they ultimately recognized the existence of such differences. It is likely to have been a great achievement.

 

But, in my opinion, it is still insufficient for a full return to reality. It was only a partial improvement of an absolutely stupid idea.

 

As a matter of fact, it has been known for ages that a person with smaller abilities often leaves behind a person with bigger abilities in the end result, if the former systematically trains his or her abilities, whereas the latter does not do so. By way of illustration, it is possible to take, e.g. a biography of the famous orator and statesman of the Ancient World, viz. Demosthenes. As one can learn from Plutarch, when judging by all his appearance, he was not suitable for such a career at all. Demosfen's pronunciation was inarticulate. He had a weak voice. His shoulder twitched etc. But he overcame his seemingly insuperable defects by persistent work.¹²

 

That is to say, abilities is a dynamic notion, rather than a static one. Abilities may be developed. However, the classics of Marxism did not have even a slightest idea thereof. Their man, by all appearances, just as is born endowed with some abilities, so will die therewith. But when one does not understand this truth a compulsory levelling of people is unavoidable not only at the so-called highest stage of development of society, i.e. under communism, but also at all stages of an implementation of the socialist ideas into life. At the same time, it is perfectly clear that lazy individuals are beneficiaries of this mistake of the classics of Marxism.

 

Furthermore, another very important moment in the notion of human abilities is completely lacking in the classics of Marxism. The thing is that socially significant differences between individuals are not limited by abilities alone, even when understanding them dynamically, rather than statically. As a matter of fact, quite a lot in the activities of an individual, in his or her work, depend on the direction in which his or her abilities are used.

 

Meanwhile, abilities can be directed to honest work, or, e.g., for thievery. The fact that very gifted, even talented, individuals may be encountered among thieves, in my opinion, is no secret for anybody, except for the classics of socialism, those of Marxism, and their followers. Moreover, abilities may be used for careerism, enrichment, getting to power by unfair means. Abilities can be also directed to gluttony, envy, greed, vanity, slander, debauchery, some mania, etc.

 

But it is quite obvious that the classics of Marxism did not understand this. But a failure to understand this fact unavoidably results in that an implementation of the socialist ideas cannot bring anything good. On the contrary, the resulting society must unavoidably be an exploitative one. Careerists, profit-seekers, power-loving persons, gluttons, enviers, slanderers, libertines, maniacs, etc. must be beneficiaries therein, apart from the aforementioned idlers. It is inevitable because they will be levelled with honest toilers. The energy of a honest toiler is directed to a productive work, no matter intellectual or physical. Whereas in exploiters, in a society constructed based on the socialist prejudice of human equality, the main energy goes to an unproductive direction.

 

Well, let us have 2 workers: A and B. One of them is a fitter, whereas the other is a turner. Both work, say, 8 hours. According to Marx, they produce an identical value. But Marx does not consider at all that, e.g., one of them could have developed his abilities and become an engineer. But he has not done so because he was lazy, or a part of his energy went aside, viz. to some unproductive activities.

 

By the way, I, while living in the USSR, over and over again, have met people who admitted to me that they had not been willing to study further not because of their not having had abilities, but because they could earn much more than more educated people, even without improvement of their education. And they were quite right, viz., in the USSR, an engineer and a specialist with higher education, as a rule, had a smaller salary than many categories of workers, even unskilled.

 

Meanwhile, F. Engels did recognize that even slaveholders evaluated educated slaves higher. Of course, based strictly on the classics, all categories of toilers must have equally earned for their work with identical duration. In the USSR, a deviation from the doctrine to a worse end possibly took place. But, as a matter of fact, even when strictly keeping within the doctrine, it is nevertheless impossible to avoid exploitation of individual by individual under socialism. It is impossible to do so due to the above idealization of man by socialists and owing to ignorance of real differences between individuals. The thing is that the main socialist idea, in fact, leads to levelling of unequal individuals. It is socialists who consider them to be equal. It is their bee in the bonnet, their blind, irrational faith. But in reality people are not so equal at all as socialists fancy. And it is impossible to level unequal people without lies and violence, without exploitation of individual by individual.

 

Furthermore, in a society, hierarchy is absolutely indispensable. Without hierarchy, it is like a ship without captain. And, as a matter of fact, it is not enough to elect a captain at all or to appoint him from just any Tom, Dick or Harry. The captain must go through a nautical school to learn the skill of steering a ship at first, pass graduation examinations and receive the corresponding diploma. At the same time, owing to different abilities of individuals, not every individual can be trained for a captain, all the more so, to administrate the affairs of a State. It is obvious that such a silly idea can occur only to a person who fancies that all individuals have equal abilities.¹³ Its author, of course, has not directly stated that every lady-cook can administer the affairs of a State and is right when affirming that such an administrator may be from simple folk. But he, although denying his involvement in utopianism, nevertheless obviously expresses the thought that any man can be trained in the art of administration of a State. Nevertheless, it is utopianism, based even not on the above-mentioned advanced Marxist recognition of the presence of different abilities in people, but on the viewpoint of the so-called utopian socialists and early K. Marx and F. Engels. So the third classic of Marxism, viz. V. Lenin was a pantocrator of lunar dust particles too.

 

By the way, Prosper Mérimée has left us a novel entitled Tamango about a successful revolt of Negro slaves on board of a French ship that transported them. They seized the ship and massacred all the whites. But none of them was able to steer the ship and to lay her course. A sad end was therefore inevitable. Such a fate must, in all appearances, must inevitably happen to any society constructed based on the moonstruck socialist ideas.

 

The socialist prejudice regarding equality leads to elimination of a normal social hierarchy under which truly educated, prominent, and decent people are at the wheel of a society. Meanwhile, Marxism knows nothing about the latter people at all because it has such a notion of man in which there is no place for decent people.¹⁴

 

In fact, instead of a hierarchy of such persons, there is an anti-hierarchy in a society constructed based on the socialist ideas. Poorly educated, ignorant and indecent parvenus come to power therein. It was incomparably described by Mikhail Bulgakov in his famous novel A Dog's Heart in the characters of Sharikov and Shvonder.

 

The same process of an ascent to power of parvenus and that of a downfall of decent people can be found also in the novel Viper by Alexey Tolstoy.

 

It is absolutely inevitable in such a society, which, once having been constructed based on the socialist prejudice about the alleged human equality, doesn't know a real man at all. In such a society, even those more decent individuals who have found themselves in the ranks of communists and among winners by way of deception and survived in a civil war ultimately perish or are pushed down to the social bottom because they are defenceless and vulnerable in the society that is unaware of the existence of human defects. Meanwhile, socialists indeed know nothing about them because they believe in people's being good by nature and being spoiled only by their circumstances.

 

3. ELIMINATION OF PRIVATE PROPERTY

 

The second main idea of all socialists, viz., elimination of private property is undoubtedly a derivative of the above-indicated prejudice about human equality. It would have been justified, if people had really been equally mentally gifted or would have had merely statically understood and working only in the productive direction alone abilities. But it suffices to recall the Aesop's fables about an ant and a bug as well as about an ant and a cicada and also the I. Krylov's fable A Dragonfly and an Ant in order to realize inadequacy of these ideas and also to understand that there are beneficiaries of the socialist ideas, viz., precisely those people whose behaviour resembles that of the dragonfly and other characters in the Krylov's fables.

 

Once the socialist prejudice about human equality has been rejected, the attitude to private property must radically change, viz., it is an instrument to protect toilers-ants against idlers-dragonflies, lambs against wolves. Otherwise, idlers, lazybones, loafers, and other parasites will live at the expense of toilers and other decent people.

 

Moreover, socialists should have paid attention to the fact that private property has pulled the mankind out of the wildness. It has been precisely the factor that has made it possible for really clever and diligent individuals to guide the peoples of the world along the road of civilization. None of the wild peoples without private property has attained anything worthy of admiration. On the contrary, there have been a wild despotism, murders without any restrictions,¹⁵ human sacrifices, cannibalism, and promiscuity among them.

 

Of course, there can be mistakes and injustice in distribution of private property. It happens when certain individuals become property owners by swindle and other machinations, rather than thanks to honest work. It is, first of all, the State that ought to fight against this evil by means of a system of adequate education, through access to all spiritual wealth of mankind as well as with the help of systems of justice and punishment. One cannot therefore speak of any withering away of the State at all. It is one of the most stupid ideas of socialists, possible only based on their irrational, blind, fantastic, and fanatical faith in human equality. As soon as a return to reality takes place, and a sober attitude to man prevails, it becomes clear that the State is a powerful instrument to improve man as man, and one can never do without it in our mortal life.

 

By the way, despite the fact that the State in the Soviet Union was constructed based on the socialist ideas, including that of withering away of the State, it not only has not withered away, but has not been going to do so during all the time when firmly keeping to its socialist course, i.e. until the so-called. M. Gorbachev's perestroika policy. On the contrary, it controlled all economic and spiritual life of the society as never before in the previous history of Russia. But this deviation from the idea was inevitable. The thing is that the idea itself was stupid and inadequate. Meanwhile, the new exploiters, i.e. Bolsheviks / communists, could not do without machinery for zombification, violence, and coercion of the exploited people in any way.

 

4. ELIMINATION OF RELIGION

 

The third main idea of socialists is elimination, abolition, or annihilation of religion. What is a background of this idea? The following statement of F. Engels may shed some light here:

 

‘A division of people into two sharply different groups, into humans and bestial humans, into good and evil, sheep and goats, is known, apart from the philosophy of reality, only to Christianity, which quite consistently also has its judge of the world to make the separation’.¹⁶

 

First, a humiliating and mocking tone of F. Engels attracts attention. Second, there is little truth in his statement. Christianity does not know any groups of ‘humans and bestial humans'. It is an obvious F. Engels's invention. The division of people into good and bad is indeed a typical feature of Christian world view, in contrast to the socialist one. In principle, one may speak of a division of people into sheep and goats by Christianity. Such utterances occur in the Gospel. But it is only a metaphor, a figurative sense, i.e., all the same ‘good and bad’ are meant. F. Engels's mockery therefore gives him a sleazy appearance. At the same time, F. Engels passes over in silence another Christian division of people, viz. that into sheep and wolves. For example, here is what Jesus has told, 'Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothes, but inwardly are ravenous wolves’.¹⁷ Sure enough, it is also a metaphor, i.e. good and bad humans are referred to here too, only with emphasize on the cruel and wolfish side of bad people. But why has F. Engels passed over in silence this division of people by Christianity? Is he perhaps such a ‘wolf’ himself? By heaven, it looks so very much!

 

It is also an obvious lie in his attributing the idea of division of people into bad and good humans only to Dühring and Christianity. This division is virtually known to all traditional world religions. Moreover, many poets and writers, as already mentioned above, shared this idea too. Here one should also refer to a great number of playwrights, e.g., Shakespeare, Schiller, and Henrik Ibsen as well as many artists, e.g., Giotto di Bondone, Leonardo da Vinci, Jerome Bosch, etc.¹⁸

 

One may ask why F. Engels does not mention the fact? Obviously because he tries to squeeze reality into the Procrustean bed of the allegedly popular prejudice about human equality, which is either perfectly absolute in denying even differences of individuals in abilities, or is such one in which there is no dynamics and no understanding of the fact that different directionalities or orientations of human abilities are possible.

 

I have no doubts that a refusal from the socialist prejudice about equality of people and a return to reality imply a rehabilitation of the traditional religions of mankind.

 

First, as I have shown, Marxism has no grounds to be proud of its allegedly scientific nature because a stupid, blind, irrational, fantastic, and fanatical faith in equality of people is its foundation. Curiously enough, but the Marxist materialism is something like an ideological screen (by analogy with a smoke-screen in military terminology) to conceal the fact that it is based on an idea, and, what is more, a very silly one. If it had been exposed to a general public survey as the main issue, many humans would have rejected it at once. But, as it is, the main issue of the socialist religion is officially that of the primacy of matter or thought (consciousness, spirit). And, this being the case, socialists appear to support the primacy of matter. Meanwhile, they, at a tepid pace, smuggle in their quite absurd idea, which is the genuine main or principal idea of all socialists.

 

Second, this is exactly the error that is lacking in the traditional religions. All of them stem from the idea that 2 principles, viz., good and evil fight in man, and, correspondingly, that there are good and bad, decent and indecent individuals. This idea conforms to reality and everyday experience of people. The traditional religions are therefore virtually more scientific than the socialist religion in this respect.

 

5. ELIMINATION OF FAMILY

 

Elimination of family is the fourth main idea of all socialists. It is obvious that it is indispensable in order to erase the past from one’s memory and to turn it into tabula rasa (a clean board) to brainwash a younger generation without hindrance, and to hide the truth forever. The father and mother, grandmothers and grandfathers, when answering questions of curious children may reveal them the existence of other evil and other good that have nothing in common with the socialist dogmas, the truth about the past, that about the life of people in the past, about history, about real heroes and evil-doers.

 

Socialists are therefore willing to take away children from their parents from the smallest age. F. Engels' opinion was as follows:

 

'Education of all children, since the moment when they can do without the first maternal care, in public institutions and at the expense of the State budget. Education and production together'.¹⁹ That is, from the age of 2-3 years, pursuant to F. Engels, it is necessary to take a kid away from the mother. Moreover, – nota bene! – to force the kid to produce goods. Now, that is quite a prospect for the poor kid! As regards me personally, everything turns upside down in me from such an idea because I remember how I rejoiced when my mother took me on her hands. Why, can one find many such mothers who will contentedly give away their kids to outsiders?! ?!

 

However, it can be stated that this idea was not fully implemented in the USSR. Of course, not only men, but also women were forced to produce social wealth. In this regard, they lost their opportunity to devote much time to their kids. But, after all, children were not taken away for ever, viz., children most often came back to the families in the evening and also on days off and holidays after their stay in their nurseries, kindergartens, and schools during the daytime.

 

Sure enough, it was a deviation from the socialist ideal, but it was a deviation in a good direction, rather than in a bad one. However, it was likely to be a forced one in many respects, just like the New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921. There are grounds to believe that an attempt to fully implement the socialist ideas regarding extermination of family could have resulted even more deplorable than that of military communism in economy. As a matter of fact, that idea is even less in accord with the national traditions. Moreover, even animals manifest an instinct to protect their young ones. Animals are known to be ready even to offer their lives in many cases to protect their younglings. It is an instinct. And, although it is possible that many instincts in man do not work as well as in animals, nevertheless, the instinct to love their kids and to protect them undoubtedly works well in most people. It is therefore easy to imagine what could have happened when attempting to implement that idea, viz., to take away children from parents. The revolts of Kronstadt and Tambov might have appeared as small freaks after that. Moreover, it may hardly be doubted that not all communists were ready to do so, viz., many rank-and-file communists certainly simply did not know about that idea of the classics of socialism and Marxism. Such individuals like Pavka Korchagin from the well-known novel by N. Ostrovsky As Steel Became Tempered might have used not only his fists, but his revolver as well in protecting his kid.²⁰

 

Moreover, the State would have been simply short of resources in order to implement that project. You know, premises would have been indispensable for the taken-away children, a lot of premises. But where could they have been taken from? One would have had to feed the children? But where could one have taken food for them? One would have had to have children medically treated? But where could one have taken physicians? Children would have been in need of kindergarteners and schoolmasters. But one would have still had to have such personnel themselves properly trained at first because the available old personnel impregnated with the so-called bourgeois spirit were unsuitable. Well, in short, there was a sea of troubles to be tackled.

 

Meanwhile, after the revolution and civil war, at the beginning of the 20th years of the 20th century, a serious problem with homeless children already turned up. The things were at such a stake that the State has had to throw chekists, i.e., security officers, to solve the problem. Well, the situation began improving. But the country succeeded in coping with that shameful phenomenon of homelessness only on the eve of the war with Nazis. But children's colonies and communes of the NKVD, i.e., secret police, are known to have existed until the very war itself.

It is clear that, under such conditions, there were more important things to think about than to implement the socialist ideal in the field of elimination of family and taking-away children from parents. It therefore remained unimplemented. Moreover, it was somehow also forgotten. The people in the country gave their hearts to the classical Russian literature, in which a normal, Christian in its spirit, family, fidelity of spouses, and parents' care of children were depicted. And even from works by classics which were quoted and offered pupils and students for reading in the USSR this party of original socialism wasn't mentioned in those fragments. And that side of the genuine socialism was not even mentioned in those excerpts from the classics' writings that were quoted and proposed for reading in the USSR.

 

Then again, a certain role in the development in this direction was perhaps played by the personalities of Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin. It is very probable that they were not very fond of that part of the socialist and Marxist doctrine. Already Lenin in his letter to Inessa Armande dated 1/17/1915 obviously supported a serious love of man and woman, rather than a community of wives. Stalin went even further, viz., he completely rejected the idea of erosion of family bonds. As a result, an irreproachable family became very important even for a career of every communist. It was undoubtedly a revisionism and renegation in regard to one of the fundamental ideas of the previous classics of socialism and Marxism. But it is also beyond doubt that, in the opinion of every decent and virtuous person, one ought to praise both Lenin and Stalin, rather than to condemn, for this deed of valour because it was a retrieval of the traditional family.

 

However, it is indispensable for those who are eager to return to the pure socialist and Marxist doctrine to recall that side thereof. I remember how that idea shocked me when I read a six-volume selected writings by K. Marx and F. Engels, published in the GDR. 'Well, one still may to somehow understand Engels concerning that matter', I reflected, 'after all, he has never had a family, but Marx, he, a man of family, how could he concoct such an absurd and dirty idea as taking-away children from parents at the smallest age'?! Now I know an answer, viz., K. Marx was also a pantocrator of lunar dust particles.

 

6. INFERENCES AND CONCLUSIONS

 

As one can see, K. Marx virtually made a frank confession that his doctrine had been based on a prejudice.

 

But I have not taken it for granted. After all, there are cases when people make false accusations of themselves, slander themselves. that his doctrine had been based on a prejudice.

 

That is why an attempt to apply a realistic notion of man to the fundamental ideas of socialism and Marxism, viz., those of equality and elimination of private property, church, and family has been made. In so doing, collapses like those of houses of cards were observed. It gives grounds to draw a conclusion that, specifically in this case, K. Marx has told the truth. His doctrine has been indeed based on a prejudice about human equality, unrealistic notion of man, and idealization of man.

 

Moreover, an attempt to verify the K. Marx' statement that it was a popular prejudice has been made too. The verification has revealed an extreme doubtfulness of such a statement. This research demonstrates that that prejudice he spoke of was not popular at all, but it was rather only a blind irrational faith of some intellectuals.

 

An assumption was also made that a widespread dissemination of this prejudice-based doctrine is related to a deception which gives an appearance of its scientific nature, although there is virtually no scientific nature therein. The allegedly scientific nature of this doctrine was concocted, it is only a verbal or wordy veil, meant for disguising its profound anti-scientific essence.

 

I. Shafarevich in his brilliant analysis of the socialist ideas has arrived at a conclusion that their implementation is to result in an extinction of all mankind, its death.

 

In my opinion, this conclusion is perfectly correct. However, I. Shafarevich has inculpated some strange thirst for death, which reminds me of the Sigmund Freud's drive toward death and self-destruction. I believe that I. Shafarevich is mistaken here. The socialist ideas do objectively lead mankind to a sad end. But, at the same time, people do subjectively fancy that they will result in a salvation,²¹ that they are a road to a kingdom of freedom,²² or that they will bring a true freedom.²³ His mistake is likely to have been caused by the fact that he has not raised a question as to whom the socialist ideas are beneficial. If one raises and answers it, then it becomes clear, as I have already shown, that they are beneficial to idlers and also to individuals who are prone to direct their abilities to diverse vicious preoccupations, rather than to honest and conscientious work. It is to such people that the socialist ideas are beneficial, the idea of human equality being central and principal therein. An implementation of this idea makes it possible for these groups of people to live at the expense of toilers in virtually exploiting them.

 

Hence it is clear that these ideas have been created by unscrupulous and indecent individuals in order to realize their passions, rather than to liberate mankind. Unfortunately, they have succeeded in deceiving many people. Among the latter, in principle, there are perhaps many good individuals who are good by nature. But they have become victims of this deception.

 

There exists a popular Russian saying whose English counterpart is as follows: 'A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush'. Well, a hundred years ago, in 1917, Russia, under an influence of the deceivers, took a fancy for catching two birds in the bush. The attempt failed. Meanwhile, the bird that had been already in the hand escaped and flew away.

 

A conclusion for the future is as follows: It is indispensable to hold popular sayings in esteem and, in particular, not to try catching two birds when already having one in the hand.

 

7. POSTFACE

 

When speaking of the two revolutions of 1917 in Russia it is perhaps pertinent to mention the research contribution to this subject of the British-American economist, historian, and writer Anthony C Sutton (1925-2002). One of his books directly concerns the second revolution in Russia. It is entitled Wall Street and Bolshevist revolution. Therein, he with a lot of proofs, shows financing of that revolution by large American bankers and corporations. They were motivated by desire to destroy Russia as an economic competitor of the USA and to turn it into a monopolized market and technical colony for large American bankers and corporations under their control.²⁴

 

Anthony C Sutton has not neglected K. Marx with F. Engels either. He has done so in his book The Federal Reserve Conspiracy. Therein, he, first, has discovered 4 sources of K. Marx' financing, viz., 2 American and 2 German ones. The 1st American source viz., bankers from Wall Street through their courier, an ex-pirate Jean Laffite, is especially interesting.

 

I must confess that the Sutton's discovery has not astonished me very much. It has been a long time since I gained the impression that both K. Marx, and F. Engels would be ready to take money for a revolution from anybody because there was no place for any decency in their world-view.

 

Meanwhile, the motive to fund a revolution of workers of the world, is more interesting, viz., they wanted 'to shake the foundations of the highest dynasties and leave them to be devoured by the lower masses'.²⁵ However, this motive apparently looks very much like that for funding the Bolshevist revolution in Russia, it is only broader.

 

By the way, the considerations and expectations of the financiers of K. Marx, F. Engels, and the Bolsheviks have proven to be fully justified. As a matter of fact, the World War 1 has resulted in a collapse of 3 European empires, viz., those of Russia, Germany, and Austro-Hungary. The money have not been therefore squandered away in vain.

 

The Sutton's inferences concerning the directionality of Marxism is still more interesting. Here is what he has stated:

 

'Why would the elite fund Marx? Simply because the entire Marxist philosophical battery is aimed at extermination of the middle class and the supremacy of the elite. Marxism is a device for consolidating power by the elite. It has nothing to do with relieving the misery of the poor or advancing mankind: it is an elitist political device pure and simple'.²⁶

 

Here I have to disagree with Sutton a little. Of course, the hostility of Marxism towards the middle class is obvious. In Russia it was manifested very clearly both in the fate of educated people, and in that of peasantry. But the former elite suffered in Russia too, and even faster and earlier than the middle class. Meanwhile, a new elite, which was telling tales of allegedly a dictatorship of the proletariat, came to power in Russia at that time. Indeed, it paid lip service to the proletariat, but was proletarian only by appearances.

 

It is obvious that Sutton, in designating the elite as the beneficiary of Marxism, implied the elite that did fund this doctrine, rather than all elite. The elite of the traditional |States of Europe did not pertain thereto.

 

Anthony C Sutton, while being a pure economist by training and profession, has remained, in many respects, within the Marxist framework of division of people into classes with regard to property and has not noticed that Marxism was and is virtually hostile not only to the middle class, but also to a part, perhaps even a greater one, of the working class and even to a part of the elite in every country. The thing is that good and evil are spiritual, rather than matter-related notions. They cannot be directly attributed to property ownership, as is typical of socialists. Good, decent, and pious persons may be found, and, of course, are both among workers, and among other classes or estates in every society. As a matter of fact, if one returns to a realistic view of people, then it becomes clear that Marxism is hostile to all decent people, inclusive also of a part of the elite of any society. The slogan ‘Workers of the world, unite’! is deeply wrong and reflects a false idea of human equality, in which there is no place for the notions of a dynamic nature of human abilities and of different orientations of human abilities. A correct slogan ought to be ‘Decent people of the world, unite’!

 

I believe that it is high time for truly educated people, genuine intellectuals, rather than pseudo-educated people, to realize a great truthfulness of the traditional religions and to finally reject the deceitful socialist ideas. The former, in fighting bad inclinations of people, do gradually improve mankind. Whereas the latter, in denying the very existence of such bad inclinations, do virtually foster and encourage them, which leads to a degradation and degeneration of mankind in the end result. It is not important how one designates these bad inclinations, viz., as sins or idolatry, as the traditional religions do, or as unproductive orientations of character, as, e.g., Erich Fromm does in his book Man for Himself. One may also refer to them as to unproductive directionalities or orientations of abilities, as I do. It is perhaps possible to find other quite acceptable designations either. But it is important that our notions be indeed in conformity to reality. However, the socialist idea of human equality, with all its derivative consequences, obviously does not conform to reality. It is indeed a prejudice. Only that of a small group of deceivers and swindlers, rather than that of people at large. Nothing good may and might therefore result from implementation of this idea. A trash can of history is the very place for it. After all, someone has to cry out that the Emperor has no clothes at all.

 

8. Short information about the author

 

Victor Artsimovich was born on 25 November 1950 in Tomsk, Russia. He is a descendant of poor Lithuanian peasants who voluntarily moved to Russia at the time of the Russian Empire. He was brought up by single mother. He graduated from the Tomsk State University, Faculty of History & Philology, Speciality of History, in 1974. He is a former dissident. He was prosecuted pursuant to Article 190-1 (Dissemination of knowingly false fabrications that defame the Soviet State and social system) of the Soviet Penal Code in the case of the so-called Book-Lovers in Tomsk in 1982. He was convicted without any possibility to defend himself. He has served his sentence. He is also a former worker (proletarian) because he was employed as an electric welder for about 2.5 years at a large plant in the late 80th years. At the end of 1991 he moved to the forefathers' motherland, i.e., to Lithuania. Now he is an old-age pensioner, but continues to be self-employed at his individual company, viz., a translation office, opened up in 1995. He is a parishioner of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania. His family consists of the wife Nadezhda and son Josef.

1Cf. Joseph Stalin Anarchism or Socialism, Writings of Stalin, Vol. 1 (in Russian).

2I should like to advise reading Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in original only. The official Russian translation of their writings is too freewheeling and inexact.

3 '… if God, there in the Heaven, takes a fancy for discussing politics and the latest news when playing chess, then with whom, except for Lenin, can he talk?' (my from Russian).

4G. Zyuganov Time Imperatively Requires a New Policy, Press Service of the Central Committee of the CPRF, 19/12/2016 19:35 (update: 28/01/2017 01:21).

5I. Shafarevich Socialism (Collection: From Under the Rubble) (in Russian).

6It is my translation from the official Russian, the original Russian text being as follows: 'Равенство и равнозначность всех видов труда, поскольку они являются человеческим трудом вообще, – эта тайна выражения стоимости может быть расшифрована лишь тогда, когда идея человеческого равенства уже приобрела прочность народного предрассудка'.

7It is my translation from German into English, my original translation from German into Russian being as follows: Тайна выражения стоимости, равенство и равнозначность всех видов труда, так как и поскольку они вообще являются человеческим трудом, может быть только расшифрована, как только понятие человеческого равенства уже обладает прочностью народного предубеждения (Vorurteil).

8The German original text: Das Geheimnis des Wertausdrucks, die Gleichheit und gleiche Gültigkeit aller Arbeiten, weil und insofern sie menschliche Arbeit überhaupt sind, kanofficialn nur entziffert werden, sobald der Begriff der menschlichen Gleichheit bereits die Festigkeit eines Volksvorurteils besitzt». The official English translation: The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice.

9My reproach: the verb 'acquire' in the present perfect tense has been used both in the official English, and in the official Russian translation. Meanwhile, the word 'possess' in present tense is in the German original.

10I. Shafarevich Socialism as a Phenomenon of the World History, Chapter II (in Russian).

11It is my translation.

12By the way, in the novel by B. Polevoy The Story of a Real Man, a very similar, from the philosophical viewpoint, situation is described. But nobody seems to have noticed that it undermines the fundamentals of Marxism.

13'We are no Utopians. We know that any unskilled worker and any lady-cook is unable to begin administering the State now. But we […] demand to make an immediate break with that prejudice that only rich persons or officials taken from rich families can carry out an ordinary everyday administrative work. We demand that training in public administration should be conducted by conscious workers and soldiers and that it should be immediately started, i.e. that one should begin involving all workers and all the poor in this training', Lenin Will Bolsheviks Retain the State Power?', Complete Works, Vol. 34, p. 315 (my translation from Russian). As a matter of fact, he is mistaken not only in fancying that everybody is suitable for such a social role, but also in charging uneducated workers and soldiers, rather than qualified teachers, with such a training.

14In the 20th century, it was perhaps the former prisoner of a Nazi concentration camp, psychologist Victor Frankl who told us about such people in his book Saying Yes to Life in Spite of Everything: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp with a particular force. The original: Viktor Frankl Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe Erlebt das Konzentrationslager.

15At the very beginning of the Old Testament there is a story of how Abraham and Sara went to Egypt. Abraham asked Sara to tell there that he was her brother, but not her husband, otherwise they would kill him (Genesis, 11-12). Such was the so-called natural man who had been quite groundlessly eulogized by Rousseau and other so-called enlighteners. Meanwhile, Egypt was is not a complete savagery at all, but a society with State, but without private property.

16F. Engels Anti-Dühring (my own translation). The official English translation is as follows: ‘A division of mankind into two sharply differentiated groups, into human men and beast men, into good and bad, sheep and goats, is only found – apart from the philosophy of reality – in Christianity, which quite logically also has its judge of the universe to make the separation’.

17Matt., 7-15.

18In Russia there were also many artists who painted pictures on the subject of Christianity, e.g., A. Ivanov, N. Ge, I. Kramskoy, V. Polenova, I. Repin, G.Semiradskiy, V. Vereshchagin, V. Surikov, M. Nesterova, V. Vasnetsov, N. Goncharova, V. Kandinskiy, P. Filonov, etc.

19F. Engels Grundsätze des Kommunismus, 18-8 (my translation). In an official English translation entitled The Principles of Communism: ‘Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together’, 18-(viii).

20By the way, I was always very fond of an episode therein in which he gave a good thrashing to a Soviet Don Juan.

21A fragment from The Internationale: 'Producers, let us save ourselves, decree the common salvation'.

22A fragment from Comrades, Let's March: 'We will fight our way towards liberty'.

23A line from the well-known Italian communist song Bandiera rossa (Red Banner): 'Soltanto il sicialismo è vera libertà (only socialism is true freedom)'.

24Antony C Sutton Wall Street and the Bolshevik Revolution, Chapter: THE EXPLANATION FOR THE UNHOLY ALLIANCE; Chapter: THE MARBURG PLAN.

25Antony C Sutton The Federal Reserve Conspiracy, Chapter Five: Marx's Financial Backers.

26Ibid.

[jondwhite]

Where was your god during the White Terror or the Red one?

[ALB]

I have only got round to reading the first section on the elimination of hierarchy which is based on a single quote from Marx taken completely out of context:

Quote:

Equality and equivalence of all kinds of labour insofar as they are human labour in general, this secret of the expression of value can be deciphered only when the idea of human equality has already acquired firmness of a popular prejudice.

This is taken from the last paragraph of section 3 on "The Equivalent Form of Value" of the opening chapter of Capital on "Commodities". Here is the whole paragraph:

Marx wrote:

There was, however, an important fact which prevented Aristotle from seeing that, to attribute value to commodities, is merely a mode of expressing all labour as equal human labour, and consequently as labour of equal quality. Greek society was founded upon slavery, and had, therefore, for its natural basis, the inequality of men and of their labour powers. The secret of the expression of value, namely, that all kinds of labour are equal and equivalent, because, and so far as they are human labour in general, cannot be deciphered, until the notion of human equality has already acquired the fixity of a popular prejudice. This, however, is possible only in a society in which the great mass of the produce of labour takes the form of commodities, in which, consequently, the dominant relation between man and man, is that of owners of commodities. The brilliancy of Aristotle’s genius is shown by this alone, that he discovered, in the expression of the value of commodities, a relation of equality. The peculiar conditions of the society in which he lived, alone prevented him from discovering what, “in truth,” was at the bottom of this equality

It is clear that what Marx is saying here is that Aristotle could not have worked out the concept of "equal human labour" because he was living in a society based on humans not being equal (as some were chattel slaves); this had to await the coming of a society in which all humans were regarded and accepted as being equally owners of commodities (capitalism !). It had nothing to do with any "popular prejudice" about all humans being equal in the sense of having equal capacities which you then go on (and on) to criticise as ridiculous. Which it is. That humans have different capacities is well expressed in the longstanding socialist slogan of "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs".It's annoying that you didn't give the exact source of the quote (hopefully, not because you wanted to make it difficult for your readers to track it down and discover how you have distorted it).There's another quote, this time from Engels, that you don't give a precise source for:

Engels wrote:

… a person who gives instructions as an architect for half an hour, will also push a trolley for some time, until his activity as an architect is needed once again. Fine sort of socialism that perpetuates professional pushers of trolleys!

As it's a good quote that well expresses the socialist viewpoint can you supply the source?

[Dave B]

iit is uried in here I suspect with porters rather than trolley pushers? Anti-Dühring by Frederick Engels 1877Part II: Political EconomyVI. Simple and Compound Labour ………..It is true that, according to Herr Dühring’s theory, only the labour-time expended can measure the value of economic things even in the economic commune; but as a matter of course the labour-time of each individual must be considered absolutely equal to start with, all labour-time is in principle and without exception absolutely equal in value, without any need to take first an average. And now compare with this radical equalitarian socialism Marx’s hazy conception that the labour-time of one person is in itself more valuable than that of another, because more average labour-time is condensed as it were within it—a conception which held Marx captive by reason of the traditional mode of thought of the educated classes, to whom it necessarily appears monstrous that the labour-time of a porter and that of an architect should be recognised as of absolutely equal value from the standpoint of economics!  Unfortunately Marx put a short footnote to the passage in Capital cited above: “The reader must note that we are not speaking here of the wages or value that the labourer gets for a given labour-time, but of the value of the commodity in which that labour-time is materialised.” Marx, who seems here to have had a presentiment of the coming of his Dühring, therefore safeguards himself against an application of his statements quoted above even to the wages which are paid in existing society for compound labour. And if Herr Dühring, not content with doing this all the same, presents these statements as the principles on which Marx would like to see the distribution of the necessaries of life regulated in society organised socialistically, he is guilty of a shameless imposture, the like of which is only to be found in the gangster press.  But let us look a little more closely at the doctrine of equality in values. All labour-time is entirely equal in value, the porter’s and the architect’s. So labour-time, and therefore labour itself, has a value. But labour is the creator of all values. It alone gives the products found in nature value in the economic sense. Value itself is nothing else than the expression of the socially necessary human labour materialised in an object. Labour can therefore have no value. One might as well speak of the value of value, or try to determine the weight, not of a heavy body, but of heaviness itself, as speak of the value of labour, and try to determine it. Herr Dühring dismisses people like Owen, Saint-Simon and Fourier by calling them social alchemists {D. K. G. 237}. His subtilising over the value of labour-time, that is, of labour, shows that he ranks far beneath the real alchemists. And now let the reader fathom Herr Dühring's brazenness in imputing to Marx the assertion that the labour-time of one person is in itself more valuable than that of another {500}, that labour-time, and therefore labour, has a value—to Marx, who first demonstrated that labour can have no value, and why it cannot! For socialism, which wants to emancipate human labour-power from its status of a commodity, the realisation that labour has no value and can have none is of great importance. With this realisation all attempts — inherited by Herr Dühring from primitive workers’ socialism — to regulate the future distribution of the necessaries of life as a kind of higher wages fall to the ground And from it comes the further realisation that distribution, in so far as it is governed by purely economic considerations, will be regulated by the interests of production, and that production is most encouraged by a mode of distribution which allows all members of society to develop, maintain and exercise their capacities with maximum universality. It is true that, to the mode of thought of the educated classes which Herr Dühring has inherited, it must seem monstrous that in time to come there will no longer be any professional porters or architects, and that the man who for half an hour gives instructions as an architect will also act as a porter for a period, until his activity as an architect is once again required. A fine sort of socialism that would be—perpetuating professional porters!  https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1877/anti-duhring/ch18.htm  

[Anonymous]

Just the first sentence on the Preface it is an indication that the writer does not know what he is talking about when he is referring to the Great October Socialist revolution. Real socialist never followed  or supported that coup 

[ALB]

Thanks, Dave. I thought it must have come from Anti-Dühring

Engels wrote:

…. in time to come there will no longer be any professional porters or architects, and that the man who for half an hour gives instructions as an architect will also act as a porter for a period, until his activity as an architect is once again required. A fine sort of socialism that would be—perpetuating professional porters!

It is a better quote to illustrate the point that in socialism people will no longer be tied to doing the same work all day, month in month out, year in year out. A better quote in fact than the more frequent one about hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, etc  which is less realistic (and offends our vegetarian friends).

[Dave B]

i The ‘value’ or price of labour power is an interesting subject. Labour power or a particular skill set is a commodity like anything else and its price is subject to its supply and demand in capitalism. In capital for instance Karl talks and provides data about ‘skilled damask weavers’ being ‘paid’ less than intellectually challenged but physically well endowed coal heavers, navies and even ‘porters’ and pushers of trolleys. And elsewhere over supplied multilingual educated German ‘commercial’ workers, as immigrants to the UK, being paid less than machinists. Nothing changes that much eg airline pilots? https://blogs.wsj.com/middleseat/2009/06/16/pilot-pay-want-to-know-how-much-your-captain-earns/ Workers will themselves chase after the highest price for their 10 hour day etc and ‘retrain’ to achieve it. Modifying or correcting the supply and demand of different types of labour power eg plastering? ;until they potentially equilibrate?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ON-7v4qnHP8 I suppose the idea might be that the price of labour power of the Harry Enfields of this world will eventually equilibrate to a lower level. Whilst the price labour power of the elite intellectuals will or should become that much higher. There maybe a natural range of abilities or inequalities within the human species. But the idea that there might a natural under supply of potential intellectuals necessitating a higher reward for their “more productive” applied labour is a bit tenuous one suspects. Although I don’t doubt applying your intellect to deceive and swindle others can be lucrative.

[Anonymous]

Well, Raya Dunayevskaya will contradict the author of this article because she wrote that the best version of Capital is in the French language. The Maoist have indicated that the works of Stalin and Lenin were modified by the Kurschevites.The author cites one of the works of Joseph Stalin on Anarchism, but it is the only book where Stalin shows that he knew the real definition of Socialism and the author indicates that the Russian revolution was a socialist revolution and that the Soviets leaders were building a socialist society for more than 70 years. It looks he did not read that book.The idea that Marx was financed by some members of the capitalist elite is nothing new. I have read several conspiracy theory indicating that he was financed by the Rothschild family and many of those ideas were propagated by the German Nazis to indicate that Communism is just a Jewish conspiracy, and with the emerge of white nationalism the same ideas are coming out again.Capital is not the only source to read Marx and Engels and some ideas must be  understood in their historical context, and the author expressed certain ideas out of context, and looks like he did not read the passage where Marx himself indicated that he was not a Marxist, therefore the concept of Marxism is totally wrong it was a conception created by Bakunin

[Anonymous]

Two Russian revolutions, which one the 1905 and 1917 ?  What was the class character of both revolution? The author does not describe or does not know the class character of both revolutions? The revolt of 1989 was not a revolution. In the Bibliography he does not include the works of Plekhanov, he wrote extensively on the revolution of 1905. This is a very long article but it does not have too much substance

[twc]

I understand, Victor, that you are a parishioner of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania, the land of your peasant ancestors, and that you were raised by single mother, you were educated in central Russia, and were sometime gaoled as a dissident for disseminating anti-Soviet literature, and that now you run a translation service in Lithuania.I dimly comprehend your suffering under the Soviet Union, and there is no mistaking your bitter hatred of it and its supposed “socialism”.  But to its supposed “socialism” anon.So, you have come to us to reveal a fiery apocalypse, that would ensue from implementing the so-called Marxian “tenets of socialism, namely, equality, and the elimination of private property, the church, and the family ” which can only engender “the extinction of all mankind, its death”.Why so?  Because Marxian socialists forget human nature.  They ignore evil.  They deny the obvious truth of traditional religions:  that humans are “good and bad, decent and indecent”.Equality is not a socialist notion“Equality” is a capitalist notion, and it enters the world fully formed as such.“Equality” is the rallying war cry of the rising capitalist class—the class of manufacturers, professionals and traders—in their battle for social supremacy against their class enemy, the feudal nobility—the socially privileged monarchs and aristocrats who control the vast landed estates.The general notion of “Equality” enters general human consciousness in some of mankind’s most memorable formal declarations:“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” [Declaration of Independence , 4 July 1776] Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin in the American Revolution against King George III of Great Britain.“All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and of their talents." [Declaration of the Rights of Man August 1789] Lafayette, Mirabeau and Jefferson in the French Revolution proclaiming an end to feudalism and abolition of the monarchy.“LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.  The same words are inscribed on flags which bear the three colours (tricolour) of the nation.” [On the National Guard, 5 December 1790] Maximilien Robespierre.These official proclamations of “equality” are unmistakably bourgeois.  They are shameless attacks on the despised social hierarchies of feudalism.The equalisation of labour is not a socialist operationIn your quotation on the equalisation of labour, Marx is simply saying that the concept of value remains a mystery that can’t be solved theoretically before capitalism solves it practically by implementing it unconsciously behind the backs, so to speak, of the actors in the capitalist market,The mystification arises because the concrete forms of commodities—e.g., table, cloth, coat—are the products of different concrete forms of labour—carpentry, spinning, weaving.  All concrete things are concretely incommensurable, unless you can find something non-concrete that is common to them all.Capitalist society in practice manages to compare them on the market.  Only then can secret of the common commensurability of concrete incommensurables be discerned, and it turns out to be their common “social substance" abstract (not concrete) labour whose equalisation the everyday market establishes as a matter of common practice.That is the only equalisation Marx is talking about here.Consequently your forced attempt to turn Marx’s specific analysis of abstract labour into an axiomatic theory of socialist equality is utterly misplaced.All I can say in your defence is that such a total misapprehension of what Marx is actually doing is a sad example of the deleterious effects that Soviet obfuscation still has on its citizens.Primitive accumulation of capitalI am well aware that it is futile for me to point out to you that the Russian Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, like the English one of the 1640s, the American of the 1760s…, the French of the 1790s…As such, your grandparent’s and your mother’s generations had to endure the painful birth of a capitalist nation—not socialism—as it emerged out of the womb of old feudal society.Old feudal society couldn’t deliver to the nascent capitalist society a mass of unpropertied workers that were seeking employment.  That is a huge social problem because unpropertied workers seeking employment are the pre-condition of capitalist production to take place.Instead, old feudal society offers the nascent capitalist society a mass of propertied peasants, which are the foundation of the old (feudal) mode of production.Capitalism, if it is to succeed on the ashes of old feudalism, has no choice but to dispossess the feudal peasants of their property—to rob them of their livelihood—and to turn them into unpropertied workers readymade for capitalist employment.Never forget that capitalism is necessarily based on the forced dispossession and ruination of the peasant in order to create the propertyless worker.Marx thoroughly studied this terrible process of “primitive accumulation of capital”, and this investigation concludes Capital Vol 1.  It is the conclusion of Volume 1 because the “primitive accumulation of capital” is essential to comprehending in theory how the whole process of capitalist production gets going in practice—out of the womb of its predecessor mode of production.Lenin had read Marx on the “primitive accumulation of capital”, and yet it was Lenin’s denial that determined the fate of the Russian Revolution, and that forced himself to play the ghastly midwife to the gruesome birth of capitalist Russia.To see what we understand by socialism, read our Object and Declaration of Principles.

[Anonymous]

twc wrote:

I understand, Victor, that you are a parishioner of the Russian Orthodox Church in Lithuania, the land of your peasant ancestors, and that you were raised by single mother, you were educated in central Russia, and were sometime gaoled as a dissident for disseminating anti-Soviet literature, and that now you run a translation service in Lithuania.I dimly comprehend your suffering under the Soviet Union, and there is no mistaking your bitter hatred of it and its supposed “socialism”.  But to its supposed “socialism” anon.So, you have come to us to reveal a fiery apocalypse, that would ensue from implementing the so-called Marxian “tenets of socialism, namely, equality, and the elimination of private property, the church, and the family ” which can only engender “the extinction of all mankind, its death”.Why so?  Because Marxian socialists forget human nature.  They ignore evil.  They deny the obvious truth of traditional religions:  that humans are “good and bad, decent and indecent”.Equality is not a socialist notion“Equality” is a capitalist notion, and it enters the world fully formed as such.“Equality” is the rallying war cry of the rising capitalist class—the class of manufacturers, professionals and traders—in their battle for social supremacy against their class enemy, the feudal nobility—the socially privileged monarchs and aristocrats who control the vast landed estates.The general notion of “Equality” enters general human consciousness in some of mankind’s most memorable formal declarations:“We hold these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal” [Declaration of Independence , 4 July 1776] Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin in the American Revolution against King George III of Great Britain.“All citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally eligible to all high offices, public positions and employments, according to their ability, and without other distinction than that of their virtues and of their talents." [Declaration of the Rights of Man August 1789] Lafayette, Mirabeau and Jefferson in the French Revolution proclaiming an end to feudalism and abolition of the monarchy.“LIBERTY, EQUALITY, FRATERNITY.  The same words are inscribed on flags which bear the three colours (tricolour) of the nation.” [On the National Guard, 5 December 1790] Maximilien Robespierre.These official proclamations of “equality” are unmistakably bourgeois.  They are shameless attacks on the despised social hierarchies of feudalism.The equalisation of labour is not a socialist operationIn your quotation on the equalisation of labour, Marx is simply saying that the concept of value remains a mystery that can’t be solved theoretically before capitalism solves it practically by implementing it unconsciously behind the backs, so to speak, of the actors in the capitalist market,The mystification arises because the concrete forms of commodities—e.g., table, cloth, coat—are the products of different concrete forms of labour—carpentry, spinning, weaving.  All concrete things are concretely incommensurable, unless you can find something non-concrete that is common to them all.Capitalist society in practice manages to compare them on the market.  Only then can secret of the common commensurability of concrete incommensurables be discerned, and it turns out to be their common “social substance" abstract (not concrete) labour whose equalisation the everyday market establishes as a matter of common practice.That is the only equalisation Marx is talking about here.Consequently your forced attempt to turn Marx’s specific analysis of abstract labour into an axiomatic theory of socialist equality is utterly misplaced.All I can say in your defence is that such a total misapprehension of what Marx is actually doing is a sad example of the deleterious effects that Soviet obfuscation still has on its citizens.Primitive accumulation of capitalI am well aware that it is futile for me to point out to you that the Russian Revolution was a bourgeois revolution, like the English one of the 1640s, the American of the 1760s…, the French of the 1790s…As such, your grandparent’s and your mother’s generations had to endure the painful birth of a capitalist nation—not socialism—as it emerged out of the womb of old feudal society.Old feudal society couldn’t deliver to the nascent capitalist society a mass of unpropertied workers that were seeking employment.  That is a huge social problem because unpropertied workers seeking employment are the pre-condition of capitalist production to take place.Instead, old feudal society offers the nascent capitalist society a mass of propertied peasants, which are the foundation of the old (feudal) mode of production.Capitalism, if it is to succeed on the ashes of old feudalism, has no choice but to dispossess the feudal peasants of their property—to rob them of their livelihood—and to turn them into unpropertied workers readymade for capitalist employment.Never forget that capitalism is necessarily based on the forced dispossession and ruination of the peasant in order to create the propertyless worker.Marx thoroughly studied this terrible process of “primitive accumulation of capital”, and this investigation concludes Capital Vol 1.  It is the conclusion of Volume 1 because the “primitive accumulation of capital” is essential to comprehending in theory how the whole process of capitalist production gets going in practice—out of the womb of its predecessor mode of production.Lenin had read Marx on the “primitive accumulation of capital”, and yet it was Lenin’s denial that determined the fate of the Russian Revolution, and that forced himself to play the ghastly midwife to the gruesome birth of capitalist Russia.To see what we understand by socialism, read our Object and Declaration of Principles. 

 During WWII the Russian Orthodox Church was an allied of Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government, and they asked the Vatican to take the same stand to fight against the evil of Nazism which was going to be defeated by the apostle of god known as Joseph Stalin, in return for their support the church received many concession from the Soviet state.They blessed the red army and the aeroplanes and tanks and many priests went to the war front to fight with the Soviet army

[twc]

The claimI followed up on your reference to Anthony C Sutton’s book The Federal Reserve Conspiracy which claims that the pirate Jean Laffite was “an agent of American banking interests [who] financed the Communist Manifesto”.  I had never come across this claim before.Incidentally, the Collected Works of Marx and Engels don’t mention Jean Lafitte, but they do mention an unrelated banker, “Jacques Laffitte”, the French prime minister who gloated after the July Revolution of 1830—the one immortalised in visual art by Delacroix painting Liberty leading the people—“Now we, the bankers, will govern” [Engels].The Journal of Jean LaffiteThe Sam Houston Library in Liberty, Texas, holds the “Journal of Jean Lafitte”, supposedly written by the pirate in 1845–50, though from internal evidence written later.The Laffite Journal was claimed to have been passed down from the pirate as a “family heirloom”.  The library obtained it indirectly from the pirate’s great grandson, a certain (or perhaps, uncertain) John Laflin.Given that most historians agree that the pirate Jean Laffite was killed and buried at sea in 1823, any account of his European activities in 1845–50 must be considered to be as imaginary as his buried treasure.Suspicion was heightened when it was learned that the presumed great grandson John Laflin had changed his name to “Lafitte” by delayed birth certificate.This invited accusations, fairly or unfairly, over John Laflin’s involvement in the counterfeiting of letters presented as being written by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett.The book Great Forgers and Famous Fakes: The Manuscript Forgers of America and How They Duped the Experts by Charles Hamilton devotes considerable space to exposing John Laflin’s letter forgeries.The upshot is that Wikipedia sums up the consensus that “most historians now believe the Lafitte Journal to be a forgery.”Forgery or HagiographyThis might have been the end of the story had not the Laffite Society of Galveston published an article Who Wrote the Journal of Jean Laffite: The Privateer-Patriot's Own Story by Reginald Wilson https://journals.tdl.org/laffitesc/index.php/laffitesc/article/download/247/230.Wilson gives grounds for identifying the Journal’s author as Jean Laffite’s son, Antoine, who lived with his father on the Galveston commune (1818–20) before his father torched it and turned to piracy.Antoine never saw his father again, for Jean Laffite died an unmourned pirate at sea, three years later.Wilson concludes that Antoine wrote the forgery sometime after 1860 (in his twilight years) adopting his father’s name in an act of filial piety to set the bent family record as straight as he could—with an eye to redeeming his father’s and his family’s reputation in the eyes of his descendants.If so, the Laffite Journal is not a modern forgery concocted by the great grandson.Lafitte’s son Antoine had travelled to Europe and mixed in socialist circles, and so was able to embellish his story with the fantastic claim that his father—though buried at sea a quarter of a century earlier—actually met Marx and Engels in 1848, and bankrolled the Communist Manifesto.Clever CounterfeitOn the other hand, a French article Barataria: the Strange History of Jean Laffite, Pirate by Louis-Jean Calvert https://journals.tdl.org/laffitesc/index.php/laffitesc/article/viewFile/201/184 makes the alternative case that the Lafitte Journal is the modern forgery of John Laflin “in search of acceptance and confirmation of an assumed identity for almost thirty years”.The Journal contains too many checkable errors to have been penned by Jean Laffite himself.What to make of bankrolling of the Communist Manifesto?And so the Lafitte Journal turns out, on generous estimation, to be at best untrustworthy or, considered ungenerously, to be barefaced fiction.  In either case, it merits no great reliance being placed on its substantive claim.Of course, even in the improbable event of the Committee of the Communist League having accepted Lafitte’s generous financial offer to bankroll the Communist Manifesto, it remained obviously unswayed politically by whatever authoritarian views Laffite may or may not have tried to impose.And we know that unfolding events prove that the League was neither compromised nor duped, as claimed, by US banking interests.Perhaps future scholarly work will clarify the dubious matter further.Nevertheless, the incomparable Communist Manifesto continues to utterly transcend the tawdry commercial world of US bankers and the mercenary privateering of adventurer Jean Laffite.

[Bijou Drains]

twc wrote:

The claimI followed up on your reference to Anthony C Sutton’s book The Federal Reserve Conspiracy which claims that the pirate Jean Laffite was “an agent of American banking interests [who] financed the Communist Manifesto”.  I had never come across this claim before.Incidentally, the Collected Works of Marx and Engels don’t mention Jean Lafitte, but they do mention an unrelated banker, “Jacques Laffitte”, the French prime minister who gloated after the July Revolution of 1830—the one immortalised in visual art by Delacroix painting Liberty leading the people—“Now we, the bankers, will govern” [Engels].The Journal of Jean LaffiteThe Sam Houston Library in Liberty, Texas, holds the “Journal of Jean Lafitte”, supposedly written by the pirate in 1845–50, though from internal evidence written later.The Laffite Journal was claimed to have been passed down from the pirate as a “family heirloom”.  The library obtained it indirectly from the pirate’s great grandson, a certain (or perhaps, uncertain) John Laflin.Given that most historians agree that the pirate Jean Laffite was killed and buried at sea in 1823, any account of his European activities in 1845–50 must be considered to be as imaginary as his buried treasure.Suspicion was heightened when it was learned that the presumed great grandson John Laflin had changed his name to “Lafitte” by delayed birth certificate.This invited accusations, fairly or unfairly, over John Laflin’s involvement in the counterfeiting of letters presented as being written by Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Davey Crockett.The book Great Forgers and Famous Fakes: The Manuscript Forgers of America and How They Duped the Experts by Charles Hamilton devotes considerable space to exposing John Laflin’s letter forgeries.The upshot is that Wikipedia sums up the consensus that “most historians now believe the Lafitte Journal to be a forgery.”Forgery or HagiographyThis might have been the end of the story had not the Laffite Society of Galveston published an article Who Wrote the Journal of Jean Laffite: The Privateer-Patriot's Own Story by Reginald Wilson https://journals.tdl.org/laffitesc/index.php/laffitesc/article/download/247/230.Wilson gives grounds for identifying the Journal’s author as Jean Laffite’s son, Antoine, who lived with his father on the Galveston commune (1818–20) before his father torched it and turned to piracy.Antoine never saw his father again, for Jean Laffite died an unmourned pirate at sea, three years later.Wilson concludes that Antoine wrote the forgery sometime after 1860 (in his twilight years) adopting his father’s name in an act of filial piety to set the bent family record as straight as he could—with an eye to redeeming his father’s and his family’s reputation in the eyes of his descendants.If so, the Laffite Journal is not a modern forgery concocted by the great grandson.Lafitte’s son Antoine had travelled to Europe and mixed in socialist circles, and so was able to embellish his story with the fantastic claim that his father—though buried at sea a quarter of a century earlier—actually met Marx and Engels in 1848, and bankrolled the Communist Manifesto.Clever CounterfeitOn the other hand, a French article Barataria: the Strange History of Jean Laffite, Pirate by Louis-Jean Calvert https://journals.tdl.org/laffitesc/index.php/laffitesc/article/viewFile/201/184 makes the alternative case that the Lafitte Journal is the modern forgery of John Laflin “in search of acceptance and confirmation of an assumed identity for almost thirty years”.The Journal contains too many checkable errors to have been penned by Jean Laffite himself.What to make of bankrolling of the Communist Manifesto?And so the Lafitte Journal turns out, on generous estimation, to be at best untrustworthy or, considered ungenerously, to be barefaced fiction.  In either case, it merits no great reliance being placed on its substantive claim.Of course, even in the improbable event of the Committee of the Communist League having accepted Lafitte’s generous financial offer to bankroll the Communist Manifesto, it remained obviously unswayed politically by whatever authoritarian views Laffite may or may not have tried to impose.And we know that unfolding events prove that the League was neither compromised nor duped, as claimed, by US banking interests.Perhaps future scholarly work will clarify the dubious matter further.Nevertheless, the incomparable Communist Manifesto continues to utterly transcend the tawdry commercial world of US bankers and the mercenary privateering of adventurer Jean Laffite.

Bravo

[Anonymous]

I Karl Marx would have been an Economist like Freidman, Galbraith or Samuelson,  they would have given him a Nobel Prize. The world bourgeoisie has created its own myth to confuse the workers and to avoid them for going into the root of the causes of our problems, and one sector of the rich class blame another sector of the rich class, or they blame the problem on one member of their classThe champion of all those new conspiracy theories is Soros,  he is all over the map and in our daily soup, but nobody says that the root of our problems is capitalism but Marx did that

[twc]

The committee of the problematic Nobel Prize for Economics would never award it to Marx:Per Strömberg (Chairman), Professor of Finance. https://ideas.repec.org/e/pst18.html#articles-body Jakob Svensson, Professor of Economics, http://www.jakobsvensson.com/uploads/9/9/1/0/99107788/cv_1page.pdf Tomas Sjöström, Professor of Economics, http://economics.rutgers.edu/component/content/article/86/224-sjoestroem-tomas Peter Gärdenfors, Professor of Cognitive Science, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_GärdenforsPer Krusell, Professor of Economics, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Per_Krusell Torsten Persson (Secretary), Professor of Economics, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torsten_Persson And Marx, of course, would refuse it.

[Author]

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