Quote about terror from Marx

[Sympo]

Found this quote from The Victory of the Counter-revolution in Vienna by Karl Marx. Here is the article from marxists.org:

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 136 November 1848

 

"The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."

 

Is this the young Marx talking? If I have counted right he was about 30 when he wrote this. What does he mean by this? Is he suggesting something in the likes of the Red Terror of the Bolshevisk?

[ALB]

That was Marx the practical revolutionary in the course of the (abortive) German revolution of 1848. Like many others in the middle of the 19th century, he then had his concept of revolution shaped by the French Revolution opf 1789-93. So he would have had in mind the terror against the aristocrats who were planning with the help of outside powers to restore the former regime in France.After the failure of the revolutionary wave of 1848-9 Marx and Engels came to abandon this concept of revolution. In the 1860s Marx got involved instead in encouraging the industrial class struggle through the International Working Men's Association in the belief that this would eventually become political and aim at winning political power even through the ballot box.In his 1895 Introduction to Marx's The Class Struggles in France, a collection of articles Marx had written in 1848-50 about the revolutionary events in France at that time, wrote that he and Marx had been wrong about both the prospects and the nature of revolution they had then held.Here's a few extracts:

Quote:

But we, too, have been shown to have been wrong by history, which has revealed our point of view of that time to have been an illusion. It has done even more: it has not merely destroyed our error of that time; it had also completely transformed the conditions under which the proletariat has to fight. The mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete from every point of view, and this is a point which deserves closer examination on the present occasion.All revolutions up to the present day have resulted in the displacement of one definite class rule by another; all ruling classes up till now have been only minorities as against the ruled mass of the people. A ruling minority was thus overthrown; another minority seized the helm of state and remodeled the state apparatus in accordance with its own interests. This was on every occasion the minority group, able and called to rule by the degree of economic development, and just for that reason, and only for that reason, it happened that the ruled majority either participated in the revolution on the side of the former or else passively acquiesced in it. But if we disregard the concrete content of each occasion, the common form of all these revolutions was that they were minority revolutions. Even where the majority took part, it did so—whether wittingly or not—only in the service of a minority; but because of this, or simply because of the passive, unresisting attitude of the majority, this minority acquired the appearance of being the representative of the whole people.

Quote:

History has proved us, and all who thought like us, wrong. It has made it clear that the state of economic development on the Continent at that time was not, by a long way, ripe for the removal of capitalist production …

Quote:

With this successful utilization of universal suffrage, an entirely new mode of proletarian struggle came into force, and this quickly developed further. It was found that the state institutions, in which the rule of the bourgeoisie is organized, offer still further opportunities for the working class to fight these very state institutions. They took part in elections to individual diets, to municipal councils and to industrial courts; they contested every post against the bourgeoisie in the occupation of which a sufficient part of the proletariat had its say. And so it happened that the bourgeoisie and the government came to be much more afraid of the legal than of the illegal action of the workers' party, of the results of elections than of those of rebellion.For here, too, the conditions of the struggle had essentially changed. Rebellion in the old style, the street fight with barricades, which up to 1848 gave everywhere the final decision, was to a considerable extent obsolete.

Quote:

The time of surprise attacks, of revolutions carried through by small conscious minorities at the head of unconscious masses, is past. Where it is a question of a complete transformation of the social organization, the masses themselves must also be in it, must themselves already have grasped what is at stake, what they are going in for [with body and soul]. The history of the last fifty years has taught us that. But in order that the masses may understand what is to be done, long, persistent work is required, and it is just this work which we are now pursuing, and with a success which drives the enemy to despair.

The whole introduction is worth reading as representing Marx and Engels's considered view of revolution at the end of their political life.Having said that, we are not Marx-worshippers. If in 1848 Marx favoured revolutionary terror against opponents of the minority-led revolution he then envisaged, so what?

[Anonymous]

Sympo wrote:

Found this quote from The Victory of the Counter-revolution in Vienna by Karl Marx. Here is the article from marxists.org:Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 136 November 1848 "The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." Is this the young Marx talking? If I have counted right he was about 30 when he wrote this. What does he mean by this? Is he suggesting something in the likes of the Red Terror of the Bolshevisk?

This  is one of the passages used by the Marxists-Leninists to justify they so called revolutionary war,a s well they used Marx support to certain bourgeois revolutions to justify their nationalists conceptions.There were certain occasion when Marx and Engels had some Blanquist conceptions, and then, they  abandoned all of them. as well the Communist Manifesto shows certain reformists and state capitalist measures, and later on, they were rejected too.I do not think that Marx or Engels will ever support the Bolsheviks, or Vladimir Lenin.  PS Marx and Engels when they were young they also supported liberalism before becoming socialists. When we are young we go through different stages in our life

[Anonymous]

What many peoples do not see including left wingers, is that Marx after the Paris Communes ( he did not call it the first socialist state, it was Lenin )  he came to the conclusion that there was not more need for fighting behind barricades, that the universal suffrage could have been used by the workers in order to take control of the means of production and to establish a socialist society. As we can see  Marx went through different stages on his life

[Anonymous]

Sympo wrote:

Found this quote from The Victory of the Counter-revolution in Vienna by Karl Marx. Here is the article from marxists.org:Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 136 November 1848 "The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror." Is this the young Marx talking? If I have counted right he was about 30 when he wrote this. What does he mean by this? Is he suggesting something in the likes of the Red Terror of the Bolshevisk?

There are many writing of Marx that might surprised many peoples. The same thing happened  with the Letter that he wrote against Simon Bolivar, the so called Bolivarian had a hot potatoes in their hands, and they did not know what to do, their conclusion was to say that he did not anything about the colonies, and the anti-colonial movementWhoever have read Lenin with a critical mind might come to a  different conclusion, there is nothing, or only a few of  Lenin works that can be applied to socialism. He was the real theoretician of Russian Nationalism, and he said that What is to be done ? was only applicable to Russia.Killing of workers did not start with Stalin, it was started by the commissars Lenin and Trotsky, and Marx will never support their point of view, he could have been a heavy critical of the Russian coupThat is one of the problem of reading one, or few passages of Marx works, without reading, or studying his whole of ideas, or without reading without a historical context. That is what the Marxist-Leninist do, they take a phrase of Marx and they turn it into  a biblical citation

[Sympo]

ALB wrote:

"Having said that, we are not Marx-worshippers. If in 1848 Marx favoured revolutionary terror against opponents of the minority-led revolution he then envisaged, so what?"It means that Marx may have supported killing people because of their class backround(and this may involve killing wives and children though this may not be the case) at the time he wrote the Communist Manifesto. I assume he changed his mind later on but was this because he saw it as unnecessary or because he saw it as immoral?Not that I am trying to portray the SPGB or the WSM as a violent organisation or anything(not being sarcastic, honest).

[Anonymous]

Sympo wrote:

ALB wrote:

"Having said that, we are not Marx-worshippers. If in 1848 Marx favoured revolutionary terror against opponents of the minority-led revolution he then envisaged, so what?"It means that Marx may have supported killing people because of their class backround(and this may involve killing wives and children though this may not be the case) at the time he wrote the Communist Manifesto. I assume he changed his mind later on but was this because he saw it as unnecessary or because he saw it as immoral?Not that I am trying to portray the SPGB or the WSM as a violent organisation or anything(not being sarcastic, honest).

 That is not what it means. It means he supported countering violent repression with a  revolutionary counter to it.We must consider that there did not exist a democratic alternative and be mindful of E.P. Thompson's rejoinder to historians viewing history, "from the condescension of posterity".It is peacefully if we can and violently if we must.This is why we must capture the state apparatus to prevent violence being inflicted upon the democratic choices and objectives of the immense majority.

[Anonymous]

Sympo wrote:

ALB wrote:

"Having said that, we are not Marx-worshippers. If in 1848 Marx favoured revolutionary terror against opponents of the minority-led revolution he then envisaged, so what?"It means that Marx may have supported killing people because of their class backround(and this may involve killing wives and children though this may not be the case) at the time he wrote the Communist Manifesto. I assume he changed his mind later on but was this because he saw it as unnecessary or because he saw it as immoral?Not that I am trying to portray the SPGB or the WSM as a violent organisation or anything(not being sarcastic, honest).

If you are looking for the 5th leg of the cat ,you will not  never find it. Before writing or accusing anybody, it  is preferable to check history, the historical context,  or  to look for the evidences.  One citation does not make an universeI do not think you understand the historical context and the meaning  of the article, the ones that  workers were opposing,  were the members of the ruling class, ( aristocrats )  who were repressing women and children,  they were not opposing, or killing  women and children, therefore, you are mistaken. There are two books written by Marx and Engels that  cover those strugglesWhat you do not see is that Marx and Engels on his writing honestly later on,  recognized  that they were wrong, they  made their own self critiques about their past political stands, and the so called Marxist-Leninists did not see that either, and they are still blindMarx also supported several bourgeois revolutions , because he considered that capitalism was more advanced than feudalism, and would produce more proletarian for the future of socialism. There is a critique made by the Socialist Party, we considered to his support was excessive on the part of a socialist. Still many Marxist-Leninist use that passage to justify their narrow nationalismThe Socialist Party and its companion parties did not support WWI, WW2, the Vietnam war, and the Korean war, and others wars of the capitalist class, and in certain occasions their members had to move to others countries to avoid fighting., or taking to jail, whoever opposed the war was considered a tratitor.In both war more than 60 millions of peoples died, and most of them were civilians.The Russian implemented the so called patriotic war, where more than 30 millions Russian died, and we never supported that war, patriotic war within a so called socialist country is an stupidity, and many communist parties supported Stalin and the war, and those that did not support were called reactionaries. We were attacked by both sides. The Soviet distorted Marx completely in  all aspects of what he wroteMillions of human beings around the world  had supported wars, and they have supported the killing of their own class brothers in defense of the so called mother land, and the last case was the war in Kuwait, Iraq and Afghanistan, and still, millions of peoples continue supporting that war. The children from South America who reached the border of Mexico/USA running away from the situation, thousands of peoples rejected them, and some asked the government to kill themThere are presidents  that publicly have called for the killing of human beings in the name of democracy, and the free world, and the killing of children, women and civilian continue being done frequently, and that killing is perpetrated by the ruling class, and you do not mention that situation, .They are using drones to kill civilians, intelligent bombs dropped by stupid airplanes, or stupid pilotsYou do not mention the killing of millions of peoples perpetrated by the rulers, where women and children have been killed, and continue being killed all over the world, and every day there are many civilian killed in Syria.  You do not mention the terrorists attack of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when thousands of peoples were killed with two atomic bombs, and it was a scientific experiments done on human beingsYou do not mention the consequences of the war in Iraq where thousands of children are born with genetics defects due to the dropping of uranium, in Iraq they dropped more bombs than during WWII, and they have killed more than 1.5 millions of peoples, and the killers are considered as heroes. The combination of Uranium used in Iraq is bigger than the ones dropped in Japan, they also exploted mini nukesIn some countries the working class might be forced to use violence because the rulers are going to resist, and  they will not be willing to accept the decision of the workers, workers are not going  to seat and wait to be shot. There is not any immoral, or illegal  war, those are romantic conceptions. When it comes to profits and market the bourgeois do not care anything about morality or legality, and they will their ass with any treaty signed by themI did support the so called revolutionary wars when I was very young,  and I participated in a revolution, and I was placed on a black list, but I did not support the wars of the capitalist empires, and at the present  time, I do not support any type of wars, and I do not vote to elect any member of the ruling class, I have never collaborated to place my own enemies in power, and there are millions of peoples doing that, and probably your are one of them. You do attack Marx, but you do not attack the capitalist class and their criminal wars

[Dave B]

 Works of Frederick Engels 1874The Program of the Blanquist Fugitives from the Paris Commune …In this line, so far as big words are concerned, we know that the Bakounists have reached the limit; but the Blanquists feel that it is their duty to excel them in this. And how do they do this? It is well known that the entire socialist proletariat, from Lisbon to New York and Budapest to Belgrade has assumed the responsibility for the actions of the Paris Commune without hesitation. But that is not enough for the Blanquists. "As for us, we claim our part of the responsibility for the executions of the enemies of the people" (by the Commune), whose names are then enumerated; "we claim our part of the responsibility for those fires, which destroyed the instruments of royal or bourgeois oppression or protected our fighters."In every revolution some follies are inevitably committed, just as they are at any other time, and when quiet is finally restored, and calm reasoning comes, people necessarily conclude: We have done many things which had better been left undone, and we have neglected many things which we should have done, and for this reason things went wrong.But what a lack of judgment it requires to declare the Commune sacred, to proclaim it infallible, to claim that every burnt house, every executed hostage, received their just dues to the dot over the i! Is not that equivalent to saying that during that week in May the people shot just as many opponents as was necessary, and no more, and burnt just those buildings which had to be burnt, and no more? Does not that repeat the saying about the first French Revolution: Every beheaded victim received justice, first those beheaded by order of Robespierre and then Robespierre himself! To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite goodnatured. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/06/26.htm

[twc]

What an excellent piece of materialist political analysis by Engels!Another uncompromising critique of Lenin and the bolsheviks, generations before the event!It follows on from Engels’s Peasant War critique, written in the immediate aftermath of the 1848–49 Revolutions, This article, written in the immediate aftermath of the Paris Commune and the collapse of the First International, correctly nails the anti-materialist rationalisation (Lenin’s State and Revolution) of the Bolsheviks, and their inevitable resort to dictatorship and terror.Despite its political brilliance, its finest line for me is the last sentence in your quote from Engels.“To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite goodnatured.”People should read and re-read that line, and consider…

[Anonymous]

twc wrote:

What an excellent piece of materialist political analysis by Engels!Another uncompromising critique of Lenin and the Bolsheviks, generations before the event!It follows on from Engels’s Peasant War critique, written in the immediate aftermath of the 1848–49 Revolutions, This article, written in the immediate aftermath of the Paris Commune and the collapse of the First International, correctly nails the anti-materialist rationalization (Lenin’s State and Revolution) of the Bolsheviks, and their inevitable resort to dictatorship and terror.Despite its political brilliance, its finest line for me is the last sentence in your quote from Engels.“To such follies are people driven, when they give free rein to the desire to appear formidable, although they are at bottom quite good natured.”People should read and re-read that line, and consider…

As the Socialist Party has said: The dishonest book of Lenin, "The State and the Revolution." Marx and Engels never said that the  Paris Commune was the first Workers' Socialist State, they never supported the concept of a  national socialist state, or any kind of state, on the contrary, they always supported a stateless worldly society, and Marx specially, was influenced by the French anarchists, he is also one of the theoretician of Anarchism. Four of the major works of Lenin used by the study circles of the Leninists parties are a complete distortion of socialism, and Marx point of view. The pamphlet cited does show that Engels also made contribution to the arsenal of theories of socialism. 

[Sympo]

mcolome1 wrote:

"Before writing or accusing anybody, it  is preferable to check history, the historical context,  or  to look for the evidences."I am not accusing you or any SPGB:er of supporting terror."You do not mention the killing of millions of peoples perpetrated by the rulers, where women and children have been killed, and continue being killed all over the world, and every day there are many civilian killed in Syria.  You do not mention the terrorists attack of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when thousands of peoples were killed with two atomic bombs""You do not mention the consequences of the war in Iraq where thousands of children are born with genetics defects due to the dropping of uranium, in Iraq they dropped more bombs than during WWII, and they have killed more than 1.5 millions of peoples, and the killers are considered as heroes."Hey now, I do not think these atrocities like the Iraq war or Hiroshima etc are justifiable!"I have never collaborated to place my own enemies in power, and there are millions of peoples doing that, and probably your are one of them."If you are suggesting that I support pro-capitalist parties you are incorrect. I do not support any leninist or social democratic organisation."You do attack Marx, but you do not attack the capitalist class and their criminal wars"It's a question worth asking about. As someone said on this thread, the SPGB aren't Marx worshippers, Marx' opinion on terror is not really relevant to his economic theories. Perhaps other people will find this thread after reading this quote by Marx.I haven't talked about the war in Syria, Iraq, WW2 etc but this thread isn't about these wars. I do not support any side of these wars as they are all for Capitalism.

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