the difference between Marxism and original communist theory/ideology

[ALB]

Dave B wrote:

Karl and Fred had been non democratic Marxists

I don't think that's fair. While in 1848-9 they did subscribe to the idea of a minority-led revolution (which they soon abandoned) the aim was to establish political democracy, not for the minority to hold on to power as Blanqui (and later Lenin) advocated.In fact, prior to then and again in 1848 Marx was the editor of a bourgeois-democratic paper in accordance with his (mistaken) belief, as expressed at the end of the Communist Manifesto, that "the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution"

[LBird]

I found this article about Marx, Engels and democracy very informative:http://www.academia.edu/2601794/Marx_Engels_and_the_Democratic_Communist_Tradition

[ALB]

Easier to access it here (I think).Not read it yet (it's 46 pages). Looks interesting.

[Dave B]

I think as is often with this kind of thing the most interesting stuff after the waffle is at the end although it is worth a read for some of the quotes. The idea of 1845 that somehow or another “democracy” was automatically synonymous with communism. Eg Works of Frederick Engels 1845The Festival of Nations in London(To celebrate the Establishment of the French Republic, Sep 22, 1792)[1]  Democracy nowadays is communism. Any other democracy can only still, exist in the heads of theoretical visionaries who are not concerned with real events, in whose view it is not the men and the circumstances that develop the principles but the principles develop of themselves. Democracy has become the proletarian principle, the principle of the masses. The masses may be more or less clear about this, the only correct meaning of democracy, but all have at least an obscure feeling that social equality of rights is implicit in democracy. The democratic masses can be safely included in any calculation of the strength of the communist forces. And if the proletarian parties of the different nations unite they will be quite right to inscribe the word “Democracy” on their banners, since, except for those who do not count, all European democrats in 1846 are more or less Communists at heart. http://marxists.anu.edu.au/archive/marx/works/1845/12/01.htm Was not exactly the same, I think, as the one in 1894 letter to Turati, which became seminal in the Menshevik-bolshevik debate. As many of the letters were they were an excuse for a to be published article.   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894/letters/94_01_26.htm  Which I think flowed from Karls more emphasised stagiest position of 1874. Schoolboy stupidity! A radical social revolution depends on certain definite historical conditions of economic development as its precondition. It is also only possible where with capitalist production the industrial proletariat occupies at least an important position among the mass of the people. And if it is to have any chance of victory, it must be able to do immediately as much for the peasants as the French bourgeoisie, mutatis mutandis, did in its revolution for the French peasants of that time. A fine idea, that the rule of labour involves the subjugation of land labour! But here Mr Bakunin's innermost thoughts emerge. He understands absolutely nothing about the social revolution, only its political phrases. Its economic conditions do not exist for him. As all hitherto existing economic forms, developed or undeveloped, involve the enslavement of the worker (whether in the form of wage-labourer, peasant etc.), he believes that a radical revolution is possible in all such forms alike. Still more! He wants the European social revolution, premised on the economic basis of capitalist production, to take place at the level of the Russian or Slavic agricultural and pastoral peoples, not to surpass this level […] The will, and not the economic conditions, is the foundation of his social revolution. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1874/04/bakunin-notes.htm that is supposed to be a bit of a; Discuss! Kind of post.

[ALB]

Read it now. It's more about acquitting Babeuf, who was a leading figure in an insurrection in 1795 to restore the constitution of 1793 in France, than Marx  of the charge of standing for the rule of a vanguard party. The author takes it for granted Marx (or rather Marx-and-Engels) was not guilty of this. In fact she relies as much on Engels as on Marx.

[ALB]

Dave B wrote:

The idea of 1845 that somehow or another “democracy” was automatically synonymous with communism.

Here's Marx expressing the sane idea in an article in the New York Daily Tribune in1852:

Quote:

We now come to the Chartists, the politically active portion of the British working class. The six points of the Charter which they contend for contain nothing but the demand of Universal Suffrage, and of the conditions without which Universal Suffrage would be illusory for the working class; such as the ballot, payment of members, annual general elections. But Universal Suffrage a is the equivalent for political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population, where, in a long, though underground civil war, it has gained a clear consciousness of its position as a class, and where even the rural districts know no longer any peasants, but only landlords, industrial capitalists (farmers) and hired laborers. The carrying of Universal Suffrage in England would, therefore, be a far more socialistic measure than anything which has been honored with that name on the Continent.Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class.

If only …

[LBird]

ALB wrote:

Here's Marx expressing the sane idea in an article in the New York Daily Tribune in1852:

Quote:

….Its inevitable result, here, is the political supremacy of the working class.

If only …

It's certainly never going to become 'inevitable' either, whilst supposed 'socialists/communists/Marxists' tell the working class that only an elite can determine 'truth/knowledge/science/reality/objectivity/etc.' for the workers, rather than these things only being able to be determined by workers themselves, through their own democratic social theory and practice.Surely there can't be anything more representative of 'political supremacy' than being able to determine what's 'objective' for those with power?The 'materialist' road leads 'inevitably' to the 'political supremacy' of an elite. That's why Lenin took this road.The problem can be summed up as "What has the power to determine? 'Reality itself' or 'The direct producers who produce their reality'?"Whilst those influenced by the misunderstandings of Engels hold sway, we'll remain with ALB's 'If only …'.

[Dave B]

 this is a bit more modern i think? Frederick Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the StateChapter IX: Barbarism and Civilization  …………And lastly the possessing class rules directly by means of universal suffrage. As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain politically the tall of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing. But in the measure in which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same measure it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.  The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong – into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm

[LBird]

Engels wrote:

The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong – into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax.

As long as we add to Engels' 'material' list of 'the spinning wheel and the bronze ax' ('matter', touchable stuff), also ruling class ideas produced by bourgeois science, like 'the ether, matter, Piltdown Man, atoms, Butter is good for you, Butter is bad for you, eugenics', and a continuing list of 'Truths' claimed to be 'Objective', which turn out to be changeable products, socio-historical 'truths', that humans have produced.Our 'museum of antiques' will include 'Eternal Truth, produced by an Expert Elite'.Our 'truth' will be openly proclaimed as 'our social product', which we can thus clearly 'change'.

[Anonymous]

Dave B wrote:

 this is a bit more modern i think? Frederick Engels, Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the StateChapter IX: Barbarism and Civilization  …………And lastly the possessing class rules directly by means of universal suffrage. As long as the oppressed class – in our case, therefore, the proletariat – is not yet ripe for its self-liberation, so long will it, in its majority, recognize the existing order of society as the only possible one and remain politically the tall of the capitalist class, its extreme left wing. But in the measure in which it matures towards its self-emancipation, in the same measure it constitutes itself as its own party and votes for its own representatives, not those of the capitalists. Universal suffrage is thus the gauge of the maturity of the working class. It cannot and never will be anything more in the modern state; but that is enough. On the day when the thermometer of universal suffrage shows boiling-point among the workers, they as well as the capitalists will know where they stand.  The state, therefore, has not existed from all eternity. There have been societies which have managed without it, which had no notion of the state or state power. At a definite stage of economic development, which necessarily involved the cleavage of society into classes, the state became a necessity because of this cleavage. We are now rapidly approaching a stage in the development of production at which the existence of these classes has not only ceased to be a necessity, but becomes a positive hindrance to production. They will fall as inevitably as they once arose. The state inevitably falls with them. The society which organizes production anew on the basis of free and equal association of the producers will put the whole state machinery where it will then belong – into the museum of antiquities, next to the spinning wheel and the bronze ax. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch09.htm

The concept of Barbarism used by Engels and copied from Lewis Morgan has been rejected  by the Historian and Anthropologist Francis Jennings, on his book named as:" The Founders of the Americas." . Personally I believe that Jennings was a much better Anthropologist than EngelsThe  concept of Barbarism  was used by the European world in order to denigrate  others peoples, and also Jennings  rejected the concept of civilizations, ( plural )  he used the word Civilization ( one single civilization )Engels copied several conceptions from Lewis that were incorrect including the idea that women had a privilege social stand in all societies, , that situation only took place within the Iroquois, Lenin read his book and he twisted completely on his State and the Revolution, and despite having read that book he justify the existence of the state .

[Anonymous]

LBird wrote:

mcolome1 wrote:

Therefore, socialism is not an ideology. Marx defined ideology as a distortion of reality.

No, he didn't.Marx actually argued that we create reality, according to our social theory and practice.It was Engels who didn't understand this philosophical approach of Marx's, and built a 'Marxism' of 'Materialism'. When the French 'Marxists' followed this viewpoint, and produced a matching politics, Marx wasn't impressed.

mcolome1 wrote:

I think you have a fixed obsession with Engels, He made several mistakes but he made contributions to socialism

'Materialists', like you, are the ones with the 'fixed obsession with Engels'.He made contributions, but he also made a profound philosophical error, and wrote contradictory things in his texts, some agreeing with Marx, but some undoing Marx's work.Engels in effect returned to 'mechanical materialism', which looks to the fixity of matter as 'Truth', rather than the dynamic social production of our object, which thus has a history. 'Truth' is a socio-historical product, which varies with societies.'Materialists' reject this philosophy and ideology, of social production. That is, they reject Marx.

And you sounds like a Marxist-Humanist. You like to accuse everybody  without knowing the person, or knowing his/her background. Step down from your high horse

[Anonymous]

The  only conception that Marx took from the Utopian socialists was the labour voucher, and he should not have done that, because it is wrong, and the dictatorship of the proletariat was wrong too.Engels was not the only one who made mistakes, Marx did it too. The only one that does not make any mistake is the god of the Bible according to the believers

[ALB]

Bought this as a second-hand pamphlet at the SP's Summer School in Birmingham last weekend:https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-iroquois-franklin-rosemontIt's based on Marx's Enthnological Notebooks of 1881 and throws some light on Marx's attitude to LH Morgan which Engels used as the basis of his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I didn't know that Darwin mentioned Morgan too (for a study of beavers).

[LBird]

mcolome1 wrote:

Engels was not the only one who made mistakes, Marx did it too. The only one that does not make any mistake is the god of the Bible according to the believers

But according the 'materialists', 'matter' does not make any mistake, and so seems to be a 'god' for them.When Engels, Marx and us make mistakes, we can say they/we were wrong, and change what we said.But, again according to the 'materialists', once their 'science' has made a 'discovery', it is 'True Forever'.The 'materialists' are compelled to be elitists (just like the 'materialist' Lenin), because they won't allow workers to decide what their 'truth' is. The 'materialists' assert only an elite can 'know Truth', and that workers are either too stupid to understand the methods of 'materialism' (and so can't 'do science'), or are too ready to follow any old nonsense that they think is 'science' (and so will destroy 'real science').Whatever the basis of their elite contempt for workers' abilities to develop themselves, the 'materialists' reserve the right and power to themselves to tell workers what 'science' is, and how it should be conducted.

[Anonymous]

ALB wrote:

Bought this as a second-hand pamphlet at the SP's Summer School in Birmingham last weekend:https://libcom.org/library/karl-marx-iroquois-franklin-rosemontIt's based on Marx's Enthnological Notebooks of 1881 and throws some light on Marx's attitude to LH Morgan which Engels used as the basis of his Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. I didn't know that Darwin mentioned Morgan too (for a study of beavers).[/quotehttp://www.kevin-anderson.com/wp-content/uploads/docs/anderson-article-uncovering-marx.pdftheanarchistlibrary.org/library/franklin-rosemont-karl-marx-and-the-iroquois.a4.pdfMarx and the Iroquies https://books.google.com/books?id=F8Cfc4lcIc0C&pg=PA12&lpg=PA12&dq=marx+ethnological+books,+raya+dunayevskaya&source=bl&ots=LHHN99T_WC&sig=sPgdXP3tb5Kj91lVk1V4OZwUSy4&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjBj8CRppzOAhUDzGMKHYvcAHIQ6AEIUjAI#v=onepage&q=marx%20ethnological%20books%2C%20raya%20dunayevskaya&f=falseT

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