This is a shortened version of an article that appeared in the Socialist Standard, March 1933, which was the anniversary of Karl Marx’s death fifty years previously.
‘Fifty years ago, on March 14th, 1883, Karl Marx died in London, after a lifetime devoted to the workers' cause. The persecutions and privations he had endured in that cause hastened his death. When he died, much of the work he had planned still remained to be done, but, nevertheless, he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had given the working class movement all over the world an impulse and direction. His significance as a thinker and as a revolutionary grows more important each year, and although critics succeed one another in an unending line with “refutations" of his theories, those theories still stand awaiting disproof. History as it unfolds brings new illustrations of the truth of Marx*s discoveries and of the inadequacy of opposing doctrines.
The Communist Manifesto
The manifesto was written and issued by February, 1848, shortly before the outbreak of the 1848 revolution. This manifesto is what we now know as the Communist Manifesto. In writing it, Marx used a draft prepared by Engels before the Congress met, but to it he added what Engels himself has described as “the fundamental proposition which forms its nucleus.” Engels goes on to state that proposition as follows:—
That in every historical epoch, the prevailing mode of economic production and exchange, and the social organisation necessarily following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the dissolution of primitive tribal society, holding land in common ownership) has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes; that the history of these class struggles forms a series of evolution in which, nowadays, a stage has been reached where the exploited and oppressed class—the proletariat—cannot attain its emancipation from the sway of the exploiting and ruling class—the bourgeoisie—without, at the same time, and once and for all emancipating society at large from all exploitation oppression, class-distinctions and class-struggles. (Preface to Communist Manifesto. Preface written by F. Engels, 1888.)
With the publication of the Manifesto a new stage is reached in the history of the working-class movement. The Manifesto may not be a perfect piece of work, from the point of view of the present day. Had Marx been called upon to write it in 1878 instead of 1848 certain things in it would no doubt have been different. Even so it contains in embryo most of Marx’s later ideas and was a significant advance on anything of the kind that had preceded it. It took Communistic thought out of the world of Utopias and set it up on a basis of reality.
The Marxian Theories
Marx’s importance in the history of the Labour movement comes from his having discovered first the basic law governing the development of society, and second the essential economic principles underlying production in a particular form of society, the capitalistic form. The first of these is embodied in the “Materialist Conception of History.” which is outlined above in the words of Engels. The corner-stone of the second is Marx’s theory of value, the only economic theory that has succeeded in giving an adequate explanation of the sources of profit in capitalistic production. Both of these theories have been attacked, but it is safe to say that at no time has their validity been more apparent than to-day. A whole school of economic historians has arisen during the last fifty years, re-writing history from the viewpoint provided for them by Marx, although few of them are honest enough to acknowledge his influence. For the workers the importance of the Materialist Conception of History lies in its revelation of the class struggle as the mechanism through the operation of which social changes are produced. Without the guiding principle of the class struggle working-class thought must inevitably flounder about in a morass of reformism. Until the identity of interests of all workers everywhere, as members of the same class, was made apparent by Marx, there was no solid basis on which an international working-class movement could be established. Without such a movement capitalism cannot be overthrown.
Marx’s theory of value made clear the exploitation of the worker, gave it scientific proof and demonstrated its inevitability under capitalism. Here was the final blow to all theories of social reform. Once it was shown that the preventable evils from which the workers suffer are the result of their being numbers of an exploited class in society it followed that only by terminating their exploitation could those evils be abolished. Revolutionary Socialism was born.
The S.P.G.B. and Marx
It is to preach this that the S.P.G.B. exists. In putting itself forward as the only party worthy of the support of the workers, the S.P.G.B. does so as a Marxist organisation. What do we mean when we describe ourselves as a party of Marxists? In the first place, it does not mean that we claim infallibility for Marx, or accept all he wrote as dogma and true just because he wrote it. But we do claim that Marx, in all his main ideas, was correct and provided explanations of social problems and guidance in the solution of those problems. To the extent that these ideas pass the test of modern experience—and we contend that, fundamentally, they do satisfy such a test —we subscribe to them, but we do so in no blind spirit of hero worship. We appreciate that Marx, like lesser men, was subject to the environment in which he found himself. The body of his thought did not emerge fully formed at the beginning of his career, it developed and grew each year as his researches and experience increased. Inevitably, until Marx had completed his economic studies, his thought was not rounded off, and certain of his earlier ideas are not altogether consistent with those of his mature years. Engels referred to this in his introduction to “Wage Labour and Capital," Engels wrote: —
All his (Marx’s} writings which appeared before the publication of the first part of. his “Critique of Political Economy” differ in some points from those published after 1859, contain expressions and even entire sentences, which from the point of view of his later writings appear rather ambiguous and even untrue.
In other words, where there are contradictions —and they are relatively few—in Marx's teachings it is on the later statement that he must be judged. The particular conditions of his times, the undeveloped nature of capitalism and the struggles to overthrow the relics of the feudal restrictions on capitalist industry, made him an advocate at certain periods of courses of action which, in his later years, he disavowed and which, in any event, are not applicable to modern conditions. For example, Marx’s (and Engels’) ideas on the use of armed force to achieve revolutionary objectives underwent a radical change during his lifetime, and the reasons that led Marx, in 1848, to advocate war with Russia, and later to subscribe to a political programme of immediate demands, including such things as the eight-hour day, are no longer operative: Marx’s example cannot be pleaded in defence of the support given to the war of 1914-18 by the various Labour Parties of the belligerent countries or in justification of reformism. Experience has shown that a programme of immediate demands cannot be used to build up a socialist organisation. In practice immediate demands have soon brought confusion and destroyed the Socialist objective of the parties which adopted them.
Marx and Engels also underestimated capitalism's strength and ability to adjust itself to the demands made upon it. They both thought in the ’fifties that capitalism could not survive its industrial crisis and that its end was imminent.
We dare to mention the shortcomings of Marx even in a commemorative article just because he was a genius. His reputation is big enough to bear the truth. Marx, like Cromwell, would have insisted on being painted “wart and all.’’ Only mediocrity has to be protected from being judged on account of its mistakes. It was Marx himself who said: “Ignorance never helped nor did anybody any good," and ignorance of the development of Marx’s thought can only lead to difficulties in understanding his final ideas. An understanding of these ideas provides a sure and complete key to all modern social and political problems. The S.P.G.B. aims in its propaganda to provide that understanding.’
B.S.
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