01.27.08
A marxism class??? Do Marxists ever study their history?
Louis Proyect at The Unrepentant Marxist has an Introduction to Marxism class. Is there any way to rescue Marx from his history?
The current Marxist left has a severe credibility problem. How can anyone familiar with the history of the Russian revolution still speak of ‘straight’ Leninism? It is not reactionary to say so.
Many would consider the status of Marxism terminal, but the remarkable fact is that it is not true, and we have but to look at the last generation of neoliberalism to see that Marx’s insights are remarkably confirmed by events, even as his ‘standard predictions’ have mostly proven false (and were exposed almost immediately). How can we rescue any of that from the oblivion both the left and the right have created for Marx? The opaqueness of Marxist-leftist ‘ideologies’ actually blinds us to the direct significance of Marx’s original insights. I say ‘original’, but it is hard to say just what those insights are, as they come wrapped in a complex historical sequence that has the legacy of ‘historical’ and ‘dialectical’ materialism dragging the whole game into a kind of jargon hypnosis. Perhaps it is the moment of the 1840′s, when the socialist wave had a kind of freshness to it. What came later was less secure in its foundations. Das Kapital has a searing brilliance, but a close look shows the failure of Marx’s project for that book.
Perhaps, in one way, it doesn’t matter: the book tokens the essence of the problem with capitalism. But it’s actual analyses are not so secure.
Marx’s theories, over and above his direct insights into the politics of capitalism, are all failures, with much Engels mixed into the confusion. Historical materialism as a theory doesn’t work. Dialectical materialism is a species of confused post-Hegelianism that is third-rate, at best, a concoction of Engels, mostly. So why perpetuate all this into another generation? A fresh recasting of both theory and practice is needed, along with an emphasis on reading the history of the whole game. It was noted early on, by many, that the legacy of Hegel had confused everyone.
It is worth remembering the work of the Kantian ethical socialists, who diagnosed Marxist confusions almost at once. All these people simply disappeared after the Third Internationale.
Who wouldn’t be bitter at the Leninist legacy, as an entire generation of leftists were simply liquidated, as the Stalins came to the fore? Those who speak of Lenin without awareness of the facts of the case simply nauseate many with leftist aspirations. They have nowhere to turn.
The question of Leninism with these fringe leftist remnants (who nonetheless have the power to dominate discussion, and cripple a new generation of thought) leaves one to wonder. Have any of these people actually read a history of the period of Lenin? It is not a picture that can inspire confidence. It is a derailment of the great promise of socialist thought at this appeared in the wake of the French Revolution. Marx is said to have abducted all of this to a higher level of analysis and efficacy, but Marx is as problematical as those early socialists. The Russian revolution shows bad theory producing confused analysis and behavior, at which point Lenin simply seized the whole movement, and with great violence and ethical indifference, recast the great legacy in a form that still dominates thinking, but which is a shoddy horror, to a close look.
Again, it is important to ask: do Marxists ever read the history of their movement? I suspect the majority never examine the history, outside of canned accounts.
How could anyone who has actually done the reading still invest it with such significance. Consider Orlando Figes’ history of the Russian revolution. You have the whole thing, whatever its biases, out in the open.
You know, consider the tortures adopted by the Cheka, endorsed by Lenin, in the Civil War. It makes grim reading.
Why would anyone so fourth rate and sadistic as Lenin be anyone’s icon at this point?
Meanwhile we need some kind of a left-something. Something intelligent that works, informed, non-fanatic, non-propagandistic, and practical. It seems to much to hope for.