>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 09/15/00 04:31PM >>>
There is a statement Marx made late in life to a reporter that also helps
to get a grip on the core of marxism. At the end of the interview, the
reporter, probably half joking, asked, "What is?"
After a long pause, Marx answered: "Struggle."
Out of Marx's analysis of capitalism comes a recognition of the
necessity of socialism (in Rosa Luxemburg's framework: socialism
or barbarianism"), but Marx offered no recipes, no blueprints for
the future. Socialism is not a "system" installed the way you install
a new operating system in your computer. It is a field of struggle.
What it is can only be determined in the process of struggle to
overcome capitalism and in continual struggle (with no guarantees
of the outcome) to build socialism concretely. Marxists have
no crystal balls (Mao said that).
(((((((((((((((
CB: A field of struggle, perhaps more like and electro-magnetic field than an
operating system.
However, Marx was not , in the interview answering the question "What is socialism ? "
So, it might be that socialism is "struggle + some foresight". It is well said that
Marx and Engels emphasized no blueprint for socialism. But when one examines their
works , there are quite a few helpful hints, especially negations, such as abolition
of private property.
But even more, since Marx , the world's proletariat has had enormous experience in
building socialism concretely, exactly as Carrol requires. That concrete struggle does
not evaporate in thin air in relation to future , more successful socialism. It is a
wealth of theory , BUILT CONCRETELY IN STRUGGLE, trial and error, that now must guide
our action in building socialism. The history of the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Viet
Nam, Korea , Angola, etc., is a main source of our plan and strategy now.
We would not want to fall into the idea that the movement is everything and the goal
nothing, a la Bernstein.
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