On 6/4/10, Jim Farmelant <farmela...@juno.com> wrote:
>
> On Wed, 2 Jun 2010 16:00:02 -0400 c b <cb31...@gmail.com> writes:
> > I know Hedges is no Nadja's favorite, but this is not a bad one.
>
>
> Well, I don't think that she can ever forgive him for
> having worked for the NY Times in the past.
>
> In general, it's a good piece, but Ralph Dumain
> was correct in pointing out that Hedges's understanding
> of Marx leaves something to be desired, as when
> he wrote:
>
> "It does not mean we have to agree with
> Karl Marx, who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a
> utopian mechanism led to another form of enslavement of the working
> class, but we have to speak in the vocabulary Marx employed."
>
> Marx did accept the legitmacy of violence in class
> struggle, but he certainly did not welcome violence
> as an end in itself. He welcomed the possibility
> of non-violent revolutions, which he thought
> possible in certain countries like the Netherlands.
> He was also not a worshipper of the state as such.
> In fact, he looked forward to the eventual withering
> away of the state.
>
>
>
> Jim Farmelant
> http://independent.academia.edu/JimFarmelant
>
> >
> > Charles
> >
> > ^^^^
CB; Yes, agree Marx did not welcome violence as an end in itself. He
was not a Sadist (smile; wonder what he thought of de Sade ?) .
We can infer from Marx's civilian and poltical active support for the
'48er's in Germany during their revolutionary armed struggle
concerning his views on armed struggle in proletarian revolution.
Engels fought in the war, and the professional soldier and co-editor
of a revolutionary newspaper Joseph Weydemeyer like Marx in Germany
during the struggle. Marx had to leave Germany, but Wedy stayed. Then
when Wedy went into exile in the US, he was sort of Marx and Engels'
Communist agent in America. It was in a letter to Weydemeyer that Marx
claimed to have discovered the revolutionary dictatorship of the
proletariat, a revolutionary form of the state (see below)
Lenin has the best concentrated and thorough compilation of Marx's
views on armed struggle and the state in _The State and Revolution_,
from the Paris Commune, an armed takeover of the French state power
which Marx endorsed even though he thought it would become a folly of
despair to the dictatorship of the of a the proletariat ,to the
whithering away of the state after the active expropriation of th
expropriators and construction of a post capitalist state worldwideweb
of proletarian international production, association of free
producers. No whithering away of the socialist state while there are
still in existence capitalist states. That's basic materialism, even
though vulgar materialism.
Engels views on force, armed struggle and the state are Marx's views,
efforts to differentiate the two notwithstanding. Engels' _The Origin
of the Family, Private Property and the State_ Engels called , I
think, something of the fullfillment of a joint project in ethnology
and anthropology that he and Marx undertook late in Marx's life.
International publishes a book compiling some of Marx's ethnological
notebooks, I think there is a larger collection.
The sense in which Marx was not a "worshipper" of the state can be
found in his critique of Hegel's state worship ('the reality of the
ethical idea', 'the image and reality of reason',) He had a draft
essay on that critique ( it's beginning is his famous statement on
religion, opium of the people and all that). But perhaps Engels'
phrase criticizing Hegel's state "worship" is the most cogent.
Summing up his historical analysis, Engels says:
“The state is, therefore, by no means a power forced on society from
without; just as little is it 'the reality of the ethical idea', 'the
image and reality of reason', as Hegel maintains. Rather, it is a
product of society at a certain stage of development; it is the
admission that this society has become entangled in an insoluble
contradiction with itself, that it has split into irreconcilable
antagonisms which it is powerless to dispel. But in order that these
antagonisms, these classes with conflicting economic interests, might
not consume themselves and society in fruitless struggle, it became
necessary to have a power, seemingly standing above society, that
would alleviate the conflict and keep it within the bounds of 'order';
and this power, arisen out of society but placing itself above it, and
alienating itself more and more from it, is the state." (Pp.177-78,
sixth edition)[1]
http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1917/staterev/ch01.htm#s1
There's no doubt that Engels represent's Marx's view in the above.
Here's a discussion of this article on PEN-L
> Hope in this age of bankrupt capitalism will come with the return of the
> language of class conflict. It does not mean we have to agree with Karl Marx,
> who advocated violence and whose worship of the state as a utopian mechanism
> led to another form of enslavement of the working class, but we have to speak
> in the vocabulary Marx employed. <
what? Marx didn't say any of this.
^^^^^
CB: Well, he didn't say exactly that, but lets not get to "utopian"
about Chollie. It's pretty clear that he thought quite a bit of armed
struggle would be necessary for successful revolution. He certainly
advocated use of force in self-defense. He was explicit about
supporting the North's use of violence in the US Civil War.
Marx said: "Force ( which is to say violence - CB) is the midwife of
every old society pregnant with a new one. It
is itself an economic power. "
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch31.htm
Obviously, he didn't think of the state as a "Utopian" mechanism, but
he advocated a socialist state in the transitional period between
capitalism and communism.
In 1907, Mehring, in the magazine Neue Zeit[4] (Vol.XXV, 2, p.164),
published extracts from Marx's letter to Weydemeyer dated March 5,
1852. This letter, among other things, contains the following
remarkable observation:
"And now as to myself, no credit is due to me for discovering the
existence of classes in modern society or the struggle between them.
Long before me bourgeois historians had described the historical
development of this class struggle and bourgeois economists, the
economic anatomy of classes. What I did that was new was to prove: (1)
that the existence of classes is only bound up with the particular,
historical phases in the development of production (historische
Entwicklungsphasen der Produktion), (2) that the class struggle
necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat, (3) that
this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the
abolition of all classes and to a classless society."[5
> >
> >
> > This Country Needs a Few Good Communists
> >
> > Posted on May 31, 2010
> >
> > AP / Elizabeth Dalziel
> >
> > By Chris Hedges
> > The witch hunts against communists in the United States were used
> > to
> > silence socialists, anarchists, pacifists and all those who defied
> > the
> > abuses of capitalism. .
> >
> > full:
> >
> http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/this_country_needs_a_few_good_communi
> sts_20100531/
> >
> >
> >
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