Marxism
Marxism
Marxism as the ideology of a ruling party
Marxism in the noncommunist world
This article deals with the origins and development of the political doctrine of Karl Marx. Marxism is also discussed in Economic thought, article On Socialist Thought; Marxist sociology; Socialism;and in the biography of Marx. Contemporary political and economic aspects are discussed in Communism; Communism, Economic organization of. Also related are Planning, Economic,article on Eastern europe; Workers. The biographies of Bernstein; Engels; Fanon; Kautsky; Lange; Lenin; Lukacs; Luxemburg; Man; Mills; Ossowski;and Trotskydescribe different intellectual developments after Marx. For the biographies of other socialist thinkers, see under Socialism.
Like other schools of socialism that arose in the early nineteenth century, Marxism was a response to the economic and social hardships accompanying the growth of Western industrial capitalism. If in recent decades it has attracted most of its adherents in countries hardly touched by industrial capitalism, this is the result of a tortuous ideologicalhistory.
The intellectual heritage from which Marxism drew its insights, attitudes, and concepts is a syn-thesis of many ideological currents of the early and middle nineteenth century. They include the basic assumptions of the democratic faith and the slogans of the French Revolution; indeed, Marxism asserts that this revolution was betrayed by the very class which made it and will only be fulfilled by the proletariat through socialism. Hence, Marxism also embraces the syndrome of attitudes associated with workers’ protest movements and socialism. Further, Marxism embodies the empiricism or “materialism” of Bacon, Hobbes, and Helvetius. From Rousseau and the romantics it has taken a strongly ambivalent attitude toward past and present institutions, together with a strong commitment to historicism and its Hegelian form—dialectics. Finally, this mixture is seasoned with the anthropocentrism of Feuerbach, the economic doctrines of Smith and Ricardo, and the class-war theories of Michelet and other historians of the French Revolution.
As a syndrome of attitudes, Marxism might be described as a synthesis of radicalism, optimism, and a commitment to science: it is radical in criticizing contemporary social institutions and practices as stupid and inhuman; it is optimistic in expecting, eventually, the creation of a “good society” worthy of man’s highest potentials; it is committed to science not only because it wishes to analyze society but also because it is convinced that the scientific investigation of the social forces active in the contemporary world will confirm both its radicalism and its optimism.
Doctrine
Marxism is a dialectical theory of human progress. It regards history as the development of man’s effort to master the forces of nature and, hence, of
production (“economic interpretation of history”). Since all production is carried out within social organization, history is the succession of changes in socialsystems, the development of human relations geared to productive activity (“modes of production”), in which the economic system forms the “base” and all other relationships, institutions, activities, and idea systems are “superstructural.”
History is progress because man’s ability to produce, his “forces of production,” continually increase. It is regression because in perfecting the forcesof production man creates a more and more complex and oppressive social organization, seemingly beyond human control (the “production relations”), the central feature of which is the division of society into classes. Classes are defined by their relations to the essential means of production: the ruling class is that group of men who own the means of production; those who are propertyless are forced to function as the laboring class. Like Rousseau, Marx was profoundly interested in exploring the inequalities of men because he shared his belief that there can be no democracy as long as there are inequality and special interests.
Progress, thus, is a mixed blessing. Nor is it unilinear, for in the history of man different elements of the complicated social system continually become dysfunctional to each other. In particular, the production relations, originally in tune with a given state of the forces of production, lag behind the latter and come to retard their further development. From a promoter of progress the ruling class turns into a useless parasite. But when the old production relations have turned into a dead shell, mankind assures the march of progress by remaking the social system in revolutionary violence, giving leadership to the class wielding the most advanced means of production. According to the Marxist scheme of history, mankind has gone through three or four major modes of production since an initial golden age of primitive communism: ancient slave society, feudalism, and capitalism (to which Marx added, in some of his works, Asiatic society as a distinct mode of production).
Capitalism, the last form of society torn by a class struggle, represents the peak of human development so far. On the one hand, it has created and amassed unprecedented wealth, which, if used rationally, could assure the material well-being of all mankind. Yet, by virtue of its own laws of operation, capitalism cannot utilize its means of production rationally but must match the accumulation of capital with the accumulation of misery and chaos. Again, while it has promoted constitutional government and the rights of man, the formal rights and equalities of liberal regimes are vitiated by actual inequalities and ultimate dehumanization: formally free, man has been converted into a commodity, whose labor power, talents, and personality are for sale on the free market. The resolution of these contradictions will be produced by capitalism itself. Its own economic laws not only produce chaos and crisis but also narrow the social basis of capitalism by casting the mass of the population into the proletariat. At a crisis point the exploited will rise in revolution, expropriate the ruling class, replace commodity production with an economy based on national planning, and abolish all class divisions in society.
Supporting the optimistic prognosis of revolutionary Marxism is the image of the proletariat as the “chosen people,” who, because of their place in society, their state of organization, and their spontaneous grasp of reality (“class consciousness”) can be expected to rise above all narrow interests, loyalties, and ideologies and liberate mankind for-ever from the curse of property and class.
Development
Marxist doctrine was spelled out concisely in the Communist Manifesto. This pamphlet was written shortly before the outbreak of the 1848 revolution, which Marx and Engels were confident would lead to the socialist revolution of the proletariat. The failure of 1848 forced them to explain what had prevented this act of deliverance. In subsequent political commentaries, they emphasized complicating factors left out of the more abstract analysis of capitalism: the role of precapitalist classes in European politics, especially the petty bourgeoisie; the baneful role of demoralized workers (Lumpenproletariat)• the role of the state as an independent political force; and the role of nations. Many ideas contained in these political writings were never fully integrated with general Marxist theory. Indeed, Marx’s major work on the capitalist system remained a fragment; and he died before he had time to give a systematic presentation of such a central concept as social class.
Another task made necessary by the failure of 1848 was to elaborate a political strategy for the proletarian movement. Here Marxism came to emphasize the differences between long-range and short-range objectives. Socialism was defined as the maximal goal, while the minimal goal was the liberation of capitalism from feudal and absolutist residues of a political, economic, or social nature. A more intermediate goal—the dictatorship of the proletariat—received scant mention in Marx’s writings.
Problems of political strategy became more important because, after inauspicious beginnings, Marxist doctrine was in time accepted as the party ideology of the European labor movement. There is irony in this merger because the workers’ movement which finally accepted Marxist ideology was in many ways different from the proletariat as Marx and Engels had described and idealized it in 1847-1848. It tended toward reformism, had faith in constitutional democracy, and, as the first mass party of modern history, became thoroughly bureaucratized. Ulam (1960) cogently argues that Marxism at that time was no longer a suitable ideology for the European labor movement. Hence, its adoption raises puzzling questions which cannot be pursued here.
Suitable or not, the merger of the ideology with the movement was a turning point because, with it, Marxism became a formal ideology, a guide to thought and action, a holy writ and catechism. Henceforth, it tended toward doctrinal rigidity. The growing discrepancy between revolutionary theories and actual party policies lent Marxism a note of hypocrisy, while a widening gap between assumptions and reality had the effect of ideological blinders on those who wanted to use Marxism as a tool for comprehension. Moreover, once Marxism was accepted as party doctrine, its adherents, beginning with Engels, extended the doctrine into areas of inquiry to which Marx himself had not applied it. Marx had thought to encompass with his theory contemporary society and all of human history. Engels sought to integrate Darwinian theory and all natural science with Marxism and to raise Marxist theories to the level of a universal philosophy. For Marx the ultimate determinant of the course of history was man and his needs, but for Engels it came to be matter and its motion. Yet, it was the ideas of Engels which set the tone for orthodox Marxism of both the social democratic and communist persuasions. The sociopsychological dynamics behind both this extension of the doctrine and its transformation into a holy writ still need to be explored.
Conflicting interpretations
As soon as Marxism was accepted as the doctrine of the European labor movement, it became a matter of controversy among its followers, partly because the work of Marx and Engels had remained unfinished in many details, but even more because of social changes that had occurred. The ensuing debates dealt with issues of strategy, focusing on the problem of maturity, i.e., the task of defining the point at which a society might be ripe for the proletarian revolution. Engels alluded to the problem by wondering about the paradox that the proletarian revolution might be impossible as long as it was necessary and unnecessary once it became feasible. Problems of organization and tactics also provided material for controversies. Discussions of these and many related issues are still going on within Marxism, even though the same questions are asked in changing circumstances.
Of the controversies raging before World War I, the bitterest was unrelated to strategy or organization. It arose instead out of the growing unrealism of Marxist doctrine. The spread of economic prosperity and constitutional government belied Marxist prognoses about the intensification of crises and misery; and the revolutionary slogans of the Communist Manifesto sounded incongruous when uttered by the moderate leaders of the Second International.
To resolve the discrepancy, the “revisionists” proposed a thoroughgoing change of Marxist doctrines so as to make them reflect current conditions, modern scientific insights, and social democratic aims and policies. Revisionism came close to being a repudiation of Marxist ideas; and it can be regarded as the first in a long series of steps away from Marx made by democratic socialists since the turn of the century. Their antagonists in the Second International insistently upheld the letter of Marxist doctrines, identifying loyalty to the writ of Marx with loyalty to the workers’ movement. The method of bridging the gap between theory and reality was by denying its existence, meanwhile reinterpreting Marx’s revolutionary theories so as to make them yield reformist counsel. For most Marxists committed to democratic socialism, this was an ideological rear-guard action, because the predominant trend in the socialist movement has been to follow the revisionists in their repudiation of Marx.
While the revisionists sought to change theories in order to align them with reality and the orthodox denied the need for such realignment, a radical wing of the Marxist movement, which arose after the turn of the century, attempted to bridge the gap between theory and practice by leading the workers’ movement back to the revolutionary orientation of the Communist Manifesto. This wing be-came the nucleus of communism; most of its leaders joined communist parties, if only for short periods.
The radical Marxists asserted that despite pro-found changes in the capitalist world since the days of Marx—especially “imperialism” (the export of
capital and of capitalism to dependent countries overseas)—the basic contradictions of capitalism had remained; hence also the inevitability and necessity of the revolution Marx had predicted. Disagreements among the radicals arose over many issues, the most divisive one being the question of organization. One faction, of which Rosa Luxemburg was the outstanding spokesman, saw the roots of “reformism,” i.e., democratic socialism, in the bureaucratization of the workers’ movement, which they thought stifled revolutionary initiative and proletarian class consciousness. Against them, Lenin and his Bolsheviks believed that revolution making should be subject to rational management (bureaucracy), and they held, moreover, that by itself, spontaneously, the proletariat would not be able to attain class consciousness; hence their emphasis on leadership by an enlightened elite organized in bureaucratic fashion in the party, which should function as the general staff of the proletarian revolution. Leninist Marxism thus focuses on the task of manipulating the masses through leaders who have acquired insight into the politically necessary and possible by applying Marxist categories to the analysis of their society.
New ideological problems were bound to arise when a Marxist party was founded in Russia toward the end of the nineteenth century, because most of the conditions to which Marxism originally had been a response were absent in that country. The very fact that Marxism could find acceptance among Russian revolutionaries is an interesting ideological development, which deserves explanation in another context. Russia’s economic backwardness and repressive political system exacerbated problems of timing, leadership, organization, political alliances, and related issues, considerably straining the entire framework of Marxist concepts. For instance, the notion that the bourgeoisie cannot fulfill the ideological promises of the bourgeois revolution was a central tenet of Marx and Engels. But Lenin’s idea that the bourgeoisie will not carry out or even initiate “itsown” revolution (which will instead have to be accomplished by the proletariat and its allies) requires very bold use of Marxist class terminology. In its mature form Bolshevism takes even greater liberties with the original Marxist conception when it assigns to colonial and other dependent nations a significant role in the hoped-for “proletarian” revolutions. Underdeveloped nations here assume some of the traits which Marx had attributed to the industrial workers of the West. But as a consequence, the “proletarian revolution” itself turns into something very different from what Marx had assumed it to be. Originally thought of as the act of taking over the mature industrial establishment created (and mismanaged) by capitalism, it now can take over nothing but a backward economy and culture; this leads to the paradoxical conclusion that the proletarian state (a “superstructural” phenomenon) will have to begin constructing its own economic “base,” making use of “capitalist” methods in doing so.
In their controversies over policy and organization, the different factions of Russian Marxism emphasized those portions of the ideology which seemed to support their views, at the expense of other portions. Lenin and his Bolsheviks were so intent on reaching their goal, the proletarian revolution, that they amended Marx’s revolutionary timetable beyond recognition; this led to the accusation that they were Blanquists rather than Marxists. The more cautious Mensheviks, in turn, seemed so concerned with following the timetable provided by Marx that Lenin accused them of postponing socialism and the revolution ad calendas Graecas and thus betraying the cause of the proletariat.
The schism which split Russian Marxism into two hostile social-democratic parties was extended to the entire world-wide movement in the years from 1914 to 1920. Disagreements over the proper attitudes a Marxist should take toward the war and the Russian Revolution divided Marxism irreconcilably into socialists and communists, each creating their own international federation of parties. The most important issue between them was their difference of attitude toward the Bolshevik seizure of power and method of governing. The communists regarded their state as the pioneer of the international workers’ movement. The socialists saw in it an ill-timed and irresponsible adventure which discredited the Marxist movement. In subsequent decades, the communist-socialist split hastened the process by which democratic socialism came to dissociate itself from Marxist ideology. [SeeSocialism.]
Marxism as the ideology of a ruling party
Once in power, the Russian communists sought to use Marxism as a guidebook for the further road toward socialism and for managing a proletarian dictatorship. The difficulties they encountered and the sketchiness of the hints Marx and Engels had provided for solving these problems led to new and sharp controversies among the communists themselves, in which the broadest spectrum of Marxist concepts was once again discussed from divergent points of view. With Stalin’s rise to power
the debate was forcibly closed, and his own views were imposed as dogma over all communist parties. The substance of this dogma, based on Leninist principles, might be summarized as follows: Marxism is both scientific truth and ideology—the ideology of the working class. The Communist party alone possesses full scientific insight and ex-pressesthe true interests of the workers. Hence, only he who is loyal to the party can be loyalto the proletariat, in tune with the course of history, or capable of grasping the truth. Nothing can be true which contradicts the party. Further, official Soviet doctrine justifies the communist state, its policies and social structure, as a proletarian dictatorshipand a true democracy engaged in “constructing socialism.” Marxism here has turned into a theory of state defending, as virtually perfect, a regime violating all the libertarian and egalitarian values expressed by Marx. The success with which Marxist concepts have been used to fashion a conservative and authoritarian doctrine of this kind is a major achievement in ideology making. In the Soviet Union this has recently been supplemented by a program for the “transition to communism,” which is an obvious attempt to tone down expectations. Calling for little significant change in present-day Soviet society, it signals the withering away of utopia on this branch of Marxist ideology. Finally, contemporary communist ideology incorporates a program for the further spread of the “proletarian” revolution. But although the workers in the industrialized countries have not been written off formally, in effect the communist movement has now substituted the colonial and other dependent nations in the historic role which Marx attributed to the proletariat of the capitalist world.
The function of the ideology in communist political systems has been the subject of much controversy. Many scholars (echoing communist dogma) see Marxism-Leninism as the master plan guiding all communist thought, actions, and institutions. Others assert that it is no more than rationalization which easily adapts to any changes in policy. However contradictory, both theories have some plausibility but are easily refuted in their exaggerated forms.
Marxist ideology, as amended by Lenin and his successors, did inspire the men who made communist revolutions and has influenced communist regimes and institutions even more directly than the ideas of Rousseau and Locke have shaped the institutions of the French and American republics. Although the ideology becomes primarily rationalization after the communist seizure of power, it does remain the language of politics, meaning not only a code of communications for the political elite but also the conceptual frame of reference used for cognitive and ethical self-orientation. It thus determines both analysis and action, if only negatively, that is, as ideological blinders and as a brake (“bad conscience”) on freedom of action. [SeeIdeology.]
A doctrine which is meant to serve as a useful aid to cognition must be realistic and flexible, whereas a doctrine functioning as a communications code need only be rigid. These and other conflicting functions of the ideology strain it. Primarily, perhaps, the ideology functions as a legitimation device, implying not only an exercise in public relations to attain legitimacy among the citizens but, even more important, a continual attempt by the party leaders to convince themselves of their own legitimacy; more generally, it functions as an ideological exoskeleton for insecure bureaucrats in a vast and powerful administrative machine. The implication is that communist leaders in making doctrinal pronouncements speak more to themselves than to their citizenry, and least of all to the outside world. This phenomenon of self-encouragement or self-legitimation, observable in all societies, has been unduly neglected by contemporary communications theory.
Ideological strains
Since World War II, communist parties have come to power in close to a dozen countriesof eastern Europe, Asia, and the Caribbean area. These various Marxist—Leninist regimes came to power by widely divergent methods and, once in-stalled, faced very different tasks because of the great differences in the cultures, economic development, political traditions, and social structures of the countries concerned. If to these variations in national interests and outlooks of the several communist regimes one adds the bitter memory of past disagreements and injuries, plus the normal political rivalries between groups and personalities within a large group of states, it is not astonishing that sharp conflicts arose in the communist camp, straining relations between the different regimes and within each communist party. Given the relations between politics and ideology within the communist movement, these disagreements sooner or later had to become doctrinal and thus turned into questions of fundamental principle. Hence, the dialogue between Tito and Stalin, between Khrushchev and Mao, and between revisionists and dogmatists in every communistparty led to a discus- sion of not only basic problems in revolutionary strategy and socialist construction but also of the most fundamental concepts of Marxism-Leninism.
The resulting differences within the communist world are today as deep as the schism between Mensheviks and Bolsheviks half a century ago. Moreover, the issues under discussion are similar to those which divided Russian Marxism at that time, even though the circumstances and the con-crete reference points have changed. The unity of the communist movement is as irretrievably gone as was the unity of European Marxism at the time of the October Revolution. As a result, what 15 years ago seemed well-established dogma is now subject to doubt. Within some of the communist societies, party dogmas today are also being criticized in the name of science, while the practices of communist governments and the rhetoric which justifies them are challenged in the name of Marxist humanism. In short, official ideology is assailed from several directions. Two tendencies are likely to result from this multiple onslaught. Official ideological output may turn increasingly into empty, meaningless political oratory, ritually incanted on suitable ceremonial occasions but as removed from life as Sunday sermons and Independence Day speeches. At the same time, a genuine dialogue conducted between and within the several communist parties over a sufficient period of time might serve to reinvigorate Marxist ideology, especially in communist parties that have not yet come to power, even though it may also lead many former adherents to repudiate this ideology. [See the articles underCommunism.]
Marxism in the noncommunist world
Although the communist movement (or movements, as one must now write) claims to be the legitimate heir of Marxist ideology, Marxism continues to exist, in the Western world, as a non-communist ideology. To be sure, most socialist parties have gone far in severing their ties with Marxism. Yet interest in it has increased in certain intellectual circles. Most of this is roundly critical and, especially in its recent intensified form, is a function of the cold war. The variety of points of view from which Marxism, or what is understood to be Marxism, has been criticized cannot be summarized here. But some of the recent interest has been sympathetic. This may have been stimulated by the collaboration of many diverse elements with communists and socialists during and shortly after World War II. In addition, political, economic, racial, and other difficulties that have beset the Western world since the war have increased many intellectuals’ awareness of defects in their social system. For anyone focusing his attention on negative aspects of contemporary social life, Marxism offers considerable attraction, principally because of two elements: one is the message of inevitable doom derived from the analysis of the capitalist economy; the other is the humanist ethic of Marxism—the emphasis on the evil features of a commercial civilization, the romantic anger at institutions and practices that degrade, oppress, or exploit some men, and the sanguine belief in the inherent goodness of mankind, which under favorable circumstances can and will free itself from inhibiting and corrupting institutions. In the last decade or two interest in this humanist philosophy of Marx and in the early writings in which it is expressed has increased rapidly. Finally, there is some increase in the interest social scientists have in Marx as a precursor of contemporary social science : some of his methodological contributions are only now receiving recognition.
Alfred G. Meyer
BIBLIOGRAPHY
See the bibliographies following the articles onEngels; Lenin; andMarxfor their major works.
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