on 1/22/02 06:44 AM, Michael Perelman at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > The Paris Commune caused a flurry of interest in Marx -- especially by > mainstream economists. > > On Mon, Jan 21, 2002 at 10:13:37AM -0800, Rakesh Bhandari wrote: >>> >>> >>> CB: The difference between Marx and others is the Russian, Chinese >>> and other socialist revolutions. We are studying Marx because of >>> the Bolsheviks and the Russian Rev. >> >> Please Charles speak for yourself. >> >> For one thing, I do not think Marx developed a theory of the transfer >> of value in and through the world market that gives expression to >> revolutionary aspirations of national revolts in which peasants, >> petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat have been engaged. The Cuban >> revolution was not waged against a pure advanced capitalism by a pure >> proletariat of the sorts imagined by Marx in his theoretical work. >> This has erroneously led some Marxists to dismiss outright such >> revolutions (say the Cuban and Sandinista revolutions) as nationalist >> reaction and to ridicule first world supporters of them as "third >> worldists", but to combat this view one has to in fact go beyond >> Marx's theory of a pure capitalism (no trade, only two classes, etc) >> to show that without protection in the real world market weaker >> national capitals are as a result of the tranfer of value in >> circulation subject to devaluation and endemic crisis, which in turn >> lead to financial/debt crises. Some orthodox Marxists would dismiss >> this kind of theory of dependency because it is "circulationist", but >> it is in fact a development of Marx's theory of production price in >> the third volume of Capital. >> >> The reason why so many Marxists have difficulty in understanding the >> progressive thrust of many third world revolutions has been that they >> only study Marx, and do not beyond him. Two people who have tried to >> go beyond Marx here are Guglielmo Carchedi and Enrique Dussel from >> whose latest book (edited by the way by Fred Moseley) I draw in the >> above. >> >> Second, it is patently absurd to say that Marx was not studied before >> the revolutions that you mention and imply that people would have >> ceased studying Marx if not for those revolutions. >> >> Rakesh >> >> Towards An Unknown Marx: A Commentary on the Manuscripts of 1861-63 >> (Routledge Studies in the History of Economics, Volume 34) by Fred >> Moseley, Yolanda Angulo (Translator), Enrique D. Dussel >> MIYACHI TATSUO Psychiatric Department Komaki municipal hospital JAPAN
arguments about relationship between reform and revolution are prosperous. But I think previous revolutions we experienced was political, not social. In other words, for Marx(Critical Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian") It is entirely false that social need produces political understanding. Indeed, it is nearer the truth to say that political understanding is produced by social well-being. Political understanding is something spiritual, that is given to him that hath, to the man who is already sitting on velvet. Our "Prussian" should take note of what M. Michael Chevalier, a French economist, has to say on the subject: In 1789, when the bourgeoisie rose in rebellion the only thing lacking to its freedom was the right to participate in the government of the country. Emancipation meant the removal of the control of public affairs, the high civic, military, and religious functions from the hands of the privileged classes who had a monopoly of these functions. Wealthy and enlightened, self-sufficient and able to manage their own affairs, they wished to evade the clutches of arbitrary rule. We have already demonstrated to our "Prussian" how inadequate political understanding is to the task of discovering the source of social need. One last word on his view of the matter. The more developed and the more comprehensive is the political understanding of a nation, the more the proletariat will squander its energies -- at least in the initial stages of the movement -- in senseless, futile uprisings that will be drowned in blood. Because it thinks in political terms, it regards the will as the cause of all evils and force and the overthrow of a particular form of the state as the universal remedy. Proof: the first outbreaks of the French proletariat. [8] The workers in Lyons imagined their goals were entirely political, they saw themselves purely as soldiers of the republic, while in reality they were the soldiers of socialism. Thus their political understanding obscured the roots of their social misery, it falsified their insight into their real goal, their political understanding deceived their social instincts. But if the "Prussian" expects understanding to be the result of misery, why does he identify "suppression in blood" with "suppression in incomprehension"? If misery is a means whereby to produce understanding, then a bloody slaughter must be a very extreme means to an end. The "Prussian" would have to argue that suppression in a welter of blood will stifle incomprehension and bring a breath of fresh air to the understanding. The "Prussian" predicts the suppression of the insurrections which are sparked off by the "disasterous isolation of man from the community and of their thoughts from social principles". We have shown that in the Silesian uprising, there was no separation of thoughts from social principles. That leaves "the disasterous isolation of men from the community". By community is meant here the political community, the state. It is the old song about unpolitical Germany. But do not all rebellions without exception have their roots in the disasterous isolation of man from the community? Does not every rebellion necessarily presuppose isolation? Would the revolution of 1789 have taken place if French citizens had not felt disasterously isolated from the community? The abolition of this isolation was its very purpose. But the community from which the workers is isolated is a community of quite different reality and scope than the political community. The community from which his own labor separates him is life itself, physical and spiritual life, human morality, human activity, human enjoyment, human nature. Human nature is the true community of men. Just as the disasterous isolation from this nature is disproportionately more far-reaching, unbearable, terrible and contradictory than the isolation from the political community, so too the transcending of this isolation and even a partial reaction, a rebellion against it, is so much greater, just as the man is greater than the citizen and human life than political life. Hence, however limited an industrial revolt may be, it contains within itself a universal soul: and however universal a political revolt may be, its colossal form conceals a narrow split. The "Prussian" brings his essay to a close worthy of it with the following sentence: A social revolution without a political soul (i.e., without a central insight organizing it from the point of view of the totality) is impossible. We have seen: a social revolution possesses a total point of view because -- even if it is confined to only one factory district -- it represents a protest by man against a dehumanized life, because it proceeds from the point of view of the particular, real individual, because the community against whose separation from himself the individual is reacting, is the true community of man, human nature. In contrast, the political soul of revolution consists in the tendency of the classes with no political power to put an end to their isolation from the state and from power. Its point of view is that of the state, of an abstract totality which exists only through its separation from real life and which is unthinkable in the absence of an organized antithesis between the universal idea and the individual existence of man. In accordance with the limited and contradictory nature of the political soul a revolution inspired by it organizes a dominant group within society at the cost of society. We shall let the "Prussian" in on the secret of the nature of a "social revolution with a political soul": we shall thus confide to him the secret that not even his phrases raise him above the level of political narrow-mindedness. A "social" revolution with a political soul is either a composite piece of nonsense, if by "social" revolution the "Prussian" understands a "social" revolution as opposed to a political one, while at the same time he endows the social revolution with a political, rather than a social soul. Or else a "social revolution with a political soul" is nothing but a paraphrase of what is usually called a "political revolution" or a "revolution pure and simple". Every revolution dissolves the old order of society; to that extent it is social. Every revolution brings down the old ruling power; to that extent it is political. The "Prussian" must choose between this paraphrase and nonsense. But whether the idea of a social revolution with a political soul is paraphrase or nonsense there is no doubt about the rationality of a political revolution with a social soul. All revolution -- the overthrow of the existing ruling power and the dissolution of the old order -- is a political act. But without revolution, socialism cannot be made possible. It stands in need of this political act just as it stands in need of destruction and dissolution. But as soon as its organizing functions begin and its goal, its soul emerges, socialism throws its political mask aside. Such lengthy perorations were necessary to break through the tissue of errors concealed in a single newspaper column. Not every reader possesses the education and the time necessary to get to grips with such literary swindles. In view of this does not our anonymous "Prussian" owe it to the reading public to give up writing on political and social themes and to refrain from making declamatory statements on the situation in Germany, in order to devote himself to a conscientious analysis of his own situation?" Such is Marx's distinction between " social revolution with political soul" and "political revolution with social soul" We experienced historically only " social revolution with political soul" such as Russian revolution, in which Lenin firstly took over political power and abolished capital. But He could not abolish money. In other words, he failed to change social interaction, so he oppressed and massacre peasant to feed workers. NEPS should not have stopped until peasants grow socially and culturally. As the result, command bureaucratic distribution system built. Now we see ongoing various social movements which claim fundamental social relation(for example, barter deal in Argentina crisis). It means Global mass recognizes and wants to abolish capital's culture itself. Anti-WTO, Anti-WB, or Anti-G7 movements prove this. Owed from Lenin's word, current global movements has " maximum claim" from the start. In the historical reformist movement, we already gain capacity to change society with" social soul"unconsciouslly. It is the answer of dispute between reform and revolution
