--- Ted Winslow <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > My initial point was that there is an internal > relation between > self-consciousness, social relations and state > power. This relation is > such that where the requisite self-consciousness > can't develop within > existing social relatons, social relations and state > power can't become > socialist in Marx's sense. They couldn't have done > so, for instance, > in mid-nineteenth century France. Moreover, their > own essence is such > that they can't be created for individuals; they > have to be created by them.
Hi Ted, I agree with most of your observations and I'm not trying to play one-upsmanship here; but Marx and many others thought that the French--espeically the workers of Paris--had reached at least a level of class consciousness sufficient to begin to junk the old State machinery and to attempt to create a class dictatorship of their own: the Paris Commune of 1871. Of course, France was awash with a peasant class as was the Czarist Empire of 1917. > > In the case of Russia in 1917, there's some evidence > that the dominant > social relations produced a self-consciousness > characterized by > significant "prejudice" and "superstition." Another > book of Worobec's > containing such evidence is _Possessed: Women, > Witches and Demons in > Imperial Russia_. If relations are internal, the > social relations and > state power that emerge in a given context (no > matter what we choose to > call them) will be internally related to the > self-consciousness that > dominates the context. The weight of reified, religious consciouness, of superstition and so on was undoubtedly high in Russia back in '17. Again, social relations was immersed in a sea of peasants. But other facts on the ground amongst the workers were also brewing. Women weavers of Ivanovo had created the first workers' council in 1905, two years after Lenin had proclaimed in "What is To Be Done?" that workers by themselves could not reach anything higher than trade-union consciousness. But then, this always sounded like one of Blanqui's obeservations. "The Blanquists fared no better. Brought up in the school of conspiracy, and held together by the strict discipline which went with it, they started out from the viewpoint that a relatively small number of resolute, well-organized men would be able, at a given favorable moment, not only seize the helm of state, but also by energetic and relentless action, to keep power until they succeeded in drawing the mass of the people into the revolution and ranging them round the small band of leaders. this conception involved, above all, the strictest dictatorship and centralization of all power in the hands of the new revolutionary government." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1871/civil-war-france/postscript.htm > I think Marx's ontology is "individualist" in the > sense that it allows > only individuals to be the locus of agency and the > realization of > value. The importance of "class" derives from > another ontological idea > - "internal relations." The nature of the > individual - its "essence" - > is the outcome of its relations. This is the way I > would interpret > Marx's claim about the "human essence" in the the > sixth thesis on > Feuerbach. > > The essence of the human individual is "freedom" > defined, as Hegel > defines it, as the potential for a "will proper" and > a "universal > will." In Marx this is embodied in the idea of the > "universally > developed individual," a kind of individual > requiring for its full > realization the relations that define the "realm of > freedom," "an > association in which the free development of each is > the condition of > the free development of all." Yes, the proles can't emancipate themselves from wage-slavery and the dictatorship of the capitalist class, without becoming themselves, as individuals conscious of who they are--the wealth producers of society--people who give up what they create to people who employ them for wages or salaries. As the bearded ones put it: "All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property. "All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air." http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/classics/manifesto.html Then, you went on to write: > The importance of "class" derives from role of > relations of production > in the development of individuality to freedom in > this sense (equated, > as in Kant and Hegel, with a "universal will" i.e. > "a will that places > reason at the basis of its actions" as in Kant's > definition "art" as > "production through freedom" - "By right we ought > only to describe as > art, production through freedom, i.e. through a will > that places reason > at the basis of its actions.") This importance > derives from the > importance Hegel gives to the master/slave relation > in his account, in > the Phenomenology, of the development of mind to > "Reason" i.e. to > "freedom." Way after 1903, Lenin began reading Hegel and realizing the importance of grasping the materialist dialectic, especially for leading revolutionaries. He wrote this when he had some breathing space in Switzerland: “It is impossible completely to understand Marx's Capital, and especially its first Chapter, without having thoroughly studied and understood the whole of Hegel's Logic. Consequently, half a century later none of the Marxists understood Marx!!” Lenin Collected Works Vol. 38. http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/cons-logic/ch03.htm This was also the period when he wrote his most theorectically sound work, IMO, STATE AND REVOLUTION. Just wanted to make those comments. Thanks for the excellent post. Best, Mike B) ===== "Love and freedom are vital to the creation and upbringing of a child." Sylvia Pankhurst http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! 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