Making of the Modern World
Lecture
From Marx to Lenin to Rosa Luxemburg
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Conclusion
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: Socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Conclusion
- France at present: conflict between
“workers” (wage workers,
merchants, peasants, industrialists,
bankers) and “idlers” (nobility and
priests)
- Future society: a rational and
harmonious society led by an elite of
philosophers and scientists, driven
by the good for all in society
- A "New Christianity" without dogma
would provide a new religious bond
for society
- Scientists would be the priests of
this new religion
Henri de Saint-Simon
(1760-1825)
- A successful businessman, he devoted
much of his profits to improving the living
conditions of his workers; famous textile
manufactory in New Lanark (importance
of education of children, influence of
society on character)
- Future society: federation of
communities of 500-1500 persons each
should be settled on land, all living in one
large building in the shape of a square,
with a public kitchen and mess-rooms.
Each family should have its own private
apartments and care for their children
until the age of three, then children
brought up by community
Robert Owen (1771-1858)
-An Owenite commune called New
Harmony in Indiana, USA, failed
- inspired British co-operative movement
Charles Fourier (1772-1837)
- rejected the Industrial Revolution
- Future society: communities
(phalanxes), based around “grand
hotels” (phalanstère) = four level
apartment complexes. Wealth –
determined by jobs, which should be
assigned based on interests and
desires.
- Twelve common passions resulting in
810 types of character, ideal phalanx
would have 1620 people. One day six
million phalanxes will be loosely ruled by
a world “omniarch” or a World Congress
of Phalanxes
- Card-index of personality types for
suitable partners for casual sex.
Homosexuality seen as personal
preference for some people.
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: Socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Revolution from above: Stalinism
7. Outlook and conclusion
Influences
• German philosophy: Immanuel Kant,
Georg Friedrich Hegel
• English and Scottish political economy:
David Ricardo and Adam Smith
• Utopian Socialism
“My dialectic method is not only different from the
Hegelian, but is its direct opposite. To Hegel, the lifeprocess of the human brain, i.e., the process of thinking,
which, under the name of 'the Idea,' he even transforms
into an independent subject, is the demiurgos of the real
world, and the real world is only the external,
phenomenal form of 'the Idea.' With me, on the contrary,
the ideal is nothing else than the material world
reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms
of thought.”
Karl Marx
Dialectics (very simple definition): develop in three
steps: Thesis – Antithesis – Synthesis (new quality)
Friedrich Engels (1820-1895)
Alienation
• From the product, which as soon as it is created,
is taken away from its producer.
• From his productive activity (work), which is
experienced as a torment – division of labour
reduces him to small cog in production process.
• From his species-being (Gattungswesen –
human nature), for humans produce blindly and
not in accordance with their truly human powers.
• From other human beings, as the cash nexus
replaces mutual need
All previous historical
movements were movements
of minorities, or in the interest
of minorities. The proletariat
movement is the selfconscious, independent
movement of the immense
majority, in the interest of the
immense majority
Karl Marx (1818-1883)
• Materialism: material or
physical conditions are the
basis of human development
Superstructure:
Ideas, values, beliefs, laws
The state
Relations of Production
Property relations, relations to objects of work,
organisation of production
Forces of Production:
Material resources, technology
It (religion) is the fantastic realisation of the human
essence since the human essence has not acquired
any true reality. The struggle against religion is,
therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world
whose spiritual aroma is religion.
…
Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the
heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless
conditions. It is the opium of the people. The
abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the
people is the demand for their real happiness. To call
on them to give up their illusions about their
condition is to call on them to give up a condition
that requires illusions.
Karl Marx (1843)
The history of all hitherto existing
society is the history of class
struggle.
Communism
Classless society
Socialism
Dictatorship of the Proletariat
SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
Expropriation of Expropriators
Capitalism
Bourgeoisie against Proletariat
Feudalism
Feudal lords against Peasants
Slaveholder Society
Slaveholders against Slaves
Primitive Communism
Hunter-gatherer societies
Owners and workers
• Owners exploit workers
• Workers are oppressed wage slaves
• Workers are indoctrinated by capitalist ideology and
religion (false consciousness)
• ‘The worker becomes all the poorer the more wealth he
produces, the more his production increases in power
and range.’ (Marx)
• ‘Of all the classes that stand face to face with the
bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really
revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally
disappear in the face of modern industry; the proletariat
is its special and essential product.’ (Communist
Manifesto)
The immediate aim of the Communists
is the same as that of all other
proletarian parties: formation of the
proletariat into a class, overthrow of
the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of
political power by the proletariat.
(Communist Manifesto)
Abolishing the division af labour,
humanising production and reducing
alienation requires that the associated
producers (the working class) are
responsible for management and
control. It requires the withering away
of the State.
Lenin: Even kitchen maids can run the
State (!)
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: Socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Conclusion
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864)
Advocate of parliamentary
democracy – road to
socialism
Eduard Bernstein (1850-1932)
Marx’ prophesies proved wrong: no
pauperisation, no disappearance of
middle classes, not fewer, but more
capitalists
Perspective for social democracy in
German Empire: after end of antisocialist laws, strong representation
in parliament, 1912 strongest party,
Social-democratic organisations,
press, clubs, trade unions
Revolution not only way to socialism, parliamentarisation – perhaps
an evolutionary process
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: Socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Conclusion
• Socialist parties in autocratic Russia illegal and
persecuted
• Reflection of State: autocratic state – authoritarian
socialist party
• Split of Russian Social Democratic Party in 1903:
organisation – minority (Mensheviks) mass party,
majority (Bolsheviks) – cadre party, members dedicated
to revolution
• Party doctrine: professional revolutionaries,
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
(Ulyanov) (1870-1924)
• Fought against revisionism, saw himself as orthodox
Marxist
• But also revisionist: industrialist society not
precondition of revolution
Theory of Imperialism (Hobson, Luxemburg,
Hilferding and Lenin) and Marxism-Leninism
- limits to capital accumulation (the national
economy as a constraint)
- need for new overseas markets (cheap labour
and cheap raw materials)
- the corrupted ‘working class aristocracy’ in the
middle – complicit – revisionist Social democrats
- exploited workers and peasant in the colonies
Lenin’s pecularities
• Weakest link in imperialistic system: Russia – imperial
power and colony at the same time
• Age of imperialism: revolution in a single imperialist
country (Russia) brings about fall of whole system –
world revolution, because of crisis of global economy –
chain reaction
• Dictatorship of the proletariat in a backward country like
Russia
• In Russia: Alliance of workers and overwhelming
majority of population: poor and middle peasants
• The vanguard of the working class (= Communist Party)
as an interim ruler until world revolution and help from
more advanced countries, then self-government of
workers and peasants (withering away of the state)
The Russian Revolution
• Peace, Bread, Socialism
• Revolution of the workers, the peasants,
the soldiers, the national minorities
• Soviets (Councils) and Dictatorship of the
Proletariat
The Russian Revolution
• Peace, Bread, Socialism
• Revolution of the workers, the peasants,
the soldiers, the national minorities
• Soviets (Councils) and Dictatorship of the
Proletariat
• Russian civil war and war communism
• Waiting for international revolution (world
revolution) / expectations disappointed
• What to do?
Rosa Luxemburg (1870-1919)
Emphasis on spontaneity of
working class in revolution,
self-organisation
Criticism of Bolshevik
revolution:
• voluntaristic
• despotic and opportunistic
• undemocratic
Russian Revolution will will end in a
dictatorship not in a socialist
democracy
Rosa Luxemburg
“Freedom only for the members of the
government, only for the members of the
Party — even if they are quite numerous — is
not freedom at all. Freedom is always the
freedom of dissenters. The essence of
political freedom depends not on the fanatics
of "justice", but rather on all the invigorating,
beneficial, and deterrent effects of dissenters.
If "freedom" becomes "privilege", the workings
of political freedom are broken. “
Outline
1. Introduction
2. Utopian Socialism
3. Marx and Engels
4. Between reform and revolution: Socialism before
the Great War
5. Leninism and the Russian Revolution
6. Conclusion
Socialism after 1914
• Reformist (Social democrats)
• Revolutionary (Leninist, Maoist),
communism
• Revolutionary (un-orthodox): New Left
• More tomorrow