| | | Comrade Marx,
Please excuse me for not writing in german. My question to you concerns
the fate of your system of philosophy in the years since you stopped
writing. Who, out of the famous revolutionary leaders and great
thinkers that have been proud to call themselves "marxists", has in
fact added anything to the body of work created by your good self?
Yours fraternally,
Andy Roberts
Dear Mister Roberts,
The very interesting question you raised triggered a fascinating debate
between Karl and Mister Engels. That debate lasted for almost 12 hours,
and died out only because the two protagonists eventually fell asleep.
They intended initially to answer to you with one of theses collective
texts they are so fond of. But this time, they could not agree on
common grounds, and ended up deciding to split their answers. Since I
witnessed the totality of their debate, I will first summarize it for
you. Then I will join Karl's answer, then Mister Engels' answer.
You have first to be informed that Karl, and to a certain extent Mister
Engels also, is secretly reading since several weeks the huge bundle of
documentation provided to us by Mister Dumontais on the next century.
Both of them, and specially Karl, who read sometimes 14 to 16 hours per
day, have currently a good idea of the material and intellectual
progression of the next 120 years. The debate between them on your
intervention is around the delicate notion of what it is to be a
"marxist". Karl always refused that denomination for its ambivalence,
and observes that it becomes more and more ambivalent through your
century. He decided to ignore it in his answer. To him, once rejected
that distinction marxists/non marxists which he considers of no
accuracy, your question reduces itself to: «what does he consider
as continuations and developments of his thought in the following
century». Such is the question he answers to here. Mister Engels
argued that doing so, he does not really provide the answer you
required, since Karl, as you will quickly notice, includes, I believe
exclusively, in his enumeration, thinkers that your century labelled
"marxists". "What is asked to you is what is the influence of your
thought outside of that circle of thinkers. You do not answer to the
question, but to its opposite." said Mister Engels. But Karl answered
(if I summarize): "you would be amazed to see the number of absurd
philistines who will call themselves marxists in the next century and
will submit my thought, and yours my friend, to the grossest
distortions. The most urgent answer to provide is about who brought our
influence to a new qualitative level, whatever they were labelled. The
question asked by our correspondent postulates that all so called
"marxists" are marxists, if I may say. I firmly reject that postulate!"
And Mister Engels: "You make an exclusively intellectual interpretation
of the question. I rather see it as an inquiry into the influence of
Karl Marx in the "non-marxist" environment of the next century. To me
it's everywhere, just as the one of Darwin." "Very good" finally said
Karl "you take that part, then". And, as they often so brilliantly did,
they split the work. I hope the result will satisfy you, Mister
Roberts. The ambivalence of your question is grounded on the
ambivalence of the notion of "marxist". But that ambivalence is also
its richness. In the name of the three of us, I respectfully thank you
for such a stimulating intervention.
Sincerely yours,
Jenny Marx, née Baroness Von Westphalen
Mister Roberts,
All languages are of equal value to my eyes and I thank you for the
vocative "Comrade", a meaningful gesture of solidarity in your century
as I understand. As you are certainly aware of, I do not happen to
entertain the label "marxist" and "marxism". To label thought or action
with the name of its main author or propagator is a regrettable
philistine intellectual shortcut, if you excuse me to put it so
abruptly. What you and me kept from the thought of Spinoza, Hegel, or
Shakespeare does not make of us Spinozists, Hegelians, or
Shakespearians. On the other hand, my beloved wife, who signs the
previous cover letter, knows by heart, with all the details of the
inflexions and emotions, "only" King Lear, Hamlet, and The Merchant of
Venice. Does such a restriction make of her a "non Shakespearian" in
theatre? I invite you to do just as I did since years: toss aside that
question of ***ist and ***ism forever.
To me though, the part of your intervention along the line of
marxist/non marxist? is a questionculae. If I remove your interrogation
from the shell of that LOCUS COMMUNI, I still find something very
fundamental in it. In the sea of thinkers that manifested themselves in
XXth century, which ones represent genuine development of my thought?
That question is already very hard in itself. I will modestly restrict
myself to it. I will first spare you the thinkers who represent a
REGRESSION of my thought. They form an incredible rumbling crowd in
your century! I will mention only one, not because he deserves more
attention than any other, but simply in order to provide a
representative sample of what I am refering to here. I name an
afflicting French neo-Comtian, post-Feuerbachian, by the name of Louis
ALTHUSSER...
Due to lack of documentation and time, I will reduce myself to a
somewhat dry enumeration, unavoidably limitative and non exhaustive. To
summarize 120 years of future thought is something difficult to
perform, even for the obviously major thinker I became for the men and
women of your century, that emblematic Karl Marx I am so remote from...
The first and foremost work to be mentioned as a crucial continuation
and improvement of my thought is ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, which will be
written in 1913 by somebody who is today a galician seven year-old
little girl: a certain Rosa LUXEMBURG. That woman is the genius of your
century. She developed brilliantly on the importance of the non
capitalist hinterland in what will be called in your time the
imperialist phase of capitalism. Very valid and superbly documented is
also the DEVELOPMENT OF CAPITALISM IN RUSSIA, written by a man who is
currently playing in the schoolyard of some small town on the Volga:
Vladimir Illich OULIANOV. I want to mention that author also for his
sharp and brilliant pamphlet MATERIALISM AND EMPIRIOCRITICISM to be
written in 1909, the first philosophical essay genuinely inspired by my
thought, I believe. This political thinker, nicknamed Lenin, will be
brilliantly criticized, still from my point of view, in a short essay
titled LENIN AS PHILOSOPHER, by a sweedish thinker by the name of Anton
PANNEKOECK. In political economy, one has then to jump over the
monstruosity of intellectual emptiness labelled Stalinism and mention
LATE CAPITALISM by a Belgian by the name of Ernst MANDEL. In a more
philosophical perspective, REASON AND REVOLUTION by a Herbert MARCUSE
and THE DESTRUCTION OF REASON by a Georg LUKACS are developments of my
thought, applied to the new reality of your century. For all it is
worth, such are, in my current opinion, my continuators.
That is all I have for the moment, Mister Roberts. These few titles and
a stockpile of barbarian rubbish written in my name. I feel sometimes
very sickened by all we can stare at in the second set. I am forced to
admit that I was also the unintentional inspiration of absurd pieces of
delirium that served the world bourgeoisie more than the working class,
and that are diametrically opposed to everything I stand for! That is
what is inexorable in dialectics, I suppose... In conclusion, I still
have a lot to read and I am not a young man anymore. But if you feel
that I neglected or forgot somebody, let me know, please. I will be
pleased and honored to comment on any "marxist" or "non marxist" you
would submit to my attention.
Truly yours,
Karl Heinrich Marx
Mister Roberts,
I fully agree with my excellent friend Marx' answer to you, except on
one point: he did not answer to your question! The crucial XXth century
thinkers he enumerates to you are all m... we do not have to say the
word. They all claim being in the continuity of historical materialism,
which we owe to M... once again a name is not required. We understand
each other.
My reading of your question is rather: what is Karl Marx' heritage. Did
he influence -will he influence, we get confused with the line of time
in all this!- in other spheres than in the circles of his explicitely
assumed followers. My answer is yes. And to demonstrate this, I will
simply toss Karl Marx aside and concentrate on his thought. Marx is not
a genial creator, or some prophet. He is the genial observer of the
historical reality to be, nutshelled in the historical reality which
is. His influence on your century is observable everywhere where the
laws of History he discovered apply. More simply said: everywhere.
It is an admitted idea in your century that the material conditions of
life determine consciousness. You all know that the ideas of a powerful
state do not impose themselves because they are good ideas but because
they are supported by a strong development. The determining power of
economy was a discovery in my century. It is a cliché in yours!
Religion, in your century, is completely relativized, and is therefore
seen in your laws and practices as a banal ethno-cultural object, as
music or food. The most narrow-minded business manager who hires
immigrant workers at a lower salary applies the theory of surplus value
developed in Capital: the worker generates value. Surplus value comes
from the highjacking of the worker's income by the capitalist. Salary
is the expense to cut! Look now at the so-called Soviet Union, to use a
phrase born and dead in your century to designate the post
revolutionary Russian Empire. What did these characters do with their
state apparatus and their so-called "communist party". They promoted
the lunacy that a state could interrupt the laws of history and submit
them to its control. They formulated the myth of the self-proclaimed
end of capitalism. But in the views of historical materialism, the laws
of History are OBJECTIVE. They unfold out of any control by any
individual or collective will. The collapse of such a state system
confirms that fondamental law of history discovered by Marx. This being
said despite the generalized philistine opinion of your century
claiming the opposite.
Finally the idea of "communism" analyzed by Marx, very remote from what
your vulgar bourgeois analysts label "communism", fundamentally refers
to the development of the social appropriation of the instruments of
organisation of material life. The dissolution of private property in
collective (non) property. From Medicare to the Internet, your century
will develop forms of collective appropriation that were unknown to us.
Only one of our thinkers foresaw them: Marx.
The thought of Karl Marx has penetrated so intimately every aspect of
your century that it reached the level of an undiscovered banality. His
mistakes pertuated themselves also in your century, with also a
tremendous impact. But that, I am afraid, is another question. You are
welcome to ask it. We are aware of the fact that we certainly owe you
its answer...
Respectfully,
Friedrich Engels
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