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9/11/2023 Book Review: Vijay Prashad and Noam Chomsky's 'The Withdrawel.' Reviewed by: Edward Liger SmithRead Now Summary and AnalysisLast year in the summer of 2022 a wonderful friend named Debbie sent me a copy of Noam Chomsky and Vijay Prashad’s new book The Withdrawal. A year later I finally got the chance to sit down and read it (sorry it took me so long Debbie) and I was not disappointed as this text provides an excellent history of the major events and developments that have taken place within Western Capitalist imperialism throughout the last forty years or so. Those looking for a dense historical text will be disappointed as The Withdrawal is actually a transcribed conversation between Prashad and Chomsky, but this makes it a quick and easy read, perfect for beginners setting out to understand modern American policy and geopolitics. Going into this book I was curious to see how Chomsky and Prashad reconciled their views on existing socialist countries. Prashad is someone I’ve always admired for his ability to stand up for existing socialist countries and his refusal to parrot U.S. State Department talking points about countries like China. Chomsky on the other hand, has always provided brilliant critiques of the American empire, but has a tendency to sound like a mainstream liberal propagandist when the topic of the Soviet Union or Leninism comes up. However, it seems that Chomsky may be turning over a new leaf at the ripe age of 94 as attacks on China, Vietnam, and other existing socialist countries are notably absent from this book. The Withdrawal provides an excellent summary of the American Empire going back thirty years at least, and it does an incredible job of placing the major geopolitical events of the past few decades within their proper historical context. By example Chomsky’s analysis of the 9/11 terror attacks doesn’t begin on September 11th 2001. Instead he details the millions of dollars that were funneled into Osama Bin Laden’s terrorist group known as the Mujahideen by the United States after the Soviet Union occupied Afghanistan in an attempt to stabilize the country. Through this historical analysis Chomsky reveals how the U.S. empire created the forces who carried out 9/11, then used 9/11 as justification to invade two countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, who had nothing to do with the attacks on September 11th. In fact, the U.S. waged war against Taliban and Iraqi Governments that were actually enemies of Osama Bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda group, an outgrowth of the Mujahideen. Notably absent from Chomsky’s analysis is the claim so often made by Western academics that Soviet imperialism in Afghanistan was just as bad as American imperialism. Instead, Chomsky admits that most Afghans see the era of Soviet occupation as the most hopeful time in the country’s history. The Soviet soldiers fought bravely on behalf of the Marxist Democratic Government in power at the time against U.S. backed terrorist groups like the Mujahideen. They also helped the Government build factories, hospitals, infrastructure, and launch literacy campaigns teaching people to read even in the impoverished rural regions of the country. The U.S. on the other hand, dumped money and arms into Jihadist extremists who would throw acid on the faces of literacy workers and women who dared to walk outside without being covered head to toe. Thankfully, The Withdrawal avoids falling into the Western myth that tries to conflate Soviet and American imperialism as equal evils. And this may be due to the influence of Prashad, who has said in another book, Washington Bullets, that the CIA makes a concerted effort to conflate Soviet foreign policy with the worst acts of Western imperialism Similarly absent from the book are any attacks against the People's Republic of China (PRC), which Prashad and Chomsky accurately say is providing a counterweight to the long-held hegemony of the American empire. The Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRICS) were created to counter American imperialism through cooperation and economic development, not to rival American imperialism through exploitation and debt trapping. The authors refuse to fall into the Western trope of dismissing everything that the PRC is doing as “authoritarian” or “imperialist” as so many academics tend to do. Instead, they take a measured and fact-based approach to looking at the foreign policy of the PRC, which ends up making socialist China look pretty dang good. The book covers four core topics including Vietnam and Laos, 9/11 and Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. It will be an enlightening read for anybody who believed the mainstream media myths surrounding these major events. Chomsky brilliantly counterposes the facts of what actually happened in these four wars, to the mainstream media myths that were created to justify them. He also explains how the empire’s justification myths have morphed over time from the war against communism, used to justify the horrific bombing campaigns against Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, into the war on terror, used to justify the invasions of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya (as well as Syria although it’s not discussed thoroughly in The Withdrawal). In totality the book provides a fantastic summary of American imperialism since World War II, and I would recommend that beginners in the field of geopolitics read this text in conjunction with Prashad’s Washington Bullets that I mentioned earlier (After you read Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism by Lenin of course). The Withdrawal is an easy read and it is not cluttered with hundreds of academic sources, but it is filled with the knowledge of two academics who have spent most their lives studying the U.S. Empire. Critique My criticisms of The Withdrawal are contained to the explanations given by Prashad and Chomsky as to WHY the U.S. carries out the murderous and imperialistic policy that it does. For one, the authors use the analogy of the Godfather to explain U.S. policy, arguing that since World War II the U.S. has held unrivaled and unprecedented power on the global stage, allowing them to act like a mafia, breaking the knees of anybody who goes against their interests. I agree with this description of American power, and I find the Godfather to be a useful analogy for how the U.S. conducts foreign policy, constantly ignoring international law in order to violently protect their own economic interests. Where I disagree with Chomsky and Prashad is when they say that American Policy is “rooted in a settler-colonial culture” or history. Make no mistake American policy is ROOTED in the mode of production, in the economic system of capitalism. America is not a uniquely evil country where people are born with some kind of innate drive to conquer foreign lands. Rather, we are a country of working people who are dominated by multinational corporations and finance capitalists that deceive the public in order to use them as pawns for advancing their global interests. It is not an attitude held by the American public that drives imperialist aggression, it is the incessant need for capital to expand, and the drive for surplus value inherent to the capitalist mode of production. The U.S. did not invade Iraq because Americans are a bunch of settler colonialists who wanted to seize a random country in the middle east. The U.S. invaded Iraq because the Koch brothers and other capitalists wanted Iraq’s oil. That is what American imperialism is rooted in, the need for constant expansion and increased profits which results from the capitalist mode of production, the basis for American society. And it is only through transforming this mode of production into a socialist one that we can bring a halt to American imperialism. Labeling the American working class as “settlers” will simply not achieve this goal.  In fact, America’s settler colonial attitude and history, to the extent that it has existed historically, is itself rooted in the capitalist mode of production, not the other way around. It was the expansion of capital that brought European settlers to America in search of new land, labor, and resources; and it was capitalism that incentivized the mass genocide of the native populations. As Karl Marx brilliantly details in Capital Volume I, in order for capitalism to work it requires a large population of workers who do not own their own means of production or produce their own means of subsistence (food and other things humans need to survive) and thus are forced to sell their labor power to capitalists in order to survive. When European settlers got to America the native peoples already had their own mode of production and produced their own means of subsistence, and thus they needed to be wiped out by the settlers, or divorced from their own means of production and subsistence, in order for capitalism (and the bourgeois form of slavery seen in the American south) to take hold as the dominant mode of production. The genocidal settler colonial culture of European settlers at the time was rooted in the capitalist mode of production and its incessant need to expand. To say that American imperialism and the expansion of capital is rooted in a settler colonial attitude or culture is to flip reality on its head. Although, the capitalist mode of production has certainly benefited from such attitudes. Additionally, over 500 years have passed since European settlers first came to America. The U.S. is no longer a settler colonial project akin to the apartheid state of Israel, where every day native Palestinians are being forced off their land to make room for new Israeli settlement. It cannot be said that a settler colonial attitude has carried over hundreds of years later, and now acts as the motive force of American Imperialism in the year 2022 (the year the book was published). From the Marxist perspective, settler colonial or American exceptionalist attitudes stem from the mode of production, and in turn help to condition the mode of production. By example the attitude of American exceptionalism has been produced and maintained by the ruling economic class of capitalists in order to get the American people on board with their regime change wars. American exceptionalism is rooted in the capitalist imperialist system, and in turn helps to keep that system churning. Again, to say that U.S. imperialism is rooted in an attitude of American exceptionalism or settler colonialism is to flip reality on its head. Chomsky has never claimed to be a Marxist or dialectical materialist, and so I was not surprised to see him make this mistake. Prashad however, does come from a Marxist-Leninist tradition similar to myself, and I hope that he gets a chance to read this review and reconsiders his use of the word rooted when it comes to describing attitudes of American exceptionalism and settler colonialism. Regardless, The Withdrawal is a fantastic text from two intellectuals who I deeply admire. It is filled with information about American Imperialism that has been systematically withheld from the American public by the American ruling class of capitalist, bankers, shareholders, and neoconservative/neoliberal politicians. I would recommend this text to any Americans who want to know what our government has been doing around the world in our name for the last 75 years or so. Author Edward Liger Smith is an American political scientist (with a focus on Geopolitics, Socialist Construction, and U.S. health care), wrestling coach, and Director of the Midwestern Marx Institute for Marxist Theory and Political Analysis. Archives September 2023
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9/9/2023 Decoding the Complexities of Culture: Review of 'Culture' by Terry Eagleton. Reviewed by: Jacob JoshyRead Now Culture is an “exceptionally complex word”, says Terry Eagleton, and as constant agents who interact with it in our daily affairs, we know how complex it is to write a book about culture, that too in less than 200 pages. Terry Eagleton, in his book 'Culture', puts forth a similar attempt, and one can easily say that he has succeeded. Eagleton starts his book with a brief preface where he lists out his intentions, that this book in its totality "sacrifices any strict unity of argument to approach its subject from several different perspectives." Terry Eagleton's central argument is that Culture is a "social unconscious", and to cement this argument, he takes the help of thinkers like Edmund Burke, Johann Gottfried Herder, T.S. Eliot and Raymond Williams. The author also takes an anticipatory bail in the preface itself about the overwhelming amount of "Irish motif" running throughout the book, in his attempt to build this central argument. The book is divided into five chapters, with each chapter dealing with a different aspect with which Eagleton wants his readers to engage. The first chapter titled 'Culture and Civilisation' talks about how culture is an integral part of human civilization, and further about the contrasts and similarities between the two. Eagleton makes a pertinent observation about how the usage and the meaning of the two words - Culture and Civilization - have changed starting from the premodern times to our modern age. The author then elaborates on his view about the dual nature of culture and civilization; that is, how both seem to be normative and descriptive at the same time. Eagleton also makes some interesting remarks about the links between the origins of the notion of 'culture' as such and the onset of industrialization. The second chapter, 'Postmodern Prejudices' is a precise commentary on the intricacies caused by the interaction of postmodernity and culture. Eagleton uncovers how the postmodern slogan of ‘inclusivity’ masks differences, and argues that rather than inclusivity, what we need is ‘unanimity’. "Different viewpoints," Eagleton writes "are not to be valued simply because they are different viewpoints." Postmodernity's "self-appointed censors," who are ignorant of how political opinions are formed, readily remove all discussions of political movements from the forefront and replace them with just political correctness arguments, which tend to diffuse conflicts and frame economic and political issues as cultural ones alone. Eagleton also concludes that contrary to the claims of culturalists, "Culture is not identical with our nature" but it is of our nature. Eagleton's main cultural theories and findings are largely contained in the third chapter, "The Social Unconscious." He writes "This social unconscious is one thing we mean by culture". With references to Freud and Lacan at the beginning of the chapter, the reader might assume that Eagleton is aiming to develop his arguments from a psychoanalytical standpoint. However, it was only a viewpoint the author was attempting to implant in the readers' brains. The chapter heavily relies on the ideas and teachings of two thinkers - Edmund Burke and Johann Gottfried Herder - who were both vocal critics of colonialism and for whom culture is more essential than politics. Eagleton finds that Burke "prizes order" while Herder "values freedom". The author says that the "unfathomable specificity of human affairs" is what we know as culture and juxtaposes Antonio Gramsci's hegemonic power with Burke's view on culture. In the later parts of the chapter, he elaborates on the evolution of language and culture. If, till now, the chapter mainly depended on conservative thinkers to make the case of 'social unconsciousness, Eagleton goes to Raymond Williams towards the end of the chapter to explain the radical version of it. He notes that, unlike Elliot, for Williams, culture essentially is unplannable and "always a work in progress". Up until this point, the book dealt with issues related to the theory of culture. In the fourth chapter, suitably titled "An Apostle of Culture," Eagleton shifts his focus to the "summary of the thought" of Oscar Wilde. Eagleton notes that both Wilde and Burke were Irish, which made them vocal critics of Britain's colonial aspirations, and "ended up biting the hand that fed them". Unfortunately, the author didn't touch the realms of dependency theories which almost and mostly deals with similar complexities. Eagleton cites that being Irish necessarily contributed to the formation of Wilde’s career and his openness to the idea of modernism; “To be marginal to a language and culture” he writes “is also to be freer than the natives from its ruling forms and conventions, and thus to be less hamstrung by them”. For Wilde a known proponent of ‘art for art sakes’, notes Eagleton, art wasn’t a “question of fleeing from life into art” but on the contrary a “question of turning one’s life into a work of art”. Eagleton also put forth a striking comparison of Wilde with Marx, even though there was a fundamental difference in their end goals. Wilde sees individualism as the goal of socialism which is diametrically opposite to Marx’s views. But what Eagleton finds is that the “Romantic sense of the richness and diversity of individual lives” seen in Marx is similar to Wilde, and both of them aspired for a world without labour so that people have “time for the more vital business of self-development”. The last and final chapter 'From Herder to Hollywood' talks about the evolution of culture through modern times. Culture, Eagleton notes, came to prominence as a "critique of industrialism, but also as a rebuke to the notion of revolution." He further writes that "it became a key concept in the language of Romantic nationalism." This form of romantic nationalism can be traced to the works of D. H. Lawrence and Friedrich Schiller. This recent development can be seen in Jane Austen's writings, where 'politeness' emerges as a substitute for 'culture.' Over this period, Eagleton observes that art also found a new audience, the common people, and can be attributed to the 'new array of social institutions' that rose post the industrial revolution. This form of romantic idea, warns Eagleton like any other brand of ethics pave the way for the dogmatic version of cultural nationalism. Also, during this time, poets and artists took centre stage in recently evolved concepts of liberalism and democracy. He finishes with a critique of the latest addition to capitalist modernity in the form of cultural industry. The book ends with a brief concluding chapter 'The Hubris of Culture', which neatly sums up all arguments presented over the last five chapters. To tie things up, Eagleton warns that the central question that confronts the new millennium is not cultural but a political one. The compounded nexus of culture is not fully explored in Eagleton's book, nor does he make a similar claim in his book. However, what distinguishes Eagleton's study of culture from that of other cultural critics or postmodern thinkers is that the core of Eagleton's criticism revolves around labour, which, according to Karl Marx, is the only "progenitor" of civilization. A great deal of his analysis deals with the origin of the notion of culture and its relationship between colonialism, and its subsequent evolution into an academic discipline that was "contaminated to its core by racist ideology". Like an ethnographer, Eagleton transcends back into time and age, and studies literature, theory and thought to demonstrate this "unholy alliance between colonial power and nineteenth-century anthropology". Although he is conscious of the cultural industry's power, he does not respond in a puritanical manner and sees the widespread popularization of literature and art as a negative development. He acknowledges that modern industry also made it possible for millions of people to consume what was prohibited to them, however, the only objection to this industry phenomenon is the profit motivation that drives this cultural upsurge. And the remedy he offers is the collective consciousness that relies majorly on strong radical political movements. At a time when we are overwhelmed by advertising brands and dopamine inducing Instagram content, Terry Eagleton's short book provides us with a lot of insights and perspectives to tackle this critical juncture of human civilisation, and must be read by any student of social sciences to grasp and overcome this harsh reality. Author Jacob Joshy is currently pursuing MA economics at South Asian University, Delhi Archives September 2023 8/24/2023 Book Review: ‘Cancel This Book’ Asks for a Return to Revolutionary Class Analysis By: Danny ShawRead Now Dan Kovalik’s book, Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture (2021) Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture, by Dan Kovalik (Hot Books: New York, 2021) Academic and activist Dan Kovalik’s new book, Cancel This Book: The Progressive Case Against Cancel Culture, was written on the frontlines of the twin struggles of our time, the class struggle and the fight for Black liberation. Reading it brought me back to so many magical and contradictory movement moments that I could not resist writing a review. ‘White People Go to the Back of the March’ On the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day in 2017, thousands of protesters took to Fifth Avenue and the frigid streets of New York City to demand criminal charges against the police who murdered Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge; Philando Castile in Falcon Heights, Minnesota; and hundreds of other unarmed Black and brown men. Some Black Lives Matter march marshals had determined that Black and brown families and activists—presented as the only real victims and fighters—would march in the front. White people—presented as all equal benefactors of white supremacy and white privilege—were assigned to march in the back, separated from the youthful, militant front. It was a strange scene. Forty-nine years after the U.S. state assassinated Dr. King for risking his life to organize a multiracial movement against white supremacy—and in his final months, a Poor People’s Campaign against the capitalist system—surely he would find it curious we no longer needed outright white supremacists like Bull Connor or George Wallace; we were now capable of segregating our own marches.
When I picked up Kovalik’s new book, I was intrigued by his biting class analysis of the similar experiences he had. In chapter 2, “Cancellation of a Peace Activist,” he writes directly about being a participant on the frontlines of the BLM movement in Pennsylvania, ducking and dodging police batons as organizers collectively figured out their next strategic moves. Kovalik, a union and human rights lawyer and professor, based out of Pittsburgh, dives deep into the contradictions he and so many others experienced. Kovalik slams both the arrogance of isolated white anarchists whose faux militancy puts all protesters at risk, as well as the bullying tactics and racial reductionism of some radical liberals. This took me back to the explosion of protests following the police murders of Eric Garner and Michael Brown in 2014, which brought millions of people into the streets to denounce the epidemic of police terror in Black and brown communities. Millions were in motion and different political tendencies vied for leadership. Kovalik examines key lessons to be drawn from the almost decade of collective experience we have as a movement in what came to be known as “Black Lives Matter.” This is but one must-read chapter in Kovalik’s exciting new book. Woke Capitalism Kovalik’s book is an expose of Woke Capitalism and the cancer of cancel culture. While millions took to the streets to stop President George W. Bush from invading Iraq, the peace movement was eerily silent when Barack Obama, the country’s first Black president, became “the drone-warrior-in-chief, dropping at least 26,171 bombs in 2016 alone.” (pg. 109) He critiques the peace movement for going quiet every time a Democrat is (s)elected to the oval office.
Do we really “wonder why these rural voters didn’t just go to their local Barnes and Noble to purchase a copy of How to Be an Anti-racist before the election?” Are all of the books that have emerged from the White Privilege Industrial Complex reaching that mass of “deplorables,” whom Arlie Hochchild refers to in her monumental sociological exposé as “strangers in their own land”? (“Own land” as in stolen Indigenous land). Kovalik takes on the Frankenstein-esque outgrowth of cancellations in academic institutions and beyond, asking what are the political forces behind them? He offers the real-life example of the canceling of Molly Rush, an octogenarian peace activist who reposted a quote that took on a life of its own. Instead of speaking with her face to face to clear the air, internet activists dragged her down and expelled her from the movement, like a group of pre-teens playing a game of Telephone. (pg. 13) Kovalik surmises that many keyboard warriors who have never stared down police lines or even handed out a flyer don’t want dialogue and growth. They want to score woke points and “likes” to the detriment of other comrades. Liberal bully politics short-changes us all. Kovalik takes a big leap to the international realm to examine the West’s arrogant dismissal of Cuban medical internationalism, the Russian Sputnik V COVID-19 vaccine and China’s success controlling the COVID-19 pandemic. China had two deaths in 2021. Kovalik concludes: “It simply boggles the mind how the mainstream media and the Democratic Party elite are willing to compromise world peace and public health all in the interest of political gain. In so doing, they have taken ‘cancel culture’ to the very extreme, and they may get us all canceled, permanently, in the process…” (pg. 139)  A sit-in protest on July 8, 2016, in San Francisco in response to the Alton Sterling shooting / credit: Pax Ahimsa Gethen We Never Give Up on Our People It’s a new era. One tweet-turned-Twitter-game-of-telephone can ruin a comrade’s life. How does the state operate online? How do anarchists operate online? When do they intermingle? Any anonymous account can start a smear campaign against any public figure. This book invites us to ask: If we cancel every last screw-up, addict and lumpenized scroundrel, who will absorb the body blows needed to bob and weave forward in the class struggle? When in history has another social class organized, led and defended a revolution? The petite-bourgeoisie blows with the wind. Who will be left? Who is willing to put in that work? Who knows hell well enough not to fear it? Nicaraguan national hero Augusto Sandino said, “Only the workers and peasants will make it all the way.” Kovalik is not turning his back and giving up on the potential cadre of the future. Will you?  A Boston police mug shot of Malcolm X, following his arrest for larceny in 1944 As Marxists, revolutionaries and anti-imperialists, we believe nothing is permanent; everything is in a state of flux. The watchwords are growing through contradictions among the people, healing and restorative justice. We don’t have the luxury of discarding comrades. There has to be a path back or we risk cannibalizing and condemning our own ranks. Who would Malcolm X have been if everyone had given up on him in his 20s, when he was imprisoned? How many young Bobbies, Hueys and Assatas are sidelined right now? How can we be less judgemental and give people opportunities to learn from their mistakes? The Other White America Black and Brown people in the United States, and those in solidarity with the Black Liberation Movement, have every right to be angry. But angry at whom? Most white people are not CEOs or members of the ruling class; many more are National Guard soldiers, correction officers and other reactionary rent-a-cops, the overseers of a society divided between the haves and the have-nots. But the racial portrait of state repression is more complicated. Fifty-eight percent of the Atlanta police force is Black. Over half of Washington, D.C.’s police force is Black. A liberal portrait of white privilege fails to tell the full class story in the United States. Seventy million people received Medicaid in 2016—43 percent were white. Of 43 million food stamp recipients that year, 36.2 percent were white. Over 100,000 overdoses took place in the past year. The overwhelming majority of opioid overdoses occur among poor whites, roughly 72 percent. Are these cast-off layers of our class our enemies?
Cancel This Book refuses to give up on the other white America—the poor, forgotten and de-industrialized “oxy-electorate” (writer Kathleen Frydl’s term for white people who live in the U.S. Rust Belt, where OxyContin addictions are on the rise). Those white people are full of disappointment and hatred for this system—between the tens of millions who refused to vote for another neoliberal Dixiecrat like Hillary Clinton, and the tens of millions of others who were duped into believing a spoiled, trash-talking, billionaire, real-estate mogul hoax and punk with infinite air time was their white knight. As Malcolm X taught: “The truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it is against the oppressor.” We can win over workers who have only ever known the american-dreaming chauvinism they have been fed. Bursting with ideological perspicacity and revolutionary hope, this book pushes us not to get caught up in the liberal webs of identity politics and call-out culture. Kovalik also challenges the white liberals who unknowingly acted as “masochists at the protests.” This constructive critique is not meant to take away from anyone’s hard work and real contributions. Showing Up for Racial Justice (SURJ) was one outgrowth of these liberal politics, which relegated many well-intentioned, liberal, student and petite-bourgeoisie (“middle-class”) whites to cheerleader positions. Is this the militant mass-movement that is going to stand up to the State Department, the Pentagon, the police and the intelligence agencies? When Malcolm held up white abolitionist John Brown’s life as an example of real struggle to follow, he was challenging these liberal politics. Amidst the ever-evolving dialectics of our movement, Kovalik’s book comes as a breath of fresh air. It is a clarion call about the damage we are collectively doing to our movement if we do not center class politics next to the need for Black liberation and the liberation of all oppressed people. AuthorDanny Shaw is a professor of Caribbean and Latin American Studies at the City University of New York. He frequently travels within the Americas region. A Senior Research Fellow at the Center on Hemispheric Affairs, Danny is fluent in Haitian Kreyol, Spanish, Portuguese and Cape Verdean Kriolu. This article was produced by Toward Freedom. Archives August 2023 Recognising how important it is for Today’s Left to understand China, BEN CHACKO recommends a highly readable and well-researched book of essays  CHINA looms large in today’s world. Its economy is predicted to exceed the US’s in size within the decade; by purchasing power parity, it is already larger. It is racing ahead too in diplomacy and trade: it has now replaced the US as the country with the most diplomatic missions overseas, and is the biggest trading partner of a majority of countries globally. This very success — China’s status as the United States’ only acknowledged “peer competitor”— could be the reason China is now routinely depicted as a menace. Britain’s BBC dutifully takes up scares over weather balloons and breathless reports on Chinese aircraft or ships’ “aggressive” conduct in encounters with US counterparts — which for some reason always take place just off the Chinese, not the American coast. Projects like the Belt & Road Initiative, which overtook the World Bank as the biggest development finance lender in 2019, are seen as evidence of a sinister new imperialism. Understanding China could hardly be more important for today’s left. The “China threat” is a key justification for a major plank of British state policy: huge increases in arms spending and the first “east of Suez” military deployments in many decades. This could mean World War III: a serving US general predicts that happening the year after next. Armageddon could result from current China policy in other ways: sanctions and economic “decoupling” are cutting us off from the world leader in renewable technology and undermining scientific co-operation on global warming or pandemics. Socialists need to know how we respond to these challenges. Carlos Martinez’s new book The East is Still Red is an excellent guide. Whether China is socialist, as its ruling Communist Party argues, is a divisive topic but with an eye on history Martinez draws out the consistencies in the country’s course since 1949. Chapter 1, No Great Wall, looks at how the “reform and opening up” period begun by Deng Xiaoping from 1978 built on achievements of the Mao years, without underrating the huge policy differences that did occur, or whitewashing either era. Later, in Will China Suffer the Same Fate as the Soviet Union, Martinez contrasts the two and points both to underlying strengths in China’s model and the lessons its party leadership has learned from the Soviet collapse. Many are familiar with impressive headline figures such as China lifting 800 million people out of poverty — but Western accounts tend to imply this is the undirected result of introducing “the market,” though capitalist market economies such as India or Brazil cannot point to similar achievements. Martinez delves into the details and looks at the targets, the plans, the actual measures taken to deliver the greatest improvement in human welfare in recorded history. For a Western left audience, key chapters are those on how China is making progress towards “ecological civilisation” — and why a “plague on both your houses” position dubbed Neither Washington Nor Beijing is untenable in a context where the US is unambiguously the aggressor in the new cold war while China’s rise is widely welcomed in the global South. Later, he adopts Noam Chomsky’s famous phrase “manufacturing consent” while looking at the media’s coverage of China and how issues are distorted to build support for our own ruling class’s hostility to it: essential reading here is a demolition of the wild claims made about alleged abuses in Xinjiang and their less than objective origins. Developed from articles written on different aspects of China and its revolution — many originally published in the Morning Star — this is a highly readable narrative that doesn’t presuppose detailed knowledge of Chinese history or politics. The thematic character means many chapters work well on their own, and will make it a handy reference point for anyone wanting to brush up on specifics like the anti-poverty campaigns or China and climate change. It’s extensively referenced, and welcome in quoting more Chinese than foreign sources on the country. Highly recommended. AuthorMorning Star This article was produced by Morning Star. Archives July 2023  Imagine if you will, that we lived in a country in which TV and movie scripts were produced for merit and not edited and censored to ensure compliance with capitalist ideology. Imagine that in this fictitious USA, it were possible to make movies celebrating heroic leaders of the struggles for working people, Black people, and immigrants. Imagine that those films could be financed, promoted, and viewed as widely as the mindless tripe we are currently subjected to that encompasses all sorts of idiocy from vampire scripts, to “reality” TV, or films making heroes of CIA agents or as forces for good in an evil world. In such a world, a movie maker would go to unimaginable lengths to obtain the rights to Working Class Giant, the Life of William Z. Foster, written by his former aide, Arthur Zipser. This 215-page offering from International Publishers screams to be made into an epic work on the life of a man for whom the term giant is no exaggeration. Foster was born in 1881 in Taunton, Massachusetts but moved to a tough, ramshackle neighborhood in Philadelphia known as Skittereen when he was seven. His is truly a story of a man from humble beginnings achieving remarkable goals, all to further the interests of working men and women. He fought for racial equality. He opposed efforts to split up workers through ethnic division. He championed equal pay for women, international solidarity of workers and socialism. His accomplishments are far too long to list here but some of his roles included teacher, organizer, author, strike leader, reporter, editor, theoretician, US Presidential candidate, worker, diplomat, and husband and father! Foster was so feared by the capitalists that he was twice seized and kidnapped by them, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1919 and Denver, Colorado 1922 to keep him away from the striking steelworkers and railroad workers he was supporting. He was shot at, beaten, arrested numerous times, smeared, condemned from the floor of the House of Representatives. He served two prison terms and was indicted under the Smith Act. Foster joined the Communist Party in 1921 and was a tremendous asset in a time of factional struggles and attempts to destroy the party from within. The young party resisted the efforts of the most powerful government on earth to crush it. He served in leadership and ran for US President three times on the party ticket receiving 102,991 votes in 1932. He did all this and more, but most of all, he was revered by working people everywhere because he shared their pain and aspiration for a better life for themselves, their families, their neighbors. He was profoundly moved by their suffering describing the 1931 coal strike as, “one of the severest strikes I’ve ever went through. ………. it was heartbreaking to see starving miners being cut to pieces by the ruthless operators.” in 1941 Theodore Dreiser on Foster’s 60th birthday declared “To me he is a saint-my first and only contact with one……..a leader among leaders who has always kept faith with the working man.” Gus Hall wrote, ”He was the very best that the U.S. working class has produced.” Foster’s sixtieth birthday party at Madison Square Garden attracted 18,000 people. Paul Robeson sang! Despite being initially published in 1981, the now reprinted book is as timely as ever as the country begins to see an organizing and strike upsurge. Its historical accounts cannot be retold often enough. If you have not read it, do so now. If you have read it, relive the story of a titan. The latest edition includes a very fine introduction by a passionate disciple of Foster, Chris Townsend, former Legislative Director for the United Electrical Workers and former Organizing Director for the Amalgamated Transit Union. AuthorBob Bonner is former president of AFGE Local 2028 in Pittsburgh, PA where he represented US Veterans Administration workers. This article was republished from Marxism-Leninism Today Archives June 2023 8/27/2022 Book Review: Robert Lekachman & Borin Van Loon – Capitalism for Beginners (1981)Reviewed By: Jymee CRead Now One of the most crucial tasks in the movement for socialism and the general liberation of the proletariat is to hold a proper understanding of capitalism. How the system functions, its history, the arguments in its favor perpetuated by the ruling class, a strong grasp on these concepts works to ensure that we as socialists and communists are duly prepared to fight against the reactionary, hegemonic forces of capitalism on a global scale. Without such knowledge, without a solid understanding of the theoretical and historical foundations of capitalism, our fight is faulty and ultimately incomplete. The writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin, and numerous others throughout history have provided integral analyses of capitalism, imperialism, and similar reactionary isms that stand in the way of constructing socialism. These are essential for all of us within the socialist movement to study, however, there do exist some challenges that may make studying these texts more difficult for someone. The density of the work (especially some of Marx’s writings), the lack of historical context, or even something such as having a learning disability can make studying these works a more difficult task for several people. Socialist economist Robert Lekachman’s 1981 book Capitalism for Beginners, with illustrations from Borin Van Loon, serves as a potential secondary tool in strengthening how capitalism is understood and what can be done to address the inherent issues within the system. Capitalism for Beginners provides a critical lens in the pursuit of educating readers on the ins and outs of capitalism from its historical foundation onward. The first third of this book is used as a platform to discuss, how capitalism has managed to maintain such a stranglehold on American economics, politics, and culture as it developed within the United States. In providing a brief overview of capitalism, Lekachman utilizes this brief description as a segway into addressing why socialism had not been able to muster a strong position within the US. Comparing the conditions of the United States and Europe, the myth of class mobility was born into the US, with the myth in question alongside the lack of a peasantry and other similar class positions being listed as some of the factors for the entrenching of capitalism into the roots of American society. The so-called “Invisible Hand” of capitalism is also touched upon. Lekachman continues with a more robust historical recap of capitalism’s formation within the USA. Beginning with an explanation of the mercantile system that capitalism sprouted from, moving on to the concept of the “free labor movement” along with the free market in general and acknowledging the influence of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations, Lekachman continues by providing some poignant critiques of the free-market structure and practices. Though figures are dated given the time of publication, with many of these numbers coming from the late 1970s, the statistics provided regarding the various forms of inequality under capitalism provide a historical lens into the perpetual, inherent contradictions of the system. When speaking on the issue of income, Lekachman writes; “There are two ways of looking at the inequality of economic reward. The capitalist says that unequal income is essential to an efficient economy. Self-interest is an important impetus to effort, saving and investment. Besides, some people are brighter, more imaginative or energetic than others, so it’s only fair that their rewards should be higher. A socialist would argue that inequality reflects the power relationships of capitalism. Either way, inequality under capitalism is taken as necessary and inevitable.” Other contradictions addressed by Lekachman include the problem of inheritance, in addition to the reactionary gendered and racially driven inequalities promoted and perpetuated by the capitalist apparatus. The self-destructive nature of capitalism is further analyzed within this book, leading into further analysis of the development of 20th century capitalism surrounding the emergence of the theories of one John Maynard Keynes in the 1930s following the advent of Great Depression. Detailing the limited successes of Keynesianism, in addition to the goal of Keynesian economics of countering the influence of Marxism, Lekachman highlights that amid World War II and in its aftermath, Keynesian theory would introduce an economic boom period, especially in the first decades following the end of WWII. This boom, for both the US and much of Western Europe, proved to have limitations, though these limitations were on display more so in the United States. Keynesian theory and practice, in addition to western efforts such as the Marshall Plan and the establishing of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, allowed for countries such as Britain to enact an economic and governmental shift into a form of social democracy. The US, enjoying similar economic developments, lagged and continues to lag behind other developed countries in the construction a legitimate safety net in regarding to healthcare, social services, and other infrastructural aspects associated with the welfare-state of social democracy. Likewise, the instability of capitalism in all its forms became more apparent as economic growth remained uneven, and the strains of the illegal war in Vietnam allowed for the cracks in Keynesian to emerge. As contradictions became more and more apparent, Lekachman’s focus shifts from the rise of the Keynesian model to its fall, subsequently moving into the rise of neoliberalism, monetarism, and the mass privatization and austerity measures that came with it in the US, the UK, and elsewhere as a result of the recession of the early 1970s. Highlighting the era of Milton Friedman, Ronald Reagan, and Margaret Thatcher, we see a brief explanation of monetarism, shedding light on the vastly more prominent negatives of the system, particularly the promotion of austerity measures that lead to the privatization of necessary services and industries. In addition, we see the issue of people conflating something that has even the slightest resemblance to a welfare state with full on Soviet style socialism, using the monetarist, anti-Labour Party crusade in Britain after Thatcher’s election as an example. Other negative effects and falsehoods perpetuated by the system are likewise touched upon. Lekachman, although a socialist in his own right, provides a weak conclusion in addressing the neoliberal age of capitalism. At the end of this book, he states that the way to properly defeat capitalism is by replacing with a form of democratic socialism. While this is by no means an attack on those who consider themselves democratic socialists, the lack of adherence to historical conditions and contexts in his conclusion is not sufficient in truly addressing what needs to be done in successfully overthrowing the capitalist state apparatus. Gains can be made through the ballot box even if only incremental, but history and even modern conditions have proven that working solely or at least primarily through the electoral process as a means of building socialism will be likely met with more difficulties, setbacks, and unfortunately, failures in the attempt of socialist construction. Additionally, Lekachman inadvertently points out one of the flaws in his own goal. Prior to proclaiming the need for democratic socialism, Lekachman acknowledges the very possibility of corporations and other agents of capitalism turning to means in line with that of fascism and other more aggressive forms of the dictatorship of capital as a means of safeguarding their economic interests and swiftly curtailing the influence of unions, socialists, and other such demographics. That the capitalists would have such power in their inherent collaboration with the bourgeois state only shows that the difficulties of building socialism only or even primarily through the bourgeois democratic process are more apparent, with the strategy of democratic socialism having no real preparation for when the capitalist class triples down on the oppression of those fed up with the cycle of capitalism. Despite the faulty conclusion in how to counter the mechanisms of capitalism, Capitalism for Beginners does ultimately serve a good purpose in educating people on the history and inner workings of capitalism and its agents. Lekachman’s explanations of the various stages and aspects of capitalism from its rise out of mercantilism to the era of neoliberalism are informative while not being dense or explained in an overly complicated fashion. The visuals in this book also serve a multipronged purpose of being informative, driving a point forward with additional comments, and even just being mildly humorous. For instance, there’s an illustration of Milton Friedman as a scarecrow, a tongue-in-cheek way of calling Friedman a literal strawman. We also F.A. Hayek portrayed as a 1920s style gangster, a way of displaying how the monetarist, neoliberal system works in tandem with criminal or near-criminal acts committed often in line with the workings of the bourgeois government. Faulty conclusions and some dated figures aside, Capitalism for Beginners is a very thorough but easy to understand book that may serve as both an introductory piece and a refresher course for those aiming to garner a solid comprehension of capitalism. AuthorJymee C is an aspiring Marxist historian and teacher with a BA in history from Utica College, hoping to begin working towards his Master's degree in the near future. He's been studying Marxism-Leninism for the past five years and uses his knowledge and understanding of theory to strengthen and expand his historical analyses. His primary interests regarding Marxism-Leninism and history include the Soviet Union, China, the DPRK, and the various struggles throughout US history among other subjects. He is currently conducting research for a book on the Korean War and US-DPRK relations. In addition, he is a 3rd Degree black belt in karate and runs the YouTube channel "Jymee" where he releases videos regarding history, theory, self-defense, and the occasional jump into comedy https://www.youtube.com/c/Jymee Archives August 2022 8/1/2022 Comments on: Marxism and Finitude-Comments on Simon's Critchley's Remarks on Quentin Meillassoux's After Finitude. By: Thomas RigginsRead Now The TLS of February 27, 2009 has a review of an important philosophy book-- After Finitude by Quentin Meillassoux-- translated from the French by Ray Brassier [i.e. "Back to the great outdoors" by Simon Critchley]. The title of the article is due to Meillassoux's desire to get directly back to nature. The following are some Marxist impressions on the philosophical issues raised by this review especially with regard to materialism and idealism in contemporary philosophy. We are told that one of Meillassoux's targets is Kant who maintained that we have knowledge of the world as it APPEARS to us. Meillassoux wants to show that we can access "the world as it is in itself without being dependent on the existence of observers." So far so good. It is interesting to note that Science Daily online posted an article stating that physicists have demonstrated that we can know that there is a world independent of our observation-- but it is very weird [“Scientists Say That Reality Is Real”]. The problem seems to be with the phrase, vis a vis the world, to access "the world as it is in itself" independent of the observer. Critchley explains that Kant thinks there is a real world independent of us but that it is mediated through our perceptual apparatus. "The external material objects that I experience in perception are nothing but "mere appearances" or "representations". But, perhaps Critchley goes too far, or is it Meillassoux as well?, in saying for Kant "the outside world exists but is only the correlate of the concepts and categories through which we conceive it." At least "outside" is not the right word to use for Kant since both space and time are for him the a priori preconditions for human experience-- the independent world does not exist in space or time as these are human ways of perception and we don't know how else to explain the world. We are told that Meillassoux considers all this (i.e., The Critique of Pure Reason) a "catastrophe" because it has led to "correlationism." What it has actually led to is the thought that the world-- both physical and social-- is not necessarily 100% just as it appears to be to any of us. That creatures with different perceptual apparatus will see it differently and experience it differently. If there was a "catastrophe" it would have been due to Hume whose philosophy led to the skeptical positions regarding humanity's ability to know anything at all that drove Kant to write the Critique. But neither were "catastrophes." Both were milestones on the road of human self awareness which have contributed to the growth of our self knowledge. Critchley tells us that Melliassoux's target is the form of correlationism associated with Husserl's phenomenology which "is based on the idea of a correlation between the intentional acts of consciousness and the objects of those acts...." What does this mean? Husserl uses the Greek term NOEMA to refer to an object as it is in-itself and NOESIS to refer to our thinking about it. We take the natural standpoint in everyday life-- i.e., we are dealing with externally existing objects in a real world. For the purposes of phenomenology we abandon this standpoint, bracket the object, and just study the way it appears to our consciousness. OK, this doesn't deny the existence of the material world but it correlates the object in this way-- the thing- in- itself and the thing-for- us. Husserl's student Heidegger is more subjective. For him the external object is determined by the noesis-- the human world is a by-product of consciousness-- so, as in Kant, we can't know the thing-in-itself. So what is the problem with this way of thinking? There are two, says Critchley. First, since it keeps reason away from the things-in-themselves, it opens the door to non reasonable explanations and theories about them (i.e., irrationalism and religion) Second: "it is wrong." Well, that is being blunt! Meillassoux thinks correlations are wrong because they can't say anything about the universe before the evolution of humans. But this is only true of the most rigid subjective idealists. Hegel (also mentioned as a correlationist) certainly believed the world to have had an objective existence before there were any people around. I can say that I think I only know the thing-in-itself indirectly by means of my perceptual apparatus and my experiences with it and yet still believe my perceptual apparatus is the product of the evolution of my species which is a recent event in the history of the universe. I neither have to "disavow" the existence of the material world nor be "an intellectual hypocrite" as Meillassoux seems to think. So now the question is--- if we reject correlationism do we have to go back to pre-Kantian "dogmatic" metaphysics? Meillassoux proposes what he calls SPECULATIVE REALISM. Critchley says, consider the metaphysics of Leibniz. Leibniz defended THE PRINCIPLE OF SUFFICIENT REASON. For every thing that exists there must be a reason why it, rather than some other thing, exists. He ends up proving the existence of God with this [a philosopher's God, not necessarily anything anybody else would use the word "God" to describe]. This is no good, thinks Meillassoux. Speculative Reason demands an absolute notion of an independently existing reality that we can have direct knowledge of and this "God" is an untidy remnant of pre-Kantian metaphysical mumbo-jumbo. Leibniz had asked, "Why is there something rather than nothing." Meillassoux dumps the principle of sufficient reason and answers "For no reason." There is no reason why there is something rather than nothing, it just is that way. Who is it now who is cutting off reason from the origin of the universe before man? The subtitle of the book is "An Essay on the Necessity of Contingency." The universe is not the result of necessity, but of a "brute contingent chaos," according to Critchley. Even though the principle of sufficient reason is not operative, human reason can explore the chaos and try to understand what is going on. But don't we need to believe in "reasons" to find out what is going on? Is it not just a dogmatic assertion to say that contingency is a necessity and fail to give a sufficient reason why this is so? We have now arrived at the "most speculative claim of the book", says Critchley. And that is that mathematics is the only method we have to find some stability and truth within the chaotic contingency of reality. Critchley writes that "his book is essentially a defense of the project of the mathematization of nature that one can find in Galileo and Descartes." We are told this reflects the mathematical ontology of his teacher Alain Badiou. So reality is a chaotic contingency but it follows mathematical laws. Hmmmm. Even if this may be fine for the physical sciences it will never due for the human sciences. Meillassoux is essentially a throw back to seventeenth century mechanical materialism. Human reality, history, psychology, the social sciences can only be understood by means of the hegelio-marxist dialectic which views this reality as in constant movement and change brought about by an inherent negativity which prevents its reduction to rigid mathematical formulae. According to Critchley, Meillassoux accepts Hume's view of nature (including man) as "a brute contingency that cannot be rationally explained", so how then can he use mathematics to explain it. How can you explain what cannot be explained? When it is rationally explained you get (non-academic) Marxism. Yipes! Critchley fears that this "mathematical romance" has seduced its author to attempt doing what Hume's philosophy "perhaps rightly prohibits." It was Hume's philosophy that generated the line Kant to Hegel to Marx, so it looks like Meillassoux should be looking forward not backward for the solution to his problems. Regardless of this caveat, Critchley finds the argument "absolutely exhilarating" as well as "brilliant." And while he finds the author "at his best when showing the complacency of contemporary Kantians and phenomenologists" I found myself wondering how widespread was the kind of "correlationism" Meillassoux objects to. All those in the Marxist tradition, Positivist tradition and Analytic tradition don't seem to be affected. He objects to an early work of Wittgenstein which Wittgenstein rejected and has now only historical interest. I think he has set up a lot of straw men to knock down. Critchley is also impressed by Meillassoux's SPECULATIVE REALISM which upholds nature as "cold and indifferent to humans." But this idea is as old as the hills. Hume held that nature cares as much for oysters as for humans, so there is nothing new here. Meillassoux promises another book to elaborate on his ideas on Speculative Reason. I hope it doesn't have "the fine-grained logic-chopping worthy of Duns Scotus" found by Critchley in After Finitude. Critchley himself makes three criticisms of the book. First, if we accept the view that "the world as it is in itself is the same as the world for us" and it is mathematics and science that reveals it "then philosophy becomes totally useless." Second, Meillassoux's model of science is physics which can describe the world before life, but what role is there for sciences like biology, psychology and economics"? Third, if physics reveals the world as it really is, how do we account for ethics and relative value systems? Should not the one real world be reflected in every cultural understanding? Critchley thinks it ironic that while advanced analytic thinkers, he mentions John McDowell and Robert Brandon, are incorporating the insights of Kant, Hegel and Heidegger into an update of the Anglo-American tradition, Meillassoux is moving backwards to Cartesianism [mechanical materialism--tr]. Critchley tells a story of a 1951 meeting between A.J.. Ayer and Georges Bataille. Ayer said he thought the Sun existed before man appeared, and Bataille thought the question meaningless since he was "more versed in Hegel and phenomenology" so as a correlationist he thought that "physical objects must be perceived by an observer to be said to exist."[Which, at least, is not Hegel's view at all.] Shocked by Ayer's attitude, Bataille is quoted as saying, "There exists between French and English philosophers a sort of abyss." The abyss, however, is between those educated in philosophy and a scientific world view and those innocent of science. Bataille's views were those of Mach and Avenarius and the Russian thinkers who Lenin criticized in his work Materialism and Empirio-Criticism. Marxism and the philosophy of Dialectical Materialism would certainly have sided with Ayer on this issue and seen Bataille as a representative in philosophy of an outmoded subjective idealism and the thinking of the declining bourgeoisie. The present time, when the bourgeois world is once again in crisis and manifesting symptoms of decline and decadence, is not a world where philosophers need to spend their intellectual energy in trying to refute a moribund French philosophical culture that was effectively exposed as meaningless by Lenin as well as Marx and Engels many generations ago. But if that is what Meillassoux wants to do, carry coals to Newcastle, who is to gainsay him? AuthorThomas Riggins is a retired philosophy teacher (NYU, The New School of Social Research, among others) who received a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983). He has been active in the civil rights and peace movements since the 1960s when he was chairman of the Young People's Socialist League at Florida State University and also worked for CORE in voter registration in north Florida (Leon County). He has written for many online publications such as People's World and Political Affairs where he was an associate editor. He also served on the board of the Bertrand Russell Society and was president of the Corliss Lamont chapter in New York City of the American Humanist Association. He is the author of Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism. Archives August 2022 7/25/2022 Book Review: Fascist Ideology: Territory and Expansionism in Italy and Germany ,1922-1945. Reviewed by: Thomas RigginsRead Now This book by Aristotle A. Kallls is an interesting book on the state of bourgeois research and theories about fascism. It is doubtful if Marxists, especially those familiar with the works of Georgi Dimitrov, will learn much from it. Although in recent years some Marxists {MINOs) and even some Marxist parties have begun to use the term “fascism” indiscriminately and in ways foreign to Dimitrov. Kallls informs us that there is still no “lasting consensus about what ‘fascism’ reality represents.” His purpose is to analyze fascist expansionism as ideology and as action That is, his book seeks to tell us how “domestic and international factors” affected the ability of German and Italian fascism to carry out their ideological goals and expansionist policies. But lacking “a consensus about what ‘fascism’ really means” Kallis can only discuss his subject in the abstract theoretical terms of bourgeois scholarship. He appears unaware of one of the major discussions on the nature of fascism — namely, Georgi Dimitrov’s report to the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International given on August 2, 1935. For Marxists, the class character of fascism — “what it really represents” — is not an issue . Dimitrov’s definition of fascism “as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital,” applies to “classical” fascism (Italy and Germany) but also to such recent fascist regimes as Suharto’s Indonesia and Pinochet’s Chile, as well as Franco’s Spain. Lacking a Marxist understanding of the nature of fascism and its role in maintaining a crisis ridden capitalism, Kallis is often reduced to trying to explain events by reference to the “personalities” of Hitler and Mussolini rather than seeing them as class responses to the growth of revolutionary class consciousness within the working class. In the US this is manifested in blaming Trump as a person rather than a cog in a system. As Dimitrov points out, fascism comes to power when the bourgeoisie is “no longer in a position to maintain its dictatorship over the masses by the old methods of bourgeois democracy and parliamentarism." Kallls, however, never mentions the central role of finance capitalism in the workings of fascism. He writes that “personal charisma remained the most powerful unifying force” of the Italian and German regimes. Some on the left should keep this in mind before throwing around the term “fascism” with respect to the Republicans (Trump was a close call) and other right wing, reactionary, racist authoritarian movements. Finance capital has chosen Biden as its leader and is quite content to run its terroristic foreign policies offshore through imperialist channels using the Democratic Party (and the Republican as need be) and those who support it and the bourgeois democracy the capitalist ruling class uses to maintain its control over the working class. Another aspect of Kallis theory is that fascism is just a special case of the generic tendency of monopoly capitalism and its financial component (“Imperialism” and “Globalization”). Research is being done to determine if fascist expansionism was due to “generic fascist values” or developed out of the pre-fascist tendencies of Italian and German historical development. With qualifications, he concludes that “the notion of generic fascist expansionism can be a valuable tool for analysis.” Be that as it may, such a generic notion of fascism can obscure that it is finance capital’s “innate tendency” to expand its economic and political control in order to dominate the world’s markets, and that fascism is simply a special case of the generic tendency of monopoly capitalism and its financial components (‘Imperialism’ and ‘Globalization’). German Finance capital, for example, attempted to dominate central and eastern Europe from the mid-nineteenth century on. World War II, as World War I before it, was the action of a weak financial capitalism that could only see itself expanding by means of military force. (This is not to endorse the view that Germany alone was responsible for either WWI or II.) The same expansionist goals are pursued today by German capital and its Social Democratic allies. One has only to look at its role in the breakup of Yugoslavia, the stationing of German troops outside its borders (as junior partner — but for how long — of US imperialism), the destruction of the the German Democratic Republic (DDR) and the expansion of the euro (the reincarnation of the Deutsche Mark). All this points to the conclusion that fascist expansionism was not so much generic in the nature of fascism as in the nature of capitalism. Kallis’ book would have been more useful for present day activists and students of fascism if its subject matter had been presented in light of the Marxist theory of the state in relation to imperialism and war, especially as found in the works of Lenin and Dimitrov, But then Fascist Ideology would not just be another tome in the library of bourgeois historiography. AuthorThomas Riggins is a retired philosophy teacher (NYU, The New School of Social Research, among others) who received a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983). He has been active in the civil rights and peace movements since the 1960s when he was chairman of the Young People's Socialist League at Florida State University and also worked for CORE in voter registration in north Florida (Leon County). He has written for many online publications such as People's World and Political Affairs where he was an associate editor. He also served on the board of the Bertrand Russell Society and was president of the Corliss Lamont chapter in New York City of the American Humanist Association. He is the author of Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism. Archives July 2022 7/6/2022 Julius Caesar: Working Class Hero or Tyrant - On Michael Parenti’s People’s History of Ancient Rome. Reviewed By: Thomas RigginsRead Now We often hear the United States compared to ancient Rome – usually negatively. Critics of US foreign policy refer to a new Roman Empire and to Paul Bremer as a proconsul in Iraq. These references are comprehensible because Rome and its institutions, both religious and secular (especially Roman law) are part of the foundations on which so-called Western civilization is based. The founders of the United States used many Roman symbols in representing the new republic (res publica). The imperial eagle, the arrows of war, the olive branch, the idea of a Senate – even the classical architecture of Washington, DC is based on the public buildings of Rome (and Athens). Now that many elements of the right see this country as the dominant world power, the analogies with ancient Rome as a universal empire are becoming more numerous even in the popular media. Michael Parenti’s People’s History of Ancient Rome is thus both timely and relevant. Written in his usual popular and accessible style, this book will make available to a wide working-class audience an easily understandable and reliable portrait of Rome at one of its most important historical junctures: the transition from an oligarchical republic to a full-blown imperial system. The life and death of Julius Caesar is the focal point of this work. Departing from the consensus of classical scholars who refer to Caesar as a tyrant who trampled on the personal liberties and freedoms of Republican Rome symbolized by the rule of the Senate, Parenti marshals convincing evidence to support what has been the minority view – that Caesar was actually a representative of popular democratic tendencies among the Roman people and that his enemies and assassins really stood for the interests of a small elite portion of the ruling class who used the power of the Roman state for personal enrichment and the exploitation of the masses. The class struggle in Rome was basically between the optimates (the best) who represented the wealthy latifundistas (plantation owners) and the popularis (relating to the people) who tried to improve the living standards of regular citizens of the republic. 'As a popularis, Julius Caesar introduced ‘laws to better the condition of the poor,’ as [the ancient historian] Appian wrote,' Parenti points out. This is what ultimately cost him his life on March 15, 44 B.C. The optimates were also the creditor class, and Parenti remarks that their policies created 'penury and debt' that crushed average citizens. It was Caesar who tried to alleviate this suffering and prevent the loss of freedom for the debtor, actions 'upon which today’s bankruptcy laws are based' – a citizen’s freedom was to be 'inborn and unalienable.' Caesar has also been blamed for the destruction of the great library at Alexandria. Parenti shows, however, that the destruction of ancient culture, the burning of books and the closing down of libraries and educational institutions was done by the 'Christ worshipers' when they came to power. 'Though depicted as an oasis of learning amidst the brutish ignorance of the Dark Ages, the Christian church actually was the major purveyor of that ignorance.' Parenti even suggests that Caesar’s rule was 'a dictatorship of the proletarii' since he ruled against the 'plutocracy on behalf of the citizenry’s substantive interests.' And, he says Cicero, one the most dedicated of the optimates, is quoted as lamenting the fact that Caesar wanted to bestow Roman 'citizenship not merely on individuals but on entire nations and provinces.' It is no surprise then to discover that even to this day people leave flowers at the site of Caesar’s murder every March 15. Parenti also criticizes contemporary classicists who ignore the class struggles of the ancient world – seeing the masses as rabble and expressing sympathy for ancient ruling-class elites and their treatment of the common people. Parenti says he has 'tried to show [that] what we know of the common people tells us that they displayed a social consciousness and sense of justice that was usually superior to anything possessed by their would-be superiors.' Parenti lists four tenets of the ideology of the optimates which he says characterize 'all ruling propertied classes.' Namely, 1) the ruling class treats its interests as the general interest; 2) social welfare programs are bad for those who receive them as they 'undermine the moral fiber' of the poor; 3) the redistribution of wealth at the expense of the wealthy is detrimental to society as a whole; and 4) attacking the reformers and their characters is a better way to defeat reform than attacking the particular reform itself. This is an excellent book and a good read. By understanding the class struggle in ancient Rome, as presented by Parenti, we will better understand the struggle being waged in the world of today. The Assassination of Julius Caesar: A People's History of Ancient Rome By Michael Parenti New York New Press, 2003. AuthorThomas Riggins is a retired philosophy teacher (NYU, The New School of Social Research, among others) who received a PhD from the CUNY Graduate Center (1983). He has been active in the civil rights and peace movements since the 1960s when he was chairman of the Young People's Socialist League at Florida State University and also worked for CORE in voter registration in north Florida (Leon County). He has written for many online publications such as People's World and Political Affairs where he was an associate editor. He also served on the board of the Bertrand Russell Society and was president of the Corliss Lamont chapter in New York City of the American Humanist Association. He is the author of Reading the Classical Texts of Marxism. Archives July 2022 7/6/2022 Book Review: The Bootleg Coal Rebellion The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry- Mitch Troutman. Reviewed By: Mitchell K. JonesRead Now Modern "Coal Bootleggers" in Schuylkill County". Postcard circa 1945.  A bootleg mine shaft near Ashland, Pennsylvania.[1] A headline in the Harrisburg, Pennsylvania newspaper the Daily Item reads, “Man Charged with Stealing 3,000 Tons of Coal.”[2] According to the article, “The surveyor told police when he conducted the inspection, he used a known survey point that dated back to the 17 and 1800s, according to court documents. The surveyor told police Four Vein Coal Company was mining coal off of Reading Anthracite property, police said.”[3] Mitch Troutman’s Bootleg Coal Rebellion The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry started with curiosity regarding contemporary examples of coal bootlegging such as this one. This curiosity led Troutman to discover the long ranging, often militant history of the practice of coal bootlegging in the anthracite coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. The result was Bootleg Coal Rebellion, a regional history brimming with passion and pride for the radical legacy in Troutman’s home state. Troutman traces the region’s history of contradiction between the workers’ desire for a decent way of living and the coal bosses desire for greater and greater profits from the Molly Maguires of the 1870s to contemporary reports of coal bootlegging in an attempt to answer the question, “How did we start treating coal company property like it belonged to us?”[4] Troutman’s passion for local history comes through in his writing. Discovering revolutionary elements in his own area’s past inspired Troutman to look deeper into the radical history of the region. The researcher’s quest is invigorating. The “Eureka!” or “Aha!” moment when you discover a connection that nobody else has identified before is ethereal and sublime. Researchers are addicts, chasing that first big high. This spirit is palpable in Troutman’s writing, resulting in a compelling narrative and a stimulating read. Troutman’s approach is historical materialist. He starts by discussing the land, the differences between bituminous and anthracite coal and the differences, both cultural and geographical, between the bituminous regions of Northern Appalachia and the anthracite region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. He then breaks radical and bootlegging activity in the anthracite region down town by town. Bootlegging was the practice of building small “coal holes” near mining company property that allowed unemployed miners access to mines that the company had closed. The practice is as old as the collieries themselves, but coal bootlegging hit its peak during the Great Depression of the 1930s. “Coal holes” were dangerous and whole families, including children, often worked them. Truckers got the illegal coal to markets. Breakers were black market businessmen that set up bootleg coal operations. The consumers were often shop owners that were aware the coal was bootlegged, but were happy to buy the product at a price lower than the official collieries. The coal monopolies’ and the states’ attempts to stop bootlegging led to an alliance between working class miners and truckers, and petit bourgeois breakers and even retail merchants, despite their reliance on the Reading Railroad monopoly who had an interest in preventing bootlegging since they leased land to the colliery companies. The interdependent web of complicity held this illegal economy together. Mutual aid and democracy were also key values that held bootlegging communities together. The rank and file workers fought with both the official United Mine Workers union leadership and the company bosses over the issue of “equalization.” Trautmann describes equalization as, “the spreading of available working hours among all employees, so as not to lay anyone off.”[5] Clearly workers’ communitarian faith in mutual aid trumped selfish desires. Bootlegging, despite its dangers, was a communal activity. Neighbors agreed to be silent around Iron and Coal Police while whole families of bootleggers mined “coal holes” for use and sale in the community. Troutman describes the spirit of anthracite region families in hard times: “A family with more eggs than it could eat might trade with a neighbor for tree fruit, for a visit from a neighborhood healer, or for harvest-time crops that could be preserved or pickled. Additionally, many had the crafting skills necessary to create anything from baskets to clothing.”[6] Strikes were often called in defiance of the UMW. The United Anthracite Miners of Pennsylvania (UAMP) formed in defiance of the UMW’s anti-equalization policies and struck on their own. Unfortunately, the UAMP’s leader Tom Maloney was murdered on Good Friday 1836, vanquishing the more radical wing of the miners’ movement. The companies’ and moderate unions’ attempts backfired, resulting in a coal bootlegging boom. The illegality of the industry solidified communitarian bonds. The complex networks of families, miners, truckers, breakers and consumers softened racial and gender boundaries as well. Troutman argues coal bootlegging was both a means of subsistence during hard times and a radical rebellion against the coal monopolies. Miners bootlegged out of necessity to survive the severe times, but the practice also made it clear to the coal bosses that without the workers there would be no coal. Most interesting is Troutman’s description of Communist Party (CPUSA) run Unemployment Councils in the anthracite region. CPUSA assigned organizer Steve Nelson to move to Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania to set up Unemployment Councils in the anthracite region. Nelson explained how communists had to be sensitive to the culture and people of the region, “[T]he old sectarian approach, with its emphasis on abstract theory and rhetoric, constant adulation of the Soviet Union, and a hostility toward all radicals outside the Party, would not work. We concentrated instead on issues of vital concern to working people.”[7] Troutman describes the Shamokin Unemployed Council as a case study: They had subgroups for homeowners, youth, and women. They petitioned and marched for moratoriums on evictions, sherif’s sales, utility shut offs, and property tax. If someone—involved in the committee or not—was in trouble, the council would show up and physically stop evictions and utility shut offs, negotiate with utility companies, or, when all else failed, reconnect the utilities illegally. They often succeeded at all of it.[8] Anti-communist and communist miners worked side by side. Often their lives literally depended on each other. They made jokes about their differences, and there were certainly tensions, especially between Irish Catholics and atheist communists for example, but at the end of the day, they were ready to risk their lives to save their fellow miners. Troutman’s Bootleg Coal Rebellion is a compelling story and a lesson for socialists and organizers today. Through his focus on the rebellious, democratic and communitarian elements of the coal bootlegging movement and the ways that radicals adapted their message to appeal to these pre-extant sentiments in the anthracite region, Troutman gives us hope that those same rebellious, democratic and communitarian spirits, ever present in the proletariat, can still be nurtured into revolutionary potential today. More importantly, Troutman’s book turns our attention to the Unemployed Councils of the 1930s and the work of communist Steve Nelson in the anthracite region. Nelson and the Unemployed Councils’ example is a blueprint for organizing and mutual aid in the future as the volatile neoliberal economy heads into another period of crisis and workers are already once again turning to desperate measures to survive. [1] By Jasontromm, CC BY-SA 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29221915 [2] Francis Scarcella, “Man Charged with Stealing 3,000 Tons of Coal,” Sunbury Daily Item, September 24, 2016 [3] Scarcella, “Man Charged with Stealing 3,000 Tons of Coal.” [4] Mitch Trauttman, The Bootleg Coal RebellionL The Pennsylvania Miners Who Seized an Industry 1925–1942, (Oakland, CA: PM Press, 2022), 5. [5] Troutman, The Bootleg Coal Rebellion, 48 [6] Ibid., 45. [7] Ibid., 130. [8] Ibid., 131. AuthorMitchell K. Jones is a historian and activist from Rochester, NY. He has a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and a master’s degree in history from the College at Brockport, State University of New York. He has written on utopian socialism in the antebellum United States. His research interests include early America, communal societies, antebellum reform movements, religious sects, working class institutions, labor history, abolitionism and the American Civil War. His master’s thesis, entitled “Hunting for Harmony: The Skaneateles Community and Communitism in Upstate New York: 1825-1853” examines the radical abolitionist John Anderson Collins and his utopian project in Upstate New York. Jones is a member of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. Archives July 2022 6/9/2022 Book Review: Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. By: Marcello Musto Reviewed By: Carlos L. GarridoRead Now Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation. New York: Palgrave Macmillan (2021). 164 page Marcello Musto’s anthology of Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation[1] is both comprehensive and concise, containing within the span of 100 pages the three decades long development of the theory through more than a dozen published works and posthumously published manuscripts. Additionally, Musto’s introduction to the anthology exceptionally captures: 1) the deviations the concept suffered in its 20th century popularization (both by friends and foes of Marxism); and 2) the bifurcation in Marxism which was depicted in the 1960s debate around the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844 (EPM), which created what Musto rightly depicts as “one of the principal misunderstandings in the history of Marxism: the myth of the ’Young Marx’” (20).[2] The concept of alienation can be traced back to G.W.F. Hegel’s 1807 text, The Phenomenology of Spirit, where the terms entäusserung (self-externalization) and entfremdung (estrangement) are used to describe the moments wherein spirit’s “essential being is present to it in the form of an 'other.'”[3] After Hegel’s death, the concept retained vitality through the Young Hegelians, who shifted its focus to the realm of religious alienation.[4] A leading text in this tradition is Ludwig Feuerbach’s The Essence of Christianity (1841), where alienation depicts the process through which the human species essence is projected onto God.[5] While shifting the focus from religion to political economy, it is from this tradition from which Marx and Engels would blossom in the early to mid-1840s.[6] However, since the concept rarely saw the light of day in their published work, it was “entirely absent from the Marxism of the Second International,” and from general philosophical reflection in the second half of the 19th century (4). In this time, concepts that would later be associated with alienation were developed by Émile Durkheim, Georg Simmel, and Max Weber, but in each instance they “thought they were describing unstoppable tendencies, and their reflections were often guided by a wish to improve the existing social and political order – certainly not to replace it with a different one” (4).[7]  Stemming primarily from Marx’s analysis of the fetishism of commodities in Capital Vol I, Georg Lükacs’ 1923 text, History and Class Consciousness, reintroduces the theory of alienation into Marxism through his concept of ‘reification’ (verdinglichung, versachlichung). For Lükacs, reification described the “phenomenon whereby labour activity confronts human beings as something objective and independent, dominating them through external autonomous laws” (4-5). However, as Musto notes, and as Lükacs rectifies in the preface to the 1967 French republication of his text, “History and Class Consciousness follows Hegel in that it too equates alienation with objectification” (5). The equation of alienation and objectification is the central philosophical error which creates the grounds for the ontologizing of alienation. For Marx, objectification is simply “labor’s realization,” the process wherein labor gets “congealed in an object.”[8] When human labor produces an object, we have objectification. Only under certain historically determined conditions does objectification become alienating. As Marx writes in the EPM, The alienation of the worker in his product means not only that his labor becomes an object [i.e., objectification] an external existence, but that it exists outside him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him; it means that the life which he has conferred on the object confronts him as something hostile and alien.[9] This distinction between objectification and alienation is retouched more thoroughly in the Grundrisse, where Marx says that Social wealth confronts labour in more powerful portions as an alien and dominant power. The emphasis comes to be placed not on the state of being objectified, but on the state of being alienated, dispossessed, sold; on the condition that the monstrous objective power which social labour itself erected opposite itself as one of its moments belongs not to the worker, but to the personified conditions of production, i.e. to capital.[10] As I have argued in relation to the fetishism of commodities, alienation is also not simply a subjective illusion which one can overcome through becoming conscious of it. It isn’t merely a problem of how one observes the world. Instead, in a mode of life wherein the relations of production are necessarily governed by this condition of estrangement, alienation sustains an objective, albeit historically bound, existence. The ontologizing and/or subjectivizing of the theory of alienation purport key philosophical and political deviations from how Marx conceived of the phenomenon. These deviations naturalize the phenomenon and blunt the revolutionary edge in the Marxist analysis of how it can be overcome. Musto wonderfully shows how the 20th centuries’ popularization of the term resulted in Marxist (Marcuse, Adorno, Horkheimer, Fromm, Sartre, Debord, etc.) and Non-Marxist (Baudrillard, Arendt, Melman, Nettler, Seeman, Blauner, etc.) deviations along the lines of an ontologizing or subjectivizing of the phenomenon of alienation. In some instances (e.g., US sociologists), even the critical spirit with which the theory of alienation was formulated was removed and “skillfully dressed up… by defenders of the very social classes against which it had for so long been directed” (28). In the case of the ‘Marxist’ deviations of the theory, these often ended up in a pessimism and utopianism foreign and at times antagonistic to the writings of Marx and Engels. As Adam Schaff argued in Marxism and the Human Individual, these classical forms of revisionism “lead in fact to an elimination of everything known as scientific socialism.”[12]  Young Karl Marx From this historical and objective understanding of alienation, Marx formulates in the EPM four ways in which alienation occurs in the capitalist form of life: 1) alienation of the product, wherein the object of labor confronts the laborer as something hostile and alien; 2) alienation in the process of production, i.e., in the social relations through which the work takes place; 3) alienation from the ‘species-being’ of man as an animal with the unique ability to consciously, creatively, and socially exert mental and physical labor (as a homo faber and sapien) upon nature to create objects of need and aesthetic enjoyment; and 4) alienation from other humans and their objects of labor. Apart from the Feuerbachian essentialism in the language of number 3 (e.g., species-being, species-essence), the pith of this 1844 formulation of the theory will be enriched in his later work, especially in the Grundrisse, where it is given its most systematic consideration. Along with what Kaan Kangal has called the ‘Engels debate,’ the 1960s debate around the EPM depicted the great bifurcation that existed in Marxism.[13] On the one hand, the Western humanist tradition “stress[ed] the theoretical pre-eminence” of Marx’s early work. On the other, the Eastern socialist (and Althusserian) tradition downplayed it as the writing of a pre-Marxist Marx, still entrapped by Hegelian idealism or a Feuerbachian problematic (18).[14] Both of these traditions create an “arbitrary and artificial opposition” between an “early Marx” and a “mature Marx” (15). Those who held on to the early writings as containing the ‘key’ to Marxism were, as Musto rightly argues, “so obviously wrong that it demonstrated no more than ignorance of his work” (16). However, those who dismissed these early writings often landed in a “decidedly anti-humanist conception” (e.g., Althusser’s theoretical anti-humanism) (ibid). These two sides mirror one another on the basis of an artificial and arbitrary division of a ‘young’ and ‘mature’ Marx. Musto rejects this dichotomy, and in line with the Polish Marxist Adam Schaff (along with Iring Fetscher, István Mészáros, and others), provides a third interpretation which identifies a “substantive continuity in Marx’s work” (20). This continuity, however, is not based on a “collection of quotations” pulled indiscriminately from works three decades apart, “as if Marx’s work were a single timeless and undifferentiated text” (ibid). This tendency, which dominated the discourse around the continuum interpretation, is grounded on a metaphysical (in the traditional Marxist sense) and fixated understanding of Marx’s life’s work. It finds itself unable to tarry with a difference mediated understanding of identity, that is, with the understanding that the unity of Marx’s corpus is based on its continuous development, not an artificially foisted textual uniformity. It would be a Quixotic delusion to read the youthful Manuscripts of 44 as identical to the works which were produced as fruits of Marx’s laborious studies of political economy in the 1850-60s. The comprehensive, concrete, and scientific character of Marx’s understanding of political economy and the capitalist mode of life achieved by the 1860s makes the indiscriminate treatment of these works seem all the more foolish. Instead, the continuity interpretation sees what a careful reading of Musto’s anthology shows, namely, that the theory of alienation constantly develops, sharpens, and concretizes beyond the limitations inherent in the ”vagueness and eclecticism” of its initial stages (21). As Schaff and Musto argued, “if Marx had stopped writing in 1845-46, he would not – in spite of those who hold the young Marx to be the only ‘true’ one – have found a place in history,” and if he did, it would probably be in a demoted “place alongside Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach in the sections of philosophy manuals devoted to the Hegelian Left” (ibid).[15] It is impossible to stamp out hard and fast ‘stages’ or ‘epistemological breaks’ in Marx’s thought; he was constantly evolving his thinking according to new research and new concrete experiences.[16] Such a stagist approach can only lead to a confused nominalist reading of Marx, for every time he read or wrote something new, a ‘new’ Marx would have to be postulated. Marx’s life work must be understood as a dynamic, evolving unity, wherein, as Schaff argued, “the first period is genetically linked to the later ones.”[17] The same could be said, in my view, of his theory of alienation. As his understanding of political economy and the capitalist mode of life concretizes, his understanding of the phenomenon of alienation does as well.  Young Evald Ilyenkov Concerning the global split in Marxism manifested through these debates on alienation, I would like to add that although some prominent ‘orthodox’ or ‘official’ Soviet thinkers dismissed the theory of alienation, we cannot synecdochally apply the flaws of these on all Marxist thinkers in the Soviet Union, or on Marxism-Leninism in general. For instance, in the Soviet tradition of creative Marxism, the theme of alienation is not so easily dismissed as in Althusser or the more orthodox Soviet Marxists. Evald Ilyenkov, one of the prominent thinkers in this tradition, says in 1966 that he “personally approves” of the EPM’s theory of alienation and sees it as “a healthy and fruitful tendency in Marxist theoretical thought.”[18] In addition, his reading of the EPM and the theory of alienation with respect to the rest of Marx’s life’s work falls in line with Musto’s and Schaff’s continuum interpretation. As Ilyenkov argues, If anything has been lost in this process, it is only that some parts of the specifically philosophical phraseology of the Manuscripts have been replaced by a more concrete phraseology, and in this sense, a more exact and stronger one. What occurs here is not a loss of concepts but only the loss of a few terms connected with these concepts. For me this is so unquestionable that all the problems of the early works are actually rendered more fully later, and moreover, in a more definitive form. It is quite obvious that the process of the “human alienation” under the conditions of an unhindered development of “private property” (in the course of its becoming private-capitalistic) is viewed here more concretely and in more detail.[19] Concerning the relation of EPM to Capital Vol I Ilyenkov adds that The Manuscripts can be a help in the text of Das Kapital itself in scrutinizing those passages that could otherwise be overlooked. If such passages are overlooked, Das Kapital easily appears as an “economic work” only, and in a very narrow meaning of the term. Das Kapital is then seen as a dryly objective economic scheme free from any trace of “humanism” – but this is not Das Kapital, it is only a coarsely shallow interpretation.[20] This tendency, however, is not limited to the tradition of Soviet creative Marxism. Even in famous manuals such as the Konstantinov edited Fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist Philosophy, the theory of alienation is treated with great care, and critiques akin to Musto’s and Schaff’s are provided for the 20th century revisionist formulations of the theory. It is also important to note that Schaff himself was largely aligned politically with Marxism-Leninism, and when criticizing the Soviet dismissals of the theory of alienation he emphasizes his political proximity to those Marxist-Leninists he is arguing against.[21] Additionally, he openly criticizes those in the West which have weaponized the theory of alienation to attack socialism, and which have reduced Marxism, through their interpretation of alienation, to moralistic discourse devoid of its scientific core.[22] There is nothing, in my view, incompatible about a non-dogmatic Marxism-Leninism and the militant humanism of the early Marx’s theory of alienation, or of this theories’ further concretization throughout his life.  To return to the continuity thesis, Musto’s selection of Marx’s writings eloquently demonstrates the theoretical superiority of this third interpretation. Musto classifies the writings into three key generations: 1) from 1844 to 1856; 2) from 1857 to 1863; and 3) from 1863 to 1875. What becomes clear in these selections, especially in the transition from the first to the second generation, is the immense development in the categories of political economy which would ground Marx’s discourse of the phenomenon of alienation (which, as occurs throughout his work, sometimes takes place without using the term ‘alienation’ itself). By the time the Grundrisse is written (1857-58), it is as if the 1844 EPM’s theory of alienation returned with theoretical steroids, “enriched by a greater understanding of economic categories and by a more rigorous social analysis” (30). In this second generation, the two manuscripts Marx writes after he publishes A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), namely, On the Critique of Political Economy (1861-63) and Theories of Surplus Value (1862-63), will also elaborate and sharpen the understanding of the categories developed in the Grundrisse, subsequently enrichening the theory of alienation as well. The third generation consists of Capital Vol I, its preparatory manuscripts, and the manuscripts of Capital Vol III which Engels would edit and publish after Marx’s death. Of specific importance here is the famous “Results on the Immediate Process of Production,” also known as the “Unpublished Chapter VI.” This 1863-4 manuscript was omitted from Capital Vol I for largely unknown reasons. Ernest Mandel, who wrote the introduction to the 1976 English publication of Volume one, which included this manuscript as an appendix, said that For the time being, it is impossible to give a definitive answer to that question… Possibly the reason lay in Marx's wish to present Capital as a ' dialectically articulated artistic whole'. He may have felt that, in such a totality,' ‘Chapter Six’ would be out of place, since it had a double didactic function: as a summary of Volume 1 and as a bridge between Volumes 1 and 2.[23] Nonetheless, as Musto notes, this manuscript enhances the theory of alienation by “linking [Marx’s] economic and political analysis more closely to each other” (126). Beyond this manuscript, the theory of alienation takes on a new shape in the formulation of the fetishism of commodities in section four of Capital Vol I’s first chapter. The fetishism of commodities is a new term, but not a new concept, it describes a phenomenon which the theory of alienation already explained. For instance, as stated in Capital, the fetishism of commodities describes the conditions wherein “definite social relations between men” assume “ the fantastic form of a relation between things.”[24] This same wording is used in one of the Grundrisse’s formulation of alienation: The general exchange of activities and products, which has become a vital condition for each individual – their mutual interconnection – here appears as something alien to them, autonomous, as a thing. In exchange value, the social connection between persons is transformed into a social relation between things.[25] Besides section four of chapter one, Capital Vol I is scattered with commentary on the inversion of dead and living labor (especially in chapter 11 and 15), a theme which is central to the theory of alienation. These themes are also present in various passages from Capital Vol. III (1864-75), which is the last text Musto pulls from for the third generation of writings on alienation. Lastly, the theory of alienation has always been inextricably linked with how Marx conceived of communism. As the theory concretizes, the idea of communism does as well. Under a communist mode of life, the conditions which perpetuated an alienated form of objectification would be overcome. Here, the “social character of production is presupposed” and makes the product of labor “not an exchange value,” but “a specific share of the communal production.”[26] The mediational character of commodity production and the exchange value dominated mode of life would be destroyed. Production and the mode of life in general will be aimed at creating the conditions for qualitative human flourishing. As Marx writes in Capital Vol. III, The realm of freedom really begins only where labour determined by necessity and external expediency ends; it lies by its very nature beyond the sphere of material production proper. Just as the savage must wrestle with nature to satisfy his needs, to maintain and reproduce his life, so must civilized man, and he must do so in all forms of society and under all possible modes of production. This realm of natural necessity expands with his development, because his needs do too; but the productive forces to satisfy these expand at the same time. Freedom, in this sphere, can consist only in this, that socialized man, the associated producers, govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational way, bringing it under their collective control instead of being dominated by it as a blind power; accomplishing it with the least expenditure of energy and in conditions most worthy and appropriate for their human nature. But this always remains a realm of necessity. The true realm of freedom, the development of human powers as an end in itself, begins beyond it, though it can only flourish with this realm of necessity as its basis. The reduction of the working day is the basic prerequisite.[27]  If I may add something to Marcello’s superb analysis in the introduction, it would be the ecological dimension the theory of alienation acquires in Marx’s analysis of the metabolism between human society and nature, and subsequently, of the alienating ‘rifts’ capitalist production creates in this metabolic relation. The quote referenced above shows how a rational governance of the human metabolism with nature is central to Marx’s idea of communism. As John Bellamy Foster has argued, “the concept of metabolism provided Marx with a concrete way of expressing the notion of alienation of nature (and its relation to the alienation of labor) that was central to his critique from his earliest writings on,” and in so doing, it “allowed him to give a more solid and scientific expression of this fundamental relation.”[28] Hence, if the alienation of labor is tied to the alienation of nature, a non-alienated communist mode of life must necessarily seek to overcome this alienation of nature through the aforementioned rational governance of human society’s metabolism with nature. Although grounded scientifically on Justus von Liebig’s work on the depletion of the soil, this ecological dimension can be traced philosophically to the EPM and the central role nature has in the alienation of labor. Faced with the existential crisis of climate change, this ecological dimension in Marx’s theory of alienation and critique of capitalist production acquires a heightened sense of immediacy. Additionally, if we consider Marx’s concept of the metabolic rift within the theory of alienation, then its rediscovery did not have to wait until Lükacs’ 1923 History and Class Consciousness, for a part of it could be seen in the ecological dimension of August Bebel’s 1884 text Women Under Socialism, in Karl Kautsky’s 1899 text on The Agrarian Question, in Lenin’s 1901 The Agrarian Question and the “Critics of Marx,” and more directly in the work of Bukharin, Vernadsky, and others in the 1920/30s tradition of Soviet ecology.[29] In sum, Musto’s anthology is an essential requirement for all interested in Marx’s theory of alienation, and his introduction to the selection displays that great erudition of Marxist history and theory which those that are familiar with his work hold in the highest esteem. Notes and References [1] The parenthetical numbers which appear throughout this review refer to pages from Musto’s book. [2] For a more detailed assessment of this ‘myth’ see: Marcello Musto, “The Myth of the ‘Young Marx’ in the Interpretation of the Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844,” Critique 43, no 2 (2015)., pp. 233-60. [3] G.W.F. Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, Oxford University Press, 1977., pp. 114. [4] For more on the Young Hegelians see: Lawrence S. Stepenlevich, The Young Hegelians: An Anthology, Humanity Books, 1999. [5] My video for Midwestern Marx, “Alienation – Feuerbach to Marx,” describes the concept’s transition from Feuerbach to Marx’s Manuscripts of 44. [6] The Feuerbachian influence which the younger Engels was under is usually understated. I would direct the reader to Engels’ 1843 review of Thomas Carlyle’s Past and Present (written before The Conditions of the Working Class in England), where this influence is as, or if not more, evident then than in the writings of the younger Marx. [7] I would add to the list Max Scheler’s 1913 book Ressentiment and Edmund Husserl’s 1936 book, The Crisis of European Sciences and Transcendental Phenomenology, which expands on the arguments of his 1935 lectures on “Philosophy and the Crisis of European Man.” [8] Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844, Great Books in Philosophy, 1988., pp. 71. [9] Ibid., 72. [10] The Grundrisse is an unfinished manuscript not intended for publication, in passages like these, where editing could’ve improved what was said, its manuscript character shines forth. [11] Karl Marx, Grundrisse, Penguin Books, 1973., pp. 831-2. [12] Adam Schaff, Marxism and the Human Individual, McGraw-Hill, 1970., pp. 16. I was excited to see Musto’s frequent usage of Schaff, a thinker far too undervalued in our tradition. [13] I use ‘depicted’ instead of ‘produced’ because the split originated well before the 1960s debate, the debate simply manifested what was already a previous split. For more on this split see Domenico Losurdo, El Marxismo Occidental, Editorial Trotta, 2019. [14] ‘Feuerbachian problematic’ is how Althusser describes it in his essay “On the Young Marx.” For more see Louis Althusser, For Marx, Verso, 1979., pp. 66-70. [15] Schaff, Marxism and the Human Individual., pp. 28. [16] To see how this was done in his later years see: Marcello Musto, The Last Years of Karl Marx, Stanford, 2020. For a shortened version of some of the points made in this text, my review article might be helpful. [17] Ibid., pp. 24. [18] Evald Ilyenkov, “From the Marxist-Leninist Point of View,” In Marx and the Western World, ed. Nicholas Lobkowicz, University of Notre Dame Press, 1967., pp. 401. [19] Ibid., pp. 402. [20] Ibid., pp. 404. [21] Schaff, Marxism and the Human Individual., pp. 21. [22] Ibid., pp. 15-16. [23] Marx, Capital Vol 1, Penguin Books, 1982., pp. 944. [24] Ibid., pp. 165. [25] Marx, Grundrisse., pp. 157. [26] Marx, Grundrisse., pp. 172. [27] Karl Marx, Capital Vol III, Penguin Books, 1981., pp. 958-9. [28] John Bellamy Foster, Marx’s Ecology, Monthly Review, 2000., pp. 158. [29] For all the flaws Bukharin’s Historical Materialism textbook has, chapter five on “The Equilibrium between Society and Nature” provides a laudable reintroduction of Marx’s concept of metabolism and metabolic rifts. AuthorCarlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American PhD student and instructor in philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale (with an M.A. in philosophy from the same institution). His research focuses include Marxism, Hegel, and early 19th century American socialism. His academic work has appeared in Critical Sociology, The Journal of American Socialist Studies, and Peace, Land, and Bread. Along with various editors from The Journal of American Socialist Studies, Carlos is currently working on a serial anthology of American socialism. His popular theoretical and political work has appeared in dozens of magazines around the world and in various languages, including Monthly Review Online, CovertAction Magazine, The International Magazine, The Marx-Engels Institute of Peru, Countercurrents, Janata Weekly, Hampton Institute, Orinoco Tribune, Workers Today, Delinking, Friends of Socialist China, Associazione Svizerra-Cuba, Arkansas Worker, Intervención y Coyuntura, Marxism-Leninism Today, and in Midwestern Marx, which he co-founded and where he serves as an editorial board member. As a political analyst with a focus on Latin America (esp. Cuba), he has appeared in dozens of radio and video interviews in the US and around the world. Archives June 2022 5/5/2022 Dialectics of the Afro-Indian Diaspora: Race, Caste, and the Struggle for Solidarity. Jymee C.Read Now Nico Slate (2017), Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom in the United States and India, Harvard University Press. 344 pages- $24.00 Global politics both before and during the Cold War era introduced a vast extension of diasporic connections and political development throughout the world, particularly in the context of the struggle of the non-white population. The inter-connection of black and Indian politics in this era of struggle ultimately constructed a path for solidarity in the Afro-Indian diaspora, alongside a dialectical display of the contradictions that accompany said solidarity. Nico Slate’s Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom In the United States and India serves as an outlet into the such contradictions, in addition to the attempts at unity in the Afro-Indian diaspora. The complications in establishing links between caste, class, race, and nation in the Afro-Indian context provides a glimpse into the dialectical relations between the two, with the material conditions of the Cold War on both an international and a national scale playing an integral role in global diasporic endeavors. In line with efforts to build and uphold diasporic connections, the shift from slave society in the United States to the rise of imperialism serves as one of the primary catalysts in Afro-Indian internationalism. As the United States built an empire of economic, political, and cultural hegemonic control, there emerged the forging of a relationship between African-Americans and those on the lowest rung of Indian caste society. The dialectics of such a relation reflects in simultaneous fashion a sense of solidarity and a sense of division in such a diasporic structure. Though the prospect of a “vanguard of darker races” draws a promising connection in the struggle for global liberation, such a prospect is troubled by the hierarchical order of India, within both the caste system and the systematic understanding of race.[1] In the pursuit of anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, and anti-racist coalition, the issue of racial identity in particular plays a strong role in the complicating of the Afro-Indian diasporic structure. Whereas the color line in the United States and the established racial hierarchy was (and is) at least marginally more cut and dry, the racial structure of India establish issues for building solidarity. Though more affluent African-Americans utilized a religious justification for separation from lower-class blacks and what they considered to be “backwards societies,” Indians both in India and the United States played on the racial dynamics as created by then-contemporary ethnologists. Lower-caste Indians and African-Americans found common ground in their darker complexion, with the caste system reflecting a racial dynamic reflecting hierarchical distinctions. Those on the bottom rung of the caste system, essentially the Indian equivalent of the lumpen-proletariat, more often than not are of a darker complexion, and thus had been ascribed “negroid” characteristics, allowing for a stronger possibility of diasporic connection between the most disenfranchised masses of the two respecting countries. Indians in American and in India itself relied wholly on the intersection of race and caste to enforce notions of supremacy.[2] Building upon claims made by ethnologists at the time, those within the higher sects of the Indian caste system, effectively the bourgeoisie of the caste system, employed an identity of Aryan/Caucasian origin due to their lighter skin. These disparities in race and caste within India alone brought about a further complexity to the erecting of a powerful diasporic alliance. These disparities in understanding of race, caste, and nation witnessed a new advancement in the question of a “third world” and how such a dynamic development affected the Afro-Indian diaspora during the Cold War. As the Cold War raged on, so came an effort to establish an international opposition to global imperialism, racism, and colonialism, with renewed strength stemming from the rise in counters to western hegemony. Reflecting a colored cosmopolitanism, one championed by Indian activist Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, an anti-imperialist coalition within the Afro-Indian diaspora became apparent as a necessity to counter the spread of reactionary western cultural and racial superiority. To quote; “The Negro Problem will only cease when the color-line of imperialism vanishes.”[3] However, the establishing of such a coalition drew its own issues, with the liberalism of one Walter White providing numerous difficulties in establishing an Afro-Indian internationalism in trying to both appeal to a sense of Americanism, and battle the white supremacist structure of the western world. Walter White pushed for a colored cosmopolitanism that both recognized the injustice of American racism and British imperialism, while attempting to appeal to the upholding of western democracy. White played a particular role in this crusade due to his liberal anti-communist outlook, wanting to battle the structural foundation of American racism while actively avoiding any potential association with the Soviet Union in particular, and with affiliation with Communism itself being a focal point of White’s campaign. In an effort to simultaneously further build a transnational solidarity and acting in a liberal form of containment, White states in a letter to one J.J. Singh; “One of the reasons for the spread of communism in China and other parts of Asia is due in part to the lowered prestige of the United States and faith in democracy because of discrimination in America.”[4] Though many African-Americans indeed hoped to maintain a pro-western, Americanist disposition, one can infer that the disenchantment with American democracy is not inherently a loss of faith in democracy itself, but a democracy built on false promises and that serves to enfranchise a select while enforcing a multitude of racist, classist policies at the expense of poor people of all races, with particular detriment being inflicted upon people of color.[5] As limited as White’s application of fighting for racial equality presents itself, essentially acting as a form of cold-warrior action, the potential danger of allying African-American organizations with the radical left was not without truth. By framing a pro-American, patriotic application of anti-racism, the possibility of winning the fortune of the United States in their efforts held some modicum of plausibility. Walter White maintained a legitimate anti-communism, however one P.L. Prattis reasoned to distance the movement for racial equality from Communism would prevent the further suppression of the movement at the hands of the United States. To quote; “In the light of the present attitude in the United States toward communism” it was dangerous for Blacks to cooperate with communists, “even though it might be right in principle.”[6] As India maintained a position of non-alignment, maintaining a distance from Communism and influence from the Soviet Union and other socialist states strengthened the potential of diasporic coalition between African-Americans and Indians. Citations [1]Slate, Nico. “Introduction.” In Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom In the United States and India, 2. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. [2]Slate. Chapter 1, Race, Class, and Nation. In Colored Cosmopolitanism: The Shared Struggle for Freedom In the United States and India. 7. [3]Slate. Chapter 6, Building a Third World. 169. [4]Slate, Chapter 6. 172. [5]For information regarding the distinctions between capitalist democracy and workers/proletarian democracy, see Stalin, J.V. “The Dictatorship of the Proletariat.” from The Foundations of Leninism, Chapter 4. Marxists Internet Archive, n.d. https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1924/foundations-leninism/ch04.htm. [6]Slate. 176. AuthorJymee C is an aspiring Marxist historian and teacher with a BA in history from Utica College, hoping to begin working towards his Master's degree in the near future. He's been studying Marxism-Leninism for the past five years and uses his knowledge and understanding of theory to strengthen and expand his historical analyses. His primary interests regarding Marxism-Leninism and history include the Soviet Union, China, the DPRK, and the various struggles throughout US history among other subjects. He is currently conducting research for a book on the Korean War and US-DPRK relations. In addition, he is a 3rd Degree black belt in karate and runs the YouTube channel "Jymee" where he releases videos regarding history, theory, self-defense, and the occasional jump into comedy https://www.youtube.com/c/Jymee Archives May 2022  Liberation School's new book Revolutionary Education is edited by Nino Brown. Capital was a formidable book from the moment it was published in 1867. In an attempt to make the content more accessible, Capital's first French publisher published the book in multiple pieces. Karl Marx wrote to the publisher and commended him for the new teaching method used to present Capital. "I applaud your idea of publishing the translation of Das Kapital as a serial," he wrote. "In this form the book will be more accessible to the working class, a consideration which to me outweighs everything else." The first three chapters, however, had a unique structure that were harder to understand split apart. Despite this tradeoff, Marx approved of the approach since the most important metric for him was whether people would understand his analysis of capitalism. So as in 1872, so today: Socialism must be understood to be accepted. Socialism is a system where the working class wields control over the productive forces of society, and the economy is planned in a scientific manner according to the needs of the people and planet. Socialism unleashes the potential of the highest creativity and flowering of the working class. Although the demonization in recent years has faded, socialism remains a badly-misunderstood topic. Teaching, therefore, is a critical skill that socialist organizers can and must hone and master. Different situations calls for different teaching methods, or pedagogies. How do we know which method to use? How do we improve our own efficacy in presenting information? Liberation School's fresh book, Revolutionary Education: Teaching and practice for socialist organizers, explores these questions from the viewpoints of history, theory, and practice. Edited by Nino Brown, the book compiles essays from educators, organizers, and journalists on revolutionary education and socialist educational methods. Brown explains in his essay on building organizations and developing cadre that organizers have much to learn from the suffering, sacrifices and victories of our comrades in struggle all over the world. "We are all linked by our common oppression under imperialism," he writes. The job of a revolutionary is to help make the revolution. To do that, socialists need to make more revolutionaries. How do socialists win people over? Socialists are actually in the most favorable moment for socialists in the U.S. in decades. Organizer Walter Smolarek explains that organizers have the opportunity to make connections with working people and build a base of support through different tactics, including provisioning direct services. Provisioning direct services, commonly referred to as "mutual aid", can be a way to make inroads with communities. Even an inherently nonrevolutionary activity can be used as an opening to bring people into the political struggle for socialism, but the tactic itself cannot be confused with the strategy. When a current approach does not work, organizers must recalculate and find new tactics to reach people. The goal of Revolutionary Education, after all, is the emancipation of humankind. Guinea-Bissau's struggle for independence led by the liberator, theorist, and educator Amilcar Cabral is one such example. Curry Mallot traces the history of how the small west African country became a world leader in decolonial education, in large part due to the leadership of revolutionary Amílcar Cabral. For more than 400 years Guinea-Bissau was a colony of the vicious Portuguese empire, Mallot writes, whose colonial mode of education was "designed to foster a sense of inferiority in the youth." Colonial educators set predetermined outcomes sought to dominate learners by treating them as if they were passive objects. Militant historian Sónia Vaz Borges, the child of Cape Verdean immigrants, grew up in Portugal. Vaz Borges experienced firsthand the colonial education taught to the African diaspora in the colonial center. In an interview with Breaking the Chains, she recounts how the African community "does not see themselves reflected in official versions of Portuguese history." Political education is not abstract. Socialists must be able to explain the class character of all events. Organizers know socialist revolution is the only path to survival, yet how do we convince others of its necessity? Revolutionary teaching has to give the person all of the keys needed to be able to interpret events. "Every event has an origin and a process of development," explains Frank González, director of Cuba's Prensa Latina news agency in a 2006 interview with Gloria La Riva. Television overwhelms us with images, González notes, but the same media denies space to interpret events. The development of social media has only exacerbated these effects. In the end, bourgeois media leaves people with nothing but confusion. In a separate essay, Mallott explores Soviet psychologist Lev Vygotsky's ground-breaking work that shows how people's development corresponds to their past and present experiences. Thought emerges from engagement with the concrete world. "While all of us have been shaped by this racist, sexist, capitalist society," Mallott writes, "we never lose the ability to grow, change and think differently." Intelligence is an attribute but also a social construct. How do you tell children facing hunger, homelessness, and police brutality to be more "gritty", when in fact they already put in tremendous effort to survive? Organizer Jane Cutter in her essay on comradeship emphasizes that all progressive people must be willing to learn from experience and work in collaboration. Revolutionary Education closes with two practical appendices for day-to-day organizing. "Formulating study and discussion questions" explains how to break out of a linear mode of education. The sample questions are in and of themselves instructive for the tactics they represent in addition to the thought that they provoke. Learning facts and timelines goes hand-in-hand with discussion with others, reflection on ideas and combining those with our own experiences. Comprehension questions, for example, help distill dense texts down to their key points. Questions that focus on the identification of significance help people understand why the author themselves highlighted portions as key. For revolutionaries, perhaps the most important types of questions are those that apply and extend our knowledge of the world. How can revolutionary pedagogy sharpen our ability to educate and reach people? The second appendix covers teaching tactics that can be applied in study groups or classrooms. Some material is best presented in a lecture form, while other situations call for more interactive engagement through having participants draw out concept maps. How do we best reach people? How do we make sure that our message is getting across? Each situation calls for its own tactics. Revolutionaries must be flexible and adaptable according to the needs of the moment. Learning is an endeavor that requires effort on the part of both participant and teacher. Marx closes his 1872 letter with an encouragement to work through such difficulties. "There is no royal road to science, and only those who do not dread the fatiguing climb of its steep paths have a chance of gaining its luminous summits." Those in the struggle for socialism will find in Revolutionary Education a worthy climbing tool indeed. AuthorPatricia Gorky co-hosted the podcast Reading Capital with Comrades. This article was republished from Hampton Think. Archives April 2022 3/7/2022 Book Review: The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography. By: Marcello Musto. Reviewed By: Carlos L. GarridoRead Now Marcello Musto’s The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography provides an illuminating glance at the work and life of Karl Marx during the most unexamined period of his life. Musto’s oscillation between Marx’s work and life provides readers with both an intellectual allurement towards research in Marx’s later years, a task facilitated by the 1998 resumed publication of the Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA2) (which has sense published 27 new volumes and expects to conclude with 114), and with a warm image of Marx’s intimate life sure to guarantee both laughs and tears. The last few years of Marx’s life were emotionally, physically, and intellectually painful. In this time he had to endure his daughter Eleanor’s extreme depression (she would commit suicide in 1898); the death of his wife Jenny, whose face he said “reawakens the greatest and sweetest memories of [his] life”; the death of his beloved first born daughter, Jenny Caroline (Jennychen); and a lung disease which would keep him sporadically, but for substantial periods, away from his work (96, 98, 122). These conditions, among other interruptions natural to a man of his stature in the international workers movement, made it impossible for him to finish any of his projects, including primarily volumes II and III of Capital, and his third German edition of Capital volume I. The time he spent with his grandchildren and the small victories the socialist struggle was able to achieve (e.g., the more than 300k votes the German Social Democrats received in 1881 for the new parliament) would give him and Jenny occasional moments of joy (98). A facet of his latter life that might seem surprising was the immense enjoyment he took in mathematics. As Paul Lafargue commented regarding the time when Marx had to endure his wife’s deteriorating health, “the only way in which he could shake off the oppression caused by her sufferings was to plunge into mathematics” (97). What started as a “detour [to] algebra” for the purpose of fixing errors he noticed in the seven notebooks we now know as the Grundrisse, his study of mathematics ended up being a major source of “moral consolation” and what “he took refuge in [during] the most distressing moments of his eventful life” (33, 97). Regardless of his unconcealed frailty, he left a plethora of rigorous research and notes on subjects as broad as political struggles across Europe, the US, India, and Russia; economics; mathematical fields like differential calculus and algebra; anthropology; history; scientific studies like geology, minerology, and agrarian chemistry; and more. Against the defamation of certain ‘radicals’ in bourgeois academia who lift themselves up by sinking a self-conjured caricature of a ‘Eurocentric’, ‘colonialism sympathizing’, ‘reductive’, and ‘economically deterministic’ Marx, Musto’s study of the late Marx shows that “he was anything but Eurocentric, economistic, or fixated only on class conflict” (4). Musto’s text also covers the 1972 Lawrence Krader publication of The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx, containing his notebooks on Lewis Henry Morgan’s Ancient Society, John Budd Phear’s The Aryan Village, Henry Sumner Maine’s Lectures on the Early History of Institutions, and John Lubbock’s The Origin of Civilisation. Out of these by far the most important was Morgan’s text, which would transform Marx’s views on the family from being the “social unit of the old tribal system” to being the “germ not only of slavery but also serfdom” (27). Morgan’s text would also strengthen the view on the state Marx had since his 1843 Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, namely, that the state is a historical (not natural) “power subjugating society, a force preventing the full emancipation of the individual” (31). The state’s nature, as Marx and Engels thought and Morgan confirmed, is “parasitic and transitory” (Ibid.). The studies of Morgan’s Ancient Society and other leading anthropologist would also be taken up by Engels who, pulling from some of Marx’s notes, would publish in 1884 The Origins of the Family, Private Property, and the State, a seminal text in the classical Marxist corpus. More unknown in Marxist scholarship are his notebooks on the Russian anthropologist Maksim Kovalevsky’s (one of his close “scientific friends”) book Communal Landownership: The Causes, Course and Consequences of its Decline. Its unstudied character is due to the fact that it had, until almost a decade ago, been only available to those who could access the B140 file of Marx’s work in the International Institute of Social History in the Netherlands. This changed with the Spanish publication in Bolivia of Karl Marx: Escritos sobre la Comunidad Ancestral (Writings on the Ancestral Community) which contained Marx’s “Cuadernos Kovalevsky” (Kovalevsky Notebooks). Although appreciative of his studies of Pre-Columbian America (Aztec and Inca empires) and India, Marx was critical of Kovalevsky’s projections of European categories to these regions, and “reproach[ed] him for homogenizing two distinct phenomena” (20). As Musto notes, “Marx was highly skeptical about the transfer of interpretive categories between completely different historical and geographical contexts” (Ibid.). The study of Marx’s political writings has usually been limited to the 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (1852), the “Critique of the Gotha Program” (1875), and The Civil War in France (1871). Musto’s book, in its limited space, goes beyond these customary texts and highlights the importance of Marx’s role in the socialist movements in Germany, France, and Russia. This includes, for instance, his involvement in the French 1880 Electoral Programme of the Socialist Workers and the Workers’ Questionnaire. The program included the involvement of workers themselves, which led Marx to exclaim that this was “the first real workers’ movement in France” (46). The 101-point questionnaire contained questions about the conditions of employment and payment of workers and was aimed at providing a mass survey of the conditions of the French working class. Concerning Marx’s political writings, Musto’s text also includes Marx’s critiques of the prominent American economist Henry George; his condemnations of the Sinophobic Dennis Kearney, the leader of the Workingmen’s Party of California; his condemnations of British colonialism in India and Ireland and his praise of Irish nationalist Charles Parnell. In each case, Musto stresses the importance Marx laid on the concrete study of the unique conditions pertaining to each struggle. There was no universal formula to be applied in all places and at all times. However, out of all of his political engagements, the most important of his involvements would be in Russia, where his considerations on the revolutionary potential of the rural communes (obshchina) would have a tremendous influence on their socialist movement.  Russian socialist philosopher Nikolay Chernyshevsky (1828 - 1889) In 1869 Marx began to learn Russian “in order to study the changes taking place in the tsarist empire” (12). All throughout the 1870s he dedicated himself to studying the agrarian conditions in Russia. As Engels jokingly tells him in an 1876 letter after Marx recommended him to take down Eugene Dühring, You can lie in a warm bed studying Russian agrarian conditions in general and ground rent in particular, without being interrupted, but I am expected to put everything else on one side immediately, to find a hard chair, to swill some cold wine, and to devote myself to going after the scalp of that dreary fellow Dühring Out of his studies, he held the Russian socialist philosopher Nikolai Chernyshevsky[i] in highest esteem. He said he was “familiar with a major part of his writing” and considered his work as “excellent” (50). Marx even considered “’publishing something’ about Chernyshevsky’s ‘life and personality, so as to create some interest in him in the West’” (Ibid.). Concerning Chernyshevsky’s work, what influenced Marx the most was his assessment that “in some parts of the world, economic development could bypass the capitalist mode of production and the terrible social consequences it had had for the working class in Western Europe” (Ibid.). Chernyshevsky held that When a social phenomenon has reached a high level of development in one nation, its progression to that stage in another, more backward nation may occur rather more quickly than it did in the advanced nation (Ibid.). For Chernyshevsky, the development of a ‘backwards’ nation did not need to pass through all the “intermediate stages” required for the advanced nation; instead, he argued “acceleration takes place thanks to the contact that the backward nation has with the advanced nation” (51). History for him was “like a grandmother, terribly fond of its smallest grandchildren. To latecomers it [gave] not the bones but the marrow” (53). Chernyshevsky’s assessment began to open Marx to the possibility that under certain conditions, capitalism’s universalization was not necessary for a socialist society. This was an amendment, not a radical break (as certain third world Marxists and transmodernity theorists like Enrique Dussel have argued) with the traditional Marxist interpretation of the necessary role capitalism plays in creating, through its immanent contradictions, the conditions for the possibility of socialism. In 1877 Marx wrote an unsent letter to the Russian paper Patriotic Notes replying to an article entitled “Karl Marx Before the Tribunal of Mr. Zhukovsky” written by Nikolai Mikhailovsky, a literary critic of the liberal wing of the Russian populists. In his article Mikhailovsky argued that A Russian disciple of Marx… must reduce himself to the role of an onlooker… If he really shares Marx’s historical-philosophical views, he should be pleased to see the producers being divorced from the means of production, he should treat this divorce as the first phase of the inevitable and, in the final result, beneficial process (60) This was not, however, a comment from left field, most Russian Marxists at the time also thought the Marxist position was that a period of capitalism was necessary for socialism to be possible in Russia. Further, Marx had also polemicized in the appendix to the first German edition of Capital against Alexander Herzen, a proponent of the view that “Russian people [were] naturally predisposed to communism” (61). His unsent letter, nonetheless, criticizes Mikhailovsky for “transforming [his] historical sketch of the genesis of capitalism in Western Europe into a historico-philosophical theory of the general course fatally imposed on all peoples, whatever the historical circumstances in which they find themselves” (64). It is in this context that the famous 1881 letter from the Russian revolutionary Vera Zasulich must be read. In this letter she asks him the “life or death question” upon which his answer the “personal fate of [Russian] revolutionary socialists depended” (53). The question centered around whether the Russian obshchina is “capable of developing in a socialist direction” (Ibid.). On the one hand, a faction of the populists argued that the obshchina was capable of “gradually organizing its production and distribution on a collectivist basis,” and that hence, socialists “must devote all [their] strength to the liberation and development of the commune” (54). On the other hand, Zasulich mentions that those who considered themselves Marx’s “disciples par excellence” held the view that “the commune is destined to perish,” that capitalism must take root in Russia for socialism to become a possibility (54). Marx drew up four draft replies to Zasulich, three long ones and the final short one he would send out. In his reply he repeated the sentiment he had expressed in his unpublished reply of Mikhailovsky’s article, namely, that he had “expressly restricted… the historical inevitability’ of the passage from feudalism to capitalism to ‘the countries of Western Europe’” (65). If capitalism took root in Russia, “it would not be because of some historical predestination” (66). It was then, he argued, completely possible for Russia – through the obshchina – to avoid the fate history afforded Western Europe. If the obshchina, through Russia’s link to the world market – “appropriate[d] the positive results of [the capitalist] mode of production, it is thus in a position to develop and transform the still archaic form of its rural commune, instead of destroying it” (67). In essence, if the internal and external contradictions of the obshchina could be sublated through its incorporation of the advanced productive forces that had already developed in Western European capitalism, then the obshchina could develop a socialism grounded on its appropriation of productive forces in a manner not antagonistic to its communistic social relations. Marx would then, in the spirit of Chernyshevsky, side with Zasulich on the revolutionary potential of the obshchina and argue for the possibility of Russia not only skipping stages but incorporating the productive fruits of Western European capitalism while rejecting its evils. This sentiment is repeated in his and Engels’ preface to the second Russian edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party, which would be published on its own in the Russian populist magazine People’s Will.  Musto’s text also provides an exceptional picture of the largely unexamined 72 days Marx spent in Algiers, “the only time in his life that he spent outside of Europe” (104). This trip came at the recommendation of his doctor, who was constantly moving him around in search of climates more favorable to his health condition. Eleanor recalled that Marx warmed up to the idea of the trip because he thought the favorable climate could create the conditions to restore his health and finish Capital. She said that “if he had been more egoistic, he would have simply allowed things to take their course. But for him one thing stood above all else: devotion to the cause” (103). The Algerian weather was not as expected, and his condition would not improve to a shape where he could return to his work. Nonetheless, the letters from his time in Algiers provide interesting comments about the social relations he experienced. For instance, in a letter to Engels he mentions the haughtiness with which the “European colonist dwells among the ‘lesser breeds,’ either as a settler or simply on business, he generally regards himself as even more inviolable than handsome William I” (109). After having experienced “a group of Arabs playing cards, ‘some of them dressed pretentiously, even richly” and others poorly, he commented in a letter to his daughter Laura that “for a ‘true Muslim’… such accidents, good or bad luck, do not distinguish Mahomet’s children,” the general atmosphere between the Muslims was of “absolute equality in their social intercourse” (108-9). Marx also commented on the brutalities of the French authorities and on certain Arab customs, including in a letter to Laura an amusing story about a philosopher and a fisherman which “greatly appealed to his practical side” (110). His letters from Algiers add to the plethora of other evidence against the thesis, stemming from pseudo-radical western bourgeois academia, that Marx was a sympathizer of European colonialism. Shortly after his return from his trip Marx’s health continued to deteriorate. The combination of his bed-ridden state and Jennychen’s death made his last weeks agonizing. The melancholic character of this time is captured in the last writing Marx ever did, a letter to Dr. Williamson saying “I find some relief in a grim headache. Physical pain is the only ‘stunner’ of mental pain” (123). A couple months after writing this, on March 14th, 1883, Marx would pass away. Recounting the distress of the experience of finding his life-long friend and comrade dead, Engels wrote in a letter to Friedrich Sorge an Epicurean dictum Marx often repeated – “death is not a misfortune for the one that dies but for the one that survives” (124). In sum, it would be impossible to do justice, in such limited space, to such a magnificent work of Marxist scholarship. However, I hope I have been able to clarify some of the reasons why Musto is right to lay such seminal importance on this last, often overlooked, period of Marx’s life and work. Notes [i] Chernyshevsky was the author of What is to be Done (1863), a title V. I. Lenin would take up again in 1902. Marcello Musto, The Last Years of Karl Marx: An Intellectual Biography. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA, 2020. 194 pp., $22. ISBN 9781503612525 AuthorCarlos L. Garrido is a Cuban American graduate student and instructor in philosophy at Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. His research focuses include Marxism, Hegel, and early 19th century American socialism. His academic work has appeared in Critical Sociology, The Journal of American Socialist Studies, and Peace, Land, and Bread. Along with various editors from The Journal of American Socialist Studies, Carlos is currently working on a serial anthology of American socialism. His popular theoretical and political work has appeared in Monthly Review Online, CovertAction Magazine, The International Magazine, The Marx-Engels Institute of Peru, Countercurrents, Janata Weekly, Hampton Institute, Orinoco Tribune, Workers Today, Delinking, Electronicanarchy, Friends of Socialist China, Associazione Svizerra-Cuba, Arkansas Worker, Intervención y Coyuntura, and in Midwestern Marx, which he co-founded and where he serves as an editorial board member. As a political analyst with a focus on Latin America (esp. Cuba) he has been interviewed by Russia Today and has appeared in dozens of radio interviews in the US and around the world. Archives March 2022 3/6/2022 Literature and Academia – Review of Terry Eagleton’s ‘Literary Theory – An Introduction’. By: Suryashekhar BiswasRead Now“There is, in fact, no need to drag politics into literary theory: as with South African sport, it has been there from the beginning.”  Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory – An Introduction, in the author’s own words “sets out to provide a reasonable comprehensive account of modern literary theory for those with little or no previous knowledge of the topic.” The stated purpose of Eagleton’s book is to provide introduction to beginner readers. Having read it, alongside a host of other books intended for similar purposes, gives me some hint as to how successful this book has been in comparison to others of its kind. Eagleton’s book provides a critical overview of literary theory, while problematizing the very process of categorisation of literature itself and identifying the games of power and their legitimising ideologies involved in the process. He goes on to suggest the role of power structures involved in the rise of English literature in great detail, without glossing over the complex contradictions of political economy. Subsequently, he introduces his readers to some tenets and live debates within and about the fields of semiotics, psychoanalysis, deconstruction and among other things. His most contentious and controversial remarks come in the section ‘Conclusion: Political Criticism’. Here, Eagleton provocatively claims that just as ‘literature’ is not a definable entity, so ‘literary criticism’ is hardly a concrete discipline in itself. He appeals to us to revive some aspects of the archaic study of ‘rhetoric’, which he deems to be broad enough to accommodate cultural practises along with their political and economic context into the grunt of analysis. He clarifies that this call is not reactionary or revivalist, but historically grounded and dialectical. This section also involves some contributions to a critique of bourgeois academic institutions in general, and literary and cultural studies departments in particular (Eagleton, Literary Theory - An Introduction, 2005). Reception In his review of Eagleton’s book, Philip Corrigan states that Eagleton’s selection of works to criticise the defined canon, ignores a dearth of working-class literature whose existence Eagleton alludes to, only in passing. Perhaps, a detailed overview of those working-class works and the studies about them, would not have changed the core structure of Eagleton’s thought. However, they would certainly elevate the study and assert the presence of a dialog that those works will exist in (Corrigan, 1986). Jonathon Culler applauds the book’s proficiency and scope, and then sets about on a reactionary polemic about the author’s Marxist predilections (Culler, 1984). Both William E Cain and Priscilla P Clark, in their separate reviews, mention that Eagleton often deserts in-depth understanding and engagement, by resorting to high-headed snobbery and gross oversimplification. For instance, as Cain points out, in Eagleton’s attempt to portray the elitism of academic institutions as embodied by Leavis, he makes no mention of essays such as “Education and University – A Sketch for an English School” where the latter’s nuances can be appreciated. Whereas Eagleton mentions Foucault’s influence on his analysis, he hardly elaborates the claim to any considerable length (Cain, 1986). Clark makes the point that, throughout the book, the author provides no insight into the Marxist and feminist schools of criticism, to which he claims allegiance in his conclusion. The beginner reader is therefore left overwhelmed by Eagleton’s call to cancel literary theory in favour of ‘political criticism’, and by the author’s half-baked suggestions about what that might even mean. Unlike his earlier works Marxism and Literary Criticism and Criticism and Ideology, his overview of ‘political criticism’ is limited to the recognition of Marxist and feminist schools of literary criticism and nodding at the fact that working-class literature is growing somewhere (Clark, 1984). In the light of Clark’s review, I could add that Eagleton himself had certain things to say about Marxist literary criticism elsewhere, that clarify that a blanket call for ‘political criticism’ of literature without also adding certain specific features to that criticism, would be to completely miss the point of Marxist criticism and to bastardise it (Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism, 2006). To quote Eagleton from his earlier work: “The sociology of literature concerns itself chiefly with what might be called the means of literary production, distribution and exchange in a particular society—how book? are published, the social composition of their authors and audiences, levels of literacy, the social determinants of ‘taste’. It also examines literary texts for their ‘sociological’ relevance, raiding literary works to abstract from them themes of interest to the social historian. There has been some excellent work in this field and it forms one aspect of Marxist criticism as a whole; but taken by itself it is neither particularly Marxist nor particularly critical. It is, indeed, for the most part a suitably tamed, degutted version of Marxist criticism, appropriate for Western consumption.” (Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism, 2006) In this, I resonate with the old Eagleton of specificity and precision, as opposed to the new Eagleton of high-headedness. Banality of Bourgeois AcademiaOne of the crucial point Eagleton makes, that escapes the succinct attention of the critical reviewers, is his plain and straightforward critique of the bourgeois academia. He is talking in the context of the departments of literary studies. But as he himself asks his readers to extend the boundaries of theory from literature to other things including global political economy, so can his critique be extended to all sections of the academic institutions that exist within the capitalist economic system. In this regard, Eagleton does not replace nuance with whooping generalisations. Literature departments in higher education, contends Eagleton, embody immensely complex and contradictory structures of thought. So, even if academia is an ideological state apparatus, it is not a reliable one - since the practise of critical research and study that happens in these institutions will posit the tendency to question some of the concealed ideological claims that the academia legitimises. True to the inherent hypocrisy of liberal democracy, these academic institutions do not try to crudely indoctrinate their participants into the mythology of the market. Rather, they imbibe it into the people by subtly safeguarding the discourse, allowing the study of tiny bits of every school, but conflating over those theoretical apparatuses that are capable of truly challenging the system’s very existence. Eagleton recognises that liberal humanism goes best with these academic institutions as they exist today. He writes, “The truth is that liberal humanism is at once largely ineffectual, and the best ideology of the 'human' that present bourgeois society can muster.” This is because this ideology does the best job at reconciling the potential radicalism that may arise in the academia from critical studies, with the parasitical nature of the academia as it exists within capitalism. This plays an important role in deriving legitimacy for capitalism. We can see this manifest in the flowery CSR organisations and NGOs that university students waste their time working with, to satisfy the questions and guilt that might arise in their minds after some exposure to critical studies. Eventually of course, as Eagleton posits, the academia will certify its students not based on what their political inclinations are, but how well the articulate the language of the academia’s ideology. He writes, “Those employed to teach you this form of discourse will remember whether or not you were able to speak it proficiently long after they have forgotten what you said.” ConclusionTerry Eagleton’s Literary Theory – An Introduction is anything but an introduction to literary theory. Perhaps to understand the basics of literary theory, one could refer to a host of other selections. Eagleton’s book is an important, albeit imperfect, reflection on literature, literary theory, and the power structures concealed underneath the snobbish academic discussions about the same. It must certainly be given a read by Marxists interested in the subject. Bibliography Cain, W. E. (1986). Review: Literary Theory: An Introduction by Terry Eagleton. Comparative Literature , 362-366. Clark, P. P. (1984). Review: Literary Theory An Introduction by Terry Eagleton. Contemporary Sociology , 452. Corrigan, P. (1986). Book Review: Literary Theory: An Introduction, by Terry Eagleton. Insurgent Sociologist , 75-77. Culler, J. (1984). Review: Literary Thoery An Introduction by Terry Eagleton. Poetics Today , 149-156. Eagleton, T. (2005). Literary Theory - An Introduction. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Eagleton, T. (2006). Marxism and Literary Criticism. London: Routledge. AuthorSuryashekhar Biswas is an independent journalist and researcher, based in Bangalore, India. His research areas include political economy, media studies and literature. He is a member of AISA - a communist student organisation. He runs a YouTube channel called 'Humour and Sickle' (https://www.youtube.com/c/HumourandSickle) Archives March 2022 |
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