Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx’s life-long friend and co-developer of what has become known as Marxism, scientific socialism, dialectical materialism, and in the twentieth century as a result of the Russian Revolution, Marxism-Leninism, was born two hundred years ago on November 28, 1820, in what is now Wuppertal, Germany (then Barman, Prussia). This article commemorates the bicentenary of Engels’ birth by pointing out some of his most important contributions to the development of Marxist theory.
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Marx and Engels first met in 1842 in Cologne. Engels was 22 and had been active as a student in the democratic and progressive movements in Prussia and was on his way to England to join in the management of a factory partially owned by his father. His father, a conservative bourgeois, had taken Engels out of his university studies because he disapproved of his involvement in radical student movements opposed to the undemocratic Prussian monarchy. These movements were based based on the philosophical and political works of G. W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), and the students were known as the “Young Hegelians.” Marx was the editor of a radical democratic newspaper (Rheinische Zeitung), and Engels wanted to meet him. Engels had already made a name for himself as a radical journalist while a student. After Marx hired him as a foreign correspondent, he continued on to Manchester where the factory was located. His father’s hope that he would settle down and become a respectable businessman was not going to be realized.

Engels spent two years in England, where he met with radical working-class leaders and wrote articles on current events and an important essay on political economy from a socialist point of view, as well as worked in his father’s factory. In 1844, on a trip back to Prussia, he stopped off in Paris to visit with Marx; the two had corresponded and wanted to meet up to compare their views on socialism. Marx was in Paris as a refugee, as the authorities in Cologne had expelled him for his political views. They spent ten days together and found out they had the same world outlook. They decided to collaborate and produce a joint work which put forth their views on socialism and philosophical materialism supporting the working class, as opposed to the Young Hegelians who based their views on philosophical idealism and were liberals opposed to communist and socialist views.

Engels continued on to Prussia. A year later, their collaboration resulted in the publication of the first of many works the two would produce in the creation of dialectical materialism—the philosophy of the working-class struggle for emancipation and the creation of socialism. The Holy Family; or, Critique of Critical Criticism: Against Bruno Bauer and Company was not a full-fledged exposition of dialectical materialism, but it was a harbinger of things to come.

Engels stayed in Prussia from the fall of 1844 to the spring of 1845. While there he wrote his well-known The Condition of the Working Class in England. The book created quite a stir in Germany when it was published in 1845. Engels discussed the working-class movement in terms of materialism and the need for socialism. He also stressed the importance of workers’ organizations and especially unions and the use of strikes to win acceptance of their demands from the bourgeoisie. He was also active in the socialist movement, wrote articles for the socialist press, and, as might have been expected, became estranged from his conservative father.

Things were getting too hot in Prussia for Engels. With the authorities upset with his activities and the police spying on him, Engels worried about being arrested, so in the spring of 1845 he moved to Brussels. He chose Brussels because Marx was there, as he had to leave Paris for the same reasons. It was at this time that the pair worked out a full-fledged version of dialectical materialism. Engels had almost gotten there on his own, but Marx had worked out a more advanced view that Engels immediately recognized as such. Here they decided to collaborate on another book to iron out their ideas and solidify their new philosophy in contradistinction to both the objective idealism of Hegel and the materialism of Feuerbach (an influential student of Hegel whose materialist system inspired Marx and Engels but who was not dialectical in his thinking).
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Their new book was finished by 1846 but never published in their lifetime. The German Ideology had been accepted for publication, but political and financial difficulties had arisen and the publication was shelved until after the Russian Revolution when it was published by the Soviets. It had served its purpose though; in writing it Marx and Engels had finally arrived at full agreement both politically and philosophically and were ready to devote their lives to the struggle for communism. They packed away the manuscript and, as Marx remarked, “left it to the gnawing criticism of the mice.”

Marx and Engels became involved in building socialist organizations in Brussels, and their writings were being spread in Germany and elsewhere through the socialist press. There were many different versions of “socialism” in the 1840s, but dialectical materialism began to slowly catch on to such an extent that in 1846 the Brussels followers of Marx and Engels sent Engels to Paris to make contact with the leading French groups and German exiles advocating socialism and democratic rights. So impressed were the leading French socialists that the editor of a major socialist paper, La reform, appointed Engels a correspondent. He also made contact with the leading group of German socialist exiles in Paris, The League of the Just.

In 1847 the League asked Marx and Engels to become members. The influence exerted by their ideas soon came to dominate the thinking of most League members, and in June Engels went to London to attend the League’s First Congress. By the end of the congress the League had renamed itself the Communist League, and a new slogan, “Workers of the World, Unite,” was adopted, superseding the bourgeois liberal (and male chauvinist, pace Schiller and Beethoven) “All Men Are Brothers.” Brussels became the center for the Communist League and its internationally circulated newspaper Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, with Marx and Engels writing the articles on theory.

In the fall of 1847 Engels went to Paris to help the Communist League and prepare for its Second Congress. He reworked the draft program the League has drawn up, named it the “Manifesto of the Communist Party,” and sent it to Marx to look over. The Second Congress (December 1847) adopted dialectical materialism as its policy, and Marx and Engels collaborated on getting the Manifesto ready for the press. It was published in February 1848, and the international communist movement was launched.

The publication coincided with the 1848 February Revolution in France. Revolutions broke out all over Europe that year as the revolutionary bourgeoisie consolidated its political and economic power at the expense of the remnants of the old feudalist order. In France, Louis Philippe, the last of the French kings, was forced to abdicate, and the Second Republic was proclaimed. The revolution spread to Germany and southern and eastern Europe. Engels joined Marx in Cologne to work at the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the Germany daily newspaper published by Marx.

In 1849 Engels participated in revolutionary fighting in the Rhine Province, and when the revolutionaries were defeated he escaped to Switzerland. From there he made his way to London and helped reorganize the Communist League. In 1850 he wrote another of his important historical works, The Peasant War in Germany.

The year 1850 also saw Engels’ return to Manchester and his father’s factory. Marx was now living in London, and the two were in constant communication. With the revolution having been defeated, they now engaged in research and the elaboration of their theories. Because Engels was running his father’s factory, he was able to help Marx financially; this allowed Marx the time he needed to write Das Kapital, one of two most important books published in the 19th century (it came out in 1867, the other was Darwin’s Origin of Species, published in 1859). Lenin said that without Engels’ aid Marx would have been “unable to complete” Das Kapital. As it was, Marx only lived to complete volume 1, and Engels, with Marx’s drafts and notes, completed volumes 2 and 3 and saw them through to print.
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Throughout the 1850s Marx, and especially Engels, concentrated on elaborating the practical aspects of dialectical materialism regarding the struggles of the working class to create unions and in the various national liberation movements that existed at that time, such as in Ireland, Poland, Hungary, the Balkans, and India, including the anti-slavery movement in the U.S.

In 1864 Marx and Engels were instrumental in the founding of the First International. Throughout its existence Engels was a major contributor to the International’s positions on war, colonization, the U.S. Civil War, and the fight against the anarchist movements, which opposed the views of Marx and Engels and the Communist League, under the influence of Mikhail Bakunin (whose views are kept alive and well in the 21st century by anarchists representing the views of the petty bourgeois radicals and not the working class).

In 1872 or 1873 Engels began another important book, Dialectics of Nature, which he worked on intermittently for ten years but never finished. After Engels’ death Edward Bernstein showed the manuscript to Albert Einstein, who thought it worth publishing even though the physics and mathematical parts were weak and out of date. It was published, finally, by the Soviet Union in 1925 (the Marx-Engels Institute). It has limited value, since the sciences have made qualitatively giant strides from the mid-19th century, but it shows how Engels used dialectical materialism to interpret scientific advances dialectically. It also has many interesting sections in which Engels put forth the rudiments of ideas that were later to become part of our contemporary scientific understanding of the world (especially in his discussion of human evolution and some aspects of modern physics, although in antiquated terms no longer in use).

One of the reasons his book on nature was never completed was that he was busy on other  important projects in the 1870s, such as following the developments and advising the growing socialist parties in France, Germany, England, and other countries while also writing important theoretical works: The Housing Question, On Authority, and The Bakuninists at Work (all in 1873), as well as one of the most important works in all Marxist literature, Anti-Dühring (1878).
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Anti-Dühring covered the whole gamut of dialectical materialism, and three chapters on the history of socialism were so popular that Engels was asked to issue them as a separate work. He reworked these chapters and in 1880 published them in the work we know as Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.

The great collaboration of Marx and Engels came to an end on March 14, 1883, when Marx died at age 65, leaving Engels alone as the de facto intellectual leader of the world socialist movement. Marx left behind a trove of unfinished works which it was left for Engels to edit and see published. Engels had, as well, two more major works of his own to complete in the eleven years left to him.

Engels managed to get volume 2 of Das Kapital properly arranged and edited, and it was published in 1885, followed by volume 3 in 1894. He put so much work into these volumes that Lenin said they should be seen as joint works of Marx and Engels. At the same time he was editing Marx’s manuscripts and turning pages of notes and hastily jotted-down ideas into readable texts, he managed to write two works of his own that have become Marxist classics. In 1884 The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State came out (“one of the fundamental works of modern socialism”—Lenin). His final major work, Ludwig Feuerbach and the Outcome of Classical German Philosophy, was published in 1886.


It was in this period that Engels advised the Marxist parties to avoid sectarianism and dogma and to work to develop mass working-class parties. He also gave the classical definition of “opportunism” (still a big problem)—“letting the great basic considerations be consigned to oblivion by transient daily interests,” in other words, “sacrificing the future of the movement to the present.”


This period also saw the founding of the Second International (1889) in Paris in which Engels played a leading role. The First International (International Workingmen’s Association) had been basically set up by Marx and Engels in 1864 and was dissolved in 1876 to prevent its being taken over by the anarchist followers of Bakunin (who died that year in Bern). This international, which excluded the anarchists, lasted to 1916 when it fell apart because most of its national units, pledged to resist war, ended up supporting their own nations in World War I. It was succeeded by the Third International (1919–1943).


Engels, who in these years maintained his position as the most influential leader of the world socialist movement, began to have health problems in the 1890s and died of laryngeal cancer on August 5, 1895. A short time before his death, a young Russian revolutionary, V. I. Ulyanov, made a trip to London, hoping to meet with Engels but was turned away because Engels was too ill to meet with anyone. After his death his daughter Eleanor Aveling and two close friends, Friedrich Lessner and Eduard Bernstein, carried out his last request to be cremated and his ashes scattered in the ocean off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne in East Sussex on the south coast of England.



Cover image: Fondo Antiguo de la Biblioteca de la Universidad de Sevilla, Creative Commons (public domain).

In the pantheon of 1930s revolutionary writers, Michael Gold has too long faltered on the historic periphery. A close associate of Hemingway, Reed, O’Neill, Hughes, St. Vincent Millay, Claude McKay, John Dos Passos, Dorothy Parker, Richard Wright, Carl Sandburg, Upton Sinclair, and James T. Farrell, Gold was not only overshadowed by the celebrity of others but blighted by decades of enduring discord from within and rabid anti-communism from without. And while his novel Jews Without Money (1932) was a bestseller, catapulting him to grand renown in his time, Gold’s own story has been painfully disappeared.
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Writers on the political left, in any case, have always looked to the breadth of Mike Gold’s mission: fiction writer, poet, playwright, prolific journalist and Daily Worker columnist, editor of New Masses and multiple other journals, he was also a champion cultural organizer and inspiring public speaker. Odd, that with so much literary adoration about him, with equal amounts of derision from other quarters, Gold’s biography would arrive at this late juncture. But given the depth of quality in Patrick Chura’s Michael Gold: The People’s Writer, the long, ridiculous wait was worth every decade.

Chura, an English professor at the University of Akron, tore into the definitive research to tell the story, enliven the realities, and reveal the hidden. The biography, written not in the language of the academic but more in narrative fashion, glows with the evidence of investigative details. Chura shows an ability to absorb streams of reportage, unpublished poetry, early pencil visions of fiction, memoir notes, letters, seemingly lost first drafts as well as overlooked and forgotten works of a certain stature. It’s all here.

As biographers are wont to do, Chura exposes the reader to the days of his subject, offering not only facts and analysis, but the ability to see these through Gold’s eyes — to feel the sweat and survive the strain of his often conflicted life. As told by Chura, Gold’s early life of poverty was centered around his family home, a crowded, nearly airless flat infested with lice and crushing dysphoria. Born Itzok Granich in 1894, Gold faced long hours of childhood labor when his ailing, bed-ridden father lost his struggling business, and the family became destitute. An excerpt of one of his earliest writings stated, “The streets of the East Side were dark with grey; wet gloom; the boats of the harbor cried constantly, like great bewildered gulls, like deep booming voices of calamity.” Much later, Gold would write of his formative years: “It was in a tenement that I first heard the sad music of humanity rise to the stars. The sky above the airshafts was all my sky; and the voices of the tenement neighbors in the airshaft were the voices of all my world. There, in my suffering youth, I feverishly sought God and found Man.”

Chura may not be a New Yorker, but his book is a true snapshot of the city’s streets and shadows over the lengthy period bridging the early 20th century and Gold’s later years but in particular his 1920s–40s period of greatest activity. The reader is walked through 102 West 14th Street, then headquarters of the John Reed Club, and the offices of the Communist Party at 35 East 12th Street. It’s no small irony that rent for a single bedroom apartment in either now tops $5,000 per month, and apartment sales in the latter recently averaged more than $4 million.

Chura also brings alive Gold’s radicalization as a teen, his early publication in the Masses, grave financial and emotional struggles while briefly at Yale, his journalist roots, youthful membership in the Provincetown Players, relationship with Dorothy Day, unfailing dedication to the Communist Party, and founding of the New Playwrights. But Gold’s “creative writing” was never confined to poetry, fiction, or drama. In his 1921 article “Towards Proletarian Art,” Gold eloquently warned that “a mighty national art cannot arise save out of the soil of the masses.” And of the Sacco and Vanzetti executions in 1927 Boston, he presciently reported, “It is August 14th, eight days before the new devil’s hour. . . . I am writing this in the war zone, in the psychopathic respectable city that is crucifying two immigrant workers . . . respectable Boston is possessed with the lust to kill . . . the subconscious superstition that the death of Sacco and Vanzetti can restore their dying culture and industry. At last, they have a scapegoat. . . . They are insane with fear and hatred of the new America.”
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This packed biography also reveals the protagonist’s battles with major depression and his lesser-known literature, including previously lost or forgotten verse and his 1929 collection 120 Million (after Vladimir Mayakovsky’s 150,000,000), long out of print. Gold’s numerous speaking engagements are cited, including some specific moments experienced at lecterns here and abroad. Such details feed into international travel, not the least of which was to Kharkov in the Soviet Union for the International Union of Revolutionary Writers conference and Paris for the First International Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture. Interactions with European notables including Andre Gide, E. M. Forster, Vsevolod Meyerhold, and Vladimir Mayakovsky, poet laureate of the Soviet Union, are also highlighted. And while it’s clear that the author remains a proponent of Mike Gold, the many conflicts surrounding the man are here examined with jarring clarity.

Though deeply committed to both the Communist Party USA and the wider Communist International, Gold’s rebellious, unbridled nature never allowed for the discipline exhibited by other party officials. The missed meetings and avoided functionary duties soon clarified that Gold’s decades as a revolutionist began in the company of anarchists. Ironically, his fights against party bureaucracy were eclipsed by the attacks he launched on progressive and liberal writers who’d apparently strayed from the mission.

This combination — and a constant rain of blows from the right — established an array of opponents that stretched over a lifetime. Following early battles with Masses’ editor Max Eastman, his association with Claude McKay, too, became embittered (though he described McKay’s sonnets as “crystal songs”). Gold’s editorials railed against Gertrude Stein and sought to shred Thornton Wilder, but a particular hellishness was saved for former friends, most blatantly Ernest Hemingway. After publication of For Whom the Bell Tolls, Gold’s review called the book “a minor story” despite its “narrative genius,” as it was “so painfully fair to fascists.” The heroic figure of Robert Jordan, according to Gold, was ignorant of the class conflict in Franco’s Spain, which Gold saw as central to the story. Famously, Hemingway left a message at the New Masses office directing the critic to “go fuck himself.” In his book, The Hollow Men, an overview of writers he saw as having turned their backs on the revolution, particularly those originating from wealthier backgrounds (yes, he wrote of “Ernest Slummingway”), Gold’s opinions were unfettered, often bloodthirsty in the pursuit of forging an all-important literary force toward an egalitarian society and in opposition of fascism.
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Following word of the 1938 Moscow purges and, most painfully, the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact a year later, Gold was in the grip of conflict over what we later came to see as Stalin’s despotism. Yet, following his own advice to young writers, Gold would “write, persist, struggle,” toeing the party line through his doubt. During the worst of the Second World War, he became a constant source for the fight against fascism, and though a target of the Dies-led House Committee on Un-American Activities and constantly profiled by the FBI, Gold maintained a busy literary schedule in writing and editing. This sense of mission was maintained through his last, despairing years. While Gold was never to complete the second novel he’d long planned, his “Change the World” column was maintained through 1966, and the artful quality of his work remained glaringly so. He died in May 1967 after more than a half-century of embodying the cultural worker.

Michael Gold, always one to analyze Marxian, seeking the wider, greater reality, wrote near the end of his life of the blacklist and McCarthy terrors, citing on manifold levels: “The lined faces which had seen the trouble and white hair as the result of sleepless nights. . . . We had lost all our youth.”

​Published in People’s World, May 18, 2021.
Image: Mike Gold, Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 3.0).

In order to be viable, a left-wing secular humanism must recognize the complicated dynamics associated with organized religion and its influence on political parties and social movements. Crucial questions emerge that must be addressed. How much should religion influence the development of new parties? What should a left political party’s stance toward religion be, especially in regards to individual members? How can we advocate for atheism or materialism, in any form, while allying with those who are ideologically different? One of the most insightful, and definitely controversial, political theorists who reckoned with these questions was Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.  A deeply influential figure of 20th century world history, Lenin led the intellectual and political transformation of rural, peasant eastern Europe into the first sustained socialist government of the world, the Soviet Union. His revolutionary Marxism influenced movements around the globe, from Cuba and China to the Pan-African socialists of the 1960s and 1970s. His books Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism and State and Revolution are still required reading for those interested in radical, left politics generally and Marxism in particular.*

In this analysis, we will delve into two of Lenin’s essays: “Socialism and Religion”, published in the Bolshevik newspaper Novaya Zhizn (New Life) on December 3, 1905, and “On the Significance of Militant Materialism,” published in the philosophical journal Pod Znamenem Marksizma (Under the Banner of Marxism) on March 12, 1922. Each shows both the consistency of Lenin’s thought on the religious question as well as his evolution as a political theorist before the revolution and after. In these short but incisive pieces, Lenin defended traditional secularist values, such as the separation of church and state, liberty of conscience, and free religious association, while also calling for the political separation of religion from political parties and strategically advocating for the atheist/materialist worldview. While it would be too much to say that Lenin was a “humanist” in the general sense of the term, he was nevertheless a secularist whose insights on religion provide left humanists with clear, tactical advice on the interrelationship between faith and politics in the public sphere.

As a historical materialist, Lenin outlined in “Socialism and Religion”  how capitalism as a mode of production creates the economic and cultural conditions of the society it constructs. “Present-day society is wholly based on the exploitation of the vast masses of the working class by a tiny minority of the population, the class of the landowners and that of the capitalists,” he wrote. In effect, the capitalist society “is a slave society, since the ‘free’ workers, who all their life work for the capitalists, are ‘entitled’ only to such means of subsistence as are essential for the maintenance of slaves who produce profit, for the safeguarding and perpetuation of capitalist slavery.” These conditions create what Marx called “alienation,” or a separation from ourselves, our work, and even life itself. Lenin echoed this notion when he declared, “the economic oppression of the workers inevitably calls forth and engenders every kind of political oppression and social humiliation, the coarsening and darkening of the spiritual and moral life of the masses.”

This “coarsening and darkening” manifests itself most starkly in the form of religion, which Lenin further elucidated. “Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, over burdened by their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation,” he penned. As the conditions of life continually degrade under the forces of capitalism, a reversion to spiritual concerns courses through the working class. By contrast, leaders of such a society, organized around the principle of exploitation, use religion as a tool for laundering their guilt. Thus, religion becomes a palliative for not only those at the bottom but for those at the top. Recalling Marx’s famous line from A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Lenin said, “Religion is opium for the people. Religion is a sort of spiritual booze, in which the slaves of capital drown their human image, their demand for a life more or less worthy of man.” 

Lenin countered this view by stressing the importance of class consciousness, whereby the working class acknowledges its lot in life, begins to actively critique capitalist society, and strives to change it. The “modern class-conscious worker,” Lenin expounded, “reared by large-scale factory industry and enlightened by urban life, contemptuously casts aside religious prejudices, leaves heaven to the priests and bourgeois bigots, and tries to win a better life for himself here on earth.” Lenin again echoed Marx and Engels’ foundational work, The German Ideology, wherein they wrote, “In direct contrast to German philosophy which descends from heaven to earth, here we ascend from earth to heaven.” As such, the “modern class-conscious worker” discovers the indispensable connection between socialism and science, as it “frees the workers from their belief in life after death by welding them together to fight in the present for a better life on earth.” Lenin’s socialism was one rooted in materialism, historical analysis, class consciousness, and scientific discovery. 

With this understanding in mind, what is a socialist’s proper attitude towards religion? Lenin broke it down into two major components: the private (relating to the individual) and the political (relating to the party). He summed up this distinction well in a brief passage: “We demand that religion be held a private affair so far as the state is concerned. But by no means can we consider religion a private affair so far as our party is concerned.” 

In relation to the private, Lenin struck a chord reminiscent of the eighteenth century Enlightenment thinkers Voltaire and John Locke, demonstrating that Marxism (and Leninism) is not a rejection of the Enlightenment, but a manifestation of its better aspects. Lenin believed that “everyone must be absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or religion whatever, i.e., to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule.” Lenin advocated for liberty of conscience, wherein every person can believe or not believe without the fear of government intrusion. Additionally, Lenin declared that “complete separation of Church and State is what the socialist proletariat demands of the modern state and the modern church.” Religions, in effect, should be “absolutely free associations of like-minded citizens, associations independent of the state.” The lesson here for us in the 21st century is that a viable socialist project is one that defends individual rights while fighting for the common cause of the working class, i.e. emancipation from the capitalist mode of production.

Where Lenin stepped beyond the eighteenth century conception of religious liberty is his view that socialists are, “as a rule,” atheists. While many socialists in history have been atheists of one stripe or another (Marx, Mikhail Bakunin, Emma Goldman), there is a Christian socialist tradition that he dismisses. It’s not out of malice, but rather ideology. Marxism, traditionally, has largely been an atheistic worldview. Marx himself rejected religion on materialist grounds, arguing that if societies developed beyond scarcity, religious feelings would dissipate and organized religion itself would wither. Lenin saw his conception of atheism as an extension of Marx’s, hence his pronouncement that socialists are generally atheists. It should be emphasized here that, like science, there is no “royal road” to socialism. Socialists come from many different backgrounds and belief systems, so it is important for us as left humanists to understand and embrace these differences. 

Lenin, grasping the importance of movement building and solidarity, grasped the value in supporting religious movements whose interests align with the socialists. In 1905, within the tumult of an emerging revolution, the “police-ridden feudal autocracy” of Russia forced Russian Orthodox members to spy on citizens. They protested the move and Lenin enthusiastically supported their actions. “We socialists must lend this movement our support,” he said, “carrying the demands of honest and sincere members of the clergy to their conclusions, making them stick to their words about freedom, demanding that they should resolutely break all ties between religion and the police.” Like Lenin in 1905, the socialists of today must support religious groups who yearn for their freedoms in an open society, especially when it involves fighting the police state.

In contrast with the private view of religion, Lenin maintained that the role of the party is to support not only the separation of church and state, but use its influence to rid society of malevolent religious beliefs and practices. Since a “party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the emancipation of the working class,” he writes, “such an association cannot and must not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance, or obscurantism in the shape of religious beliefs.” The party acts as an institution of critical thinking, wherein members use their position to educate others on the harmful absurdities of superstitious thinking, what Lenin calls the “struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers.” It also acts as a disseminator of knowledge. Since a party’s outlook should be materialist, according to Lenin, its party programme “necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism,” namely “the publication of the appropriate scientific literature.” Taking a cue from Engels, Lenin advocates for a party “to translate and disseminate the literature of the eighteenth-century French Enlighteners and atheists.” (He returns to this idea in “On the Significance of Militant Materialism.”)

However, Lenin acknowledged the limits of propaganda with regards to the religious question. While education is vital, the material conditions of a society must also change in order for secularism to thrive, precisely because those conditions created the religious impulse in the first place. “It would be bourgeois narrow-mindedness,” Lenin wrote, “to forget that the yoke of religion that weighs upon mankind is merely a product and reflection of the economic yoke within society.” This passage reinforces Lenin’s view that religion is a product of material forces, and as such, will only wither away when those material forces are restructured by a united working class for the benefit of all.  

Lenin, who valued working class solidarity, understood dividing the proletariat along religious lines for party purity as impractical and disastrous. Admitting to a party some of the working class whose religious beliefs coincide with a commitment to science and class struggle was a necessity. Additionally, he stressed that the religious question should only be addressed when appropriate, specifically when it relates to material forces and class struggle. He deemed it foolish to split the burgeoning proletariat “on account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development” and that only in unity “the proletariat will wage a broad and open struggle for the elimination of economic slavery, the true source of the religious humbugging of mankind.” The secular humanist left, therefore, should be direct about its lack of religious beliefs and commitment to a naturalist, materialist view of the world. Yet, we should not use our convictions as a cudgel with which to harm those of religious beliefs, nor do they preclude us from working with religious organizations on raising class consciousness and advocating for a post-capitalist world.

The 1917 “October Revolution'', which overthrew the bourgeois government instituted after the fall of the Tsars, brought Lenin to the center of political power. “On the Significance of Militant Materialism,” written five years after the revolution, continued Lenin’s exploration of religion amidst the Bolshevik party’s attempt to build “actually existing socialism.” Pod Znamenem Marksizma, or Under the Banner of Marxism, was a journal established in 1922 with the goal of “popularizing militant materialism and atheism,” as mentioned in the notes of Lenin’s selected works. Lenin’s essay was a rejoinder to one written by fellow revolutionary Leon Trotsky, published in the journal’s inaugural issue. “In such a deeply fractured, critical, and unstable era as ours,” Trotsky wrote, “education of the proletarian vanguard requires serious and reliable theoretical foundations.” Those theoretical foundations must be materialist, “so that the greatest events, the powerful tides, rapidly changing tasks, and methods of the party and state do not disorganize his consciousness and do not break down his will before the threshold of his independent responsible work.” Like Lenin, Trotsky insisted that education, of both Marxist and non-Marxist texts, led to the development of a flourishing, socialist society.

Lenin began his article praising Trotsky’s remarks and reiterating the importance of a broad education in materialism. Communists and non-Communists, who are nevertheless committed to materialism, should align to advance their educational goals. This partnership represented a forward move in revolutionary actions, specifically in relation to Lenin’s concept of the “vanguard.” As Paul D’Amato wrote in Socialist Worker, “Lenin's concept of the ‘vanguard’ party is the simple idea that working-class militants and other activists who have come to the conclusion that the whole system must be dismantled must come together into a single organization in order to centralize and coordinate their efforts against the system.” However, the vanguard would itself be democratic and open to outside influences. Lenin reaffirmed this position when discussing alliances with non-Communists: 

This is especially true on the issue of education. Lenin defended the rich history of materialist thinking in Russia and declared, “it is our absolute duty to enlist all adherents of consistent and militant materialism in the joint work of combating philosophical reaction and the philosophical prejudices of so-called educated society.” The lesson for us today is that secular humanists must align and support those who defend the materialist view of reality and history, to fight against the forces of idealism and ahistoricism, what Lenin (quoting Joseph Dietzgen) named the “graduated flunkeys of clericalism.” 
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Another indispensable element of Lenin’s framework regarding materialism and education is “militancy,” which refers to “the sense of unflinchingly exposing and indicting all modern ‘graduated flunkeys of clericalism’, irrespective of whether they act as representatives of official science or as freelances calling themselves ‘democratic Left or ideologically socialist’ publicists.” Publications dedicated to materialism should not pull punches when it comes to critiquing ideas, those who propagate them, and their relationship to society. In that vein, militancy has two components: militant materialism and militant atheism. Militant materialism emphasizes the “connection between the class interests and the class position of the bourgeoisie and its support of all forms of religion on the one hand, and the ideological content of the fashionable trends on the other.” In other words, it grounds philosophical, literary, and scientific currents in material conditions and class structures. Militant atheism is just what it sounds like: clearly and unapologetically defending a non-theistic worldview. 

Lenin’s militancy might sound like something akin to the “New Atheism” of intellectuals like Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins, but it is nothing of the sort. Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, and many others of this camp critique religion almost exclusively on ideological grounds, ripping it from the contexts of history and political economy. It’s also expressed in a way that resorts to racism, xenophobia, and imperialism, things Lenin stood strongly against. Lenin’s militant atheism, on the other hand, arises from Marxism and probes the material forces that developed and inculcated religions. He also doesn’t use atheism as a pretext to defend bourgeois political projects, like imperialism or colonialism. It’s a left atheism, rooted in the materialist process and completely different from the ahistorical, anti-materialist bromides of the New Atheists. 

Alas, atheism is challenging for many to adopt, especially in the working class. This is why broad literacy in the materialist thinkers of the past holds such a large place in Lenin’s conception of revolutionary politics. Like in “Socialism and Religion,” Lenin advocated in “Militant Materialism” for the translation and dissemination of “the militant atheist literature of the late eighteenth century for mass distribution among the people.” As these writers were clearly not Marxists, Lenin acknowledges their limitations and advocates for annotated editions that contextualize these thinkers; doing so provides the public with “most varied atheist propaganda material...from the most diverse spheres of life” Thus, militant materialism is only developed via Marxist and non-Marxist thought working in tandem to educate modern society, providing readers with incisive critiques of religion. It would be to the detriment of the working class and its development to ignore these valuable readings.

In contrast to the classic writings of atheism, Lenin decried the “modern scientific critics of religion” who “almost invariably ‘supplement’ their own refutations of religious superstitions with arguments which immediately expose them as ideological slaves to the bourgeoisie.” He provided two examples demonstrating this trend. The first is Professor Robert Y. Wipper, who, in his book, The Origin of Christianity, relayed the relevant science refuting archaic superstitions while refusing to take a position on said mysticism. He claimed to be “above both ‘extremes— the idealist and the materialist.” Lenin, cutting through the cant, called this waffling on religious matters “toadying to the ruling bourgeoisie, which all over the world devotes to the support of religion hundreds of millions of rubles from the profits squeezed out of the working people.” Marxists should be consummate materialists, Lenin asserted, and ideological fence-sitting of this kind was not to be tolerated. 

The second example cited by Lenin comes from German intellectual Arthur Drews and his book, The Christ Myth.** Drews argued in this work that Jesus Christ, as a historical figure, never existed, yet advocated for a “renovated, purified and more subtle religion” that would withstand “the daily growing naturalist torrent.” Like with Wipper, Lenin lacked patience with this viewpoint, as it only reinforced traditional religious structures and existing class dynamics. “Here we have an outspoken and deliberate reactionary,” Lenin quipped, “who is openly helping the exploiters to replace the old, decayed religious superstitions by new, more odious and vile superstitions.” Nevertheless, Lenin encouraged translating and disseminating works from  Drews and others like him, as they were vital to the struggle against even more reactionary forces of religious belief. 

On a practical level,  Lenin still actively encouraged Marxists to ally with “the progressive section of the bourgeoisie” in the “struggle against the predominating religious obscurantists.” He sees Drews’ mistakes as akin to those of the eighteenth-century writers, and to reject the value of Drews’ work would be denying the worth of the enlightenment thinkers. This is an interesting point to linger on. Lenin, the ur-example of militant materialism and Marxism, still saw the work of non-Marxists as vital to the struggle for better conditions, both intellectually and materially. Despite flaws, their views still provided immense worth to the movement. It is the role of Marxists to expose these errors while also championing their better ideas. Lenin presented a crucial lesson for left humanists: despite our own misgivings about some religious ideas, we shouldn’t reject collaborating with religionists who share our goals. Whether we’re encouraging people to leave religious fundamentalism or uniting on a common cause like universal healthcare, humanists and religionists can cooperate for the improvement of society. Lenin’s mixture of ideological orthodoxy and practical policy is a superb example of the dialectical thinking vital to a conception of left-wing secular humanism.

Alongside considerations of non-Marxist philosophy or history informing the working class on materialism, Lenin maintained that the advancements of modern science and its practitioners should also play a role. Militant materialism, in his estimation, should forge an “alliance with those modern natural scientists who incline towards materialism and are not afraid to defend and preach it as against the modish philosophical wanderings into idealism and scepticism which are prevalent in so-called educated society.” Additionally, modern scientists should be educated in dialectical materialism, the philosophical framework developed by Marx and Engels (following Hegel) that emphasizes the complex interactions of materials forces that create our real, lived experience. Thus, scientists engaged in research should review the dialectical writings of Hegel, Marx, and Engels and apply them systematically, which, as Lenin pointed out, would inoculate them against “intellectual admirers of bourgeois fashion” who “‘stumble’ into reaction.” Much like Marxist philosopher of science Roy Bhaskar argued decades later, Lenin recoginzed the integrative power of dialectical philosophy as indispensable, since “natural science is progressing so fast and is undergoing such a profound revolutionary upheaval in all spheres that it cannot possibly dispense with philosophical deductions.” 

V. I. Lenin’s “militant materialism”, while contentious, provides essential lessons to left secular humanists on the variegated interaction between religion and socialism. As a theorist of the political party, Lenin advocated for the separation of church and state, freedom of conscience, and political participation with religionists, while defending atheism and materialism as core value propositions of the Marxist left. In regards to mass education, Lenin encouraged the dissemination of materialist and atheist writers, Marxist and non-Marxist, as a means of growing the working class’s conception of secularism. In true dialectical fashion, Lenin’s ideas are a study in contrasts. He’s an ideologue dedicated to a steadfast conception of materialism and a pragmatist when it comes to movement building and consciousness raising. With this, he’s following Marx and Engels, who advocated the same thing in the Communist Manifesto. While not everything he champions might translate to our struggles today, Lenin’s secularism, materialism, and atheism nevertheless leaves a clear and influential example for us to learn from. 


Notes

​* It is not the place of this essay to litigate the horrors that emerged from the Stalinist period. For a Marxist analysis of Lenin and the period after his death, see Rob Sewell’s excellent essay, “In Defense of Lenin” (2014). 

** Mythicism, or the belief that Jesus Christ was not a historical person, is a hotly-debated subject within the broader secular community, though not within traditional historical scholarship. The fact that Lenin may have entertained this idea is intriguing, to say the least. To learn more about mythicism and its issues, see Bart Erhman’s book, Did Jesus Exist? (2012). 
​

The oppressed and their ruling class oppressors have an anti-dialogical relationship with one another, which is to say there is no meaningful dialogue that occurs between them. Instead, the ruling class lays sole claim upon all of the knowledge, norms, and rules that govern our society. In place of a dialogical discourse with the oppressed, the ruling class prescribes authoritative narratives to them. This is how the ruling class is able to exert and maintain their domination of the world, and in doing so, deny any chance for a transformative, radical, and liberating revolution. The ruling class conceals the possibilities of full liberation by “gifting” the oppressed a minimalistic range of rights and liberties that are purely legalistic in constitution and devoid of any economic considerations. This has to be stopped. But how?
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In what follows, I will attempt to answer this question by advancing a Marxist program for revolutionary vanguard pedagogy. In the first section of this paper, I will elucidate Karl Marx’s distinction between a limited form of freedom, known as “political emancipation,” from a more maximal approach, which he calls “human emancipation.” Additionally, I will introduce Paulo Freire’s pedagogical theorization of the “banking model” of education, which stands in contrast to his formulation of a “problem-posing” method. I will also argue here that political emancipation, as a purely legalistic configuration of rights and liberties, is the only sort of “liberation” that can be conferred to the oppressed by the ruling class. Human emancipation will not be gifted to the oppressed – it must be fought for. In the second section of this paper, I will present the aforementioned pedagogical principles as they relate to revolutionary theory. To do this I will draw upon the works of Vladimir Lenin in conjunction with Freire. In the final section of my paper, I will discuss the differences between these two theorists when it comes to matters concerning the proper timing for vanguard action. Here I will favor Lenin’s skepticism towards a subservience to spontaneity over Freire’s dedication to patience. As such, this paper is centered on what I propose to be the paramount responsibility of revolutionary vanguard leadership, namely, to educate, agitate, and awaken the oppressed

The oppressed cannot rely on their oppressors to bestow upon them the kinds of rights and liberties that are necessary to achieve their full liberation. For this reason, Marx distinguishes two forms of emancipation in his essay “On the Jewish Question.” On the one hand, there is political emancipation, which is purely legalistic and particularly limited in scope and scale. On the other hand, there is human emancipation, which requires the abolition of economic oppression. Human emancipation necessitates this in addition to the attainment of civil rights and liberties for everyone, and as such, can be understood as a maximalist approach towards freedom.
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As a formal liberal judicial model of rights, political emancipation occurs when the ruling class grants civil rights and liberties to people through the supposed universal application of law, thereby bringing disenfranchised groups into the already existing social-political superstructure.[1] While on face-value this sounds freedom affirming, it in truth only offers a limited conception of equality.[2] This is because political emancipation ignores the consideration of one’s class and is devoid of any concern for one’s material relations. In short, political emancipation is purely legalistic in composition.

As a result, political emancipation conceals oppression by giving it a more human face. Indeed, I argue alongside Marx that juridical equality masks other forms of social inequality. While those who are politically emancipated may be free in a sense of the word, they may still remain unfree in material matters. To put it another way, even if all citizens are equal on political grounds, they can still be unequal economically. As a consequence, the ruling class has divided human life into two; the individual in the political realm, and the individual in civil society. The former is regarded as a citizen of a community who is the bearer of abstract rights. The latter individual is regarded as an isolated monad who is merely concerned with their own private affairs.[3]

However, this is not to say that political emancipation should not be sought after in our struggle for liberation. In fact, quite the contrary is true. While political emancipation may not be sufficient for the liberation of the oppressed, it is a necessary condition of such. This is because a free and equal society requires the political emancipation of all people. But even if people are politically equal there still might be underlying social inequalities that obstructs a fully exhaustive explication of justice and fairness. For this reason, political emancipation should be considered as only an inclusionary measure, and not a liberatory one. Political emancipation is a great step towards emancipation, but it is only that - a step. Human emancipation requires great leaps forward instead.

​Most notably, methods of prescription are integral to the oppressed-oppressor relationship.[4] I find that this is a direct consequence of the way in which the ruling class manages any discourse that pertains to the knowledge, norms, and rules of how a society functions. Freire designates this as the “banking model” of education.[5] In the banking model, knowledge is considered to be a gift that is given from the teacher to the student. Consequently, the banking model of education enables the ruling class to narrate and dictate information to the oppressed, who in turn are only able to passively receive and listen to these commands. Ultimately, the banking model culminates into practices in which the ruling class acts as the teachers, while the oppressed are categorized as students who are to be controlled.  

Additionally, in the banking model of education, the teacher narrates a certain set of content to their students. Here, the task of the teacher is to deposit into the students minds a series of fixed knowledge, norms, and rules, as if their minds were empty containers to be filled. In turn, the student’s job then is to record, memorize, and repeat the information given to them. These students are not permitted to reflect or engage with this content. In this model it is not for the student to ask why two times two equals four, but rather, only to know that it simply is four.[i] In light of this, the banking model can be said to be quite mechanistic in composition. 

Subsequently, the ruling class has taken the banking model as the way in which the knowledge, norms, and rules of society are applied, presenting themselves as the teachers, while at the same time positioning the oppressed as their students. Anti-dialogical by its very nature, the banking model has been so successful for the ruling class because there is no room for any participation on the side of the oppressed, with the exception of absorbing what is dictated to them. As a result, the banking model does not allow the oppressed to actively participate and transform the world around them. 

This makes the banking model a particularly dangerous pedagogical approach, as it allows the ruling class to place limitations on the rights and liberties that the oppressed can have. At best, political emancipation is the only form of freedom that can be advanced when the ruling class is permitted to act as teachers who have the exclusive authority to prescribe knowledge, norms, and rules. The ruling class utilizes these pedagogical tactics to ensure their complete control of all our social-political actions and behaviors. In this worldview, it is not for the oppressed to ask or challenge why we must continue to live in a capitalist society, but only to know that it simply is the case that we do.

With the backing of the banking model of education the ruling class is able to prohibit all potential revolutionary changes. Simply put, the ruling class uses the banking model to make the possibility of human emancipation untenable. However, it should be noted that a revolution is not a project in which one liberates another. The ruling class cannot and will not lead us in the struggle to overcome oppression. To believe the oppressors would liberate the oppressed is indeed a naive notion. This is why the oppressed must not rely on the knowledge given to them by the ruling class. As Freire attests, “Freedom is acquired by conquest, not by gift” (47). Emancipation cannot be gifted to the oppressed because the ruling class places strict limitations on what kind of emancipation can be achieved in their social-political system. Even though political emancipation has traditionally come from the ruling class by way of integrating citizens into their fold, there is no question that human emancipation cannot come from within this currently existing superstructure. 

As such, the oppressed cannot use the State apparatus as a means of liberation. In the essay “The Civil War in France” Marx insists that “the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes” (Marx, 302). To put this another way, the oppressed cannot replace the bourgeois State with a proletariat State, as this would simply be a transference of domination. This would only amount to a substation of power and would not necessarily promote the end of oppression as such. Rather than reconstructing social-political power, an organization such as this merely rearranges it. Hence, the conditions of human emancipation would not be sufficiently met by the creation of a proletariat State. In sum, a full form of freedom cannot be achieved through the mere rearrangement of society, rather, it must be completely reconstructed anew. 

The conditions needed for the total negation of alienation and exploitation requires the destruction of the oppressor State apparatus. On these grounds, Marx postulates two distinct movements that must occur prior to the actualization of a truly free and equal society. First, the bourgeois State must be smashed. This can be achieved through revolution. The second movement is the withering away of the new State.[6] But what does this mean and how does it happen? While there is no simple or singular answer to this riddle, it must be asserted that the withering away of the oppressor State can only happen when every person is given the opportunity to engage in dialogical discourse and action with one another. 

With all of this in mind, I will now argue that any attempt to liberate the oppressed must involve their active and reflective participation in how society is shaped. For this reason, members of revolutionary vanguard leadership cannot rely on the same pedagogy used by the ruling class. According to Freire, the oppressed should not be dictated “liberatory” propaganda, nor can they be told what to think or how to act.[7] Instead, Freire asserts the best route to freedom occurs when there is constant and continual dialogue between all members of society. Revolutionary leaders cannot act as banking model teachers in relation to the oppressed, for they must instead enter into a co-intentional form of education with them. This is the only way to combat the contradictions that exist between the student and the teacher - the oppressed and the oppressor - as posited by the ruling class. Thus, communication should be acknowledged as having paramount significance for all matters concerning revolutionary liberation.

When dialogical discourse happens, both parties become teachers and students equiprimordially. As Freire states, “Through dialogue, the teacher-of-the-students and the students-of-the-teacher cease to exist and a new term emerges: teacher-student with students-teachers” (Freire, 80). Freire calls this form of dialogue between teachers and students the “problem-posing model” of education.[8] As the problem-posing model is dialogical, it stands in direct contrast with the banking model. Whereas the banking model teacher prescribes information to students, the problem-posing teacher-student discovers knowledge alongside their fellow student-teachers. Freire says this about the problem-posing teacher-student, “Here, no one teaches another, nor is anyone self-taught. People teach each other” (Freire, 80). Freire’s interpretation of a liberatory pedagogy therefore does not place the oppressed student as a passive listener, but rather, as a critical and active participant. Through dialogue, trust, and love the problem-posing model allows the student-teacher and the teacher-student to work together with one another as co-authors of knowledge, norms, and rules. 

​Overall, education is dialogical if students can contribute to the discourse at hand and it is anti-dialogical when they cannot. Indeed, dialogical action necessitates the possibility of participation. In short, the “Banking education resists dialogue; problem-posing education regards dialogue as indispensable to the act of cognition which unveils reality. Banking education treats students as objects of assistance; problem-posing education makes them critical thinkers” (Freire, 83). This is valuable insight for those who are involved in the revolutionary struggle. From this interpretation we can see that when vanguard leaders fight apart from the oppressed it can only amount to fighting for liberation for themselves and not the people.

It follows then, revolutionary leaders cannot adhere to the banking model in order to gain support from the people. Their pedagogy cannot be a top-down approach, as this would mirror the model of the oppressor-oppressed. Freire writes on this matter, “The revolutionary's role is to liberate, and be liberated, with the people - not to win them over” (Freire, 95). Fundamentally, the role of the revolutionary leader is not one of salvation, but instead, of encouragement.[9]

Since human emancipation cannot and will not be gifted to the oppressed, a revolution towards such must be fought for. But who is to do the organizing for these endeavors, and how should it be done? I propose that this is the responsibility of those who are conscious of issues of class, that is, the revolutionary vanguard leaders. But as I have stated earlier, the way in which a vanguard organizes themselves with the oppressed cannot be done in the same manner that the ruling class does. Instead, they must rally the oppressed in a dialogical fashion. To organize or mobilize the oppressed by means of manipulation, or without them altogether, would be a contradiction of human emancipation, and thus, could not be considered a revolutionary movement. These false vanguards may have different objectives than the ruling class does, but there can be no road to liberation if their pedagogical practices align with the banking model of education. Dialogue and participation from the people is what distinguishes a revolution from a military coup. Leaders of a coupes do not have dialogue with the people, it is done “for” the people. But an attempt to carry out the revolution “for” the people is the same as to carry out the revolution without them, and will never result in the manifestation of human emancipation. Again, it must be stressed: liberation is not a gift, it must be fought for.

According to Freire, the strive for one’s freedom is not a concession that can be bestowed upon the oppressed by revolutionary leadership, as it is something that they must become convicted of on their own accord. Yet, Freire notes the average and everyday person is oftentimes not socially or politically conscious. As a result, he advises revolutionary leaders to wait and bide their time patiently, striking only when a mass of people are class conscious. He writes on the matter:

As we can see from Freire’s account, revolutionary leaders cannot make up the minds for the oppressed, for this is what the oppressor does. Therefore, for Freire, a true revolutionary leader does not impose their values on others.

Accordingly, Freire believes revolutionary leaders should not deposit communiques and programs of action to the oppressed. He writes, “There are two principles here: one is the actual needs of the masses rather than what we fancy they need, and the other is the wishes of the masses, who must make up their own minds instead of our making up their minds for them” (Freire, 94). Hence, the oppressed, as masters of their own education, must compose their own program of freedom. Freire continues, “By imposing their word on others, they falsify that word and establish a contradiction between their methods and their objectives” (126). It is clear Freire maintains the position that revolutionary leaders cannot truly know what the oppressed desire by themselves. They can come to an agreement about what sort of freedom they think the oppressed should have, but this is not the same as the oppressed having knowledge on such matters for themselves. In this respect, a revolution built around the pillars and programs of the revolutionary leaders becomes the vanguard’s revolution, and not the revolution of the oppressed. Freire argues that in an instance such as this revolutionary leaders merely replace the role of the bourgeois so they may carry out their own vision of society. 

It is here that I disagree with Freire. I believe that revolutionary leaders should not wait until the time comes when the oppressed awaken from their socially and politically conscious slumber. Nor can vanguards keep revolutionary discourse to themselves. The indifference towards class consciousness on the part of the oppressed is one of the main reasons why revolutionary movements have moved so slowly and progressed so little. As such, the first task of the vanguard is to cultivate this theory. Then they must educate, agitate, and awaken the oppressed. 

The problem is then, how should revolutionary leaders educate the oppressed? As problematic as this issue may be, it is clear that we cannot rely on the oppressed to spontaneously formulate the decision to revolt. According to Lenin, revolutionary potential is fundamentally hindered by a subservience to spontaneity. He proclaims we cannot look to spontaneity for a chance at a revolution, as spontaneity is what we have ‘at the present moment.’[10] For Lenin, an adherence to spontaneity only advances the continued subordination of bourgeois ideology. In other words, spontaneity can only lead us to more domination of bourgeois social-political systems. This line of thought is marked by the thinking, “there can be no other way; there is no alternative!” Adherence to the status-quo is easy for the oppressed to follow because it is so entrenched in their daily life and way of thought. This is why Lenin argues that a revolutionary movement must combat spontaneity. I agree with Lenin on this issue.

Yet, it cannot be denied that class consciousness exists by way of spontaneity to a certain extent. This is evident when workers go on strike, or when they demand better wages, working conditions etc. However, this is what Lenin calls “trade-unionism,” which is not the same as a class consciousness proper. Per Lenin, “The spontaneous working-class movement is by itself able to create (and inevitably does create) only trade-unionism, and working-class trade-unionist politics is precisely working-class bourgeois politics” (Lenin, 125). Accordingly, trade-unionism should be considered as class consciousness in its embryonic form. Demands and strikes show flashes of consciousness, yet not the full awakening of such. Indeed, spontaneity can only develop this minimal level of class consciousness.[11] Nevertheless, trade-unionism is a good thing, insofar as without it the oppressed lack any hope for progress. But these demands do not lead us to a true challenge against the oppressor-superstructure. Similar to political measures of emancipation, trade-unionist demands do not show knowledge about the antagonisms of class struggle, and as such, they are fundamentally limited when compared to human emancipation. 

Vanguards are therefore needed because the oppressed are not yet at their height of class consciousness. The aim of the vanguard then, is to help the oppressed develop class consciousness in order to promote a movement that stands in opposition to the oppressor ruling class. In this way, the vanguards task is to prepare the oppressed for revolution. This means revolutionary leaders should spread their understanding of socialism with fervor and zeal to the average and everyday person. The potential for revolution gains momentum by awakening the oppressed to this cause.

One of the greatest weaknesses to any revolutionary momentum is the lack of consciousness among most people. Indeed, it appears as if the oppressed are content with political emancipation alone. But this is simply because they have not awakened to the realization that human emancipation is an imperative of justice and fairness. Thus, the task of the vanguard is to educate the oppressed about their political and social standing.

Aiming at this goal, Lenin advises revolutionary leaders to use what is known as “exposure literature.” This is the use of leaflets, manifestos, and other writings devoted to exposing the truth of the oppressor-oppressed relationship. The aim of exposure literature is to rouse the oppressed into an awareness of their current material social conditions. For this reason, exposure literature should be utilized to create a stance against the ruling class. Lenin even considered exposure literature to be a declaration of war against the bourgeois status-quo.[12] This is because it is through these writings that the oppressed can become better acquainted with the alienation and exploitation that they suffer at the hands of the ruling class. For once the oppressed learn about the possibility of full liberation through human emancipation the scraps of humanity granted by the ruling class in the form of political emancipation will no longer be satisfactory. These works of agitation should help expand and deepen the demands of the oppressed. Correspondingly, vanguards, as revolutionary theorists, are called upon to publish works that expand upon and intensify the political exposures of the oppressed. 

​​To stress, a revolution cannot be spontaneous. For a revolution to happen there needs to be an attempt at such. Human emancipation will not simply arise out of nowhere, and it will definitely not be gifted by the ruling class. It is therefore the responsibility of the revolutionary vanguard to educate, agitate, and awaken the oppressed out of their social-political slumber and help them achieve a sense of class consciousness. 

Emancipation, as I have argued, cannot be gifted by the oppressor. As we have seen, there exists a relationship between the oppressed and the oppressor that is fundamentally anti-dialogical. This is because the oppressed are currently unable to be meaningfully involved in the formation of society. In order for the oppressed to gain such a role requires a radical revolution in which they are encouraged to become a part of society as active members. Through the works of Marx and Freire, we learn that this cannot come about through a mere reversal of roles. Moreover, through the works of Marx and Lenin we learn that while political emancipation and trade unionism are good steps in the right direction, they are only that - steps. To gain either of these is no great leap towards liberation, as they are necessary, but not sufficient conditions for such. 

How we reach the manifestation of human emancipation is what is at stake now. Whereas Lenin argues that the oppressed need to be agitated from without, Freire contends that revolution requires patience. Lenin makes the charge that agitation is the only route out of trade unionism, while Freire claims that such a position isolates the revolutionary leadership from the oppressed. Who then, is correct? 

If we are led to believe as Freire does, we might lose the potential for a more immediate revolution. This is because Freire wants revolutionary leaders to tread cautiously and patiently towards revolution. For Freire, revolution must be a desire of the oppressed which must come about by their own fruition. This line of thinking has both its merits and its pitfalls. If a revolution is initiated by the people it will take on a much more authentic character than if it was not. In this way, a revolution is truly made by the oppressed. Freire envisions the oppressed entering into dialogue with each other to decide what form of liberation they themselves want, and is not something that is directed “for” them. Assuredly, this has a strong dialogical characteristic about it. Patience of this sorts is beneficial in remaining cognizant of the desires of the oppressed. As Freire argues, any sort of revolution that is not aware of such matters falls under the banking model of education. This is undoubtedly the case when revolutionary leaders treat the knowledge that they hold of class consciousness as a gift. This is why Freire comes to the conclusion that no matter how well intentioned this gift of revolutionary knowledge is, an approach such as this will ultimately result in the banking model, thereby continuing the tradition of oppression. 

However, as Lenin reckons, spontaneity cannot be relied upon for revolutionary struggle. Spontaneity has created the conditions of present society, which is anything but revolutionary. To be sure, spontaneity has resulted in the mass adherence to the status-quo, and is allied with the forces of pacification. Modern capitalist society has become increasingly structured around the notion of the “pacification of the proletariat.” This is all to say that a large number of the oppressed have become pacified in regard to their social and material conditions. While members of the oppressed might understand themselves as oppressed, they might at the same time be content with their lot in life. Why revolt against the superstructure when they can go home and watch Netflix? Why enter into a political dialogue with anybody when they can play the latest version of Angry birds? Why care about the massive inequalities of wealth in the world when they can consume whatever they want from the comfort of their couches, with free two-day shipping? In other words, liberation is hard, turning on the television is easy. Capitalism has become extremely efficient at quelling thoughts of dissent by way of increased modes of commodification. Everything is commodified in the eyes of capital, which consequently results in the consent of the continuation of the oppressors strangle on knowledge, norms, and rules of society. The oppressed do not see themselves as such, but rather as a consumer. The oppressed have thus become complacent with the status-quo. With such complacency, many oppressed wonder why they should even bother being political at all?

This is exactly why exposure literature and measures of agitation on the part of revolutionary leaders is so important. Problem posing education should be used to rouse the oppressed from their complacency with bourgeoisie rule. The oppressed need to be awakened out of their current state of mind, or else they will forever remain subjugated. As I have stated previously, the commodification of all aspects of life has made it extremely difficult for many members of the oppressed class to see themselves as beings who are alienated and exploited. Exposure literature and agitation serves as the rod that revolutionary leaders can use to pry the oppressed out of this state of slumber. It is likely that nothing will change if we are to stick to the rule of spontaneity. This is not to say, however, that the revolutionary leader should act “for” the oppressed. They may rouse them into a state of dissent, but they cannot act alone. Revolution requires action from the people. To act without the people and without dialogue is not a revolution, it is a military coupe. 

Given the current state of social-political affairs, it seems as if there is little hope for a radical and revolutionary struggle that is guided by the desire for human emancipation, if there is any at all. This is because the ruling class has complete control over the knowledge, norms, and rules that govern our society. This is done through the prescription of the banking model of education, which allows the oppressors to garner total control of the kinds of freedom the oppressed can obtain. A limitation such as this prevents the possibility of full human emancipation. 

On these grounds, it is the responsibility of the revolutionary vanguard leadership to educate, agitate, and awaken the oppressed out of their slumber, guiding them into an awareness of class struggle. But as I have maintained, a vanguard pedagogy cannot mimic the banking model tactics used by the ruling class. A revolution cannot be done “for” the oppressed, and as such, they must be given the capability to dialogically engage in the discourse regarding the arrangement of societies knowledge, norms, and rules.

The question arises then, is Lenin’s revolutionary vanguard theory anti-dialogical? I hold the position that it is not. As Lenin demonstrates, agitation is not the same thing as telling someone what to do. Agitation involves exposing the social and political conditions of the oppressed. It remains the decision of the oppressed what to do with that information. Agitation is important because without it many members of the oppressed would fall into the complacency set forth by spontaneity. Agitation is not anti-dialogical, as it encourages participation in dialogue. Indeed, without agitation there is likely to be no dialogue. Agitation is done so that the oppressed may enter into dialogue with the oppressed. Agitation is not done as a narrative monologue, as is the case in the banking model. Agitation is done as a problem-posing dialogue. Agitation serves to initiate the conversation between those with class consciousness and those without. In short: agitation is a call to dialogue. 

​Notes
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​[1] Marx defines “political emancipation” as that which occurs when “The state abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education, occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education, occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state” (Marx, 8).
 
[2] Marx writes on the issue, “The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state without man being a free man” (Marx, 7).
 
[3] Per Marx, “Political emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on the other hand, to a citizen, a juridical person” (Marx, 21).

[4] According to Freire, “Every prescription represents the imposition of one individual's choice upon another, transforming the consciousness of the person prescribed to into one that conforms with the prescribers consciousness. Thus, the behavior of the oppressed is a prescribed behavior, following as it does the guidelines of the oppressor” (Freire, 47).
 
[5] Freire provides us with this definition, “This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits” (Freire, 72).
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[6] For more on this see Marx’s essay “The Civil War in France.”

[7] As Freire implores, “Those truly committed to the cause of liberation can accept neither the mechanistic concept of consciousness as an empty vessel to be filled, nor the use of banking methods of domination (propaganda, slogans—deposits) in the name of liberation” (Freire, 77).

​[8] Freire provides us with this definition, “In problem-posing education, people develop their power to perceive critically the way they exist in the world with which and in which they find themselves; they come to see the world not as a static reality, but as a reality in process, in transformation” (Freire, 83).

[9] Cautiously, Freire advises revolutionary leaders to “not go to the people in order to bring them a message of "salvation," but in order to come to know through dialogue with them both their objective situation and their awareness of that situation” (Freire, 95)

​[10] See (Lenin, 67) for more on this.

​[11] For Lenin, “This shows that the “spontaneous element,” in essence, represents nothing more nor less than. consciousness in an embryonic form… The strikes of the nineties revealed far greater flashes of consciousness… The revolts were simply the resistance of the oppressed, whereas the systematic strikes represented the class struggle in embryo, but only in embryo” (Lenin, 74).

​[12] See (Lenin, 120) for more.

Work Cited
​
Freire, Paulo. Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Bloomsbury Academic, 2018. 

Marx, Karl. Karl Marx Selected Writings. Edited by Lawrence Hugh Simon, Hackett, 1994. 

Vladimir, Lenin. Essential Works of Lenin: “What Is to Be Done?” and Other Writings. Edited by Henry M. Christman, Dover Publications Incorporated, 1987. 

The socialist and communist idea has long inspired the search for a better way of life.* Many things that are today taken for granted from Social Security to unemployment insurance come out of this quest. Indeed, it would be difficult to overstate its impact. This applies not only to day-to-day working-class struggles but also to the realm of ideas. Socialist thought has reconfigured the ideological landscape, altering ways of thinking and doing while reshaping culture and science. Dialectics revolutionized the social sciences, Marx’s political economy upended the study of wealth and work, as his science of class struggle politics redrew the world’s borders. Many commonly accepted concepts like the responsibility of government to care for its citizens, social equality and special compensatory measures to overcome past discrimination, arise directly out of the socialist tradition.

Even in the aftermath of the implosion of  the early 1990’s  and the ensuing ideological collapse and confusion, the communist ideal endures. Rather than abandoning its prospect – one deeply rooted in capitalism’s ongoing crises – people continue to seek alternatives: millions believe another world is still possible.
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Yet the very ambiguity of this hope is suggestive. It would be naive to ignore doubts about the viability of the socialist alternative. How to answer these doubts is a central question. This involves not only socialism as practiced but also as imagined: questions abound about the doctrine that gave rise to the social revolutions of the 20th century. This is doubly so because Marxism-Leninism sets a very high internal standard: the criteria of truth are in practice.

Does the practice suggest the theories of Marx and Lenin were misapplied or was something inherently wrong with them? How these questions are placed is important. Some, for example, have suggested that the theory of scientific socialism was “correct” but for mistakes in implementation. However, “correct” ideas do not exist outside history in a realm unto themselves waiting to be applied or misapplied by fallible and frail men and women. To postulate the existence of a correct theory that lies only in wait of implementation without evaluating the world-view itself in light of the rigorous tests of the historical experience itself would betray more than a hint of idealism: the concept that ideas precede human activity or have an independent existence. Again, theory must be confirmed by practice.
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Yet, the relationship between theory and practice must not be construed mechanically as a simple scientific formula: the application of a thesis, its test and corresponding result. A more useful way to pose this issue is as a problem of history. It is not simply a question of truth or falseness, success or failure, but how true or how false, how successful or unsuccessful at a given moment in history. Truth travels relatively through time. Viewed from this prism, Marxism’s “truth” was born out by its early successes, its “untruth” by the more recent defeats. Both represent an aspect or moment in socialism’s real history, a history that continues to unfold.

What is forgotten in considering this real history is that as a newly emerging science, Marxism is still evolving. Each historical moment represents a stage in its development. All too often, each moment was thought of as complete. Still more, it may not have been realized the extent to which each moment shaped the problems the new science was forced to deal with, which in turn, shaped how the doctrine came to be defined, with each definition seen as comprising the essential truth.

With each generation believing themselves to be in possession of this truth there appeared over the years a certain one-sidedness in interpretation and presentation of the new world-view. By one-sidedness is meant an unbalanced, mechanical, narrow juxtaposition of one aspect of Marxism over another or seeing one side of the doctrine as comprising the doctrine in its entirety. One-sidedness is a tendency to view things statically separate and opposed instead of seeing them in their interrelation as dimensions or aspects of one another.
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This one-sidedness has been a persistent problem throughout socialism’s history. Initially it arose as a problem of growth. In the heady days of its youth, after settling accounts with other left trends scientific socialism quickly became a dominant ideological force. Early successes were so sweeping that Lenin, charting Marxism’s growth, boasted of “complete victory” as the main philosophical expression of labor at the 19th and beginning of the 20th century.

At the same time however, weaknesses began to be felt. The “strength” of scientific socialism’s wide reach was also accompanied by a “weakness” represented by a lowering of the theoretical level. As the doctrine rapidly spread, Marxism was interpreted in what Lenin described as “extremely one-sided and mutilated form.”
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What began as a growing pain may have become more pronounced through the years culminating in a full-blown ideological trend with the consequence that socialist partisans couldn’t see the whole forest for the trees inhabiting the great ideological continent uncovered by Marx.

When considering the issue of one-sidedness it is crucial to bear in mind that Marxism is a living science. As a living doctrine, Marxism grows and declines, shifts and changes in response to the class battles of which it is part. In other words, it has different aspects, or sides that come to the fore or retreat according to the conditions of life. A period of upsurge and growth will lay stress on the side of Marxism that focuses on politics, strategy and tactics, united front work. A period of repression or a serious defeat may cause despair and disarray, triggering a serious internal crisis of Marxism such as was experienced in the early 1990s in wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In such a period, another dimension of Marxism that lays stress on class fundamentals, fighting liquidationism, etc., becomes more pronounced. In the mid-to-late 1990s as the labor movement adopted a greater class-struggle orientation, the balance shifted again. The anti-globalization, peace and democratic movements took greater initiative, reopening space for left ideas and thinking. Precisely, because it is a living science, one or another “side” will advance or retreat. What is appropriate for one period may not be for another.

It is crucial to respond to these ebbs and flows. Mistakes resulting in stagnation, inactivity and isolation are the result of an inability to shift from one or another. These mistakes may assume a “left” or “right” form. One pits the class struggle against the fight for democracy, a second evolution over revolution, a third elevates one form of struggle over all others. Each seems to raise now this element of the philosophy, now that tactic to the level of principle.

An outline of Marxism’s internal history would be useful in establishing the various phases of its self-conceptualization and in what ways one-sidedness has appeared. As is well known because of Marx’s economic work, aspects of the science – especially philosophy – take the form of aphorisms as in the Thesis on Feuerbach. Tracing the emergence of different concepts and additions – for example it was G. Plekhanov who coined the phrase dialectical materialism – would help illuminate how it was rounded and developed: or revised.

Each attempt is important and has political implications. We are familiar with attempts to separate different parts of the philosophy as well as its developers: Marx from Engels, Lenin from both. Similarly well known are the various schools of Marxism that have emerged. One accepts historical materialism while denying political economy; another accepts political economy but refuses dialectics, a third adores dialectics but will have nothing of Marx’s theory of surplus value. Interestingly, few accept the theory of scientific socialism.

Lenin made a studied efforts to overcome this one-sidedness. In his The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of Marxism, is presented perhaps the first balanced summary. He posits the philosophy as an “integral world conception” adding its three sources, German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism, which are also its component parts. He describes Marxist philosophy as “matured philosophical materialism,” attaching equal weight to dialectical and historical materialism as well the concept of socialism premised on worker’s class struggle.
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Lenin’s balanced formulation stands in sharp contrast to earlier and later Marxists’ stress on one or another side of the world-view while leaving out important parts. G. Plekhanov for example in his important book The Fundamental Problems of Marxism defines the world-view as consisting of philosophical materialism and political economy, and neglects to include the category of scientific socialism. Plekhanov’s concept seems one-sided in so far as it neglects one of the principal legs upon which Marxism stands. Lenin corrects this omission. At the same time however, it might be said he too does not succinctly conceptualize in summary form just what the doctrine is. A rendering of component elements, even placing them together, does not necessarily complete the picture or say what the picture is of. Viewed as a whole, is the new world-view simply the sum of its parts or is the whole greater than the sum? This question becomes particularly interesting in light of Lenin’s own notes on dialectics from the Philosophical Notebooks: “The cognition of a whole and the division of its various parts is the chief question of dialectics.” Thus, it appears Lenin’s own cognition of the Marxist “whole” appears a little shy. As Antonio Gramsci pointed out in place of the various approximations a more balanced restatement that comes from the heart of the world-view might be in order. The point is not what is “correct” but what is truer, more balanced and closer to life.

Consideration should be given to whether this one-sidedness has contributed to a series of alterations of Marxism. First, from the side of “orthodoxy” (Plekhanov) and then from others we are more familiar with (Bernstein); and secondly, from the side of the Stalin leadership up to an including other leading Party collectives ending with the collapse of the USSR. Lenin could be seen as a correction of the double revision, marking a return to original paths.
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The ideology that emerged out of the CPSU as well as what became known as Euro-Communism, then, might be understood as contiguous “left and right” currents born of the same one-sided ideological impulse. Keeping in mind that old thinking habits die hard, a review of what the CPSU called Marxism-Leninism is in order. To a great measure, much of the communist movement relied on its stilted and wooden texts and while largely indigestible its influence should not be underestimated. At the same time, it must be recognized that Marxism-Leninism is a worldwide movement extending far beyond the CPSU with a rich and varied experience. In this regard, Lenin’s contribution must be considered as original and lasting, marking not only a return to authenticity but also a development along new lines. Still socialism’s experience in the 20th century became quite diverse and others have made significant contributions as well. Some countries have in fact begun the practice of adding the designation of the “Thought” of their national leader to account for these contributions. One wonders how far this naming process can go and what its future impact will be.

Another issue arises: scientific socialism was born into a world filled with superstition, religion and other forms of pre-scientific thought. As it traverses the long and difficult climb, from unreason to reason and superstition to science, the need for a more objective categorization is making itself felt. Naming a science after its discoverers may not contribute to its development. To avoid one-sidedness care should be given to embracing, critically reviewing and assimilating the Marxist legacy in its entirety. Needless to say, this includes China.
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Finally, it is worth considering how one-sidedness impacted the Communist movement in the US. The history of Communist Party shows an ongoing tension in balancing class and all-class democratic struggles like those involving racial and national minorities, women’s equality or LGBT rights.

Variously, one issue is placed over and against another. On the one hand, owing to the influence of Lenin’s general theory of democracy and its stress on championing the racially and nationally oppressed, stellar contributions were made in theorizing the national question and advancing the struggle for equality. Similarly, Communists have without doubt played significant roles in fighting for women’s equality. On the other hand, from the ill-advised Black Belt thesis, to a reluctance to support the Equal Rights Amendment, to the glacier-like slowness in warming to gay rights, the Communist movement has had difficulty in responding with agility and deftness to democratic struggles. Why?

The problem is complex. It is difficult to establish a causal link between ideology and the practical political choices made in the course of daily life. Indeed, even in the presence of a more balanced view, political life does not occur in a vacuum. Ongoing pressure from the right tends to push away from maintaining consistent working-class positions. Added to this are the pernicious influences of racism, sexism and homophobia, all of which combine in different ways.

Notwithstanding these realities, there has been a tendency to not see class and democratic struggles in their mutual relation. There has been a persistent under-appreciation and suspicion of the struggle for democracy: to see it as detracting from the class struggle, a trend Lenin himself battled. At the same time there has been misapplication of race and nationality as was the case with the self-determination and certain interpretations of  the African American centrality thesis. In fact one form of one-sidedness (seeing only class) breeds another (elevating race over class). A patent sectarianism that only sees class is cause in the first case; a movement away from consistent class positions and drift toward left nationalism is consequence in the second.
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Yet another dimension of one-sidedness may be seen in the approach to ideology itself or the lack thereof. Because on inadequate attention to ideological work, policy runs the risk of substituting for theory. Again the problem is complicated. Because of the relationship between theory and practice, Party policy does assume theoretical form. At the same time, policy is shaped by the art of the possible: what is politically feasible, unfortunately is not always what is right, nor is it necessarily what is “correct.” What emerges as policy due to the demands of inner unity is often a series of compromises.

Additionally, the problem appears from another side: for new theory to be created areas lying outside the realm of the agreed must be engaged. It is in the clash between agreed on practice (policy) and ideas outside its realm that new theory is created. This applies to thinking both within and without the Communist Party.

Important contributions are being made from writers and activists not organized in political parties. In fact in the US a majority of those within the socialist and communist tradition do not belong to the organized left.

These issues raise important questions about the very approach to the creation of ideology and its role in the class struggle. The main forms of the battle of ideas today do not occur in the realm of high theory between isolated groups of intellectuals, but rather in the arena of broad popular culture: film, literature, music, television, the Internet, etc. It is precisely here that the left must be engaged.

This becomes important when considering where the main emphasis should be directed: at intellectuals or others engaged in ideological production? Or should it rather center on the broad working-class left? The answer to this question goes to the very heart of our discussion. Because it is so important, the question might be sharpened as follows: who should lead?

It should be recalled that implicit in the founding of Marxist-Leninist parties was concept of working-class leadership and developing a new sources for ideological production. Not only must the “educators to be educated,” but new educators themselves must arise from the ranks of working class. How to achieve this remains largely unsolved. Owing to the manner and time in which socialism was introduced into the world this concept of working-class political and ideological leadership has faced a troubled history. As is well known, before the introduction of the public school in the late 19th century workers rarely had the opportunity to obtain a higher education. As a result, intellectuals were largely formed from the ranks of the middle and upper classes. It is no mystery, then, why they were first to articulate the socialist vision. However, from the time of Marx to this day, they tend to dominate the working-class movement ideologically and politically. What are the roots of this problem?

Part of an answer can be traced to Lenin’s idea that socialist ideology had to be introduced to the working-class movement from the outside: that left to itself the working-class movement would only spontaneously develop trade union consciousness. An aspect then of the role of the party was to interject socialist ideas. It is not difficult to imagine how this formula could lend itself to a paternalistic relationship between workers and leaders, particularly if those leaders come from other class strata.

When viewed as a problem of history growing out of that particular country at that particular moment “bringing socialism in from outside” may well have been the only approach possible. Considered as a general principle applicable across the board, however, it is at best highly problematic and at worse deeply mistaken.
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On the other hand Lenin’s notion should not be understood narrowly: his point was that unless introduced by conscious forces, (that is, a working-class revolutionary party) all struggles would invariably fall short of realizing the need for social revolution.

Given the general educational and cultural level of working-class people in the US, there is absolutely no reason for this to continue. For these reasons a central task of the Communist movement today is to renew the fight for working-class leadership at all levels, including ideologically.

Significantly, notwithstanding certain problems this fight for working-class ideological leadership has been one of the hallmarks of the US communist movement. So much so that it has contributed to the growth of anti-intellectualism in its ranks. It would be extremely shortsighted not to make a correction. Fighting for working-class leadership should in no way preclude deep relations with academic workers and building unity between workers and intellectuals.

A final note: these issues must be approached forthrightly as skeptical listeners will not be convinced by knee-jerk defensiveness and religious-like appeals to Marxism’s eternal truth. One cannot ignore the problem of dogmatism. It has ossified thought and turned what was once a living doctrine into a stale and lifeless thing and remains perhaps the biggest obstacle to reviving the communist idea and rekindling its rigorous creative spirit. While doing so it must be borne in mind that as a theory of class struggle, Marxism can only be conceived of polemically, in perpetual struggle with its ideological adversaries. One cannot ignore the problem of revisionism. At the same time, there is a need for boldness: As a theory of dialectical materialism, Marxism can only be understood critically, as an unceasing quest for truth through practice, driven now forward, now backward by the struggle between opposites, their mutual negation, their quantitative transformation and qualitative change.
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It is hoped these critical notes will play a modest role in moving the discussion forward.

​In Marx’s ambitious work Capital: Critique of Political Economy he has a daunting goal: to describe the functioning of capitalism that corrects the blindness of the preceding political economists that he had encountered. He seeks to denaturalize capitalism and to demonstrate the exploitative nature of its very foundations. This chapter epitomizes the method used throughout the text, which Marx builds on the back of the concept of the commodity form. Using the most quotidian concepts, like commodity and then the money equivalent, Marx makes the seemingly familiar feel mysterious through his “microscopic” gaze (Marx 90)[1]. Furthermore, through this scientific methodology, Marx reveals the strange homogenizing urge of capitalism, where everything is made equivalent through the money form. For example, where labor, previous to capitalism, was understood by its particular characteristics —what type of labor? What product? — under capitalism it becomes understood as an average “congealed” form of labor, with no particularities. Tracking capitalism’s impulse to make uniform provides a trail that Marx tracks, from the commodity form all the way to the “fetishism of commodity”.

Capitalism, like the systems that came before it, lays claim to its own naturalness as proof of its necessity and inevitability. Seeking to problematize that viewpoint, Marx seeks to make the seemingly natural and unexamined aspects of capitalism alien. This reexamination, from a distance, of the foundational concepts of capitalism begins with the very smallest constitutive element: the commodity form. Marx acknowledges that, “the analysis of these forms seems to turn upon minutiae. It does in fact deal with minutiae, but they are of the same order as those dealt with in microscopic anatomy” (Marx 90). Though it “seems” to be minute, the commodity form is the heart of Marx’s labor theory of value, which posits that value is generated, not in the sphere of exchange, but in the sphere of production, when labor is performed.

Marx adopts a scientific mode of inquiry, rather than an outrightly polemical or didactic mode. This choice manifests in many ways, from the metaphors he uses to more methodological questions of organization. He sketches out his view of capitalism as a living organism in his preface to the first German edition of Capital, saying that political economists had studied capitalism as one might an animal. “The value-form, whose fully developed shape is the money-form, is very elementary and simple. Nevertheless, the human mind has for more than 2,000 years sought in vain to get to the bottom of it all, whilst on the other hand, to the successful analysis of much more composite and complex forms, there has been at least an approximation” (Marx 89-90). In contrast, Marx seeks to describe the cellular level of capitalism. More importantly still, he seeks to prove that it is not the commodity that is “the economic cell-form” but rather value derived from labor.

Turning his microscope to the commodity form, Marx argues that the commodity form is only an advent of capitalism. In order to be a commodity, an article must have “use-value” and “exchange-value”. The former essentially means that the object in question has utility that is separate and beyond its ability to be exchanged. While use-value is transhistorical, because objects have had utility since humans began using tools, the latter is contingent upon the advent of capitalism. Exchange-value means that one object can be exchanged for a certain quantity of another; the two object-types being exchanged need not be equivalent in quality and indeed, they rarely are. When viewed only as a bearer of exchange-value, the particular utility of an object is not considered. The exchange of two qualitatively different items is made possible because they share one common property: “that of being products of labor” (MER 305).

This shared fact of being products of labor presumes that this labor is qualitatively the same, even though the true production process might require very different methods —spinning yarn versus carving wood, for example— and thus appear to be quite different. However, in the logic of capital, there is an abstract form of labor, what Marx terms a “congelation of homogeneous human labor” (MER 305). Essentially, this means that labor is quantified with the “socially necessary” time needed to produce something “under normal conditions” and “with the average degree of skill” (MER 305). Thus, value is a result of the labor-power expended on average, by an unskilled laborer, to produce the commodity in question. Simply put, commodity is best understood as value embodied. For example, the ingredients of a cake —sugar, flour, milk— lack as much value as the fully baked cake itself. Since the necessary components are purchased either way, the difference must be understood to be in the labor performed by the baker upon the materials which produced the higher value cake, as opposed to the unacted upon (un-labored) ingredients alone.

In order for an object to have value —and so become a commodity— it must possess a use-value and an exchange-value. If it lacks the first, then the object will not be purchased, no matter the hours of labor spent producing it. Lacking the second would mean that no labor had gone into producing it, though it can still have a use-value. Marx’s specific term for such an object is “the spontaneous products of nature” like sunshine or wind, which qualify as something with use-value but that cannot be exchanged precisely because no labor-power has been expended on it. Where use-value relies on the qualitative, meaning it depends on the specificity of the object’s particular utility, exchange-value is the reverse. This means that value is “totally independent of [its] use-value” (MER 305). This dichotomy between the particularity of transhistorical use-value and the homogeneity of exchange-value plays out again and again in Marx’s account, exposing capital’s desire for exchange of uniform equivalents more generally.

After detailing the components of the general commodity form, Marx proceeds to talk about the specific commodity form of labor-power. Marx distinguishes between the production of goods in previous eras from the production of goods under capitalism, pointing to the division of labor as a key difference. Citing textiles—a common example for Marx— as an instance of change in history, Marx writes “wherever the want of clothing forced them to it, the human race made clothes for thousands of years, without a single man becoming a tailor” (MER 309). Without a sphere of exchange such division would be highly impractical. Yet, for all the dividing of labor into specializations that capitalism necessitates, there is presumed to be an abstracted idea of the average worker’s ability to perform relatively unskilled labor. This more general concept of labor might seem to undermine Marx’s claim about the division of labor’s importance, but it instead serves to highlight the lack of true “specialization”; any human can perform the kind of tasks that Marx’s labor theory of value rests upon. This sense of labor as homogenous is not, however, able to be translated across societies. Marx makes it quite clear that abstract labor can only be abstracted for current societal contexts; it cannot be translated across borders or eras. In other words, the abstract labor of a farmer in the 17th century will not be the same abstracted labor for contemporary workers, and so it should not be applied universally.

The “special form” of the commodity of labor-power is distinct because in its consumption, more value is generated (MER 310). The essential nature of the general commodity is one of consumption. Purchasing something gives access to the use-value of the object, which is used and then used up. In this normal paradigm, the object is depleted of value through use. In contrast to this general commodity form, the commodity of labor-power generates more value as it is used, for the laborer generates new value through their labor. So, the use-value of labor-power is its potential to generate still yet more value. This quality is what supports the labor theory of value.

While abstract labor is simply what the average person can be expected to produce over a duration of time, how might one account for more skilled labor under this theory of value? Marx writes that this should be understood as “simple labor intensified” or “multiplied simple labor”. So, one hour of skilled labor might be equal to three unskilled labor hours. Given that these are made equivalent, Marx argues that all labor in his system should be understood as unskilled, “to save ourselves the trouble of making the reduction” (MER 311). Once again, the desire for standardization and uniformity of capitalism stands in contrast with the particularities of different labor.

Marx has set out in the section to give an account first of the commodity form, as an essential building block of capital. After he describes this basic structure, he moves to the more particular question of a universal equivalent commodity. The necessity of this universal equivalent commodity, namely a money form, is essential for the functioning of capitalism. In order to describe a universal equivalent, Marx describes first how two commodities can be made to relate to each, so that one commodity expresses itself as the equivalent of another, different commodity. Marx writes, “the relative form and the equivalent form are two intimately connected, mutually dependent and inseparable elements of the expression of value; but, at the same time, are mutually exclusive, antagonistic extremes” (MER 314). In order to form a relationship between two commodities it is necessary to make one relational to the other, translating its value into another form. This second commodity simply expresses the first, but cannot express beyond that. In other words, there can only be one “unit” or one commodity which expresses itself and the other, relational commodity as well.

The first commodity, which Marx terms “the relative form”, is embodied in the second chosen commodity. To return to the baking metaphor, we’ll assume that three bags of flour is the equivalent value of one cake. Cake is here the equivalent, and flour is the relative. This relational form points to the “special form” of labor as a creator of value. It is the cake and the flour’s state as products of labor that allow for their equivalence. It is a creation of equivalence that, “brings into relief the specific character of value-creating labour, and this it does by actually reducing the different varieties of labour embodied in the different kinds of commodities to their common quality of human labour in the abstract” (MER 316). One only needs to take this relational comparison a bit farther to arrive at a universal equivalent. In the previous example, cake is fitted to the role of universal equivalent, but a true money-form allows for easier still expression of relations of value-created-by-labor. The money form becomes the only equivalent, achieving “a directly social form” because it allows for relations of meaning to form between commodities and this new equivalent (Marx 161). However, the larger sociality of relation between laborers is further obscured.

The homogenizing impulse that Marx has revealed with his comparisons between use-value and exchange-value, concrete labor and abstract labor, gains full expression with the mysteriously mute fetishism of commodity. All relationship between laborers is disappeared behind the gleam of the universal equivalent; meaning is displaced from its proper understanding of the sociality of labor, onto the abstracted universal equivalent commodity, the money form, which he discusses in the next chapter. It is a commodity, because it is value embodied —and thus, labor embodied— and because it has use-value, in that it allows for easy exchange between products, thus able to “satisfy the manifold wants of the individual producer” (MER 322). This ease of exchange directly obscures the “peculiar social character of the labor that produces” this fetishism of commodity (MER 321).
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Though, as Marx observes, “a commodity appears, at first sight, a very trivial thing, and easily understood”, through tracing the origin of the value derived from commodity to the expenditure of labor-power, Marx reveals the essentially unnatural and mysterious nature of the building block of capitalism: the commodity form. Examined under his “microscopic” view, the familiar is made alien to us, and capital can begin to be “de-naturalized”.

​“Well, Karl, what do you know about the Legalists and Han Fei in particular?”
 
 
“I remember what Reese [“Dictionary of Philosophy and Religion” by William L. Reese] says.  That he lived in the Third Century B.C., that he was the Prince of Han and committed suicide in 233 B.C. because the King of Qin wouldn’t accept his services. He is the major philosopher in the Legalist School.”
 
 
“Pretty good. Chan calls this school the most radical of the schools for its rejection of Confucianism (morality) and Moism (religion). Remember, the Qin Kingdom conquered the other Chinese Kingdoms and the Qin Dynasty (221-206 B.C.) set up the imperial system, under the First Emperor, that ruled China until 1912. The dubious claim to fame of the Legalists is that they helped set up the ideological framework for the Qin. Han Fei was the most important of a line of Legalist philosophers. He also studied under Xunzi and, unjustly I think, some of his more ‘totalitarian’ tendencies have been read back into his teacher. Legalist predecessors were Kuan Chung (Seventh Century B.C.), Lord Shang, Prime Minister of Qin (Fourth Century B.C.), his contemporary, the Prime Minister of Han, Shen Buhai and Shen Dao (c.350-275 B.C.). Chan notes that his fellow student with Xunzi, Li Si, who died in 208 B.C. was behind the suicide of Han Fei. I can’t believe he killed himself just because he couldn’t get a job with the future First Emperor!”
 
 
“That does seem strange. Here is some more info in Creel [H.G. Creel “Confucius and the Chinese Way”]. It seems Li Si actually turned the King against Han Fei by telling him that he would not support Qin in a war against Han. Han Fei was tossed into prison and forced to kill himself by Li Si. That makes more sense.”
 
 
“It also makes Li Si a fake sage! That type of behavior seems completely against all the teachings of the philosophers we have so far discussed! Xunzi would not have liked that at all. Why did he do it?”
 
 
“His motive makes it even worse. He knew that Han Fei was a better philosopher than he, and he was jealous that the King would prefer him. Li Si was already a minister in Qin when Han Fei came to offer his services.”
 
 
“So, are we ready to look at the “Han Feizi” and see what this new philosophy was all about?”
 
 
“I’m ready, Fred.”
 
 
“Chan says Han Fei is most famous for his synthesis of Legalist views and for his discussion of the Dao which influenced all the Daoists of note. I will begin with Chan’s first selection ‘1. The Synthesis of Legalistic Doctrine.’ Han Fei starts by noting that Confucianism and Moism are the most popular philosophies and attacks them for trying to pretend they represent the wisdom of the old sage kings. Han Fei is against using the past as a model for the present and future. He says, since no one can really tell what the old sage-kings' true teachings were or how to apply them today, then, ‘To be sure of anything without corroborating evidence is stupidity, and to base one’s argument on anything about which one cannot be sure is perjury. Therefore those who openly base their arguments on the authority of the ancient kings and who are dogmatically certain of Yao and Shun are men either of stupidity or perjury.’ “
 
 
“Technically, while Mo may have mentioned Yao and Shun, it was Wen and Tang and Wu and Yu that he appeals to most of the time in the Chan extracts. But in principle Han Fei’s argument is against both Mo and Confucius.”
 
 
“This next quote shows that the Legalists were in favor of a government of laws and not of men! ‘Although there is a naturally straight arrow or a naturally round piece of wood [once in a hundred generations] which does not depend on any straightening or bending, the skilled workman does not value it. Why? Because it is not just one person who wishes to ride and not just one shot that the archer wishes to shoot [so bending and straightening of wood is needed as a skill-tr]. Similarly, the enlightened ruler does not value people who are naturally good and who do not depend on reward and punishment. Why? Because the laws of the state must not be neglected, and government is not for only one man. Therefore the ruler who has the technique does not follow the good that happens by chance but practices the way of necessity ....’ And Chan remarks, ‘In the necessity of straightening and bending, note the similarity to Xunzi. The theory of the originally evil nature of man is a basic assumption of the Legalists.”
 
 
“I still say that Xunzi was not like the Legalists. I pointed this out at the start of our discussion on the Xunzi.”
 
 
“And I said I agreed with you. You will be happy to know that Chan also agrees with you and not with Fung [Fung Yu-lan, “A Short History of Chinese Philosophy”] who holds that Han Fei based his doctrines on those of Xunzi.”
 
 
“Well, I like that! Just what does old Chan have to say about this issue Fred?”
 
 
“He says the bending and straightening in Xunzi meant education and the like, but Han Fei only relied on rewards and punishments. Chan said, ‘Xunzi had a firm faith in man’s moral reform but the Legalists have no such faith.’ And, he adds, ‘It is misleading, at least, to say, as Fung does, that Han Feizi based his doctrines on the teachings of Xunzi.’ This is because they ‘were utterly different in their attitudes toward man as a moral being.’”
 
 
“I’ll buy that. So, let’s go on with some more of the ‘Han Feizi’.”
 
 
“Sure. Han Feizi says the enlightened ruler needs four things to ensure his success. Namely, the ‘timeliness of the seasons,’ the support of the people, ‘skills and talents,’ and finally a position of power. He says, ‘Acting against the sentiment of the people, even Meng Pen and Xia Yu (famous men of great strength) could not make them exhaust their efforts. Therefore with timeliness of the seasons the grains will grow of themselves.’ In fact with all four conditions, then, ‘Like water flowing and like a boat floating, the ruler follows the course of Nature and enforces an infinite number of commands. Therefore he is called an enlightened ruler....’”
 
 
“Sounds like Daoism.”
 
 
“You couldn’t be more right Karl. Chan’s comment on that quote I just gave is, ‘Of all the ideas of the Legalists, perhaps the most philosophical is that of following Nature, which was derived from the Daoists.’ And, although he did not include it in his “Source Book”, Chan says that one of the chapters in the “Han Feizi” is a commentary on the thought of Laozi.”
 
 
“That’s excellent. Does he get more specific about law?”
 
 
“Try this. ‘The important thing for the ruler is either laws or statecraft. A law is that which is enacted into the statute books, kept in government offices, and proclaimed to the people. Statecraft is that which is harbored in the ruler’s own mind so as to fit all situations and control all ministers. Therefore for law there is nothing better than publicity, whereas in statecraft, secrecy is desired....’”
 
 
“Sounds a little like Machiavelli.”
 
 
“He goes on, ‘Ministers are afraid of execution and punishment but look upon congratulations and rewards as advantages. Therefore, if a ruler himself applies punishment and kindness, all ministers will fear his power and turn to the advantages.’”
 
 
“Yes, I remember this. The ‘two handles’ of government--reward and punishment. Machiavelli says a prince is better off being feared than loved, and I see that Han Fei also goes in for the fear factor.”

“Yes he does. A minister gets punished if he does something small after having said he would do something big, but also if he expects to do something small and it turns out to be big. Han Fei says, ‘It is not that the ruler is not pleased with the big accomplishments but he considers the failure of the big accomplishments to correspond to the words worse than the big accomplishments themselves. Therefore he is to be punished....’”
 
 
“That certainly won’t encourage ministers to surpass themselves! That seems counter-productive. I understand being punished for big talk and little deeds, but if you set out to do only a little yet accomplish something big despite yourself, I think it is not wise for the ruler to punish you. Suppose you said you would delay the enemy while the ruler collects his forces and instead you are able to defeat the enemy. What is the sense of being punished?”
 
 
“I agree with you Karl but that is the way Legalists play the game. Here is what Chan says about it. ‘Like practically all ancient Chinese schools, the Legalists emphasized the theory of the correspondence of names and actualities. But while the Confucianists stressed the ethical and social meaning of the theory and the Logicians stressed the logical aspect, the Legalists were interested in it primarily for the purpose of political control. With them the theory is neither ethical nor logical but a technique for regimentation.’”
 
 
“Well that it is, but it will not really work in the interests of the ruler. In fact the Qin Legalist state fell apart shortly after the death of the First Emperor. Don’t forget that Han Fei had to commit suicide, a victim perhaps of his own Machiavellian position.”
 
 
“Here is a big attack on the Confucianists.”
 
 
“This should be good!”
 
 
“This attack is also directed at Mozi so his doctrines were still around. ‘At present Confucianists and Moists all praise ancient kings for their universal love for the whole world, which means that they regarded the people as parents [regard their children].... Now, to hold that rulers and ministers act towards each other like father and son and consequently there will necessarily be orderly government, is to imply that there are no disorderly fathers or sons. According to human nature, none are more affectionate than parents who love all children, and yet not all children are necessarily orderly.’”
 
 
“So here come the ‘two handles’.”
 
 
“It seems to be the case Karl. Han Fei says that you have to have laws against the disorderly people in the state. He makes the point that ‘people are submissive to power and few of them can be influenced by the doctrines of righteousness.’”
 
 
“That’s the case in empirical states that haven’t been designed to conform to Confucian ideals. Why should we limit ourselves to these kinds of state?”
 
 
“Because that is being realistic. Look, Han Fei says, at what happened to Confucius in the real world. In the real world ‘Duke Ai of Lu was an inferior ruler. When he sat on the throne as the sovereign of the state, none within the borders of the state dared refuse to submit. For people are originally submissive to power and it is truly easy to subdue people with power. Therefore Confucius turned out to be a subordinate and Duke Ai, contrary to one’s expectation, became a ruler. Confucius was not influenced by Duke Ai’s righteousness; instead, he submitted to his power. Therefore on the basis of righteousness, Confucius would not submit to Duke Ai, but because of the manipulation of power, Confucius became a subordinate to him. Nowadays in trying to persuade rulers, scholars do not advocate the use of power which is sure to win, but say that if one is devoted to the practice of humanity and righteousness, one will become a true king.’”
 
 
“Just the view of Plato as well as al-Farabi [872-950 A.D, great Islamic Aristotelian]. But you don’t have to tell me that Han Fei thinks that that is bunk.”
 
 
“With a vengeance! It looks to me that he wouldn’t support any of the Confucian policies and would rather see a big military state--Sparta rather than Athens! He says, ‘The state supports scholars and knights-errant in times of peace, but when an emergency arises it has to use soldiers. Thus those who have been benefited by the government cannot be used by it and those used by it have not been benefited.’”
 
 
“It does look like a professional army would fulfill his ideas. But, that type of army is parasitical in times of peace and it makes oppression by the government so much the easier. I presume his reference to ‘knights-errant’ is a swipe at the Moists.”
 
 
“Here are some more of his ideas, ‘If in governmental measures one neglects ordinary affairs of the people and what even the simple folks can understand, but admires the doctrines of the highest wisdom, that would be contrary to the way of orderly government. Therefore subtle and unfathomable doctrines are no business of the people.... Therefore the way of the enlightened ruler is to unify all laws but not to seek for wisemen and firmly to adhere to statecraft but not to admire faithful persons. Thus laws will never fail and no officials will ever commit treachery or deception.’”
 
 
“You know Fred, I don’t think that this is an either/or type of situation. I’m sure the Confucians would also agree that the people should not be left out of consideration. They always advocated education. That doesn’t mean that just because you have the elementary schools you have to abandon the university--which is what Han Fei seems to be saying. His emphasis on ‘statecraft’--the secret machinations of the ruler’s brain seems to conflict with his confidence in the ‘laws’ and introduces arbitrariness into the system. As for officials never committing treachery or deception--look what happened to him. Either Li Si, a Legalist himself, committed treachery or Han Fei was engaged in deception and the future First Emperor was right to imprison him. But the consensus is that Han Fei was innocent. Therefore he was the victim of ‘statecraft’ and in this instance the laws failed. I think it was this contradiction in his system that led to its untenability in the long run and why Confucianism, which is more balanced and nuanced, somewhat succeeded. I would also like to point out that his stress on the ‘common people’ is probably due to the influence of Daoism and this influence is also the reason he failed to integrate popular education and ‘the doctrines of the highest wisdom.’ For him these doctrines didn’t exist in the Confucian or Moist sense.”
 
 
“I think you are right Karl. These next words have a real Daoist flavor. He says, ‘In regard to the words [of traveling scholars], rulers of today like their arguments but do not find out if they correspond to the facts. In regard to the application of these words to practice, they praise their fame but do not demand accomplishment. Therefore there are many in the world whose talks are devoted to argumentation and who are not thorough when it comes to practical utility.... In their deeds scholars struggle for eminence but there is nothing in them that is suitable for real accomplishment. Therefore wise scholars withdraw to caves and decline the offering of positions.’”
 
 
“Very Daoist! Too bad Han Fei did not take his own advice. If he had gone to live in a cave somewhere instead of going off to take a position in Qin, and struggling for eminence with Li Si, he would not have ended up having to commit suicide.”
 
 
“Here is the last quote from this section of Chan. ‘Therefore in the state of the enlightened ruler, there is no literature of books and records but the laws serve as the teaching. There are no sayings of ancient kings but the officials act as teachers. And there are no rash acts of the assassin; instead, courage will be demonstrated by those who decapitate the enemy [in battle]. Consequently, among the people within the borders of the state, whoever talks must follow the law, whoever acts must aim at accomplishment, and whoever shows courage must do so entirely in the army. Thus the state will be rich when at peace and the army will be strong when things happen.’”
 
 
 
“Wow! This is no good. ‘No literature of books’--this will result in a violation of the Prime Directive as the only views available will be Legalist and thus authority rather than reason will end up ruling people’s minds.”

“Chan says, ‘The advocation of prohibiting the propagation of private doctrines eventually led to the Burning of Books in 213 B.C. and in the periodic prohibitions of the propagation of personal doctrines throughout Chinese history.’”
 

“Chan wrote that before the ‘Cultural Revolution’, which was neither ‘cultural’ nor a ‘revolution,’ we can see the bad effects of this doctrine are still alive. Not allowing ‘personal doctrines’ means only state sanctioned ‘truth’ is allowed, a sure condition for ending up as far away from being able to find ‘truth’ as you can imagine. I hate to seem critical of the Chinese government, especially as it has raised the Chinese people out of feudal despair and into the modern world, but they should heed Carl Sagan’s advice that ‘The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.’” I’m not singling out China. Every government in the world could do better in this respect.”
 
 
“Well put Karl, but now I’m going to go over the other section that Chan has in his “Source Book”, namely Han Fei’s discussion of Daoism, which Chan calls ‘one of the most important.’ Chan calls this section ‘Interpretations of Dao.’ Are you ready for this?”
 
 
“Ready!”

 
“OK, here goes, ‘Dao is that by which all things become what they are. It is that with which all principles are commensurable. Principles are patterns (wen) according to which all things come into being, and Dao is the cause of their being. Therefore it is said that Dao puts things in order (li). Things have their respective principles and cannot interfere with each other, therefore principles are controlling factors in things. Everything has its own principle different from that of others, and Dao is commensurate with all of them [as one]. Consequently, everything has to go through the process of transformation. Since everything has to go through the process of transformation, it has no fixed mode of life. As it has no fixed mode of life, its life and death depend on the endowment of material force (qi) [by Dao]. Countless wisdom depends on it for consideration. And the rise and fall of all things is because of it. Heaven obtains it and therefore becomes high. The earth obtains it and therefore can hold everything....’”
 
 
“He seems to be following Laozi fairly closely.”
 
 
“Yes indeed, as the following shows as well. ‘Whatever people use for imagining the real [as the skeleton to image the elephant] is called form (xiang). Although Dao cannot be heard or seen, the sage decides and sees its features on the basis of its effects. Therefore it is called [in the ‘Laozi ] “shape without shape and form without objects.”’”
 
 
“Sort of like ‘Gravity” with Newton. It couldn’t be seen or heard but the effects, as with the falling apple, led Newton to work out its features. The great law that controls everything, like Gravity, that is the Dao.”
 
 
“Han Fei goes on. ‘In all cases principle is that which distinguishes the square from the round, the short from the long, the course from the refined, and the hard from the brittle. Consequently, it is only after principles become definite that Dao can be realized.’”
 
 
“But Dao is the basis of principle! To keep my Newton analogy going, I would have to say that it is only when objects are manifesting their attraction that Gravity can be realized.”
 
 
“It is the ‘eternal’ Dao that Han Fei is interested in. He says, ‘Only that which exists from the very beginning of the universe and neither dies nor declines until heaven and earth disintegrate can be called eternal. What is eternal has neither change nor any definite particular principle itself. Since it has no definite particular principle itself, it is not bound in any particular locality. This is why [it is said in the ‘Laozi’] that it cannot be told. The sage sees its profound vacuity (xu) and utilizes its operation everywhere. He is forced to give it the name Dao. Only then can it be talked about. Therefore it is said, “The Dao that can be told of is not the eternal Dao.”’”
 
 
“Does Chan say why this is ‘most important’?”
 
 
“Yes he does. He goes into this passage with a long comment. ‘This is one of the earliest and most important discussions of Dao. It is of great importance for two reasons. First, principle (li) has been the central concept in Chinese philosophy for the last eight hundred years, and Han Fei was one of the earliest to employ the concept. Secondly, to him Dao is not an undifferentiated continuum in which all distinctions disappear. On the contrary, Dao is the very reason why things are specific and determinate. This is a radical advance and anticipated the growth of Neo-Daoism along this direction in the third and fourth centuries A.D.’”
 
 
“That completes our treatment of Han Fei?”
 
 
“It does. You know, I think we need to discuss Laozi and Daoism as this philosophy is almost equal to Confucianism in Chinese thought. If we want to really understand China today then we must understand the ‘Dao’ of Chinese Communism so we should get a grip on the thought of Laozi.
 
 
O.K., let’s do it next.

​To read the Confucius Dialogue click here.
To read the Mencius Dialogue click here.
To read the Xunzi Dialogue click here. 
To read the Mozi Dialogue click here.

​Antonio Gramsci is one of the most relevant theorists in the history of Marxism - he is also one of the most misunderstood. Self-proclaimed heterodox leftists of all latitudes have made “neogramcism” their banner, finding in the Sardinian revolutionary a symbol of the break with real socialism, Marxism-Leninism and the materialist theory of history. Perhaps the best known figure in this intellectual trend has been the Argentine Ernesto Laclau, who once again made a key concept such as hegemony fashionable in the academic mainstream.
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Laclau defined his neogramscism as "post-Marxist", having completely abandoned historical and dialectical materialism, and conceived of social reality as a fundamentally discursive, unstable and radically contingent construct, in which the different forces dissatisfied with the present social arrangement could, through the elaboration of highly porous ideas and slogans, join a political force capable of challenging the common sense of society to the powers that be (that is, hegemony). Here, the conquest of socialism and communism gave way to a "radical democracy", in which every area of ​​social life was left open to democratic deliberation to reconfigure the established order.

It is necessary to differentiate Laclau, as well as other self-proclaimed “neo-Gramscians” and followers of Gramsci (whether they are “post-Marxists” or “heterodox Marxists”), from the man himself. For, although there are many who seek to decouple Gramsci and his thought from Marxism-Leninism, his effort cannot be understood if it is not as the attempt of a communist, committed to the revolutionary spirit of the October Revolution, to bring Marxist theory to life in territories that had previously remained unexplored. For, if the Bolshevik triumph had captured the imagination and hopes of Gramsci and a whole generation of Western revolutionaries, the reality of post-World War I Europe forced them to confront failure and the rise of reaction.

​One of the things that is fascinated about Gramsci is the extent to which he emphasizes the role of subjectivity and political will over the relentless inertia of the relations of production and the productive forces. There are those who think that the construction of socialism and emancipation has more to do with the will of human beings than with the creation of certain material conditions that make it possible; however, one must understand the weight that Gramsci gives to the subjective dimension of politics in its context.

The Bolshevik triumph in Russia represented for him “the rebellion against Marx’s Capital ”, insofar as it embodied the triumph of a Marxism (that of Lenin) that came to be understood fundamentally as“ concrete analysis of the concrete situation ”with a view to the strategic organization of political action, over the positivist orthodoxy of the Second International, which clung to a linear and evolutionary model of history, in which the backward countries had to largely imitate the history of the West (necessarily having to go through industrial capitalism and the formation of liberal democracy before attempt a socialist revolution) before making their own. The Social Democrats of the Second International would place their hands on their head with the events in Russia, where the popular masses - mostly peasants - carried out the first successful socialist revolution of the 20th century.

These events would profoundly mark a socialist like Gramsci, whose homeland was part of the southern periphery of Europe. However, none of this implied a voluntaristic understanding of politics: on the contrary, the Italian communist understood perfectly that the possibility of the Russians to create a socialist society was anchored in the availability of advanced technical-scientific resources in other parts of the world, which could be implemented by the communists to develop their productive forces without handing over the reins of government to the bourgeoisie.
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The emphasis on revolutionary organization and will did not imply a disregard for the objective conditions that constrained them; on the contrary, the consideration of these conditions should give rise to a form of collective action that found in the present an opportunity to make history, without applying abstract schemes alien to the singularity of the context. If Gramsci emphasized the weight of human agency, it was always from the coordinates of Leninism, which he saw as a truly dialectical materialism, which marked a distance with a mechanistic materialism, as harmful to revolutionary theory as voluntary idealism.

However, the context that the Italian Communists would have to face would be very different from the Russian one. With the rise of fascism, Gramsci, who had become head of the CPI and had been elected deputy, would be put in prison, and would remain there practically until the end of his short life. It would be there where he would elaborate the bulk of his theoretical writings, gathered in the famous volume known as The Prison Notebooks.

In his writings from this stage of his life, Gramsci touches on a host of highly relevant topics, from history and economics to politics and philosophy, passing through education and culture. However, if there is an axis that articulates this scattered compendium, this will be the problem of the defeat of socialism in Europe (in particular, in Italy): why had the winds of change coming from the East finished evaporating? And why had the bourgeois reaction managed to take hold where socialism and the working class had failed? It is from this fundamental concern that Gramsci's interest in the question of hegemony arises.

In his opinion, the dominance of the capitalist class over the whole of society could not be understood if it was reduced exclusively to a form of violent coercion (political or economic); rather, the power of it was to be thought of as an articulation of coercive force and persuasion. The first would correspond to what Gramsci called "political society": the strictly coercive apparatuses of the State, such as the legal apparatus, the armed forces, the police, etc. However, the second would correspond to “civil society”, which was rather the space of consensus and persuasion, where the beliefs, values ​​and norms shared by the different members of a society were produced: the family environment, educational and religious institutions, the media, unions, etc.

It was in the context of thinking about the formation of this sociocultural "common sense" that Gramsci recovered and expanded the Leninist concept of hegemony, which would come to refer to the political domain of a social class (the bourgeoisie), anchored in its pact with other social classes (such as the petty bourgeoisie) and their undisputed control of the cultural field, making common sense of their particular interests and worldview. From his point of view, it would have been this form of hegemonic control, and not its coercive power, that would have allowed the bourgeoisie to subdue the progressive forces of the continent and strengthen its dominance.

It would be these theoretical elaborations that would lead Gramsci to take an interest in fields that Marxist theory had typically relegated to a more marginal place, such as the culture, tradition and faith of the popular classes. From his point of view, the Bolshevik triumph in Russia, as it had occurred in the context of war, had only been possible because the aristocratic and bourgeois elites had not managed to consolidate hegemony, and this allowed Lenin and the Bolsheviks to win in a war of maneuvers (basically, defeating them in an open confrontation in the period of the Russian Civil War).

On the other hand, where the hegemony of the bourgeoisie and its allies was entrenched, the only way to seize political power and transform the relations of production was through the formation of a “historical bloc” of a “national-popular” character. With the proletariat at the head, an alliance of the popular or subaltern classes (poor and middle peasants, progressive layers of the petty bourgeoisie, and, in a context such as Latin America, the indigenous peoples) had to be formed which, united by a popular progressive culture, (through a new philosophy and a new morality, new artistic and literary expressions, and a new spirituality that articulates the experiences of the people in a key revolutionary manner) could be transformed into a counter-hegemonic force, ready to contest the bourgeois common sense of society in a "war of positions", intervening politically and finally fracturing capitalist control of the means of production.

A good recent example of how the consolidation of this popular hegemony can not only win the ideological dispute to the bourgeoisie, but also guarantee the vitality of a revolutionary process, is the recent victory of the MAS in Bolivia after the coup against Evo Morales in 2019. Despite the tragic political defeat, the forces of reaction could not finish imposing themselves on Bolivian society, since the profound changes in the national culture carried out by the MAS during its years in power, had earned it the massive support of a heterogeneous but ideologically favorable people for their political project. For this reason, eventually the coup plotters had no choice but to stop postponing the elections and accept their defeat and the return to power of their enemies.
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Of course, the coup against Morales also leaves the lesson that a victory in the war of positions does not guarantee the uninterrupted continuity of the revolution. It is also necessary to be prepared to win in the war of maneuvers, to defend by arms the transformation of society when the reactionaries make it necessary. However, it is clear that the thought of Antonio Gramsci, far from implying a break with Marxism-Leninism, represents a crucial, truly dialectical development of the materialist theory of history, one that is of great importance for thinking about the context of contemporary bourgeois democracies.

​“Bill of Rights Socialism” was first put forward by Gus Hall, Chairman of the Communist Party, USA, in his 1990 pamphlet The American Way to Bill of Rights Socialism. Emile Shaw wrote in 1996 that Bill of Rights Socialism “conveys the idea that we will incorporate U.S. traditions into the structure of socialism that the working class will create.” Since then, the CPUSA has continued to deepen and expand this theory to correspond with the real needs of struggle.

The CPUSA is not alone in this project; other communist parties have also been applying Marxism-Leninism creatively to produce important innovations, bringing socialist construction into the modern age while also adapting their own path to their unique national conditions.

How could it be otherwise? All struggles for socialism have unfolded within the context of their particular national circumstances. In Vietnam, it produced “Ho Chi Minh Thought.” In Cuba, the revolution linked itself to the legacy of Jose Martí. The many innovations in China are known as “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.” No struggle has ever discounted their unique political traditions and general national conditions and been successful in achieving liberation.
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US republican traditions were deeply influenced by the Roman republic, where political sovereignty was derived from a free citizenry rather than a single monarch. According to Irish philosopher and world-renowned political theorist Philip Pettit, this centuries-old tradition of republicanism can be defined by “three core ideas” familiar to any US citizen:
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​These “three core ideas” form the bedrock of the political tradition of the U.S. republic. Bill of Rights Socialism, then, must grapple with these three core ideas if we are to synthesize the revolutionary struggle of the working class with the unique political conditions of the United States.
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​The ideological core of the U.S. is its emphasis on the concept of “freedom.” Anyone with even a passing familiarity of U.S. politics knows that every single other question revolves around this core ideal. No other single concept, even that of democracy, holds as much power as this idea. Pettit distinguishes two approaches to freedom: liberalism and republicanism, both of which were present at the birth of the United States.

Liberalism developed out of the European enlightenment period. It was a product of the rising bourgeoisie, which sought to guarantee freedom of commerce while leaving many other areas of domination untouched. Its basis is the freedom of the individual to own and dispose of property with a minimum of state interference.
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Republican freedom is rooted in the Roman idea that to be free, a person must not suffer dominatio. This means that a free person must be free not only of active interference of political power but also inactive, latent interference by any outside force. Freedom is not only an act, but a status. The real enemy of freedom in the republican tradition is not just interference by political authorities; it is the arbitrary power that some people may have over others.2 Pettit elaborates: “[Freedom] means that you must not be exposed to a power of interference on the part of any others, even if they happen to like you and do not exercise that power against you.”3

​Specifically, this means you are not free if you have a good boss or a good landlord who has the power to arbitrarily intervene against your employment or housing, but simply chooses not to do so. If that power exists, even in a latent and unexercised way, working-class people cannot be understood to have the status of freedom, since this “freedom” may arbitrarily change at any given moment. Working people under capitalism live in day-to-day dependence on the employing class.
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Pettit articulates what he refers to as the “eyeball test” to help clarify what republican freedom means:
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​This definition of freedom should be intuitively familiar to all working-class people. Are you free if you have to pretend to be friends with your boss, bite your tongue, or fake your laughter to stay on the boss’s good side? When at-will employment prevails in so many workplaces, can working-class people be free if they can be fired for any reason or no reason at all? According to the republican definition of freedom, the answer is unequivocal: Working people are not free under capitalism.

Crucially, this means republicanism is distinct from the libertarian theory of freedom. Rather than being concerned exclusively with a vertical theory of freedom, where the state alone is seen as a threat to freedom, republicanism is also concerned with the arbitrary power private citizens can have over one another. Republican freedom means freedom not only from arbitrary state interference, but also from abusive partners, racial and national discrimination, and the private tyrannies of modern capitalism. Republican freedom has always meant more than just free markets.
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Bill of Rights Socialism, then, recognizes the inherent contradiction of “freedom” in monopoly capitalism — it is a smokescreen for the objective increase of unfreedom for the sake of profit. In today’s stage of capitalist development, the objective condition of most of U.S. society and the broader world is to be unfree and dominated by finance monopoly capitalism and imperialism. Second, Bill of Rights Socialism asserts that this contradiction can be resolved only by putting an end to the dictatorship of monopoly capital through a popular, democratic revolution that elevates the working class to the leading, decisive social element constituting state power.
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​The second “core idea” of republicanism is the “range of constitutional constraints associated broadly with the mixed constitution.” This tradition of the “mixed constitution” (mixed government) developed out of revolutionary class struggle as a way to balance the contradiction between the general “human” struggle for emancipation and the particular class project upon which the new state must be founded.

The most well-known republic in ancient history was formed in Rome with the overthrow of the Roman monarch Lucius Tarquinius Superbus by the patrician aristocracy of Rome. Tarquinius’ rule had become so intolerable to the aristocracy that they resolved by degrees to overthrow him.
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Yet the patricians by themselves could not bring to bear enough force to decisively win in their revolutionary struggle. The revolution was sparked when the masses of plebians rioted over the rape of Lucretius by Tarquinius’ son and her subsequent suicide. This mass activity was critical for the aristocracy to unite and banish the monarchy and replace it with two consuls who would be able to “check” one another through a veto.

​The mixed constitutions of republics emerged out of this historical process as the institutionalization of a balanced form of class rule. The Roman aristocracy was able to secure its position of power in the Roman Senate. Yet spontaneous plebian activity in the revolutionary struggle forced the patricians to integrate the popular class into its republican system as well. Checks and balances in a republic are reflections of the underlying balance of class forces at a particular moment when that republic is first constituted.
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Machiavelli makes this observation explicitly in his Discourses on Livy:
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​According to political scientist Kent Brudney, Machiavelli “accepted the class basis of political life and believed that class conflict could be beneficial to a republic.” The “creative possibilities of class conflict” were recognized for “their importance to the maintenance of Roman liberty.” Brudney continues: “The episodes of conflict between the Roman patriciate and the Roman people were vital to the development of good laws and to the continuity of Rome’s founding principles.”6
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This class-struggle understanding of mixed constitutionalism was also at the fore in the debates around the ratification of the U.S. Constitution. Scholar James Wallner directly connects the debates around the creation of the Senate with Machiavelli’s theory of institutionalized class struggle:
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​Wallner points to Federalist Paper No. 62, where James Madison wrote: “The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders into intemperate and pernicious resolutions.”

​The recent Shay’s Rebellion had been sparked by Massachusetts farmers demanding debt relief that was opposed by the merchant class that dominated the state government. This rebellion pressed the Federalist framers to consider the inclusion of an “aristocratic” senate capable of effectively subduing the “violent passions” of the masses, something missing from the Articles of Confederation that had preceded it.8

​Thus, we see that “mixed constitutions” of republics are only the institutionalization of class struggle. If the republic is supposed to make the affairs of public power a question of public input, it must always balance the class foundation of the state with at least the nominal political participation of the masses. Ruling class power in a republic is always concentrated in the senate, and popular power is always located in a “lower” branch of government. This balance creates a dynamism between the two while also developing a hegemonic understanding of the state as representing “the whole people,” even if the state is always constituted under a specific class basis.
Bill of Rights Socialism deepens the theory of the mixed constitution and gives it a proletarian character. Rather than calling for the abolition of the senate as such, Bill of Rights Socialism recognizes the need to reconstitute the republic along proletarian class lines, transforming the current senate founded on the “wisdom” of slave owners and oligarchs into an “industrial” senate that is instead based on the wisdom and experience of the leaders of the working class.

Like Lenin’s soviets, the industrial senate would be built out of “the direct organisation of the working and exploited people themselves, which helps them to organise and administer their own state in every possible way.” Leaders, drawn from the broad working-class majority, would carry with them both an intimate knowledge of all parts of the production process and a distinct working-class perspective into the development of public policy. And like both the soviets and senates past, the industrial senate would be insulated from universal direct election, with a focus on cultivating tested working-class leadership collaborating to build and protect a common vision of a democratic socialist republic. The class character of the senate would serve as a “check” on one side of the equation.9

But Bill of Rights Socialism can grow only out of the success of a massive people’s front. Led by the organized working class, this front would also contain all progressive people and class allies, including small farmers, small- and medium-size-business owners, the self-employed, and independent intellectuals and professionals. The primary stage of socialism does not end class struggle but transforms it under the decisive political rule of the working class. A “People’s House” would provide a democratic space for these other class elements to make constructive and progressive contributions to building socialism without sacrificing or obscuring the working-class nature of the new republic.

Further, experience from the last century indicates that even a working-class state can degenerate bureaucratically without broader popular participation and oversight. In addition to incorporating non-proletarian class elements constructively into the workers’ republic, the lower house would also provide a space for the exercise of universal suffrage and the direct election of representatives by the whole people. These popular representatives could play a consultative role to the industrial senate and provide institutional oversight. This would provide a “check” on the other side of the equation.
​
The “checks and balances” between the industrial senate and the people’s house would capture the “quarrels and the noise” familiar to American democracy while preserving absolutely the republic’s fundamental class nature. This dynamic interrelationship creates the conditions for the third core idea of republicanism to prevail, the “contestatory citizenry.”

​The third core idea of republicanism depends on the active engagement of its citizens “to track and contest public policies and initiatives.” Freedom can be secured only through struggle. This ideal has been a fundamental political principle of all oppressed people struggling for their democratic rights and freedom in the United States. Frederick Douglass taught us years ago the price of freedom:
​

​The contestatory citizenry forms a fundamental basis for the Bill of Rights and so must serve as a basis for Bill of Rights Socialism. These rights include freedom of speech, of assembly, of faith and conscience, and the right to be informed about the functioning of public power. Politically critical art, protests, and organizations must play a fundamental role in the construction of socialism in the United States and thus must be protected under Bill of Rights Socialism.

​Struggle does not only occur between oppressor and oppressed, between exploiter and exploited. Struggle also goes on within the oppressed and exploited. Historical development has created an unevenness within the working class: divisions around race, sex, sexuality, religion, cultural beliefs, nationality, language, and so on. This unevenness can be overcome only after a long period of struggle to resolve these divisions and build a unity through our diversity; to give real content to the national motto “E Pluribus Unum.” While the initial steps in this process of internal struggle for unity within the working class and democratic forces must be made before the establishment of socialism by building a people’s front, the establishment of socialism does not mechanically erase the social unevenness within that people’s front overnight.

Revolution and reform are distinct, but also deeply interrelated. The development of social scientific methods and professional specialization has produced the historical capacity to carry out deep and broad reforms to the social system in a planned, scientific, and rational way. Reform can and must always go on, improving social institutions and making sure they advance with the times. However, reform does not happen abstractly, but according to the degree of political will brought to bear on the process. Reform in a social system hits a wall when the ruling class is no longer willing to exercise its political will to allow the reform process to deepen and expand according to the needs of the populace.
​
Revolution is not in and of itself the solution to social problems; revolution is the punctuated transformation from one form of class rule to the next. This transformation in class rule does not replace reform, but unlocks it to unfold more deeply, at a faster pace, and in a more thoroughgoing way than the degenerate ruling class that was replaced could or would allow. By elevating the working class to the level of the ruling class in a workers’ republic, the struggle for reforms is not ended but transformed. Republicanism allows this reform struggle to take place both on an individual, contestatory foundation protected by a socialist Bill of Rights, as well as within the bounds of law constrained by socialist constitutional forms.
​

​Let us be crystal clear: the United States needs a socialist revolution. The old ruling class, dominated by finance monopoly capital and incapable of keeping pace with the needs of the time, must be overthrown and in its place the working class, at the head of a mass democratic movement of all oppressed people and classes, must be elevated to rule in its place. The class basis of the current republic must not be ignored but instead placed at the center of the conversation.

But the struggle is not to “abolish” the republican form outright. There are no serious ideas, to be perfectly frank, on what to put in its place. The soviet system was for the Soviets, the Chinese system for the Chinese, so on.
The struggle is to revolutionize the republic to preserve the republican system at a higher level of development. Indeed, the fundamental argument of Bill of Rights Socialism must be that only a socialist revolution can preserve the republican liberties and democratic rights that so many oppressed and exploited people have fought hard and made tremendous sacrifices to secure. Socialist revolution means the deepening of democracy under the decisive state leadership of the working class.

This essay is only a theoretical sketch to show the consistency between Marxism-Leninism and the “core ideas” of the republican political tradition. There are an almost limitless number of questions that arise from its premise: Can a workers’ republic be secured through the amendment process or through a new Constitutional Convention? How exactly should an industrial senate be ordered and secured? Should it be through indirect election, sortition (selection by lottery), selection, or a combination? How does federalism fit into this picture? How can we more explicitly articulate its relationship to imperialism and oppressed nations? And many more.
​
Only through thoughtful struggle — not isolated contemplation or outrageous sloganeering — can the political soil be tilled to allow new possibilities to develop. Bill of Rights Socialism is not an “answer” in itself but a path to be blazed by combining the creative leadership of the Communist Party with the limitless dynamism and transformative potential of millions of Americans from all backgrounds linked together in the struggle for peace, prosperity, democracy, and republican freedom.

​

Sources

1. Philip Pettit, “Three Core Ideas,” On the People’s Terms: A Republican Theory and Model of Democracy, Cambridge University Press, 2014, p. 5.
2. Philip Pettit, “The Communitarian Opposition,” On the People’s Terms, p. 11.
3. Pettit, “Three Core Ideas,” p. 7.
4. Pettit, “Social Justice and Equality,” On the People’s Terms, p. 84.
5. Kent M. Brudney, “II. Machiavelli on Social Class and Class Conflict,” Political Theory, vol. 12, no. 4, 1984, pp. 507–519., doi:10.1177/0090591784012004003.
6. Ibid.
7. James Wallner, “Real Purpose of the Senate: To Check the Actions of the House,” LegBranch, R Street Institute, 5 Dec. 2018, www.legbranch.org/real-purpose-of-the-senate-to-check-the-actions-of-the-house/.
8. Ibid.
9. Vladimir Lenin, “The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky,” PRRK: Bourgeois and Proletarian Democracy, Marxists.org.
10. Frederick Douglass, “(1857) Frederick Douglass, ‘If There Is No Struggle, There Is No Progress,’” BlackPast, 8 Aug. 2019.

​In her 2020 text Marxism and Intersectionality: Race, Gender, Class and Sexuality under Contemporary Capitalism, Ashley J. Bohrer sets out to demystify the erroneous conception that the traditions of Marxism and Intersectionality are incompatible. In finding that in academia the interactions between these two traditions have been “grounded more in caricature than in close reading,” Bohrer sets out to expose and correct what she calls the “synecdochal straw person fallacy” present in the way each tradition has interacted with the other (AB, 14, 20). In noting that both traditions represent active ways of “reading, understanding, thinking, and dreaming beyond the deep structures of exploitation and oppression that frame our world,” her starting point is historical, i.e., she begins by outlining the historical precursors of the intersectional tradition (AB, 21). In doing so, she situates the origins of intersectional thought in spaces inseparably linked to communist and socialist activism, organizations, and parties. Nonetheless, it is important to note before we continue that her goal is not to ‘synthesize’ the two traditions, or to subsume the one under the other, but to articulate a ‘both-and’ approach, in which the conditions for the possibility of “theoretical coalitions between perspectives, in which the strengths of each perspective are preserved” arises (AB, 23).
           
​Bohrer sets the groundwork for her project by situating the historical unity of the intersectional tradition and socialism. She begins by examining the 19th century thinkers Maria Stewart, Sojourner Truth, and Ida B. Wells-Barnett. Bohrer argues that these three central foremothers of the intersectional tradition had concerns not limited to the dynamics of race and gender, i.e., the three understood that concerns of “labor, class, capitalism, and political economy” were inseparable from concerns of race and gender (AB, 35). In Stewart she demonstrates the presence of an early (1830s) notion of surplus value at hand in the analysis of enslaved black women’s work, who she saw as performing the labor that allowed for the profits of the owner. In Truth she examines her lucid development of the structural role reproductive labor played for capitalism, and more specifically, how the exploitation of this reproductive labor takes a variety of forms according to race. Lastly, in Wells-Barnett she examines how her groundbreaking work on lynching not only demystifies the narrative of the black male rapist, but postulates that “lynching was predominantly a tool of economic control,” used to keep the black community economically subordinated to white capitalist (AB, 40).

Bohrer proceeds to examine the three key intersectional forerunners of the first half of the 20th century: Louise Thompson Patterson, Claudia Jones, and W.E.B. Du Bois, all which were at some point members of the Communist Party. In Patterson we see the development of the concept of ‘triple exploitation’ used to describe the unique position black working-class women have under capitalism, placing them in a context in which they are exploited as workers, women, and blacks. Influenced by Patterson’s notion of ‘triple-exploitation’ and the Marxist-Leninist concept of ‘superexploitation,’ Claudia Jones refurnishes and expands on both – reconceptualizing the former as ‘triple-oppression,’ and redefining the latter to account for the uniquely exploitative position black women occupy under capitalism. In postulating black women’s position as ‘superexploited,’ Jones considers black women, not the white industrial proletariat, the “most revolutionary segment of the working class” (AB, 50). Lastly, in Du Bois we see expressed a profound understanding that race, class, and gender are tied with “simultaneous significance” to the structural contradictions of capitalism (AB, 51). This simultaneous significance of the three requires an individual and systematic understanding of oppression to be fully comprehended.

Bohrer closes out her historical contextualization by looking at the last half of the 20th century. She begins by looking at the three approaches to thinking about the relations of class, race, and gender that arise in the 1960s-80s. These three are: double and triple jeopardy, standpoint theory, and sexist racism. Bohrer argues that although these three played a great role in the development of the intersectional tradition, they are still “distinct from a full theory of intersectionality,” for they contain, in different ways, the reifying, homogenizing, and essentializing ways of thinking of race, class, and gender that intersectionality attempts to move beyond (AB, 35). Bohrer then examines the anti-capitalist critiques present in the intersectional thought of the Combahee River Collective, Patricia Hill Collins, Angela Davis, bell hooks, and Audre Lorde. In the Combahee River Collective, we see the inclusion of class, race, gender, and sexuality as interlocking systems of oppression that “permeate all moments of capitalist exploitation” (AB, 74). The same sentiment, conceptualized in various ways, permeates throughout the work of Collins (matrix of domination), Davis, hooks (white supremacist capitalist patriarchy), and Lorde (white male heterosexual capitalism).

Having contextualized the historical unfolding of the intersectional tradition, Bohrer moves on to examine what she considers to be the best forms of intersectionality, i.e., the ones that do not leave class behind, and the best forms of Marxism, i.e., the ones that do not consider race, sex, and other forms of oppression secondary and epiphenomenal to class-based exploitation. Beyond this, she also examines the disputes each side has with the other, and how these end up being largely based on synecdochal straw person fallacies.

Bohrer begins by attempting to lay out as refined a definition as possible to the question ‘what is intersectionality?’. To get to the refined, Bohrer starts with the general, stating that broadly “intersectionality is a term that brings together a variety of positions on the relationships between modes of oppression and identity in the contemporary world” (AB, 81). From here, Bohrer goes on to postulate five definitions of intersectionality as presented by some of its key theorists: Kimberlé Crenshaw, Leslie McCall, Patricia Hill Collins, Ange-Marie Hancock, and Vivian May. By showing there is disputes between intersectional thinkers on how intersectionality should be thought of, Bohrer breaks the conceptions of intersectionality as a homogenous theoretical approach, and demonstrates that there is plurality, disputes, and discussion actively happening within the tradition. Nonetheless, she marks six central postulates of intersectional thinking that permeate in most intersectional theorists. These are: 1- anti single axis thinking – the various forms of oppression are enmeshed within each other and inseparable; 2- anti ranking oppressions – no one oppression is any more important than another, i.e., being constructed relationally, you cannot solve one without solving the others; 3- Think of oppression in multiple registers – structurally, individually, representationally, etc.; 4- Identity is politically and theoretically important – identity is never pure, it is always “multi-pronged, group-based, historically-constituted, and heterogenous;” 5- Inextricable link of theory and practice – activism and the theoretical are linked; and 6- Power is described and attacked – intersectionality is not neutral, it is both “descriptive and normative,” it describes and critiques power (AB, 93, 95).

Having laid out the plurality of approaches, and also the unifying central postulates of intersectionality, Bohrer proceeds to examine the ways in which some Marxist theorists distort and fallaciously critique intersectionality. I will here lay what I take to be the six (out of eight) most important and frequent critiques of intersectionality, and the responses Bohrer gives to each. The first critique argues that intersectionality is individualistic, and thus, in line with the ethos of capitalism. But, as we saw in the previous postulates, identity for the intersectional theorist is group based and historically constructed. The second critique reduces intersectionality to postmodernism and poststructuralism. In doing so, Bohrer references Sirma Bilge in arguing that what is taking place is the “whitening of intersectionality,” i.e., a framework originated and guided by black women is subsumed under a white man predominated field (AB, 107). The third critique postulates intersectionality as liberal multiculturalism, falling within the logic of neoliberalism. Bohrer argues that although intersectional discourse is whitewashed and misused by neoliberal representationalism, intersectional theorists are ardent critics of this and fight to sustain the radical ethos of intersectionality. The fourth critique argues that intersectionality does not sufficiently account for issues of class. Bohrer contends, through Linda Alcoff, that in order to properly understand class, one must understand it enmeshed in race, sex, and gender. The fifth critique argues that intersectional theorists fail to account for the historical causes of that which they describe and critique. Bohrer responds that the intersectional theorists do account for the historical causes of the matrices of domination, but that instead of attributing the cause to one thing, they take a multi-dimensional approach. The last critique we will examine states that intersectionality multiplies identities and makes it harder for solidarity to arise. Bohrer’s response to this is that we must refrain from thinking of solidarity as the lowest common denominator of sameness, solidarity must be thought of as the building of coalitions of difference, united by a sameness in interest, not identity.

Bohrer now embarks on repeating with Marxism what she just did with intersectionality. She begins by devoting her time to demonstrating that what she calls the reductive ‘orthodox story’ of Marxism, which postulates Marxism “as a fundamentally class-oriented, economically-reductionist, teleological theory of waged factory labor,” is not the only form of Marxism (AB, 124). Bohrer approaches this task by postulating seven assumptions the ‘orthodox story’ makes, and then responds to each in a way that demonstrates how Marx, Engels, and queer, feminist, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist Marxists have addressed these questions free of the reductive assumptions of the ‘orthodox story.’ Some of these non-reductive approaches include: 1- looking beyond waged labor to examine the labor that is structurally necessary but unpaid; 2- looking at how the division of labor is racialized and sexualized; 3- examining the necessary role violence and oppression attendant in colonialism, land expropriation, and slavery played in the development of capitalism, not just as a function, but as an integral structural part of the system; 4- looking at the non-homogeneity of capitalism, i.e., examining how it can take different forms; and 5- looking at the politico-social apparatuses developed to reinforce these practices.

Building on the non-reductive forms of Marxism she just espoused, Bohrer now embarks on the task of showing how many critiques of Marxism coming from the intersectional tradition, like the Marxist critique of intersectionality previously examined, are based largely on misunderstandings or understandings limited to the reductive ‘orthodox story.’ Concretely, Bohrer examines four common criticisms of Marxism from intersectional theorist:

​Bohrer argues these critiques are largely limited in scope to the ‘orthodox story’ of Marxism which she has already established is merely one form out of many in the Marxist tradition. These intersectional critiques of Marxism become unwarranted when the form of Marxism examined is of the non-reductive type she appraised in chapter three.
           
​The theoretically novel portion of her text begins by her looking at the relationship between exploitation and oppression. She argues that instead of reducing one onto the other, like has been done by the intersectional and Marxist traditions in the past, we must conceive of the two as having an ‘elective affinity,’ i.e., a “kind of consonance or amenability.” (AB, 200) This means, she argues, that we must think of the two as ‘equiprimordial’, i.e., related to each other as “equally fundamental, equally deep-rooted, and equally anchoring of the contemporary world” (AB, 199). In order to fully understand a phenomenon in capitalism we must understand how exploitation and oppression “feed off and play into one another as mutually reinforcing and co-constituting aspects of the organization of capitalist society” (AB, 201). Beyond this, she argues that “a full understanding of how class functions under capitalism requires understanding how exploitation and oppression function equiprimordially” (Ibid.). Therefore, four central points must be understood to capture capitalism non-reductively: “1) capitalism cannot be reduced to exploitation alone; 2) capitalism cannot be reduced to class alone; 3) class cannot be reduced to exploitation alone; 4) race, gender, sexuality cannot be reduced to oppression alone” (AB, 204).
           
Although the equiprimordial lens Bohrer introduces for thinking of the relationship between oppression and exploitation may be helpful, the development of the concept is stifled by her limited understanding of the notion of class in Marx’s work. Bohrer argues that instead of limiting class to being constituted only through exploitation, like in Marx, thinking of class equiprimordially allows us to see it constituted through exploitation and oppression. To expand on her point Bohrer references Rita Mae Brown who states that, “Class is much more than Marx’s definition of relationship to the means of production. Class involves your behavior, your basic assumptions about life[…]how you are taught to behave, what you expect from yourself and from others, your concept of a future, how you understand problems and solve them, how you think, feel, act…” (AB, 202). Although Marx never provides an explicit systematic study of class, for when he attempts the task in Ch. 52 of Capital Vol 3 the manuscript breaks off after a few paragraphs, we can nonetheless see his conception of class throughout his political works. Examining how Marx deals with class in his 18th Brumaire on Louis Bonaparte shows the previous sentiment from Brown and Bohrer to be problematic. In relation to the French peasantry, he states that,

​This constitutes a notion of class that although influenced, is not reducible to the group’s relation to the means of production. It would seem then, that Marx’s notion of class is fundamentally relational in two ways, first as a relation a group bears to the means of production, and second as the relation a group’s mode of life and culture bears to another. Thus, unlike Bohrer states, already in Marx’s conception of class, when understood fully and not synecdochally, class can already be constituted through exploitation and oppression.
           
​Bohrer also develops what she refers to as the ‘dialectics of difference’ present in both traditions as the way of understanding capitalism as a “structure and a logic” (AB, 208). In demonstrating how both traditions show capitalism developing contradictions in the real world, Bohrer’s first move is rejecting the reductive Aristotelean binary logic that finds contradiction to designate falsehood and which attributes normative statuses of ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ to the polarities. Instead, Bohrer argues that in both traditions the world is understood dialectically, i.e., in a way in which the plurality of the ‘middle’ that binary logic excludes is included, and in a way in which the polarities of the binary are taken to be in a dynamic tension, not a static opposition. Dialectics of difference does not ignore or flatten polarities and contradictions but engages with them and resists through the inclusion of the excluded middle. This dialectic has nothing to do with the simplified and progressivist triad (thesis-antithesis-greater synthesis) present in popular conception. Instead of the beaten down reductive triad, Bohrer concludes by offering three metaphors for modeling dialectics: Collins’ matrix, the Frankfurt school’s constellation, and the prism metaphor. These three metaphors, to be effective, must be used together as “overlapping on one another” (AB, 229).
           
Having examined the descriptive potential of a non-reductive dialectic, Bohrer proceeds to espouse its prescriptive implications, i.e., “how do we organize from these contradictions? how do we put the dialectic of difference into transformative practice?” (Ibid.) Bohrer begins by postulating that we must develop a theoretical framework that accounts for the intergroup differentiation logic of capitalist incommensurability (the inconsistent logics of racialization: logic of elimination – natives, logic of exclusion – blacks, and the logic of inclusion – latino/a) and that accounts for the intragroup homogenization logic of capitalist commensurability. Her response is a redefinition of how we conceive of solidarity. Solidarity must not be understood as the lowest common denominator of identity sameness, but as based on coalitions of difference and incommensurability united by mutual interest in transcending a system in which life is suppressed and molded in and by structures of exploitation and oppression. These coalitions, she argues, are to be built from the structural interconnectedness that capitalism already provides. It is, therefore, solidarity based on unity, not uniformity. As she states:

​Just before Christmas, on December 21, 1917, a strange freighter pulled into Elliott Bay in Seattle. This vessel bore an unfamiliar flag—a red flag. This was a Russian ship, the Shilka, out of Vladivostok, Russia. Only a few weeks before, on November 7, a Bolshevik revolution had taken place in Russia and its leader, Vladimir Lenin, proclaimed a workers’ and farmers’ state.

​The Seattle city fathers were disturbed by this sight. After all, they had just gone through a tumultuous lumber strike. Several local issues were stirring the AFL Central Labor Council. What was the purpose of this ship? Rumors circulated that it carried weapons and gold to foster a revolution in Seattle and the U.S.

The U.S. had just entered WWI, the “Great War,” back in April, and patriotic fervor was at a high pitch. And the new revolutionary government had declared peace with our German enemy. This ship could be a potential threat.

Given these fears, port authorities refused to allow the Shilka to land, and it sat stranded in the harbor. But the ever resourceful Bolshevik sailors managed to sneak ashore and make contact with the IWW and the labor movement. (Some of the socialist sailors had lived in the U.S. and spoke English.)
Eventually, the ship docked at Pier 5. Rather than guns and gold, investigators found the cargo to be beans, peas, and licorice root—destined for Baltimore. And, oh yes, some suspicious Russian vodka laced with red peppers.

By this time, of course, newspaper headlines around the country screamed about the “Bolshevik ship of mystery” and IWW plots. Socialist leader Eugene V. Debs commented, “Everything that happens nowadays that the ruling classes do not like is laid at the feet of the IWW.”

Seattle’s socialist newspaper, the Socialist Daily Call, regularly carried articles about the Shilka by journalist Anna Louise Strong. Although the AFL Central Labor Council was critical of the IWW, the Seattle Union Record also expressed concern for the Russian sailors and how they were being treated. The Central Labor Council also drafted a letter to Russian workers expressing their fraternal greetings and best wishes to all who aspired to “establish a true and free industrial democracy” in Russia. The Tacoma IWW wrote a message cheering the revolution and declaring their support for a “worldwide industrial commonwealth based on the brotherhood of man.”

Nicolai Kryukov, a Bolshevik from the sailor’s committee, met with IWW members a number of times and spoke at their meetings about the revolution and what it hoped to achieve. The members, probably led by lumberjack Roy Brown, wrote a congratulatory message to Russian workers: “To Nicholai Lenin and the Representatives of the Bolshevik Government and Through Them to the Workers of Russia.” The sailors carefully secreted the letter on their ship.

As the ship left port on January 5, a crowd of over 200 well-wishers cheered. A band played La Marseillaise—one of the anthems of the Russian workers then. The sailors also carefully secreted messages from the IWW and the Seattle Central Labor Council, to be delivered in Vladivostok.
Following the ship’s departure, there was a right-wing backlash in which the offices of the Socialist Daily Call were burned to the ground and several local radicals were arrested.

The Shilka docked in Vladivostok, and the newspaper Red Banner printed the IWW letter on March 20, 1918. The message from the Seattle Central Labor Council had been entrusted to the non-Bolshevik captain, who apparently jumped ship during refueling in Japan. Nothing more was heard from him, and the letter was lost to history.

In November 1920, Kryukov met Lenin at a conference. Lenin told him that he had read the letter and answered it. When he learned that Kryukov and his comrades had been on the ship, Lenin warmly embraced him.

Lenin had written his reply on August 26, 1918. It was a very dark and dangerous time for the Russian Revolution. Armies from the U.S., Britain, France, and Japan had invaded Russia in an attempt to crush the revolution. Insurgent generals Kolchak, Wrangel, Denikin, Yudenich, and others initiated civil war aimed at restoring the Czarist autocracy.

U.S. troops had landed in Murmansk and later, beginning in August 1918, in Vladivostok. By the end of September, there were 7,500 U.S. troops operating out of Vladivostok. About 3,000 Canadian and Australian troops were sent by Britain. Kolchak ran a hideously brutal “government” which appalled the allied troops. A Canadian soldier wrote, “However much one may deprecate the Bolshevik methods, we Canadians in Siberia could neither hear or see anything which inspire in us any confidence in the Kolchak government… There came to our ears stories of the workings of that government which savored more of Caesar Borgia that any democratic government.”

The main contingent of troops in Siberia, however, came from Japan. Estimates of the Japanese forces ran as high as 70,000 troops. It became obvious that the Japanese were interested in reclaiming Siberian lands lost in previous wars with Russia.

When the Germans signed the armistice ending WWI on November 11, 1918, U.S. and other occupying troops remained in Russia, not leaving until January 1920. The Japanese remained until 1922—and continued to occupy Sakhalin Island, which the Soviets recaptured in 1945.
​
But what of Lenin’s letter to the American workers?

What Lenin desperately needed was for U.S. troops to be removed from Siberia and for aid to counterrevolutionaries to be stopped. He recognized the importance of the U.S. in the Allied Coalition—and as a future trading partner.

When Lenin finished his letter, the question became how to deliver it? Again, it was a Russian seaman who was called upon to sail to America and see that the letter was published. He was also given a secret letter to President Woodrow Wilson from Lenin, who called for peaceful and friendly relations. (Wilson never revealed the contents of this letter.)

Lenin’s letter to American workers was handed to John Reed, who had just returned from Russia, and who set about getting the letter printed in socialist newspapers far and wide.

So what did Lenin have to say in his Letter to American Workers?

First, he sought to make connections between the American Revolution of 1776 and the Russian Revolution of 1917:

“The history of modern, civilized America opened with one of those great, really liberating, really revolutionary wars of which there have been so few compared to the vast number of wars of conquest which, like the present imperialist war, were caused by squabbles among kings, landowners, or capitalists over the division of usurped lands or ill-gotten gains. That was the war the American people waged against the British robbers who oppressed America and held her in colonial slavery, in the same way as these “civilized” bloodsuckers are still oppressing and holding in colonial slavery hundreds of millions of people in India, Egypt, and all parts of the world.”

Lenin also commented on the U.S. Civil War:

“The American people have a revolutionary tradition which has been adopted by the best representatives of the American proletariat, who have repeatedly expressed their complete solidarity with us Bolsheviks. That tradition is the war of liberation against the British in the eighteenth century and the Civil War in the nineteenth century. In some respects, if we only take into consideration the ‘destruction’ of some branches of industry and of the national economy, America in 1870 was behind 1860. But what a pedant, what an idiot would anyone be to deny on these grounds the immense, world-historic, progressive and revolutionary significance of the American Civil War of 1863-65!

“The representatives of the bourgeoisie understand that for the sake of overthrowing Negro slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the slave owners, it was worth letting the country go through long years of civil war, through the abysmal ruin, destruction, and terror that accompany every war. But now, when we are confronted with the vastly greater task of overthrowing capitalist wage-slavery, of overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie—now, the representatives and defenders of the bourgeoisie, and also the reformist socialists who have been frightened by the bourgeoisie and are shunning the revolution, cannot and do not want to understand that civil war is necessary and legitimate.”

Pointing to the revolutionary and socialist traditions of American workers, he added:

“The American workers will not follow the bourgeoisie. They will be with us, for civil war against the bourgeoisie. The whole history of the world and of the American labor movement strengthens my conviction that this is so. I also recall the words of one of the most beloved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene Debs, who wrote in the Appeal to Reason, I believe towards the end of 1915, in the article, “What Shall I Fight For” (I quoted this article at the beginning of 1916 at a public meeting of workers in Berne, Switzerland)—that he, Debs, would rather be shot than vote credits for the present criminal and reactionary war; that he, Debs, knows of only one holy and, from the proletarian standpoint, legitimate war, namely: the war against the capitalists, the war to liberate mankind from wage-slavery.”

Lenin knew, of course, that help was not on the way and that it would require a world-wide effort to guarantee the success of the Russian socialists:

“We know that help from you will probably not come soon, comrade American workers, for the revolution is developing in different countries in different forms and at different tempos (and it cannot be otherwise). We know that although the European proletarian revolution has been maturing very rapidly lately, it may, after all, not flare up within the next few weeks. We are banking on the inevitability of the world revolution, but this does not mean that we are such fools as to bank on the revolution inevitably coming on a definite and early date. We have seen two great revolutions in our country, 1905 and 1917, and we know revolutions are not made to order, or by agreement. We know that circumstances brought our Russian detachment of the socialist proletariat to the fore not because of our merits, but because of the exceptional backwardness of Russia, and that before the world revolution breaks out a number of separate revolutions may be defeated.”

Did Lenin’s article ever reach the Seattle workers? Did it somehow play a role in the General Strike of 1919? This is a yet-unsettled question, and we will leave it for another time—but one has hopes.

​This article is based on a paper presented at the Pacific Northwest Labor History Association conference in Vancouver, British Columbia.

​Comrades: A Russian Bolshevik who participated in the Revolution of 1905 and for many years afterwards lived in your country has offered to transmit this letter to you. I have grasped this opportunity joyfully for the revolutionary proletariat of America — insofar as it is the enemy of American imperialism — is destined to perform an important task at this time.

The history of modern civilized America opens with one of those really revolutionary wars of liberation of which there have been so few compared with the enormous number of wars of conquest that were caused, like the present imperialistic war, by squabbles among kings, landholders and capitalists over the division of ill-gotten lands and profits. It was a war of the American people against the English who despoiled America of its resources and held in colonial subjection, just as their "civilized" descendants are draining the lifeblood of hundreds of millions of human beings in India, Egypt and all corners and ends of the world to keep them in sub- jection.

Since that war 150 years have passed. Bourgeois civilization has born its most luxuriant fruit. By developing the productive forces of organized human labor, by utilizing machines and all the wonders of technique America has taken the first place among free and civilized nations. But at the same time America, like a few other nations, has become characteristic for the depth of the abyss that divide a handful of brutal millionaires who are stagnating in a mire of luxury, and millions of laboring starving men and women who are always staring want in the face.

Four years of imperialistic slaughter have left their trace. Irrefutably and clearly events have shown to the people that both imperialistic groups, the English as well as the German, have been playing false. The four years of war have shown in their effects the great law of capitalism in all wars ; that he who is richest and mightiest profits the most, takes the great- est share of the spoils while he who is weakest is exploited, martyred, oppressed and outraged to the utmost.

In the number of its colonial possessions, English imperial- ism has always been more powerful than any of the other countries. England has lost not a span of its "acquired" land. On the other hand it has acquired control of all German colonies in Africa, has occupied Mesopotamia and Palestine.

German imperialism was stronger because of the wonderful organization and ruthless discipline of "its" armies, but as far as colonies are concerned, is much weaker than its opponent. It has now lofet all of its colonies, but has robbed half of Europe and throttled most of the small countries and weaker peoples.. What a high conception of "liberation" on either side! How well they have defended their fatherlands, these "gentlemen" of both groups, the Anglo-French and the German cap- italists together with their lackeys, the Social-Patriots.

American plutocrats are wealthier than those of any other country partly because they are geographically more favorably situated. They have made the greatest profits. They have made all, even the weakest countries, their debtors. They have amassed gigantic fortunes during the war. And every dollar is stained with the blood that was shed by mil- lions of murdered and crippled men, shed in the high, honor- able and holy war of freedom.

Had the Anglo-French and American bourgeoisie accepted the Soviet invitation , to participate in peace negotiations at Brest-Litovsk, instead of leaving Russia to the mercy of brutal Germany a just peace without annexations and indemnities, a peace based upon complete equality could have been forced upon Germany, and millions of lives might have been saved. Because they hoped to reestablish the Eastern Front by once more drawing us into the whirlpool of warfare, they refused to attend peace negotiations and gave Germany a free hand to cram its shameful terms down the throat of the Russian people. It lay in the power of. the Allied countries to make the Brest-Litovsk negotiations the forerunner of a general peace. It ill becomes them to throw the blame for the Russo-German peace upon our shoulders!

The workers of the whole world, in whatever country they may live, rejoice with us and sympathize with us, applaud us for having burst the iron ring of imperialistic agreements and treaties, for having dreaded no sacrifice, however great, to free ourselves, for having established ourselves as a socialist republic, even so rent asunder and plundered by German imperial- ists, for having raised the banner of peace, the banner of Socialism over the world. What wonder that, we are hated by the capitalist class the world over. But this hatred of imperialism and the sympathy of the class-conscious workers of all countries give us assurance of the righteousness of our cause.

He is no Socialist who cannot understand that one cannot and must not hesitate to bring even that greatest of sacrifice, the sacrifice of territory, that one must be ready to accept even military defeat at the hands of imperialism in the interests of victory over the bourgeoisie, in the interests of a transfer of power to the working-class. For the sake of "their" cause, that is for the conquest of world-power, the imperialists of England and Germany have not hesitated to ruin a whole of row of nations, from Belgium and Servia to Palestine and Mesopotamia. Shall we then hesitate to act in the name of the liberation of the workers of the world from the yoke of capitalism, in the name of a general honorable peace; shall , we wait until we can find a way that entails no sacrifice ; shall we be afraid to begin the fight until an easy victory is assured ; shall we place the integrity and safety of this "fatherland" created by the bourgeoisie over the interests of the international socialist revolution?

We have been attacked for coming to terms with German militarism. Is there no difference between a pact entered upon by Socialists and a bourgeoisie (native or foreign) against the working-class, against labor, and an agreement that is made between a working-class that has overthrown its own bour- geoisie and a bourgeoisie of one side against a bourgeoisie of another nationality for the protection of the proletariat? Shall we not exploit the antagonism that exists between the various groups of the bourgeoisie. In reality every European under- stands this difference, and the American people, as I will presently show, have had a very similar experience in its own his- tory. There are agreements and agreements, fagots et fagots, as the Frenchman says.

When the robber-barons of German imperialism threw their armies into defenseless, demobilized Russia in February 1918, when Russia had staked its hopes upon the international solidarity of the proletariat before the international revolution had completely ripened, I did not hesitate for a moment to come to certain agreements with French Monarchists. The French captain Sadoul, who sympathized in words with the Bolshe- viki while in deeds he was the faithful servant of French im- perialism, brought the French officer de Lubersac to me. "I am a Monarchist. My only purpose is the overthrow of Ger- many," de Lubersac declared to me. "That is self understood (cela va sans dire)," I replied. But this by no means prevented me from coming to an understanding with de Lubersac concerning certain services that French experts in explosives were ready to render in order to hold up the German advance by the destruction of railroad lines. This is an example of the kind of agreement that every class-conscious worker must be ready to adopt, an agreement in the interest of Socialism. We shook hands with the French Monarchists although we knew that each one of us would rather have seen the other hang. But temporarily our interests were identical. To throw back the rapacious advancing German army we made use of the equally greedy interests of their opponents, thereby serving the interests of the Russian and the international socialist revolution.

In this way we furthered the cause of the working-class of Russia and of other countries; in this way we strengthened the proletariat and weakened the bourgeoisie of the world by mak- ing use of the usual and absolutely legal practice of manoever- ing, shifting and waiting for the moment the rapidly growing proletarian revolution in the more highly developed nations had ripened.

Long ago the American people used these tactics to the advantage of its revolution. When America waged its great war of liberation against the English oppressors, it likewise entered into negotiations with other oppressors, with the French and the Spaniards who at that time owned a considerable portion of what is now the United States. In its desperate struggle for freedom the American people made "agree- ments" with one group of oppressors against the other for the purpose of weakening all oppressors and strengthening those who were struggling against tyranny. The American people utilized the antagonism that existed between the English and the French, at times even fighting side by side with the armies of one group of oppressors, the French and the Spanish against the others, the English. Thus it vanquished first the English and then freed itself (partly by purchase) from the dangerous proximity of the French and Spanish possessions.

The great Russian revolutionist Tchernychewski once said: Political activity is not as smooth as the pavement of the Nevski Prospect. He is no revolutionist who would have the revolution of the proletariat only under the "condition" that it proceed smoothly and in an orderly manner, that guarantees against defeat be given beforehand, that the revolution go forward along the broad, free, straight path to victory, that there shall not be here and there the heaviest sacrifices, that we shall not have to lie in wait in besieged fortresses, shall not have to climb up along the narrowest path, the most impassible, winding, dangerous mountain roads. He is no revolution- ist, he has not yet freed himself from the pendantry of bourgeois intellectualism, he will fall back, again and again, into the camp of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.

They are little more than imitators of the bourgeoisie, these gentlemen who delight in holding up to us the "chaos" of revolution, the "destruction" of industry, the unemployment, the lack of food. Can there be anything more hypocritical than such accusations from people who greeted and supported the imperialistic war and made common cause with Kerensky when he continued the war? Is not this imperialistic war the cause of all our misfortune? The revolution that was born by the war must necessarily go on through the terrible difficulties and sufferings that war created, through this heritage of destruction and reactionary mass murder. To accuse us of "destruction" of industries and "terror" is hypocrisy or clumsy pedantry, sho*vs an incapability of understanding the most elemental fundamentals of the raging, climatic force of the class struggle, called Revolution.

In words our accusers "recognize" this kind of class struggle, in deeds they revert again and again to the middle class Utopia of "class-harmony" and the mutual "interdependence" of classes upon one another. In reality the class struggle in revolutionary times has always inevitably taken on the form of civil war, and civil war is unthinkable without the worst kind of destruction, without terror and limitations of form of democracy in the interests of the war. One must be a sickly sentimentalist not to be able to see, to understand and appreciate this necessity. Only the Tchechov type of the life- less "Man in the Box" can denounce the Revolution for this reason instead of throwing himself into the fight with the whole vehemence and decision of his soul at a moment when history demands that the highest problems of humanity be solved by struggle and war.

The best representatives of the American proletariat — those representatives who have repeatedly given expression to their full solidarity with us, the Bolsheviki, are the expression of this revolutionary tradition in the life of the American people. This tradition originated in the war of liberation against the English in the 18th and the Civil War in the 19th century. Industry and commerce in 1870 were in a much worse position than in 1860. But where can you find an American so pendantic, so absolutely idiotic who would deny the revolutionary and progressive significance of the American Civil War of 1860-1865?
​
The representatives of the bourgeoisie understand very well that the overthrow of slavery was well worth the three years of Civil War, the depth of destruction, devastation and terror that were its accompaniment. But these same gentlemen and the reform socialists who have allowed themselves to be cowed by the bourgeoisie and tremble at the thought of a revolution, cannot, nay will not, see the necessity and righteousness of a civil war in Russia, though it is facing a far greater task, the work of abolishing capitalist wage slavery and overthrowing the rule of the bourgeoisie.

The American working class will not follow the lead of its bourgeoisie. It will go with us against the bourgeoisie. The whole history of the American people gives me this confidence, this conviction. I recall with pride the words of one of the best loved leaders of the American proletariat, Eugene V. Debs, who said in the "Appeal to Reason" at the end of 1915, when it was still a socialist paper, in an article entitled "Why Should I Fight?" that he would rather be shot than vote for war credits to support the present criminal and reactionary war, that he knows only one war that is sanctified and justified from the standpoint of the proletariat: the war against the capital- ist class, the war for the liberation of mankind from wage slavery. I am not surprised that this fearless man was thrown into prison by the American bourgeoisie. Let them brutalize true internationalists, the real representatives of the revolutionary proletariat. The greater the bitterness and brutality they sow, the nearer is the day of the victorious proletarian revolution.

We are accused of having brought devastation upon Russia. Who is it that makes these accusations? The train-bearers of the bourgeoisie, of that same bourgeoisie that almost completely destroyed the culture of Europe, that has dragged the whole continent back to barbarism, that has brought hunger and destruction to the world. This bourgeoisie now demands that we find a different basis for our Revolution than that of destruction, that we shall not build it up upon the ruins of war, with human beings degraded and brutalized by years of war- fare. O, how human, how just is this bourgeoisie!

Its servants charge us with the use of terroristic methods. — Have the English forgotten their 1649, the French their 1793? Terror was just and justified when it was employed by the bourgeoisie for its own purposes against feudal domina- tion. But terror becomes criminal when workingmen and poverty stricken peasants dare to use it against the bourgeoisie. Terror was just and justified when it was used to put one exploiting minority in the place of another. But terror becomes horrible and criminal when it is used to abolish all ex- ploiting minorities, when it is employed in the cause of the ac- tual majority, in the cause of the proletariat and the semi-pro- letariat, of the working-class and the poor peasantry.

The bourgeoisie of international imperalism has succeeded in slaughtering 10 millions, in crippling 20 millions in its war. Should our war, the war of the oppressed and the exploited, against oppressors and exploiters cost a half or a whole million victims in all countries, the bourgeoisie would still maintain that the victims of the world war died a righteous death, that those of the civil war were sacrificed for a criminal cause.

But the proletariat, even now, in the midst of the horrors of war, is learning the great truth that all revolutions teach, the truth that has been handed down to us by our best teachers, the founders of modern Socialism. From them we have learned that a successful revolution is inconceivable unless it breaks the resistance of the exploiting class. When the work- ers and the laboring peasants took hold of the powers of state, it became our duty to quell the resistance of the exploiting class. We are proud that we have done it, that we are doing it. We only regret that we did not do it, at the beginning, with sufficient firmness and decision.

We realize that the mad resistance of the bourgeoisie against the socialist revolution in all countries is unavoidable. We know too, that with the development of this revolution, this resistance will grow. But the proletariat will break down this resistance and in the course of its struggle against the bourgeoisie the proletariat will finally become ripe for victory and power.

Let the corrupt bourgeois press trumpet every mistake that is made by our Revolution out into the world. We are not afraid of our mistakes. The beginning of the revolution has not sanctified humanity. It is not to be expected that the working classes who have been exploited and forcibly held down by the clutches of want, of ignorance and degradation for cen- turies should conduct its revolution without mistakes. The dead body of bourgeois society cannot simply be put into a coffin and buried. It rots in our midst, poisons the air we breathe, pollutes our lives, clings to the new, the fresh, the living with a thousand threads and tendrils of old customs, of death and decay.

But for every hundred of our mistakes that are heralded in- to the world by the bourgeoisie and its sycophants, there are ten thousand great deeds of heroism, greater and more heroic because they seem so simple and unpretentious, because they take place in the everyday life of the factory districts or in se- cluded villages, because they are the deeds of people who are not in the habit of proclaiming their every success to the world, who have no opportunity to do so.

But even if the contrary were true, — I know, of course, that this is not so — but even if we had committed 10,000 mistakes to every 100 wise and righteous deeds, yes, even then our re- volution would be great and invincible. And it will go down in the history of the world as unconquerable. For the first time in the history of the world not the minority, not alone the rich and the educated, but the real masses, the huge majority of the working-class itself, are building up a new world, are deciding the most difficult questions of social organization from out of their own experience.

Every mistake that is made in this work, in this honestly conscientious cooperation of ten million plain workingmen and peasants in the re-creation of their entire lives — every such mistake is worth thousands and millions of "faultless" successes of the exploiting minority, in outwitting and taking advantage of the laboring masses. For only through these mistakes can the workers and peasants learn to organize their new existence, to get along without the capitalist class. Only thus will they Be able to blaze their way, through thousands of hindrances to victorious socialism.

Mistakes are being made by our peasants who, at one stroke, in the night from October 25 to October 26, (Russian Calen- dar) 1917, did away with all private ownership of land, and are now struggling, from month to month, under the greatest difficulties, to correct their own mistakes, trying to solve in practice the most difficult problems of organizing a new so- cial state, fighting against profiteers to secure the possession of the land for the worker instead of for the speculator, to car- ry on agricultural production under a system of communist farming on a large scale.

Mistakes are being made by our workmen in their revolutionary activity, who, in a few short months, have placed prac-tically all of the larger factories and workers under state ownership, and are now learning, from day to day, under the greatest difficulties, to conduct the management of entire in- dustries, to reorganize industries already organized, to over-come the deadly resistance of laziness and middle-class reac-tion and egotism. Stone upon stone they are building the foundation for a new social community, the self-discipline of labor, the new rule of the labor organizations of the working- class over their members.

Mistakes are being made in their revolutionary activity by the Soviets which were first created in 1905 by the gigantic upheaval of the masses. The Workmen's and Peasant's Soviets are a new type of state, a new highest form of Democracy, a particular form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, a mode of conducting the business of the state without the bourgeoisie and against the bourgeoisie. For the first time democracy is placed at the service of the masses, of the workers, and ceases to be a democracy for the rich, as it is, in the last analysis, in all capitalist, yes, in all democratic republics. For the first time the masses of the people, in a nation of hundreds of millions, are fulfilling the task of realizing the dictatorship of the proletariat and the semi-proletariat, without which social- ism is not to be thought of.

Let incurable pedants, crammed full of bourgeois democrat- ic and parliamentary prejudices, shake their heads gravely over our Soviets, let them deplore the fact that we have no direct elections. These people have forgotten nothing, have learned nothing in the great upheaval of 1914-1918. The com- bination of the dictatorship of the proletariat with the new democracy of the proletariat, of civil war with the widest ap- plication of the masses to political problems, such a combina- tion cannot be achieved in a day, cannot be forced into the battered forms of formal parliamentary democratism. In the Soviet Republic there arises before us a new world, the world of Socialism. Such a world cannot be materialized as if by magic, complete in every detail, as Minerva sprang from Jupi- ter's head.

While the old bourgeoisie democratic constitutions, for in- stance, proclaimed formal equality and the right of free as- semblage, the constitution of the Soviet Republic repudiates the hypocrisy of a formal equality of all human beings. When the bourgeoisie republicans overturned feudal thrones, they did not recognize the rules of formal equality of monarchists. Since we here are concerned with the task of overthrowing the bourgeoisie, only fools or traitors will insist on the formal equality of the bourgeoisie. The right of free assemblage is not worth an iota to the workman and to the peasant when all better meeting places are in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Our Soviets have taken over all usable buildings in the cities and towns out of the hands of the rich and have placed them at the disposal of the worknien and peasants for meeting and organi- zation purposes. That is how our right of assemblage looks — for the workers. That is the meaning and content of our Soviet, of our socialist constitution.
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​And for this reason we are all firmly convinced that the Sov- iet Republic, whatever misfortune may still lie in store for it, is unconquerable.
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It is unconquerable because every blow that comes from the powers of madly raging imperialism, every new attack by the international bourgeoisie will bring new, and hitherto unaf- fected strata of workingmen and peasants into the fight, will educate them at the cost of the greatest sacrifice, making them hard as steel, awakening a new heroism in the masses.

We know that it may take a long time before help can come from you', comrades, American Workingmen, for the develop- ment of the revolution in the different countries proceeds along various paths, with varying rapidity (how could it be otherwise!) We know fullwell that the outbreak of the Europ- ean proletarian revolution may take many weeks to come, quickly as it is ripening in these days. We are counting on the inevitability of the international revolution. But that does not mean that we count upon its coming at some definite, nearby date. We have experienced two great revolutions in our own country, that of 1905 and that of 1917, and we know that revo- lutions cannot come neither at a word of command nor accord- ing to prearranged plans. We know that circumstances alone have pushed us, the proletariat of Russia, forward, that we have reached this new stage in the social life of the world not because of our superiority but because of the peculiarly reac- tionary character of Russia. But until the outbreak of the in- ternational revolution, revolutions in individual countries may still meet with a number Of serious setbacks and overthrows.

And yet we are certain that we are invincible, for if humanity will not emerge from this imperialistic massacre broken in spirit, it will triumph. Ours was the first country to break the chains of.imperialistic warfare. We broke them with the great- est sacrifice, but they are broken. We stand outside of imper- ialistic duties and considerations, we have raised the banner of the fight for the complete overthrow of imperialism for the world.

We are in a beleaguered fortress, so long as no other interna- tional socialist revolution comes to our assistance with its ar- mies. But these armies exist, they are stronger than ours, they grow, they strive, they become more invincible the longer im- perialism with its brutalities continues. Workingmen the world over are breaking with their betrayers, with their Gompers rand their Scheidemanns. Inevitably labor is approaching communistic Bolshevistic tactics, is preparing for the prole- tarian revolution that alone is capable of preserving culture land humanity from destruction.

We are invincible, for invincible is the Proletarian Revolution.

​Reflections on Thomas Nagel's critique (of Michael Sandel's book “Public Philosophy: Essays on Morality in Politics”) “Progressive but Not Liberal," THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS, May 25, 2006.
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Thomas Nagel entitles his essay on the social philosophy of Michael J. Sandel "Progressive but Not Liberal." Non-liberal progressives are most often to be found in socialist and communist organizations but not Sandel who is a professor of government at Harvard and referred to as a "communitarian" by Nagel. Nagel is happy to be a liberal and takes Sandel to task for having "defective" views about "liberalism." Nagel in fact defends the liberal cause by his critique of Sandel. I intend to analyze Nagel's critique from a Marxist perspective.


Nagel points out that the political system in the US is more volatile and heterogeneous than what one would find in Western Europe. The US is, in fact, "radically divided over issues of war, taxes, race, religion, abortion, and sex." He maintains that these differences are deep rooted and about "ultimate values." Yet these divisions do not threaten the stability of our political system. He says that "the cohesion of American society is stronger than its divisions" can be seen by the fact that people with radically incompatible basic value systems cohabit in a common political system and strive to express those values legally through open political processes. And, he maintains, this can be done "only because of a general commitment to the principles of limited government embodied in the Constitution."


Well times have changed since Nagel penned this. American society is far from the stability outlined above: Après Trump le déluge. The election of Biden and the Republican response shows that the “general commitment” to the Constitution is under extreme duress.


Nagel goes on to divide the US political universe into two broad sections—based on how they respond to the problems listed above-- i.e., war, taxes, race,etc.


The conservatives, we are told, "are more interested in enforcing moral standards [and they think their standards are the only right ones--tr] on the community and protecting private property, and less interested in protecting personal liberty [libertarian conservatives would dispute this--tr] and reducing inequality." It is just the opposite with progressives, he says.


Progressives have to decide how to pursue their principles-- as "first" or "second" order principles. First order principles are those deeply held "fundamental beliefs" or core principles. The second order principles are those "concerning what kind of first order-principles may be used to justify the exercise of political and legal power". For example, should we try and have the state outlaw capital punishment based on the first order principle that all killing by the state is immoral [excluding the military], or should we use a different principle such as the corruption of the legal system or the racism in the sentencing procedures without calling into question the ultimate moral status of capital punishment itself.


Nagel allies himself with liberalism which he identifies more or less with the political philosophy of another Harvard professor, the late John Rawls, author of such books as "Political Liberalism" and "A Theory of Justice." According to Nagel liberalism tends to rely on second order principles and not confront the conservative positions with head on challenges of first order magnitude. Nagel says, for example that gay rights can be defended by liberals on the principle that the government should not be controlling "private sexual conduct" without getting into the issue of the moral status of homosexuality.


The target of Nagel's article, Sandel, represents another school of progressives which Nagel says is "not liberal." These progressives want to argue their positions on first order principles and duke it out with the conservatives on core values. Sandel wants to replace "liberalism" with what he thinks the "communal" republican spirit of the early US was, which he contrasts with the present day liberal concern with "individualism." What Sandel is interested in is (his words) "soul craft." Nagel explains this as "the cultivation of virtue in the citizenry by the design of political, social and economic institutions." 


Wait a minute! This sounds familiar. This sounds like a species of the program of social engineering embarked upon in the Soviet Union in the 1930s and subverted and fought with tooth and claw by the big capitalist powers, first with their rebellious cat's paw Hitler, then continued as the Cold War by Hitler's anti-communist successors. Nagel senses this as well, as we shall see.


More immediately, however, Nagel attacks Sandel for having a "defective" understanding of Liberalism and misinterpreting the social philosophy of John Rawls. Nagel tells us that there are many forms of "Liberalism" but he contrasts only two-- European and American. The former is characterized by "the libertarianism of economic laissez-faire" (which sounds to me suspiciously like current neocon thought) while the latter represents "the democratic egalitarianism of the welfare state" (the owl of Minerva really does take flight at dusk, someone should tell Nagel that the welfare state is history).


But, he tells us, "all liberal theories have this in common: they hold that the sovereign power of the state over the individual is bounded by a requirement that individuals remain inviolable in certain respects, and that they must be treated equally." Basically this means equality before the law and equal political status (one person one vote, unless you are Black or Hispanic and your votes are tossed) and in American Liberalism "equality of opportunity and fairness in the social and economic structure of the society." I don't know what planet Nagel is from, maybe a parallel universe where Sweden is the only superpower, but the US definitely does not fit this description. Well, maybe not, but those are the goals to be reached and John Rawls represents this kind of Liberalism which stresses "distributive justice that combats poverty and large inequalities perpetuated by inheritance and class." Yes, Liberalism wants to combat poverty and inequality based on the observation that "the poor ye shall always have with you" but Marxism, unlike Liberalism which wants to tinker with the bad consequences of Capitalism without ever questioning the system itself, wants to eliminate poverty , not just combat it, by getting rid of the economic system that breeds it, i.e., capitalism.


Sandel rejects Rawls "Liberalism." He has, as Nagel says "spent his career" opposing Rawls and Rawls’ form of "egalitarian liberalism." What he contests is "Rawls’ central claim that individual rights and principles of social justice should take precedence over the broad advancement of human welfare according to some standard of what constitutes the good life." This is wrongly framed from the Marxist perspective. We certainly are in favor of "broad advancement of human welfare" but not based on some bourgeois idealist concept of "the good life" but based on what we claim to be a scientific understanding of the motive force of the capitalist system, its directionality and the real possibility of restructuring of society in such a way that classes are abolished and all people will truly escape from the realm of necessity to that of freedom. This may sound utopian, but it is actually more realistic than the schemes of Rawls, Nagel or Sandel.


Meanwhile, while Rawls subordinates the "broad advancement of human welfare" to "individual rights", Sandel maintains that, in his own words, "Principles of justice depend for their justification on the moral worth or intrinsic good of the ends they serve." Nagel doesn't like this formulation. Sandel would ban Nazis from holding rallies but uphold the rights of people demonstrating for equality and against racism, for example. But, Nagel says, using Sandel's principle, people opposed to homosexuality ought to be opposed to gay people holding rallies. But it is the state that guarantees the rights of citizens and decides which ends are ultimately of "moral worth or intrinsic good." Nazis and KKK folk fail on both counts besides the fact that they would on principle end the rights of others to demonstrate if they could while gay people are not demanding the suppression of heterosexuals they are only asking for civil rights. So, I don't think the analogy a good one to use against Sandel.


What Nagel really objects too is that Sandel thinks "the priority of right as being intelligible only if it serves the good." Liberals would "bracket" the question about if abortion, for example, was "murder" and defend the right to it on the grounds that a woman's right to choose should not be denied because of the "religious convictions of the majority." Sandel thinks that in order to approve of or support abortion we must "first determine that the Catholic position is false." This is a requirement for bracketing the question of its mortal status. 'The more confident we are," Sandel writes, "that fetuses are, in the relevant moral sense, different from babies, the more confident we can be in affirming a political conception of justice that sets aside the controversy about the moral status of fetuses."


Nagel says this is begging the question not bracketing it but this is because of how he has set up the question in the first place. Being a Liberal he is looking for a Liberal answer, based on a second order principle, and Sandel, not being a Liberal, looks for first order principles. I think Marxists are more akin to Sandel than to Nagel. Surely we want to decide if abortion is murder or not before we support it. Do women have a right to commit murder? What are the Catholic reasons for thinking this is murder? When we find out that the reasons are not based on science or an intelligent open minded examination of the evidence but only upon superstition and close minded adherence to dogma this surely must be the basis for our rejection of the anti-abortion viewpoint. This way of thinking does not make Sandel's views of Liberalism "obtuse."


There are many behaviors that can be sanctioned by the state, Nagel says, that the state does not have to have an official position on with respect to their rightness or moral status. The state can be neutral in other words. But Sandel, says Nagel, "thinks justice and rights depend on what is actually good, and what rules and institutions serve those ends; he is not a relativist." This is also good Marxism. Marxists should, to the best standards available, try to determine the actual states of affairs they are dealing with and not bracket truth conditions. This would have prevented many of the catastrophes of the 20th century socialist project.


These different positions lead, as Nagel points out, to a "deep issue." Namely, "Do all moral standards derive from a single principle, or are there different principles for different kinds of entities?" Rawls and Sandel have very different views on this. Rawls does not hold that there is a common moral principle from which both personal rights and public rights derive. Rawls "thought that justice, which is the special virtue of social institutions like the state, depended on the distinctive moral character of the state itself, as an immensely powerful form of collective agency." In a Liberal democracy we are subject to majority rule. Actually, however, this has ceased to be the case in the US. The two elections won by George W. Bush were most likely won as a result of vote fraud consciously carried out in disregard for any moral commitment to democratic values and solely to attain state power for the personal enrichment of corporate class entities at the expense of the majority of the population. This looks like a trend that has further developed. The tactic was also attempted by Trump to stay in power but in his case failed because he had lost the support of the corporate ruling class. Even his legal first victory did not represent “majority rule” because the majority voted for Clinton.


Nevertheless, Rawls thinks in terms of a functioning bourgeois democracy with majority will "coercively enforced." But Rawls also believes in "fairness." This means that in addition to political and civil equalities the state must also "combat racial, sexual, and socioeconomic inequality." With regard to this duty of the state, Nagel says, "This is the fairness that Sandel derides." But I don't think that Sandel is for racial, sexual and socioeconomic inequality, nor do I think his social philosophy (or Marxism) entails any such consequences.


Nagel says that the state has no special moral status for Sandel. Sandel thinks once the people have decided on the ends to be sought (for Marxists this would be the abolition of property, classes and the state as well as the construction of socialism and communism) which for Sandel are ("seems to be" Nagel writes, which shows some confusion on this) "an unmaterialistic culture of closely knit communities and strong family ties" then the state will be used to construct this type of social reality (under socialism being eventually abolished or "withering away)."


But this kind of thinking will also lead, says Nagel, "to theocracy, fascism or communism for those who accept alternative conceptions of the human good." Nagel thinks this is a telling point against Sandel but it isn't. The same thing can happen under the limited constitutional state that Liberals like Rawls and Nagel think can be constructed or maybe is even exemplified by the US today. Constitutions and philosophical models are not what guarantee freedom and rights. Only an informed, educated and alert citizenry can do that, and that is what we currently lack, and lack by governmental and corporate design, in the US today.


Nagel concludes by saying that "A hunger that demands more from the state [than "constitutional patriotism"] will lead us where history has shown we should not want to go." I am afraid we are on that road already and we have got on this road not only by reading direction signs put up by non-Liberal progressives, but by following those posted by Rawls and his followers as well. To halt the current slide towards fascism ("the national security state") we will need the combined forces of the progressive left, the working class, the establishment union movement as well as those in the “center” of the political spectrum(always an unreliable section—i.e., the AFL-CIO leadership) who still believe in democracy and take the Bill of Rights seriously. Rawlsian Liberalism alone will not suffice.

The connection between the authoritarian personality and the working class began in earnest in the 1950s with cold war political sociologist Seymour Martin Lipset.  Lipset argued that since World War I, “working class groups have proved to be the most nationalistic and jingoistic sector of the population” [1959: 483.]  His concept of authoritarianism is a mash-up Adorno’s ideas mixed with support for “extremist” groups like the Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Communist Party.  Lipset argued that in the US, the working class authoritarianism poses a threat to democracy.

The question is: does the psychology of individuals in the working class explain Trump’s rise to power?  A Marxist perspective reveals the flaws in this and other individual-level psychological explanations:
​

• first, the psychological argument obscures the real source of power in the capitalist society, namely social structures like corporations, property, media, and the state, that have been constructed over the years intentionally to serve the interests of the ruling class, namely the corporate elite that benefits the most from exploitation of the working class.
• second, it denies the established social science research that one’s position in such social structures, especially the economy, shapes one’s psychology far more profoundly than individuals’ psychological tendencies can influence enduring and evolving social structures.
• finally, it’s factually incorrect.  The Atlantic Magazine’s analysis of Trump support show that among voters with incomes less than $50,000, Hilary Clinton won 53 to 41.  Voters with incomes between $100 and $200,000 voted for Trump 56% to 39%.

​Despite its obvious flaws, the psychological argument has a special appeal for members of the privileged class, who want to hold themselves blameless for the social ills around them.  They believe they knew better, and they blame the working class to avoid facing up to their own culpability.  Scapegoating the working class is known as the “myth of upper class benevolence.”

One classic study in race and ethnicity shows the fallacies in the myth of upper class benevolence and zeroes in on the ways the working class is often portrayed, incorrectly, as the source of white supremacy.  In his book The Mississippi Chinese: Between black and white, the sociologist James Loewen interviewed hundreds of residents of the Mississippi Delta.  He found upper middle class whites routinely blamed poor working class whites for any and all oppression of both African Americans and Chinese Americans.  But looking closely at the facts gave Loewen a much different picture of culpability.   It was the privileged planter- and business-class whose members had the power to keep Chinese- and African-Americans out of their neighborhoods, schools, and workplaces.   Working class organizations like the American Legion, Veterans of Foreign Wars, and small Baptist churches were the first to welcome people of color, while upper class organizations like the Chamber of Commerce, the Rotary Club, and Episcopalians excluded them.  Financial institutions acted in the interests of the privileged class and served to limit opportunities for others.    Schools reserved for whites only were resource rich compared with schools that served people of color.   One county in Mississippi, Loewen discovered, actually spent $45 per white pupil for every $1 per African American pupil.
​
Loewen rejects the widely held belief, echoed in the London Business School study mentioned earlier, that the working class, fearing economic competition, feels the most prejudice.  Instead, he turns to the pioneer Marxist sociologist of race, Oliver C. Cox, who argued that to analyze racial dynamics one needs to look first at “the economic policies of the ruling class.”  Cox continued, “Opposition [by the working class] to social equality has no meaning unless we can see its function in the service of the exploitative purpose of this [ruling] class.”

​A working class divided by race is easier to control and to keep unorganized than a united one, so concerted and deliberate efforts are made to encourage members of the working class to embrace authoritarian beliefs, especially white supremacy.  Using corporate-funded think tanks, right-wing radio and cable television, and presidential pronouncements, the ruling class frames current events in authoritarian terms, attempting to undermine the unity of the working class and therefore weaken it.   In Mississippi Loewen found that alliances between working class whites and blacks were viciously undermined and blocked by the powerful of the community.  Likewise, people who challenge class oppression and racial hierarchies are singled out for condemnation and retaliation.

Newer research on intolerance shows furthermore that authoritarian beliefs are not clearly associated with membership in the working class, defined by wage dependence, low income, and job insecurity.   Erasmus University sociologist Dick Houtman revisited Lipset’s theory of working class authoritarianism found that it is not class that is correlated with intolerance, but educational level and access to cultural opportunities like books, concerts, and art exhibitions.  Thus another way that the ruling class tries to divide the working class is by limiting their educational opportunities.  Donald Trump once famously intoned, “I love the poorly educated.”  Along with his secretary of education Betsy DeVos, Trump seems intent on increasing their ranks.  With working class pupils forced to attend substandard, unsafe and under-resourced schools year after year, with college costs putting post-secondary education out of reach of many, and with crippling student debt for those who do borrow for college, the ruling class aims to limit the critical thinking resources the working class needs to challenge ruling class propaganda.

For those who are in college, corporate forces have developed special interventions to encourage neoliberal and fascist accommodation.  The Charles Koch Foundation, established by the head of Koch Industries, has implemented a $50 million, 32-state strategy establishing institutes, holding conferences, and funding faculty and graduate students in a concerted effort to influence policy rightward: toward denial of climate science, undermining of labor rights, and revision of history in favor of business interests.  Hand in hand with these corporate forces are the white supremacist organizations that pay for speakers to visit campuses and foment hate, then cry “first amendment” when students object.  Other corporate-sponsored organizations encourage students to record, expose and protest faculty who do not espouse conservative views.
​
In short, the psychological argument claims that authoritarian tendencies emerge from working people themselves.  It’s no surprise that researchers from a business school embraced that idea, because it is what Marx and Engels refer to as a “ruling idea.”  By pretending that authoritarian ideas arise organically from the working class itself, it hides the relationship between authoritarianism and the economic policies of the ruling class.  In contrast, a Marxist analysis recognizes the congruence between authoritarian ideas and the economic interests of the corporate ruling class, especially its efforts to divide the working class by race, gender, citizenship status, etc.   It recognizes the influence of powerful corporate forces which intentionally try to persuade workers to blame each other for their oppression, instead of the capitalists who profit from their lack of unity.

Citations

​Adorno, Theodor et al. 1950. The Authoritarian Personality. New York: Harper.
​
Edsall, Thomas B. 2017. “The Trump Voter Paradox” The New York Times. 28 September.  https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/opinion/trump-republicans-authoritarian.html
​
Ferris, Robert. 2017. “Why voters might be choosing dominant, authoritarian leaders around the world.” CNBC, 12 June. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/12/why-voters-might-be-choosing-dominant-authoritarian-leaders-around-the-world.html
​
Jacobs, Tom. 2018.  “Inside the minds of hardcore Trump Supporters” Pacific Standard. February 15. https://psmag.com/news/inside-the-minds-of-hardcore-trump-supporters

Lipset, Seymour Martin. 1959. “Democracy and Working-Class Authoritarianism.” American Sociological Review 24 (4), 482-501.

Loewen, James. 1988. The Mississippi Chinese: Between black and white. 2e. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Serwer, Adam. 2017. “The Nationalist’s Delusion.” The Atlantic. November 20.
​
Image: Trump addresses the Conservative Political Action Conference in 2015.  Greg Skidmore/Creative Commons

​“Good morning Fred Are you ready to begin our discussion of Mozi?”
 
“I certainly am, but he is rather new to me. I mean, everyone has heard of Confucius and Laozi.”
 
“It's true. Mozi is not as well known as the other two. Mozi lived around 479 to 381 B.C.--somewhere in that range. We really don’t know too much about him. We have a 53-chapter book called the “Mozi” which is made up of his writings and those of some of his followers. He lived at the end of the feudal period of the Zhou Dynasty a little after the time of Confucius and was in the ‘warrior class.’  This class somewhat resembled and probably inspired what the Japanese developed as the class of the Samurai. Mo, (the “zi” is an honorific suffix meaning “master”—i.e., “teacher”) thought up a philosophy contrary to the Confucians and which he hoped would solve all the practical problems of humanity. He was the leader of a band of warriors--such bands were quite common in those days--but he would only go into action to try and prevent war or to protect the underdog who was being unjustly attacked. This was not common for those days or any days including our own (with the possible exception of the type of military aid given by the Cubans).”
 
“Well, Karl, I have my copy of Chan [W.T. Chan, A Sourcebook in Chinese Philosophy] which starts with Chapter 15 on ‘Universal Love’. It begins with a question ‘But what are the benefits and harm of the world?’ To which Mozi responds, “Take the present cases of mutual attacks among states, mutual usurpation among families, and mutual injuries among individuals, or the lack of kindness and loyalty between ruler and minister, of parental affection and filial piety between father and son, and of harmony and peace among brothers.’”
 
“OK Fred, that pretty much sums up the ‘harm of the world’ and it is as true of our times as it was in Ancient China even if Mo only makes male references due to his patriarchal culture. We will have to add ‘mothers and daughters’ as well as ‘sisters’ to the mix.”
 
“Mozi next explains why the world is in such sad shape, that is, where did all these problems come from. Mo says “They arise out of want of mutual love. At present feudal lords know only to love their own states and not those of others. Therefore they do not hesitate to mobilize their states to attack others. Heads of families know only to love their own families and not those of others. Therefore they do not hesitate to mobilize their families to usurp others. And individuals know only to love their own persons and not those of others. Therefore they do not hesitate to mobilize their own persons to injure others.’”
 
“So, ‘want of mutual love’ is the source of our woes!”
 
“Exactly, he says ‘Because of want of mutual love, all the calamities, usurpations, hatred, and animosity in the world have arisen. Therefore the man of humanity condemns it.’”
 
“And with what is he going to replace it?”
 
“'It should be replaced by the way of universal love and mutual benefit.’”
 
“Which is?”
 
"'It is to regard other people’s countries as one’s own. Regard other people’s families as one’s own. Regard other people’s person as one’s own. Consequently, when feudal lords love one another, they will not fight in the fields.... Because of universal love, all the calamities, usurpations, hatred, and animosity in the world may be prevented from arising. Therefore the man of humanity praises it.’” [“Universal love” is a traditional translation of the Chinese jiān'ài, 兼愛 which is also rendered “impartial care.”]
 
“You know, many great philosophers and some, but not all, religious leaders have said more or less the same thing. I think all the great humanist thinkers, West or East, would be in general agreement. But they will differ with Mo about the practicality of his proposal and if there should be some distinctions within his concept of ‘universal’. This will be the ‘battle line’. Mo will want absolute universality which he thinks is the only way peace and harmony will come about.”
 
“That is right, Karl, and Mo takes up the challenge as I will now read. Here is the objection: ‘But now gentlemen of the world would say: Yes, it will be good if love becomes universal. Nevertheless, it is something distant and difficult to practice.’ To which Mo responds, ‘This is simply because gentlemen of the world fail to recognize its benefit and understand its reason.’”
 
“I remember Chan’s comment on this passage. That Mo used ‘benefits’ or ‘results’ as the motivation for his doctrines. This is similar to our philosophy of pragmatism. C.S. Peirce had something called the ‘pragmatic maxim’ his own Prime Directive as it were: ‘Consider what effects, that might conceivably have practical bearings, we conceive the object of our conception to have. Then, our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of the object.’ Granted that this is a theory of meaning but we can see its relation to Mo. Mo is saying, the ‘Mohist Maxim’: ‘Consider what benefits we conceive our belief to have. Then, our conception of the benefits is the whole of our conception of the rightness of our belief.’ This is the theory of truth of Mohism.”
 
“I have the Chan comment right here Karl. He doesn’t make the point you do but does contrast the ‘Mohist Maxim’ of yours with Confucianism. The Confucian thinks the ‘inferior’ man is after ‘benefits’. The Confucian is interested in ‘righteousness.’ “
 
“Does he give references?”
 
“He cites the Analects 4:11,16; 15:17; 17:23”
 
“Let me see.” Karl took Chan’s book and looked through it. “The last two are not in here,” he said. He then pulled down a copy of the complete work (the “Analects”) and looked at it.
 
“Well, none of these references are quite on the mark. Confucius is really condemning material goodies and profit. I think the ‘Mohist Maxim’ goes way beyond this limited conception of ‘benefits.’ World peace would be a Mohist ‘benefit’ and that is not the same as ‘profit’. World peace would even be a motivation to action for a Confucianist who could interpret it as ‘righteousness’ to benefit humanity (ren).”
 
“I will continue with the Mo quote. In this passage he explains how universal love even though difficult can be brought about. ‘Formerly Duke Wen [ruled 636 to 628 B.C.] of Jin liked his officers to wear coarse clothing. Therefore all his ministers wore [simple] sheepskin garments, carried their swords in [unadorned] leather girdles, and put on hats of plain cloth. Thus attired, they appeared before the ruler inside and walked around the court outside. What was the reason for this? It was because the ruler liked it and therefore the ministers could do it. Formerly, King Ling of Chu [ruled 530 to 527 B.C.] wanted people to have slender waists. Therefore all his ministers limited themselves to one meal a day. They exhaled before they tied their belts.... What was the reason for this? It was because the ruler liked it and therefore the ministers could do it.”
 
“This looks like ‘revolution from above’!”
 
“Wait! There is more. ‘Therefore Master Mo said: Now to eat little, to wear coarse clothing and to sacrifice one’s life for fame are things all people in the world consider difficult. But if the ruler likes them, the multitude can do them.... What difficulty is there in this (universal love)? Only the ruler does not make it his governmental measure and officers do not make it their conduct.’”
 
“This is definitely ‘revolution from above’! The Ruler only has to desire that a policy be carried out and voilà! He also mixes up the ‘ministers’ with the ‘multitude’. It's one thing to order the ministers to implement a policy, it's really quite another to think that the people will just obey and carry out the directions because ‘the ruler liked it.’
 
“Chan has a comment about this too Karl. He says “Universal love is promoted by Mohism because of its beneficial results. There is no conviction that it is dictated by the inherently good nature of man or by the inherent goodness of the act. Although Confucianism teaches love with distinctions, it also teaches love for all, but it does so on the grounds of moral necessity and of the innate goodness of man.’”
 
“Well that’s interesting. There seems some confusion in what Chan says, however. I can agree that the Mohist Maxim is at work here and not a belief in the innate goodness of humans but I must demur concerning Chan’s comment about the ‘inherent goodness of the act.’ That comment makes no sense to a Mohist because the ‘inherent goodness’ of an act just is the ‘benefits’ that result from it. The real question revolves around the nature of man, which is the basis for the Confucian critique. 
 
“Mo thinks that there are historical examples of the practice of his philosophy. To the objection that his theory is impracticable, and that universal love and mutual benefit cannot be put into action he replies, “Ancient sage kings did practice them. How do we know this to be the case? In ancient times, when Yu [first ruler of the Xia Dynasty, he ruled c. 2183-2175 BC] was ruling the empire, he dug the West and the Yu-tou rivers in the west to release the water from the Chu-sun-huang River [he did similar works in the east, north and south]...in order to benefit the peoples of Ching, Chu, Kan, and Yueh and the barbarians of the south. This is the story of Yu’s accomplishments. This shows that my doctrine of universal love has been practiced.’” 
 
“Weak!”
 
“Chan finds another contrast with the Confucians here. ‘While Confucianists cited historical examples for inspiration and as models, Mozi cited them to show that his teachings had been demonstrated. The difference between the idealistic and practical approach is clear.’”
 
“For whatever reason it seems like a common practice to refer to tradition for authority even if your ideas are new. This is not a uniquely Chinese practice.”
 
“Here is another of Mo’s arguments: ‘In ancient times, when King Wen [first ruler of the Zhou Dynasty who ruled c. 1751-1739 BC] ruled the Western Land, he shone like the sun and the moon all over the four quarters as well as the Western Land. He did not permit a big state to oppress a small state, or the multitude to oppress the widow or widower, or the ruthless and powerful to rob people’s grains or livestock. Heaven recognized his deeds and visited him with blessings. Consequently, the old and childless were well adjusted and enjoyed their full life span, the lonely had opportunity to fulfill their work among mankind, and the orphaned had the support to grow up....It shows that my doctrine of universal love has been practiced.’”
 
“I need to make two comments here. ‘Heaven recognized his deeds, etc...’ seems too anthropomorphic for Chinese thought at least on the ‘sage’ level....”
 
“Wait up, Karl, the next section is all about ‘The Will of Heaven.”
 
“OK, then. My second comment is that it seems that universal love is just the construction of a welfare state. There is obviously more to it than that or the Confucians would not be so upset with Mo.”
 
“OK Karl, before turning to ‘The Will of Heaven”, Chapter 26 of the Mozi, I’ll let Mo have the last word on ‘Universal Love’: ‘If rulers of the world today really want the empire to be wealthy and hate to have it poor, want it to be orderly and hate to have it chaotic, they should practice universal love and mutual benefit. This is the way of the sage-kings and the principle of governing the empire, and it should not be neglected.’”
 
“Even today Mo’s words are worth listening to. The ‘rulers of the world today’ have no concern for these ideas. Instead, with their aggressive military plans, their failure to help the poor and starving throughout the world, their do nothing environmental and AIDS policies, they seem to be just like the rulers of Mo’s day, only out to aggrandize their own selfish interests (Cuba excepted since its history of extension of medical aid and moral support to oppressed people everywhere is well known).
 
“Here is what Mo has to say about ‘righteousness’ and ‘heaven’. ‘Now what does heaven want and what does heaven dislike? Heaven wants righteousness and dislikes unrighteousness. Therefore, in leading the people of the world to engage in practicing righteousness, I should be doing what heaven wants.’”
 
“We must, Fred, keep in mind that, ‘righteousness’, for Mo means his doctrine of Universal Love. This is not the same meaning that Confucius gave to the term. As Fung points out [Fung Yu-lan, A Short History of Chinese Philosophy], the term for Confucius was a ‘categorical imperative’ (although this is not the correct term). Confucius just meant there are unalterable moral duties which must be done out of duty regardless of consequences. Of course, other considerations, as long as they are moral, can override what may seem to be, at first glance, a particular duty. Notice also Mo’s appeal to ‘heaven’. This is similar to claims made by Western religious leaders, usually when reason is not on their side.”
 
“Mo continues: ‘I say: With righteousness the world lives and without righteousness the world dies, with it the world becomes orderly and without it the world becomes chaotic. Now, Heaven wants to have the world live and dislikes to have it die, wants to have it rich and dislikes to have it poor, wants to have it orderly and dislikes to have it chaotic. Therefore I know Heaven wants righteousness and dislikes unrighteousness.’”
 
“This expresses Mo’s view all right, but is not a very good argument despite the ‘therefore.’ How do you know Heaven wants righteousness? Because righteousness makes the world live and Heaven wants the world to live, ergo. This is R=L, H=L | H=R. Something like Nazis like their mothers, so do communists, therefore communists like Nazis. So, besides being a poor argument, even were it a good argument it just pushes the problem back a step--i.e., how do you know Heaven wants the world to live (as opposed to being indifferent). Because Heaven likes righteousness? And Heaven likes righteousness because it wants the world to live? He is running around in a circle here. His argument for Universal Love will have to stand on its own merits which right now means an appeal to the benefits it will bring the world. Despite Mo’s plans there is no ‘divine’ or ‘heavenly’ sanction for the Mohist Maxim.”

​“And Chan makes the following observation: ‘Even the will of Heaven and righteousness are explained in terms of practical results.’”
 
“Yes, but I think it important to look at the logic involved as well.”
 
“Now he says, ‘Moreover, righteousness is the standard. It is not to be given by the subordinate to the superior but be given from the superior to the subordinate. Therefore the common people should attend to their work with all their might, and should not forthwith set up the standard themselves.’”
 
“I am afraid we are about to discover the feudal limitations to Mo’s views.”
 
“Well Karl, he says, ‘Gentlemen of the world of course clearly understand that the emperor gives the standard to the three ministers, the several feudal lords, the minor officials, and the common people, but the common people of the world do not clearly understand that Heaven gives the standard to the emperor. Therefore the ancient sage-kings of the Three Dynasties [Xia, Shang, and Zhou]. Yu, Tang, and Wu, desiring to make it clear to the common people that Heaven gives the standard to the emperor, all fed oxen and sheep with grass and dogs and pigs with grain, and cleanly prepared pastry and wine to sacrifice to the Lord on High and spiritual beings and pray to Heaven for blessing. But I have not heard of Heaven praying to the emperor for blessing. I therefore know that Heaven gives the standard to the emperor. Thus the emperor is the most honorable in the world and the richest in the world. Therefore those who desire honor and wealth cannot but obey the will of Heaven.’”
 
“I don’t know about feeding grain to dogs, but this sounds like an accurate view of the feudal mentality at this time in China and even right up until a hundred or so years ago. At this time the Greeks already were experimenting with democracy and letting the common people [hoi polloi] have their say. The Chinese are thinking more along the lines of the Persians. I think this shows the advantages of the city state or polis over larger territorial entities. Meanwhile notice all this ‘Heaven’ and ‘spiritual beings’ talk. Unlike Confucius, Mo is trying to give an aura of popular religion, quite foreign to the sentiments of most educated Chinese, to his philosophy. This is a real violation of the Prime Directive of Philosophy [only use Reason].”
 
“The Mozi goes on: ‘Well, how did Yu, Tang, Wen, and Wu obtain rewards? Mozi said: On the highest level they honored Heaven, on the middle level they served spiritual beings, and on the lower level they loved the people. Therefore the will of Heaven proclaimed, “They love universally those whom I love. They benefit universally those whom I benefit. Such love of people is really universal and such benefit to people is really substantial.” Therefore Heaven caused them to have the honor of being Sons of Heaven and possess the wealth of the whole empire.’”
 
“More religious coloring.”
 
“Even more coming up because now we see what happens to bad rulers! ‘Well how did Jie [last of the Xia dynasty], Zhou, Yu [R. 781-771 BC], and Li [R. 878-842 BC] incur punishment? Mozi said: On the highest level they blasphemed against Heaven, on the middle level they blasphemed against spiritual beings, and on the lower level they injured the people. Therefore the will of Heaven proclaimed, “They set themselves apart from those whom I love and hated them. They injure all those whom I benefit. Such hatred of people is really universal and such injury to people is really substantial.” Therefore Heaven caused them not to live out their life-span or to survive their generation.’”
 
“And what conclusions can be drawn from all this?”
 
“It's as Mo says--the ruler must follow righteousness i.e., practice universal love. Not doing so means that one has to rule by means of violence against the people! This leads to your undoing. Therefore following Mo’s philosophy ‘is beneficial to Heaven on the highest level, beneficial to spiritual beings on the middle level, and beneficial to man on the lower level. Being beneficial to these three means being beneficial to all. Therefore the whole world gives them a good name and calls them sage-kings.’ As for those bad rulers that go against Heaven, spiritual beings, and the people, ‘Not being beneficial to these three means not being beneficial to all. Therefore the whole world gives them a bad name and calls them wicked kings.’”
 
“I can’t think of any other Chinese philosopher who made such a pitch to religion. Mo was obviously trying to spread his ideas to the common people, not the educated elite!”
 
“Chan would agree with you Karl. His comment on all this is as follows: ‘In teaching obedience to the will of Heaven, Mozi was the most religious of ancient Chinese philosophers’”
 
“Unless he was a hypocrite.”
 
“A hypocrite? Why would you say that?”
 
“Listen to what Fung says about this. ‘Mozi’s proof of the existence of spirits is done primarily in order that he may introduce a religious sanction for his doctrine of all-embracing love, rather than because of any real interest in supernatural matters.’ He then quotes a passage not found in Chan’s book. This is from Chapter 31 of the Mozi: ‘If now all the people of the world could be made to believe that the spirits can reward the good and punish the bad, would the world then be in chaos?’ On the basis of this Fung concludes that Mo’s ‘doctrine of the Will of God and the existence of spirits is only to induce people to believe that they will be rewarded if they practice all-embracing love, and punished if they do not. Such a belief among the people was something useful; hence Mozi wanted it.’”
 
“That is highly speculative. Fung can’t know what Mo really thought. Are we not bound to respect the text, everything else being equal?”
 
“Oh, I think so. The Prime Directive and the text are all we have to go on. But it would not be, if Fung is right anyway, the only instance of a philosopher, or religious leader, telling one thing to hoi polloi while having another doctrine--the ‘real’ doctrine--for his followers.”
 
“The next selection in Chan is from Chapter 35 and he calls it ‘Attack on Fatalism. Pt. 1’. “
 
“This is the Chinese word “ming” which we translate as fate. “
 
“Yes, and Mozi used it to describe people both he and we would call ‘fatalists.’ Why do anything since Fate has already determined everything that will happen?”
 
“Those people are like those who think that since God is all powerful everything that happens happens according to His will. Some Marxists are like that too. Since ‘socialism’ is inevitable all we have to do is sit back and wait for it to happen. Another word we could use is ‘determinism.’ Everything is determined by the laws of nature and the previous state of the universe so we really can’t do anything except what has been predestined or predetermined. That, Fred, pretty much catches what Mo means by ming.”
 
“Well Mo does not approve of them. He says, ‘With this doctrine they tried to persuade the kings, dukes, and great officials above and to prevent the common people from doing their work. Therefore the fatalists are not men of humanity. Their doctrine must be clearly examined.’”
 
“I remember this. Mo puts forth a scientific procedure for looking at knowledge claims. Very advanced for his time.”
 
“That it is. He says that in order to examine a doctrine or knowledge claim some ‘standard’ must be adopted. Actually, he will have three standards. ‘For any doctrine some standard must be adopted. To expound a doctrine without a standard is like determining the directions of sunrise and sunset on a revolving potter’s wheel. In this way the distinction of right and wrong and benefit and harm cannot be clearly known. Therefore for any doctrine there must be the three standards. What are the three standards? Mozi said: [1] There must be a basis or foundation. [2] There must be an examination. [3] And there must be practical application. [1] Where to find the basis? Find it in the [will of Heaven and the spirits] the experiences of the ancient sage-kings above. [2] How is it to be examined? It is to be examined by inquiring into the actual experience of the eyes and ears of the people below. [3] How to apply it? Put it into law and governmental measures and see if they bring about benefits to the state and the people. These are called the three standards.’”
 
“This is a very good passage Fred. It could be updated to apply to the Chinese government today .”
 
“How so?”
 
“Well, [1] would be replaced by the experiences of the international communist and worker’s movements as well as what happens when you join the World Bank and the IMF. [2] This means that there should be more democratic procedures by which the masses of the Chinese people can get their opinions taken into consideration. I’m not saying the Party has to back off, but that it should be more inclusive and democratic. [3] This can stand as it is!”
 
“Chan agrees with this procedure. I think he calls it ‘pragmatic’. You can see the Mohist Maxim at work in [3] and his religious views in [1]. I can see why the Chinese government of today would have to change that. Chan actually says this is a ‘surprisingly scientific procedure: basis, examination, and application.’”
 
“Does he say anything else about fatalism, Fred?”
 
“He ends the discussion by reiterating the dangers of the idea and that human action is not all that important. He really opposes the “que será,será” attitude. ‘If the doctrine of the fatalist is put into practice, the ruler above would not attend to government, and the people below would not attend to their work.’ He is also upset because he says the religious duties won’t be carried out either. Why bother if you are a fatalist? ‘Therefore on the higher level fatalism is not beneficial to heaven, on the middle level it is not beneficial to spiritual beings, and on the lower level it is not beneficial to men. The unreasoning adherence to this doctrine is the source of evil ideas and the way of the wicked man. Therefore Mozi said: If the gentlemen of the world today really want the world to be rich and dislike it to be poor, and want the world to be orderly and dislike it to be chaotic, they must condemn the doctrine of fatalism. It is a great harm to the world.’”
 
“I can tell you that if you were a contemporary Mohist you would think the gentlemen of today in our new century do not really want the world to be rich rather than poor, nor do they dislike its being chaotic.”
 
“How so, Karl?”
 
“Because our so-called leaders don’t apply the Mohist Maxim to the problems confronting mankind today. Take the position of universal love for example. We have to think of all peoples and nations the same way--try to show love and understanding to everyone. This would mean in our own country that Blacks and Hispanics as well as whites, Amerindians, and others would all be the same--really not in just theory. Yet our leaders are still playing games with affirmative action, equal access to jobs and education. This shows they prefer evil ideas to universal love. There would also have to be an end to all the nonsense about ‘illegal aliens’ and hunting poor people down on the borders and trying to deport them. That doesn’t show any kind of universal love. The leaders would have to provide medical care and medicines, and housing, and education, and decent food for everyone without worrying that this might conflict with the so-called ‘rights’ of certain people or corporations to make money at the expense of these services not being available to everyone on an ‘as needed’ basis. This is all demanded in the name of ‘universal love.’ The military would have to go too. We have to share all the world's goodies with all the people of the world--love demands nothing less. That means the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East have to start loving each other--and it is up to the leaders to set the example for the people to follow. The land has to be shared and in fact, Jews, Muslims and Christians, as well as Buddhists and others have to get together on one religion for everyone.”
 
“Oh Boy!”
 
“What can I say. Anything that divides the people and causes hatred and violence contradicts universal love and must go. Different religions do just that. Remember the Mohist Maxim. ‘Consider what benefits we conceive our belief to have., etc.’ If the gentlemen of today really want a peaceful and caring world they have to get together and start practicing universal love. But I think you would agree that they really only care about their own nations and groups and within their own groups and the rich and powerful only want to perpetuate their own selfish interests. Therefore a contemporary Mohist would be most upset with the gentlemen of today.”
 
“Did you say ‘Mohist’ or ‘Maoist’?”
 
“I know. But I said ‘Mohist.’ We will discuss Mao some other time and see if your snide comment is justified.”
 
“Now there are six more points which Chan thinks are important for a good understanding of Mohism.”
 
“So let’s get on with it. What is the first?”
 
“We discussed his ‘utilitarianism’ or ‘pragmatism’ before, but we should note these additional quotes. ‘Mozi said: Any word or action that is beneficial to Heaven, spiritual beings, and the people is to be undertaken.... Any doctrine that can elevate conduct should be perpetuated....In issuing orders, promoting any undertaking, employing the people, or expending wealth, the sage-kings in their administration never do anything that is not useful. Therefore re- sources are not wasted and the people can be freed from being overworked, and many benefits will be promoted....’”
 
“Again, this shows the Chinese penchant of trying to justify the ideas of the present by an appeal to the way things were done in the past. This is not just a Chinese trait! I think this quote agrees with my views about contemporary Mohism expressed a little while ago. What is the second point?”
 
“The second point is his condemnation of war. Mo hated war even though he was in the professional mercenary class! He would only fight defensive wars. As far as war is concerned, He wrote: ‘The multitude are injured and oppressed and the people are scattered.... Does it mean to benefit the people? The benefit to the people from killing the people of Heaven is slight indeed! And calculate the cost! This is the root of destruction of life. It exhausts the people to an immeasurable degree. Thus... no benefit to the people can be attained.’”

“Mo may have been the most concerned for the welfare of the common people, at least in this respect, than any of the ancient philosophers--east or west! What is the third point?”
 
“This is his condemnation of music. He talks about music, but you could extend his critique to art as such, all forms of art. Again he sounds like Mao. That’s why I asked you ‘Mo or Mao’?”
 
“Ok, Ok! What’s the passage?”
 
“’The reason why Mozi condemns music is not because the sounds of the big bells, resounding drums, harps and pipes are not delightful.... But set against the past it is not in accord with the deeds of the sage-kings and checked with the present it is not in accord with the benefits of the people. Therefore Mozi said: To engage in music is wrong.... To levy heavy taxes on the people in order to produce the sounds of big bells, resounding drums, harps, and pipes does not help the promotion of benefits and the removal of harms in the world.... Now kings, dukes, and great officials engage in music. To strike musical instruments they loot the people’s resources for food and clothing to such an extent.... Now kings, dukes, and great officials love music and listen to it, they certainly cannot go to court early and retire late in order to listen to litigations and administer the government. Therefore the country is in chaos and the state in danger.... Therefore Mozi said: To engage in music is wrong.’”
 
“Well, Fred, the condemnation is not against music per se. I can see no objection to folk music or the music the peasants might be playing in the villages. He is attacking the exploitation of the people by the court in order to support the official music [and art] productions of the state. This even sounds a little Daoist. Under appropriate non-exploitative social arrangements, even Mo would approve of music as ‘delightful’. This is the Mohist Maxim again. If we could create a society where music was beneficial and not based on exploitation of the people, I can’t see why a modern Mohist would object. As far as your reference to Mao, this was the original intention of Mao, however it may have turned out.”
 
“The fourth point is the condemnation of elaborate funerals. ‘Now the gentlemen of the world still doubt whether elaborate funerals and extended mourning are right or wrong, beneficial or harmful. Therefore Mozi said: I have inquired into the matter.... So, much wealth is buried in elaborate funerals and long periods of work are suspended in extended mourning. Wealth that is already produced is carried to be buried and wealth yet to be produced is long delayed. To seek wealth in this way is like seeking a harvest by stopping farming....’”
 
“This is very much in tune with his condemnation of music. Archaeologists won’t like this point! What’s the fifth point?”
 
“This is a point about who should be getting government positions. ‘How do we know elevating the worthy is the foundation of government? The answer is: When the honorable and the wise run the government, the ignorant and the humble remain orderly, but when the ignorant and the humble run the government, the honorable and the wise become rebellious. Therefore we know that elevating the worthy is the foundation of government.’”
 
“Very good, Fred. But who are the ‘honorable and wise’?”
 
“Who? I’ll tell you. They are the practitioners of universal love. That is, they should be. They should be true sages and philosophers. So Mo is saying just what Plato said. Philosophers should be the ones running the show! And of course the Confucians would be in agreement with Mo. Only instead of Mohist sages, Confucian sages would be in charge.”
 
“But who would be the true sages?”
 
“I’ll let you decide. We have covered some Confucians: Kongzi (Confucius) himself, Mengzi (Mencius) and he attacked Mo’s views on universal love, and we have discussed Xunzi to see whose arguments appear the better.”
 
“Well, Karl, here is our sixth and last point. Chan calls it ‘Agreement with the Superior.’ I’m not sure Mo looks too good in this section.”
 
“Let’s get with it!”
 
“He says: ‘Now, the frequent arrival of hurricanes and torrents are the punishment from Heaven upon the people for their failure to agree with Heaven....’”
 
“Yes, that is very bad, very superstitious. Like blaming God for the Lisbon earthquake in Voltaire’s day. This is retrograde compared to Confucius and Xunzi. This really calls in question Fung’s apologetics concerning Mo’s belief in the supernatural.”
 
“Now we get an answer to the question ‘How do we know that the principle of agreement with the superior can be used to govern the empire?’ This principle is important to Mo who after all was the supremo of a band of warriors and who definitely thought in terms of military obedience to the ‘superior.’ We get this answer from a consideration of Mo’s theory of the beginning of government.”
 
“This should be interesting!”
 
“Mo thinks that originally people did not have rulers. Everybody had their own way of doing things and their own moral and ethical system. ‘All of them considered their own concepts of right as correct and other people’s concepts as wrong. And there was strife among the strong and quarrels among the weak. Thereupon Heaven wished to unify all concepts of right in the world. The worthy were therefore selected and made emperor.’ The emperor then selected the ministers who then divided up the land and created the feudal lords all in the furtherance of better government since the emperor could not do everything by himself.”
 
“This sounds like the ‘Divine Right of Kings’ in so far as it appears that ‘Heaven’ somehow chose the emperor and while all other authority is delegated from him, his rests on that original choice. The ‘Mandate of Heaven’ is due to the desire of ‘Heaven’--Mo’s anthropomorphic god concept-- to have only one universal standard of ‘right’ prevail. Just like the Christians and others following Augustine’s views that there is a universal standard ‘God’s Will’.
 
“Muslims and Jews too, Karl.”
 
“Everybody gets into the act. At least Mo appeals to his utilitarian principles of benefit so that the sages have to figure out Heaven’s will. He doesn’t maintain that ‘Heaven” or its representatives came down and told him what its will was.”
 
“Yes, but if the sage gets it wrong there is Zeus with his thunderbolt!”
 
“Finish the passage.”
 
“’The feudal lords, realizing their inadequate wisdom and ability to govern the lands within the four borders by themselves, selected the next best in virtue.... Therefore, in appointing the three ministers, the feudal lords, the great officers, the prime minister, the village elders, and the heads of households, the emperor of old did not select them because of their wealth, high position, or leisure, but employed them to assist in bringing political order and administering the government.... When order prevails in the empire, the emperor further unifies all concepts of right as one in the empire and makes it agree with [the will of] Heaven. Therefore the principle of agreement with the superior can be applied by the emperor to govern the empire, by the feudal lords to govern the state, and the heads of households to govern the family....’”
 
“I remember Chan’s saying that many thought this smacked of absolutism. It reminds me of the Führerprinzip in a way, only it’s Heaven rather than a plebiscite that determines the ruler--but then vox populi, vox dei.”
 
“I thought you liked Mo’s views.”
 
“I like some of them. This Führerprinzip is not one of them. But, I suppose that it derives from the ideal of a sage king who understands the will of Heaven. This could also reflect back negatively on Plato’s philosopher kings.”
 
“Listen, Karl, Chan plays down the absolutism. After all, that's a concern of modern times not ancient China with its emperor system. Although I can see how some people might think of Mao again--with the will of the Party rather than the will of Heaven. Or was Mao’s will the will of the Party rather than the other way around?”
 
“Well, I suppose the saving grace here is that it is not a subjective will which is at stake. Philosophy is called in to determine what is the best thing to do to promote the general good (by definition the will of Heaven) and this is to be objectively determined by the sage or philosopher king. So it’s really not absolutism in the sense of the personal will of the ruler. So Mo, Mao and Plato may be off the hook!”
 
“Well, that's it for the Mozi selections in Chan. Who's next?”
 
“I think we should look at Daoism and discuss Laozi.”
 
“Fine. Let's do him next"

​To read the Confucius Dialogue click here.
To read the Mencius Dialogue click here.
To read the Xunzi Dialogue click here.