Karl Marx a racist? [Archive]

ComradeGrant

12th December 2010, 06:35

La ComÃ©die Noire

12th December 2010, 06:48

Marx dropped some N bombs in his time, but this was in private correspondence and not something he advertised to the public. As for him being racist in the sense that he believed in races as biological categories that could be placed on a spectrum from inferior to superior I don't know. I have never seen a quote by him that supports these views, but they were dominant in the 19th century.

You're also going to run into Marx's pro-imperialist stance or "educating the savages." At the time it seemed like the conquering of undeveloped countries by the European powers helped usher them in to a higher stage of development, that is capitalist development. However, we now know this is not true. Instead of creating a full well rounded economy, it creates tiny islands of industry for cheap products and ruthlessly exploits mineral resources.

Regardless, Marx should be evaluated on the merits of his ideas we find correct. Someone said it before on here about Dr. King's religion, but it applies here "someone can be right about one thing and wrong about another."

I'd question your friend as to why he's throwing out this strawman that Marx was a racist. Sounds like a cheap shot to avoid taking on Marx intellectually.

WeAreReborn

12th December 2010, 06:59

Honestly, using that word does not make one a racist considering the time period. Kropotkin used it but he was doing so to refer to how other people identify them with and actually in context it was anti-racism. So you have to see the context in which it was written because the word alone means absolutely nothing.

Red Commissar

12th December 2010, 07:03

Hmm, the usual claim they make is that Marx was anti-semitic. I haven't heard the angle about him being racist towards blacks until now.

As far as Marxists.org shows his use of "nigger", it comes up in some of his letters. Notably this one to Engels where he describes Lasalle:

The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, I’m glad to say, is leaving at the end of this week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a ‘friend’, even though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no doubt by the countess). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the American affair, etc., and hence about the state of crisis I’m in, had the insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a ‘companion’, and whether he himself should secure Gerstenberg’s (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any ‘business’ just now, but merely upon a ‘theoretical work’, I might just as well kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors vis-à-vis the fellow, my wife had to put in pawn everything that wasn’t actually nailed or bolted down!

....

It is now quite plain to me — as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify — that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow’s importunity is also nigger-like.

...

One of our nigger’s great discoveries — which, however, he only confides to his ‘closest friends’ — is that the Pelasgians were of Semitic descent. The main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees, the Jews send emissaries to solicit the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat Stucker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.

In this letter (1862) he remarks that a "nigger" regiment would have a profound effect on the Southern army.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_08_07.htm

I don’t quite share your views on the American Civil War, I do not believe that all is up. From the outset, the Northerners have been dominated by the representatives of the border slave states, who were also responsible for pushing McClellan, that old partisan of Breckinridge, to the top. The South, on the other hand, acted as a single whole right from the very start. The North itself turned slavery into a pro- instead of an anti-Southern military force. The South leaves productive labour to the slaves and could thus take the field undisturbed with its fighting force intact. It had a unified military leadership; the North did not. That there was no strategical plan is evident if only from the manoeuvrings of the Kentucky Army after the capture of Tennessee. In my view, all this is going to take another turn. The North will, at last, wage the war in earnest, have recourse to revolutionary methods and overthrow the supremacy of the border slave statesmen. One single nigger regiment would have a remarkable effect on Southern nerves.

In the following he also employs the word "nigger", but more in the way it was often used in the 1800s. In here Engels to Marx deplores President Andrew Johnson's Reconstruction, seeing that hatred towards blacks has increased and that the former-slaves would be doomed to poverty.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_07_15.htm

Mr Johnson’s policy is less and less to my liking, too. Nigger-hatred is coming out more and more violently, and he is relinquishing all his power vis-à-vis the old lords in the South. If this should continue, all the old secessionist scoundrels will be in Congress in Washington in 6 months time. Without coloured suffrage nothing can be done, and Johnson is leaving it up to the defeated, the ex-slaveowners, to decide on that. It is absurd. Nevertheless, one must still reckon on things turning out differently from what these barons imagined. After all, the majority of them have been completely ruined and will be glad to sell land to immigrants and speculators from the North. The latter will arrive soon enough and make a good number of changes. I think the mean whites will gradually die out. Nothing more will become of this race; those who are left after 2 generations will merge with the immigrants to make a completely different race.

The niggers will probably turn into small squatters as in Jamaica. Thus ultimately the oligarchy will go to pot after all, but the process could be accomplished immediately at one fell swoop, whereas it is now being drawn out.

Beyond that though, I can't see anything. The harshest he goes is with that letter to Lassalle, and I think that's more of his heated rivalry with Lasalle coming out more than anything. The later bits he uses "nigger" as a way to describe Africans, but that was as far as I know the norm during those times. He doesn't seem to use it in a hateful manner then and you can see from his correspondence he was disappointed that Reconstruction didn't go far enough in helping and elevating the freed slaves.

∞

12th December 2010, 07:18

Yes his views on the reconstruction actually were pro-black suffrage.

Purple

12th December 2010, 08:28

I find it weird that someone would call Karl Marx an anti-Semetic of all things. I remember reading that Bakunin (old-school syndicalist) thought that Marx was bunk because he was a part of a "sect" of Jewish "blood-suckers". But looking at the Wikipedia section that explores Marx's anti-Semitism, I guess he had a couple of odd views here and there.

Taken directly from the Wikipedia article's quotation of Marx's "The Jewish Question".
"What is the secular cult of the Jew? Haggling. What is his secular god? Money."

I like Comrade Floyd's comment: we can disagree with the man on some things, but that doesn't mean that we should debunk him on an intellectual level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#Accusations_of_antisemitism

PoliticalNightmare

12th December 2010, 09:50

I couldn't find this on here already so I'm sorry if it's been covered. First new thread and all. An objectivist friend of mine was quoting a book recently, Karl Marx, Racist. The book claims Marx was a racist and that he used the N word many times. Is any of this true? I know Marx supported Lincoln in freeing the slaves and all but my friend says that isn't the point. Thanks ahead of time.

Many, many people of Marx's time had racist/homophobic views (I don't know that Marx was homophobic). I'd say Marx was pretty radical considering all of that. In any case its his specific political, economic (and for the most part, social) views we are interested in: it sounds like your friend just wants to take a cheap shot at Marx and use that as a way of saying the huge, huge intellectual background of his reasoning was void because of a few racist slants. I'm sure there were lots of pre 20th Century right wingers: classical liberals, conservatives, whom your friend adores who have racist/sexist/homophobic views - does it mean your friend is racist/sexist/homophobic?

synthesis

12th December 2010, 11:31

quotes

Also, a lot of these are translated from other languages; it's hard to see how the original words could really have the same impact as the American English term.

costello1977

12th December 2010, 11:49

Just revisionism. The use of one racist term does not mean someone is racist. The fact is he clearly didn't believe in race and divisions between people. How then could he believe anyone was beneath him?

Sean

12th December 2010, 11:57

Everyone up until modern times were racist, homophobic shit-flinging apes. I'm sure our kids will look back on even the most open minded of us and cringe at how discriminatory we are. If they don't, then we're terrible future parents. To judge someone from another generation over by today's standards is unfair, its taken a long time for civilization to make baby steps back to common fucking civility but I think if you graphed it, it would be a hockey stick from the last two centuries till now.

The important thing is that anyone who has read marx properly is normally equipped with enough common sense and critical thought to take his tirades against, for example the lumpenproletariat with a pinch of salt. Its not a bible, you shouldnt hold sacred any books and certainly not divine sick conclusions based on whatever racism you and pull out of them. Its a really weak argument and unsuprising but a little sad that theres an anti-marx book devoted to it. It sounds like those awful democrat/republican partisan hack books where american talking heads warp and twist things to show that the other side is the real racist.

It's all covered in my book your Objectivist friend should read: Ayn Rand: Slag.

mikelepore

12th December 2010, 12:34

Maybe "nigger" was considered a regular description in the 1860s. At that time, did most non-Spanish people even know about the Spanish word "negro"? English speakers seem to have mispronounced all Spanish words, from "Rio Grande" to "Amarillo, Texas", so I wouldn't expect them to know how to correctly pronounce "negro."

hatzel

12th December 2010, 13:48

Zanthorus

12th December 2010, 13:55

Considering,

That the emancipation of the productive class is that of all human beings without distinction of sex or race;- Programme of the French Parti Ouvrier, Preamble (Drafted by Marx)

Also I'm fairly sure that the 'anti-semitic' remarks in On the Jewish Question are about the Jewish religion (And in terms of religion Marx pulled no punches for any of them) not about Jews as a 'race'.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th December 2010, 14:16

I think this SPGB article answers much of the above (I have had to reconstruct this passage, and add the links and quotations, so please check the original to see if I have done this correctly; link at the end):

Karl Marx - the racist?

A comment piece by a certain Professor Walter Williams, has been doing the rounds on the internet. This is part of what he wrote, which was published on 21 june 2006:

Karl Marx is the hero of some labor union leaders and civil rights organizations, including those who organized the recent protest against proposed immigration legislation. It's easy to be a Marxist if you haven't read his writings. Most people agree that Marx's predictions about capitalism turned out to be dead wrong.

What most people don't know is that Marx was an out and out racist and anti-Semite. He didn't think much of Mexicans. Concerning the annexation of California after the Mexican-American War, Marx wrote: "Without violence nothing is ever accomplished in history." Then he asks, "Is it a misfortune that magnificent California was seized from the lazy Mexicans who did not know what to do with it?" Friedrich Engels, Marx's co-author of the "Manifesto of the Communist Party," added, "In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at it. It is to the interest of its own development that Mexico will be placed under the tutelage of the United States." Much of Marx's ideas can be found in a book written by former communist Nathaniel Weyl, titled "Karl Marx, Racist" (1979).

In a July 1862 letter to Engels, in reference to his socialist political competitor, Ferdinand Lassalle, Marx wrote, ". . . it is now completely clear to me that he, as is proved by his cranial formation and his hair, descends from the Negroes from Egypt, assuming that his mother or grandmother had not interbred with a nigger. Now this union of Judaism and Germanism with a basic Negro substance must produce a peculiar product. The obtrusiveness of the fellow is also nigger-like."

Engels shared much of Marx's racial philosophy. In 1887, Paul Lafargue, who was Marx's son-in-law, was a candidate for a council seat in a Paris district that contained a zoo. Engels claimed that Paul had "one eighth or one twelfth nigger blood." In an April 1887 letter to Paul's wife, Engels wrote, "Being in his quality as a nigger, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district."

I had never read the letters mentioned by Williams. A quick search of the Marxists Internet Archive will retrieve the full texts. It is indeed very surprising to see the two reds write in such terms. So what is the truth of the matter?

Firstly, Williams is wrong to regard Marx as an anti-semite. This claim, be it from Nazis or Zionists alike, is based on the early On the Jewish Question (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm) piece by Marx.

This was written at a time when Marx was beginning to develop his communist thinking, so the piece does not discuss Capital or wage labour and is heavily laced with philosophical vernacular. When read carefully, Marx was not being an anti-semite; he was making a call for human emancipation - an emancipation that could be arrived at through the establishment of a moneyless society. More detailed rebuttals of the anti-semite charge are to be found by Hal Draper (http://marxmyths.org/hal-draper/article.htm) and Adam Buick (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/overview/money.pdf).

A point worth remembering is the position of Jews in 1800s Germany. They were considered outcasts and did not own land like the peasants. An option open to them for making a living, usury, was considered sinful by the Christian Church. It becomes easy to see how the Jews became stereotyped. Despite the fact that usury became a way of making money for everyone later on, the Nazis still employed this socio-economic aspect of German history in their racist propaganda.

The "lazy Mexicans" remark is also easily disposed of. The only piece I could find with this exact phrase is Engels article in Neue Rheinische Zeitung from February 1849 (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1849/02/15.htm) dealing with Bakunin and (the article's name) "Democratic Pan-Slavism."

In an earlier post, I linked to the article "Marx In His Time." That article remarked that capitalism was only beginning to develop and for Marx and Engels that meant that the system still had a progressive role to play in breaking down the political and economic structures of feudalism and developing the material basis for socialism.

Williams doesn't deal with the entire quote:

Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of "boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.

How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been "fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical, commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?

The Marxist Internet Archive commentary is worth reading here:

The reference is to the war of 1846-48 between the United States of America and Mexico, as a result of which the USA seized almost half of Mexico’s territory, including the whole of Texas, Upper California, New Mexico and other regions. In assessing these events in the article Engels proceeded from the general conception that it was progressive for patriarchal and feudal countries to be drawn into the orbit of bourgeois relations because, he thought, this accelerated the creation of preconditions for a proletarian revolution. In subsequent years, however, he and Marx fully understood the deplorable consequences of colonial conquests and the subjugation of backward countries by large states. In particular, having made a thorough study of the history of US aggression in Mexico and other countries of the American continent, Marx in his article “The Civil War in North America” (1861) described it as expansion in the interests of the then dominant slave-owning oligarchy in the Southern States and of the bourgeois elements in the North which supported it, as a policy aimed at seizing new territories to spread slavery.

It isn't a rareity in Marx and Engels to see them describe groups of people as lazy or cowardly. This is not a slur of a racial nature but a description of their actions in an historical context.

The Socialist Party uses race as a singular noun. There is only one race: the Human Race (Homo sapiens). Looking back to 1904, when the party wrote its founding object and declaration of principles it is easy to see that race was considered a plural noun:

That as in the order of social evolution the working class is the last class to achieve its freedom, the emancipation of the working class will involve the emancipation of all mankind, without distinction of race or sex.

A sample clip from the "Socialist Standard" (an article called "The Next Great War," from November 1914) will also reveal a use of the word "race" in a way we wouldn't use today:

We know that, so far was it from being true that the devlopment of the instruments of destruction had rendered war too awful for advanced peoples to contemplate, that among the teeming millions of the most advanced races of the earth the greatest triumphs of the engines of butchery were received with the greatest joy. (My emphasis.)

This plural use of race is still in general use today, despite the best efforts of the SPGB. Obviously, it was held back in 1904 and back into the 1800s. You'll see many a work where Marx and Engels will discuss races, even among white Europeans.

The "advanced" bit also needs an explanation. The marxian way of thinking looks at the means of production. Capitalism, as we have seen above, develops the productive forces of society to a higher level - instead of small scale and isolated, subsistance production, the factory system and interconnected large-scale production becomes the norm. The advanced nations (or races in this 1914 context) were Europe and the USA because the capitalist system was well developed. This aspect of marxian thinking was to receive much criticism later on as being Eurocentric.

[addition: it was quite common to regard Europe as a centre of civilisation in the 1800s; just look at the way Engels describes Austria as barbarous in this piece (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/01/27.htm): "Hence the House of Austria was invincible as long as the barbarous character of its subjects remained untouched. Hence it was threatened by only one danger — the penetration of bourgeois civilisation."]

Now for the hard part.

"Nigger" did not, it seem, have the pejorative meaning that it does today; there are contradictory accounts on the word's history on the net, here [this link no longer works -- RL] and here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigger_%28word%29). Even now, the word is full of contradiction: a white would be castigated for using it, whereas "the brothers and sisters" - especially in the rap scene, e.g. the famous group NWA [this link no longer works -- RL] - use it quite alot.

Even so, Marx's use of it in his letter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.htm) to Engels, in reference to Lassalle, does raise an eyebrow. As does Engels reference to Paul Lafargue being closer to the animal kingdom than others. The latter reference becomes even more mysterious given that Engels was writing to Laura, Paul's wife! Were those lines written in anger or jest? It is no secret that Marx was not particularly fond of Lassalle.

Marx was against slavery: "Labour cannot emancipate itself in the white skin where in the black it is branded."

The blurb to August Nimtz's book "Marx, Tocqueville, and Race in America : The Absolute Democracy or Defiled Republic" states:

While Alexis de Tocqueville described America as the absolute democracy, Karl Marx saw the nation as a defiled republic so long as it permitted the enslavement of blacks. August J. Nimtz argues that Marx, unlike Tocqueville, not only recognized that the overthrow of slavery and the cessation of racial oppression were central to democracy's realization but was willing to act on these convictions. This potent and insightful investigation into the approaches of two major thinkers provides fresh insight into past and present debates about race and democracy in America.

Chapter One of the book is online (http://www.iefd.org/articles/democracy_in_america.php) and worth reading because it discusses the Jewish Question too.

This should also be compared to a letter (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/letters/65_07_15.htm) from Engels to Marx, from 1865:

Mr Johnson’s policy is less and less to, my liking, too. Nigger -hatred is coming out more and more violently, and he is relinquishing all his power vis-à-vis the old lords in the South. If this should continue, all the old secessionist scoundrels will be in Congress in Washington in 6 months time. Without coloured suffrage nothing can be done, and Johnson is leaving it up to the defeated, the ex-slaveowners, to decide on that. It is absurd. Nevertheless, one must still reckon on things turning out differently from what these barons imagined. After all, the majority of them have been completely ruined and will be glad to sell land to immigrants and speculators from the North. The latter will arrive soon enough and make a good number of changes. I think the mean whites will gradually die out. Nothing more will become of this race; those who are left after 2 generations will merge with the immigrants to make a completely different race.

The niggers will probably turn into small squatters as in Jamaica. Thus ultimately the oligarchy will go to pot after all, but the process could be accomplished immediately at one fell swoop, whereas it is now being drawn out.

What becomes readily apparant from all this is the way Marx and Engels applied a view of race that was of their time. Darwin had only just postulated the origin of the species through natural selection, which was to be refined further by Mendel and inheritence. The whole spectrum of thought on human evolution, anthropology, genetics, "genethics" and psychology that we have today was obviously unheard of then.

When Engels, above, speaks of "Nigger" blood he is using a phrase still found to this day, whereas "everyone" knows that biological characteristics are passed on through chromosomes and the DNA they contain. Incidentally, racists would attribute unchanging social characteristics to people based on biology, whereas social conditions and relationships for Marx and Engels derived from the means of production, the basis for the reproduction of life, and these are always subject to change.

That said, there is more baffling stuff on race. This time, Engels to Marx (https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/letters/64_11_02a.htm), from 1864:

Schleswig is a curious country — the cast coast very pretty and prosperous, the west coast also prosperous, heath and moors in the middle. All the bays extremely beautiful. The people are decidedly one of the biggest and heaviest of all the human races on Earth, especially the Frisians on the west coast. One only needs to travel across the country to be convinced that the main stock of the English comes from Schleswig. You know the Dutch Frisians, in particular those colossal Frisian women with their delicate white and fresh red complexions (which also predominate in Schleswig). They are the ancestral types of the northern English, and in particular those colossal women, who are also found here in England, all are of decidedly Frisian type. There is no doubt in my mind that the ‘Jutes’ (Anglo-Saxon eotena cyn), who migrated to England with the Angles and Saxons, were Frisians, and that the Danish migration to Jutland, as to Schleswig, dates only from the 7th or 8th century. The present Jutland dialect is proof enough of this.

These fellows are great fanatics and, for that reason, really took my fancy. You must have read something by that extraordinary ‘Dr K. J. Clement of North Friesland’. The man is typical of the whole race. These fellows are in deadly earnest about their struggle against the Danes, which is their whole purpose in life, and the Schleswig-Holstein theory is not an end but a means for them. They regard themselves as a physically and morally superior race to the Danes, and indeed they are. Bismarck was really kidding himself when he thought he could get the measure of such people by his own methods. We have held out against the Danes for fifteen years and became consolidated on our territory, and are we supposed to let these Prussian bureaucrats get us down? — that’s what these fellows were saying.

"...and indeed they are." Is this Engels paraphrasing or making a genuine comparison between the Danes and Schleswig-Holstein Germans? (You can almost begin to see opponents comparing this to the nazis.)

This is by no means an exhaustive coverage of the issue. I shall have to get hold of Nimtz's and Weyl's books - I haven't read either. The whole issue has raised alot of interesting questions; time to read and research to answer them!

Going back to the Williams article, it is obvious that there is an effort to discredit the theories of Marx by going for the man, but this isn't surprising coming as it does from a Libertarian Professor of Economics. Simon W. of the Socialist Party made an interesting point on the issue:

There is a philosophical fallacy known as the 'expert fallacy'. The best recent example of this is Einstein, who was a lovely little physicist but whose opinions on world affairs were considered haphazard. You don't have to agree with Einstein's opinions to agree with his physics. In the same way, you don't have to like someone's personal utterances to agree with their ideas. So, despite what Marx may have said in unguarded moments, his ideas remain worthy of consideration. The irony is that 'philosophers' who are all too keen to prosecute Marx would subscribe to the expert fallacy - for everyone apart from those they have a beef with in terms of their ideas. Can a philosopher recuse themselves?

Marx wasn't a god or an infallible source. He was a man and is open to criticism. The Socialist party doesn't hero worship Marx or engage in a cult of personality (http://www.travel-pictures-gallery.net/silk-road/pics/Bishkek/Bishkek-0005.jpg). Whilst indebted to ideas developed by Marx, such as the Labour theory of value and his analysis of Capitalism in "Das Kapital", our case rests on its own merits.

Let's see what Professor Williams has to say against the SPGB case that capitalism cannot work in the interests of the working class.

http://forum.stirpes.net/ethnopolitics/15684-karl-marx-racist.html#post146183

Hit The North

12th December 2010, 14:34

No one - not even a genius like Marx - stands outside their own place in history. As others have pointed out, words like 'nigger' were in common use in the 19th Century, and were not necessarily held to be insulting. But even if Marx, as a man, held views which were typical in his day, but are considered racist in ours, this is hardly interesting news.

The real point is whether Marxism as a doctrine, or set of ideas, accommodates at all to the construction of a racist politics, either in the past or in the present. I'd suggest it clearly does not. Again, for reasons mentioned by others above.

Rosa Lichtenstein

12th December 2010, 14:35

Also, check these out:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1050535&postcount=3

http://marxmyths.org/hal-draper/article.htm

Hit The North

12th December 2010, 14:53

Also I'm fairly sure that the 'anti-semitic' remarks in On the Jewish Question are about the Jewish religion (And in terms of religion Marx pulled no punches for any of them) not about Jews as a 'race'.

Actually, Marx is not at all interested in the Jews from the point of view of their religion; but only in their political relation to the state, as this passage from Part One of On the Jewish Question, illustrates:

The Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the state in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state, no state as such, the Jewish question is a purely theological one. The Jew finds himself in religious opposition to the state, which recognizes Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian ex professo. Criticism here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism – criticism of Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may operate critically within it.

In France, a constitutional state, the Jewish question is a question of constitutionalism, the question of the incompleteness of political emancipation. Since the semblance of a state religion is retained here, although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula, that of a religion of the majority, the relation of the Jew to the state retains the semblance of a religious, theological opposition.

Only in the North American states – at least, in some of them – does the Jewish question lose its theological significance and become a really secular question. Only where the political state exists in its completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and of the religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore the relation of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character, in its purity. The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as soon as it behaves towards religion as a state – i.e., politically. Criticism, then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point, where the question ceases to be theological, Bauer’s criticism ceases to be critical. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm
We also need to be clear that Marx's purpose in On the Jewish Question, is not to injure Jews, but to defend their struggle for political emancipation, without having to renounce their religion and accept baptism (as Marx's own father was forced to do).

Zanthorus

12th December 2010, 15:43

Hit The North

12th December 2010, 16:03

Yes, but he does make remarks about Jews, which it should be clear are about Jews as followers of a religion, not as a race. In Germany at the time there was persecution against Jews, not as a race but as a religion. Marx's father was a Jew who escaped persecution by converting to Catholicism.

Yes, there's nothing in the text to lead us to assume that Marx viewed Jews as a race. But the religious aspect - the theological identity of Jews - is only considered in terms of how it contributes to the Jews being a special political and juridical community.

Actually, Marx's father converted to Protestantism and not to avoid persecution, but in order to continue practising as a lawyer - which Jews, as non-persons in the eyes of the State, were barred from (among many other professions).

ZeroNowhere

12th December 2010, 16:26

Hit The North

12th December 2010, 16:47

I think that Zanthorus' point was just that Marx explicitly noted that he was discussing religion Jews and the religion of Judaism, and that people who like to attack Marx on the basis of 'anti-Semitism', attacking a 'Jewish race', simply show that they haven't read the bloody thing.

Which I conceded in my post above.

But I was contesting his other assertion that On the Jewish Question is, in part, a critique of Judaism. It is not.

Also, I think that it's quite clear that he is 'interested' in the religion of Judaism, hence why he writes about it.
There is no theological critique in OtJQ. The debate is purely about how Judaism constitutes a particular political and juridical relation to the political state. In fact, a focus on the religion of Judaism is precisely the problem with Bauer's critique, according to Marx:

Thus, Bauer here transforms the question of Jewish emancipation into a purely religious question...

Since Bauer, at the end of his work on the Jewish question, had conceived Judaism only as crude religious criticism of Christianity, and therefore saw in it “merely” a religious significance, it could be foreseen that the emancipation of the Jews, too, would be transformed into a philosophical-theological act...

Bauer considers that the ideal, abstract nature of the Jew, his religion, is his entire nature...
But, for Marx, on the contrary:

We are trying to break with the theological formulation of the question. For us, the question of the Jew’s capacity for emancipation becomes the question: What particular social element has to be overcome in order to abolish Judaism? For the present-day Jew’s capacity for emancipation is the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the modern world. This relation necessarily results from the special position of Judaism in the contemporary enslaved world.

Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew – not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/jewish-question/index.htm

Perhaps you are referring to some other work of Marx's where his interest in the Jews is a religious one?

Anyway, as regards the OP question, this distinction is unimportant. It is important, however, if we want to fully understand marx's approach in On the Jewish Question.

L.A.P.

12th December 2010, 23:02

Red Commissar

12th December 2010, 23:02

Also, a lot of these are translated from other languages; it's hard to see how the original words could really have the same impact as the American English term.

According to the notes they have on Marxists.org, anywhere in the transcript where the word is bolded means they were used in that way in the original German. Anytime I came across "nigger", in the letter, it was bolded.

Note that all the words in bold were in English in the original.

I also made an error- the letter condemning Johnson's Reconstruction policies was a letter from Engels to Marx, not the other way around.

Out of all things, why would Karl Marx be accused of anti-Semitism when he was Jewish.

When people can't attack Marx (or anyone else, for that matter) on his theoretical or political stances, they just go to mudslinging. Easiest way is to go to accuse them of racism/hate.

L.A.P.

12th December 2010, 23:07

When people can't attack Marx (or anyone else, for that matter) on his theoretical or political stances, they just go to mudslinging. Easiest way is to go to accuse them of racism/hate.

I don't get why anti-Semitism though, they could have been a bit more clever than accusing a Jewish man of hating Jewish people.

Revolutionair

12th December 2010, 23:41

I don't get why anti-Semitism though, they could have been a bit more clever than accusing a Jewish man of hating Jewish people.

How smart do you think people are when they don't read Marx yet they want to attack him.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th December 2010, 01:58

xx1994xx -- they do this because they accept the idea that there are 'self-hating' Jews. I get accused of it all the time by Zionists.

Nolan

13th December 2010, 02:35

I think it's entertaining when they attack Marx for racism, Che for whatever, etc. in those annoying emails that they always put on an air of exposing some grand secret to the reader.

Ovi

13th December 2010, 02:41

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th December 2010, 02:43

Have you read the comments about passages like this in this thread?

HEAD ICE

13th December 2010, 04:21

Ovi

13th December 2010, 05:31

Have you read the comments about passages like this in this thread?
I didn't see anything that proves how this is not racist.

∞

13th December 2010, 05:54

I didn't see anything that proves how this is not racist.

The fact the connotation might have been different. The fact that he wanted equal rights for black slaves.

Ovi

13th December 2010, 06:31

The fact the connotation might have been different. The fact that he wanted equal rights for black slaves.
Here's the entire thing (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.htm). Whatever he wanted doesn't make that quote any less racist.

NewSocialist

13th December 2010, 06:50

It is now quite plain to me — as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify — that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied Moses’ flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow’s importunity is also nigger-like.

Call me crazy, but isn't attributing someone's personality type to their race, well, racist? In this quote, Marx is assigning "importunity" as a black characteristic. How is that any different from saying something like "the greed this fellow displays is rather Jew-like"?

freepalestine

13th December 2010, 07:05

you mayve raed that out of context

NewSocialist

13th December 2010, 07:08

you mayve raed that out of context

I don't think so. I read the entire letter and am fully capable of comprehending what I read.

Why can't some people admit Marx may have held racist views, that these views don't discredit his work and we're not bound by every view Marx [or any other early radical] held?

Kenco Smooth

13th December 2010, 07:15

Taken directly from the Wikipedia article's quotation of Marx's "The Jewish Question".
"What is the secular cult of the Jew? Haggling. What is his secular god? Money."

I like Comrade Floyd's comment: we can disagree with the man on some things, but that doesn't mean that we should debunk him on an intellectual level.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Marx#Accusations_of_antisemitism

One must remember that at the time of Marx's writing Jews and Jewry were synonymous with usury. Thus the distinction (which seems odd today but existed at the time) between the religious and financial Jew.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th December 2010, 07:17

Ovi:

I didn't see anything that proves how this is not racist.

Is there anything there shows he was?

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th December 2010, 07:17

NS:

Why can't some people admit Marx may have held racist views, that these views don't discredit his work and we're not bound by every view Marx [or any other early radical] held?

It's far from clear he did, that's why.

NewSocialist

13th December 2010, 07:21

It's far from clear he did, that's why.

See post 36. A lot of people we would call "racist" today opposed slavery on moral grounds. Marx took this a step forward by not only opposing blacks in traditional slavery, but also within wage slavery. The fact is, he never wrote enough on the issue for us to say conclusively what his exact view on race was, but the above quote of his was racist by any rational standard.

Sun at Eight

13th December 2010, 07:54

In terms of the use of the specific term "nigger", it doesn't absolve Marx of racist opinions, but as others have pointed out the German term he was using is "Neger" and that was used (until the '70s) in both the neutral sense that "Negro" could be used (until a similar time) and as an equivalent of "Nigger". So while Marx's prejudices must not be hidden nor defended (though context can be given, since I don't believe his overall body of thought was racist and there's a reason it appears in the letters and not in the works), it's a bit silly to count the uses of an English translation.

hatzel

13th December 2010, 08:56

To be honest, I would hold Marx up as one of the least racist leftist thinkers before...say, Kropotkin, when stuff started getting that little bit more progressive. Compared to the likes of Bakunin and Proudhon, Marx could never be considered in any way racist...but of course I don't throw all of Bakunin's and Proudhon's ideas to the wayside, on the back of a little bit of racism here and there...

I would like to publicly retract this statement, because freepalestine has alerted me to the errors of my ways, and told me this is 'bs'...

So I guess the answer to the question is yes, Marx was a massive racist, and therefore we should totally ignore all his ideas...

:confused:

Agnapostate

13th December 2010, 08:57

Bakunin also asserted that, "As a Slav, I wanted the emancipation of the Slavic race from the German yoke, and as a German patriot he did not admit then, nor will he admit now, the right of the Slavs to free themselves from German domination. He thought then, as he does now, that the mission of the Germans is to civilize - that is to say, Germanize - the Slavs, for better or for worse." What I find remarkable about that is that it's almost a proto-Nordicist theme, that the "Germanization" of Slavs would be carried out decades later by the Wehrmacht as part and parcel of Generalplan Ost, though obviously there was a separation of Ashkenazim from "Aryan" Germans. I've heard and read of Marx's alleged anti-Slavism before. What truth is there to that?

hatzel

13th December 2010, 09:07

Well, as Bakunin also said...

This whole Jewish world, comprising a single exploiting sect, a kind of blood sucking people, a kind of organic destructive collective parasite, going beyond not only the frontiers of states, but of political opinion, this world is now, at least for the most part, at the disposal of Marx on the one hand, and of Rothschild on the other... This may seem strange. What can there be in common between socialism and a leading bank? The point is that authoritarian socialism, Marxist communism, demands a strong centralisation of the state. And where there is centralisation of the state, there must necessarily be a central bank, and where such a bank exists, the parasitic Jewish nation, speculating with the Labour of the people, will be found.

...I think we might be able to agree that he said quite a lot of stuff that might have found its synthesis more in his hardcore nationalist days than anything factual. That is to say, if a nationalist now came out with this or that rhetoric, claiming that 'our people will be destroyed by foreigners!', we'd probably tell them to just shut the fuck up and stop being such a paranoid racist twat :rolleyes:

ZeroNowhere

13th December 2010, 09:12

Here's the entire thing (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1862/letters/62_07_30a.htm). Whatever he wanted doesn't make that quote any less racist.
Yes, screw lacking context and the fact that the Moor's apparent racism only came out about once in the many writings and letters we have from him, and that too not in referring to an actual nigger.

But looking at the Wikipedia section that explores Marx's anti-Semitism, I guess he had a couple of odd views here and there.Good thing he didn't write about a Jewish race, then.

Also, yes, we know that Bakunin was fond of Pan-Slavist movements, that doesn't tell us much.

Anyhow, from what I can tell from Marx and Engels' general comments on race, they essentially used 'races' to refer to groups of people who had developed separately, so that nationalities and such are referred to as races, and so on. Marx especially viewed the fact that human were thus separated as having lead to them having produced in different conditions (he seemed to put forward a sort of punctuated equilibrium view of evolution based on Tremaux), and therefore to having developed differently both culturally and naturally. A result of this is also that institutions such as slavery lead to the one-sided development of men, and as such, compared to the Africans actually in Africa sans slavery and colonialism (Marx notes that Tremaux, "spent a long time in Africa"), both culturally and in terms of bodily development, "the common negro type is only a degeneration of a far higher one." (I think that this is essentially accurate when comparing the developed African civilisations with the conditions of the slaves). As such, only through capitalism's establishment of world-historic man could these differences be surmounted and people come to be united as such, and to become all-rounded men with the development of communism; prior to these two, you get situations such as that noted by Tremaux: "The true frontier of the Slav and Lithuanian races with the Muscovites is represented by the great geological line which lies to the north of the basins of the Niemen and the Dnieper... To the south of that great line, the talents and the types fitted to that region are and will always remain different from those of Russia." And, in addition, "the proletarians are the only ones who are really able to do this; for the bourgeoisie in each country has its own special interests, and since these interests are the most important to it, it can never transcend nationality; and the few theoreticians achieve nothing with all their fine “principles” because they simply allow these contradictory interests — like everything else — to continue to exist and can do nothing but talk. But the proletarians in all countries have one and the same interest, one and the same enemy, and one and the same struggle. The great mass of proletarians are, by their very nature, free from national prejudices and their whole disposition and movement is essentially humanitarian, anti-nationalist. Only the proletarians can destroy nationality, only the awakening proletariat can bring about fraternisation between the different nations."

Of course, there's also the fun section in the Ethnographical notebooks where Marx essentially gets increasingly pissed off at references to a superior 'Aryan' race, essentially making a marginal note or insulting comment every time it comes up.

Agnapostate

13th December 2010, 09:16

Well, as Bakunin also said...

Yes, and I believe that most people are quite aware of that, since Proudhon and Bakunin's racism seems to me to be mentioned far more frequently here than Marx's. However, he made the statement about Marx's racism (or ethno-nationalism, maybe), in 1871.

hatzel

13th December 2010, 09:24

Of course. I'm just being mean and tarring everything with the same brush...

I would personally assume that the basis for this statement might have been in the well-known Marxist idea that a people would have to go through development before being able to reach communism. All that pro-imperialism and so on. I would assume that Bakunin has merely recast that here as saying 'well, he and the other Germans must think we need to be developed, too (as this wouldn't have been a particularly strange idea at the time, for the Germans to 'rule over' the Slavs), so I guess they want to make us like them (i.e. German)' I've personally found nothing that would suggest that Marx would ever want everybody to be German, just that he would want everybody to be as advanced along the timeline of feudalism > capitalism > communism as the Germans were. It's not my fault if Bakunin's fundamentally nationalist mindset decided to interpret that as 'they want to kill is all and make us German' rather than 'they want us to get rid of the serfs and head towards the future society'...

ZeroNowhere

13th December 2010, 10:19

I've personally found nothing that would suggest that Marx would ever want everybody to be German, just that he would want everybody to be as advanced along the timeline of feudalism > capitalism > communism as the Germans were.Actually, I don't think that this is accurate, and it is explicitly contradicted in his later writings on Russia, general historico-philosophical theories (his critique of which echoes that in the German Ideology), etc.

Hit The North

13th December 2010, 12:07

Ok, so we've established that perhaps even the most radical and advanced social thinkers of 19th Century Europe could be considered, by today's standards, to be racist in some of their peripheral views. Now what?

Has anyone heard the word 'anachronism'?

Next, we'll be shocked to hear that Spartacus was a bit of a technophobe!

hatzel

13th December 2010, 12:14

Yeah, I was thinking all this was stupid. Really, imagine if we had to totally discredit anybody anywhere who has ever made a comment that could be deemed racist, sexist, whatever, and also discredit anybody who was influenced by these ideas...would there be anybody left who hasn't been discredited? Of course not! And it doesn't matter. Marx or Bakunin or Žižek or anybody may have said one or two things that some people might class as not particularly tasteful. As I don't remember the bit in the Communist Manifesto where Marx pointed out that, also, all the blacks have to be killed, I really don't think it makes the slightest bit of difference...I'm still surprised that threads like these really manage to get the pulses racing every time, though! "Don't you dare affront our angelic teachers, they are purely faultless, because if they're not, then that must mean everything they ever said about economics and society and everything was totally flawed! Oh, I guess I'm just a fascist now, following the teachings of a massive racist"...yeah, sounds stupid to me, too :rolleyes:

Ovi

13th December 2010, 22:02

The stupid thing is the cognitive dissonance of defending every racist quote of Marx or Bakunin, instead of recognizing the value of their real creations, which are about anti-capitalism and which have nothing to do with their personal opinions on blacks or jews.

Rosa Lichtenstein

13th December 2010, 22:19

Ovi:

The stupid thing is the cognitive dissonance of defending every racist quote of Marx

No 'cognitive dissonance' anywhere in sight. You are clearly happy to judge Marx by social mores that were not in existence in the mid-19th century. The word 'n*gger' did not have the racial connotations it later assumed. Moreover, you have already had it pointed out to you that Marx argued that all such 'races' could transcend the limitations class society had inflicted upon them, so he could hardly be a racist. No racist ever argues that way.

Can you imagine Hitler or Himmler arguing that as the Third Reich spread around the world, Jews could transcend their race? Try that one the next group of Nazi skinheads you meet.

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 00:42

Marx and Engels - like many radicals - certainly expressed virulent homophobia and straight male supremacy. And no, the appeals to progressive enlightenment don't absolve him. Such profoundly oppressive views don't negate his entire body of thought but they shouldn't be downplayed either.

gorillafuck

14th December 2010, 00:47

Yes, and I believe that most people are quite aware of that, since Proudhon and Bakunin's racism seems to me to be mentioned far more frequently here than Marx's. However, he made the statement about Marx's racism (or ethno-nationalism, maybe), in 1871.
Karl Marx as far as I know was not a supporter of racist movements though, despite his attitudes, whereas Bakunin was and Proudhon actually supported the South during the American Civil War.

Ovi

14th December 2010, 01:11

Ovi:

No 'cognitive dissonance' anywhere in sight.

Marx was a racist, you're not, thus you try to prove how those clearly racist quotes (and I'm not referring solely to the n word) weren't actually racist.

You are clearly happy to judge Marx by social mores that were not in existence in the mid-19th century. The word 'n*gger' did not have the racial connotations it later assumed. Moreover, you have already had it pointed out to you that Marx argued that all such 'races' could transcend the limitations class society had inflicted upon them, so he could hardly be a racist. No racist ever argues that way.

Can you imagine Hitler or Himmler arguing that as the Third Reich spread around the world, Jews could transcend their race? Try that one the next group of Nazi skinheads you meet.
Transcend their race? They're clearly inferior, but we can fix that in socialism?

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 02:17

Ovi:

Marx was a racist, you're not, thus you try to prove how those clearly racist quotes (and I'm not referring solely to the n word) weren't actually racist.

But, you have yet to show he was. Repetition is not proof.

Transcend their race? They're clearly inferior, but we can fix that in socialism?

Re-read what i said, only more carefully:

Can you imagine Hitler or Himmler arguing that as the Third Reich spread around the world, Jews could transcend their race? Try that one the next group of Nazi skinheads you meet.

Notice, I am putting words into the mouths of genuine racists. I am not advocating their use, nor suggesting that Marx would have used them.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 02:20

Summer:

Marx and Engels - like many radicals - certainly expressed virulent homophobia and straight male supremacy.

Where?

And no, the appeals to progressive enlightenment don't absolve him.

So far, there is nothing to 'absolve'.

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 02:31

See Gay Men and the Sexual History of the Political Left, specifically “Johann Bapist von Schweitzer: The Queer Marx Loved to Hate" by Hubert Kennedy.

sunfarstar

14th December 2010, 02:37

De omnibus est dubitandum----Karl marx

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 02:39

That book makes much of Engels's hatred of paedophiles (to which happy band you can add my name), but there is no evidence, as far as I can see, to suggest that Marx was a homophobe. Perhaps you can enlighten us futher?

http://www.marxmail.org/schweitzer.pdf

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 02:49

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 02:53

The link I added was in fact to the very work you referenced. And I deny Engels framed it in the way you suggest. On the contrary, it's quite plain that he framed it in the way I allege.

And, we are still waiting for the proof that Marx was a homophobe -- not Engels.

"Then things will go badly enough for poor frontside people like us, with our childish penchant for females." It's classic homophobia.

Engels specifically aimed this at paeodophiles, not queers.

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 03:05

The link I added was in fact to the very work you referenced. And I deny Engels framed it in the way you suggest.

So why does Kennedy lie about or misinterpret the quotation, then?

Engels specifically aimed this at paeodophiles, not queers.

He wrote "females," not "adults." Everything about the Marx and Engels conception of gender shows the believed heterosexual monogamy to be the norm; dismissal of queer folks makes perfect sense under that framework.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 03:15

Summer:

So why does Kennedy lie about or misinterpret the quotation, then?

No idea? I'm not a psychiatrist.

He wrote "females," not "adults." Everything about the Marx and Engels conception of gender shows the believed heterosexual monogamy to be the norm; dismissal of queer folks makes perfect sense under that framework.

1) He specifically aimed this at paedophiles, not queers. You keep ignoring that point.

2) He wrote 'females' to contrast this with the paedophiles who abuse male children. Moreover, the anachronistic assumption (on Engels's part) that heterosexuality is the norm is not the same as homophobia.

3) We are still waiting for the proof that Marx was a homophobe.

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 03:30

He aimed it at, as Kennedy writes, "Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Heinrich_Ulrichs), an early theorist of homosexuality and a courageous fighter for the rights of homosexuals, religious and ethnic minorites, and women."

redz

14th December 2010, 03:44

If you've actually read the piece you'd realize that's a profound mischaracterization. Here's a link (http://books.google.com/books?id=yzxqWpVUyp4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=Gay+Men+and+the+Sexual+History+of+the+Political +Left&source=bl&ots=OtzTVw_ZzT&sig=qBX_kUSjetS8lilF1AheK0On2s0&hl=en&ei=-9kGTeWaD6O5nAfvx8GlCQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=2&ved=0CCYQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false); read it or read it again. Engels explicitly framed the issue as a matter of straight versus queer. For example, after a bunch of innuendo about the prospect for homosexuals being allow to come out of the closet, he wrote, "Then things will go badly enough for poor frontside people like us, with our childish penchant for females." It's classic homophobia.

Well, on the basis of following up on the first citation, I would be skeptical of all these assertions of Marx's and Engels's "homophobia" etc.

The first citation attempts to contort a fragment of Marx's Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 into a "defense of the family against individual rights" and opposition to "sexual freedom". However, I found a convenient online copy of the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, and, as far as I can tell, Marx says nothing of the sort - basically, he is arguing against treating women as either individual "private property" or "communal private property", which he characterizes as "universal prostitution with the community".

See:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm

All this occurs within the context of an elaborate discussion of "Private Property and Communism".

It's not clear to me what is driving this ongoing attack on Marx, Engels, and therefore the roots of Marxism (attempting to pillory it all as homophobic, pro-"family", anti-sexual freedom, anti-woman, etc.), but I strongly suspect some kind of counter-revolutionary impulse.

It's well to keep in mind that it was the programmatic strategy of Marxism, further developed particularly by Lenin and Trotsky, that led to the Russian Bolshevist (October) revolution of 1917, which moved not only the liberation of mankind, but of women especially, forward by an historical order of magnitude.

It will take similar revolutions on that model to achieve further progress on that scale - particularly in terms of unleashing sexual freedom, ending the oppression of homosexuals, emancipating women, and salvaging the world from the barbarities and atrocities of capitalism in its decay.

Redz

redz

14th December 2010, 04:04

It's well to keep in mind that it was the programmatic strategy of Marxism, further developed particularly by Lenin and Trotsky, that led to the Russian Bolshevist (October) revolution of 1917, which moved not only the liberation of mankind, but of women especially, forward by an historical order of magnitude.

I don't agree politically with the ISO, but the following piece from Socialist Review of earlier this year provides a fairly decent summarization of the seismic advancement for women's and homosexual rights achieved through Marxist leadership of the Bolshevik revolution in Russia in 1917.

Redz

http://www.iso.org.nz/socialist-review/archive/66-socialist-review-issue-31/557-russias-sexual-revolution-after-1917.html

Socialist Review
Sunday, 16 May 2010

Russia’s sexual revolution after 1917

“Women workers take up your rifles” - a Bolshevik poster calling women to arms in defence of the revolution in 1917. Sexual liberation was a central goal of the revolutionary movement
One of the most sexually liberated societies in history developed after the 1917 revolution in Russia. Colin Wilson marked LGBT history month in February by looking at its impact on gay liberation
The Russian Revolution of 1917 changed the lives of gay men and lesbians. Russia became a beacon for workers, the poor and oppressed who saw for the first time how society could be run for the benefit of all. The very process of making the revolution, of sweeping away the existing social order, made sexual liberation and genuine equality possible.
To understand the impact of the revolution, it is important to look at Russia before 1917. Most people lived as they had for hundreds of years – as peasants in small villages, living from the soil. Until 1861 most peasants were serfs, owned by the aristocracy. Russia was a dictatorship, ruled by the Tsar and opponents faced exile to the brutal cold of Siberia. A tiny minority of Russians lived in wealth and splendour. For example, the Sheremetevs owned 200,000 serfs and had 340 servants waiting on them.
Sex was characterised by violence and oppression and sexual behaviour was controlled by the church and state. Homosexuality was illegal. Evidence of same sex relationships existed, but they showed mainly unequal relations between upper class landowners and their male servants or peasants. Aristocratic women could not travel, work or study without their husband’s permission. For peasants, marriage was for necessity and survival. A wife’s tasks were to help her husband in the fields and produce children to do the same. Domestic violence was common. A proverb ran, “Hit your wife with the butt of the axe, get down and see if she’s breathing. If she is, she’s shamming and wants some more.”
Change
But from the mid-19th century, Russian society began to change. The Tsar abolished serfdom – though there was no real democracy, and extreme inequality remained. Industrialisation meant rapid urbanisation in cities like Moscow and St Petersburg. Radical movements developed from the 1870s, carrying new ideas about women and sex. The novel What is to be Done? became the bible of the new movement. It tells the story of Vera Pavlovna who enters a fictitious marriage to escape her bourgeois parents.
The novel recounts her dreams – its finale depicts a utopia where wealth and poverty are no more, men and women are equal, and people can choose what work to do and what relationships to have. Such ideas inspired thousands of young men and women. Urbanisation also brought changes to sexual relationships. There wasn’t space or money to duplicate peasant marriage and family patterns in the cities.
A homosexual sub-culture* – the “little homosexual world” – emerged. Men met for sex in parks and public toilets. Wealthy men had liaisons with waiters, servants, soldiers and male prostitutes in bathhouses. Lesbians found life more difficult. Wealthy women had leisure time to spend in the literary salons, fashionable meeting places for rich lesbians. But life was harder for working class women – brothels were meeting places for “koshki”, or female cats, the name given to working class lesbians. The growing working class was central to the revolutionary movement, and women increasingly played a role.
In 1905 revolution broke out, but it was defeated. In 1917 a revolution was successful, and in October the Bolshevik party took power. Men and women became equal under law, divorce was available on demand, church control Communal dining halls were instituted – partly to ensure people were fed, and partly to liberate women from domestic labour. Through the civil war, every child in the capital got free food, and most adults ate in the dining halls as well.of sexual behaviour was abolished and abortion was legalised.
The revolution transformed the lives of homosexuals with a flourish. All references to sex practices were removed from the Criminal Code in 1922. A sex crime was now described as an act violating the individuals’ right to “life, health, freedom and dignity”. Relationships based on the unfamiliar ideas of complete freedom, equality and genuine friendship flourished.
These legal reforms reflected changes in society. Peasant women sang songs about how they would divorce their husband if he beat them. A court confirmed the right of two women to marry. Of course some bigoted ideas and practices remained. Long established ideas can be hard to overcome. But the Bolsheviks strove to make the advances real – so that women, homosexuals and workers were liberated in practice.
So for example, communal dining halls were instituted – partly to ensure people were fed, and partly to liberate women from domestic labour. Through the civil war, every child in the capital got free food, and most adults ate in the dining halls as well. Prostitution was decriminalised. The government set up cooperatives to provide support for prostitutes, access to medical support and training in other kinds of work.
Dr Grigory Batkis, director of the Moscow Institute for Sexual Hygiene, led the Soviet delegation to the World League for Sexual Freedom conference in Berlin in 1923. He made clear the approach of the new society – “Soviet legislation… declares the absolute non-interference of the state and society into sexual matters, so long as no one’s interests are encroached upon. “Concerning homosexuality, sodomy, and various other forms of sexual gratification, which are set down in European legislation as offences against public morality, Soviet legislation treats these exactly the same as so-called ‘natural’ intercourse.”
Many of the gains the revolution achieved still do not exist in some countries to this day. In Britain abortion is not available on demand, and nor is divorce. Homosexuality was illegal until 1967 and only removed from the mental health register in 1993. Many discriminatory laws against homosexuals remained on the statute books in Britain until the start of this century.
The advances in Russia were not because of Bolshevik decrees, but because the revolution involved the vast majority of people fighting to transform society and take control of it themselves. But the lack of economic development meant that the country was too poor to sustain socialism. The Bolsheviks relied on revolution spreading to more developed countries. This was a reasonable assumption. In 1919 British prime minister Lloyd George stated that, “The whole of Europe is filled with the spirit of revolution.” Unfortunately the radicalisation failed to break through. And the victorious Russian revolution faced years of war against supporters of the Tsar, and foreign armies determined to destroy the new socialist society. This took a huge toll. It made millions of children homeless and devastated the working class.
Stalled
The Bolsheviks had no choice but to introduce the New Economic Policy (NEP) in a bid to hold on to power until a more developed country became socialist. The policy partly reintroduced capitalism. Peasants were paid to produce grain. Limited funds meant communal dining halls were closed, as were many nurseries, which made it harder for women to work. Prostitution began to increase again. Slowly the old ways crept back. The problem was poverty and backwardness. Many peasants had never favoured divorce as their communal households centred on married couples. The Bolsheviks had sought to liberate men and women from the constraints of the family. But for many the family was the only option – the state had no money to guarantee women a decent standard of living.
Joseph Stalin rose to power in this context of isolation and poverty. He had been a relatively minor figure in 1917, but represented an emerging class that believed the solution to Russian backwardness was to force workers and peasants to be more productive.
The state increasingly controlled and directed work and life. As under the Tsar, a woman’s main function was seen as reproduction – women with seven children received payments from the state, and those with eleven got even more money. The Stalinist government banned abortion, made divorce more difficult and recriminalised homosexuality. Gay men faced up to eight years in prison. Homosexuals were driven back into the closet and suicides rose significantly. In 1934 there were mass arrests in Moscow and other cities. Anti-homosexual discourse was used in wartime propaganda between Stalinist Russia and Nazi Germany. Stalin said “eradicate homosexuality and fascism will disappear”, while Hitler labelled homosexuality a “communist degeneracy”.
Stalin’s betrayal of socialism, however, does nothing to diminish the revolutionary tradition of which the Bolsheviks were the best example. They saw the achievement of sexual liberation and the fight for a better world as inseparable.
Colin Wilson
Socialist Worker (UK)

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 11:51

Summer:

He aimed it at, as Kennedy writes, "Karl Heinrich Ulrichs, an early theorist of homosexuality and a courageous fighter for the rights of homosexuals, religious and ethnic minorites, and women."

In fact, as Engels himself says, he aimed it at paedophiles.

And we are still waiting for the proof that Marx was a homophobe.

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 17:32

In fact, as Engels himself says, he aimed it at paedophiles.

No, he didn't. He was specifically responding to a pamphlet by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs that Marx sent him. The only that suggests pedophilia at all is the term "pederast," but as Kennedy writes, "pederasty" meant "homosexual anal sex" in common speech. You're grasping at grasping at straws in a misguided attempt to defend for the dead.

And we are still waiting for the proof that Marx was a homophobe.

Read the article. He and Engels shared the widespread belief in heterosexuality and disdained queer folks. Marx advocating employing and employed homophobia as an expedient against political opponents (possibly including Bakunin). I consider obfuscation of this history indicative of straight supremacy and personally offensive. It's not cool at all.

Rosa Lichtenstein

14th December 2010, 18:33

Summer:

No, he didn't. He was specifically responding to a pamphlet by Karl Heinrich Ulrichs that Marx sent him. The only that suggests pedophilia at all is the term "pederast," but as Kennedy writes, "pederasty" meant "homosexual anal sex" in common speech. You're grasping at grasping at straws in a misguided attempt to defend for the dead.

Certainly, Kennedy tells us what he thinks Engels meant, but Engels is quite clear: he meant paedophiles -- which is why he used the word he did.

Of course, he could have meant 'Martians', or 'Dinosaurs', or even 'Underwater Buffalos' when he used the word 'pederast' -- just as I am sure Kennedy meant 'George W Bush' when he used the word 'Engels'.:lol:

We can all play that game...

Read the article. He and Engels shared the widespread belief in heterosexuality and disdained queer folks. Marx advocating employing and employed homophobia as an expedient against political opponents (possibly including Bakunin). I consider obfuscation of this history indicative of straight supremacy and personally offensive. It's not cool at all.

No doubt, given the 'Kennedy Treatment', I'm sure that Marx can be transformed into a believer in shape shifting lizards too.:lol:

Summerspeaker

14th December 2010, 19:26

Certainly, Kennedy tells us what he thinks Engels meant, but Engels is quite clear: he meant paedophiles -- which is why he used the word he did.

On what grounds do you dispute Kennedy's characterization of the common usage of "pederast"? He cites a period document for support, as well as other scholars. Moreover, Engels still condemned Ulrichs in homophobic terms regardless. Inaccurately associating a noted queer activist with pedophilia - a classic straight supremacist move - hardly makes the quotation any less oppressive.

No doubt, given the 'Kennedy Treatment', I'm sure that Marx can be transformed into a believer in shape shifting lizards too.:lol:

Yes, gay bashing is funny. Keep those emoticons rolling. :confused:

Zanthorus

14th December 2010, 19:35

“Johann Bapist von Schweitzer: The Queer Marx Loved to Hate" by Hubert Kennedy.

Von Schweitzer, you mean the Lassallean who characterised the internal structure of the ADAV as 'Democratic Centralisation'?!?! The one who Marx argued against because he advocated such a centralism? ("Here, where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards, where he believes in authority, in those set over him, the main thing is to teach him to walk by himself." - Marx to Von Schweitzer, 1868) Are you purposely trying to be facetious? Of course Marx hated the man.

Rosa Lichtenstein

15th December 2010, 20:16

Summer:

On what grounds do you dispute Kennedy's characterization of the common usage of "pederast"? He cites a period document for support, as well as other scholars. Moreover, Engels still condemned Ulrichs in homophobic terms regardless. Inaccurately associating a noted queer activist with pedophilia - a classic straight supremacist move - hardly makes the quotation any less oppressive.

In other words, he cites others to tell us what Engels 'really' meant.:lol:

Yes, gay bashing is funny.

Who's gay bashing? You seem to be living little dream world all of your own.

Keep those emoticons rolling.

You too. http://www.politicalcrossfire.com/forum/images/smiles/rotf.gif

∞

15th December 2010, 20:29

Marx actually defended him when Engels was smearing him.

Summerspeaker

16th December 2010, 06:40

In other words, he cites others to tell us what Engels 'really' meant.

That's how language works. But regardless of what "pederast" meant to him, the straight supremacy comes as clear as day in Engels writing.

Who's gay bashing? You seem to be living little dream world all of your own.Engels, Marx, and countless other leftists throughout history. I personally study the Partido Liberal Mexicano. Ricardo Flores Magón incidentally also used "pederast" (pederasta) as part of his rhetorical denunciations of queer folks.

Marx actually defended him when
Engels was smearing him.

Where and in what context?

Back to the subject of racism (though it also applies to the above discussion), consider what Huey P. wrote on the subject (http://books.google.com/books?id=pwQl_1ojLugC&pg=PA184&lpg=PA184&dq=huey+p.+newton+%2B+marx+%2B+gorilla&source=bl&ots=PjEDE3ptGK&sig=_BZPIfY2odnG5HnzJ0Km_nh2JmM&hl=en&ei=-7gJTff0IsGblgfL56C9Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CBsQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q&f=false). He took apologism to task: "The Marxists claim he was only joking and that the statement shows Marx's closeness to the man, but of course that is nonsense."

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th December 2010, 08:07

Summer:

That's how language works. But regardless of what "pederast" meant to him, the straight supremacy comes as clear as day in Engels writing.

Lets' give this the 'Kennedy Treatment':

You are right, Marx and Engels weren't homophobic.

'You':

Engels, Marx, and countless other leftists throughout history.

But, according to you, after you had been 'Kennedyised', they weren't.

Make your mind up!

I personally study the Partido Liberal Mexicano. Ricardo Flores Magón incidentally also used "pederast" (pederasta) as part of his rhetorical denunciations of queer folks.

But, as you have already acknowledged, post 'Kennedyisation', this wasn't true of Engels.:)

Revolution starts with U

16th December 2010, 08:41

Since when is homosexuality a "race?"

Rosa Lichtenstein

16th December 2010, 13:07

^^^Well, Summer here thinks it appropriate to raise this off-topic issue. 'Non-existent Deity' knows why.

Die Neue Zeit

17th December 2010, 06:48

Von Schweitzer, you mean the Lassallean who characterised the internal structure of the ADAV as 'Democratic Centralisation'?!?! The one who Marx argued against because he advocated such a centralism? ("Here, where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards, where he believes in authority, in those set over him, the main thing is to teach him to walk by himself." - Marx to Von Schweitzer, 1868) Are you purposely trying to be facetious? Of course Marx hated the man.

To be fair, I'll give these flexible interpretations to what Marx wrote:

"Where the worker is regulated bureaucratically from childhood onwards": Can easily refer to alternative culture.

"Where he believes in authority": The authority of his Party and its myriad of organizations.

"In those set over him": Schweitzer was not referring to some elite central committee, especially since the Lassalleans didn't intend on remaining a sect. This can refer to a bureaucratic process of sorts.

"The main thing is to teach him to walk by himself": No need for interpretation.

Summerspeaker

17th December 2010, 13:00

^^^Well, Summer here thinks it appropriate to raise this off-topic issue. 'Non-existent Deity' knows why.

It's because I'm trying to queer up a straight-shooting proletarian thread with my bourgeois gay agenda. Either that or I was opposing apologism for any oppressive narrative present in Marx and Engels. See the quotation at the end of my last post.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th December 2010, 13:06

Summer:

It's because I'm trying to queer up a straight-shooting proletarian thread with my bourgeois gay agenda. Either that or I was opposing apologism for any oppressive narrative present in Marx and Engels. See the quotation at the end of my last post.

Can I give this the 'Kennedy Treatment' too, and interpret it any way I like?

Here's the quotation you referred to:

"The Marxists claim he was only and that the statement shows Marx's closeness to the man, but of course that is nonsense."

Which seems nonsensical to me. Are there some words missing?

Summerspeaker

17th December 2010, 13:13

The word "joking" was missing from the quotation. Click the link for fuller context. Your assertion that interpreting a word as it was actually used historically amounts to negating meaning entirely accomplishes nothing. Again, equating a noted queer activist like Ulrichs with pedophilia and attacking him in the terms Engels used doesn't change much.

Rosa Lichtenstein

17th December 2010, 18:22

Summer:

The word "joking" was missing from the quotation.

OK, so here's the restored quote:

"The Marxists claim he was only joking and that the statement shows Marx's closeness to the man, but of course that is nonsense."

I haven't claimed this, and I'd like to see quotations from any Marxists who have. [I note you omitted these.]

Click the link for fuller context. Your assertion that interpreting a word as it was actually used historically amounts to negating meaning entirely accomplishes nothing. Again, equating a noted queer activist like Ulrichs with pedophilia and attacking him in the terms Engels used doesn't change much.

But you have yet to show that Engels was using it in the way Kennedy asserts.