Marx drifting towards primitivism?

[which doctor]

I've heard that it's been suggested that Marx was drifting towards primitivism and an agrarian lifestyle in the later years of his life. Perhaps this has something to do with Marx studying the agrarian communes of Russia?

I'm currently trying to contact the person who first brought this idea up, so hopefully I get a response.

[RebelDog]

I doubt this very, very much. Marx knew that capitalism created the organised proletariat and that socialism comes through industrialisation, education and technology etc. Why would he abandon that and go backwards.

[Labor Shall Rule]

If there is evidence, I am willing to believe in anything on this issue. Got any thing from MIA on this?

[More Fire for the People]

In his later years Marx rejected a linear development of society, i.e. class antagonisms did not necessarily develop from slave societies to feudal to capitalist to communist but other modes could exist and they could exist at the same time. Furthermore, class antagonisms could 'skip' modes of production. Hence his belief that the Russian agricultural commune could have skipped to communism with the introduction of machinery.

[BreadBros]

In his later years Marx rejected a linear development of society, i.e. class antagonisms did not necessarily develop from slave societies to feudal to capitalist to communist but other modes could exist and they could exist at the same time.

Uh, then what ideas DID he latch onto? The idea that societies develop out of one another is sort of the basis of his theories, so it'd be a pretty big departure. Curious that it's never talked about. :o


Furthermore, class antagonisms could 'skip' modes of production.

Really? Curiously I remember Trotsky saying something like this, but not Marx. If he did say it though it seems like the historical record indicates he was wrong.


Hence his belief that the Russian agricultural commune could have skipped to communism with the introduction of machinery.

If you're referring to his letter to Vera Zasulich, he was referring to societies returning to an archetypal communal society, not to faith in basic agricultural based subsistence farming. That would contradict everything he had previously said.

[Ian]

Don't forget in his later years Marx was often quite depressed, which he wrote about to Engels in their regular correspondence and some of his later works aren't his best.

[ComradeOm]

Marx did not "drift towards primitivism". He became interested in the unique structure of peasant communities in Russia in the last years of his life but at no point did he ever adapt a stance that could even remotely be considered primitivism.

[More Fire for the People]

Uh, then what ideas DID he latch onto? The idea that societies develop out of one another is sort of the basis of his theories, so it'd be a pretty big departure. Curious that it's never talked about.
I wasn't trying to imply that societies don't develop into other societies but they don't all follow the same development of Europe. Hell, Europe didn't follow the same development as Europe. For instance, North America went from a brief period of combined mercantilism and communalism [1600-1700] before ushering in a capitalist society while in Britain capitalism and feudalism coexisted for many years and remnants of the feudal society remain.


Really? Curiously I remember Trotsky saying something like this, but not Marx. If he did say it though it seems like the historical record indicates he was wrong.
Marx did coin the term permanent revolution :)