Marxism Yesterday and Today
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Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Colin Leys, Marxism Yesterday and Today, bahai-library.com.
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Marxism Yesterday and Today

Colin Leys
published in The Bahá'í Faith and Marxism pp. 43-49

Ottawa, ON: Bahá'í Studies Publications, 1987

There are two main themes in Marx's conception of
socialism: (1) democracy,i.e., political freedom, personal freedom,
self-activity--people deciding their own fate, not being dominated
by others; and (2) the emancipation of labour, i.e., relief from grinding
drudgery in the struggle for existence; working to live, not living to
work. Humankind now has the capacity to produce enough for all, the task
is to ensure that this happens and that all enjoy it.

Marx's original (1847) vision of how this would happen was roughly as
follows. The bourgeoisie was a revolutionary class that forced Western
Europe out of its feudal framework, reorganized the entire society along
market lines, and set in motion a self-sustaining and colossal expansion
of productivity and of new products but at the cost of acute
contradictions, expressed in the form of miserable poverty in the midst of
plenty, acute inequalities, periodic slumps, social tensions, and wars.
However, this process will also assure its own supersession since it
simultaneously creates a proletariat whose exploitation and oppression
forms it into an organized and revolutionary class in its turn. ''What the
bourgeoisie produce above all, therefore, are its own gravediggers."1 In the meantime, capitalism has raised output
to the point where there need no longer be any shortages of essential
goods. The working class seizes power and embarks on the creation of a
socialist society.

One of the distinctive features of Marxism, compared with other theories
of social change, is its focus on the precise historical structures and
tendencies at work in any given place at any given time. It seeks to grasp
these structures and tendencies, to

understand the social forces at work, and to formulate practicable
strategies for change based on this analysis. While Marx would have agreed
with Bahá'u'lláh's image of a tempest sweeping through the
modern world, he went further and identified it as the tempestuous
productive and political forces released by capitalism, spreading on a
global scale. The image he originally had of how capitalism would, in
turn, be replaced by socialism (as outlined above) was based on a first
attempt to grasp the dynamics of this process, as revealed in Western
Europe.

But by the 1870s two things had already happened to alter this picture.
First, the working class in Western Europe was increasingly becoming
organized in parliamentary political parties and gradually became
reformist, not transformist; and second, capitalism had become a worldwide
phenomenon affecting many countries in which the working class was still a
small minority. In Russia, in particular, still essentially feudal in
spite of the recent ending of serfdom, a revolution was imminent. The
question was,

would feudalism give way to capitalism and all its miseries and
contradictions? Was the task of the Russian socialists simply to help
usher in capitalism, as a necessary precondition for socialism?

__________
1. Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels, The
Manifesto of the Communist Party [1848] in R.C. Tucker, ed., The
Marx-Engels Reader, 2d ed. (New York: W.W. Norton, 1978),
483.

44
THE BAHA'I FAITH
AND MARXISM

The Russian socialists wrote to ask Marx for his opinion. He replied that
his vision of the process, as sketched in his earlier writings, was not a
universal schema, and Russia might have a chance of going directly to
socialism if the peasant communal system in the countryside could be
prevented from decaying any further. So (to oversimplify drastically what
was the result of a very complex and intense struggle within Russian
social democracy) the Russian socialists under Lenin determined to make
their attempt to drive straight for socialism doing capitalism's job of
expanding the productive forces along the way.

The problems were too numerous--the exhaustion of the whole population by
the war with Germany; the devastation of the economy, followed by the
civil war (at one point the Red Army was fighting on sixteen different
fronts against the first contras, backed

by the western allies); the death of so many of the best Bolsheviks in
the war; the growing use of violence and even terror in the desperation of
the war; the formation of the political police; and finally the rise of
Stalin through the centralized and authoritarian structure of the party,
ending in dictatorship. There was also the failure of the working class in
Western Europe to make a parallel, supporting revolution, as Lenin and
especially Trotsky had always seen to be necessary if a revolution in
Russia was to have a chance of achieving its aims.

The ultimate results we know. Few, if any, sane Soviet citizens would like
to go back to the Russia of the Czars, and contrary to what is often
imagined, probably very few would like to change to a system like the
United States today, however much they may appreciate aspects of North
American popular culture or envy the consumer society as it is presented
on American television. Soviet progress in the space of less than seventy
years, in spite of yet another world war, has been spectacular. They have
gained a great deal. At the same time, it may well be that the Soviet
system is approaching some sort of crisis arising from its own
contradictions--the contradiction between centralized political control
and the need for a decentralized, more market-based economy now that the
Soviet economy has become as complex as it has. But this is not
guaranteed, and in the meantime it is very clear that the Soviet Union as
it is today is very far indeed from what Marx wanted. It in no way
represents either democracy or

the emancipation of the people from toil. It is as everyone says--a not
very efficient, hierarchical, secretive, bureaucratic grey and oppressive
system (even though the USSR has also supported progressive causes and is
not the expansionist "evil empire"

that the American Right find it convenient to pretend).

What matters, however, in this as in other spheres, is to understand the
reasons. It was a Salvadorean who said, "...ideal revolutions exist only
in the minds of those who have never had to make one." That is, the ideal
conditions are never present.

There are several reasons for what happened in Russia, reasons that are
not unique to Russia and that are extremely important to recognize. The
most important is perhaps that the enemies of socialism are often ready to
commit huge resources to defeating r

evolutions whether by direct intervention, as in Russia, or by
destabilization and the use of mercenaries, as in present-day Nicaragua,
Angola, and Mozambique. Also, those attempting the revolution are only
human beings with their usual frailties, who have often had too little
education, too little time to think everything through. They are the
leaders of the

Marxism
Yesterday and Today
45

oppressed and deprived majority, not of the well-educated few, but this
can never be reason for not making the attempt. The same reasons that
handicap the leaders are also reasons that oblige them to try--the
impossibility of securing freedom, democracy,

education, and economic liberation for the majority in any other way. It
was Engels who said, after urging the necessity of doing everything
possible to seek power democratically, that the right of revolution was in
the end the only really historical right. That is, if we have the right to
make our own fate, we have the right to make a revolution when reform is
denied to us.

Secondly, Marxist socialists today, like the Russian Marxists at the turn
of the century, have to face complex situations, usually in developing
countries, often with relatively small working classes. This means that
the workers must form alliances with m

any other social groups, especially peasants, the lower-middle class, and
students. In Russia, the Bolsheviks understood this but did not make
organic, long-term links with these other elements, and eventually paid
the price of having to suppress them by

force. To avoid this, a genuine unity, based on a genuinely pluralist
approach, is essential.

Thirdly, after the experience of Stalinism, it is clear that the kind of
organization you form to fight for socialism must try to prefigure the
kind of socialist society you wish to build. The Leninist party--a
vanguard organization under the centralized

control of a cadre of dedicated, trained professional revolutionaries--was
designed as a fighting organization capable of surviving and eventually
winning power in the special conditions of Czarist Russia. It succeeded,
but at a terrible price--Stalinism.

Today, it is doubtful if such a party can succeed again, and in any case
the price is too high to pay. Its tendency to lead to a new form of
repressive society is too obvious. Something more open, more democratic,
is essential, even in the conditions of

guerrilla war. It must be a democratic, caring, open organization if a
democratic, caring, open socialist society is the goal.

This is once again a great oversimplification, but let it serve for the
moment: these are some of the lessons of the first revolutionary socialist
experience, and these lessons have been learned. To see this, let us turn
from Russia in 1917 to Nicaragua today.

Nicaragua

Nicaragua today is in many ways a leading example of the way these
principles have been adopted by contemporary Marxists--although note that
only a minority of the Sandinista leaders and their party members are
Marxists; also, there is no need to idealize

the Sandinista leaders, to claim that no mistakes have been made, or
anything like that. However, their achievement is already such that for
many Marxists today, the line followed in Nicaragua by the Nicaraguan
Marxists, in collaboration with their non-Marxist allies, is a powerful
example of the best kind of modern Marxist thinking. For example:

Pluralism and Elections

The Sandinistas have maintained the right of all parties to exist and have
held elections in 1984 that were judged exemplary for fairness by all
unbiased observers, in spite of the attempt by the United States of
America and its Nicaraguan allies to make

it seem otherwise.

46
THE BAHA'I FAITH
AND MARXISM

Collaboration with Christians

Without the socialist current in the Roman Catholic church, the Frente
Sandinista de Liberacion National would not have acquired the mass base it
now has. The socialists have welcomed the exponents of liberation
theology. The foreign minister is a Catholic priest, Father Miguel
D'Escoto, as is the minister of education, Father Fernando Cardenal.

Democracy

There is constant emphasis on democracy at all levels, from local
community block councils, to the highest levels of the party and
legislature. In this connection the right-wing media have tried to obscure
the facts by gross efforts of misrepresentation,

especially in connection with the 1984 elections and the current project
to give autonomy to the Atlantic Coast region.

Equality of the Sexes

There is a continuing attempt to secure more equality for women.
Nicaragua, like most Latin American societies, has inherited a strongly
sexist culture. The Sandinistas have worked to change this by giving women
education, promoting them in the party and

in government, and changing the laws to facilitate women's advancement.

Progress on all these and other fronts has been imperfect, not least
because so much of the country's slender resources have had to be
committed to fighting the counterrevolutionaries (organized and financed
by the United States government), who have behaved with a savagery that is
seldom adequately reported (i.e., terror of the ugliest kind--cutting off
women's breasts, cutting men's throats and pulling their tongues through
the hole). It is the same in Angola and Mozambique. Economic life also has
indeed become hard in Nicaragua--this is what the United States has spent
millions of dollars to try to achieve. The question is whether the right
of revolution--the only really historical right-- must be abandoned,
simply because the United States of America

has the power and is willing to try to deny it. The answer given by
Marxists is no.

In the First World

What distinguishes Marxist practice from that of other socialists in
advanced capitalist countries? First, there are always problems of theory
and practice to be resolved. Among thoughtful Marxists it is a truism that
Marxism has been "in crisis'' for nearly a century. It has had to deal
both with the changes that occur in capitalism and with real weaknesses in
Marx's own thought. These issues were first raised in the famous Bernstein
debate in the 1890s, and they are still being intensely debated today.

The German social democratic publicist Eduard Bernstein argued that Marx
had been wrong to imagine that socialism must come through a crisis in
capitalism and a sudden, radical break with constitutional forms, a
seizure of power, or dictatorship of the proletariat. He thought that
capitalism had proved its staying power; however, it had also shown itself
capable of being reformed into socialism. He proposed to abandon the idea
of revolution in favour of evolution--gradual change towards socialism by
parliamentary means. This was later the basis of the split between the
majority of the members of the old Marxist

Marxism
Yesterday and Today
47

parties, who became social democrats; and the more radical minority, who
formed the new Communist parties all over the world after 1919.

Today, the major western Communist parties have--with the exception of the
Communist parties of Italy and Spain, in particular--often been
discredited by their Stalinism, although Communists play an important role
in several other countries, especially in

some trade unions. There remain two other main kinds of Marxist: those
who take a broadly Trotskyist interpretation of Marxism and adhere to one
or another of the numerous groups that are descended from Trotsky's Fourth
International; and independent Marxists. By this latter category, I mean
people who identify themselves with the cause of exploited and oppressed
people wherever they are and who try to work within a party or some other
organization (e.g., a trade union, a single-issue group like a peace

movement organization or a women ' s organization) from a consistent
Marxian perspective.

This means different things to different people, but it usually includes
the following:Aiming for Long-Run Transformation Policies should be
judged according to their long-run effect on strengthening the ability of
the working majority to take control over their own lives. This means, for
example, that a reform is more valuable if it involves more democratic
participation, if it strengthens people's awareness of the nature of
capitalist alienation, class divisions, exploitation, oppression and make
s them more likely to press for further fundamental changes.Seeing the
Totality of the Struggle Marxists do not see the problem of
unemployment in Quebec and repression in the Philippines as unconnected,
or the issue of Star Wars and the United States war against Nicaragua as
unconnected. They see the international links between all popular
struggles and understand how struggle on one front is important for
struggle on all the others. Thus, for instance, it is obvious in
retrospect that the struggle in Vietnam was crucial for permitting the
struggle in Cuba to succeed, and today the struggles in Nicaragua and in
South Africa are similarly linked. The link is the worldwide strengths and
weaknesses of imperialism.Women's Liberation

Marxists have understood--belatedly perhaps--that there can be no
socialism, no democracy, economic freedom, or justice without the
emancipation of half of the human race from domination by the other half.
Therefore, Marxists press for affirmative action

for women in all situations and for policies that will advance women, both
for their own sake and in order to add their energy to the struggle for
socialism. This means that Marxists take a stand, in principle, on issues
like pensions for women, maternity

leave, day care, and abortion rights.

The Marxian Concept of Revolution

I want to add something on the Marxian concept of revolution. The hallmark
of Marxism is its insistence on the unity of theory and practice. At the
age of twenty-seven, Marx wrote a famous note to himself: "Hitherto the
philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the
point, however, is to change

48
THE BAHA'I FAITH
AND MARXISM

it."2 The key concept in his theory of
change became the concept of revolution. This is very widely
misrepresented, and so it seems useful at this stage in our discussion to
say something about the concept.By revolution, Marx meant transformation.
The moment of taking power was only a particular step in the process, the
important thing is the radical reorganization of society, the
transformation of the social relations, for example, the abolition of
private ownership of the

means of production, the land, the oil wells, the plants as well as the
class relations, the income inequality, the educational discrimination,
the power relations, the alienated political life that are based on
private ownership of the means of production. This takes a long time and
also involves a reconstruction of the system of ideas that is dominant in
society. For example, instead of the host of the Canadian Broadcasting
Corporation's nightly news magazine, The Journal, treating someone
like

Yasser Arafat with aggression, while treating right-wing political leaders
with deference, one would try to achieve television treatment of the world
from the standpoint of those who suffer, are deprived, and are struggling
for their freedom. All this takes time and is a long drawn out struggle,
full of difficulties, mistakes, and defeats as well as successes.

This is Marx's conception. Nonetheless, the issue of taking power is
critical; Marxists believe that the majority are entitled to use
their political majority to bring about the reorganization of society.
This poses the question of how they can obtain the power to do this. Marx
did not think that the achievement of power had to be violent. In 1872 at
The Hague, he made a famous speech in which he said that in countries with
democratic systems such as the Netherlands

Britain, and the United States of America, it should be possible to make
the transition to socialism peacefully, through elections. However, he
also pointed out in other writings that this depended on the ruling class
accepting the verdict of democracy. It does not rest with the socialist
revolutionaries alone, and the historical evidence was already
discouraging. The year before Marx's speech at The Hague, 30,000 workers
had been massacred in Paris by the French government. This followed the
famous Paris

Commune of 1871, when the workers and lower-middle class leaders
remaining in Paris took over the city (after the government had abandoned
it to the advancing German army) and ran it as a sort of socialist
mini-state for four months. A similar number have been put to death by the
right wing in El Salvador since 1979. In the last sixteen months to the
end of 1985, at least 1,000 people were killed by the police and the army
in South Africa for merely demonstrating for reforms. The record
is not encouraging, and those who want to end the power of the propertied
classes have to face the possibility that force may be ultimately
unavoidable.In this respect, it is important not to be mesmerized by the
ideology of the right wing, which invariably highlights any violence
against itself and ignores its own violence against the majority. Not only
does it ignore overt violence-- in fact, it sometimes even glorifies it,
as in the case of Reagan's description of the Nicaraguan contras, led by
the professional
torturers and murderers of Somoza's National Guard, as "freedom
fighters"--it also ignores the day by

__________
2. Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach [1844]
in Tucker,145.

Marxism
Yesterday and Today
49

day violence of repressive regimes, the violence of starvation and stunted
lives. Recall what Mark Twain said about the way people reacted to the
Terror during the French Revolution:There were two "reigns of
terror" if we would but remember it

and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passion, the other in
heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other lasted a
thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other
upon a hundred millions; but our shudders

are all for the "horrors" of the minor terror, the momentary terror, so
to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared
with lifelong death from hunger, cold insult, cruelty, and heartbreak?
What is swift death by lightning compared with slow death by fire at the
stake? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by the brief
terror we have all been so diligently taught to shiver and mourn over; but
all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by the older and real
Terror--that unspeakably bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been
taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves.3In reality today, not only the
silent violence but also the open violence is initiated by the Right, not
by the Left. The militarization of politics in so much of the world is the
institutionalization of violence against the Left. It was not Marxists or
any other kind of socialists who initiated violence in Argentina or
Guatemala but rather the officers of the army and the police; Marxists
have been chief among their many victims.

If force is contemplated by Marxists, it is because people are too often
left with no alternative. In too much of the world today, the options have
been cruelly narrowed by the possessing classes, supported directly or
indirectly by the United States of America. In this respect, Marxists are
no different from others who seek legitimate change and are faced with
bleak force. The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa is a good
example. Ever since its formation in 1912, it has followed a policy of

peaceful protest, under the influence of Gandhi. It was the ruthless
violence of the South African government that finally forced the ANC
reluctantly to take up armed struggle. Christians in Latin America have
found themselves forced to the same painful conclusion. It was a Brazilian
bishop who answered a question about his willingness to collaborate with
Communists in the following way: "...the choice we have to make in my
country is whether one is for life and against death. I am for life and
against death, and I therefore fight alongside all those who are also on
the side of life."

__________
3. Cited in William Hinton, Fanshen
(New York: Vintage, 1968), 101.

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-- Marxism Yesterday and Today (Used by permission of the curator)