this post was submitted on 05 Oct 2024
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Thing is, Marx didn't have a Dear Leader mindset. Far from it. He is, in fact, focused on broad, sweeping, materialist strokes, something that has not survived quite as well as the more general ideas he advocated. When Marx talks about lacking revolutionary potential, he simply means that they aren't going to be the instrumental class pushing the revolution forward. Peasants also lack revolutionary potential by Marx's analysis, but few Marxists, if any, would advocate murdering them en masse.
By contrast, Marxism-Leninism thinks peasants DO have revolutionary potential, but tends to kill them en masse.
First I think what he wrote goes beyond them lacking the revolutionary potential and specifically being an active obstacle - I think the words were “significant counterrevolutionary force” and “more likely to sell out to reactionary intrigues”.
But either way, to be honest I don’t see a functional difference between Marx’s beliefs and every implementation of the communist manifesto known to date.
That is, it doesn’t matter what he wrote or believed in his heart of hearts if it can be interpreted in such broad strokes as to allow the implementation of the dear leader mindset with his writings as a touchstone without fail.
And it doesn’t matter what he thought should be done with the lumpen elements if he thought of them as less than, disgusting, parasitical, and even objecting to the cause, (his writings certainly show disgust in my opinion) - true believers to the cause will see them (as they have) as obstacles and will do whatever needs to be done to remove them - as they have.
The difference between what he wrote and every communist regime that has existed, is the ones that existed all had Dear Leaders. He didn't call for that. So they straight up failed at the jump.
They attempt to approach communism as a flash, a sudden struggle for control and then all will be well. There needs to be groundwork laid, there needs to be a community will to push things in that direction. You cannot arrive at a true communist state through violent revolution. It will inevitably devolve into an authoritarian dictatorship. I feel like you have to progress through some levels of democracy and socialism to arrive at such a goal, and it must be done with the consent and agreement of most people.
It’s possible that what you say is true but Marx himself in poverty of philosophy thought you couldn’t arrive without it.
I guess my overall point is that Marx was a man of his time with similar failings and sensibilities of men of his time - amongst other things he was homophobic, he was considering people in groups wholesale in a way that’s rather distasteful, and in a way that allowed later supposed followers to use these writings to fuck over whole populations.
I’m not sure why people are rising up to whitewash these things - they don’t negate the other insights anymore than Newton’s insane occult obsession negates calculus or the theory of gravity.
I'm not trying to defend his character, nor every detail of his writings. You do not need to be absolutely beholden to a century old dead guy. Good place to start though. He did believe in revolution and I get it. I understand why and it doesn't seem wrong except we have the benefit of hindsight. Didn't work out so well the several times it was tried.
I was mostly arguing that he didn't want a dictator, it's just that, unfortunately, it seems his methods lead to that.
And if I quote him saying the same things about the peasant class, will you concede the point or would I be wasting my time?
what
I’m not sure what you had trouble grasping - I explained the thought in detail in the paragraph following.
I don’t see how making the same horrible comments about another whole class of people counteracts the horrible comment about others.
“Your honour, and if I show that my client stole from other shops, not just the one he is being prosecuted for, wouldn’t you concede that that negates the theft from this shop?”