History 1C

Lecture 6: Marxism

Late in 1971, South Vietnamese forces ambushed a small North Vietnamese force in Hau Nghia province. On the body of a 27-year old North Vietnamese warrant officer named Vo Dinh Phuoc they took a small pocket diary. It made its way into the hands of American adviser named Captain Stuart Herrington, who read Vietnamese fluently and was struck by the poem he found inscribed on the diary's first page.

Phouc had written:

If you are to be a flower, then be one that always faces the sun.

And if you want to be a rock, then try to be a precious stone.

And if it is a bird that you must be, then by all means be a white dove.

But if you want to be a real human being, then you must be a Communist.

Phuoc had died while single-handedly manning a machine gun position in order to give his comrades a chance to escape. He had been born and raised in Quang Ngai province in northern South Vietnam -- famous as the site of the My Lai massacre of 1968 -- and had left his home in order to join the North Vietnamese forces fighting to rid of the country of what he viewed as a puppet government backed by an imperialist western power. He had a girl friend who wrote him letters in beautiful script. The American captain wrote of him, "The dedication reflected in the young officer's poetry had carried over onto the battlefield. Our troops who fought that day all agreed that Phuoc had saved his entire platoon from destruction by remaining behind to cover their withdrawal. In a rare display of respect, they had buried him decently where he fell..."

The faith that had given Phuoc the courage to fight and die in such a manner had its origins over a century before, in the mind of a German expatriate intellectual named Karl Marx. We in the United States are so accustomed to the notion of a "Communist menace" that we are inclined to dismiss the fact that, rightly or wrongly, many millions of people regard Marxism both as a very accurate way of appraising society and as a very powerful call for social and economic justice.

Born 1818 at Trier in the Rhineland. Attended universities at Bonn and Berlin.

Took degree in 1841, aged 23. Might have become a professor had a university job been available. It wasn't. Took to writing philosophical articles for a newspaper instead.

Got interested in French socialism.

Liberalism was a credo of the middle class.

Emphasis on individual good for those who could make their own way, had resources, were able to climb.

But what of down-trodden, with no resources, living hand to mouth?

Socialism stressed community rights and values over those of individuals.

Newspaper for which Marx wrote was banned by end of 1841. Marx went to Paris, met Friedreich Engels (1820-1895).

Engels was the son of a Rhineland industrialist with manufacturing interests in England.

The became life-long collaborators.

Engels had an intimate practical knowledge of industrial affairs, which Marx lacked. Also keen insight into military matters.

Marx had incredible powers of analysis and conceptualization.

Engels: "Marx was a genius; we others at best were talented.

Expelled from France in 1847 as a suspected dangerous radical, Marx went to Brussels, Belgium. He and Engels were asked to draw up a program by a group of German socialists.

Communist Manifesto (1847)

only a few people read it at the time or during the next 30 years.

An eloquent, powerful denunciation of the existing social order.

"Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose except your chains!"

Although its initial impact was small, in time it was increasingly seen "as the first document of its kind to give a direction and a philosophy to what had before been little more than an inchoate protest against injustice; and in a very real sense it can be said to have created the modern socialist movement."Later wrote Critique of Political Economy (1859) and especially Capital (1867), both done while in asylum in Great Britain. He is buried in London and his habitual seat in the British Library is marked.Later in life, dominant role in European socialist movement. Died 1883.Marxist ThoughtDialectical MaterialismFrom Hegel, Marx imbibed the concept of the dialectic and saw a dialectic process at work in history.He believed that the basis of history and the key to historical change was materialistic.Primacy of economics.Marx: "[In any society,] the mode of production in material life determines the general character of the social, political and spiritual processes of life."When change takes place, the cause is not the competition of opposed ideas, but the conflict of competing economic groupings.Engels: "the whole history of mankind... has been a history of class struggles, contests between exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes."Political systems grow from these material underpinnings, and in each the dominant class expresses the needs, values and interests associated with that particular mode of production.The agricultural economy of the Middle Ages required the feudal system with its particular social values and laws, upheld by land-owning aristocracy.This system produced its antithesis in a middle class, based in capitalism.New antithesis: the proletariat.Ultimate synthesis: a classless society.State would not be abolished. It would no longer serve a real purpose and would simply wither away.Marxist analysis of capitalismCapitalism contained inherent contradictions.Competition between capitalists forced prices lower. To maintain profits, capitalists would logically have to exploit labor more harshly, lower wages to the minimum required for subsistence.But also, competition would force smaller producers out of business. There will be increased concentrations of capital -- fewer and fewer producers -- more and more laborers. Hence a smaller capitalist class and a burgeoning proletariat.Eventually, the basis of socialism will be laid by the deprivation of property from all but a few.System will ultimately collapse.By exploiting contradictions and tensions among capitalists and between capitalists and proletariat, socialists could hasten this day.IV. Marx and WomenA. Women's Liberation/Feminism Understanding and acceptance of women's liberation began only when a thinker emerged who could demonstrate the beneficial possibilities of industrialization, the need to use democracy to fight for workers' rights, and the potential for women's independence inherent in their earning wages for themselves. That person was Karl Marx (1818-1883).Marx's analysis was well suited to a new world of capitalist development and democratic political structures.He and his collaborator, Frederick Engels (1820-1895) together developed an incisive analysis of women's double oppression:1. women were oppressed in their relations to men--marriage is a form of exclusive private property2. Engels later made the point:"Within the family, he is the bourgeois and the wife represents the proletariat.Women were also oppressed as they were drawn into the economic world created by capitalist industrialization: were subjected to the same exploitation as men by employers, yet women were paid half as much and depended on their husbands to stay alive.--this is "double oppression: women's dependance on men facilitated their exploitation by capitalists and vice versa: their wages were low cuz their husbands helped provide for them and in turn their low wages kept them dependant on their husbands.!!!B. This analysis led Marx and Engels to argue a long-term strategy for women's liberation:--1st women should gain political equality; use this in the struggle for economic equality; Both M&E argued that political equality was the necessary precondition to the struggle for human emancipation. The possession of political rights would highlight women's oppression.They also believed that economic independence would give them independence from men.V.The Appeal of MarxismA.Marxism sees society as a whole, provides a plausible theory of historical causation.1.Demands systematic and detailed analyses of inter-relationship of social values, institutions, politics, and economic conditions.2.Also suggests methods for methods for conducting this analysis.3.Hence, a very strong influence on all social sciences, including history.B.Marxism accepts industrialization as beneficial, while denying need for exploitation of working class in the process. Hence, forward-looking and progressive, unlike the vague dreams of a return to illusory simpler times.1.Industrialization, properly done, could increase production and provide a good life for all.C.Marxism has a strong moral tone -- an outcry against injustice, but seemingly tied to reason, not religion.Marxism claims to be a science, and to have the key to unlock man's future.The inevitability of a Marxist victory permits flexibility of tactics.