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The Metaporphoses of Marxism - Steven Gouldner

 



 

THE METAMORPHOSES OF MARXISM

 

Steven Gouldner

 

This text was originally written in 1990. In the 2000s a formally corrected version appeared. The current text is already a third version, with a slightly greater change, with some broader formal changes to meet the need for this publication. The content is the same, only the form and some small details are the novelty. The reason for this small formal change and details is with the objective of increasing its precision, its coherence, and also to accompany the development of the author's thought, as it was possible to effect a deepening after 30 years of his writing. The text's theme is the supposed crisis of Marxism that is explained through its metamorphoses and confusion between Marxism and pseudomarxism. How to explain the supposed “crisis of Marxism”? This is the initial question and starting point and the conclusion is that there is no crisis of Marxism, because such crisis is of pseudomarxism.

The discourse of today, of “fashion”, which follows the history of Marxism and has become stronger since 1989 and the so-called “fall of the Berlin Wall”, states that we have reached the “end of history” and that we are living the tragic “final crisis” of Marxism. It remains for us to know, then, what is this Marxism that is going through its “final crisis”, because, as it became common to say, there are several “Marxisms”.

In fact, Marxism is only one, although it has undergone several “metamorphoses” throughout history. Marxism of Marx and Engels - the original Marxism - remains in its essence and has undergone changes in the sense of development and deepening of some of its elements. This is the only existing Marxism and it continued in communism with councils and other later tendencies that maintained their essence and updated it. What happened, in this case, was a development of Marxism.

This is the story of authentic Marxism. On the other hand, a set of concepts emerged that sought to appropriate Marxism, generating pseudomarxism.  This complicates the analysis of the history of Marxism, as it is necessary to distinguish the development and deformation of Marxism. It is this double process - development and deformation - that we call metamorphoses of Marxism. These metamorphoses occurred both by the development of capital and class struggles and by the specific appropriation or assimilation of Marxism in each time, place and social class.

The first form of metamorphosis of Marxism is through its development and the second form is through appropriation. The development expresses a deepening of the revolutionary theses of the original Marxism , as it continues to express the class interests of the proletariat, the raison d'être of Marxism; the second form of metamorphosis, appropriation, turns out to be a distortion of Marxism. Therefore, we must do what Karl Korsch called “applying historical materialism to himself”[1] , because only then can we understand its development and its deformation. The metamorphoses of Marxism cannot be understood through the idealistic conception of “Marxisms”. We can say, with sarcastic irony, that today the dominant “Marxism” is the “Marxism” of the ruling class.

The original Marxism - by Marx and, to a lesser extent, due to its mistakes, by Engels - was a complex theoretical elaboration that ran through what today would be called the area of ​​”philosophy”, “economics”, “politics”, “sociology”, Pedagogy, psychology, anthropology[2] , etc., and had as its starting point the analysis of the mode of production, or, what is equivalent, of class struggles. Marx's monumental effort to write Capital[3] , which can be perceived through the Grundrisse, demonstrates what is fundamental to revolutionary Marxism (by “revolutionary Marxism” I mean original Marxism and its deepening and updating by several theorists and currents, which constitute the only existing Marxism, contrary to what the “Marxism” style says).

But, as Marxism is not above class struggle and historical development , it becomes appropriate for different social classes and thus loses its revolutionary character , because only by expressing the interests of a revolutionary class can a theory be maintained revolutionary. Each individual, when coming into contact with the original Marxism, interprets it according to their “radical needs” (to resume Agnes Heller's expression[4] which, in this respect, is a continuator of the original Marxism, although it is not in many other respects). This, however, does not create “individual Marxisms”, because in a class society, all ideas, theories, etc., represent the interests of one class or another, regardless of the individual motivation that generated it.

In this sense, it is interesting to analyze, even if briefly, some appropriations of Marxism. Let us start with reformism (Bernstein and Kautsky). Bernstein sought to break with the revolutionary character of Marxism by maintaining that he failed in his analysis of capitalism: the middle classes did not disappear, capitalism was developing as never before, etc., so the struggle for socialism should be based not on the premise of the struggle revolutionary movement of the proletariat, but on ethical precepts that would be the basis of the struggle for reforms that would evolve[5] . But we cannot analyze the ideas for themselves, as it is an achievement of revolutionary Marxism to understand that ideology “has no history”[6] . We must, therefore, look for the real conditions that made the appearance of the reformist ideology possible. Bernstein's time was characterized by the “economic boom” of capitalism. The increase in nominal wages, although there was a fall in real wages, created the illusion that workers' organizations could gradually gain greater and greater benefits and build a more humane society. In addition, the German Social Democratic Party (of Bernstein and Kautsky) grew electorally. It created specific staff and became increasingly bureaucratic. Capitalism created new social classes, the “employees of the superstructure”, such as the intellectual and the bureaucracy. Intellectuality and bureaucracy were present in the party and Kautsky and Bernstein are good examples of this. The phenomenon of bureaucratization, of electoral growth, together with the “economic boom” of capitalism, are some of the reasons that caused the “revision” in the political principles of Marxism and Bernstein was the ideologue who was responsible for this task. However, it was exactly the same German capitalism, when it went into crisis, and the Social Democratic Party, with its parliamentarianism and support for the war, as well as its negative influence on the proletariat, that paved the way for Nazi monstrosity.

Karl Kautsky, on the other hand, in addition to mixing evolutionism with Marxism, had as his main “contribution” to offer to Marxist theory the thesis that Marxism should overcome all utopianism. He is, without a doubt, the father of “political realism” under social-democratic language . Marxism, according to him, should break with the idea that there would be a “final crisis” of capitalism and that it would be possible to exist a “stateless society”. From this revision of the fundamental ideas of the original Marxism, the political tasks of social democracy change: there is no “final crisis”, which Kautsky considered necessary for a revolution, and the “destruction of the State” is not possible, so it must be abandon the revolutionary program and fight for the conquest of state power and carry out, through reforms, the gradual transition to socialism[7] . This, obviously, ceased to be the “revolutionary association of producers” proposed by the original Marxism to be an economic regime that matters the state, sustained and legitimized by representative (bourgeois) democracy, which would meet the economic needs of workers. The parliamentary struggle and the conquest of the power of the bourgeois state become the goals of social democracy.

We know that the historical conditions of Kautsky's day are the same as Bernstein's, as they produced their ideologies in the same period and within the same party. That is why there were two different responses (difference that should not be overestimated) for the same historical situation and expressing the point of view of a determined social class: the bureaucracy. Therefore, we can say that this appropriation of Marxism was produced under certain historical conditions that are seen from the perspective of a new social class seeks to conquer state power, in this case, bureaucracy.

Bolshevist appropriation of Marxism has three main variants: Leninism, Trotskyism and Stalinism. We will limit ourselves, for the time being, to Leninism, the basis of others. The key to Leninist theory is its theory of organization and its justification: the avant-garde theory. This famous theory states that class consciousness is introjected “from the outside” into the proletariat by the party's “revolutionary” intellectuals[8] . But let us see under what historical and social conditions these theses arose. Leninism emerged in a backward country, with a traditional culture, a dictatorial state, with some “revolutionary” organizations in hiding, etc. All of this made possible the emergence of the Leninist ideology of the vanguard and the party. But historical development refuted Leninist theses: the working class spontaneously acquired its class consciousness in Russia and began to carry out its revolution, which ended up being usurped by the bureaucracy (which also acquired its “class consciousness” spontaneously) and to prove this it is enough read Lenin). Lenin expressed the class consciousness of a sector of bureaucracy that was more radicalized and that was less subservient to the bourgeoisie (as was the case with its ideological matrix, Kautskyism).

It still remains to answer the two questions that can be asked: a) if bureaucracy, as a social class, is a product of capitalist development and Russia was a backward country, then bureaucracy in this country should be extremely weak, and therefore, how could it usurp the proletarian revolution? b) If reformism is the ideology of bureaucracy in Western Europe (Bernstein, Kautsky), then how in Russia can it use Bolshevik ideology? Firstly, Russia was a country in transition to capitalism and, precisely because of that, all the social classes in formation were numerically reduced (the bourgeoisie, the bureaucracy, the proletariat) and the “decadent” classes (the great owners of land and peasantry) were more numerous. The classes of modern society grew numerically, while the pre-capitalist classes decreased.

However, class struggles cannot be analyzed using purely quantitative criteria. The proletariat was numerically small, but due to its concentration on industrial centers and its revolutionary potential, it managed to overthrow the Tsarist state. The bourgeoisie was extremely weak not only numerically, but also because it was threatened by the proletariat and therefore wanted at all costs to maintain its alliance with the nobility in order to be safe. But in order to do this, he had to, at the same time, make concessions to the nobility that hindered capitalist development. The class alliance that supported the Tsarist State was fragile and the exploited classes (proletariat and peasantry) were strong. The civil bureaucracy was numerically small, but it had a powerful ideological and organizational strength. By allying with the exploited classes, it would succeed in overthrowing both the nobility and the bourgeoisie and deceiving the exploited classes (especially the proletariat and the peasantry) to become the new ruling class.

Second, the bureaucracy, like all social classes in capitalism, due to the complex social division of labor, has internal divisions. The main division that exists in the bureaucracy occurs between the civil bureaucracy, which is that which is born in companies and private institutions, and the state bureaucracy, which is that which exists in the State and its institutions. There are other internal divisions in this class and this creates several ideologies that express their interests differently, but in addition, the bureaucracy can elaborate ideologies according to the historical moment and change its political position depending on the concrete situation. In Russia, the political struggle of the proletariat and peasantry forced the Tsarist state to establish a dictatorial regime and this was opposed to the interests of the civil bureaucracy , because without representative democracy, the development of this fraction of the bureaucratic class is hampered and restricted. Consequently, the civil bureaucracy had to oppose tsarism and could only overthrow it with the support of the exploited classes. Bolshevism fulfilled this role and Leninist ideology was its most perfect intellectual expression.

In this historical period, which goes from the formation of social democracy to the Bolshevik counterrevolution in Russia, several political conceptions and some attempts to develop Marxism emerged. It is possible to quote Antonio Labriola and Jan Wanclaw Makhaïsky, among others, who seek to effect a development of Marxism, but we will focus on Rosa Luxemburg's contribution. The Luxembourgish development of original Marxism takes up the fundamental line of revolutionary Marxism. Rosa Luxemburg spared no criticism of social democracy, Bolshevism and trade unions[9] . A part of these criticisms contained limits that are explained by the time in which she lived, because, at that time, Bolshevism still maintained a “revolutionary” discourse and social democracy, unions and parties had not yet degenerated to such a high level how much would be seen later. Her analysis of capitalism is important, but her main merit was to have analyzed the process of proletarian revolution: revolutionary spontaneity, mass strikes, workers' councils. It not only took over the original Marxism (“the emancipation of the workers is the work of the workers themselves”) but deepened it in the light of historical development.

Let us return to Leninism, now addressing its derivatives. Stalinist appropriation of Marxism simply meant the transformation of original Marxism into the official ideology of the “Soviet state, but without soviets”. Stalin was theoretically mediocre, but he had “bureaucratic competence”. Stalin systematized, adapted and deformed the writings of Marx, Engels and Lenin to make them consistent with the interests of the bureaucracy erected as a ruling class. The only thing he presented worthy of note was his weird deformation of the “fundamental laws” of capitalism and communism and the thesis of “socialism in one country”. For Stalin, the “fundamental law” of capitalism was not the production of surplus value, but the “search for profit” and the “fundamental law” of communism would not be the “free association of producers”, but the satisfaction of needs ( understood in a limited way, that is, as consumption)[10] . Thus, the primacy of the mode of production elaborated by Marxist theory is replaced by the primacy of the distribution of surplus. This ideology - ideal deformation of reality - consists of replacing the determinant with the determined and vice versa. With this the fundamental question (relations of production, the State, etc.) becomes secondary. The problem becomes only the level of consumption by the Soviets. Stalin's time is characterized by the dominance of bureaucracy as a ruling class in state capitalism and its political, economic, etc. conceptions express with deformed Marxist concepts the interests of the ruling class.

Trotskyist appropriation is more complex than Stalinist appropriation. Trotsky's thought went through three phases, the first of which did not express a deformation of Marxism[11] . What interests us, however, are its last two phases. This is justified due to the fact that Trotsky's greater historical influence occurred in these phases and that they are the only ones recognized by “Trotskyism”. The phase of “Trotsky in power” is the one that he presented as more bureaucratic and authoritarian than Lenin. This is what made it possible for Stalin to call him “the father of bureaucrats”. What was most original about Trotsky until his confrontation with Stalin was the “theory of permanent revolution” - already outlined in the first phase of his thought and systematized in the third phase - which did not exist in the original Marxism, despite the tireless attempts of Trotskyists in prove otherwise. But, despite the importance of such a theory in the whole of Trotsky's thought, it will not be analyzed here because it does not “compromise” the original Marxism “much”. What interests us here is the “unarmed prophet” for Stalinism.

We know that Trotsky analyzed the success of Stalinism due to the insufficient development of the productive forces. The delay in the development of the productive forces is what would have made possible the rise of Stalin and the bureaucratic deformations of the “Workers' State”. Despite this, there was a “socialization” of the means of production and with that the socialist “economic base” was built and there were only deformations in the “superstructure”, which would make a “political revolution” necessary.[12] . Thus, Trotsky abandons historical materialism and adheres to the philosophical dualism of the bourgeoisie: he analyzes the bureaucratization of Russia without taking into account the fundamental determination, which is the class struggle, after underestimating the significance of individuals and social classes in history, overestimates Stalin's significance in the bureaucratization process. Furthermore, it confuses “socialization” with “nationalization” of the means of production, defends the possibility of an outdated “superstructure” coexisting with a revolutionary “structure”. Of course, all of this has to be understood in the context of Russia's historical situation. Trotsky blames Russia's backwardness for bureaucratization and thus shies away from responsibility, along with Lenin, for this fact. But at the same time, it has to justify the Bolsheviks' seizure of power even in a backward country. The solution is to appeal to the possibility of a saving revolution in Western Europe. Failure to carry out such a revolution opens space for Stalinism. But, even so, it is necessary to put the possibility of Russia moving towards socialism, waiting, of course, for the revolution in Europe to justify the existence of the “left opposition”, Trotskyism. Thus, an overestimation of Stalin's meaning in bureaucratization is created.

Leon Trotsky can never criticize the roots of Stalinism, as this would be tantamount to self-criticism and taking responsibility (along with Lenin and the other Bolsheviks) for Russia's bureaucratization. Ultimately, it was Lenin and Trotsky's Bolshevism that generated Stalinism.

The development of Marxism took place, fundamentally, through what became pejoratively known as “leftism”. However, the so-called “leftism” is very varied, with a large number of organizations, individuals, intellectuals, which makes it difficult to analyze all its manifestations. However, regardless of this, it needs to be recovered because it is the continuation of Marx and Rosa Luxemburg's revolutionary Marxism. The same questions that were asked by the historical movement received a proletarian answer from those who sought to develop Marxism. The most important component of this broad spectrum is what has become known as “council communists”, and which has the merit of understanding the true character of Soviet society, the conservative function of parties and unions, the meaning of Bolshevism, the need for self-organization of the proletariat, the recovery of the true content of communism, etc. Councilor communists had the greatest merit of having rediscovered the content of communism, self-management. In addition, they analyzed the process of the proletarian revolution as a product of the autonomous workers 'struggle that became radicalized and created the workers' councils and became the collective self-management organizations of the producers.[13] . Of course, such analyzes were not only the result of the “intellectual brilliance” of the communist councils, but mainly due to the practical radicalization of the workers 'movement in Germany, Russia and other countries and also the emergence of the workers' councils in this historical period in several countries, as well as the bureaucratisation, it was a counterrevolutionary obstacle. Thus, the communist councils emerged thanks to historical development, since this no longer allowed, starting from the perspective of the proletariat, the illusion with social democracy or Bolshevism, to join projects of society such as the USSR, etc., the non-recognition of the revolutionary action of the proletariat and its meaning.

Other forms of manifestation of Marxism need a more developed and profound analysis, both in terms of observing their limitations and their contributions. This is the case of Bordiga and his followers, Sylvia Pankhurst and English anti-parliamentarism, Makhaïsky, the Situationist International, the English group Solidarity, Italian autonomism, etc. There were also many other appropriations of Marxism, but they did not have the influence that those analyzed above had, although they also deserve deeper analysis, ranging from the so-called “Austromarxism”, passing through Maoism, Eurocommunism, until reaching pseudomarxist contemporary conceptions.

From everything that has been put here, what is seen is that the “crisis of Marxism” is the crisis of the deformations of Marxism. The traditional pseudomarxism of Bernstein, Kautsky, Lenin, Lukács, Trotsky, Bukhárin, Stalin, Togliatti, Gramsci, etc., is that it is in crisis and takes with it all its contemporary heirs and substitutes like Mandel, Althusser, Poulantzas, Perry Anderson, etc. For revolutionary Marxism, it does not matter whether Marx's books are being sold on the market or not. It does not matter whether the number of self-titled Marxists has increased or decreased. The fundamental issue for revolutionary Marxism is not the heyday or crisis of the so-called “Marxist” culture, but the development of capital and the class struggle.

Space is opened, with such a crisis, for us to recover authentic and revolutionary Marxism and the essential analyzes for the theory of the proletarian revolution and to recognize the current stage of development of the capitalist mode of production and class struggles. The current “crisis of Marxism” is, in fact, a crisis of what Marx called “pre-revolutionary appendages”. This crisis makes room for the revolutionary action of the proletariat without the mystifications of state capitalism, which went bankrupt, and the reformism that has proven thousands of times its inability to solve the problems of capitalism and the impossibility of reaching communism through reforms. social. The “wrong” figures of the proletarian revolution begin to fall and with this the true revolutionary movement threatens to resurface and declare the death of capitalism (private and state) and the end of “its” history.

If this process has not yet reached the level expected, generating only points of resumption of authentic Marxism, this is due to the strength of capitalism and its hegemony, the relative stability that has emerged since the 1980s and which is already beginning to come into new decline. A new wave of crisis is to come and authentic Marxism, which has been gradually strengthening, tends to re-emerge with theoretical and political strength alongside the workers 'movement, which must also resurface with the development of radicalized workers' struggles. This will depend on the workers' struggles and the intellectual struggle of the Marxists, which are struggles that reinforce each other. Thus, we must fight to reinforce this tendency, and in the most varied forms, one of which is to rescue authentic Marxism.

 


[1] KORSCH, Karl. Marxism and Philosophy . New York: Monthly Review Press, 1970 .

[2] Cf. KORSCH, Karl. Ob. Cit.

[3] MARX, Karl. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy . Vol 1. London: Penguin .1976.

 

[4] HELLER, Agnes. Per cambiare la vita . Intervista Ferdinando Adornato . Rome: Riunuti, 1980.

[5] BERNSTEIN, Eduard. Evolutionary Socialism . New York : Schocken Books, 1961 .

[6] Not in the ideological and Althusserian sense, but in the Marxist sense, according to which it does not have an independent and autonomous history in relation to society.

[7] KAUTSKY, Karl. The Road to Power . London: Humanities Press, 1996.

[8] Cf. LENIN, W. What Is to Be Done? In: LENIN, WI Selected Works . Vol. 1 . N ew York: International Publishers, 1967 .

[9]   Cf. LUXEMBURG, Rosa. The Russian Revolution and Leninism or Marxism? Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961 (Brazilian edition of the second part: LUXEMBOURG, Rosa. Marxism against Bureaucracy . Goiânia: Edições Enfrentamento, 2020).

[10] STÁLIN, Joseph. Economic problems of socialism in the USSR . Moscow: Foreign Languages ​​Publishing House, 1952.

[11] The period of the “young Trotsky” antileninista still deserves further study, but his criticism of Leninism already points to a differentiation in relation to Leninism and approximation to Marxism, since the focus of his criticism was “substitutionism” “Leninist (the party replaces the class, just as the central committee replaces the party).

[12] TROTSKY, Leon. The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going . Labor Publications, 1986.

[13] Cf. PANNEKOEK, Anton. Workers Councils . London: Merlin, 1975.

 

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