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.