Marxists Internet Archive additions 10/28/2002

[David Walters <dwalters@xxxxxxx>]

MIA Newsletter 10/28/02
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www.marx.org
www.marxists.org/admin/new/index.htm
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1. Additions to the Marxist Writers Archives -- Marx and
Engels, V.I. Lenin, Duncan Hallas

2. Additions to the German Language Archives: -- Ernst
Thälmann, Georgi Dimitroff

3. Additions to the Spanish Language Archives: --  Luis
Emilio Recabarren

4. Additions to the Serbo-Croatian Language Archives: --
Marks, Engels, Lenjin, Trocki, Luksemburg, Lukac, Mesaros

5. Weekly Pick -- Anton Pannekoek, "The Personal Act", 1933

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* Added to the Marx-Engels Correspondence for 1868: 48 new
letters (including some which were formerly presented just
as abstracts)

In April/May, Engels was writing a Review of Capital for
the Westminster Review, and for his own purposes, compiling
a Synopsis of Capital. The collection includes a priceless
exchange of letters between Marx and Engels at this time,
as Engels questions some aspects of Marx's theory and Marx
explains it, he also encourages Engels not to oversimplify,
and talks about his plans for Volume III. The remaining
letters mostly deal with the International Workingmen's
Association and the emerging conflict with Bakunin. We also
see the beginnings of Marx's reflections on developments in
Russia. [Thanks to Andy Blunden]

* The V. I. Lenin Internet Archive has added 3 more
documents from Volume 31 of Lenin's Collected Works.

Speech Delivered at a Congress Of Leather Industry Workers,
October 2, 1920 To The Poor Peasants Of The Ukraine On
Proletarian Culture Speech Delivered at a Conference of
Chairmen of Uyezd, Volost and Village Committees of Moscow
Gubernia, October 15, 1920 [Thanks to David Walters]

* Added to the new Duncan Hallas Internet Archive:

On Trotskyism (1976) The Soviet Union: State Capitalist or
Socialist? (1976) (with Peter Binns) Clearer view of 1979
(1978) The Making of a Myth (19791) Where do we go from
here? (1980) [Thanks to Einde O'Callaghan]

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* Added to the new German-language Referenzarchiv Ernst
Thälmann:

Die Lehren des Hamburger Aufstandes (1925) (Lessons of the
Hamburg insurrection) Gegen den Mord an Sacco und Vanzetti
(1927) (Against the murder of Sacco and Canzetti)
Programmerklärung zur nationalen und sozialen Befreiung des
deutschen Volkes (1930) (Programmatic declaration on the
national and social liberation of the German people) Die
SPD-Arbeiter und das ?kleinere Übel? (1931) (The SPD
workers and the ?lesser evil?) Referat auf der Tagung des
ZK der KPD im Sporthaus Ziegenhals (1933) (Speech at the
meeting of the CC of the KPD in the Ziegenhals Sports
Centre) [Thanks to Marxistische Bibliothek]

* Added to the new German-language Referenzarchiv Georgi
Dimitroff:

Die Offensive des Faschismus und die Aufgaben der
Kommunistischen Internationale (1935) (The fascist
offensive and the tasks of the Communist International)
[Thanks to Marxistische Bibliothek]

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* We are pleased to announce the launching of the
Spanish-language Archivo Luis Emilio Recabarren for the
works of this journalist and organizer, who participated in
the founding of both the Communist Party of Argentina and
of the Communist Party of Chile. [Thanks to José Miguel
Urz?a Bravo]

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* We have completely rebuilt the Serbo-Croatian Marxists
Internet Archive essentially launching a brand new archive
with dozens of new works by Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky
and other important Marxists. These works are the product
of Komunist Internet Library, from Serbia:

Karl Marks: Ekonomsko-filozofski rukopisi iz 1844. godine
(Economic & Philosophic Manuscripts) Prilog jevrejskom
pitanju (On The Jewish Question) Teze o Fojerbahu (Theses
On Feuerbach) Manifest komunisticke partije (The Communist
Manifesto) Junska revolucija (The June Revolution in Paris)
Kapital (Capital, Volume I) ***ABSTRACT*** O ukidanju
privatne svojine nad zemljistem (The Abolition of Landed
Property) Opci statut Medunarodnog udruzenja radnika
(Resolution on Working-Class Political Action) Kritika
Gotskog programa (Critique of the Gotha Program)

Fridrih Engels: Principi komunizma (The Principles of
Communism) Manifest komunisticke partije (The Communist
Manifesto) Opci statut medjunarodnog udruzenja radnika
(Resolution on Working-Class Political Action) Drustvene
klase - neophodne i suvisne (Social Classes -- Necessary
and Superfluous) Pismo J. Blohu (Engels to J. Bloch in
Knigsberg. September 21-22 1890), Pismo H. Starkenburgu
(Engels to Starkenburg. January 25 1894)

Vladimir Lenjin: Drzava i revolucija (State and revolution)
***ABSTRACT*** Proleterska milicija (A Proletarian Militia)
Zadaci pokreta radnih zena u Sovjetskoj Republici (Tasks of
the Soviet Women's Movement) Tri izvora i tri sastavna dela
marksizma (The Three Sources and Three Component Parts of
Marxism) O drzavi (The State: A Lecture Delivered at the
Sverdlov University) Teze o suvremenoj politickoj situaciji
(Thesis on Contemporary Political Situation)

Lav Trocki: Pacifizam kao sluga imperijalizma (Pacifism as
the Servant of Imperialism) Zasto se marksisti protive
individualnom terorizmu (Why Marxists Oppose Individual
Terrorism) Izdana revolucija (The Revolution Betrayed )
***ABSTRACT*** O demokratskom centralizmu i rezimu (On
Democratic Centralism & The Regime) Azbuka dijalektickog
materijalizma (The ABC of Materialist Dialectics )

Roza Luksemburg: Socijalna reforma ili revolucija (Reform
or Revolution) ***ABSTRACT*** Podrustvljavanje drustva (The
Socialisation of Society)

Georg Lukac: Povijest i klasna svijest (History & Class
Consciousness) ***ABSTRACT***

Istvan Mesaros: Marksova teorija otudenja (Marx's Theory of
Alienation) [Thanks to Stevan G. and the comrades at
Komunist]

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The Personal Act Anton Pannekoek

The burning of the Reichstag by Van Der Lubbe, reveals the
most divergent positions. In the organs of the communist
left such as (Spartacus, De Radencommunist), the burning is
approved as an act of a communist revolutionary. To approve
and applaud such an act means advocating its repetition.
Hence it is necessarily good to fully appreciate its
usefulness.

Perhaps the fire's meaning could only be to affect or to
weaken the dominant class: the bourgeoisie. Here, there can
be no question. The bourgeoisie is not in the least
affected by the burning of the Reichstag; its domination is
in no manner weakened. On the contrary, for the government,
it was the occasion to considerably reinforce its terror
against the worker's movement. The indirect consequences
must still be emphasized.

But even if such an act affects and weakens the
bourgeoisie, the only consequence is to develop for the
workers the conviction that only such individual acts can
liberate them. The full truth that they must acquire is
that only mass action by the working class as a whole can
defeat the bourgeoisie. This basic truth of revolutionary
communism will, in such a case, be hidden from them. Their
independent action as a class will be lost. Instead of
concentrating all their forces on propaganda among the
working masses, the revolutionary minorities will squander
their forces in personal acts which, even when such acts
are carried out by a dedicated group with many members, are
not capable making the domination of the ruling class
falter. With their considerable forces of repression, the
bourgeoisie could easily come after such a group. Rarely
has there been a revolutionary minority group carrying out
actions with more devotion, sacrifice, and energy than the
Russian nihilists a half-century ago. At certain moments,
it even appeared that by a series of well organized
attendants, the nihilists would overthrow Tsarism. But a
French detective, engaged to take over the anti-terrorist
struggle in place of the incompetent Russian police,
succeeded by his personal energy and his entirely western
organization in destroying nihilism in only a few years. It
was only afterwards that a mass movement developed and
finally overthrew Tsarism.

Can such personal acts nevertheless have value as a protest
against the abject electoralism, that turns aside the
workers from their true fight?

A protest only has value if it arises from conviction,
leaves a forceful impression, or develops consciousness.
But who believes that a worker defending his interests by
voting social democrat or communist, will express doubts
about electoralism because someone has burned the
Reichstag? This is a completely derisory argument, similar
to what the bourgeoisie itself does to rid the workers of
their illusions, making the Reichstag completely powerless,
deciding to dissolve it, setting aside the decision
process. German comrades said that this can only be
positive since the confidence of the workers in
parliamentarianism will receive a first-rate blow. Without
doubt, but doesn't this depict matters in a far too
simplistic way? In such a case, democratic illusions will
be shed by another route. Then, where there is no right to
a generalized vote or where Parliament is weak, the
conquest of true democracy is advanced and workers can only
then imagine themselves arriving there by their collective
action. In fact, systematic propaganda seeking to explain
from the start of each event an understanding of the real
significance of parliament and class struggle, always
remains the main point.

Can the personal act be a signal, giving the final push
that sets in motion, by radical example, this immense
struggle?

There is a certain current running in history where
individual actions, in moments of tension, are like sparks
on a powder keg. But the proletarian revolution is nothing
like the explosion of a powder keg. Even if the Communist
Party strives to convince itself and convince the world
that the revolution can break out at any moment, we know
that the proletariat must still form itself in a new manner
to fight as a mass. A certain bourgeois romanticism can
still be perceived in these visions. In past bourgeois
revolutions, the bourgeoisie rose up with the people behind
them and found themselves in confrontation against the
sovereigns and their arbitrary oppression. An attendant on
the person of a king or a minister could be the signal to
revolt. The vision today in which a personal act could set
the masses in motion reveals itself to be a bourgeois
conception of a chief; not the leader of an elected party,
but a chief who designates himself and, who by his actions
leads the passive masses. The proletarian revolution finds
nothing in this outdated romanticism of the leader: a
class, impelled by massive social forces, must be the
source of all initiative.

But the mass, after all, is composed of individuals, and
the actions of the mass contain a certain number of
personal actions. Certainly, it is here that we touch on
the true value of the personal act. Separated from mass
action, the act of an individual who thinks he can realize
alone something great is useless. But as part of a mass
movement, the personal act has the highest importance.
Workers in struggle are not a regiment of marionettes
identical in courage but composed of forces of different
natures concentrated toward the same goal, their movement
irresistible. In this body, the audacity of the bravest
finds the time and place to express itself in personal acts
of courage, when the clear comprehension of others leads
them towards a suitable goal in order not to lose the
gains. Likewise, in a rising movement, this interaction of
forces and acts is of great value when it is guided by a
clear comprehension that animates, at this moment, the
workers which is necessary to develop their combativity.
But in this case, so much tenacity, audacity, and courage
will be called for that it will not be necessary to burn a
Parliament.

Written: 1933

http://www.marxists.org/archive/pannekoe/works/1933-person.
htm `~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~` Marxists Internet
Archive Weekly Newsletter http://marxists.org/admin/new
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