Re: Marx versus Engels? - and DMS :-)

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

In a message dated 10/24/03 6:42:51 AM Pacific Daylight Time, lnp3@xxxxxxxxx
writes:

>Oishi's study extends a long line of works (going back to the 1920s)
that have sought to recover the method and insights that can be
attributed purely to Marx, unencumbered not only by the "official
Marxism" of the Soviet Union but also by the expository and even the
editorial interventions of Engels.  Oishi posits a direct line between
some of Engels's simplifications-from the use of labels like "historical
materialism" to the treatment of productive forces more as fixed goods than as a
complex of social relations-and the formulaic distortions of Marxism
propounded by the Soviet State.<

Engels Place In History

Dogmatism and simplification is the inevitable result of the first phases of
attempting to create a scientific understanding amongst the masses.
"Scientific understanding" means to imbue a mass of people with an outline or 
picture of
the process logic of Marx - how and why society moves in class antagonism and
what it means for them as a class. This process logic cannot be explained or
taught as process logic, but rather on the basis of the concept language of
the audience one is dealing with.

Marx dies March 14, 1883 and Engels speaks of the world historical
significance of Marx scientific AND REVOLUTIONARY activity - in the English 
language.
During August 1883 Engels began editing the English translation of Volume 1 of
Marx's Capital and works on this three years. Around November he completes
preparations for the Third German edition of Volume 1 of Capital and writes a
preface to it. He also prepares new editions and the translations of a number of
Marx's and his works, writing introduction to all of them.

Engels prepares Volume 2 of Marx's Capital for publication, which appears in
July 1885 with his preface. He is also meeting with socialist from around the
world. Following the German workers movement Engels is kicking off letters to
Becker and Sorge. At the end of May 1884 "The Origins of the Family, Private
Property and the State," hits the streets of Zurich. During this time Volume 3
of Capital is being sent to the printer. In 1886 "Feuerbach and the End of
Classical German Philosophy" appears. In early 1887 "The Conditions of the
Working Class in England" hits the streets of New York. Around August 1888 
Engels
and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling and Karl Schorlemmer visit the United
States and Canada. In late 1888 Engels is writing letters to the French
revolutionaries. Between January and June, 1889 Engels is busy preparing an
international socialist congress, sending correspondence to different 
countries. July
14, 1889 The International Socialist Congress opens in Paris and is attended by
delegates from 20 countries; the Congress gives birth to the Second
International.

After this point, Engels life became really busy. What is called "the
historical significance of Marx scientific AND REVOLUTIONARY activity" as he and
Engels lived their lives recomposed itself as an inverted expression of their 
life
activity. That is what happened but "an inverted expression of their life
activity" means nothing to anyone without being made concrete, but it is the
living dialectic of Engels life.

"The historical significance of Marx scientific AND REVOLUTIONARY activity"
means the theory grid or process logic underlying Marx concepts, as it exists
in unity and strife with their material activity to organize the advanced guard
of the proletarian assertion. In American English this became stated by the
communist workers as the difference between the  "theory of the class struggle"
as it exist in unity and strife with the "doctrine of the class struggle."
That is to say, communist workers have to win over real people to a real
doctrine of social change that contains a specific theory underpin or process 
logic.

In other words the shift in Engels actual life activity was inverted and the
practical task of organizing the theory foundation of the proletarian
revolution gave way to hands on daily work of the material organization of real
people. The articulation of the doctrine of the class struggle superceded the
articulation of the theory of the class struggle. From July 14, 1889 the 
character
of Engels work and writings start shifting to the doctrine of combat and the
art of maneuver, although both aspects were always present in both their work.

Here is what is being stated. The English speaking proletarians cannot read
in German so English versions of everything has to be prepared in the language
context of how people think things out so "Capital: The Shape of Capitalist
Production becomes "the process of capitalist production." During the period
from the founding of the Second International to Engels death is when the earned
the proud title of "The General" - not "the theoretician," although he was a
theoretician of immense gravity, that to this day remains unsurpassed. Marx was
bigger theoretician, but Engels was the undisputed "General."

It is not possible to imbue any group of people - much less an entire class,
with the theory grid of Marx. What the people can be imbued with is the
concept framework of Marx as it exists in their language framework and every 
effort
to do this must result in dogmatism at the first phases of the process.

Here is what happened to us in the real world. During the 1970s are book club
primarily attended by intellectual - 75% and 25% industrial workers, met once
a month and stabilized at around seventy-five to one hundred twenty five
people at each meeting. When we put out "the call" to establish a mass forum of
study more than two hundred people showed up and we were instantly overrun. If
you want to teach "Marxism" where do you start? You cannot teach Marxism as
such to a mass except through Engels or rather doctrine and the individual
develops a grasp of the concept framework and passes from dogmatism to 
creativity.

In other words one is compelled to codify that which stands outside of
codification. This is the dialectic anyone will face and it becomes very clear 
for
anyone standing in front of a group of workers and intellectuals. Example: you
say "dialectic" and it means "contradiction" to everyone. You say "antagonism"
and it means "fighting or struggle or violence" and this has nothing to do
with "antagonism" as process logic. Antagonism is not a "form of contradiction"
but rather antagonism replaces contraction as the living process of the
"dialectic of the leap" - transition in a qualitative definition. Here is the
historical error in the official Soviet presentation of the dialectic of the 
leap.

How does one know that this is the historical error in official Soviet
literature - of the past era, in respects to the dialectic of the leap? One
discovers the truth of the moment as the actual process of transition takes 
place
beneath their feet.

Soviet literature on Marxism and dialectics is extremely static and codified
and beginning in the 1920s was prepared for a country passing from 100 million
peasants. Writing for people who cannot read is an art because they have to
be taught how to read first. Writing for the working class or laboring masses,
who have been ground down for 40 centuries is more than a notion. Without the
body of historic Soviet literature and say, the hundreds of millions of copies
of Lenin's "State and Revolution" the working class movement on earth would
be poorer. Dogmatism existed in the Soviet Union on a massive scale and it
exactly mirrors our first individual encounter with "Marxism."

It gets deeper. The only other historical figure to approach the level of
Engels was Lenin. Engels role in history - not withstanding his immense
theoretical gravity and gigantic intellect, was the executor of Marx legacy and 
the
creator of the initial doctrine of the class struggle or the dialectic of the
class struggle - not the theory of the class struggle. While Engels - "The
General," is preparing and creating the initial doctrine of the class struggle 
in th
e flesh, he is still the executor of Marx and prepares monumental documents
for the workers like the "Critique of the Gotha Program" and "Theories of
Surplus Value." These document are crafted for the workers and not academia 
although
they are of necessity interesting to academia.

No one can write dialectics or speak in the tongue of dialectics because it
is not humanly possible. One can only write and speak in concepts whose
accuracy will spark the spontaneous process that slowly grasp the process logic 
of
reality as explained on the basis of "dialectics" at different junctures in 
histo
ry.

I say, "one cannot have a communist social - not ideological, movement
without a communist class," but that is not the process logic of reality but the
static concept of process logic for this concrete historical moment. Dogmatism 
is
going to reign supreme in America, but once our workers start talking about
the "class struggle" as they understand it as individuals and on the basis of
how various groups articulate process and people explain their actual life
experience, we are on our way. We have to literally create this dogmatic 
framework
or we would just pass out copies of Capital.

Official Soviet Literature is in historical error by definition and imbued
with profound industrial process logic and industrial concepts of this logic.
Its attributes are that it documents - freezes, the historical moment, with
accuracy based on how the participants understood their social process.

Anyone out there with a ten-page booklet I can give to our workers on
dialectics? Stalin's "Dialectical and Historical Materialism" is obsolete and
historically in error but it was outstanding for perhaps 50 million people how 
never
read anything by Marx, when it was published as official doctrine. Millions of
people began speaking of "Diamat." I wish our workers were at this point.

Plus, I have not updated this brief introductory presentation for our workers
in their language concepts. Anyone can throw bricks at dead men. We are
reaching the point when it's "put up" or "shut up."  That means I am going to 
have
to "put up." And the critics are waiting. :-)

Try giving the workers DMS on overproduction, (I figure if his writing of
process logic of process logic, can be unravel and articulated where the 
majority
arrive at the same concept - reproduction and overproduction as the face of
the crisis within reproduction, we might be on our way to making sense to each
other and a larger audience). A large part of the equation is not "right" or
"wrong" but best articulation at a historically specific moment to a
historically specific audience. Good propagandists are rare creatures. Engels 
was the
best of them all, which is why Marx loved his comrade dearly. Marx read every
word of "Anti-Duhring" and start smiling.

There is of course the general problem, which is the combat within Marxism as
it is under attack by class forces and various strata of society seeking to
appropriate its revolutionary conclusions. Marx is not for professors, although
good professors are always an attribute to the social movement.

I can hear Marx from the grave saying, "That damn Engels, know how to talk to
the worlds workers with extraordinary process logic."  After all, it was
Engels who discovered the process logic and trajectory of the law of value. It 
was
Marx who disclosed it internal compulsion as a historical force. This is what
made them meet in the first place.

Melvin P.


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