Re: [Marxism] Marx and Engels and the National Question

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ed George wrote:
> Marx's writings on Ireland from this period thus mark a real turning
> point in the outlook of both he and Engels in relation to the political
> significance of nationalism, even if they do not form as yet a clear and
> distinctive theory of nationalism. In addition, these writings on
> Ireland do not mark the only movement or tension in Marx's thinking over
> this period, although they do, I believe, indicate the general direction
> in which Marx was moving in the last two decades of his life.

A great analysis as always from the peerless Ed George.

Although the debate that I have alluded to here in the past between Rosa 
Luxemburg and Belfort Bax on one side and Eduard Bernstein on the other 
is posed in terms of colonialism rather than the national question, it 
does very much relate to the question of Marxism moving beyond what Ed 
describes as 'linear-evolutionist'. Bax wrote many brilliant articles 
defending the right of "backward" peoples--many of whom were Islamic, I 
might add--to resist colonialism imposed by more "advanced" societies. 
Bernstein, among many other faults, defended colonialism through 
constant references to the Communist Manifesto.

Kudos to the folks at the Marxists Internet Archive for making the 
writings of this great British Marxist available once again at 
http://www.marxists.org/archive/bax/index.htm.

This is a letter titled Barbarism and Civilisation, written January 29 1898


DEAR COMRADE,

I trust our friend Hazell will not think me captious if I venture to 
criticise an incidental point in his article an Population in Justice of 
January 1. Speaking of Malthus, he says, “to lend colour to his 
arguments (as to an individual struggle for food) he took for the 
purpose of analogy man in a low state of civilisation, sometimes quite 
barbaric sad near to the level of animals, etc.” Now, as a matter of 
fact, though it may be true that barbaric man in a certain sense is 
nearer the criminals than civilised man (in much the same sense as 
Mühlhausen is nearer Clerkenwell Green than Basel, where I am writing), 
yet it is true that the social organisation of barbaric man, as Hazell 
is well aware, involves the principles of Socialism. to an extent which 
no civilised society has ever done. Barbaric society, within its own 
boundaries, is co-operative and not competitive. In exact proportion as 
primitive society and its institutions is displaced by Civilisation, 
co-operation gives way to competition. As a matter of fact, Malthus 
wrote in the rising period of English capitalism, and what he had in his 
mind was the competition he saw going on around. As to his analogies 
with earlier stages of society, they were necessarily founded on the 
imperfect knowledge of his day on the subject, and viewed in the light 
of the erroneous conceptions concerning early man (based largely on 
Rousseauite notions) current at the end of the last and beginning of the 
present century.

I have no doubt the remark of Hazell’s I have criticised was only a slip 
But the economical articles from his pen are generally so thoroughly 
sound and accurate, as well as popular, that it is a pity for even an 
incidental error to be allowed to pass, more especially as I hope they 
will later on appear in book or pamphlet farm.

Yours fraternally,
E. Belfort Bax


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