Re: [Marxism] Religion, the proletariat, Marxism, and revolution

["james daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thank you, Haines, for a thorough and challenging reply, which opens 
horizons of fruitful debate.

"I believe we have to sharply distinguish (early) Marx and Marxism."

If that is so, why does Marx refer in the ultra-canonical 1859 preface 
(rarely read in full) to that brilliant summation of his early thought, the 
CHPR:I, which is an inspiration to class struggle. The early edition of the 
works of Marx and Engels rejected the early Marx and relegated it to the 
status of unserious juvenilia, to be published outside the canonical corpus. 
To challenge that decision courted death. It is widely recognized now that 
it wasn't until recovery of the early works of Marx that an understanding of 
the later Marx became possible. Ted Winslow has frequently expressed this 
essence of Marx's thought. It lay behind his speaking of the nobility of the 
French communist workers, and saying that the dignity of man shone forth 
from their toil-worn bodies. He never rejected these writings, and I think 
the post-1845 writings are only a development of the discovery already in 
the early writings that the Aristotelian and Hegelian categories had to be 
seen in relation to the classes which were their bearers.

"Marxism" is basically Kautsky and Plekhanov, which included social 
Darwinism and that French materialism from which Bentham drew his 
individualistic hedonism. "Actually existing socialism" and its ideology 
should indeed be sharply distinguished from both early and late Marx, but 
the question of which has the greater validity is to say the least open to 
dispute -- although I think its wide variety of behaviours and motivations 
perhaps contains elements of authentic Marx.

I hope that the above is not too much assertion of generalities, and that 
concrete issues which relate to them can be fruitfully debated.  I hope to 
reply to your detailed points when I get some time.

James

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Haines Brown" <brownh@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: "James Daly" <james.irldaly@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, March 22, 2008 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Religion, the proletariat, Marxism, and revolution



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