The Transhistoric Future of Marxism in Globalization


THE BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO
AND ITS PROLETARIAN-DEMOCRATIC,
REVOLUTIONARY SIGNIFICANCE


By   Franz J. T. Lee 

Pandemonium Electronic Publications 

Merida, Venezuela.

© 2001 Franz J. T. Lee All Rights Reserved.

http://www.geocities.com/stellairis/marxmanifesto.html

******************************************************************

PART  IV - POLITICAL ECONOMY

PART  V -  CLASSICAL GERMAN IDEALIST AND MATERIALIST PHILOSOPHY

PART  VII - THE MARXIST "HUMAN BEING" IN MODERN CAPITALIST SOCIETY

PART  VII - THE POLITICAL INFLUENCE OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

PART  VIII -

PART IX - THE POLITICAL ESSENCE OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO

*******************************************************

PART  I


INTRODUCTION


Before we enter in medias res, to analyze the "Communist Manifesto", let's enjoy 
some typical views about "mankind". Also, please note, for a change, that this time we 
are analyzing the historic "significance" of the "Manifesto". Thus, we'll have an 
excellent perspective with regard to the quo vadis of Marxism, and who and what it 
intended or intends to emancipate. In general, the statements below will also highlight 
who is man, who has "rights", and who is supposed to be liberated on this planet. As we 
already know, "Niggers", "slaves", "Jews", "aliens", "Kaffirs", "coolies", "Latinos", 
etc., -- 95% of "humanity", of 6 billion -- do not belong to the sonorous, ideological 
epithet: humanity. Whether we like it or not, believe it or not, know it or not, what 
follows is simply the "gospel truth" of our world, it is a formal-logical, self-evident 
Absolute Truth. Thousands of erudite ideologues have affirmed it across the ages. Who 
can still read, please just read your official "classics"! Anyhow, here we go:


Slaves: No "Zoon Politikon", just barbaric, banausic "Speaking Tools".

Aristotle.


"We hold these truths to be self-evident,
that all men are created equal, that they are
endowed by their Creator with certain
inalienable Rights, that among these are Life,
Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness."

Declaration of Independence, 1776.


"Characteristic of the Negro (of Africa) is ,
that his world outlook didn't reach any
definite objectivity as yet, e.g., God, Law, which
would reflect a human will, and in which he
could experience his essence. ...

The Negro represents the natural human being still in a state of
total savageness and wildness. ...

The Negro displays a total disrespect, a contempt towards
humanity. ...

For him, humanity is worthless, this takes on
incredible forms; for him, tyranny is not injustice, and
a generally accepted and sanctioned custom is to devour
human flesh. ...

Another characteristic of Negroes is slavery. ... On their own
continent the Negroes experience a slavery worse than European
enslavement of Negroes. ... The fundamental expression of slavery is precisely
that man is not yet conscious of his freedom, hence he degenerates
into a thing, into something without any human value. ...

We leave Africa, not to mention it anymore, because it is not a
historic continent, because it lacks motion and development, ... it is just
appearing vaguely on the dark threshold of world history. "

[Excerpts from: G. W. F. Hegel, LECTURES ON THE PHILOSOPHY OF
HISTORY. (My free translation, exhibiting the "racist" arrogance.)]


"It is almost unthinkable that God, who is all goodness itself,
could have determined to place a soul --let alone a good soul --
in a body as black and repulsive as that of a Negro."

(Montesquieu, "Esprit des Lois" , Livre XV, Chapter 5.)


"The Negro race is a species of men as different from ours as the
breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds. ... if their understanding
is not of a different nature from ours, it is at least greatly inferior.
They are not capable of any great application or association of ideas,
and seem formed neither for the advantages nor the abuses of philosophy."

(Voltaire, Works.)

"Every political association has as its goal the preservation
of the natural and imprescriptible rights of men. These rights are
liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression."

Art. 11, Declaration of Rights of Man and the Citizen, 1789.


Apart from the fact, that in the "Communist Manifesto", Marx & Engels, typical social 
products of their "racist", colonial, liberal-capitalist epoch, spoke about "barbarian 
and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilized ones ",Marx himself found a 
subject of derision in Ferdinand LaSalle's " Negroid" features, calling him a " Jewish 
nigger"," who always conceals his woolly hair with all kinds of hair-oil and make-up ", 
and that "it is perfectly obvious, from the shape of his head and the way his hair grows, 
that he is descended from Negroes." Well, well, whatamansay!

However, the above is not quoted so that "American", "Peace" or "Democracy" 
Lovers should rejoice, or that "Hegel", "Marx" and "Communist" Haters should 
celebrate a victorious "I always told you that" KKK-Party. No, it's a serious warning, 
that we should cast aside our age-old obscurantism, ignorance and arrogance. It's an 
example of excellent, emancipatory scientific-philosophic stringency.

These are the "human" reflections of the European superstructure of the 18th and 
19th centuries. In the Third Millennium A.D., capitalist "race" prejudice and the 
conceptions of "man", -- of the perfect, great "human being" -- have not changed 
basically. Also the attitudes towards "barbarian races" have not ceased; on the 
contrary, they have become more virile, more virulent; this could be seen in the "World 
Wars", in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, in the Nazi concentration 
camps, in the Stalinist "Gulags", in the slaughtering carried out by tyrants such as Idi 
Amin and Mobutu, in the South African Apartheid regime, in the witch-hunting of the 
McCarthy era, in the murders of Patrice Lumumba and Walter Rodney, in the Rwanda 
Conspiracy, -- in fact, in the Global Era, as far as the eye could see, as far as the 
Internet could reach!

All across the planet, in capitalism, "liberalism", "libertarianism", "tribalism", 
"socialism" or "communism", in dungeons, in sewerage systems, under bridges, in 
carton-box "houses", in mud huts, barrios and favelas, in yachts, villas, palaces and 
sky-scrapers, in banks, multi-nationals and governments, in Red Squares, in Yellow, 
Green and White Houses, in Octagons and Pentagons, in the air, in space, in time, on 
earth, under the sea, in dark holes, in heaven, in hell, all over, and everywhere, 
Orwellian "racist", "racial" and "human" arrogance survive, are rife. This contagious 
epidemic has entered every single capillary, every cell, every chromosome of 
"humanity". It's simply "cool", it's "in", it's: Hate Thy Neighbour As Thyself! Very 
few are immune to this mortal, fatal, lethal, age-old "I Love You"-Virus of "Big 
Brother".


PART II


B. TRANSHISTORICAL BACKGROUND OF THE 

"COMMUNIST MANIFESTO"

1. "The Holy Alliance"

Here, within the ideological framework of the fatherland, as the Patria itself sees its 
own events, utilizing its language and concepts which are familiar to us, we'll 
summarize the "historical" context of the "Communist Manifesto". Later, based 
on other methods and logic, using our own scientific-philosophic concepts, we'll voice 
our own opinions about this specific, perverse labour process, dialectically producing 
and reproducing its own affirmative negation, Revolutionary Marxism.

Let's spotlight the situation in Europe at the beginning of the 19th century, focusing
on the "Holy Alliance". It was formed in 1815, by a group of "Christian Princes" ruling 
by Gottesgnadentum, by Monarchies by the Grace of God, all invited by the Czar of 
Russia, under the auspices of Austria and Prussia. Then, practically all absolutist 
monarchs of Europe joined this "Holy Club".

Inspired by the famous Austrian diplomat, Count von Metternich, at the Congress of 
Vienna, 1814-15, as a result of the bourgeois-democratic French Revolution, the map 
of Europe had to be redrawn. This was the anti-liberal-capitalist "Scramble For 
Europe", a counter-revolutionary attempt to restore the "ancien regime"; however,
de facto, it paved the road towards the pro-imperialist-capitalist "Scramble For Africa" 
(1884-85). We need not tarry, giving data, who cheated who, who robbed what and 
who got the "lion's share". It all ended up with an alliance of "Christian States", with 
the "Quadruple Alliance" (Russia, Prussia, Austria and Great Britain). 

What really happened, a then very popular German song expressed this evolutionary,
materialist trend as follows:

"Die irdische Trinität, Gott nachgeschaffen,
So wie der Mensch sich widerholt im Affen."

(The Trinity on earth, God imitated,
just as man in monkey is recreated.)


2. Laissez faire, laissez passer


Between 1815 and 1830, the onslaught of upcoming capitalist forces of production 
progressively destroyed most of the vestiges of feudalist, absolutist modes of 
production, and ushered in the "Industrial Revolution". England took the lead, new 
factory towns like Manchester emerged. The British manufacturers believed in the 
Liberté generated by the French Revolution; this upcoming liberal-democratic 
bourgeoisie defended "free competition", "free trade", in few words: laissez-faire, 
laissez passer. Continental Europe, -- France, Belgium and parts of Germany, -- 
although still rural and agricultural, also began to develop its own factory system, 
based on the age-old "working houses". On the political plane, this power struggle was 
reflected in the revolutionary and rebellious waves that shook Europe around 1830.

The European Holy Sovereigns and Metternich were not impressed at all by these 
revolutionary novelties; they resisted with all sorts of State Power at their disposal; 
they accused the opposition of being followers of -- not yet Marx -- of Robespierre, of 
being -- not yet "terrorists" and "communists" -- sans-culottes. With full force they 
launched a galaxy of oppressive measures, unraveling basic functions of the future 
State: censorship, police surveillance, Spitzel, mouchards ,spies, laws, imprisonment and 
executions. In fact, they attacked the vanguard of the bourgeois-democratic capitalist 
revolution. As political reaction against police and army terror, radical bourgeois 
democrats, workers and labourers, defendants of the capitalist revolution, organized 
themselves in secret societies, like the Carbonari, the coal-burners. In Germany, not 
quite so "innocent" Burschenschaften, fraternities, came into existence.

In France, the Bourbons, who never learned anything, and who never forgot anything, 
were replaced. The reactionary Charles X fled, and he was replaced by a 
"bourgeois king", by Louis Philippe of Orleans. Now, the wealthy French bourgeoisie 
took over. Guizot portrayed the "esprit" of this new wealthy class of bankers, speculators and 
industrialists with the following slogan: Enrichissez vous! Not "Know Thyself!", not 
"Do and Think It Thyself!", but "Enrich Thyself!" Of course, at the cost of others, of 
labourers and workers, who always have to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for their 
betters, for their superiors. Anew constitution abolished press censorship, and 
cartoonists and satirists celebrated their heyday. The biting sketches and caustic novels 
of Daumier, Gavarni, Balzac and Stendhal refreshed the European smoky, smoggy 
industrial air.

3. Massacres & Weavers' Revolts

In England, after the Luddite revolts of 1811-12, and the smashing of factory 
machines, the British workers also began to organize themselves and to form 
independent workers' associations and trade unions. In 1819 occurred the "Massacre
of Peterloo"; in Manchester, during a meeting of 60 000 protesting workers, police 
brutally intervened and suffocated the rebellion. Percy B. Shelley portrayed this event as 
follows:

"Rise, like lions after slumber,
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep has fallen on you.
Ye are many, they are few!"

("Mask Of Anarchy")

In Britain, the workers' struggle continued; it culminated in a frustrating "Reform Act 
of 1832" and in the "People's Charter" of 1838. A Chartist labour movement came 
into existence, reaching a membership of over 40 000 in 1847, a year before the 
publication of the famous "Communist Manifesto".

On the continent, the labour movement began relatively late. Again, France set the 
pace; this time for the "proletarian revolution". In 1831, also later, in 1834, the silk 
weavers of Lyons, the canuts, rebelled and took to the streets. Insurrections in other 
French cities followed, all were also brutally suppressed; the "Massacre of Paris Rue 
Transnonain" is well known. Listen to the "Song Of The Weavers":

"Mais quand notre règne arrive
Quand votre règne finira
Alors nous tisserons le linceul du vieux monde
Par on entend déjà la revolte qui gronde. --"

"When our reign arrives
When your reign shall end
Then we shall weave the shroud of the old world
For hear! revolt is rumbling -- "

Germany, who always, at first, makes the revolution in the head, launched its Silesian 
Weaver Rebellion only in 1844. The state authorities reacted with the same 
authoritarian brutality as elsewhere. Let's listen to the German "Weaver's Song":

"Hier im Ort ist ein Gericht
Viel schlimmer als die Fehmen,*
Wo man nicht mehr ein Urteil spricht
das Leben schnell zu nehmen."

"In this place there is a court
Much worse than all the Fehmen
Where no one needs a court and judge
To quickly kill a person."

* medieval kangaroo courts.

This weavers' revolt became the central topic of Gerhard Hauptmann's famous play:
Die Weber (1892). Let's conclude this resume of the "historical" context of the 
"Communist Manifesto" with the excellent poem of Heinrich Heine, who gave us 
further details about this scandalous massacre:

"Im duestern Auge keine Träne,
Sie sitzen am Webstuhl und fletschen dieZähne:
(Des Leidens und Hungers ist genug);
'Deutschland, wir weben dein Leichentuch,
Wir weben hinein den dreifachen Fluch --
Wir weben, wir weben.'"

"Without a tear in their grim eyes,
They sit at the loom, the rage of despair on their faces:
We have suffered and hunger'd long enough;
'Old Germany, we are weaving a shroud for thee
And weaving it with a triple curse.
We are weaving, weaving.'"



PART III

C. INTELLECTUAL FERMENT AT THE TIME OF
THE 1848 REVOLUTIONS

1. Epilogue

Before we send out our intellectual reconnaissance troops, let's ponder logistically 
about some "home affairs", about the ontic barricades which hinder us to follow
certain complex, logical thought processes. It is beyond any doubt that we do not 
belong to the "cultured few", to the haute bourgeoisie, who have received a thorough, 
fundamental economic, humanistic, historical, philosophical, political and social 
"education". However, exactly this inborn ostracism from the global haut monde, 
from its violent, exploitative quintessence, has made us immune to its cancerous, 
ideological germs of the specific genre: haute vulgarisation, haute alienation; this 
enabled us to preserve our bodily health and mental sanity.

It's not our historic task to vulgarize and alienate our mental and emancipatory 
faculties with formal-logical sophistry, dialectical mental gimmicks and gymnastics, to 
learn, to repeat and to remember all sorts of empirical, concrete "facts" by rote, in 
Pavlov-parrot or daisy-sheep style; au contraire, they are evolving, revolving and 
transvolving to identify the natural essence of things, to differentiate the social 
existence of relations, to triversify the historic transcendence of emancipation.

Now, we're sure that the paragraph above seems like monstrous "Chinese" to you
all; worse than modern sociological jargon a la Habermas. In fact, it's the easiest
text in the poliverse to understand, to think, to formulate. It's the ABC of sane,
sound thinking. This demonstrates the intellectual damage caused over millennia by 
the official dissocialization process, called "education", and where urgently our 
intellectual emancipation necessarily should begin.

It's arduous to activate a dusty, rusty, half-damaged brain; it's lackadaisical, it's 
clowny, cloney, phony, it wants money; when given a slight theoretical push, it 
hobbles, stutters and straggles, it falls into coma, it faints, gets headaches, it switches 
off, it wants to talk about more pleasant things in an unpleasant world. These are 
already sure symptoms, sure red signals, of an advancing, dangerous stage, of the 
imminent outbreak of depressive vulgarization, of the coming of repressive alienation, 
of an oppressive total eclipse of reason.

For a damaged brain, for a kinky, bungly existence, thinking and thought are torturing 
liabilities, painful inabilities, stumbling blocks. For sound and sane active, mental, 
rational faculties, theory, philosophy and society are home-made, are "house words"; 
with them one feels at home, they flow from the brains and the lips like tender 
morning-dew, as sweet as natural honey.

In nuce, it's not thinking, thought, theory, logic, epistemology, political economy
and philosophy that are problematic; they are not the Draculian Chimeras or the 
Mephistophelic Nightmares of Emancipation; it's the drastic after-effects of urgent 
bodily and mental purification, of the oiling, the dusting of our brains, which form 
the fons set origo of all our intellectual sufferings and difficulties. In this emancipatory
belle esprit, with magnet-needlelike thinking, let's now focus our starved, thirsty minds 
on the intellectual ferment around the birth of the "Communist Manifesto" in 1848. 
For this, we desperately need inquisitive minds, detective thinking, oscillating thoughts.

2. "Educational Classics"

The democratic ideologues of upsurging capitalism thought incisively, decisively and 
sharp, just study Kant and Hegel; their revolutionary actors were merciless, razor-sharp, 
just become acquainted with Danton and Robespierre; power-drunk their powerful 
rational weapons were aimed at the medieval "seat of knowledge", at the feudalist 
"intellectus", and all over France, the absolutist heads, who had ruled by the Grace of 
God, were rolling like useless, dry bushes in the scorching desert air. Now just 
imagine, how sharp we have to act a n d think AND excel to match, to excel their 
kith and kin, armed to the teeth with all sorts of ABCDE weapons, with "double-thinking" 
and "newspeak".

In 1808, Goethe in his Faust explained to us the progressive degeneration of "Human 
Rights" on the Information Highway, in the Highway Robbery of the Labour Process, 
in dawning Capitalism, in distant, sneaking, sneaky Globalization:

" Laws and rights move through the ages
Like an unending slow disgrace.
They hobble through the generations,
And softly steal from place to place.

What clever was grows into nonsense
And benefice becomes a plight.
Unlucky grandson, you be pitied,
Nobody offers you your right."

In 1829, when Marx and Engels were still playing "Cops and Thieves", Bazard and 
Enfantin were more emphatic about this explosive, exploitative issue, which two 
decades later will form the very economic essence of the future "Communist 
Manifesto"; they mentioned it's "evident" labour core: private property of the means of 
production:

"If sympathy proclaims that the exploitation of man by man
must disappear completely; if it is true that mankind is
moving toward a state of things in which all men, without
distinction of birth, will receive from society according to
their merits and be remunerated according to their work;
then it is evident that the constitution of property must be
changed."

(See: The Doctrine of Saint-Simon ,Boston, 1958.)

3. Radical Bourgeois-Democratic Dialectics

Between 1789 and 1848, we witness a real "Periclean Age" in Europe; a rejuvenating 
intellectual ferment which probably would never ever dawn in the "Old World" again.
In literature, arts, music, mathematics, science, philosophy and even religion, all over, 
overnight, genii, geniuses, and even jenny-asses, were sprouting like mushrooms out of 
the cold, pale, somber European soil. With pomp and glory, capitalism was ushered in.
With high class it affirmed itself, with low class, it negated itself. The victors, the new 
capitalist mode of production, the revolutionary bourgeoisie (affirmation) a n d the 
revolutionary proletariat (negation) dialectically triumphed over the old agricultural 
mode of production, over the reactionary absolutist clergy (affirmation )an d the 
reactionary, feudalist nobility (negation). New unbound productive relations were set 
free, among them intellectual labour , intellectual ferment, creative germination, not yet 
nazi "germanation", not yet nazification.

Thierry and Guizot already interpreted history as "a struggle of social classes". Schiller 
addressed the New Man, the homo faber, as follows: " Alle Menschen werden 
Brueder!" (All Men Will Be Brothers!) Of course, all "women", "niggers" and 
"wage-slaves" were excluded from his "brotherhood". Once the mind is cleared of 
all cobwebs, dust and rust, it's so easy to see these things, to think. Everything becomes 
so crystal-clear, becomes so "self-evident". As explained before, as easy as all that, 
thinking presents itself, flows, germinates, sprouts. Thinking, Thought and Theory 
become a Joy, a Thing of Beauty, a Joy Forever.

In this glorious epoch, this was exactly what, among other great figures, Keats, 
Goethe, Heine and Shelley expressed in their poems, and what Dickens and 
Balzac wrote all about, what they dramatized artistically. Bourgeois heroism, epic 
majesty and revolutionary grandeur artistically permeated bourgeois acts, minds, works 
and writings. The revolutionary bourgeoisie won the economic and political 
"elections"; now the bell was tolling for the great, marvelous, cultural, social 
"fiesta". Later, ever since 1848, the betrayed "comrade-in-arms", the proletariat, -- 
"the damned of the earth" (Frantz Fanon), "les miserables" (Victor Hugo), -- will 
launch its international political carnival, which will last till our "best of times" 
(Charles Dickens ).

4. A Hegelian Splendid Sunrise

In his "Philosophy of History", Hegel, the philosophic tutor of Marx, differentiated the 
"wheat" from the "straw", he called a spade, a spade; a "nigger", a "nigger" ( quoted 
before); and he celebrated the intellectual victories of the bourgeois-democratic 
capitalist French Revolution as follows:

"It was a splendid sunshine, all thinking human beings
have participated in celebrating this epoch."

Utopian socialists and communists, long before Marx and Engels were even born, began to criticize the "natural order of capitalism"; William Godwin (1756-1836) , the father of anarchism, demanded "political justice"; he considered the new capitalist state as the "root of   all evil". Earlier, Gracchus Babeuf (1760-1797), founder of the "Conspiracy Of The Equals"  had already introduced "conspiracy theory", "terrorism", clandestine "guerrilla warfare" into "modern" globalized politics.

In Italy, Philippe Buonarotti (1761-1837)introduced French Babouvist conspiracy 
tactics to the "Illuminati". The utopian socialist efforts of Saint-Simon (1760-1825), 
Charles Fourier (1772-1837) and Robert Owen (1771-1850) are well-known; they 
radically influenced the socialist theories expressed in the "Communist Manifesto".

But, even religion became revolutionary, as could be witnessed by the works of the 
Christian utopian socialists, of the prophet Félicité de Lamennais (1782-1854) and of 
the religious auto-did act Wilhelm Weitling (1808-1871).The latter, together with
Pierre Joseph Proudhon (1809-1865), another self-educated anarchist leader, -- who 
had stated bluntly: "Property is Robbery!", -- at least, gave the negation within 
capitalism its first "proletarian flair".


PART IV

D. Political Economy

What is Political Economy? A "Marxist", "Communist", "Illuminati" Invention?
Something non-sensical, unscientific, not worth reflecting about, not relevant to
study today?

Something "obsolete"? Be careful, that the last attribute does not pass over, 
ideologically affecting and infecting our very own over-taxed nervous structure!

Let one of the famous fathers of the "Critique of Political Economy", Friedrich 
Engels, explain to us in simple terms the politico-economic essence and existence of 
this historical science. In "Anti-Dühring", he wrote:

"Political economy is therefore essentially a historical science. It
deals with material which is historical, that is, constantly changing;
it must first investigate the special laws of each individual stage in the
evolution of production and exchange, and only when it has completed
this investigation will it be able to establish the few quite general laws
which hold good for production and exchange in general.

At the same time it goes without saying that the laws which are valid for
definite modes of production and forms of exchange hold good for all
historical periods in which these modes of production and forms of
exchange prevail."

Obviously, it's not our intention here to give an introduction to political economy.
Already sufficient books have been written on the topic. What we want to illustrate is
that Marxist political economy is pertinent to understand the "Communist Manifesto"; 
-- and we daresay, it is fundamental to coomprehend the current process of 
Globalization-- it is one of the four major pillars of the historical dialectical materialist

Weltauffassung (world outlook or cosmovision).

At last, toward the end of the 18th century, the Patria, after millennia of theoretical 
economic confusion, was able to formulate an economic theory of its own material 
development. It's well-known that in 1776 the Scot, Adam Smith (1723-1790) 
,formulated surprisingly very precise laws of the free enterprise capitalist system. 
Although then known as British national economy, in reality, Smith is the father of 
political economy, that is, of intimately relating economics and politics, showing that 
they don't exist or function separately.

In his famous work, Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,
Smith ingeniously translated politics, social activities and public morality into economic 
categories, and verified that private property of the means of production forms the very 
essence of the basis, of the structure of capitalist society. Marx's Capital ,as its sub-title 
indicates, is simply a "Critique of Political Economy". Long before Marx, Smith gave 
an excellent economic interpretation of class society: the "three great, original and 
constituent orders of every civilized society" are: "the orders of people who live by rent, 
who live by wages and who live by profit".

Of course, Smith knew that Labour measures the value of a commodity; later, Marx
explained that it is not "Labour" but "Labour Force". Thomas Robert Malthus 
(1766-1834) continued this tradition and in his "Essay on the Principles of 
Population"(1798), he tried to prove mathematically that inequality is "natural" -- 
that is, poverty, in reality, economic exploitation, -- is in the very nature of things, of the 
capitalist system, because the population tends to grow much faster than the necessary 
means for its subsistence. In 1819,when Marx was still a baby, in his "Principles of 
Political Economy", David Ricardo (1772-1823) stringently reformulated Smith's basic 
economic theories.

It should be noted that "political economy" is not a Marxist or "communist" 
invention; it was a natural evolutionary mental product of the "crème de la crème" of 
bourgeois capitalist economic theory; it was the economic formulation of the very 
negation in the capitalist world system. Marx is an intellectual product of this bourgeois 
capitalist achievement, he criticized it, perfected its basic theories, and arrived at the 
gigantic Theory of Surplus Value, which showed, after all, that the "natural order" of 
the classical national economists was not quite so "natural", that it was only of a 
"passing nature", was transitory.

Already in embryo, the major politico-economic theories of Marx and Engels were 
present, were expressed in the "Communist Manifesto", were developed toward their 
formal-logical revolutionary conclusion: either "barbarism" or "communism". Not to 
take them into analytic consideration, is to miss the rocking proletarian boat sailing 
toward the future anticipated communist horizon; is not to understand that the
"Communist Manifesto" -- just like the proletariat itself -- is a logical (material and ) 
intellectual labour product of the victorious bourgeois-democratic capitalist mode 
of production; is not to grasp that the "Manifesto" is the intellectual dynamo, the very 
theoretical expression of the Negation Within Capitalism Itself. 
In nuce, is not to 
comprehend what Labour and Capital are all about, what Globalization exactly 
implies, is not to be able to read the Cassandra "menetekel" on the wall.

Like in a typical bourgeois-democratic, sado-masochistic productive and reproductive 
marriage -- as explained in the very "Communist Manifesto" itself -- , Capital and 
Labour, Adam and Marx, go together, as the song says: like a Horse and Carriage; like 
the dialectical Affirmation and Negation!



PART V


V. Classical German Idealist and Materialist Philosophy

a. Introduction

Before we tackle this titanic "pillar" of the "Manifesto of The Communist Party",
as the document originally was called, that is, analyze the Hegelian philosophical roots 
of the "Marxist" materialist dialectical conception of history, let us quote the very 
first text that we ever had published on the Web, in 1998, the first page of our original 
Home page, "Pandemonium.Crew", still being hosted on Geocities.

"In order to introduce Philosophy, firstly, one has to be a Philosopher;
secondly, to be able to philosophize, one must be able to think, must
e x i s t ; thirdly, to excel in Praxis a n d Theory, one must  t r a n s c e n d ,
must surpass the ordinary everyday greyness and has to ascend to the
evergreen sublime, to enter the realm of Reason and Emancipation, thus,
leaving all quagmires and cesspools behind, allowing them to perish
in-and-for-themselves.

The famous German philosopher, Hegel, did state that 'all that comes
into being merits that it perishes', 'alles, was entsteht, ist wert, dass es
untergeht' ; this is surely true for formal logical or dialectical Being."

Concerning Philosophy itself, we stated:

"For us, Philosophy is not aristocratic: it is not the "queen oF sciences",
or the Warehouse of Absolute Truths, or the 'ivory tower of cool or small
talk'. In the same manner as Science is our Essence, similarly, Philosophy
exists as our thinking and thought process. In this sense, to be homo sapiens,
we have to exist as homo philosophicus, and not be a primitive zoon politikon
or a modern homo faber."

Ever since then, we've gone a very long way, and yet, it is worthwhile recollecting
our "point of departure". In this sense, we'll expound very simply certain elements
of the classical idealist Hegelian philosophy which profoundly have influenced the
views of Marx and Engels in the "Manifesto", also their whole lifework.

But firstly, let's remind our readers of three other documents, also published long ago 
on Geocities, which are fundamental to comprehend the Hegelian dialectical method 
of thinking, as expressed by Marx and Engels in the "Manifesto", and also to 
understand which "human being", which "proletarian" they were 
addressing. Thereafter, we'll summarize the impact of German classical idealist philosophy on the "Manifesto".

b. Hegel & Hegelianism

We quote:

"Because our ontic debate very much concerns the philosophies of Hegel and of Marx , it is imperative, very briefly, that we deal here with some of their major ideas, including the thoughts of some of their most ardent followers; in other words, before we continue with our intellectual and rational discussion, with our lectures on Cosmos a n d Einai , we will expound here the essential and existential,  philosophic and political basics of Hegelianism and Marxism.

According to Hegel, patrian reality can only be grasped as a totality : "the truth is the whole ". Furthermore, it is a philosophic fallacy to try to understand the apparently unrelated phenomena of the Cosmos, Nature, Society, History, Intellect and Reason by means of separate individual categories of thought.

The Dialectic is the unifying force and process which underlies the apparent diversity of things and of the world in general. Higher and more complex entities evolve from their lesser inadequate anticipations, which are in constant conflict with each other. At the most abstract Hegelian degree of Thought, Pure Being (das reine Sein, Thesis, Pure Indeterminacy) implies its exact opposite, Nothingness (das Nichts, Antithesis). 

The Truth about these Concepts, about Being and Nothingness, must contain both of them. Hence, for Hegel, Truth is the Relation between Being (Thesis) and Nothingness (Antithesis), is Becoming (Synthesis). Hence, we could say that for Hegel, Truth is Becoming, is Relation, is Verhaeltnis, is Bezug."

Also, we could summarize the above as follows :

Sein Werden Nichts
Being Becoming Nothingness
Sein Wahrheit Nichts
Being Truth Nothingness
Thesis Synthesis Antithesis.


According to our diagorical or dialogical Method, where a n d  or
u n d  mean Truth, Bezug or Synthesis, we could express the above as follows :

Sein  u n d  Nichts
(Werden)
Being  a n d  Nothingness
(Becoming)
Cosmos  a n d  Einai.
(Nothing)
Essence  a n d  Existence
(Transcendence)
Thesis  a n d  Antithesis.
(Synthesis)

Of course, what Hegel understood by the above, and, what we think about these 
concepts, are totally different intellectual and rational reflections. Certainly, here and 
there one could find similarities. For example, Hegel would turn in his grave, if he 
noted that we identify his Being (Sein) as Cosmos, and that we differentiate his Nothing 
(Nichts) as Einai, as Existence.

On the other hand, he would be delighted to note that our Bezug corresponds with his 
Werden. From bad to worse, he would doubt our philosophic merits, if we would 
explain to him that our transcept of Nothing or Nothingness (Nichts) transcends as 
NEITHER Being (Essence) NOR Existence, and not as NEITHER Being NOR 
Nothingness, or as Becoming, or as Werden.

But let us return to Hegelian Thought.

For Hegel, History progresses from primitive tribal life to the modern more adequate, 
fully rational State. The historical process ends up in the complete self-understanding of 
the "absolute", in the totality of everything which exists. He applied this system in 
detail to history, logic, ethics, aesthetics, politics and religion, and as such developed a 
huge, complex philosophical system which has the Dialectic as its core.

After the death of Hegel in 1831, his followers gave their own interpretations of his 
philosophic teachings, of What Hegel Really Meant; and in accordance with the 
Dialectic of their teacher, they rapidly developed Right a n d Left Hegelian schools. 
On the Right were the Old Hegelians, very conservative, religious and Christian ; on 
the Left stood the Young Hegelians, very revolutionary, atheist and scientific socialist.

The Right, following the views of the later Hegel, claimed that the historical dialectical 
process culminates in the Prussian State, and that the Absolute is identical with 
traditional Protestant conceptions of God the Almighty. Of course, we can clearly see 
its "historic social order", its defense of the new bourgeois ideology, and its vehement 
struggle against feudalist religious absolutism. For them, the "real", the Prussian State, 
was "rational". Of course, they enjoyed the political support of the very Prussian 
State, which they adored ; nonetheless, this school did not produce major thinkers ; by 
1860, the Right Hegelians were already fading away into absolute oblivion.

Of greater significance are the Left Hegelians ; their school has produced eminent 
figures such as Ludwig Feuerbach, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. These Young 
Hegelians interpreted the Dialectic in a radical democratic, atheistic revolutionary manner. 

For them, only the "rational" was "real". This was "revolutionary". The "real",  the existing  economic order, including its prevailing religious, ideological, political and philosophic   superstructure, is inadequate; it has to be revolutionized, to be made more "rational".   According to them, this truth is logically entailed in the very laws of Hegelian   Dialectic. However, not like Hegel, they were convinced that the historical process would not  end in the 19th century, and certainly not in the Prussian State or Lutheran Protestantism.

We should not forget that, although they were socialist, the Young Hegelians were not 
anti-capitalist. According to most of them, the revolutionary changes have to take 
place within the very framework of the Patria. Capitalism was seen as a necessary 
transitional stage towards Socialism. These essential changes are to be driven forward 
by the "class struggle", and by the dialectical dynamo of social revolution.

Marx himself was fascinated by capitalism, explaining to the colonial world, that the 
best thing that ever could have happened to it, was the very introduction of European 
conquest, slavery and civilization. Also he informed the colonial world that it could 
now already see its future in the mirror-image of the advancing industrialized 
countries. He even expected the socialist revolution to triumph in his own lifetime ; at 
first, in countries like England, France, Germany and the United States of America, 
and thereafter, in the rest of the world.


In his book, Das Leben Jesu kritisch bearbeitet, 2 vol. (1835-36; The Life of Jesus, 
Critically Examined), David Friedrich Strauss reinterpreted the mission of Jesus Christ 
on Earth. For its Age, this book certainly acted as a highly-explosive anti-feudalist 
time-bomb. According to him, Christ's earthly mission was simply a parable of the 
Hegelian Truth, that Being is simply the dialectical unity of Spiritual and Human 
Essence, of  Divine and Human "Nature". No further comments!

Ludwig Feuerbach, in his work, Das Wesen des Christentums (1841; The Essence of 
Christianity) , went even a step further ; he stated that the species homo sapiens itself 
had reproduced religion as a projection of its very own godliness, and that therefore, 
Man himself is the "new religion". In that case, at that stage, Man is Protestant 
Religion, is the Lutheran God.

Some Young Hegelians, like Max Stirner, began to interpret the Hegelian Dialectic in 
a psychologistic manner, deriving from it very radical philosophic and political 
views. Stirner argued that human self-consciousness is the highest manifestation of 
reality. For this very reason, he became the "father" of anarchism, and of aristocratic 
egoistic individualism.

It was Karl Marx who placed the Hegelian Dialectic , not in abstract realms, but in real 
concrete life, in the material conditions of historical evolution and revolution. He 
explained the Hegelian dialectical development from the inadequate to more adequate 
entities as the process of primitive economic modes of production toward more 
sophisticated ones, culminating in Communism. The dialectical process does not 
terminate in some nebulous absolute divine "Milky Way", but in the classless 
communist society.

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Hegelian movement was declining in 
Germany, but it still exerted a powerful influence on university life in the fields of 
philosophy, politics and aesthetics ; as Neo-Hegelianism it spread rapidly to 
Britain, Italy and the United States. Especially in England it contradicted empiricism 
and utilitarianism, and it allowed intellectual compromises, "gentlemen agreements", 
to be made ; Hegel was modernized to act as a reconciliatory platform between 
Science and Religion, between individual freedom and State hegemony. Famous 
Neo-Hegelians of the late19th and early 20th centuries, were thinkers like F. H. 
Bradley and J. E. McTaggart in Britain, Josiah Royce in the United States, 
and Benedetto Croce in Italy. Thereafter due to the domination of positivism and 
empiricism in Europe, Hegelianism rapidly began to decline.

However, thanks to the French historian Jean Hyppolite, the German philosopher 
Ernst Bloch and the Hungarian philosopher Georg Lukacs, towards the middle of the 
20th century, Hegel again dominated in the fields of sociology, literature, 
aesthetics and politics, not as a philosophical system, but rather many of his philosophic 
ideas were integrated in various philosophic or political theories. Also his dialectical 
method was preserved in all types of Marxist movements."

c. Marx & Marxism

Concerning Marx's conception of "man". of the "human being", of the
"proletarian", we quote:

"What is the concrete program of Marx? His point of departure is "Beduerfnis",
need. The interpretation of the "human being" begins with human need. In his
Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of  1844, he stated:

'Man is first of all a natural being. As a natural being
and a living natural being, he is endowed on the one
hand with natural powers, vital powers. . . ; these powers
exist in him as aptitudes, instincts. On the other hand,
as an objective, natural, physical, sensitive being, he is a
suffering, dependent and limited being. . . , that is, the
objects of his instincts exist outside him, independent of
him, but are the objects of his need, indispensable and
essential for the realization and confirmation of his
substantial powers'".

As can be seen above, Marx confirmed that the" human being"
is a "living natural being", which is endowed with" natural, vital powers".
Scientifically completely correct and stringent! These "powers" exist in him ,
that is, they constitute his Existence. Philosophically totally precise!

In our philosophical terminology, Marx states that the Human Being is Cosmos
(Nature) an d it exists as Einai (Society). Of course, he does not identify this
Being a n d Existence precisely as Human Being a n d Human Existence .
in nuce, as Human Existence.

Furthermore, he only mentions " aptitudes and instincts"; these are not exactly
synonyms for our understanding of " Intellect a n d Reason", but at least they
blaze the trail towards Thinking and Thought. What Marx explains "on the other hand" is very confusing 
and jumbled together, mixing up natural and social traits, hence no further comments.

Of greater interest are the " objects" of man's instincts, of his " needs"; they "exist outside him ", "independent of him ". Well, where? In the objective external world, in Cosmos, in Nature. We are approximating the crux of the Marxian definition of Man, of the Human Being. These cosmic, natural resources are "the objects of his need, indispensable and essential for the realization and confirmation of his substantial powers ".

Human evolution, human history, is identical with the living Human Being, with MAN, who exploits Nature to satisfy his primary human needs. And what does Marx deem to be the "first historical fact"? "The production of the means to satisfy these needs". The very satisfaction of human needs paves the way for the reproduction of more needs. This human productive process is human activity ,"menschliche Taetigkeit ", to satisfy human needs: eating, drinking, clothing, sheltering, etc. It produces and reproduces his "powers ",and here "power "is central, especially when we will speak later about political power (domination, the State) and economic power exploitation, Capital). Also, this human activity produces and develops the intellectual and artistic human abilities and capabilities.

Human Activity, Labour, humanizes Man

For Marx, human activity is Labour; as a productive being, Man humanizes himself. Through Labour, in the production process, Man humanizes Nature, while He, Man, naturalizes Himself! Obviously, here we do not have a scientific, philosophic process, where Man (Society) humanizes Nature, and where Nature naturalizes Man (Society). Human Labour is defined as Man socializing Nature ,and as Man naturalizing Society ,naturalizing himself. Here we encounter not a dialogic ,but a one-sided pseudo-dialectic ,which takes place within the  framework of the Patria, which never transcends its boundaries, which always preserves and conserves the status quo.

By means of his creative activity, of Labour, the Human Being identifies itself, becomes an entity, an identity. According to Marx, by mastering, an euphemism for exploiting, Nature, Man realizes his identity with Nature, that is, he achieves free consciousness, he develops his own thinking. Actually Marx argues that Man who is a Child of Mother Nature, can only become fully human, fully manly, by opposing Nature. Here the macho, the masculine Man, becomes the Lord of the Universe, by opposing, mastering and exploiting feminine Mother Nature, and all this is called Labour, Human Labour! How deep patriarchal ideology is rooted even in Marxism! And, from bad to worse, embodied in a fundamental concept of Marxism, Labour ,on which the whole edifice of Marxian Theory and Praxis stands and falls!

This aurora of "human consciousness", we would say Human Existence ,cannot be separated from the dawn of the "human being" itself, with its "struggle against Nature" (later the "class struggle "will be added). The consciousness about the struggle against Nature, being aware of exploiting Nature, gives Man the powers, the conditions, for his self-realization, for the fulfillment of the whole Human Being. What a natural disaster! What a human "Crown of Creation", what a "Highest Blossom of Nature"!

And, how does Marx explain this cruel ecocide? What does the "Human Being" discover?

"all that is called history is nothing else than the process
of creating man through human labour, the becoming of
nature for man. Man has thus evident and irrefutable proof
of his own creation by himself .... for man, man is the supreme being."

Now we know, who is Man, who is the Human Being! For the dominant ruling classes. they are Man; for them, for Man, Man is God, Man is the Supreme Being. They need not believe in any God, they are Gods themselves, Man is God Himself! If Modern Science wants to find God, it would be the most simple investigation that was ever performed on this planet. In this sense, Marx was very clear about Religion and God; he had a famous tutor: Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach.


VII. The Marxian "Human Being" in Modern Capitalist Society

However, across the historical process, no Man, no Human Being, had acquired the fulfillment of his labour dreams, of his human needs. Few members of the species homo sapiens had enjoyed heaven on earth, but this is not what Marx understood by human emancipation. Let us see how Marx explains this historical phenomenon.

Marx himself, living in a capitalist society, came to the conclusion that Man is not really free. Adopting the concept of alienation of Hegel and Feuerbach, Marx was convinced that modern Man is estranged, that he is not at home in his earthly labouring world: "Man is made alien to man." But Labour cannot be blamed; it is sacred, it is human. Hence, Labour was alienated across the ages. The central problem is alienated Labour. Urgently Labour must be disalienated! But, how, and why, did Labour become alienated, and consequently, why is Man an alienated Being, an alienated Human Being?

The Encyclopaedia Britannica gives us an excellent summary of Marx's views in The Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844 :

"In the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts the alienation
of labour is seen to spring from the fact that the more the worker
produces the less he has to consume, and the more values he creates
the more he devalues himself, because his product and his labour
are estranged from him. The life of the worker depends on things
that he has created but that are not his, so that, instead of finding
his rightful existence through his labour, he loses it in this world of
things that are external to him: no work, no pay. Under these conditions,
labour denies the fullness of concrete man." The generic being
(Gattungswesen) of man, nature as well as his intellectual faculties, is
transformed into a being which is alien to him, into a means of his
individual existence." Nature, his body, his spiritual essence become
alien to him. "Man is made alien to man." When carried to its highest
stage of development, private property becomes" the product of
alienated labour . . . the means by which labour alienates itself (and)
the realization of this alienation." It is also at the same time "the tangible
material expression of alienated human life.""

In brief, Marx saw alienated labour as the historic result of the exploitation and domination of Man by 
Man, of market production, of the division of labour, into manual and intellectual labour, of the division of 
society into antagonistic classes. The Encyclopaedia Britannica continues with the Marxian explanation:

"As producers in society, men create goods only by their labour.
These goods are exchangeable. Their value is the average amount
of social labour spent to produce them. The alienation of the worker
takes on its full dimension in that system of market production in
which part of the value of the goods produced by the worker is
taken away from him and transformed into surplus value, which
the capitalist privately appropriates. Market production also
intensifies the alienation of labour by encouraging specialization,
piecework, and the setting up of large enterprises. Thus the labour
power of the worker is used along with that of others in a
combination whose significance he is ignorant of, both individually
and socially. In thus losing their quality as human products, the
products of labour become fetishes, that is, alien and oppressive
realities to which both the man who possesses them privately and
the man who is deprived of them submit themselves. In the market
economy, this submission to things is obscured by the fact that the
exchange of goods is expressed in money. "

This economic alienation causes political, social and human alienation; this estrangement results in 
distorted human relations. The alienated economic base distorts the ideological superstructure, 
thus creating perverted religious, metaphysical, philosophical, legal, political and moral ideas and notions. 
But let Marx himself explain the alienation and disalienation process:


"The act of making representations, of thinking,
the spiritual intercourse of men, seem to be the
direct emanation of their material relations."

"Men produce their representations and their ideas,
but it is as living men, men acting as they are
determined by a definite development of their powers
of production."

"Men developing their material
production modify together with their real existence
their ways of thinking and the products of their ways
of thinking."

"It is not consciousness
which determines existence,
it is existence which
determines consciousness."

Led by the International Proletariat, in the Class Struggle, which logically will evolve into Social Revolution ,which will topple capitalist society, and which will introduce Socialism, and finally Communism, Marx saw the historical process of disalienating Labour, and of emancipating the Human Being. Free Labour, which freely will exploit Nature, and which will eliminate the domination of Man by Man, hence liberating Society, is the solution which Marx offered to annihilate all misery and oppression in contemporary capitalist society."

d. Who Is The Marxian "Proletarian"?

Finally, we quote:

"Daily we are utilizing all sorts of words, terms and concepts, and yet, we don't even 
bother to investigate what we are really talking about. Obviously, with shabby tools,
with empty words, sir-reverence, we coin weird notions and bizarre ideas; and we do not 
even notice how uncanny and banausic we express ourselves in conversations and 
discussions. This also happens to "expert" Marxists and "erudite" scholars, not to 
mention the "masses", the "working class" and the "proletariat" itself.

Who coined such concepts like the "proletariat" or the "lumpenproletariat"?
Immediately, the layman, the nerd, the ideologue, would say: the "Communists", Marx 
and Engels. Well, we humbly genuflect confronted by such implanted ignorance; 
really, it's bliss.

From the 16th century onwards, here and there, in European writings, the concepts
"proletariat" or "proletary "appeared; at the eve of the French Revolution, especially 
in "worker's clubs", like the "League of the Just", the concept gradually acquired a
worker's content. In 1837, the Swiss economist Jean Charles Leonard Simonde de 
Sismondi finally adopted this term. Only in 1842, Lorenz von Stein introduced the
concept into German; then the famous German revolutionary poet, Ferdinand von 
Freiligrath passed the concept on to Friedrich Engels, who used it in the first 
scientific socialist work, in his book, The Condition of The Working Class in England in 
1844.

As a matter of scientific-philosophic curiosity, why did the fathers of scientific 
socialism use this specific term in their works? After all, concepts like the "working 
classes", "workingmen", "labouring classes" were prevalent in that epoch. We
know that Marx and Engels were linguists par excellence. Let's see what the 
etymological meaning of this concept reveals.

In Ancient Rome, the proletarius belonged to the under-dogs, to the lowest section of 
the population. In Latin, pro-olescere simply means "growing out of"; in the sense of 
mushrooms "sprouting out of the ground", "shooting up". Hence, the proletarius had 
a derivative, an artificial, a synthetic nature. Marx and Engels introduced him as 
follows in the Communist Manifesto:

"The bourgeoisie ... has ... begotten the men who are to wield those weapons -- the 
modern workers --the proletarians. ... the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the 
population."

This means that the proletariat is not primordial, not "naturwüchsig"; it is an 
amorphous social concoction, lacking "cultural" and "civilized" roots. According to 
Marx and Engels the new proletarius adopted the capitalist relations produced by the 
victorious bourgeoisie, and the nexus between the members of the proletariat and the 
bourgeoisie became "naked self-interest, callous cash payment".

However, on the other pauperized extreme, we find the "Lumpenproletariat". Why did 
Marx and Engels use this concept? Grimm's Wörterbuch described them as 
Lumpengesindel: "a slovenly mob, a pack of scoundrels, a godless pack, vagabonds". 
Apart from the semantic similarity, this colluvies vagabundorum,this rotting mass 
thrown off by the lowest sectors of "modern society", the Lumpenproletariat, in 
Marxian terminology, is exactly the negation of the proletariat. In 1845, this concept 
appeared in their work, The German Ideology. The influential contemporary work, De 
Cassagnac explained, that the proletariat was composed of "workers, beggars, 
thieves and prostitutes". This is what Hegel understood by his concept, the Pöbel.

For Marx, the Lumpenproletariat comprised the "beggars, thieves and prostitutes", 
the non-productive sector of the lowest classes. In Class Struggle in France, he 
described this class as "gens sans feu et sans aveu ".However, both had the following 
in common: both were "free" and both could be "bought" or "bribed". However, the 
differentia especifica is, that the Lumpenproletariat are déclassés; that they lack a 
"class interest"; that they can't develop a "class consciousness"; in other words, they 
can't be conscientized for anything whatsoever.

Now, we know what Marx and Engels, the fathers of scientific socialism, understood by 
the proletariat, which/who should unite itself, and would emancipate all mankind. We 
should just analyze whether this proletariat, including its "lumpen" side, ever had 
authorized us to "free" or to "emancipate" it, whether it ever had an interest 
in "emancipation", and from where precisely we got our brilliant, human, 
humanitarian, humanistic and humane ideas. Anyhow, "Love Thy Neighbour As 
Thyself!",
and Thy Neighbour Surely Will Teach Thee How to Rape and Pillage the 'Ten 
Commandments'. "

e. The Impact of German Classical Idealist Philosophy


In the previous part, we have dealt with German philosophy rather extensively, here
we will just make brief remarks, make references to the philosophic background of the 
"proletarian revolution", to "communism", as expounded in the "Manifesto".

Between 1789 and 1848, the "German Quartet", Kant, Fichte, Schelling and Hegel, 
was dominating the intellectual and philosophic scene. Even if Immanuel Kant (1724 - 
1804) would not have written his famous philosophical "trilogy", "Critique of Pure 
Reason " (1781), "Critique of Practical Reason"(1788), and " Critique of Judgment" 
(1790), he would have become world famous as a natural scientist. However, what 
interests us here, is that he as a great thinker of the bourgeois-democratic 
enlightenment, as the founder of critical idealism, had paved the road towards 
Hegelian objectivist idealism and Marxian historical materialism, as expressed in the 
"Manifesto" and other works.

Like us, Kant was not happy with everyday, stale thoughts about reality, he wanted to 
enquire into the uttermost limits of knowledge. Strange enough, he could have saved 
himself a lot of trouble and headaches, because finally he came to the philosophic 
conclusion that the ultimate nature of reality, of all things-in-themselves, will forever 
remain obscure to the human mind; in other words, not by means of the intellect, not by 
reason, will we ever know anything about the essence, existence and transcendence of 
the cosmos, of us, of anything for that matter. For us, in our Science and Philosophy, 
things only existing in themselves are no problem, that's precisely the way to recognize, 
to know them.

Of course, according to Kant, we could only know phenomena, appearances, 
manifestations of things. The human mind, more precisely, der Verstand , the intellectus 
,possesses "forms of sensibility", Space and Time, these are impressed
on the original data of the senses, and then the mind orders all the phenomena 
according to the "categories of thought", for example, substance or causality.
Kant actually says that Space and Time do not "exist" independently, not in "objective 
reality", they are just intellectual products, tools of the mind. If this should be true, then 
we could imagine in what a dream world we are living, and in what a
miserable, ghost "train of thought" we're traveling daily. What would happen with 
our "Millennia Celebrations", with our "alphas and omegas", with "life and death", 
with the "parallel universes"?

Kant was very "romantic", for him, development was "formal", and he even 
constructed formidable bridges between "beauty", ethics, religion and philosophy.
Later, the other members of the "Quartet" continued his philosophic endeavours, the 
"German dream", the desires to find "Ruhe und Ordnung", laws, freedom of mind, a 
just future society. In the previous century, thinkers like Descartes and Leibniz were
still looking for a universal science to aid the exploitation of nature, to solve the human 
problems with nature.

Adam Smith had already found the perfect, natural world order, capitalism; now it was 
Hegel's turn to guarantee that it works, that it remains eternally true and rational 
to itself; that it bears rational and rationalized fruits, that it brings accumulative profits, 
that its madness has a method, a dialectical method. Hence, after the political victory 
of industrial capitalism, a universal method of radical, efficient exploitation and 
domination of natural and human sources and resources became an urgent necessity; 
by hook or by crook, an everlasting, absolute system had to be found, a new world order 
which would forever affirm itself, would eternally rot in its very status quo.

As we all know, Hegel presented this new method, this new system, and he made sure 
that nothing would ever change again, by forever imprisoning natural, intellectual and 
rational production in the Absolute Idea, void of any external or 
transcendental influences and interferences, in a type of Platonic intelligible world that 
is finished, is only recollection of the World Spirit, is passé, is in an absolute state of rest 
and peace, that rests in peace, that is worldly and spiritually dead.

This Marx and Engels also wanted, this is the proletarian dream of the "Communist 
Manifesto". They only insisted that Hegel had mistaken the time, the date, that the 
closed system of labour is still in process, that it goes beyond the Prussian State, that it 
would end in earthly communism, someday, some decade in the very near future. As 
logical negation, as Hegelian "Left", the authors of the "Manifesto" represented the 
"proletarian" side of the World Spirit. They even had dreamt about the realization of 
communism in their own lifetime. They did not portray the "future communist society", 
simply because there would be nothing to illustrate anymore. Hegel said everything 
already, the end was near, as sure as amen! in church. What is realized, is finished, 
has reached its end, its Death. Also this will be the inevitable case of Capitalism. Hegel 
said it: everything that comes into existence, merits to pass away, to fade away into 
oblivion. Well, let the haute bourgeoisie enjoy the global party on the "Titanic" while 
the perilous voyage lasts.


PART VII

VII. The Political Influence of the French Revolution


Introduction

Ever since the French Revolution, all over the globe, sprouting like fresh mushrooms, 
various thinkers and actors tried to explain this political phenomenon, the very concept 
of revolution, and also how to complete, to continue the revolution. Within this context, 
with their Manifesto Of The Communist Party, Marx and Engels made their praxical 
and theoretical contributions. By far, well ahead of all other efforts, the "Manifesto" 
formed and is still blazing the revolutionary inferno and invierno of the "damned of the 
earth", the epicentre of proletarian emancipatory fire. At least, this is about what their 
followers, the Marxists, dream, what they do and think. Certainly, we have no problems 
with them, neither with their followers nor with their revolutionary work or their 
emancipatory labour. Like them, we utter: to every true, social "under-dog" his bone 
of contention; to every rabid, orthodox "fanatic" his apple of discord.

From Edmund Burke's "Reflections On The French Revolution" until the latest 
sociological "System Theories", numerous authors are preoccupied to explain to us the 
essence and laws of social evolution and revolution. Especially since the famous 
"Paris Commune" of 1871, hundreds of works were written on the topic, especially how
this great bourgeois-democratic, capitalist revolution had influenced Marxism and the 
"labour movement" in general, and the "Communist Manifesto" in particular. Let's 
now focus on the 'third" cornerstone of Marxism!

What is a revolution?

Do revolutions aim toward the destruction of our age-old labour process, our jobs, our 
means of existence and subsistence? Will the revolution upset our life styles? Is it 
systemic, evolutionary change?

Who discovered it? As always, for sure, the Marxists. What relations does it have to 
evolution and emancipation? Is it a "good" thing? Will it better our lives? Is it related 
to the "sexual" or "technological" revolutions? What's its relation to capitalism? Is 
it important to understand the "Communist Manifesto"? Like Marxism, is 
it "obsolete"? Is it not dangerous to speak about revolution? Sometimes I just wonder: 
Are the "Pandemonium Crew" perhaps not just disguised Marxists, in reality, masked 
radical, anarchist revolutionaries?

We cannot give detailed answers to all these important questions, but we'll summarize 
their quintessence. Firstly, what is the etymological origin of this concept, who coined 
it, and who used it at first as a means of socio-political change? Unbelievable, nobody 
else than precisely the very upsurging capitalist bourgeoisie itself. In the Italian 
Republics, already in the 14th century, when the first "workhouses" were established, 
everybody spoke about "rivoluzione", about "rivoltura "; concepts, which described 
"turbulent, political events", "heavy revolts" or "chaos in internal and/or external 
policy". In reality, these were the first signs, the distant, roaring thunder of the 
awe-inspiring drums of the coming violent, terrorist French Revolution.

In those days, the concept was not ethical or normative, it was not used in a "good" or 
"bad" sense; it was simply identified as a capricious whim of fate, even of divine 
will. Only in 1688, in Great Britain, at the time of the "Glorious Revolution", did the 
term gain new connotations, for example, as an expression of a unique political or 
social event, which brings with it far-reaching radical changes, especially in the domain 
of the State.

What is of significance for us, is that the "Glorious Revolution" took place without 
"revolutionaries", without revolutionary actors and thinkers. In fact, in a Marxian 
sense, it was exactly the opposite of a revolution; it was counter-revolutionary. The 
British nobility manipulated itself into complete legal and political chaos; then, William 
III was called, to clean up the royal mess; the British citizens welcomed him in a 
delirious, hilarious manner, extremely happy that he would restore the feudalist status 
quo ante rem. Nonetheless, ever since, in Europe, a unique political "palace revolt", a 
coup d'etat, became known as a "revolution".

The French Revolution was anything else except "glorious"; au contraire, it 
guillotined divine glory, it had exactly the opposite political essence. It made the
greatest discovery which the Patria had accomplished till them, for the smooth, 
profitable forward march of its exploitative economic production, it discovered an 
excellent political panacea, which heals the world order till today. It introduced 
intellectual power, the subjective factor into political "rivoltura". Not the Almighty, but 
Great Men, Great Revolutionaries, with Great Ideas -- better Absolute Ideas -- make 
Great Revolution, make Great History.

Kant & Hegel Celebrating

No wonder that Kant rejoiced as follows:

" The revolution of an ingenious people, that we are experiencing these days,
it may fail, it may be victorious, and may be filled with misery and heinous acts ...
this revolution, I think, with enthusiasm takes place in the minds of all the spectators.
Such a phenomenon will never ever be forgotten in human history, because it unveiled 
the human characteristic and potentiality striving towards a better world. "

Hegel was even more poignant:

" As long as the Sun appeared in the heavens, and the planets rotating around it,
never did it dawn to anyone, that Man would stand on his head, that is, on his thoughts, 
and accordingly construct reality. As first thinker, Anaxagoras had said that nous 
rules the world; only now, Man recognizes that thought must govern spiritual reality. 
Thus, it was a glorious sunrise. All thinking beings together have celebrated this 
epoch-making event."


Henceforth the revolutionary political slogan was: without subjective theory, no 
objective revolution .Exactly this, Marx and Engels, Lenin and Trotsky, Mao and Ho 
Chi Minh and Castro and Che, had inherited from the French Revolution. This 
revolutionary, democratic inheritance dates back to the "Communist Manifesto". 
Finally, as we have seen, this is the revolutionary "pillar" of Marxism, the 
logical continuation and enrichment of bourgeois democratic political domination, the 
anticipatory aspiration of the Communist Manifesto.




PART VIII

g. Christian Messianic & Missionary Influence

Blazing The Trail

Let's illustrate the fourth ,and for the time being, the final cornerstone of Marxism, 
that is, the "historical" religious background of the "hopes", "dreams" and 
human values that are expressed in the "Communist Manifesto", which have 
inspired Marx and Engels, and which epitomized in such medieval movements as 
the Peasant Revolution of Thomas Münzer, and in our times, in the Latin American 
"Theology of Liberation". We'll just introduce the topic, and in later discussions and 
debates, we could investigate other specific topics and individual areas of emancipatory 
interest.

As we already have stated in previous publications, normal "human" existence 
encompasses three major spheres, generally expressed as follows: "I do ... ", "I think ... 
" and "I believe ... " Some people even mix up the latter two. In brief, these are Doing, 
Thinking and Believing. Around them, the lives of billions revolve. There are others, 
for example, "I hope ... " or "I love ...", but they pertain to other sub-spheres.

Generally, "I do ..." functions at best, when no intellectual participation is involved, 
when we follow orders, when we perform physical labour. "I think ... " normally has 
nothing to do with thinking, thought, reason or knowledge; it is just a repetition of 
implanted ideology and the rumination of everyday "common sense" 
phraseology. Sometimes it's even mixed up with "I believe ... ", and functions as 
a synonym to it, or to stress the venomous substance of ideology, to convince the 
"masses". Politicians, Radio and TV programmes just love to use this phrase in the 
dissemination of their "great ideas". Switch on the Radio or TV and the first thing 
you'll hear is: "I believe that .... ".Check our chats and debates, and count the "I 
believe that ..."; of course, the operation is already sub-conscious and unconscious; the 
more dangerous it has become. Also check, if I ever used it, and when, in which context.

The same applies to "I hope that ...". Don't forget that "Hope" and "Belief" belong 
to some of the divine gifts of the "Holy Ghost", which have entered Christian, 
Western, Civilized Culture and Tradition surreptitiously, and hence are hidden in the 
uttermost dark dives and innermost obscure drives of our manipulated minds. Belief 
operates as follows: "How are you?"; already in your closed, nailed coffin, emasculated 
by AIDS, spontaneously, like a bolt from the blue, you reply: "I'm fine, thank you!". 
Also, to verify this, just look around, and listen.

Nonetheless, "I believe ... "is our topic today; we will concentrate on how Marxism has 
inherited its "conscientization" and "humanistic" tricks and methods.

In our Christian, Western World, in the New World Order, in Globalization, the 
absolute majority of citizens are either staunch Christians or christianized Believers, 
who consciously or unconsciously practice or eternalize Christian values, like 
belief, love, hope, charity and final justice. For this, to be a member of any church is not 
necessarily a quintessential prerequisite; all over, in their words and deeds Christian and 
religious infiltration had played mental havoc already. In Muslim, Buddhist or 
"Marxist" societies, it's similar; religion has already made its hey-day; capitalist and 
socialist ideology gave the "masses" the rest of it. Very few survived this religious, 
ideological "holocaust", this Baal, Behemoth and Moloch, this Haven and Heaven of 
Labour Pain.

Third Millennium: tertium imperium: Third Reich

As the 20th century German philosopher Ernst Bloch had already pointed out, it's
strange indeed what a global influence the "Holy Bible" had experienced, like no other 
book or writing ever before or after. However, it's an excellent example, in addition 
to Plato's Republic , how perfectly ruling class ideology can be developed, indoctrinated 
and how detrimental it can be to human thinking and thought; across the millennia, 
billions were converted into "brainless" believers. Millions of eager students had 
entered the institutions of "higher learning" and they left their alma mater brainless 
and spineless summa cum laude. Speaking about labour or capital crimes, this mental 
"holocaust" is the most cruel that ever occurred on earth. Either we'll never ever be 
able to repair this mental damage anymore or it will take millions of years to obliterate 
and neutralize this brutally inculcated alienating venom. For billions, the only 
consolation: "Ignorance is Bliss!" For us: "It's Folly to be Wise!"

Within the Roman Empire, the original Christians, living a communist life, hidden 
underground in the catacombs, were the religious forerunners of Marx and Engels, of 
the "Communist Manifesto". This Rosa Luxemburg in her essay, "Socialism And The 
Churches " had described in detail. Also, various medieval heretic movements have 
sown the rebellious seeds, which eventually had germinated and produced 
contemporary Marxism.

In the 12th century, the Calabrian abbot and heretic, Joachim of Fiore, developed a 
philosophy of history; ever since Augustine, it was the first heretic, revolutionary 
attempt to counter the coming Dominican religious doctrines and savagery, and to 
challenge the divine rules and laws of the Spanish Inquisition. He divided "history" into 
three epochs: The Era of the Old Testament, the Reign of Awe and Law; The Era of 
the New Testament, the Reign of Love; and the Third Testament, the tertium 
imperium, The Third Reich. It's "incredible", sorry, it's unthinkable, how "right", sorry, 
how scientific and philosophic, his "prophecy", sorry, his prediction has been. This 
sentence demonstrates how deep beliefs have crept into our very emancipatory 
"souls". And, Marx and Engels, as their 'racist' expressions had shown, were not free 
from such powerful ideological fire-works.

Of course, Joachim of Fiore did not see Hitler's "Third Reich", Stalin's "Gulags", 
present-day "Globalization" or the Reign of Big Brother; like Marx and Engels, he 
pictured the tertium imperium as an Epoch of Enlightenment, of the Free Spirit, as a 
Free Society, a Communist Society. This eschatological tradition, with its messianic 
features, was continued by Thomas Münzer and it reached the "proletarian 
movement" in the mid-19th century. Marx and Engels, also other Marxists, were
fascinated and inspired by these heretic, religious, revolutionary movements.

Education and Conscientization of the Masses

Across the millennia, in Pavlov-Dog fashion, civilization, christianization, 
westernization, tradition, culture, customs, norms, behaviour patterns, in a word, 
education, had conditioned, manipulated and indoctrinated the minds of the masses, of 
the people, to such an extent that they can now ONLY be "recruited", be "converted', 
be "conscientized", can ONLY be "educated"; they serve for nothing else anymore, 
their daydreams are destroyed, their will power is broken, they cannot be scientized or 
philosophized, or even emancipizedfor anything anymore. There are exceptions, but 
they prove the "golden rule". However, for sure, these exceptions can emancipate 
themselves, can become excellent, can be transcendentalized!

Marx and Engels followed the "golden rule"; they inherited the Platonic educational 
tradition, the Christian conversion, recruitment and conscientization campaign. They 
believed that anybody can be conscientized, can be won for the proletarian 
revolution; to achieve that, the "Communist Manifesto" had to have educational 
characteristics just like the "Holy Bible"; in fact, it's easy to read and understand it, but 
it is not quite up to Christian absolutist standards. Its negative "spectre" counters the 
affirmative "Holy Ghost". Together, they assure the eternal existence of Labour, in 
future, never ever to pay-out its "life insurance policy".


PART IX

IX. THE POLITICAL ESSENCE OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO


a) Structure Of Contents

" .... That is the line of action [first laid down in the Communist Manifesto]
which the great founder of modern socialism, Karl Marx, and with him, I
and the Socialists of the nations who worked along with us, have followed
for more than forty years, with the result that it has led to victory everywhere,
and that at this moment the mass of European socialists ... are fighting as
one common army under one and the same flag."

Friedrich Engels, Preface to The Condition of the Working Class in
England (1887 Edition).

"In this work the new world outlook is sketched with the clarity and expressive
power of genius: the consistent materialism which also embraces the domain
of social life, the dialectic as the most comprehensive and most profound theory
of development, the theory of the class struggle and the world socialist revolutionary
role of the proletariat, the creator of the new, the communist society."

V. I. Lenin, Karl Marx, 1914.


Let's look at the structure of the "Communist Manifesto", and highlight some
notions of its various parts. Of the four sections, the first one opens as follows:

"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles."

It continues to elucidate the rise of the bourgeoisie, its battle against feudalism,
and to portray the powerful forces of industrial production unleashed by emerging 
capitalism, to such a degree that they are not compatible anymore with the obsolete 
feudalist property relations of production. Then Marx and Engels explain, that
the bourgeoisie has created its own negation, its own non-bourgeoisie, the proletariat.
This "revolutionary" negation, the proletariat, is the only social class which has the 
"historic" task to liberate mankind, by annihilating the exploitation of man by man, 
by furthering the development of modern industrial technology.

The second section identifies the "communists" as the proletarian vanguard, as the 
most resolute, constant, advanced, revolutionary sector of the working classes. 
They, the communists, think, have developed revolutionary theory. They have the 
"historic"
task to "educate", to "conscientize" the workers, to develop a proletarian class 
consciousness. They, theoretically, "illuminate" the revolutionary trail of the working 
class movement. Somehow, they have to play a missionary, messianic role; they are 
acting like divine shepherds, shamans, priests and rabbis, directing and driving the 
holy flock, the illiterate, toiling "sheep and cows", towards the "Happy 
Hunting Grounds", to the revolutionary "green pastures" of Psalm 23. In this section 
also the corresponding communist programme, and its historic objectives, are 
elaborated.

The third section identifies the "Communists", the "Communist Party", and 
differentiates them from other existing utopian socialist, fake communist groups or 
reactionary humbugs. Here, especially, the "True Socialists" are attacked; in any case, 
they are historically irrelevant; they only have become known, precisely because the 
"Manifesto" mentions them. Furthermore, here, communist dialectical principles and 
their practical application to social life are clarified.

Finally, in the fourth section, the position of communists in relation to other radical 
democratic groups or capitalist governments is explained. Of course, without losing 
their proletarian identity, all communists have to adopt a non-sectarian political 
attitude, welcoming and supporting all genuine democratic tendencies. As a matter of 
interest, Germany is seen as the cradle of proletarian world revolution, because of the 
belated, impending bourgeois-democratic revolution there. Finally, expressis verbis, 
Marx and Engels declare, that they have nothing in common with any Illuminati, with 
any "conspiracy sect", hence their clarion call: "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!"

This was the revolutionary, bourgeois "spirit" of the time; in faraway France, 
Considerant, in counter-attack, published his own "Manifesto of Democracy", voicing 
his own slogan:

" Our cause is the cause of God and of Humanity; our Banner that of
Justice, of World Peace and of the Association of Peoples".


b) Epilogue -- General Comments

Marx never denied his indebtedness to the major bourgeois economic, philosophical, 
political and social achievements of his epoch. On March 5, 1852, Marx wrote to 
Wedemeyer:

" As far as I am concerned, I cannot claim the honour of having discovered
the existence either of classes in modern society or the struggle between
them. Bourgeois historians a long time before me have established the
historical development of this class struggle, and bourgeois economists its
economic anatomy. "

Then, he stated what he discovered:

(1) That the existence of classes is bound to definite historical
phases of the development of production;

(2) That the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship
of the proletariat; and,

(3) That this dictatorship itself is only transitory, in the revolutionary
process of abolishing all social classes, and of eventually establishing
a classless, communist society.


For sure, the "Communist Manifesto" has been cursed and blessed, burnt
and framed in gold, bedeviled and glorified, criticized and analyzed, ignored and 
studied, used as a fig leaf and been tyrannically applied, and yet, the most sound and
stringent critique and criticism came from Marx and Engels themselves. They 
immediately drew the necessary scientific and political conclusions, for example, from 
the collapse of Chartism in England, from the June 1848 Massacre of Striking Workers 
in Paris, the cowardice of the German bourgeoisie, the dynamics of French and 
German reaction, and the brutal intervention of the Russian Czar in Hungary.

Concluding, let's remind our friends of this dialectical self-criticism, from which we 
could learn excellent emancipatory lessons. In 1895, long after Marx's death in 1883, 
and two years before his own, Engels summarized the up-and-down and the laurels of 
the "Communist Manifesto" as follows:

" All of us, as far as the conceptions of our conditions and the course
of revolutionary movements were concerned, were under the spell of
previous historical experience, particularly, that of France. It was,
indeed, the latter which had dominated the whole of European history
since 1789, and from which now once again the signal had gone forth
for general revolutionary change. It was, therefore, natural and unavoidable
that our conception of the nature and the course of the 'social' revolution
proclaimed in Paris in February 1848, of the revolution of the proletariat,
should be strongly coloured by the memories of the prototypes of 1789 and
1830."

From this, he concluded, that history

" has not merely dispelled the erroneous notions we then held; it has also
completely transformed the conditions under which the proletariat has to
fight. The mode of struggle of 1848 is today obsolete in every respect".

Friedrich Engels' Introduction to Marx's The Class Struggles in France,
1895 Edition.

It was not necessary for genuine Marxists to wait that bourgeois "scholars" of the 20th and 21st centuries would declare the "Communist Manifesto" and its revolutionary endeavours "obsolete"; for them, far better, Marx and Engels themselves already had performed this excellent job; hence, the modern outcry against out-dated "Marxism" is in itself, at best, downright plagiarism, at worst, totally obsolete.



T H E   E N D

For further information, see: Dirk J. Struik, BIRTH OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO,  International Publishers, New York, 1975. 

-----oOo-----


BACK TO FRANZJUTTA.COM

********************************************************************************