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TXOSTENAK

KOADERNOAK - KAIERAK

http://basque.criticalstew.org/

KARL MARX

Peter Thompson
Director of the Centre for Ernst Bloch Studies at the University of Sheffield. First published in: The Guardian (April / May 2011) Articles compiled by:

Jesus Mari Intxauspe Arregi

TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Karl Marx, part 1: Religion, the wrong answer to the right question. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-04). 3 Karl Marx, part 2: How Marxism came to dominate socialist thinking. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-11) 6 Karl Marx, part 3: Men make their own history. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-18).. 9 Karl Marx, part 4: Workers of the world, unite!. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-25).. 12 Karl Marx, part 5: The problem of power. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-02). 15 Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of power. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-09). 18 Karl Marx, part 7: The psychology of alienation. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-16).. 22 Karl Marx, part 8: Modernity and the privatization of hope. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-23). 25

WORKS / EVENTS REFERRED TO [1] A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right - Introduction.. 29 [2] Theses On Feuerbach.. 41 [3] Communist Manifesto Preamble & Chapter 1- Bourgeois and Proletarians. 44 [4] Master-slave dialectic.. 55 [5] Thymos and Thymotic Characteristics +60 [6] Karl Popper (1902-1994)..62 [7] Hegelianism85 [8] Vanishing mediator....92 [9] Preface -A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy -Karl Marx 1859...93 [10] An Introduction to Gramsci's Life and Thought...97

[11] Autopoiesis, culture, and Society..101 [12] Aristotles kata to dynaton & dynmei on ...111 [13] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852 ...113 [14] Opium Wars.. 121 [15] The Lubyanka Building 132 [16] The revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg . 134 [17] State socialism. 138 [18] Paris commune .. 143 [19] The Theory of Value and Surplus Value. 158 [20] Althusser on Ideology.174 [21] Gramsci on Ideological hegemony, organic intellectuals, and on scholling & education... 177 [22] German Revolution of 191819185 [23] Second International.. 211 [24] Third International Comimrterm... 213 [25] Letter- Marx to Ruge. 229 [26] Slavoj Zizek- Key ideas 232

Karl Marx, part 1: Religion, the wrong answer to the right question. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-04)
Marx famously said that all criticism begins with the criticism of religion. This is often taken to be the starting point of a position that ends with the slogan that religion is the opium of the people. However, as with most thinkers, this reduction to slogans does not do the ideas behind them justice. The critique of religion as a social phenomenon did not connote a dismissal of the issues behind it. Marx precedes the famous line in his Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right [1] with the contention that religion was the sigh of the oppressed creature in a hostile world, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions and that an understanding of religion has to go hand in hand with an understanding of the social conditions that gave rise to it. The description of religion as the heart of a heartless world thus becomes a critique not of religion per se but of the world as it exists. What this shows is that his consideration of religion, politics, economics and society as a whole was not merely a philosophical exercise, but an active attempt to change the world, to help it find a new heart. The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it, he wrote in his famous 11th thesis on Feuerbach, [2] the phrase carved on his gravestone in Highgate cemetery. Even though understanding and action were tightly linked in Marx, we can trace his understanding back separately, through two German earlier philosophers, Hegel and Feuerbach. In Hegel he finds the concept of the idealistic dialectic as a means of understanding historical change but he uses Feuerbachs materialism as a tool for understanding it correctly. Thats why he called his system dialectical materialism. 3

Hegels dialectic is not at all materialistic. It is based on the existence and importance of ideas, which are conceived of as almost independent of the people who have them. We are merely their puppets. It was essentially an attempt to explain change in history during the period of revolutionary upheaval around the French revolution. Why do revolutions happen, he asks, and what happens to them? Why do things not stay the same and why is some world spirit (Weltgeist) constantly changing its mind about the way it wants the world to be and introducing a new spirit of the age (Zeitgeist)? Taking his cue from Kant, adding in some Spinoza and a dash of neo-Platonism, Hegel maintained that change happened in the world because it was immanent in a growing development towards something as yet incomplete but which had at its core the unfolding of the idea of human freedom. History thus became simply a vessel for this unfolding, a totality which was constantly changing and completing itself through a series of constructive negations. The dialectic is a theory of motion which posits that within every given situation there exists its own negation. The tension and interplay between the situation and its negation, produce constantly new and emergent forms of social existence. Of course there are difficulties in deciding what exactly is the negation of any particular situation. I will deal with those later. Marx took this Hegelian and idealistic dialectical approach and added in a materialist grounding from Feuerbach who was in many ways a sort of political Ditchkins of his day. For him religion poisons, nay destroys, the most divine feeling in man, the sense of truth. His insight was that all forms of religious expression were merely the abstracted vague longings of the human species translated into deities and their hangers-on, or in other words a god delusion. Marxs real synthesis of the debate between Hegel and Feuerbach is to agree with both of them but to turn them both upside down (or back on their feet as he would have it) and locate their ideas in concrete historical situations. Hegels idealism and Feuerbachs materialism had one thing in common and that was their abstraction from real concrete conditions. Hegels dialectic was 4

indeed a way of understanding change in the world but it failed to recognise that change emanated from prevailing material conditions rather than from the workings of the Weltgeist. On the other hand Feuerbachs materialism dealt only in abstract form with the way people perceived religion and did not locate the form that abstraction took in the way that people, above all classes, interacted with each other historically. By 1848 Marx was thus able to open the Communist Manifesto [3] with the contention that the history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles. This, for Marx, was the real motor of history; real struggles between real classes which produced real historical outcomes which in turn went on to become new struggles as the process of the negation of the negation the old mole as Marx called it carried on burrowing away, all the time throwing up new ways of thinking which themselves went on to negate and change the world. What I shall do in coming weeks is to look at how all of this actually works, how Marxists took up the baton and what the consequences of it all were. I shall also ask whether Marxism still has any explanatory power today, in a new age of revolutionary upheaval, or whether we have, in Hegels and Fukuyamas terms, reached The End of History.

Karl Marx, part 2: How Marxism came to dominate socialist thinking. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-11)
The question this week is how Marxism came to be the dominant theoretical apparatus of socialist thinking from the late 19th century onwards. Indeed, despite being constantly pronounced dead, it still manages to maintain itself in political, theoretical and academic debate in much of the world. It could be argued that whereas Marx himself said that all criticism starts with a critique of religion, all criticism today has to start with a critique of Marx. As arrogant and dogmatic as it sometimes sounds to our ears now, Marxs USP was that his and Engels approach to understanding history was the first to be based on truly scientific socioeconomic analysis. With a nod towards Darwin, Marx and Engels contended that their analysis of history was akin to a theory of evolution based on the concrete evidence of material facts. They argued that the theories of their rivals, the utopian communists and anarchists as well as the Hegelians and liberals, were based in idealist moral abstractions which dealt in notions of freedom, justice, fairness and equality in what they called the political superstructure of society, while theirs were based on an objective and scientific understanding of the real but largely invisible forces at work in the socioeconomic base. Marx and Engels saw change and revolution as historical necessities emerging out of material contingent reality driven by socioeconomic forces. They saw their task as unmasking those forces, subjecting them to radical critique and proposing a possible way forward. Everyone else, they thought, was essentially carrying on in the idealist tradition, which saw the motivating force behind history as the unfolding of abstract human freedom as an idea, will or imagination. For Hegel history was the Absolute Spirit moving towards absolute selfconsciousness through a process which moved from the way things were, via 6

rising conflict and tension, to a newer, higher stage. This process of negation and the negation of the negation produced new outcomes and new forms of social organisation which would only come to an end when the final liberation of humanity was achieved. In Hegel this was the full coming to consciousness of the Absolute Spirit/Idea. In Marx it could only be achieved with the withering away of all the social antagonisms associated with class society. The higher stage would be the naturalisation of man and the humanisation of nature that would take place in a future communist society. However, Marx never provided a blueprint for that future society, and it is unlikely that he would have been a supporter of the regimes which did emerge based on his ideas plenty of Marxists werent. As he once said when reading some particularly reductionist French

interpretations of his own economic theories: All I know is that I am not a Marxist. From Hegel, Marx had taken not only the dialectical method, which stated that history moved in a certain way because of its inherent antagonisms, but he also took the pattern and chronology of history too. Both Hegel and Marx maintained that human history began with the hunter gatherer, moved through an Asiatic and a slave-owning mode, out of which emerged feudalism, which in turn produced capitalism. On some readings of Hegel the story ends there, in the post-reformation Germanic world, whereas for Marx this happy ending was only the end of human pre-history, or as Churchill might have put it, the end of the beginning. It was only after capitalism had been transcended, in a way as yet impossible to conceive, that true history could begin and socialism could emerge as a transitional stage on the way to the sunlit uplands of communism. For Marx the motivating force behind history was the struggle for the control over material resources. It is the emergence of classes based on the ownership of a surplus and the means to produce it that kick-started history

and allowed it to become a self-generating system of movement. Very soon ideologies began to emerge in every epoch which posited that those who had the surplus were specially selected, somehow naturally entitled to that surplus and were therefore entitled to hang on to it. From this, in Hegel, the concept of the master-slave dialectic [4] emerged in which the idea plays itself out in reality via a constant struggle for recognition or thymos [5]. For Marx, on the other hand, this master-slave dialectic was simply another way of describing class conflict a basic struggle for control of the means of production. Any existing order can continue for any given length of time, he says, but as long as there is class antagonism, it cannot last for ever. At some point both the material means of accumulating the surplus and the ideological justification for hanging on to it start to crumble and we move forward into a period of radical change in which the world turns upside down and the old subaltern class becomes the new ruler. This is a constant and universal process but revolution can only come to the fore, let alone be successful, when both the objective material conditions and the subjective political conditions are ripe for it. This, then, was how Marx saw his theory of history as scientific, driven as it was by the material and political conditions of production and not by the working out of abstract ideas and spirits. Next week I shall address the traditional objections to the claims of scientific rigour which Karl Popper [6] raised, as well as the charge that Marxism is simply a quasi-religious teleology.

Karl Marx, part 3: Men make their own history. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-18)
One of the common objections that has been raised in the responses to these pieces is that Marxism itself is nothing more than a secularised form of dogmatic religious belief. It is argued that his use of a Hegelian [7] dialectical approach belies an essential determinism at work and that the categories he lays down as ways of understanding history are actually prescriptive, in that they present history as simply a set of stages by which communism will automatically be achieved. This is a traditional liberal individualist objection to Marx and it is found most coherently expressed in Karl Poppers [6] writings on totalitarianism and scientific falsifiability. For Popper, Marxism is nothing more than Hegelian teleology in quasi-religious clothing, in which history is seen as merely a means of reaching a pre-existing endpoint. This view is then linked to the second most common objection to Marx and Marxism; that the belief in and the process of attaining this teleological endpoint led directly to the gulag, the Great Leap Forward, the Berlin Wall and Pol Pots torture chambers. Marx, on this reading, is directly responsible for many millions of deaths and becomes one of the greatest, if not the greatest, mass murderers in history. It doesnt help much to counter that all previous and contemporary forms of social organisation have also caused and continue to cause millions of deaths through poverty, pillage, civil war, colonial imperialism, the accumulation of other peoples wealth, genocide, pogroms, inquisitions, fascism etc. Marx has the disadvantage that his name can be put to a number, whereas the millions who have suffered and perished over the course of history to get us to the point we are now represent a sort of vanishing mediator. [8] The point, however, is that Poppers description of Marxism as teleological historicism as Popper described it in Marxism not only misinterprets Marx, but also the Hegelian dialectic on which he based his philosophy. Even if we take the famous preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy 9

of 1859 [9] , often seen as one of the most determinist of his texts, we can see that for Marx the development of history emerges out of the relationship between the material forces of production (how stuff is produced) and the social relations of production (how society is organised around the production of that stuff) and not in some pre-ordained way. Marxs sense of the development of the history of society rather than believing in automaticity is actually based on an analysis of self-generating and contingent contradictions within society. There are no iron laws of history applicable to all forms of human society, and the one invariant operator there is, class struggle, is itself presented as something which takes different forms and paths at different points in history. For society to have reached the point it had, everything that happened beforehand was of course necessary, but it was not necessary in any metaphysical way. Seeking out patterns in the way human society had developed did not mean positing that those patterns were anything other than an expression of a concrete self-generating process in which the next stage would be the product of subjective political action as well as objective material circumstances. As Antonio Gramsci [10] pointed out, if Marx thought it would all come about automatically, then there was no need for his 11th thesis on Feuerbach, which declared that it was more important to change the world than to interpret it. Equally for Hegel, werden, or becoming, was the password to understanding how the absolute spirit not only expressed itself but, more importantly, generated itself through the process of history. The German word for unfolding entfaltung also means development, and the process of emergent creation, or autopoiesis [11], was also the process by which Hegels absolute spirit was not only working in the world but creating itself at the same time. Ernst Bloch, perhaps the most Hegelian of Marxists, maintained that this meant that Hegel and Marx were both talking about transcendence (in the sense of transcending that which exists) without the transcendent (in the sense of a transcendent realm religious or social towards which all things must move). The dialectic in Marx and Hegel can therefore be categorised as the 10

relationship between autonomy and dependence, between voluntarism and determinism and between what is possible (Aristotles kata to dynaton) [12] and what might become possible (dynmei on) [12] . As Marx put it most succinctly in his 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte [13] from 1852: Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.

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Karl Marx, part 4: Workers of the world, unite!. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-04-25)
I finished last week with Marxs great line from the 18th Brumaire [13] that people make their own history but not in conditions of their own making. So what were the conditions in which he was trying to make his own history? He was born 19 years after the French revolution. That was, of course, the great seismic event in the development of modernity and the ensuing political tsunami forced its way into every corner of Europe. The Communist Manifesto

[3] appeared in 1848, the next great year of European revolution. It hoped
that the shifting plate tectonics of socioeconomic change would ignite a German revolution, aid the Chartists in England and bring the growing proletariat onto the European political stage. This was Marxs communist spectre haunting Europe, a spectre before which the old order was supposed to tremble. The Communist Manifesto is probably the widest read and most influential political document of the modern age, but it is also probably the most misunderstood and misquoted. Famously, the opening section is a song of praise to the modernising tendencies of bourgeois capitalist rule and it is in the manifesto that we find the insights about globalisation and the spread of capitalist modernity around the world, quotes which garner grudging admiration today for their prescience even from Wall Street and the City. The creative destruction that modern capitalist society unleashes, in which everything that is solid melts into air, is for Marx a precondition for the development of the productive forces to a point where there is an adequate surplus generated for it to be redistributed. Capitalism had opened the world for business and we begin to see already in 1848 a recognition of the role of imperialism as a means of capital expanding its reach to the Americas, China and East India.

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The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, ie, to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image. This is one area at least where Marx certainly knew what he was talking about. In 1854, Commodore Matthew Perry sailed into Japans harbours threatening military force if Japan did not open its borders to free trade, and the activities of the East India Company are well known to us. The Opium Wars [14] a naked move by the British state to control the drug trade had perhaps also given Marx the idea about religion as the opium of the people. But in political terms, the main point in the manifesto is that capitalism, apart from the process of the primitive accumulation of wealth through theft and naval power, also by necessity creates a domestic power which is both the source of wealth and also the main danger to it; namely the proletariat. This class is what Mary Shelley was writing about when she conceived of Frankensteins monster; a gigantic, powerful beast which is the inevitable product of industry, technology and modernity but which has the potential to turn on it and destroy it once it realises the power it possesses and finds its voice. Chapter one [3] of the manifesto maintains that in the place of the manifold gradations of feudal society, bourgeois capitalism has simplified class antagonisms, reducing society down to a basic competition between a bourgeois class who owned the means of production and a growing proletariat who had only their labour power to sell in order to live. The enclosure of the lands, the urbanisation of rural workers and the creation of heavy industry were all absolutely necessary to the extension of capital and yet the same process was to create associations of workers who would combine to defend their own rights. For Marx, this was not just a political competition but an immanent structural antagonism which would inevitably lead to the victory of the proletariat over the bourgeoisie who, in developing the productive forces, had created their own gravediggers. In chapter two, the manifesto lays out the despotic 13

inroads on the rights of property that will need to be made by the proletariat once they take control and indeed many trace the birth of the Gulag to precisely this phrase but I would like to deal with that issue next week when we look at Marxs writings on the Paris Commune and the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. It is probably too early to say whether Marxs prediction of the inevitable overthrow of the bourgeoisie is correct, but the power of the combined workers to gain concessions from the state through social reform was something which Marx did not deal with in the manifesto. To give him his due, it did not look that likely anywhere in 1848 and he and Engels did begin to talk of a nonrevolutionary road to socialism by the 1880s, but at this point the cry was simple: Proletarier aller Lnder, vereinigt euch! Workers of the world, unite!

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Karl Marx, part 5: The problem of power. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-02)
If there is one thing which separates the revisionist sheep from the Leninist goats it is the question of power: what is it, how do you take it, how do you defend it and how do you hold on to it? If we consider Marx to be the theoretician of revolution, then it is Lenin who sought to marry theory with practice. The debate as to whether there is a continuity between Marx, Lenin and Stalin, that one leads ineluctably to the other and from there straight to the cellars of the Lubyanka, [15] is one which has raged since Rosa Luxemburg

[16] criticised Lenin and which will, probably, continue for centuries to come.
There are basically three camps: first, paradoxically, an alliance of the Stalinist diehards and anti-communists who posit a direct and logical connection between Marx and Stalin, for better or for worse; second, those who see a distinct break between Lenin and Stalin (largely Trotskyists) and third; those who see a break between Marx and Lenin and who admire the former for his analytical skills but oppose the latters dictatorial measures. We might call this third group the platonic Bolshevists who would like to live in a different world, but are not quite sure that they like the measures taken to get there. The emergence of the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat comes from the fact that in the bourgeois epoch history had both speeded up and wised up. Marx pointed out that in the transition between the previous epochs he had outlined, from ur-communism to the ancient mode, from there into feudalism and on to bourgeois capitalism, there is an acceleration of the process of transformation as well as a growing political consciousness. The early historical stages are slow, almost organic transitions taking many centuries. Where does one system slide into the next and how does it happen? Marx, and in particular Engels, developed the idea of the dialectic of quantity into quality, small incremental changes in a prevailing system which at some point add up to more than the sum of their parts and contribute to a full transition or a sudden Hegelian leap, as Lenin put it, to something new. 15

In 19th-century Europe this was increasingly the case. The workers in the major industrial countries in Europe did combine into unions and political movements and parties which were determined to improve their lot. The question was how this growing pressure could be either combated or accommodated. Under Bismarck for example, it became clear that the proletariat was a growing threat and, after the banning of the socialist party, social measures were brought in by the mid-1880s to ameliorate the situation for workers in a system that was then called a form of state socialism. [17] This was a recognition that the political threat from the proletariat was real and that, if steps were not taken, the whole of Europe could go the way of the Paris commune [18] of spring 1871, a period in which the workers in that city took power initially in defence of the republic against a Prussian offensive and in a very short span of time, were pushed by the reaction of the state and its collaboration with the Prussian attackers to seize power in their own political interests. It is out of this experience and its defeat that Marx developed further the idea of the dictatorship of the proletariat. The term needs understanding properly here. First, abstractly, it is an expression of the fact that the working class now comprises a majority of the population but that it has virtually no political representation and power. The idea is that if the workers were to take power against the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie, the dictatorship of the proletariat which would emerge would, by definition, be a democratic one. Second, however, what the commune [18] also did was to establish for the first time a democratic system of tightly controlled government from the ground up. Anyone elected to a leadership role was subject to recall, salaries were capped and there was a full separation of church and state, amongst many other measures. But the commune was defeated by a combination of the French government and the Prussian army and the ensuing bloodbath claimed the lives of between 20,000 and 30,000 communards summarily executed by the government. Marxs criticism of the commune was that it had not been harsh enough in defending itself against the counter-revolutionaries and Lenin later said that it was the lack of a unified leadership willing to go beyond half-measures that led to its downfall. Trotsky too saw the commune as a prime example of how any proletarian revolution has to be permanent, had to move rapidly from 16

limited democratic demands to the expropriation of property and the establishment of socialist structures, and in this way the Paris commune was the model for Soviet democracy in 1917. Whether the descent into Stalinism is the logical consequence of this concept is something that will no doubt be debated below.

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Karl Marx, part 6: The economics of power. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-09)

Having so far concentrated on philosophy and politics we now turn to what was the major part of Marxs output, namely the economics. But it is in the economics where his political philosophy begins to take on real form. There is not space enough here to cover the enormous range of his economics but there are a few basics which need to be dealt with in this slightly longer piece and which can be fought out below the line as usual. Alan Budd, who was an economic adviser to Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s once made an interesting point about Marxist economic theory and government policy on the fight against inflation at the time: [People] did see that it would be a very, very good way to raise unemployment, and raising unemployment was an extremely desirable way of reducing the strength of the working classes if you like, that what was engineered there in Marxist terms was a crisis of capitalism which re-created a reserve army of labour and has allowed the capitalists to make high profits ever since. Marxs basic starting point was that in contrast to all previous historical epochs capitalism is a system of generalised commodity production in which the workers abstracted labour power itself became a commodity to be traded.

[19]
In all previous epochs, human labour had been used to create a surplus product, usually subsistence farming and a surplus used for first bartering and then trading. Under the ancient mode and slavery through to feudalism, the product and the means of producing it was clear; food, clothing, the means of life. You worked 18

for the master and you belonged to the master in one way or another. The German word for serf, for example, is Leibeigener; your body literally belongs to the master. Capitalism liberates you from that and turns you into a free agent, apparently able to enter into a free contract to sell your labour to whomsoever you see fit. You are cast out of your old existence and are set on the route to making your own. The second verse of All Things Bright and Beautiful the rich man in his castle/ the poor man at his gate/God made them high and lowly/ and ordered their estate no longer applies. Whereas before you were a bondsman, now you are a journeyman and you can set off to make your own fortune, as the fairy tales have it. In economic terms, what before was a tangible surplus product is now transformed into intangible surplus value. You enter into this apparently free contract with an employer but the wage you draw from that employment is only a part of the value you create. Just as before a portion of the cabbages and linen you made belonged to the master, now a proportion of the monetary value you make through the production process belongs to the employer and you will only be employed if a competitive rate of surplus value can be generated through your labour. This is at the root of Marxs version of the labour theory of value [19]. The employer will provide the machines or tools for the completion of the task (constant capital) while the worker provides the labour power (variable capital). The employer will always be trying to improve labour productivity and can do so in various ways, but all of them boil down to improving the gap between your wage and the amount of value created by your labour power. This means that for Marx the commodity labour power has a special character in that it is the only commodity which can be employed to increase value, while all the others are merely reified forms of dead human labour, useless without labour input. An advanced car-producing robot no more creates value than does a peasants shovel. In theory there is no difference here to previous epochs where we accept the labour theory of value because it is measured in tons of cabbages and yards of linen but now that it becomes a commodified 19

and monetarised relationship it also becomes a quasi-mystical one, with value apparently emerging mysteriously out of all sorts of transactions and technologies and with market mechanisms and competition wiping out and obfuscating the distinction between what it costs to produce something and its price. On these threads, for example, a critique of Marx has emerged which posits a kind of paradoxical capitalist utopia in which we have reached 100% automation of production with no labour input at all anywhere by anyone. This reductio ad absurdum is of course as realistic as the world of Arnies Terminator or of Joh Fredersens Metropolis in which workers become surplus to requirements, but it does serve to illustrate a point because the further question then emerges as to how the goods produced are going to be purchased if no one is earning any wages through the productive process. Under capitalism labour productivity may improve massively, but it can never be reduced to zero because that would remove all demand for the goods produced. You would then have to distribute commodities or vouchers to the entire population based on some sort of criteria not linked to labour input and then where do we end up? Oh, of course, at communism, in which each gives according to their ability and receives according to their need. Capitalist competition over labour productivity thus not only produces its own gravediggers but also provides the shovels (or robots) to finish the job. Labour productivity can be increased in all sorts of traditional ways such as making workers work harder for less money, speeding up the production lines, extending the working day, getting people to work longer for the same or even less money, seeking out newer, cheaper labour sources through globalisation etc and, as Alan Budd points out, all of the above are regularly used, but for Marx they all only put off the dread day of collapse in which the workers realise that the harder and more productively they work, the smaller the proportion of the surplus value they create comes to them.

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Since the mid-1970s the common way to put this off has been through enormous levels of debt, either by the state or the private individual. It is that tendency which both brought about the collapse of the Soviet Union which over-borrowed in order to maintain full employment as a political necessity without raising productivity and the current crisis in the west where a debtfuelled asset price bubble in order to artificially stimulate demand has created the greatest economic crisis in a century. But for Marx, at the root of it all is the question of how surplus value is created and distributed and, most of all, what this does to human relations and desires. The commodification of labour power also brings with it the commodification of humans and their alienation from both themselves and the products of their labour power. It is an accusation often aimed at Marx that he reduces human beings to mere expendable specks of matter within the greater economic scheme of things, but it could be argued that the opposite is the case and that the whole point of Marxist economic analysis is precisely about trying to bring about a recognition that it is generalised commodity production which has commodified people and that it doesnt have to be like that. The final two columns in this series will go on to discuss how this process of economic alienation feeds through into religion and ideology and the means by which people manage to cope with being mere playthings of larger forces; how a sense of autonomy, faith and hope are maintained in an apparently constrained, rationalistic and futureless world. This will bring us right back to where we started: the land of Ideologiekritik.

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Karl Marx, part 7: The psychology of alienation. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-16)
In these last two columns I want to bring us back to more speculative, philosophical and even theological ground with a discussion of ideology and of alienation. I will cover the concepts in Marx and his immediate successors and will then go on to talk about the way in which western Marxism evolved out of the failure of the much-heralded proletarian revolutions of the 19th century and the turn towards moderate social democracy, the rise of fascism in the interwar period and the descent of Soviet Marxism into reductionist barbarism. All of these developments run counter to what Marxists had largely hoped and worked for until the first world war. What Marxist thinkers since Marx have been wrestling with is the question as to why nothing unfolded as it should have done. Marx maintains that the ruling ideology is always the ideology of the ruling class and that the set of ideas and thought patterns existing in any epoch will in the final instance closely follow the material and social relations of production. As soon as the surplus product we have been discussing emerges and class develops which has control over that surplus, then that class will require that those who do the producing learn to accept the rules of production and distribution. Thus, in feudal society, for example, we will have feudal ideologies that emphasise hierarchy, God-given positions in society, stability and the divine right of kings to rule and a religious form that bolsters those requirements in European feudalism this is represented by Catholicism and orthodoxy. The order that prevails will always be seen for extended periods of time as the natural law in which the way things are is the way they should be. In bourgeois society the rules change. Stasis and hierarchy are overthrown in the name of dynamism and innovation and a breaking down of restrictive practices 22

and you become a self-made man off to seek your fortune. In religious terms, orthodox Catholicism is superceded by a religion that allows you to find your personal relationship with God, or in Engels terms, become functionally secular. Where once the divine right of kings was seen as the natural law, it now becomes unnatural because it is surplus to requirements and is superceded by the human right to remove the head of the king if necessary. So, the rules may change, but they still have to be learned. However, this learning of the rules is not done merely by repression (although this becomes necessary at times of upheaval) but by the gradual inculcation of values. Althusser, for example, describes these two functions as repressive and ideological state apparatuses [20]. The former is clear, but the latter is far more insidious. It is the way in which the prevailing rules of the game become second nature to you and your obligations are turned into your desires. Antonio Gramsci similarly described this dichotomy in terms of domination and hegemony [21]. What this means at base is that the ideas we have about society are not actually our own but are put there by a set of institutions that have convinced us there is no other way to think about the world, that it is as it must be. Perhaps an unusual way of understanding this is through Kafkas Metamorphosis, perhaps the most famous account ever written of a man who has turned into a beetle overnight. But the real strangeness of the story is not the fact of the physical transformation (after all, he has been a bug all his working life and reality is just catching up with psychology) but of what it represents. At one point Gregor Samsa says of his family and his work life: The fruits of his labour were transformed into the provision of money and he earned enough to meet the expenses of the entire family and actually did so. They had just become used to it, the family as well as Gregor, the money was received with thanks and given with pleasure, but that special warmth was missing.

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If this isnt Kafkas spin on Marxs line from the Communist Manifesto that The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation into a mere money relation then I dont know what is. Gregors metamorphosis into a bug is the outward and inward transformation of the need to earn money into his own picture of himself. This is alienation theory in a beetleshell. It is not that he was poor and therefore suffering and needed to be kept down by a police state, but that the necessity of having to work for others at a job he hates for an amorphous output which doesnt belong to him alienates him from himself and from his labour power. Kafkas power as a writer lies in the fact that he shows us characters who have no concept of what is being done to them as a result of their own alienation. Gregors absorption of bourgeois values means that when he wakes, all he can think of is that he is going to be late for work and not that he has turned into a bug. What happens in 20th century western Marxism is that a Marxist interpretation of socio-economic development is increasingly complemented by this attempt to incorporate a psychological understanding of the way people function in the world. Marx gets married to Freud with Kafka as the best man and the result is the pitter-patter of the tiny little feet of Adorno, Horkheimer, Marcuse, Korsch, Lukacs, Benjamin, Bloch, and later iek and the other post-Marxists, all of whose voices we will listen to next week.

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Karl Marx, part 8: Modernity and the privatisation of hope. Peter Thompson (The Guardian. 2011-05-23)
In the 20th century the failure of the German revolution in 1918/19 [22] and the degeneration of the Russian revolution into dictatorship as well as the rising power of the US as a consumerist democracy led to a serious rethink on the part of most Marxist thinkers about questions of agency, class and economics and the dogmatic certainties of the Second [23] and Third [24] (ie Social Democratic and Stalinist) Internationals. It is hard to pinpoint exactly when this trend started and it certainly had many disparate branches but essentially it boils down to a turn to a sort of humanist, philosophical and cultural Marxism that attempted, in Ernst Blochs terms, to re-inject the warm stream of the ethics of human liberation back into the cold stream of what for many had become the negative dialectic of positivistic and scientistic systems of social control in west and east. In the 20th century the turn to an exploration of ideology and unconscious desire replaced that of an active revolutionary communism and an adherence to revolutionary communism in the west itself became in many ways no more than an expression of an internal unconscious and romantic desire for personal liberation. Where Alain Badiou talks today of an almost ahistorical communist hypothesis, Bloch spoke about an invariant of direction, a mood of an eternal desire for human liberation that breaks out at certain historical points where the objective conditions allow it. The Arab spring would be an example today, whereas 40 and 20 years ago respectively it was the Prague spring and the fall of the Berlin Wall. In this context, the attraction of going back to Hegel and the early Marx immediately becomes apparent because the idea of the unfolding of human freedom as the main motivating force of history this time properly understood

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as something that can only succeed if the objective socio-economic conditions are right is taken as a given. It is not that the economic ideas of Marx are rejected but there arises an attempt to subordinate economic categories again to human needs and desires and to see parties, states, economics and science as necessary servants of humanity rather than its eternal masters. One passage from a letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge in 1843 [25] is often quoted in this context: Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality. It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realising the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will become evident that mankind is not beginning a new work, but is consciously carrying into effect its old work. This implies strongly that the dreams of a better world are a constant, indeed transcendental drive behind our human activities but that the transcendence of prevailing conditions is an active and self-generating process of unmasking the consciousness which is unintelligible to itself. Perhaps the most significant body of thought to emerge from this tradition was the Frankfurt school of critical theory based around the sociological and cultural-theoretical works of Theodor Adorno, Max Horkheimer and Herbert Marcuse along with Walter Benjamin and the psychoanalysts Erich Fromm and Wilhelm Reich. The main focus of their work was to try to understand how ideology works, how an ideological hegemony is established and how people come to believe the things they do about themselves and the world. This became increasingly important after the rise of fascism and Nazism because the orthodox Marxist explanation of it as only the extreme response of a bourgeoisie in trouble was simply not up to the job. The question they asked was why millions of ordinary workers turned to an ideology that was quite clearly not in their objective interests.

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This was then compounded by their time in exile in the US where the American Dream of human fulfilment through consumption and wealth exerted such a pull on workers consciousness. As John Steinbeck (a kind of literary honorary fellow of the Frankfurt school) put it, in America, the poor preferred to look upon themselves as temporarily embarrassed millionaires. In turn, this trend became influential again in the 1960s, when the political turmoil in the west was based not on a proletarian uprising against poverty but an intellectual and youth uprising against false consciousness and the grinding banality of consumerism. Society was to be changed not by attacking only the socio-economic base but, more importantly, its superstructural and ideological hegemony. This led them and later theoreticians to talk of people in consumer capitalism living in a state of permanent alienation, or what Lacan, after Freud, would call social castration in which, as Slavoj iek now puts it, we are all encouraged to enjoy our symptoms! The dark satanic mills of the 19th century have moved to China to be replaced by the bright satanic malls of consumer delight and our collective hopes for the future have been privatised and bundled up into little gobbets of pleasure sold to us as freedom on the never never. Of course all of this kicking against prosperity and consumerism could be just the sigh of the creature who is not oppressed in a world that is not hostile but underneath it all is a sense that excess, consumption and obsession with growth at all costs is not sustainable in either human, ecological or indeed, as the current crisis shows us, purely economic terms. Again in early Marx we find a desire for the naturalisation of man and the humanisation of nature but it is replaced by the sense that the constant desire to search for utopia has been transformed into a vicarious and consumerist attitude in which hope and utopia are to be found in the coffee shops where we can dream about unearned fame and lottery wins. But maybe what we really want is just to find somewhere to rest after the long and tiring journey through the desert of history. Walter Benjamin maintained that this quest, even in its correct historical materialist form, always contains 27

hidden within it a quasi-theological and messianic message of hope in which we, as the most social of all the apes, can find our place. The question is really why we are so modest. Why are we happy with our false utopias? Lets go home.

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WORKS REFERED TO

[1] A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels Philosophy of Right - Introduction


Works of Karl Marx 1843 Written: December 1843-January 1844;First published: in Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher, 7 & 10 February 1844 in Paris;Transcription: the source and date of transcription is unknown. It was proofed and corrected by Andy Blunden, February 2005, and corrected by Matthew Carmody in 2009. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/criti que-hpr/intro.htm

For Germany, the criticism of religion has been essentially completed, and the criticism of religion is the prerequisite of all criticism. The profane existence of error is compromised as soon as its heavenly oratio pro aris et focis [speech for the altars and hearths, i.e., for God and country] has been refuted. Man, who has found only the reflection of himself in the fantastic reality of heaven, where he sought a superman, will no longer feel disposed to find the mere appearance of himself, the non-man [Unmensch], where he seeks and must seek his true reality. The foundation of irreligious criticism is: Man makes religion, religion does not make

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man. Religion is, indeed, the self-consciousness and self-esteem of man who has either not yet won through to himself, or has already lost himself again. But man is no abstract being squatting outside the world. Man is the world of man state, society. This state and this society produce religion, which is an inverted consciousness of the world, because they are an inverted world. Religion is the general theory of this world, its encyclopaedic compendium, its logic in popular form, its spiritual point dhonneur, its enthusiasm, its moral sanction, its solemn complement, and its universal basis of consolation and justification. It is the fantastic realization of the human essence since the human essence has not acquired any true reality. The struggle against religion is, therefore, indirectly the struggle against that world whose spiritual aroma is religion. Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people. The abolition of religion as the illusory happiness of the people is the demand for their real happiness. To call on them to give up their illusions about their condition is to call on them to give up a condition that requires illusions. The criticism of religion is, therefore, in embryo, the criticism of that vale of tears of which religion is the halo. Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck the living flower. The criticism of religion disillusions man, so that he will think, act, and fashion his reality like a man who has discarded his illusions and regained his senses, so that he will move around himself as his own true Sun. Religion is only the illusory Sun which revolves around man as long as he does not revolve around himself. It is, therefore, the task of history, once the other-world of truth has vanished, to establish the truth of this world. It is the immediate task of philosophy, which is in the service of history, to unmask self-estrangement in its unholy forms once the holy form of human self-estrangement has been unmasked. Thus, the criticism of Heaven turns into the criticism of Earth, the criticism of religion into the criticism of law, and the criticism of theology into the criticism of politics. The following exposition [a full-scale critical study of Hegels Philosophy of Right was supposed to follow this introduction] a contribution to this undertaking concerns itself not directly with the original but with a copy, with the German philosophy of the state and of law. The only reason for this is that it is concerned with Germany. If we were to begin with the German status quo itself, the result even if we were to do it in the only appropriate way, i.e., negatively would still be an anachronism. Even the negation of our present political situation is a dusty fact in the historical junk room of modern nations. If I negate powdered pigtails, I am still left with unpowdered pigtails. If I negate the situation in Germany in 1843, then according to the French calendar I have barely reached 1789, much less the vital centre of our present age. Indeed, German history prides itself on having travelled a road which no other nation in the whole of history has ever travelled before, or ever will again. We have

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shared the restorations of modern nations without ever having shared their revolutions. We have been restored, firstly, because other nations dared to make revolutions, and, secondly, because other nations suffered counter-revolutions; on the one hand, because our masters were afraid, and, on the other, because they were not afraid. With our shepherds to the fore, we only once kept company with freedom, on the day of its internment. One school of thought that legitimizes the infamy of today with the infamy of yesterday, a school that stigmatizes every cry of the serf against the knout as mere rebelliousness once the knout has aged a little and acquired a hereditary significance and a history, a school to which history shows nothing but its a posteriori, as did the God of Israel to his servant Moses, the historical school of law this school would have invented German history were it not itself an invention of that history. A Shylock, but a cringing Shylock, that swears by its bond, its historical bond, its ChristianGermanic bond, for every pound of flesh cut from the heart of the people.

Good-natured enthusiasts, Germanomaniacs by extraction and free-thinkers by reflexion, on the contrary, seek our history of freedom beyond our history in the ancient Teutonic forests. But, what difference is there between the history of our freedom and the history of the boars freedom if it can be found only in the forests? Besides, it is common knowledge that the forest echoes back what you shout into it. So peace to the ancient Teutonic forests! War on the German state of affairs! By all means! They are below the level of history, they are beneath any criticism, but they are still an object of criticism like the criminal who is below the level of humanity but still an object for the executioner. In the struggle against that state of affairs, criticism is no passion of the head, it is the head of passion. It is not a lancet, it is a weapon. Its object is its enemy, which it wants not to refute but to exterminate. For the spirit of that state of affairs is refuted. In itself, it is no

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object worthy of thought, it is an existence which is as despicable as it is despised. Criticism does not need to make things clear to itself as regards this object, for it has already settled accounts with it. It no longer assumes the quality of an end-in-itself, but only of a means. Its essential pathos is indignation, its essential work is denunciation. It is a case of describing the dull reciprocal pressure of all social spheres one on another, a general inactive ill-humor, a limitedness which recognizes itself as much as it mistakes itself, within the frame of government system which, living on the preservation of all wretchedness, is itself nothing but wretchedness in office. What a sight! This infinitely proceeding division of society into the most manifold races opposed to one another by petty antipathies, uneasy consciences, and brutal mediocrity, and which, precisely because of their reciprocal ambiguous and distrustful attitude, are all, without exception although with various formalities, treated by their rulers as conceded existences. And they must recognize and acknowledge as a concession of heaven the very fact that they are mastered, ruled, possessed! And, on the other side, are the rulers themselves, whose greatness is in inverse proportion to their number! Criticism dealing with this content is criticism in a hand-to-hand fight, and in such a fight the point is not whether the opponent is a noble, equal, interesting opponent, the point is to strike him. The point is not to let the Germans have a minute for selfdeception and resignation. The actual pressure must be made more pressing by adding to it consciousness of pressure, the shame must be made more shameful by publicizing it. Every sphere of German society must be shown as the partie honteuse of German society: these petrified relations must be forced to dance by singing their own tune to them! The people must be taught to be terrified at itself in order to give it courage. This will be fulfilling an imperative need of the German nation, and the needs of the nations are in themselves the ultimate reason for their satisfaction. This struggle against the limited content of the German status quo cannot be without interest even for the modern nations, for the German status quo is the open completion of the ancien rgime and the ancien rgime is the concealed deficiency of the modern state. The struggle against the German political present is the struggle against the past of the modern nations, and they are still burdened with reminders of that past. It is instructive for them to see the ancien rgime, which has been through its tragedy with them, playing its comedy as a German revenant. Tragic indeed was the pre-existing power of the world, and freedom, on the other hand, was a personal notion; in short, as long as it believed and had to believe in its own justification. As long as the ancien rgime, as an existing world order, struggled against a world that was only coming into being, there was on its side a historical error, not a personal one. That is why its downfall was tragic. On the other hand, the present German regime, an anachronism, a flagrant contradiction of generally recognized axioms, the nothingness of the ancien rgime exhibited to the world, only imagines that it believes in itself and demands that the world should imagine the same thing. If it believed in its own essence, would it try to hide that essence under the semblance of an alien essence and seek refuge in hypocrisy and sophism? The modern ancien rgime is rather only the comedian of a world order whose true heroes are dead. History is thorough and goes through many phases when carrying an old form to the grave. The last phases of a world-historical

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form is its comedy. The gods of Greece, already tragically wounded to death in Aeschyluss tragedy Prometheus Bound, had to re-die a comic death in Lucians Dialogues. Why this course of history? So that humanity should part with its past cheerfully. This cheerful historical destiny is what we vindicate for the political authorities of Germany. Meanwhile, once modern politico-social reality itself is subjected to criticism, once criticism rises to truly human problems, it finds itself outside the German status quo, or else it would reach out for its object below its object. An example. The relation of industry, of the world of wealth generally, to the political world is one of the major problems of modern times. In what form is this problem beginning to engage the attention of the Germans? In the form of protective duties, of the prohibitive system, of national economy. Germanomania has passed out of man into matter, and thus one morning our cotton barons and iron heroes saw themselves turned into patriots. People are, therefore, beginning in Germany to acknowledge the sovereignty of monopoly on the inside through lending it sovereignty on the outside. People are, therefore, now about to begin, in Germany, what people in France and England are about to end. The old corrupt condition against which these countries are revolting in theory, and which they only bear as one bears chains, is greeted in Germany as the dawn of a beautiful future which still hardly dares to pass from crafty theory to the most ruthless practice. Whereas the problem in France and England is: Political economy, or the rule of society over wealth; in Germany, it is: National economy, or the mastery of private property over nationality. In France and England, then, it is a case of abolishing monopoly that has proceeded to its last consequences; in Germany, it is a case of proceeding to the last consequences of monopoly. There it is a case of solution, here as yet a case of collision. This is an adequate example of the German form of modern problems, an example of how our history, like a clumsy recruit, still has to do extra drill on things that are old and hackneyed in history.

If, therefore, the whole German development did not exceed the German political development, a German could at the most have the share in the problems-of-thepresent that a Russian has. But, when the separate individual is not bound by the limitations of the nation, the nation as a whole is still less liberated by the liberation of one individual. The fact that Greece had a Scythian among its philosophers did not help the Scythians to make a single step towards Greek culture. [An allusion to Anacharsis.]

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Luckily, we Germans are not Scythians. As the ancient peoples went through their pre-history in imagination, in mythology, so we Germans have gone through our post-history in thought, in philosophy. We are philosophical contemporaries of the present without being its historical contemporaries. German philosophy is the ideal prolongation of German history. If therefore, instead of the oeuvres incompletes of our real history, we criticize the oeuvres posthumes of our ideal history, philosophy, our criticism is in the midst of the questions of which the present says: that is the question. What, in progressive nations, is a practical break with modern state conditions, is, in Germany, where even those conditions do not yet exist, at first a critical break with the philosophical reflexion of those conditions. German philosophy of right and state is the only German history which is al pari [on a level] with the official modern present. The German nation must therefore join this, its dream-history, to its present conditions and subject to criticism not only these existing conditions, but at the same time their abstract continuation. Its future cannot be limited either to the immediate negation of its real conditions of state and right, or to the immediate implementation of its ideal state and right conditions, for it has the immediate negation of its real conditions in its ideal conditions, and it has almost outlived the immediate implementation of its ideal conditions in the contemplation of neighboring nations. Hence, it is with good reason that the practical political party in Germany demands the negation of philosophy. It is wrong, not in its demand but in stopping at the demand, which it neither seriously implements nor can implement. It believes that it implements that negation by turning its back to philosophy and its head away from it and muttering a few trite and angry phrases about it. Owing to the limitation of its outlook, it does not include philosophy in the circle of German reality or it even fancies it is beneath German practice and the theories that serve it. You demand that real life embryos be made the starting-point, but you forget that the real life embryo of the German nation has grown so far only inside its cranium. In a word You cannot abolish [aufheben] philosophy without making it a reality. The same mistake, but with the factors reversed, was made by the theoretical party originating from philosophy. In the present struggle it saw only the critical struggle of philosophy against the German world; it did not give a thought to the fact that philosophy up to the present itself belongs to this world and is its completion, although an ideal one. Critical towards its counterpart, it was uncritical towards itself when, proceeding from the premises of philosophy, it either stopped at the results given by philosophy or passed off demands and results from somewhere else as immediate demands and results of philosophy although these, provided they are justified, can be obtained only by the negation of philosophy up to the present, of philosophy as such. We reserve ourselves the right to a more detailed description of this section: It thought it could make philosophy a reality without abolishing [aufzuheben] it. The criticism of the German philosophy of state and right, which attained its most consistent, richest, and last formulation through Hegel, is both a critical analysis of the modern state and of the reality connected with it, and the resolute negation of the whole manner of the German consciousness in politics and right as practiced hereto,

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the most distinguished, most universal expression of which, raised to the level of science, is the speculative philosophy of right itself. If the speculative philosophy of right, that abstract extravagant thinking on the modern state, the reality of which remains a thing of the beyond, if only beyond the Rhine, was possible only in Germany, inversely the German thought-image of the modern state which makes abstraction of real man was possible only because and insofar as the modern state itself makes abstraction of real man, or satisfies the whole of man only in imagination. In politics, the Germans thought what other nations did. Germany was their theoretical conscience. The abstraction and presumption of its thought was always in step with the one-sidedness and lowliness of its reality. If, therefore, the status quo of German statehood expresses the completion of the ancien rgime, the completion of the thorn in the flesh of the modern state, the status quo of German state science expresses the incompletion of the modern state, the defectiveness of its flesh itself. Already as the resolute opponent of the previous form of German political consciousness the criticism of speculative philosophy of right strays, not into itself, but into problems which there is only one means of solving practice. It is asked: can Germany attain a practice la hauteur des principles i.e., a revolution which will raise it not only to the official level of modern nations, but to the height of humanity which will be the near future of those nations?

The weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism of the weapon, material force must be overthrown by material force; but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses. Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem, and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. To be radical is to grasp the root of the matter. But, for man, the root is man himself. The evident proof of the radicalism of German theory, and hence of its

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practical energy, is that is proceeds from a resolute positive abolition of religion. The criticism of religion ends with the teaching that man is the highest essence for man hence, with the categoric imperative to overthrow all relations in which man is a debased, enslaved, abandoned, despicable essence, relations which cannot be better described than by the cry of a Frenchman when it was planned to introduce a tax on dogs: Poor dogs! They want to treat you as human beings! Even historically, theoretical emancipation has specific practical significance for Germany. For Germanys revolutionary past is theoretical, it is the Reformation. As the revolution then began in the brain of the monk, so now it begins in the brain of the philosopher. Luther, we grant, overcame bondage out of devotion by replacing it by bondage out of conviction. He shattered faith in authority because he restored the authority of faith. He turned priests into laymen because he turned laymen into priests. He freed man from outer religiosity because he made religiosity the inner man. He freed the body from chains because he enchained the heart. But, if Protestantism was not the true solution of the problem, it was at least the true setting of it. It was no longer a case of the laymans struggle against the priest outside himself but of his struggle against his own priest inside himself, his priestly nature. And if the Protestant transformation of the German layman into priests emancipated the lay popes, the princes, with the whole of their priestly clique, the privileged and philistines, the philosophical transformation of priestly Germans into men will emancipate the people. But, secularization will not stop at the confiscation of church estates set in motion mainly by hypocritical Prussia any more than emancipation stops at princes. The Peasant War, the most radical fact of German history, came to grief because of theology. Today, when theology itself has come to grief, the most unfree fact of German history, our status quo, will be shattered against philosophy. On the eve of the Reformation, official Germany was the most unconditional slave of Rome. On the eve of its revolution, it is the unconditional slave of less than Rome, of Prussia and Austria, of country junkers and philistines. Meanwhile, a major difficulty seems to stand in the way of a radical German revolution. For revolutions require a passive element, a material basis. Theory is fulfilled in a people only insofar as it is the fulfilment of the needs of that people. But will the monstrous discrepancy between the demands of German thought and the answers of German reality find a corresponding discrepancy between civil society and the state, and between civil society and itself? Will the theoretical needs be immediate practical needs? It is not enough for thought to strive for realization, reality must itself strive towards thought. But Germany did not rise to the intermediary stage of political emancipation at the same time as the modern nations. It has not yet reached in practice the stages which it has surpassed in theory. How can it do a somersault, not only over its own limitations, but at the same time over the limitations of the modern nations, over limitations which it must in reality feel and strive for as for emancipation from its real limitations? Only a revolution of radical needs can be a radical revolution and it seems that precisely the preconditions and ground for such needs are lacking.

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If Germany has accompanied the development of the modern nations only with the abstract activity of thought without taking an effective share in the real struggle of that development, it has, on the other hand, shared the sufferings of that development, without sharing in its enjoyment, or its partial satisfaction. To the abstract activity on the one hand corresponds the abstract suffering on the other. That is why Germany will one day find itself on the level of European decadence before ever having been on the level of European emancipation. It will be comparable to a fetish worshipper pining away with the diseases of Christianity. If we now consider the German governments, we find that because of the circumstances of the time, because of Germanys condition, because of the standpoint of German education, and, finally, under the impulse of its own fortunate instinct, they are driven to combine the civilized shortcomings of the modern state world, the advantages of which we do not enjoy, with the barbaric deficiencies of the ancien rgime, which we enjoy in full; hence, Germany must share more and more, if not in the reasonableness, at least in the unreasonableness of those state formations which are beyond the bounds of its status quo. Is there in the world, for example, a country which shares so naively in all the illusions of constitutional statehood without sharing in its realities as so-called constitutional Germany? And was it not perforce the notion of a German government to combine the tortures of censorship with the tortures of the French September laws [1835 anti-press laws] which provide for freedom of the press? As you could find the gods of all nations in the Roman Pantheon, so you will find in the Germans Holy Roman Empire all the sins of all state forms. That this eclecticism will reach a so far unprecedented height is guaranteed in particular by the politicalaesthetic gourmanderie of a German king [Frederick William IV] who intended to play all the roles of monarchy, whether feudal or democratic, if not in the person of the people, at least in his own person, and if not for the people, at least for himself. Germany, as the deficiency of the political present constituted a world of its own, will not be able to throw down the specific German limitations without throwing down the general limitation of the political present.

It is not the radical revolution, not the general human emancipation which is a utopian dream for Germany, but rather the partial, the merely political revolution, the revolution which leaves the pillars of the house standing. On what is a partial, a merely political revolution based? On part of civil society emancipating itself and attaining general domination; on a definite class, proceeding from its particular situation; undertaking the general emancipation of society. This class emancipates the whole of

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society, but only provided the whole of society is in the same situation as this class e.g., possesses money and education or can acquire them at will. No class of civil society can play this role without arousing a moment of enthusiasm in itself and in the masses, a moment in which it fraternizes and merges with society in general, becomes confused with it and is perceived and acknowledged as its general representative, a moment in which its claims and rights are truly the claims and rights of society itself, a moment in which it is truly the social head and the social heart. Only in the name of the general rights of society can a particular class vindicate for itself general domination. For the storming of this emancipatory position, and hence for the political exploitation of all sections of society in the interests of its own section, revolutionary energy and spiritual self-feeling alone are not sufficient. For the revolution of a nation, and the emancipation of a particular class of civil society to coincide, for one estate to be acknowledged as the estate of the whole society, all the defects of society must conversely be concentrated in another class, a particular estate must be the estate of the general stumbling-block, the incorporation of the general limitation, a particular social sphere must be recognized as the notorious crime of the whole of society, so that liberation from that sphere appears as general self-liberation. For one estate to be par excellence the estate of liberation, another estate must conversely be the obvious estate of oppression. The negative general significance of the French nobility and the French clergy determined the positive general significance of the nearest neighboring and opposed class of the bourgeoisie. But no particular class in Germany has the constituency, the penetration, the courage, or the ruthlessness that could mark it out as the negative representative of society. No more has any estate the breadth of soul that identifies itself, even for a moment, with the soul of the nation, the geniality that inspires material might to political violence, or that revolutionary daring which flings at the adversary the defiant words: I am nothing but I must be everything. The main stem of German morals and honesty, of the classes as well as of individuals, is rather that modest egoism which asserts its limitedness and allows it to be asserted against itself. The relation of the various sections of German society is therefore not dramatic but epic. Each of them begins to be aware of itself and begins to camp beside the others with all its particular claims not as soon as it is oppressed, but as soon as the circumstances of the time, without the sections own participation, creates a social substratum on which it can in turn exert pressure. Even the moral self-feeling of the German middle class rests only on the consciousness that it is the common representative of the philistine mediocrity of all the other classes. It is therefore not only the German kings who accede to the throne mal propos, it is every section of civil society which goes through a defeat before it celebrates victory and develops its own limitations before it overcomes the limitations facing it, asserts its narrow-hearted essence before it has been able to assert its magnanimous essence; thus the very opportunity of a great role has passed away before it is to hand, and every class, once it begins the struggle against the class opposed to it, is involved in the struggle against the class below it. Hence, the higher nobility is struggling against the monarchy, the bureaucrat against the nobility, and the bourgeois against them all, while the proletariat is already beginning to find itself struggling against the bourgeoisie. The middle class hardly dares to grasp the thought of emancipation from its own standpoint when the development of the social conditions and the progress of political theory already declare that standpoint antiquated or at least problematic. In France, it is enough for somebody to be something for him to want to be

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everything; in Germany, nobody can be anything if he is not prepared to renounce everything. In France, partial emancipation is the basis of universal emancipation; in Germany, universal emancipation is the conditio sine qua non of any partial emancipation. In France, it is the reality of gradual liberation that must give birth to complete freedom, in Germany, the impossibility of gradual liberation. In France, every class of the nation is a political idealist and becomes aware of itself at first not as a particular class but as a representative of social requirements generally. The role of emancipator therefore passes in dramatic motion to the various classes of the French nation one after the other until it finally comes to the class which implements social freedom no longer with the provision of certain conditions lying outside man and yet created by human society, but rather organizes all conditions of human existence on the premises of social freedom. On the contrary, in Germany, where practical life is as spiritless as spiritual life is unpractical, no class in civil society has any need or capacity for general emancipation until it is forced by its immediate condition, by material necessity, by its very chains. Where, then, is the positive possibility of a German emancipation? Answer: In the formulation of a class with radical chains, a class of civil society which is not a class of civil society, an estate which is the dissolution of all estates, a sphere which has a universal character by its universal suffering and claims no particular right because no particular wrong, but wrong generally, is perpetuated against it; which can invoke no historical, but only human, title; which does not stand in any one-sided antithesis to the consequences but in all-round antithesis to the premises of German statehood; a sphere, finally, which cannot emancipate itself without emancipating itself from all other spheres of society and thereby emancipating all other spheres of society, which, in a word, is the complete loss of man and hence can win itself only through the complete re-winning of man. This dissolution of society as a particular estate is the proletariat.

The proletariat is beginning to appear in Germany as a result of the rising industrial movement. For, it is not the naturally arising poor but the artificially impoverished, not the human masses mechanically oppressed by the gravity of society, but the masses resulting from the drastic dissolution of society, mainly of the middle estate, that form the proletariat, although, as is easily understood, the naturally arising poor and the Christian-Germanic serfs gradually join its ranks. By heralding the dissolution of the hereto existing world order, the proletariat merely proclaims the secret of its own existence, for it is the factual dissolution of that world

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order. By demanding the negation of private property, the proletariat merely raises to the rank of a principle of society what society has raised to the rank of its principle, what is already incorporated in it as the negative result of society without its own participation. The proletarian then finds himself possessing the same right in regard to the world which is coming into being as the German king in regard to the world which has come into being when he calls the people his people, as he calls the horse his horse. By declaring the people his private property, the king merely proclaims that the owner of property is king. As philosophy finds its material weapon in the proletariat, so the proletariat finds its spiritual weapon in philosophy. And once the lightning of thought has squarely struck this ingenuous soil of the people, the emancipation of the Germans into men will be accomplished. Let us sum up the result: The only liberation of Germany which is practically possible is liberation from the point of view of that theory which declares man to be the supreme being for man. Germany can emancipate itself from the Middle Ages only if it emancipates itself at the same time from the partial victories over the Middle Ages. In Germany, no form of bondage can be broken without breaking all forms of bondage. Germany, which is renowned for its thoroughness, cannot make a revolution unless it is a thorough one. The emancipation of the German is the emancipation of man. The head of this emancipation is philosophy, its heart the proletariat. Philosophy cannot realize itself without the transcendence [Aufhebung] of the proletariat, and the proletariat cannot transcend itself without the realization [Verwirklichung] of philosophy. When all the inner conditions are met, the day of the German resurrection will be heralded by the crowing of the cock of Gaul.

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[2] Theses On Feuerbach


Written: by Marx in the Spring of 1845, but slightly edited by Engels;First Published: As an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy in 1888;Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 15;Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969;Translated: W. Lough from the German;Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Baggins;Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999, 2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons ShareAlike License;Proofread: by Andy Blunden February 2005. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/theses/these s.htm

I The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism that of Feuerbach included is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.

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Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself as objective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. Hence he does not grasp the significance of revolutionary, of practical-critical, activity. II The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must prove the truth i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question. III The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society. The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or selfchanging can be conceived and rationally understood only as revolutionary practice. IV Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and selfcontradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice. V Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants contemplation; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity. VI Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations. Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled: 1- To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an abstract isolated human individual. 2- Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as genus, as an internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many individuals.

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VII Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the religious sentiment is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs to a particular form of society. VIII All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice. IX The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society. X The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity. XI The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point is to change it.

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[3] Communist Manifesto Preamble & Chapter 1- Bourgeois and Proletarians


Manifesto of the Communist Party A spectre is haunting Europe the spectre of communism. All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre: Pope and Tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radicals and German police-spies. Where is the party in opposition that has not been decried as communistic by its opponents in power? Where is the opposition that has not hurled back the branding reproach of communism, against the more advanced opposition parties, as well as against its reactionary adversaries? Two things result from this fact: I. Communism is already acknowledged by all European powers to be itself a power. II. It is high time that Communists should openly, in the face of the whole world, publish their views, their aims, their tendencies, and meet this nursery tale of the Spectre of Communism with a manifesto of the party itself. To this end, Communists of various nationalities have assembled in London and sketched the following manifesto, to be published in the English, French, German, Italian, Flemish and Danish languages.

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Chapter I. Bourgeois and Proletarians(1) The history of all hitherto existing society(2) is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master(3) and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. In the earlier epochs of history, we find almost everywhere a complicated arrangement of society into various orders, a manifold gradation of social rank. In ancient Rome we have patricians, knights, plebeians, slaves; in the Middle Ages, feudal lords, vassals, guild-masters, journeymen, apprentices, serfs; in almost all of these classes, again, subordinate gradations. The modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones. Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other Bourgeoisie and Proletariat. From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed. The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape, opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie. The East-Indian and Chinese markets, the colonisation of America, trade with the colonies, the increase in the means of exchange and in commodities generally, gave to commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never before known, and thereby, to the revolutionary element in the tottering feudal society, a rapid development. The feudal system of industry, in which industrial production was monopolised by closed guilds, now no longer sufficed for the growing wants of the new markets. The manufacturing system took its place. The guild-masters were pushed on one side by the manufacturing middle class; division of labour between the different corporate guilds vanished in the face of division of labour in each single workshop. Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois. Modern industry has established the world market, for which the discovery of America paved the way. This market has given an immense development to commerce, to navigation, to communication by land. This development has, in its turn, reacted on the extension of industry; and in proportion as industry, commerce, navigation, railways extended, in the same proportion the bourgeoisie developed,

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increased its capital, and pushed into the background every class handed down from the Middle Ages. We see, therefore, how the modern bourgeoisie is itself the product of a long course of development, of a series of revolutions in the modes of production and of exchange. Each step in the development of the bourgeoisie was accompanied by a corresponding political advance of that class. An oppressed class under the sway of the feudal nobility, an armed and self-governing association in the medieval commune(4): here independent urban republic (as in Italy and Germany); there taxable third estate of the monarchy (as in France); afterwards, in the period of manufacturing proper, serving either the semi-feudal or the absolute monarchy as a counterpoise against the nobility, and, in fact, cornerstone of the great monarchies in general, the bourgeoisie has at last, since the establishment of Modern Industry and of the world market, conquered for itself, in the modern representative State, exclusive political sway. The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie, historically, has played a most revolutionary part. The bourgeoisie, wherever it has got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his natural superiors, and has left remaining no other nexus between man and man than naked self-interest, than callous cash payment. It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervour, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in the icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation.

The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honoured and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into its paid wage labourers. The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced

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the family relation to a mere money relation. The bourgeoisie has disclosed how it came to pass that the brutal display of vigour in the Middle Ages, which reactionaries so much admire, found its fitting complement in the most slothful indolence. It has been the first to show what mans activity can bring about. It has accomplished wonders far surpassing Egyptian pyramids, Roman aqueducts, and Gothic cathedrals; it has conducted expeditions that put in the shade all former Exoduses of nations and crusades. The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. Conservation of the old modes of production in unaltered form, was, on the contrary, the first condition of existence for all earlier industrial classes. Constant revolutionising of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones. All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere. The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of Reactionists, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilised nations, by industries that no longer work up indigenous raw material, but raw material drawn from the remotest zones; industries whose products are consumed, not only at home, but in every quarter of the globe. In place of the old wants, satisfied by the production of the country, we find new wants, requiring for their satisfaction the products of distant lands and climes. In place of the old local and national seclusion and self-sufficiency, we have intercourse in every direction, universal inter-dependence of nations. And as in material, so also in intellectual production. The intellectual creations of individual nations become common property. National one-sidedness and narrow-mindedness become more and more impossible, and from the numerous national and local literatures, there arises a world literature. The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation. The cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.

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The bourgeoisie has subjected the country to the rule of the towns. It has created enormous cities, has greatly increased the urban population as compared with the rural, and has thus rescued a considerable part of the population from the idiocy of rural life. Just as it has made the country dependent on the towns, so it has made barbarian and semi-barbarian countries dependent on the civilised ones, nations of peasants on nations of bourgeois, the East on the West.

The bourgeoisie keeps more and more doing away with the scattered state of the population, of the means of production, and of property. It has agglomerated population, centralised the means of production, and has concentrated property in a few hands. The necessary consequence of this was political centralisation. Independent, or but loosely connected provinces, with separate interests, laws, governments, and systems of taxation, became lumped together into one nation, with one government, one code of laws, one national class-interest, one frontier, and one customs-tariff. The bourgeoisie, during its rule of scarce one hundred years, has created more massive and more colossal productive forces than have all preceding generations together. Subjection of Natures forces to man, machinery, application of chemistry to industry and agriculture, steam-navigation, railways, electric telegraphs, clearing of whole continents for cultivation, canalisation of rivers, whole populations conjured out of the ground what earlier century had even a presentiment that such productive forces slumbered in the lap of social labour? We see then: the means of production and of exchange, on whose foundation the bourgeoisie built itself up, were generated in feudal society. At a certain stage in the development of these means of production and of exchange, the conditions under which feudal society produced and exchanged, the feudal organisation of agriculture and manufacturing industry, in one word, the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many fetters. They had to be burst asunder; they were burst asunder.

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Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted in it, and the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class. A similar movement is going on before our own eyes. Modern bourgeois society, with its relations of production, of exchange and of property, a society that has conjured up such gigantic means of production and of exchange, is like the sorcerer who is no longer able to control the powers of the nether world whom he has called up by his spells. For many a decade past the history of industry and commerce is but the history of the revolt of modern productive forces against modern conditions of production, against the property relations that are the conditions for the existence of the bourgeois and of its rule. It is enough to mention the commercial crises that by their periodical return put the existence of the entire bourgeois society on its trial, each time more threateningly. In these crises, a great part not only of the existing products, but also of the previously created productive forces, are periodically destroyed. In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce. The productive forces at the disposal of society no longer tend to further the development of the conditions of bourgeois property; on the contrary, they have become too powerful for these conditions, by which they are fettered, and so soon as they overcome these fetters, they bring disorder into the whole of bourgeois society, endanger the existence of bourgeois property. The conditions of bourgeois society are too narrow to comprise the wealth created by them. And how does the bourgeoisie get over these crises? On the one hand by enforced destruction of a mass of productive forces; on the other, by the conquest of new markets, and by the more thorough exploitation of the old ones. That is to say, by paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented. The weapons with which the bourgeoisie felled feudalism to the ground are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. But not only has the bourgeoisie forged the weapons that bring death to itself; it has also called into existence the men who are to wield those weapons the modern working class the proletarians. In proportion as the bourgeoisie, i.e., capital, is developed, in the same proportion is the proletariat, the modern working class, developed a class of labourers, who live only so long as they find work, and who find work only so long as their labour increases capital. These labourers, who must sell themselves piecemeal, are a commodity, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market. Owing to the extensive use of machinery, and to the division of labour, the work of the proletarians has lost all individual character, and, consequently, all charm for the workman. He becomes an appendage of the machine, and it is only the most simple, most monotonous, and most easily acquired knack, that is required of him. Hence, the cost of production of a workman is restricted, almost entirely, to the means of subsistence that he requires for maintenance, and for the propagation of his race. But

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the price of a commodity, and therefore also of labour, is equal to its cost of production. In proportion, therefore, as the repulsiveness of the work increases, the wage decreases. Nay more, in proportion as the use of machinery and division of labour increases, in the same proportion the burden of toil also increases, whether by prolongation of the working hours, by the increase of the work exacted in a given time or by increased speed of machinery, etc. Modern Industry has converted the little workshop of the patriarchal master into the great factory of the industrial capitalist. Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organised like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect hierarchy of officers and sergeants. Not only are they slaves of the bourgeois class, and of the bourgeois State; they are daily and hourly enslaved by the machine, by the overlooker, and, above all, by the individual bourgeois manufacturer himself. The more openly this despotism proclaims gain to be its end and aim, the more petty, the more hateful and the more embittering it is.

The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labour, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labour of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labour, more or less expensive to use, according to their age and sex. No sooner is the exploitation of the labourer by the manufacturer, so far, at an end, that he receives his wages in cash, than he is set upon by the other portions of the bourgeoisie, the landlord, the shopkeeper, the pawnbroker, etc. The lower strata of the middle class the small tradespeople, shopkeepers, and retired tradesmen generally, the handicraftsmen and peasants all these sink gradually into the proletariat, partly because their diminutive capital does not suffice for the scale on which Modern Industry is carried on, and is swamped in the competition with the large capitalists, partly because their specialised skill is rendered worthless by new methods of production. Thus the proletariat is recruited from all classes of the population. The proletariat goes through various stages of development. With its birth begins its

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struggle with the bourgeoisie. At first the contest is carried on by individual labourers, then by the workpeople of a factory, then by the operative of one trade, in one locality, against the individual bourgeois who directly exploits them. They direct their attacks not against the bourgeois conditions of production, but against the instruments of production themselves; they destroy imported wares that compete with their labour, they smash to pieces machinery, they set factories ablaze, they seek to restore by force the vanished status of the workman of the Middle Ages. At this stage, the labourers still form an incoherent mass scattered over the whole country, and broken up by their mutual competition. If anywhere they unite to form more compact bodies, this is not yet the consequence of their own active union, but of the union of the bourgeoisie, which class, in order to attain its own political ends, is compelled to set the whole proletariat in motion, and is moreover yet, for a time, able to do so. At this stage, therefore, the proletarians do not fight their enemies, but the enemies of their enemies, the remnants of absolute monarchy, the landowners, the non-industrial bourgeois, the petty bourgeois. Thus, the whole historical movement is concentrated in the hands of the bourgeoisie; every victory so obtained is a victory for the bourgeoisie. But with the development of industry, the proletariat not only increases in number; it becomes concentrated in greater masses, its strength grows, and it feels that strength more. The various interests and conditions of life within the ranks of the proletariat are more and more equalised, in proportion as machinery obliterates all distinctions of labour, and nearly everywhere reduces wages to the same low level. The growing competition among the bourgeois, and the resulting commercial crises, make the wages of the workers ever more fluctuating. The increasing improvement of machinery, ever more rapidly developing, makes their livelihood more and more precarious; the collisions between individual workmen and individual bourgeois take more and more the character of collisions between two classes. Thereupon, the workers begin to form combinations (Trades Unions) against the bourgeois; they club together in order to keep up the rate of wages; they found permanent associations in order to make provision beforehand for these occasional revolts. Here and there, the contest breaks out into riots. Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers. This union is helped on by the improved means of communication that are created by modern industry, and that place the workers of different localities in contact with one another. It was just this contact that was needed to centralise the numerous local struggles, all of the same character, into one national struggle between classes. But every class struggle is a political struggle. And that union, to attain which the burghers of the Middle Ages, with their miserable highways, required centuries, the modern proletarian, thanks to railways, achieve in a few years. This organisation of the proletarians into a class, and, consequently into a political party, is continually being upset again by the competition between the workers themselves. But it ever rises up again, stronger, firmer, mightier. It compels legislative recognition of particular interests of the workers, by taking advantage of the divisions among the bourgeoisie itself. Thus, the ten-hours bill in England was carried. Altogether collisions between the classes of the old society further, in many ways,

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the course of development of the proletariat. The bourgeoisie finds itself involved in a constant battle. At first with the aristocracy; later on, with those portions of the bourgeoisie itself, whose interests have become antagonistic to the progress of industry; at all time with the bourgeoisie of foreign countries. In all these battles, it sees itself compelled to appeal to the proletariat, to ask for help, and thus, to drag it into the political arena. The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie. Further, as we have already seen, entire sections of the ruling class are, by the advance of industry, precipitated into the proletariat, or are at least threatened in their conditions of existence. These also supply the proletariat with fresh elements of enlightenment and progress. Finally, in times when the class struggle nears the decisive hour, the progress of dissolution going on within the ruling class, in fact within the whole range of old society, assumes such a violent, glaring character, that a small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class, the class that holds the future in its hands. Just as, therefore, at an earlier period, a section of the nobility went over to the bourgeoisie, so now a portion of the bourgeoisie goes over to the proletariat, and in particular, a portion of the bourgeois ideologists, who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole. Of all the classes that stand face to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat is its special and essential product. The lower middle class, the small manufacturer, the shopkeeper, the artisan, the peasant, all these fight against the bourgeoisie, to save from extinction their existence as fractions of the middle class. They are therefore not revolutionary, but conservative. Nay more, they are reactionary, for they try to roll back the wheel of history. If by chance, they are revolutionary, they are only so in view of their impending transfer into the proletariat; they thus defend not their present, but their future interests, they desert their own standpoint to place themselves at that of the proletariat. The dangerous class, [lumpenproletariat] the social scum, that passively rotting mass thrown off by the lowest layers of the old society, may, here and there, be swept into the movement by a proletarian revolution; its conditions of life, however, prepare it far more for the part of a bribed tool of reactionary intrigue. In the condition of the proletariat, those of old society at large are already virtually swamped. The proletarian is without property; his relation to his wife and children has no longer anything in common with the bourgeois family relations; modern industry labour, modern subjection to capital, the same in England as in France, in America as in Germany, has stripped him of every trace of national character. Law, morality, religion, are to him so many bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk in ambush just as many bourgeois interests. All the preceding classes that got the upper hand sought to fortify their already acquired status by subjecting society at large to their conditions of appropriation. The proletarians cannot become masters of the productive forces of society, except by

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abolishing their own previous mode of appropriation, and thereby also every other previous mode of appropriation. They have nothing of their own to secure and to fortify; their mission is to destroy all previous securities for, and insurances of, individual property. All previous historical movements were movements of minorities, or in the interest of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest of the immense majority. The proletariat, the lowest stratum of our present society, cannot stir, cannot raise itself up, without the whole superincumbent strata of official society being sprung into the air.

Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie. In depicting the most general phases of the development of the proletariat, we traced the more or less veiled civil war, raging within existing society, up to the point where that war breaks out into open revolution, and where the violent overthrow of the bourgeoisie lays the foundation for the sway of the proletariat. Hitherto, every form of society has been based, as we have already seen, on the antagonism of oppressing and oppressed classes. But in order to oppress a class, certain conditions must be assured to it under which it can, at least, continue its slavish existence. The serf, in the period of serfdom, raised himself to membership in the commune, just as the petty bourgeois, under the yoke of the feudal absolutism, managed to develop into a bourgeois. The modern labourer, on the contrary, instead of rising with the process of industry, sinks deeper and deeper below the conditions of existence of his own class. He becomes a pauper, and pauperism develops more rapidly than population and wealth. And here it becomes evident, that the bourgeoisie is unfit any longer to be the ruling class in society, and to impose its conditions of existence upon society as an over-riding law. It is unfit to rule because it is incompetent to assure an existence to its slave within his slavery, because it cannot help letting him sink into such a state, that it has to feed him, instead of being fed by him. Society can no longer live under this bourgeoisie, in other words, its existence is no longer compatible with society. The essential conditions for the existence and for the sway of the bourgeois class is

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the formation and augmentation of capital; the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie, replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by the revolutionary combination, due to association. The development of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates products. What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

1. By bourgeoisie is meant the class of modern capitalists, owners of the means of social production and employers of wage labour. By proletariat, the class of modern wage labourers who, having no means of production of their own, are reduced to selling their labour power in order to live. [Engels, 1888 English edition] 2. That is, all written history. In 1847, the pre-history of society, the social organisation existing previous to recorded history, all but unknown. Since then, August von Haxthausen (1792-1866) discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Georg Ludwig von Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and, by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organisation of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Lewis Henry Morgan's (1818-1861) crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of the primeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this dissolution in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, second edition, Stuttgart, 1886. [Engels, 1888 English Edition and 1890 German Edition (with the last sentence omitted)] 3. Guild-master, that is, a full member of a guild, a master within, not a head of a guild. [Engels, 1888 English Edition] 4. This was the name given their urban communities by the townsmen of Italy and France, after they had purchased or conquered their initial rights of self-government from their feudal lords. [Engels, 1890 German edition] Commune was the name taken in France by the nascent towns even before they had conquered from their feudal lords and masters local self-government and political rights as the Third Estate. Generally speaking, for the economical development of the bourgeoisie, England is here taken as the typical country, for its political development, France. [Engels, 1888 English Edition]

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[4] Master-slave dialectic

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master-slave_dialectic

This article is about Hegel's master-slave dialectic. For the general terms, see Master (disambiguation) and Slave. For computer controllers, see Masterslave (technology).

The Master-Slave dialectic (Herrschaft und Knechtschaft in German; also translated Lordship and Bondage) is a famous passage of Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit. It is widely considered a key element in Hegel's philosophical system, and has heavily influenced many subsequent philosophers. It describes, in narrative form, the encounter between two self-conscious beings, who engage in a "struggle to the death" before one enslaves the other, only to find that this does not give him the control over the world he had sought. Context "Independent and Dependent Self-Consciousness: Lordship and Bondage" is the first of two titled subsections in the "Self-Consciousness" chapter of the Phenomenology. It is preceded in the chapter by a discussion of "Life" and "Desire", among other things, and is followed by "Free Self-Consciousness: Stoicism, Skepticism, and the Unhappy Consciousness." It is a story or myth created by Hegel in order to explain his idea of how selfconsciousness dialectically sublates into what he variously refers to as Absolute Knowledge, Spirit, and Science. The Phenomenology exists, for reasons that are part of its nature and place in Hegel's work, in two places - as an independent work, apparently considered by Hegel to be an a priori for understanding the Science of Logic, and as a part of the Science of Logic, where absolute knowledge is explained.

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Recognition Crucially, for Hegel, absolute knowledge, or Spirit, cannot come to be without first a self consciousness recognizing another self-consciousness. Such an issue in the history of philosophy had never been explored (except by Johann Gottlieb Fichte) and its treatment marks a watershed in European philosophy. Hegel's myth In order to explain how this works, Hegel uses a story that is in essence an abstracted, idealized history about how two people meet. However, Hegel's idea of the development of self-consciousness from consciousness, and its sublation into a higher unity in absolute knowledge, is not the contoured brain of natural science and evolutionary biology, but a phenomenological construct with a history; one that must have passed through a struggle for freedom before realizing itself. The abstract language used by Hegel never allows one to interpret this story in a straightforward fashion. It can be read as self-consciousness coming to itself through a child's or adult's development, or self-consciousness coming to be in the beginning of human history (see hominization) or as that of a society or nation realizing freedom. That the master-slave dialectic can be interpreted as an internal process occurring in one person or as an external process between two or more people is a result, in part, of the fact that Hegel asserts an "end to the antithesis of subject and object". What occurs in the human mind also occurs outside of it. The objective and subjective, according to Hegel, sublate one another until they are unified, and the "story" takes this process through its various "moments" when the lifting up of two contradictory moments results in a higher unity. First, the two abstract consciousnesses meet and are astounded at the realization of the self as a foreign object. Each can choose to ignore the other, in which case no self-consciousness forms and each views the other merely as an animated object rather than an equivalent subject. Or, they become mesmerized by the mirror-like other and attempt, as they previously had done in controlling their own body, to assert their will. According to Hegel, "On approaching the other it has lost its own self, since it finds itself as another being; secondly, it has thereby sublated that other, for this primitive consciousness does not regard the other as essentially real but sees its own self in the other."[1] Reaction The "I" sees another "I" and finds its own pre-eminence and control compromised. It ignores this other or sees it as a threat to itself. Its own self-certainty and truth have forevermore been shattered. The only means of re-asserting itself, in order to proceed toward self-consciousness, is by entering into a struggle for pre-eminence. Death struggle A struggle to the death ensues. However, if one of the two should die, the achievement of self-consciousness fails. Hegel refers to this failure as "abstract negation" not the negation or sublation required. This death is avoided by the agreement, communication of, or subordination to, slavery. In this struggle the Master emerges as Master because he doesn't fear death as much as the slave, and the

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slave out of this fear consents to the slavery. This experience of fear on the part of the slave is crucial, however, in a later moment of the dialectic, where it becomes the prerequisite experience for the slave's further development. Enslavement and mastery Truth of oneself as self-conscious is achieved only if both live; the recognition of the other gives each of them the objective truth and self-certainty required for selfconsciousness. Thus, the two enter into the relation of master/slave and preserve the recognition of each other.

Contradiction and Resolution However, this state is not a happy one and does not achieve full self-consciousness. The recognition by the slave is merely on pain of death. The master's selfconsciousness is dependent on the slave for recognition and also has a mediated relation with nature: the slave works with nature and begins to shape it into products for the master. As the slave creates more and more products with greater and greater sophistication through his own creativity, he begins to see himself reflected in the products he created, Conclusions One interpretation of this dialectic is that neither a slave nor a master can be considered as fully self-conscious. A person who has already achieved selfconsciousness could be enslaved, so self-consciousness must be considered not as an individual achievement, or an achievement of natural and genetic evolution, but as a social phenomenon.[2] As philosopher Robert Brandom explains, "Hegel's discussion of the dialectic of the Master and Slave is an attempt to show that asymmetric recognitive relations are metaphysically defective, that the norms they institute aren't the right kind to help us think and act with--to make it possible for us to think and act. Asymmetric recognition in this way is authority without responsibility, on the side of the Master, and

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responsibility without authority, on the side of the Slave. And Hegel's argument is that unless authority and responsibility are commensurate and reciprocal, no actual normative statuses are instituted. This is one of his most important and certainly one of his deepest ideas, though it's not so easy to see just how the argument works." [3] Kojeve's unique interpretation differs from this. For Kojeve, people are born and history began with the first struggle, which ended with the first masters and slaves. A person is always either master or slave; and there are no real humans where there are no masters and slaves. History comes to an end when the difference between master and slave ends, when the master ceases to be master because there are no more slaves and the slave ceases to be a slave because there are no more masters. A synthesis takes place between master and slave: the integral citizen of the universal and homogenous state created by Napoleon.[4] Influence of the master-slave dialectic The master and slave relationship influenced numerous discussions and ideas in the 20th century, especially because of its supposed connection to Karl Marx's conception of class struggle as the motive force of social development, although Chris Arthur has argued that this connection was falsely instigated by Sartre under the influence of French philosopher Alexandre Kojve.[5] This idea also provided the inspiration for Sren Kierkegaard's conception of the God sinful bondsman relationship - and may be read as an unacknowledged influence upon Friedrich Nietzsche's ideas about Master Morality and Slave Morality (See Master-slave morality.[6]) It has also been influential in the social sciences and in psychoanalysis.[7] Furthermore, Hegel's master-slave trope, and particularly the emphasis on recognition, has been of crucial influence on Martin Buber's relational schema in I and Thou, Simone de Beauvoir's account of the history and dynamics of gender relations in The Second Sex and Frantz Fanon's description of the colonial relation in Black Skin, White Masks.[8] Susan Buck-Morss's article 'Hegel and Haiti'[9] considers how the Haitian revolution greatly influenced Hegel's writing of his slavemaster dialect. Kojve argued that Hegel's intentions were to illustrate that overcoming the fear of death was the only way to achieve true freedom. This was not actually stated by Hegel (in truth at points in this work he makes a direct argument against the use of force as the manner in which history develops). A recent work that uses this argument is Francis Fukuyama's The End of History and the Last Man. Fukuyama admits in the work that his understanding of Hegel is mostly Kojvian, in particular his conception of the end of history as an ultimate stage of history, while it is, according to Georg Lukcs' interpretation, not a transcendent end but an aim immanent to the neverending process. Notes
^1 G.W.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, translated by A.V. Miller with analysis of the text and foreword by J. N. Findlay (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1977)Paragraph 179 Pg. 111. ^2 Philip Moran, Hegel and the Fundamental Problems of Philosophy, Holland: Grner, 1988. ^3 Robert Brandom, Interview, Summer 2008. Video:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1034802594689246468. 15m:25s. ^4 Alexandre Kojve, Introduction la lecture de Hegel, France: Gallimard, 1947.

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Translated as Introduction to the Reading of Hegel, New York: Basic Books, 1969. ^5 Chris Arthur, "Hegels Master-Slave Dialectic and a Myth of Marxology." New Left Review I/142, NovemberDecember 1983 ^6 Friedrich Nietzsche, On The Genealogy of Morals, New York: Vintage, 1989. ^ 7Julia Borossa and Caroline Rooney, "Suffering, Transience and Immortal Longings: Salom Between Nietzsche and Freud," Journal of European Studies 33(3/4): 287 304 London, 2003. ^8 Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks, New York: Grove Press, 1967: 62. ^9 Susan Buck-Morss, Hegel and Haiti, Critical Inquiry, Vol. 26, No. 4. (Summer, 2000), pp. 821-865.

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[5] Thymos and Thymotic Characteristics +


(the need for recognition) http://wordinfo.info/unit/3363/ip:5/il:T

People take steps to gain recognition and an appreciation of their significance Meaning "spiritedness" in Greek, Plato described thymos as the part of the soul comprising pride, indignation, shame, and the need for recognition. Thymos was an indispensable warlike attribute in the ancient world, and remains so today. It is an aspect of inner life that galvanizes commitment to armed conflict and gives it meaning for many combatants; even for civilians who experience it vicariously. Thymos is the human undercurrent that flows amid the geopolitical externalities of war. Without thymos, man amounts to little more than a highly intelligent animal; all brain and physical need, with no moral autonomy. Plato believed thymos exists in us along with our godlike reason and our base appetites. Appetite constitutes our lowest side, embracing the desire to eat, sleep, reproduce, and live on as the physically dependent mammals we are. Reason, on the other hand, enables us to understand and master life's complexities.

Although the thymotic urge drives so much of public life, very few talk about thymos anymore. Man can use his potent reasoning power to fulfill bodily appetites (a hunter trapping an animal; an employee angling for a raise), or to enjoy intellectual speculation. Thymos, however, sometimes causes us to act unreasonably, out of pride, and strive for ends that are unfriendly to our physical well-being. Many thinkers have asserted that man should; rather than let spiritedness dominate behavior; stick with using his mind to protect and gratify his body. Thomas Hobbes claimed that man is motivated primarily by fear of death and other selfish concerns. John Locke, whose political theories profoundly influenced our Founding Fathers, emphasized man's calculating, acquisitive side by extolling "life, health, liberty, [and] possessions." G.W.F. Hegel later maintained that man's humanity flourishes most when he transcends survivalist, materialist inclinations and engages his thymotic side by voluntarily risking his life in armed conflict (or other dangerous yet highminded undertakings). Doing so proves to the courageous person and those who observe him that, while bodily a mere animal, internally he is also a masterful being . . . free to exercise moral choice, perhaps stake his life, and show himself superior to narrow concern with himself or his goods. According to Hegel, man is thus most truly human when pursuing self-sacrificing, risky courses of action.

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The person who swims into rough seas to rescue a stranger; the soldier who storms an enemy machine gun nest to save his mates; the fireman or policeman who risks his life to help those in peril; these people are living thymotically, well beyond their vestigial animal nature and their sometimes over-circumspect sense of reason. In the Republic, Plato wrote that thymotic people are good to those who share their values, but not to their enemies: "If not, they will destroy themselves without waiting for their enemies to destroy them." Recognition: Men want others to recognize their significance. They want to feel important and part of something important. Some people believe men are motivated by greed for money or lust for power; however, money and power are the means to get recognition. They are markers of success, and success makes men feel important and causes others to pay attention when they appear on the scene. Plato famously divided the soul into three parts: reason, eros (desire) and thymos (the hunger for recognition). Thymos is what motivates the best and worst things men do. It drives them to seek glory and to assert themselves aggressively for noble causes. It drives them to rage if others dont recognize their worth. Sometimes it even causes them to kill over a trifle if they feel disrespected. Plato went on to point out that people are not only sensitive about their own selfworth, they are also sensitive about the dignity of their group, and the dignity of others. If a group is denied the dignity it deserves, we call that injustice. Thymotic people mobilize to assert their groups significance if they feel they are being rendered invisible by society. Thymotic people mobilize on behalf of those made voiceless by the powerful. As Plato indicated, thymos is the psychological origin of political action. The thymos (or what might now be called "self-esteem") generates in people a fundamental human need to be recognized for their merits Political and economic systems may be evaluated by measuring how well they satisfy the demands of the thymos.

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[6] Karl Popper (1902-1994)


Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy First published Thu Nov 13, 1997; substantive revision Mon Feb 9, 2009 http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/popper/
Karl Popper is generally regarded as one of the greatest philosophers of science of the 20th century. He was also a social and political philosopher of considerable stature, a self-professed critical-rationalist, a dedicated opponent of all forms of scepticism, conventionalism, and relativism in science and in human affairs generally, a committed advocate and staunch defender of the Open Society, and an implacable critic of totalitarianism in all of its forms. One of the many remarkable features of Popper's thought is the scope of his intellectual influence. In the modern technological and highly-specialised world scientists are rarely aware of the work of philosophers; it is virtually unprecedented to find them queuing up, as they have done in Popper's case, to testify to the enormously practical beneficial impact which that philosophical work has had upon their own. But notwithstanding the fact that he wrote on even the most technical matters with consummate clarity, the scope of Popper's work is such that it is commonplace by now to find that commentators tend to deal with the epistemological, scientific and social elements of his thought as if they were quite disparate and unconnected, and thus the fundamental unity of his philosophical vision and method has to a large degree been dissipated. Here we will try to trace the threads which interconnect the various elements of his philosophy, and which give it its fundamental unity.

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1. Life 2. Backdrop to his Thought 3. The Problem of Demarcation 4. The Growth of Human Knowledge 5. Probability, Knowledge and Verisimilitude 6. Social and Political ThoughtThe Critique of Historicism and Holism 7. Scientific Knowledge, History, and Prediction 8. Immutable Laws and Contingent Trends 9. Critical Evaluation Bibliography Works By Popper Works by Other Authors Other Internet Resources Related Entries 1. Life Karl Raimund Popper was born on 28 July 1902 in Vienna, which at that time could make some claim to be the cultural epicentre of the western world. His parents, who were of Jewish origin, brought him up in an atmosphere which he was later to describe as decidedly bookish. His father was a lawyer by profession, but he also took a keen interest in the classics and in philosophy, and communicated to his son an interest in social and political issues which he was to never lose. His mother inculcated in him such a passion for music that for a time he seriously contemplated taking it up as a career, and indeed he initially chose the history of music as a second subject for his Ph.D examination. Subsequently, his love for music became one of the inspirational forces in the development of his thought, and manifested itself in his highly original interpretation of the relationship between dogmatic and critical thinking, in his account of the distinction between objectivity and subjectivity, and, most importantly, in the growth of his hostility towards all forms of historicism, including historicist ideas about the nature of the progressive in music. The young Karl attended the local Realgymnasium, where he was unhappy with the standards of the teaching, and, after an illness which kept him at home for a number of months, he left to attend the University of Vienna in 1918. However, he did not formally enrol at the University by taking the matriculation examination for another four years. 1919 was in many respects the most important formative year of his intellectual life. In that year he became heavily involved in left-wing politics, joined the Association of Socialist School Students, and became for a time a Marxist. However, he was quickly disillusioned with the doctrinaire character of the latter, and soon abandoned it entirely. He also discovered the psychoanalytic theories of Freud and Adler (under whose aegis he engaged briefly in social work with deprived children), and listened entranced to a lecture which Einstein gave in Vienna on relativity theory. The dominance of the critical spirit in Einstein, and its total absence in Marx, Freud and Adler, struck Popper as being of fundamental importance: the latter, he came to think, couched their theories in terms which made them amenable only to confirmation, while Einstein's theory, crucially, had testable implications which, if false, would have falsified the theory itself. Popper obtained a primary school teaching diploma in 1925, took a Ph.D. in philosophy in 1928, and qualified to teach mathematics and physics in secondary school in 1929. The dominant philosophical group in Vienna at the time was the

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Wiener Kreis, the circle of scientifically-minded intellectuals focused around Moritz Schlick, who had been appointed Professor of the philosophy of the inductive sciences at Vienna University in 1922. This included Rudolf Carnap, Otto Neurath, Viktor Kraft, Hans Hahn and Herbert Feigl. The principal objective of the members of the Circle was to unify the sciences, which carried with it, in their view, the need to eliminate metaphysics once and for all by showing that metaphysical propositions are meaninglessa project which Schlick in particular saw as deriving from the account of the proposition given in Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Although he was friendly with some of the Circle's members and shared their esteem for science, Popper's hostility towards Wittgenstein alienated Schlick, and he was never invited to become a member of the group. For his part, Popper became increasingly critical of the main tenets of logical positivism, especially of what he considered to be its misplaced focus on the theory of meaning in philosophy and upon verification in scientific methodology, and reveled in the title the official opposition which was bestowed upon him by Neurath. He articulated his own view of science, and his criticisms of the positivists, in his first work, published under the title Logik der Forschung in 1934. The bookwhich he was later to claim rang the death knell for positivismattracted more attention than Popper had anticipated, and he was invited to lecture in England in 1935. He spent the next few years working productively on science and philosophy, but storm clouds were gatheringthe growth of Nazism in Germany and Austria compelled him, like many other intellectuals who shared his Jewish origins, to leave his native country.

In 1937 Popper took up a position teaching philosophy at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, where he was to remain for the duration of the Second World War. The annexation of Austria in 1938 became the catalyst which prompted him to refocus his writings on social and political philosophy. In 1946 he moved to England to teach at the London School of Economics, and became professor of logic and scientific method at the University of London in 1949. From this point on Popper's reputation and stature as a philosopher of science and social thinker grew enormously, and he continued to write prolificallya number of his works, particularly The Logic of Scientific Discovery (1959), are now universally recognised as classics in the field. He was knighted in 1965, and retired from the University of London in 1969, though he remained active as a writer, broadcaster and lecturer until his death in 1994. (For more detail on Popper's life, cf. his Unended Quest).

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2. Backdrop to his Thought A number of biographical features may be identified as having a particular influence upon Popper's thought. In the first place, his teenage flirtation with Marxism left him thoroughly familiar with the Marxist view of economics, class-war, and history. Secondly, he was appalled by the failure of the democratic parties to stem the rising tide of fascism in his native Austria in the 1920s and 1930s, and the effective welcome extended to it by the Marxists. The latter acted on the ideological grounds that it constituted what they believed to be a necessary dialectical step towards the implosion of capitalism and the ultimate revolutionary victory of communism. This was one factor which led to the much feared Anschluss, the annexation of Austria by the German Reich, the anticipation of which forced Popper into permanent exile from his native country. The Poverty of Historicism (1944) and The Open Society and Its Enemies (1945), his most impassioned and brilliant social works, are as a consequence a powerful defence of democratic liberalism as a social and political philosophy, and a devastating critique of the principal philosophical presuppositions underpinning all forms of totalitarianism. Thirdly, as we have seen, Popper was profoundly impressed by the differences between the allegedly scientific theories of Freud and Adler and the revolution effected by Einstein's theory of relativity in physics in the first two decades of this century. The main difference between them, as Popper saw it, was that while Einstein's theory was highly risky, in the sense that it was possible to deduce consequences from it which were, in the light of the then dominant Newtonian physics, highly improbable (e.g., that light is deflected towards solid bodiesconfirmed by Eddington's experiments in 1919), and which would, if they turned out to be false, falsify the whole theory, nothing could, even in principle, falsify psychoanalytic theories. These latter, Popper came to feel, have more in common with primitive myths than with genuine science. That is to say, he saw that what is apparently the chief source of strength of psychoanalysis, and the principal basis on which its claim to scientific status is grounded, viz. its capability to accommodate, and explain, every possible form of human behaviour, is in fact a critical weakness, for it entails that it is not, and could not be, genuinely predictive. Psychoanalytic theories by their nature are insufficiently precise to have negative implications, and so are immunised from experiential falsification. The Marxist account of history too, Popper held, is not scientific, although it differs in certain crucial respects from psychoanalysis. For Marxism, Popper believed, had been initially scientific, in that Marx had postulated a theory which was genuinely predictive. However, when these predictions were not in fact borne out, the theory was saved from falsification by the addition of ad hoc hypotheses which made it compatible with the facts. By this means, Popper asserted, a theory which was initially genuinely scientific degenerated into pseudo-scientific dogma. These factors combined to make Popper take falsifiability as his criterion for demarcating science from non-science: if a theory is incompatible with possible empirical observations it is scientific; conversely, a theory which is compatible with all such observations, either because, as in the case of Marxism, it has been modified solely to accommodate such observations, or because, as in the case of psychoanalytic theories, it is consistent with all possible observations, is unscientific. For Popper, however, to assert that a theory is unscientific, is not necessarily to hold that it is unenlightening, still less that it is meaningless, for it sometimes happens that a theory which is unscientific (because it is unfalsifiable) at a given time may become falsifiable, and thus scientific, with the development of technology, or with the further

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articulation and refinement of the theory. Further, even purely mythogenic explanations have performed a valuable function in the past in expediting our understanding of the nature of reality. 3. The Problem of Demarcation As Popper represents it, the central problem in the philosophy of science is that of demarcation, i.e., of distinguishing between science and what he terms non-science, under which heading he ranks, amongst others, logic, metaphysics, psychoanalysis, and Adler's individual psychology. Popper is unusual amongst contemporary philosophers in that he accepts the validity of the Humean critique of induction, and indeed, goes beyond it in arguing that induction is never actually used by the scientist. However, he does not concede that this entails the scepticism which is associated with Hume, and argues that the Baconian/Newtonian insistence on the primacy of pure observation, as the initial step in the formation of theories, is completely misguided: all observation is selective and theory-ladenthere are no pure or theoryfree observations. In this way he destabilises the traditional view that science can be distinguished from non-science on the basis of its inductive methodology; in contradistinction to this, Popper holds that there is no unique methodology specific to science. Science, like virtually every other human, and indeed organic, activity, Popper believes, consists largely of problem-solving. Popper, then, repudiates induction, and rejects the view that it is the characteristic method of scientific investigation and inference, and substitutes falsifiability in its place. It is easy, he argues, to obtain evidence in favour of virtually any theory, and he consequently holds that such corroboration, as he terms it, should count scientifically only if it is the positive result of a genuinely risky prediction, which might conceivably have been false. For Popper, a theory is scientific only if it is refutable by a conceivable event. Every genuine test of a scientific theory, then, is logically an attempt to refute or to falsify it, and one genuine counter-instance falsifies the whole theory. In a critical sense, Popper's theory of demarcation is based upon his perception of the logical asymmetry which holds between verification and falsification: it is logically impossible to conclusively verify a universal proposition by reference to experience (as Hume saw clearly), but a single counter-instance conclusively falsifies the corresponding universal law. In a word, an exception, far from proving a rule, conclusively refutes it. Every genuine scientific theory then, in Popper's view, is prohibitive, in the sense that it forbids, by implication, particular events or occurrences. As such it can be tested and falsified, but never logically verified. Thus Popper stresses that it should not be inferred from the fact that a theory has withstood the most rigorous testing, for however long a period of time, that it has been verified; rather we should recognise that such a theory has received a high measure of corroboration. and may be provisionally retained as the best available theory until it is finally falsified (if indeed it is ever falsified), and/or is superseded by a better theory. Popper has always drawn a clear distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology. The logic of his theory is utterly simple: if a single ferrous metal is unaffected by a magnetic field it cannot be the case that all ferrous metals are affected by magnetic fields. Logically speaking, a scientific law is conclusively falsifiable although it is not conclusively verifiable. Methodologically, however, the

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situation is much more complex: no observation is free from the possibility of error consequently we may question whether our experimental result was what it appeared to be. Thus, while advocating falsifiability as the criterion of demarcation for science, Popper explicitly allows for the fact that in practice a single conflicting or counter-instance is never sufficient methodologically to falsify a theory, and that scientific theories are often retained even though much of the available evidence conflicts with them, or is anomalous with respect to them. Scientific theories may, and do, arise genetically in many different ways, and the manner in which a particular scientist comes to formulate a particular theory may be of biographical interest, but it is of no consequence as far as the philosophy of science is concerned. Popper stresses in particular that there is no unique way, no single method such as induction, which functions as the route to scientific theory, a view which Einstein personally endorsed with his affirmation that There is no logical path leading to [the highly universal laws of science]. They can only be reached by intuition, based upon something like an intellectual love of the objects of experience. Science, in Popper's view, starts with problems rather than with observationsit is, indeed, precisely in the context of grappling with a problem that the scientist makes observations in the first instance: his observations are selectively designed to test the extent to which a given theory functions as a satisfactory solution to a given problem.

On this criterion of demarcation physics, chemistry, and (non-introspective) psychology, amongst others, are sciences, psychoanalysis is a pre-science (i.e., it undoubtedly contains useful and informative truths, but until such time as psychoanalytical theories can be formulated in such a manner as to be falsifiable, they will not attain the status of scientific theories), and astrology and phrenology are pseudo-sciences. Formally, then, Popper's theory of demarcation may be articulated as follows: where a basic statement is to be understood as a particular observationreport, then we may say that a theory is scientific if and only if it divides the class of basic statements into the following two non-empty sub-classes: (a) the class of all those basic statements with which it is inconsistent, or which it prohibitsthis is the class of its potential falsifiers (i.e., those statements which, if true, falsify the whole theory), and (b) the class of those basic statements with which it is consistent, or which it permits (i.e., those statements which, if true, corroborate it, or bear it out).

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4. The Growth of Human Knowledge For Popper accordingly, the growth of human knowledge proceeds from our problems and from our attempts to solve them. These attempts involve the formulation of theories which, if they are to explain anomalies which exist with respect to earlier theories, must go beyond existing knowledge and therefore require a leap of the imagination. For this reason, Popper places special emphasis on the role played by the independent creative imagination in the formulation of theory. The centrality and priority of problems in Popper's account of science is paramount, and it is this which leads him to characterise scientists as problem-solvers. Further, since the scientist begins with problems rather than with observations or bare facts, Popper argues that the only logical technique which is an integral part of scientific method is that of the deductive testing of theories which are not themselves the product of any logical operation. In this deductive procedure conclusions are inferred from a tentative hypothesis. These conclusions are then compared with one another and with other relevant statements to determine whether they falsify or corroborate the hypothesis. Such conclusions are not directly compared with the facts, Popper stresses, simply because there are no pure facts available; all observation-statements are theoryladen, and are as much a function of purely subjective factors (interests, expectations, wishes, etc.) as they are a function of what is objectively real. How then does the deductive procedure work? Popper specifies four steps: (a) The first is formal, a testing of the internal consistency of the theoretical system to see if it involves any contradictions. (b) The second step is semi-formal, the axiomatising of the theory to distinguish between its empirical and its logical elements. In performing this step the scientist makes the logical form of the theory explicit. Failure to do this can lead to categorymistakesthe scientist ends up asking the wrong questions, and searches for empirical data where none are available. Most scientific theories contain analytic (i.e., a priori) and synthetic elements, and it is necessary to axiomatise them in order to distinguish the two clearly. (c) The third step is the comparing of the new theory with existing ones to determine whether it constitutes an advance upon them. If it does not constitute such an advance, it will not be adopted. If, on the other hand, its explanatory success matches that of the existing theories, and additionally, it explains some hitherto anomalous phenomenon, or solves some hitherto unsolvable problems, it will be deemed to constitute an advance upon the existing theories, and will be adopted. Thus science involves theoretical progress. However, Popper stresses that we ascertain whether one theory is better than another by deductively testing both theories, rather than by induction. For this reason, he argues that a theory is deemed to be better than another if (while unfalsified) it has greater empirical content, and therefore greater predictive power than its rival. The classic illustration of this in physics was the replacement of Newton's theory of universal gravitation by Einstein's theory of relativity. This elucidates the nature of science as Popper sees it: at any given time there will be a number of conflicting theories or conjectures, some of which will explain more than others. The latter will consequently be provisionally adopted. In short, for Popper any theory X is better than a rival theory Y if X has greater empirical content, and hence greater predictive power, than Y.

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(d) The fourth and final step is the testing of a theory by the empirical application of the conclusions derived from it. If such conclusions are shown to be true, the theory is corroborated (but never verified). If the conclusion is shown to be false, then this is taken as a signal that the theory cannot be completely correct (logically the theory is falsified), and the scientist begins his quest for a better theory. He does not, however, abandon the present theory until such time as he has a better one to substitute for it. More precisely, the method of theory-testing is as follows: certain singular propositions are deduced from the new theorythese are predictions, and of special interest are those predictions which are risky (in the sense of being intuitively implausible or of being startlingly novel) and experimentally testable. From amongst the latter the scientist next selects those which are not derivable from the current or existing theoryof particular importance are those which contradict the current or existing theory. He then seeks a decision as regards these and other derived statements by comparing them with the results of practical applications and experimentation. If the new predictions are borne out, then the new theory is corroborated (and the old one falsified), and is adopted as a working hypothesis. If the predictions are not borne out, then they falsify the theory from which they are derived. Thus Popper retains an element of empiricism: for him scientific method does involve making an appeal to experience. But unlike traditional empiricists, Popper holds that experience cannot determine theory (i.e., we do not argue or infer from observation to theory), it rather delimits it: it shows which theories are false, not which theories are true. Moreover, Popper also rejects the empiricist doctrine that empirical observations are, or can be, infallible, in view of the fact that they are themselves theory-laden.

The general picture of Popper's philosophy of science, then is this: Hume's philosophy demonstrates that there is a contradiction implicit in traditional empiricism, which holds both that all knowledge is derived from experience and that universal propositions (including scientific laws) are verifiable by reference to experience. The contradiction, which Hume himself saw clearly, derives from the attempt to show that, notwithstanding the open-ended nature of experience, scientific laws may be construed as empirical generalisations which are in some way finally confirmable by a positive experience. Popper eliminates the contradiction by rejecting the first of these principles and removing the demand for empirical verification in favour of empirical falsification in the second. Scientific theories, for him, are not inductively inferred from

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experience, nor is scientific experimentation carried out with a view to verifying or finally establishing the truth of theories; rather, all knowledge is provisional, conjectural, hypotheticalwe can never finally prove our scientific theories, we can merely (provisionally) confirm or (conclusively) refute them; hence at any given time we have to choose between the potentially infinite number of theories which will explain the set of phenomena under investigation. Faced with this choice, we can only eliminate those theories which are demonstrably false, and rationally choose between the remaining, unfalsified theories. Hence Popper's emphasis on the importance of the critical spirit to sciencefor him critical thinking is the very essence of rationality. For it is only by critical thought that we can eliminate false theories, and determine which of the remaining theories is the best available one, in the sense of possessing the highest level of explanatory force and predictive power. It is precisely this kind of critical thinking which is conspicuous by its absence in contemporary Marxism and in psychoanalysis. 5. Probability, Knowledge and Verisimilitude In the view of many social scientists, the more probable a theory is, the better it is, and if we have to choose between two theories which are equally strong in terms of their explanatory power, and differ only in that one is probable and the other is improbable, then we should choose the former. Popper rejects this. Science, or to be precise, the working scientist, is interested, in Popper's view, in theories with a high informative content, because such theories possess a high predictive power and are consequently highly testable. But if this is true, Popper argues, then, paradoxical as it may sound, the more improbable a theory is the better it is scientifically, because the probability and informative content of a theory vary inverselythe higher the informative content of a theory the lower will be its probability, for the more information a statement contains, the greater will be the number of ways in which it may turn out to be false. Thus the statements which are of special interest to the scientist are those with a high informative content and (consequentially) a low probability, which nevertheless come close to the truth. Informative content, which is in inverse proportion to probability, is in direct proportion to testability. Consequently the severity of the test to which a theory can be subjected, and by means of which it is falsified or corroborated, is allimportant. For Popper, all scientific criticism must be piecemeal, i.e., he holds that it is not possible to question every aspect of a theory at once. More precisely, while attempting to resolve a particular problem a scientist of necessity accepts all kinds of things as unproblematic. These things constitute what Popper terms the background knowledge. However, he stresses that the background knowledge is not knowledge in the sense of being conclusively established; it may be challenged at any time, especially if it is suspected that its uncritical acceptance may be responsible for difficulties which are subsequently encountered. Nevertheless, it is clearly not possible to question both the theory and the background knowledge at the same time (e.g., in conducting an experiment the scientist of necessity assumes that the apparatus used is in working order). How then can one be certain that one is questioning the right thing? The Popperian answer is that we cannot have absolute certainty here, but repeated tests usually show where the trouble lies. Even observation statements, Popper maintains, are fallible, and science in his view is not a quest for certain knowledge, but an evolutionary process in which hypotheses or conjectures are imaginatively proposed

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and tested in order to explain facts or to solve problems. Popper emphasises both the importance of questioning the background knowledge when the need arises, and the significance of the fact that observation-statements are theory-laden, and hence fallible. For while falsifiability is simple as a logical principle, in practice it is exceedingly complicatedno single observation can ever be taken to falsify a theory, for there is always the possibility (a) that the observation itself is mistaken, or (b) that the assumed background knowledge is faulty or defective. Popper was initially uneasy with the concept of truth, and in his earliest writings he avoided asserting that a theory which is corroborated is truefor clearly if every theory is an open-ended hypothesis, as he maintains, then ipso facto it has to be at least potentially false. For this reason Popper restricted himself to the contention that a theory which is falsified is false and is known to be such, and that a theory which replaces a falsified theory (because it has a higher empirical content than the latter, and explains what has falsified it) is a better theory than its predecessor. However, he came to accept Tarski's reformulation of the correspondence theory of truth, and in Conjectures and Refutations (1963) he integrated the concepts of truth and content to frame the metalogical concept of truthlikeness or verisimilitude. A good scientific theory, Popper thus argued, has a higher level of verisimilitude than its rivals, and he explicated this concept by reference to the logical consequences of theories. A theory's content is the totality of its logical consequences, which can be divided into two classes: there is the truth-content of a theory, which is the class of true propositions which may be derived from it, on the one hand, and the falsity-content of a theory, on the other hand, which is the class of the theory's false consequences (this latter class may of course be empty, and in the case of a theory which is true is necessarily empty).

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Popper offered two methods of comparing theories in terms of verisimilitude, the qualitative and quantitative definitions. On the qualitative account, Popper asserted: Assuming that the truth-content and the falsity-content of two theories t1 and t2 are comparable, we can say that t2 is more closely similar to the truth, or corresponds better to the facts, than t1, if and only if either: (a) the truth-content but not the falsity-content of t2 exceeds that of t1, or (b) the falsity-content of t1, but not its truth-content, exceeds that of t2. (Conjectures and Refutations, 233). Here, verisimilitude is defined in terms of subclass relationships: t2 has a higher level of verisimilitude than t1 if and only if their truth- and falsity-contents are comparable through subclass relationships, and either (a) t2's truth-content includes t1's and t2's falsity-content, if it exists, is included in, or is the same as, t1's, or (b) t2's truth-content includes or is the same as t1's and t2's falsity-content, if it exists, is included in t1's. On the quantitative account, verisimilitude is defined by assigning quantities to contents, where the index of the content of a given theory is its logical improbability (given again that content and probability vary inversely). Formally, then, Popper defines the quantitative verisimilitude which a statement a possesses by means of a formula: Vs(a) = CtT(a) CtF(a), where Vs(a) represents the verisimilitude of a, CtT(a) is a measure of the truth-content of a, and CtF(a) is a measure of its falsity-content. The utilisation of either method of computing verisimilitude shows, Popper held, that even if a theory t2 with a higher content than a rival theory t1 is subsequently falsified, it can still legitimately be regarded as a better theory than t1, and better is here now understood to mean t2 is closer to the truth than t1. Thus scientific progress involves, on this view, the abandonment of partially true, but falsified, theories, for theories with a higher level of verisimilitude, i.e., which approach more closely to the truth. In this way, verisimilitude allowed Popper to mitigate what many saw as the pessimism of an anti-inductivist philosophy of science which held that most, if not all scientific theories are false, and that a true theory, even if discovered, could not be known to be such. With the introduction of the new concept, Popper was able to represent this as an essentially optimistic position in terms of which we can legitimately be said to have reason to believe that science makes progress towards the truth through the falsification and corroboration of theories. Scientific progress, in other words, could now be represented as progress towards the truth, and experimental corroboration could be seen an indicator of verisimilitude. However, in the 1970's a series of papers published by researchers such as Miller, Tich, and Grnbaum in particular revealed fundamental defects in Popper's formal definitions of verisimilitude. The significance of this work was that verisimilitude is largely important in Popper's system because of its application to theories which are known to be false. In this connection, Popper had written: Ultimately, the idea of verisimilitude is most important in cases where we know that we have to work with theories which are at best approximationsthat is to say, theories

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of which we know that they cannot be true. (This is often the case in the social sciences). In these cases we can still speak of better or worse approximations to the truth (and we therefore do not need to interpret these cases in an instrumentalist sense). (Conjectures and Refutations, 235). For these reasons, the deficiencies discovered by the critics in Popper's formal definitions were seen by many as devastating, precisely because the most significant of these related to the levels of verisimilitude of false theories. In 1974, Miller and Tich, working independently of each other, demonstrated that the conditions specified by Popper in his accounts of both qualitative and quantitative verisimilitude for comparing the truth- and falsity-contents of theories can be satisfied only when the theories are true. In the crucially important case of false theories, however, Popper's definitions are formally defective. For while Popper had believed that verisimilitude intersected positively with his account of corroboration, in the sense that he viewed an improbable theory which had withstood critical testing as one the truth-content of which is great relative to rival theories, while its falsity-content (if it exists) would be relatively low, Miller and Tich proved, on the contrary, that in the case of a false theory t2 which has excess content over a rival theory false t1 both the truth-content and the falsity-content of t2 will exceed that of t1. With respect to theories which are false, therefore, Popper's conditions for comparing levels of verisimilitude, whether in quantitative and qualitative terms, can never be met. Commentators on Popper, with few exceptions, had initially attached little importance to his theory of verisimilitude. However, after the failure of Popper's definitions in 1974, some critics came to see it as central to his philosophy of science, and consequentially held that the whole edifice of the latter had been subverted. For his part, Popper's response was two-fold. In the first place, while acknowledging the deficiencies in his own formal account ("my main mistake was my failure to see at once that if the content of a false statement a exceeds that of a statement b, then the truth-content of a exceeds the truth-content of b, and the same holds of their falsity-contents", Objective Knowledge, 371), Popper argued that "I do think that we should not conclude from the failure of my attempts to solve the problem [of defining verisimilitude] that the problem cannot be solved" (Objective Knowledge, 372), a point of view which was to precipitate more than two decades of important technical research in this field. At another, more fundamental level, he moved the task of formally defining the concept from centre-stage in his philosophy of science, by protesting that he had never intended to imply "that degrees of verisimilitude can ever be numerically determined, except in certain limiting cases" (Objective Knowledge, 59), and arguing instead that the chief value of the concept is heuristic and intuitive, in which the absence of an adequate formal definition is not an insuperable impediment to its utilisation in the actual appraisal of theories relativised to problems in which we have an interest. The thrust of the latter strategy seems to many to genuinely reflect the significance of the concept of verisimilitude in Popper's system, but it has not satisfied all of his critics. 6. Social and Political ThoughtThe Critique of Historicism and Holism Given Popper's personal history and background, it is hardly surprising that he developed a deep and abiding interest in social and political philosophy. However, it is worth emphasising that his angle of approach to these fields is through a consideration of the nature of the social sciences which seek to describe and explicate them systematically, particularly history. It is in this context that he offers an account of the nature of scientific prediction, which in turn allows him a point of departure for

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his attack upon totalitarianism and all its intellectual supports, especially holism and historicism. In this context holism is to be understood as the view that human social groupings are greater than the sum of their members, that such groupings are organic entities in their own right, that they act on their human members and shape their destinies, and that they are subject to their own independent laws of development. Historicism, which is closely associated with holism, is the belief that history develops inexorably and necessarily according to certain principles or rules towards a determinate end (as for example in the dialectic of Hegel, which was adopted and implemented by Marx). The link between holism and historicism is that the holist believes that individuals are essentially formed by the social groupings to which they belong, while the historicistwho is usually also a holistholds that we can understand such a social grouping only in terms of the internal principles which determine its development. These beliefs lead to what Popper calls The Historicist Doctrine of the Social Sciences, the views (a) that the principal task of the social sciences is to make predictions about the social and political development of man, and (b) that the task of politics, once the key predictions have been made, is, in Marx's words, to lessen the birth pangs of future social and political developments. Popper thinks that this view of the social sciences is both theoretically misconceived (in the sense of being based upon a view of natural science and its methodology which is totally wrong), and socially dangerous, as it leads inevitably to totalitarianism and authoritarianismto centralised governmental control of the individual and the attempted imposition of large-scale social planning. Against this Popper strongly advances the view that any human social grouping is no more (or less) than the sum of its individual members, that what happens in history is the (largely unplanned and unforeseeable) result of the actions of such individuals, and that large scale social planning to an antecedently conceived blueprint is inherently misconceivedand inevitably disastrousprecisely because human actions have consequences which cannot be foreseen. Popper, then, is an historical indeterminist, insofar as he holds that history does not evolve in accordance with intrinsic laws or principles, that in the absence of such laws and principles unconditional prediction in the social sciences is an impossibility, and that there is no such thing as historical necessity.

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The link between Popper's theory of knowledge and his social philosophy is his fallibilismjust as we make theoretical progress in science by deliberately subjecting our theories to critical scrutiny, and abandoning those which have been falsified, so too, Popper holds, the critical spirit can and should be sustained at the social level. More specifically, the open society can be brought about only if it is possible for the individual citizen to evaluate critically the consequences of the implementation of government policies, which can then be abandoned or modified in the light of such critical scrutinyin such a society, the rights of the individual to criticise administrative policies will be formally safeguarded and upheld, undesirable policies will be eliminated in a manner analogous to the elimination of falsified scientific theories, and differences between people on social policy will be resolved by critical discussion and argument rather than by force. The open society as thus conceived of by Popper may be defined as an association of free individuals respecting each other's rights within the framework of mutual protection supplied by the state, and achieving, through the making of responsible, rational decisions, a growing measure of humane and enlightened life (Levinson, R.B. In Defense of Plato, 17). As such, Popper holds, it is not a utopian ideal, but an empirically realised form of social organisation which, he argues, is in every respect superior to its (real or potential) totalitarian rivals. But he does not engage in a moral defence of the ideology of liberalism; rather his strategy is the much deeper one of showing that totalitarianism is typically based upon historicist and holist presuppositions, and of demonstrating that these presuppositions are fundamentally incoherent. 7. Scientific Knowledge, History, and Prediction At a very general level, Popper argues that historicism and holism have their origins in what he terms one of the oldest dreams of mankindthe dream of prophecy, the idea that we can know what the future has in store for us, and that we can profit from such knowledge by adjusting our policy to it. (Conjectures and Refutations, 338). This dream was given further impetus, he speculates, by the emergence of a genuine predictive capability regarding such events as solar and lunar eclipses at an early stage in human civilisation, which has of course become increasingly refined with the development of the natural sciences and their concomitant technologies. The kind of reasoning which has made, and continues to make, historicism plausible may, on this account, be reconstructed as follows: if the application of the laws of the natural sciences can lead to the successful prediction of such future events as eclipses, then surely it is reasonable to infer that knowledge of the laws of history as yielded by a social science or sciences (assuming that such laws exist) would lead to the successful prediction of such future social phenomena as revolutions? Why should it be possible to predict an eclipse, but not a revolution? Why can we not conceive of a social science which could and would function as the theoretical natural sciences function, and yield precise unconditional predictions in the appropriate sphere of application? These are amongst the questions which Popper seeks to answer, and in doing so, to show that they are based upon a series of misconceptions about the nature of science, and about the relationship between scientific laws and scientific prediction. His first argument may be summarised as follows: in relation to the critically important concept of prediction, Popper makes a distinction between what he terms conditional scientific predictions, which have the form If X takes place, then Y will take place, and unconditional scientific prophecies, which have the form Y will take place. Contrary to popular belief, it is the former rather than the latter which are typical of the

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natural sciences, which means that typically prediction in natural science is conditional and limited in scopeit takes the form of hypothetical assertions stating that certain specified changes will come about if particular specified events antecedently take place. This is not to deny that unconditional scientific prophecies, such as the prediction of eclipses, for example, do take place in science, and that the theoretical natural sciences make them possible. However, Popper argues that (a) these unconditional prophecies are not characteristic of the natural sciences, and (b) that the mechanism whereby they occur, in the very limited way in which they do, is not understood by the historicist. What is the mechanism which makes unconditional scientific prophecies possible? The answer is that such prophecies can sometimes be derived from a combination of conditional predictions (themselves derived from scientific laws) and existential statements specifying that the conditions in relation to the system being investigated are fulfilled. Schematically, this can be represented as follows: [C.P. + E.S.]=U.P. where C.P. = Conditional Prediction; E.S. = Existential Statement; U.P. = Unconditional Prophecy. The most common examples of unconditional scientific prophecies in science relate to the prediction of such phenomena as lunar and solar eclipses and comets. Given, then, that this is the mechanism which generates unconditional scientific prophecies, Popper makes two related claims about historicism: (a) That the historicist does not in fact derive his unconditional scientific prophecies in this manner from conditional predictions, and (b) the historicist cannot do so because long-term unconditional scientific prophecies can be derived from conditional predictions only if they apply to systems which are well-isolated, stationary, and recurrent (like our solar system). Such systems are quite rare in nature, and human society is most emphatically not one of them. This, then, Popper argues, is the reason why it is a fundamental mistake for the historicist to take the unconditional scientific prophecies of eclipses as being typical and characteristic of the predictions of natural sciencein fact such predictions are possible only because our solar system is a stationary and repetitive system which is isolated from other such systems by immense expanses of empty space. The solar system aside, there are very few such systems around for scientific investigation most of the others are confined to the field of biology, where unconditional prophecies about the life-cycles of organisms are made possible by the existence of precisely the same factors. Thus one of the fallacies committed by the historicist is to take the (relatively rare) instances of unconditional prophecies in the natural science as constituting the essence of what scientific prediction is, to fail to see that such prophecies apply only to systems which are isolated, stationary, and repetitive, and to seek to apply the method of scientific prophecy to human society and human history. The latter, of course, is not an isolated system (in fact it's not a system at all), it is constantly changing, and it continually undergoes rapid, non-repetitive development. In the most fundamental sense possible, every event in human history is discrete, novel, quite unique, and ontologically distinct from every other historical event. For this reason, it is impossible in principle that unconditional scientific prophecies could be made in relation to human historythe idea that the successful unconditional prediction of eclipses provides us with reasonable grounds for the hope of successful unconditional prediction regarding the evolution of human history turns out to be

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based upon a gross misconception, and is quite false. As Popper himself concludes, "The fact that we predict eclipses does not, therefore, provide a valid reason for expecting that we can predict revolutions." (Conjectures and Refutations, 340). 8. Immutable Laws and Contingent Trends This argument is one of the strongest that has ever been brought against historicism, cutting, as it does, right to the heart of one of its main theoretical presuppositions. However, it is not Popper's only argument against it. An additional mistake which he detects in historicism is the failure of the historicist to distinguish between scientific laws and trends, which is also frequently accompanied by a simple logical fallacy. The fallacy is that of inferring from the fact that our understanding of any (past) historical eventsuch as, for example, the French Revolutionis in direct proportion to our knowledge of the antecedent conditions which led to that event, that knowledge of all the antecedent conditions of some future event is possible, and that such knowledge would make that future event precisely predictable. For the truth is that the number of factors which predate and lead to the occurrence of any event, past, present, or future, is indefinitely large, and therefore knowledge of all of these factors is impossible, even in principle. What gives rise to the fallacy is the manner in which the historian (necessarily) selectively isolates a finite number of the antecedent conditions of some past event as being of particular importance, which are then somewhat misleadingly termed the causes of that event, when in fact what this means is that they are the specific conditions which a particular historian or group of historians take to be more relevant than any other of the indefinitely large number of such conditions (for this reason, most historical debates range over the question as to whether the conditions thus specified are the right ones). While this kind of selectivity may be justifiable in relation to the treatment of any past event, it has no basis whatsoever in relation to the futureif we now select, as Marx did, the relevant antecedent conditions for some future event, the likelihood is that we will select wrongly. The historicist's failure to distinguish between scientific laws and trends is equally destructive of his cause. This failure makes him think it possible to explain change by discovering trends running through past history, and to anticipate and predict future occurrences on the basis of such observations. Here Popper points out that there is a critical difference between a trend and a scientific law, the failure to observe which is fatal. For a scientific law is universal in form, while a trend can be expressed only as a singular existential statement. This logical difference is crucial because unconditional predictions, as we have already seen, can be based only upon conditional ones, which themselves must be derived from scientific laws. Neither conditional nor unconditional predictions can be based upon trends, because these may change or be reversed with a change in the conditions which gave rise to them in the first instance. As Popper puts it, there can be no doubt that "the habit of confusing trends with laws, together with the intuitive observation of trends such as technical progress, inspired the central doctrines of historicism." (The Poverty of Historicism, 116). Popper does not, of course, dispute the existence of trends, nor does he deny that the observation of trends can be of practical utility valuebut the essential point is that a trend is something which itself ultimately stands in need of scientific explanation, and it cannot therefore function as the frame of reference in terms of which anything else can be scientifically explained or predicted. A point which connects with this has to do with the role which the evolution of human knowledge has played in the historical development of human society. It is

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incontestable that, as Marx himself observed, there has been a causal link between the two, in the sense that advances in scientific and technological knowledge have given rise to widespread global changes in patterns of human social organisation and social interaction, which in turn have led to social structures (e.g. educational systems) which further growth in human knowledge. In short, the evolution of human history has been strongly influenced by the growth of human knowledge, and it is extremely likely that this will continue to be the caseall the empirical evidence suggests that the link between the two is progressively consolidating. However, this gives rise to further problems for the historicist. In the first place, the statement that if there is such a thing as growing human knowledge, then we cannot anticipate today what we shall know only tomorrow is, Popper holds, intuitively highly plausible. Moreover, he argues, it is logically demonstrable by a consideration of the implications of the fact that no scientific predictor, human or otherwise, can possibly predict, by scientific methods, its own future results. From this it follows, he holds, that no society can predict, scientifically, its own future states of knowledge. (The Poverty of Historicism, vii). Thus, while the future evolution of human history is extremely likely to be influenced by new developments in human knowledge, as it always has in the past, we cannot now scientifically determine what such knowledge will be. From this it follows that if the future holds any new discoveries or any new developments in the growth of our knowledge (and given the fallible nature of the latter, it is inconceivable that it does not), then it is impossible for us to predict them now, and it is therefore impossible for us to predict the future development of human history now, given that the latter will, at least in part, be determined by the future growth of our knowledge. Thus once again historicism collapsesthe dream of a theoretical, predictive science of history is unrealisable, because it is an impossible dream. Popper's arguments against holism, and in particular his arguments against the propriety of large-scale planning of social structures, are interconnected with his demonstration of the logical shortcomings of the presuppositions of historicism. Such planning (which actually took place, of course, in the USSR, in China, and in Cambodia, for example, under totalitarian regimes which accepted forms of historicism and holism), Popper points out, is necessarily structured in the light of the predictions which have been made about future history on the basis of the so-called laws which historicists such as Marx and Mao claimed to have discovered in relation to human history. Accordingly, recognition that there are no such laws, and that unconditional predictions about future history are based, at best, upon nothing more substantial than the observation of contingent trends, shows that, from a purely theoretical as well as a practical point of view, large-scale social planning is indeed a recipe for disaster. In summary, unconditional large-scale planning for the future is theoretically as well as practically misguided, because, again, part of what we are planning for is our future knowledge, and our future knowledge is not something which we can in principle now possesswe cannot adequately plan for unexpected advances in our future knowledge, or for the effects which such advances will have upon society as a whole. The acceptance of historical indeterminism, then, as the only philosophy of history which is commensurate with a proper understanding of the nature of scientific knowledge, fatally undermines both historicism and holism. Popper's critique of both historicism and holism is balanced, on the positive side, by his affirmation of the ideals of individualism and market economics and his strong defence of the open societythe view, again, that a society is equivalent to the sum of its members, that the actions of the members of society serve to fashion and to shape it, and that the social consequences of intentional actions are very often, and very

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largely, unintentional. This part of his social philosophy was influenced by the economist Friedrich Hayek, who worked with him at the London School of Economics and who was a life-long friend. Popper advocated what he (rather unfortunately) terms piecemeal social engineering as the central mechanism for social planningfor in utilising this mechanism intentional actions are directed to the achievement of one specific goal at a time, which makes it possible to monitor the situation to determine whether adverse unintended effects of intentional actions occur, in order to correct and readjust when this proves necessary. This, of course, parallels precisely the critical testing of theories in scientific investigation. This approach to social planning (which is explicitly based upon the premise that we do not, because we cannot, know what the future will be like) encourages attempts to put right what is problematic in societygenerally-acknowledged social illsrather than attempts to impose some preconceived idea of the good upon society as a whole. For this reason, in a genuinely open society piecemeal social engineering goes hand-in-hand for Popper with negative utilitarianism (the attempt to minimise the amount of misery, rather than, as with positive utilitarianism, the attempt to maximise the amount of happiness). The state, he holds, should concern itself with the task of progressively formulating and implementing policies designed to deal with the social problems which actually confront it, with the goal of eliminating human misery and suffering to the highest possible degree. The positive task of increasing social and personal happiness, by contrast, can and should be should be left to individual citizens (who may, of course, act collectively to this end), who, unlike the state, have at least a chance of achieving this goal, but who in a free society are rarely in a position to systematically subvert the rights of others in the pursuit of idealised objectives. Thus in the final analysis for Popper the activity of problem-solving is as definitive of our humanity at the level of social and political organisation as it is at the level of science, and it is this key insight which unifies and integrates the broad spectrum of his thought. 9. Critical Evaluation While it cannot be said that Popper was a modest man, he took criticism of his theories very seriously, and spent much of his time in his later years endeavouring to show that such criticisms were either based upon misunderstandings, or that his theories could, without loss of integrity, be made compatible with new and important insights. The following is a summary of some of the main criticisms which he has had to address. (For Popper's responses to critical commentary, see his Replies to My Critics, in P.A. Schilpp (ed.), The Philosophy of Karl Popper, Volume 2, and his Realism and the Aim of Science, edited by W.W. Bartley III.) 1. Popper professes to be anti-conventionalist, and his commitment to the correspondence theory of truth places him firmly within the realist's camp. Yet, following Kant, he strongly repudiates the positivist/empiricist view that basic statements (i.e., present-tense observation statements about sense-data) are infallible, and argues convincingly that such basic statements are not mere reports of passively registered sensations. Rather they are descriptions of what is observed as interpreted by the observer with reference to a determinate theoretical framework. This is why Popper repeatedly emphasises that basic statements are not infallible, and it indicates what he means when he says that they are theory ladenperception itself is an active process, in which the mind assimilates data by reference to an assumed theoretical backdrop. He accordingly asserts that basic statements themselves are open-ended hypotheses: they have a certain causal relationship with experience, but they are not determined by experience, and they cannot be verified or

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confirmed by experience. However, this poses a difficulty regarding the consistency of Popper's theory: if a theory X is to be genuinely testable (and so scientific) it must be possible to determine whether or not the basic propositions which would, if true, falsify it, are actually true or false (i.e., whether its potential falsifiers are actual falsifiers). But how can this be known, if such basic statements cannot be verified by experience? Popper's answer is that basic statements are not justifiable by our immediate experiences, but are accepted by an act, a free decision. (Logic of Scientific Discovery, 109). However, and notwithstanding Popper's claims to the contrary, this itself seems to be a refined form of conventionalismit implies that it is almost entirely an arbitrary matter whether it is accepted that a potential falsifier is an actual one, and consequently that the falsification of a theory is itself the function of a free and arbitrary act. It also seems very difficult to reconcile this with Popper's view that science progressively moves closer to the truth, conceived of in terms of the correspondence theory, for this kind of conventionalism is inimical to this (classical) conception of truth.

2. As Lakatos has pointed out, Popper's theory of demarcation hinges quite fundamentally on the assumption that there are such things as critical tests, which either falsify a theory, or give it a strong measure of corroboration. Popper himself is fond of citing, as an example of such a critical test, the resolution, by Adams and Leverrier, of the problem which the anomalous orbit of Uranus posed for nineteenth century astronomers. Both men independently came to the conclusion that, assuming Newtonian mechanics to be precisely correct, the observed divergence in the elliptical orbit of Uranus could be explained if the existence of a seventh, as yet unobserved outer planet was posited. Further, they were able, again within the framework of Newtonian mechanics, to calculate the precise position of the new planet. Thus when subsequent research by Galle at the Berlin observatory revealed that such a planet (Neptune) did in fact exist, and was situated precisely where Adams and Leverrier had calculated, this was hailed as by all and sundry as a magnificent triumph for Newtonian physics: in Popperian terms, Newton's theory had been subjected to a critical test, and had passed with flying colours. Popper himself refers to this strong corroboration of Newtonian physics as the most startling and convincing success of any human intellectual achievement. Yet Lakatos flatly denies that there are critical tests, in the Popperian sense, in science, and argues the point convincingly by turning

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the above example of an alleged critical test on its head. What, he asks, would have happened if Galle had not found the planet Neptune? Would Newtonian physics have been abandoned, or would Newton's theory have been falsified? The answer is clearly not, for Galle's failure could have been attributed to any number of causes other than the falsity of Newtonian physics (e.g., the interference of the earth's atmosphere with the telescope, the existence of an asteroid belt which hides the new planet from the earth, etc). The point here is that the falsification/corroboration disjunction offered by Popper is far too logically neat: non-corroboration is not necessarily falsification, and falsification of a high-level scientific theory is never brought about by an isolated observation or set of observations. Such theories are, it is now generally accepted, highly resistant to falsification. They are falsified, if at all, Lakatos argues, not by Popperian critical tests, but rather within the elaborate context of the research programmes associated with them gradually grinding to a halt, with the result that an ever-widening gap opens up between the facts to be explained, and the research programmes themselves. (Lakatos, I. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, passim). Popper's distinction between the logic of falsifiability and its applied methodology does not in the end do full justice to the fact that all high-level theories grow and live despite the existence of anomalies (i.e., events/phenomena which are incompatible with the theories). The existence of such anomalies is not usually taken by the working scientist as an indication that the theory in question is false; on the contrary, he will usually, and necessarily, assume that the auxiliary hypotheses which are associated with the theory can be modified to incorporate, and explain, existing anomalies. 3. Scientific laws are expressed by universal statements (i.e., they take the logical form All As are X, or some equivalent) which are therefore concealed conditionals they have to be understood as hypothetical statements asserting what would be the case under certain ideal conditions. In themselves they are not existential in nature. Thus All As are X means If anything is an A, then it is X. Since scientific laws are non-existential in nature, they logically cannot imply any basic statements, since the latter are explicitly existential. The question arises, then, as to how any basic statement can falsify a scientific law, given that basic statements are not deducible from scientific laws in themselves? Popper answers that scientific laws are always taken in conjunction with statements outlining the initial conditions of the system under investigation; these latter, which are singular existential statements, do, when combined with the scientific law, yield hard and fast implications. Thus, the law All As are X, together with the initial condition statement There is an A at Y, yields the implication The A at Y is X, which, if false, falsifies the original law. This reply is adequate only if it is true, as Popper assumes, that singular existential statements will always do the work of bridging the gap between a universal theory and a prediction. Hilary Putnam in particular has argued that this assumption is false, in that in some cases at least the statements required to bridge this gap (which he calls auxiliary hypotheses) are general rather than particular, and consequently that when the prediction turns out to be false we have no way of knowing whether this is due to the falsity of the scientific law or the falsity of the auxiliary hypotheses. The working scientist, Putnam argues, always initially assumes that it is the latter, which shows not only that scientific laws are, contra Popper, highly resistant to falsification, but also why they are so highly resistant to falsification. Popper's final position is that he acknowledges that it is impossible to discriminate science from non-science on the basis of the falsifiability of the scientific statements

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alone; he recognizes that scientific theories are predictive, and consequently prohibitive, only when taken in conjunction with auxiliary hypotheses, and he also recognizes that readjustment or modification of the latter is an integral part of scientific practice. Hence his final concern is to outline conditions which indicate when such modification is genuinely scientific, and when it is merely ad hoc. This is itself clearly a major alteration in his position, and arguably represents a substantial retraction on his part: Marxism can no longer be dismissed as unscientific simply because its advocates preserved the theory from falsification by modifying it (for in general terms, such a procedure, it now transpires, is perfectly respectable scientific practice). It is now condemned as unscientific by Popper because the only rationale for the modifications which were made to the original theory was to ensure that it evaded falsification, and so such modifications were ad hoc, rather than scientific. This contentionthough not at all implausiblehas, to hostile eyes, a somewhat contrived air about it, and is unlikely to worry the convinced Marxist. On the other hand, the shift in Popper's own basic position is taken by some critics as an indicator that falsificationism, for all its apparent merits, fares no better in the final analysis than verificationism. Bibliography Works By Popper Logik der Forschung. Julius Springer Verlag, Vienna, 1935. The Open Society and Its Enemies. (2 Vols). Routledge, London, 1945. The Logic of Scientific Discovery. (translation of Logik der Forschung). Hutchinson, London, 1959. Conjectures and Refutations: The Growth of Scientific Knowledge. Routledge, London, 1963. The Poverty of Historicism (2nd. ed). Routledge, London, 1961. Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1972. Unended Quest; An Intellectual Autobiography. Fontana, London, 1976. A Note on Verisimilitude, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27, 1976, 147-159. The Self and Its Brain: An Argument for Interactionism (with J.C. Eccles). Springer International, London, 1977. The Open Universe: An Argument for Indeterminism. (ed. W.W. Bartley 111). Hutchinson, London, 1982. Realism and the Aim of Science. (ed. W.W. Bartley III). London, Hutchinson, 1983. The Myth of the Framework: In Defence of Science and Rationality. Routledge, London, 1994. Knowledge and the Mind-Body Problem: In Defence of Interactionism. (ed. M.A. Notturno). Routledge, London, 1994. The Two Fundamental Problems of the Theory of Knowledge.. (ed. Hansen, T.E., trans. A. Pickel). Routledge, 2007. Works by Other Authors Ackermann, R. The Philosophy of Karl Popper. University of Massachusetts Press, Amherst, 1976. Bambrough, R. (ed). Plato, Popper, and Politics: Some Contributions to a Modern Controversy. Barnes and Noble, New York, 1967. Baudoin, J. Karl Popper. PUF, Paris, 1989. Brink, C. & Heidema, J. A Verisimilar Ordering of Theories Phrased in a

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Propositional Language, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 38, 1987, 533-549. Brink, C. Verisimilitude: Views and Reviews, History and Philosophy of Logic 10, 1989, 181-201. Brink, C. & Britz, K. Computing Verisimilitude, Notre Dame Journal of Formal Logic 36, 1, 1995, 31-43. Bunge, M. (ed). The Critical Approach to Science and Philosophy. The Free Press, London & New York, 1964. Burke, T.E. The Philosophy of Popper. Manchester University Press, Manchester, 1983. Carr, E.H. What is History? Macmillan, London, 1962. Cornforth, M. The Open Philosophy and the Open Society: A Reply to Dr. Popper's Refutations of Marxism. Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1968. Corvi, R. An Introduction to the Thought of Karl Popper. (trans. P. Camiller). Routledge, London & New York, 1997. Currie, G. & Musgrave, A. (eds). Popper and the Human Sciences. Nijhoff, Dordrecht, 1985. Edmonds, D. and Eidinow, J. Wittgenstein's Poker: The Story of a Ten-Minute Argument Between Two Great Philosophers. New York: Harper & Collins, 2001 Feyerabend, P. Against Method. New Left Books, London, 1975. Grnbaum, A. Is the Method of Bold Conjectures and Attempted Refutations Justifiably the Method of Science?, British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 27, 1976, 105-136. Hume, D. A Treatise of Human Nature, in The Philosophical Works (ed. T.H. Green & T.H. Grose), 4 vols (reprint of 1886 edition). Scientia Verlag Aalen, Darmstadt, 1964. Jacobs, S. Science and British Liberalism: Locke, Bentham, Mill and Popper. Avebury, Aldershot, 1991. James, R. Return to Reason: Popper's Thought in Public Life. Open Books, Shepton Mallet, 1980. Johannson, I. A Critique of Karl Popper's Methodology. Scandinavian University Books, Stockholm, 1975. Kekes, J. Popper in Perspective, Metaphilosophy 8 (1977), pp. 36-61. Keuth, H. Verisimilitude or the Approach to the Whole Truth, Philosophy of Science 1976, 311-336. Kuipers, T. A. F. Approaching Descriptive and Theoretical Truth, Erkenntnis 18, 1982, 343-378. Kuipers, T. A. F., (ed). What is Closer-to-the-Truth?, Rodopi, Amsterdam, 1987. Kuhn, T.S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 1962. Lakatos, I. Falsification and the Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, in Lakatos, I & Musgrove, A. (eds). Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970. Lakatos, I. The Methodology of Scientific Research Programmes, (ed. J. Worrall & G. Currie). Cambridge University Press, 1978. Lakatos, I & Musgrove, A. (eds). Criticism and the Growth of Knowledge. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1970. Laudan, L. Progress and Its Problems: Towards a Theory of Scientific Growth. Routledge, London, 1977. Levinson, P. (ed.). In Pursuit of Truth. Essays in Honour of Karl Popper on the Occasion of his 80th Birthday. Humanities Press, Atlantic Highlands, 1982.

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Levinson, R.B. In Defense of Plato. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1957. Magee, B. Popper. Fontana, London, 1977. Mellor, D.H. The Popper Phenomenon, Philosophy 52 (1977), pp. 195-202. Miller, D. On the Comparison of False Theories by their Bases, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 25, 1974, 178-188. Miller, D. Popper's Qualitative Theory of Verisimilitude, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 25, 1974, 166-177. Miller, D. Critical Rationalism: A Restatement and Defence, Open Court, Chicago, 1994. Munz, P. Our Knowledge of the Growth of Knowledge: Popper or Wittgenstein? Routledge, London, 1985. Naydler, J. The Poverty of Popperism, Thomist 46 (1982), pp. 92-107. Niiniluoto, I. Truthlikeness, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1987. Oddie, G. Likeness to Truth, Reidel, Dordrecht, 1986. O'Hear, A. Karl Popper. Routledge, London, 1980. Putnam, H. The Corroboration of Theories, in The Philosophy of Karl Popper (ed. P.A. Schilpp). Open Court Press, La Salle, 1974. Quinton, A. Popper, Karl Raimund, in Encyclopedia of Philosophy, vol. 6 (ed. P. Edwards). Collier Macmillan, New York, 1967. Radnitzky, G. & Andersson, G. (eds). Progress and Rationality in Science. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1978. Radnitzky, G. & Bartley, W.W. (eds). Evolutionary Epistemology, Rationality, and the Sociology of Knowledge. Open Court, La Salle, 1987. Shearmur, J. Political Thought of Karl Popper. London & New York: Routledge, 1996. Simkin, C. Popper's Views on Natural and Social Science. Brill, Leiden, 1993. Stokes, G. Popper: Philosophy, Politics and Scientific Method. Polity Press, 1998. Stove, D. Popper and After: Four Modern Irrationalists. Pergamon Press, Oxford, 1982. Schilpp, P.A. (ed) The Philosophy of Karl Popper. (2 Vols). Open Court Press, La Salle, 1974. Tich, P. On Popper's Definitions of Verisimilitude, The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 25, 1974, 155-160 Tich, P. Verisimilitude Revisited, Synthse 38, 1978, 175-196. Vetter, H. A New Concept of Verisimilitude, Theory and Decision 8, 1977, 369-375. Watkins, J. Science and Scepticism, Princeton University Press and Hutchinson, Princeton and London, 1984. Watkins, J. Popperian Ideas on Progress and Rationality in Science, The Critical Rationalist, Vol. 2 No. 2, June 1997. Wilkins, B.T. Has History Any Meaning? A Critique of Popper's Philosophy of History. Hassocks/Cornell University Press/The Harvester Press, Ithaca, 1978. Williams, D.E. Truth, Hope and Power: The Thought of Karl Popper. University of Toronto Press, Toronto, 1989. Wuketits, F.M. Concepts and Approaches in Evolutionary Epistemology: Towards an Evolutionary Theory of Knowledge. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1984. Other Internet Resources The Karl Popper Web. Open Universe of the Japan Popper Society. Institut Wiener Kreis, website of the Society for the Advancement of the Scientific World Conception. Popper, Karl Raimund, by Peter Munz in the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography.

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[7] Hegelianism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hegelianism

Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real," which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of transcendental idealism. 1 Method 2 Doctrine of development 3 Categorization of philosophies 3.1 Division of philosophy 3.2 Philosophy of nature 3.3 Philosophy of mind 3.4 Philosophy of history 3.5 Philosophy of absolute mind 4 Influence of Hegel 5 The Hegelian schools

Method Hegel's method in philosophy consists of the triadic development (Entwicklung) in each concept and each thing. Thus, he hopes, philosophy will not contradict experience, but will give data of experience to the philosophical, which is the ultimately true explanation. If, for instance, we wish to know what liberty is, we take that concept where we first find itthe unrestrained action of the savage, who does not feel the need of repressing any thought, feeling, or tendency to act. Next, we find that the savage has given up this freedom in exchange for its opposite, the restraint, or, as he considers it, the tyranny, of civilization and law. Finally, in the citizen under the rule of law, we find the third stage of development, namely liberty in a higher and a fuller sense than how the savage possessed itthe liberty to do, say, and think many

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things beyond the power of the savage. In this triadic process, the second stage is the direct opposite, the annihilation, or at least the sublation, of the first. The third stage is the first returned to itself in a higher, truer, richer, and fuller form. The three stages are, therefore, styled: in itself (An-sich) out of itself (Anderssein) in and for itself (An-und-fr-sich). These three stages are found succeeding one another throughout the whole realm of thought and being, from the most abstract logical process up to the most complicated concrete activity of organized mind in the succession of states or the production of systems of philosophy. Doctrine of development In logic - which, according to Hegel, is really metaphysic - we have to deal with the process of development applied to reality in its most abstract form. According to Hegel, in logic, we deal in concepts robbed of their empirical content: in logic we are discussing the process in vacuo, so to speak. Thus, at the very beginning of Hegel's study of reality, he finds the logical concept of being. Now, being is not a static concept according to Hegel, as Aristotle supposed it was. It is essentially dynamic, because it tends by its very nature to pass over into nothing, and then to return to itself in the higher concept, becoming. For Aristotle, there was nothing more certain than that being equaled being, or, in other words, that being is identical with itself, that everything is what it is. Hegel does not deny this; but, he adds, it is equally certain that being tends to become its opposite, nothing, and that both are united in the concept becoming. For instance, the truth about this table, for Aristotle, is that it is a table. For Hegel, the equally important truth is that it was a tree, and it "will be" ashes. The whole truth, for Hegel, is that the tree became a table and will become ashes. Thus, becoming, not being, is the highest expression of reality. It is also the highest expression of thought because then only do we attain the fullest knowledge of a thing when we know what it was, what it is, and what it will be-in a word, when we know the history of its development. In the same way as "being" and "nothing" develop into the higher concept becoming, so, farther on in the scale of development, life and mind appear as the third terms of the process and in turn are developed into higher forms of themselves. (It is interesting here to note that Aristotle saw "being" as superior to "becoming", because anything which is still becoming something else is imperfect. Hence, God, for Aristotle, is perfect because He never changes, but is eternally complete.) But one cannot help asking what is it that develops or is developed? Its name, Hegel answers, is different in each stage. In the lowest form it is "being", higher up it is "life", and in still higher form it is "mind". The only thing always present is the process (das Werden). We may, however, call the process by the name of "spirit" (Geist) or "idea" (Begriff). We may even call it God, because at least in the third term of every triadic development the process is God. Categorization of philosophies Division of philosophy The first and most wide-reaching consideration of the process of spirit, God, idea, reveals to us the truth that the idea must be studied (1) in itself; this subject of logic or metaphysics; (2) out of itself, in nature; this is the subject philosophy of nature; and (3) in and for itself, as mind; this is the subject or is of of the the the the

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philosophy of mind (Geistesphilosophie). Philosophy of nature Passing over the rather abstract considerations by which Hegel shows in his "Logik" the process of the idea-in-itself through being to becoming, and finally through essence to notion, we take up the study of the development of the idea at the point where it enters into otherness in nature. In nature the idea has lost itself, because it has lost its unity and is splintered, as it were, into a thousand fragments. But the loss of unity is only apparent, because in reality the idea has merely concealed its unity. Studied philosophically, nature reveals itself as so many successful attempts of the idea to emerge out of the state of otherness and present itself to us as a better, fuller, richer idea, namely, spirit, or mind. Mind is, therefore, the goal of nature. It is also the truth of nature. For whatever is in nature is realized in a higher form in the mind which emerges from nature. Philosophy of mind The philosophy of mind begins with the consideration of the individual, or subjective, mind. It is soon perceived, however, that individual, or subjective, mind is only the first stage, the in-itself stage, of mind. The next stage is objective mind, or mind objectified in law, morality, and the State. This is mind in the condition of out-of-itself. There follows the condition of absolute mind, the state in which mind rises above all the limitations of nature and instituitions, and is subjected to itself alone in art, religion, and philosophy. For the essence of mind is freedom, and its development must consist in breaking away from the restrictions imposed on it in it otherness by nature and human institutions.

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Philosophy of history Hegel's philosophy of the State, his theory of history, and his account of absolute mind are the most interesting portions of his philosophy and the most easily understood. The State, he says, is mind objectified. The individual mind, which, on account of its passions, its prejudices, and its blind impulses, is only partly free, subjects itself to the yoke of necessity---the opposite of freedom---in order to attain a fuller realization of itself in the freedom of the citizen. This yoke of necessity is first met with in the recognition of the rights of others, next in morality, and finally in social morality, of which the primal institution is the family. Aggregates of families form civil society, which, however, is but an imperfect form of organization compared with the State. The State is the perfect social embodiment of the idea, and stands in this stage of development for God Himself. The State, studied in itself, furnishes for our consideration constitutional law. In relation to other States it develops international law; and in its general course through historical vicissitudes it passes through what Hegel calls the "Dialectics of History". Hegel teaches that the constitution is the collective spirit of the nation and that the government and the written constitution is the embodiment of that spirit. Each nation has its own individual spirit, and the greatest of crimes is the act by which the tyrant or the conqueror stifles the spirit of a nation. War, Hegel suggests can never be ruled out, as one can never know when or if one will occur, an example being the Napoleonic overrunning of Europe and putting down of Royalist systems. Of course war in Hegel's day and for much of history involved mainly combatants unlike today where civilians form the majority of casualties. War represents a crisis in the development of the idea which is embodied in the different States, and out of this crisis usually the State which holds the more advanced spirit wins out though it may also suffer a lost, lick its wounds yet still win in the spiritual sense, as happened for example when the northerners sacked Rome, its form of legality and religion all "won" out in spite of the losses on the battlefield. A peaceful revolution is also possible according to Hegel when the changes required to solve the crisis are ascertained by thoughtful insight and when this insight spreads throughout the body politic: If a people [Volk] can no longer accept as implicitly true what its constitution expresses to it as the truth, if its consciousness or Notion and its actuality are not at one, then the peoples spirit is torn asunder. Two things may then occur. First, the people may either by a supreme internal effort dash into fragments this law which still claims authority, or it may more quietly and slowly effect changes on the yet operative law, which is, however, no longer true morality, but which the mind has already passed beyond. In the second place, a peoples intelligence and strength may not suffice for this, and it may hold to the lower law; or it may happen that another nation has reached its higher constitution, thereby rising in the scale, and the first gives up its nationality and becomes subject to the other. Therefore it is of essential importance to know what the true constitution is; for what is in opposition to it has no stability, no truth, and passes away. It has a temporary existence, but cannot hold its ground; it has been accepted, but cannot secure permanent acceptance; that it must be cast aside, lies in the very nature of the constitution. This insight can be reached through Philosophy alone. Revolutions take place in a state without the slightest violence when the insight becomes universal; institutions, somehow or other, crumble and disappear, each man agrees to give up his right. A government must, however, recognize that the time for this has come;

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should it, on the contrary, knowing not the truth, cling to temporary institutions, taking what though recognized is unessential, to be a bulwark guarding it from the essential (and the essential is what is contained in the Idea), that government will fall, along with its institutions, before the force of mind. The breaking up of its government breaks up the nation itself; a new government arises, or it may be that the government and the unessential retain the upper hand.[1] The "ground" of historical development is, therefore, rational; since the State, if it is not in contradiction, is the embodiment of reason as spirit. Many, at first considered to be, contingent events of history can become, in reality or in necessity, stages in the logical unfolding of the sovereign reason which gets embodied in an advanced State. Such a "necessary contingency" when expressed in passions, impulse, interest, character, personality get used by the "cunning of reason," which, in retrospect, was to its own purpose. We are, therefore, to understand historical happenings as the stern, reluctant working of reason towards the full realization of itself in perfect freedom. Consequently, we must interpret history in rational terms, and throw the succession of events into logical categories and this interpretion is, for Hegel, a mere inference from actual history. Thus, the widest view of history reveals three most important stages of developmentOriental imperial (the stage of oneness, of suppression of freedom), Greek social democracy (the stage of expansion, in which freedom was lost in unstable demagogy), and Christian constitutional monarchy (which represents the reintegration of freedom in constitutional government).

Philosophy of absolute mind Even in the State, mind is limited by subjection to other minds. There remains the final step in the process of the acquisition of freedom, namely, that by which absolute mind in art, religion, and philosophy subjects itself to itself alone. In art, mind has the intuitive contemplation of itself as realized in the art material, and the development of the arts has been conditioned by the ever-increasing "docility" with which the art material lends itself to the actualization of mind or the idea. In religion, mind feels the superiority of itself to the particularizing limitations of finite things. Here, as in the philosophy of history, there are three great moments, Oriental religion, which exaggerated the idea of the infinite, Greek religion, which gave undue importance to the finite, and Christianity, which represents the union of the infinite and the finite. Last of all, absolute mind, as philosophy, transcends the limitations imposed on it even in religious feeling, and, discarding representative intuition, attains all truth under the form of reason. Whatever truth there is in art and in religion is contained in philosophy, in a higher form, and free from all limitations. Philosophy is, therefore, "the highest, freest and wisest phase of the union of subjective and objective mind, and the ultimate

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goal of all development." Influence of Hegel The far reaching influence of Hegel is due in a measure to the undoubted vastness of the scheme of philosophical synthesis which he conceived and partly realized. A philosophy which undertook to organize under the single formula of triadic development every department of knowledge, from abstract logic up to the philosophy of history, has a great deal of attractiveness to those who are metaphysically inclined. But Hegel's influence is due in a still larger measure to two extrinsic circumstances. His philosophy is the highest expression of that spirit of collectivism which characterized the nineteenth century. In theology especially Hegel revolutionized the methods of inquiry. The application of his notion of development to Biblical criticism and to historical investigation is obvious to anyone who compares the spirit and purpose of contemporary theology with the spirit and purpose of the theological literature of the first half of the nineteenth century.[citation needed] In science, too, and in literature, the substitution of the category of becoming for the category of being is a very patent fact, and is due to the influence of Hegel's method. In political economy and political science the effect of Hegel's collectivistic conception of the State supplanted to a large extent the individualistic conception which was handed down from the eighteenth century to the nineteenth. The Hegelian schools Main articles: Hegelian Rightists and Young Hegelians Hegel's immediate followers in Germany are generally divided into the "Right Hegelians" and the "Left Hegelians" (the latter also referred to as the "Young Hegelians").

The Rightists developed his philosophy along lines which they considered to be in accordance with Christian theology. They included Karl Friedrich Gschel, Johann Philipp Gabler, Johann Karl Friedrich Rosenkranz, and Johann Eduard Erdmann. The Leftists accentuated the anti-Christian tendencies of Hegel's system and developed schools of materialism, socialism, rationalism, and pantheism. They included Ludwig Feuerbach, Richter, Karl Marx, Bruno Bauer, and David Strauss. Max Stirner socialized with the left Hegelians but built his own philosophical system largely opposing that of these thinkers.

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In Britain, Hegelianism was represented during the nineteenth century by, and largely overlapped the British Idealist school of James Hutchison Stirling, Thomas Hill Green, William Wallace, John Caird, Edward Caird, Richard Lewis Nettleship, J. M. E. McTaggart, and Baillie. British interest in Hegel was largely driven by political thought. In Denmark, Hegelianism was represented by Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Lassen Martensen from the 1820s to the 1850s. Hegelianism in North America was represented by Thomas Watson and William T. Harris, as well as the St. Louis Hegelians. In its most recent form it seems to take its inspiration from Thomas Hill Green, and whatever influence it exerts is opposed to the prevalent pragmatic tendency. In Poland, Hegelianism was represented by Karol Libelt, August Cieszkowski and Jzef Kremer. Benedetto Croce and tienne Vacherot were the leading Hegelians towards the end of the nineteenth century in Italy and France, respectively. Among Catholic philosophers who were influenced by Hegel the most prominent were Georg Hermes and Anton Gnther. Hegelianism also inspired Giovanni Gentile's philosophy of actual idealism and Fascism, the concept that people are motivated by ideas and that social change is brought by the leaders.

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[8] Vanishing mediator


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanishing_mediator

A vanishing mediator is a concept that exists to mediate between two opposing ideas, as a transition occurs between them. At the point where one idea has been replaced by the other, and the concept is no longer required, the mediator vanishes.[1] In terms of Hegelian dialectics, the conflict between thesis and antithesis is resolved by a synthesis of the two ideas, although the synthesis represents the final solution, whereupon the mediator vanishes. In terms of psychoanalytic theory, when someone is caught in a dilemma they experience Hysteria. The conceptual deadlock, exists until the resulting Hysteric breakdown precipitates some kind of resolution, therefore the Hysteria is a vanishing mediator in this case.[2] In terms of political history, it refers to social movements, which operate in a particular way to influence politics, until they either are forgotten or change their purpose.[3] It is a concept that was originally described by Fredric Jameson:- In The Ideologies of Theory[4], a two volume compilation of his essays, Jameson first defines the instance of textual unconscious outlined by Jacques Lacan, before the general idea of a vanishing mediator.[5] Since, this concept has been adopted by iek in "For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political factor", where he uses it in a political sense, similar to Marx's Analysis of Revolution[1]. [edit] References ^ a b Slavoj Zizek - Key Ideas ^ Hysteria and interpellation ^ Zizek and us. ^ Jameson, Fredric (1988). The ideologies of theory: essays 1971-1986. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 08-166-157-64. ^ Mellard, James M. (2006). "Chapter 1. From Freud to Jacques Lacan and the Textual Unconscious". Beyond Lacan (Suny Series in Psychoanalysis and Culture). Albany, N.Y: State University of New York Press. ISBN 07-914-690-34.

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[9] Preface -A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy - Karl Marx 1859
Source: K. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1977, with some notes by R. Rojas. http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/185 9/critique-pol-economy/preface.htm

I examine the system of bourgeois economy in the following order: capital, landed property, wage-labour; the State, foreign trade, world market. The economic conditions of existence of the three great classes into which modern bourgeois society is divided are analysed under the first three headings; the interconnection of the other three headings is self-evident. The first part of the first book, dealing with Capital, comprises the following chapters: 1. The commodity, 2. Money or simple circulation; 3. Capital in general. The present part consists of the first two chapters. The entire material lies before me in the form of monographs, which were written not for publication but for self-clarification at widely separated periods; their remoulding into an integrated whole according to the plan I have indicated will depend upon circumstances. A general introduction, which I had drafted, is omitted, since on further consideration it seems to me confusing to anticipate results which still have to be substantiated, and the reader who really wishes to follow me will have to decide to advance from the particular to the general. A few brief remarks regarding the course of my study of political economy are appropriate here. Although I studied jurisprudence, I pursued it as a subject subordinated to philosophy and history. In the year 1842-43, as editor of the Rheinische Zeitung, I first found myself in the embarrassing position of having to discuss what is known as material interests. The deliberations of the Rhenish Landtag on forest thefts and the division of landed property; the official polemic started by Herr von Schaper, then Oberprasident of the Rhine Province, against the Rheinische Zeitung about the

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condition of the Moselle peasantry, and finally the debates on free trade and protective tariffs caused me in the first instance to turn my attention to economic questions. On the other hand, at that time when good intentions to push forward often took the place of factual knowledge, an echo of French socialism and communism, slightly tinged by philosophy, was noticeable in the Rheinische Zeitung. I objected to this dilettantism, but at the same time frankly admitted in a controversy with the Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung that my previous studies did not allow me to express any opinion on the content of the French theories. When the publishers of the Rheinische Zeitung conceived the illusion that by a more compliant policy on the part of the paper it might be possible to secure the abrogation of the death sentence passed upon it, I eagerly grasped the opportunity to withdraw from the public stage to my study. The first work which I undertook to dispel the doubts assailing me was a critical reexamination of the Hegelian philosophy of law; the introduction to this work being published in the Deutsch-Franzosische Jahrbucher issued in Paris in 1844. My inquiry led me to the conclusion that neither legal relations nor political forms could be comprehended whether by themselves or on the basis of a so-called general development of the human mind, but that on the contrary they originate in the material conditions of life, the totality of which Hegel, following the example of English and French thinkers of the eighteenth century, embraces within the term civil society; that the anatomy of this civil society, however, has to be sought in political economy. The study of this, which I began in Paris, I continued in Brussels, where I moved owing to an expulsion order issued by M. Guizot. The general conclusion at which I arrived and which, once reached, became the guiding principle of my studies can be summarised as follows. In the social production of their existence, men inevitably enter into definite relations, which are independent of their will, namely relations of production appropriate to a given stage in the development of their material forces of production. The totality of these relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation, on which arises a legal and political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life conditions the general process of social, political and intellectual life. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. In studying such transformations it is always necessary to distinguish between the material transformation of the economic conditions of production, which can be determined with the precision of natural science, and the legal, political, religious, artistic or philosophic in short, ideological forms in which men become conscious of this conflict and fight it out. Just as one does not judge an individual by what he thinks about himself, so one cannot judge such a period of transformation by its consciousness, but, on the contrary, this consciousness must be explained from the contradictions of material life, from the conflict existing between the social forces of production and the relations of production. No social order is ever destroyed before all the productive forces for which it is sufficient have been developed, and new superior

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relations of production never replace older ones before the material conditions for their existence have matured within the framework of the old society. Mankind thus inevitably sets itself only such tasks as it is able to solve, since closer examination will always show that the problem itself arises only when the material conditions for its solution are already present or at least in the course of formation. In broad outline, the Asiatic, ancient,[A] feudal and modern bourgeois modes of production may be designated as epochs marking progress in the economic development of society. The bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social process of production antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals' social conditions of existence but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The prehistory of human society accordingly closes with this social formation.

Frederick Engels, with whom I maintained a constant exchange of ideas by correspondence since the publication of his brilliant essay on the critique of economic categories (printed in the Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher, arrived by another road (compare his Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England) at the same result as I, and when in the spring of 1845 he too came to live in Brussels, we decided to set forth together our conception as opposed to the ideological one of German philosophy, in fact to settle accounts with our former philosophical conscience. The intention was carried out in the form of a critique of post-Hegelian philosophy. The manuscript [The German Ideology], two large octavo volumes, had long ago reached the publishers in Westphalia when we were informed that owing to changed circumstances it could not be printed. We abandoned the manuscript to the gnawing criticism of the mice all the more willingly since we had achieved our main purpose self-clarification. Of the scattered works in which at that time we presented one or another aspect of our views to the public, I shall mention only the Manifesto of the Communist Party, jointly written by Engels and myself, and a Discours sur le libre echange, which I myself published. The salient points of our conception were first outlined in an academic, although polemical, form in my Misere de la philosophie..., this book which was aimed at Proudhon appeared in 1847. The publication of an essay on Wage-Labour [WageLabor and Capital] written in German in which I combined the lectures I had held on this subject at the German Workers' Association in Brussels, was interrupted by the February Revolution and my forcible removal from Belgium in consequence. The publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1848 and 1849 and subsequent events cut short my economic studies, which I could only resume in London in 1850. The enormous amount of material relating to the history of political economy assembled in the British Museum, the fact that London is a convenient vantage point for the observation of bourgeois society, and finally the new stage of development which this society seemed to have entered with the discovery of gold in California and Australia, induced me to start again from the very beginning and to work carefully through the new material. These studies led partly of their own accord to apparently quite remote subjects on which I had to spend a certain amount of time. But it was in

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particular the imperative necessity of earning my living which reduced the time at my disposal. My collaboration, continued now for eight years, with the New York Tribune, the leading Anglo-American newspaper, necessitated an excessive fragmentation of my studies, for I wrote only exceptionally newspaper correspondence in the strict sense. Since a considerable part of my contributions consisted of articles dealing with important economic events in Britain and on the continent, I was compelled to become conversant with practical detail which, strictly speaking, lie outside the sphere of political economy. This sketch of the course of my studies in the domain of political economy is intended merely to show that my views no matter how they may be judged and how little they conform to the interested prejudices of the ruling classes are the outcome of conscientious research carried on over many years. At the entrance to science, as at the entrance to hell, the demand must be made: Qui si convien lasciare ogni sospettoOgni vilta convien che qui sia morta. [From Dante, Divina Commedia:Here must all distrust be left;All cowardice must here be dead.] Karl MarxLondon, January 1859 A. As a second footnote to the Communist Manifesto, Engels wrote in 1888: In 1847, the pre-history of society, the social organization existing previous to recorded history, [was] all but unknown. Since then, August von Haxthausen (1792-1866) discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Georg Ludwig von Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and, by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organization of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Lewis Henry Morgan's (1818-1861) crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of the primeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this dissolution in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State, second edition, Stuttgart, 1886. Thus, as the science of understanding pre-history progressed (pre-history being that time before written records of human civilization exist), Marx & Engels changed their understanding and descriptions accordingly. In the above text, Marx mentions Asiatic modes of production. At the time, they had thought Asian civilization was the first we could speak of humanity (an understanding based on Hegel, see: The Oriental Realm). After writing The Grundrisse, they dropped the idea of a distinct Asiatic mode of production, and kept four basic forms: tribal, ancient, feudal, and capitalist.

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[10] An Introduction to Gramsci's Life and Thought


Frank Rosengarten Transcribed to www.marxists.org with the kind permission of Frank Rosengarten. http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/intro.htm

Antonio Gramsci was born on January 22, 1891 in Ales in the province of Cagliari in Sardinia. He was the fourth of seven children born to Francesco Gramsci and Giuseppina Marcias. His relationship with his father was never very close, but he had a strong affection and love for his mother, whose resilience, gift for story-telling and pungent humor made a lasting impression on him. Of his six siblings, Antonio enjoyed a mutual interest in literature with his younger sister Teresina, and seems to have always felt a spiritual kinship with his two brothers, Gennaro, the oldest of the Gramsci children, and Carlo, the youngest. Gennaro's early embrace of socialism contributed significantly to Antonio's political development.

In 1897, Antonio's father was suspended and subsequently arrested and imprisoned for five years for alleged administrative abuses. Shortly thereafter, Giuseppina and her children moved to Ghilarza, where Antonio attended elementary school. Sometime during these years of trial and near poverty, he fell from the arms of a servant, to which his family attributed his hunched back and stunted growth: he was an inch or two short of five feet in height. At the age of eleven, after completing elementary school, Antonio worked for two years in the tax office in Ghilarza, in order to help his financially strapped family. Because of the five-year absence of Francesco, these were years of bitter struggle. Nevertheless, he continued to study privately and eventually returned to school, where he was judged to be of superior intelligence, as indicated by excellent grades in all subjects. Antonio continued his education, first in Santu Ghilarza, then, after graduating from secondary Cagliari, where he shared a room with his brother contact for the first time with organized sectors of Lussurgiu, about ten miles from school, at the Dettori Lyceum in Gennaro, and where he came into the working class and with radical

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and socialist politics. But these were also years of privation, during which Antonio was partially dependent on his father for financial support, which came only rarely. In his letters to his family, he accused his father repeatedly of unpardonable procrastination and neglect. His health deteriorated, and some of the nervous symptoms that were to plague him at a later time were already in evidence. 1911 was an important year in young Gramsci's life. After graduating from the Cagliari lyceum, he applied for and won a scholarship to the University of Turin, an award reserved for needy students from the provinces of the former Kingdom of Sardinia. Among the other young people to compete for this scholarship was Palmiro Togliatti, future general secretary of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) and, with Gramsci and several others, among the most capable leaders of that embattled Party. Antonio enrolled in the Faculty of Letters. At the University he met Angelo Tasca and several of the other men with whom he was to share struggles first in the Italian Socialist Party (PSI) and then, after the split that took place in January 1921, in the PCI. At the University, despite years of terrible suffering due to inadequate diet, unheated flats, and constant nervous exhaustion, Antonio took a variety of courses, mainly in the humanities but also in the social sciences and in linguistics, to which he was sufficiently attracted to contemplate academic specialization in that subject. Several of his professors, notably Matteo Bartoli, a linguist, and Umberto Cosmo, a Dante scholar, became personal friends. In 1915, despite great promise as an academic scholar, Gramsci became an active member of the PSI, and began a journalistic career that made him among the most feared critical voices in Italy at that time. His column in the Turin edition of Avanti!, and his theatre reviews were widely read and influential. He regularly spoke at workers' study-circles on various topics, such as the novels of Romain Rolland, for whom he felt a certain affinity, the Paris Commune, the French and Italian revolutions and the writings of Karl Marx. It was at this time, as the war dragged on and as Italian intervention became a bloody reality, Gramsci assumed a somewhat ambivalent stance, although his basic position was that the Italian socialists should use intervention as an occasion to turn Italian national sentiment in a revolutionary rather than a chauvinist direction. It was also at this time, in 1917 and 1918, that he began to see the need for integration of political and economic action with cultural work, which took form as a proletarian cultural association in Turin. The outbreak of the Bolshevik revolution in October 1917 further stirred his revolutionary ardor, and for the remainder of the war and in the years thereafter Gramsci identified himself closely, although not entirely uncritically, with the methods and aims of the Russian revolutionary leadership and with the cause of socialist transformation throughout the advanced capitalist world. In the spring of 1919, Gramsci, together with Angelo Tasca, Umberto Terracini and Togliatti, founded L'Ordine Nuovo: Rassegna Settimanale di Cultura Socialista (The New Order: A Weekly Review of Socialist Culture), which became an influential periodical (on a weekly and later on a bi-monthly publishing schedule) for the following five years among the radical and revolutionary Left in Italy. The review gave much attention to political and literary currents in Europe, the USSR, and the United States. For the next few years, Gramsci devoted most of his time to the development of the

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factory council movement, and to militant journalism, which led in January 1921 to his siding with the Communist minority within the PSI at the Party's Livorno Congress. He became a member of the PCI's central committee, but did not play a leading role until several years later. He was among the most prescient representatives of the Italian Left at the inception of the fascist movement, and on several occasions predicted that unless unified action were taken against the rise of Mussolini's movement, Italian democracy and Italian socialism would both suffer a disastrous defeat. The years 1921 to 1926, years "of iron and fire" as he called them, were eventful and productive. They were marked in particular by the year and a half he lived in Moscow as an Italian delegate to the Communist International (May 1922- November 1923), his election to the Chamber of Deputies in April 1924, and his assumption of the position of general secretary of the PCI. His personal life was also filled with significant experiences, the chief one being his meeting with and subsequent marriage to Julka Schucht (1896-1980), a violinist and member of the Russian Communist Party whom he met during his stay in Russia. Antonio and Julka had two sons, Delio (1924-1981), and Giuliano, born in 1926, who lives today in Moscow with his wife.

On the evening of November 8, 1926, Gramsci was arrested in Rome and, in accordance with a series of "Exceptional Laws" enacted by the fascist-dominated Italian legislature, committed to solitary confinement at the Regina Coeli prison. This began a ten-year odyssey, marked by almost constant physical and psychic pain as a result of a prison experience that culminated, on April 27, 1937, in his death from a cerebral hemorrhage. No doubt the stroke that killed him was but the final outcome of years and years of illnesses that were never properly treated in prison. Yet as everyone familiar with the trajectory of Gramsci's life knows, these prison years were also rich with intellectual achievement, as recorded in the Notebooks he kept in his various cells that eventually saw the light after World War II, and as recorded also in the extraordinary letters he wrote from prison to friends and especially to family members, the most important of whom was not his wife Julka but rather a sister-in-law, Tania Schucht. She was the person most intimately and unceasingly involved in his prison life, since she had resided in Rome for many years and was in a position to provide him not only with a regular exchange of thoughts and feelings in letter form but

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with articles of clothing and with numerous foods and medicines he sorely needed to survive the grinding daily routine of prison life. After being sentenced on June 4, 1928, with other Italian Communist leaders, to 20 years, 4 months and 5 days in prison, Gramsci was consigned to a prison in Turi, in the province of Bari, which turned out to be his longest place of detention (June 1928 -November 1933). Thereafter he was under police guard at a clinic in Formia, from which he was transferred in August 1935, always under guard, to the Quisisana Hospital in Rome. It was there that he spent the last two years of his life. Among the people, in addition to Tania, who helped him either by writing to him or by visiting him when possible, were his mother Giuseppina, who died in 1933, his brother Carlo, his sisters Teresina and Grazietta, and his good friend, the economist Piero Sraffa, who throughout Gramsci's prison ordeal provided a crucial and indispenable service to Gramsci. Sraffa used his personal funds and numerous professional contacts that were necessary in order to obtain the books and periodicals Gramsci needed in prison. Gramsci had a prodigious memory, but it is safe to say that without Sraffa's assistance, and without the intermediary role often played by Tania, the Prison Notebooks as we have them would not have come to fruition. Gramsci's intellectual work in prison did not emerge in the light of day until several years after World War II, when the PC began publishing scattered sections of the Notebooks and some of the approximately 500 letters he wrote from prison. By the 1950s, and then with increasing frequency and intensity, his prison writings attracted interest and critical commentary in a host of countries, not only in the West but in the so-called third world as well. Some of his terminology became household words on the left, the most important of which, and the most complex, is the term "hegemony" as he used it in his writings and applied to the twin task of understanding the reasons underlying both the successes and the failures of socialism on a global scale, and of elaborating a feasible program for the realization of a socialist vision within the really existing conditions that prevailed in the world. Among these conditions were the rise and triumph of fascism and the disarray on the left that had ensued as a result of that triumph. Also extremely pertinent, both theoretically and practically, were such terms and phrases as "organic intellectual," "national'popular," and "historical bloc" which, even if not coined by Gramsci, acquired such radically new and original implications in his writing as to constitute effectively new formulations in the realm of political philosophy.

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[11] Autopoiesis, Culture, and Society


Humberto Mariotti
Humberto Mariotti is a pychiatrist and psychotherapist. He is also the coordinator of the Studies Group of Complexity and Systems Thinking of the Palas Athena Association, in So Paulo, Brazil. http://www.oikos.org/mariotti.htm The concept of autopoiesis has long surpassed the realm of biology. It has been used in areas so diverse as sociology, psychotherapy, management, anthropology, organizational culture, and many others. This circumstance transformed it in a very important and useful instrument for the investigation of reality. Years ago, Chilean scientists Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela proposed the following question: to what extent human social phenomenology could be seen as a biological phenomenology? The purpose of this article is to look for an answer to this question. However, before getting to it I think that it is necessary to review some of the fundamental principles introduced by these two authors.

Autopoiesis Poiesis is a Greek term that means production. Autopoiesis means autoproduction. This word appeared for the first time in the international literature in 1974, in an article published by Varela, Maturana, and Uribe, in which living beings are seen as systems that produce themselves in a ceaseless way. Thus, it can be said that an autopoietic system is at the same time the producer and the product. In Maturanas viewpoint, the term "autopoiesis" expresses what he called "the center of the constitutive dynamics of living systems". To live this dynamics in an autonomous way, living systems need to obtain resources from the environment in which they live. In other words, they are simultaneously autonomic and dependent systems. So, this condition is clearly a paradox. This self-contradictory condition cannot be adequately understood by linear thinking, according to which everything must be reduced to the binary model yes/no, or/or. When dealing with living beings, things, and events, linear thinking begins by dividing them. The next step is the analysis of the separate parts. No attempts are made to look for the dynamic relationships that exists between them.

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This autonomy-dependency paradox, which is a characteristic feature of living beings, is better understood when one uses a way of thinking that encompasses systems thinking (which examines the dynamic relationships between the parts) and linear thinking. This model has been proposed by French author Edgar Morin, who called it "complex thinking". Maturana and Varela proposed an instructive metaphor that is worthwhile to recall here. In their viewpoint, living systems are self-producing machines. No other kind of machine is able to do this: their production always consists in something that is different from themselves. Since autopoietic systems are simultaneously producers and products, it could also be said that they are circular systems, that is, they work in terms of productive circularity. Maturana maintains that as long as we are not able to understand the systemic character of living cells, we will not be able to adequately understand living organisms. I reaffirm that this understanding can only be adequately provided by complex thinking. However, we live in a culture that is deeply formatted by linear thinking. This fact resulted in important consequences, some of which are very grave, as we will see later in this text. Structure, organization, and structural determinism As stated by Maturana and Varela, living beings are structure-determined systems. What happens to us in a given moment depends on our structure in this moment. These authors call this concept structural determinism. The structure of a given system is the way by which their components interconnect with no changes in their organization. Let us see an example related to a non-living system a table. It can have any of its parts modified, but keeps being a table as long as these parts are left articulated. However, if we disconnect and separate them, the system can no longer be recognized as a table, because its organization is lost. Thus, we could say that the system is extinguished. In the same way, the structure of a living system changes all the time, which demonstrates that it is continuously adapting itself to the equally continuous environmental changes. Nevertheless, the loss of the organization would result in the death of the system. Thus, organization determines the identity of a system, whereas structure determines how its parts are physically articulated. Organization identifies a system and corresponds to its general configuration. Structure shows the way parts interconnect. The moment in which a system loses its organization corresponds to the limit of its tolerance to structural changes. The fact that living systems are submitted to structural determinism does not mean that they are foreseeable. In other words, they are determined but this does not mean that they are predetermined. As a matter of fact, since their structure changes all the time and in congruence with the aleatory modifications of the environment , it is not adequate to speak about predetermination. We should rather speak about circularity. In order to avoid any doubts about this issue, we would better bear in mind this detail: what happens to a system in a given moment depends on its structure in this very moment. The world in which we live is the world that we build out of our perceptions, and it is our structure that enables us to have these perceptions. So, our world is the world that we have knowledge of. If the reality that we perceive depends on our structure

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which is individual , there are as many realities as perceiving people. This explains why the so-called purely objective knowledge is impossible: the observer is not apart from the phenomena he or she observes. Since we are determined by the way the parts of which we are made interconnet and work together (that is, by our structure), the environment can only trigger in our organisms the alterations that are determined in the structure of these organisms. A cat can only perceive the world and interact with it by means of its feline structure, not with a configuration that is does not have, as for instance the human structure. By the same token, we humans cannot see the world the same way as a cat does. Thus, we do not have adequate arguments to affirm the reality of this objectivity which we use to be so proud of. In Maturanas viewpoint, when someone says that he or she is objective, it means that he or she has access to a privileged worldview, and that this privilege in some way enables he or she to exercise an authority that takes for granted the obedience of everybody else who is not objective. This is one of the basis of the so-called logical reasoning.

Our conditioning leads us to see the world as an object, thus we think of ourselves as separate from it. And we go even further: through the ego, we see ourselves as observers separate from the rest of our own psyche. In order to operate such an objective proposal, it is necessary to establish a boundary between the ego and the world, the same way we did between the ego and the rest of our totality. So, since we are divided the same will happen with our knowledge, which will also result divided and limited. This is the final result of our alleged objectivity: a fragmented and restricted worldview. It is from this position that we think of ourselves as authorized to judge everybody who does not agree with us, and condemn them as "non-objective" and "intuitive" people. In other words, departing from a fragmented and limited viewpoint, we think that is

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possible to arrive to the truth and show it to our peers a truth that we imagine that is the same for everybody. Structural coupling According to Maturana and Varela, living systems and the environment change in a congruent way. In their comparison, the foot is always adjusting to the shoe and vice versa. This is a good manner to say that the environment triggers changes in the structure of systems, and systems answer by triggering changes in the environment and so on, in a circular way. When a system influences another, the influenced one answers by influencing back, that is, it develops a compensatory behavior. The first organism then proceeds to act again over the second one, which replies once more and so on, as long as the two systems keep going in this coupling condition. We already know that living systems are determined by their structure. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that when a system is in structural coupling mode with another one, at a given moment of this relationship the conduct of one of them is a constant source of stimuli for compensatory answers from the other. These are, therefore, transactional and recurrent events. When a system influences another, the influenced one sustains a structural change a deformation. On replying, the influenced system gives to the influencer an interpretation of how this influence was perceived. A dialogue is therefore established. In other words, a consensual context is started, through which structurally coupled organisms interact. This interaction is a linguistic domain. To put it in another way, in this transactional ambit the conduct of each organism corresponds to a description of the behavior of its partner. Each one "tells" to the other how its "message" has been perceived. This explains why there is no competition between natural systems. What exists is cooperation. However, when culture meets nature as happens with human beings things change. I reaffirm that there is no competition (in the predatory sense of the term) between non-human living beings. When men refer to some animals as predators, they are anthropomorphizing them, that is, projecting on them a condition that is peculiar to humans. Since they do not compete between themselves, non-human living systems do not "dictate" each other norms of conduct. If natural conditions keep unchanged, there are no authoritarian commandments nor unconditional obediency between them. Living beings are autonomous systems. Its conduct is determined according to their own structures, that is, according to the way they interpret influences that come from the environment. They are not subdued systems, that is, they are not unconditionally obedient to outside determinations. In the case of human societies, in which the prevailing conditions are not only those provided by nature, this is exactly what marketing and other means of mass conditioning try (and in many cases succeed) to do with entire populations. Thus, it is possible to reach to mass-production of subdued people, provided conditioning stimuli are widespread and constant. This is what psychoanalyst Flix Guattari calls subjectivities production. With this concept, he introduces the idea of an industrial, mass-produced, capitalism-formatted subjectivity. This is the result of the operation of huge conditioning systems, by means of which capital (today in its neoliberal triumphant phase) builds and maintains its immense market of power. In other words,

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all these efforts are directed to the consolidation and continuing operation of violence against the most basic of the characteristics of living systems autopoiesis. The notion that living systems are structurally determined is of utmost importance for many areas of human activity. In psychotherapy, for instance, transference and countertransference can be understood as manifestations of this structural coupling, in which changes sustained by the client are determined only by his or her structure. They cannot, therefore, be considered as caused or produced in any way by the therapist. As a consequence, it is very important to keep in mind that the consensual domain that results from structural coupling of autopoietic systems is indeed a linguistic context but not in the mere sense of transmission of information. Sociocultural extension Maturana and Varela pointed out that Darwins evolutive theory transcended the simple diversity of living beings and their origin and extended to many areas, as for example the culture. As we know, this theoretical proposal emphasizes the dimensions of species, aptitude and natural selection. These notions are nowadays the basis for social darwinism, which is the utilization of Darwins ideas to justify predatory competition between men. In this sense, it is a fundamentalist interpretation. In the same way, the idea of transcendence has been used to justify social exclusion and allied phenomena, as political and economic exploitation. On account of this, individuals would have a very small meaning and value as compared to species. As a consequence, people are supposed to give everything (which includes their lives) for the benefit of perpetuation of species but the opposite is by no means always true. When speaking about this issue, Maturana and Varela recall the following arguments, which have been largely applied to our societies: a) the evolution is the evolution of human species; b) according to the law of natural selection, the more fit will survive; c) competition leads to evolution, and this applies to the human beings too; d) those who did not survive were not able to contribute to the history of human species. Summing up, individuals should let natural phenomena evolve and stay in a kind of passive attitude everything for species sake. However, the same authors state that these arguments should not prevail when one needs to justify the subordination of the individual to the species, because biologic phenomenology occurs in the individual, not in species. In other words, these arguments should not prevail because biologic phenomenology belongs to the part, not to the whole. Since the way of being of a given individual is determined by its structure which is autopoietic , there should not exist discardable individuals, either in relation to species, society, mankind, and any other instances, important or transcendent as they may be.

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Ordinations, societies and individuals In nature as stated by Maturana and Varela , there is a tendency to the constitution of increasingly complex autopoietic systems. This occurs through the coupling of simpler autopoietic unities to build up more complex organizations, in which the hierarchy principle is the rule: a system is inside another one, that is superior to it; this one is, by its turn, inside another one, that is superior to it; and so on. This happens in multicellular organisms and, according to Maturana and Varela, maybe in the cell itself.

The main question is to know whether this circumstance could be applicable to human societies. If so, they could be seen as first-order autopoietic systems. In this line of reasoning, peoples autopoiesis would be subordinated to the autopoiesis of the societies in which they live. Thus, it could be ethically justifiable the sacrifice of individuals for the sake of societies. In these circumstances as Maturana and Varela say , it would very much difficult for human beings to act on the autopoietic dynamics of the societies to which they belong. I certainly agree with this argument, and also think that it is possible to reinforce it with some more considerations. In order to be able to develop them, I will stay in the domain of biology. We know that an autopoietic system produces itself utilizing resources from the environment. In order to be able to go on with this process, a human organism, for instance, keeps discarding its worn-out cells. These dead parts are continuously replaced for new ones, and so the process continues while the organism keeps alive, that is, autopoietic. However, as far as it is alive, no autopoietic unity discards any of their living components. There are no prescindible parts in natural systems. As a result and always keeping the focus on the biologic context , a society could only be considered autopoietic while satisfying the autopoiesis of all the individuals that constitute it. Thus, a society that discards young and productive individuals (by means of strategies as production of subjectivities, wars, genocide, social exclusion and other forms of violence) is a self-mutilating and therefore pathologic system.

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If men were only natural beings, their autopoiesis would obviously be operated only in the natural way. The fact that men are also cultural beings lead them to operate their autopoiesis in a different manner different and pathologic, because it is a selfaggressive one. Culture conditions individuals, which by their turn reciprocate, and so on, in a circularity that cannot be understood in terms of linear thinking. Why is this so? We know that there are no single-caused phenomena in nature and this case is no exception. Even so, one can affirm that the main cause of this dysfunction is the prevailing mental model of our culture linear thinking. We are deeply conditioned by this model, which stimulates immediatism and assign a high value to war and competition. This is the main reason by which our societies are pathologic living systems. It is very important to repeat that what makes our societies behave like this is not the cultural dimension in itself, but the kind of culture under which we live, that emphasizes the belief that predatory competition is a good, healthy and ethically justifiable way of life. Its most visible practical manifestation is competitivity the compulsion to not only winning, but also eliminating our opponents, the compulsion of leading to the last consequences aggressivity, implacability and the need to exclude. All of us are to some extent influenced by the unidimensionality of linear thinking, which leads us to think that the most pleasant side of a victory is to defeat someone. This the so-called zero sum game: an interaction in which for someones victory to be satisfactory the defeat of the opponent is an indispensable condition. In a climate like this, people, things, and events cannot be complementary: something must necessarily be removed and discarded so that something else could be put in its place. This situation may even be inevitable in some specific contexts, but it certainly does not have the wideness that we imagine. In any case, the idea of the other as an invariable adversary, as an enemy to exterminate, is one of the fundamental features of the competitivity of our culture. Through it and specially in the domain of business and corporations , we live our daily paranoia. It is a worldview that excludes the possibility that the other could be momentarily defeated by ones competence, but preserved in order to be capable, in the future, to learn how to win, that is, to learn how to be competent. The ideal of competitivity, however, is to win in such a way that the winner could be always the first and the only one as if we could exist without our human fellows, and, even worse, as if anybody could be the first and the only one without being also the last one. Let us say the same thing in another way. Some paragraphs ago, I wrote that in nature there is no competitivity. What exists is competence. As noted by Maturana, when two animals meet before the same piece of food and only one eats, this happens because in that specific moment one of them was the most competent to do so. But this does not mean that the animal that was unable to eat is doomed to be, from that moment on, forever forbidden to eat until death arrives. This does not happen in nature. However, when circumstances involve the competitivity of human culture, the individual who succeeds to eat do not satisfy himself with this fact: he or her needs to make sure that the one who was not able to eat must cease forever to be a threat. In other words, competitive men usually do not feel sure of their competence, so they have the need to get rid of whoever could jeopardise them. In other words, when men

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cannot trust in themselves as living beings, their peers must be eliminated as soon as possible. But even so let us insist on this point , this cannot be ascribed to the cultural dimension in itself: it plays such a role in a culture like ours, which do not know how to deal with aleatority and ceaseless change. And these conditions, as we know, constitute the very essence of life. In other words, we do not know how to deal with autopoiesis that is why we feel ourselves in need to aggress it and to deny its reality. It is obvious that these considerations do not invalidate the concept of autopoiesis. On the contrary, it stands even more validated by the demonstration of its efficacy in once more diagnosing the self-aggressive condition of we humans a condition that we have extended to our societies. Let us recall now the question asked by Maturana and Varela: to what extent human social phenomenology may be seen as a biological phenomenology? The above reflections have already answered it: social phenomenology can surely be seen as a biological phenomenlogy but it is a pathologic condition.

Values and depreciations Let us add some more reflections. Martin Heidegger, among others, states that individuals have the tendency to alienate themselves to the things of the world. This makes them forget the Being. This alienation leads us to value things in an excessive way and then to depreciate ourselves and, by extension, do deny the humanity of our peers. In other words, people see each other as trading goods. This is a well-known social feature. In this same direction, our need for transcendence is also depreciated. Let us consider the quest for spiritual values that could guide and justify human existence. In societies as ours, in which people are seen as mere objects, such values tend to be excessively idealized, and this further increases the distance between them and ordinary people. As a result, we will do everything we can to preserve such values, which includes an increased contempt for the lack of transcendentality of our peers, and they will answer in the same way. Psychologist Emlio Romero has an illustrative phrase about this issue: "It is not easy to love simple, limited, contradictory, oscillating, flesh and bone mortals like ourselves. It is easier do admire distant idols, maybe protectors in their unattainable majesty". As history shows, this attitude has produced regrettable results. Everybody knows about societies in which the marked inclination toward spirituality has produced and still produces legions of socially excluded. On the other hand, we know that the

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excessive tendency toward materiality has produced and still produces the same legions of indigents. It seems that the excess of non-linearity of thought is as noxious to autopoiesis (that is, for life) as the excess of linearity (that is, of rationality). Furthermore, a new phenomena has appeared and consolidates itself at a fast rate. I am referring to over-idealization of money. As we know, the capital has been since a long time the basic value of our culture. For the past several years, however, it has been very easy to idealize it even more. This is due to the ascent of the so-called "volatile money", represented by the intangible ciphers that circulate electronically through the global markets. This enhanced "transcendentalization" of money has been adding, now in a vertiginous way, more fuel to the bonfire in which the socially excluded are mercilessly burned out. This discardability of people which is the basic manifestation of the pathology of our culture is quickly increasing as years go on. Thus, a truly autopoietic society cannot coexist with the predatory competition which is the outstanding mark of our culture. Summing up, these reflections lead to the following conclusions: a) As proposed by Maturana and Varela, autopoiesis is indeed a concept that resolve and clearly defines the problem of biologic phenomenology. b) According to this viewpoint, social phenomenology can be seen as a biological phenomenology, because society is composed of living beings. As a consequence, the idea of autopoiesis, when applied as an instrument of social analysis, confirms the conclusion already established by other means of investigation that our societies are self-mutilating, pathologic systems. c) A sizeable part of this pathology may be explained by the fact that the mind of our culture is formatted by linear thinking, which states that causes stand immediately before effects or are very close to them, and maintains that these relationships always occur in the same context of space and time. d) This mental model is obviously necessary for the understanding and the practice of the mechanical circumstances of life (material production, ingestion, processing, excretion, and exchange of tangible goods), but it is not sufficient to understand and to deal with the events of life that involve feelings and emotions. e) As a result, the linear mental model is only adequate as a basis for the conventional market economy, that underestimates or simply discards the non-mechanical dimensions of human existence. As a consequence, this economy keeps creating scenarios in which the integral human being (that is, the complex human being) is always divided, used and finally excluded. f) Therefore, we are talking about the consequences of an oversimplification of human condition, which pretends that it is possible to resolve systemic problems by means of a linear and unidimensional mental model. g) As a result, increasingly morbid societies have been built, which insist in disrespecting the autopoiesis of their components. We live in communities that describe themselves as always looking for a good quality of life. However, when

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observed with a more rigorous look, what can be seen is that this quality is accessible only to a minority. Furthermore, the costs of this quality are dangerously (and increasingly) high, because it keeps generating a dreadful series of by-products which begin with social exclusion and end in death. References BOHM, David. Thought as a system. London: Routledge, 1994. BOHM, David. On dialogue. London: Routledge, 1998. GUATTARI, Flix. Chaosmose; un nouvel paradigme esthtique. Paris: College International dtudes Transdisciplinaires, 1991. GUATTARI, Flix, ROLNIK, Suely. Cartografias do desejo. Petrpolis: Vozes, 1996. HEIDEGGER, Martin. Being and time. New York: Harper & Row, 1962. MATURANA, Humberto. El sentido de lo humano. Santiago: Dolmen Ediciones, 1993. MATURANA, Humberto. Emoes e linguagem na educao e na poltica. Belo Horizonte: Editora UFMG, 1998. MATURANA, Humberto, VARELA, Francisco J. Autopoiesis and cognition; the organization of the living. Boston: Reidel, 1980. MORIN, Edgar. Introduction la pense complexe. Paris: EST diteurs, 1990. MORIN, Edgar. La complexit humaine. Paris: Flammarion, 1994. ROMERO, Emlio. O inquilino do imaginrio; formas de alienao e psicopatologia. So Paulo: Lemos, 1997. RUIZ, Alfredo. Humberto Maturana e a psicoterapia. Thot (So Paulo) 70: 61-69, 1999. VARELA, Francisco J. Sobre a competncia tica. Lisboa: edies 70, s.d. VARELA, Francisco J., THOMPSON, Evan, ROSCH, Eleanor. The embodied mind; cognitive science and human experience. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 1997. VARELA, Francisco, MATURANA, Humberto, URIBE, R. Autopoiesis: the organization of living systems, its characterization and a model. Biosystems 5:187-196, 1974.

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[12] Aristotles kata to dynaton & dynmei on


Philosophical essays on Marxism and Materialism http://www.wattpad.com/140584?p=10 Aristotle changed the Platonic Eros - the drive in philosophic man - in a cosmopolitical drive towards a lively and inorganic world, into entelechea (derived from en - in; telos (aim); and chein: to have), to that which has its aim in itself. The idea is now contained in the phainmenon, and the dialectical action of permanently taking out forms of matter, and matter out of forms, this huge universal process was exactly reflecting the social move away from the Greek polis towards the Great Hellenic Empire of Alexander the Great. Aristotle was transcending Socrates and Plato, moving from the polis to Great Hellas. In the thing, in Being, is at the same time the telos (aim), which it wants to bring into existence, the entelecheia. Form (morphe) and matter (hle) are central categories for Aristotle; although morph as essence (ousa, to ti en einai), cause (aitia) and aim (telos) of a thing (Greek: chrema or pragma; Latin: res or ens; German: das Ding or die Sache; Spanish: cosa) is different than substance, matter or hle, nevertheless, in the last analysis, by Aristotle, there is no division between form and matter. It is a subject-object relation which cannot be separated, due to its dialectical relation and inter-connection. Form as the active, subjective element, the energeia, is dependent on matter as possibility (dnamis), similarly, matter as the passive, objective element is dependent on the form for its full realisation. Thus Aristotle had interconnected the hle concept of the pre-Socratic" philosophers with the Pythagorean-Platonic idea. Matter Aristotle determined three-fold: Firstly, as Could-Being in matter, in the sense of what is still without concept, is accidental, as to symbebekta (chance, accident). In the sense of Bloch, this is still not yet formed, negative utopia; that which blocks the road, which could end in Nothing. Secondly, matter as Kata to dynatn, according-to-possibility-being. As kata to dynatn, matter puts limits to the development of the entelechea, not enabling all kinds of developments at all possible times. Thirdly, matter as dynmei on, in-possibility-being. It is the still indefinite, undetermined, formless possibilities in the world, having in latency and tendency the dynamics and probabilities to be realised. Prom Plato's Not-Being (to kenn) as matter, his entrance towards the world of ideas, Aristotle made dynmei on, matter as womb, as mater of all forms and things. However, matter in its pure passive form, as potentia, pure theora without the active form of entelechea, energy, praxis, cannot bloom, blossom or be realised. The relation between matter and form, between dnamis and energea, although not explicitly expressed by Aristotle, should be thought as motion, movement. Thus, that matter brings form out of itself does exist in embryonic form in the philosophy of Aristotle. Later Avicenna and Avicebron will state this more clearly. Thus there is an utopian function, a concrete substantial utopian function in matter, a

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yearning to take higher forms, a pregnancy, in which the very forms assist to give birth to becoming-being in future. And also in the concept of matter of Aristotle, we find the dialectical subject-object relation between dnamis and energea, the passive and active elements of existence - in short, a praxis-theora relation in a historical and universal sense. C. History and the Contents of the Concept Matter: From Greek Antiquity to the Renaissance Not Always the Same Wise things may have been thought seven times already, but when they are thought again, at another time, at another place, then they are not the same anymore. Not only the Wise Man has changed in the meantime, but also that which is to be thought about. Searching for the Arch, the Principium Concerning the origin of all existence, the basic principle of Everything, surely thinkers have thought about since two million years, long before the birth of the Seven Wise Men of ancient Greece. At some time or the other every human being asks itself, Who am I?, Where do I come from?, Where do I go?, Who are we?, etc. The answers given to such questions, as far as our records go back historically, and we know almost nothing about philosophic thought of Africa and Latin America before 500 B.C., were primarily of a mystical, mythical, superstitious or magical nature. Ever: the questions were asked in a superstitious or pre-religious fashion.

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[13] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Karl Marx 1852


http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1852/18 th-brumaire/ch01.htm

I Hegel remarks somewhere[*] that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. Caussidire for Danton, Louis Blanc for Robespierre, the Montagne of 1848 to 1851[66] for the Montagne of 1793 to 1795, the nephew for the uncle. And the same caricature occurs in the circumstances of the second edition of the Eighteenth Brumaire. Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service, borrowing from them names, battle slogans, and costumes in order to present this new scene in world history in time-honored disguise and borrowed language. Thus Luther put on the mask of the Apostle Paul, the Revolution of 17891814 draped itself alternately in the guise of the Roman Republic and the Roman Empire, and the Revolution of 1848 knew nothing better to do than to parody, now 1789, now the revolutionary tradition of 1793-95. In like manner, the beginner who has learned a new language always translates it back into his mother tongue, but he assimilates the spirit of the new language and expresses himself freely in it only when he moves in it without recalling the old and when he forgets his native tongue. When we think about this conjuring up of the dead of world history, a salient

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difference reveals itself. Camille Desmoulins, Danton, Robespierre, St. Just, Napoleon, the heroes as well as the parties and the masses of the old French Revolution, performed the task of their time that of unchaining and establishing modern bourgeois society in Roman costumes and with Roman phrases. The first one destroyed the feudal foundation and cut off the feudal heads that had grown on it. The other created inside France the only conditions under which free competition could be developed, parceled-out land properly used, and the unfettered productive power of the nation employed; and beyond the French borders it swept away feudal institutions everywhere, to provide, as far as necessary, bourgeois society in France with an appropriate up-to-date environment on the European continent. Once the new social formation was established, the antediluvian colossi disappeared and with them also the resurrected Romanism the Brutuses, the Gracchi, the publicolas, the tribunes, the senators, and Caesar himself. Bourgeois society in its sober reality bred its own true interpreters and spokesmen in the Says, Cousins, Royer-Collards, Benjamin Constants, and Guizots; its real military leaders sat behind the office desk and the hogheaded Louis XVIII was its political chief. Entirely absorbed in the production of wealth and in peaceful competitive struggle, it no longer remembered that the ghosts of the Roman period had watched over its cradle. But unheroic though bourgeois society is, it nevertheless needed heroism, sacrifice, terror, civil war, and national wars to bring it into being. And in the austere classical traditions of the Roman Republic the bourgeois gladiators found the ideals and the art forms, the self-deceptions, that they needed to conceal from themselves the bourgeois-limited content of their struggles and to keep their passion on the high plane of great historic tragedy. Similarly, at another stage of development a century earlier, Cromwell and the English people had borrowed from the Old Testament the speech, emotions, and illusions for their bourgeois revolution. When the real goal had been achieved and the bourgeois transformation of English society had been accomplished, Locke supplanted Habakkuk. Thus the awakening of the dead in those revolutions served the purpose of glorifying the new struggles, not of parodying the old; of magnifying the given task in the imagination, not recoiling from its solution in reality; of finding once more the spirit of revolution, not making its ghost walk again. From 1848 to 1851, only the ghost of the old revolution circulated - from Marrast, the rpublicain en gants jaunes [Republican in yellow gloves], who disguised himself as old Bailly, down to the adventurer who hides his trivial and repulsive features behind the iron death mask of Napoleon. A whole nation, which thought it had acquired an accelerated power of motion by means of a revolution, suddenly finds itself set back into a defunct epoch, and to remove any doubt about the relapse, the old dates arise again the old chronology, the old names, the old edicts, which had long since become a subject of antiquarian scholarship, and the old minions of the law who had seemed long dead. The nation feels like the mad Englishman in Bedlam [1] who thinks he is living in the time of the old Pharaohs and daily bewails the hard labor he must perform in the Ethiopian gold mines, immured in this subterranean prison, a pale lamp fastened to his head, the overseer of the slaves behind him with a long whip, and at the exits a confused welter of barbarian war slaves who understand neither the forced laborers nor each other, since they speak no common language. And all this, sighs the mad Englishman, is expected of me, a freeborn Briton, in order to make gold for the Pharaohs. In order to pay the debts of the Bonaparte family, sighs the French nation. The Englishman, so long as he was not in his right mind, could not get rid of his

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ide fix of mining gold. The French, so long as they were engaged in revolution, could not get rid of the memory of Napoleon, as the election of December 10 [1848, when Louis Bonaparte was elected President of the French Republic by plebiscite.] was proved. They longed to return from the perils of revolution to the fleshpots of Egypt [2], and December 2, 1851 [The date of the coup dtat by Louis Bonaparte], was the answer. Now they have not only a caricature of the old Napoleon, but the old Napoleon himself, caricatured as he would have to be in the middle of the nineteenth century. The social revolution of the nineteenth century cannot take its poetry from the past but only from the future. It cannot begin with itself before it has stripped away all superstition about the past. The former revolutions required recollections of past world history in order to smother their own content. The revolution of the nineteenth century must let the dead bury their dead in order to arrive at its own content. There the phrase went beyond the content here the content goes beyond the phrase. The February Revolution was a surprise attack, a seizing of the old society unaware, and the people proclaimed this unexpected stroke a deed of world importance, ushering in a new epoch. On December 2 the February Revolution is conjured away as a cardsharps trick, and what seems overthrown is no longer the monarchy but the liberal concessions that had been wrung from it through centuries of struggle. Instead of society having conquered a new content for itself, it seems that the state has only returned to its oldest form, to a shamelessly simple rule by the sword and the monks cowl. This is the answer to the coup de main [unexpected stroke] of February, 1848, given by the coup de tte [rash act] of December, 1851. Easy come, easy go. Meantime, the interval did not pass unused. During 1848-51 French society, by an abbreviated revolutionary method, caught up with the studies and experiences which in a regular, so to speak, textbook course of development would have preceded the February Revolution, if the latter were to be more than a mere ruffling of the surface. Society seems now to have retreated to behind its starting point; in truth, it has first to create for itself the revolutionary point of departure the situation, the relations, the conditions under which alone modern revolution becomes serious.

Bourgeois revolutions, like those of the eighteenth century, storm more swiftly from success to success, their dramatic effects outdo each other, men and things seem set in sparkling diamonds, ecstasy is the order of the day but they are short-lived, soon they have reached their zenith, and a long Katzenjammer [cats winge] takes hold of society before it learns to assimilate the results of its storm-and-stress period soberly. On the other hand, proletarian revolutions, like those of the nineteenth century, constantly criticize themselves, constantly interrupt themselves in their own course,

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return to the apparently accomplished, in order to begin anew; they deride with cruel thoroughness the half-measures, weaknesses, and paltriness of their first attempts, seem to throw down their opponents only so the latter may draw new strength from the earth and rise before them again more gigantic than ever, recoil constantly from the indefinite colossalness of their own goals until a situation is created which makes all turning back impossible, and the conditions themselves call out:

Hic Rhodus, hic salta![Here is the rose, here dance!] [71]

For the rest, every fair observer, even if he had not followed the course of French developments step by step, must have had a presentiment of the imminence of an unheard-of disgrace for the revolution. It was enough to hear the complacent yelps of victory with which the democrats congratulated each other on the expectedly gracious consequences of the second Sunday in May, 1852. [day of elections Louis Bonapartes term was expired] In their minds that second Sunday of May had become a certain idea, a dogma, like the day of Christs reappearance and the beginning of the millennium in the minds of the Chiliasts [4]. As always, weakness had taken refuge in a belief in miracles, believed the enemy to be overcome when he was only conjured away in imagination, and lost all understanding of the present in an inactive glorification of the future that was in store for it and the deeds it had in mind but did not want to carry out yet. Those heroes who seek to disprove their demonstrated incapacity by offering each other their sympathy and getting together in a crowd had tied up their bundles, collected their laurel wreaths in advance, and occupied themselves with discounting on the exchange market the republics in partibus [i.e., in name only] for which they had already providently organized the government personnel with all the calm of their unassuming disposition. December 2 struck them like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, and those who in periods of petty depression gladly let their inner fears be drowned by the loudest renters will perhaps have convinced themselves that the times are past when the cackle of geese could save the Capitol. [5] The constitution, the National Assembly, the dynastic parties, the blue and red republicans, the heroes of Africa, the thunder from the platform, the sheet lightning of the daily press, the entire literature, the political names and the intellectual reputations, the civil law and the penal code, libert, egalit, fraternit, and the second Sunday in May, 1852 all have vanished like a phantasmagoria before the spell of a man whom even his enemies do not make out to be a sorcerer. Universal suffrage seems to have survived only for the moment, so that with its own hand it may make its last will and testament before the eyes of all the world and declare in the name of the people itself: All that exists deserves to perish. [From Goethes Faust, Part One.] It is not enough to say, as the French do, that their nation was taken unawares. Nations and women are not forgiven the unguarded hour in which the first adventurer who came along could violate them. Such turns of speech do not solve the riddle but only formulate it differently. It remains to be explained how a nation of thirty-six millions can be surprised and delivered without resistance into captivity by three knights of industry. Let us recapitulate in general outline the phases that the French Revolution went

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through from February 24, 1848, to December, 1851. Three main periods are unmistakable: the February period; the period of the constitution of the republic or the Constituent National Assembly - May 1848 to May 28 1849; and the period of the constitutional republic or the Legislative National Assembly May 28 1849 to December 2 1851. The first period from February 24, the overthrow of Louis Philippe, to May 4, 1848, the meeting of the Constituent Assembly the February period proper, may be designated as the prologue of the revolution. Its character was officially expressed in the fact that the government it improvised itself declared that it was provisional, and like the government, everything that was mentioned, attempted, or enunciated during this period proclaimed itself to be only provisional. Nobody and nothing ventured to lay any claim to the right of existence and of real action. All the elements that had prepared or determined the revolution the dynastic opposition, the republican bourgeoisie, the democratic-republican petty bourgeoisie, and the social-democratic workers, provisionally found their place in the February government.

It could not be otherwise. The February days originally intended an electoral reform by which the circle of the politically privileged among the possessing class itself was to be widened and the exclusive domination of the aristocracy of finance overthrown. When it came to the actual conflict, however when the people mounted the barricades, the National Guard maintained a passive attitude, the army offered no serious resistance, and the monarchy ran away the republic appeared to be a matter of course. Every party construed it in its own way. Having secured it arms in hand, the proletariat impressed its stamp upon it and proclaimed it to be a social republic. There was thus indicated the general content of the modern revolution, a content which was in most singular contradiction to everything that, with the material available, with the degree of education attained by the masses, under the given circumstances and relations, could be immediately realized in practice. On the other hand, the claims of all the remaining elements that had collaborated in the February Revolution were recognized by the lions share they obtained in the government. In no period, therefore, do we find a more confused mixture of high-flown phrases and actual uncertainty and clumsiness, of more enthusiastic striving for innovation and more deeply rooted domination of the old routine, of more apparent harmony of the whole of society; and more profound estrangement of its elements. While the Paris proletariat still reveled in

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the vision of the wide prospects that had opened before it and indulged in seriously meant discussions of social problems, the old powers of society had grouped themselves, assembled, reflected, and found unexpected support in the mass of the nation, the peasants and petty bourgeois, who all at once stormed onto the political stage after the barriers of the July Monarchy had fallen. The second period, from May 4, 1848, to the end of May, 1849, is the period of the constitution, the foundation, of the bourgeois republic. Immediately after the February days not only had the dynastic opposition been surprised by the republicans and the republicans by the socialists, but all France by Paris. The National Assembly, which met on May 4, 1848, had emerged from the national elections and represented the nation. It was a living protest against the pretensions of the February days and was to reduce the results of the revolution to the bourgeois scale. In vain the Paris proletariat, which immediately grasped the character of this National Assembly, attempted on May 15, a few days after it met, to negate its existence forcibly, to dissolve it, to disintegrate again into its constituent parts the organic form in which the proletariat was threatened by the reacting spirit of the nation. As is known, May 15 had no other result but that of removing Blanqui and his comrades that is, the real leaders of the proletarian party from the public stage for the entire duration of the cycle we are considering. The bourgeois monarchy of Louis Philippe can be followed only by a bourgeois republic; that is to say, whereas a limited section of the bourgeoisie ruled in the name of the king, the whole of the bourgeoisie will now rule in the name of the people. The demands of the Paris proletariat are utopian nonsense, to which an end must be put. To this declaration of the Constituent National Assembly the Paris proletariat replied with the June insurrection, the most colossal event in the history of European civil wars. The bourgeois republic triumphed. On its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the industrial bourgeoisie, the middle class, the petty bourgeois, the army, the lumpen proletariat organized as the Mobile Guard, the intellectual lights, the clergy, and the rural population. On the side of the Paris proletariat stood none but itself. More than three thousand insurgents were butchered after the victory, and fifteen thousand were deported without trial. With this defeat the proletariat passes into the background on the revolutionary stage. It attempts to press forward again on every occasion, as soon as the movement appears to make a fresh start, but with ever decreased expenditure of strength and always slighter results. As soon as one of the social strata above it gets into revolutionary ferment, the proletariat enters into an alliance with it and so shares all the defeats that the different parties suffer, one after another. But these subsequent blows become the weaker, the greater the surface of society over which they are distributed. The more important leaders of the proletariat in the Assembly and in the press successively fall victim to the courts, and ever more equivocal figures come to head it. In part it throws itself into doctrinaire experiments, exchange banks and workers associations, hence into a movement in which it renounces the revolutionizing of the old world by means of the latters own great, combined resources, and seeks, rather, to achieve its salvation behind societys back, in private fashion, within its limited conditions of existence, and hence necessarily suffers shipwreck. It seems to be unable either to rediscover revolutionary greatness in itself or to win new energy from the connections newly entered into, until all classes with which it contended in June themselves lie prostrate beside it. But at least it succumbs with the honors of the great, world-historic struggle; not only France, but all Europe trembles at the June earthquake, while the ensuing defeats of the upper classes are so cheaply bought that they require barefaced exaggeration by the victorious party to be able to pass for events at all, and become the more ignominious the further the

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defeated party is removed from the proletarian party. The defeat of the June insurgents, to be sure, had now prepared, had leveled the ground on which the bourgeois republic could be founded and built, but it had shown at the same time that in Europe the questions at issue are other than that of republic or monarchy. It had revealed that here bourgeois republic signifies the unlimited despotism of one class over other classes. It had proved that in countries with an old civilization, with a developed formation of classes, with modern conditions of production, and with an intellectual consciousness in which all traditional ideas have been dissolved by the work of centuries, the republic signifies in general only the political form of revolution of bourgeois society and not its conservative form of life as, for example, in the United States of North America, where, though classes already exist, they have not yet become fixed, but continually change and interchange their elements in constant flux, where the modern means of production, instead of coinciding with a stagnant surplus population, rather compensate for the relative deficiency of heads and hands, and where, finally, the feverish, youthful movement of material production, which has to make a new world of its own, has neither time nor opportunity left for abolishing the old world of ghosts.

During the June days all classes and parties had united in the party of Order against the proletarian class as the party of anarchy, of socialism, of communism. They had saved society from the enemies of society. They had given out the watchwords of the old society, property, family, religion, order, to their army as passwords and had proclaimed to the counterrevolutionary crusaders: In this sign thou shalt conquer! From that moment, as soon as one of the numerous parties which gathered under this sign against the June insurgents seeks to hold the revolutionary battlefield in its own class interest, it goes down before the cry: property, family, religion, order. Society is saved just as often as the circle of its rulers contracts, as a more exclusive interest is maintained against a wider one. Every demand of the simplest bourgeois financial reform, of the most ordinary liberalism, of the most formal republicanism, of the most shallow democracy, is simultaneously castigated as an attempt on society and stigmatized as socialism. And finally the high priests of religion and order themselves are driven with kicks from their Pythian tripods, hauled out of their beds in the darkness of night, put in prison vans, thrown into dungeons or sent into exile; their temple is razed to the ground, their mouths are sealed, their pens broken, their law torn to pieces in the name of religion, of property, of the family, of

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order. Bourgeois fanatics for order are shot down on their balconies by mobs of drunken soldiers, their domestic sanctuaries profaned, their houses bombarded for amusement in the name of property, of the family, of religion, and of order. Finally, the scum of bourgeois society forms the holy phalanx of order and the hero Crapulinski [a character from Heines poem The Two Knights, a dissolute aristocrat.] installs himself in the Tuileries as the savior of society.

Footnotes 1. Bedlam was an infamous lunatic asylum in England. 2. The expression, "to sigh for the flesh-pots of Egypt" is taken from the biblical legend, according to which during the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt the faint-hearted among them wished that they had died when they sat by the flesh-pots of Egypt, rather than undergo their present trials through the desert. 3.Hic Rhodus, hic salta. See [MIA Encyclopedia] for clarification. 4. Chiliasts (from the Greek word chilias a thousand): preachers of a mystical religious doctrine concerning the second coming of Christ and the establishment of the millennium when justice, universal equality and prosperity would be triumphant. 5. Capitol: A hill in Rome, a fortified citadel where the temples of Jupiter, Juno and other gods were built. According to a legend, Rome was saved in 390 B.C.E. from an invasion of the Gauls, due to the cackling of geese from Junos temple which awakened the sleeping guards of the Capitol.

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[14] Opium Wars


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_Wars#See_also

The Opium Wars, also known as the Anglo-Chinese Wars, divided into the First Opium War from 1839 to 1842 and the Second Opium War from 1856 to 1860, were the climax of disputes over trade and diplomatic relations between China under the Qing Dynasty and the British Empire. After the inauguration of the Canton System in 1756, which restricted trade to one port and did not allow foreign entrance to China, the British East India Company faced a trade imbalance in favor of China and invested heavily in opium production to redress the balance. British and United States merchants brought opium from the British East India Company's factories in Patna and Benares,[1] in the Indian state of Bengal, to the coast of China, where they sold it to Chinese smugglers who distributed the drug in defiance of Chinese laws. Aware both of the drain of silver and the growing numbers of addicts, the Dao Guang Emperor demanded action. Officials at the court who advocated legalization of the trade in order to tax it were defeated by those who advocated suppression. In 1838, the Emperor sent Lin Zexu to Guangzhou where he quickly arrested Chinese opium dealers and summarily demanded that foreign firms turn over their stocks. When they refused, Lin stopped trade altogether and placed the foreign residents under virtual siege, eventually forcing the merchants to surrender their opium to be destroyed. In response, the British government sent expeditionary forces from India which ravaged the Chinese coast and dictated the terms of settlement. The Treaty of Nanking not only opened the way for further opium trade, but ceded territory including Hong Kong, unilaterally fixed Chinese tariffs at a low rate, granted extraterritorial rights to foreigners in China which were not offered to Chinese abroad, a most favored nation clause, as well as diplomatic representation. When the court still refused to accept foreign ambassadors and obstructed the trade clauses of the treaties, disputes over the treatment of British merchants in Chinese ports and on the seas led to the Second Opium War and the Treaty of Tientsin.[2] These treaties, soon followed by similar arrangements with the United States and France, later became known as the Unequal Treaties and the Opium Wars as the start of China's "Century of humiliation."

Contents 1 Background 1.1 European trade with Asia 1.2 Qing attitudes toward trade 1.3 British trade and the Canton System 2 Growth of opium trade 3 Napier Affair and First Opium War (18391842)

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4 Second Opium War (18561860) 5 Lin Zexu and the war on opium 6 References 7 Further reading

1 Background
1-1 European trade with Asia Direct maritime trade between Europe and China began with the Portuguese in the 16th century, who leased an outpost at Macau starting from 1557; other European nations soon followed. European traders, such as the Portuguese, inserted themselves into the existing Asian maritime trade network, competing with Arab, Chinese, and Japanese traders in intra-regional trade.[3] Mercantilist governments in Europe objected to the perpetual drain of silver to pay for Asian commodities, and so European traders often sought to generate profits from intra-regional Asian trade to pay for their purchases to be sent back home.[3] After the Spanish acquisition of the Philippines, the exchange of goods between China and western Europe accelerated dramatically. From 1565, the annual Manila Galleon brought in enormous amounts of silver to the Asian trade network, and in particular China, from Spanish silver mines in South America. As demand increased in Europe, the profits European traders generated within the Asian trade network, that were used to purchase Asian goods, were gradually replaced by the direct export of bullion from Europe in exchange for the produce of Asia.[3] The Spanish Empire began to sell opium, along with New World products such as tobacco and maize, to the Chinese in order to prevent the trade deficit which was costing it so much silver.[citation needed]

Combat at Guangzhou (Canton) during the Second Opium War

1-2 Qing attitudes toward trade The Qing, and its predecessor the Ming, shared an ambivalent attitude towards overseas trade, and maritime activity in general. From 1661 to 1669, in an effort to cut off Ming loyalists, the Qing issued an edict to evacuate all populations living near the coast of Southern China. Though it was later repealed, the edict seriously disrupted

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coastal areas and drove many Chinese overseas.[4] Qing attitudes were also further aggravated by traditional Confucian disdain (even hostility) towards merchants and traders. Qing officials believed that trade incited unrest and disorder, promoted piracy, and threatened to compromise information on China's defences.[5] The Qing instituted a set of rigid and incomplete regulations regarding trade at Chinese ports; setting up four maritime customs offices (in Guangdong, Fujian, Zhejiang, and Jiangsu) and a sweeping 20 percent tariff on all foreign goods. These policies only succeeded in establishing a system of kickbacks and purchased monopolies that enriched the officials who administered coastal regions.[5] Although foreign merchants and traders dealt with low level Qing bureaucrats and agents at specified ports and entry points, official contact between China and foreign governments was organized around the tributary system. The tributary system affirmed the Emperor as the son of Heaven with a mandate to rule on Earth; as such, foreign rulers were required to present tribute and acknowledge the superiority of the imperial court.[6] In return, the Emperor bestowed gifts and titles upon foreign emissaries and allowed them to trade for short periods of time during their stay within China. Foreign rulers agreed to these terms for several reasons, namely that the gifts given by the Emperor were of greater value than the tribute received (as a demonstration of imperial munificence) and that the trade to be conducted while in China was extremely lucrative and exempt from customs duties.[7] The political realities of the system varied from century to century, but by the Qing period, with European traders pushing to gain more access to China, Qing authorities denied requests for trade privileges from European embassies and assigned them "tributary" status with missions limited at the will of the imperial court. This arrangement became increasingly unacceptable to European nations, in particular the British.[8] 1-3 British trade and the Canton System British ships began to appear infrequently around the coasts of China from 1635; without establishing formal relations through the tributary system, British merchants were allowed to trade at the ports of Zhoushan and Xiamen in addition to Guangzhou (Canton).[8] Trade further benefited after the Qing relaxed maritime trade restrictions in the 1680s, after Taiwan came under Qing control in 1683, and even rhetoric regarding the "tributary status" of Europeans was muted.[8] Guangzhou (Canton) was the port of preference for most foreign trade, ships did try to call at other ports but they did not match the benefits of Guangzhou's geographic position at the mouth of the Pearl river trade network and Guangzhou's long experience in balancing the demands of Beijing with those of Chinese and foreign merchants.[9] From 1700-1842, Guangzhou came to dominate maritime trade with China, this period became known as the "Canton System".[9] Official British trade was conducted through the auspices of the British East India Company, which held a royal charter for trade with the Far East. The EIC gradually came to dominate Sino-European trade from its position in India.[10] Low Chinese demand for European goods, and high European demand for Chinese goods, including tea, silk, and porcelain, forced European merchants to purchase these goods with silver, the only commodity the Chinese would accept. In modern economic terms the Chinese were demanding hard currency or specie (gold or silver coinage) as the medium of exchange for the international trade in their goods. From the mid-17th century around 28 million kilograms of silver was received by China, principally from European powers, in exchange for Chinese goods.[11] Britain's

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problem was further complicated by the fact that it had been using the gold standard from the mid-18th century and therefore had to purchase silver from other European countries, incurring an additional transaction cost.[12] In the 18th century, despite ardent protest from the Qing government, British traders began importing opium from India. Because of its strong mass appeal and addictive nature, opium was an effective solution to the British trade problem. An instant consumer market for the drug was secured by the addiction of thousands of Chinese, and the flow of silver was reversed. Recognizing the growing number of addicts, the Yongzheng Emperor prohibited the sale and smoking of opium in 1729, and only allowed a small amount of opium imports for medicinal purposes.[13]

Lin Zexu's "memorial" () written directly to Queen Victoria

2- Growth of opium trade Following the Battle of Plassey in 1757, in which Britain annexed Bengal to its empire, the British East India Company pursued a monopoly on production and export of Indian opium. Monopoly began in earnest in 1773, as the British Governor-General of Bengal abolished the opium syndicate at Patna. For the next fifty years opium trade would be the key to the East India Company's hold on the subcontinent. Considering that importation of opium into China had been virtually banned by Chinese law, the East India Company established an elaborate trading scheme partially relying on legal markets, and partially leveraging illicit ones. British merchants carrying no opium would buy tea in Canton on credit, and would balance their debts by selling opium at auction in Calcutta. From there, the opium would reach the Chinese coast hidden aboard British ships then smuggled into China by native merchants. In 1797 the company further tightened its grip on the opium trade by enforcing direct trade between opium farmers and the British, and ending the role of

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British exports of opium to China grew from an estimated 15 tons in 1730 to 75 tons in 1773. The product was shipped in over two thousand chests, each containing 140 pounds (64 kg) of opium.[14] Meanwhile, negotiations with the Qianlong Emperor to ease the trading ban carried on, coming to a head in 1793 under Earl George Macartney. Such discussions were unsuccessful.[15] In 1799, the Qing Empire reinstated their ban on opium imports. The Empire issued the following decree in 1810: Opium has a harm. Opium is a poison, undermining our good customs and morality. Its use is prohibited by law. Now the commoner, Yang, dares to bring it into the Forbidden City. Indeed, he flouts the law! However, recently the purchasers, eaters, and consumers of opium have become numerous. Deceitful merchants buy and sell it to gain profit. The customs house at the Ch'ung-wen Gate was originally set up to supervise the collection of imports (it had no responsibility with regard to opium smuggling). If we confine our search for opium to the seaports, we fear the search will not be sufficiently thorough. We should also order the general commandant of the police and police- censors at the five gates to prohibit opium and to search for it at all gates. If they capture any violators, they should immediately punish them and should destroy the opium at once. As to Kwangtung and Fukien, the provinces from which opium comes, we order their viceroys, governors, and superintendents of the maritime customs to conduct a thorough search for opium, and cut off its supply. They should in no ways consider this order a dead letter and allow opium to be smuggled out![16] The decree had little effect. The Qing government, seated in Beijing in the north of China, was unable to halt opium smuggling in the southern provinces. A porous Chinese border and rampant local demand only encouraged the all-too eager East India Company, which had its monopoly on opium trade recognised by the British government, which itself wanted silver. By the 1820s China was importing 900 tons of Bengali opium annually.[17]

3- Napier Affair and First Opium War (18391842) Main article: First Opium War In 1834 to accommodate the revocation of the East India Company's monopoly, the British sent Lord William John Napier to Macau. He tried to circumvent the restrictive Canton Trade laws which forbade direct contact with Chinese officials by attempting to send a letter directly to the Viceroy of Canton. The Viceroy refused to accept it, and closed trade starting on 2 September of that year. Lord Napier had to return to Macau (where he died a few days later) and, unable to force the matter, the British agreed to resume trade under the old restrictions. Within the Chinese mandarinate there was an ongoing debate over legalising the opium trade itself. However, this idea was repeatedly rejected and instead, in 1838 the government sentenced native drug traffickers to death. Around this time, the British were selling roughly 1,400 tons per year to China. In March 1839, the Emperor appointed a new strict Confucianist commissioner, Lin Zexu, to control the opium trade at the port of Canton.[18] His first course of action was to enforce the imperial demand that there be a permanent halt to drug shipments into China. When the British refused

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to end the trade, Lin blockaded the British traders in their factories and cut off supplies of food.[19] On 27 March 1839 Charles Elliot, British Superintendent of Trade- who had been locked in the factories when he arrived at Canton- finally agreed that all British subjects should turn over their opium to him, amounting to nearly a year's supply of the drug, to be confiscated by Commissioner Lin Zexu. In a departure from his brief, he promised that the crown would compensate them for the lost opium. While this amounted to a tacit acknowledgment that the British government did not disapprove of the trade, it also forced a huge liability on the exchequer. Unable to allocate funds for an illegal drug but pressed for compensation by the merchants, this liability is cited as one reason for the decision to force a war.[20] As well as seizing supplies in the factories, Chinese troops boarded British ships in international waters outside Chinese jurisdiction, where their cargo was still legal, and destroyed the opium aboard. After the opium was surrendered, trade was restarted on the strict condition that no more drugs would be smuggled into China. Lin demanded that British merchants sign a bond promising not to deal in opium, under penalty of death.[21] The British officially opposed signing of the bond, but some British merchants that did not deal in opium were willing to sign. Lin had the opium disposed of by dissolving it in water, salt, and lime, and dumping it into the ocean.

The Illustrated London News print of the clipper steamship Ly-ee-moon, built for the opium trade, c. 1859

In 1839, Lin took the step of publishing a letter addressed to Queen Victoria questioning the moral reasoning of the British government (it is not known that she ever received it). Citing what he understood to be a strict prohibition of the trade within Great Britain, Lin questioned how it could then profit from the drug in China. He wrote: "Your Majesty has not before been thus officially notified, and you may plead ignorance of the severity of our laws, but I now give my assurance that we mean to cut this harmful drug forever."[22] In fact, opium was not illegal in England at the time, however, and comparably smaller quantities were imported. The British government and merchants offered no response to Lin, accusing him instead of destroying their property. When the British learned of what was taking place in Canton, as communications between these two parts of the world took months at this time, they sent a large British Indian army, which arrived in June 1840.[23] British military superiority drew on newly applied technology. British warships wreaked havoc on coastal towns; the steam ship Nemesis was able to move against the winds and tides and support a gun platform with very heavy guns. In addition, the British troops were the first to be armed with modern muskets and cannons which fired more rapidly and with greater accuracy than the Qing firearms and artillery, though Chinese cannons had been in use since previous dynasties. After the British took Canton, they sailed up the Yangtze and took the tax barges, a devastating blow to the Empire as it

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slashed the revenue of the imperial court in Beijing to just a small fraction of what it had been. In 1842, the Qing authorities sued for peace, which concluded with the Treaty of Nanking negotiated in August of that year and ratified in 1843. In the treaty, China was forced to pay an indemnity to Britain, open four ports to Britain, and cede Hong Kong to Queen Victoria. In the supplementary Treaty of the Bogue, the Qing empire also recognised Britain as an equal to China and gave British subjects extraterritorial privileges in treaty ports. In 1844, the United States and France concluded similar treaties with China, the Treaty of Wanghia and Treaty of Whampoa respectively. The First Opium War was attacked in the House of Commons by a newly elected young member of Parliament, William Ewart Gladstone, who wondered if there had ever been "a war more unjust in its origin, a war more calculated to cover this country with permanent disgrace, I do not know."[24] The Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, replied by saying that nobody could "say that he honestly believed the motive of the Chinese Government to have been the promotion of moral habits" and that the war was being fought to stem China's balance of payments deficit. John Quincy Adams commented that opium was "a mere incident to the dispute... the cause of the war is the kowtow- the arrogant and insupportable pretensions of China that she will hold commercial intercourse with the rest of mankind not upon terms of equal reciprocity, but upon the insulting and degrading forms of the relations between lord and vassal."[25] 4- Second Opium War (18561860) The neutrality of this section is disputed. Please see the discussion on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute is resolved. (January 2011) This section is missing citations or needs footnotes. Please help add inline citations to guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. (January 2011) Main article: Second Opium War The Chinese authorities had been reluctant to keep to the terms of the 1842 Treaty of Nanking. They had tried to keep out as many foreign merchants as possible and had victimized Chinese merchants who traded with the British at the treaty ports. To protect those Chinese merchants who were friendly to them at Hong Kong, the British granted their ships British registration in the hope that the Chinese authorities would not interfere with vessels which carried the British flag. In October 1856 the Chinese authorities in Canton seized a vessel called the "Arrow" which had been engaged in piracy. The "Arrow" had formerly been registered as a British ship and was still flying the British flag. The British consul in Canton demanded the immediate release of the crew and an apology for the insult to the British flag. The crew were released, but an apology was not given. In reprisal, the British governor in Hong Kong ordered warships to bombard Canton. Clearly the Chinese had a good case: the "Arrow" was a pirate ship which had no right to fly the British flag as its British registration had expired. The bombardment of Canton was a breach of international law. The governor of Hong Kong had acted

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rashly without consulting London. However, the British Prime Minister, Palmerston, supported the actions of his officials who claimed to be upholding British prestige and avenging the insult to the flag. Moreover, Palmerston was keen to force the Chinese into accepting full-scale trade with Britain, whether they wanted to or not. The Chinese issue figured prominently in the British general election of March 1857 which Palmerston won with an increased majority. He now felt able to press British claims more vigorously. The French were also eager to be involved after their envoy, Baron Jean-Baptiste Louis Gros, seemingly had his demands ignored (French complaints involved a murdered missionary and French rights in Canton).[26] A strong Anglo-French force under Admiral Sir Michael Seymour occupied Canton (December 1857), then cruised north to capture briefly the Taku forts near Tientsin (May 1858). Negotiations between China, Britain, France, the USA and Russia led to the Tientsin Treaties of June 2629, 1858, which theoretically brought peace. China agreed to open more treaty ports, to legalize opium importation, to establish a maritime customs service with foreign inspection and to allow foreign legations at Peking and missionaries in the interior. China soon abrogated the Anglo-French treaties and refused to allow foreign diplomats into Peking. On June 25, 1859 British Admiral Sir James Hope bombarded the forts guarding the mouth of the Hai River, below Tientsin. However, landing parties were repulsed and the British squadron was severely damaged by a surprisingly efficient Chinese garrison. Commodore Josiah Tattnall commanding the US Asiatic Squadron declared "blood is thicker than water" and helped the British save face by assisting them in their withdrawal. Anglo-French forces gathered at Hong Kong in May 1860. A joint amphibious expedition moved north to the Gulf of Po Hai. It consisted of 11,000 British under General Sir James Hope Grant and 7,000 French under Lieutenant General CousinMontauban. Unopposed landings were made at Pei-Tang (August 1, 1860). The Taku forts were taken by assault with the assistance of the naval forces (August 21). The expedition then advanced up-river from Tientsin. As it approached Peking, the Chinese asked for talks and an armistice. An allied delegation under Sir Harry Smith Parkes was sent to parley, but they were seized and imprisoned (September 18). It was later learned that half of them died under torture. The expedition pressed ahead, defeating some 30,000 Chinese in two engagements before reaching the walls of Peking on September 26. Preparations for an assault commenced and the Old Summer Palace (Yuan Ming Yuan) was occupied and looted. Another Chinese request for peace was accepted and China agreed to all demands. The survivors of the Parkes delegation were returned (General Grant burned and destroyed the Old Summer Palace in reprisal for the mistreatment of the Parkes party, October 24). Ten new treaty ports, including Tientsin, were opened to trade with the western powers, foreign diplomats were to be allowed at Peking and the opium trade was to be regulated by the Chinese authorities. Kowloon, on the mainland opposite Hong Kong Island, was surrendered to the British. Permission was granted for foreigners (including Protestant and Catholic missionaries) to travel throughout the country. An indemnity of three million ounces of silver was paid to Great Britain and two million to France. The Anglo-French victory was heralded in the British press as a triumph for

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Palmerston and his popularity rose to new heights. British merchants were delighted at the prospects of the expansion of trade in the Far East. Other foreign powers were pleased with the outcome too, since they hoped to take advantage of the opening-up of China. Russia soon extorted the Maritime Provinces from China and founded the port of Vladivostok (186061).

Lin supervising the destruction of opium

5- Lin Zexu and the war on opium Main article: Lin Zexu Lin Zexu, Governor-General of Hunan and Hubei, recognising the consequences of opium abuse, embarked on an anti-opium campaign in which 1,700 opium dealers were arrested and 2.6 million pounds of opium confiscated and destroyed.[27] Lin Zexu's policy against the drug ultimately failed. He was made a scapegoat by the emperor, under heavy pressure from the Western powers, for having provoked British military retaliation in the First Opium War.[28] Lin Zexu is now viewed as a hero of 19th century China who stood against European imperialism and his likeness has been immortalised at various locations around the world.[29][30][31][32] 6- References ^ 1 Keswick; Weatherall, Clara (2008). The thistle and the jade:a celebration of 175 years of Jardine Matheson. Francis Lincoln Publishing. ISBN 9780711228306. p.78 Online version at Google books ^ 2 Patricia Buckley Ebrey, Anne Walthill James B. Palais., East Asia (Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), pp.378-82. ^ 3 a b c Gray, Jack (2002). Rebellions and Revolutions: China from the 1800s to 2000. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 2223. ISBN 978-0-19-8700692. ^ 4 Hayes, James (1974). "The Hong Kong Region: Its Place in Traditional Chinese Historiography and Principal Events Since the Establishment of Hsin-an County in 1573". Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (Hong Kong) 14: 108 135. ^ 5 a b Spence, Jonathan D. (1999). The Search for Modern China (2 ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 5758. ISBN 0-393-37651-4. ^ 6 Fairbank, John K. (1953). Trade and diplomacy on the China coast: the opening

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of the treaty ports, 1842-1854. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Press. pp. 2729. ISBN 978-0804706483. ^ 7 Fairbank 1953, p.32 ^ 8 a b c Spence 1999, p.120 ^ 9 a b Van Dyke, Paul A. (2005). The Canton trade: life and enterprise on the China coast, 1700-1845. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. pp. 69. ISBN 962-2097499. ^ 10 Bernstein, William J. (2008). A splendid exchange: how trade shaped the world. New York: Atlantic Monthly Press. pp. 286. ISBN 978-0-87113-979-5. ^ 11 Early American Trade, BBC ^ 12 Liu, Henry C. K. (4 September 2008). Developing China with sovereign credit. Asia Times Online. ^ 13 Chisholm, Hugh (1911). The Encyclopdia Britannica: A Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, Literature and General Information. pp. 130. ^ 14 Salucci, Lapo (2007). Depths of Debt: Debt, Trade and Choices. University of Colorado. ^ 15 Hanes, William Travis; Sanello, Frank (2004). The Opium Wars: The Addiction of One Empire and the Corruption of Another. Sourcebooks, Inc. p. 8. ISBN 978-1-4022-0149-3. ^ 16 Fu, Lo-shu (1966). A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western relations, Volume 1. pp. 380. ^ 17 Bertelsen, Cynthia (19 October 2008). "A novel of the British opium trade in China." Roanoke Times & World News. ^ 18 1England and China: The Opium Wars, 1839-60 ^ 19 Palmerston: The People's Darling, by James Chambers, John Murray, London, 2004 ^ 20 Foreign Mud: The opium imbroglio at Canton in the 1830s and the AngloChinese War, by Maurice Collis, W. W. Norton, New York, 1946 ^ 21 Coleman, Anthony (1999). Millennium. Transworld Publishers. pp. 243244. ISBN 0-593-04478-9. ^ 22 Commissioner Lin: Letter to Queen Victoria, 1839. Modern History Sourcebook. ^ 23 Spence, Jonathan D.. The Search for Modern China 2nd ed.. pp. 153155. ^ 24 Vallely, Paul (25 April 2006). 1841: A window on Victorian Britain. The Independent. ^ 25 'China as Victim: The Opium War that wasn't', H.G. Gelber, Centre for European Studies Working Paper 136 ^ 26 David, Saul. Victoria's Wars. 2007 Penguin Books. p.360,361 ^ 27 Ebrey, Patricia Buckley; Walthall, Anne; Palais, James (2008). East Asia: A

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Cultural, Social, and Political History. Cengage Learning. p. 307. ^ 28 Choy, Lee Khoon (2007). Pioneers of Modern China. East Asian Studies. ^ 29 Monument to the People's Heroes, Beijing. Lonely Planet Travel Guide. ^ 30 Statues of Real People in Manhattan. Forgotten NY. ^ 31 Lin Zexu Memorial. Chinaculture.org. ^ 32 Lin Zexu Memorial Museum. Ola Macau Travel Guide. 7- Further reading Peter Ward Fay, The Opium War, 1840-1842: Barbarians in the Celestial Empire in the early part of the nineteenth century and the way by which they forced the gates ajar (Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press, 1975). John King Fairbank, Trade and Diplomacy on the China Coast; the Opening of the Treaty Ports, 1842-1854 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1953; rpr. Stanford University Press, pb. 1964). James M. Polachek, The Inner Opium War (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Council on East Asian Studies, Harvard University, 1992.) Arthur Waley, The Opium War Through Chinese Eyes (London: Allen & Unwin, 1958; reprinted Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 1968).

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[15] Lubyanka Building


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lubyanka_%28KGB%29 This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2007)

Original building of headquarter of the All-Russia Insurance Company, before 1917

The Lubyanka (Cyrillic: ) is the popular name for the headquarters of the KGB and affiliated prison on Lubyanka Square in Moscow. It is a large building with a facade of yellow brick, designed by Alexander V. Ivanov in 1897 and augmented by Aleksey Shchusev in 1940-1947. The Lubyanka was originally built in 1898 as the Neo-Baroque headquarters of the All-Russia Insurance Company, noted for its beautiful parquet floors and pale green walls. Belying its massiveness, the edifice avoids an impression of heroic scale: isolated Palladian and Baroque details, such as the minute pediments over the corner bays and the central loggia, are lost in an endlessly-repeating classicizing palace facade, where three bands of cornices emphasize the horizontal lines. A clock is centered in the uppermost band of the facade. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, the structure was seized by the government for the headquarters of the secret police, then called the Cheka. In Soviet Russian jokes it was referred to as the tallest building in Moscow, since Siberia could be seen from its basement. Another joke referred to the building as "Adult's World" as compared to "Children's World," the name of the popular toy store across the street. During the Great Purge, the offices became increasingly cramped due to staff numbers. In 1940 Aleksey Shchusev was commissioned to double its size by adding another story and engulfing backstreet buildings. Shchusev's design accentuated NeoRenaissance detailing, but only the left part of the facade was reconstructed under his direction in the 1940s, due to the war and other hindrances. This asymmetric facade

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survived intact until 1983, when the symmetry was restored at the urging of Communist Party General Secretary and former KGB Director Yuri Andropov in accordance with Shchusev's plans. Although the Soviet secret police changed its name many times, its headquarters remained in this building. Secret police chiefs from Lavrenty Beria to Yuri Andropov used the same office on the third floor, which looked down on the statue of Cheka founder Felix Dzerzhinsky. A prison at the ground floor of the building figures prominently in Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's classic study of the Soviet police state, The Gulag Archipelago. Famous inmates held, tortured and interrogated there include Sidney Reilly, Raoul Wallenberg, Jnos Esterhzy and Walter Ciszek. After the dissolution of the KGB, the Lubyanka became the headquarters of the Border Guard Service of Russia, and houses the Lubyanka prison and one directorate of the Federal Security Service of the Russian Federation (FSB). In addition a museum of the KGB (now called - , Historical-demonstration hall of the Russian FSB) was opened to the public. In 1990, the Solovetsky Stone was erected across from the Lubyanka to commemorate the victims of political repression.

Lubyanka during renovation in 1983, with the left half still lower.

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[16] The revolutionary Rosa Luxemburg


Sheila Rowbotham The Guardian, Saturday 5 March 2011 Article history http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/mar/05/rosaluxemburg-writer-activist-letters

The writer and activist Rosa Luxemburg spent years in prison because of her opposition to the first world war, and was an outspoken critic of Marxism. Sheila Rowbotham finds the woman behind the mystique *** George Shriver's new translation of The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg is the most comprehensive collection of her correspondence yet to appear in English. It transports us directly into the private world of a woman who has never lost her inspirational power as an original thinker and courageous activist in first the Marxist Social Democratic party, and then the German revolutionary group, the Spartacist League. She suffered for her convictions; jail sentences in 1904 and 1906 were followed by three and a half years in prison for opposing the first world war. Her brutal death at the hands of the militaristic Volunteer Corps during the 1919 workers uprising in Berlin has contributed to her mystique: she is revered as the revolutionary who never compromised. This collection of her letters reveals that the woman behind the mythic figure was also a compassionate, teasing, witty human being. Annelies Laschitza, one of the volume's editors, observes in her introduction that the revelation in 1956 of Stalin's purges, along with new waves of activism during the 60s and 70s, reawakened interest in Luxemburg. My generation of left-libertarians did indeed hail Luxemburg's defiance of Lenin's "night-watchman spirit". Against his emphasis on the centralised party, many of us were drawn to Luxemburg's conviction that workers' action brought new social and political understandings.

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Luxemburg's criticism of Marxism as dogma and her stress on consciousness exerted an influence on the women's liberation movement which emerged in the late 60s and early 70s. When I was writing Woman's Consciousness, Man's World during 1971, I drew on her analysis in The Accumulation of Capital (1913) of capital's greedy quest for non-capitalist markets, adapting it as a metaphor for the commodification of sexual relations and the body. The awkward truth, however, was that Luxemburg herself had never identified with the feminist movement of her day. Moreover, she maintained a semi-detached relationship with the socialist women whom her friend Clara Zetkin organised in the Marxist Social Democratic party in Germany. Though she would be profoundly moved when they came to meet her from prison in 1916, and when they filled her flat with precious luxuries such as tea bags, cocoa, flowers and fruitcake, Luxemburg always carefully avoided being categorised as a "woman". Her resistance was partly strategic; she was determined not to be sidelined within the party. But it was also bound up with her theoretical conviction that class struggle was the key to change, along with a strong aversion to being regarded as a victim. This recoil was rooted in her own experience. Luxemburg was born into a Jewish family in Poland in 1871; her father was a timber merchant, her mother was descended from a distinguished line of rabbis and scholars. While the Luksenburgs observed Jewish holidays, they sought assimilation; difference was to be denied. Nevertheless antisemitism, endemic in daily life, was sometimes unleashed in terrifying pogroms. As a schoolgirl, the young Rosa could sense her apartness from her classmates, not only because she was a Jew, but because a childhood illness had left her lame. She dressed carefully to conceal her limp and focused intently on books and ideas. An early inspiration was the 19th-century Romantic writer Adam Mickiewicz, who challenged the oppression of the Polish people and made common cause with Russians defying the tsar. During the 1880s, when Luxemburg was entering adolescence, Polish and Russian women were being imprisoned and executed for their part in the revolutionary underground. Some of these formidable, emancipated women had studied in Zurich. So she was following in illustrious footsteps when she went there in 1889 to begin a zoology degree. Already involved in socialist politics, she was attracted by a handsome, red-headed Lithuanian Leo Jogiches. He was a man of action, accustomed to underground secrecy and interested in exercising power. Luxemburg's letters to him reveal a young woman who is intellectually questing and emotionally demonstrative. Steeped in the history of the French revolution, she was intrigued by the polarities personified by Robespierre the ascetic and Danton the sybarite. In her letters to Jogiches she encompasses both extremes. She is at once passionate, sensuous, politically dutiful, bantering and acutely perceptive. She showers him with endearments: he is her "golden one", her "precious". But she chafes against his withholding of emotion, fears the waning of his desire. Luxemburg knew she bewildered him with her contrary impulses for autonomy and commitment, telling him in July 1897 that she felt "as touchy and skittish as a hare". When his response was to detach himself, she announced he was making her heart shrink. When he left, she cried.

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Their political connection proved to be historically fateful. Jogiches operated easily within the Polish Marxist movement, but recognised that any influence he might have within the upper echelons of the German Social Democrats depended on the brilliant and personable Luxemburg. Braving Berlin in 1898, Luxemburg duly sent Jogiches informative reports on her political contacts with the leading left theorist Karl Kautsky and her agitation among Polish-speaking miners who were on strike in Upper Silesia. At times she would rail against her tyrannical, patronising mentor, but she also depended on him. She fought him mischievously by writing cameos of the appreciative gallantry she evoked in the men she met in Berlin. And then, on 6 March 1899, she wrote to imagine them living together and buying a bookcase with a glass front. She was 29 and wondering whether she would ever have a child. In letter after letter she struggled to balance engagement in external action with inward reflection. Luxemburg did not defy the conventions of gender openly, she simply circumnavigated them when it suited her to do so. Her relationship with Jogiches remained ostensibly secret; he was regarded politely by the Social Democrats as her "friend". It was a startling development when, in 1907, she fell in love with Zetkin's son Kostia. Luxemburg had known him since his teens and his mother had sent him to be her lodger. He was in his early 20s when they became lovers. "The sight of you gives me such aesthetic pleasure," she wrote in September 1908, reassuring him that for her the physical and the spiritual were intertwined.

Luxemburg's role as an international revolutionary figure took her to places from which women of her class were usually barred. Sitting alone in the Three Nuns in Whitechapel at the start of the Russian Social Democratic Labour party congress in May 1907, she snatches a moment to write to Zetkin. She relates how two women opposite her are joined by a constant stream of men. Noting that the men fail to remove their hats, she concludes they are up to no good. She hears raucous applause from an adjoining room And then she declares: "Some gypsy blood has been awakened" and she feels "an indistinct . . . desire to plunge into this whirlpool". Yet Luxemburg was emphatically not a "new woman". When the Dutch socialist Henriette Roland Holst fell off her bicycle in 1904, Luxemburg wrote from prison to commiserate, joking about her own old-fashioned abhorrence of women on bikes. In June 1917 Luxemburg, stoical in the face of extreme deprivation, told her longstanding admirer, Hans Diefenbach, of her "helplessness in 'earthly matters'". When it came to train tickets, time tables and luggage, she was delighted to dump autonomy. Humour bubbles up in the letters. Imprisoned in Wronke in January 1917, she reminds Luise Kautsky of the good times they had had "chitchatting and laughing" together. One night, coming from the home of the Social Democratic leader, August Bebel, they had walked through the streets in the night, singing away. She might have lambasted Luise's husband Karl, but this did not stop her maintaining a close, subversive friendship with his wife. She had a sharp eye for incongruity. Announcing to Zetkin on 2 April 1911 that Lenin had visited for the fourth time, she declared: "I enjoy talking with him, he's clever and well educated, and has such an ugly mug, the kind I like to look at." Lenin, the consummate politician, paid court to Luxemburg's beloved cat, Mimi, declaring that

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"only in Siberia had he seen such a magnificent creature, that she was a barskii kot a majestic cat". Mimi had "rolled on her back and behaved enticingly towards him, but when he tried to approach her she whacked him with a paw and snarled like a tiger". Luxemburg's endless curiosity makes for graphic letter writing. Writing to Luise Kautsky from Italy in May 1909, she wonders why Genoese men get shaved at night "covered in white barber's cloths, with their noses tilted philosophically upward". She puzzles over the witticisms, too colloquial for her to understand, delivered by the heavy-set young postman "in his white shoes and Garibaldi hat". An admirer of good journalism, she grumbles about the flat jargon in Social Democratic newspapers, yet worries that she is not "a real writer" because she has never found writing easy. She found it so hard because, as she explains to Henrietta Roland Holst in 1904, she wanted to convey "the living spirit of the movement". The dynamism was not just a matter of form it imbued her thinking. Ideas take shape from within specific contexts and span out as she writes. This makes it difficult to pigeonhole Luxemburg. The Communist party would retrospectively label her as an advocate of a naive spontaneity. But while she saw action as generating a transformed consciousness, her letters testify to her belief in the need for revolutionary organisation too. Ironically, the woman who hated splits was constantly embattled. Dangerously isolated, she went on fighting. As the years passed, it came to seem to others as if she had been somehow marked by destiny. Characteristically she accepted this with the minimum of pomp, remarking laconically to Luise Kautsky from jail in April 1917 that she was "'on leave' from World History". Prison allowed for reflection and, as the revolution in Russia erupted, individuals no longer seemed so important. Luxemburg wrestled with a dilemma that troubled many of her contemporaries on the left and still resonates today: how to validate human beings' ability to change capitalist society, while giving weight to the force of historical circumstances. Her letters reveal a taut oscillation. Proletarian internationalism was being routed by war, yet she wrote on 11 February 1915: "a ira it will go on." Her death in 1919 was not to be the end of the story. In 1922, her former lover, Paul Levi, published a pamphlet she had written criticising the suppression of democracy in the Bolshevik revolution. It was akin to heresy and, under Stalin, her letters, archived in Moscow, were jealously controlled. Meanwhile the Kautskys were carrying Luxemburg letters with the rest of their papers from one European country to another as the Nazis advanced. In Germany, Mathilde Jacob, Luxemburg's devoted friend and typist, ensured that her collection was sent to the United States; soon after, Jacob was taken to a concentration camp. And so it did, and does "go on", albeit in fits and starts, and with one step forward and several backward. Coincidentally The Letters of Rosa Luxemburg reaches us at a time when the peoples of the Middle East are asserting their aspirations for political, economic and social emancipation with formidable courage. The "living spirit" Luxemburg nurtured so strenuously has, once again, taken to the streets.

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[17] State socialism


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_socialism This article is about a strategy for implementing socialism. For a country that officially adheres to socialism, or for a state run by a socialist party, see Socialist state.

State socialism is an economic system with limited socialist characteristics, such as public ownership of major industries, remedial measures to benefit the working class, and a gradual process of developing socialism through government policy.[1] State socialism may also be used to classify any variety of socialist philosophies that relies on, or advocates for ownership of the means of production by the state apparatus in an effort to build a socialist economy. Proponents of state socialism claim the state, through practical considerations of governing, must play at least a temporary part in building socialism. Many Socialists, such as Fredrick Engels and Saint-Simon, take the position that the state will change in nature and function in a socialist society; specifically, the nature of the state would change from one of political rule over people into a scientific administration of the processes of production; specifically the state would become a coordinating economic entity of inclusive associations rather than a mechanism of class and political control,[2][3] and in the process, cease to be a state by some definitions. It is also possible to conceive of a democratic state that owns the means of production but is internally organized in a non-hierarchical, cooperative fashion, thereby achieving both common ownership of productive property and direct workplace democracy in day-today operations. State socialism is contrasted with forms of socialism that advocate direct selfmanagement, adhocracy and direct cooperative ownership of the means of production, such as libertarian socialism, anarchist socialism, anarchist communism, syndicalism, free-market socialism, De Leonism, Internationalism and economic democracy. These forms of socialism are opposed to hierarchical technocratic socialism, scientific management and state-directed economic planning.[4] Contents 1 Description and theory 1.1 Bismarck's social programs 2 State socialism in Communist states

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3 Criticism 4 See also 4.1 In contrast to 5 References 1- Description and theory In the traditional way, achieving public ownership of the means of production through nationalization of industry is advocated as the method for establishing a socialist economy. State socialism is often referred to simply as "socialism"; the attributive "state" is usually added by socialists with a non-state based method for achieving socialism, to criticize state socialism[citation needed]. Some socialists may deny that it even is socialism, calling it instead "state capitalism". Those socialists who oppose any system of state control whatsoever believe in a more decentralized approach which puts the means of production directly into the hands of the workers rather than indirectly through state bureaucracieswhich they claim represent a new elite. Traditional social democrats and non-revolutionary democratic socialists argue for a gradual, peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism. They wish to abolish capitalism, but through political reform rather than revolution. This method of gradualism implies utilization of the existing state apparatus and machinery of government to gradually move society toward socialism, and is sometimes derided by other socialists as a form of "socialism from above" or political "elitism" for relying on electoral means to achieve socialism.[5] In contrast, Marxist socialism and revolutionary socialism holds that a socialist revolution is the only practical way to implement fundamental changes in the structure of society. Marxists maintain that after a certain period of time under socialism, the state will "wither away" because class distinctions cease to exist and representative democracy would be replaced by direct democracy in the remaining public associations comprising the former state. Political power would be decentralized and distributed evenly among the population, producing a communist society. Today, many political parties on the political center-left advocate a mild version of what may be considered "state socialism" or "regulated capitalism", in the form of modern social democracy, in which regulation is used in place of ownership. These social reformers do not advocate the overthrow of capitalism in a social revolution, and they support the continuing existence of the government, private property and the capitalist economic system, only turned to more social purposes. Modern social democracy can also be considered "state capitalism" because the means of production are almost universally the private property of business owners, and production is carried out for exchange rather than directly for use. 1-1 Bismarck's social programs See also: State Socialism Otto von Bismarck implemented a set of social programs between 18831889, following his anti-socialist laws, partly as remedial measures to appease the working class and detract support for the Social Democratic Party of Germany. Bismarck's biographer A. J. P. Taylor said: "It would be unfair to say that Bismarck took up social welfare solely to weaken the Social Democrats; he had had it in mind for a long time,

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and believed in it deeply. But as usual he acted on his beliefs at the exact moment when they served a practical need".[6] When a reference was made to his friendship with Ferdinand Lassalle (a nationalist and state-oriented socialist), Bismarck said that he was a more practical "socialist" than the Social Democrats.[7] These policies were informally referred to as "State Socialism" by liberal and conservative opponents; the term was later adopted by supporters of the programs in a further attempt to detract the working class from the SPD, with the goal of making the working class content with a nationalist-oriented capitalist welfare state.[8][9] Otto von Bismarck made the following statement on his social welfare programs: "Whoever has pensions for his old age is far more easier to handle than one who has no such prospect. Look at the difference between a private servant in the chancellery or at court; the latter will put up with much more, because he has a pension to look forward to".[10]

2- State socialism in Communist states See also: Planned economy The economic model adopted in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and other Communist states is often described as a form of state socialism, and in some cases, state capitalism. The ideology was based on Socialism in One Country; this system was based on state ownership of the means of production, and bureaucratic management over production and the workplace by state officials ultimately subordinate to an all-encompassing communist party. Rather than the producers controlling or managing production, the party controlled the government machinery which directed the national economy on behalf of the communist party and planned production and distribution of capital goods. In the 20th century's so-called "communist states", the state did not in fact wither away. Some Marxists defend them and contend that the transitional period simply wasn't finished. Other Marxists denounce those "Communist" states as Stalinist, arguing that their leadership was corrupt and that it abandoned Marxism in all but name. In particular, some Trotskyist schools call those countries degenerated workers' states to contrast them with proper socialism (i.e. workers' states); other Trotskyist schools call them state capitalist, to emphasise the lack of true socialism and

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presence of defining capitalist characteristics (wage labor, commodity production, bureaucratic control over workers). In the former Yugoslavia, the successor political parties to the League of Communists in Serbia and Montenegro, the Socialist Party of Serbia and the Democratic Party of Socialists of Montenegro have advocated progression towards a free-market economy but also advocated state economic planning of elements of the economy, maintaining social welfare and have advocated significant state influence in the media.

3- Criticism Many libertarian socialists, Syndicalists, Mutualists and anarchists go further in their critique, deriding even Marxism as state socialism for its support of a temporary, proletarian state instead of abolishing the state apparatus outright. They use the term in contrast with their own form of socialism, which involves either worker syndicate ownership (in the form of producer cooperatives) or common ownership of the means of production without state economic planning, though some calling themselves libertarian socialists are similar to modern social democrats in advocating regulation rather than ownership. Many libertarian socialists and anarchists believe there is no need for a state in a socialist system because there would be no class to suppress and no need for an institution based on coercion, and thus regard the state being a remnant of capitalism. Trotskyists believe that central planners, regardless of their intellectual capacity, operate without the input and participation of the millions of people who participate in the economy who understand/respond to local conditions and changes in the economy, and because of this criticize central state planning as being unable to effectively coordinate all economic activity.[11] Orthodox Marxists view state socialism as an oxymoron; while an association for managing production and economic affairs would exist in socialism, it would no longer be a state in the Marxist definition (which is based on domination by one class). This leads some socialists to consider "state socialism" a form of state capitalism (an economy based on wage labor and capital accumulation but with the state owning the means of production) - which Fredrick Engels states would be the final form of capitalism.[12] 4- See also Bureaucratic collectivism; Degenerated workers state; Deformed workers state; Mustafa Kemal Atatrk; New class; Planned economy; Socialism in one country; Socialist state; State capitalism; State Socialism (Social programs implemented by Otto Von Bismarck); Technocracy ] 5- In contrast to Anarchism; De Leonism; Economic democracy; Libertarian socialism Mutualism (economic theory); Neoliberalism; Syndicalism; Some forms Trotskyism; Some forms of Market socialism

of

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6 References 1 State socialism, Merriam-Webster Online: http://www.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/state%20socialism: "an economic system with limited socialist characteristics that is effected by gradual state action and typically includes public ownership of major industries and remedial measures to benefit the working class" ^ 2 Encyclopaedia Britannica, Saint Simon; Socialism ^ 3 Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, on Marxists.org: http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch01.htm: "In 1816, he declares that politics is the science of production, and foretells the complete absorption of politics by economics. The knowledge that economic conditions are the basis of political institutions appears here only in embryo. Yet what is here already very plainly expressed is the idea of the future conversion of political rule over men into an administration of things and a direction of processes of production." ^ 4 "Leicester Research Archive: Redistribution Under State Socialism: A USSR and PRC Comparison". lra.le.ac.uk. Retrieved 2008-03-21. ^ 5 The Two Souls of Socialism, Draper, Hal. http://www.anu.edu.au/polsci/marx/contemp/pamsetc/twosouls/twosouls.htm: "Ferdinand Lassalle is the prototype of the state-socialist -- which means, one who aims to get socialism handed down by the existing state." ^ 6 A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck. The Man and the Statesman (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1955), p. 202. ^ 7 Taylor, p. 202. ^ 8 Bismarck, Edgar Feuchtwanger, (2002) p. 221. ^ 9 "Bismarcks Reichstag Speech on the Law for Workers Compensation", March 15, 1884: http://germanhistorydocs.ghidc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=1809 ^ 10 A. J. P. Taylor, Bismarck. The Man and the Statesman (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1955), p. 203. ^ 11Writings 1932-33, P.96, Leon Trotsky. ^ 12 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1880/soc-utop/ch03.htm ^

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[18] Paris commune


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Commune See also: http://www.marxists.org/history/france/paris-commune/index.htm History of the Paris Commune This article is about the government of Paris in 1871. For the Commune during the French Revolution, see Paris Commune (French Revolution).

Le Pre Duchesne looking at the statue of Napoleon I on top of the Vendme column: "Eh ben! Bougre de canaille, on va donc te foutre en bas comme ta crapule de neveu! (Well now! Damn rascal, we will knock you down just like your crook of a nephew!")

Adolphe Thiers charging on the Communards, in Le fils du Pre Duchnes illustr magazine

Jarosaw Dabrowski caricatured in Le Pre Duchesne Illustr - Un bon bougre!... Nom de Dieu!...

The Paris Commune (French: La Commune de Paris, IPA: [la kmyn d pai]) was a government that briefly ruled Paris from March 18 (more formally, from March 28) to May 28, 1871. It existed before the split between anarchists and Marxists had taken place, and it is hailed by both groups as the first assumption of power by the working class during the Industrial Revolution. Debates over the policies and outcome of the Commune contributed to the break between those two political groups. In a formal sense, the Paris Commune simply acted as the local authority, the city council (in French, the "commune"), which exercised power in Paris for two months in the spring of 1871. However, the conditions in which it formed, its controversial decrees, and its violent end make its tenure one of the more important political

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episodes of the time. Contents 1 Background 2 Rise and nature 2.1 Social measures 2.2 Feminist initiatives 2.3 Local organizations 3 Assault 4 La Semaine Sanglante 5 Retrospect 6 Other Communes 8 Fictional treatments 9 References 9.1 Notes 9.2 Bibliography

Destruction of the Vendme Column during the Paris Commune (This and other pictures were later used to identify and execute Communards)

Background The Commune was the result of an uprising in Paris after France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War. This uprising was chiefly caused by the disaster in the war and the growing discontent among French workers.[1] The worker discontent can be traced to the first worker uprisings, the Canut Revolts, in Lyon and Paris in the 1830s[2] (a Canut was a Lyonnais silk worker, often working on Jacquard looms). Parisians, especially workers and the lower-middle classes, had long supported a democratic republic. A specific demand was that Paris should be self-governing with its own elected council, something enjoyed by smaller French towns but denied to Paris by a national government wary of the capital's unruly populace. An associated, but less well-articulated, wish was for a more "just", if not necessarily socialist, way of managing the economy, summed up in the popular appeal for "la rpublique dmocratique et sociale!" ("the democratic and social republic!") The war with Prussia, initiated by Napoleon III in July 1870, turned out disastrously for

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France, and by September Paris itself was under siege. The gap between rich and poor in the capital had widened during the preceding years, and then food shortages, military failures, and, finally, a Prussian bombardment of the city contributed to a widespread discontent. In January 1871, after four months of siege the moderate republican Government of National Defense sought an armistice with the newlyproclaimed German Empire. The Germans included a triumphal entry into Paris in their peace terms. Given the hardships of the siege, many Parisians were bitterly resentful of the Prussians (now at the head of the German Empire) being allowed even a brief ceremonial occupation of their city. Hundreds of thousands of Parisians were armed members of a citizens' militia known as the "National Guard", which had been greatly expanded to help defend the city. Guard units elected their own officers, who, in working-class districts, included radical and socialist leaders. Steps were taken to form a "Central Committee" of the Guard, including patriotic republicans and socialists, both to defend Paris against a possible German attack and also to defend the republic against a possible royalist restoration. The election of a monarchist majority to the new National Assembly in February 1871 made such fears seem plausible. The population of Paris was defiant in the face of defeat and prepared to fight if the entry of the German army into the city should provoke them sufficiently. Before German troops entered Paris, National Guardsmen, helped by ordinary working people, managed to move large numbers of cannons (which they regarded as their own property because they had been partly paid-for by public subscription) away from the Germans' path and store them in "safe" districts. One of the chief "cannon parks" was on the heights of Montmartre. Adolphe Thiers was elected "Executive Power" of the new government to postpone the issue of whether to have a president or king. Thiers, as head of the new provisional national government, realised that in the current unstable situation, the Central Committee of the Guard formed an alternative centre of political and military power. He was also concerned that workers would arm themselves with the National Guard's weapons and provoke the Germans.

"Discussing the War in a Paris Caf", Illustrated London News 17 September 1870

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Rise and nature Generals Lecomte and Thomas being shot in Montmartre after their troops join the rebellion (a photographic reconstruction, not an actual photograph of the event) The Germans entered Paris briefly and left again without incident, but Paris continued to be in a state of high political excitement. The newly elected National Assembly was in the process of moving to Bordeaux from Versailles (several miles south-west of Paris), having decided that the capital city was too turbulent for them to meet there. Their absence created a power vacuum in Paris as well as suspicion about the National Assembly's intentions, as it had a large royalist majority. As the Central Committee of the National Guard adopted an increasingly radical stance and steadily gained authority, the government felt that it could not indefinitely allow it to have four hundred cannons at its disposal. So, as a first step, on March 18, 1871, Thiers ordered regular troops to seize the cannon stored on the Butte Montmartre and in other locations across the city. However the soldiers, whose morale was low, fraternized with National Guards and local residents. The general at Montmartre, Claude Martin Lecomte, who was later said to have ordered them to fire on the crowd of National Guards and civilians, was dragged from his horse and later shot together with General Thomas, a veteran republican now hated as former commander of the National Guard, who was seized nearby. Other army units joined the rebellion which spread so fast that the head of the government, Thiers, ordered an immediate evacuation of Paris by as many of the regular forces as would obey, by the police, and by administrators and specialists of every kind. He fled ahead of them to Versailles. Thiers claimed he had thought about this strategy (to retreat from Paris, and crush the insurrection afterward) for a long time while meditating on the example of the 1848 Revolution, but it is just as likely that he panicked. There is no evidence that the government had expected or planned for the crisis that had now begun. The Central Committee of the National Guard was now the only effective government in Paris: it arranged elections for a Commune, to be held on March 26. The 92 members of the "Communal Council" included a high proportion of skilled workers and several professionals (such as doctors and journalists). Many of them were political activists, ranging from reformist republicans, through various types of socialists, to the Jacobins who tended to look back nostalgically to the Revolution of 1789. The veteran leader of the 'Blanquist' group of revolutionary socialists, Louis Auguste Blanqui, was hoped by his followers to be a potential leader of the revolution, but he had been arrested on March 17 and was held in prison throughout the life of the Commune. The Commune unsuccessfully tried to exchange him first against Georges Darboy, archbishop of Paris, then against all 74 hostages it detained, but Thiers flatly refused (see below). The Paris Commune was proclaimed on March 28 although local districts often retained the organizations from the siege. Social measures The commune adopted the previously discarded French Republican Calendar during its brief existence and used the socialist red flag rather than the republican tricolour. In 1848, during the Second Republic, radicals and socialists had also adopted the red

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flag to distinguish themselves from moderate Republicans; this was similar to the symbolic distinctions adopted by the moderate, liberal, Girondist movement during the 1789 revolution. Despite internal differences, the Council made a good start in organizing the public services essential for a city of two million. It also reached consensus on certain policies that tended towards a progressive, secular, and highly-democratic social democracy, rather than a true social revolution. Because the Commune was able to meet on fewer than sixty days in all, only a few decrees were actually implemented. These included: the separation of church and state; the remission of rents owed for the entire period of the siege (during which, payment had been suspended); the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries; the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of National Guards killed on active service; the free return, by the city pawnshops, of all workmen's tools and household items valued up to 20 francs, pledged during the siege; the Commune was concerned that skilled workers had been forced to pawn their tools during the war; the postponement of commercial debt obligations, and abolition of interest on the debts; and the right of employees to take over and run an enterprise if it were deserted by its owner; the Commune, nonetheless, recognized the previous owner's right to compensation. The decrees separated the church from the state, made all church property public property, and excluded the practice of religion from schools. (After the fall of the Commune separation of Church and State, or lacit, would not enter French law again until 1880-81 during the Third Republic and the signing of the Jules Ferry laws and the 1905 French law on the separation of Church and State.) The churches were allowed to continue their religious activity only if they kept their doors open for public political meetings during the evenings. Along with the streets and the cafs, the churches became centres for political discussions and activities. Other projected legislation dealt with educational reforms that would make further education and technical training freely available to all.

A contemporary sketch of women and children helping take two National Guard cannons to Montmartre

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Feminist initiatives Some women organized a feminist movement, following on from earlier attempts in 1789 and 1848. Thus, Nathalie Lemel, a socialist bookbinder, and lisabeth Dmitrieff, a young Russian exile and member of the Russian section of the First International (IWA), created the Union des femmes pour la dfense de Paris et les soins aux blesss ("Women's Union for the Defense of Paris and Care of the Injured") on April 11, 1871. The feminist writer Andr Lo, a friend of Paule Minck, was also active in the Women's Union. Believing that their struggle against patriarchy could only be pursued through a global struggle against capitalism, the association demanded gender equality, wages' equality, the right of divorce for women, the right to secular education and professional education for girls. They also demanded suppression of the distinction between married women and concubines, and between legitimate and illegitimate children. They advocated the abolition of prostitution (obtaining the closing of the maisons de tolrance, or legal official brothels). The Women's Union also participated in several municipal commissions and organized cooperative workshops.[3] Along with Eugne Varlin, Nathalie Le Mel created the cooperative restaurant La Marmite, which served free food for indigents, and then fought during the Bloody Week on the barricades.[4] Paule Minck opened a free school in the Church of Saint Pierre de Montmartre and animated the Club Saint-Sulpice on the Left Bank.[4] The Russian, Anne Jaclard, who declined to marry Dostoievsky and finally became the wife of Blanquist activist, Victor Jaclard, founded the newspaper La Sociale with Andr Lo. She was also a member of the Comit de vigilance de Montmartre, along with Louise Michel and Paule Minck, as well as of the Russian section of the First International. Victorine Brocher, close to the IWA activists, and founder of a cooperative bakery in 1867, also fought during the Commune and the Bloody Week.[4] Famous figures such as Louise Michel, the "Red Virgin of Montmartre", who joined the National Guard and would later be sent to New Caledonia, symbolized the active participation of a small number of women in the insurrectionary events. A female battalion from the National Guard defended the Place Blanche during the repression. Local organizations The work-load of the Commune leaders was enormous. The Council members (who were not "representatives" but delegates, subject in theory to immediate recall by their electors) were expected to carry out many executive and military functions as well as their legislative ones. The numerous ad hoc organisations set-up during the siege in the localities ("quartiers") to meet social needs (canteens and first aid stations, for example) continued to thrive and cooperate with the Commune. At the same time, these local assemblies pursued their own goals, usually under the direction of local workers. Despite the formal reformism of the Commune council, the composition of the Commune as a whole was much more revolutionary. Revolutionary factions included Proudhonists (an early form of moderate anarchism), members of the international socialists, Blanquists, and more libertarian republicans. The Paris Commune has been celebrated by anarchists and Marxists ever since then, due to the variety of political undercurrents, the high degree of workers' control, and the remarkable cooperation among different revolutionists.

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For example, in the third arrondissement, school materials were provided free, three parochial schools were "laicised", and an orphanage was established. In the twentieth arrondissement, school children were provided with free clothing and food. There were many similar examples, but a vital ingredient in the Commune's relative success, at this stage, was the initiative shown by ordinary workers who managed to take on the responsibilities of the administrators and specialists who had been removed by Thiers. After only a week, the Commune came under attack by elements of the army (which eventually included former prisoners of war released by the Germans) being reinforced at a furious pace at Versailles.

Generals Lecomte and Thomas being shot in Montmartre after their troops join the rebellion (a photographic reconstruction, not an actual photograph of the event)

Assault The Commune forces, the National Guard, first began skirmishing with the regular Army of Versailles on April 2. Neither side really sought a major civil war, nor was either side ever willing to negotiate. The nearby suburb of Courbevoie was occupied by the government forces on April 2, and a delayed attempt by the Commune's forces to march on Versailles on April 3 failed ignominiously. Defence and survival became overriding considerations, and the Commune leadership made a determined effort to turn the National Guard into an effective defense force. Strong support also came from the large foreign community of political refugees and exiles in Paris: one of them, the Polish ex-officer and nationalist Jarosaw Dbrowski, was to be the Commune's best general. The Council was fully committed to internationalism, and in the name of brotherhood the Vendme Column, celebrating the victories of Napoleon I, and considered by the Commune to be a monument to Bonapartism and chauvinism, was pulled down. Abroad, there were rallies and messages of goodwill sent by trade union and socialist organisations, including some in Germany. But any hopes of getting serious help from other French cities were soon dashed. Thiers and his ministers in Versailles managed to prevent almost all information from leaking out of Paris; and in provincial and rural France there had always been a skeptical attitude towards the activities of the metropolis. Movements in Narbonne, Limoges, and Marseille were quickly crushed. As the situation deteriorated further, a section of the Council won a vote (opposed by bookbinder Eugne Varlin, an associate of Michael Bakunin and correspondent of Karl Marx, and by other radicals) for the creation of a "Committee of Public Safety", modelled on the Jacobin organ with the same title, formed in 1792. Its powers were extensive and ruthless in theory, but in practice it was ineffective. Throughout April and May, government forces, constantly increasing in numberwith

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Prussia releasing French POWs to help the Thiers governmentbesieged the city's powerful defenses, and pushed back the National Guards. On May 21 a gate in the western part of the fortified city wall of Paris was opened, and Versaillese troops began the reconquest of the city. They first occupied the prosperous western districts, where they were welcomed by residents who had not left Paris after the armistice. It seems an engineer (who had spied regularly for the Thiers government) found the gate unmanned and signaled this to the Versaillais. The strong local loyalties which had been a positive feature of the Commune now became something of a disadvantage: instead of an overall planned defence, each "quartier" fought desperately for its survival, and each was overcome in turn. The webs of narrow streets which made entire districts nearly impregnable in earlier Parisian revolutions had been largely replaced by wide boulevards during Haussmann's renovation of Paris. The Versaillese enjoyed a centralised command and had superior numbers. They had learned the tactics of street fighting, and simply tunnelled through the walls of houses to outflank the Communards' barricades. Ironically, only where Haussmann had made wide spaces and streets were they held up by the defenders' gunfire.

A barricade, March 18, 1871

During the assault, the government troops were responsible for slaughtering National Guard troops and civilians: many prisoners taken in possession of weapons, or who were suspected of having fought, were shot out of hand and summary executions were commonplace. The Commune had taken a "decree on hostages" on April 5, 1871, according to which any accomplice with Versailles would be made the "hostage of the Parisian people". Its article 5 also stated that the execution by Versailles of any war prisoner or partisan of the regular government of the Paris Commune would be followed on the spot by the execution of the triple number of retained hostages. But this decree was not applied. The Commune tried several times to exchange Mgr Darboy, archbishop of Paris, for Auguste Blanqui, but Thiers flatly refused and his personal secretary, Jules Barthlemy-Saint-Hilaire, declared: "The hostages! The hostages! too bad for them (tant pis pour eux!)". Finally, during the Bloody Week and the ensuing executions by Versaille troops,

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Thophile Ferr signed the execution order for 6 hostages (including Mgr Darboy), who were executed by firing squad on May 24 in the prison de la Roquette. This led Auguste Vermorel to ironically (and perhaps naively, since Thiers had refused any negotiation) declare: "What a great job! Now we've lost our only chance to stop the bloodshed." Ferr was himself executed in retaliation by Thiers' troops.[5][6] La Semaine Sanglante The toughest resistance came in the more working-class districts of the east, where fighting continued during the later stages of the week of vicious street fighting in what became known as La Semaine Sanglante ("The Bloody Week"). By May 27 only a few pockets of resistance remained, notably the poorer eastern districts of Belleville and Mnilmontant. Fighting ended during the late afternoon or early evening of May 28. According to legend, the last barricade was in the rue Ramponeau in Belleville. Marshal MacMahon issued a proclamation: "To the inhabitants of Paris. The French army has come to save you. Paris is freed! At 4 o'clock our soldiers took the last insurgent position. Today the fight is over. Order, work and security will be reborn." Reprisals now began in earnest. Having supported the Commune in any way was a political crime, of which thousands could be, and were, accused. Some of the Communards were shot against what is now known as the Communards' Wall in the Pre Lachaise Cemetery while thousands of others were tried by summary courts martial of doubtful legality, and thousands shot. Notorious sites of slaughter were the Luxembourg Gardens and the Lobau Barracks, behind the Htel de Ville. Nearly 40,000 others were marched to Versailles for trials. For many days endless columns of men, women and children made a painful way under military escort to temporary prison quarters in Versailles. Later 12,500 were tried, and about 10,000 were found guilty: 23 men were executed; many were condemned to prison; 4,000 were deported for life to New Caledonia. The number killed during La Semaine Sanglante can never be established for certain, and estimates vary from about 10,000 to 50,000. According to Benedict Anderson, "7,500 were jailed or deported" and "roughly 20,000 executed".[7]

Louis Auguste Blanqui

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One of the generals leading the counter-assault headed by Thiers was the Marquis de Galliffet, the fusilleur de la Commune who later took part as Minister of War in Waldeck-Rousseau's Government of Republican Defence at the turn of the century (alongside independent socialist Alexandre Millerand). After the slaughter, Thiers said, "The ground is strewn with their corpses. May this terrible sight serve as a lesson." According to Alfred Cobban, 30,000 were killed, perhaps as many as 50,000 later executed or imprisoned and 7,000 were exiled to New Caledonia.[8] Thousands more, including most of the Commune leaders, succeeded in escaping to Belgium, Britain (a safe haven for 3,000-4,000 refugees), Italy, Spain and the United States. The final exiles and transportees were amnestied in 1880. Some became prominent in later politics, as Paris councillors, deputies or senators. In 1872, "stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left."[7] For the imprisoned there was a general amnesty in 1880, except for those convicted of assassination or arson. Paris remained under martial law for five years. Retrospect This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (September 2010) Karl Marx found it aggravating that the Communards "lost precious moments" organising democratic elections rather than instantly finishing off Versailles once and for all. France's national bank, located in Paris and storing billions of francs, was left untouched and unguarded by the Communards. They asked to borrow money from the bank, which they got easily.[9] The Communards did take over the Paris mint and issued a 5 franc coin (identifiable by a trident mintmark) which is today quite scarce. However, they chose not to seize the national bank's assets because they were afraid that the world would condemn them if they did. Thus large amounts of money were moved from Paris to Versailles, money that financed the army that crushed the Commune. Communists, left-wing socialists, anarchists and others have seen the Commune as a model for, or a prefiguration of, a liberated society, with a political system based on participatory democracy from the grass roots up. Marx and Engels, Bakunin, and later Lenin and Trotsky along with Mao tried to draw major theoretical lessons (in particular as regards the "dictatorship of the proletariat" and the "withering away of the state") from the limited experience of the Commune. A more pragmatic lesson was drawn by the diarist Edmond de Goncourt, who wrote, three days after La Semaine Sanglante, "the bleeding has been done thoroughly, and a bleeding like that, by killing the rebellious part of a population, postpones the next revolution The old society has twenty years of peace before it"[10] Karl Marx, in his important pamphlet The Civil War in France (1871), written during the Commune, praised the Commune's achievements, and described it as the prototype for a revolutionary government of the future, "the form at last discovered" for the emancipation of the proletariat. Marx wrote that: "Working mens Paris, with its Commune, will be forever celebrated as the glorious harbinger of a new society. Its martyrs are enshrined in the great heart

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of the working class. Its exterminators history has already nailed to that eternal pillory from which all the prayers of their priest will not avail to redeem them". [11]. Friedrich Engels echoed this idea, later maintaining that the absence of a standing army, the self-policing of the "quartiers", and other features meant that the Commune was no longer a "state" in the old, repressive sense of the term: it was a transitional form, moving towards the abolition of the state as such - he used the famous term later taken up by Lenin and the Bolsheviks: the Commune was, he said, the first "dictatorship of the proletariat", meaning it was a state run by workers and in the interests of workers. But Marx and Engels were not entirely uncritical of the Commune. The split between the Marxists and anarchists at the 1872 Hague Congress of the First International (IWA) may in part be traced to Marx's stance that the Commune might have saved itself had it dealt more harshly with reactionaries, instituted conscription, and centralized decision making in the hands of a revolutionary direction, etc. The other point of disagreement was the anti-authoritarian socialists' oppositions to the Communist conception of conquest of power and of a temporary transitional state (the anarchists were in favor of general strike and immediate dismantlement of the state through the constitution of decentralized workers' councils as those seen in the commune).

The Commune returns workmen's tools pawned during the siege

The Paris Commune has been regarded with awe by many Leftist leaders. Mao would refer to it often. Lenin, along with Marx, judged the Commune a living example of the "dictatorship of the proletariat", though Lenin criticised the Communards for having "stopped half way led astray by dreams of establishing a higher [capitalist] justice in the country such institutions as the banks, for example, were not taken over;" he thought their "excessive magnanimity" had prevented them from "destroying" the class enemy.[12] At his funeral, Lenin's body was wrapped in the remains of a red and white flag preserved from the Commune[citation needed]. The Soviet spaceflight Voskhod 1 carried part of a communard banner from the Paris Commune. Also, the Bolsheviks renamed the dreadnought battleship Sevastopol to Parizhskaya Kommuna. Other Communes Simultaneously with the Paris Commune, uprisings in Lyon, Grenoble and other cities

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established equally short-lived Communes.[citation needed]

Fictional treatments Among the first litterateur who wrote in favor of the Commune is Victor Hugo whose poem "Sur une barricade", written on June 11, 1871 and published in 1872 in a collection of poems under the name "L' Anne terrible", honors the bravery of a twelve-year-old communard being led to the execution squad. As well as innumerable novels (mainly in French), at least three plays have been set in the Commune: Nederlaget by Nordahl Grieg, Die Tage der Commune by Bertolt Brecht, and Le Printemps 71 by Arthur Adamov. There have been numerous films set in the Commune. Particularly notable is La Commune (Paris, 1871), which runs for 5 hours and was directed by Peter Watkins. It was made in Montmartre in 2000, and as with most of Watkins' other films it uses ordinary people instead of actors in order to create a documentary effect. The New Babylon (1929) was the recipient of Dmitri Shostakovich's first film score. The Italian composer, Luigi Nono, also wrote an opera Al gran sole carico d'amore (In the Bright Sunshine, Heavy with Love) that is based on the Paris Commune. The discovery of a body from the Paris Commune buried in the Opera led Gaston Leroux to write the tale of Le Fantme de lOpra. The title character of Karen Blixen's Babette's Feast was a Communard and political refugee, forced to flee France after her husband and sons were killed. Soviet filmmakers Grigori Kozintsev and Leonid Trauberg wrote and directed in 1929 the silent film The New Babylon (Novyy Vavilon) about the Paris Commune. Terry Pratchett's Night Watch features a storyline based on the Paris Commune, in which a huge part of a city is slowly put behind barricades, at which point a brief civil war ensues. The rise and fall of the Paris Commune was depicted in the novel Spangle by Gary Jennings. Berlin performance group Showcase Beat le Mot created Paris 1871 Bonjour Commune (first performed at Hebbel am Ufer in 2010), the final part of a tetralogy dealing with failed revolutions. French writer Jean Vautrin's Le Cri du Peuple deals with the rise and fall of the Commune. Comics artist Jacques Tardi translated the novel into a comic, which is also called Le Cri du Peuple. In Fire on the Mountain (1988 novel) by the American author Terry Bisson, African Americans began a slave rebellion throughout the south after John Brown's successful raid on Harper's Ferry. Along with many other nations, the Paris Commune was a successful socialist state. References Notes ^ 1 Haupt/Hausen 1979, pg. 74-75 ^ 2 Edwards 1971, pg. 1 ^ 3 Women and the Commune, in L'Humanit, March 19, 2005 (French) ^ 4 a b c Franois Bodinaux, Dominique Plasman, Michle Ribourdouille. "On les disait 'ptroleuses'..." (French) ^ 5 Les otages de la Commune de Paris, L'Histoire par l'image, URL accessed on

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January 12, 2007 (French) ^ 6 Extract from Maxime Vuillaume, Mes cahiers rouges au temps de la Commune, (1909) (French) ^ 7 a b In Benedict Anderson (JulyAugust 2004). "In the World-Shadow of Bismarck and Nobel". New Left Review.: "In March 1871 the Commune took power in the abandoned city and held it for two months. Then Versailles seized the moment to attack and, in one horrifying week, executed roughly 20,000 Communards or suspected sympathizers, a number higher than those killed in the recent war or during Robespierre's Terror of 179394. More than 7,500 were jailed or deported to places like New Caledonia. Thousands of others fled to Belgium, England, Italy, Spain and the United States. In 1872, stringent laws were passed that ruled out all possibilities of organizing on the left. Not till 1880 was there a general amnesty for exiled and imprisoned Communards. Meantime, the Third Republic found itself strong enough to renew and reinforce Louis Napoleon's imperialist expansionin Indochina, Africa, and Oceania. Many of France's leading intellectuals and artists had participated in the Commune (Courbet was its quasi-minister of culture, Rimbaud and Pissarro were active propagandists) or were sympathetic to it. The ferocious repression of 1871 and after was probably the key factor in alienating these milieux from the Third Republic and stirring their sympathy for its victims at home and abroad."

Commune prisoners being marched to Versailles: from a contemporary illustrated magazine

^ 8 Estimates come from Cobban, Alfred. A History of Modern France. Vol 3: 1871 1962. Penguin books, London: 1965. Pg. 23. ^ 9 Karl Marx: Selected Writings (ed McLellan), pg 592-4 ^ 10 Edmond de Goncourt, Jules de Goncourt, Robert Baldick, Pages from the Goncourt Journal (Oxford, 1962), p. 194 ^ 11 Karl Marx, The Civil War in France, English Edition of 1871 ^ 12 V.I. Lenin, "Lessons of the Commune", Marxists Internet Archive. Originally published: Zagranichnaya Gazeta, No. March 2, 23, 1908. Translated by Bernard Isaacs. Accessed August 7, 2006. But two mistakes destroyed the fruits of the splendid victory. The proletariat stopped half-way: instead of setting about "expropriating the expropriators", it allowed itself to be led astray by dreams of establishing a higher justice in the country united by a common national task; such institutions as the banks, for example, were not taken over,

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and Proudhonist theories about a "just exchange", etc., still prevailed among the socialists. The second mistake was excessive magnanimity on the part of the proletariat: instead of destroying its enemies it sought to exert moral influence on them; it underestimated the significance of direct military operations in civil war, and instead of launching a resolute offensive against Versailles that would have crowned its victory in Paris, it tarried and gave the Versailles government time to gather the dark forces and prepare for the blood-soaked week of May.Mindful of the lessons of the Commune, it [the Russian proletariat] knew that the proletariat should not ignore peaceful methods of strugglethey serve its ordinary, day-to-day interests, they are necessary in periods of preparation for revolutionbut it must never forget that in certain conditions the class struggle assumes the form of armed conflict and civil war; there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes.

This photograph is usually presented as showing Communards killed in 1871.

Bibliography The Red Republic, A Romance of The Commune, Robert W Chambers 1895 a Romantic adventure about the Paris Commune of 1871 The World That Never Was: A True Story of Dreamers, Schemers, Anarchists and Secret Police by Alex Butterworth (Pantheon Books, 2010) (German)Haupt, Gerhard; Hausen, Karin: Die Pariser Kommune: Erfolg und Scheitern einer Revolution. Frankfurt 1979. Campus Verlag. ISBN 3-59332607-8. Edwards, Stewart. The Paris Commune 1871. London: Eyre & Spottiswoode. ISBN 0413281108. The two most important primary sources are: The verbatim record of the sessions of the Commune (Procs-verbaux de la Commune. 2 vols., Paris, 19441945) long out of print, though secondhand copies are to be found. The history of the Commune by Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray, a Communard journalist with socialist convictions who was present at or close to most of the events he describes, is vivid and partisan, but observant and factually reliable: (Histoire de la Commune de 1871. Most recent edition, 3 vols in 1, Paris, Maspero, 1969), which is available in English translation online). Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, "History of the Paris Commune of 1871", Red and Black Publishers, St Petersburg, Florida, 2007. ISBN 978-0-9791813-4-4.

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Another online classic is Marx's own contemporary analysis, The Civil War in France, written during and immediately after the events. For Lenin's views, see V.I. Lenin on the Paris Commune (Moscow, 1970). For anarchist analysis of the events, two important documents from the time are Mikhail Bakunin's The Paris Commune and the Idea of the State and Peter Kropotkin's The Commune of Paris. Also online is Agor@'s book-length site about the Commune (in French). Returning to primary sources, there is an extremely hostile account in 4 volumes called Les Convulsions de Paris (Paris, 1878) by the journalist Maxime du Camp who takes a hard and rhetorical right-wing position. This is a fair guide to the contemporary views of the Versaillais. His book can be found in major libraries or through Galaxidion the main French online source for secondhand and antiquarian books. A recent selection of primary accounts is Mitchell Abidor (ed.), Communards: The Story of the Paris Commune of 1871, As Told by Those Who Fought for It. Erythrs Press/Marxists Internet Archive, 2010. The leading modern historian of the Commune is Jacques Rougerie, whose books Procs des Communards and Paris ville libre are unfortunately unpublished in English. Two concise up-to-date histories in English, readily available, are: Robert Tombs. The Paris Commune 1871 London, Longman, 1999 David A. Shafer. The Paris Commune London, Palgrave, 2005 Older works include: Alistair Horne. The Fall of Paris. The Siege and the Commune 1870-71. London, Macmillan, 1965. (A much shorter but lavishly illustrated version was published in 1971 under the title, The Terrible Year). A very lively 'Anglo-Saxon' view. Frank Jellinek. The Paris Commune of 1871. London, Gollancz, 1937. Also, N.Y., Grosset & Dunlap, 1965. Written from a socialist point of view. The Revolutionary Idea in France 1789-1871 by Godfrey Elton (London, Edwin Arnold, 1923), available in many university libraries, is one of the few books which places the Commune in a longer-term historical perspective. It is conservative in tone. Lenin, who deemed the Paris Commune an excellent example of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", also wrote about the Paris Commune in The Paris Commune (to be found in Lenin on the Paris Commune). The fullest bibliography of the Commune is that of Robert le Quillec: La Commune de Paris. Bibliographie Critique 1871-1997. Paris, La Boutique de l'Histoire, 1997. 2660 books, pamphlets and other materials are listed. Barbara de Courson, Martyrs of the Paris Commune in the Catholic Encyclopedia (1908).

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A plaque honours the dead of the Commune in Pre Lachaise cemetery.

[19] The Theory of Value and Surplus Value


Ernest Mandel An Introduction to Marxist Economic Theory http://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1967/intromet/ch01.htm

In the last analysis, every step forward in the history of civilization has been brought about by an increase in the productivity of labor. As long as a given group of men barely produced enough to keep itself alive, as long as there was no surplus over and above this necessary product, it was impossible for a division of labor to take place and for artisans, artists or scholars to make their appearance. Under these conditions, the technical prerequisites for such specialization could not possibly be attained. Social Surplus Product As long as the productivity of labor remains at a level where one man can only produce enough for his own subsistence, social division does not take place and any social differentiation within society is impossible. Under these conditions, all men are producers and they are all on the same economic level. Every increase in the productivity of labor beyond this low point makes a small surplus possible, and once there is a surplus of products, once mans two hands can produce more than is needed for his own subsistence, then the conditions have been set for a struggle over how this surplus will be shared. From this point on, the total output of a social group no longer consists solely of labor necessary for the subsistence of the producers. Some of this labor output may now be used to release a section of society from having to work for its own subsistence. Whenever this situation arises, a section of society can become a ruling class, whose outstanding characteristic is its emancipation from the need of working for its

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own subsistence. Thereafter, the labor of the producers can be divided into two parts. A part of this labor continues to be used for the subsistence of the producers themselves and we call this part necessary labor; the other part is used to maintain the ruling class and we give it the name surplus labor. Let us illustrate this by the very clear example of plantation slavery, as it existed in certain regions and periods of the Roman Empire, or as we find it in the West Indies and the islands of Portuguese Africa starting with the seventeenth century, on the great plantations which were established there. In these tropical areas, even the slaves food was generally not provided by the master; the slave had to produce this himself by working a tiny plot of ground on Sundays and the products from this labor constituted his store of food. On six days of the week the slave worked on the plantation and received in return none of the products of his labor. This is the labor which creates a social surplus product, surrendered by the slave as soon as it is produced and belonging solely to the slavemaster. The work week, which in this case is seven days, can be divided into two parts: the work of one day, Sunday, constitutes necessary labor, that labor which provides the products for the subsistence of the slave and his family; the work of the other six days is surplus labor and all of its products go to the master, are used for his sustenance and his enrichment as well. The great domains of the early Middle Ages furnish us with another illustration. The land of these domains was divided into three parts: the communal lands consisting of forest, meadows, swamps, etc.; the land worked by the serf for his own and his familys subsistence; and finally, the land worked by the serf in order to maintain the feudal lord. The work week during this period was usually six days, not seven. It was divided into two equal parts: the serf worked three days on the land from which the yield belonged to him; the other three days he worked on the feudal lords land, without remuneration, supplying free labor to the ruling class. The products of each of these two very different types of labor can be defined in different terms. When the producer is performing necessary labor, he is producing a necessary product. When he is performing surplus labor, he is producing a social surplus product. Thus, social surplus product is that part of social production which is produced by the laboring class but appropriated by the ruling class, regardless of the form the social surplus product may assume, whether this be one of natural products, or commodities to be sold, or money. Surplus value is simply the monetary form of the social surplus product. When the ruling class appropriates the part of societys production previously defined as surplus product exclusively in the monetary form, then we use the term surplus value instead of surplus product. As we shall see later on, however, the above only constitutes a preliminary approach to the definition of surplus value.

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How does social surplus product come into existence? It arises as a consequence of a gratuitous appropriation, that is, an appropriation without compensation, by a ruling class of a part of the production of a producing class. When the slave worked six days a week on a plantation and the total product of his labor was taken by the master without any compensation to the slave, the origin of the social surplus product here is in the gratuitous labor, the uncompensated labor, supplied by the slave to the master. When the serf worked three days a week on the lords land, the origin of this income, of this social surplus product, is also to be found in the uncompensated labor, the gratuitous labor, furnished by the serf. We will see further on that the origin of capitalist surplus value, that is to say, the revenue of the bourgeois class in capitalist society, is exactly the same: it is uncompensated labor, gratuitous labor, which the proletarian, the wage worker, gives the capitalist without receiving any value in exchange.

Commodities, Use value and Exchange value We have now developed several basic definitions which will be used throughout this exposition. A number of others must be added at this point. Every product of human labor normally possesses utility; it must be able to satisfy a human need. We may therefore say that every product of human labor has a use value. The term use value will, however, be used in two different senses. We will speak of the use value of a commodity; we will also talk about use values, as when we refer, for example, to a society in which only use values are produced, that is to say, where products are created for direct consumption either by the producers themselves or by ruling classes which appropriate them. Together with this use value, a product of human labor can also have another value, an exchange value. It may be produced for exchange on the market place, for the purpose of being sold, rather than for direct consumption by the producers or by wealthy classes. A mass of products which has been created for the purpose of being sold can no longer be considered as the production of simple use values; it is now a production of commodities. The commodity, therefore, is a product created to be exchanged on the market, as opposed to one which has been made for direct consumption. Every commodity must have both a use value and an exchange value. It must have a use value or else nobody would buy it, since a purchaser would be concerned with its ultimate consumption, with satisfying some want of his by this purchase. A commodity without a use value to anyone would consequently be unsaleable, would constitute useless production, would have no exchange value precisely because it had no use value.

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On the other hand, every product which has use value does not necessarily have exchange value. It has an exchange value only to the extent that the society itself, in which the commodity is produced, is founded on exchange, is a society where exchange is common practice. Are there societies where products do not have exchange value? The basis for exchange value, and a fortiori for trade and the market place, is constituted by a given degree of development of the division of labor. In order for products not to be directly consumed by their producers, it is essential that everybody should not be engaged in turning out the same thing. If a particular community has no division of labor, or only its most rudimentary form, then it is clear that no reason for exchange exists. Normally, a wheat farmer has nothing to exchange with another wheat farmer. But as soon as a division of labor exists, as soon as there is contact between social groups producing different use values, then exchange can come about, at first on an occasional basis, subsequently on a more permanent one. In this way, little by little, products which are made to be exchanged, commodities, make their appearance alongside those products which are simply made for the direct consumption of their producers. In capitalist society, commodity production, the production of exchange values, has reached its greatest development. It is the first society in human history where the major part of production consists of commodities. It is not true, however, that all production under capitalism is commodity production. Two classes of products still remain simple use value. The first group consists of all things produced by the peasantry for its own consumption, everything directly consumed on the farms where it is produced. Such production for self-consumption by the farmer exists even in advanced capitalist countries like the United States, although it constitutes only a small part of total agricultural production. In general, the more backward the agriculture of a country, the greater is the fraction of agricultural production going for self-consumption. This factor makes it extremely difficult to calculate the exact national income of such countries. The second group of products in capitalist society which are not commodities but remain simple use value consists of all things produced in the home. Despite the fact that considerable human labor goes into this type of household production, it still remains a production of use values and not of commodities. Every time a soup is made or a button sewn on a garment, it constitutes production, but it is not production for the market. The appearance of commodity production and its subsequent regularization and generalization have radically transformed the way men labor and how they organize society.

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The Marxist Theory of Alienation You have no doubt already heard about the Marxist theory of alienation. The emergence, regularization and generalization of commodity production are directly related to the expanding character of this phenomenon of alienation. We cannot dwell on this aspect of the question here but it is extremely important to call attention to it, since the history of trade covers far more than the capitalist era. It also includes small-scale commodity production, which we will discuss later. There is also a postcapitalist society based on commodities, a transitional society between capitalism and socialism, such as present-day Soviet society, for the latter still rests in very large measure on the foundations of exchange value production. Once we have grasped certain fundamental characteristics of a society based on commodities, we can readily see why it is impossible to surmount certain phenomena of alienation in the transitional period between capitalism and socialism, as in Soviet society, for example. Obviously this phenomenon of alienation does not exist at least in the same form in a society where commodity production is unknown and where the life of the individual and his social activity are united in the most elementary way. Man works, but generally not by himself; most often he is part of a collective group having a more or less organic structure. His labor is a direct transformation of material things. All of this means that labor activity, the act of production, the act of consumption, and the relations between the individual and his society are ruled by a condition of equilibrium which has relative stability and permanence. We should not, of course, embellish the picture of primitive society, which was subject to pressures and periodic catastrophes because of its extreme poverty. Its equilibrium was constantly endangered by scarcity, hunger, natural disasters, etc. But in the periods between catastrophes, especially after agriculture had attained a certain degree of development and when climatic conditions were favorable, this kind of society endowed all human activities with a large degree of unity, harmony and stability. Such disastrous consequences of the division of labor as the elimination of all aesthetic activity, artistic inspiration and creative activity from the act of production and the substitution of purely mechanical and repetitive tasks were nonexistent in primitive society. On the contrary, most of the arts, music, sculpture, painting, the dance, were originally linked to production, to labor. The desire to give an attractive and appealing form to products which were to be used either by the individual, his family, or larger kinship groups, found a normal, harmonious and organic expression within the framework of the days work. Labor was not looked upon as an obligation imposed from without, first of all because it was far less intense, far less exhausting than under capitalism today. It conformed more closely to the rhythms of the human organism as well as to the rhythms of nature. The number of working days per year rarely exceeded 150 to 200, whereas under capitalism the figure is dangerously close to 300 and sometimes even greater. Furthermore, there was a unity between the producer, his product and its

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consumption, since he generally produced for his own use or for those close to him, so that his work possessed a directly functional aspect. Modern alienation originates basically in the cleavage between the producer and his product, resulting both from the division of labor and commodity production. In other words, it is the consequence of working for the market, for unknown consumers, instead of for consumption by the producer himself. The other side of the picture is that a society which only produces use values, that is, goods which will be consumed directly by their producers, has always in the past been an impoverished society. Not only was it subject to the hazards of nature but it also had to set very narrow limits to mans wants, since these had to conform exactly to its degree of poverty and limited variety of products. Not all human wants are innate to man. There is a constant interaction between production and wants, between the development of the productive forces and the rise of new wants. Only in a society where labor productivity will be developed to its highest point, where an infinite variety of products will be available, will it be possible for man to experience a continuous expansion of his wants, a development of his own unlimited potential, an integrated development of his humanity.

The Law of Value One of the consequences of the appearance and progressive generalization of commodity production is that labor itself begins to take on regular and measurable characteristics; in other words, it ceases to be an activity tied to the rhythms of nature and according with mans own physiological rhythms. Up to the nineteenth century and possibly even into the twentieth, the peasants in various regions of Western Europe did not work in a regulated way, that is to say, they did not work with the same intensity every month of the year. There were periods in the work year when they worked very hard and other periods, particularly during the winter, when all activity virtually came to a halt. It was in the most backward agricultural areas of most of the capitalist countries that capitalist society, in the course of its development, found a most attractive source of reserve manpower, for here was a labor force available for four to six months a year at much lower wages, in view of the fact that a part of its subsistence was provided by its agricultural activity.

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When we look at the more highly developed and prosperous farms, those bordering the big cities, for example, and which are basically on the road to becoming industrialized, we see that work is much more regular and the amount of expended labor much greater, being distributed in a regular way throughout the year, with dead seasons progressively eliminated. This holds true not only for our times but even as early as the Middle Ages, at least from the twelfth century on. The closer we get to the cities, that is to say, to the marketplace, the more the peasants labor becomes labor for the market, that is to say, commodity production, and the more regulated and more or less stable his labor becomes, just as if he were working inside an industrial enterprise. Expressed another way, the more generalized commodity production becomes, the greater the regulation of labor and the more society becomes organized on the basis of an accounting system founded on labor. When we examine the already fairly advanced division of labor within a commune at the beginning of commercial and craft development in the Middle Ages, or the collectives in such civilizations as the Byzantine, Arab, Hindu, Chinese and Japanese, certain common factors emerge. We are struck by the fact that a very advanced integration of agriculture and various craft techniques exists and that regularity of labor is true for the countryside as well as the city, so that an accounting system in terms of labor, in labor-hours, has become the force governing all the activity and even the very structure of the collectives. In the chapter on the law of value in my Marxist Economic Theory, I give a whole series of examples of this accounting system in work-hours. There are Indian villages where a certain caste holds a monopoly of the blacksmith craft but continues to work the land at the same time in order to feed itself. The rule which has been established is this: when a blacksmith is engaged to make a tool or weapon for a farm, the client supplies the raw materials and also works the blacksmiths land during the whole period that the latter is engaged in making the implement. Here is a very transparent way of stating that exchange is governed by an equivalence in work-hours. In the Japanese villages of the Middle Ages, an accounting system in work-hours, in the literal sense of the term, existed inside the village community. The village accountant kept a kind of great book in which he entered the number of hours of work done by villagers on each others fields, since agriculture was still mainly based on cooperative labor, with harvesting, farm construction and stock breeding being done in common. The number of work-hours furnished by the members of one household to the members of another was very carefully tallied. At the end of the year, the exchanges had to balance, that is, the members of household B were required to have given household A exactly the same number of work-hours which members of household A had given household B during the year. The Japanese even refined things to the point almost a thousand years ago! where they took into account that children provided a smaller quantity of labor than adults, so that an hour of child labor was worth only a half-hour of adult labor. A whole system of accounting was set up along these lines. There is another example which gives us a direct insight into this accounting system based on labor-time: the conversion of feudal rent from one form to another. In feudal society, the agricultural surplus product could take three different forms: rent in the form of labor (the corve), rent in kind, and money rent.

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When a change is made from the corvee to rent in kind, obviously a process of conversion takes place. Instead of giving the lord three days of labor per week, the peasant now gives him a certain quantity of wheat, livestock, etc., on a seasonal basis. A second conversion takes place in the changeover from rent in kind to money rent. These two conversions must be based on a fairly rigorous accounting in work-hours if one of the two parties does not care to suffer a loss in the process. For example, if at the time the first conversion was effected, the peasant gave the lord a quantity of wheat which required only 75 workdays of labor, whereas previously he had given the lord 150 workdays of labor in the same year, then this conversion of labor-rent into rent in kind would result in the sudden impoverishment of the lord and a rapid enrichment of the serfs. The landlords you can depend on them! were careful to see to it when the conversion was made that the different forms of rent were closely equivalent. Of course the conversion could eventually turn out to be a bad one for one of the participating classes, for example, against the landlords, if a sharp rise in agricultural prices occurred after rent was converted from rent in kind to money rent, but such a result would be historical in character and not directly attributable to the conversion per se. The origin of this economy based on an accounting in labor-time is also clearly apparent in the division of labor within the village as it existed between agriculture and the crafts. For a long time the division remained quite rudimentary. A section of the peasantry continued to produce part of its own clothing for a protracted historical period, which in Western Europe extended almost a thousand years; that is, from the beginning of the medieval cities right up to the nineteenth century. The technique of making clothing was certainly no mystery to the cultivator of the soil. As soon as a regular system of exchange between the farmer and textile craftsman was established, standard equivalents were likewise established-for example, an ell of cloth [a measure varying from 27 to 48 inches] would be exchanged for 10 pounds of butter, not for 100 pounds. Obviously the peasants knew, on the basis of their own experience, the approximate labor-time needed to produce a given quantity of cloth. Had there not been a more or less exact equivalence between the time needed to produce the cloth and the time needed to produce the butter for which it was exchanged, there would have been an immediate shift in the division of labor. If cloth production were more lucrative than butter production, the butter producers would switch to producing cloth. Since society here was only at the threshold of an extreme division of labor, that is to say, it was still at a point where the boundaries between different techniques were not clearly marked, the passage from one economic activity to another was still possible, particularly when striking material gains were possible by means of such a change. In the cities of the Middle Ages as well, a very skilfully calculated equilibrium existed between the various crafts and was written into the charters which specified almost to the minute the amount of labor-time necessary for the production of different articles. It is inconceivable that under such conditions a shoemaker or blacksmith might get the same amount of money for a product which took half the labor-time which a weaver or other artisan might require in order to get the same amount of money for his products.

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Here again we clearly see the mechanism of an accounting system in work-hours, a society functioning on the basis of an economy of labor-time, which is generally characteristic of the whole phase which we call small-scale commodity production. This is the phase intervening between a purely natural economy, in which only use values are produced, and capitalist society, in which commodity production expands without limit. Determination of the Exchange Value of Commodities Once we have determined that the production and exchange of commodities becomes regular and generalized in a society based on an economy of labor-time, on an accounting system in work-hours, we can readily understand why the exchange of commodities, in its origins and inherent nature, rests on this fundamental basis of an accounting system in work-hours and consequently follows this general rule: the exchange value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor necessary to produce it. The quantity of labor is measured by the length of time it takes to produce the commodity. This general definition of the labor theory of value is the basis of both classical bourgeois political economy from the seventeenth century to the beginning of the nineteenth century, from William Petty to Ricardo; and Marxist economic theory, which took over the theory of labor value and perfected it. However, the general definition must be qualified in several respects.

In the first place, not all men are endowed with the same capacity for work, with the same strength or the same degree of skill at their trade. If the exchange value of commodities depended only on the quantity of labor expended individually, that is, on the quantity of labor expended by each individual in the production of a commodity, we would arrive at this absurdity: the lazier or more incompetent the producer, and the larger the number of hours he would spend in making a pair of shoes, the greater

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would be the value of the shoes! This is obviously impossible since exchange value is not a moral reward for mere willingness to work but an objective bond set up between independent producers in order to equalize the various crafts in a society based both on a division of labor and an economy of labor-time. In such a society wasted labor receives no compensation; on the contrary, it is automatically penalized. Whoever puts more time into producing a pair of shoes than the average necessary hours an average determined by the average productivity of labor and recorded in the Guild Charters, for example! such a person has wasted human labor, worked to no avail for a certain number of hours. He will receive nothing in exchange for these wasted hours. Expressed another way, the exchange value of a commodity is not determined by the quantity of labor expended by each individual producer engaged in the production of this commodity but by the quantity of labor socially necessary to produce it. The expression socially necessary means: the quantity of labor necessary under the average conditions of labor productivity existing in a given country at a given time. The above qualification has very important applications when we examine the functioning of capitalist society more closely. Another clarifying statement must be added here. Just what do we mean by a quantity of labor? Workers differ in their qualifications. Is there complete equality between one persons hour of work and everybody elses, regardless of such differences in skills? Once again the question is not a moral one but has to do with the internal logic of a society based on an equality between skills, an equality in the marketplace, and where any disruption of this equality would immediately destroy the social equilibrium. What would happen, for example, if an hours work by an unskilled laborer was worth as much as an hours work by a skilled craftsman, who had spent four to six years as an apprentice in acquiring his skill? Obviously, no one would want to become skilled. The hours of work spent in learning a craft would be wasted hours since the craftsman Would not be compensated for them after becoming qualified. In an economy founded on an accounting system of work-hours, the young will desire to become skilled only if the time lost during their training period is subsequently paid for. Our definition of the exchange value of a commodity must therefore be completed as follows: An hour of labor by a skilled worker must be considered as complex labor, as compound labor, as a multiple of an hour of unskilled labor; the coefficient of multiplication obviously cannot be an arbitrary one but must be based on the cost of acquiring a given skill. It should be pointed out, in passing, that there was always a certain fuzziness in the prevailing explanation of compound labor in the Soviet Union under Stalin which has persisted to this very day. It is claimed that compensation for work should be based on the quantity and quality of the work, but the concept of quality is no longer understood in the Marxist sense of the term, that is to say, as a quality measurable quantitatively by means of a specific coefficient of multiplication. On the contrary, the idea of quality is used in the bourgeois ideological sense, according to which the quality of labor is supposed to be determined by its social usefulness, and this is used to justify the incomes of marshals, ballerinas and industrial managers, which are ten times higher than the incomes of unskilled laborers.

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Such a theory belongs in the domain of apologetics despite its widespread use to justify the enormous differences in income which existed under Stalin and continue to exist in the Soviet Union today, although to a lesser extent. The exchange value of a commodity, then, is determined by the quantity of labor socially necessary for its production, with skilled labor being taken as a multiple of simple labor and the coefficient of multiplication being a reasonably measurable quantity. This is the kernel of the Marxist theory of value and the basis for all Marxist economic theory in general. Similarly, the theory of social surplus product and surplus labor, which we discussed at the beginning of this work, constitutes the basis for all Marxist sociology and is the bridge connecting Marxs sociological and historical analysis, his theory of classes and the development of society generally, to Marxist economic theory, and more precisely, to the Marxist analysis of all commodityproducing societies of a precapitalist, capitalist and postcapitalist character. What is Socially Necessary Labor? A short while back I stated that the particular definition of the quantity of socially necessary labor for producing a commodity had a very special and extremely important application in the analysis of capitalist society. I think it will be more useful to deal with this point now although logically it might belong to a later section of this presentation. The totality of all commodities produced in a country at a given time has been produced to satisfy the wants of the sum total of the members of this society. Any article which did not satisfy somebodys needs, which had no use- value for anyone, would be a priori unsaleable, would have no exchange value, would not constitute a commodity but simply a product of caprice or the idle jest of some producer. From another angle, the sum total of buying power which exists in this given society at a given moment and which is not to be hoarded but spent in the market, must be used to buy the sum total of commodities produced, if there is to be economic equilibrium. This equilibrium therefore implies that the sum total of social production, of the available productive forces in this society, of its available work-hours, has been distributed among the various sectors of industry in the same proportions as consumers distribute their buying power in satisfying their various wants. When the distribution of productive forces no longer corresponds to this division in wants, the economic equilibrium is destroyed and both overproduction and underproduction appear side by side. Let us give a rather commonplace example: toward the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, a city like Paris had a coach-building industry, which together with associated harness trades employed thousands or even tens of thousands of workers. In the same period the automobile industry was emerging and although still quite small it already numbered some scores of manufacturers employing several thousands of workers. Now what is the process taking place during this period? On the one hand, the number of carriages begins to decline and on the other, the number of automobiles

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begins to increase. The production of carriages and carriage equipment therefore shows a trend toward exceeding social needs, as these are reflected in the manner in which the inhabitants of Paris are dividing their buying power; on the other side of the picture, the production of automobiles is below social needs, for from the time the industry was launched until the advent of mass production, a climate of scarcity existed in this industry. The supply of automobiles on the market was never equal to the demand. How do we express these phenomena in terms of the labor theory of value? We can say that in the carriage industry more labor is expended than is socially necessary, that a part of the labor expended by the sum total of companies in the carriage industry is socially wasted labor, which no longer finds an equivalent on the marketplace and is consequently producing unsaleable goods. In capitalist society, when goods are unsaleable it means that an investment of human labor has been made in a specific industrial branch which turns out to be socially unnecessary labor, that is to say, it is labor which finds no equivalent in buying power in the marketplace. Labor which is not socially necessary is wasted labor; it is labor which produces no value. We can see from this that the concept of socially necessary labor embraces a whole series of phenomena. For the products of the carriage industry, supply exceeds demand, prices fall and goods remain unsaleable. The reverse is true in the automobile industry where demand exceeds supply, causing prices to rise and under- production to exist. To be satisfied with these commonplaces about supply and demand, however, means stopping at the psychological and individual aspects of the problem. On the other hand, if we probe into the deeper social and collective side of the problem, we begin to understand what lies below the surface in a society organized on the basis of an economy of labor-time. The meaning of supply exceeding demand is that capitalist production, which is anarchistic, unplanned and unorganized, has anarchistically invested or expended more labor hours in an industrial branch than are socially necessary, so that a whole segment of labor-hours turns out to be pure loss, so much wasted human labor which remains unrequited by society. Conversely, an industrial sector where demand continues to be greater than supply can be considered as an underdeveloped sector in terms of social needs; it is therefore a sector expending fewer hours of labor than are socially necessary and it receives a bonus from society in order to stimulate an increase in production and achieve an equilibrium with social needs. This is one aspect of the problem of socially necessary labor in the capitalist system. The other aspect of the problem is more directly related to changes in the productivity of labor. It is the same thing but makes an abstraction of social needs, of the use value aspect of production. In capitalist society the productivity of labor is constantly changing. Generally speaking, there are always three types of enterprises (or industrial sectors): those which are technologically right at the social average; those which are backward, obsolete, on the downgrade, below the social average; and those which are technologically advanced and above average in productivity. What do we mean when we say a sector or an enterprise is technologically

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backward and has a productivity of labor which is below the average? Such a branch or enterprise is analogous to our previously mentioned lazy shoemaker, that is, it is one which takes five hours to produce a specific quantity of goods in a period when the average social productivity demands that it be done in three hours. The two extra hours of expended labor are a total loss, a waste of social labor. A portion of the total amount of labor available to society having thus been wasted by an enterprise, it will receive nothing from society to compensate it. Concretely it means that the selling prices in this industry or enterprise, which is operating below average productivity, approach its production costs or even fall below them, that is to say, the enterprise is operating at a very low rate of profit or even at a loss. On the other hand, an enterprise or industrial sector with an above average level of productivity (like the shoemaker who can produce two pairs of shoes in three hours when the social average is one pair per three hours) economizes in its expenditure of social labor and therefore makes a surplus profit, that is to say, the difference between its costs and selling prices will be greater than the average profit. The pursuit of this surplus profit is, of course, the driving force behind the entire capitalist economy. Every capitalist enterprise is forced by competition to try to get greater profits, for this is the only way it can constantly improve its technology and labor productivity. Consequently all firms are forced to take this same direction, and this of course implies that what at one time was an above-average productivity winds up as the new average productivity, whereupon the surplus profit disappears. All the strategy of capitalist industry stems from this desire on the part of every enterprise to achieve a rate of productivity superior to the national average and thereby make a surplus profit, and this in turn provokes a movement which causes the surplus profit to disappear, by virtue of the trend for the average rate of labor productivity to rise continuously. This is the mechanism in the tendency for profit rates to become equalized.

The Origin and Nature of Surplus Value And now, what is surplus value? When we consider it from the viewpoint of the Marxist theory of value, the answer is readily found. Surplus value is simply the monetary form of the social surplus product, that is to say, it is the monetary form of that part of the workers production which he surrenders to the owner of the means of production without receiving anything in return. How is this surrender accomplished in practice within capitalist society? It takes place through the process of exchange, like all important operations in capitalist society, which are always relations of exchange. The capitalist buys the labor-power of the worker, and in exchange for this wage, he appropriates the entire production of that worker, all the newly produced value which has been incorporated into the value of this

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production. We can therefore say from here on that surplus value is the difference between the value produced by the worker and the value of his own labor-power. What is the value of labor-power? In capitalist society, labor-power is a commodity, and like the value of any other commodity, its value is the quantity of labor socially necessary to produce and reproduce it, that is to say, the living costs of the worker in the wide meaning of the term. The concept of a minimum living wage or of an average wage is not a physiologically rigid one but incorporates wants which change with advances in the productivity of labor. These wants tend to increase parallel with the progress in technique and they are consequently not comparable with any degree of accuracy, for different periods. The minimum living wage of 1830 cannot be compared quantitatively with that of 1960, as the theoreticians of the French Communist party have learned to their sorrow. There is no valid way of comparing the price of a motorcycle in 1960 with the price of a certain number of kilograms of meat in 1830 in order to come up with a conclusion that the first is worth less than the second. Having made this reservation, we can now repeat that the living cost of labor-power constitutes its value and that surplus value is the difference between this living cost and the value created by this labor-power. The value produced by labor-power can be measured in a simple way by the length of time it is used. If a worker works ten hours, he produces a value of ten hours of work. If the workers living costs, that is to say, the equivalent of his wage, is also ten hours of work, then no surplus value would result. This is only a special case of the more general rule: when the sum total of labor product is equal to the product required to feed and maintain the producer, there is no social surplus product. But in the capitalist system, the degree of labor productivity is such that the living costs of the worker are always less than the quantity of newly created value. This means that a worker who labors for ten hours does not need the equivalent of ten hours of labor in order to support himself in accordance with the average needs of the times. His equivalent wage is always only a fraction of his days labor; everything beyond this fraction is surplus value, free labor supplied by the worker and appropriated by the capitalist without an equivalent offset. If this difference did not exist, of course, then no employer would hire any worker, since such a purchase of labor-power would bring no profit to the buyer. The Validity of the Labor Theory of Value To conclude, we present three traditional proofs of the labor theory of value. The first of these is the analytical proof, which proceeds by breaking down the price of a commodity into its constituent elements and demonstrating that if the process is extended far enough, only labor will be found. The price of every commodity can be reduced to a certain number of components: the amortization of machinery and buildings, which we call the renewal of fixed capital; the price of raw materials and accessory products; wages; and finally, everything which is surplus value, such as profit, rent, taxes, etc.

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So far as the last two components are concerned, wages and surplus value, it has already been shown that they are labor pure and simple. With regard to raw materials, most of their price is largely reducible to labor; for example, more than 60 per cent of the mining cost of coal consists of wages. If we start by breaking down the average manufacturing cost of commodities into 40% for wages, 20% surplus value, 30% for raw materials and 10% in fixed capital; and if we assume that 60% of the cost of raw materials can be reduced to labor, then we already have 78% of the total cost reduced to labor. The rest of the cost of raw materials breaks down into the cost of other raw materials reducible in turn to 60% labor plus the cost of amortizing machinery. The price of machinery consists to a large degree of labor (for example, 40%) and raw materials (for example, 40% also). The share of labor in the average cost of all commodities thus passes successively to 83%, 87%, 89.5%, etc. It is obvious that the further this breakdown is carried, the more the entire cost tends to be reduced to labor, and to labor alone. The second proof is the logical proof, and is the one presented in the beginning of Marxs Capital. It has perplexed quite a few readers, for it is certainly not the simplest pedagogical approach to the question. Marx poses the question in the following way. The number of commodities is very great. They are interchangeable, which means that they must have a common quality, because everything which is interchangeable is comparable and everything which is comparable must have at least one quality in common. Things which have no quality in common are, by definition, not comparable with each other. Let us inspect each of these commodities. What qualities do they possess? First of all, they have an infinite set of natural qualities: weight, length, density, color, size, molecular nature; in short, all their natural physical, chemical and other qualities. Is there any one of the physical qualities which can be the basis for comparing them as commodities, for serving as the common measure of their exchange value? Could it be weight? Obviously not, since a pound of butter does not have the same value as a pound of gold. Is it volume or length? Examples will immediately show that it is none of these. In short, all those things which make up the natural quality of a commodity, everything which is a physical or chemical quality of this commodity, certainly determines its use value, its relative usefulness, but not its exchange value. Exchange value must consequently be abstracted from everything that consists of a natural physical quality in the commodity. A common quality must be found in all of these commodities which is not physical. Marxs conclusion is that the only common quality in these commodities which is not physical is their quality of being the products of human labor, of abstract human labor. Human labor can be thought of in two different ways. It can be considered as specific concrete labor, such as the labor of the baker, butcher, shoemaker, weaver, blacksmith, etc. But so long as it is thought of as specific concrete work, it is being viewed in its aspect of labor which produces only use values. Under these conditions we are concerning ourselves only with the physical qualities of commodities and these are precisely the qualities which are not comparable. The only thing which commodities have in common from the viewpoint of exchanging them

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is that they are all produced by abstract human labor, that is to say, by producers who are related to each other on a basis of equivalence as a result of the fact that they are all producing goods for exchange. The common quality of commodities, consequently, resides in the fact that they are the products of abstract human labor and it is this which supplies the measure of their exchange value, of their exchangeability. It is, consequently, the quality of socially necessary labor in the production of commodities which determines their exchange value. Let us immediately add that Marxs reasoning here is both abstract and difficult and is at least subject to questioning, a point which many opponents of Marxism have seized upon and sought to use, without any marked success, however. Is the fact that all commodities are produced by abstract human labor really the only quality which they have in common, apart from their natural qualities? There are not a few writers who thought they had discovered others. In general, however, these have always been reducible either to physical qualities or to the fact that they are products of abstract labor. A third and final proof of the correctness of the labor theory of value is the proof by reduction to the absurd. It is, moreover, the most elegant and most modern of the proofs. Imagine for a moment a society in which living human labor has completely disappeared, that is to say, a society in which all production has been 100 per cent automated. Of course, so long as we remain in the current intermediate stage, in which some labor is already completely automated, that is to say, a stage in which plants employing no workers exist alongside others in which human labor is still utilized, there is no special theoretical problem, since it is merely a question of the transfer of surplus value from one enterprise to another. It is an illustration of the law of equalization of the profit rate, which will be explored later on. But let us imagine that this development has been pushed to its extreme and human labor has been completely eliminated from all forms of production and services. Can value continue to exist under these conditions? Can there be a society where nobody has an income but commodities continue to have a value and to be sold? Obviously such a situation would be absurd. A huge mass of products would be produced without this production creating any income, since no human being would be involved in this production. But someone would want to sell these products for which there were no longer any buyers! It is obvious that the distribution of products in such a society would no longer be effected in the form of a sale of commodities and as a matter of fact selling would become all the more absurd because of the abundance produced by general automation. Expressed another way, a society in which human labor would be totally eliminated from production, in the most general sense of the term, with services included, would be a society in which exchange value had also been eliminated. This proves the validity of the theory, for at the moment human labor disappears from production, value, too, disappears with it.

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[20] Althusser on Ideology


from Modules on Althusser http://www.cla.purdue.edu/english/theory/marxism/modules/alt husserideology.html

LOUIS ALTHUSSER builds on the work of Jacques Lacan to understand the way ideology functions in society. He thus moves away from the earlier Marxist understanding of ideology. In the earlier model, ideology was believed to create what was termed "false consciousness," a false understanding of the way the world functioned (for example, the suppression of the fact that the products we purchase on the open market are, in fact, the result of the exploitation of laborers). Althusser explains that for Marx "Ideology is [...] thought as an imaginary construction whose status is exactly like the theoretical status of the dream among writers before Freud. For those writers, the dream was the purely imaginary, i.e. null, result of the 'day's residues'" (Lenin 108). Althusser, by contrast, approximates ideology to Lacan's understanding of "reality," the world we construct around us after our entrance into the symbolic order. (See the Lacan module on the structure of the psyche.) For Althusser, as for Lacan, it is impossible to access the "Real conditions of existence" due to our reliance on language; however, through a rigorous"scientific" approach to society, economics, and history, we can come close to perceiving if not those "Real conditions" at least the ways that we are inscribed in ideology by complex processes of recognition. Althusser's understanding of ideology has in turn influenced a number of important Marxist thinkers, including Chantalle Mouffe, Ernesto Laclau, Slavoj Zizek, and Fredric Jameson. (See, for comparison, the Jameson module on ideology.) Althusser posits a series of hypotheses that he explores to clarify his understanding of ideology: 1) "Ideology represents the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of existence" (Lenin 109). The traditional way of thinking of ideology led Marxists to show how ideologies are false by pointing to the real world hidden by ideology (for example, the "real" economic base for ideology). According to Althusser,

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by contrast, ideology does not "reflect" the real world but "represents" the "imaginary relationship of individuals" to the real world; the thing ideology (mis)represents is itself already at one remove from the real. In this, Althusser follows the Lacanian understanding of the imaginary order, which is itself at one step removed from the Lacanian Real. In other words, we are always within ideology because of our reliance on language to establish our "reality"; different ideologies are but different representations of our social and imaginary "reality" not a representation of the Real itself. 2) "Ideology has a material existence" (Lenin 112). Althusser contends that ideology has a material existence because "an ideology always exists in an apparatus, and its practice, or practices" (Lenin 112). Ideology always manifests itself through actions, which are "inserted into practices" (Lenin 114), for example, rituals, conventional behavior, and so on. Indeed, Althusser goes so far as to adopt Pascal's formula for belief: "Pascal says more or less: 'Kneel down, move your lips in prayer, and you will believe'" (Lenin 114). It is our performance of our relation to others and to social institutions that continually instantiates us as subjects. Judith Butler's understanding of performativity could be said to be strongly influenced by this way of thinking about ideology. 3) "all ideology hails or interpellates concrete individuals as concrete subjects" (Lenin 115). According to Althusser, the main purpose of ideology is in "'constituting' concrete individuals as subjects" (Lenin 116). So pervasive is ideology in its constitution of subjects that it forms our very reality and thus appears to us as "true" or "obvious." Althusser gives the example of the "hello" on a street: "the rituals of ideological recognition [...] guarantee for us that we are indeed concrete, individual, distinguishable and (naturally) irreplaceable subjects" (Lenin 117). Through "interpellation," individuals are turned into subjects (which are always ideological). Althusser's example is the hail from a police officer: "'Hey, you there!'" (Lenin 118): "Assuming that the theoretical scene I have imagined takes place in the street, the hailed individual will turn round. By this mere one-hundred-and-eighty-degree physical conversion, he becomes a subject" (Lenin 118). The very fact that we do not recognize this interaction as ideological speaks to the power of ideology: what thus seems to take place outside ideology (to be precise, in the street), in reality takes place in ideology [....] That is why those who are in ideology believe themselves by definition outside ideology: one of the effects of ideology is the practical denegation of the ideological character of ideology by ideology: ideology never says, "I am ideological." (Lenin 118) 4) "individuals are always-already subjects" (Lenin 119). Although he presents his example of interpellation in a temporal form (I am interpellated and thus I become a subject, I enter ideology), Althusser makes it clear that the "becoming-subject" happens even before we are born. "This proposition might seem paradoxical" (Lenin 119), Althusser admits; nevertheless, "That an individual is always-already a subject, even before he is born, is [...] the plain reality, accessible to everyone and not a paradox at all" (Lenin 119). Even before the child is born, "it is certain in advance that it will bear its Father's Name, and will therefore have an identity and be irreplaceable. Before its birth, the child is therefore always-already a subject, appointed as a subject in and by the specific familial ideological configuration in which it is 'expected' once it has been conceived" (Lenin 119). Althusser thus once again invokes Lacan's ideas, in this case Lacan's understanding of the "Name-of-the-Father." Most subjects accept their ideological self-constitution as "reality" or "nature" and thus rarely run afoul of the repressive State apparatus, which is designed to punish anyone who rejects the dominant ideology. Hegemony is thus reliant less on such repressive State apparatuses as the police than it is on those Ideological State Apparatuses

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(ISAs) by which ideology is inculcated in all subjects. (See the next module for an explanation of ISAs.) As Althusser puts it, "the individual is interpellated as a (free) subject in order that he shall submit freely to the commandments of the Subject, i.e. in order that he shall (freely) accept his subjection, i.e. in order that he shall make the gestures and actions of his subjection 'all by himself'" (Lenin 123).

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[21] Gramsci on Ideological hegemony, organic intellectuals, and on scholling & education

How to cite this article: Burke, B. (1999, 2005) 'Antonio Gramsci, schooling and education', the encyclopedia of informal education, http://www.infed.org/thinkers/et-gram.htm. Barry Burke 1999, 2005 .

Gramsci's emphasis on critical awareness, the importance of intellectuals being part of everyday life, and on the part played by so-called common sense in maintaining the status quo have helped to open up the transformational possibilities of education.

contents: introduction ideological hegemony organic intellectuals gramsci on schooling and education references

Antonio Gramsci (1891 - 1937) was a leading Italian Marxist. He was an intellectual, a journalist and a major theorist who spent his last eleven years in Mussolinis prisons. During this time, he completed 32 notebooks containing almost 3,000 pages. These notebooks were smuggled out from his prison and published in Italian after the war but did not find an English-language publisher until the 1970s. The central and guiding theme of the Notebooks was the development of a new Marxist theory applicable to the conditions of advanced capitalism. He was born in a little town on the island of Sardinia in 1891, one of seven children. His was one of a very small minority of families on the island that could read and write and because of this he did well at school finally winning a scholarship to the University

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of Turin. Italy was then, as it is now, a country divided between North and South. The South being overwhelmingly rural with a large illiterate peasantry and the North essentially industrialised with a well organised and politically aware working class. The contrast was immense. Turin has been described as the red capital of Italy at the time Gramsci arrived there. It was home to the most advanced industry in the country and above all to FIAT, the motor manufacturer. By the end of the First World War, 30% of Turins population were industrial workers and this despite the fact that another 10% were in the army and not included in the total. The organised workers of Turin had a very combative history. For the first twenty years of this century, Turin was to witness countless demonstrations and a number of general strikes until finally in 1919, there began a movement for the occupation of the factories and the setting up of factory councils to run them. It was this sort of atmosphere that welcomed Gramsci to university life and was to affect his thinking for the rest of his life. Gramsci had already become a socialist through reading pamphlets sent home to Sardinia from the mainland by an older brother. His political thought was expanded by his experiences at university and in his new home city. What Gramsci was to develop, however, was not just an ability to propagandise or to organise political activity. He became the first Marxist theorist to work with the problems of revolutionary change in 20th century Western European society and the first to identify the importance of the struggle against bourgeois values ie an ideological-cultural struggle. Gramscis significance for informal education lies in three realms. First, his exposition of the notion of hegemony provides us with a way of coming to understand the context in which informal educators function and the possibility of critique and transformation. Second, his concern with the role of organic intellectuals deepens our understanding of the place of informal educators. Last, his interest in schooling and more traditional forms of education points to the need not to dismiss more traditional forms. We will look at each of these in turn.

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Ideological Hegemony Gramsci accepted the analysis of capitalism put forward by Marx in the previous century and accepted that the struggle between the ruling class and the subordinate working class was the driving force that moved society forward. What he found unacceptable was the traditional Marxist view of how the ruling class ruled. It was here that Gramsci made a major contribution to modern thought in his concept of the role played by ideology. Often the term "ideology" is seen as referring simply to a system of ideas and beliefs. However, it is closely tied to the concept of power and the definition given by Anthony Giddens is probably the easiest to understand. Giddens defines ideology as "shared ideas or beliefs which serve to justify the interests of dominant groups" [Giddens 1997 p583] Its relationship to power is that it legitimises the differential power that groups hold and as such it distorts the real situation that people find themselves in. The traditional Marxist theory of power was a very one-sided one based on the role of force and coercion as the basis of ruling class domination. This was reinforced by Lenin whose influence was at its height after the success of the Russian Revolution in 1917. Gramsci felt that what was missing was an understanding of the subtle but pervasive forms of ideological control and manipulation that served to perpetuate all repressive structures. He identified two quite distinct forms of political control: domination, which referred to direct physical coercion by police and armed forces and hegemony which referred to both ideological control and more crucially, consent. He assumed that no regime, regardless of how authoritarian it might be, could sustain itself primarily through organised state power and armed force. In the long run, it had to have popular support and legitimacy in order to maintain stability. By hegemony, Gramsci meant the permeation throughout society of an entire system of values, attitudes, beliefs and morality that has the effect of supporting the status quo in power relations. Hegemony in this sense might be defined as an 'organising principle' that is diffused by the process of socialisation into every area of daily life. To the extent that this prevailing consciousness is internalised by the population it becomes part of what is generally called 'common sense' so that the philosophy, culture and morality of the ruling elite comes to appear as the natural order of things. [Boggs 1976 p39] Marxs basic division of society into a base represented by the economic structure and a superstructure represented by the institutions and beliefs prevalent in society was accepted by most Marxists familiar with the concepts. Gramsci took this a step further when he divided the superstructure into those institutions that were overtly coercive and those that were not. The coercive ones, which were basically the public institutions such as the government, police, armed forces and the legal system he regarded as the state or political society and the non-coercive ones were the others such as the churches, the schools, trade unions, political parties, cultural associations, clubs, the family etc. which he regarded as civil society. To some extent, schools could fit into both categories. Parts of school life are quite clearly coercive (compulsory education, the national curriculum, national standards and qualifications) whilst others are not (the hidden curriculum). So for Gramsci, society was made up of the relations of production (capital v labour); the state or political society (coercive institutions) and civil society (all other noncoercive institutions). Gramsci's analysis went much further than any previous Marxist theory to provide an understanding of why the European working class had on the whole failed to develop

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revolutionary consciousness after the First World War and had instead moved towards reformism ie tinkering with the system rather than working towards overthrowing it. It was a far more subtle theory of power than any of his contemporaries and went a long way to explain how the ruling class ruled. Now, if Gramsci was correct that the ruling class maintained its domination by the consent of the mass of the people and only used its coercive apparatuses, the forces of law and order, as a last resort, what were the consequences for Marxists who wished to see the overthrow of that same ruling class? If the hegemony of the ruling capitalist class resulted from an ideological bond between the rulers and the ruled, what strategy needed to be employed? The answer to those questions was that those who wished to break that ideological bond had to build up a counter hegemony to that of the ruling class. They had to see structural change and ideological change as part of the same struggle. The labour process was at the core of the class struggle but it was the ideological struggle that had to be addressed if the mass of the people were to come to a consciousness that allowed them to question their political and economic masters right to rule. It was popular consensus in civil society that had to be challenged and in this we can see a role for informal education. Overcoming popular consensus, however, is not easy. Ideological hegemony meant that the majority of the population accepted what was happening in society as common sense or as the only way of running society. There may have been complaints about the way things were run and people looked for improvements or reforms but the basic beliefs and value system underpinning society were seen as either neutral or of general applicability in relation to the class structure of society. Marxists would have seen people constantly asking for a bigger slice of the cake when the real issue was ownership of the bakery.

Organic Intellectuals This brings me to my second theme. Gramsci saw the role of the intellectual as a crucial one in the context of creating a counter hegemony. He was clear that the transformation from capitalism to socialism required mass participation. There was no question that socialism could be brought about by an elite group of dedicated revolutionaries acting for the working class. It had to be the work of the majority of the population conscious of what they were doing and not an organised party leadership. The revolution led by Lenin and the Bolsheviks in Russia in 1917 was not the model suitable for Western Europe or indeed any advanced industrialised country. The Leninist model took place in a backward country with a huge peasantry and a tiny working class. The result was that the mass of the population were not involved. For Gramsci, mass consciousness was essential and the role of the intellectual was crucial. It is important at this juncture to note that when Gramsci wrote about intellectuals, he was not referring solely to the boffins and academics that sat in ivory towers or wrote erudite pieces for academic journals only read by others of the same ilk. His definition went much further and he spread his net much wider. Gramscis notebooks are quite clear on the matter. He writes that "all men are intellectuals" [and presumably women] "but not all men have in society the function of intellectuals". What he meant by that was that everyone has an intellect and uses it but not all are intellectuals by social function. He explains this by stating that "everyone at some time fries a couple of eggs or sews up a tear in a jacket, we do not necessarily say that everyone is a cook or a tailor". Each social group that comes into

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existence creates within itself one or more strata of intellectuals that gives it meaning, that helps to bind it together and helps it function. They can take the form of managers, civil servants, the clergy, professors and teachers, technicians and scientists, lawyers, doctors etc. Essentially, they have developed organically alongside the ruling class and function for the benefit of the ruling class. Gramsci maintained that the notion of intellectuals as being a distinct social category independent of class was a myth. He identified two types of intellectuals - traditional and organic. Traditional intellectuals are those who do regard themselves as autonomous and independent of the dominant social group and are regarded as such by the population at large. They seem autonomous and independent. They give themselves an aura of historical continuity despite all the social upheavals that they might go through. The clergy are an example of that as are the men of letters, the philosophers and professors. These are what we tend to think of when we think of intellectuals. Although they like to think of themselves as independent of ruling groups, this is usually a myth and an illusion. They are essentially conservative allied to and assisting the ruling group in society. The second type is the organic intellectual. This is the group mentioned earlier that grows organically with the dominant social group, the ruling class, and is their thinking and organising element. For Gramsci it was important to see them for what they were. They were produced by the educational system to perform a function for the dominant social group in society. It is through this group that the ruling class maintains its hegemony over the rest of society. Having said that what was required for those who wished to overthrow the present system was a counter hegemony, a method of upsetting the consensus, of countering the common sense view of society, how could this be done? Gramsci, in his Notebooks, maintained that what was required was that not only should a significant number of traditional intellectuals come over to the revolutionary cause (Marx, Lenin and Gramsci were examples of this) but also the working class movement should produce its own organic intellectuals. Remember that Gramsci said that all men were intellectuals but not all men have the function of intellectuals in society. He went on to point out that "there is no human activity from which every form of intellectual participation can be excluded" and that everyone, outside their particular professional activity, "carries on some form of intellectual activity , participates in a particular conception of the world, has a conscious line of moral conduct, and therefore contributes to sustain a conception of the world or to modify it, that is, to bring into being new modes of thought". This sounds as if he was exaggerating the possibilities but what he was really trying to convey is that people have the capability and the capacity to think. The problem was how to harness those capabilities and capacities. Gramsci saw one of his roles as assisting in the creation of organic intellectuals from the working class and the winning over of as many traditional intellectuals to the revolutionary cause as possible. He attempted this through the columns of a journal called LOrdine Nuovo (New Order), subtitled "a weekly review of Socialist culture". This journal came out at the same time as the huge spontaneous outbreak of industrial and political militancy that swept Turin in 1919. This outbreak mirrored events throughout the industrial world that shook the very foundations of capitalist society. Gramscis insistence on the fundamental importance of the ideological struggle to social change meant that this struggle was not limited to consciousness raising but must aim at consciousness transformation - the creation of a socialist consciousness.

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It was not something that could be imposed on people but must arise from their actual working lives. The intellectual realm, therefore, was not to be seen as something confined to an elite but to be seen as something grounded in everyday life. Gramsci wrote that "the mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, "permanent persuader" and not just a simple orator" [Gramsci 1971 p10] The creation of working class intellectuals actively participating in practical life, helping to create a counter hegemony that would undermine existing social relations was Gramscis contribution to the development of a philosophy that would link theory with practice. His philosophy was a direct counter to those elitist and authoritarian philosophies associated with fascism and Stalinism. His approach was open and nonsectarian. He believed in the innate capacity of human beings to understand their world and to change it. In his Notebooks, he asked the question: "is it better to "think", without having a critical awareness, or, on the other hand, is it better to work out consciously and critically ones own conception of the world?". He wanted revolutionaries to be critical and made it clear that "the starting point of critical elaboration is the consciousness of what one really is ". [Gramsci 1971 p323] The role of informal educators in local communities links up with Gramscis ideas on the role of the intellectual. The educator working successfully in the neighbourhood and with the local community has a commitment to that neighbourhood. They are not here today and gone tomorrow. They may have always lived in the area and have much in common with the local people or they may not. What is important is that they develop relationships with the people they work with that ensures that wherever they go, they are regarded as part of the community (one of us). "They can strive to sustain peoples critical commitment to the social groups with whom they share fundamental interests. Their purpose is not necessarily individual advancement, but human well-being as a whole" (Smith 1994 p127).

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Gramsci on Schooling and Education Schooling played an important part in Gramscis analysis of modern society. The school system was just one part of the system of ideological hegemony in which individuals were socialised into maintaining the status quo. He did not write much in his Notebooks on the school system but what he did write was essentially a critique of the increased specialisation occurring within the Italian school system and a plea for a more comprehensive form of education. The vocational school was being created in order to help modernise Italy. This new system was "advocated as being democratic, while in fact it is destined not merely to perpetuate social differences but to crystallise them in Chinese complexities". Gramsci describes the social character of the traditional schools as determined by the fact that each social group throughout society had its own type of school "intended to perpetuate a specific traditional function, ruling or subordinate" but the answer to the question of modernising education was not to create a whole system of different types of vocational school but "to create a single type of formative school (primary-secondary) which would take the child up to the threshold of his choice of job, forming him during this time as a person capable of thinking, studying and ruling - or controlling those who rule" (Gramsci 1971 p40). Gramsci maintained that this type of school could only achieve success with the active participation of pupils and, in order for this to happen, the school must relate to everyday life. This did not mean that education should not include abstract ideas but that philosophical concepts, formal logic, rules of grammar etc needed to be acquired in school "through work and reflection" (Gramsci 1977 p42). He was clear that learning was not something that came easily for the majority of young people. "The individual consciousness of the overwhelming majority of children reflects social and cultural relations which are different from and antagonistic to those which are represented in the school curricula" (Gramsci 1971 p35). A learner had to be active not "a passive and mechanical recipient". The relationship between the pupils psychology and the educational forms must always be "active and creative, just as the relation of the worker to his tools is active and creative" (Gramsci 1977 p42). There was no doubt in his mind that education in modern Italy was one way in which the mass of the population was kept in its place. In order to transform this situation, the education system had to be confronted and changed dramatically. He did not underestimate the huge mountain that had to be climbed. "If our aim is to produce a new stratum of intellectuals from a social group which has not traditionally developed the appropriate attitudes, then we have unprecedented difficulties to overcome" (Gramsci 1971 p43). Gramscis writings on education are not always easy to understand. In fact, they are quite confusing at times. They are certainly open to misinterpretation (Allman 1988 , Entwistle 1979). The editors of his Prison Notebooks make the point that his apparent "conservative" eulogy of the old system of education in Italy was really only a device to get round the prison censors (Gramsci 1971 p24). However, this device has had the effect of perplexing more than his captors. For informal educators, Gramsci stands out as a major thinker. The importance he placed on critical self awareness, on critical social awareness, on the importance of the intellectual being part of everyday life, on the part played by so-called common sense in maintaining the status quo and the transformational possibilities of education. All of these are now commonplace in the formation of informal educators. Is there any wonder that Mussolinis government made it clear at his trial that they wanted to stop his brain from working?

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Further reading and references Allman, P. (1988) "Gramsci, Freire and Illich: Their Contributions to Education for Socialism" in Tom Lovett, (ed) Radical Approaches to Adult Education: A Reader.London: Routledge. Boggs, C. (1976) Gramscis Marxism. London: Pluto Press. Entwistle, H. (1979). Antonio Gramsci: Conservative schooling for radical politics. London: Routledge. Giddens, A. (1997). Sociology. 3rd ed. Cambridge: Polity Press. Gramsci, A. (1971). Selections from the Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Smith, M.K. (1994). Local education: Community, conversation, praxis. Buckingham: Open University Press. Links Resources on Antonio Gramsci: Excellent site - resources include an online searchable version of the complete Bibliografia gramsciana, a complete list of Gramsci's writings, related appendices and introductory materials, and the first eight issues of the Newsletter of the International Gramsci Society. The Gramsci Institute Foundation: The Gramsci Institute Foundation was founded in 1982, on the basis of the pre-existent Gramsci Institute, born in 1949 with the aim to collect bibliographic and archival materials concerning Antonio Gramsci's profile and thought, the history of Italian labour and socialist movements, the history of the Italian communist party. The 'Turn to Gramsci' in Adult Education: A Review: from the Newsletter of the International Gramsci Society.

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[22] German Revolution of 191819


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Revolution_of_191819 The German Revolution (German: Novemberrevolution) was the politically-driven civil conflict in Germany at the end of World War I, which resulted in the replacement of Germany's imperial government with a republic. The revolutionary period lasted from November 1918 until the formal establishment of the Weimar Republic in August 1919. The roots of the revolution can be found in the German Empire's fortune in the First World War and the social tensions which came to a head shortly thereafter. The first acts of revolution were triggered by the policy of the Supreme Command and its missing coordination with the Naval Command which, in the face of defeat, nevertheless insisted on engaging in a climactic battle with the British Royal Navy. The Wilhelmshaven mutiny (a sailors' revolt) then ensued in the naval ports of Wilhelmshaven and Kiel, and the spirit of rebellion spread across the country and led to the proclamation of a republic on 9 November 1918. Shortly thereafter Emperor Wilhelm II abdicated. The revolutionaries, inspired by communist ideas, failed to hand power to soviets as the Bolsheviks had in Russia, because the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) leadership refused to work with those who supported the Bolsheviks. Furthermore, fearing an all-out civil war in Germany between the communists and the reactionary conservatives, the SPD did not plan to completely strip the old imperial elites of their power and instead sought to integrate them into the new social democratic system. In this endeavour, SPD leftists sought an alliance with the Supreme Command. The army and Freikorps (nationalist militias) quelled the Spartacist uprising by force. The political fragmentation among the left-wing was a significant factor in the failure of the left to seize power. The revolution ended officially on August 11, 1919, when the Weimar Constitution was adopted. Contents 1 Background 1.1 SPD and World War I 1.2 Split of the SPD 1.3 Impact of the Russian Revolution 1.4 Leftist and rightist approaches to peace 1.5 Request for cease fire and change of Constitution 1.6 Third Wilson note and Ludendorff's dismissal 2 Revolution 2.1 Sailors' revolt 2.2 Spread of revolution to the whole Empire 2.3 Reactions in Berlin 2.4 9 November 1918: Two proclamations of a republic 2.5 10 November: SPD leadership in opposition to revolutionary shop stewards. Armistice

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2.6 Stinnes-Legien-Agreement 2.7 Interim government and council movement 2.8 Imperial Council Convention 2.9 Christmas crisis 2.10 Founding of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the January Revolt 2.11 Murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg 2.12 Further revolts in tow of the revolution 2.13 National Assembly and New Imperial Constitution 3 Aftermath 4 Contemporary statements and historical research 4.1 Political developments in the Weimar Republic 4.2 Contemporary statements 4.3 Historical research 5 See also 6 References 7 Further reading 8 External links

Soldiers posing with a captured revolutionary, May 1919

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Background SPD and World War I Around 1900, German Social Democracy was considered to be the leading force in the international Labour Movement. With 28% of the votes in 1912 the Social Democrats had developed into a faction to be reckoned with in Germany. Party membership was around 1 million and the party press (Vorwrts) alone had 1.5 million subscribers. Social Democratic unions, the majority of all unions, had 2.5 million members. In addition, there were numerous co-operative societies (for example, apartment co-ops, shop co-ops, etc.), cultural and other associations directly linked to the SPD, to the unions or adhered along Social Democratic lines. Other noteworthy parties in the Reichstag of 1912 were the Catholic Centre Party (91), the Conservatives (57), the National Liberals (45) and Progressive People's Party (42), the Poles (18) and the Alsatians (9). At the European congresses of the second Socialist International, the SPD had always agreed to resolutions asking for combined action of Socialists in case of a war. Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, the SPD like other socialist parties in Europe organized extensive anti-war demonstrations during the July Crisis. After Rosa Luxemburg, representing the left wing of the party, had called for disobedience and rejection of the war in the name of the entire party, the Imperial government planned to arrest the party leaders immediately at the onset of war. Friedrich Ebert, one of the two party leaders since 1913, traveled to Zrich with Otto Braun in order to save the party's funds from being confiscated. After Germany declared war on the Russian Empire on August 1, 1914, the majority of the SPD-newspapers initially shared the general enthusiasm for the war, particularly because they viewed the Russian Empire as the most reactionary, anti-socialist power. In the first days of August, the editors believed themselves to be in line with the late August Bebel who had died the previous year. In 1904 he had declared in the Reichstag that the SPD would support an armed defence of Germany against a foreign attack. In 1907 at a party convention in Essen he assured that he himself would "shoulder the gun" if it was to fight against Russia, the "enemy of all culture and all the suppressed".[1][2] In the face of the general enthusiasm for the war among the population, which believed in an attack by the Entente powers, many SPD deputies worried they might lose many of their voters with their consistent pacifism. In addition, the government of Imperial Chancellor Bethmann Hollweg threatened to outlaw all parties in case of war. On the other hand, the chancellor cleverly exploited the antitsarist stance of the SPD to procure the party's approval for the war. The party leadership and the party's deputies were split on the issue of support for the war: 96 deputies including Friedrich Ebert approved the war bonds demanded by the imperial government. 14 deputies headed by the second party leader, Hugo Haase, spoke out against the bonds but nevertheless followed party voting instructions and raised their hands in favour. Thus, the whole SPD-faction in the Reichstag voted in favour of the war bonds on August 4. Two days earlier the Free Unions had already agreed to refrain from labour strikes and demands for higher wages for the duration of the war. It was with these decisions by the Party and the Unions that the full mobilization of the German army became possible. Haase explained this decision against his will with the words: "We will not let the fatherland alone in the hour of need!". The Emperor welcomed the socalled "truce" (German: Burgfrieden), declaring: "Ich kenne keine Parteien mehr, ich kenne nur noch Deutsche!" ("I know no more parties, I know only Germans!").[3]

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Even Karl Liebknecht, later becoming the symbol of the most decisive opponents of the war, initially followed the party line: he abstained from voting to not defy his own faction. But a few days later he joined the Gruppe Internationale (Group International) which Rosa Luxemburg had founded on August 5, 1914 with Franz Mehring, Wilhelm Pieck and four others from the left wing of the party, adhering to the pre-war resolutions of the SPD. From this group emerged the nationwide Spartacus League (Spartakusbund) on January 1, 1916. As of December 2, 1914 and initially the only deputy of the Reichstag, Liebknecht voted against further war bonds. Although he was not permitted to present his speech connected with this vote, it was made public through the circulation of an illegal leaflet: The present war was not willed by any of the nations participating in it and it is not waged in the interest of the Germans or any other people. It is an imperialist war, a war for capitalist control of the world market, for the political domination of huge territories and to give scope to industrial and banking capital. Because of high demand this leaflet was soon printed and evolved into the so called "Political Letters" (German: Politischen Briefe), the collections of which afterward were illegally published under the name "Spartacus Letters" (Spartakusbriefe). As of December 1916, these were replaced by the journal "Spartakus", which appeared irregularly until November 1918. This open opposition against the party line put Liebknecht at odds even with those party members around Haase who actually were against the war bonds themselves. At the instigation of the SPD party leadership, Liebknecht was drafted in February 1915 for military service in order to dispose of him the only SPD deputy to get drafted. Because of his attempts to organize objectors of the war, he was expelled from the SPD, and in June 1916, he was sentenced on grounds of high treason to four years in prison. While he was in the army, Rosa Luxemburg wrote most of the Spartacus Letters. After having served a prison sentence, she was put back in jail under "preventive detention" until the war ended.

Split of the SPD The longer the war lasted and the more victims it took, the less SPD members were prepared to keep up the "truce" of 1914; also, since 1916, the guidelines of German policy was set not by the Emperor and the Imperial Government but the Supreme Army Command (German: Oberste Heeresleitung) under the generals Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff. Power in Germany had passed to the military and it was Ludendorff who made the fundamental and essential decisions. He was later to give German history a decisive turn. The generals pursued expansionist and offensive war goals and subjugated civil life to the needs of commanding a war and a war economy. For the labor force, this meant (among other things) 12-hour work days at minimal wages with inadequate provisions. After the outbreak of the Russian February Revolution in 1917, the first organized strikes erupted in German armament factories in March and April that year with about 300,000 participating workers. The American entry into the war on 6 April 1917 threatened to further worsen the situation. The Emperor tried to appease the strikers in his Easter address of 7 April. He promised democratic elections in Prussia, where the three-class franchise system was still in force, after the war. After the SPD leadership under Friedrich Ebert had excluded the opponents of the war from the party ranks, the Spartacists joined with so-called "Revisionists", like Eduard Bernstein and Centrists like Karl Kautsky to found the Independent Social Democratic

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Party of Germany (USPD) under the leadership of Hugo Haase on 9 April 1917. The SPD, also called "MSPD" (Majority Social Democrats), remained under Friedrich Ebert. The USPD demanded the immediate end of the war and a further democratization of Germany, but did not have a unified agenda for social policies. The Spartacus League, which until then had opposed a split of the party, now made up the left wing of the USPD. Both the USPD and the Spartacists continued their anti-war propaganda in factories, especially in the armament plants. Impact of the Russian Revolution Further information: Russian Revolution (1917) After the February Revolution in Russia and the toppling of the last Emperor of Russia, Nicholas II, on 15 March 1917, the Russian Provisional Government, since summer led by Alexander Kerensky, continued the war on the side of the Entente powers. Nevertheless, the German Imperial Government now saw one more chance for victory. To support the anti war sentiment in Russia, it let the leader of the Russian Bolsheviks, Vladimir Lenin, pass in a sealed train wagon from his exile in Switzerland through Germany, Sweden and Finland to Petrograd. As hoped, the Bolsheviks, who had demanded an immediate end to the war, were able to seize power in the October Revolution. Lenin's success raised fears among German bourgeoisie that such a revolution could take place in Germany. With unease, the SPD leadership also took note that a determined and well managed group such as the Bolsheviks was able to assert itself against a parliamentary majority of moderate socialists and middle-class-parties. Their endeavor to prevent a similar development in Germany determined their behavior during the German Revolution. Otto Braun, board member of the SPD and later prime minister of Prussia, clarified the position of his party in a leading article in the SPD newspaper Vorwrts under the title "The Bolsheviks and Us": Socialism cannot be erected on bayonets and machine guns. If it is to last, it must be realized with democratic means. Therefore of course it is a necessary prerequisite that the economic and social conditions for socializing society are ripe. If this was the case in Russia, the Bolsheviks no doubt could rely on the majority of the people. As this is not the case, they established a reign of the sword that could not have been more brutal and reckless under the disgraceful regime of the Tzar. [...] Therefore we must draw a thick, visible dividing line between us and the Bolsheviks.[4] In the same month in which Otto Braun's article appeared another series of strikes swept through the country (January Strikes) with the participation of over 1 million workers. For the first time during these strikes, the so called "Revolutionary Stewards" (Revolutionre Obleute) took action. They were to play an important part in further developments. They called themselves "Councils" (Rte) after the Russian "Soviets". In order to weaken their influence, Ebert joined the Berlin strike leadership and attained an early termination of the strike. On 3 March 1918, the newly established Soviet government agreed to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk negotiated with the Germans by Leon Trotsky. This settlement arguably contained harsher terms for the Russians than the later Treaty of Versailles demanded of the Germans. The Supreme Command was now able to move a part of the eastern armies to the western front. Most Germans believed that also in the west, victory was at hand.

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Leftist and rightist approaches to peace After the United States had entered the war, the situation on the western front became more precarious for the Germans. For that reason, and also to take the wind out of the USPD's sails, the SPD in the Reichstag joined the "Interfractional Committee" with the Catholic Centre Party and the Progressive People's Party. In Summer 1917, these three parties passed a peace resolution providing for a peace through rapprochement without annexations and payments, as opposed to a peace through victory and annexations, as the political right was demanding. Along with everyone else in the country, the committee still believed in a victory. The Supreme Army Command did not like this resolution, and in the negotiations from December 1917 to March 1918 imposed a peace by victory upon Russia. The Supreme Command also outright rejected the "Fourteen Points" set out by U.S President Woodrow Wilson on January 8 of 1918. Wilson wanted peace on the basis of "self-determination of peoples" without victors or conquered. Hindenburg and Ludendorff rejected the offer, because, after victory over Russia, they again believed themselves to be in a stronger position. They continued to bet on a "peace through victory" with far-reaching annexations at the expense of Germany's opponents in the war. Request for cease fire and change of Constitution After the victory in the east the Supreme Army Command ordered the so-called Spring Offensive in the west in order to bring about a decisive turn in favour of the Germans. But when by July 1918 the last reserves were burnt up, military defeat of Germany was sealed. Allied forces scored numerous successive victories in the Hundred Days Offensive, gaining a large swathe of territory. In mid-September, the Balkan Front collapsed. The Kingdom of Bulgaria, an ally of the German Empire and AustriaHungary, capitulated on 27 September. The collapse of Austria-Hungary itself was now only a matter of days. On 29 September, the Supreme Army Command informed Wilhelm II and the Imperial Chancellor, Count Georg von Hertling, at army headquarters in Spa, Belgium that the military situation was hopeless. Ludendorff, probably fearing a break-through, claimed that he couldn't guarantee the front to hold for another 24 hours and demanded a request be given to the Entente for an immediate cease fire. In addition, he recommended the acceptance of the main demand of US President Wilson and put the Imperial Government on a democratic footing, hoping for more favourable peace terms. This enabled him to save the face of the Imperial Army and put the responsibility for the capitulation and its consequences squarely into the hands of the democratic parties and the parliament. As he said to officers of his staff on 1 October: They now must lie on the bed that they've made us."[5] Thus, the so called "Stab-in-the-back legend" (German: Dolchstolegende) was born, according to which the revolutionaries had attacked the undefeated army from the rear, and turned the almost certain victory into a defeat. Ludendorff, who intended to cover up his own failure, contributed considerably to this grave distortion and falsification of history. It was of great importance that the Imperial Government and the German Army managed to shirk their responsibilities and the defeat at the very beginning and blame the new democratic government. The motivation behind this is verified by the following citation in the autobiography of Groener, Ludendorff's successor: It was just fine with me when Army and Army Command remained as guiltless as possible in these wretched truce negotiations, from which nothing good could be

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expected.[6] In nationalist circles, the myth fell on fertile ground. The Nationalists soon defamed the revolutionaries and even politicians like Ebert, who never wanted a revolution and did everything to prevent it, as "November Criminals" (Novemberverbrecher). The radical right did not even stop at political assassinations, e.g. Matthias Erzberger and Walter Rathenau. In Hitler's attempt at a coup in 1923 together with Ludendorff, they deliberately chose the heavily symbolic date of 9 November. In his later ascent to power, Hitler, who had served in the Imperial German Army as a corporal, cunningly exploited the sentiments of the homecomers who felt betrayed not only by the new democratic government but also by their commanders who had sent them to useless slaughter, especially in the Battle of Verdun. Although shocked by Ludendorff's report and the news of the defeat, the majority parties in the Reichstag, and especially the SPD, were willing to take on the responsibility of government at the last minute. As the convinced royalist Hertling objected to handing over the reins to the Reichstag, on 3 October, Emperor Wilhelm II appointed Prince Maximilian of Baden as new Imperial Chancellor. The Prince was considered a liberal yet at the same time a representative of the royal family. In his cabinet, Social Democrats took on responsibility. The most prominent and highestranking was Philipp Scheidemann as undersecretary without portfolio. The following day, the new government offered to the allies the truce which Ludendorff had demanded. It was only on 5 October that the German public was informed of the dismal situation. In the general state of shock about the defeat, which now had become obvious, the constitutional changes, formally decided by the Reichstag on 28 October, went almost unnoticed. From then on, the Imperial Chancellor and the Ministers depended on the confidence of parliamentary majority. After the supreme command had passed from the Emperor to the Imperial Government, the German Empire changed from a constitutional to a parliamentary monarchy. As far as the Social Democrats were concerned, the so-called October Constitution met all the important constitutional objectives of the party. Ebert already regarded 5 October as the birthday of German democracy, after the Emperor voluntarily ceded power and thus considered a revolution as unnecessary. Third Wilson note and Ludendorff's dismissal In the following three weeks, American President Woodrow Wilson responded to the request for a truce with three diplomatic notes. As a precondition for negotiations he demanded the retreat of Germany from all occupied territories, the cessation of submarine activities and in between lines the Emperor's abdication. The letter was to render the process of democratization irreversible. After the third Wilson Note of 24 October, General Ludendorff, in a sudden change of mind, declared the conditions of the allies as unacceptable. He now demanded to resume the war which he himself had declared lost only one month earlier. During the procedure of his request for a truce, the allies realized the military weakness of Germany. The German troops had adapted themselves to the ending of the war and were pressing to get home. They were hardly willing to fight more battles, and desertions were on the increase. So the Imperial Government stayed on course and replaced Ludendorff as First General Quartermaster with General Wilhelm Groener. Ludendorff fled with false papers to neutral Sweden. On 5 November, the Entente Powers agreed to take up negotiations for a truce. But after the third Wilson Note, many soldiers and the general

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population believed that Emperor Wilhelm II had to abdicate in order to achieve peace. Revolution

Sailors' revolt Main article: Sailors' revolt in Kiel While the war-weary troops and the population disappointed by the Kaiser's government awaited the speedy end of the war, the Imperial Naval Command in Kiel under Admiral Franz von Hipper and Admiral Reinhardt Scheer, without authorization, planned to dispatch the fleet for a last battle against the Royal Navy in the English Channel. The naval order of 28 October 1918[7] and the preparations to sail first triggered a mutiny among the affected sailors and then a general revolution which was to sweep aside the monarchy within a few days. The mutinous sailors had no intention of risking their lives near the end of the war, thinking it futile. They were also convinced that the credibility of the new democratic government which was seeking peace would have been compromised by a simultaneous naval attack. (However, The New York Times attributed the German navy revolution to the contributing factor that the German navy had remained on the defensive during the war.[8]) The sailors revolt started on the Schillig Roads off Wilhelmshaven, where the German fleet had anchored in expectation of a planned battle. During the night from 29 to 30 October 1918 some crews refused to obey orders. Sailors on board of three ships from the Third Navy Squadron refused to raise anchor. Part of the crew on SMS Thringen and SMS Helgoland, two battle ships from the First Navy Squadron, committed outright mutiny and sabotage. However, when a day later some torpedo boats pointed their cannons onto these ships, the mutineers gave up and were led away without any resistance. But the Naval Command had to drop its plans as it was felt that the crew's loyalty could not be relied upon any more. The Third Navy Squadron was ordered back to Kiel. The squadron commander Vice-Admiral Kraft carried out a manoeuvre with his battle ships in Helgoland Bay. When this "worked perfectly" (tadellos funktionierte) he believed himself to have regained control of his crews. While moving through the Kiel Canal he had 47 sailors from the SMS Markgraf, who were seen as the ringleaders, imprisoned. In Holtenau (the end of the canal in Kiel) they were brought to the Arrestanstalt (military prison) in Kiel and to Fort Herwarth in the north of Kiel. The sailors and stokers were now pulling out all the stops to prevent the fleet from setting sail again and to achieve the release of their comrades. Some 250 met in the evening of 1 November in the Union House in Kiel. Delegations sent to their officers, requesting the mutineers' release, were not heard. The sailors were now looking for closer ties to the unions, the USPD and the SPD. Thereupon the Union House was closed by police, leading to an even larger joint open air meeting on 2 November. Led by the sailor Karl Artelt, who worked in the torpedo workshop in Kiel-Friedrichsort and by the mobilized shipyard worker Lothar Popp, both USPD members, the sailors called for a large meeting the following day on the same place (Groer Exerzierplatz, large drill ground). This call was heeded by several thousand people on the afternoon of 3 November with workers' representatives also present. The slogan "Peace and Bread" (Frieden und Brot) was raised showing that the sailors and workers demanded not only the release of the imprisoned but also the end of the war and the improvement of food

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provisions. Eventually, the people supported Artelt's call to free the prisoners, and they moved in the direction of the military prison. Shortly before, Sub-Lieutenant Steinhuser, in order to stop the demonstrators, ordered his patrol to give warning shots and then to shoot directly into the demonstration. Seven people were killed and 29 severely injured. Some demonstrators also opened fire. Steinhuser was severely injured by rifle-butt blows and shots, but contrary to later statements, he was not killed.[9] After this eruption the demonstrators as well as the patrol dispersed. Nevertheless the mass protest turned into a general revolt. On the morning of 4 November groups of mutineers moved through the town. Sailors in a large barracks compound in a northern district of Kiel refused obedience: after a division inspection by the commander spontaneous demonstrations took place. Karl Artelt organized the first soldiers' council, and soon many more were set up. The governor of the navy station, Wilhelm Souchon, had to negotiate. The imprisoned sailors and stokers were freed. Soldiers and workers brought public and military institutions under their control. When, against Souchon's promise, different troops advanced to end the rebellion, they were intercepted by the mutineers and either sent back or decided to joined the sailors and workers. By the evening of 4 November, Kiel was firmly in the hands of approximately 40,000 rebellious sailors, soldiers and workers, as was Wilhelmshaven two days later. On the same evening the SPD deputy Gustav Noske arrived in Kiel and was welcomed enthusiastically, although he had orders from the new government and the SPD leadership to bring the uprising under control. He had himself elected chairman of the soldiers' council and reinstated peace and order. Some days later he took over the governor's post, while Lothar Popp from the USPD became chairman of the overall soldiers' council. During the coming weeks Noske actually managed to reduce the influence of the councils in Kiel, but he could not prevent the spread of the revolution to all of Germany. The events had already spread far beyond the city limits. Spread of revolution to the whole Empire As of 4 November delegations of the sailors scattered out to all larger cities in the country. Already by 7 November the revolution had seized all larger coastal cities as well as Hanover, Brunswick, Frankfurt and Munich. In Munich a "Workers' and Soldiers' Council" forced the last King of Bavaria, Ludwig III, to abdicate. Bavaria was the first member state of the German Empire to be declared a Council Republic (German: Rterepublik), the Bavarian Soviet Republic by USPD-member Kurt Eisner. In the following days the royals of all the other German states abdicated, the last one on 23 November was Prince Gnther Victor of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. The Workers' and Soldiers' Councils were almost entirely made up of SPD and USPD members. Their program was democracy, pacifism and anti-militarism. Apart from the royals they deprived only the hitherto almighty military commands of power. The Imperial civilian administration and office bearers such as police, municipal administrations and courts remained unscathed. There were also hardly any confiscations of property or occupations of factories because such measures were expected from the new government. In order to create an executive committed to the revolution and to the future government, the councils for the moment claimed only to take over the supervision of the administration from the military commands. Thus, the SPD was able to establish a firm base on the local level. But while the councils believed to be acting in the interest of the new order, the party leaders of the SPD regarded the councils as disturbing elements for a peaceful changeover of power, which they imagined already to have taken place. Along with the middle-class parties they demanded speedy elections for a national assembly which was to make the final decision on the type of

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state. This soon brought the SPD into opposition with a large part of revolutionaries. It was especially the USPD that took over their demands, one of which was elections as late as possible hoping to create unchangeable facts that met the expectations of a large part of the workforce. Reactions in Berlin Ebert agreed with Max von Baden that a social revolution was to be prevented and that state order must be upheld at any cost. For the restructuring of the state, Ebert wanted to win over the middle-class parties, which already had cooperated with the SPD in the Reichstag in 1917, as well as the old elites of the Empire. He wanted to avoid a feared radicalization of the revolution along Russian lines and he also worried that the precarious situation of supplies could collapse when the existing administration would be taken over by inexperienced revolutionaries. He was certain that the SPD would be able to implement its reform plans due to its parliamentary majorities in the future. Ebert did his best to act in agreement with the old powers, and had in mind to save the monarchy. In order to produce some success to his followers he demanded as of November 6 the abdication of the Kaiser. But Wilhelm II, still in his headquarters in Spa, was playing for time. After the Entente had agreed to truce negotiations on that day he hoped to return to Germany at the head of the army and to quell the revolution by force. According to notes taken by Max von Baden Ebert declared on 7 November: "If the Kaiser doesn't abdicate the social revolution is unavoidable. But I don't want it, indeed I hate it like sin." (Wenn der Kaiser nicht abdankt, dann ist die soziale Revolution unvermeidlich. Ich aber will sie nicht, ja, ich hasse sie wie die Snde.)[10] Max von Baden planned to travel to Spa and personally convince the Kaiser of the necessity to abdicate. Yet, this plan was overtaken by the quickly deteriorating situation in Berlin. 9 November 1918: Two proclamations of a republic In order to remain master of the situation, in the afternoon of 9 November, Friedrich Ebert demanded the chancellorship for himself. The news of the Kaiser's abdication came too late to make any impression upon the demonstrators. Nobody followed the public appeals. More and more demonstrators demanded the total abolition of the monarchy. Karl Liebknecht, just released from prison, had returned to Berlin and re-founded the Spartacist League the previous day. At lunch in the Reichstag the SPD deputy chairman Philipp Scheidemann learned that Liebknecht planned the proclamation of a Socialist Republic. Scheidemann did not want to leave the initiative to the Spartacists and without further ado stepped out onto a balcony of the Reichstag. From there he proclaimed on his own authority - and against Ebert's expressed will - a republic before a mass of demonstrating people. A few hours later Berlin newspapers published that in the Berlin Tiergarten - presumably at the same time - Liebknecht had proclaimed a Socialist Republic, which he affirmed once more before a crowd of people assembled around 4 p.m. at the Berlin Royal Residence. At that time Karl Liebknecht's intentions were little known to the public. The Spartacist League's demands of 7 October for a far reaching restructuring of the economy, the army and the judiciary amongst other things by abolishing the death penaltyhad not yet been publicized. The biggest bone of contention with the SPD was to be the Spartacist's demand for the establishment of "unalterable political facts" on the ground by social and other measures "before" the election of a constituent assembly, while the SPD wanted to leave the decision for the future economic system to the assembly.

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Ebert was faced with a dilemma. The first proclamation he had issued on 9 November was addressed 'To the citizens of Germany'. Ebert wanted to take the sting out of the revolutionary mood and meet the demands of the demonstrators for the unity of the labour parties. He offered the USPD participation in the government and was ready to accept Liebknecht as a minister. Liebknecht in turn demanded the control of the workers' councils over the army. As USPD chairman Hugo Haase was in Kiel and the deliberations went on the USPD deputies were not able to reach a decision on that day. Neither the early announcement of the Kaiser's abdication by Max von Baden and Ebert's chancellorship, nor Scheidemann's proclamation of the Republic were covered by the constitution. These were all revolutionary actions by protagonists who did not want a revolution but nevertheless created lasting facts. However, a real revolutionary action took place the same evening which, in the end, proved to have been in vain. Around 8 p.m. a group of 100 Revolutionary Stewards (Revolutionre Obleute) from the larger Berlin factories occupied the Reichstag. Led by their speakers Richard Mller and Emil Barth they formed a Revolutionary Parliament. Most of the participating stewards had already been leaders during the January strikes. They did not trust the SPD leadership and had planned a coup independently from the sailor's revolt for 11 November but were surprised by the revolutionary events since Kiel. In order to snatch the initiative from Ebert they now decided to announce elections for the following day: On that Sunday every Berlin factory and every regiment was to decide on workers' and soldiers' councils which then were to elect a revolutionary government from members of the 2 labour parties (SPD and USPD). This Council of the People's Deputies (Rat der Volksbeauftragten) was to execute the resolutions of the Revolutionary Parliament as the revolutionaries intended and to replace Ebert's function as chancellor. 10 November: SPD leadership in opposition to revolutionary shop stewards. Armistice The same evening the SPD leadership heard of these plans. As the elections and the following councils' meeting could not be prevented Ebert sent speakers to all Berlin regiments and into the factories in the same night and the early following morning. They were to influence the elections in his favour and announce the intended participation of the USPD in the government. In turn, these activities did not escape the attention of Richard Mller and the revolutionary shop stewards. Seeing that Ebert would also play the tune in the new government, they planned to propose to the assembly not only the election of a government but also the appointment of an Action Committee. This committee was to co-ordinate the activities of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils. For this election the Stewards had already prepared a list of names on which the SPD was not represented. In this manner they hoped to install a monitoring body acceptable to them watching the government. In the assembly that convened on 10 November in the Circus Busch the majority stood on the side of the SPD: almost all Soldiers' Councils and a large part of the workers representatives. They repeated the demand for the "Unity of the Working Class" which had been put forward by the revolutionaries the previous day and now used this motto in order to push through Ebert's line. As planned, three members of each socialist party were elected into the "Council of People's Representatives", from the USPD, their chairman Hugo Haase, the deputy Wilhelm Dittmann and Emil Barth for the Revolutionary Stewards; from the SPD Ebert, Scheidemann and the

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Magdeburg deputy Otto Landsberg. The proposal by the shop stewards to additionally elect an Action Committee took the SPD leadership by surprise and started heated debates. Ebert finally succeeded in also having this 24-member "Executive Council of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils" equally filled with SPD and USPD members. The Executive Council was chaired by Richard Mller (USPD) and Brutus Molkenbuhr. In theory, the Executive Council was the highest-ranking council of the revolutionary regime and therefore Mller the head of state of the new declared "Socialist Republic of Germany". But in practice the council's initiative was blocked by internal power-struggles. The Executive Council decided to summon an "Imperial Council Convention" in December to Berlin. Although Ebert had saved the decisive part of the SPD he was not happy with the results. He regarded the Council Parliament and the Executive Council not as helpful but only as an obstacle on the way to a new system of government with a smooth transition from the Empire. The whole SPD leadership mistrusted the councils rather than the old elites in army and administration. They considerably overestimated the old elite's loyalty to the new republic. What bothered Ebert most was that now in front of the Councils he could not act as Chancellor but only as chairman of a revolutionary government. Indeed, conservatives regarded him as a traitor although he had taken the lead of the revolution only in order to stop it. In the 8 weeks of double rule of Councils and Imperial Government the latter always was dominant. The whole higher level administration reported only to Ebert, although Haase formally was a chairman in the Council with equal rights. Concerning the question of real power, there was a phone call on the evening of 10 November between Ebert and General Wilhelm Groener, the new First General Quartermaster in Spa, Belgium. Assuring Ebert of the support of the Army, the General was given Ebert's promise to reinstate the military hierarchy and, with the help of the army, to take action against the Councils. Behind the secret Ebert-Groener pact stood the SPD's worry that the revolution could end in a Council (Soviet) Republic following the Russian example. However, this pact was not able to win over the Imperial Officer Corps for the republic. As Ebert's behaviour became increasingly puzzling to the revolutionary workers, the soldiers and their stewards, the SPD leadership lost more and more confidence of its supporters without gaining any sympathies from the opponents of the revolution on the right. In the turmoil of this day, the Ebert government's acceptance of the harsh terms of the Entente for a truce, after a renewed demand by the Supreme Command, went almost unnoticed. On 11 November, the Centre Party deputy Matthias Erzberger, on behalf of Berlin, signed the armistice agreement in Compigne, France. Thus, World War I had come to an end. Stinnes-Legien-Agreement The revolutionaries disagreed among themselves about the future economic and state system. Both SPD and USPD favoured placing at least heavy industry under democratic control. The left wings of both parties and the Revolutionary Stewards wanted to go beyond that and establish a "direct democracy" in the production sector, with elected delegates controlling the political power. It was not only in the interest of the SPD to prevent a Council Democracy, even the unions would have been rendered superfluous by the councils. To prevent this development, the union leaders under Carl Legien and the representatives of big industry under Hugo Stinnes and Carl Friedrich von Siemens met in Berlin from 9 to 12 November. On 15 November they signed an agreement with

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advantages for both sides: the union representatives promised to guarantee orderly production, to end wild strikes, to drive back the influence of the councils and to prevent a nationalisation of means of production. For their part, the employers guaranteed to introduce the eight hour day, which the workers had demanded in vain for years. The employers agreed to the union claim of sole representation and to the lasting recognition of the unions instead of the Councils. Both parties formed a "Central Committee for the Maintenance of the Economy" (Zentralausschuss fr die Aufrechterhaltung der Wirtschaft). An "Arbitration Committee" (Schlichtungsausschuss) was to mediate in future conflicts between employers and unions. From now on, in every factory with more than 50 employees committees together with the management were to monitor the keeping to the wage settlements. With this, the unions had achieved one of their long time demands but undermined all efforts for nationalising means of production and largely eliminated the Councils. Interim government and council movement The Reichstag had not been summoned since 9 November. The Council of the People's Deputies and the Executive Council had replaced the old government. But the previous administrative machinery remained unchanged. Imperial servants had only representatives of SPD and USPD assigned to them. These servants all kept their positions and continued to do their work in most parts unchanged. On 12 November the Council of People's Representatives published its democratic and social government programme. It lifted the state of siege and censorship, abolished the "Gesindeordnung" (Servant Rules: rules governing relations between servant and master) and introduced universal suffrage from 20 years up, for the first time for women. There was an amnesty for all political prisoners. Regulations for the freedom of association, assembly and press were enacted. The eight hour day became statutory on the basis of the Stinnes-Legien-Agreement and benefits for unemployment, social insurance and workers' compensation were expanded. At the insistence of USPD representatives the Council of People's Representatives appointed a "Nationalisation Committee", among others with Karl Kautsky, Rudolf Hilferding and Otto Hue. This committee was to examine which industries were "fit" for nationalisation and to prepare the nationalisation of the coal and steel industry. It sat until 7 April 1919, without any tangible result. "Self-Administration Bodies" were installed only in coal and potash mining and in the steel industry. From these bodies emerged the modern German Works or Factory Committees. Socialist expropriations were not initiated. The SPD leadership worked with the old administration rather than with the new Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, because it considered them incapable of properly supplying the needs of the population. As of mid-November this caused continuing strife with the Executive Council. As the Council continuously changed its position following whoever it just happened to represent, Ebert withdrew more and more responsibilities planning to end the "meddling and interfering" of the Councils in Germany for good. But Ebert and the SPD leadership by far overestimated the power not only of the Council Movement but also of the Spartacist League. The Spartacist League, for example, never had control over the Council Movement as the conservatives and parts of the SPD believed. In Leipzig, Hamburg, Bremen, Chemnitz and Gotha the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils put the city administrations under their control. In addition, in Brunswick, Dsseldorf, Mlheim/Ruhr and Zwickau all civil servants loyal to the Kaiser were

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arrested. In Hamburg and Bremen "Red Guards" were formed that were to protect the revolution. The Councils deposed the management of the Leuna Works, a giant chemical factory near Merseburg. The new Councils were often appointed spontaneously and arbitrarily and had no management experience whatsoever. But a majority of Councils came to arrangements with the old administrations and saw to it that law and order were quickly restored. For example, Max Weber was part of the workers' council of Heidelberg, and was pleasantly surprised that most members were moderate German liberals. The Councils took over the distribution of food, the police and the accommodation and provisions of the front-line soldiers that were gradually returning home. Administration and Councils depended on each other: the former had the knowledge and experience, the latter had political clout. In most cases SPD-members had been elected into the Councils who regarded their job as interim solution. For them as well as for the majority of the population in 1918/19 the introduction of a Council Republic was never an issue, but they were not even given a chance to think about it. Many wanted to support the new government and expected it to abolish militarism and the authoritarian state. Being weary of the war and hoping for a peaceful solution, they partially overestimated the revolutionary achievements. Imperial Council Convention As decided by the Executive Committee the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils in the whole Empire sent deputies to Berlin who were to convene on 16 December in the Circus Busch for the "First General Convention of Workers' and Soldiers' Councils" (Erster Allgemeiner Kongress der Arbeiter- und Soldatenrte). On 15 December Ebert and General Groener had troops ordered to Berlin to prevent this convention and to regain control of the capital. On 16 December one of the regiments intended for this plan advanced too early. In the attempt to arrest the Executive Council the soldiers opened fire on a demonstration of unarmed "Red Guards" which were Soldiers' Councils affiliated with the Spartacists, and killed 16 people. With this the potential for violence and the danger of a coup from the right already became visible. Because of this experience, in the daily newspaper of the Spartacist League "Red Flag" (Rote Fahne) of 12 December, Rosa Luxemburg demanded the peaceful disarmament of the homecoming military units by the Berlin workforce. She wanted the Soldiers' Councils to be subordinated to the Revolutionary Parliament and the soldiers to become "re-educated". On 10 December Ebert welcomed ten divisions returning from the front hoping to use them against the Councils. As it turned out, these troops also were not willing to go on fighting. The war was over, Christmas was at the door and most of the soldiers just wanted to go home to their families. So shortly after their arrival in Berlin they dispersed. The blow against the Convention of Councils did not take place. This blow would have been unnecessary anyway because the convention that took up its work 16 December in the Prussian House of Representatives also consisted mainly of SPD followers. Not even Karl Liebknecht had managed to get a seat. The Spartacist League was not granted any influence. On 19 December the Councils voted 344 to 98 against the creation of a Council System as a basis for a new constitution. Instead, they supported the government's decision to call for elections for a constituent national assembly as soon as possible. This assembly was to decide upon the state system. The Convention disagreed with Ebert only on the issue of control of the army. The Convention was demanding a say for the Central Council which it would elect, in the

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supreme command of the army, the free election of officers and the disciplinary powers for the Soldiers' Councils. That would have been contrary to the agreement between Ebert and General Groener. They both spared no effort to undo this decision. The Supreme Command which in the meantime had moved from Spa to Kassel, began to raise loyal volunteer corps (Freikorps) against the supposed Bolshevik menace. Unlike the revolutionary soldiers of November, these troops were monarchist-minded officers and men who feared the return into civil life.

Revolutionary soldiers during Christmas fights in the Pfeilersaal of the Berlin City Palace

Christmas crisis After 9 November the government had ordered the newly created People's Navy Division (Volksmarinedivision) from Kiel to Berlin for its protection and stationed it in the Royal Stables (Marstall) of the Berlin Stadtschloss (Imperial City Residence). The Division was considered absolutely loyal and had indeed refused to participate in the coup attempt of 6 December. The sailors even deposed their commander because they saw him involved in the affair. It was this loyalty that now gave them the reputation of being in favour of the Spartacists. Ebert demanded their disbanding and withdrawal from the Residence and Otto Wels, as of 9 November commander of Berlin and in line with Ebert, refused the sailors' pay. The dispute escalated on 23 December. After having been put off for days the sailors occupied the Imperial Chancellery, cut the phone lines, put the Council of People's Representatives under house arrest and captured Otto Wels. The sailors did not exploit the situation to eliminate the Ebert government, as could have been expected from Spartacist revolutionaries. Instead, they just insisted on their pay. Nevertheless, Ebert, who via secret phone line was in touch with the Supreme Command in Kassel, gave orders to attack the Residence with troops loyal to the government on the morning of 24 December. The sailors repelled the attack under their commander Heinrich Dorrenbach, losing about 30 men and civilians in the fight. The government troops had to withdraw from the centre of Berlin. They themselves were now disbanded and integrated into the newly formed Freikorps. To make up for the loss of face they temporarily occupied the editor's offices of the "Red Flag". But military power in Berlin once more was in the hands of the People's Navy Division. Again, the sailors did not take advantage of the situation. On one side this shows that the sailors were not Spartacists, on the other that the revolution had no guidance. Even if Liebknecht had been the revolutionary leader like Lenin, to which legend later made him, the sailors as well as the Councils would not have accepted him as such. So the only result of the Christmas Crisis, which the

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Spartacists named "Ebert's Bloody Christmas", was that the Revolutionary Stewards called for a demonstration on Christmas Day and that the USPD left the government in protest on 29 December. They could not have done Ebert a bigger favour since he had let them participate only under the pressure of the revolutionary events. Within a few days the military defeat of the Ebert government had turned into a political victory.

After occupation of the Silesian railway station in Berlin by government troops, 1919

Founding of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the January Revolt The Spartacists concluded after their experiences with the SPD and the USPD that their goals could be met only in a party of their own. Also because of the unhappiness of many workers with the course of the revolution and joined by other left-socialist groups of the whole Empire they founded the Communist Party of Germany (KPD).[11] Rosa Luxemburg drew up her founding programme and presented it on 31 December 1918. In this programme she pointed out that the communists could never take power without a clear will of the people in the majority. On 1 January she again demanded that the KPD participate in the planned elections but was outvoted. The majority still hoped to gain power by continued agitation in the factories and by the "pressure from the streets". After deliberations with the Spartacists the Revolutionary Stewards decided to remain in the USPD. This was a first defeat. The decisive defeat of the left was to be brought in the first days of the new year in 1919. As in November before, almost spontaneously, a second revolutionary wave developed which, this time, was violently suppressed. The wave was started when on 4 January the government dismissed the chief constable of Berlin, Emil Eichhorn, who was a member of the USPD and who had refused to act against the demonstrating workers in the Christmas Crisis resulting in the USPD, Revolutionary Stewards and the KPD chairmen Karl Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck Eichhorn's calling for a demonstration to take place on the following day. To the surprise of the initiators the demonstration turned into an assembly of huge masses. On Sunday 5 January, as on 9 November 1918, hundreds of thousands of people poured into the centre of Berlin, many of them armed. In the afternoon the train stations and the newspaper district with the offices of the middle-class press and the "Vorwrts" were occupied. Some of the middle-class papers in the previous days had called not only for the raising of more Freikorps but also for the murder of the Spartacists. The demonstrators were mainly the same as two months previous. They now

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demanded the fulfillment of the hopes expressed in November. The Spartacists by no means had a leading position. The demands came straight from the workforce supported by various groups left of the SPD. The following so-called "Spartacist Uprising" originated only partially in the KPD. KPD members were even a minority among the insurgents. The initiators assembled at the Police Headquarters elected a 53-member "Interim Revolutionary Committee" (Provisorischer Revolutionsausschuss) which failed to make use of its power and was unable to give any clear direction. Liebknecht demanded the overthrow of the government and agreed with the majority of the committee that propagated the armed struggle. Rosa Luxemburg as well as the majority of KPD leaders thought a revolt at this moment to be a catastrophe and explicitly spoke out against it. On the following day, 6 January, the Revolutionary Committee again called for a mass demonstration. This time even more people heeded the call. Again they carried placards and banners that said: "Brothers, don't shoot!" and remained waiting on an assembly square. A part of the Revolutionary Stewards armed themselves and called for the overthrow of the Ebert government. But the KPD-activists mostly failed in their endeavour to win over the troops. It turned out that even the units like the People's Navy Division were not willing to support the armed revolt, declaring itself neutral. The other regiments stationed in Berlin mostly remained loyal to the government. While on Ebert's orders more troops were moving into Berlin, he accepted an offer by the USPD to mediate between him and the Revolutionary Committee. After the advance of the troops into the city became known and an SPD-leaflet appeared saying: "The hour of reckoning is nigh" the Committee broke off further negotiations on 8 January. That was opportunity enough for Ebert to use the troops stationed in Berlin against the occupiers. Beginning 9 January they violently quelled an improvised revolt. In addition to that, on 12 January, the anti-republican Freikorps, which had been raised more or less as death squads since the beginning of December, moved into Berlin. Gustav Noske, who had been People's Representative for Army and Navy for a few days, accepted the premium command of these troops saying: "If you like, someone has to be the bloodhound. I won't shy away from the responsibility."[12] The Freikorps brutally cleared several buildings and executed the occupiers on the spot. Others soon surrendered, but some of them were still shot. The January revolt claimed 156 lives in Berlin.

Murder of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg The alleged ringleaders of the January Revolt had to go into hiding and in spite of being urged by their allies refused to leave Berlin. On the evening of 15 January 1919 Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht were discovered in a Berlin-Wilmersdorf apartment, arrested and handed over to the largest Freikorps, the heavily armed Garde-Kavallerie-Schtzen-Division. Their commander, Captain Waldemar Pabst, had them questioned. That same night both prisoners were beaten unconscious with rifle butts and shot in the head. Rosa Luxemburg's body was thrown into the Landwehr Canal running through Berlin, where it was found only on 1 July. Karl Liebknecht's body, without a name, was delivered to a morgue. The perpetrators for the most part went unpunished. The Nazis later compensated the few that had been tried or even jailed, and they merged the Gardekavallerie into the SA (Sturmabteilung). In an interview given to "Der Spiegel" in 1962 and in his memoirs Pabst maintained that he had talked on the phone with Noske in the Chancellery.[13]

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Noske and Ebert had approved of his actions. Pabst's statement was never confirmed, especially since neither parliament nor the courts had examined the case. After the murders of 15 January the opposition between SPD and KPD grew even more irreconcilable. In the following years in the Weimar Republic, both parties could not decide on joint action against the Nazis (NSDAP) which was growing in strength as of 1930.

March 1919 Revolutionaries after summary execution

Further revolts in tow of the revolution In the first months of 1919 there were further armed revolts all over Germany. In some states Councils Republics were proclaimed and existed, most prominently in Bavaria (Munich Soviet Republic), even if only temporarily. These revolts were triggered by Noske's decision end of February to take armed action against the Council Republic of Bremen. In spite of an offer to negotiate he ordered his Freikorps units to invade the city. Approximately 400 people were killed in the ensuing fights. This caused an eruption of mass strikes in the Ruhr District, the Rhineland and in Saxony. Members of the USPD, the KPD and even the SPD called for a general strike which started on 4 March. Against the will of the strike leadership the strikes escalated into street fighting in Berlin. The Prussian state government, which in the meantime had declared a state of siege, called the Imperial government for help. Again Noske employed the Gardekavallerie-Schtzendivision commanded by Pabst against the strikers in Berlin. By the end of the fighting on 16 March they had killed approximately 1,200 people, many of them unarmed and uninvolved. Amongst others 29 members of the Peoples Navy Division, who had surrendered, were arbitrarily executed as Noske had ordered anybody found armed to be shot on the spot. The situation in Hamburg and Thuringia also was very much like a civil war. The Council Government holding out the longest was the Munich Soviet Republic. It was only on 2 May that Prussian and Wurttemberg Freikorps units put an end using the same violent methods as in Berlin and Bremen. According to modern predominating opinion of historians[14] the establishment of a Bolshevik-style council government on 9-10 November was impossible. Yet the Ebert Government felt threatened by a coup from the left and co-operated with the Supreme Command and the Freikorps. The brutal actions of the Freikorps during the various revolts estranged many left democrats from the SPD. They, especially of course the

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USPD and the KPD, regard Ebert's, Noske's and the other SPD leader's behaviour during the revolution to this very day outright as betrayal against their own followers. National Assembly and New Imperial Constitution Main article: Weimar National Assembly On 19 January a Constituent National Assembly (Verfassungsgebende Nationalversammlung) was elected. Aside from SPD and USPD, the catholic Centre Party (Zentrumspartei) and several middle-class parties took part, which had established themselves since November: the left-liberal German Democratic Party (Deutsche Demokratische Partei DDP), the national-liberal German Peoples Party (Deutsche Volkspartei DVP) and the conservative, nationalist German National Peoples Party (Deutschnationale Volkspartei DNVP). In spite of Rosa Luxemburg's recommendation, the KPD did not participate in these elections. The SPD became the strongest party in the Reichstag with 37.4% and 165 out of 423 deputies. The USPD received only 7.6% and sent 22 deputies into the parliament. The rating of the USPD temporarily went up one more time after the Kapp-Lttwitz Putsch in 1920 but the party then dissolved in 1922. The Centre Party was runner-up to the SPD with 91 deputies, the DDP had 75, the DVP 19 and the DNVP 44. As a result, the SPD formed the so-called Weimar Coalition with the Centre Party and the DDP. To get away from the post-revolutionary confusion in Berlin the National Assembly met on 6 February in the town of Weimar, Thuringia, some 250 km to the southwest of Berlin, where Friedrich Ebert was elected temporary Reich President on 11 February and Philipp Scheidemann was elected as Prime Minister (Ministerprsident) of the newlyformed coalition on 13 February. Ebert was then constitutionally sworn in as President (Reichsprsident) on 21 August 1919. On the one hand, the Weimar Constitution offered more possibilites of a direct democracy than the present German constitution, like for instance a referendum. On the other hand, Article 48 granted the President the authority to rule against the majority in the Parliament, with the help of the army if need be. In 193233, article 48 was instrumental in destroying German democracy.[15] Aftermath Main article: Weimar Republic From 1920 to 1923, nationalist forces continued fighting against the Weimar Republic and left-wing political opponents. In 1920, the German government was briefly overthrown by a coup by Wolfgang Kapp in the Kapp Putsch and a nationalist government was briefly in power, until mass public demonstrations forced the shortlived regime out of power. In 1921 and 1922, Matthias Erzberger and Walter Rathenau were shot by members of the ultra-nationalist Organisation Consul. The newly formed Nazi Party under leadership of Adolf Hitler and support of former German army chief Erich von Ludendorff, entered into the political violence against the government and left-wing political forces as well. In 1923, in what is now known as the Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazis took control of parts of Munich, arresting the President of Bavaria, the chief of police, and others and forcing them to sign an agreement in which they endorsed the Nazi takeover and endorsed the Nazis objective to overthrow the German government. The putsch came to an end when the German army and police were called in to put down the putsch resulting in an armed confrontation where a number of Nazis and some police were killed. The Republic was under great pressure from both left and right-wing extremists. The radical left accused the ruling Social Democrats of having betrayed the ideals of the

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workers' movement by preventing a communist revolution by unleashing the Freikorps upon the workers. Right-wing extremists were opposed to any democratic system, preferring an authoritarian state like the 1871 Empire. To further undermine the Republic's credibility, right-wing extremists (especially certain members of the former officer corps) used the Dolchstolegende for blaming an alleged conspiracy of Socialists and Jews for Germany's defeat in World War I. Both parties would make reckless use of the freedoms guaranteed by the new constitution in their fight against the Weimar Republic. It came to an end with the ascent of Hitler and the Nazi Party. Contemporary statements and historical research Political developments in the Weimar Republic The Revolution of 1918/19 is one of the most important events in the later history of Germany, yet it is poorly embedded in the historical memory of Germans. The failure of the Weimar Republic which this revolution brought into being and the following Nazi-era have obstructed the view of these events for a long time. To this very day, the interpretation of these events has been determined more by legends than by facts. Both the radical right and the radical left-under different circumstancesnurtured the idea that a Communist uprising was aiming to establish a Soviet Republic following the Russian example. The democratic centre parties, especially the SPD, were also barely interested in fairly assessing the events which turned Germany into a Republic. At closer look these events turn out to be a revolution supported by the Social Democrats and stopped by their party leadership. These processes helped to weaken the Weimar Republic from its very beginning. After the Imperial Government and the Supreme Command shirked their responsibilities for the war and the defeat at an early stage, the majority parties of the Reichstag were left to cope with the resulting burdens. In his autobiography, Ludendorff's successor Groener states: "It suited me just fine, when the army and the Supreme Command remained as guiltless as possible in these wretched truce negotiations, from which nothing good could be expected".[6] Thus, the "Myth of the Stab in the Back" was born according to which the revolutionaries stabbed the army, "undefeated on the field", in the back and only then turning the almost secure victory into a defeat. It was mainly Ludendorff who contributed to the spread of this falsification of history to conceal his own role in the defeat. In nationalistic and national minded circles the myth fell on fertile ground. They soon defamed the revolutionaries and even politicians like Ebert, who never wanted the revolution and had done everything to channel and contain it, as "November Criminals" (Novemberverbrecher). In 1923, Hitler and Ludendorf deliberately chose symbolic 9 November as the date of their attempted "Beer Hall Putsch". From its very beginning the republic was afflicted with the stigma of the military defeat. A large part of the bourgeoisie and the old elites from big industry, landowners, military, judiciary and administration never accepted the democratic republic, but intended to get rid of the new type of state at the first opportunity. On the left the actions of the SPD Leadership during the revolution drove many of its former adherents to the Communists. The contained revolution gave birth to a "democracy without democrats" .[16] Contemporary statements Depending on their political standpoint of view, contemporaries had greatly differing opinions about the revolution. Ernst Troeltsch, a Protestant theologian and philosopher, rather calmly remarked how

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the majority of Berlin citizens perceived 10 November: "On Sunday morning after a frightful night the morning newspapers gave a clear picture: the Kaiser in Holland, the revolution victorious in most urban centres, the royals in the states abdicating. No man dead for Kaiser and Empire! The continuation of duties ensured and no run on the banks! () Trams and subways ran as usual which is a pledge that basic needs are cared for. On all faces it could be read: Wages will continue to be paid".[17] The liberal publicist Theodor Wolff wrote on the very day of 10 November in the newspaper Berliner Tageblatt, lending himself to far too optimistic illusions, which the SPD leadership also might have had: "Like a sudden storm, the biggest of all revolutions has toppled the imperial regime including everything that belonged to it. It can be called the greatest of all revolutions because never has a more firmly built () fortress been taken in this manner at the first attempt. Only one week ago, there was still a military and civil administration so deeply rooted that it seemed to have secured its dominion beyond the change of times. () Only yesterday morning, at least in Berlin, all this still existed. Yesterday afternoon it was all gone".[18] The extreme right had a completely opposite perception. On 10 November, conservative journalist Paul Baecker wrote an article in Deutsche Tageszeitung which already contained essential elements of the stab-in-the-back legend: "The work fought for by our fathers with their precious blood dismissed by betrayal in the ranks of our own people! Germany, yesterday still undefeated, left to the mercy of our enemies by men carrying the German name, by felony out of our own ranks broken down in guilt and shame. The German Socialists knew that peace was at hand anyway and that it was only about holding out against the enemy for a few days or weeks in order to wrest bearable conditions from them. In this situation they raised the white flag. This is a sin that can never be forgiven and never will be forgiven. This is treason not only against the monarchy and the army but also against the German people themselves who will have to bear the consequences in centuries of decline and of misery".[19] In an article on the 10th anniversary of the revolution the publicist Kurt Tucholsky remarked that neither Wolff nor Baecker were right. Nevertheless Tucholsky did accuse Ebert and Noske of betrayal-not of the monarchy but of the revolution. Although he wanted to regard it as only a coup (d'tat) he analysed the actual course of events more clearly than most of his contemporaries. In 1928 he wrote in "November Coup": "The German Revolution of 1918 took place in a hall." "The things taking place were not a revolution. There was no spiritual preparation, no leaders ready in the dark; no revolutionary goals. The mother of this revolution was the soldiers' longing to be home for Christmas. And weariness, disgust and weariness." "The possibilities that nevertheless were lying in the streets were betrayed by Ebert and his like. Fritz* Ebert, whom you cannot heighten to a personality by calling him Friedrich opposed the establishment of a republic only until he found there was a post of chairman to be had; comrade Scheidemann tutti quanti all were would-be senior civil servants." (* Fritz is the colloquial term for Friedrich like Willy William)

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"The following possibilities were left out: shattering federal states, division of landed property, revolutionary socialization of industry, reform of administrative and judiciary personnel. A republican constitution in which every sentence rescinds the next one, a revolution talking about well acquired rights of the old regime can be only laughed at." "The German Revolution is still to take place."[20] Walter Rathenau was of a similar opinion. He called the revolution a "disappointment", a "present by chance", a "product of desperation", a "revolution by mistake". It did not deserve this name because it did "not abolish the actual mistakes" but "degenerated into a degrading clash of interests". "Not a chain was broken by the swelling of spirit and will, but a lock merely rusted through. The chain fell off and the freed stood amazed, helpless, embarrassed and needed to arm against their will. The ones sensing their advantage were the quickest."[21] The historian and publicist Sebastian Haffner in turn came out against Tucholsky and Rathenau. He lived through the revolution in Berlin as a child and wrote 50 years later in his book "Der Verrat" (The Betrayal) about one of the myths around the events of November 1918 which had taken root especially in the bourgeoisie: "It is often said that a true revolution in Germany in 1918 never took place. All that really happened was a breakdown. It was only the temporary weakness of the police and army in the moment of military defeat which let a mutiny of sailors appear as a revolution. At first sight, one can see how wrong and blind this is comparing 1918 with 1945. In 1945 there really was a breakdown. Certainly a mutiny of sailors started the revolution in 1918 but it was only a start. What made it extraordinary is that a mere sailors' mutiny triggered an earthquake which shook all of Germany; that the whole home army, the whole urban workforce and in Bavaria a part of the rural population rose up in revolt. This revolt was not just a mutiny anymore, it was a true revolution. () As in any revolution, the old order was replaced by the beginnings of a new one. It was not only destructive but also creative. () As a revolutionary achievement of masses the German November 1918 does not need to take second place to either the French July 1789 or the Russian March 1917."[22]

Historical research During the Nazi regime, works on the Weimar Republic and the German Revolution published abroad and by emigrants in the 1930s and 1940s could not be read in Germany. Around 1935 this affected the first published History of the Weimar Republic by Arthur Rosenberg. In his view the political situation at the beginning of the revolution was open: The moderate socialist and democratic oriented work force indeed had a chance to become the actual social foundation of the republic and to drive back the conservative forces. On one hand this failed because of the wrong decisions of the SPD-Leadership, on the other because of the revolutionary tactics employed by the extreme left wing of the work force. After 1945 West German historical research on the Weimar Republic concentrated most of all on its decline. In 1951, Theodor Eschenburg ignored the revolutionary

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beginning of the republic to a great extent. In 1955, Karl Dietrich Bracher also dealt with the German Revolution from the perspective of the failed republic. Erich Eyck e. g. shows how little the revolution after 1945 was regarded as part of German history. In his two volume History of the Weimar Republic he barely dedicated 20 pages to these events. The same can be said for Karl Dietrich Erdmann's contribution to the 8th edition of the Gebhardt Handbook for German History (Gebhardtsches Handbuch zur Deutschen Geschichte), whose viewpoint dominated the interpretation of the events around the German Revolution after 1945. According to Erdmann 1918/19 was about the choice between "social revolution in line with forces demanding a proletarian dictatorship and parliamentary republic in line with the conservative elements like the German officer corps".[23] As the majority Social Democrats were forced to join up with the old elites to prevent an imminent council dictatorship, the blame for the failure of the Weimar Republic was to be put on the extreme left. According to this view, the events of 1918/19 were successful defensive actions of democracy against Bolshevism. This interpretation at the height of the Cold War is based on the assumption that the extreme left was comparably strong and a real threat to the democratic development. In this point, West German researchers ironically found themselves in line with Marxist historiography in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) which attributed considerable revolutionary potential most of all to the Spartacists. While in the post war years the majority SPD (MSPD) was cleared of its Nazi odium as "November Criminals", GDR historians blamed the SPD for "betrayal of the working class" and the USPD leadership for their incompetence. Their interpretation was mainly based on the 1958 theories of the Central Committee of the SED (Socialist Unity Party of Germany) according to which the German Revolution was defined as a "bourgeois-democratic revolution", lead in certain aspects with proletarian means and methods. The fact that a revolution by the working class in Germany never happened can be put down to the "subjective factor", especially the missing of a "Marxist-Leninist offensive party". Contrary to the official party line, Rudolf Lindau supported the theory that the German Revolution had a Socialist tendency. Consistently the founding of the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) was declared to be the decisive turning point in German history. But in spite of ideological bias historical research in the GDR expanded detailed knowledge of the German Revolution.[24] During the 1950s, West German historians focused their research on the final stages of the Weimar Republic. In the 1960s, they shifted to its revolutionary beginnings, realizing that the decisions and developments during the revolution were central to the failure of the first German Republic. Especially the Worker's and Soldier's Councils moved into focus and their previous appearance as a far leftwing movement had to be revised extensively. Authors like Ulrich Kluge, Eberhard Kolb, Reinhard Rrup and others argued that in the first weeks of the revolution the social base for a democratic redesign of society was much stronger than previously thought and that the potential of the extreme left was actually weaker than the MSPD-Leadership, for example, assumed. As "Bolshevism" posed no real threat the scope of action for the Council of the People's Deputies (also supported by the yet reform oriented councils) to consistently democratise the administration, military and society had been relatively large. But the MSPD-Leadership did not take that step because it trusted in the loyalty of the old elites but mistrusted the spontaneous mass movements in the first weeks of the revolution. The result of this was the resignation and radicalisation of the council movement. These theories have been supported by the publications of the minutes of the Council of the People's Deputies. More and more the history of the German Revolution appeared as the history of its gradual reversal.

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This new interpretation of the German Revolution gained acceptance in research rather quickly even though older perceptions remained alive. Research concerning the composition of the Worker's and Soldier's Councils which today can be easily verified by sources is undisputed to a large extent. But the interpretation of the revolutionary events based on this research has been already criticized and partially modified since the end of the 1970s. Criticism was aimed at the partially idealized description of the Worker's and Soldier's Councils which especially was the case in the wake of the German Student Movement of 1960s (1968). Peter von Oertzen went particularly far in this respect describing a social democracy based on councils as a positive alternative to the bourgeois republic. In comparison Wolfgang J. Mommsen did not regard the councils as a homogenous focussed movement for democracy but as a heterogeneous group with a multitude of different motivations and goals. Jesse and Khler even talked about the "construct of a democratic council movement". Certainly these authors also excluded a "relapse to the positions of the 1950s: "The councils were neither communist oriented to a large extent nor can the policies of the majority SPD in every aspect be labelled fortuitous and worth praising."[25] Heinrich August Winkler tried to find a compromise, according to which the Social Democrats depended to a limited extent on the cooperation with the old elites, but went considerably further than necessary: "With more political willpower they could have changed more and preserved less."[26] With all the differences concerning details, historical researchers agree that in the German Revolution, the chances to put the republic on a firm footing were considerably better than the dangers coming from the extreme left. Instead, the alliance of the SPD with the old elites constituted a considerable structural problem for the Weimar Republic.[27] See also Finnish Civil War; Greater Poland Uprising (19181919); Hungarian Soviet Republic; Luxemburgism; Silesian Uprisings References ^ 1 Ullrich, Die nervse Gromacht p. 446 ^ 2 Manfred Scharrer (verdi): Das patriotische Bekenntnis ^ 3 Sebastian Haffner, Der Verrat p. 12 ^ 4 Schulze, Weimar. Germany 1917-1933, p. 158 ^ 5 Haffner, Der Verrat p. 32f. ^ 6 a b Schulze, Weimar. Deutschland 1917-1933 p. 149 ^ 7 http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/german-sailors-begin-to-mutiny ^ 8 New York Times, May 26, 1941, p. 7 ^ 9 See Hauptkrankenbuch Festungslazarett Kiel, Nr. 15918, Krankenbuchlager Berlin, zit. bei Dirk, Dhnhardt, Revolution in Kiel. p. 66. ^ 10 v. Baden: Erinnerungen und Dokumente p. 599 f. ^ 11 Winkler, Weimar p. 55 f. ^ 12 Winkler, Weimar p. 58 ^ 13 Der Spiegel of 18.04.1962 ^ 14 Schulze, Weimar. Deutschland 1917-1933 S. 169 u. 170 ^ 15 Mosler: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs vom 11. August 1919 ^ 16 Sontheimer, Antidemokratisches Denken ^ 17 Haffner, Der Verrat p. 85 ^ 18 Haffner, Der Verrat p. 95 ^ 19 Haffner, Der Verrat p. 96 ^ 20 Kurt Tucholsky: Gesammelte Werke (Collected Works), Vol. 6, p. 300 ^ 21 Ssemann, Demokratie im Widerstreit, p.13 ^ 22 Haffner, Der Verrat p. 193 f.

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^ 23 Kluge, Deutsche Revolution 1918/19, p. 15 ^ 24 Eberhard Kolb: Die Weimarer Republik. Wien, 1984. p. 154f ^ 25 Kolb, op. cit. p. 160f ^ 26 Kolb, op. cit. p. 161 ^ 27 Kolb, op.cit. pp. 143-162; Kluge, Deutsche Revolution pp. 10-38 Further reading Broue, Pierre (2006). The German Revolution 1917-1923. Haymarket Books. ISDN 1931859329. Chris Harman The Lost Revolution: Germany 1918-1923. Bookmarks. 1982. ISDN 090622408X. Coper, Rudolf (1955). Failure of a Revolution Germany in 1918-1919. Cambridge University Press. Max von Baden: Erinnerungen und Dokumente, Berlin u. Leipzig 1927 Eduard Bernstein: Die deutsche Revolution von 1918/19. Geschichte der Entstehung und ersten Arbeitsperiode der deutschen Republik. Herausgegeben und eingeleitet von Heinrich August Winkler und annotiert von Teresa Lwe. Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-8012-0272-0 Pierre Brou: Die Deutsche Revolution 1918-1923, in: Aufstand der Vernunft Nr. 3. Hrsg.: Der Funke e.V., Eigenverlag, Wien 2005 Alfred Dblin: November 1918. Eine deutsche Revolution, Roman in vier Bnden, Mnchen 1978, ISBN 3-423-01389-3 Bernt Engelmann: Wir Untertanen und Eining gegen Recht und Freiheit - Ein Deutsches Anti-Geschichtsbuch. Frankfurt 1982 und 1981, ISBN 3-596-21680X, ISBN 3-596-21838-1 Paul Frolich: Rosa Luxemburg - Her Life and Work, Hesperides Press, ISBN 1-40679808-8 Sebastian Haffner: Die deutsche Revolution 1918/1919 - wie war es wirklich? Ein Beitrag zur deutschen Geschichte Mnchen 1979 (ISBN 3-499-61622-X); also published under the titles Die verratene Revolution - Deutschland 1918/19 (1969), 1918/1919 - eine deutsche Revolution (1981, 1986, 1988), Der Verrat. Deutschland 1918/19 (1993, 2002), Der Verrat. 1918/1919 - als Deutschland wurde, wie es ist (1994, 1995), Die deutsche Revolution - 1918/19 (2002, 2004, 2008) Institut fr Marxismus-Leninismus beim ZK der SED (Hg.): Illustrierte Geschichte der deutschen Novemberrevolution 1918/1919. Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1978 (o. ISBN, Groformat, mit umfangreichem Bildmaterial) Wilhelm Keil: Erlebnisse eines Sozialdemokraten. Zweiter Band, Stuttgart 1948 Harry Graf Kessler: Tagebcher 1918 bis 1937. Frankfurt am Main 1982 Ulrich Kluge: Soldatenrte und Revolution. Studien zur Militrpolitik in Deutschland 1918/19. Gttingen 1975, ISBN 3-525-35965-9 derselbe: Die deutsche Revolution 1918/1919. Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3518-11262-7 Eberhard Kolb: Die Weimarer Republik. Mnchen 2002, ISBN 3-486-49796-0 Ottokar Luban: Die ratlose Rosa. Die KPD-Fhrung im Berliner Januaraufstand 1919. Legende und Wirklichkeit. Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-87975-960-X Erich Matthias (Hrsg.): Die Regierung der Volksbeauftragten 1918/19. 2 Bnde, Dsseldorf 1969 (Quellenedition) Wolfgang Michalka u. Gottfried Niedhart (Hg.): Deutsche Geschichte 1918-1933. Dokumente zur Innen- und Auenpolitik, Frankfurt am Main 1992 ISBN 3-59611250-8 Hans Mommsen: Die verspielte Freiheit. Der Weg der Republik von Weimar in den

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Untergang 1918 bis 1933. Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-548-33141-6 Hermann Mosler: Die Verfassung des Deutschen Reichs vom 11. August 1919, Stuttgart 1988 ISBN 3-15-006051-6 Carl von Ossietzky: Ein Lesebuch fr unsere Zeit. Aufbau-Verlag Berlin-Weimar 1989 Detlev J.K. Peukert: Die Weimarer Republik. Krisenjahre der klassischen Moderne. Frankfurt am Main 1987, ISBN 3-518-11282-1 Gerhard A. Ritter/Susanne Miller (Hg.): Die deutsche Revolution 1918-1919. Dokumente. 2. erheblich erweiterte und berarbeitete Auflage, Frankfurt am Main 1983, ISBN 3-596-24300-9 Arthur Rosenberg: Geschichte der Weimarer Republik. Frankfurt am Main 1961 (Erstausgabe: Karlsbad 1935), ISBN 3-434-00003-8 [zeitgenssische Deutung] Hagen Schulze: Weimar. Deutschland 1917-1933, Berlin 1982 Bernd Ssemann: Demokratie im Widerstreit. Die Weimarer Republik im Urteil der Zeitgenossen. Stuttgart 1993 Kurt Sontheimer: Antidemokratisches Denken in der Weimarer Republik. Die politischen Ideen des deutschen Nationalismus zwischen 1918 und 1933, Mnchen 1962 Kurt Tucholsky: Gesammelte Werke in 10 Bnden, hg. von Mary Gerold-Tucholsky und Fritz J. Raddatz, Reinbek 1975, ISBN 3-499-29012-X Volker Ullrich: Die nervse Gromacht. Aufstieg und Untergang des deutschen Kaisserreichs 1871-1918, FRankfurt am Main 1997 ISBN 3-10-086001-2 Richard M. Watt: The Kings Depart: The Tragedy of Germany - Versailles and the German Revolution, Simon and Schuster 1968, ISBN 184212658X Richard Wiegand: "Wer hat uns verraten ..." - Die Sozialdemokratie in der Novemberrevolution. Neuauflage: Ahriman-Verlag, Freiburg i.Br 2001, ISBN 389484-812-X Heinrich August Winkler: Weimar 1918-1933. Mnchen 1993 derselbe: Deutschland vor Hitler. In: Der historische Ort des Nationalsozialismus, Fischer TB 4445

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[23] Second International


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_International

This article is about the Marxist alliance. For the dictionary, see Webster's Second. The Second International (18891916) was an organization of socialist and labour parties formed in Paris on July 14, 1889. At the Paris meeting delegations from 20 countries participated.[1] It continued the work of the dissolved First International, though excluding the still-powerful anarcho-syndicalist movement and unions, and was in existence until 1916. Among the Second International's famous actions were its (1889) declaration of May 1 as International Workers' Day and its (1910) declaration of March 8 as International Women's Day. It initiated the international campaign for the 8-hour working day.[2] The International's permanent executive and information body was the International Socialist Bureau (ISB), based in Brussels and formed after the International's Paris Congress of 1900. Emile Vandervelde and Camille Huysmans of the Belgian Labour Party were its chair and secretary. Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a member from 1905. The Second International dissolved during World War I, in 1916, as the separate national parties that composed it did not maintain a unified front against the war, instead generally supporting their respective nations' role. French Section of the Workers' International (SFIO) leader Jean Jaurs's assassination, a few days before the beginning of the war, symbolized the failure of the antimilitarist doctrine of the Second International. In 1915, at the Zimmerwald Conference, anti-war socialists attempted to maintain international unity against the social patriotism of the social democratic leaders. The International continued in skeleton form in neutral Switzerland through the war, as the Berne International. In 1920, the defunct Second International was reorganized. However, some European socialist parties refused to join the reorganized international, and decided instead to form the International Working Union of Socialist Parties (IWUSP) ("Second and a half International" or "Two-and-a-half International"), heavily influenced by Austromarxism. In 1923, IWUSP and the Second International merged to form the social democratic Labour and Socialist International. This international continued to exist until 1940. After World War II, the Socialist International was formed to continue the policies of the Labour and Socialist International, and it continues to this day. Contents 1 The exclusion of anarchists 2 Congresses of the Second International 3 Prominent members of the Second International by country 4 Latin America 5 See also 6 References

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The exclusion of anarchists Anarchists tended to be excluded from the Second International, nevertheless "anarchism had in fact dominated the London Congress of the Second International".[3] This exclusion received the criticism from other non-marxists present at the meetings.[4] It has been argued that at some point the Second International turned "into a battleground over the issue of libertarian versus authoritarian socialism. Not only did they effectively present themselves as champions of minority rights; they also provoked the German Marxists into demonstrating a dictatorial intolerance which was a factor in preventing the British labor movement from following the Marxist direction indicated by such leaders as H. M. Hyndman".[5] Congresses of the Second International 1889: International Workers Congresses of Paris, 1889 1891: International Socialist Labor Congress of Brussels, 1891 1893: Zurich Socialist and Labor Congress, 1893 1896: International Socialist Workers and Trade Union Congress, London 1896 1900: International Socialist Congress, Paris 1900 1904: International Socialist Congress, Amsterdam 1904 1907: International Socialist Congress, Stuttgart 1907 1910: Copenhagen 1912: Basel (Extraordinary Congress) Prominent members of the Second International by country Germany August Bebel Hugo Haase Karl Kautsky Karl Liebknecht Wilhelm Liebknecht Rosa Luxemburg Clara Zetkin France Jean Allemane Jules Guesde Jean Jaurs Gustave Herv douard Vaillant Russia Vladimir Lenin Georgi Plekhanov Pavel Axelrod Julius Martov Leon Trotsky Austria Victor Adler Karl Renner Netherlands Anton Pannekoek Herman Gorter Pieter Jelles Troelstra Belgium Camille Huysmans Emile Vandervelde Latin America In Latin America, the International had two affiliates; the Socialist Party of Argentina and the Socialist Party of Uruguay.[6] See also

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First International; Socialist International; International Working Union of Socialist Parties ("Second and a half international"/"Two-and-a-half International"); Third International (Comintern); Fourth International and Trotskyist internationals; Section Franaise de l'Internationale Ouvrire (SFIO, the French section of the Second International); Fifth International References ^ 1 Rubio, Jos Luis. Las internacionales obreras en Amrica. Madrid: 1971. p. 42. ^ 2 Rubio, Jos Luis. Las internacionales obreras en Amrica. Madrid: 1971. p. 43 ^ 3 George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962). pgs 263-264 ^ 4"As well as all the anarchist leaders, Keir Hardie and Tom Mann appeared on the platform to make speeches asserting the rights of minorities, and William Morris, now nearing his death, sent a message to say that only sickness prevented him from adding his own voice to the chorus of protest." George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962). pgs 263-264 ^ 5 George Woodcock. Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements (1962). pgs 263-264 ^ 6 Rubio, Jos Luis. Las internacionales obreras en Amrica. Madrid: 1971. p. 49

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[24] Third International- Comintern


From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from Third International) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comintern

"Third International" redirects here. For Webster's Third New International Dictionary, see Webster's Dictionary.

The Communist International published a theoretical magazine in a variety of European languages from 1919 to 1943.

The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, (19191943) was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919. The International intended to fight "by all available means, including armed force, for the overthrow of the international bourgeoisie and for the creation of an international Soviet republic as a transition stage to the complete abolition of the State."[1] The Comintern was founded after the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference in which Vladimir Lenin had organized the "Zimmerwald Left" against those who refused to approve any statement explicitly endorsing socialist revolutionary action, and after the 1916 dissolution of the Second International. The Comintern had seven World Congresses between 1919 and 1935. It also had thirteen "Enlarged Plenums" of its governing Executive Committee, which had much

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the same function as the somewhat larger and more grandiose Congresses. The Comintern was officially dissolved during 1943.

Contents
1 Organizational history 1.1 Failure of the Second International 1.2 Impact of the Russian Revolution 1.3 Founding Congress 1.4 Second World Congress 1.5 Third World Congress 1.6 Fifth to Seventh World Congresses 1.6.1 The Second Period 1.6.2 The Third Period 1.7 Seventh World Congress and the Popular Front 1.8 Dissolution 1.9 Successor organisations 2 Comintern and Communist Party of China 2.1 1921 to 1927 2.2 1927 to 1935 2.3 1935 to 1942 3 Comintern-sponsored international organisations 4 World Congresses and Plenums of Comintern 5 See also 6 Footnotes 7 Further reading 7.1 Primary sources

Organizational history Failure of the Second International This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (March 2011) While the differences had been evident for decades, World War I was to prove the issue that finally divided the revolutionary and reformist wings of the workers' movement. The socialist movement had been historically antimilitarist and internationalist, and was therefore opposed to being used as "cannon fodder" for the "bourgeois" governments at war. This especially since the Triple Alliance (1882) comprised two empires, while the Triple Entente gathered the French Third Republic and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland into an alliance with the Russian Empire. The Communist Manifesto had stated that "the working class has no country" and exclaimed "Proletarians of all countries, unite!" Massive majorities voted in favor of resolutions for the Second International to call upon the international working class

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to resist war if it was declared. Nevertheless, within hours of the declaration of war, almost all the socialist parties of the combatant states announced their support for their own countries. The only exceptions were the socialist parties of the Balkans, Russia, and tiny minorities in other countries. To Lenin's surprise, even the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) voted in favor of war credits. The assassination of French socialist Jean Jaurs on July 31, 1914 killed the last hope of peace, by removing one of the few leaders who possessed enough influence on the international socialist movement to prevent it from segmenting itself along national lines and supporting governments of National Unity. Socialist parties of neutral countries for the most part continued to argue for neutrality rather than for total opposition to the war. On the other hand, during the 1915 Zimmerwald Conference, Lenin organized opposition to the "imperialist war" into a movement that became known as the "Zimmerwald Left" and published the pamphlet Socialism and War, in which he called all socialists who collaborated with their national governments "social-chauvinists", that is, socialists in word but chauvinist in deed. The International was dividing into a revolutionary left and a reformist right, with a center group wavering between those poles. Lenin condemned much of the center as social-pacifists for several reasons, but partly because while they opposed the war they refused to break party discipline and voted for war credits. The term "socialpacifist" was aimed in particular at Ramsay MacDonald, leader of the Independent Labour Party in Britain, who opposed the war on grounds of pacifism but did not actively resist it. Discredited by its passivity towards world events, the Second International dissolved in the middle of the war in 1916. In 1917, Lenin published the April Theses, which openly supported a "revolutionary defeatism": the Bolsheviks pronounced themselves in favor of the defeat of Russia which would permit them to move directly to the stage of a revolutionary insurrection. Impact of the Russian Revolution The victory of the Russian Communist Party in the Bolshevik Revolution of November 1917 truly shook the world. An alternative path to power to parliamentary politics was demonstrated in broad strokes. With much of Europe on the verge of economic and political collapse in the aftermath of the carnage of the Great War, revolutionary sentiments bubbled forth from a hundred hidden streams. The Russian Bolsheviks, headed by Vladimir Lenin, firmly believed that unless socialist revolution swept Europe, they would be crushed by the military might of world capitalism, just as the Paris Commune had been crushed by force of arms in 1871. To this end, the organization of a new international to foment revolution in Europe and around the world became to the Bolsheviks an iron necessity. Founding Congress Main article: Founding Congress of the Comintern. The Comintern was founded in these conditions at a Congress held in Moscow March 26, 1919,[2] against the backdrop of the Russian Civil War. There were 52 delegates present from 34 parties.[3] They decided to form an Executive Committee with representatives of the most important sections and that other parties joining the International would have their own representatives. The Congress decided that the Executive Committee would elect a five-member bureau to run the daily affairs of the

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International. However, such a bureau was not formed and Lenin, Trotsky and Christian Rakovsky later delegated the task of managing the International to Grigory Zinoviev as the Chairman of the Executive. Zinoviev was assisted by Angelica Balbanoff, acting as the secretary of the International, Victor L. Kibaltchitch[4] and Vladmir Ossipovich Mazin.[5] Lenin, Trotsky and Alexandra Kollontai presented material. The main topic of discussion was the difference between "bourgeois democracy" and the "dictatorship of the proletariat".[6] The following parties and movements were invited to the Founding Congress: Spartacus League (Germany) Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks) Communist Party of German Austria Hungarian Communist Workers' Party, in power during Bla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic Communist Party of Finland Communist Party of Poland Communist Party of Estonia Communist Party of Latvia Lithuanian CP Communist Party (bolsheviks) of Byelorussia Communist Party (Bolsheviks) of Ukraine (Ukrainian section of Russian CP, same party basically) The revolutionary elements of the Czech social democracy Social Democratic and Labour Party of Bulgaria (Tesnyatsi) Romanian Social Democratic Party Left-wing of the Serbian SDP Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden The Norwegian Labour Party For Denmark, the Klassekampen group Communist Party of Holland Revolutionary elements of the Belgian Labour Party (who would create the Communist Party of Belgium in 1921) Groups and organisations within the French socialist and syndicalist movements Left wing within the Social Democratic Party of Switzerland Italian Socialist Party Revolutionary elements of the Spanish Socialist Workers' Party Revolutionary elements of the Portuguese Socialist Party British socialist parties (particularly the current represented by John Maclean) Socialist Labour Party (Great Britain) Industrial Workers of the World (Great Britain) Revolutionary elements of the workers' organisations of Ireland Revolutionary elements among the Shop stewards (Great Britain) Socialist Labor Party of the United States Left elements of the Socialist Party of America (the tendency represented by Eugene Debs and the Socialist Propaganda League of America) Industrial Workers of the World (United States) Industrial Workers of the World (Australia) Workers' International Industrial Union (United States) The Socialist groups of Tokyo and Yokohama (Japan, represented by Sen Katayama) Socialist Youth International (represented by Willi Mnzenberg)[7] Of these, the following attended: the Communist Parties of Russia, Germany, German Austria, Hungary, Poland, Finland, Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Byelorussia, Estonia,

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Armenia, the Volga German region; the Swedish Social Democratic Left Party (the opposition), Balkan Revolutionary People's of Russia; Zimmerwald Left Wing of France; the Czech, Bulgarian, Yugoslav, British, French and Swiss Communist Groups; the Dutch Social-Democratic Group; Socialist Propaganda League and the Socialist Labor Party of America; Socialist Workers' Party of China; Korean Workers' Union, Turkestan, Turkish, Georgian, Azerbaijanian and Persian Sections of the Central Bureau of the Eastern People's, and the Zimmerwald Commission.[3][8] Grigory Zinoviev served as the first Chairman of the Comintern's Executive Committee from 1919 to 1926, but its dominant figure until his death in January 1924 was Lenin, whose strategy for revolution had been laid out in What Is to Be Done? (1902). The central policy of the Comintern under Lenin's leadership was that Communist parties should be established across the world to aid the international proletarian revolution. The parties also shared his principle of democratic centralism, "freedom of discussion, unity of action", that is, that parties would make decisions democratically, but uphold in a disciplined fashion whatever decision was made.[9] In this period, the Comintern was promoted as the "General Staff of the World Revolution."[10]

An allegorical representation of the Third International. Palekh miniature by Ivan Golikov, 1927.

Second World Congress Main article: 2nd World Congress of the Comintern. Ahead of the Second Congress of the Communist International, held in JulyAugust 1920, Lenin sent out a number of documents, including his Twenty-one Conditions to all socialist parties. The Congress adopted the 21 conditions as prerequisites for any group wanting to become affiliated to the International. The 21 Conditions called for the demarcation between Communist parties and other socialist groups,[11] and instructed the Comintern sections not to trust the legality of the bourgeois states. They

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also called for the build-up of party organisations along democratic centralist lines, in which the party press and parliamentary factions would be under the direct control of the party leadership. Regarding the political situation in the colonized world, the second congress of the Communist International stipulated that a united front should be formed between the proletariat, peasantry and national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. Amongst the twenty-one conditions drafted by Lenin ahead of the congress was the 11th thesis which stipulated that all communist parties must support the bourgeois-democratic liberation movements in the colonies. Notably some of the delegates opposed the idea of alliance with the bourgeoisie, and preferred giving support to communist movements in these countries instead. Their criticism was shared by the Indian revolutionary M.N. Roy, who attended as a delegate of the Communist Party of Mexico. The congress removed the term bourgeois-democratic' in what became the 8th condition.[12] Many European socialist parties went through splits on the basis of the adhesion or not to the new International. The French Section of the Workers International (SFIO) thus broke away with the 1920 Tours Congress, leading to the creation of the new French Communist Party (initially called "French Section of the Communist International" - SFIC); the Communist Party of Spain was created in 1920, the Communist Party of Italy was created in 1921, the Belgian Communist Party in September 1921, etc. Third World Congress Writings from the Third Congress, held in JuneJuly 1921, talked about how the struggle could be transformed into "civil war" when the circumstances were favorable and "openly revolutionary uprisings".[13] The Fourth Congress, November 1922, at which Leon Trotsky played a prominent role, continued in this vein.[14] The Dungan commander of the Dungan Calvary Regiment, Magaza Masanchi, attended the Third Congress.[15] During this early period, known as the "First Period" in Comintern history, with the Bolshevik revolution under attack in the Russian Civil War and a wave of revolutions across Europe, the Comintern's priority was exporting the October Revolution. Some Communist Parties had secret military wings. On example is the M-Apparat of the Communist Party of Germany. Its purpose was to prepare for the civil war the Communists believed was impending in Germany, and to liquidate opponents and informers who might have infiltrated the party. There was also a paramilitary organization, the Rotfrontkmpferbund.[16] The Comintern was involved in the revolutions across Europe in this period, starting with the Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919. Several hundred agitators and financial aid were sent from the Soviet Union and Lenin was in regular contact with its leader, Bla Kun. Soon an official "Terror Group of the Revolutionary Council of the Government" was formed, unofficially known as "Lenin Boys".[17] The next attempt was the "March Action" in Germany in 1921, including an attempt to dynamite the express train from Halle to Leipzig. After this failed, the Communist Party of Germany expelled its former Chairman, Paul Levi, from the party for publicly criticising the March Action in a pamphlet,[18] which was ratified by the ECCI prior to the 3rd congress.[19] A new attempt was made at the time of the Ruhr Crisis in spring and then again in selected parts of Germany in the autumn of 1923. The Red Army was mobilized, ready to come to the aid of the planned insurrection. Resolute action by the

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German government cancelled the plans, except due to miscommunication in Hamburg, where 200-300 Communists attacked police stations but were quickly defeated.[20] In 1924 there was a failed coup in Estonia by the Estonian Communist Party.[21] In 1924, the Mongolian People's Revolutionary Party joined Comintern.[22] At first, in China both the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang were supported. After the definite break with Chiang Kai-shek in 1927, Stalin sent personal emissaries to help organize revolts which at this time failed.[23]

The Comintern membership card of Karl Kilbom

Fifth to Seventh World Congresses The Second Period Lenin died in 1924. 1925 signalled a shift from the immediate activity of world revolution towards a defence of the Soviet state. In that year, Joseph Stalin upheld the thesis of "socialism in one country", detailed by Nikolai Bukharin in his brochure Can We Build Socialism in One Country in the Absence of the Victory of the WestEuropean Proletariat? (April 1925). The position was finalized as the state policy after Stalin's January 1926 article On the Issues of Leninism. The perspective of a world revolution was dismissed after the failures of the Spartacist uprising in Germany and of the Hungarian Soviet Republic, and the reflux of all revolutionary movements in Europe, such as in Italy, where the fascist squadristi broke the strikes and quickly assumed power following the 1922 March on Rome). This period, up to 1928, was known as the "Second Period", mirroring the shift in the USSR from war communism to the New Economic Policy.[24] At the 5th World Congress of the Comintern in July 1924, Zinoviev condemned Marxist philosopher Georg Lukcs's History and Class Consciousness, published in 1923 after his involvement in Bla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic, and Karl Korsch's Marxism and Philosophy.[citation needed] Zinoviev himself was dismissed in 1926 after falling out of favor with Stalin, who already held considerable power by this time. Bukharin then led the Comintern for two years, until 1928 when he too fell out with Stalin. Bulgarian Communist leader Georgi Dimitrov headed the Comintern in 1934 and presided until its dissolution. Geoff Eley summed up the change in attitude at this time as follows: By the Fifth Comintern Congress in July 1924... the collapse of Communist support in Europe tightened the pressure for conformity. A new policy of "Bolshevization" was adopted, which dragooned the CPs toward stricter bureaucratic centralism. This flattened out the earlier diversity of radicalisms, welding them into a single approved

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model of Communist organization. Only then did the new parties retreat from broader Left arenas into their own belligerent world, even if many local cultures of broader cooperation persisted. Respect for Bolshevik achievements and defense of the Russian Revolution now transmuted into dependency on Moscow and belief in Soviet infallibility. Depressing cycles of "internal rectification" began, disgracing and expelling successive leaderships, so that by the later 1920s many founding Communists had gone. This process of coordination, in a hard-faced drive for uniformity, was finalized at the next Congress of the Third International in 1928.[25]

The Third Period In 1928, the 9th Plenum of the Executive Committee began the so-called "Third Period", which was to last until 1935.[26] The Comintern proclaimed that the capitalist system was entering the period of final collapse, and that as such, the correct stance for all Communist parties was that of a highly aggressive, militant, ultra-left line. In particular, the Comintern described all moderate left-wing parties as "social fascists", and urged the Communists devote their energies to the destruction of the moderate left. With the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany after 1930, this stance became somewhat controversial with many such as the Polish Communist historian Isaac Deutscher criticizing the tactics of the Communist Party of Germany of treating the Social Democratic Party of Germany as the principal enemy. The 6th World Congress also revised the policy of united front in the colonial world. In 1927 the Kuomintang had turned on the Chinese communists, which led to a review of the policy on forming alliances with the national bourgeoisie in the colonial countries. The congress did however make a differentiation between the character of the Chinese Kuomintang on one hand and the Indian Swarajist Party and the Egyptian Wafd Party on the other, considering the latter as an unreliable ally but not a direct enemy. The congress called on the Indian communists to utilize the contradictions between the national bourgeoisie and the British imperialists.[27] Seventh World Congress and the Popular Front The seventh and last congress of the Comintern was held between July 25 and August 20, 1935. It was attended by representatives of 65 communist parties. The main report was delivered by Dimitrov, other reports were delivered by Palmiro Togliatti, Wilhelm Pieck and Dmitry Manuilsky.[28] The congress officially endorsed the Popular Front against fascism. This policy argued that Communist Parties should seek to form a Popular Front with all parties that opposed fascism and not limit themselves to forming a United Front with those parties based in the working class. There was no significant opposition to this policy within any of the national sections of the Comintern; in France and Spain in particular, it would have momentous consequences with Lon Blum's 1936 election, which led to the Popular Front government. Stalin's purges of the 1930s affected Comintern activists living in both the USSR and overseas. At Stalin's direction, the Comintern was thoroughly infused with Soviet secret police and foreign intelligence operatives and informers working under Comintern guise. One of its leaders, Mikhail Trilisser, using the pseudonym 'Mikhail Aleksandrovich Moskvin', was in fact chief of the foreign department of the Soviet OGPU (later, the NKVD). At Stalin's orders, 133 out of 492 Comintern staff members became victims of the Great Purge. Several hundred German Communists and antifascists who had either fled from Nazi Germany or were convinced to relocate in

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the Soviet Union were liquidated, and more than a thousand were handed over to Germany.[29] Fritz Platten died in a labor camp; the leaders of the Indian (Virendranath Chattopadhyaya or Chatto), Korean, Mexican, Iranian and Turkish Communist parties were executed. Out of 11 Mongolian Communist Party leaders, only Khorloogiin Choibalsan survived. A great number of German Communists were handed over to Adolf Hitler. Leopold Trepper recalled these days: "In house, where the party activists of all the countries were living, no-one slept until 3 o'clock in the morning.... Exactly 3 o'clock the car lights began to be seen... we stayed near the window and waited [to find out], where the car stopped."[30]

Dissolution At the start of World War II, the Comintern supported a policy of non-intervention, arguing that the war was an imperialist war between various national ruling classes, much like World War I had been (see Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact). But when the Soviet Union itself was invaded on 22 June 1941, the Comintern changed its position to one of active support for the Allies. On May 15, 1943, a declaration of the Executive Committee was sent out to all sections of the International, calling for the dissolution of Comintern. The declaration read: The historical role of the Communist International, organized in 1919 as a result of the political collapse of the overwhelming majority of the old pre-war workers' parties, consisted in that it preserved the teachings of Marxism from vulgarisation and distortion by opportunist elements of the labor movement.... But long before the war it became increasingly clear that, to the extent that the internal as well as the international situation of individual countries became more complicated, the solution of the problems of the labor movement of each individual country through the medium of some international centre would meet with insuperable obstacles. Concretely, the declaration asked the member sections to approve: To dissolve the Communist International as a guiding centre of the international labor movement, releasing sections of the Communist International from the obligations ensuing from the constitution and decisions of the Congresses of the Communist International. After endorsements of the declaration were received from the member sections, the International was dissolved.[31] Messages between Tito and Dimitrov the SecretaryGeneral in Moscow were intercepted and decrypted by the British GC&CS (Bletchley

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Park) from 1943, though the volume from "Walter" [Tito] was intercepted months later). They showed the level and continued with Dimitrov after dissolved.[32]

of messages was not great (the first message on 21 April, though not decrypted until many of control exercised over him (Tito) by Moscow June 1943, when the Comintern itself was

Usually, it is asserted that the dissolution came about as Stalin wished to calm his World War II allies (particularly Franklin D. Roosevelt and Winston Churchill) and keep them from suspecting the Soviet Union of pursuing a policy of trying to foment revolution in other countries.[33] Successor organisations The International Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was founded at roughly the same time that the Comintern was abolished in 1943, although its specific duties during the first several years of its existence are unknown.[34] In September 1947, following the June 1947 Paris Conference on Marshall Aid, Stalin gathered a grouping of key European communist parties and set up the Cominform, or Communist Information Bureau, often seen as a substitute to the Comintern. It was a network made up of the Communist parties of Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, France, Hungary, Italy, Poland, Romania, the Soviet Union, and Yugoslavia (led by Josip Broz Tito, it was expelled in June 1948). The Cominform was dissolved in 1956, following Stalin's 1953 death and the XXth Congress of the CPSU. While the Communist parties of the world no longer had a formal international organization, they continued to maintain close relations with each other through a series of international forums. In the period directly after dissolution of Comintern, periodical meetings of Communist parties were held in Moscow. Moreover World Marxist Review, a joint periodical of the Communist parties, played an important role in coordinating the communist movement up to the break-up of the Socialist Bloc in 1989-1991. Comintern and Communist Party of China The complicated relationship between the Comintern and the Communist Party of China (CPC) is an important chapter in the history of Comintern. 1921 to 1927 The CPC was established in 1921 with the help of the Comintern. The CPC declared itself to be a branch of the Comintern. At that time, China had a large revolutionary party called the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). Its leader, Dr. Sun Yatsen, frustrated by the refusal of aid for China from the democratic Western countries, quickly turned to the Soviet Union and the Comintern. Under the instruction of the Comintern,[citation needed] the CPC joined the Kuomintang. The Kuomintang also applied for membership in the Comintern, but was not accepted since it was essentially considered to be an anti-colonialist bourgeois political party and not a true Marxist vehicle. Sun Yatsens successor, Chiang Kai-shek, was once elected as an honorary member of the standing committee of the Comintern.[citation needed] The Northern Expedition became a point of contention over foreign policy by Joseph Stalin and Trotsky. Stalin followed a practical policy, ignoring communist ideology. He told the Chinese Communist Party to stop whining about the lower classes and follow the Kuomintang's orders. Stalin, like Vladimir Lenin, believed that the KMT bourgeoisie would defeat the western imperialists in China and complete the

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revolution. Trotsky wanted the Communist party to complete an orthodox proletarian revolution and opposed the KMT. Stalin funded the KMT during the expedition.[35] Stalin countered Trotskyist critisizm by making a secret speech in which he said that Chiang's right wing Kuomintang were the only ones capable of defeating the imperialists, that Chiang Kai-shek had funding from the rich merchants, and that his forces were to be utilized until squeezed for all usefulness like a lemon before being discarded. However, Chiang quickly reversed the tables in the Shanghai massacre of 1927 by massacring the Communist party in Shanghai midway in the Northern Expedition.[36][37] 1927 to 1935 After the success of the joint revolution of the Kuomintang and CPC in reuniting China under a single government, they split over their ideological differences. The Kuomintang under Chiang Kai-shek ultimately became an anti-Communist force. The Comintern instructed the Communists to initiate urban riots, but all failed.[citation needed] A group of native Communists, such as Mao Zedong, used peasant riots to establish the Soviet Republic of China in remote mountain villages. The Comintern sent a German Communist, Otto Braun, as the CPC's military adviser, who became the CPC's de facto military commander later.[citation needed] Zhou Enlai, once the Comintern's favorite,[citation needed] was the chairman of the Military Committee of the CPC. After being besieged by Chiang Kai-sheks Nationalist army, the Chinese Red Army had to escape to try to find a new base - this came to be known as the Long March (19341935). 1935 to 1942 During the Long March, the CPC party leadership re-examined its policy in Zunyi (January 1935). Mao Zedong blamed the CPC's failure to ignite a revolution on their decision to blindly follow the Comintern's instructions, which did not take into account the reality of Chinese conditions. During the heated debate, Zhou Enlai unexpectedly accepted the criticism and sided with Mao. Otto Braun was dismissed from his position as the CPC's military commander. After they resettled in Yanan, the native Chinese Communists, such as Mao and Zhu De, became the real powers in the CPC rather than the foreign Communists supplied by the Comintern. Those Chinese Communists who were loyal to the Comintern, such as a group called the 28 Bolsheviks, fell from all of the most important positions within the CPC. Zhou Enlai became an assistant to Mao in political affairs, such as the pursuit of the United Front and diplomacy. By this time, the Comintern and the Soviet Union could no longer control the CPC. The Comintern continued to give advice, but much of it was simply was ignored. The CPC was now a truly Chinese entity, much as the Bolshevik Party had been a truly Russian one. An exception to this rule was the Northeast Anti-Japanese United Army, organized by the Manchuria branch of the CPC in 1932. Geographically separated from the CPC headquarters in Yenan, this guerrilla army did not report directly to the CPC center, but was still led and supported by the Soviet Union under the guise of the Comintern until it was defeated by a Japanese occupation force and fled to the Soviet Union in 1942.

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Comintern-sponsored international organisations Several international organizations were sponsored by the Comintern in this period: Red International of Labour Unions (Profintern - formed 1920) Red Peasant International (Krestintern - formed 1923) International Red Aid (MOPR - formed 1922) Communist Youth International (19191943) Red Sports International (Sportintern) International of the Proletarian Freethinkers (19251933) League against Imperialism (formed 1927) World Congresses and Plenums of Comintern Delegate figures are VOTING + CONSULTATIVE.[38] Event Founding Congress of the Communist International Conference of the Amsterdam Bureau 2nd World Congress of the Comintern 1st Congress of the Peoples of the East 3rd World Congress of the Comintern 1st Congress of Toilers of the Far East 1st Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 2nd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 4th World Congress of the Comintern 3rd Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 5th World Congress of the Comintern 4th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 5th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 6th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 7th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI World Congress Against Colonial Oppression and Imperialism 8th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 9th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 6th World Congress of the Comintern 10th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 2nd Congress of the League Against Imperialism Enlarged Presidium of ECCI 1st International Conference of Negro Workers Year Held 1919 1920 1920 1920 1921 1922 1922 1922 1922 1923 1924 1924 1925 1926 1926 1927 1927 1928 1928 1929 1929 1930 1930 Dates March 26 February 1011 July 19 to Aug. 7 September 18 June 22 to July 12 Jan. 21 to Feb. 2 Feb. 24 to March 4 June 711 Nov. 5 to Dec. 5 June 1223 June 17 to July 8 June 12 and July 1213 March 21 to April 6 Feb. 17 to March 15 Nov. 22 to Dec. 16 February 1015 May 1830 February 925 July 17 to Sept. 1 July 319 July February 25-?? July 78

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11th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 12th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 13th Enlarged Plenum of ECCI 7th World Congress of the Comintern

1931 1932 1933 1935

March 26 to April 11 Aug. 27 to Sept. 15 Nov. 28 to Dec. 12 July 25 to Aug. 21

See also Executive Committee of the Communist International; Communist University of the Toilers of the East; Communist University of the National Minorities of the West; Moscow Sun Yat-sen University Anti-Comintern Pact; Spanish Civil War; International Working Union of Socialist Parties ("2 and a half International" founded by Austro-Marxists); International Revolutionary Marxist Centre; Communist Workers International; International Communist Opposition Footnotes ^ 1 MI5 History, The Inter-War Period ^ 2 Berg, Nils J. I kamp fr Socialismen - Kortfattad framstllning av det svenska kommunistiska partiets historia 1917-1981. It opened with a tribute to Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, recently murdered by the Freikorps during the Spartakus Uprising. Stockholm: Arbetarkultur, 1982. p. 19. ^ 3 a b Marxist Internet Archive ^ 4 Kibaltchitch would later take the name 'Victor Serge'. A former anarchist, he was not even a member of the RCP(b) at the time. He believed he was included because of his knowledge of European languages. See: Serge, Victor. Memoirs of a Revolutionary ^ 5 First Congress of the Communist International ^ 6 Marxist Internet Archive ^ 7 First Congress of the Communist International ^ 8Delegates with deciding votes were: Hugo Eberlein (Communist Party of Germany), Lenin (Russian Communist Party (bolsheviks)), Leon Trotsky (RCP(b)), Zinoviev (RCP(b)), Joseph Stalin (RCP(b)), Bukharin (RCP(b)), Georgy Chicherin (RCP(b)), Karl Steinhardt (Communist Party of German Austria) K. Petin (CPGA), Endre Rudnynszky (Communist Party of Hungary), Otto Grimlund (Social Democratic Left Party of Sweden), Emil Stang (Norwegian Labour Party), Fritz Platten (the opposition within the Swiss Social Democratic Party), Boris Reinstein (Socialist Labor Party of America), Christian Rakovsky (Balkan Revolutionary Social Democratic Federation), Jozef Unszlicht (Communist Party of Poland), Yrj Sirola (Communist Party of Finland), Kullervo Manner (CPF), O. V. Kuusinen (CPF), Jukka Rahja (CPF), Eino Rahja (CPF), Mykola Skrypnyk (Communist Party (Bolshevik) of Ukraine), Serafima Gopner (CPU), Karl Gailis (Communist Party of Latvia), Kazimir Gedris (Communist Party of Lithuania and Belorussia), Hans Pgelman (Communist Party of Estonia), Gurgen Haikuni (Communist Party of Armenia), Gustav Klinger (Communist Party of the German Colonists in Russia), Gaziz Yalymov (United Group of the Eastern Peoples of Russia), Hussein Bekentayev (UGEPR), Mahomet Altimirov (UGEPR), Burhan Mansurov (UGEPR), Kasim Kasimov (UGEPR) and Henri Guilbeaux (Zimmerwald Left of France). Delegates with consultative votes were: N. Osinsky (RCP(b)), V. V. Vorovsky (RCP(b)), Jaroslav Handl (Czech Communist Group), Stojan Dyorov (Bulgarian Communist Group), Ilija Milki (Yugoslav Communist

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Group), Joseph Fineberg (British Communist Group), Jacques Sadoul (French Communist Group), S. J. Rutgers (Dutch Social Democratic Party/Socialist Propaganda League of America), Leonie Kascher (Swiss Communist Group), Liu Shaozhou (Chinese Socialist Workers Party), Zhang Yongkui (CSWP), Kain (Korean Workers League), Angelica Balabanoff (Zimmerwald Committee) and the following delegates representing the sections the Central Bureau of Eastern Peoples: Gaziz Yalymov (Turkestan), Mustafa Suphi (Turkey), Tengiz Zhgenti (Georgian), Mir Jafar Baghirov (Azerbaijan) and Mirza Davud Huseynov (Persia). Source:[1] ^ 9Lenin, V. (1906), Report on the Unity Congress of the R.S.D.L.P. ^ 10 William Henry Chamberlin Soviet Russia: A Living Record and a History 1929, chapter 11; Max Shachtman "For the Fourth International!" New International, Vol.1 No.1, July 1934; Walter Kendall "Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution", Revolutionary History) ^ 11 For example, the thirteenth condition stated that "The communist parties of those countries in which the communists can carry out their work legally must from time to time undertake purges (re-registration) of the membership of their party organisations in order to cleanse the party systematically of the pettybourgeois elements within it. The term "purge" has taken on very negative connotations, because of the Great Purge of the 1930s. In the early 1920s, however, the term was more ambiguous. See J. Arch Getty Origins of the Great Purges: The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered, 1933-1938 p.41 for discussion of the ambiguities in the term, including its use in the 1920 Comintern resolution. ^ 12 M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front - Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 48, 8485 ^ 13 The Black Book of Communism pp. 275-6; Minutes of the Seventh Session ^ 14 Marxist Internet Archive ^ 15 Joseph L. Wieczynski (1994). The Modern encyclopedia of Russian and Soviet history, Volume 21. Academic International Press. p. 125. ISBN 0875690645. Retrieved 2011-01-01. ^ 16 The Black Book of Communism pp. 282; Marxist Internet Archive ^ 17 The Black Book of Communism pp. 272-5 ^ 18 Broue, P. (2006) The German Revolution: 1917-1923, Chicago: Haymarket Books, pg.516 ^ 19 Broue, P. (2006) The German Revolution: 1917-1923, Chicago: Haymarket Books, pg.531 ^ 20 The Black Book of Communism pp. 277-8 ^ 21 The Black Book of Communism pp. 278-9 ^ 22 [2] ^ 23 The Black Book of Communism pp. 280-82 ^ 24 Duncan Hallas The Comintern, chapter 5 ^ 25 Geoff Eley, Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850-2000 (Oxford University Press US, 2002: ISBN 0-19-504479-7), p. 228. ^ 25 Duncan Hallas The Comintern, chapter 6; Nicholas N. Kozlov, Eric D. Weitz "Reflections on the Origins of the 'Third Period': Bukharin, the Comintern, and the Political Economy of Weimar Germany" Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 24, No. 3 (Jul., 1989), pp. 387-410 JSTOR ^ 27 M.V.S. Koteswara Rao. Communist Parties and United Front - Experience in Kerala and West Bengal. Hyderabad: Prajasakti Book House, 2003. p. 47-48 ^ 28 Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CPCz CC, Institute of Marxism-Leninism

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of the CPS CC. An Outline of the History of the CPCz. Prague: Orbis Press Agency, 1980. p. 160 ^ 29 The Black Book of Communism p. 298-301. ^ 30 Radzinski, Stalin, 1997 ^ 31 Dissolution of the Communist International ^ 32 Mihailovi or Tito? How the Codebreakers Helped Churchill Choose by John Cripps; Chapter 13 (pages 237-263) of Action This Day edited by Michael Smith & Ralph Erskine (2001, Bantam London) ISBN 0593 049101 p. 242, 253, 257 ^ 33 Robert Service, Stalin. A biography. (Macmillan - London, 2004), pp 444-445 ^ 34 Mark Kramer, The Role of the CPSU International Department in Soviet Foreign Relations and National Security Policy, Soviet Studies, Vol. 42, No. 3 (Jul., 1990), pp. 429-446 ^ 35 Peter Gue Zarrow (2005). China in war and revolution, 1895-1949. Psychology Press. p. 233. ISBN 0415364477. Retrieved 2011-01-01. ^ 36 Robert Carver North (1963). Moscow and Chinese Communists. Stanford University Press. p. 96. ISBN 0804704538. Retrieved 2011-01-01. ^ 37 Walter Moss (2005). A history of Russia: Since 1855. Anthem Press. p. 282. ISBN 1843310341. Retrieved 2011-01-01. ^ 38 Marxist History: "The Communist International (1919-1943)", accessed March 22, 2010 Further reading Chase, William J. Enemies within the Gates?: The Comintern and the Stalinist Repression, 1934-1939. Yale University Press, 2001. ISBN 0300082428 Hopkirk, Peter. Setting the East Ablaze: Lenin's Dream of a Empire in Asia 1984 (1984) C. L. R. James, World Revolution 1917-1936: The Rise and Fall of the Communist International Humanities Press, New Jersey, (Revolutionary Series), 1993, ISBN 1-57392-583-7 Kennan, George F. Russia and the West under Lenin and Stalin (1961) Liebman, Marcel. Leninism Under Lenin Humanities Press, ISBN 0-85036-261-X McDermott, Kevin. "Rethinking the Comintern: Soviet historiography, 1987-1991," Labour History Review, Winter 1992, Vol. 57 Issue 3, pp 3758 McDermott, Kevin, and J. Agnew. The Comintern: a History of International Communism from Lenin to Stalin (Basingstoke, 1996), the standard history Melograni, Piero. Lenin and the Myth of World Revolution: Ideology and Reasons of State 1917-1920, Humanities Press, 1990 Nekrich, Aleksandr M. Pariahs, Partners, Predators: German-Soviet Relations, 1922-1941 (1993) Ulam, Adam B. Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 19171973, 2nd ed. (1974) The Comintern and its Critics (Special issue of Revolutionary History Volume 8, no 1, Summer 2001) Primary sources Davidson, Apollon, et al. eds. South Africa and the Communist International: A Documentary History (2 vol., 2003)

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[25] Letter- Marx to Ruge


Letters from the Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_09.htm Kreuznach, September 1843 I am glad that you have made up your mind and, ceasing to look back at the past, are turning your thoughts ahead to a new enterprise.(1) And so to Paris, to the old university of philosophy absit omen! [May it not be an ill omen] and the new capital of the new world! What is necessary comes to pass. I have no doubt, therefore, that it will be possible to overcome all obstacles, the gravity of which I do not fail to recognise. But whether the enterprise comes into being or not, in any case I shall be in Paris by the end of this month,(2) since the atmosphere here makes one a serf, and in Germany I see no scope at all for free activity. In Germany, everything is forcibly suppressed; a real anarchy of the mind, the reign of stupidity itself, prevails there, and Zurich obeys orders from Berlin. It therefore becomes increasingly obvious that a new rallying point must be sought for truly thinking and independent minds. I am convinced that our plan would answer a real need, and after all it must be possible for real needs to be fulfilled in reality. Hence I have no doubt about the enterprise, if it is undertaken seriously. The internal difficulties seem to be almost greater than the external obstacles. For although no doubt exists on the question of Whence, all the greater confusion prevails on the question of Whither. Not only has a state of general anarchy set in among the reformers, but everyone will have to admit to himself that he has no exact idea what the future ought to be. On the other hand, it is precisely the advantage of the new trend that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only want to find the new world through criticism of the old one. Hitherto philosophers have had the solution of all riddles lying in their writing-desks, and the stupid, exoteric world had only to open its mouth for the roast pigeons of absolute knowledge to fly into it. Now philosophy has become mundane, and the most striking proof of this is that philosophical consciousness itself has been drawn into the torment of the struggle, not only externally but also internally. But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be. Therefore I am not in favour of raising any dogmatic banner. On the contrary, we must try to help the dogmatists to clarify their propositions for themselves. Thus, communism, in particular, is a dogmatic abstraction; in which connection, however, I am not thinking of some imaginary and possible communism, but actually existing communism as taught by Cabet, Dzamy, Weitling, etc. This communism is itself only

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a special expression of the humanistic principle, an expression which is still infected by its antithesis the private system. Hence the abolition of private property and communism are by no means identical, and it is not accidental but inevitable that communism has seen other socialist doctrines such as those of Fourier, Proudhon, etc. arising to confront it because it is itself only a special, one-sided realisation of the socialist principle. And the whole socialist principle in its turn is only one aspect that concerns the reality of the true human being. But we have to pay just as much attention to the other aspect, to the theoretical existence of man, and therefore to make religion, science, etc., the object of our criticism. In addition, we want to influence our contemporaries, particularly our German contemporaries. The question arises: how are we to set about it? There are two kinds of facts which are undeniable. In the first place religion, and next to it, politics, are the subjects which form the main interest of Germany today. We must take these, in whatever form they exist, as our point of departure, and not confront them with some ready-made system such as, for example, the Voyage en Icarie. [Etienne Cabet, Voyage en Icarie. Roman philosophique et social.] Reason has always existed, but not always in a reasonable form. The critic can therefore start out from any form of theoretical and practical consciousness and from the forms peculiar to existing reality develop the true reality as its obligation and its final goal. As far as real life is concerned, it is precisely the political state in all its modern forms which, even where it is not yet consciously imbued with socialist demands, contains the demands of reason. And the political state does not stop there. Everywhere it assumes that reason has been realised. But precisely because of that it everywhere becomes involved in the contradiction between its ideal function and its real prerequisites. From this conflict of the political state with itself, therefore, it is possible everywhere to develop the social truth. Just as religion is a register of the theoretical struggles of mankind, so the political state is a register of the practical struggles of mankind. Thus, the political state expresses, within the limits of its form sub specie rei publicae, [as a particular kind of state] all social struggles, needs and truths. Therefore, to take as the object of criticism a most specialised political question such as the difference between a system based on social estate and one based on representation is in no way below the hauteur des principes. [Level of principles] For this question only expresses in a political way the difference between rule by man and rule by private property. Therefore the critic not only can, but must deal with these political questions (which according to the extreme Socialists are altogether unworthy of attention). In analysing the superiority of the representative system over the socialestate system, the critic in a practical way wins the interest of a large party. By raising the representative system from its political form to the universal form and by bringing out the true significance underlying this system, the critic at the same time compels this party to go beyond its own confines, for its victory is at the same time its defeat. Hence, nothing prevents us from making criticism of politics, participation in politics, and therefore real struggles, the starting point of our criticism, and from identifying our criticism with them. In that case we do not confront the world in a doctrinaire way with a new principle: Here is the truth, kneel down before it! We develop new principles for the world out of the worlds own principles. We do not say to the world: Cease your struggles, they are foolish; we will give you the true slogan of struggle. We merely show the world what it is really fighting for, and consciousness is

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something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to. The reform of consciousness consists only in making the world aware of its own consciousness, in awakening it out of its dream about itself, in explaining to it the meaning of its own actions. Our whole object can only be as is also the case in Feuerbachs criticism of religion to give religious and philosophical questions the form corresponding to man who has become conscious of himself. Hence, our motto must be: reform of consciousness not through dogmas, but by analysing the mystical consciousness that is unintelligible to itself, whether it manifests itself in a religious or a political form. It will then become evident that the world has long dreamed of possessing something of which it has only to be conscious in order to possess it in reality. It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realising the thoughts of the past. Lastly, it will become evident that mankind is not beginning a new work, but is consciously carrying into effect its old work. In short, therefore, we can formulate the trend of our journal as being: self-clarification (critical philosophy) to be gained by the present time of its struggles and desires. This is a work for the world and for us. It can be only the work of united forces. It is a matter of a confession, and nothing more. In order to secure remission of its sins, mankind has only to declare them for what they actually are. (1) In a letter to Marx in August 1843 (published in the Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher) Ruge informed him of the final decision to have the journal published in Paris. Earlier there had been no unanimity on this point, besides Paris other places had been suggested, in particular Switzerland and Strasbourg. (2) Marxs departure for Paris was delayed. He arrived there with Jenny at the end of October 1843.

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[26] Slavoj Zizek - Key Ideas


INFLUENCES The three main influences on Slavoj Zizek's work are G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx and Jacques Lacan 1. Hegel provides Zizek with the type of thought or methodology that he uses. This kind of thinking is called dialectical. In Zizek's reading of Hegel, the dialectic is never finally resolved. 2. Marx is the inspiration behind Zizek's work, for what he is trying to do is to contribute to the Marxist tradition of thought, specifically that of a critique of ideology. 3. Lacan provides Zizek with the framework and terminology for his analyses. Of particular importance are Lacan's three registers of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real. Zizek locates the subject at the interface of the Symbolic and the Real. The Imaginary The basis of the imaginary order is the formation of the ego in the "mirror stage". Since the ego is formed by identifying with the counterpart or specular image, "identification" is an important aspect of the imaginary. The relationship whereby the ego is constituted by identification is a locus of "alienation", which is another feature of the imaginary, and is fundamentally narcissistic. The imaginary, a realm of surface appearances which are deceptive, is structured by the symbolic order. It also involves a linguistic dimension: whereas the signifier is the foundation of the symbolic, the "signified" and "signification" belong to the imaginary. Thus language has both symbolic and imaginary aspects. Based on the specular image, the imaginary is rooted in the subject's relationship to the body (the image of the body). The Symbolic Although an essentially linguistic dimension, Lacan does not simply equate the symbolic with language, since the latter is involved also in the imaginary and the real. The symbolic dimension of language is that of the signifier, in which elements have no positive existence but are constituted by virtue of their mutual differences. It is the realm of radical alterity: the Other. The unconscious is the discourse of the Other and thus belongs to the symbolic order. Its is also the realm of the Law that regulates desire in the Oedipus complex. The symbolic is both the "pleasure principle" that regulates the distance from das Ding, and the "death drive" which goes beyond the pleasure principle by means of repetition: "the death drive is only the mask of the symbolic order." This register is determinant of subjectivity; for Lacan the symbolic is characterized by the absence of any fixed relations between signifier and signified. The Real This order is not only opposed to the imaginary but is also located beyond the symbolic. Unlike the latter, which is constituted in terms of oppositions such as "presence" and "absence", there is no absence in the real. The symbolic opposition

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between "presence" and "absence" implies the possibility that something may be missing from the symbolic, the real is "always in its place: it carries it glued to its heel, ignorant of what might exile it from there." If the symbolic is a set of differentiated signifiers, the real is in itself undifferentiated: "it is without fissure". The symbolic introduces "a cut in the real," in the process of signification: "it is the world of words that creates the world of things." Thus the real emerges as that which is outside language: "it is that which resists symbolization absolutely." The real is impossible because it is impossible to imagine, impossible to integrate into the symbolic order. This character of impossibility and resistance to symbolization lends the real its traumatic quality.

THE SUBJECT Unlike almost all other kinds of contemporary philosophers, Zizek argues that Descartes' cogito is the basis of the subject. However, whereas most thinkers read the cogito as a substantial, transperent and fully self-conscious "I" which is in complete command of its destiny, Zizek proposes that the cogito is an empty space, what is left when the rest of the world is expelled from itself. The Symbolic Order is what substitutes for the loss of the immediacy of the world and it is where the void of the subject is filled in by the process of subjectivization. The latter is where the subject is given an identity and where that identity is altered by the Self. Reading Schelling via Lacan Once the Lacanian concepts of the Imaginary, the Symbolic and the Real are grasped, Zizek, in philosophical writings such as his dicussion of Schelling, always interprets the work of other philsophers in terms of those concepts. This is so because "the core of my entire work is the endeavour to use Lacan as a privileged intellectual tool to reactualize German idealism". (The Zizek Reader) The reason Zizek thinks German idealism (the work of Hegel, Kant, Fichte and Schelling) needs reactualizing is that we are thought to understand it in one way, whereas the truth of it is something else. The term "reactualizing" refers to the fact that there are different possible ways to interpret German idealism, and Zizek wishes to make "actual" one of those possibilities in distinction to the way it is currently realized. At its most basic, we are taught that German idealism believes that the truth of something could be found in itself. For Zizek, the fundamental insight of German idealism is that the truth of something is always outside it. So the truth of our experience lies outside ourselves, in the Symbolic and the Real, rather than being buried deep within us. We cannot look into our selves and find out who we truly are,

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because who we truly are is always elsewhere. Our selves are somewhere else in the Symbolic formations which always precede us and in the Real which we have to disavow if we are to enter the Symbolic order. The reason that Lacan occupies a privileged position for Zizek's lies in Lacan's proposition that self-identity is impossible. The identity of something, its singularity or "oneness", is always split. There is always too much of something, and indivisible remainder, or a bit left-over which means that it cannot be self-identical. The meaning of a word, i.e., can never be found in the word itself, but rather in other words, its meaning therefore is not self-identical. This principle of the impossibility of self-identity is what informs Zizek's reading of the German idealists. In reading Schelling, i.e., the Beginning is not actually the beginning at all - the truth of the Beginning lies elsewhere, it is split or not identical to itself. How, precisely, does the Word discharge the tension of the rotary motion, how does it mediate the antagonism between the contarctive and the expansive force? The Word is a contraction in the guise of its very opposite of an expansion - that is, in pronouncing a word, the subject contracts his being outside himself; he "coagulates" the core of his being in an external sign. In the (verbal) sign, I - as it were - find myself outside myself, I posit my unity outside myself, in a signifier which represents me. (The Indivisible Remainder: An Essay on Schelling and Related Matters) The Subject of the Enunciation and the Subject of the Enunciated The subject of enunciation is the "I" who speaks, the individual doing the speaking; the subject of the enunciated is the "I" of the sentence. "I" is not identical to itself - it is split between the individual "I" (the subject of enunciation) and the grammatical "I" (the subject of the enunciated). Although we may experience them as unified, this is merely an Imaginary illusion, for the pronoun "I" is actually a substitute for the "I" of the subject. It does not account for me in my full specificity; it is, rather, a general term I share with everyone else. In order to do so, my empirical reality must be annihilated or, as Lacan avers, "the symbol manifests itself first of all as the murder of the thing". The subject can only enter language by negating the Real, murdering or substituting the blood-and-sinew reality of self for the concept of self expressed in words. For Lacan and Zizek every word is a gravestone, marking the absence or corpse of the thing it represents and standing in for it. It is partly in the light of this that Lacan is able to refashion Descartes' "I think, therefore I am" as "I think where I am not, therefore I am where I think not". The "I think" here is the subject of the enunciated (the Symbolic subject) whereas the "I am" is the subject of the enunciation (the Real subject). What Lacan aims to disclose by rewriting the Cartesian cogito in this way is that the subject is irrevocably split, torn asunder by language The Vanishing Mediator The concept of "vanishing mediator" is one that Zizek has consistenly employed since For They Know Not What They Do. A vanishing mediator is a concept which somehow negotiates and settles - hence mediating - the transition between two opposed concepts and thereafter disappears. Zizek draws attention to the fact that a vanishing mediator is produced by an assymetry of content and form. As with Marx's analysis of

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revolution, form lags behind content, in the sense that content changes within the parameters of an existing form, until the logic of that content works its way out to the latter and throws off its husk, revealing a new form in ots stead. Commenting Fredric Jameson's "Syntax of Theory" (The Ideologies of Theory, Minnesota, 1988), Zizek proposes that The passage from feudalism to Protestantism is not of the same nature as the passage from Protestantism to bourgeois everyday life with its privatized religion. The fisrt passage concerns "content" (under the guise of preserving the religious form or even its strengthening, the crucial shift - the assertion of the ascetic acquisitive stance in economic activity as the domain of manifestation of Grace - takes place), whereas the second passage is a purely formal act, a change of form (as soon as Protestantism is realized as the ascetic acquisitive stance, it can fall off as form). (For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political factor) Zizek sees in this process evidence of Hegel's "negation of the negation", the third moment of the dialectic. The first negation is the mutation of the content within and in the name of the old form. The second negation is the obsolescence of the form itself. In this way, something becomes the opposite of itself, paradoxically, by seeming to strengthen itself. In the case of Protestantism, the universalization of religious attitudes ultimately led to its being sidelined as a matter of private contemplation. Which is to say that Protestantism, as a negation of feudalism, was itself negated by capitalism. THE FORMULAS OF SEXUATION Jouissance The pleasure principle functions a a limit of enjoyment; it is a law that commands the subject to "enjoy as little as possible". At the same time, the subject constantly attempts to trangress the prohibitions imposed on his enjoyment, to go "beyond the pleasure principle". The result of transgressing the pleasure principle is not more pleasure, but pain, since thre is only a certain amount of pleasure that the subject can bear. beyond this limit, pleasure becomes pain, and this "painful pleasure" is what Lacan calls jouissance: jouissance is suffering. The term expresses the paradoxical satisfaction the subject derives from his symptom, that is the suffering he derives from his own satisfaction.

Woman Lacan in Encore states that jouissance is essentially phallic: "jouissance, insofar as it is sexual, is phallic, which means that it does not relate to the Other as such."

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However, Lacan admits a specifically feminine jouissance, a supplementary jouissance which is beyond the phallus, a jouissance of the Other. This feminine jouissance is ineffable, for women experience it but know nothing about it. Going beyond the phallus, it is of the order of the infinite, like mystical ecstasy."Woman doesn't exist", la femme n'existe pas, which Lacan rephrases as "there is no such a thing as Woman", il n'y a pas La femme. Lacan questions not the noun "woman", but the definite article which precedes it. For the definite article indicates universality, and this is the characteristic that woman lacks: "woman does not lend herself to generalisation, even to phallocentric generalisation." He also speaks of her as "notall", pas toute; unlike masculinity - a universal function founded upon the phallic exception (castration), woman is a non-universal which asmits no exception. "Woman as a symptom" (Seminar RSI) means that a woman is a symptom of a man, in the sense that a woman can only ever enter the psychic economy of men as a fantasy object, the cause of their desire.For Zizek, woman is what sustains the consistency of man; woman non-existence actually represents the radical negativity which constitutes all subjects. The terms "man" and "woman" do not refer to a biological distinction or gender roles, but rather two modes of the failure of Symbolization. It is this failure which means that "there is no sexual rapport". See Woman is one of the Names-ofthe-Father, or how Not to misread Lacan's formulas of sexuation for Zizek's position vis--vis sexuation. POSTMODERNITY For Zizek, present society, or postmodernity, is based upon the demise in the authority of the big Other. Continuing the theorists of the contemporary risk society, who advocate the personal freedoms of choice or reflexivity, which have replaced this authority, Zizek argues that these theorists ignore the reflexivity at the heart of the subject. For Zizek, lacking the prohibitions of the big Other, in these conditions, the subject's inherent reflexivity manifests itself in attachments to forms of subjection, paranoia and narcissism. In order to ameliorate these pathologies, Zizek proposes the need for a political act or revolution - one that will alter the conditions of possibility of postmodernity (which he identifies as capitalism) and so give birth to a new type of Symbolic Order in which a new breed of subject can exist. The Law Zizek refers to the law throughout his work. The term "the law" signifies the principles upon which society is based, designating a mode of collective conduct based upon a set of prohibitions. However, for Zizek, the rule of the law conceals an inherent unruliness which is precisely the violence by which it established itself as law in the first place. "At the beginning" of the law, there is a certain "outlaw", a certain real of violence which coincides with the act itself of the establishment of the reign of the law... The illegitimate violence by which law sustains itself must be concealed at any price, because this concealment is the positive condition of the functioning of the law. (For They Know Not What They Do: Enjoyment as a Political Factor) The authority of the law stems not from some concept of justice, but because it is the

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law. Which is to say that the origin of the law can be found in the tautology: "the law is the law". If the law is to function properly, however, we must experience it as just. It is only when the law breaks down, when it becomes a law unto itself, and it reaches the limits of itself, do we glimpse those limits and acknowledge its contingency by reference to the phrase "the law is the law". The Desintegration of the Big Other One key aspect of the universalization of reflexivity is the resulting desintegration of the big Other, the communal network of social institutions, customs and laws. For Zizek, the big Other was always dead, in the sense that it never existed in the first place as a material thing. All it ever was (and is) is a purely symbolic order. It means that we all engage in a minimum of idealization, disavowing the brute fact of the Real in favor of another Symbolic world behind it. Zizek expresses this disavowal in terms of an "as if". In order to coexist with our neighbors we act "as if" they do not smell bad or look ridiculous.The big Other is then a kind of collective lie to which we all individually subscribe. We all know that the emperor is naked (in the Real) but nonetheless we agree to the deception that he is wearing new clothes (in the Symbolic). When Zizek avers that "the big Other no longer exists" is that in the new postmodern era of reflexivity we no longer believe that the emperor is wearing clothes. We believe the testimony of our eyes (his nakedness in the Real) rather than the words of the big Other (his Symbolic new clothes). Instead of treating this as a case of punctuting hypocrisy, Zizek argues that "we get more than we bargained for - that the very community of which we were a member has disintegrated" (For They Know Not What They Do). There is a demise in "Symbolic efficiency".Symbolic efficiency refers to the way in which for a fact to become true it is not enough for us just to know it, we need to know that the fact is also known by the big Other too. For Zizek, it is the big Other which confers an identity upon the many decentered personalities of the contemporary subject. The different aspects of my personality do not claim an equal status in the Symbolic - it is only the Self or Selves registered by the big Other which display Symbolic efficiency, which are fully recognized by everyone else and determine my socio-economic position. The level at which this takes place is not that of "reality" as opposed to the play of my imagination - Lacan's point is not that, behind the multiplicity of phantasmatic identities, there is a hard core of some "real Self", we are dealing with a symbolic fiction, but a fiction which, for contingent reasons that have nothing to do with its inherent structure, possesses performative power - is socially operative, structures the sociosymbolic reality in which I participate. The status of the same person, inclusive of his/her very "real" features, can appear in an entirely different light the moment the modality of his/her relationship to the big Other changes. (The Ticklish Subject: the Absent Center of Political Ideology) The Return of the Big Other Besides the construction of little big Others as a reaction of the demise of the big Other, Zizek identifies another response in the positing of a big Other that actually exists in the Real. The name Lacan gives to an Other in the Real is "the Other of the Other". A belief in an Other of the Other, in someone or something who is really pulling the strings of society and organizing everything, is one of the signs of paranoia. Needless to say that it is commonplace to argue that the dominant pathology today is

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paranoia: countless books and films refer to some organization which covertly control governments, news, markets and academia. Zizek proposes that the cause of this paranoia can be located in a reaction to the demise of the big Other: When faced with such a paranoid construction, we must not forget Freud's warning and mistake it for the "ilness" itself: the paranoid construction is, on the contrary, an attempt to heal ourselves, to pull ourselves out of the real "illness", the "end of the world", the breakdown of the symbolic universe, by menas of this substitute formation. Looking Awry: an Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture) Paradoxically, then, Zizek argues that the typical postmodern subject is one who displays an otright cynicism towards official institutions, yet at the same time believes in the existence of conspirancies and an unseen Other pulling the strings. This apparently contradictory coupling of cynicism and belief is strictly correlative to the demise of the big Other. Its disappearance causes us to construct an Other of the Other in order to escape the unbearable freedom its loss encumbers us with. Conversely, there is no need to take the big Other seriously if we believe in an Other of the Other. We therefore display cynicism and belief in equal and sinceres measures. Postmodernism: An Over-Proximity to the Real One of the ways in which Zizek's understanding of the postmodern can be characterized is as an over-proximity of the Real. In postmodern art (or postmodernism) Zizek identifies various manifestations of this, such as the technique of "filling in the gaps". What Zizek means by this can be seen in his comparative analysis of The Talented Mr. Ripley (book and film). In Patricia Highsmith's novel, Ripley's homosexuality is only indirectly proposed, but in Anthony Minghella's film Ripley is openly gay. The repressed content of the novel, the absence around which it centers, is filled in. For Zizek, what we lose by covering over the void in this way is the void of subjectivity: By way of "filling in the gaps" and "telling it all", what we retreat from is the void as such, which is ultimately none other than the void of subjectivity (the Lacanian "barred subject"). What Minghella accomplishes is the move from the void of subjectivity to the inner wealth of personality. (The Fright of Real Tears: Krzysztof Kieslowski between Theory and Post-Theory) In Highsmith's novel the status of Ripley's sexuality is. at most, equivocal. As such, the book remains "innocent" in the eyes of the big Other because it does not openly trangress one of its norms. While we can interpret the clues in the story as indicating Ripley's homosexuality, we do not have to do so. The film, on the other hand, "shows it all", Ripley is here objectively homosexual. So whereas in one instance the reader can decide subjectively whether or not Ripley is gay, the film allows no such room for manoeuvre and the viewer is forced to accept Minghella's reading of the text.

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IDEOLOGY For Zizek, we are not so much living in a post-ideological era as in an era dominated by the ideology of cynicism. Adapting from Marx and Sloterdijk, he sums up the cynical attitude as "they know that, in their activity, they are following an illusion, but still, they are doing it". Ideology in this sense, is located in what we do and not in what we know. Our belief in an ideology is thus staged in advance of our acknowledging that belief in "belief machines", such as Althusser's Ideological State Apparatuses. It is "belief before belief." Pinning Down Ideology with Points de Capiton One of the questions Zizek asks about ideology is: what keeps an ideological field of meaning consistent? Given that signifiers are unstable and liable to slippages of meaning, how does an ideology maintain its consistency? The answer to this problem is that any given ideological field is "quilted" by what, following lacan, he terms a point de capiton (literally an "upholstery button" though is has also been translated as "anchoring point"). In the same way that an upholstery button pins down stuffing inside a quilt and stops it from moving about, Zisek zrques that a point de capiton is a signifier which stops meaning from sliding about inside the ideological quilt. A point de capiton unifies an ideological field and provides it with an identity. Freedom, i.e, is in itself an open-ended word, the meaning of which can slide about depending on the context of its use. A right-wing interpretation of the word might use it to designate the freedom to speculate on the market, whereas a left-wing interpretation of it might use it designate freedom from the inequalities of the market. The word "freedom" therefore does not mean the same thing in all possible worlds: what pins its meaning down is the point de capiton of "right-wing" or "left-wing". What is at issue in a conflict of ideologies is precisely the point de capiton - which signifier ("communism", "fascism", "capitalism", "market economy" and so on) will be entitled to quilt the ideological field ("freedom", "democracy", Human rights" and son on).

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The Two Deaths The fact that for Zizek the apparently all-inclusive whole of life and death are supplemented, by both a living death and a deathly life, points to the way in which we can die not just once, but twice. Most obviously, we will suffer a biological death in which our bodies will fail and eventually disintegrate. This is death in the Real, involving the obliteration of our material selves. But we can also suffer a Symbolic death. This does not involve the annihilation of our actual bodies, rather it entails the destruction of our Symbolic universe and the extermination of our subject positions. We can thus suffer a living death where we are excluded from the Symbolic and no longer exist for the Other. This might happen if we go mad or if we commit an atrocious crime and society disowns us. In this scenario, we still exist in the Real but not in the Symbolic. Alternatively, we might endure a deathly life or more a kind of life after death. This might happen if, after our bodies have died, people remember our names, remember our deeds and so on. In this case, we continue to exist in the Symbolic even though we have died in the Real.The gap between the two deaths, Zizek argues, can be filled either by manifestations of the monstrous or the beautiful. In Shakespeare's Hamlet for example, Hamlet's father is dead in the Real, however, he persists as a terifying and monstrous apparition because he was murdered and thereby cheated of the chance to settle his Symbolic debts. Once that debt has been repaid, following Hamlet's killing of his murderer, he is "completely" dead. In Sophocles' Antigone, the heroine suffers a SYmbolic death before her Reak death when she is excluded fom the community for wanting to bury his traitorous brother. This destruction of her social identity instils her character with a sublime beauty. Ironically Antigone enters the domain between the two deaths "precisely in order to prevent her brother's second death: to give him a proper funeral that will secure his eternalization" (The Ticklish Subject: the Absent Centre of Political Ontology). That is, she endures a Symbolic death in order that her brother, who has been refused proper burial rites, will not suffer a Symbolic death himself. The Spectre of Ideology Zizek distinguishes three moments in the narrative of an ideology. 1. Doctrine - ideological doctrine concerns the ideas and theories of an ideology, i.e.

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liberalism partly developed from the ideas of John Locke. 2. Belief - ideological belief designates the material or external manifestations and apparatuses of its doctrine, i.e. liberalism is materialized in an independent press, democratic elections and the free market. 3. Ritual - ideological ritual refers to the internalization of a doctrine, the way it is experienced as spontaneous, i.e in liberalism subjects naturally think of themselves as free individuals. These three aspects of ideology form a kind of narrative. In the first stage of ideological doctrine we find ideology in its "pure" state. Here ideology takes the form of a supposedly truthful proposition or set of arguments which, in reality, conceal a vested interest. Locke's arguments about government served the interest of the revolutionary Americans rather than the colonizing British. In a second step, a successful ideology takes on the material form which generates belief in that ideology, most potently in the guise of Althusser's State Apparatuses. Third, ideology assumes an almost spontaneous existence, becoming instinctive rather than realized either as an explicit set of arguments or as an institution. the supreme example of such spontaneity is, for Zizek, the notion of commodity fetishism. In each of these three moments - a doctrine, its materialization in the form of belief and its manifestation as spontaneous ritual - as soon as we think we have assumed a position of truth from which to denounce the lie of an ideology, we find ourselves back in ideology again. This is so because our understanding of ideology is based on a binary structure, which contrasts reality with ideology. To solve this problem, Zizek suggests that we analyze ideology using a ternary structure. So, how can we distinguish reality from ideology? From what position, for example, is Zizek able to denounce the New Age reading of the universe as ideological mystification? It is not from the position in reality because reality is constituted by the Symbolic and the Symbolic is where fiction assumes the guise of truth. The only non-ideological position available is in the Real - the Real of the antagonism. Now, that is not a position we can actually occupy; it is rather "the extraideological point of reference that authorizes us to denounce the content of our immediate experience as 'ideological.'" (Mapping Ideology) The antagonism of the Real is a constant that has to be assumed given the xistence of social reality (the Symbolic Order). As this antagonism is part of the Real, it is not subject to ideological mystification; rather its effect is visible in ideological mystification. Here, ideology takes the form of the spectral supplement to reality, concealing the gap opened up by the failure of reality (the Symbolic) to account fully for the Real. While this model of the structure of reality does not allow us a position from which to assume an objective viewpoint, it does presuppose the existence of ideology and thus authorizes the validity of its critique. The distinction between reality and ideology exists as a theoretical given. Zizek does not claim that he can offer any access to the "objective truth of things" but that ideology must be assumed to exist if we grant that reality is structured upon a constitutive antagonism. And if ideology exists we must ne able to subject it to critique. This is the aim of Zizek's theory of ideology, namely an attempt to keep the project of ideological critique alive at all in an era in which we are said to have left ideology behind.

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RACISM AND FANTASY Fantasy as a Mask of the Inconsistency in the Big Other One way at looking at the relationshipbetween fantasy and the big Other is to think of fantasy as concealing the inconssistency of the Symbolic Order. To understand this we need to know why the big Other is inconsistent or structured around a gap. The answer to this question is that when the body enters the field of signification or the big Other, it is castrated. What Zizek means by this is that the price we pay for our admission to the univerdal medium of language is the loss of our full body selves. When we submit to the big Other we sacrifice direct access to our bodies and, instead, are condenmned to an indirect relation with it via the medium of language. So, whereas, before we enter language we are what Zizek terms "pathological" subjects (the subject he notates by S), after we are immersed in language we are what he refers to as "barred" subjects (the empty subject he notates with $). What is barred from the barred subject is precisely the body as the materialization or incarnation of enjoyment (jouissance). Material jouissance is strictly at odds with, or heterogenous to, the immaterial order of the signifier.For the subject to enter the Symbolic Order, then, the Real of jouissance or enjoyment has to be evacuated from it. Which is another way to saying that the advent of the symbol entails "the murder of the thing". Although not all jouissance is completely evacuated by the process of signification (some of it persists in what are called the erogenous zones), most of it is not Symbolized. And this entails that the Symbolic Order cannot fully account for jouissance - it is what us missing in the big Other. The big Other is therefore inconsistent or structured around a lack, the lack of jouissance. It is, we might say, castrated or rendered icomplete by admitting the subject, in much the same way as the subject is castrated by its admission.What fantasy does is conceal this lack or incompletion. So, as we saw previoulsly when alluding to the formulas of sexuation, "there is not sexual relationship" in the big Other. What the fantasy of a sexual scenario thereby conceals is the impossibility of this sexual relationship. It covers up the lack in the big Other, the missing jouissance. In this regard, Zizek often avers that fantasy is a way for subjects to organize their jouissance - it is a way to manage or domesticate the traumatic loss of the jouissance which cannot be Symbolized. The Window of Fantasy For Zizek, racism is produced by a clash of fantasies rather than by a clash of symbols vying for supremacy. There are several distinguishing features of fantasy:1. Fantasies are produced as a defence against the desire of the Other manifest in "What do you want from me?" - which is what the Other, in its incosnsistency, really wants from me.2. Fantasies provide a framework through which we see reality. They are anamorphic in that they presuppose a point of view, denying us an objective account of the world.3. Fantasise are the one unique thing about us. They are what make us individuals, allowing a subjective view of reality. As such, our fantasies are extremely sensitive to the intrusion of others.4. Fantasies are the way in which we organize and domesticate our jouissance. Postmodern Racism Zizek contends that today's racism is just as reflexive as every other part of

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postmodern life. It is not the product of ignorance in the way it used to be. So, whereas racism used to involve a claim that another ethnic group is inherently inferior to our own, racism is now articulated in terms of a respect for another's culture. Instead of "My culture is better than yours", postmodern or reflexive racism will argue that "My culture is different from yours". As an example of this Zizek asks "was not the official argument for apartheid in the old South Africa that black culture should be preserved in its uniqueness, not dissipated in the Western melting-pot? (The Fragile Absolute, or Why the Christian Legacy is Worth Fighting For) For him, what is at stake here is the fethishistic disawoval of cynicism: "I know very well that all ethnic cultures are equal in value, yet, nevertheless, I will act as if mine is superior". The split here between the subject of enunciated ("I know very well...") and the subject of the enunciation ("...nevertheless I act as if I didn't") is even preserved when racists are asked to explain the reasons for their behavior. A racist will blame his socio-economic environment, poor childhood, peer group pressure, and so on, in such a way as to suggest to Zizek that he cannot help being racist, but is merely a victim of circumstances. Thus postmodern racists are fully able to rationalize their behavior in a way that belies the traditional image of racism as the vocation of the ignorant. The Ethnic Fantasy If "ethnic tension" is a conflict of fantasies, what is then the racist fantasy? For Zizek there are two basic racist fantasies. The first type centers around the apprehension that the "ethnic other" desires our jouissance. "They" want to steal our enjoyment from "us" and rob us of the specificity of our fantasy. The second type proceeds from an uneasiness that the "ethnic other" has access to some strange jouissance. "They" do not things like "us". The way :they" enjoy themselves is alien and unfamiliar. What both these fantasies are predicated upon is that the "other" enjoys in a different way than "us": In short, what really gets on our nerves, what really bothers us about the "other", is the peculiar way he organizes his jouissance (the smell of his food, his noisy songs and dances, his strange manners, his attitude to work - in the racist perspective, the "other" is either a workaholic stealing our jobs or an idler living on our labor. ( Looking Awry: an Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture) So ethnic tension is caused by a conflict of fantasies if we regard fantasy as a way of organizing jouissance. The specificity of "their: fantasy conflicts with the specificity of "our" fantasy".For Zizek, the perception of a threat, by "them" as well as by "us", remains strong. The last two decades have witnessed a marked rise in racial tension and ethnic nationalism. Following Lacan and Marx, Zizek ascribes this rise to the process of globalization. This process refers to the way in which capitalism has spread across the world. displaceing local companies in favor of multinational ones. The effects of this process are nor necessarily just commercial, for what is at stake are the national cultures and politics bodies which underpin, and are supported by, resident industries. When McDonald's opens up in Bombay, for example, it is not just another business, but represents a specifically American approach to food, culture and social organization. The more capitalism spreads, the more it works to dissolve the efficacy of national domains, dissipating local traditions and values in favor of universal ones. The only way to offset this increased homogeneity and to assert the worth of the

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particular against the global is to cling to our specific ethnic fantasy, the point of view which makes us Indians, British or Germans. And if we try to avoid being dissolved in the multicultural mix of globalization by sticking to the way we organize jouissance, we will court the risk of succumbing to a racist paranoia. Even if we attempt to institute a form of equality between the ways in which we aorganize enjoyment, unfortunately, as Zizek points out, "fantasies cannot coexist peacefully" (Looking Awry) The Ethics of Fantasy For Zizek is the state that should act as a buffer between the fantasies of different groups, mitigating the worst effects of thoses fantasies. If civil society were allowed to rule unrestrained, much of the world would succumb to racist violence. It is only the forces of the state which keep it in check.In the long term, Zizek argues that in order to avoid a clash of fantasies we have to learn to "traverse the fantasy" (what lacan terms "traversing the fantme). It means that we have to acknowledge that fantasy merely functions to screen the abyss or inconsistency in the Other. In "traversing" or "going through" the fantasy "all we have to do is experience how there is nothing 'behind' it, and how fantasy masks precisely this 'nothing'". (The Sublime Object of Ideology)The subject of racism, be it a Jew, a Muslim, a Latino, an African-American, gay or lesbian, Chinese, is a fantasy figure, someone who embodies the void of the Other. The underlying argument of all racism is that "if only they weren't here, ife would be perfect, and society will be haromious again". However, what this argument misses is the fact that because the subject of racism is only a fantasy figure, it is only there to make us think that such a harmonious society is actually possible. In reality, society is always-already divided. The fantasy racist figure is just a way of covering up the impossibility of a whole society or an organic Symbolic Order complete unto itself: What appears as the hindrance to society's full identity with itself is actually its positive condition: by transposing onto the Jew the role of the foreign body which introduces in the social organism disintegration and antagonism, the fantasy-image of society qua consistent, harmonious whole is rendered possible. (Enjoy Your Symptom! Jacques Lacan in Holliwood and Out) Which is another way of saying that if the Jew qua fantasy figure was not there, we would have to invent it so as to maintain the illusion that we could have a perfect society. For all the fantasy figure does is to embody the existing impossibility of a complete society.
Tony Myers and lacan.com 1997/2006 Copyright Notice. Please respect the fact that this material in LACAN.COM is copyright. It is made available here without charge for personal use only. It may not be stored, displayed, published, reproduced, or used for any other purpose. As a maxime by Saint Ignatious apparently goes: Better to say sorry than asking for permission. So, yes Im not quite sure I am allowed to do this. But nevertheless, I still do it, as if all shown here falls either under the Creative Commoms Attribution license or the rules of the copyleft. (imanol galfarsoro)

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