Is all Marxists need to be Communists?:
By CV Manuvilsan
This writing is a reply to the post of Adv P Chandrasekhar, posted in the Open Forum. In the said post, Adv P Chandrasekhar asked a question as “can a person be a Marxist without being communist? Are all communists necessarily be Marxists?”
In furtherance of the said question discussions are still continuing. But there arisen certain fundamental questions as “what is Communism?” and “what is Marxism?”.
In his reply, Adv P Chandrasekhar wrote,
“It appears that there is a misunderstanding that communism and Marxism is one and the same. Many historians have used Marxism in their subaltern studies. Many post modernists have used Marxism in developing post structural theories. Most neo Marxists are not communists. There are a posse of Marxist intellectuals who are not communists but supporting Left Politics. In fact they hold the key for new left politics if it is to emerge in future. This is a matter which needs serious and urgent study. But our left intellectuals do not appear to be very serious about it, at least for the present.”
It is a though provoking reply for me. In the present days, even in Kerala, certain persons like Pierson, K. Venu, etc. are called as Marxist Intellectuals, though they are not Communists. Are they Marxists? Who is a Marxist? What is the goal of a Marxist? Whether a Marxist can be a non-Communist? If he left the ideology of Communism, can we still call him a Marxist? These are the provocations I perceived from the writings of Adv P Chandrasekhar. Hence I attempt to write this article:
At the outset, I do not agree with the logical fallacy that a Marxist can be a Marxist, without being a Communist. It is a Logical fallacy. I said so, because Marxism is meaningless, without Communism. The end result of Marxism is Communism, which is nothing but the establishment of a Stateless, Classless Society. I shall agree that all Communists are not Marxists, but all Marxists must be Communists.
“Communism” is a worldwide society in which
- all classes and class distinctions have been overcome;
- all systems and relations of exploitation abolished;
- all oppressive social institutions and relations of social inequality, like racial discrimination and the domination of women by men, put an end to; and
- all oppressive and backward ideas and values cast off.
Communism is a world of abundance where people together hold all of society’s resources in common.
Communism also refers to the comprehensive outlook and scientific method of the proletariat for understanding and changing the world
One can not say that Karl Marx was the inventor of theory of Communism. It existed even prior to Karl Marx. But certainly, Communism and Marxism have a reasonable nexus. Karl Marx had made out a comprehensive and scientific formula to achieve the goal of Communism, which is the establishment of a stateless, classless society. This views of Karl Marx ought to be the Marxism. Marx introduced a new formula to establish Communism, by repudiating all other Communist thinkers, who thought in their way to establish it. Marx called their thought, as Uttopian, as those thoughts, according to Marx were unscientific. Marx, did believe that his Ism is the only way to establish Communism. The Primary and ultimate goal of Marxism is the establishment of Communism, which the establishment of a Classless, Stateless society. The basic fact being so, how can a person, be a Marxist, without being a Communist.
Pure communism is a term sometimes used to refer to the stage in history after socialism, although just as many communists use simply the term "Communism" to refer to that stage. The classless, Stateless society that is meant to characterize this communism is one where decisions on what to produce and what policies to pursue are made in the best interests of the whole of society —a sort of 'of, by, and for the working class', rather than a rich class controlling the wealth and everyone else working for them on a wage basis.
In this communism the interests of every member of society is given equal weight to the next, in the practical decision-making process in both the political and economic spheres of life. Either Karl Marx or other communist philosophers, deliberately never provided a detailed description as to how communism would function as a social system, nor the precise ways in which the working class could or should rise up, nor any other material specifics of exactly how to get to communism from capitalism.
In the Communist Manifesto, Marx advising for the redistribution of land and production to begin the transition to communism, but he ensured that even this was very general and all-encompassing.
It can be recognized that Marx planned these theories to read this way specifically in order that later theorists in specific situations could adapt communism to their own zone and circumstances.
Here the interesting question arises, as whether a person can be a Marxist, without being Communist??
My answer is no, because since the end result of Marxism is Communism, a Marxist, shall be a Communist, “ex-officio”. Undoubtedly, a person can be Communist, without being a Marxist, because all Communists need not be Marxists. Communism was there even prior and after Karl Marx.
Anarchist communism (also known as libertarian communism) is a theory of anarchism which advocates the abolition of the state, private property, and capitalism in favour of common ownership of the means of production, direct democracy and a horizontal network of voluntary associations and workers' councils with production and consumption based on the guiding principle: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need". Anarcho-communism differs from Marxism rejecting its view about the need for a State Socialism phase before building communism.
Christian communism is another form of communism centered on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus Christ urge Christians to support communism as the ideal social system. Christian communists trace the origins of their practice to teachings in the New Testament. Christian communism can be seen as a radical form of Christian socialism. Also, because many Christian communists have formed independent stateless communes in the past, there is also a link between Christian communism and Christian anarchism. Christian communists may or may not agree with various parts of Marxism.
The idea of a classless society first emerged in Ancient Greece. Plato in his The Republic described it as a state where people shared all their property, wives, and children:
“the private and individual is altogether banished from life and things which are by nature private, such as eyes and ears and hands, have become common, and in some way see and hear and act in common, and all men express praise and fell joy and sorrow on the same occasions”
—Plato, The Republic
Karl Marx saw primitive communism as the original, hunter-gatherer state of humankind from which it arose.
For Marx, only after humanity was capable of producing surplus, did private property develop. In the history of Western thought, certain elements of the idea of a society based on common ownership of property can be traced back to ancient times. Eg. Spartacus slave revolt in Rome.
The 5th century Mazdak movement in what is now Iran has been described as "communistic" for challenging the enormous privileges of the noble classes and the clergy, criticizing the institution of private property and for striving for an egalitarian society.
At one time or another, various small communist communities existed, generally under the inspiration of Scripture. In the medieval Christian church, for example, some monastic communities and religious orders shared their land and other property. These groups often believed that concern with private property was a distraction from religious service to God and neighbor.
Communist thought has also been traced back to the work of 16th century English writer Thomas More. In his treatise Utopia (1516), More portrayed a society based on common ownership of property, whose rulers administered it through the application of reason.
In the 17th century, communist thought arguably surfaced again in England. In 17th century England, a Puritan religious group known as the Diggers advocated the abolition of private ownership of land.
Eduard Bernstein, in his 1895 Cromwell and Communism argued that several groupings in the English Civil War, especially the Diggers espoused clear communistic, agrarian ideals, and that Oliver Cromwell's attitude to these groups was at best ambivalent and often hostile.
Criticism of the idea of private property continued into the Age of Enlightenment of the 18th century, through such thinkers as Jean Jacques Rousseau in France.
Later, following the upheaval of the French Revolution, communism emerged as a political doctrine. François Noël Babeuf, in particular, espoused the goals of common ownership of land and total economic and political equality among citizens.
Various social reformers in the early 19th century founded communities based on common ownership. But unlike many previous communist communities, they replaced the religious emphasis with a rational and philanthropic basis. Notable among them were Robert Owen, who founded New Harmony in Indiana (1825), and Charles Fourier, whose followers organized other settlements in the United States such as Brook Farm (1841–47).
Later in the 19th century, Karl Marx described these social reformers as "utopian socialists" to contrast them with his program of "scientific socialism" (a term coined by Friedrich Engels). Other writers described by Marx as "utopian socialists" included Saint-Simon.
In its modern form, communism grew out of the socialist movement of 19th century Europe. As the Industrial Revolution advanced, socialist critics blamed capitalism for the misery of the proletariat — a new class of urban factory workers who laboured under often-hazardous conditions. Foremost among these critics were Karl Marx and Engels.
In 1848, Marx and Engels offered a new definition of communism and popularized the term in their famous pamphlet The Communist Manifesto.
So the basic facts being so, how can we say that “Marxists need not be Communists.” There is no separate entity to a Marxian, apart from that of a Communist. When Marx himself claimed that his theory was the only theory to achieve communism, then how a follower of that ism can repudiate communism, by claiming a separate entity as “Marxian”?
Is it the problem of Ism or its blurred interpretations?
