Before reading Marx, my only experience with his ideas was from studying European history in high school. Studying the Russian revolution, we learned about the practical application of some of the ideas we read in 'The German Ideology', in the form of the Soviet Union, which was particularly brutal and oppressive in its regime. There is no shortage of American media about the Cold War, and for this reason, most conceptions of Communism are related to the Soviet Union, and not to Marx himself. As I was reading this chapter, I kept wondering how Marx would have envisioned a practical application of his revolutionary ideas. Marx calls the organization of Communism "essentially economic," (193.) Thus, the main proposition that Marx offers as a distinction between the communist revolution and previous revolutions is that the communist revolution "is directed against the preceding mode of activity, does away with labour, and abolishes the rules of all classes ... because it is carried through by the class which no longer counts as a class in society" (195.) Marx then comments that "the alteration of men on a mass scale is necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution" (195.) In practice, what would this 'alteration' even look like? What would the abolition of labor even look like? A slew of communist leaders in the USSR gave us an attempt at this idealization, but it didn't seem to comport with many of Marx's most fundamental principles, so I'm wondering what he would have envisioned, practically. It seems to me that the problem in the USSR is the problem that Marx identifies with all previous revolutions when he writes, "the various stages and interests are never completely overcome, but only subordinated to the prevailing interest and trail along beside the latter for centuries afterwards" (195.) In practical application, Russia's tragic history and the interests of its past were not completely overcome. What more would have been required for a full revolution? Is this just a problem of locality, and the international competition of ideology that ensued during the Cold War?
Devon, I too was wondering what the practical application of Marx’s proposed society would look like and briefly touched on this topic in my tutorial with Campbell and Professor Hurley. It seems to me that Marx is proposing a society that can have no practical application. In other words, he’s proposing a utopia. Marx states that the only way to completely overthrow the ruling class so that there is no return of class struggle is through an extreme revolution that will eradicate individual suppression by “do[ing] away with labor and abolish[ing] the rule of all classes with the classes themselves because [the revolution] is carried through by the class which no longer counts as a class in society” (Marx, 193). But I do not believe individuals who are advantaged by this system would be completely willing to give up their better social and economic position for the complete human emancipation of all. It seems that what Marx is proposing is that a vast majority of people would have to knowingly and willingly give up their private property and social class and create a society that starts complete afresh. This does not mean that more advantaged individuals cannot recognize that there is injustice in the way by which they achieved this advantage and that they will not act on it by being charitable or voting for tax increases. However, I extremely doubt that enough people would be willing to participate in a revolution that would vastly undermine their own standing in society, so much so that all would then be socially and economically equal. For this reason, while I think that Marx’s arguments regarding the rationalization of injustice or the development of law only by those who are in power are extremely interesting and legitimate (and this is clearly still a problem, as Cheryl Harris explained in “Whiteness as Property”), I am finding myself extremely pessimistic after this week’s reading. While I am very attracted to and agree with many of the arguments Marx makes that leads him to assert the need for this holistic revolution, because, as Marx notes in “On the Jewish Quesiton,” we view the rights of man prior to the rights of the citizen, I do not see how this revolution could ever be possible.
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