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The quote from Engels (1820-1895) dates from 1849. But whatever the text may mean, it would be absurd to claim that it is an expression of 'Marxism', whatever

The quote from Engels (1820-1895) dates from 1849. But whatever the text may mean, it would be absurd to claim that it is an expression of 'Marxism', whatever in turn that may mean. (I would have thought that Engels invented "Marxism" -- about 30 years after writing this newspaper article.) I don't care to defend Engels early middle or late, but this text doesn't have the murder-favoring aspect you are pretending it does. It is a commentary on ultra-complicated post-1848 politics; there is little here that wouldn't have been accepted by an American observer of the time. Interpretation is again helped by the preceding sentence (at a bare minimum) which might be thought just as creepy: "The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names." The disappearance of a 'reactionary class' evidently means: the coming to a social order in which that is not one of the classes. The disappearance of a 'dynasty' doesn't mean murder of the ruling family. The disappearance of 'nations' (Nationen) and 'peoples' (Voelker) is the same: not the destruction of individuals, but the formation of some wider social unity, in which those distinctions of Volk don't arise. It is like the disappearance of the Confederacy. The language Engels is employing is indeed ugly. But it is impossible to believe that he or anyone in the mid 19th c. would be arguing for something in the nature of genocide. They were simply too naive to envisage such a thing. That the Soviet Union was a death machine that murdered millions is obvious. It has nothing to do with the materials quoted, from Marx or Engels. The question why you continue to fabricate connections is still open.

maxharris 16y ago
> I don't care to defend Engels early middle or late, ... > The language Engels is employing is indeed ugly. You agree that Engels was a philosopher, and his philosophy is not defensible. But here's where we probably disagree: I believe that philosophy is something that does have an impact on the world. A vast number of people (both powerful and not) read Engels (and Marx - and Kant), and this played a major role in the decisions they made in their lives. There's definitely a trickle-down effect here: learned people get the ideas first, and apply those ideas to their own fields. Less-educated people don't read philosophy, but they get the gist of it this way. (And, of course, there are shades in between.) This is consistent also with the fact tha philosophical ideas take a relatively long time to permeate the culture. Summary: in a sense, philosophy determines the course of history. Kant originated the ideas that Marx and Engels applied to politics, which influenced Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao. (It is true that many other politicians were also influenced by Marx and Engels, but they were either not running big countries, or had countries that were behind the philosophical forefront of the era, such as the USA.) Is it any surprise that blood-soaked ideas lead to mass death? I don't think that Kant, Hegel, Marx and Engels were idiots that didn't know what they were doing or what their ideas actually meant.
- applicative 16y ago
  Again, I don't think there is any evidence for these claims; they are bald assertions evidently made with an ulterior motive, which is what makes this all unjust. It would never have occurred to Kant or Marx that anything like the genocides and purges of the 20th century were even possible. They were, if you like, naïve. It was better times. It was by slow degrees that these things did become possible. The savagery of the First World War, and the sick character of the Tsarist regime, are together quite enough to explain the blood-curdling aspects of the Bolshevik regime, and its Stalinist development. Any number of 'ideologies' could have filled the vacuum; in Russia, Marxism was the least likely given what it seems to say, but so it was. The suggestion that Kant has blood on his hands in this connection is so completely outrageous and evil -- it puts one in mind of LaRouchites putting everything down to Aristotle and Bertrand Russell and the change in attunement of instruments. This is nonsense which serves to disable the listener's sense of reality. Once one is willing to blame Kant for Russian barbarism, one will stop at nothing. But the truth is, the same holds for Marx, who held to an entirely conventional moral system, basically that of Aristotle.
  - maxharris 16y ago
    > it puts one in mind of LaRouchites putting everything down to Aristotle and Bertrand Russell and the change in attunement of instruments. Yes, LaRouche and his gang are crazy. I don't share their philosophical views, and I certainly don't agree with their political methods. (Apparently, they are so inconsequential that I can't even remember who they are. I've only heard about them twice before, and each time I needed to look the Wikipedia entry to learn about them all over again.) Having read the page now, I can say with certainty that I oppose LaRouche's views more than most people do: I despise his most beloved philosophers. Your claim is like saying that because creationists and evolutionists both have ideas on the origin of life, and because one group (the creationists) is clearly nuts, the sane scientific mindset has no validity because it also advances a worldview.
    - deleted 16y ago
      [deleted]
maxharris 16y ago
<quote>The disappearance of a 'reactionary class' evidently means: the coming to a social order in which that is not one of the classes. The disappearance of a 'dynasty' doesn't mean murder of the ruling family. The disappearance of 'nations' (Nationen) and 'peoples' (Voelker) is the same: not the destruction of individuals, but the formation of some wider social unity, in which those distinctions of Volk don't arise. It is like the disappearance of the Confederacy.</quote> The only way to make people really disappear is to kill them or throw them into a gulag. Why would a ruler go on supporting people that he wants to see disappear? Marx and Engels spent their lives undermining individual rights ("you have the right to be left alone, as long as you don't steal from, kill or defraud other people"), which is the only thing that would have kept these genocides from occuring. I don't believe that this was some unforseeable connection. The bloody language in Engels' writing makes more sense in this context. Historical context does matter, but if you do it to the point where you can't even judge anything in history as good or bad for people, you're just following the current academic fad rather than thinking sensibly. This is especially important when the ideas you're judging are still present in the world around you, and when some aspect of history is still not properly understood in most people's minds, as is the case with the history of Communism.
- applicative 16y ago
  "The only way to make people really disappear is to kill them or throw them into a gulag." But no one was suggesting making anyone disappear, least of all Engels. All the myriad principalities and duchies of the German world are now gone, except Liechtenstein & Co -- this is an example of what Engels is anticipating and saying would be an 'advance' (he is thinking in this case of those of the southern parts of the Austrian Empire) Those who wanted the unification of Germany didn't want to kill off the people of Schleswig-Holstein! The suggestion is an outrage! Every rational person in the period thought that (1) a world full of petty duchies ruled by the church keeping peasants in darkness, etc etc. was fated to go away and that (2) this would be good; Americans, who were familiar with something better, would have been even more emphatic than Engels. In claiming that the ideas here propounded are the source of all evil, you are claiming that e.g. America is an example of this evil. The claim that Marx and Engels 'spent their lives undermining' individual rights does not come with any evidence. Marx spent his life trying to write a book about the inner nature of the so-called 'capitalistic mode of production', of which he managed to finish one volume. It's a good read, you should try it sometime. Incredibly funny for one thing. That it is somehow all an argument against individual rights is a complete inversion of the actual text. You are as usual employing Russian barbarism as an argument against Marx. You are in fact representing Stalinist propaganda. The idea the the Soviet Union somehow realized something in Marx is pure Stalinism. Marx did nothing appreciable except attempt an analysis -- true or false it matters not -- of the present, specifically capitalistic form of life, without offering the least suggestion for a possible replacement: "I am not writing recipes for the cook-shops of the future". Every attempt to imagine a possible better future society he sneers at as utopianism, Fourierism, Saint Simonism etc etc. The only formula he has for the imagined replacement is "communism", i.e. people living together and making their life together on the basis of thinking out together how to live together and make their lives together -- an ancient expression, another word for democracy -- and one admitting as many interpretations, many of course corrupt.

maxharris 16y ago

> I don't care to defend Engels early middle or late, ... > The language Engels is employing is indeed ugly. You agree that Engels was a philosopher, and his philosophy is not defensible. But here's where we probably disagree: I believe that philosophy is something that does have an impact on the world. A vast number of people (both powerful and not) read Engels (and Marx - and Kant), and this played a major role in the decisions they made in their lives. There's definitely a trickle-down effect here: learned people get the ideas first, and apply those ideas to their own fields. Less-educated people don't read philosophy, but they get the gist of it this way. (And, of course, there are shades in between.) This is consistent also with the fact tha philosophical ideas take a relatively long time to permeate the culture. Summary: in a sense, philosophy determines the course of history. Kant originated the ideas that Marx and Engels applied to politics, which influenced Lenin, Stalin, Hitler and Mao. (It is true that many other politicians were also influenced by Marx and Engels, but they were either not running big countries, or had countries that were behind the philosophical forefront of the era, such as the USA.) Is it any surprise that blood-soaked ideas lead to mass death? I don't think that Kant, Hegel, Marx and Engels were idiots that didn't know what they were doing or what their ideas actually meant.

applicative 16y ago
Again, I don't think there is any evidence for these claims; they are bald assertions evidently made with an ulterior motive, which is what makes this all unjust. It would never have occurred to Kant or Marx that anything like the genocides and purges of the 20th century were even possible. They were, if you like, naïve. It was better times. It was by slow degrees that these things did become possible. The savagery of the First World War, and the sick character of the Tsarist regime, are together quite enough to explain the blood-curdling aspects of the Bolshevik regime, and its Stalinist development. Any number of 'ideologies' could have filled the vacuum; in Russia, Marxism was the least likely given what it seems to say, but so it was. The suggestion that Kant has blood on his hands in this connection is so completely outrageous and evil -- it puts one in mind of LaRouchites putting everything down to Aristotle and Bertrand Russell and the change in attunement of instruments. This is nonsense which serves to disable the listener's sense of reality. Once one is willing to blame Kant for Russian barbarism, one will stop at nothing. But the truth is, the same holds for Marx, who held to an entirely conventional moral system, basically that of Aristotle.
- maxharris 16y ago
  > it puts one in mind of LaRouchites putting everything down to Aristotle and Bertrand Russell and the change in attunement of instruments. Yes, LaRouche and his gang are crazy. I don't share their philosophical views, and I certainly don't agree with their political methods. (Apparently, they are so inconsequential that I can't even remember who they are. I've only heard about them twice before, and each time I needed to look the Wikipedia entry to learn about them all over again.) Having read the page now, I can say with certainty that I oppose LaRouche's views more than most people do: I despise his most beloved philosophers. Your claim is like saying that because creationists and evolutionists both have ideas on the origin of life, and because one group (the creationists) is clearly nuts, the sane scientific mindset has no validity because it also advances a worldview.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]

maxharris 16y ago

<quote>The disappearance of a 'reactionary class' evidently means: the coming to a social order in which that is not one of the classes. The disappearance of a 'dynasty' doesn't mean murder of the ruling family. The disappearance of 'nations' (Nationen) and 'peoples' (Voelker) is the same: not the destruction of individuals, but the formation of some wider social unity, in which those distinctions of Volk don't arise. It is like the disappearance of the Confederacy.</quote> The only way to make people really disappear is to kill them or throw them into a gulag. Why would a ruler go on supporting people that he wants to see disappear? Marx and Engels spent their lives undermining individual rights ("you have the right to be left alone, as long as you don't steal from, kill or defraud other people"), which is the only thing that would have kept these genocides from occuring. I don't believe that this was some unforseeable connection. The bloody language in Engels' writing makes more sense in this context. Historical context does matter, but if you do it to the point where you can't even judge anything in history as good or bad for people, you're just following the current academic fad rather than thinking sensibly. This is especially important when the ideas you're judging are still present in the world around you, and when some aspect of history is still not properly understood in most people's minds, as is the case with the history of Communism.

applicative 16y ago
"The only way to make people really disappear is to kill them or throw them into a gulag." But no one was suggesting making anyone disappear, least of all Engels. All the myriad principalities and duchies of the German world are now gone, except Liechtenstein & Co -- this is an example of what Engels is anticipating and saying would be an 'advance' (he is thinking in this case of those of the southern parts of the Austrian Empire) Those who wanted the unification of Germany didn't want to kill off the people of Schleswig-Holstein! The suggestion is an outrage! Every rational person in the period thought that (1) a world full of petty duchies ruled by the church keeping peasants in darkness, etc etc. was fated to go away and that (2) this would be good; Americans, who were familiar with something better, would have been even more emphatic than Engels. In claiming that the ideas here propounded are the source of all evil, you are claiming that e.g. America is an example of this evil. The claim that Marx and Engels 'spent their lives undermining' individual rights does not come with any evidence. Marx spent his life trying to write a book about the inner nature of the so-called 'capitalistic mode of production', of which he managed to finish one volume. It's a good read, you should try it sometime. Incredibly funny for one thing. That it is somehow all an argument against individual rights is a complete inversion of the actual text. You are as usual employing Russian barbarism as an argument against Marx. You are in fact representing Stalinist propaganda. The idea the the Soviet Union somehow realized something in Marx is pure Stalinism. Marx did nothing appreciable except attempt an analysis -- true or false it matters not -- of the present, specifically capitalistic form of life, without offering the least suggestion for a possible replacement: "I am not writing recipes for the cook-shops of the future". Every attempt to imagine a possible better future society he sneers at as utopianism, Fourierism, Saint Simonism etc etc. The only formula he has for the imagined replacement is "communism", i.e. people living together and making their life together on the basis of thinking out together how to live together and make their lives together -- an ancient expression, another word for democracy -- and one admitting as many interpretations, many of course corrupt.