Marxism as Criticism

I’m searching for the essence of Marx’s concept of socialism, the essence of Marxism, one might say. That essence - the thread weaving through all of Marx’s work, and much of Engels’ too - is criticism, or, critique. As a younger Marx wrote in 1843, “…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.”

Marx’s socialism - his understanding that the working class is the world-transforming force of history - emerges from criticism of religious critique: man alienates himself in religion, but what is it about material existence that compels man to seek this flight from reality? It’s the conditions of modern industrial labor. Marx’s most fundamental critique arguably lies in his eventual turn away from Friedrich Hegel, the Young Hegelians, and idealism, and towards materialism. But this is a larger topic as well. What’s important to consider is that Marxism is born of critique. It’s in Marx’s criticism that we find the meat of his theory, most famously in The Critique of the Gotha Program, as all explain later. That is, it’s in clearing away what existed before, by most clearly explaining modern society and the movement of the working class, that Marxism becomes the theory of the working class struggle. 

This is criticism as an act that studies, comprehends, and then transforms its object of critique into something more complex. This is criticism that clarifies, that exposes what already exists in potential:  “...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,” writes Marx. He continues: “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 world’s 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 something that it has to acquire, even if it does not want to.”

Marx and Engels are critics for the sake of clarity and understanding of task and goal. The working class's numbers numerical advantage, explains Marx, is only good if the class is “united by combination and led by knowledge.” Knowledge, that is, socialist theory, is necessary for the working class to take political power and achieve communism. And knowledge comes through criticism. Marx, again: “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.” Most importantly, this is criticism that engages in the material world of the workers’ movement and seeks to realize a revolution in the material and concrete. 

So, as I said in the advertisement for this presentation, Marx and Engels’ socialism is a tool of criticism used to clarify and advance the world-historic task of the workers’ movement. I’ll explore three areas of criticism: criticism of other socialisms, criticism of the workers’ movement, and criticism of Party Programs. 

Criticism of other socialism

Marx and Engels have different ways of describing the socialisms that vied for the hearts and minds of diverse sections of society during the 19th century. For the sake of time I’m going to lump them all together under the category of ‘other socialisms’ (to use Hal Draper’s term) and make some gross generalizations. Lots of smart people understood that society was in crisis. Marx and Engels demanded precision as to the nature of this crisis and what the crisis indicated for the future. 

Other explanations of society were non-dialectical. They looked around at society in the process of rapid industrialization and saw only the pain, misery, and unfulfilled promises on the surface. Capitalism was bad. The working class was either helpless and in need of saving, or simply grist for the mill, bound to be chewed up by new and massive machines. These socialists thought along the lines of Mathew 5:37, which Engels was fond of quoting: “But let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.” 

Not so for Marx. As a good dialectician, he recognized motion beneath the new taking shape within the shell of the old. Capitalism, understood by Marx, is pregnant with socialism. That is, capitalism creates the material conditions and social relations necessary for socialism. If society appears sick, it is because socialism’s birth is long overdue and the midwife, the working class, has yet to deliver the child. Furthermore, Marx understood that whatever comes immediately after capitalism will “still [be] stamped with the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it emerges.” Even with the working class in the driver’s seat, a truly classless society will emerge only after a long period of transition.

Prior to the appearance of the organized workers’ movement, it was understandable that previous socialisms involved extravagant schemes for how to change the world: nothing yet existed that one could point to and say, “that, there, is the force of change.” But by the 1840s the working class was organized and making demands: It was now inexcusable to continue seeking for answers in the air when the answer presented itself on earth.

The fact that other socialisms lagged so far behind reality - that is, continued to advertise solutions regardless of the now militant working class  - only sowed confusion among the working class. Inexcusable! Now that the revolutionary force has appeared, explained Marx, socialist theoreticians must merge with that class and champion its cause. Conspiracies, small groups, rituals, and utopian schemes from the mind of one man were obsolete. To continue to stand aloof and act as if another solution is possible only confused the workers’ movement by hiding its intrinsic power and world-historic mission from itself! Through analysis, wrote Marx, it will “...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.”

Weitling presents the goal of the League of the Just

Other socialisms ignored politics, claiming that workers were only interested in workplace issues. Many were fundamentally not interested in moving through capitalism, instead opting for creating alternative forms of community and commodity production on the periphery of industrial society. A logical outcome of shunning the working class, some thought that facts, logic, and reason could convince the state to fund socialistic experiments. Marx built his socialism on the foundation of ruthless critique of these unsteady ideas. 

Unsparing in their criticism of other socialisms, Marx and Engels paid tribute to the three figureheads of so-called Utopian Socialism: Robert Owen, St Simone, and Charles Fourier. These three were unsparing in their criticism of the existing society. They hedged no bets and took no prisoners. Though schematic in their thinking, their schemes took apart every aspect of contemporary society. 

Criticism of the workers’ movement

The workers’ movement must learn from its past in order to achieve victory in the present. “It will become evident that it is not a question of drawing a great mental dividing line between past and future, but of realizing 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.” Consciousness inevitably lags behind action, but the task of the Party is to truncate that divide as much as possible; to merge theory and practice. The working class will suffer defeat after defeat until ultimate victory. But defeat can only lead to eventual victory if history is digested and lessons are learned for the future. Marx drew up critical analyses of the two most important events of the 19th century in order to draw lessons for the future: the 1848 revolutions (the 1850 Address to the Communist League)  and the 1871 Paris Commune (the Civil War in France). 

A critique of 1848 drew the conclusion that the bourgeois was no longer the progressive force in history that they had been during the French Revolution of 1789. From here on out, the working class would have to lead the fight for democratic rights and the revolutionary transformation of society. To achieve these ends, the workers must organize themselves into independent political parties; alliances were no longer advisable because the bourgeoisie had turned reactionary and would stab the workers in the back from that point on. 

The critique of the Paris Commune came in the context of Marx’s much larger defense of the uprising. The Parisian workers had demonstrated exemplary bravery. The organization of the Commune administration was a landmark event in world history in that it demonstrated the potential structure of the workers’ state. Observations of the commune prompted Marx and Engels to amend the Communist Manifesto, a kind of self-critique. It was now clear that the workers could not simply lay hands on the existing state, but would have to radically transform the state upon taking power. Furthermore, the Communards made a mistake in not seizing the bank of France and reframing from marching on the government in Versailles. Power would only yield to greater power. Painful lessons, but lessons, but lessons nonetheless. 

Criticism of Party Programmes

Though powerful in number, the working class is nothing if it is not organized. Socialist intellectuals also benefit from organization. During the 19th century, workers and intellectuals eventually came together to form larger groups. By the end of the 19th century, these groups had become mass parties with thousands (and in the case of Germany, hundreds of thousands) of members. These parties formed under party programmes, and Marx and Engels made some of their most famous elaborations on communist theory in their critiques of these programmes. They worked through these with a fine tooth comb, shredding abstractions and revealing the remnants of defunct ideas. 

Engels presents the new slogan of the Communist League 

In 1847, Marx made his first contribution to the fine art of Programme critique when the Communist League’s quite abstract slogan - “All Men are Brothers” - was changed to the more concrete, “Working Men of All Countries, Unite! Marx also criticized the League’s "superstitious authoritarianism" rituals, including the penalty of death for those who exposed group secrets. Medieval ritualism was a thing of the past, a product of history long before the emergence of the industrial working class and the contemporary workers’ movement. 

Marx critiques Proudhon's statement on property 

The German Social Democratic Party (SPD) was formed in a merger of two other parties in the Gotha in 1875. Marx’s critique of the draft Program - the Critique of the Gotha Program - is one of his most important texts. (I mentioned earlier how, in critiquing the thoroughly confusing and abstract document, Marx lays out the famous “higher and lower phases of communist”). Why is Marx so unsparing in his critique of the Gotha Program? Because he recognizes the influence of past theories that the workers’ movement had already overcome through decades of rigorous struggle and debate. Marx fears that the programme represents a step backward in the theoretical development of the workers' movement and that the “Marxist” side of the merger has made unnecessary concessions to the thoroughly idealist (that is, relying on sentiments and abstractions) and reactionary (that is, soft on the state) Lassalean side. The program is the loadstone of the party. A bad program makes for a bad party. A confusing program for a confused party. A non-revolutionary program makes for a nonrevolutionary party. 

Marx died in 1883. In 1891, Engels continued the tradition of critique and turned once again toward the SPD. In 1891, Bismark’s anti-socialist laws lapsed and the SPD became a legal party for the first time in 13 years. Emboldened to flex their revolutionary muscles, the party drafted a new program at Erfurt. Engels agreed that the programme was better than the disastrous Gotha program, but was unsparing nonetheless. Two critiques stand out: first, the programme is the face of the party. As such, it must be clear and concise. A high school teacher would say that it needs to hook the audience and leave elaboration for another occasion. Second, and more important, the minimum demands in the Erfurt program failed to call for a democratic republic, the sine qua non of social democracy. In hindsight, the SPD’s reluctance to include a demand for the democratic republic appears ominous. 

Jenny Marx offering a title for Marx and Engels' work on Proudhon 

We might be accustomed to understanding critique or criticism as a purely destructive act, as something “bad” or “negative.” But critique means to analyze and assess. Marx and Engels’ socialism is the practice of critique; critique for the sake of clarity, and clarify for the sake of moving the workers’ movement closer towards the inevitable end of taking state power. I’ll repeat Marx. The workers’ have the numbers, but those numbers are only good if “united by combination and led by knowledge.” Clarity for the sake of knowledge, and knowledge for the same of power. Critique, then, not for the sake of mere critique, but to strengthen the workers' movement.