Karl Marx

In their article “Revisiting Marx and Liberalism,” the authors, Edward Martin and Mateo Pimentel, repeat the old myth that “socialism for Marx is the first stage of communism.”

For Marxist social philosophy, Jon Elster recognizes personal freedom and social solidarity as inseparable. Marxist tradition rejects, for the most part, liberal attempts to rationalize the division of justice and equality into two principles: one, in the area of political liberties; and two, in the area of economics. Social participation in liberal theory is primarily directed at the maximization of political freedoms while economic participation is limited to those with resources and capital.

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1848. By no means did Marx and Engels set out to read the fortune of future capitalist societies, or to develop some high-resolution photograph of future international political economy amongst states. Nor did they predict the various incarnations of communism that would arise after their time. Instead, the manifesto was a commissioned work; its intention was to communicate the purposes and platform of the Communist League, an international political party started in 1847 London.

Regime change in Cuba? Che rolling in his grave? The first shriek comes from a liberal, the latter a Marxist. With all due respect to both, I think the former quite confused if he thinks that Castroite Cuba more closely reflects his own Keynesian delusions, and the latter seems not to understand Che’s significant contribution to the normalization of relations between Cuba and the US (even though it occurs long after his death).

Chapter Three of State and Revolution is devoted to Lenin’s commentary on Marx’s analysis of the 1871 Paris Commune. It is divided into five parts. This article deals with parts 2 -5 of the chapter:
2. What Is To Replace The Smashed State Machine?

Chapter Three of State and Revolution is devoted to Lenin’s commentary on Marx’s analysis of the 1871 Paris Commune. It is divided into five parts. This article deals with the first part of the chapter:
1. What Made the Communards Attempt Heroic?

Lenin discusses these two topics in section four of chapter one of The State and Revolution (1917). This section begins with a long quote from Engels’ 1870’s work Anti-Dühring. The quote begins with “The proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with. But thereby it abolishes itself as the proletariat, abolishes all class distinctions and class antagonisms  and abolishes the state as state.”

1. “The State — A Product of the Irreconcilability of Class Antagonisms”