The real originality of Marx and Engels lies in the field of politics, not in economies or philosophy.
They were the first to discover the historical potential of the new class that capitalism had brought into existence — the modern proletariat, a class that could encompass a universal liberation from all prevailing forms of oppression and exploitation.
The modern workers' movement, capable of self-determination and self-emancipation, able to draw on the best of bourgeois culture and science, would have no need of utopias or religious exaltation.
The political capacity of the proletarial sprang from its objective position within bourgeois society.
The analysis of capitalism, and of its historical antecedents and consequences, to be found in the writings Engels however necessarily partial its initial formulations - was a necessary underpinning for their political theory.
But the decisive contributon made by the founders of historical materialism was the theory of proletarian revolution.
Unfortunately, there has been an tendency in century Marxism to identify philosophical method epistemology employed by Marx or Engels as their crucial contribution, to represent these RS touchstone of Marxist orthodoxy.
In different ways this is done by the Lukics of History and Class Consciousness, the exponents of Sovlet Diamat and Louls Althusser and his collaborators in Reading Capital.
There is little equivalent insistence on the originality of the political conceptions of Mars and Engels. Indeed, often attempts are made 10 suggest that their political Ideas are essentially development of са совитаниии those of Machiavelli or Montesguleu 583 80 curious since in no domeln bas Mars- Rousseau. This especially ism been more original than in that of political theory.
Historical materlellsm
discovered or thoroughly reworked every Important political concept: class, party, state, nation, revolution, bureaucracy, programme and so on Such concepts have developed in conjunction with Marxist political pracof vigorous political polemics.
Moreover, It is evident chat sll the divisions of Marxism here arisen over directly political questons, which have thereby furnished the critical determinants of Marxist Materialism This does not mean philosophical or epistomological disputes have had no significance for swarism. It does mean that ther nve emerged as secondary by-products of confliets over substantive political questions. Since Marxism adopts a completely consequent and complete prising.
No standpoint in philosophy can aroduce. proretarian revolutionary but in the long run only materialism is fully consistent with Marxist polities could not possibly spring fully armed from the heads of Marx and Engels, ment of capitalism and of the class was constantly presenting them with new problems and new SOUGHS In those texts written by Marx or workers' movement. it is possible to trace their increasing awareness of the gical struments of struggle that the working class would need if it was to carry through a successful socialist revolunion atalist such a powerful anThese works by Marx and Engels lack the brilliant paradoxes of their philesophy, the literary polish of their of their economics, but they are unsurpassed in clarity and vigour: they have proved to be the iron rations oi revolutionary socialism.
Although the encounter with the workers' movement was to be decisive for Marx and Engels, did not simply adopt its politics.
Within the workers' this time, it was held that the emancipation of the labouring would be accomplished essentially by some external disciples of Proudhon or the Owen, co-operative sehemes devised by enlightened reformers were to be the salvation of the workers: this was the resolution of the social' question. the Followers For the followers of Blanqui or Weltling, it was the conspiracy that would deliver the proletarlan masses from their bondage: this was the path of political reyoluNone of these thinkers advanced the idea of the working class as the conscious, leading force In a revoluton that would unite the social' and the political'. Indeed, they lacked a precise conception of the proletariat us a elass: for Blanqui the covered all those who elther cluding the mass of the peasantry, while for Weitling the most revolulumpen proletarians or For Marx emergence of the dustrial working class opened up the possibility of a new type of politics no longer subordinated to conspiracy or elople. The workers were organised Into industrial capitalism itself. They participated in a globel system of production and exchange, consclous movement of this class could alone destroy capitalism and establish a new society, free from exploitation and oppression, because based on mastery of the new social that forces Engels first presented an integrated account of these ideas in the Communist Manifesto.
The class struggle could only be class and the suppression ng capitalism.
The working class alone had the collective co-operative character required to master the new forces of rowuchoa anero ensure that ther did not dominate those who created them. but required Robin Blackburn of bourgeois order, the workers as a class would be joined by la portion of bourgeois ideologists who have raised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movewould become the basis for a new type of political movement. All previous historical movements of minorities or in the la terests of minorities. The proletarian movement is the self-conscious, independent movement of the immense majority.
historical mission is to destroy it. Bu* to do this a revolutionary seizure of political power is necessary: the first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the working class to they certainly the position of ruling class, to win the political power, they would be forced classes 'despotic inroads on the rights of For the Robert Framework revolutionary generalisation for the free development of all.
Engels the propertyless armies by Mark suppression the Communists had Witte. "independently tionality', With the accentuation of the crisis letariat ment as a whole'. The working class "
movements were parties.
For the proletarian over-simplified.
Without any stake in capitalist these complex Once the workers had conquered proletariat private property and the conditions of slave or the serf.
bourgeois political framework was that of the nation state, 'the proletariat of each country with its own bourgeolsie. But this was the form' not the 'substance' of the proletarian revolution. With the piecemesl...
forces developed by capitalism would brought under social ownership and regulation: 'In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an development of each is the condition NORACLE contained in the Manifesto are spare sweep of the bourgeois revolution was clearing away all the debris of pre capitalist social relations and political Decisive forms. The bourgeoisie was creating a world in its own image. The state was but a committee for managing the Civen peremptory fashion: Political power, Marx organised power of one class for opThe simplification of all social relations in the wake of the bourgeois revolution meant that the proletarian movement could develop in a straight •line from economic combination to gramme of the Communists could be summed up in one slogan: *The aboli- sold quantity distinguish themselves only by the fact that they see the future develonment of ine class struggle and bring to the fore the interests of the working class as a all •naThe Communists are practically *the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country' and theoretically they have over the great mass of the pro- ог, the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions and the ultimate general results of the proletarian revolution'.
But since the forward development of the movement is prepared by the development of capitalism itself, the Communists will be cutting with the grain of bourgeois society in carrying through their tasks; hence, 'The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class There Is little need to labour would the point that the Manifesto's abrupt formulations on the bourgeois state movement were course.
Less evident, perhaps, is that each formulations retains definite value on the basis of a more of historical purpose development and bourgeois sociery.
Some essential features of the capitalist mode of production were spelt out in the Manifesto Itself, but a more thorough account of Marx's views at this time was given in Wage Labour and Capital. It is in this latter the text that Marx defines the modern .AS of 'free labourers, in contradistinction to the together with his labour power, is sold once and for all to his owner, He is a commodity thei can pass from the hand of one owner to that of snother... The serf belongs to the land and turns over to the owner of the land the fruits. thereof. The free labourer, on the other hand, sells himself and, Indeed, sells himself *The worker belongs neither to an owner nor to the land, but eight, ten, twelve, fifteen hours of his daily life belong to him who buys them. The worker leaves the canitalist to whom he hires himself whenever he likes, capitalist discharges whenever he thinks fit, as soon as he no longer gets any profit out of him, or not the anticipated profit. But the whose sole source of livelihood is the sale of his labour power, cannot leave the whole class of purchasers, that is the capitalist class, without renouncing his existence.
that the capitalist class owns the decisive means of production, they will always be able to ex ploit the mass of proletarians on the basis of a free and equal exchange of wages for labour power.
of course. only lo develop the concept of labour pwer.
in all its implications, in his ister • writings. But already in Wage Labour and Capital Mark was stressing the vital distinctions quoted above between the position of the direct producer in capitalism and in previous modes of production. Marx's later Insistence on the fact that the worker the capitalist, not a definite and type of Isbour, but rather his general capacity to work during a given period, served to reinforce the analvsis of the worker under capitalism as a free labourer.
A crucial feature of the labour process under developed capitalism was that surplus value was pumped out of the direct producer without the use of physical coercion by the immediste explolter.
This permits an increasing separaton of the organisation of production from the organisation of violence -to put # in other of economics from politics. The slave required teams of armed overseers, the feudal lord an armed retinue, If they were to extract surplus labour from the direct producer. All the capitalist needed, once the conditions of eapitalist production had been established with private ownership of the decisive means of produc tion, was a free and equal contract to exchange wages for labour power.
Under these conditions the worker accumulate capital for the capitalist and reproduce the condltions of nis own exploitation. OI capitalist private would itself have to be defended fron individual 0г collective ettacks against it and a specialised body of armed men would be required for this but this specialised repressive force would not be at the command of the individus capitalist.
The essential function of the state was to guarantee the conditions of •capitalist production, In this context, original formulations the Manifesto take on precise significancer The state was Indeed s mechanism for managing the com mon affairs of the whole ruling clea and first and foremost the orgamis ed power of this class for oppressing another, Uprising of the Parisise masses in 1871 in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian war was a decisive event in the development of Mark's In a foreword to the Communist Manifesto wrltten In 1872 Mars wrote while the politicel principles contained by the Mantesto, were correct, the experience Paris Commune proletariat for the political pomer had renderso 'antiquated' in at least one impor respect.
The Manifesto, had giver по detalled account of the politicel form of the proterarien revolution and its consequences for the existing state machinery. The " commune gave vividdemonstration of what meant by the dictatorship of the pro letarlet', Above all, it had showa that the working cles cannot take hold of the ready-made state apparatus and wield # for its own purposes.
Mark and Engels could not complete their theory of the proletarian revolution: This lask fell te revolutionary Marists whe tearnt the lessons of 1905 end 1917, However, those who came after Mars and Engels did not start from scratch when it came to formulating proletarian strategy and teeties.
They were equipped not simply with A philosophical standpoint, method of social analysis or economic doctrine, but aiso with the elements of a revolutionary political theory premised upon the capacities of the modern workers, movement.
• Robin Blackburn is the editor o few Left Review. This article is avaltable in full in Robin Blackburn (ed) Revolution and Class Struggle (Pontana).
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