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The Genesis of Marxism
The most significant long-term consquence of Lukics' book Geschichte und Klassen
bewutsein und Karl Korsch's Marxismus und Philosophie, both printed in the early
twenties concerned the legitimacy of Karl Kautsky's claim that his own work is nothing
eise but pure, unoriginal, re-interpretation of ideas of Karl Marx. These early doubts
about the degree of orthodoxy of orthodox Marxism were adequately evaluated in the
1950's, but also recently the main ideas of orthodox Marxism have found acceptance
- through the mdiation of Lenin as embodying the whole of Marxism. Marxism"
was not created by Karl Marx; Karl Kautsky was most respondible for its cration
(Blumenberg, 1962). However, Blumenberg did overemphasize Kautsky's role in the
cration of common sense Marxism. The type of Marxism which is under considra
tion here is equal to the orthodox Marxism of the Second International. Nevertheless,
it was not only during the period of the Second International that this peculiar theory
and ideology was equated with the whole of Marxism: through many gnrations
among Marxist ideologicians, theoreticians, and simply followers, as well as by Marxist
and non-Marxist scholars, the orthodox Marxism of the Second International was
accepted as the most adquate and the most legitmate interprtation of Karl Marx
thought. After the schism in the Marxist political movement over the Bolshevik notion
of the dictatorship of the proltariat - a new, mostly political agenda was added to
the entire corpus of Marxism as interpreted through the orthodox Marxism of the
Second International.
The Marxism which is here under considration is (really) a Marxist ideology
created on the basis of popular semi-theoretical works which were widely accepted as
the exclusively adquate interprtation of Marxian writings as well as the intermedia
tors between the movement's founding fathers, political theory and current praxis.
This meant that these works have had also a function of interprtation of recent praxis
and the organization's aim in light of the theoretical ideas of the founding father. The
entire corpus of orthodox Marxism is based on the following works of Friedrich En
gels: Anti-Duehring (1878), The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
(1884), August Bebel's Woman under Socialism (1878), and three writings of Karl
Kautsky: The Erfurter Program (1892), The Economical Thought of Karl Marx (1887)
and the article in his review Die Neue Zeit entitled "The New Program of Social-Demo
cracy in Austria" (1902). After the collapse of the Second International in 1914 and
the cration of the Communist (Third) International in 1919 this entire corpus of
orthodox Marxism was enlarged with some works of Lenin and J. V. Stalin, but with
out significant changes concerning issues not related with the dictatorship of the pro
ltariat.
One should mention the impact of these writings on the contemporaries. Anti
Duehring has been understood as a Marxist encyclopedia, Bebel's book as a widely
announced prophecy of communism: in only forty years up to 1908, 50 ditions were
printed in German and translations in almost every European language. Kautsky's
Karl Marx' konomische Lehre, translated into 16 languages and with 25 ditions in
German was studied as the best interprtation of Marxian science, and his article on
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504 Laslo Sekelj
Orthodox Marxism sees in human history the continuation of natural history. That
was a common place in the nineteenth Century science which was under the influence
of vulgar mechanistic materialism. Engels wanted to differentiate the social democracy
from this vulgar naturalistic materialism. Guided by this desire he wrote the series of
articles against the very popular philosopher Diihring. Published in 1878 as a book
under the title Anti-Duehring, this work has been identified with the totality of Marx
ism and has been considered as its encyclopedia. In Anti-Duehring one can search for
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The Genesis of Marxism 505
and find the ready answers to all questions; but the mai
owed to the fact that the real meaning of the Engelsian
substitution of vulgar mechanistic conceptions, at that ti
socialism. A second cause of the impact of this book was
and social theory in favor of a common sense comprhe
tific Weltanschauung (Engels, 1947; 36). The dialectic
accepted as the universal theory of change and as unifo
such, this type of dialectical materialism served for Ma
quacy of historical materialism. The philosophically une
the leading theoreticians and ideologicians of social dem
Eduard Bernstein were supposed to be - saw in this wor
them, this mechanistic dialectic served as the foundatio
the advocates of socialism are the discoverers of natural
covers nature as well as society (Fetscher, 1967: 27-2
omnipotence of the natural sciences has been transferre
as well; but its cost was the rduction of Marxian philoso
Weltanschauung. In that way Engels started the process o
reason: "active social forces work exactly like natural fo
structively, so long as we do not understand and reckon
339) And that is the function of philosophy-free natural
With the knowledge of these forces of necessity Eng
same book mankind will find its freedom by applyin
fessional knowledge the objective laws of social develope
142) This means a transfer of the model of social engineer
according to mechanical laws of nature. (Engels, 1947: 33
Such a notion of historical materialism is very closely
the inevitability of the crisis of capitalism and of the n
Zusammenbruchstheorie). Literally as Zusammenbruchst
so called by Heinrich Cunow (Cunow, 1898) but the cont
gress of SPD in Erfurt, in 1891. It was part of the Erfurt
is directly linked with Engels' notion that the conflict be
productive relationships in capitalism leads to the inevit
and to the necessary emergence of socialism on the basis
1947: 3738,339) If there are some doubts in the meanin
Duehring, let me quote a key sentence from Engel's fore
Poverty of Philosophy : "Marx, therefore, never based h
this, but upon the inevitable collapse of the capitalist m
daily taking place before our eyes to an ever greater deg
The rception of Anti-Duehring among "Marxist" cont
in opposition to this naturalistic materialism as the typica
Century bourgeoise ideology but in harmonious accord wi
of the Party, Karl Kautsky's Die Neue Zeit as well as the
lished by the Publishing house of the German Social Dm
played the key role in this process. Indeed, a historical s
that the most popular literature borrowed from party spo
were the popularizations of the vulgar naturalistic m
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506 Laslo Sekelj
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The Genesis of Marxism 507
The Marxist theory of the State (ipso facto from orthodox Marxism as well) is in reali
ty Engels' notion of the State in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the
State. Its main characteristic is the transposition of the features of the modern re
prsentative State to the State as such, to the very institution of the State without
taking into account which particular historie epoch or which specific socio-economic
order is the State's foundation. Engels describes as the fundamental notion of every
type of class rule, that which Marx considers as the particular feature of the modern
reprsentative state: that in bourgeoisie (brgerlich) society the particular class inter
ests represent themselves in ideological form as tlje political universality of general
interests through mdiation by the abstraction of the political sphere. And that is the
meaning of the Marxian notion of the State as the Surrogate or chimerical Community
(Marx, 1964: 98, 277-278) contrary to the true human Community of communism.
(Sekelj, 1984: 359) But Engels, indeed, did not connect this process of abstraction to
the particular capitalist socio-economic structure and did not explain this process of
abstraction as a peculiar organic product of that particular society. Because of this
oversight in The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State this process of
abstraction and sublimation is described as a conscious fraud or manipulation of the
ruling class in the sense of a Voltairean notion of religion as an entity which owes its
origin to the tricks of clergy (priests).
There are two immdiate consquences of this Engelsian incapacity to relate the
modern state with its particular economic basis. First, there is the voluntaristic ap
proach according to which the particular state or at least the particular form of it is
supposed to be a conscious but ad hoc crature of the ruling class. The second con
squence follows from the first so far as one sees the state as indifferent towards
the social relations which rule over it, this means extreme subjectivism and interclassism
at the same time. The voluntaristic approach has led to an identification of the seizure
of power by one party or even one person with the social rvolution and has been
considered as a crucial and pivotai point for the realization of socialism and commun
ism. The interclassism has been demonstrated in the way that such a notion of power
gives it the quality to be equally justified and an equally adquate instrument (tool)
for purposes of ail interests and the aims of literally ail social classes. Consequently it
means that state power has structural features of indiffrence towards every class
structure. (Colletti, 1974: 74)
In the foundation of Marxism, in the orthodox Marxism of the Second International,
the voluntaristic notion of the State emerged in the way that the seizure of political
power in the State by a Social Dmocratie party (working class party) was equated not
only with the victory of socialism in the sense of prevailing over ail structures and
relations of the bourgeoise-capitalist society. Later on, the Bolsheviks and Soviet
Marxism made one change: they changed the ame of the particular working class
party. In short, the Marxism of the Internationais is characteristically the notion of
the socialist state as being the main creative force of the socialist society and of the
process of the realization of communism (Kautsky, 1892, Lenin, 1970). The seizure
of political power in the state is a crucial point for theory and politics of orthodox
Marxism because the political institution of the state was treated as a magical instru
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508 Laslo Sekelj
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The Genesis of Marxism 509
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510 Laslo Sekelj
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The Genesis of Marxism 511
Re fer enees
Avineri, Shlomo, 1970. The Social and Political Thought of Karl Marx. New York: Cambridge Uni
versity Press.
Bebel, August, 1971 (1878). Women under Socialism. New York: Schocken Books.
Blumenberg, Werner, 1962. Karl Marx in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten. Reinbek bei Ham
burg: Rowohlt.
Bobbio, Norberto, 1979. "Marxism and Socialism", Telos, No. 39 (Spring 79), pp. 191-200.
Colletti, Lucio, 1971. Bernstein und der Marxismus der Zweiten Internationale. Frankfurt a.M.:
Europische Verlagsanstalt.
Cunow, Heinrich, 1898/1899. "Die Zusammenbruchstheorie", Die Neue Zeit, 17: 12-14.
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512 Laslo Sekelj
Authors Address: Dr. Laslo Sekelj, University of Belgrade, Center for Philosophy and Social Th
ry, Narodnog Fronta 45, 1100 Belgrade, Yugoslavia.
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