Monday, November 10, 2003
Karl Marx on Life, the Universe and Everything
(Via Brad) Donald Sassoon interviews Karl Marx in the Oct 2003 issue of the Prospect Magazine. Mr. Marx denies any culpability for the Soviet Union and the Gulags, but has an interesting take on America. Among other things.
DS Calm down. Let's move on. I've got to ask you this: the Soviet Union, the gulag, communist terror.
KM I thought you would. I must admit that I am as vain as the next person and all this personality cult and Marx-worship did get to me. It did tickle me to see my face on banknotes of the old DDR and a Marxplatz in every Prussian city. Of course, thanks to Engels's marketing skills and the efforts of Bernstein and of that tedious man, Kautsky, I became the grand guru of the socialist movement soon after my demise. Consequently Russian westernisers had to take me as seriously as electricity. So I was not surprised when Lenin decided to turn me into the Bible. Lenin was a clever politician with good instincts. But he was also a fundamentalist determined to find in my works the justification for whatever it was he wanted to do. He made "Marxism" up as he went along. This detestable habit, typical of religions since time immemorial, spread everywhere. I began to have the feeling that even my shopping lists were being drafted into the service of this or that faction of the movement. Take the notion of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." This was a formula I had devised to suggest, following its ancient Roman usage, an exceptional government in a time of crisis. I must have used this expression no more than ten times in my life. I can't tell you my surprise when this resurfaced as a central idea of Marxism, used to justify one-party rule. What can I say? And I was rather surprised when the first so-called socialist revolution occurred in such a deeply backward country run by Slavs-of all people. What the Bolsheviks were doing was accomplishing the bourgeois revolution that the Russian bourgeoisie was too small and stupid to carry out. The communists used the state to create a modern industrial system. If one must call this the "dictatorship of the proletariat," well, so be it.
DS What about America?
KM Always liked the Yankees: no feudalism, no hallowed traditions. Of course, a lot of cant and religion. But somehow they come out of every capitalist crisis stronger and stronger. Wonderful system of government. Fake democracy, fake elections, fake political system surrounded by humbug and greedy lawyers. This allows business to get on with its tasks, buying candidates, a bribe here, a bribe there. The people are not taken in. Half of them don't bother to vote. For the other half, politics is harmless fun, like watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I moved the headquarters of the first international of workers to New York not just to control it better but also because America was becoming the workers' country par excellence. It is really the only working-class country in the world. Their games, their culture, their manners, their food; everything about Americans is working class. Of course, old Europe remains rather snobby about them, a consolation prize for lost supremacy.
DS Calm down. Let's move on. I've got to ask you this: the Soviet Union, the gulag, communist terror.
KM I thought you would. I must admit that I am as vain as the next person and all this personality cult and Marx-worship did get to me. It did tickle me to see my face on banknotes of the old DDR and a Marxplatz in every Prussian city. Of course, thanks to Engels's marketing skills and the efforts of Bernstein and of that tedious man, Kautsky, I became the grand guru of the socialist movement soon after my demise. Consequently Russian westernisers had to take me as seriously as electricity. So I was not surprised when Lenin decided to turn me into the Bible. Lenin was a clever politician with good instincts. But he was also a fundamentalist determined to find in my works the justification for whatever it was he wanted to do. He made "Marxism" up as he went along. This detestable habit, typical of religions since time immemorial, spread everywhere. I began to have the feeling that even my shopping lists were being drafted into the service of this or that faction of the movement. Take the notion of the "dictatorship of the proletariat." This was a formula I had devised to suggest, following its ancient Roman usage, an exceptional government in a time of crisis. I must have used this expression no more than ten times in my life. I can't tell you my surprise when this resurfaced as a central idea of Marxism, used to justify one-party rule. What can I say? And I was rather surprised when the first so-called socialist revolution occurred in such a deeply backward country run by Slavs-of all people. What the Bolsheviks were doing was accomplishing the bourgeois revolution that the Russian bourgeoisie was too small and stupid to carry out. The communists used the state to create a modern industrial system. If one must call this the "dictatorship of the proletariat," well, so be it.
DS What about America?
KM Always liked the Yankees: no feudalism, no hallowed traditions. Of course, a lot of cant and religion. But somehow they come out of every capitalist crisis stronger and stronger. Wonderful system of government. Fake democracy, fake elections, fake political system surrounded by humbug and greedy lawyers. This allows business to get on with its tasks, buying candidates, a bribe here, a bribe there. The people are not taken in. Half of them don't bother to vote. For the other half, politics is harmless fun, like watching Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? I moved the headquarters of the first international of workers to New York not just to control it better but also because America was becoming the workers' country par excellence. It is really the only working-class country in the world. Their games, their culture, their manners, their food; everything about Americans is working class. Of course, old Europe remains rather snobby about them, a consolation prize for lost supremacy.
