Marx S Proletariat Rle Marxism

George Orwell wrote in Nineteen Eighty Four that ‘If there is hope, it lies in the proles.’ A century earlier Marx was unequivocal: the future belonged to the proletariat. Today such confidence might seem misplaced. The proletariat has not yet fulfilled Marx’s expectations, and seems unlikely ever to do so. How could Marx have entertained the notion that the proletariat would emancipate humanity from capitalism and from class rule itself? This book, first published in 1988, attempts an explanation by examining the sources and development of Marx’s concept of the proletariat. It contends that this was not only a crucial element in Marx’s theory but a significant departure in socialist thought. By examining this concept in detail the book uncovers a major contradiction in Marxian thought: although the proletariat is assigned a momentous task it is chiefly depicted as the class of suffering which is why, historically, it has preferred security to enterprise.

This book, first published in 1961 and revised in 1964, is both a critical study of a body of thought and an historical account of how Marxist theory arose from the context of European history in the 19th century. It traces the development of socialist thought from the French to the Russian Revolutions and attempts to show in what manner the political and intellectual problems of Central Europe between 1848 and 1948 came to dominate the theory and practice of that Marxist movement which formed the crucial link between the two revolutions. The author takes the view that Marxism is a movement and a body of doctrine which belongs essentially to the 19th century, which came to an end with the First World War and the Russian Revolution, and that its impact as a doctrine has now been absorbed.

This book, first published in 1986, presents a radical challenge to socialist orthodoxy, subjecting a key component of that orthodoxy – Marxism – to sustained criticism. Les Johnston argues that Marxism cannot provide the foundations for a rigorous socialist theory or an effective socialist politics. A fundamental element of this criticism is the suggestion that the problem of ‘reductionism’ which has preoccupied Marxists is a red herring. Marxism’s problem is not its reductionism but its theoretical incoherence. Marxism is not ‘deterministic’, for there is invariably an indeterminate relationship between the materialism it invokes and the forms of politics it adopts. However, materialism is an obstacle to socialist theory. The contradictions and failures of Marxist class analysis suggest that the class concept is inadequate to the demands that socialists continue to place on it. It is not merely class which is problematic, however, but the conception of political interests which is associated with it. Even recent Marxist ‘revisionists’ who dispense with class primacy are unwilling to come to terms with the question of how socialist political interests are constituted. Socialist theory has to recognise the varied forces and interests on ‘the left’, and an effective socialism will have to be a pluralistic one. This means there can be no general theory of socialism, since a pluralistic socialism has to be able to adjust to varying social conditions.

While their attempts to understand the workings of capitalism led them to the conclusion that the advanced societies of Western Europe were those most likely to be the setting for a successful socialist revolution, Marx and Engels by no means ignored developments outside this region. Indeed, given the configurations of international politics in their time, plus their conception of capitalism as a universalising system, they believed that some of the forces working for change in less advanced regions could even affect the prospects of a proletarian revolution in Western Europe itself. This book, first published in 1980, traces the development of Marx and Engels’ attitudes towards, and relations with, the principal national movements of their time. It deals with their responses to such movements in areas as diverse as Ireland and India, Poland and China, and Russia and the United States, as well as in many other regions. Many of Max and Engels’ most significant statements on the national question were made in their journalism, occasional addresses and private correspondence – sources not always readily accessible to, or even known by, some of their more immediate successors. Subsequent publication of this previously-dispersed material has enabled a more coherent picture of their ideas on the subject to be drawn. Marx and Engels believed that national aspirations and the cause of socialism did not always go hand in hand and each national struggle had to be examined on its merits and judged according to whether its success would retard or enhance the prospects of a socialist revolution. Based on a wide range of sources, this study examines an important, yet neglected, area of Marx and Engels’ ideas and activities, and indicates the criteria by which they determined their attitudes at different times to a variety of national movements at work in four continents.

This study, first published in 1983, explores the connections between Marx’s philosophy and his empirical analysis of society and state, by showing the different meanings of many of Marx’s concepts as their role in his theory changes and the theory itself develops. Beginning with an examination of Marx’s search for a sound epistemological basis on which to build a social theory, Dr Barbalet then gives an analysis of the way in which Marx continually modifies the concepts he uses, and continues with an examination of the different functions they are given in different theoretical settings. Various nuances of Marx’s thought, often obscured by the simplistic ‘early-late’ dichotomy, are revealed by Dr Barbalet’s close attention to the progressive transformation of Marx’s concepts and by his scrupulous analysis of them in not only their textual but also their theoretical context. Finally, the book examines the manner in which Marx’s construction of social theory, by its very nature, means that some material is replaced by other theoretical fabric as the theoretical structure itself is in different ways dismantled and reorganised, as Marx’s thought evolves and develops.

Marxism, one of the few philosophies that turned into an effective movement, not so long ago was the official ideology in one form or another of much of humanity. It was promulgated initially by the Soviet Union, then imposed on much of Central and Eastern Europe, later emerged in the People's Republic of China, and gradually spread to other parts of Asia and even bits of Africa and Latin America. Although declining in its initial popularity, it still remains strong in several countries and is supported by numerous communist and other parties and countless individuals around the world. The A to Z of Marxism covers the history of Marxism and all its thinkers and schools of thought in a comprehensive manner. This is done, through a chronology, an introductory essay, a bibliography, and hundreds of cross-reference dictionary entries on basic terms and concepts, significant thinkers and doers, and also the parties and countries that followed it.

In an unusual aproach to Marxist studies, Perkins uses the category of the proletariat as the key to which to demarcate different schools of thought within Marxism and consequently to assess their degree of fidelity to Marx's own thought. He examines the contribution to this perspective made by Lukacs and demonstrates how Lukacs is able to account for the apparent failure of Marxism in the political conditions of advanced capitalism.