On Marx's "not a marxist"

hoov hoov at freenet.tlh.fl.us
Thu Aug 20 08:12:03 PDT 1998


Jim Heartfield:
> 'Just as Marx used to say about the French "Marxists" of the late
> seventies: "All I know is that I am not a Marxist."'
> Engels. letter to Conrad Schidt, 5 August 1890, Collected Corres., Ed.
> Dona Torr, L&W, 1934 p 472
>
> E Philion <philion at hawaii.edu> writes
> >TITLE(s): Karl Marx's theory of revolution / by Hal Draper.
> > New York : Monthly Review Press, c1977-1990.
> >Partial cont.: 1. State and bureaucracy. 2 v. -- v. 2. The politics of
> > social classes -- v. 3. The "Dictatorship of the
> > Proletariat" -- v. 4. Critique of other socialisms.

a bit late with my 2 cents as usual...I should probably save this since the question at hand comes up periodically and I always have to look up the cite again before posting the info...

in Vol. II of above, "The Politics of Social Classes', Draper (pp. 5-8) maintains that we know the quote (or a variant) because Engels mentioned it 4 times...

1. a letter to Bernstein in 1882 in which E states that Marx said to Lafargue about French 'Marxism': 'what is certain is that, as for me, I am no Marxist'...

2. a letter to Schmidt in 1890 in which E recounts that M said about French 'Marxists' of the late 1870s: 'All I know is than I am no Marxist'...

3. a letter to Lafargue in 1890 in which E reminds L of the French who went in for Marxism and of whom M said the same as #2...

4. a piece published in 1890 in the Social Democratic party newspaper in which E writes that M said of the prevailing French 'Marxism' of the late 1870s: 'all I know is than I am no Marxist'...

Draper also notes a thirdhand account from Lopatin, the Russian Populist translator of _Capital_, who wrote that Engels had told him that M said of the French Marxists: 'I can say only one thing, I am no Marxist'....and D indicates that M's other French son-in-law, Charles Lonquet wrote in a 1900 preface to _Civil War in France_ that M had said: 'Still and all, I am no Marxist'...Michael Hoover



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