For Marxism, there are not morals in the sense of fixed values, relevant for all conditions and times. Any such would necessarily be alienated forms of life that detaching themselves from the people for whom they are meant, bear down upon them as external coercive powers. Such of course is the moralism generated by a society in which the 'laws of the market' are an alienated form of human existence that acts as a coercion upon the very people that bring it into being. (Indeed though Christianity insists there are fixed values, relevant for all conditions and periods, these are honoured more in the breach than the observance.)
But that rejection of fixed moral values leaves Marxists open to the charge that it is amoral (as per the Cold Warriors). Is there no moral imperative in Marxism? Yes, I think there is. The underlying imperative could be stated as human development, the precondition of its flowering the fullest development of man's productive powers. Put another way, the moral imperative in Marxism is the enlargement of the realm of freedom, and the restriction of the realm of necessity.
What in different conditions favours the fullest human development, is different. Hence Marx favours the victory of the market over pre- capitalist economic formations, as the liberation of man from parochialism; but in other conditions, the market itself becomes the barrier to human development. So Marx and Engels happily embraced the victory of Germany over the Balkan states, when Germany victory represented an extension of human progress, but half a century later, Marx's heirs denounced German expansion as imperialism. It wasn't inconsistency. Rather the meaning of Germany's increasing sphere of influence had changed.
In message <NFBBICFMIKGPJNEEGOLOGEAECLAA.sawicky at bellatlantic.net>, Max
Sawicky <sawicky at bellatlantic.net> writes
>. . . I don't think it either moral or immoral to support working-class
>revolution. In fact, I think that all efforts to maintain a moral system
>ultimately depend on a theistic belief. You can't separate morals from
>priests.
>
>Destroying the towers was outrageous -- but it was not in any sense
>immoral. That judgment would be pointless.
>
>I vaguely remember an interesting article by Lenin insisting that one
>could be passionate in one's support or opposition without taking a
>moralistic stand. I'll have to look it up. Carrol
>
>
>
>mbs: If so, then why should one support w.c. revolution,
>or not support its opposite?
>
>Also please explain what "outrageous" means in your context,
>if not immoral.
-- James Heartfield