From: Ted Winslow
I just quoted a long passage from the Civil War in France in which Marx claims that repressive and murderous hostility and a desire for retribution played no role in the actions of the Commune and that its brief rule involved few acts of violence of any kind . While being "magnanimous" to a fault, the Commune was "smashing" the "state," i.e. attempting to radically alter the nature and structures of "state power." To understand the meaning of "smashing," don't you and Lenin have to make your interpretation consistent with the fact that Marx also claims the Commune was "magnanimous" to a fault?
^^^^^^ CB: Lenin quoted Marx not on what happened in the Commune, but wherein Marx draws lessons from the Commune as to what should be done differently than what was done in the Commune. You mention something he compliments about the Commune, but ignore what he says must be done differently from that "magnanimous" conduct the next time. This is practical-critical or trial and error approach. We Marxists learn from our mistakes. The Commune was a big mistake, ( Marx had said it would be a folly of despair, but go ahead and do it), but mistakes are to be learned from.
"Magnanimous" is a bit vague, and knowing Marx, probably a bit of a joke in there too. Not likely to be a heavy moral principle of restaint from jacking up the bourgeois bureaucratic-military apparatus in the word "magnanimous". Marx does not use the words "repressive and murderous hostility" from what I saw in what you quoted. Or did I forget.
Desire for retribution is not advocated by Lenin , but one would have to note it as inevitable ,as the workers and peasants ( in Russia we were talking about in particular, as we are discussing the rev in Russia)wouldn't be fully Marxist conscious in the rev. Just as in the Commune, we would expect errors, from which we learn more.
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In what specific ways does "state power" in the USSR after 1917 correspond to the "state power" the Commune was attempting to create? The specifics of the latter are spelled out in the Civil War in France.
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CB; Plus in what I quoted , a statement from Marx on how the next effort must modify itself to smash the you know what.
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The idea of human "authenticity" I'm attributing to Marx is the idea that we have the potential for rational self-consciousness. I'm also attributing to him the idea that creating socialism requires the prior realization of a great deal of this potential. Rational self-consciousness is "magnanimous"; it's free of repressive and murderous hostility and a desire for retribution.
^^^^^ CB: I don't think that Marx would be surprised that the revolution in Russia ( which was on the borderline between being premature and precocious) might proceed with less than the optimum measure of realization of potential for rational self-consciousness , and therefore not prettily free of repressive and murderous hostility or desire for retribution. Also, the need for socialist efforts to repress the bourgeois counterrevolution ( which has proven to be vast and victorious in the long run) need not be done with desire for retribution . The fight against the imperialist war legions would be hard to carry out without murder (i.e. war, defensive war).
Magnanimous here seems to be "forgiving". Sure, but it's not about retribution or forgiveness. We can accept the improvement of Jesus's forgiveness over Old Testament retribution, but armed struggle in defense of the rev is still a practial necessity, and armed struggle is a euphemism for Red terror, even if defensive.
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Unenlightened self-consciousness, on the other hand, will be more or less dominated by these irrational "passions"; it will also be "prejudiced," "superstitious" and "mystical." It will be incapable of creating "state power" which is "socialist" in the sense spelled out in the Civil War in France. In the 18th Brumaire, Marx points to Napoleon III as illustrating the kind of "state power" which will issue from the dominance of a particular kind of prejudice and superstition, the kind characteristic of French peasants in the period.
What was the nature of the self-consciousness dominant in Russia in 1917 and after? Does it explain the nature of "state power" in the period?
Ted
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CB: Enlightened self-consciousness cannot be pacifist in the period of transition from capitalism to socialism ,in which bourgeois self-consciousness includes willingness to use the most murderous and repressive measures ever known to humanity. No self-consciousness will be able to create a state-power at all that does not defend its selfconsciousself with force and violence. The trials and errors of the first efforts to build socialism - the giant Commune of the Soviet Union especially - have demonstrated that this is truer now even than in Marx's day, sadly. That idea is neither prejudiced, superstitious , mystical, or dominated by an irrational passion; rather it is materialist, empirical, scientific ,logical and associated with revolutionary elan won in world historic tragedy.