Comrade andie nachgeborenen :
They didn't consider themselves communist, maybe the KR did. But the Soviet Union was officially "socialist," and Khrushchev used to talk about about building communism by some or other date, until they gave up that sort of talk, the Chinese too. As to whether Marx would consider them anything like what he imagined a post-revolutionary society would look like, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. I('m quite willing to give you the word "communist" to label those societies, but then I think we need another word to refer to what Marx was talking about, which we probably do anyway.
^^^^^
CB : "Socialist" was their terminology for "crude communist". Kind of odd to go around calling yourself "crude communist", even if being honest and modest. There was still discussion of building communism by leaders in the SU after K. Chinese Party still claims to have socialist and communist ultimate "dialectic". Who knows what Marx would have thought, but the specific passage you point to , of all his many written thoughts, tends to show that Marx would have expected big "crudenesses" in the first efforts to build socialism. Trial and error. Learning from mistakes. Materialist epistemology and theory of knowledge, the coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing conceived and rationally understood only as _revolutionary_ practice .
Many on this thread note Marx's anti-moralizing. This passage ( on "crude communism" from 1844 Manuscript) is where you want to read Marx as not moralizing, in part because he is commenting on the working class. Marx's main non-moralizing, not sermonizing, is in addressing the working class, as here. He treats the working class's conduct, including in crude communism, as the objective basis for morality, the unity of the is and the ought. Marx does moralize, criticize, "attack" with respect to the ruling classes, including the bourgeoisie :>).
Nietszche is the opposite of Marx on moralizing. N. moralizes and sermonizes about the working class. Specifically he whines about the working class being envious of the rich, and worries that the workers and slaves will seek revenge on the ruling class ! This is the ruling classes' biggest worry. They are haunted by The Reign of Terror of the French Revolution. N. ,as the philosopher # 1 of the ruling classes, boldly seeks to chastise, with his non-moralizing ass, the slaves for being so revolting ,so envious and covetous of their social betters. N. , this anti-Jesus freak, says "don't seek retribution," the exact same moral principle that Jesus announced :" Forgive, turn the other cheek, I come to terminate the law of an eye for an eye , tooth for a tooth. " In the name of anti-Christianity, N. preaches to the slaves forgiveness and non-retribution against the masters. Paraphrasing, N. says "Forgive your masters. Don't be envious of your masters." Around the same time, the U.S. Southern slave masters were probably preaching to their slaves the same themes from the Christian Old and New Testaments.
On other issues from these threads, Marx "deals" with the contradiction between free will and determinism in Carrol's favorite Theses on Feuerbach. These are Marxist psychological theories (even a bit of behaviorism ?). And another of Carrol's prudential concerns, contingency, addresses free will. Every new event is different from all past events, i.e. has some contingency to it. Without free will, agency, humans would never be able to act practically in the face of contingency , which is every new event ( and every event it unique ,new, not identical with anything that happened before).
Theses (Dogma !) on Feuerbach, starting at 3...
.... III
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only as _revolutionary practice_.
IV
Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself be destroyed in theory and in practice.
V
Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants contemplation; but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous activity.
VI
Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual. In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.
Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is consequently compelled:
1. To abstract from the historical process and to fix the
religious sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an
abstract -- isolated -- human individual.
2. Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as "genus", as an
internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many
individuals.
VII
Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the "religious sentiment" is itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses belongs to a particular form of society.
VIII
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.
IX
The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is, materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.
X
The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of the new is human society, or social humanity.
And Marx's Absolute General Law of Capitalist Accumulation is : the rich get richer and the poor get poor. That's the General Asceticism and Social Levelling that Marxists are concerned about, contra Nietzsche's concern about the Ascetism and social levelling of the rich, famous and Beauties.