> MASS MOVEMENTS/REVOLUTION:
>
> Nothing specific, that non-marxists could not as easily say. But
> Marxists within such movements tend (or should tend) to bring to
> them a
> certain style, grounded in awareness of the historicity of capitalism.
> They do NOT, repeat NOT, focus on "converting" others to marxism or to
> revolution. If anyone wants to become a revolutionary or a marxist
> they're on their own, or should be, until they have decided they want
> to, at which point marxists and/or revolutionaries hould be prepared
> to
> share their efforts in that direction. Agitational efforts (and even
> most propaganda activity) are aimed at involving people in mass
> struggle
> for change WITHIN capitalism, and one need not even have heard of Marx
> to become very good at doing that.
I don't think this is true of the kind of revolution Marx himself has in mind. Though this doesn't require that individuals be converted to Marxism or even be aware of Marx, it does require that they share the same ends and engage in a kind of praxis that will actually enable them to realize them.
Among other things, as he understands it, the "revolutionary praxis" involved has to "appropriate" the means of production, i.e. it has to have a particular character determined by the particular ends it's supposed to realize one of which is this "appropriation."
Appropriation requires the developed capabilities the means objectify, capabilities developed to some extent by the capitalist labour process itself understood as a "steeling school" and then further developed to the degree required by the revolutionary praxis.
"Thus things have now come to such a pass that the individuals must appropriate the existing totality of productive forces, not only to achieve self-activity, but, also, merely to safeguard their very existence. This appropriation is first determined by the object to be appropriated, the productive forces, which have been developed to a totality and which only exist within a universal intercourse. From this aspect alone, therefore, this appropriation must have a universal character corresponding to the productive forces and the intercourse.
"The appropriation of these forces is itself nothing more than the development of the individual capacities corresponding to the material instruments of production. The appropriation of a totality of instruments of production is, for this very reason, the development of a totality of capacities in the individuals themselves.
"This appropriation [of the forces of production developed in capitalism] is further determined by the persons appropriating. Only the proletarians of the present day, who are completely shut off from all self-activity, are in a position to achieve a complete and no longer restricted self-activity, which consists in the appropriation of a totality of productive forces and in the thus postulated development of a totality of capacities. All earlier revolutionary appropriations were restricted; individuals, whose self-activity was restricted by a crude instrument of production and a limited intercourse, appropriated this crude instrument of production, and hence merely achieved a new state of limitation. Their instrument of production became their property, but they themselves remained subordinate to the division of labour and their own instrument of production. In all expropriations up to now, a mass of individuals remained subservient to a single instrument of production; in the appropriation by the proletarians, a mass of instruments of production must be made subject to each individual, and property to all. Modern universal intercourse can be controlled by individuals, therefore, only when controlled by all.
"This appropriation is further determined by the manner in which it must be effected. It can only be effected through a union, which by the character of the proletariat itself can again only be a universal one, and through a revolution, in which, on the one hand, the power of the earlier mode of production and intercourse and social organisation is overthrown, and, on the other hand, there develops the universal character and the energy of the proletariat, without which the revolution cannot be accomplished; and in which, further, the proletariat rids itself of everything that still clings to it from its previous position in society.
“Only at this stage does self-activity coincide with material life, which corresponds to the development of individuals into complete individuals and the casting-off of all natural limitations." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm
>
This repeats the idea of "appropriation" elaborated in the manuscript "Private Property and Communism" where it's distinguished from the idea of merely taking "possession." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1844/manuscripts/comm.htm>
Ted