Marv Gandall wrote:
> I think the issue turns on the question
> which has always divided revolutionary Marxists like Trotsky from
> social
> democrats and left liberals like Dewey: Can a successful class
> struggle for
> power be conducted peacefully or must it necessarily resolve itself
> through
> violence?
Marx derived the necessity of "revolutionary praxis" from a particular conception of the "educational" process required for the development of the "true human being" with the fully developed "power" required to actualize "true reality" ("the true realm of freedom") as well as from the assumption that "the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way".
"Both for the production on a mass scale of this communist consciousness, and for the success of the cause itself, the alteration of men on a mass scale is, necessary, an alteration which can only take place in a practical movement, a revolution; this revolution is necessary, therefore, not only because the ruling class cannot be overthrown in any other way, but also because the class overthrowing it can only in a revolution succeed in ridding itself of all the muck of ages and become fitted to found society anew.” <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ch01d.htm
>
This "educational" idea of "the alteration of men on a mass scale" (an idea that Marx, in the third thesis on Feuerbach, explicitly opposes to the idea that the "alteration" required can be brought about by a "vanguard") entails the idea of "human being" as the being capable of developing "universality" in feeling, thinking, willing and acting.
It's this "universality" that constitutes true "wealth".
"what is wealth other than the universality of individual needs, capacities, pleasures, productive forces etc., created through universal exchange? The full development of human mastery over the forces of nature, those of so-called nature as well as of humanity's own nature? The absolute working-out of his creative potentialities, with no presupposition other than the previous historic development, which makes this totality of development, i.e. the development of all human powers as such the end in itself, not as measured on a predetermined yardstick? Where he does not reproduce himself in one specificity, but produces his totality? Strives not to remain something he has become, but is in the absolute movement of becoming?" <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1857/grundrisse/ch09.htm>
As "the real intellectual wealth of the individual", this "universality" "depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections". Through these connections, individuals are "liberated from the various national and local barriers".
"the real intellectual wealth of the individual depends entirely on the wealth of his real connections. Only then [i.e. after "the overthrow of the existing state of society by the communist revolution"] will the separate individuals be liberated from the various national and local barriers, be brought into practical connection with the material and intellectual production of the whole world and be put in a position to acquire the capacity to enjoy this all-sided production of the whole earth (the creations of man). All- round dependence, this natural form of the world-historical co- operation of individuals, will be transformed by this communist revolution into the control and conscious mastery of these powers, which, born of the action of men on one another, have till now overawed and governed men as powers completely alien to them." <http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/german-ideology/ ch01a.htm
>
Ted