Deviations of Marxism
The problem of a man’s economic and political freedom has been widely discussed by specialists throughout centuries. Chomsky (1987), Bakunin (1934), Rousseau (1960), Humbold (in Botting 1973) have all questioned the issue whether a man can ever be free in the society. The theory of Marxism can be regarded as a synthesis and conclusion of classical political economy, particularly of utopian socialist authors from which Marx borrowed many ideas. “The teaching of Marx is all-powerful because it is true.
It is complete and symmetrical, offering an integrated view of the world, irreconcilable with any superstition, with any reactionism, or with any defense of bourgeois oppression. ” (Eastman, Marx 1959, p. xxi). The problem of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement in Marx’s works has been discussed by Highs (2004), Kozyn (1987), Sayer (1991), Suny (1993), and Wood (1997). As the sources argue, according to the opinion of Marx, this problem can be solved, but only after many changes take place in the society.
Capitalism is destined to fail and be replaced by socialism which can put an end to contradiction between two social classes- bourgeoisie and the working class. Opposite to the system of capitalism, socialism was going to be based on the principles radically different from the principles of capitalist society, and thus end economic exploitation. According to Marx, people could become free if they were free economically, and thus the end of economic exploitation was going to determine the freedom for people.
In “The Criticism of the Gotha Program” Marx devotes major attention to the analysis of ownership and the problem of workers’ estrangement of the results of their work as the major feature of exploitation: “Within the cooperative society, based upon the common ownership of the means of production, the producers do not exchange their products; … the labor of the individual becomes, no longer in a roundabout way, but directly, a component part of the total labor. ” (Eastman, Marx, 1959, p. 5).
According to Marx, the exploitation of workers provided on all levels of production, their estrangement from the results of work all were the reasons of the inevitable changes in the future. The fact that surplus value was obtained by the capitalist was also one of the arguments for the future change in the structure. The class of workers realized that the results of their work were taken by the capitalist even though they were the ones who actually created the value. Therefore, they were eventually destined to struggle for their economic freedom, which would also lead to their social and political freedom.
The dialectics argues that contradictions are the driving force of progress. Once contradictions appear in some system, the system will need to undergo many changes and develop until the new level in which the synthesis of new qualities will be finally reached. Therefore, as it was correctly noticed by Marx, the phase of capitalism could not be completely over- it would just develop until its new phase socialism and the most positive features of both systems would be present in the final synthesis of the two systems.
People would reach the freedom only after the final stage of evolution, because earlier stages would still contain some features from the earlier system. Marx argues that communist society “still bears, in every respect, economic, moral and intellectual, the birthmarks of the old society from whose womb it is issuing” (Eastman, Marx, 1959, p. 5). Therefore, it is impossible to conclude that communism entirely frees people from economic exploitation and political and social enslavement. Communism is not a completely new system and has connection with the previous system of capitalism.
It interacts with it in some ways but at the same time it has many new features which are beneficial for the working class and liberates people in many aspects of life. In “The Poverty of Philosophy” Marx argues that eventually, communism is going to give political freedom to people. “The working class will substitute, in the course of its development, for the old order of civil society, an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will no longer be political power. ” (Eastman, Marx, 1959, p.
2). The author also states that in the new socialistic society, all of the assets will be expropriated from the capitalists and thus they will not be able to obtain the benefits of the surplus value anymore. Therefore, economic exploitation will be finally brought to an end. Another feature of socialism is the equality of people, when they are able to work according to their abilities for themselves and the state they live in. The socialist society is not divided into classes because it regards people equal in all the ways.
Marx mentioned that unfortunately, all of the major developments needed to happen not as the result of evolution but as the results of struggles and revolutions because they were the only ways of destruction of the old system. Marx did not deny the role of evolution in the process of freeing people but he had very radical views and thus regarded revolution as the best tool of speeding up the evolution process which was going to lead to the long-waited changes in any case. As the author stated, the final end to capitalism could be put and the new socialist society could be established only with the help of arms.
A remarkable feature of Marx’s theory of capitalism development and evolution into socialism is that he does not share the opinions of utopian writers on this issue. Many utopian writers considered that social changes could be originated by the government of the country or by a class of “educated” capitalists. Marx was completely against these theories because he was confident that the former capitalists and members of government were unable to bring any changes into the country’s social structure.
In order to form the new society, the new principles needed to be established and those people who belonged to the rival class of the workers were unable to bring any of the mentioned changes. It is also necessary to investigate the problem of freeing man from the curse of economic exploitation and political and social enslavement in Soviet Union. As the experience of the country shows, application of Marxism theory in Soviet Union completely failed to achieve its goals.
As it was mentioned by Geoffrey (1997), Grigor (1993), Khazanov (1992), Lieven (1998), Kon (1993), one of the major mistakes made in Soviet Union was connected with “Russian exceptionalism”. As Grigor (1993) states, Soviet Union applied the concept of Marxist “nationless” society in a way completely different from its original meaning. Instead of “freeing” citizens of the country as Marxism stated, Soviet leaders oppressed all of the nations except Russians. Russia was the major center of all activities going in the country.
Soviet Union was a very peculiar structure because it united a large number of nations which were very different in many ways. Some of the nations included in the country were quite close to one another (Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine), while other republics in the Soviet Union structure were very different by their cultures. For example, Eastern republics, like Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan belonged to Muslim countries, and had very different traditions from Russians, but Russian nation forced all of them to act according to the traditions of the dominant nation.
This was one of the major reasons of the “empire’s” failure in the following years. “Sovietology paid far too little attention for far too long to the non-Russian peoples, to the extrapolitical social environment, and to the particular contexts, contingencies, and conjunctures of the Soviet past. ” (Grigor, 1993: 3) According to Marxists, all the nations within the Soviet Union had to be completely alike and without any differences between them. Soviet leaders took the features of the Russian nation as the basic features. Therefore, all other nations had to adapt to the new culture which was not very familiar to them.
The “nationless” society in reality turned out a “Russian” society with total dominance of the Russian nation in all the ways. All the nations other than Russians were oppressed greatly. They were all considered a step lower in the society ladder due to their origin, and did not have any political freedom. Policy of the country was in many ways channeled to the development of Russia and its cities. The largest sums from the budget were assigned to the development of Russia. While Russia’s economy was booming, particularly the economy of Moscow, all other economies were at a much lower level of development.
Besides exceptionalism, there were many other problems with application of Marxist theory in Soviet Union. For example, Soviet leaders did their best to apply the principle according to which every person was required to contribute to the wealth of the country at his best and would get services from the state in the maximum amount. Instead, it was easy to notice that leaders of the communist party got all of the benefits from the state while working people got only the minimum. As Lieven (1998) states, the reality of Soviet Union was very far from giving any freedom to its citizens.
During capitalism workers were oppressed greatly and did not have a chance to satisfy all of their needs. The situation did not change much when Soviet leaders brought communism to the country because the oppression remained the same; it just came not from capitalists but from communist leaders. Communist leaders in Vietnam also failed to implement principles of Marxism in the country. Similar to Lenin’s Soviet Union, Ho Chi Minh’s Vietnam failed to liberate people from economic exploitation and did not give them social and political freedom. According to Anh (1995, p.
126), one of the major reasons of communism’s failure in Vietnam is lack of background for it in the country. Marxism required the struggle between classes as the basis of the future revolution. In rural Vietnam, there were no antagonist classes similar to industrial Britain or Russia. The “liberation” of people in Vietnam could not be solely based on Marx’s principles due to the radical differences between the British society which Marxism based his theory on and the Vietnamese society. There was no working class in Vietnam looking for liberation from capitalist exploitation.
The major figure in Vietnamese society was a peasant fighting against the exploitation by foreigners oppressors. “At the centre of Vietnamese history, stands the peasant, tenacious and heroic defender of the land inherited from the ancestors against the foreign invaders, but recurrently rising up against the masters from within in an endless rebellion. ” (Le Vietnam traditionnel. Quelques etapes historiques, 1971, p. 170). Communism in Vietnam was supposed to serve the interests of peasants in their fight against French oppressors.
“The highly destructive system of economic exploitation installed by the colonial regime gave birth to new social forces, while aggravating the situation of the rural masses. ” (Institute of Historical Studies, Vietnamese peasantry and rural society in the modern period, 1990, p. 35). Despite the attempts of application of Marx’s theory in Vietnam, it was destined to fail because Vietnam was eventually liberated from oppressors, and any basis for the struggle between antagonist classes disappeared.
In conclusion, it is necessary to mark that in its pure version, Marxism provides an answer to the question of how to liberate people from economic, political and social oppression. Liberation of people from economic exploitation comes first and as long as it is achieved, political and social freedom can also be targeted. However, the attempts of the application of Marxism in Soviet Union and Vietnam have showed that people’s freedom cannot be achieved in real life due to fatal mistakes made by communist leaders in the application of Marxism.
