Probings and Re-Probings

Probings and Re-Probings
Essays in Marxian Reawakening
Edited by
Sankar Ray
Shaibal Gupta
First published 2022

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Contents
Preface 5
Note 8
Introduction 9
1. Ancient Indian Dialectics and Marx 31
Shannon Brincat
2. Marx’s Theory of Prehistory: In Memory of György
Márkus. My Great Master Whom I Never Met 51
Julio Boltvinik
3. The Origins of Marxist Oriental Studies in the USSR
and Its Stalinist Distortion 82
Craig Brandist
4. A Short History of Black Marxism in the USA 110
Kipton E. Jensen
5. From Early Marx to Véquaud’s Countercultural
Indophilia: Similar Aesthetics Founded on
Romanticism and Communitarian Utopia 141
Hélène Fleury and Damien Ehrhardt
6. Sartre and Alienation: A Marxian Perspective 163
Kumari Sunitha V.
7. The Untimely Marx: Marx’s Critique of Political
Economy and the Political Dimension of Critical
Economics 189
Riccardo Bellofiore
8. Guevara and Marx: Critical Remake of an Old Film 218
Roberto Massari
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9. Historical Process and Gender Essentialism from a

Dialectical Point of View: A Contribution to a
Marxian Feminist Theory 266
Edoardo Schinco
10. Revolution, Emancipation and Social Reproduction 290
Chirashree Das Gupta
11. Manufacturing Profits: Modes of Surplus Extraction
at the Lower End of the Global Value Chain 305
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12. From Hegemony to Full Control: Which Kind of Elite,
If Any, is Necessary for the Masters of the Universe?
Reading Antonio Gramsci About the Role of the
Intelligentsia, Yesterday and Tomorrow 333
Giulietto Chiesa
13. Karl Marx and the Opium War 345
Eugenio Lo Sardo
14. Marx or Utopia and Ideology Against Wisdom 352
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15. Exploitation and Oppression Under Bourgeoisdom 372
C. Saratchand
Contributors 400
Preface
Marxism may not be as ‘alive’ in 2018, his bicentenary, as it

was during the two preceding centuries, but one cannot
deny that it is as ‘relevant’ now as it was earlier. This was
amply revealed in the International Conference on Karl
Marx during June 16-20, 2018 at Patna, organised by the
Asian Development Research Institute (ADRI). Indeed, the
organisers were simply overwhelmed when more than fifty
scholars had sent their substantive papers to the Conference,
more than two-thirds of them being from abroad, covering
all the contents. The rationale for organising the Conference
was not just the historical importance of the event, but the
enormous influence that Marxian thoughts still have on
the present day social science research. As a social science
research institute, it was, therefore, very appropriate for ADRI
to organise the Conference. The organisers of the Conference
were particularly happy that the Conference was probably the
largest among other bicentenary Conferences held across the
globe.
In the Conference, quite expectedly, the Marxian issues
that the scholars had addressed were as varied as Marx’s
own writings were, encompassing questions on—economics,
politics, society, philosophy and others. Methodologically,
these studies have largely followed an inter-disciplinary
framework, which has long been a characteristic of Marxian
approach to social investigation. We had decided to publish
31 papers of the Conference in two volumes. The first volume,
‘Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas and Influences: A Critical Examination
on the Bicentenary’, was published by Palgrave in 2019,

incorporating 16 papers. This volume is the second one,
incorporating the remaining 15 papers.
It will be difficult to classify the papers in this volume
thematically, but it is satisfying to note that three of these
papers related to India—one on economics by Archana
Aggarwal (modes of surplus extraction), the second by Helene
Fleury and Damien Ehrhardt on culture (Maithil village) and
the third by Shannon Brincat on philosophy (ancient Lokayat
tradition). India is also covered in two other papers—one by
Craig Brandist tracing the origins of Marxist oriental studies,
and the second by Eugenio Lo Sardo re-examining the
writings of Marx on Opium Wars, that revealed the character
of colonial exploitation in China and India.
The concept of class divisions plays a major role in
Marxian analysis of social dynamics of a capitalist society. But
parallel to class division, there are other divisions that are too
obvious and they have widely attracted the attention of social
scientists, both Marxian and others. One of them is the gender
division of the society and the other racial. Two of the papers
in this volume (Chirashree Das Gupta and Edoardo Schinco)
analyse the gender issue in a Marxian framework for a more
comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon. Similarly,
again utilising a Marxian framework, Kipton Jensen examines
the history of Black Marxism in America to help us understand
the strategy of African Americans to flight the forces of racism.
Although the functioning of the capitalist system has
undergone much change since the days of Marx, certain
basic traits of the system still remain unaltered. The fact of
exploitation of hired labour is certainly one of them. In his
paper, C. Saratchand analyses this phenomenon, although in
a restricted context. One can also include in this category the
paper by Riccardo Bellofiore presenting a Macro Monetary
Theory of capitalist production. The analysis presented here
covers the monetary dimensions of capitalism under the
present circumstances, when monetary instruments and
institutions have made huge proliferation, both nationally and
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internationally, to sustain the system. This phenomenon was

absent during the early phase of capitalism.
The writings of Marx, as we all know, cover not only
economics, but many other dimensions of the society and
the state. The present volume has three papers on these
dimensions—one on nature of elite (Giulietto Chiesa), the
second on Marx’s critical theory (Julio Boltvinik) and the third
on alienation (K Sunitha V). Together, these authors draw our
attention to the role of societal power structures in the present
day world.
Although the Marxian literature provides valuable
insights on the functioning of the capitalist society, the paper
by Jean Joseph Boillot in this volume argues that, along with
the gains, the Marxian tradition has also caused some losses
to human wisdom. This is primarily because of the orthodoxy
of many Marxian scholars or political leaders. In the paper,
the author substantiates this important observation, citing
several historical events. Finally, this volume also includes a
paper by Roberto Massari, describing how Che Guevara had
tried to understand the Marxian theories, parallel to his heroic
political activism. Interestingly, although Che was a great
devourer of books, he had no pretention about his theoretical
knowledge about Marxism.
I have reasons to hope that this volume will not only
enlighten its readers about some major trends in Marxian
studies across the world, but it will also help them identify
social issues that demand immediate academic attention, not
just from Marxian perspective, but from other perspectives as
well. I am very thankful to the editors of this volume—Sankar
Ray and Shaibal Gupta for compiling this volume, which must
have required substantial professional ability. Thanks are also
due for Neeraj Kumar who had provided valuable assistance
to the editors. Finally, I express my deep gratitude to Lord
Meghnad Desai and Professor Gopa Sabharwal, without
whose cooperation the Conference would not have achieved
its desired goal.
Prabhat P Ghosh
Director, ADRI
Note
A total of 9 papers out of the 15 in this collection are based on
dedicated memorial lectures delivered at the conference. They
are as follows:
1. The Shapurji Saklatvala Memorial Lecture on ‘Ancient Indian
Dialectics and Marx’ was delivered by Shannon Brincat.
2. The Gyorgy Markus Memorial Lecture on ‘Marx’s Theory of
Prehistory: In Memory of Gyorgy Markus. My Great Master
Whom I Never Met’ was delivered by Julio Boltvinik.
3. The Friedrich Engels Memorial Lecture on ‘The Origins
of Marxist Oriental Studies in the USSR and Its Stalinist
Distortion’ was delivered by Craig Brandist.
4. The D.D. Kosambi Memorial Lecture on ‘A Short History of
Black Marxism in the USA’ was delivered by Kipton E Jensen.
5. The Maurice Dobb Memorial Lecture on ‘The Untimely
Marx: Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and the Political
Dimension of Critical Economics’ was delivered by Riccardo
Bellofiore.
6. The Pablo Neruda Memorial Lecture on ‘Guevara and Marx:
Critical Remake of an Old Film’ was delivered by Roberto
Massari.
7. The Antonio Gramsci Memorial Lecture on ‘From Hegemony
to Full Control: Which Kind of Elite, If Any, is Necessary for
the Masters of the Universe? Reading Antonio Gramsci about
the Role of Intelligentsia, Yesterday and Tomorrow’ was
delivered by Giulietto Chiesa.
8. The Nikolay Bukharin Memorial Lecture on ‘Karl Marx and
the Opium War’ was delivered by Eugenio Lo Sardo.
9. The P.C. Joshi Memorial Lecture on ‘Marx or Utopia and
Ideology Against Wisdom’ was delivered by Jean-Joseph
Boillot.
Introduction
This publication on Marx is based on papers presented at

the International Conference entitled Karl Marx—Life, Ideas,
Influence: A Critical Examination on the Bicentenary, organized
during June 16-20, 2018 in Patna, under the aegis of the Asian
Development Research Institute (ADRI). Incidentally, this
is the second volume based on the conference papers. The
first volume, entitled Karl Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A
Critical Examination on the Bicentenary, published by Palgrave
Macmillan, has 16 essays in total and is edited by the Marcello
Musto, Babak Amini and Shaibal Gupta. The present volume
contains a set of 15 additional papers.
This Bicentennial Conference on Marx was a follow-up
to a conference on Marx, in a small sub-divisional town of
Begusarai in Bihar (India) in 1968 to celebrate his 150th birth
anniversary. The canvas of the Begusarai Conference was
limited to the theme entitled ‘Marx and India’. In contrast,
the canvas of the Patna Conference was much wider, both
geographically as well as thematically. The Patna Conference
was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Pijushendu Gupta and
Professor Radhakrishna Chowdhury, the duo who had
organized the Begusarai Conference. In the Patna Conference,
there were 38 dedicated lectures in memory of distinguished
philosophers, economists, academics and political figures
who had either influenced Marx or were influenced by him.
The scholars from all the continents had taken note of this
conference and shared it among their own circles. Such were
the reverberations of the Patna Conference that renowned
scholars of Marx, like Dr. Alessandra Mezzadri from SOAS

London, have noted its significance and the versatility of
the first volume which has now been widely accessed by
researchers all over the world. This year, 2020, marks the bi
centenary of Friedrich Engels, 150th birth anniversary of both
V.I. Lenin and David Borisovich Riazanov, the latter arguably
the greatest Marxist scholar of the twentieth century and the
founder and director of the Institute of Marx and Engels in
Lenin’s last years.
We are indeed in an era of Marxian renaissance. For
the global working class, it is time to recognize that it alone
holds the possibility of a civilized alternative to capitalism,
an inherently exploitative and iniquitous system. The neo
liberal finance capital, the driver of post-USSR globalization,
was violently shaken due to the ‘sub-prime mortgage crisis’
that erupted in 2008, and kept devastating the US economy
for at least three years. It pushed the US economy towards
a near-unmanageable recession and had a contagion effect
on the global capitalist order. This led Frédéric Lordon, a
distinguished Marxist to write an essay in October 2008 in Le
Monde diplomatique, captioned ‘The Day Wall Street Became
Socialist’. He termed such circumstances as a ‘financial gust’,
generating ‘a multiplication of comments on the moralization
of capitalism’, slapping an imperative for ‘regulation to
punish the culprits’. Lordon continued to write: “Some go
much further. Wall Street as we have known it will cease to
exist. So, Karl ‘Bernanke’ and Vladimir Ilich ‘Paulson’ are not
out of the woods. The red star cap fits them like suspenders
to a pig, but at least they understood that they had to keep it
screwed on the head all the time necessary, unlike the mad,
mad liberals who call ‘laissez-faire-les-insolites’ and the moral
of the purge.” Henry Paulson was then the chief of Goldman
Sachs that completely collapsed and Ben Bernanke, the US
Fed chief. The rest is history.
With all the major bourses of the world in tailspin in 2008,
even monetary economists, including those from the Chicago
School of Monetary Economics, built by the Nobel laureate
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Milton Friedman, looked up to Marx’s Capital. Bookstores

witnessed queues for the three volumes of Das Capital as never
before. They had to pay for unflinching faith in Keynesian,
neo-Keynesian, and neo-classical Keynesian economics.
Twelve years after the sub-prime crisis, now we are faced
with what Lordon coined as ‘Coronakratch’. Economic pain
is now excruciating the stock market in the US. The social
distancing has forced the closure of just about any business
where human beings congregate. The restaurant, live-
entertainment, tourist, and airline industries are being crushed.
Public and private mass-transit systems—many already
unprofitable—are facing budgetary crises. This scenario is
everywhere the world over. The economic ramifications of
the coronavirus are so visible on the healthcare system. But
it is only the beginning. Lockdowns are authoritarianism in
disguise.
Marx, as Anitra Nelson observed succinctly, was a
“nineteenth-century political intellectual”, unconstrained by
the disciplinary rigour or specialization insisted on by the late
twentieth-century academia. Marx’s writings can be studied
as sociology, philosophy, politics, economics, history, and even
as literature, though if studied from simply one perspective,
his work loses much of its richness and original message. An
interdisciplinary approach is especially pertinent to Marx’s
theory of money, which is definitely not just an economic
theory. Marx was a scholar and a revolutionary.”
The papers in this volume cover issues that are varied
and debatable. A comprehension of these papers would be
facilitated if their basic premises are noted before they are
read. To start with, Shannon Brincat in his Shapurji Saklatvala
Memorial Lecture, titled ‘Ancient Indian Dialectics and Marx’,
delivered at the conference, traces the origin of dialectical
reasoning in India—the cosmogonic speculations in the
Rig-Veda, Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, Mahabharata and
Ramayana. “The first forays into dialectics in India shared a
common social problem with other Axial civilizations: extreme
social disparities under hierarchical divisions, and a period of
profound technological, productive, and social growth,” he

stated.
Following the era of the Vedas (1500-800 BCE), the so-
called Classical or Brahminic period (800-200 BCE), Karl
Jasper’s Axial Age dialectical thought emerged in traditional
practices and beliefs, alongside the interpretation of the Vedas.
The Hindu, Buddhist, Jain and other schools of thought, the
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Renouncers followed, but all locked in deep disputes over
metaphysics. It was an inevitable consequence of religious and
social order, still in vogue in Indian social life. The trajectory of
growth across a range of civilizations, alongside a number of
ontological assumptions, is related to the concept of dialectics:
(i) the world, and everything in it, undergoes constant
change (the doctrine of flux); (ii) everything in the cosmos is
internally related (however close or distant that relation may
be), reflecting the idea of interconnection or interdependency,
otherwise known as the philosophy of internal relations) and
(iii) these processes of the internal relations between all things
are the forces for the change that one observes and experiences
as humans in the phenomenal world. He finds a fascinating
impact of this constancy of flux, desiring to better understand
our world through interdependency, internal relations,
and change. This indeed guides ‘humanity towards a more
emancipatory future’.
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namely, perception, inferential doubt, and empiricism within
a materialistic conception of the cosmos, rejecting the Vedas,
doctrines of Karma/Samsara, and the notion of the afterlife.”
He noted the persecution by the Brahminic orthodoxy,
but regrets ‘sadly we have lost much of their knowledge’.
The element of doubt or scepticism in dialectical thought
remained a key defence against the imposition or over-reach of
metaphysical dogma in sync with Marx’s dialectical method,
the very foundation of emancipatory politics today. Things
changed with the advent of the ‘Nyaya’ school of thought,
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with ‘four kinds of dialectical relations, the most unique of

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object and sense-organ)’.
The György Márkus Memorial Lecture on Marx’s Theory
of Prehistory by Julio Boltvinik is about Marx’s philosophical
anthropology (defined by Lukacs as ‘ontology of the social
being’), and his Paris Manuscripts of 1844, as systematized
and developed by Márkus of the Budapest School of Studies in
Marxism and Anthropology. Anthropology is strewn in Paris
Manuscripts (Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844),
German Ideology, Grundrisse and Capital. For Marx, “the Human
Essence is to be found in work, sociality, and consciousness,
and in universality which embraces these three moments and
expresses itself in each of them.” Human beings in Márkus
is a self-created community, a historical product through an
incessant process of change. Marx’s anthropological ontology
defines the human being as a social being, comprising
sociality, activity, historicity, genericity and the like. Márkus
concentrates on human essence, evolved naturally and
historically, developing new powers and needs through
changing strategies of socially organized work.
In Capital, Marx reproduces the Franklinian definition of
man: a ‘tool-making animal’, alongside alienation of ‘human
essence’, taken away from the proletariat. Márkus quotes
Marx: “…the society of this estranged man is the caricature
of a true community, of his true generic existence… a
consequence of the division of labour and the separation and
opposition between mental and physical labour… the true
essence” of man. This essence lies precisely in the presence
of this self-activity, whereby he creates and forms his own
subjectivity. The individual becomes a human individual
precisely because of active engagement, since he appropriates
some of the objectified results and achievements of previous
human progress. Ideologies creep in with “distorted-alienated
expressions of the separation and alienation of thought from
praxis”, manifest in the scientific and technology that excludes
the internal need for man, imposed by an external need. “The
working instruments created by the STR go beyond the limits

of mechanical machines and assume functions that convert
them, in principle, into autonomous production complexes”.
The reversal happens when man ceases to produce the things
that the same things can produce and devote himself to a
creative activity or human flourishing, “once the material
forms of human activity give it the character of an active
manifestation of itself, the external necessity, determined by
the need for subsistence, yields its place to the internal need
of man; in that moment, human activity becomes a human
need, which exists for itself and enriches man; then the abstract
contradictions between work and pleasure, between work
and free time, disappear: human activity is merged with life”.
Human prehistory, according to Marx, then comes to an end
and ‘History of mankind begins’.
The paper ‘The Origins of Marxist Oriental Studies in the
USSR and Its Stalinist Distortion’ by Craig Brandist endorses
Michael Kemper’s inference that post-colonialists, specifically
Foucauldian theorists, attempt to discredit Marxism as
an extreme form of ‘European Enlightenment thinking’,
consigning ‘Marxism to the dustbin of Eurocentrism for
forging a historical myth of post-colonialism’s own radical
origin.’ This is in the way of understanding Hegel’s writing
on India. Brandist relates the post-colonial intent to instances
of Eurocentrism and its ‘arrogant and arrogating narrative’
among some Marxists. Brandist is backed by Robert Young’s
perceptive study White Mythologies: Writing History and the
West (1990). Young’s strong disagreement with Althusser is
noted by Brandist who asserts that Marx’s early writings are
insufficiently understood. He points to their hyphenation
from ‘Hegelian prejudices about the orient’, despite revival
of the same in the recent works of some Marxists. The author
indicts the Stalin era for crushing of opposition currents that
“dramatically affected oriental studies. Centralization of the
Soviet state in order to compete militarily with hostile powers
also required the subordination of anti-colonial struggles
to the foreign policy interests of the USSR.” He states with
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profound agony: “Some of the most sophisticated, talented

and innovative thinkers in the field were fired, imprisoned or
even killed, while their places were often taken by opportunists
and sycophants who sought to shape the field into a dogmatic
sphere narrowly subservient to the requirements and doctrines
of the state. Statutory authority trumped scientific authority
in all questions, including which positions could legitimately
be regarded as Marxist”. Brandist imbibes strength from
the pioneering work of Aleksei Petrovich Barannikov (1890
1952). He states ‘the caste dynamics in the formation of Indian
national languages and literatures’ would not have generated
fresh interest in academia, endorsed by some other scholars.
Brandist refers to the Goan Buddhist Dharmanand
Kosambi, father of Damodar Kosambi, one of the founders of
Marxist studies in Indian history. The former had come in touch
with Fyodor Shcherbatskoy (aka Theodor Stcherbatskoy),
Leningrad-based Buddhologist, in Bombay in 1910, and
later came closer to him while teaching Pali at the short-
lived Institute of Buddhist Culture for a number of months.
Dharmanand Kosambi felt an urge to study Buddhism as
an atheistic, rationalist philosophy countering Brahminism.
Unlike the Bihari polymath Rahul Sankrityayan, who too was
converted to Buddhism, he kept himself at bay from dogmatic
perspectives of Indian Communists loyal to Stalinism.
“The black man was stolen from his native land, from his
wife and child, brought to these shores and made a slave. He
was chained, whipped and robbed by his ‘white superior’,
while the son of his ‘superior’ raped the black child before his
eyes,” writes Kipton E. Jensen in his paper ‘A Short History
of Black Marxism in the USA’. The paper provides for a broad
debate on the segregation into Black Marxism. The American
Left “relegated the struggle of Blacks to a subsidiary position
in the revolutionary movement”. Nikhil Pal Singh raps Marxist
tradition for failure to sympathize with the struggle against
racism in the history of capitalism, while Abigail Bakan’s
version of Marxism “circumvented, dismissed for its apparent
tendency to emphasize class relations and economic materiality
to the exclusion of other forms of oppression and other ways of

understanding domination”, Jensen cites. Marxian alienation
and oppression as ‘central to the reproduction of capitalist
exploitation’ is basic to go into the theme. Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor sticks to the primacy of class angle, arguing that, ‘gross
inequality’ is needed by capitalism for “various political,
social, and ideological tools to divide the majority”. The author
remembers Eugene Debs who read Das Kapital in an Illinois
jail during the Pullman Strike in 1895 and had contested for
the US President election five times. He is also famous for his
classic work, The Negro in Class Struggle (1903). Jensen draws
‘instructive parallels between Marx and Debs’.
The author maps 200 years of the ‘historical epicycle
of Black Marxism’ as ‘a singular signifier’ for the universal
struggle for freedom and equality in America, collinearly with
Angela Davis, once a leading functionary of the Communist
Party of USA. She “would have us construe slavery as the
most extreme form of un-freedom, the reality rather than
the metaphor, slave ownership rather than the ‘slavery of
wage labour’.” Given the concrete reality of ‘the most brutal
forms of unfreedom, enslavement’, she posits Black Marxism
in American historiography as “collective consciousness of
an oppressed people (that) entails an understanding of the
conditions of oppression and the possibility of abolishing
these conditions, the most extreme form of human alienation,”
through reduction of persons ‘to the status of property’.
Jensen imbibes the Damodar Kosambi model of
chronological order of successive developments in the
means and relations of production to scan the five periods of
slavery—1818, 1868, 1918, 1968, and 2018. The Atlantic slavery
is “the cornerstone of capitalist exploitation, appropriation,
and dispossession over centuries”. Approximately 12.5 million
enslaved Africans were transported to the Americas between
1500 and 1866; 10.7 million survived the dreaded ‘Middle
Passage’.
Hélène Fleury and Damien Ehrhardt in their paper ‘From
Early Marx to Véquaud’s Countercultural Indophilia: Similar
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Aesthetics Founded on Romanticism and Communitarian

Utopia’ substantiates a theoretical synergy between Marx’s
aesthetic mindset and Yves Véquaud’s counter culture.
Although Marx did not theorize aesthetics of his own, yet
aesthetic reflex is embossed in his ‘life-path, from poetry
to philosophy’. Véquaud’s essays on Mithila paintings are
seminal.
Following a hippie trail, during a two-year stay in Nepal,
India and Ceylon, beginning in 1969, Véquaud first saw the
Mithila paintings that inspired him to make several travels to
Mithila and meet many rural painters. This led him to discover
‘a canonical form of the counter-culture’: the back-to-the
land-movement in communitarian utopias within the Maithil
village. Icons in his frame of utopian counter-society were
prophetic figures of legend, between holiness and genius.
Their success involves both the personalization of means as
well as the depersonalization of the ends of the success, namely
the creation of objects crystallizing values recognized beyond
the author (Véquaud). It was traditionally reserved for heroes
and saints. This literary fantasy bears witness to a picturesque
vision of India within an orientalizing episteme. The Maithil
Republic, praised by him, was of Arts, through a pastoral
myth and art religion, prevalent during the first Romanticism.
The revolutionary spirit no longer resided in the proletariat,
but in some ‘new working class’, the young intelligentsia and
the social or gender fringe groups. He made a neo-tantric
interpretation of Mithila paintings too in line with the hippie
craze for oriental esotericism.
Véquaud studied in depth Marx’s early writings and
Freud’s psychoanalysis. Scanning existentialism, feminism,
and anti-colonialism, he wrote ‘a radical critique of alienation
felt by individuals in everyday life, recreation and family, but
also a fulfilment of human’s essence to be most in conformity
with nature’. This critical approach is a step towards ‘a
transformation in cultural realms’ ‘through oppositional
subcultures preceding social and political changes. Alternative
lifestyles aim at redistributing leadership’. Fleury and Ehrhardt
are of the view that the ‘Marxian vision of art differs greatly
from socialist realism and even from the neo- (if not post-)
Marxist philosophy of critical theorists like Adorno and the
Frankfurt School.
Kumari Sunitha V. in her paper, ‘Sartre and Alienation:
A Marxian Perspective’ posits Jean Paul Sartre’s ideation
of alienation in the French philosopher’s basic frame
of existentialism and the latter’s postulates. Sartre
“addresses the fundamental problems of human existence:
death, nothingness, freedom, bad-faith, anxiety, political
commitment, the meaning of existence itself.” He remains an
‘existentialist in his Marxist phase and during his final overtly
anarchist phase’. The paper sequentially summarizes Sartre’s
Being and Nothingness, segregates existence from essence
(despite a gap in his definition of existence), that of freedom
from necessity and separation of subject from object that form
the crux of Nothingness in Existentialist philosophy. ‘Man is
the being through whom nothingness comes to the world’.
For Sartre, the origin of nothingness makes a man a
non-being. Destruction, a form of change in consciousness
is, for Sartre, a purely human act, since for destruction to
exist there must be ‘first a relation of man to being—that is,
a transcendence, and within the limits of this relation, it is
necessary that man apprehends one being as destructible’.
The act of questioning or interrogation is performed by
dissociation of man from the causal series of being or the causal
order of the world. This is affected by nihilating withdrawal,
Sunitha infers. For Sartre, freedom is inseparable from man,
there being no difference between the being of man and his
being free which the author thinks ‘an exaggerated view of
human freedom’. One finds a combinatorial commutation in
the Existentialist guru’s words “there is no determinism; we
are free, we are condemned to be free”.
She interprets the Marxian concept of alienation as
something where “everything seems to happen as if men
experienced their alienation and their reification first in their
own work, where in actuality each one lives first as a child,
,QWURGXFWLRQв19
in his parents’ work”, while he thinks ‘people continue to

live this alienation, products of their parents’ design; they are
never fully able to overcome this early distortion of character’.
That is Sartre’s problematic in this content, she stresses. To
Marx, under capitalism, alienation of labour’s product is only
expressed by the alienation in the activity of labour itself; but
Sartre’s position is distinctively different. He stated, “I don’t
believe that the relations production is the primary one…
There are neighbourhoods of workers who have settled in
the cities… What unites them more profoundly beyond the
mode of production is that they are human beings.” There lies
Sartre’s inconsistency. He ignores the exploitative content in
human alienation. Framed in a perspective of conflict, Sartre’s
descriptions of human relations are a perverse form of human
alienation, completely different from Marxian alienation
whose essence is ‘wage slavery’.
Riccardo Bellofiore’s paper ‘The Untimely Marx: Marx’s
Critique of Political Economy and the Political Dimension
of Critical Economics’ is an illuminating discourse of
‘Capital: A Critique of Political Economy—A Methodological
Elaboration’. ‘Critique, contrary to criticism, recognizes the
inner truth of political economy; it does not merely criticize
its shortcomings.’ Pointing at the dichotomy into classical
and vulgar (vulgar economists’ focus on circulation, without
referring circulation back to production), he emphasizes the
hiatus between fetish-character and fetishism, the role of
dialectics, and the difference between reading, interpreting
and reconstructing. He also discusses “multiple meanings
of abstract labour and socialization, the role of money as
a commodity for the labour theory of value, the ‘method of
comparison’ in grounding valorization (the emergence of
gross profits) as the constitution of capital from class struggle
in production, the real subsumption of labour to capital.”
Being unfinished, the magnum opus needs a critical appraisal.
Marx’s original approach was towards “the logic of
capital in two distinct and successive moments. The first
step was the inquiry about capital in general (all that it is
common to capitals); the second step was the inquiry about

the many capitals (competition among capitals). The second
step should have been dealt with only after he had completed
the first. To understand why, let us ask: what is ‘competition’
for Marx? Competition has two meanings for Marx, and these
two meanings are not well understood by interpreters, or are
conflated,” Bellofiore states convincingly.
Marx highlighted the ‘macro-social (class and monetary)
foundation of the capitalist process as the pumping out of new
value from the working class (and thus of the extraction of
surplus value) by total capital’. Starting off with money and the
commodity, he moved to capital, single capitalist as average
representative of total capital labour market and relations
between labour and capital - working class, Bellofiore asserts,
being “tied to capital as a whole by a relation of slavery: the
free and equal bargaining of the individual worker was just a
necessary ‘objective illusion’.”
During Marx’s bicentenary, Bellofiore drew a sort of
balance sheet and thought it untimely due to ‘the fall of the
Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR’ to talk about a crisis
of Marxism. Keeping in mind his practical materialism, the
author is of the view that Marx is an instance where “the
failure(s) of his project of ‘liberation’ and ‘exit’ from the capital
relation puts in question his oeuvre”, although Marxism is not
in a crisis at all.
Roberto Massari’s ‘Guevara and Marx: Critical Remake of
an Old Film’ is a long epistemological journey into an almost
unknown theoretical area. He chanced upon the original
copy of Che’s Bolivian diary at the Banco Central de Bolivia
basement in La Paz in 1996 when the Bolivian government
had given him and his associates free access to the A-73
safe-deposit box, of which five pages contained a list of 109
book titles (15 of which marked with a red cross), divided by
months (November 1966 - September 1967), giving an idea of
his academic yearning. They came across the original copy in
Spanish of Pombo’s diary, believed to have disappeared after
its translation into English and the red loose-leaf notebook
,QWURGXFWLRQв21
with the diary pages from November 7 to December 31,

1966, as also the German leatherette agenda with the diary
pages from January 1 to October 7, 1967. The list of books
reflects Guevara’s quest—from Marx to Mao, Engels to Liu
Shaoqi,Lenin to Trotsky and Stalin to Milovan Djilas, as also
Benedict Croce, C. Wright Mills, etc. Che had no pretension
and he had admitted, “he had twice tried to deepen his
understanding of the philosophy of ‘maestro Hegel’, always
ending up defeated but with the conviction of having to start
philosophical studies from scratch”. Massari notes, he was
a Marxist, interested in Marxology, and ‘a great devourer of
books throughout his life’.
Absence of serious Marxist material in Cuba, Che felt,
made room for “the Soviet bricks that have the disadvantage
of not letting you think, because the party has done it for
you and you have to digest”. The erstwhile USSR was then
helping Cuba financially. Guevara criticized “seguidismo
ideológico” (ideological tailism/khvostism) towards Soviet
and French authors, when the CP of France (PCF) was under
the ideological supervision of Roger Garaudy. He proposed
that works by Marx, Engels, Kautsky, Hilferding, Luxemburg,
Lenin, Stalin and many contemporary Marxists who are not
totally scholastic be published.
He read widely, from Franz Mehring’s biography of Marx
to Jewish Italian Marxist Rodolfo Mondolfo, who emigrated
to Argentina in 1939, alongside texts of the ‘Young Marx’ era,
and Engels’ Anti-Duhring. He had learnt from leprologist
Doctor Hugo Pesce (‘who will provoke, perhaps unknowingly,
a major change in my attitude towards life and society’),
Trotskyist friend Armando Hart (whom he addressed as
‘tu amigo Trotsky’ or your friend Trotsky) and notably his
first wife and mother of Hildita who was ‘Professor’ of
Marxism to Che. She had a degree in economics and an
anti-orthodox Marxist training with roots in Apra (or more
genuinely Latin American) and not Sovietic (Stalinist and
dogmatic). Guevarian Marxism, as Michael Löwy wrote, was
revolutionary humanism in contrast to rigidly anti-humanist
positions of Althusser. He was more inclined to Lenin than

Marx. However, the names of Marx, Lenin or other famous
Marxists are totally absent in his famous Bolivian Diary, but
Trotsky is the exception.
The controversial—if not disputatious—relationship
between Marxists (including Marxian scholars who neither
support official Marxist parties, nor agree to be branded as
Marxists) and feminists is an engaging theme.
Edoardo Schinco’s paper ‘Historical Process and Gender
Essentialism from a Dialectical Point of View: A Contribution
to a Marxian Feminist Theory’, presents a kaleidoscope of
controversies around liberal equality, implying an equal
treatment for all, irrespective of sex or gender and not formal
equality of opportunity deriving from individuals’ negative
rights. Reframing of the concept of equality is due to feminists
and also categorization of ‘sexual difference’ to reverse the
discriminatory use of sex towards a broader concept of justice
and negation of conservatives who adhere to the hangover
of women’s submission to men, on the plea of biological
differences. ‘The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
the State’ by Engels was a distinctive break in this context.
In the Paris Manuscripts of 1844, Marx pointed out ‘how the
eternal economic laws described by liberal thinkers were
rather contingent laws, dependent on capitalism itself.’
Marx, Schinco stresses, was not aware of his gradual
convergence with Hegel’s point of view, specifically
Left Hegelians’ interpretation of Hegelian thought sans
theorization of a totalitarian philosophical system that
ended up in oppressive universality. “Hegel attempted to
bridge the gap between transcendence and immanence by
assuming universality…”. The author endorses the third
wave of feminism of Michel Foucault’s that inspired Western
feminism in defining the concept of sexuality and his anti-
universalist philosophical perspective alongside Judith
Butler’s philosophical framework. Foucault reduces ‘every
transcendence to an absolute immanence, instead. One of the
most common risks of this position is the implicit relativism’.
,QWURGXFWLRQв23
Foucault’s thought helped deepening of the critical analysis

of universalism as a form of hidden cultural hegemony
in contemporary feminism ‘a sort of Trojan horse against
subaltern cultures’. Schinco also praises Italian feminist Carla
Lonzi’s The Manifesto of the Feminine Revolt (1970) or Let’s Spit
on Hegel (1974) for demolishing male culture and fundamental
principles of patriarchy. Capitalism inherited oppression of
women rather than produced it alongside the rise of private
property to engender an imbalance between the sexes as
each man’s need for power over each woman. The paper
tangentially touches upon Post-Structuralism, Feminism
and transgender people whose gender identity from the
sex assigned at birth is recognized very lately, despite their
existence before the last century. Schinco suggests “dialectic
essentialism” for understanding the essence as a historically
dynamic universality in tackling discriminations into latest
feminist and trans issues.
Chirashree Das Gupta’s paper, ‘Revolution, Emancipation
and Social Reproduction’, is based on the Marxist-
Feminist conceptualization of social transformation. She
critically surveys the methods involved in the institutional
reorganization of reproduction in societies aiming at
revolutionary transformations, having summed up the three
attempted transformations—the Russian, Chinese and Cuban
Revolutions. She supposes ‘the growth of productive forces as
the focus of extensive transformation, rather than egalitarian
institutionalization of social reproduction, undermine
the material dialectics of revolutionary emancipation’.
Controversies about the content of socialism in the twentieth
century notwithstanding, the paper considers them as ‘all
pervasive’ as ‘the reorganization of social reproduction way
beyond the tenets of welfarism had been the greatest promise
of revolutionary emancipation from patriarchy and social
oppression’, namely, from the tyranny of family, private
property and the state; and the conscious political attempt
of collectivism rather than individualism forming the basis
of new ‘individualities’. “The sociological genealogy of the
attempts at ‘Marxist’ theorizing in the judgment(s) of socialist

attempts at social transformation has implications of the
level of abstraction as to whether it helps one understand
the processes of social transformation towards the creation
of an emancipatory society breaking free of alienation.” The
hyphenation from the class basis of production relations, Das
Gupta asserts, went along transformation of the domain of state-
society relationships under the nation-state aberration during
the Stalin era, new standards in food, healthcare, housing,
education and clothing and providing women visibility and
better remuneration as workers notwithstanding. She refers to
ujamaa after independence in Tanzania, where women joined
the paid labour force in agriculture through the process of
villagization, although 70 per cent were in private hands. “The
abstract conceptualization of conflict, contest and the dialectics
of transformation limited to the sphere of production” were
conflictual with Marx’s and earlier Marxist understanding of
the institutional unit(s) of organization of society.
Archana Aggarwal’s paper ‘Manufacturing Profits:
Modes of Surplus Extraction at the Lower End of Global
Value Chains (GVCs)’ is an empirical study on the low value
adding enterprises which are one of the facets of globalized
production and a new form of international division of
labour. Such enterprises proliferated in Delhi and adjoining
areas in the post-reform (1991) years, including parts of Uttar
Pradesh (general manufacturing), Haryana (automobile,
electronics, and textiles) and Rajasthan (marble, leather, and
textiles). Basically, there are two chains—producer-driven
(automobiles) and buyer-driven (apparel and consumer
electronics). The high rates of profits are generated through
cheap labour, aside from ensuring competitiveness. These
GVCs have made India a global “hub for the automobile
supply chain, as well as ‘manufacturer’ of readymade
garments and also consumer electronic goods for global
‘buyers’.” The paper scans the mechanisms employed by firms
located in the automobile, apparel and consumer electronics
and how they extract surplus and profits, primarily based on
,QWURGXFWLRQв25
interviews with workers employed in some of these firms, a

high percentage of them being contractual labour. She looks
through the Marxian lens to understand the modes of surplus
extraction. “An overwhelming use of non-regular workers,
long hours of work, overtime, reduced breaks, wages lower
than the value of labour power, increasing the productivity
of labour without accompanying wage increases in the same
proportion and intensification of work are common across all
sectors and industries in the area under study.”
Giulietto Chiesa’s paper, ‘From Hegemony to Full
Control—Which Kind of Elite, If Any, Is Necessary for The
Masters of The Universe? Reading Antonio Gramsci about the
Role of Intelligentsia, Yesterday and Tomorrow’, looks into
the potential of the Marxian method as a useful tool for the
construction of a new theory to confront the current complexity
of capitalism with features profoundly different from its
early phases, when the monstrosity inseparable from wanton
destruction of the earth’s limited resources was not there and
nor was there the ‘inhuman technological acceleration’, both
financial and global. Marx, he thinks, “could not foresee the
effects that capitalist production, by revolutionizing itself,
could have produced, both on the evolution of the species
and on the relationship between the organic and inorganic
world”. The capitalism underwent a technological revolution,
throwing off its original features with ‘money map of
abstract corporate finance, designed by the ‘banking system’
that compels the ‘state’ to condescend and surrender, with
corruption sans checks, served by an ‘army of its exegetes
(the economists), its soldiers (mainstream media) and its
policemen (the secret services)’. The transformation and
accumulation are based on ‘production of money by means of
money’ or ‘producing money from nothing’, burying the cycle
‘commodity-money-commodity’. The explicit crisis of liberal
democracy is nakedly reflected in Europe with the institutions
of liberal democracy losing control over the dynamics of
money. All this strengthens ‘the abstract corporate finance, in
an obscure and unpredictable way’, demolishing the Western
collective structurally. The task, he strongly believes, is return

to the trajectory of revolution which is to overturn the ‘money
map’ that enslaves “the whole of mankind and forces mankind
and nature into a deadly zero-sum game. We need a conscious
movement of peoples, of human masses, able to understand
the collective necessity of a struggle for survival”. For Gramsci
or Marx, it was not possible to imagine that one day someone
could accumulate huge amounts of data (metadata), not to
speak of predicting from such data “reactions and preferences
of millions or billions of individuals; or to anticipate their
desires, their fears, their elementary urges—statistically,
through digital algorithms.”
Eugenio Lo Sardo’s essay ‘Karl Marx and the Opium
War’ revives the debate about Marx’s writings on the opium
wars, particularly the Second Opium War (1856-1860),
waged by Britain and France. For historians studying the
colonial era, the two opium wars over questions of trade,
diplomacy, national dignity and, last but not the least, drug
trafficking, drowned the ‘Middle Kingdom’ into the ‘Century
of Humiliation,’ forcing the weak Chinese governments to
cede territory and sign unequal treaties. Now the conflict is
termed as deeply counterintuitive. Although Marx scripted
‘a perfect description of the opium trade’, which tied Indians
and Chinese to a mortal knot, these essays are pickings from
numerous articles, published in the 1HZ <RUN 7ULEXQH. They
were, Marx himself admitted, essentially journalistic, and
they needed extensive follow-up. But that did not happen.
The author recalls relevant quotes from Marx on how the
colonial rulers compelled Indian ryots ‘to engage in the
poppy culture’, enticing them with ‘money advances’. He
adds, “The Government runs everything” and quotes Marx.
“It keeps the wholesale manufacture of the deleterious drug
a close monopoly in its hands; watches by a whole army of
official spies its growth, its delivery at appointed places, its
inspissation and preparation for the taste of the Chinese
consumers, its formation into packages especially adapted
to the conveniency of smuggling, and finally its conveyance
,QWURGXFWLRQв27
to Calcutta.” All this was to generate fabulous profits. ‘Every

chest costed about 250 rupees and was sold at the Calcutta
auction at a price ranging from 1,210 to 1,600 rupees’, from
there passed on officially to ‘the speculators thence to pass
into the hands’ of the smugglers who land it in China’.
The author elucidates the British motive of opium trade,
referring to Das Kapital: England “sends silver to India,
and buys opium …all of which goes to China to lay down
funds to purchase the silk”. China, Eugenio Lo Sardo notes,
disinterested in ‘English merchandises, it was a market
closed to them. The Chinese had always produced all they
wanted. They were in credit, a huge credit towards the more
industrialized countries!’
Reference to the French historian Fernand Braudel, author
of La Méditerranée and Ecrits sur l’histoire, is important for
academics in further understanding of Opium Wars to fathom
into Braudel’s reflections on the intellectual framework of his
historical studies to penetrate beneath the surface of political
events as also cycles of production, wages and prices, grids of
communication and trade, etc.
For Jean-Joseph Boillot, the Marxist system has in-built
‘theoretical weaknesses’ in its ‘quick evolution into ideology’,
and its orthodoxy (implying applied Marxism of the twentieth
century) has turned it into a religion, further into an ‘utopian
project’, instead of ‘rational thought and political project’
that Marx envisioned. He thinks a ‘dispassionate critique of
Marxist thought and its utopia is overdue in quest of ‘more
humane economies, more just societies and better harmony
among humans and with nature’. His paper, ‘Marx or Utopia
and Ideology Against Wisdom’, trichotomizes Marx into
the philosophical Marx, the political Marx and finally the
economist Marx. He endorses four theses, following Erik
Olin Wright’s ‘Envisioning Real Utopias’. They are: (a) long-
term unsustainability of capitalism under the effect of its own
internal contradictions and law of falling rate of profit, (b) anti
capitalist class struggle together with global proletarianization
of the entire world population and polarization into two
blocks of a wealthy elite and others, leading to ‘communist

revolutions’ as Lenin visualized in some parts of the world,
despite failures in countries like India, ‘the most exploited
colony’, (c) collapse of capitalism through its overthrow by the
oppressed classes including the proletariat and its communist
vanguard party, where capitalism dominates largely within
the framework of the parliamentary system, and (d) transition
into the ‘socialist system’.
The essay is very briefly a descriptive rather than
academic survey of alternatives covering the Mao and post-
Mao periods of China, Nehruvian period of India (inclined to
Soviet macro-economic planning) and the drift to very short-
term meanderings during the premiership of Indira Gandhi,
recalling the prognostics of ‘totalitarian drifts’ (Orwell).
Marxism, like all ‘isms,’ has ‘costs probably greater than their
benefits’, he infers.
C. Saratchand’s paper, ‘Exploitation and Oppression
under Bourgeoisdom’, examines the relationship between
exploitation and oppression, focusing on the role of caste,
gender, race, communalism, etc. in the frame of monopolization
(leaning on centralization and concentration of capital) and
proliferation of the bourgeoisie. By proliferation, he means
a process of participation of ‘new entrants make it into the
ranks of the bourgeoisie’. He thinks gender, race, caste and
communalism cause unequal rates of exploitation, and there
exists ‘a whole host of social practices that reproduce the social
differences between the two or more types of workers’. He
identifies ‘interiorization’ of race (or any other type of social
oppression) in the class struggle.
For him, Stalin’s theory of heterogeneity amongst the
proletariat into three strata, pitting ‘pure-blooded’ proletarians
against the other two, is very relevant in understanding the
class struggle. In contrast, he puts Marx into an interrogation
box. “Some writings of Marx may be construed to imply that
there is a tendency towards the creation of a homogeneous
proletariat”, he claims, citing that the rate of surplus value
was equal in each branch of production in Marx.
,QWURGXFWLRQв29
However, his claim that the term ‘bourgeoisdom’ was

introduced in Vol. I of Capital (f.n 22) is not factual.The
word in the original text is ‘Bürgertum’. Marx wrote in Das
Kapital: “In ihrer mystifizierten Form ward die Dialektik
deutsche Mode, weil sie das Bestehende zu verklären schien.
In ihrer rationellen Gestalt ist sie dem Bürgertum und seinen
doktrinären Wortführern ein Ärgernis und ein Greuel, weil
sie in dem positiven Verständnis des Bestehenden zugleich
auch das Verständnis seiner Negation, seines notwendigen
Untergangs einschließt, jede gewordne Form im Flusse der
Bewegung, also auch nach ihrer vergänglichen Seite auffaßt,
sich durch nichts imponieren läßt, ihrem Wesen nach kritisch
und revolutionär ist.” (Das Kapital, Band I, Hamburg 1872,
Nachwort zur zweiten Auflage’). The English translation is:
‘‘In its mystified form the dialectic became German fashion
because it seemed to transfigure the existing. In its rational
form, it is a nuisance and an abomination to the bourgeoisie
and its doctrinaire spokesmen, because it includes in its
comprehension and affirmative recognition of the existing
state of things, at the same time also, the recognition of the
negation of that state, of its inevitable breaking up; because
it regards every historically developed social form as in fluid
movement, and therefore takes into account its transient
nature not less than its momentary existence; because it lets
nothing impose upon it, and is in its essence critical and
revolutionary.’ Capital, Volume I Hamburg 1872, Afterword
to the second edition.Thus, Marx’s ‘Bürgertum’ should not be
termed ‘Bourgeoisdom’.
Sankar Ray
Shaibal Gupta
1
Ancient Indian Dialectics and Marx

Shannon Brincat
Introduction
India is the birthplace of dialectical thinking in our world—
or it is the first written record of such a form of philosophical
and critical thinking. My research has been concerned with
tracing how dialectical thinking developed in the Axial Age,
across a range of civilisations. In this paper, I highlight some
of the key aspects of dialectics in Ancient Indian thought—
elements that I believe need to be reclaimed in contemporary
critical theory to revitalise dialectical thinking today. There
are a number of ontological assumptions that inform my
conception of dialectics: (i) that the world, and everything
in it, undergoes constant change (the doctrine of flux); (ii)
that everything in the cosmos is internally related (however
closely or distant that relation may be) (which is the idea of
interconnection or interdependency, otherwise known as the
philosophy of internal relations), and; (iii) that these processes
of the internal relations between all things are the forces for
the change that we observe and experience as humans in
the phenomenal world. Humankind has been fascinated
with this constancy of flux, desiring to better understand
this existential given of our word between interdependency,
internal relations, and change. Yet this has also been equally
concerned with a knowledge interest: to help direct ourselves,
to guide humanity toward a more emancipatory future. And
my firm belief is that the best way to understand our world—
and perhaps even guide this process of change toward desired

ends—is through dialectical analysis. It is not only the best
approach for grasping transformation and change, it is the
only one that takes this ontology as the basis of its method.
This is why dialectics was so fundamental to Marx’s thought,
and why I think it must remain so for any self-professed
critical theory of society today.
We can examine dialectics in any number of ways. Firstly,
we could focus on the way it has been defined or how it
has been conceived by individual thinkers. This this would
mean particular forms of dialectics would then stand in for
the whole (i.e. the Hegelian system). Whilst there is much to
say about how such towering figures advanced dialectical
thinking in some of the most important and profound ways,
they do not cover all of its aspects nor are they without
their significant limitations (Hegelian objective idealism,
for example). Secondly, we could look at how a particular
school of dialectical thought deploys this form of analysis
(i.e. Dialectical Materialism, or Daoist Dialectics, and so on).
But this would only broaden the circle by degree—certain
forms necessarily excluded. The third option, and what I
have undertaken in my research, is to define dialectics by
its constitutive elements: its logical components (from non-
contradiction to context, from vantage point to syllogism and
many others); its methods (such as dialogue, and open-ended,
truth seeking inquiry); and its ontology (internal relations
and flux). It is from these expansively defined constitutive
elements that we can then examine how dialectics has been
composed and added to, expanded and contracted, in human
thought—whether of individual dialectics or dialectical
schools—over time. Using this constitutive method allows us
to do at least four things: to historically trace how dialectics has
emerged to what it is today; to compare the various forms of
dialectical thinking as against other dialectical forms, schools,
and individual thinkers; to evaluate different dialectical forms
by what they emphasise and what they leave out in their
dialectical analysis; and to a purposive reconstruction—one
$QFLHQW,QGLDQ'LDOHFWLFVDQG0DU[в33
that is more inclusionary of the many different strands of

dialectics and which can retrieve those aspects otherwise lost
or down-played. Taken together, this can help lead us toward
a more robust method of dialectics for thinking through
today’s problems.
We can identify dialectical thinking thousands of years
before it was understood by Hegel and mastered by Marx,
by tracing its origins outside of the Western philosophical
canon, and instead locating its emergence from the period
that Karl Jaspers named the Axial Age (so from around 800
BCE to around 300 or 200 BCE). This historical narrative
identifies a number of civilisations that begin to pivot (hence
the name)—as if on an axis—away from long accepted myths
and localised knowledge towards thoughts of transcendence.
Transcendence, here, is not in the Kantian sense but rather a
shift toward second-order thinking, largely beginning with
movements in thought to speculation about the cosmos and
our relation to it, rather than acceptance of myth or deity. It
is in this moment of the so-called ‘Great Transformation’ that
dialectical thinking emerges, and in ways that reveal it to
be seemingly global (though not universal) in its formation.
That is, dialectics emerges across a variety of cultures whose
contact was minimal though by no means independent of each
other.1 And from here we can observe the remarkable shared
characteristics across the Vedic, Buddhist, Daoist, Greek,
Jewish, Persian, and on into Islamic and Scholastic dialectical
systems. This begins within the Axial period, as Jaspers wrote:
“What is new about this age...is that man becomes
conscious of Being as a whole, of himself and his limitations.
He experiences the terror of the world and his own
powerlessness. He asks radical questions. Face to face with the
void he strives for liberation and redemption. By consciously
recognising his limits he sets himself the highest goals.”2
By approaching this era via the historical record provided
in philosophical texts, we can begin to move beyond the usual
tropes that dismiss these dialectical systems under gross
misunderstandings: that Indian dialectics remains magical (or
lost to the domination of the Brahmins); that Budhist dialectics

remains mystical (concerned with release of the soul and not
release on earth); or that Daoism remains strictly authoritarian
(via its veneration of monarchy rather than balance). There
is ample evidence of such readings, to be sure. But they do
not cover everything, nor does their presence taint everything
else so that these systems must be dismissed in their totality.
Rather, it is more productive for us to reconstruct these
dialectical systems in order to find what we can use of them
today: to retrieve from them old or lost ways of thought that
can help us to analyse and understand social life today…
So What is Dialectics?
Dialectics means many things, to many different people. But
consistent across most of its forms are three elements: an
ontology of flux and relations, methods of dialogue and logic,
and a purpose (or knowledge-interest) in the possibility of
consciously directing change. Dialectics is not a theory and
does not do anything: instead, I think it is best conceived as
a way of thinking—an ‘approach’ to thought itself—that
helps one to bring into view the relations between things and
the possibilities for change within this expansive context of
interactions. This is its unique feature and the reasons for its
utility for research and critical thought.
The ontology of flux is relatively uncontroversial as nearly
everyone would agree that change is constantly taking place
in some form—‘one can never step into same river twice’ as
the old saying of Heraclitus reminds us. The unique aspect
of dialectics here is that the emphasis on flux forces analysis
to include how things happen as part of what a thing or
phenomena is. It is not a simple cause/effect model other
surfaced notion of causation but a historical and relational
notion of change. It replaces the idea of a thing or phenomena
as separate and static, with “process”—process contains the
things history and its possible futures as the thing in-itself.
Hence Marx saw the historical relation of capitalism as the
conditions of emergence for communism. The key aspect of
dialectics is that it places reality as flux at the forefront of its

analysis.
The methods of dialogue are also relatively straight
forward. For example, some of the first forms of dialectical
thinking in Ancient India adopted a question/answer method
between various ascetics, the so-called YăGDYLWDQGă approach.
In the Western canon this method is best known through
Plato’s dialogues that involve the method of Elenchus (how
two or more people engage in a debate over a specific problem
until they reach a point of contradiction and attempt to work
through it to resolution or exhaustion). Sometimes these
dialogical forms become so sophisticated that they develop
into fully articulated or formalised systems of logic: and we
can observe these in Ancient India through Nyaya logic, and
also in the Gelugpa Budhist tradition (that continues today
in Tibet), or even the closed logic of the Christian Scholastics.
It was this openness to critique that typified the Axial period
in the Upper Ganges where the many different orthodox and
heterodox schools competed and integrated many ideas and
concepts throughout this formative period.
Yet if there is one key part of dialectics that I would
emphasise—and one that has also been consistently affirmed
by Professor Bertell Ollman, the leading figure in Marxist-
dialectics as well—it is the philosophy of internal relations.
This could be otherwise labelled the study of the ‘relations
inside the whole’ because ‘internal’ may wrongly imply we
are looking at the individual make-up of a particular thing/
object, when we are in fact concerned with the whole in
which it relates.The philosophy of internal relations treats the
relations in which anything stands as essential parts of what
that thing is: the parts of the whole are not separated from
each other but are inherently related. Changing one part of
one thing, changes all the other individual units and the whole
as well. As such, the assumed identity of one thing, abstracted
and separated from all others, is not really the thing in-itself
but is mere appearance: one-sided, and ultimately false. And
this is really the revolutionary aspect of dialectical thinking
because it overturns the commonsensical and superficial view

that makes things/objects appear static and independent of
one another, leading to a distorted and incomplete picture
because these relations are abstracted away. Instead, dialectics
looks at how a certain thing or phenomena has become what
it is, and, the broad set of relations (its interactive context) in
which it is located. The philosophy of internal relations goes
to the history of the thing and its possible futures in relation
to all other things. So whereas non-dialectical thinkers look for
external causal agents to explain change, dialectical thinkers
attribute the main responsibility for all change to the inner
contradictions of the system in which it occurs and which
form the possible tendencies—the horizon—of future change.
But these are tendencies only: dialectics is not a teleology
leading to prediction or some determined end.
Now, in West this philosophical tradition of internal
relations stretches from Parminides, through to Spinozza
and Hegel, to Marx and Dietzgen. But it has earlier and
non-Western counterparts that formed in ancient India.
)RU H[DPSOH %XGGKLVP·V QRWLRQ RI 3UDWĦW\DVDPXWSăGD
‘interdependent origination’ that draws attention to the
realisation that every thing and every event is the result of
previous things and events. Here, no thing or event is born of
itself—a thing is both ‘that which is put together’ and ‘that
which puts together’. We can think of later examples, outside
of India, such Daoism’s Ten Thousand Things (sometimes
translated as ‘myriad creatures’). This phrase expresses the
multiplicity of things in the phenomenal world (all things
under ‘sky and earth’), not only in their status as objects
(with internal yin/yang forces) but in their relations with
one another that produces the cosmic constancy of change. A
passage from the Zhuangzi states: “So we say: That is derived
from This, and This is also dependent upon That.”
It is this relationalism that, in turn, leads to the dialectical
notion of change symbolised as a spiral. So perhaps best
known is Engels account that, following Marx, says that
dialectics reveals that everything is made of the mutual
penetration of polar opposites (or contradiction), and the

negation of this relation leads to gradual change. He calls
this the ‘spiral form of development’—Or what Katie Brown
calls the ‘cycles of elevating proportion’. Change progresses
in a spiral-movement (i.e. it is not circular or necessarily
progressive).3 Nothing is lost in this process; new things arise
in their interconnection with others, and preserved in the
arms of the spiral. This spiral image does not make an implicit
judgement on whether change is progressive or regressive, it
is what is possible within given relations themselves.
Dialectical thinking is not particular or unique to any
civilisation but emerged across a range of civilisations during
the Axial Age, albeit in ways that differ in terms of emphasis
according to the social problems that this form of critical
thinking was directed (i.e. some who emphasise change/
flux, others on dialogue, and logic, others on relations). What
appears common to them all is the use of dialectics in terms of
exploring metaphysical questions. When myth and accepted
custom were questioned, it was dialectics—the method of
doubt—that was germane to open discussion on questions
that could not be proven or demonstrated.
The shift—the axis—in human consciousness that took
place in India, and elsewhere, involved three changes:
1. The movement from the mythos/mundane to the
transcendental or metaphysical;
2. The beginnings of a recognition of historical unity (or
what Jaspers calls ‘solidarity’);
3. And the realisation of ‘historical self-comprehension’,
the idea that humans could direct their own history
In this milieu, thinking was greatly advanced by taking a
dialectical approach: thinking became its own object; critical
thought was used to attempt to convince or persuade others
(and hence the importance of rational argumentation and
dialogue); the exploration of contradictions and opposites
that remained related to one another rather than considered
as binary or exclusive; and perhaps most importantly, the
questioning of all previously accepted ideas, customs, and

traditions. In this revolutionary period, according to Jaspers,
thinkers began to ask “radical questions”:
All this took place in reflection. Consciousness became once
more conscious of itself, thinking became its own object. Spiritual
conflicts arose, accompanied by attempts to convince others
through the communication of thoughts, reasons and experiences.
The most contradictory possibilities were essayed… opposites
which nonetheless remained related to one another, created unrest
and movement to the very brink of spiritual chaos…. As a result
of this process, hitherto unconsciously accepted ideas, customs
and conditions were subjected to examination, questioned and
liquidated. Everything was swept into the vortex.4
There were sociological and material conditions that provided
the context for this shift and which where shared across
all of these civilisation regions: the formation of small city-
states with independent (or sovereign) existence; reciprocal
intercourse of trade; massive improvements in agriculture;
and widespread urbanisation. The question of the degree of
inter-civilisational cross-fertilisation of ideas between these
civilisations, and especially dialectics as a method of thought,
can only be speculated on.
Jaspers gives an unfortunate religious and Eurocentric
interpretation to this process—how he “orders” history—
which we can readily dismiss. Rather, the most important
question when ordering this history is looking for the
“profound common element” to these Axial Age civilisations
which, I argue, lies in how each of these societies began to
think dialectically. Regardless of the degree of the interrelation
between these civilisational groups (something that only future
historical work will be able to uncover) all of these civilisations
developed sophisticated dialectical systems because of an
urgent imperative or knowledge interest to: think through
oppositions/contradictions as inherently related. Rather than
conceptualising beginning/end, dark/light and so on as
binary oppositions and separate, thinkers began to see them
as correlatives, that is, mutually implicated in the other. This
breakthrough allowed these societies to engage with new

transcendental and metaphysical questions in an open form,
that of rational dialogue between opposed ideas rather than
through force or authority—and this was especially true in
Ancient India through the orthodox dharsanas, the heterodox
schools, and the ascetics and Renouncers…). In the absence
of old accepted traditions of authority (like myths or tribal
kings), and in societies in which no class or sect dominated,
each had to settle their metaphysical conceptions through
critical thinking. In these conditions dialectics became a key
tool and weapon one wielded by a new intellectual elite: the
ascetics in India, wandering thinkers in China, philosophers
of Greece, prophets of Israel and so on.
Axial Age civilisations began to think dialectically because
they were confronted with similar social conditions such as
the massive transformation from agrarian into urban centers,
and faced similar metaphysical questions under the loss of
old sources of legitimacy or authority or tradition, such as the
post-Vedic system in Ancient India. We have vast amounts
of evidence in the philosophical texts that have survived to
us that reveal how dialectics was a unifying thought process
across the Axial Age civilisations. This literature documents
how the various movements and schools, or sometimes
even individual thinkers, began to think dialectically. And
underlying all these intellectual movements was a shared
goal of “mutual comprehension.” That is, even though they
were each “concerned about the same problems” they were
not bound by the same truth, which therefore required a
methodology to be able to assent to contending “propositions.”
Ancient Indian Dialectics
The first forays into dialectics in India shared a common
social problem with other Axial civilisation: extreme social
disparities under hierarchical divisions, and, a period of
profound technological, productive, and social growth. After
the composition of the Vedas (between 1500-800 BCE), India
in its so-called Classical or Brahmanic period (between 800
200 BCE)—a timeline that fits within Jasper’s Axial Age—was

a land of profound change. It was a time when traditional
practices, beliefs, and interpretation of the Vedas were
reassessed… Out of this milieu would come many schools
of thought—Hindu, Budhist, Jainist and other schools, the
KHWHURGR[DQGWKHRUWKRGR['DUŋDQDVLQGLYLGXDOP\VWLFVDQG
Renouncers—all locked in deep disputes over metaphysics
that was of fundamental consequence for religious and social
order as a whole. Indeed, these remain at the core of Indian
social-life today.
The East Ganges basin, east of modern-day Patna, was the
focus of this Axial revolution. The Brahmana of the Hundred
Paths (ŊDWDSDWKD %UăKPDQD) offers a reason for this site: that
the Gadank river had never been “burnt over” by Agni
(Vaisvanara), the messenger and fire god in Vedic thought.
It meant the Orthodox Brahmins of the Western Doab (those
from the so-called ‘land of the holy stages’) had not penetrated
beyond this point.5 In this place between a western orthodoxy
and an emerging heterogeneous, urban society in the east
provided the site for intense social and intellectual disputes
that would propel Indian’s Axial Age. What was unique
was not just the overall material development that I have
already highlighted (such as urbanisation, improvements in
agriculture, and small kingdoms) but the new intellectuals
and the awareness of change that led radical innovative
thinking. So from the worldview of Vedic ritualism gave
way to philosophical speculations on the relation between
immanence and transcendence.
The texts to which dialectical thinking would be first
applied in Ancient India are some of the earliest examples
of written philosophy: the Rigveda and on into the Ramayana
and Mahabharata. The Rigveda contains passages that trace
cosmogonic speculation, with its hymns on deities (especially
in Books 1-10) that examine the origins of the universe and
god,6 and its later interpretation offer early attempts to think
through the contradictions that arise when the mind speculates
on the nature of cosmic origins. As is well known, there were
numerous cosmogonies and no single or standard cosmogony

within Ancient India, or indeed contemporary Indian thought.
This hotbed of contested ideas of cosmological origins
provided highly fertile soil for the development of dialectical
thinking into the nature of the phenomenal and metaphysical.
Arguably, it is the 1ăVDGĦ\D 6ŗNWD (0:129-6), one of the
cosmogonic hymns, that expresses most clearly the type of
speculation that would propel dialectics forward. This hymn
it attempts to think through the seeming opposition of being/
non-being at the point of creation, that is, to think beyond the
impasse between the divine or autogeneration of the cosmic
idea. But it breaks off at the point of answering this: positing
that this may never be knowable. Even more important that
in its open skepticism, is how the texts raises ideas of other
worlds, dawns, and times—speculations that provided the
grounds for thinking through to the transcendent during the
Axial Age.
In turn the Bhagavad Gita, juxtaposed the polarities of good
and evil, creation and destruction, in both a metaphysical
and spiritual sense and for their profundity in thinking
through relations of opposites.7 More specifically, it is the
delusion of the binary opposition between good/bad that
is said to be one of the principle sources of error.8 One of
the first to instances of ‘both-and’ thinking operative in the
Bhagavad Gita in the dialogue between Arjuna and Krishna.
Arjuna is stuck within thinking in ‘either/or’ categories not
yet realizing that Krishna’s categories are not ‘either/or’ but
‘both-and’. The latter is a dialectical way of thinking in which
“opposites do not exclude each other but complement each
other.”9 This ‘both/and’ thinking was taken up in the Axial
Age, exemplified in the Isha Upanishad’s account of Brahma
as both nirguna Brahman (without qualities) and saguna
Brahma (with qualities). Yet, even today, many remain stuck
in their interpretation of the Bhagavad Gita at the point of
formal contradiction. As shown by Dorter, these apparent
contradictions disappear when they are seen as arguments
that are related dialectically rather than analytically. Rather
than being solved by conceptual distinction or terminological

clarification, it requires a change of perspective or context. For
example, Krishna’s statement that Brahman [as the ultimate
metaphysical reality] is ‘neither existent [sat] nor non-existent
[asat]’ (13.12) is meaningful only at the point where thought
pushes through the paradox of thinking existence/being
within a sensory or phenomenal frame: “If we understand
existence in terms of presence in space and time, and non
existence as absence from space and time, the source of space
and time itself can neither be said to exist or not exist.”10 The
text compels thought to move dialectically, to push through
to a mutual understanding of contradiction rather than
opposition.
So how was dialectics first defined in these debates from
Ancient India, and, how does this term translate across time to
us today? Matilal provides a range of answers to this question.
For him, the most relevant Sanskrit term seems to be YăGD
(or YăGDYLYăGD), defined as a bifurcating or divisive debate,11
and for this reason Matilal refers to dialectic as the Ancient
Indian ‘art of philosophical disputation’.12 He sets the scene
in post-Upanishad India (we can assume the period between
800-300 BCE) in which philosophy was, as he describes it,
“brisk, critical and controversial.” As he writes: “No subject
was considered too sacred for criticism and refutation.”
Here the Vedic cosmogony—the theory of the universe, both
the mundane and the transcendent, were radically disputed
amongst a plethora of schools and individuals. As such, one of
the unique features of Ancient Indian dialectics was its spirit of
knowledge-seeking. A passage from the Questions of Milinda
(0LOLQGDSDñho) captures this cooperative intention behind
dialectics eloquently: “When the scholars debate with one
another” [it says] “… there is summing up and unravelling,
there is also defeat, and yet the scholars do not get angry at
it.”13 Consequently, YăGDand YăGDYLWDQGă were upheld as most
productive because each involved “honest seekers after truth”
within a formal context of “honest and fair debate aimed at
the refutation only of the opponent’s thesis.”14
Dialectical thinking also held great practical utility. An

exemplar was use of dialectics in the law courts in Indian
society at the time. Solomon shows how legal disputes
involved dialectics both in the procedures of intellectual
debates, and, syllogistic statements of arguments.15 The
Manusmriti, a legal text on dharma that engages questions of
law, rights, and conduct, provides that in cases where “doubts
arises” regarding the interpretations of the dharmas, an
assembly of ten persons was required to deliberate the matter.
This assembly expressly includes a dialectician (alongside
Vedic scholars, a logician, and laypeople from different
groups i.e. a student, household member, and retiree).16 Such
a rigorous process, and the specific inclusion of a dialectician,
demonstrates the level of respect for dialectical thinkers
during the Axial period and their capacities for exploring
matters in doubt.
The other key aspect of dialectics was that it provided a
means for critical, dissenting positions to be expressed in a
medium accessible to others, whether orthodox or heterodox.
For example, one of the most significant challenges to
RUWKRGR[\ GXULQJ WKLV WLPH HPDQDWHG IURP WKH /RNă\DWD RU
ODWHU&ăUYăNDVFKRROIRXQGLQWKHIUDJPHQWVRIWKH%ăUKDVSDW\D
6ŗWUDV. This school insisted on perception, inferential doubt,
and empiricism within a materialistic conception of the
cosmos. This school rejected the Vedas, doctrines of Karma/
Samsara, and the notion of the afterlife. They were persecuted
by Brahmin and sadly we have lost much of their knowledge.
For them, insisting on sense-perception was a defence against
the deception and exploitation that could come about through
adherence to the Vedas. Importantly, their adherents were
usually labelled negativists (nastikah)17 because through
logical argumentation they would negate Brahma, the practice
of sacrifice, and the authority of the Vedas. As a famous story
goes, when the Brahmins defended animal sacrifices by
FODLPLQJWKHVDFULILFHGJRWRKHDYHQ&ăUYăNDPHPEHUVDVNHG
why the Brahmans did not then kill their aged parents to speed
them on their way to heaven also? The element of doubt or
scepticism deployed with dialectical thought remained a key

defence against the imposition or over-reach of metaphysical
dogma.
Turning to the importance of relationism within Ancient
Indian thought, the 9DLŋHQLND 6XWUD held that both the
phenomenal and the ‘supra-sensual’ worlds exist objectively
but that the latter could only be considered from a dualist
position, the former from a materialist one. This cosmology
FRQWULEXWHG WR D SURIRXQG VKLIW LQ WKLQNLQJ 7KH 9DLŋHQLND
theory of matter rendered the phenomenal world as consisting
of countless, eternal atoms (paramanu)—when these atoms
interacted generated the cause of all dynamism and movement
in the world. This inherence is the source of motion, cause, and
FKDQJH LQ WKH SKHQRPHQDO ZRUOG³JLYLQJ 9DLŋHQLND D PXFK
wider, relational account of prakriti and the patterns of change
they could observe in the natural world. Knowledge could
obtain a complete understanding of the world of experience,
thereby rendering liberation (or Moksha) in material rather
than only spiritual terms.18,QPDQ\UHVSHFWV1\ă\DGHYHORSV
WKLVDWRPLVWLFRQWRORJ\RI9DLŋHQLNDEXWDOVRPDGHLPSRUWDQW
contributions to epistemology and logic using dialectics.
1\ă\DUHFRJQLVHGLOOXVLRQDQGRWKHUIRUPVRIHUURULQWKRXJKW
were not absolute barriers to liberation but were either flawed,
incomplete, or absent cognition—they could be overcome
by ‘right reasoning’ that followed an appropriate Pramanas
(epistemology). Soul could be liberated or released (moksha or
samsara) through such correct knowledge. In order to ensure
DFFXUDWH NQRZOHGJH 1\ă\D V\VWHPDWLVHG WKRXJKW WR LQFOXGH
no less than sixteen principles—though I will focus only on
LWV XQLTXH V\OORJLVP RI ILYH SDUWV IRU ZKLFK 1\ă\D LV PRVW
commonly associated with dialectical logic.
This syllogistic method was not deployed for exploring
things either known (that could be demonstrated) or unknown
(that would require demonstration) but for those in dispute or
doubt. This is crucial because it was intended as the “science
of inference for the sake of others,” that is, areas of doubt
or where thought was in contestation and it focused on the
intersubjective nature of persuasion and the possible inferences

that interlocutor and audience may make. Two components
warrant special attention. The first was the denial of any
affirmative-negative dichotomy. Regarding dichotomies, the
Naiyayikas argued that the absence of something should be
regarded as another type of an (irreducible) attribute or quality
(akhanda) rather than a form of non-identity. For example,
‘this pot is blue’ can be known by perception, whereas to
know a negation, i.e. ‘this pot is not blue’ requires inference.
1\ă\D ORJLF LPSOLHV WKDW RXU SHUFHSWXDO DSSDUDWXV³DQG ,
would add memory of comparisons and forms of authority
to establish and confirm such knowledge—are sufficient to
give both affirmation and denial as assertions, especially in
obvious cases. So, for example, regarding the contradictory
statement ‘It is a blue pot’ and ‘The pot is not blue’ would
seem logically inconsistent—they cannot be both true at the
same time (‘A’ and ‘not A’). It may be inferred that ‘The pot
is not blue’ because of the positive fact that it is some colour
RWKHUWKDQEOXH+RZHYHUIRU1\ă\DORJLFLDQVLQVXFKDPRYH
the negative has not been eliminated from the facts but merely
“smuggled back into them in the (dis)guise of otherness or
difference.” That is, they do not readily infer that the non-
blue pot must be a colour other than blue, not because this
is not a valid inference but because it is not concerned with
this level of either/or negation. The fundamental importance
of this position is that it pushes thought to oppositional
correlatives rather than either/or determinations. For
example, when we refer to light/dark, it is their relation that
is necessarily implied as conjunction and opposition: without
the other, neither would have quality. This would then hold
true for all oppositions in which their qualitative dimension
is a gradation to be measured by ‘more’ or ‘less’ that exhausts
itself in the nuances of their detailed qualitative difference.
Nuance is a relational quality, not a separation of either/
or. Arguably, much of the limitations of the contemporary
‘politics of identity’ could be overcome by engaging with this
type of dialectical thinking.
The second component relates to the four kinds of

GLDOHFWLFDO UHODWLRQV WKDW 1\ă\D LGHQWLILHV HVSHFLDOO\ LWV PRVW
unique one, the svarupa relation, viŋHVDQDWă (the relation
between object and sense-organ, but also ontologically over
and above the object of awareness). The relation of svarupa/
viŋHVDQDWă refers to something related to something by a
relation to something else, a process of relation that could
seemingly be endless.19 This is best seen as a clear articulation
of the philosophy of internal relations—things are not merely
tied by secondary relations, these relations must be seen as
SDUW RI WKH WKLQJV LQ WKHPVHOYHV 1\ă\D WKXV SRVWXODWHG D
“peculiar” kind of relation, a svarupa relation, which is not to
be taken as different from its relata but somehow intrinsic to
WKH WKLQJ LWVHOI )RU 1\ă\D WKHUH LV QR a priori necessity for
the relation to be taken as different in all cases from its relata.
What this thinking pushes toward is an account of a peculiar
relation of a thing related to an other that must be seen as part
of the thing in-itself—a key theme later echoed and modified
by Hegel, Marx and Dietzgen. That is, whereas some would
separate these aspects as endless forms of relations, each
separate in their identity, and separate in the causal function,
svarupa refers to an existential quality ‘of/between’ that is a
constitutive attribute of its being.
A final example comes from the concept of $QHNăQWDYăGD—
the many sidedness of reality—a concept unique to the Jainist
School. In this line of thinking, substances undergo endless
change but what we humans perceive are merely single facets
of this process. Judgment is therefore conditional: it is true
only in the context where the object it refers to remains the
same. What is of importance is that Jainist thought detected
a powerful limitation to identitarian logic (well before
Adorno or other negative dialecticians) in that judgement
must remain humble, even sceptical, of its ability to know
the object. The complexity of reality cannot be expressed in a
single way because it has a multiplicity of aspects—and hence
Jainism erected a way of analysis to understand these various
dimensions of truth. To gain knowledge/experience from only
one naya (individual character) is, for a Jainist, to become like

one of the seven blind men who, each feeling separate parts of
an elephant, conclude the single part they hold represents the
elephant’s true form. To ensure we account for all these many
VLGHVWKHPHWKRGRIWKHVHYHQIROGSUHGLFDWLRQV6\ăGYăGD20
was deployed that when taken together form a system of
logic necessary and sufficient to exhaust the possibilities of
all NQRZOHGJH FODLPV 6R 6\ăG·³ORRVHO\ WUDQVODWHG DV ¶IURP
some viewpoint’ or ‘may be’—is affixed to every statement to
demonstrate its conditional or partial aspect and the logician
must go through all of them to show that they have taken in
all perspectives.
Conclusion
Having outlined just a few of the many ways that dialectics
was developed and used in Ancient India, it is important to
reflect on the knowledge interest that gave such an impetus to
dialectics. Dialectics was the tool and weapon used to bolster
any side of the disputed metaphysical claims regarding the
cosmogony of the post-Vedic world within Axial Age India.
Consequently, in many ways the dialectical forms of thought
that emerged in Ancient India were essentially parasitic on
the Vedic cosmology of which it was made to interrogate.
2UWKRGR[ DVFHWLFV DQG GDUŋDQDV rarely ventured outside
of this transcendent realm or even asked questions of the
PXQGDQH $VLGH IURP WKH &ăUYăND PDQ\ RI LWV SURSRQHQWV
were relatively concerned with using dialectics to explore
the material world. In many ways, this led to an ambiguous
and paradoxical outcome: dialectics was bound to a set of
metaphysical concerns that gave both its motivation to strive
into unknowns and yet stunted its wider development and
application. Dialectics performed an invaluable service for
metaphysical debates but the manner in which it was pressed
into service solely for these needs meant the subordination of
its wider critical functions and potential.
Ancient India dialectics was thus caught in contradiction.
On the one hand, the shared basis of the Vedic cosmogonic
speculation meant that all sects, ascetics, and philosophers—

whether orthodox or heterodox—shared the view of flux: that
“The only permanence is the permanent transience.”21 On the
other hand, there was the forced separation of all things in the
dharmic role, later formalised in varna, and social hierarchy.
The Brahmin could officiate liturgy and ritual, and the lower
castes could hope that it had some cosmic effect, but that
was the extent of the practical relation between the mundane
and the transcendent. Nondualism retained two worlds in
everyday lived experience. Moreover, the Brahmin no longer
needed the gods for they had made them compliant to their
will through knowledge of ritual in the mundane. They were
the gods in practice now. In its place, evidence adduced from
intuition (jnana) or revelatory experience of the Brahmins,
denigrated the experience/knowledge of the human condition
in prakti. As Ancient Indian thought became bound in on itself,
there would be no more Axial breakthroughs.
The limited application of dialectics in Ancient India leads
to a fundamental external critique: its failure to grasp fully
internal relations. Premised on the Vedic notion of inherence that
was caught between nondualism and the practical separation
of the mundane from the transcendent (and domination of the
former by the latter), meant a full articulation of relations was
not made, at least within the orthodoxy. In this cosmology, we
were all ĂWPDQ-Brahma and yet separate from it. Here, it tended
to forget that the construction of the worlds, its multiplicity
and transience from Vedic cosmology, was ordered by human
mind. The whole was revealed only in certain parts, and most
of which the Brahmin had re-established the understanding of
the two worlds and varna in ways that actually fragmented the
whole. So, whereas the philosophy of internal relations admits
a practice of abstraction that allows for an even greater variety
of second-order relations,22 it was precisely this aspect that was
shut down at the close of India’s Axial Age. To riff on Marx and
Engels’ famous opening of the Manifesto, we could say:
%HWZHHQ WKH %UDKPLQ DQG &ăUYăND SKLORVRSKHU DQG VRSKLVW
Mutakallim and Falasifa; in a word, dialectician and non-

dialectical thinker, have stood in constant opposition to one
another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open
fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary
reconstitution of thinking or in the relative closing of thought…
NOTES
1. The extent to which these civilisation interacted and shared
knowledge-systems is a matter of speculation. Yet given what
we know of trade and travel routes of this period, it is highly
likely there was both cross-pollination of dialectical thought and
also auto-generation of dialectical systems particular to each
locale.

2. Karl Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History.
3. See F. Engels, “The Dialectic of Nature,” in Karl Marx, Frederick
Engels: Collected Works: Frederick Engels: Vol 25, Intl Publishers,
1987.
4. K. Jaspers, The Origin and Goal of History, 2.
5. See H. Kulke, “The historical background of India’s axial age,”
in The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilisations, (Ed. S.N.
Eisenstadt), NY: SUNY, 1986: Chapter 16.
6. L. Renou (ed.), Hinduism, NY: Washington Square Press, 1963: 7.
7. S.S. Joarder, “Pondering Dialectical Nature in Indian Thoughts,”
3KLORVRSK\DQG3URJUHVV9ROV/,/,,, January-June, July-December,
2012.
8. Note: Krishna embraces dualism when he praises nonviolence
but not its complement, violence. This appears as one of the very
few times duality is retained but it is only retained because both
are characterised by attachment and difference, whereas in the
latter pair only violence is attached and nonviolence unattached.
As explained by Dorter, precisely because Arjuna does not
want to fight, his fighting would not be an act of violence, i.e.
attached. To act from dharma rather than desire exempts the
action from being violent. See K. Dorter, “A Dialectical Reading
of the Bhagavadgita,” Asian Philosophy, 2012, 22(4): 320.
9. R. C. Zaehner, 7KH%KDJDYDGJLWDZLWKD&RPPHQWDU\RQWKH2ULJLQDO
Sources, New York: Oxford University Press, 1973: 200.
10. Dorter, “A Dialectical Reading of the Bhagavadgita,” 308.
11. I thank Jonardon Ganeri for a discussion on this point.
12. All quotes taken from Bimal Krishna Matilal, Logic, language and
Reality, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1985: 1-22.
13. Milinda-pañho, 2.6. For details account of these various forms of

Indian logic, see Jonardon Ganeri, “Indian Logic,” 1-94, available
at: https://philpapers.org/archive/GANIL.pdf
14. Matilal, Logic, Language and Reality, 16-17, 19.

15. E.E. Solomon, Indian Dialectics, 1976-1978, 93 cited in J.
Bronkhorst, %XGGKLVPLQWKH6KDGRZRI%UDKPDQLVP, London: Brill,
2011.
16. See Matilal in Biderman, Shlomo and Scharfstein, Ben-Ami
(eds.), Rationality in Question, Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1989: 203.
17. E. Frauwallner, History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. II, Delhi: Motilal
Banarsidass, 1997: 215.
18. On this see O. Leaman, Key Concepts in Eastern Philosophy,
London: Routledge, 1999: 269.
19. “When we talk of x as being related to y by the relation r, we
have first to relate x to y by r, and then relate r (which is also a
property) to x by, say, r', and r to y by, say, r", another relation.
This again may require that x should be related to r' by a further
relation r'.” See Bimal Krishna Matilal and Daniel H. H. Ingalls,
7KH1DY\D1\ă\D'RFWULQHRI1HJDWLRQ7KH6HPDQWLFVDQG2QWRORJ\
RI 1HJDWLYH 6WDWHPHQWV LQ 1DY\D1\ă\D 3KLORVRSK\, Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1968: 40.
20. The 6\ăGYăGDDUH: (1) May be, it is; (2) may be, it is not; (3) may
be, it is and it is not; (4) may be, it is indescribable; (5) may
be, it is and yet is indescribable; (6) may be, it is not and it is
also indescribable; (7) may be, it is and it is not and it is also
indescribable. See Sancheti Asoo Lal, First Steps to Jainism (Part
7ZR, Jodhpur: Sumcheti Trust, 2001: 91.
21. See E. Shils, “Some Observations on the Place of Intellectuals in
Max Weber’s Sociology, with Special Reference to Hinduism,” in
The Origins and Diversity of Axial Age Civilizations (S.N. Eisenstadt
ed.), NY: SUNY, 1986: 433.
22. Bertell Ollman, Dance of the Dialectic, Chicago: University of
Illinois Press, 2003: 73.
2
Marx’s Theory of Prehistory

In Memory of György Márkus. My Great
Master Whom I Never Met
Julio Boltvinik
1. Overview
Departing from the premise that the best homage to Karl
Marx in his bicentenary is the development of his thought.
This lecture is an attempt to put together two aspects of his
thought, which have remained isolated from each other, and
try to show that together they constitute Marx’s Theory of
Human Prehistory.
The first aspect is Marx’s philosophical anthropology
(MPhA) or ‘ontology of the social being’, as Lukács called
it, present in his 1844 Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts
(EPhM) (but not only there), which has been masterfully
systematised and developed by György Márkus (1934-2016) in
Marxism and Anthropology (M&A) 1971/1978), with a passage
in Grundrisse (pp. 704-06, Penguin Books, 1973) which might
be identified by a central idea it puts forward: that the objective
limit of capitalism (OLC) is reached as science and technology
(S&T) are applied to production.1 Thus, while MPhA explains
the genesis of man, anthropogenesis, or the Beginning of Human
Prehistory, the passage referred from the Grundrisse signals
the End of Human Prehistory according to the meaning given
to prehistory by Marx. Seen together they constitute Marx’s
theory of human prehistory. The following two quotations show

that for Marx humanity remains in prehistory as long as it has
not overcome scarcity and antagonistic social forms.
The bourgeois relations of production are the last antagonistic
form of the social process of production… at the same time
the productive forces developing in the womb of bourgeois
society create the material conditions for the solution of that
antagonism. This social formation brings, therefore, the
prehistory of human society to a close (Prologue to Contribution
to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859; referred as Preface to A
Critique of Political Economy in David McLellan, Karl Marx, Selected
Writings, Oxford University Press, p. 426).
In a more advanced phase of communist society, when the
enslaving subjugation of individuals to the division of labour…
have disappeared; when labour is no longer just a means
of keeping alive but has itself become a vital need; when the
all-round development of individuals has also increased their
productive powers and all the springs of collective wealth
flow more abundantly—only then can society wholly cross the
narrow horizon of burgeois right and inscribe on its banner:
from each according to his capacities, to each according to
his needs! (Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875, in Karl Marx,
Political Writings, Vol. 3, Verso 2010, p. 347)
In M&A Márkus says that Marx “distinguishes man from
animal by his specific life activity, which constitutes his
most proper essence. Man’s life activity is ZRUN. Work is first
of all an activity which is aimed not directly but only through
mediations at the fulfilment of needs...” Márkus adds that “Man
himself creates his increasingly complicated means [of labour]
in the form of separate, independent objects. And in Capital
Marx reproduces the Franklinian definition of man as a tool
making animal” (M&A, p. 6). This, together with other traits
(sociality, consciousness, universality and freedom) and the
most essential fact that man makes himself, makes his own
history, constitutes the human essence in the Marx-Márkus
(MM) perspective.
Going to Grundrisse and the End of Human Prehistory, the
Marx’s Theory of Prehistoryв53
objective limits of capitalism (OLC) are met by the application

of S&T to production, whereby the
…creation of real wealth comes to depend less on labour time
(LT) and the amount of labour employed than on the power
of the agencies set in motion… [there appears a] monstrous
disproportion between LT applied, and its product… No
ORQJHUGRHVWKHZRUNHULQVHUWDPRGLILHGQDWXUDOWKLQJDVPLGGOHOLQN
EHWZHHQWKHREMHFWDQGKLPVHOIUDWKHUKHLQVHUWVWKHSURFHVVRIQDWXUH
WUDQVIRUPHG LQWR DQ LQGXVWULDO SURFHVV DV D PHDQV EHWZHHQ KLPVHOI
and inorganic nature, mastering it… The theft of alien labour time, on
ZKLFKWKHSUHVHQWZHDOWKLVEDVHG, appears as a miserable foundation
in face of this new one… Production based on exchange value breaks
GRZQDQGWKHGLUHFWPDWHULDOSURGXFWLRQSURFHVVLVVWULSSHGRIWKHIRUP
of penury and antithesis. (pp. 704-06)
Radovan Richta et al. (1969) and André Gorz (1999) have
further developed the contents of this passage. I review Marx’s
and these authors’ ideas and try to move forward, particularly
on what should be done to delink the end of capitalism from
apocalypses, following Gorz and other authors.
2. MPhA and Anthropogenesis: The Beginning of Human
Prehistory
According to Marx-Márkus’s (MM) conception, “the Human
Essence (HE) is to be found in ZRUN, sociality, and consciousness,
and in universality which embraces these three moments and
expresses itself in each of them” (M&A, p. 36). Although man
VKDUHV ZLWK RWKHU VSHFLHV LWV FKDUDFWHULVWLF DV QDWXUDO DFWLYH EHLQJ,
the difference between man and animal lies in their different
life activities: while animal activity is directed exclusively
to seize and consume the objects of its needs directly, human
ZRUN LV DQ DFWLYLW\ GLUHFWHG WR QHHG VDWLVIDFWLRQ QRW GLUHFWO\ EXW
through mediations. (p. 4) 7KLVKDVPDQ\FRQVHTXHQFHVWRZKLFK,
ZLOOUHIHUZLWKVRPHGHWDLOLQIUD. Let’s state now only that these
mediations broaden continually the range of things which
might serve as objects of work, thus converting man into a
natural universal being, potentially capable of transforming in
object of his/her needs and activity all natural phenomena (p. 6),
and that the more he/she broadens the objects of her/his

activity, the more he/she develops her/his human capacities
and human needs (pp. 9-10).2
,QZRUNEXWQRWRQO\LQLWWKHFRQGLWLRQVIRUman as a social
beingDUHDOVRJLYHQZKLFKPHDQVWKDWPDQFDQQRWOHDGDKXPDQOLIH
except in his/her relation to other human beings and as a consequence
of this relation. In fact, work is always social in a double sense:
1. it is group work or else men produce for each other; and
2. the activity of the producer is always a historical-social
activity in the sense that the means of work employed and
the capacity to use them rely always in the appropriation and
application of productive forces and forms of activity created
by previous generations (pp. 16-25). Man is constituted thus
as a social universal being.
The universality of the human essence expresses itself in
the three traits described above: in dealing with work we can
describe man as a natural-universal beingin discussing man’s
social characteristics, man can be qualified as a socio-universal
and historical-universal being; lastly when broaching man’s
conscience, we characterised man as a universally conscious
being.
Márkus adds an additional trait of the human essence:
man as a free being. Before broaching this feature let’s go back
to work, which is central for this lecture and try to give a more
detailed account. Márkus starts by saying that Marx’s point
of departure is the conviction that “man is a part of nature”,
a material, alive, sensuous, natural being, which can only
subsist by his constant exchange or metabolism with nature;
man attains this exchange through his own life-activity: he is an
active natural being. “Man is a finite, limited entity, a dependent-
conditioned and suffering entity, which is to say that the
objects of his drives exist outside him, as independent objects
from him; yet these are the objects of his need, indispensable,
essential for his performance and the confirmation of the
forces of his own being. These objects constitute, so to say, his
inorganic body.” (p. 3).
In a general sense this can be said of all other animals
as well. “But man is not only a natural being; he is a human

natural being”. (Marx, EPhM, 162; A&M, p. 4). It is necessary,
therefore, to characterise man as specifically human, as a species
being (or even better as a generic being, a being of the genus;
in German *DWWXQJVZHVVHQ), which implies the opposition
between man and animal. (A&M, p. 4).
“The cause and at the same time the essence of this
difference between man and animal has to be sought in the
respective life activities of man and animal”. “Both animal and
man can satisfy their needs only through their own activity.
But animal activity is confined exclusively to seizing and
consuming the given natural objects of their need: it directly
FRLQFLGHVZLWKWKHSURFHVVRIDFWLYHQHHGIXOILOPHQWTherefore, it is
a limited life activity”. It can only transform into objects of its
activity and of its life those objects whose physical, chemical,
etc. properties satisfy its genetically fixed needs. (A&M, p. 4).
First and foremost, what distinguishes man from animals
is his specific life activity, which constitutes his most proper
essence. Man’s life activity is ZRUN. “Work is first of all an
DFWLYLW\ ZKLFK LV DLPHG QRW GLUHFWO\ EXW RQO\ WKURXJK PHGLDWLRQV
at the fulfilment of needs.” (p. 5) %XWZRUNLVDOVRDFRQVFLRXVIUHH
activity. The object of work only becomes suitable for human
use because work transforms it. Mediation is present: “1. As
the mediating activity, the living labour itself which precedes
and makes possible, the human use (the consumption) of the
object. 2. As the instrument of labour which man interposes
between him and the potential object of his needs and which
serves as the conductor and transformer of his activity”. (p.
6) “While the animal’s instruments of labour, i.e. its organs
evolve and change only in the uncontrolled millennial process
of biological evolution, man himself creates his increasingly
complicated means in the form of separate, independent
objects. And in Capital Marx reproduces the Franklinian
definition of man (in English) as D WRROPDNLQJ DQLPDO”
(Márkus, p. 6). Márkus points out the following consequences
of this human specific activity:
1. As human activity is not aimed without mediations to the
satisfaction of needs, “but in the useful transformation of the

material form of natural substances, it constantly increases the
UDQJHRIHQYLURQPHQWDOWKLQJVDQGPDWHULDOVZKLFKFDQDFWDVREMHFWV
of that activity. On the one hand work makes things suitable for
human consumption and so affects the widening of the scope
of consumable objects. On the other hand, objects which cannot
be individually consumed even in transformed form, may find
a useful application as means of the productive activity itself…
Consumption and use become different categories (which does not
happen among animals).” Already in his material life, in his
activities of subsistence the human being appropriates nature
in a growing degree; his “inorganic body” shows a historical
tendency to growth, his interrelations with nature become more
and more complex and many-sided, less rigidly determined by
biological constraints. (p. 6)
2. This reproduction [i.e. of human individuals in the
historical process of production, Márkus] although it appears
as appropriation of the objects by the subjects in one respect,
appears in another respect also as formation, subjugation of the
objects to a subjective purpose; their transformation into results and
repositories of subjective activity (Márkus quotes Grundrisse p.
489]. Work, production, means not only the appropriation of
nature as object by man as subject, but also the objectification
(Vergegenständlichung) of the subjective agent and his activity…
In general, historical development replaces natural environment
by D VRFLRFXOWXUDO PLOLHX which is the result of the productive
activity of earlier and present generations and the elements of
which embody human capacities, represent the objectifications of
the “essential powers of man (menschliche Wesenkrafte)” (p. 7).
As a consequence of the fact that man lives in a hyper-humanised
world in which human capacities and needs developed in the
past are found as fairy godmothers, in their objectified form, at
the cot’s headboard, in which the results of all previous social
development are at his disposition in material form, it is possible
for man to start his development not in the “beginnings of the first
principle”, but in the point that previous generations have bequest.
Work, the objectivation of human nature, constitutes the possibility
of history as such. (Translated from the Spanish edition of M&A,
p. 22; in the English edition, p. 8, this brilliant statement becomes
dull). Note that not only are human capacities objectified in
labour products, but also human needs. Work, however, changes

not only the object at which it is directed, but also the labouring
subject itself: it transforms not only the external nature but transforms
man himself: …the producers change, too… they bring out new
qualities in themselves, develop new powers and ideas, new
modes of intercourse, new needs and new language (Grundrisse,
Penguin Books, 1973, p. 445).
3. The historical creation of new human objects…implies not
only that man extends his activity over new realms of nature, but
also… that PDQDSSURSULDWHVQHZKXPDQHVVHQWLDOSRWHQWLDOLWLHVQHZ
SURSHUWLHV DQG QHZ KXPDQ FDSDFLWLHV. Generally, we may say that
PDQIRUPVDQGGHYHORSVKLVRZQSURGXFWLRQFDSDFLWLHVE\REMHFWLI\LQJ
them… (p. 9 English; combined with translation from the Spanish
edition, pp. 23-24). The subjective appropriation of some means
of production implies the formation of an integral activity
which puts the means and the object in the necessary relation
for obtaining the outcome desired by the subject. Capacities
thus appear as transpositions of specific objective natural
connections into the sphere of the subject’s activity… Man is
capable, then, of transforming into laws, into principles of his
own activity, a broader and broader range of natural connections
and regularities. (pp. 9-10 English; p. 24, Spanish).
4. Each singular act of human activity presupposes the pre
existence of a need… but in the historical process as a whole
that relation is inverted. The needs that effectively determine
production are not the original needs in their natural harshness,
but the needs originated in production itself.3 ‘…needs are
produced .... just as are products and the different kinds of work
skills. The greater the extent to which historic needs—needs
created by production itself—social needs which are themselves
the offfsprings of social production and intercourse, are posited
as necessary, WKH KLJKHU WKH OHYHO WR ZKLFK UHDO ZHDOWK KDV EHFRPH
GHYHORSHG5HJDUGHGPDWHULDOO\ZHDOWKFRQVLVWVVLPSO\LQWKHPDQLIROG
variety of needs.’ (Grundrisse, p. 527; I have made the quote to
coincide with the source, eliminating the errors it contained). It is
the object produced by man which origins the human collective
need of it. (Again I combined the English (p. 10) and the Spanish
(p. 27) editions).
Now I turn to man as a free being, the additional trait that
Márkus includes in the concept of human essence. (This is

discussed in the last two pages of M&A: 57-59). “Man is a
generic being not only in that he practically and theoretically
makes his own genus (Gattung)… his object, but also in that
he treats himself… as a universal and therefore free being”
(Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts, EPhM, p. 293, quoted
by Márkus4). Marx rejects, according to Márkus, the idealist
interpretation of freedom as independence from the real world,
as exemption from external influences and determinations;
and sustains that the concept of freedom has for Marx a
double, intimately linked, abstract-negative, and concrete-
positive meaning. In the negative sense freedom is freedom from
VRPHWKLQJit means man’s capacity to liberate himself through
his real activity from those concrete conditions, relations,
characteristics which have turned historically into limitations,
chains, upon the manifestation of his socially formed
personality. The possibility of this liberation in general is
already implied in the fact of human self-consciousness. Man
can make the social and —in some sense and within limits—
even the biological determination of his life the object of his
activity, i.e. something that he can consciously influence and
change. An animal is immediately one with its life activity,
it is not distinct from it, it is that activity. Man makes his life
activity itself into an object of his will and consciousness. He
has conscious life activity [...] Conscious life-activity directly
distinguishes man from animal life activity. Only thereby is
he a generic being… Only because of that is his activity free
activity (p. 328, Penguin edition of the EPhM, but I keep
Márkus’s use of “generic being” instead of “species-being”).
This negatively understood freedom, says Márkus, this
constant release and liberation from limitations, is at the
same time, in its historical tendency, also something positive:
SRZHUZKLFKPDQSURFXUHVIRUKLPVHOI. It means the development
of man’s control and domination over the forces of nature,
external nature as well as man’s own nature; it means the
widening of the scope of human possibilities, it is the formation
DQGFXOWLYDWLRQRIKXPDQFUHDWLYLW\RIWKHHVVHQWLDOSRZHUVRIPDQ
beyond any limitation, as an end in itself. (M&A, p. 58)

But the historical development of man towards the creation and
increase of this freedom on the scale of whole society has not,
up to this point, FRLQFLGHG ZLWK WKH IRUPDWLRQ RI free individuals.
The man of the alienated capitalist society, a man who is, in
general, liberated from the personal dependencies and constraints
characteristic of earlier ages, is an ‘abstract’ and that also means
a fortuitous’, accidental individual —that is, he is a man whose life
and activity, hence the manifestations of his individuality, though
free in a legal sense, are in fact determined by conditions and
social circumstances that act objectively and independently of
him, conditions which have a ‘chance’ quality for him. Hence,
KHLVDPDQIRUZKRPKLVOLIHGRHVQRWFRQVWLWXWHWKHH[SUHVVLRQRIKLV
personality, does not mean the realization of his individual potential,
the actualization of his freedom. Liquidating private property and
the naturally given [spontaneous in the Spanish edition] division
of labour, transcending alienation, communism first creates the
conditions for a truly free human development and individual
life... The freedom of the individual, made possible through the
HOLPLQDWLRQRIWKHDQWDJRQLVPEHWZHHQKXPDQHVVHQFHDQGH[LVWHQFH,
social and individual development, objectification and self-
realization… means that each individual will be able to choose
himself consciously within the (historically circumscribed) range
of the objective possibilities offered to him by the whole of
social development and to realize them in his life harmoniously,
depending on his decision, on his needs, capacities and interests.
(M&A, pp. 58-59)
Márkus develops, in an extensive way, in the third and last
chapter of M&A, how human essence (HE) manifests itself in
history. He starts by denying that HE is the ensemble of those
fundamental traits which remain untouched by the historical
development of mankind, which are inseparable from man as
such and are characteristic of every human individual in any
form of social life. This interpretation, says Márkus (p. 36),
cannot be reconciled with Marx’s texts: As a result of alienation
it is precisely ‘human essence’ which is alienated and taken
DZD\ from the proletariat (in the sense that it cannot realise
it in its own life)”. Márkus says that we come to the same
conclusion if we examine the specific (and above analysed)

content of Marx’s notion of human essence. The universality
of man, which figures in Marx as a particular tendency of the
overall historical development, can hardly be understood at all
as a constant feature or condition of individual men (p. 37).
Work, sociality and consciousness can indeed be
conceived as necessary and permanent traits of every human
individual, but when conceived in this way their meaning
loses those philosophical characteristics which Marx took to
be their substance. Work, from being free self-activity in which
man forms, develops and appropriates his own capacities,
becomes under the circumstances of alienation a forced and
externally imposed activity resulting in the increasing one
sidedness and deformation of its subject. Thus, this activity
is not ‘work’ in the anthropological-philosophical meaning
of this term but merely abstract labour (p. 38). This difference
is clearly shown in the fact that Marx in the German Ideology
[Márkus ignores the fact that Engels is co-author of this text]
repeatedly considers the “abolition [Aufhebung] of [abstract]
labour” to be one of the most fundamental preconditions of
a communist society (M&A, p. 38). The case is similar with
man’s sociality. Naturally the individual is always a ‘social
being’ but in capitalism the dependence of the individual on
the social whole does not mean collective existence. Márkus
(p.38) quotes Marx: “The society of this estranged man is the
caricature of a true community, of his true generic existence”
(“Excerpts from James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy” in
Karl Marx. Early Writings Penguin, op. cit., pp. 264-65). Finally,
“the situation is again analogous in the case of consciousness”,
which is “an attribute belonging to every human individual,
to every normal member of the species Homo sapiens”, but as a
consequence of the division of labour and the separation and
opposition between mental and physical labour:
The empirical, everyday consciousness of individuals has
become increasingly divorced from the generic development of
social consciousness and self-consciousness, from the progress
made in the social spheres of intellectual production, i.e. in

sciences and arts; it has become fetishistic, a prisoner of socially
conditioned appearances distorting reality... Corresponding to
this… ideologies have evolved, distorted-alienated expressions
of the separation and alienation of thought from praxis. (M&A,
pp. 38-39)
On the basis of the above, continues Márkus, the interpretation
of ‘human essence’ as an “ensemble of fundamental and
invariant traits found in every human being would seem to be
unacceptable” (p. 39). Márkus (overcoming some difficulties)
arrives at an original and profound vision of the Marxian
concept of the Human Essence and of Human History:
The point here… is not simply that there are certain abstract traits
which remain invariant through the historical transformation
and change of the ‘nature’ of concrete, real men, but above all,
that this never-ceasing formation of ‘human nature’ is itself a
unified process which can be comprehended and characterised
in its unity... Marx meant… by ‘human essence’ primarily those
FKDUDFWHULVWLFVRIWKHUHDOKLVWRULFDOH[LVWHQFHRIPDQNLQGZKLFKPDNHLW
possible to comprehend history as a continuous and unified process that
has a development tendency. The universality of man… and his freedom
PDUNWKHJHQHUDOGLUHFWLRQRIWKHKLVWRULFDOSURJUHVVRIKXPDQLW\ZKLOH
the characterisation of man as a conscious social being engaged in
PDWHULDOSURGXFWLYHVHOIDFWLYLW\UHIHUVWRWKRVHQHFHVVDU\WUDLWVWKRVH
GLPHQVLRQVRIWKLVWRWDOGHYHORSPHQWDOSURFHVVRQWKHEDVLVRIZKLFKWKH
above historical tendency unfolds... (pp. 39-40)
Additionally, Márkus adds in an endnote:
This conception of history assumes and presupposes the
acceptance of a definite perspective (i.e. the affirmation of
determinate, presently existing social needs that point in the
direction of this perspective, the affirmation of the radical needs
of the proletariat) and the choice of values emerging from, and
determined by, this perspective. The concept of ‘human essence’
locates, articulates and explicates precisely these values and at
the same time it indicates the basic conditions of their realization
through an analysis of the real ‘condition humaine’ that is history...
The Marxian concept of ‘human essence’ necessarily presupposes
and encloses the moment of practical choice, that of decision in

the social conflicts of the present and between presently given
social possibilities; it contains within its very theoretical content
the moment of praxis, namely of a revolutionary praxis radically
transforming the existing state of affairs. (Note 12 to Chapter 3,
p. 76)
Agnes Heller, in her book (1972) gives further force to the
association of the perspective derived from the conception of
the Human Essence and values. She says:
We sustain that in Marx’s Oeuvre two axiological axioms are
present from which all values and all value judgements that he
sustains are derived. These axioms are centred on the ontological
primary category (not derivable empirically from any other
thing): human wealth, which is the multilateral unfolding of the
essential forces (powers) of the Human Species. The First Marxian
Axiological Axiom says: ‘Anything that contributes, or promotes,
the enrichment of the species essential forces is a value’. The Second
Axiological Axiom states: ‘The supreme value is the circumstance
in which LQGLYLGXDOVFDQDSSURSULDWHWKHVSHFLHVZHDOWK’. In fact, Marx
GHULYHVDOOYDOXHVIURPWKHVHWZRD[LRORJLFDOD[LRPV. (I had no access
to the English edition of this book by Heller, so I am translating
from the Spanish version Hipótesis para una Teoría Marxista de los
Valores, Grijalbo, Barcelona, 1974, pp. 27-28)
Márkus states that according to Marx, “It is just the fact that man
has a history (in the strict sense of the term) that constitutes the
real specificity of human existence, and therefore to abstract
man from this historicity would mean to disregard his most
essential trait.” (p. 40). “History is the process of human
‘self-creation’, a continuous process whereby man forms
and transforms himself through KLV RZQ activity, through
KLV RZQ work, in the direction of an increasing freedom and
universality”. And Márkus adds brilliantly:
And the principal characteristic, the ‘true essence’ of man lies
precisely in the presence of this VHOIDFWLYLW\ ZKHUHE\ KH FUHDWHV
DQG IRUPV KLV RZQ VXEMHFWLYLW\. The individual becomes and is
a human individual precisely because he actively engages and
participates in this process, and this is possible only because
he has appropriated some of the objectified results and

achievements of previous human progress... Thus the real unity
of the human species itself cannot be truly comprehended apart
from this historical process, but only in and through it. This
unity is actually nothing else but the inner unity and continuity
of the process of human history. So if we mean by ‘philosophical
anthropology’ some extra or suprahistorical (or even simply
ahistorical) characterisation of human traits, then Marx has no
anthropology, and he would deny the usefulness of such an
anthropology for the understanding of man’s essence. If, on the
other hand, we would understand by anthropology an answer
given to the question about ‘human essence’, an attempted
resolution of the question ‘what is essentially man?’, then there is
a Marxian ‘anthropology’, only it is not an abstraction from history
but rather an abstraction of history itself. [The Spanish translation:
it is not an abstraction of history but rather the abstract of history,
makes clear that Márkus meant that it does not exclude history
but is the generalisation of history]. That is, Marx’s conception is
diametrally opposed to all those trends of thought which sharply
divide and counterpose anthropology and sociology, which set
the study of man’s ‘essence’ in opposition to the socio-historical
study of man. For Marx the ‘human essence’ lies precisely in
the ‘essence’ or inner unity of the total social development of
humanity. (pp. 40-41).
Márkus adds a central idea: “The bearer or subject of the
‘human essence’ for Marx is not the single individual but
human society apprehended in the continuity of its historical
change and development”. (p. 41)
History, continues Márkus:
Can be apprehended as a unified process only from the point
of view of society…from this perspective it appears not only
as technological progress but also as anthropological progress, as
the continuous broadening and deepening of the range of the
capacities (abilities in the English translation), needs, forms of
intercourse and knowledge evolved by the whole of society. From
the point of view of theVRFLDOZKROHhistory unfolds itself as the
process of man’s progressive universalisation and liberation. But
this process has not meant, up to now, in history, the emergence
of increasingly universal and free individuals. From the point of

view of individuals there is no unified and unequivocal criterion
with the help of which we could comprehend history as evolution
(‘development’ in the English translation)... From the individual
point of view we cannot characterise the historical process with
a single, definite direction, —due to its contradictory tendencies. That
is, regards individuals, there is no single criterion which would
make it possible to describe unambiguously succeeding historical
eras as ‘more advanced’ or ‘superior’. Can the men of today’s
civilisation, who clearly have both more extensive and more
variegated needs and broader possibilities of their satisfaction,
be valued more highly (‘set over’ in the English translation) the
individuals of previous historical epochs for whom the circle of
these possibilities was undoubtedly much more limited, but who
were able, en masse (albeit within definite limits) to fulfil their
need for creative and meaningful work —which, as a general
phenomenon, is impossible in our days amidst capitalist social
relations?... The universalisation of the human genus does not
necessarily mean the historical formation of increasingly universal
and many-sided individuals. This total historical tendency can
be realized through the diversification and extension of relations
and intercourse between ‘one-dimensional’, limited, narrow
particular or, as Marx would say, ‘abstract’ individuals as well.
(pp. 42-43)
Márkus states that at this point Marx’s ‘anthropology’ is closely
related to his theory of alienation. I cannot deal with Márkus’ full
discussion here, but only quote a few phrases that pinpoint
his very insightful text on alienation.
The social power, i.e. the multiplied productive force, which
arises through the cooperation (=XVDPPHQZLUNHQ) of different
individuals, as it is determined within the division of labour,
appears to these individuals, since their cooperation is not voluntary
but naturally given, not as their own united power but as an
alien force existing outside of them, of the origin and goal of
which they are ignorant, which they thus cannot control... This
is alienation... (p. 43)
The concept of alienation serves to characterize not merely
the economic sphere but the totality of social life…So in the
political sphere it refers to the state as ‘alienated public power’

and ‘illusory community’, becoming independent from the
real (and privatized) life of individuals; as regard to human
relations in general… to the reification of the intercourse and
commerce between individuals and to their ensuing atomization
that follows the dissolution of ‘naturally given’ communities;
in the sphere of intellectual production to the fetishization of
everyday consciousness and to the appearance of ideologies
which translate the separation of mental from physical labour
into the sway of ideas over matter and material life (p. 44).
Under conditions of alienation, WKH GLVFUHSDQF\ EHWZHHQ
individual and social development… necessarily ensues… Alienation
is nothing but this discrepancy, whereby the historical progress
of mankind is separated from the development of single
individuals, whereby the self-formative and creative aspects of
human activity appear only in the larger context of the social
whole, but are not present on the effects of the individual activity
upon the concerned individual himself. Alienation, therefore, is
nothing but the separation and opposition of human essence and
man’s existence in the sense Marx has applied these terms. And
transcending alienation means the elimination of this disaccord
and conflict between human essence and existence—that is, the
creation of the historical development which ends the inverse
and antagonistic relationship between the wealth and many
sidedness of social life and the impotence, paltriness and one-
dimensionality of the lives of individuals. The end of alienation
thus means the creation of such social conditions underZKLFKLW
ZLOOEHFRPHSRVVLEOHWRMXGJHWKHJHQHUDOOHYHORIVRFLHWDOGHYHORSPHQW
of human progress, by the developmental level of single individuals,
ZKHQ WKH XQLYHUVDOLW\ DQG IUHHGRP RI KXPDQ JHQXV ZLOO EH GLUHFWO\
H[SUHVVHGLQWKHIUHHDQGPDQ\VLGHGOLYHVRIPHQ (pp. 45-46; italics
in last phrase, added)
Only with the historical-practical transcendence of alienation,
points out Márkus, can the human essence become a concrete
determination ‘for itself’, characterising the living individuals
and their real communities. And it is for this reason that
communism wins Marx’s moral affirmation as a society
which makes possible the simultaneous and interrelated free
development of the human genus and of the individual men,

and therefore the ‘adequate’ realisation of the HE (p. 48). And
Márkus concludes:
And this is what differentiates mankind’s ‘prehistory’, that is,
that history which is not yet ‘the actual (wirkliche) history of
man as an already posited (vorausgesetztes) subject but only
man’s act of creation (Erseugungsakt), the history of his origin’
(EPhM, p. 317), from his future ‘actual’, real history. For the
concept of ‘prehistory’, which traverses Marx’s whole life work,
is not to be understood as a simple metaphor. The process of
human genesis is, according to Marx, not completed with the
formation of Homo sapiens as a biological species... Indeed, this is
only the starting point and foundation from which man’s VRFLR
historical genesis, the genesis of man as a ‘generic being’ departs
and begins. This social genesis is the process of ‘prehistory’, which
at the end, gives rise to the human species as mankind, as a real
and conscious unity of globally interacting and interconnected
individuals, on the one hand, and to the concrete, many-sided
and multidimensional human individuality which truly represents
the historically achieved stage of development of the ‘genus’,
on the other... Alienation in this context is not merely a negative
precondition for the unfolding of human essence (as the earthly
‘vale of tears’ is to salvation), but —in a contradictory form— also
its positive formative period... Only through the era of alienation...
are the purely ‘naturally given’, local and restricted communities
dissolved, and only thereby does an increasingly broader sphere
of human intercourse unfold, one which at the end virtually
embraces mankind as a whole (world market)... Finally… only
through the processes of alienation can that positive wealth of
objectified human needs [not wants, as the English translation
writes] and capacities emerge which constitutes the fundamental
objective precondition of human emancipation. (pp. 48-49).
Figure 1 is a graphic representation of MPhA as elaborated by
Márkus
Figure 1. Representation of Marxist Philosophical Anthropology

Conscious and social
Human Essence, Features of Human Essence being involved in free and
Bearer: human society
self-creative activity
Conscio
usness
s
lue
Va Ethical Progress
Sociality
s
ed
Ne Anthropologic
Progress
Work:
mediated
activity
(tools)
ies
cit
pa
Ca
y Univers
om alisatio
n n
to
au
on m-
ati do Technical
er ee
Lib Fr Self made history Progress
Unitarian evolutive process which realizes human values

Anthropology = abstract of history
Axiological Perspective
3. The Role of Tool Making in Human Genesis According to

Palaeo-Anthropology
If we can speak about human freedom but not on salmon’s
freedom, it is because the life of salmons is controlled by
instincts while ours is not. This is a central aspect of the
rupture and its result is biological liberty of human beings. I
explore now the role of tool making (or the mediated nature
of human work) in human genesis. I begin with Stringer
and Andrews (2005),5 which emphasise the non-directed
character, with many casual elements, of the process which
generated the birth of the human being and the rare fact that
we are the only species of the gender Homo, which was not
the case in various moments of the past. Before proceeding
further, I want to introduce an idea which Marx expresses in
Capital and which is not, as explicitly as one would desire,
broached by Márkus: that human work is distinguished from
animal activity by the fact that the form of the product is
prefigured in the mind of man before it is actually produced.
Richard Leakey (2001)6 analyses the experimental work
done by Nicholas Toth, which proves that in the fabrication
of the first stone tools (by Homo habilis, 2.5 million years ago,
called Olduvaian as they were first found in Olduvai Gorge),
which were small very sharp stone chips used to cut skin,
meat, wood and other soft materials, their producers did not
have the specific forms of the tool in their mind. Toth argues
that, nevertheless, to produce them they required a superior
brain capacity to that of present day apes. Leakey describes
the position of other authors which sustain that present-day
apes do have the required manipulative skills, and the spatial
concepts, to manufacture these tools, which Leakey refutes by
noting the failure of the experiments which have tried to teach
them to manufacture them. On the contrary there is consensus
that the Achulean tools, which were first produced 1.4 million
years ago (by Homo erectus) required their producers to have
a mental template of what they wanted to produce, in other
words, that they intentionally imprinted a specific form into
the material. There is also consensus that this task required
advanced cognitive capacities. Leakey points out that the
development of Olduvaian or Achulean tools allowed the
human being to incorporate (through hunting or scavenging)
meat into their diet, widening its survival and reproductive
possibilities. Leakey and Toth date 1.4 million years ago, the
first conclusive evidence of work “in a form which belongs
exclusively to human beings” (Achulean tools) to express it
with Marx’s words. On these bases, I posit four initial stages
in the use and development of tools by the human being (and
its ancestors): eventual use of tools (apes); systematic use of
natural tools (bipedal apes); semi-conscious manufacture of
tools (Homo habilis); and conscious manufacture of tools (Homo
erectus). This is associated with the growth of the human brain
through natural selection. If in a given population (which has
a given distribution of brain sizes) the persons with the largest
brains are more successful in producing tools, their survival
and reproductive probabilities will be larger, which will
produce the growth of the average brain.
Leakey interprets a text by Darwin from the Descent of
Man as positing the simultaneity of three aspects of the human
evolution: the erected posture, the size of the brain and the
making of tools. The quotation by Leakey (2001, op. cit. p. 5)
is as follows:
If it be an advantage to man to stand firmly on his feet and to have

his hands and arms free, of which, from his pre-eminent success
in the battle of life, there can be no doubt, then I can see no reason
why it should not have been advantageous to the progenitors of
man to have become more and more erect or bipedal. They would
thus have been better able to defend themselves with stones or
clubs, to attack their prey, or otherwise to obtain food... But
the hands and arms could hardly have become perfect enough
to have manufactured weapons, or to have hurled stones and
spears with a true aim, as long as they were habitually used for
locomotion and for supporting the whole weight of the body,
or, as before remarked, so long as they were especially fitted for
climbing trees.7
But as can be seen, the alleged Darwinian package is not
contained in the quotation, which rather sustains the thesis
that bipedal walking is a necessary (but not sufficient) condition
WRXVHDQGSURGXFHWRROVRUZHDSRQV. The big temporal gap in the
appearance of bipedal walking and the first manufactured
stone tools (5 million years) would invalidate Darwin’s
package according to Leakey. My hypothesis is that during
such a long period our ancestors used natural tools and
weapons and produced tools and weapons made of soft
materials, which leave no archaeological tracks. Bipedal
walking is thus a precondition for the other two aspects of
human evolution.
In the writings of Aura Ponce de León8 I have found
an excellent (but not named as such) definition of work as
mediated activity: In “Cognitive Archaeology” she points out
that tool making is evidence of a cognitive level beyond that
of other species and that “the transformation of the world in
a conscious and systematic way and with a purpose oriented
eventually to other time and place, beyond the present activity, is a
conduct that is far from being widely shared by other species
although some signs of it have been identified in other superior
apes.” (p. 90). The phrase in italics is an excellent definition
of mediated work, showing that some paleo-anthropologists
concur with Marx’s definition of mediated work. I have also
found in her writings (Homo Genus) a reason as to why tool

making cannot be an instinctive activity: as she argues that
transformation of the world, and tool making as part of it, are
intentional activities. This she contrasts with bipedal walking
and the growth of the brain which are biological processes.
If it is not still clear that among paleo-anthropologists
there is also present the notion of a rupture that gave birth to
human beings, the following quotation from Phillip V. Tobias
should dissipate any doubt:
Dobzhansky, in his posthumous Raymond Dart Lecture (1977)
recognised two great steps forward in the development of life.
The First Transcendence was the Origin of Life itself, the Second
Transcendence, the coming of Man with his futuristic survival
kit. Homo habilis, the meek hominid, announced the Second
Transcendence to the world, and neither hominids nor the
world could be the same again. Thenceforth, man’s behaviour,
adjustments, survival, came to be determined more and more
by what he could do with his hands under his watchful eyes
and the control of his planning, foreseeing, anticipating and agile
brain. (1979, pp. 85-92)
The issues rose by Darwin, Leakey, Ponce de León and
Dobshanzky reinforce the central ideas of Marxian
philosophical anthropology (MPhA). The Tobias citation
shows that for paleo-anthropologists there was a great rupture
provoked by the manufacture of stone tools (especially the
Achulean tools), concurring with MM perception that the
mediated character of human work distinguishes Homo from
all other species.
In trying to identify further what the sciences of evolution
are sustaining with respect to the human mind, in particular
trying to elucidate if they are in a condition of identifying the
KRZDQGZKHQOLIHEHFDPHFRQVFLRXVRILWVHOI, which is as Fromm
identifies the Great Rupture, I look at work by Arsuaga
Ferrreras and Martínez Mendizábal9, who give an account and
oppose those views (e.g. Chomsky’s) which reject that cognitive
human capacities developed gradually by natural selection
as was argued by Darwin. They analyse both the growth of
the brain and the anatomy of our speaking apparatus. They

conclude that the necessary development of the brain for
speech had to precede the adaptation of the peculiar speaking
human system; that human speech is as old as two million
years and that its development followed a gradual process of
natural selection. Ponce de León in “Cognitive Archaeology”
discusses the findings by Wynn on the intelligence of those
which manufactured Achulean stone tools (especially hand
axes). Wynn concludes that they had already developed
advanced cognitive capacities. Nevertheless, Ponce de León
tells us that the study of consciousness in our ancestors is still
something to be done.
The overall conclusion I derived from my brief incursion
into paleo-anthropological literature is that of reinforcing
MM convictions on the central role of tool making in human
essence.
4. Objective Limit of Capitalism (OLC). Marx’s Vision of the
End of Prehistory and Current Evidence.
7KHSDVVDJHRIWKH*UXQGULVVHSS3HQJXLQHGLWLRQ
I adopted the expression OLC from what Jorge Veraza
pointed out reacting to a presentation of mine regarding the
passage object of this section. In it, after exposing the central
change that big industry implies for production by applying
science and technology (S&T) to it, Marx concludes, to which
the expression OLC fits well, that:
The surplus labour of the mass has ceased to be the condition for
the development of social wealth, MXVWDVWKHQRQODERXURIWKHIHZ
for the development of the general powers of the human intellect.
With that, production based on exchange value breaks down, and
the direct, material production process is stripped of the form of
penury and antagonism.
Although the notion of an objective limit must also be
extended to the objective natural limits of the planet, here I
refer only to the meaning it has in the Grundrisse.
It is a remarkable text that raises the OLC in terms of the
social relations of production, and casts serious doubts about

WKHFXUUHQWYDOLGLW\RIWKHODZRIYDOXH. A century later Radovan
Richta et al. in Civilization at the Crossroads (op. cit.) and 130
years later André Gorz in 5HFODLPLQJ ZRUN %H\RQG WKH ZDJH
based society, retook some of Marx’s arguments. Next, I
enumerate in a synthetic way the contents of the Grundisses’s
passage:
1) Capitalism (production of value) is governed by the
assumption that the amount of labour time (LT) is the
decisive factor in the production of ZHDOWK.
2) But with big industry the creation of wealth becomes
less dependent on LT than on the power of the agencies
set in motion, power that depends only on the advance
of S & T and its application to production.
3) A quantitative disproportion between LT and product
is generated, as well as a qualitative imbalance between
abstract labour and the power of the production process
it superintends.
4) Labour appears next to the production process (as
watchman and regulator) instead of being included
within it and being its chief actor.
5) Instead of the tool interposed between man and the
object, an industrial process is now interposed.
6) The great foundation-stone ceases to be the direct
human labour that is replaced by the development of
the social individual who appropriates the general
productive force (understanding and mastery of
nature).
7) The theft of alien LT, surplus value, on which the present
wealth is based, appears as a miserable foundation in
face of this new one.
8) As soon as labour in the direct form has ceased to be the
great well-spring of wealth, LT ceases to be its measure
and exchange value must cease to be the measure of use
value.
9) The surplus labour of the mass ceases to be the condition of
the development of social wealth, just as WKHQRQODERXU

RIWKHIHZ, for the development of the human intellect.
10) Production based on exchange value breaks down and
the production process is stripped of the form of penury
and antagonism.
11) Necessary LT is minimised.
12) The liberated time and the means created for all
correspond to the artistic and scientific development of
individualities.
13) Capital is the living contradiction: while reducing LT
to a minimum, it considers it as the only measure and
source of wealth.
14) It calls to life the powers of science and nature so that
the creation of wealth is independent of LT but wants to
measure with it the gigantic social forces created.
15) Nevertheless, it wants to confine these powers so that
the value created remains value.
16) The productive forces and social relations that, for
capital, with its limited foundation, are mere means to
produce value, are the material conditions to blow this
foundation sky-high.
17) Machines are organs of the human brain created by
the human hand: objectified power of knowledge;
the development of fixed capital reveals the degree
to which the general intellect, ZKLFK LV QRZ WKH FHQWUDO
productive force, controls the conditions of the social process.
This passage from the Grundrisse can be read as Marx’s
assertion that the development of science and its application
to production, lay the foundations so that the exploitation of
human labour is no longer required; that the material bases of
a post-capitalist society are given; that capitalism is coming very
close to its objective limit, and that human prehistory is coming to
an end. The objective limit of capitalism takes the form of the
QHFHVVDU\GHOLQNLQJEHWZHHQZRUNDQGLQFRPHDQGWKXVRIWKHHQGRI
ZDJHEDVHGVRFLHW\
7KH6FLHQWLILF7HFKQRORJLFDO5HYROXWLRQ6757RZDUGV7RWDO

Automation
Capitalism, in its relentless pursuit for profits, constantly
revolutionises production techniques. It has generated three
industrial revolutions: the 1st Industrial Revolution of the
18th century centred on coal and the steam engine and its
multiple applications in factories and in rail and maritime
transport; the second industrial revolution of the 20th century
was based on the internal combustion engine, oil, electricity
and the telephone. In both, machinery replaced a significant
proportion of direct human labour. In many branches
of industry, workers increasingly became supervisors
of automatic machinery. But this machinery was based
exclusively on mechanical principles, which have limits. Marx
in 1857-58 only knew the first revolution and, nevertheless,
given his genius, appreciated its deep meaning.
The Scientific and Technical Revolution (STR), initiated
towards the end of the Second World War, introduced
cybernetics, information technology, computers, artificial
intelligence and robotics. It unleashed a spiral of technological
development that may be called the Third Industrial
Revolution, which covers all productive activities, including
services. With the STR the mechanical machinery is replaced
by what Richta et al. (op. cit., 1968) called autonomous
production complexes. The stability of capitalism is very easily
shaken by the decrease in wages/employment, because
falling effective demand leads the economy into crisis, since
production cannot be sold. The displacement of agricultural
and industrial employment by mechanical machinery was
replaced by the growth of employment in the tertiary sector
(commerce and services). But now this sector is also being
automated.
The evidence, not very obvious for those who do not
want to see, shows that there are not enough new labour-
intensive, commodified and lucrative activities to create
enough new wage jobs to compensate for those lost due to
automation, and that this gap is becoming larger every year.

Although this transformation can take decades to produce all
its consequences, it has been silently contributing to economic
crises, stagnation, unemployment, underemployment and to
the generalisation of precarious employment (the precariat
as Guy Standing aptly calls it), to poverty and hunger. But
the full consequences may come before the time when a
high percentage of the population of working age has been
displaced by automation. As Martin Ford (2009) has stated:
As automation begins to eliminate jobs in an increasingly wide
range of industries and occupations, its impacts are clearly not
going to be kept a secret [...] As a growing percentage of the
population is exposed to evidence of ongoing losses, many
people will begin to experience a greatly heightened level of
stress and worry ... they will cut back on consumption, perhaps
quite dramatically, and will try to save more in anticipation of
a very uncertain future [...] if this would occur in a critical mass
of the consumers [...] we could be clearly pushed in a very dark
scenario [...]a dramatic downward economic spiral would almost
certainly be precipitated. (pp. 109-10)
As a result of the unstoppable advance of automation,
capitalism will fall into ever more severe crises until it becomes
completely non-viable. This is what Marx predicted in the
passage of the Grundrisse. A little more than a century later,
a group of scientists led by Robert Oppenheimer, argued that
cyber-technologies were forcing a change in the relationship
between income and work and urged the US President and
Congress “to consider guaranteeing all citizens, as a matter of
law, an adequate income.” Their text, published on the first
page of the 1HZ<RUN7LPHV (March, 1963), says:
The continuance of the income-through-jobs link as the only major
mechanism for distributing effective demand—for granting the
right to consume—QRZDFWVDVWKHPDLQEUDNHRQWKHDOPRVWXQOLPLWHG
capacity of a cybernated productive system.
Compare the final phrase (in italics) with Marx’s Prologue
to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
(especially the phrase in italics):

At a certain stage of development, the material productive
forces of society come in conflict with the existing relations of
production [...] From forms of development of the productive forces
these relations turn into their fetters.
Jeremy Rifkin predicted in 1995, a new era in which services
will be increasingly automated. Not only routine personal
services but also more complex services are being taken
over by intelligent machines. The retail trade is also being
automated. In a later book (2014) Rifkin says:
Big-data, advanced analytics, algorithms, Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and robotics are replacing human labor across the
manufacturing industries, service industries and knowledge
and entertainment sectors, leading to the very real prospect of
liberating hundreds of millions of people from work in the market
economy in the first half of the 21st century (p. 121)… Today near
workerless factories run by computer programs, are increasingly
the norm, both in highly industrialized countries and developing
nations (p.123) ... [Many] blame the loss of blue collar jobs on
the relocation of manufacturing to cheap labor markets such as
China. The fact is that something more consequential has taken
place. Between 1995 and 2002, 22 million manufacturing jobs
were eliminated in the global economy while global production
increased by more than 30 percent... Even China shed 16 million
factory workers while increasing its productivity… Manufacturers
that have long relied on cheap labor in their Chinese production
facilities are bringing production back home with advanced
robotics that are cheaper and more efficient…. (p. 124)
Martin Ford shows his concern at the economists’ rejection
of the idea that technology displaces human work, dismiss
those who worry about technological unemployment as neo-
Luddites and have coined the term QHR/XGGLWH IDOODF\. Ford
correctly perceives that off-shoring is a prelude to automation:
“many jobs that are currently being relocated will be, in the
future, fully automated [...] Off-shoring is the small wave that
distracts you, automation is the big one further out that you
don’t see coming.”
In a more radical vein, André Gorz, says:

We must dare to prepare ourselves for the Exodus from ‘work
based society’: it no longer exists and will not return. We must
be bold enough to choose the Exodus. There is nothing to be
gained from the symptomatic treatments of the ‘crisis’, because
there is no crisis: a new system has been installed that tends to
massively abolish work. (1999, p. 1)
As can be seen there is a diagnostic coincidence, in the main
points, among the authors cited, but Gorz argues that “it is
not this abolition of work which we should object to, but its
claiming to perpetuate that same work, the norms, dignity
and availability of which it is abolishing, as an obligation, as
a norm, and as the irreplaceable foundation of the rights and
dignity of all” (Ibid.). Gorz discusses the nature of the work
that is being eliminated:
What Rifkin calls the ‘end of work’ is the end of what everyone
has become accustomed to call ‘work’. It is not work in the
anthropological or philosophical sense of the term. It is not the
labour of the parturient woman, nor the work of the sculptor
or the poet… It is, unambiguously, the specific ‘work’ peculiar
to industrial capitalism, the work we refer to when we say ‘she
does not work’ of a woman who devotes her time to raising
her own children, but ‘she works’ for one who occupies even a
small part of her time to bringing up other people’s children…”
(op. cit., p. 2)
From the preceding analysis, I conclude that the development
of productive forces compatible with capitalism is coming
to an end. This leads to the OLC. Industrial expansion to
capture the very cheap and docile labour of the global south
appears as temporary steps before the complete automation of
production is attained.
Rifkin predicted in 2003 that the 21st century would face
the end of mass work. “This is the anthropological point
where we are, ZH KDYH D WHFKQRORJLFDO UHYROXWLRQ WKDW FDQ FUHDWH
a renaissance or a great social upheaval, we can make a leap
forward for the generation of their children or we can have
years, decades and generations of instability and restlessness.”

The renaissance option (the beginning of human history) can be
related to the following ideas by Richta et al. (op. cit., pp. 35-36
of the Spanish edition: Artiach, Madrid, 1968; my translation
to English), with which this lecture ends:
The working instruments created by the STR go beyond the
limits of mechanical machines and assume functions that convert
them, in principle, into autonomous production complexes [...] the
subjective aspect of production, invariable for centuries, is
modified: the functions of direct production carried out by
the simple labour force progressively disappear; technology
increasingly supplants man in the direct functions of execution,
maintenance, manipulation and, finally, regulation ...It radically
modifies the place occupied by man. It ensures the triumph of the
automatic principle in the broadest sense of the term.
Complex automation is liberating man from his direct
participation in the production process, from his role of simple
‘gear’ in the machine system and offers him, in return, the role
of promoter, creator and director of the technical production
system.
We can expect that the process of the STR will absorb traditional
simple industrial work, ZKLFKGRHVQRWFRQVWLWXWHDQLQWHUQDOQHHG
for man, but is imposed by an external need. On the other hand, once
man ceases to produce the things that the same things can produce, the
possibility opens up before him to devote himself to a creative activity
WKDWPRELOLVHVDOOKLVIRUFHVWKDWWHQGVWRWKHUHVHDUFKRIQHZZD\VWR
WKHH[SDQVLRQRIKLVFDSDFLWLHV>,ZRXOGDGGWRKXPDQIORXULVKLQJ@
The general diffusion of this type of human activity will mark
in fact the overcoming of labour [let’s add, the beginning of human
history]. Indeed, once the material forms of human activity give
it the character of an active manifestation of itself, the external
necessity, determined by the need for subsistence, yields its place to
the internal need of man; in that moment, human activity becomes a
KXPDQQHHGZKLFKH[LVWVIRULWVHOIDQGHQULFKHVPDQ; then the abstract
FRQWUDGLFWLRQVEHWZHHQZRUNDQGSOHDVXUHEHWZHHQZRUNDQGIUHHWLPH
GLVDSSHDUKXPDQDFWLYLW\LVPHUJHGZLWKOLIHµ
Human prehistory, according to Marx, comes to an end.
History of mankind begins.
NOTES

1. Györ gy Márkus, Marxism and Anthropology. The Concept of
the ‘Human Essence’ in the Philosophy of Marx, Van Gorcum
Publishers, Assen, The Netherlands, 1978. There is a second
edition in English with an introduction by Axel Honneth and
Hans Joas: Modem-Verlag, Australia, 1988, which takes the text
of the book from the 1978 edition. Although I mainly worked
with the excellent Spanish translation by Manuel Sacristán,
Marxismo y ‘antropología’, Grijalbo, Barcelona, 1973 and México,
1985, I have based the wording and quotations in this lecture
mainly on the 1978 English edition

2. Unfortunately , the English translation of M&A translates
Bedürfnisse as ZDQWV instead of needs which is the correct
translation and also the usual one. A note from the translators
(including Márkus himself) arguing why they opted for this
translation, turns upside down the usual use of the terms wants
and needs in English and makes many paragraphs of the English
translation unusable. I have followed the Spanish translation in
these (and some other) cases. This big mistake might explain
why M&A is so little known by English-speaking scholars.
3. Here I have adopted the usual (and correct) translation of
Bedürfnisse as needs, and not as ZDQWV as the translators of the
English edition have done.
4. Márkus quotes a difficult to get English edition of the EPhM. In
the Penguin edition (in Karl Marx, Early Writings) this sentence
is on page 327. Márkus has changed the usual (and incorrect)
translation of Gattung to English as species-being, by the more
precise “genus”.
5. Chris Stringer and Peter Andrews, The Complete World of Human
Evolution, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005, 240 pp.

6. Richar d Leakey, The History of Humankind. Unearthing our Family
Tree, Phoenix, London, 2001.
7. The first part of the paragraph is from page 72 of the Penguin
Books edition (2004) and the second part (starting from ‘But the
hands..’) is from page 71, showing that Leakey is not very careful
in handling his sources.
8. “Arqueología cognitiva: atisbos de la mente homínida” (Cognitive
archaeology: signs of the hominid mind), Ludus Vitalis, Vol. X,
No. 18, México, 2002, pp. 89-109; and “Género Homo: ¿modificar
o conservar el ambiente?” (Homo genus: modify or conserve the
environment?), in Jorge Martínez Contreras (editor), Senderos de
la conservación y de la restauración ecológica. Evaluación crítica y

ética, Centro de Estudios Filosóficos, Políticos y Sociales Vicente
Lombardo Toledano, México, 2005. In what follows these works
will be quoted as “Cognitive Archaeology” and “Homo gender”.
9. “El origen de la mente” (The origin of the mind), Investigación y
ciencia, No. 302, November 2001, Barcelona.
REFERENCES
Darwin, Charles, The Descent of Man, Penguin Classic, 2004.
Ferrreras Arsuaga and Martínez Mendizábal, “El origen de la
mente” (The origin of the mind), Investigación y ciencia, No. 302,
November 2001, Barcelona.
Ford, Martin, The Lights in the Tunnel. Automation, Accelerating
Technology and the Economy of the Future, Acculant Publishing,
San Bernardino, CA, 2009.
Gorz, André, 5HFODLPLQJ :RUN %H\RQG WKH :DJH%DVHG 6RFLHW\, Polity
Press, 1999.
Heller, Agnes, 7RZDUG D 0DU[LVW 7KHRU\ RI 9DOXH (Southern Illinois
University, 1972).
Leakey, Richard, The History of Humankind. Unearthing our Family Tree,
Phoenix, London, 2001.
Márkus György, Marxism and Anthropology. The Concept of the ‘Human
Essence’ in the Philosophy of Marx, Van Gorcum Publishers,
Assen, The Netherlands, 1978. There is a second edition in
English with an introduction by Axel Honneth & Hans Joas:
Modem-Verlag, Australia, 1988, which reproduces the text
of the 1978 edition. [Although I mainly worked with the
excellent Spanish translation by Manuel Sacristán, Marxismo
y ‘antropología’, Grijalbo, Barcelona, 1973 and México, 1985, I
have based the wording and quotations in this lecture mainly
on the 1978 English edition, but I have frequently combined both
translations. In some cases this has been necessary to avoid the
mistakes incurred in the English translation; in other cases the
Spanish translation seemed better].
Marx, Karl, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts (1844), in Marx,
Karl, Early Writings, Penguin Classics, 1992, pp. 279-400.
—— “Excerpts from James Mill’s Elements of Political Economy” in
Karl Marx, Early Writings Penguin Classics, 1992, pp. 259-278.
—— Prologue to Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, 1859,
referred as Preface to A Critique of Political Economy in David Mc
Lellan, Karl Marx, Selected Writings, Oxford University Press, pp.
424-428.
—— Grundrisse. Introduction to the Critique of Political Economy,

Penguin Books, 1973.
—— Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875, in Karl Marx, Political
Writings, Vol. 3, Verso 2010, pp. 339-359.
—— Capital. Vol. I, Penguin Classics, 1990.
Ponce de León, Aura, “Arqueología cognitiva: atisbos de la mente
homínida” (Cognitive archaeology: signs of the hominid mind),
Ludus Vitalis, Vol. X, No. 18, México, 2002, pp. 89-109.
—— “Género Homo: modificar o conservar el ambiente?” (Homo
genus: modify or conserve the environment?), in Jorge Martínez
Contreras (editor), Senderos de la conservación y de la restauración
ecológica. Evaluación crítica y ética, Centro de Estudios Filosóficos,
Políticos y Sociales Vicente Lombardo Toledano, México, 2005.
Richta, Radovan et al. (Civilisation at the Crossroads, original Czech
edition, 1968; in English, 1969, International Arts and Sciences
Press, reissued 2018 by Routledge; Spanish Edition, La civilización
en la encrucijada, Artiach, Madrid, 1968.
Rifkin Jeremy, The End of Work, G.P. Putnam’s Sons, NY, 1995.
—— The Zero Marginal Cost Society, Palgrave Macmillan, New York,
2014.
—— “Tiempo libre para disfrutarlo o hacer filas de desempleados”, in
Luis J. Alvarez, Un mundo sin trabajo, Editorial Dríada, México,
2003.
Stringer, Chris and Peter Andrews, The Complete World of Human
Evolution, Thames and Hudson, London, 2005, p. 240.
Tobias, Phillip V., “Men, Minds and Hands: Cultural Awakening Over
Two Million Years of Humanity”, South African Archaeological
Bulletin, Vol. 34, 1979, pp. 85-92.
3
The Origins of Marxist Oriental Studies

in the USSR and its Stalinist Distortion
Craig Brandist
While Marxists may find much to object to in the work of

the French sociologist and historian Michel Foucault, there
is no denying his historical work shone an important and
revealing light on hitherto neglected aspects of repression
and domination. Cultural historians also made some
important contributions by employing his ideas, especially in
combination with those of Edward Said, to reveal previously
unacknowledged dimensions of colonial rule. Since such
approaches dominated postcolonial studies in the 1980s,
however, they have tended to become rather mechanical
applications of an unquestioned repertoire of conceptions.
Theoretical or phenomenal novelties are few and far between
as this or that cultural phenomenon is treated as a problem
to be ‘solved’ by applying a preconceived set of ideas. The
limitations of this procedure have become even clearer
to those not content to remain within the bounds of this
preconceived framework. The enclosure of postcolonialism
within the paradigm of ‘SRZHUNQRZOHGJH’, involving denial
of any historical truth irreducible to the present-day interests
of the historian and those he or she serves, has seriously
compromised its claims to veracity. Moreover, the inflated
and under-theorised sphere of ‘discourse’ that Foucault
employed throughout his work, and which was passed on to
his followers with little critical reflection, has proven deeply
7KH2ULJLQVRI0DU[LVW2ULHQWDO6WXGLHVLQWKH8665в83
problematic. As Christopher Norris (2015, 204) argues, the

conflation of the linguistic employment of the term to mean
any body of language larger than the sentence with the
‘hugely extended range of meaning that it [discourse – CB] can
signify things like “body of knowledge,” “Weltanschauung,”
“ideology,” “professional code,” “cultural way of life,”
“habit of thought,” “scientific belief system,” “dominant
structure of assumptions,”’ and the like, often obscures more
than it reveals. French structuralism with its focus on binary
oppositions and Althusser’s conflation of such structures with
inescapable forms of ideology here meets Nietzsche’s ‘will to
power’, which is allegedly everywhere and inescapable.
Invocations of a closed, orientalist discourse that dates
back to the Enlightenment and beyond, structured around
a series of binary oppositions: the rational, democratic and
progressive West versus a mystical or religious, despotic
and stagnant East, have now become as repetitious and
unproductive as the clichés of official Soviet condemnations
of Western imperialism. This can be explained by both the
sociology of academic practices and, as we shall see, by the
fact that there is a genetic relationship between the two. In
much postcolonial theory the Manichaean visions of the Cold
War struggle over the decolonising world, each side of which
articulated closed systems of values and conceptions, has now
morphed into a dichotomy of East and West. Characterisations
of the former often secrete, if not openly present, a romantic
image of an organically whole, pre-colonial culture that
became fractured by the incursion of a colonial rationality.
All individual utterances among those operating within the
Western episteme ultimately succumb to institutionalised
discursive forms.
Many important factors have been obscured by
this monologic caricature. One is the highly contested
dialogues between the radical, atheistic currents within the
Enlightenment, beginning with Spinoza’s philosophy, and
those moderate philosophes determined to reconcile the advance
of science with religious prejudices and the established social
order on which Jonathan Israel (2006) has written in detail. In

reality, the rise of colonialism acted on this field in complex
ways (2006, 590–614). Another is the fact that the narratives
developed by Indo-European philology, that formed the basis
of what Edward Said called ‘orientalism’, and that ‘endowed
orientalism with its most important technical characteristics’
(1995 [1978], 131), was nothing like a unified discourse of
European Enlightenment. Rather, it emerged from a meeting
of distinct sections of two complex and already class-divided
societies. Indo-European philology emerged from unequal
collaboration between European philologists and Brahman
pandits who were bidding for cultural authority (Karttunen
2015, 59-63; Mani 2015, 191-201). The poststructuralist theory
of language relegated considerations of these complex
historical processes that were refracted through discursive
interaction to, at best, matters of secondary importance.
Said’s eclectic 1978 book Orientalism certainly contributed
to the elision of these crucial dimensions, and he encouraged
a number of misconceptions about Marxism and the Orient.
However, later, more ‘hardline’ Foucauldians, with little of
Foucault’s own sophistication, forgot, or more likely simply
ignored, Said’s own reservations and caveats about Foucault.
They also overlooked Said’s debt to Marxist thinkers. We will
return to the latter issue in due course, but, significantly, Said
regarded Foucault’s attitude to power as ‘flawed’, with the
central problem deriving ‘from his insufficiently developed
attention to the problem of historical change’ (Said 1983, 222).
Contra Foucault, Said insisted that ‘individual writers’ do leave
a ‘determining imprint’ on an ‘otherwise anonymous body of
texts constituting a discursive formation like Orientalism’. For
Said (1995 [1978], 23) it was the ‘dynamic exchange between
individual authors and the large political concerns shaped by
the… great empires’ that need to be foregrounded rather than
a closed circle of discourse. Finally, Foucault’s identification
of a discourse with a rationality of domination was a matter
of considerable concern for Said. As he expressed it in 1983,
there is ‘a sensible difference between… Logos and words: we
must not let Foucault get away with confusing them with each
other, nor with letting us forget that history does not get made
without work, intention, resistance, effort, or conflict, and that
none of these things is silently absorbable into micronetworks
of power’ (1983, 245).1
Hegel and India
As postcolonial theory developed, a typical target of attack was
Hegel’s disparaging, and undoubtedly prejudiced, comments
about Indian thought. The idea of a unitary discourse of
‘Orientalism’ is superficially convincing here, but the matter is
not so simple. As Rathore and Mohapatra have shown, some of
Hegel’s most notorious interventions were primarily directed
against his own German contemporaries, the Romantics who
he held over-enthusiastically to have exaggerated the wisdom
found in the Gita (2017, 24). When posturing against his rivals
Hegel ‘rode roughshod over the subtle distinctions which,
during cooler and more contemplative moments, he himself
took great pains to tease out, articulate and explore’ (2017, 80).
Indeed, Hegel regarded Indian thought significant enough
for him constantly to engage with it throughout his career
and to write some 80,000 words on the topic. While redolent
with caricatures characteristic of the age of imperialism,
‘insofar as he touches on central farcical and corrosive tenets
of Brahminism’, Hegel’s critique shares much with ‘a long
history of other pre-eminent Indian critics of the origins,
perpetuation, and persistence of caste in India, from Buddha,
Kabir, Ravidas, Tukaram, Guru Narnak—all either scarcely
known or unknown to Hegel—to his contemporary Jyotirao
Phule, to recent pioneers such as Periyar, Iyothee Thass, and
B.R. Ambedkar’ (2017, 32).
Whatever Hegel’s orientalist failings they pale before
those of Nietzsche and Heidegger, the European philosophers
central for poststructuralist critics of Eurocentrism. Both
were proponents of the ‘Greek romance of philosophy’ that
promoted an image of classical Greece ‘as the pure origin of
modern Europe, writing out of this genealogy the influence
of Pharaonic and Hellenistic Egypt on Greek culture, and of

the Islamic world on mediaeval Christendom’ (Callinicos
1995, 180-181). Nietzsche did, of course, have some respect for
Indian thought when it came to pursuing a new order of rank
between classes: the /DZV RI 0DQX became the model for his
‘new aristocracy’ or ‘new ruling caste’ in Europe, but this is
often passed over in silence (Figueria 2015 [2002], 55-56).
The Postcolonial Critique of Marxism
Failure adequately to understand Hegel’s writing about India
is significant because it prepared the ground for postcolonalist
attempts to discredit Marxism as ‘an extreme form of European
Enlightenment thinking’ (Kemper 2006, 6). Foucauldian
postcolonial theorists needed to consign Marxism to the
dustbin of Eurocentrism in order to forge a historical myth of
postcolonialism’s own radical origin. For all its emphasis on
emancipation, argued Robert Young in his widely received
book of 1990, White Mythologies: Writing History and the West,
Marxism is ‘implicated in the link between the structures of
knowledge and the forms of oppression… that has become
known as Eurocentrism’ because its ‘unifying… arrogant and
arrogating narrative’ always involves the ‘creation, subjection
and final appropriation of Europe’s “others”’ (2004 [1990],
33; Callinicos 1995, 180). While Young managed to land some
justified blows on Althusser, his approach was marked by
significant overgeneralisations. While one can certainly find
instances of Eurocentrism in the work of some Marxists,
postcolonial critics have often failed to acknowledge the
many Marxist works that not only developed a critique of
the imbrication of much Western scholarship about the orient
with imperialism, but also criticised specific Marxist works
that were marred by the same assumptions. One example
of the latter was Bryan S. Turner’s book Marx and the End of
Orientalism (1978), published the very same year as Said’s
Orientalism, with which Young engaged, fleetingly, only in the
introduction to the second edition of his book. Turner, Young
argued, was urging the ‘“de-colonisation” of the European
Marxist tradition’ (2004 [1990], 2), whereas, in actual fact,

Turner (1978, 7–8) noted only that Marx’s early work was
still insufficiently separated from Hegelian prejudices about
the orient, and that these reappeared in certain works by
contemporary Marxists. On this issue, as many others, noted
Turner, ‘there is no such thing as a homogeneous tradition
of Marxist analysis’ (1978, 8). To his credit, Young has more
recently adopted a rather more nuanced perspective on
the role of Marxism in the development of the postcolonial
critique, but his earlier comment stands as symptomatic of
the time when poststructuralist assumptions about unified, if
unstable, discourses were dominant.
When looking at perspectives on the development of
Oriental Studies in the USSR the same monologic approach
is still very much in evidence (though far from universal). In
a recent work on the problems of the historiography of the
Orient, veteran Russian Orientologist Leonid Alaev (2018, 45
46) argues that Marx was a fundamentally Eurocentric thinker
who regarded the pattern of economic development he
discerned in western Europe as universal and ‘laid aside the
problem of the specific evolution of various societies’. Rather
than correcting this bias, Alaev continues, later Marxists were
concerned ‘exclusively with the establishment of a single
line of development to be ascribed to all peoples’. Historian
of Soviet Islam, Michael Kemper makes effectively the same
claim when he argues that ‘the classical Marxist conception’
of the development of all societies is the ‘concept of five
universal socio-economic stages’ (primitive society, slave-
holding society, feudalism, capitalism and socialism), what in
Stalin’s time came to be referred to as the ‘piatichlenka’ (2009,
35). Marxism allegedly sought to locate all societies on a pre
established scheme of stadial development, and this was the
basis of a unitary ‘discourse of Soviet orientalism’ that from
the outset of the Russian Revolution functioned ‘to turn the
Orient into an instrument of Soviet Russia’ (Kemper 2010,
449). Marxists writing about the ‘East’ in the USSR, he argues,
developed a ‘discourse’ that ‘was itself pure ‘‘Orientalism’’
(in the sense of Edward Said)’, they ‘unquestionably put

their knowledge at the disposal of the state, which used it for
ruling and thoroughly transforming… contemporary Muslim
societies’ (Kemper 2009, 46).
The elements of truth in these statements are combined
with a series of conflations and overgeneralisations. In the
1930s there really was a concerted effort to homogenise Soviet
perspectives on the East and to use the knowledge generated
as a resource for the imperial domination of the Soviet ‘East’
and the subordination of the independence movements across
the colonial world to the foreign policy of Moscow. Part of this
was indeed the development of a unilinear model of social
development, which was presented in Marxist terminology.
However, as we will see, simply to extrapolate this model, let
alone a putative Orientalist ‘discourse’, back into the debates
of the 1920s, and then to extrapolate from this to the writings
of Marx himself, is highly problematic.2
In terms of practical application, there is a fundamental
difference between the Bolsheviks’ attempt to win leadership
in a revolutionary struggle against a common adversary and
treating an ally simply as an instrument. As I have argued
elsewhere at length (Brandist 2015) the many debates about
the strategy of hegemony before and after the Revolution
focused specifically on this distinction, and it is no coincidence
that these came to an abrupt end when Stalin declared that
socialism had been achieved in the USSR. It is significant that
even historians who are hostile to the entire Bolshevik project
are generally compelled to acknowledge that policies towards
the ‘peoples of the East’ in the 1920s was quite different to
what prevailed from the end of that decade. To square this
particular circle even sophisticated historians tend to revert
to a form of conspiracy theory. A concrete recent example is
the well-researched and documented book on Buddhism in the
8665IURPWR, by the Russian historian Fedor Sinitsyn
(2013). The author duly notes the tolerant approach taken by
the Soviet government towards Buddhists in the first half of
the 1920s, but then declares such tolerance was a ‘deception’
[obman], for Buddhism, along with other religions was ‘not

only an ideological opponent but an existential enemy’
(2013, 58). The DSULRUL requirement to uphold a narrative of
continuity between the Bolsheviks plans in the early 1920s
and the assault on Buddhist monasteries at the end of the
decade, in the face of considerable evidence of discontinuity,
leads to a trope of masks and plots. Yet while the study is
valuable for its rich store of factual information, evidence
that subterfuge was actually taking place in the early 1920s is
absent. Rather, pronouncements of the Party leadership made
both in public and behind closed doors at this time are quite
different to those at the end of the decade. The years 1925
28 represent a transitional period when bureaucratic forces
ceased to observe the earlier policy towards the religious
institutions of the oppressed peoples of the Russian Empire,
including Buddhists, which had foregrounded constructive
engagement. The possibility that the ruling party could have
changed in fundamental ways between 1917 and 1930 does
not receive any serious consideration. Yet what if, as Said
suggested, continuity of terminology and of rhetoric (words)
obscures a sharp discontinuity of rationality (logos)?
Marxism, Positivism and the ‘Peoples of the East’
The important changes in Marx’s own ideas during his
long career, and his increasingly critical approach to the
conceptualisations and generalisations of the positivist
historians on which he relied for much of his information,
have been the focus of a number of scholars recently (see, for
instance, Habib 2006; Anderson 2010; Achcar 2013). In these
accounts, Marx’s mature engagements with non-Western
societies appear more as exploratory attempts to discern the
so-called ‘laws of motion’ of specific historical formations
than attempts to locate societies on a pre-established timeline.
Recent scholarship on Marx convincingly shows that he
never aspired to the construction of a unified discourse of
‘Marxism’ and indeed repeatedly rejected attempts by those
who sought to create one. Indeed, many of Marx’s most
influential texts were left incomplete and unpublished at his

death, being finalised by editors. The Marx-Engels Institute in
Moscow played a particularly important role in this creation
of apparently canonical texts. Indeed, Marx’s incomplete
and fragmentary texts only began to be published without
editorial interventions in the still far from complete second
Marx Engels Gesamtausgabe (MEGA) that began to appear
in 1975. As Michael Heinrich (2015), who is writing the first
intellectual biography of Marx since these texts appeared
notes, even Marx’s most influential published texts were
only parts of ‘fundamental theoretical projects’ that remained
unfinished, such as the first book of the Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy (1859) or the first volume of Capital
(1867/1872). Such projects remained unfinished because Marx
was a thinker who was constantly learning and developing
his theoretical conceptions, and he increasingly studied
non-Western societies, which complicated and ultimately
compromised his plans.
Trotsky’s historical writings on the particularities of
Russian historical development, in which he outlined the
principle of combined and uneven development, marked
a further step in this direction (see Banaji 2010; Anievas and
Nisancioglu 2015). Naturally such developments were not
given due consideration by those writing within the officially
sponsored and regulated sphere of ‘Soviet Marxism’.
So where did the idea of a unified Marxist discourse on
the orient come from? It has some roots in the somewhat
mechanical evolutionism of some Second International
Marxism, such as Plekhanov’s insistence, in his arguments
with the Russian populists, that Russia would have to pass
through the stage of capitalist production before socialism
could even be put on the agenda. This approach owed more
to the evolutionary narratives of contemporary positivism,
which dominated Russian thought in late imperial Russia and
beyond, than to the mutually constituting dialectic pioneered
by Marx (see especially Steila 1991). The work of leading
positivist thinkers like Auguste Comte, John Stuart Mill, E.B.
Tylor and Herbert Spencer appeared in Russian translation

often within a year of their original publication, and were
widely received. A unilinear pattern was further affirmed
by the proponents of so-called ‘legal Marxism’, for whom
the arrival of capitalism and of bourgeois democracy were
viewed as synonymous. Interestingly a variant of this idea has
reappeared in certain strands of subaltern studies to show that
India has never fully achieved the status of a capitalist state.
Not only did all this contradict Marx’s late engagements with
Russian revolutionaries, which remained unpublished till the
late 1920s, but it was decisively rejected by Lenin, Trotsky
and others who led the October Revolution of 1917. It was
decisively revived and canonised in the Stalinist period when
the positivist search for universal laws of social development,
with mentally-conceived stages (in Comte’s case theological,
metaphysical and positive stages) was confused with the so-
called ‘laws’ of the dialectic presented in Engels’s (unfinished)
Dialectics of Nature, compiled, edited and published by the
Marx-Engels Institute in 1927.
If Plekhanov laid the groundwork for the Stalinist model
of social development, it was imperial Russia’s late specialists
on the ‘East’ that laid the foundations of Stalinist oriental
studies. A particularly clear case is the great historian of
Central Asia Vasilii Bartol’d (1869-1930), who welcomed the
positivist search for universal laws of social development but
argued that ‘sociology’ remained grounded one-sidedly on
facts gathered by historians relating to European societies.
A truly universal sociology had, he maintained, to look
beyond Europe, which constitutes only a small minority of
the societies, which enter into ‘world-historical intercourse’
(Bartol’d 1977 [1911], 207). In the absence of a wider base of
evidence, a speculative philosophy of history had arisen,
propagating an unscientific notion of ‘progress’ and a series
of stereotypes (Bartol’d 1977 [1911], 220–22). While ‘progress’
became an established characteristic of the West, ‘stagnation’
became a perceived characteristic of the ‘East’ among educated
Europeans (Bartol’d 1966 [1903], 303). While most European
writers about Eastern societies viewed their development as

a ‘self-contained process’ defined by racial origin, Bartol’d
praised recent German historians, such as the Assyriologist
Hugo Winckler, for showing that ‘the history of the ancient
East, just as much as that of Europe, was determined by the
influence of one nation on another and the distribution of the
culture of one or several advanced nations over an ever wider
geographical region’ (Bartol’d 1977 [1911], 233–34). On the
basis of such research, Bartol’d pursued what he considered
a more scientific ‘law of “evolution”, i.e. the gradual and
consequential change in all the conditions of life of human
societies’ (Bartol’d 1977 [1911], 222). The direction of evolution
was clear: ‘the gradual convergence of an ever greater number
of separate societies’ (Bartol’d 1977 [1911], 208).
While sharply critical of British and French oriental
studies for their ideological biases, manifested in the binary
oppositions that were later identified as ‘orientalist’, Bartol’d’s
work promoted Russia’s own Eurasian and territorially
coterminous imperial project. He argued scholars must
highlight and celebrate the cultural achievements of the
peoples of the East and in doing so contribute towards their
‘peaceful convergence… with Russia’: ‘the peoples of the
East will believe in the superiority of our culture all the more
when they are convinced we know them better than they
know themselves’ (Bartol’d 1963 [1900], 610). As Vera Tolz
(2011) has shown, late imperial ‘Orientologists’ like Bartol’d,
Indologist Sergei Ol’denburg (1863-1934) and archaeologist
and philologist of the Caucasus region Nikolai Marr (1865
1934) sought to strengthen the Empire by promoting a hybrid
identity among the various peoples of Russia. Simultaneously
the subject peoples should be encouraged to take pride in
their local cultures and in the imperial civic space they shared.
These figures would play an important role in the formation
of Soviet oriental studies and in the practical work of building
the USSR.3 While the Imperial authorities had no time for their
proposed multicultural nationality policy, this was precisely
the project of ‘korenizatsiia’ (indigenisation or nativisation) that

emerged from the Twelfth Party Congress in 1923.
By the time of the sixteenth Party Congress in the summer
of 1930, the positivist ‘convergence of an ever greater number
of separate societies’, and the multicultural form of Empire
that Bartol’d, Marr and other ‘orientologists’ had espoused,
was Party policy. Stalin now argued that national cultures
would, and indeed should, merge into a unity ‘in both form
and content’ under socialism. The peoples of the USSR were
now allegedly converging because of the USSR’s movement
towards ‘socialism in one country’. However, until there was
a final victory of socialism on a global scale this convergence
would remain limited to a unity of ideological ‘content’
coexisting with a ‘flowering’ of various ‘forms’ of national
culture (Stalin [1930] 1954, 380). While Bartol’d died within
weeks of Stalin’s speech, Marr and his followers deliberately
invoked it to win official support for their own espousal of the
convergence and merger of all languages.
Early Soviet Oriental Studies
In the 1920s though, the positivist approaches of the pre-
Revolutionary period were but one strand of nascent Soviet
oriental studies, which remained a complex field subject
to competing intellectual and political forces till the end of
the decade. Young Soviet Marxists were coming into the
field, seeking to overthrow existing paradigms and guide
political intervention in the colonial world, but hampered
by a paucity of expertise in oriental languages and cultures.
As in many areas they relied on the older generation of
specialists for factual information, while attempting a critique
of their principles of generalisation and conceptualisation.
At the same time, a generation of radical intellectuals from
the colonial world, seeking support from the Revolutionary
regime, found themselves in dialogue with Bolshevik leaders
in the Communist International and participating in its newly
formed educational institutions such as the University of
the Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV).
Indian, Chinese and Arab Communists played particularly

important roles (see, inter alia, Persits 1973; Datta Gupta 2006;
Kosach 2001; 2009). From this interaction a vigorous debate
about how to bring Marxism to bear on non-Western societies
ensued, with a wide range of approaches coming into view.
With the formation of the All-Russian Scientific Association
of Oriental Studies (Vserossiiskaia nauchnaia assotsiatsiia
vostokovedeniia, VNAV) formed within the Commissariat of
Nationalities (Narkomnats) in December 1921. The definition of
the ‘East’ now shifted to mean all areas of the world adversely
affected by imperialism. As the director of the Eastern section
of the Comintern, Georgii Safarov (1891–1942) noted in his
1922 book Problemy Vostoka (Problems of the East), Marxists
needed to respond to the ‘question of the East’ as posed by
the realities of imperialism and the state of the class struggle.
In present conditions this meant the ‘ways and means
through which the backward countries of the East would be
incorporated into the global capitalist economic system’, and
it ‘elevated this question to the status of a matter of principle’.
The task was to help the labouring masses of the East
shorten their path from pre-capitalist means of production to
communism and so avoid the suffering inflicted by capitalist
development (Safarov 1922, 25–26). The goal was to achieve
something approximating a smychka (alliance or union)
between the proletariat of industrialised countries and the
labouring masses of the colonial world against the common
enemy: international capitalism.
VNAV published a significant journal, Novyi Vostok,
throughout the 1920s and gave rise to some significant
and varied scholarship, such as Gurko-Kriazhin’s work on
Turkey, Sultan-Zade’s work on Persia or Safarov’s work on
Turkestan and (later) on China. A range of works developed
new perspectives on the origin and development of Islam,
aimed at informing policy both within the USSR and relations
with the colonial world. The problem was these works
understandably prioritised the enlightenment of the popular
masses about the East, in order to combat religious and other
prejudices, above elaborating an alternative to the established

and refined ideologies of the pre-Revolutionary intelligentsia.
Indeed, persistent Russian chauvinist ideas among many
Party members, about which Lenin voiced concern on more
than one occasion, meant that the prioritisation of popular-
scientific works about the ‘peoples of the East’ was a priority
even within the Party itself (for a good overview of the
problem see Harris 1990, 101-15). As Gramsci noted in his
Prison reflections on the NEP-era USSR, Marxists thus formed
intellectual alliances with ‘extraneous tendencies’ (Gramsci
1971, 392) such as philosophical materialism and positivism.
Marxism thus ‘combined into a form of culture which was
slightly higher than the popular average (which was very
low) but was absolutely inadequate to combat the ideologies
of the educated classes’ (Gramsci 1971, 392–393).
At the same time, however, students of established
Orientalists from the pre-Revolutionary era assimilated
aspects of Marxism that gave their work a new character.
These works were generally less immediately subjected to
immediate political pressures since they concerned matters
of history and culture more than politics in the narrow sense.
Nikolai Konrad’s studies of Japanese history, language and
literature (1927, 1935) was one clear example of a certain
Marxist perestroika that took place among what Gramsci
called ‘traditional intellectuals’. More directly connected
with political questions was the work of a new generation
of linguists involved in the codification and standardisation
of the languages of the peoples of the Soviet East. Linguists
like Evgenii Polivanov and Nikolai Iakovlev made crucial
contributions not only to the study of individual languages,
but also in the development of sociological linguistics. The
promotion of the languages and cultures of the peoples of
the former colonies of the Russian Empire also facilitated the
rise to prominence of a number of scholars from the former
colonies of the Russian Empire, such as the Buryat scholar
Tsyben Zhamtsarano (1880-1942) and the Armenian historian
Iosif Orbeli (1887-1961).4 This accompanied splits among
Muslim and Buddhist intellectuals, with the emergence of

significant movements of ‘renovationists’ (obnovlentsy), and
of ‘national communists’, seeking to make common cause
between formerly oppressed religious communities and the
Soviet government.
VNAV illustrated some of the potential paths open to
incipient Marxist oriental studies, and the shift of traditional
intellectuals working within state institutions towards
Marxism showed the rising prestige of Marxist ideas among
specialists. The shift towards subordination of Oriental Studies
to political expediency was illustrated by the Scientific-
Research Association for work on the Socio-Economic
Problems of the Soviet and Foreign East formed at KUTV in
1927. As a Party institute linked directly to the Comintern,
the Association and its journal Revoliutsionnyi Vostok (The
Revolutionary East) provided SRVWKRF justifications for
the zigzags of the Comintern policy from the defeat of the
Shanghai uprising till the Great Purge of 1937. When Party
institutes effectively annexed state institutes in 1929 and the
administration required that research supported the drive for
forced industrialisation and the collectivisation of agriculture,
the environment within which oriental studies operated
changed fundamentally. Just as, in the field of literature and
literary studies, where belligerent advocates of proletarian
culture were encouraged and supported in harassing and
denouncing fellow travellers and representatives of the avant
garde, so in oriental studies the same phenomenon took place.
Indeed, the same people were sometimes involved, such
as Il’ia Vardin (pseudonym on the Georgian critic Illarion
Vissarionovich Mgeladze, 1890-1941), who had attacked
fellow-travellers on the grounds that ‘he who cannot look
through Communist Eyes is not able artistically to reflect the
objective truth’ (Tamazishvili 2008, 80) and now moved on to
attacking non-Party specialists in Oriental studies on the same
basis. By 1930 this had degenerated to accusing such figures,
and VNAV in general, of concealed Menshevism and allying
with ‘social-fascism’ (Tamazishvili 2008, 121).
In 1930 VNAV lost its autonomy and was incorporated

into the Communist Academy, which pursued a narrow
struggle ‘on the oriental studies front’ (Safarov 1931).
The crushing of opposition currents dramatically affected
oriental studies. Centralisation of the Soviet state in order
to compete militarily with hostile powers also required the
subordination of anti-colonial struggles to the foreign policy
interests of the USSR. Perspectives that failed to support these
policies were denounced, while those that supported them
were officially promoted. Soviet specialists in oriental studies
consequently became some of the most persecuted groups
of intellectuals in the USSR. Some of the most sophisticated,
talented and innovative thinkers in the field were fired,
imprisoned or even killed, while their places were often
taken by opportunists and sycophants who sought to shape
the field into a dogmatic sphere narrowly subservient to the
requirements and doctrines of the state. Statutory authority
trumped scientific authority in all questions, including which
positions could legitimately be regarded as Marxist. Only areas
relatively distant from immediate political concerns retained
the possibility of more diverse and critical engagements. Here
one might mention the work of Aleksei Petrovich Barannikov
(1890-1952), whose discussion of the caste dynamics in the
formation of Indian national languages and literatures are
worthy of renewed attention (Barannikov 1937; 1941; 1948).
Indian Dialogues
Despite the tragic fate of incipient Marxist oriental studies in
the 1930s, and the subordination of Communist Parties to the
pronouncements of Moscow, the USSR remained surprisingly
open to fellow-traveller intellectuals from Asia.5 Particularly
interesting in this regard are the visits to the USSR by Indian
fellow-traveller intellectuals involved in the anti-caste
movement in this period.
While the importance of caste divisions within the
Labouring masses of contemporary India had been considered
by the Comintern in the early 1920s (Roy, Datta Gupta and
Vasudevan 1999, Vol. 1, 116-25), the most influential Indian

member of the Comintern, M.N. Roy, did not systematically
discuss the question of caste till his expulsion from the
Comintern at the end of that decade. While in prison in the
1930s, Roy began to reconsider Indian politics and history
from a perspective that sought to cleanse Marxism of its
Stalinist accretions (Roy 2016 [1932]). The Brahmanical social
order and the precedent of Buddhism as an egalitarian,
anti-caste and atheistic movement were now considered
systematically in his writings. In the Party itself such
complexities and specificities were largely neglected. Caste
was considered to be a feudal survival that was destined to
disappear with the development of capitalism and so did not
need to be considered systematically in the development of
policy. After a period in which renovationist currents in Soviet
Buddhism were welcomed and engaged in a constructive
fashion, from 1929 the government regarded all such currents
extremely negatively. Indeed, renovationists were (like many
reformist currents during the ‘third period’) often regarded
as more dangerous than conservative Buddhists who were
openly hostile to Soviet power (Sinitsyn 2013, 69). The
subsequent repressions deprived intellectuals seeking to unite
Buddhism and Marxism within the anti-caste movement of
a credible, corresponding movement within the USSR itself
and encouraged hostility from within the Indian Communist
Party. While this did not, preclude productive engagements
that led to theoretical advances, parties loyal to Moscow
undermined attempts successfully to adapt political practice
to Indian conditions.
One of the earliest visitors to the USSR in this category
was the Goan Buddhist Dharmanand Kosambi who, with
the support of Indian Comintern activist Virendranath
Chattopadhyaya and future Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru,
travelled to Leningrad to attend an international conference
on Buddhist culture in 1929 (Roy, Datta Gupta and Vasudevan
1999, Vol. 1, 339-40), after which he stayed on teaching Pali
at the short-lived Institute of Buddhist Culture for a number
of months. He visited Leningrad for a second time in 1932.

Apart from his interest in Marxism and the changes in the
USSR, Kosambi was attracted to the work of Leningrad
Buddhologists led by Fedor Shcherbatskoy (aka Theodor
Stcherbatsky), who he had met in Bombay as early as 1910
(Vigasin 2008, 246). Shcherbatskoy was especially interesting
for Indian radicals because of his treatment of Buddhism
primarily as an atheistic, rationalist philosophy that had
evolved in opposition to Brahmanism and had achieved a
level of sophistication rivalling that of European philosophy.
Kosambi’s overall experience in the USSR was, however,
ambivalent, for his admiration of economic achievements,
the development of education and gender equality coexisted
with less comfortable observations of the repressions involved
with collectivisation and of religious communities, including
Buddhism. Reflections on the USSR and the need for the
Buddhist commitment to non-violence to be combined with
Marxism in India are important parts of Kosambi’s written
work (Kosambi 2010 [1935]). His subsequent influence
on perhaps the most important anti-caste campaigner of
the independence movement, B.R. Ambedkar, who was
sympathetic to Marxism but having considerable problems
dealing with the dogmatic perspectives of Indian Communists
loyal to Stalinism (Teltumbde 2017), is a matter for further
research. Dharmanand’s influence on his son Damodar, the
founder of Marxist history in India, must have been significant
indeed. The critical distance Damodar maintained from Soviet
unilinear narratives that runs throughout his Marxist histories
of ancient India owes much to this.
Another illustrative case is the Bihari polymath Rahul
Sankrtityayan who, like Kosambi, converted to Buddhism,
which he understood as ‘atheist humanism… social
egalitarianism, and a system of reason… compatible with
the modern world’ (Ober 2013, 141). Also like Kosambi,
Sankrityayan had spent some years as a wandering Buddhist
monk, but had visited Tibet several times where he collected
important Sanskrit manuscripts, xylographs and pictorial
art (Gerke 1998). While in Tibet in 1929, Sankrityayan was

told about the emergence of renovationists among Soviet
Buddhists, who claimed Marxism and Buddhism were
compatible (Ober 2016, 300).6 After a number of attempts, he
travelled to Leningrad to work with Shcherbatskoy in the
winter of 1937-38, amid Stalin’s Great Terror, which claimed
most members of the Leningrad school of Buddhology
apart from Stcherbatsky himself. Unlike Kosambi, however,
Sankrityayan’s closeness to Stalin’s Russia was enhanced
by his time in Russia, during which time he married one of
Shcherbatskoy’s students and they had a son (Vasil’kov 1998).
He became increasingly critical of Buddhism in the absence of
a historical-materialist perspective on history, and joined the
Indian Communist Party on his return to India in October 1939.
In 1945 he returned to Leningrad to teach in the Department
of Indian Philology at Leningrad University at Leningrad
University, returning to India after independence in 1947,
only to be expelled from the Indian Party in January 1948.
Sankrityayan’s prodigious literary output is impressive both
in the number and variety of his publications, but we see an
early attempt to consider the development of Indian religions
and their relations to the specific forms of social organisation in
some of his Tibetological works and philosophical reflections
such as his essay on Buddhist dialectics (Sankrityayan 1970).
Such work made possible later Marxist excursions into the
study of Indian philosophy and religions such as Debiprasad
Chattopadhyaya’s landmark study of /RNă\DWD (1959). It is no
coincidence that Chattopadhyaya then proceeded to edit and
publish the work of Shcherbatskoy in English translation.
Finally, Tamil leader of the Self-Respect movement,
Periyar E.V. Ramaswami visited Moscow in December 1931
till March 1932, where he became an honorary member of the
League of the Militant Godless. The practice of the Russian
atheist movement was important for Periyar since he held that
Hinduism had been the main obstacle to revolutionary change
in India, but he retained considerable sympathy for Buddhism.
On Periyar’s return to India socialism became a central part of
his outlook, leading to the development of the so-called Erode

programme in which the founder of the Communist Party in
Tamil Nadu Malayapuram Singaravelu Chettiar (1860-1946)
played a leading role (Murugesan and Subramanyam 1975, 67
84). Singaravelu, it is worth noting, had been President of the
largest Buddhist revivalist organisation in Madras, the Maha
Bodhi Society, and had worked closely with the key anti-caste
campaigner and Buddhist revivalist Iyothee Thass.7 Thass’s
critique of Brahmanism, like that of Jotirao Phule before him,
had much in common with the semantic palaeontology being
developed by Marx and his followers in the USSR in the 1920s
and 1930s (Brandist 2018), and Singaravelu’s attempts to
‘indiginise’ Marxism in India in the 1930s owed much to these
earlier movements, and to the convergence of the anti-caste
movement and the revival of Buddhism in India (see Geetha
and Rajadurai 1998; Vaitheespara and Venkatasubramanian
2015).
These cases amply illustrate the potential that existed
for Indian Marxists to engage in a productive dialogue with
indigenous forms of Indian socialism that emerged in the anti-
caste movement and took forms that drew upon renovationist
Buddhism. Stalinism ultimately obstructed any sustained and
organised engagement, ultimately driving a wedge between
the communist and anti-caste movements the effects of
which persist today. This was symptomatic of the alienation
from the USSR that would be felt by many intellectuals
from the decolonising world as the Communist Parties were
subordinated to Moscow’s foreign policy agenda. This was
only to increase in the context of the Cold War.
The Cold War and After
The bipolar world order that emerged with the beginning of
the Cold War consolidated institutionally the polemical face of
a unitary Soviet oriental studies. Soviet orientalism (sovetskoe
vostokovedenie) was defined in contrast to its other, ‘bourgeois
orientalism’ (burzhuaznoe vostokovedenie). An ideological
struggle between ‘bourgeois’ and ‘Soviet’ orientalisms began
to appear in Soviet publications as the necessary corollary of

the struggle for the allegiance of decolonising nations.
In 1949 the journal Voprosy istorii (Questions of History)
published a leading text ‘1HRWOR]KQ\H]DGDFKLVRYHWVNLNKLVWRULNRY
vostokovedov’ (‘Urgent Tasks of Soviet Historian-Orientalists’,
Anon 1949) setting out the terms of the ideological struggle
within oriental studies. Here we learn that ‘bourgeois oriental
studies serve imperialism in an extraordinarily vigorous
manner and strive “to prove” the historical inevitability and
even the “necessity” of the rule of the Western colonial powers
over the multi-million masses, who are lagging behind in
their progress and, therefore, “incapable” of independently
deciding the fate of the East themselves’ (Anon 1949, 5).
Such scholars produce ‘false, pseudo-historical “theories”
and “conceptions”’, which may ‘differ in details and on
particular points but they bear a testimony to a complete
unity on the principal and fundamental question’ (Anon
1949, 5). This involved the propagation of a particular type
of exoticism about ‘the special type of “Eastern soul”’,
relishing ‘unimportant details of the religious cults or repeat
entertaining palace-anecdotes about dynastic histories’ (Anon
1949, 6). Soviet orientalist-historians were encouraged ‘to
facilitate with the help of their own studies the exposure of the
false theories of the bourgeoisie’ (Anon 1949, 6).
This sentiment, with the rhetoric somewhat softened,
reappeared in the 1951 edition of the Great Soviet Encyclopaedia
and the delineation of a Soviet orientalism distinct from that
of the West gained importance particularly as a result of the
April 1955 Bandung Conference which eventually led, in 1961,
to the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement. Perspectives
on the tasks of Soviet as opposed to bourgeois orientalism
were further developed at the First All-Union Conference of
Orientalists in Tashkent in June 1957, at which continuities
between pre- and post-Revolutionary Russian Oriental
studies were stressed (Gafurov 1957, 13–14), beginning with
the publication of the Complete Works of Bartol’d (Bustanov
2014, 65–70). These perspectives were subsequently conveyed
to many intellectuals from the various national liberation

movements who were educated at such institutions as the
Patrice Lumumba People’s Friendship University in Moscow,
founded in 1960, the same year that the USSR hosted the 25th
International Congress of Orientalists. Here senior Politburo
member Anastas Mikoian gave a speech declaring that
henceforth ‘the peoples of the Orient themselves create their
own history, their culture, their economy; in this way the
peoples of the orient have been promoted from being objects
(matter) of history to the rank of creators’. This speech, and a
number of other Soviet sources, were quoted in the Egyptian
Marxist Anouar Abdel-Malek’s 1963 article ‘Orientalism
in Crisis’ (1963, 122), where the author also contrasted the
persistence of ‘Europeocentrism’ in the West with the ‘truly
colossal effort in the field of modern orientalism’ in the USSR
since the Bandung Conference (1963, 127). Abdel-Malek’s
article was one of the most important sources for Said’s
ideas about orientalism (Tolz 2006; Said 1995 [1978]), and it
would be no exaggeration to say that Orientalism, which was
almost entirely a critique of the tropes of British and French
Oriental Studies that had been inherited by mainstream US
intellectuals, was to a considerable extent a recapitulation of
‘bourgeois orientalism’.8
The idea of competing bourgeois and Soviet orientalisms
was, however, no more than a crude and highly selective
summary, an opportunistically deployed formula derived
from long and intense debates about the relationship between
knowledge about the colonial world and the policies of
the various colonial powers in the revolutionary period.
Sometimes this was tacitly acknowledged in post-Stalin Soviet
scholarship, as in the 1963 survey article ‘The Study of the
History of India in the USSR 1917–1934’ where then young
orientologist, Leonid Alaev (1963: 167), notes ‘Soviet scholars
came to the correct evaluation of imperial policy in India as
the result of a long struggle of opinions’. The ‘evaluation’
ultimately regarded as ‘correct’ was not settled on because
a position proved internally persuasive by virtue of factual
accuracy or rigour, but according to its correspondence to

Stalin’s policies and those of his successors.
The influence of the USSR over intellectuals in the
decolonising world depended on the resources at its disposal,
its effectiveness in countering US imperialism and the extent
to which the Soviet model of state-led development actually
worked. All these factors declined sharply from the end of the
1970s, punctuated by the disastrous policy adopted, under
Soviet pressure, by the Tudeh Party in the Iranian Revolution
of 1979, the ill-fated Soviet invasion of Afghanistan the same
year and the unravelling of the statist model under pressure of
the internationalisation of capital. Just as the USSR’s political
influence waned, however, structuralist and poststructuralist
thinkers who were alienated by the practice of the French
Communist Party were seeking to justify their withdrawal
from collective politics in the wake of the events of Paris in
1968. They began treating Marxism as a unitary discourse of
power/knowledge. They also worked to give Said’s eclectic
work on Orientalism a more unified theoretical edifice,
and in doing so drew, in some cases unwittingly, upon the
Stalinist model of ‘bourgeois orientalism’ as a model for
orientalist discourse. Separated from its putative opponent,
this discourse now included Marxism as a subset, or even an
exemplary instance.
The problem is that any systematic consideration of the
history of Marxist thought about non-Western societies was
rendered irrelevant, and it has taken a number of decades for
the question to return to the agenda. This is, however an issue
worthy of considerable attention for reasons both scholarly
and political.
NOTES
1. For a general discussion of Said’s critical remarks about Foucault
and the difference between Said’s project and that of postcolonial
studies see Brennan (2006, 91-125).
2. In the case of Alaev, one wonders the extent to which this
amounts to a self-criticism of his many ‘Marxist’ works of the
late Soviet period. Caricature of Marxism in its entirety may

serve to detract attention from the author’s own adherence to
the Stalinist schema of historical development.
3. For an example of how the agenda of these thinkers was adapted
to the requirements of Soviet oriental studies in the 1930s see
Ol’denburg (1931).
4. See Iuzbashian 1986; Tolz 2015.

5. For valuable overviews of Soviet cultural relations on an
international scale see Clark (2011) and David-Fox (2011).
6. The page reference given in the dissertation appears to be in
error.
7. Thass (referred to as Pandit Ayodhidas) and Singaravelu were
also acquainted with Kosambi, on which see Kosambi (2010
[1912-24], 130-147).
8. This, I think, provides the most coherent answer to Alaev’s
(2018, 35-36) question as to why Said’s book ‘did not frighten’
Russian orientalists.
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4
A Short History of Black
Marxism in the USA
Kipton E. Jensen
“To learn about the present in light of the past also means to learn
about the past in light of the present. The function of history is
to promote a profounder understanding of both past and present
through the interrelation between them” (E.H. Carr, as quoted
in Kosambi, 1962: 62).
Recognition of difference and conflictual social relationships
constitutes the methodological starting point of anti-
oppression theorists. These range from critical race and
postcolonial scholars to traditional and heterodox Marxists
alike (Dhamoon 2010; Rein 2007; Bannerji 1995). Exploitation
is one of the paradigmatic ‘conflictual social relations,’ to be
sure, but so too are alienation and oppression. As Abigail
Bakan puts it: “Alienation and oppression are central to
the reproduction of capitalist exploitation” (2014: 103). The
capitalist system in particular and competitive culture in
general depends upon separation if not conflict between
individuals. The focus of this essay is on freedom qua non-
alienation. It shows how racialised differences in the USA
have been used to suppress freedom.
Nikhil Pal Singh suggests that while there are important
exceptions, “thinkers in the Marxist tradition have largely
failed to give sustained and sympathetic attention to this
issue [viz. the role of racism in the history of capitalism]”
(2017: 79). This frustration with how the American Left has
$6KRUW+LVWRU\RI%ODFN0DU[LVPLQWKH86$в111
“relegated the struggle of Blacks to a subsidiary position

in the revolutionary movement” (Haywood, 1978: 234)
reaches back at least as far as Hubert Harrison, who A. Philip
Randolph called the “father of Harlem radicalism.” In recent
years, at least in the USA, writes Abigail Bakan, “Marxism
is often acknowledged but circumvented, dismissed for its
apparent tendency to emphasise class relations and economic
materiality to the exclusion of other forms of oppression and
other ways of understanding domination” (2014: 99). And
while some declare an inherent incompatibility of a Marxist
perspective with consistent anti-racism (Robinson, 2000),
or that Marxism should be rejected as Eurocentric and the
victim of Orientalism (Said, 2003; Anderson, 2010), Bakan
believes—citing many Marxists who are also race and gender
theorists1—that the divide is by no means definitive.
Keenga-Yamahtta Taylor, for one, perhaps as an exemplar,
sees racism through the lens of class and class with an eye
fixed on race. “Because of the gross inequality it produces,”
writes Taylor, “capitalism requires various political, social, and
ideological tools to divide the majority—racism is one among
many oppressions intended to serve this purpose” (2016: 205
06). Malcolm X put his finger on the problem, in 1964, at the
founding rally of the OAAU, when he quipped: “You can’t
have capitalism without racism” (Heron, ed. [1964] 1990; also,
Taylor, 197). Scholars like Zerilli and Laclau argue that “there
is no trans-historical group that can stand in for the universal”
and that “an appropriate signifier must be determined in each
period by political contestation” (2008: 45; also in Dawson, 173
ff.). There are nevertheless compelling reasons for focusing on
the history of slavery and the ideology of racism as a critical
reflection of the brutal dialectics of class struggle in the USA.
The historiographical epicycle of Black Marxism in the USA,
over the past 200 years, is a singular signifier for the universal
struggle for freedom and equality in America as a whole.
Angela Davis would have us construe slavery as the
most extreme form of un-freedom, the reality rather than
the metaphor, slave ownership rather than the “slavery of
wage labor.” (The analogy or simile is instructive, but the

ways that slavery is dis-analogous to wage-labour is also
meaningful.) Although one could limit the term “Black
Marxism” to Marxists who are Black, I wish to use Black
Marxism in the broader sense of a hermeneutical turn in
American historiography. Following Dawson and Badiou, I
want to “regain a politically constituted definition of ‘black’”
(Dawson, 2013: 177) that is “less the demand of a social faction
or community to be integrated into the existing order than
something which touches on a transformation of the order as
a whole” (Badiou, 2001: 109). Charles Mills is surely right to
suggest that “in understanding the workings of a system of
oppression, a perspective from the bottom up is more likely
to be accurate than one from the top down” (1997: 109). Better
yet is Angela Davis’s observation in “Lectures on Liberation”
that “[t]he collective consciousness of an oppressed people
entails an understanding of the conditions of oppression
and the possibility of abolishing these conditions” (Davis,
2010[1969]: 49). In this essay I focus on five periods—viz. 1818,
1868, 1918, 1968, and 2018—as illustrative of what might be
called the “Kosambi-model” of “presenting, in chronological
order of successive developments in the means and relations
of production” (1951: 23),” a historiographical model in which
“to learn about the present in light of the past also means to
learn about the past in light of the present” (ibid.).
1. The State of the Union in 1818: Slavery and ‘the Rosy
Dawn of Capitalism’?
Atlantic slavery was the cornerstone of capitalist exploitation,
appropriation, and dispossession over centuries. It also
bequeathed an enduring devaluation of black life (Singh, 2017:
96).
Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism. There is no
need for me to speak either of the good or of the bad aspects of
freedom. As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its
bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good
side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of
the proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks

in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America.
Direct slavery is just as much the pivot of bourgeois industry
as machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery you have not cotton;
without cotton you have not modern industry. It is slavery that
has given the colonies their value; it is the colonies that have
created world trade, and it is world trade that is the pre-condition
of large-scale industry, thus slavery is an economic category of
the greatest importance (Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy: A Reply
to M. Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty, New York, International
Publishers, 1847: 94-5).
,Q GHU ZLUNOLFKHQ *HVFKLFKWH VSLHOHQ EHNDQQWOLFK (UREHUXQJ
8QWHUMRFKXQJ5DXEPRUGNXU]*HZDOWGLHJURVVH5ROOH (Marx, 1867,
“Die Sogenannte Urspruenglichen Akkumulation”).
When Marx was born in Triers, in 1818, slavery was the law
of the land in America. Approximately 12.5 million enslaved
Africans were transported to the Americas between 1500
and 1866; 10.7 million survived the dreaded Middle Passage
(Gates, 2015). Alongside the horrors of chattel slavery, which
was well-established in the US by 1818, and often justified
along similar ideological lines, the exponential accumulation
of capital included or entailed the slaughter and dispossession
of native Americans. For some, these atrocities comprise
two sides of “a wooden nickel.”2 Keenga-Yamahtta Taylor
defines capitalism quite curtly as “an economic system based
on the exploitation of the many by the few” (2016: 205). In
Black Marxism, Cedric Robinson defines ‘racial capitalism’ as
“the development, organisation, and expansion of capitalist
society pursued essentially racial directions, so too did social
ideology. As a material force, then, it could be expected that
racialism would inevitably permeate the social structures
emergent from capitalism.” Marx saw quite clearly that
capitalism came into the world “dripping from head to toe in
blood” and also that “the turning of Africa into a commercial
warren for the hunting of black skins signalled the rosy dawn
of the era of capitalist production.” Manning Marable claims
that “the ordeal of slavery was responsible for accelerating the
economic and political power of Europe and North America

over the rest of the mostly non-white world” (2000: 7).
In 1818, 200 years ago, America was still quite young.
Fifty years earlier, the US was itself a British colony. Frederick
Douglass took some small amount of consolation in the fact
that America was so young, in 1852, since youth inspires the
hope if not the promise of maturation and mutual recognition
in the trenches if not also reconciliation and redemption at
the mountaintop. In his “Oration at the Corinthian Hall,”
Frederick Douglass adumbrated and admonished the glaring
inconsistencies inherent in singing peons to freedom and
prosperity on Independence Day in the USA:
The existence of slavery in this country brands your republicanism
as a sham, your humanity as a base pretense, and your Christianity
as a lie. It destroys your moral power abroad; it corrupts you
politicians at home. It saps the foundation of religion; it makes
your name a hissing, and a byword to a mocking earth (July 5,
1852).
James Monroe was the fifth President of the United States.
And while it is true that Monroe once declared that slavery
was “one of the evils still remaining, incident to our colonial
system,” it is also true that Monroe owned as many as 250
slaves—and he never freed any of them. (Monroe inherited
his first slave when he turned 16 years of age.) As President,
Monroe formed the American Colonisation Society (ACS),
which advocated for the repatriation of slaves to Africa:
indeed, the capitol of Liberia, Monrovia, is named after
Monroe. This was not the first—nor the last—contradiction or
pernicious paradox that characterises the history of the USA.
In her luminous “Lectures on Liberation,” Angela Davis states
that “[o]ne of the most acute paradoxes present in the history
of Western society is that while on a philosophical plane
freedom has been delineated in the most lofty and sublime
fashion, concrete reality has always been permeated with the
most brutal forms of unfreedom, enslavement” (2010[1969]:
45).
The first five presidents of the USA owned slaves.

Aptheker describes the solidarity exhibited amongst the
slaveholders and planter-class in the first half of the 19th
century as “the most closely knit and most important single
economic unit in the nation, their millions of bondsmen and
millions of acres of land comprising an investment of billions
of dollars. This economic might had its counterpart in political
power, given its possessor’s dominance within the nation and
predominance within the South” (1965: 19). Two hundred
years ago, back in 1818, racial domination was an explicit
if not unabashed and brutal element in the plantocratic
management of capitalist society. We sometimes think that, for
Marx, wage labour emerged from the dissolution of slavery
or serfdom, and was the pre-condition of bourgeois society.
But slavery also existed within bourgeois society. It is in this
sense that Singh amends Marx’s axiomatic statement: Capital
ceases to be capital without the ongoing differentiation of free
labour and slavery, waged labor and unpaid labor as its general
creative basis (2017: 88). Beyond the hyper-exploitation
inherent to racial differentiation, we would do well to discuss
alienation. The Narrative of Frederick Douglass describes slavery
as something worse than merely the exploitation of Black
labour: for Douglass, slavery represented a totalizing claim on
the lives of Black people. “The most extreme form of human
alienation,” writes Angela Davis, “is the reduction [of persons]
to the status of property” (2010: 53). The consequences of
slavery are still with us today. Indeed, Manning Marable
goes so far as to say that “[s]ince the demise of slavery, and
the emergence of modern capitalism, the process of Black
underdevelopment has expanded and deepened” (2000: 7).3
2. The State of the Union in 1868: Postbellum Southern
Reconstruction
“The dominant ideology of society was that of the plantocracy,
a dictator of labour and land with no democratic pretensions”
(Robinson, 153).
“Either poverty must use democracy to destroy the power of
property, or property in fear of poverty will destroy democracy”

(Thomas Rainboro, quoted in Robinson, 188).
The starting point of the development that gave rise to the
wage labourer as well as to the capitalist, was the servitude
of the labourer. The advance consisted in a change of form of
this servitude, in the transformation of feudal exploitation into
capitalist exploitation.” (Marx, 1868, “The Secret of Primitive
Accumulation”).
In 1868, 150 years ago, five years subsequent to the
Emancipation Proclamation,4 the year that the XIV
Amendment was passed, in the wake of the civil war, the
year Du Bois was born, the year that Marx published the first
volume of Capital: A Critique of Political Economy in London,
twenty years after the publication of the Communist Manifesto,
the “free labor of the enslaved” was abolished de jure but
African Americans were still not free.5 For the emancipated
slave, thought Marx, “the capitalist relationship appears to
be an improvement in one’s position on the social scale,” and
it was, but Marx also believed that wage-labor constituted
enslavement of a different sort. In 1855, Douglass observed
that “by encouraging enmity of the poor labouring white man
against the blacks,” slaveholders and overlords of a similar
type, “succeed in making the white man almost as much a
slave as the black man himself.” De facto slavery did not
disappear in 1868. Similar to what Marx called the “unending
circle of capitalism,” the racial-capitalist political economy
characteristic of the antebellum period was preserved and
reproduced in various ways in postbellum America.
In their “Address of the International Working Men’s
Association,” written in November 1864, just one year before
Lincoln was assassinated, Marx wrote:
. . . the working classes of Europe understood at once, even before
the fanatic partisanship of the upper classes for the Confederate
gentry had given its dismal warning, that the slaveholders’
rebellion was to sound the tocsin for a general holy crusade of
property against labor, and that for the men of labour, with their
hopes for the future, even their past conquests were at stake in
that tremendous conflict on the other side of the Atlantic.6
German culture in general and Marxism or at least Hegelianism

was so prominent as to be virtually dominant in the USA
in the 19th century. The St. Louis Hegelians viewed the civil
war as a concrete expression of the dialectical antitheses that
constituted the world historical process. The Ohio Hegelians,
mostly Marxists, included August Willich. He fought
alongside Marx in the Rhineland campaigns before emigrating
to the United States. There he was “one of four Marxists to rise
to the rank of general in the Union Army” (Goetzmann, 1973:
45) who construed the civil war as a conflagration between the
workers of the world and the capitalist overlords. Through
Ambassador Adams, Lincoln noted:
Nations do not exist for themselves alone, but to promote the
welfare and happiness of mankind by benevolent intercourse
and example. It is in this relation that the United States regard
their cause in the present conflict with slavery, maintaining
insurgence as the cause of human nature, and they derive
new encouragements to persevere from the testimony of the
workingmen of Europe that the national attitude is favored with
their enlightened approval and earnest sympathies.
Though Lincoln and Marx would have disagreed on
other fronts, they did seem to agree that labor rather than
capital was the source of value and that exploitation was
abominable.7 Some will argue, from Du Bois to Dawson, that
Lincoln had no intention of emancipating the slaves and that
the decision was purely strategic; Black Marxists of various
sorts, both old and new, would insist that we look more
closely at how the civil war was actually won, i.e. in terms
of quasi-deterministic materialism, than an ideological myth
concerning a quickened Christian conscience in the form of the
Emancipation Proclamation. Some scholars would encourage
us to focus most explicitly on “the General Strike,” which
Du Bois viewed as a world historical event that inaugurated
“the most extraordinary experiments of Marxism that the
world, before the Russian Revolution, had seen” (1935: 58). In
Black Reconstruction (1935), Du Bois describes the role of the
conscientious historian in this way:
What we have got to know, so far as possible, are the things

that actually happened in the world. . . . the historian has no
right, posing as a scientist, to conceal or distort facts; and until
we distinguish between these two functions of the chronicler
of human action, we are going to render it easy for a muddled
world out of sheer ignorance to make the same mistake ten times
over (722; quoted in Robinson, 228).
What actually happened, thought Du Bois, was something
far more instructive when it comes to analysing the psycho
social dynamics of revolutionary class or race consciousness.
Robinson puts it this way:
[W]hat Du Bois termed a ‘General Strike’ was the total impact
on the secessionist South of a series of actions circumstantially
related to each other: some 200,000 Black workers, most of
them slaves, had become part of the Union’s military forces.
These, and an even larger number of Blacks, had withdrawn
their productive labour and paramilitary services from the
Confederacy; transferring a substantial portion of them to the
Union. In addition, tens of thousands of slaves and poor whites
had emigrated from the South. The former were escaping slavery,
the latter their poverty and the demands and ravages of war in
which they had no vested interest. The result was to critically
weaken the secessionists. The ordering of these diverse actions
was then a consequence of the social order to which they were
reactions. The contradictions within southern society rather than
a revolutionary vanguard knit these phenomena into a historical
force. After the war, a different ordering would be required to
integrate these phenomena into a political movement. This could
be accomplished if only the ruling ideologies of the society were
transcended. This was not done (230).
Du Bois certainly respected Marx’s insight into economic
relations, plus his observations about the alienation inherent in
capitalist modes of production, but he also thought that Marx
was a product of his own place and time. Though appreciative
of Marx, who Du Bois must have understood quite well, given
his studies in Berlin, Du Bois said he never felt obliged “to
dogmatise with Marx or Lenin” (Crisis, July 1921; reprinted in
MOON as “The Negro and Radical Thought”). In “Karl Marx
and the Negro,” written in 1933, in Crisis, Du Bois wrote:

It was a great loss to American Negroes that the great mind of
Marx and his extraordinary insight into industrial conditions
could not have been brought to bear at first hand upon the
history of the American Negro between 1876 and the World War.
Whatever he said and did concerning the uplift of the working
class must, therefore, be modified so far as Negroes are concerned
by the fact that he had not studied first hand their peculiar race
problem here in America.
What really constituted the ‘historical forces’ during the
period in question, thought Du Bois, was animated by the
ideologies of race and individualism rather than a conscious
contradiction between the modes of production and the
relations of production. In America, at least, thought Du Bois,
racism constituted a historical force that, as Robinson puts it,
“precluded the emergence of a strong labour movement” (229).
What really happened, according to Du Bois, what obstructed
class consciousness and solidarity, suggests Robinson, was
racial capitalism. During the same period in American history,
in the midst of the Reconstruction years, 1867-1877, extra-legal
measures were taken to subjugate Black labour to white wage-
labourers in the South.8
Robinson claims in Black Marxism that Du Bois offers a
critique of Marxism as adapted to the geo-political situation
in America, some of those criticisms are theoretical and others
constitute a discrepancy apropos matters of fact, e.g. the role
of slavery to the emergence of capitalism, “the revolutionary
force of slave and peasant labourers” as distinct from a
“reactionary industrial working class,” and the importance
of American Reconstruction to the development of capitalism
as a world system. Robinson encourages us to reconsider
not only how “Lenin and Trotsky understood the peasantry
differently from Marx and Engels” but also to compare “the
descriptions found in Marx and Engels of peasant life with
those of Du Bois concerning the slaves and poor whites” (235;
for Du Bois’s discussion, see BR, 121-122). The comparison
is indeed instructive. “Beneath its appearance as a ‘feudal
agrarianism’ lay the real relation of slavery to the emergence

of modern capitalism,” writes Robinson, and that slavery
“was not a historical aberration, it was not a mistake in the
otherwise bourgeois democratic age—it was, and its imprints
continued to be, systemic (200).
Robinson believes that Du Bois’s account of the General
Strike constitutes a constructive critique of Marxism. Indeed,
by 1918, Du Bois himself criticised the American Socialist
Party’s ideologues for praising the successes of the Russian
peasantry while ignoring the achievements of American
Blacks. The economic foundation for class antagonism was
challenged during this period by proposals to radically alter
land tenure, which, again Robinson, “the white ruling class
averted by getting poor whites to scapegoat and chastise the
black workers.” As Du Bois put it: “The masters feared their
former slaves . . . they lied . . . they forestalled the danger of a
united Southern labour movement by appealing to the fear and
the hate of white labour” (BR: 633). Poor whites were pitted
against still poorer Black workers. Du Bois also understood
the degree to which even poor whites were compensated with
“a public and psychological wage.”9 Again Robinson:
The ideology of racism in combination with self-interest
functioned to pit immigrant and poor white workers against the
Black worker and the slave. And after the Civil War, the same
social consciousness divided the working classes—immigrant
and white—from ex-slave.
Du Bois saw it coming when he recognised how “the plight of
the white working class throughout the world today is directly
traceable to slavery in America, on which modern commerce
and industry were founded, and which persisted to threaten
free labour until it was partially overthrown in 1863” (30;
203). After Reconstruction, by 1880, with an undercapitalised
South, writes Robinson, “northern capitalists constructed their
own form of slavery (in Mexico, the Philippines, Haiti, the
Caribbean, and the Pacific Islands (231).
3. The State of the Union in 1918
1. The black man was stolen from his native land, from his wife
and child, brought to these shores and made a slave. He was
chained and whipped and robbed by his “white superior,” while
the son of his “superior” raped the black child before his eyes. For
centuries he was kept in ignorance and debased and debauched
by the white man’s law. . . The African is here and to stay. How
came he to our shores? Ask your grandfathers, Mr. Anonymous,
and if they will tell the truth you will or should blush for the
crimes (Debs, 1903).
2. Politically, the Negro is the touchstone of the modern

democratic idea (Hubert Harrison, 1911)
3. Ten thousand times has the labour movement tumbled, fallen
and bruised itself, and risen again; been seized by the throat,
choked and clubbed into insensibility; enjoined by courts,
assaulted by thugs, charged by the militia, shot down by regulars,
traduced by the press, frowned upon by public opinion, deceived
by politicians, threatened by priests, repudiated by renegades,
preyed upon by grafters, infested by spies, deserted by cowards,
betrayed by traitors, bled by leeches, and sold out by leaders,
but notwithstanding all this, and all these, it is today the most
vital and potential power this planet has ever known, and its
historic mission of emancipating the workers of the world from
the thralldom of the ages is as certain of ultimate realisation as
is the setting of the sun [Debs, “An Ideal Labor Press,” The Metal
Worker (May 1904)].
One approach to discussing racial capitalism during this
period consists in contrasting Du Bois and Debs. This is what
David Roediger does, or attempts to do, in his Class, Race, and
Marxism (2017); the tack was taken first by him back in 2006
in an article titled “Retreat from Race and Class.”10 Du Bois
claimed—in the “Address to the Nations of the World” (1900)
and the Souls of Black Folk (1903)—that the great issue of the
20th century was “the color line”; and yet, the leading voice of
Socialists if not Marxists of the period, Eugene Debs, who was
jailed twice and who ran for President from behind bars in
1920, claimed that—and this is the innuendo in question—the

socialist movement in America as distinct from the CPUSA,
which was founded in 1919, could and probably should offer
“nothing special” to African Americans. Debs added that “the
class struggle is colorless.” Eugene Debs was considered to be
the voice of the blue denim masses in America in 1918, but
he was also deeply concerned about the egregious hyper-
exploitation of African Americans. Debs did acknowledge
“that the white heel is still on the black neck is simply proof
that the world is not yet civilised. The history of the Negro in
the United States is a history of crime without parallel.”11
When it comes to understanding the American Left in
1919, perhaps the best representative thinker for our purposes
is Hubert Harrison (1883-1927), described by Perry as “the
most class conscious of race radicals and the most race
conscious of the class radicals.” Not altogether unlike Du Bois
in 1918, Harrison argued that supporting African Americans
was “the crucial test of socialism’s sincerity” (1921 in Dawson,
30; Perry, 180). Robinson would have us focus on Lenin as the
person who best understood the strategic value of recruiting
African Americans into the Party, at the 4th INTCOM, in
1922, in a missive titled the “Negro Question,” as defending
the principle of self-determination, which Lenin supported,
but Debs did write his first essay on the topic: “The Negro
in Class Struggle,” in 1903, and subsequently in his reply to
“Mr. Anonymous,”12 who quipped that “it would jeopardise
the best interests of the socialist party if you insist on political
equality for the Negro” (November 25, 1904), viz. “The Negro
and His Nemesis” (1904), published in International Social
5HYLHZ. Some would contend that Debs wasn’t really a Marxist
at all. Consider V.F. Calverson’s assessment, in 1933, of Debs’s
loyalty to Marx, viz. that “his Marxism, if it could be called
such, was more instinctive than intellectual.”13
Not altogether unlike Marx, Debs’s critique of capitalism
began with a sober recognition that “[t]hose who produce
should have, but we know that those who produce the most—
that is, those who work hardest, and at the most difficult and
most menial tasks, have the least” (1927: 5). Debs seems to
have intellectually understood the role of racial ideologies in
America and elsewhere in arresting or otherwise retarding
the evolutionary or teleological development towards class
consciousness and revolutionary solidarity. Debs believed
both early and late that it was “only through an organised
struggle in the labour and socialist movement ... that the
Negro would win equality.” This idea still appeals to a wide
array of critical race and class theorists. Perhaps the alleged
“instinctive” dimension of Debs’s Marxism is captured in his
oft cited claim that “while there is a lower class, I am in it, and
while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is
a soul in prison, I am not free.” Debs often insisted that “for
myself, I want no advantage over my fellow man, and if he
is weaker than I am, all the more is it my duty to help him.”14
Similar to Debs’s 1918 commemoration lecture ‘Honoring
Marx,’ 100 years ago, I’m keen to focus more on the manner
of man he was than the particular theories he espoused. Debs
conceded that “no pen or tongue could possibly do Marx
justice,” but he came pretty close in his own description of
Marx as a “triumphant awakener of the long-asleep and the
revolutionary leader of the long-enslaved masses” ([1918]
2007: 473; also in Brommel, 1978: 208).15
Debs first read Das Kapital in an Illinois jail, where he
was imprisoned in 1895 for his role in the Pullman Strike.
Instructive parallels can be drawn between Marx and Debs,
to be sure, but it is also true that—as Thoreau put it in
“Walking” (1851)—the Mississippi was “a Rhine stream of
a different kind.” By 1918, Harrison was taking his message
of Black Marxism, as it were, to the South; by 1918, Harrison
had left the Socialist Party, fallen out with Du Bois, and
was in the process of founding the Liberty League, which
provided a platform for Garvey and the UNIA. In the 1920s,
the dominant voice on the left was the CPUSA; at about the
same time, Stalin became more prominent than Marx within
the Party. According to Robinson: “Stalin, himself a member
of a Russian national minority, had been the authority through
which the COMINTERN and the American Communist Party

had come to recognise Blacks as an oppressed nation” (227).
By the late 1920s, the CPUSA had a “black belt thesis” (i.e.
the self-determination concession); CPUSA gained additional
credibility for their role in the Scottsboro Boys Case in 1931.
Dawson writes the fire stirred by the American Left, at its
peak, somewhere between 1918 and 1932, was quickly and
unceremoniously extinguished or otherwise contained for
most of the 20th century, especially following the First World
War. For African Americans on the Left and within the Black
radical tradition, the ideological trajectory runs from Marx in
American Socialism into the 1920s to Lenin or Stalin within
the CPUSA in the 1930s until the 1950s, when America began
fighting proxy wars against communism, and Mao at the peak
of the Black Power movement, e.g. the Black Panthers (see
“Ten Point Program”), by 1968 in the USA.
Very few Americans were familiar with the “Champaran
Satyagraha,” in 1918, in Patna. Nor were they aware of one
of the emerging leaders of that movement, a young lawyer
recently returned from South Africa, Mahatma Gandhi.
But they were keenly interested in the Satyagraha as well as
Ahimsa by the time Howard Thurman and his wife, Sue Bailey,
visited Gandhi in his ashram in 1936. At the first meeting
of the Southern Negro Leaders Conference, later called the
Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), in 1957,
Bayard Rustin asked Martin King, “Do you remember what
Gandhi told Howard Thurman in India, many years ago?”
He then recited Gandhi’s seemingly prophetic words that “it
may be through the Negroes that the unadulterated message
of non-violence will be delivered to the world.’” By the time
he met Gandhi, Thurman distinguished quite clearly and
concisely the religion of Jesus from the injustices that are
historically inseparable from the institution of Christianity.
Thurman suggested in 1948, the year of Gandhi’s death, in
Jesus and the Disinherited, that the teachings of Jesus had a
special significance for “those with their backs against the
wall.” Martin Luther King claimed that the revolutionary
consciousness achieved in America during the early civil

rights movement combined the political stratagems of Gandhi
with the “love-ethic of Jesus” or the compassion of the
Buddha. Thurman was sympathetic to Gandhi’s doctrine of
non-violence prior to their meeting in India and it was easy
to draw analogies between the plight of the colonized masses
in India or in South Africa and the historiographical narrative
of super-exploitation of Blacks in America, especially in
the South. Martin Luther King, who visited India in 1959,
famously referred to Gandhi as “the guiding light of our
technique of non-violent social change” (Papers 5: 231). King
argued that the Gandhian philosophy was “the only morally
and practically sound method open to oppressed people in
their struggle for freedom” (Papers 4: 478).
4. The State of the Union in 1968
In his 1968 manifesto, Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or
Community? and especially in the final chapter titled “World
House,” King admonished and implored us to “shift from a
‘thing’ oriented society to a ‘person’ oriented society.” (King,
184).
“The oppressed people of this earth make up a majority, not
a minority” (Malcolm X, D: 173; Haywood, 1978: 629).
In his 1968 poem, “On Justice,” in his Scottsboro Limited,
Langston Hughes wrote:
“That Justice is a blind goddess
Is a thing to which we blacks are wise:
Her bandage hides two festering sores
That once perhaps were eyes.”
By 1968, the year that Martin Luther King was assassinated
as part of a sanitation workers’ strike in Memphis, African
Americans were still not free. Many if not most African
Americans were, as King put it in 1966, “trapped in an air
tight cage of poverty.” By 1968, Thurman and King were
reconsidering yet consistently devoted to the methods of
non-violent yet active resistance against social and economic
injustice, whether racism or poverty and militarism. The
closest we came to a truly revolutionary position was the

“Poor People’s Campaign” in 1968. King was advocating the
basic living wage 50 years ago. In the past fifty years, since the
PPC of 1968, things have not really improved for most African
Americans. Marable Manning wrote: “The citadel of world
capitalism, the United States, has never liked to admit that
millions of its citizens are poor” ([1983] 2000: 53). Divergence
between labour productivity and worker compensation
between 1948 and 1973, labour productivity rose by 96.7% and
hourly compensation rose by 91.3%; comparatively, between
1973 and 2013, productivity rose by 74.4% and hourly
compensation rose only by 9.2%. In 1928, the top 1% collected
19.6% of all income; in 1973, the top 1% collected 7.7% of all
income; and in 2013, the top 1% collected 19.3% of all income.
Political economists must also acknowledge disproportionate
underemployment and low-wage jobs for African Americans,
still: “The problem is not only unemployment, it is under or
sub-employment . . . people who work in full-time jobs for
part-time wages” (King, 03/1968; Pitts, 2015: 29).
In one of his final speeches before returning to Memphis,
celebrating 100 years since the birth of W.E.B. Du Bois, in
Atlanta, in a speech titled “Honoring Du Bois,” in 1968, Martin
Luther King said: “We must finally admit that Du Bois was
brilliant and that he was a communist.”16 (But was he, really,
and if so, to what extent or with what provisos?) Du Bois
died in Ghana in 1963, on the very day that King delivered
his “I Have a Dream” [originally, “Normalcy Never Again”]
on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC. This
coincidence of times and places merits further consideration:
the underlying conditions from 1868, 1918, and 1968 remain
the same or at the very least betray family resemblances when
it comes to what King called the ugly triplets: racism, poverty/
materialism, and imperialism/militarism.
It has become fashionable to discuss the “radical” King.
Though it is sometimes suggested that King abandoned
his commitment to active yet non-violent resistance, which
is not true, it is true that King was increasingly committed

to addressing structural inequalities rather than relying on
moral persuasion to combat what he called the ugly triplets
of racism, materialism (or, elsewhere, poverty), and militarism
(or, alternatively, imperialism). King was increasingly
convinced that the goals of labour and the goals of African
Americans were one and the same. In his seminal “All Labour
Has Dignity,” in 1956, and in a passage that King amends
when it comes to honoring Du Bois in 1968, King concluded
saying:
... Dr. Du Bois’ greatest virtue was his committed empathy with
all the oppressed and his divine dissatisfaction with all forms
of injustice. Today we are still challenged to be dissatisfied. Let
us be dissatisfied until every man can have food and material
necessities for his body, culture and education for his mind,
freedom and until rat-infested, vermin-filled slums will be a thing
of a dark past and every family will have a decent, sanitary house
in which to live. Let us be dissatisfied until the empty stomachs
of Mississippi are filled and the idle industries of Appalachia are
revitalized. Let us be dissatisfied until brotherhood is no longer
a meaningless word at the end of a prayer but the first order of
business on every legislative agenda. Let us be dissatisfied until
our brother of the Third World—Asia, Africa, and Latin America-
will no longer be the victim of imperialist exploitation but will
be lifted from the long night of poverty, illiteracy, and disease.
Let us be dissatisfied until this pending cosmic elegy will be
transformed into a creative psalm of peace and ‘justice will roll
down like waters from a mighty stream.’
King was maligned by the establishment, both the government
and corporate elites, as a communist sympathiser, initially
because of his work with unions, but later because of his
criticisms of the Vietnam War. Who else but a communist could
advocate for equal rights for African Americans? Officially,
King sought a third way, what he considered to be a synthesis
of capitalism and communism, in the form of ‘democratic
socialism.’ In private, as early as 1952, King was quite adamant
about his opposition to an economic system that “takes
necessities from the masses to give luxuries to the classes”

(1962, see Honey, 2018: 31).17 Increasingly, King described
his loyalty to the religion of Jesus in ways that echoed with
Howard Thurman’s view, which the latter associated with
Eugene Debs’s claim—though Thurman rarely acknowledged
the author of the quote, for political reasons, in the midst of
McCarthyism and the Red Scare—that “[w]herever there is a
man in jail, I am not free.
“During the black power era there were no dominant
national leftist organisations like the Socialist Party before
the First World War or the Communist Party after the 1920s,”
writes Michael Dawson. It is interesting to note that Black
radicals and nationalists of this period spoke less of Marx
and Lenin or Stalin than they did about Mao Zedong’s “On
Contradiction” or “On Practice” (Dawson, 122; also see Harold
Cruse, “Revolutionary Nationalism and the Afro-American,”
Studies on the Left, 1962: 72 ff.). Angela Davis offered a Marxist
analysis to the notion of freedom as non-alienation, as opposed
to the pseudo-concept of freedom as capacity to exploit other
people, in her 1969 “Lectures on Liberation,” but she also
appreciated Mao’s conviction that knowledge came from the
people: “The collective consciousness of an oppressed people
entails an understanding of the conditions of oppression and the
possibility of abolishing these conditions” (Davis, 2010[1969]:
49). In “Black Like Mao: Red China and Black Revolution,”
Robin Kelley and Betsy Each write that “Black radicals came
to see China as the beacon of Third World revolution and Mao
Zedong thought as the guidepost” (1999: 8).
5. The State of the Union in 2018: Where Do We Go from
Here, Again?
. . . the rapaciousness of transnational corporation and the
superrich grows without limit (Dawson, Blacks In and Out of the
Left, 178).
As long as white men can be taught to believe that the presence
of black men threatens their means of existence, so long will
their attitude be one of enmity. So long as the fallacy of economic
fear survives, so long will the economic competition create race
prejudice (Hubert Harrison).
Capitalism makes an accumulation of misery a necessary
condition, corresponding to the accumulation of wealth.
Accumulation of wealth at one pole is, therefore, at the same time
accumulation of misery, the torment of labour, slavery, ignorance,
brutalization and the moral degradation at the opposite pole, i.e.,
on the side of the class that produces its own product as capital
(Marx [1867]1976: 799).
Taylor suggests that while Marx is often dismissed for

ignoring issues of race, he most certainly did acknowledge
that “capitalism used racism to justify plunder, conquest,
slavery” and that it would also “use racism to divide and
rule—to pit one section of the working class against and, in
doing so, blunt the class consciousness of all” (206). State-
sanctioned violence, what Marx called the “bloody legislation
against the expropriated,” is perhaps the exception rather
than the rule when it comes to the management of capitalist
society in 2018; but race remains, writes Bruce Baum, “one of
the most important axes of social power and inequality in the
contemporary world” (2006: 118). Marx claims that mature
capitalism occurs when “the silent compulsion of economic
relations set the seal on the domination of the capitalist
over the worker.” Surplus if not slave-labour is what built
America’s economic prowess. Though it was in the colonies
that the approach was applied with impunity, Marx thought
that “European capitalism’s emergence was rooted in the
pilfering, rape, and destruction of natives, colonial subjects,
and Black slaves” (ibid.). Following Taylor:
capitalism creates a false scarcity: the perception that need
outstrips resources. When billions are spent on war, police-
brutality settlements, and publicly subsidized sports stadiums,
there never seems to be a shortage of money. But when it comes
to schools, housing, food, and other basic necessities, politicians
always complain about deficits and the need to curb spending
and cut budgets (212).
Just because the plutocrats and oligarchs, whether plantocrats

in the South and manufacturing magnates in the North, could
no longer legally expropriate and exploit Black bodies as they
had in earlier phases of American history didn’t mean that they
wouldn’t find other means of oppressing and disenfranchising
the vast majority of the Black (and also white) workers of the
world. Michelle Alexander has made this point repeatedly in
her 7KH1HZ-LP&URZ (2010). See also see Manning Marable’s
chapter on “Black Prisoners and Punishment in a Racist/
Capitalist State” in +RZ &DSLWDOLVP 8QGHUGHYHORSHG $PHULFD,
pp. 105 ff.). Taylor sees what Marx, Douglass, Du Bois, Debs
and King all saw—with perfect clarity—was that the “slavery
and the intense racism that flowed from it not only resulted
in the oppression of slaves but also threatened the stability
of the white working class by creating a downward pressure
on wages in general. It was impossible to compete with free
labour of the enslaved” (Taylor, 2016: 208). As if to add insult
to injury, writes Dawson: “Yet those on the bottom are told
both that the state is too poor to help them and that we live in
society ordered by free markets where institutions and citizens
succeed or not on their own merits” (182).18
Tentative Conclusion
Criticism has plucked the imaginary flowers on the chain not in
order that man shall continue to bear that chain without fantasy
or consolation, but so that he shall throw off the chain and pluck
the living flower (Marx, Proudhon Essay).
We must analyse the historical foundations of underdevelop
ment, and articulate a theory of social transformation which will
overturn capitalism, patriarchy, and white supremacy (Marable,
2000: 10).
It should be beautiful, and powerful, but it should also
work. It should have something in it that enlightens; something
in it that opens the door and points the way (Toni Morrison,
“Rootedness,” 1982).
In 1936, Thurman met Gandhi to discuss the relative merits of
applying the methods of active yet non-violent resistance (as
practised in the salt campaign) to the civil and human rights

movement in the USA. Thurman was often heard reciting
the wonderful words of Eugene Debs, usually without
mentioning Debs by name, since Debs was considered to be,
in the midst of the Red Scare in the USA, a subversive citizen
and a communist sympathiser:19
Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living
beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than
the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there
is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I
am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.
How much have things changed, in the US, in India, across
the world, since the birth of Marx two hundred years ago or
even since 1968, 50 years ago, in terms of racial discrimination
and poverty?20 As a critical race theorist, but also a Marxist
of a certain sort, Charles Mills challenges us to recognise
that race is “central to the making of the modern world”
and that, echoing Marx’s fine dictum, the 11th of the Theses
on Feuerbach, viz.“es kömmt drauf an, die Welt [nicht nur
]X LQWHUSUHWLHUHQ VRQGHUQ DXFK VLH@ ]X YHUlQGHUQµ we must
“seek to understand structures of social oppression for the
emancipatory purpose of transforming them” (2003: 199).
I want to conclude with a paragraph or two devoted to D.D.
Kosambi’s application of Marxism to historiography in India.
Kosambi defined history as “the presentation, in chronological
order of successive developments in the means and relations
of production” (1951: 23). In his Exasperating Essays: Exercises in
the Dialectical Method (1957), Kosambi defined historiography
somewhat differently. Kosambi would ask us to carefully
consider the plight of the most exploited and the least free in
2018, in the US, in India, in Africa, but he would also have us
recognise the material and ideological forces that conspire to
perpetuate systems of domination, whether in terms of caste,
race, gender, or sexual orientation. Analogies have been drawn
in the past between, e.g. the Dalit population in India and the
plight of Black people in America. In 1946, Ambedkar drew
the analogy in a letter he wrote to W.E.B. Du Bois.21 In 1959,

when visiting a school in Trivandrum, Martin Luther King
was introduced by the principal as a “fellow untouchable from
the United States.” Although initially “shocked and peeved,”
as Razdan reports, King later recalled that as he began to think
“about the fact that 20 millions of my brothers and sisters were
still smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in an affluent
society. And as I thought about this, I finally said to myself,
yes, I am an untouchable and every Negro in the United States
is an untouchable.”22
Frederick Douglass admonished the Black intelligentsia,
back in 1852, that they should “have to do with the past only
as we can make it useful to the present and to the future.”
This essay seeks to understand the past—e.g. in 1818, 1868,
1918, and 1968—because it is still relevant in 2018. Kosambi
occasionally cited E.H. Carr to clarify what he took to be
the political function of history: “To learn about the present
in light of the past also means to learn about the past in
light of the present. The function of history is to promote a
profounder understanding of both past and present through
the interrelation between them” (1962: 62). In closing let us
also recall Du Bois’s wise dictum that concealing the facts
and distorting what actually happened “render it easy for
a muddled world out of sheer ignorance to make the same
mistake ten times over” (722; quoted in Robinson, 228).
NOTES
1. Bakan here cites Robin Blackburn (1997, 2011), Angela Davis
(1983), W.E.B. Du Bois (1969), C.L.R. James (1989), August Nimtz
(2003), Walter Rodney (1972), Eric Williams (1944); we might
also add Keenga-Yamahtta Taylor (2016). Bakan also discusses
various anti-racist theorists who acknowledge the importance
of certain elements of Marxism (e.g. Carole Boyce Davies, Ania
Loomba, Charles Mills, Sherene Razack, Nikhil Pal Singh, and
Ella Shohat) as well as those who, like David Roediger, “attempt
to develop analytic tools to bridge the theoretical gap” (2014: 100
ff.)

2. Fitzhugh writes—in Sociology for the South—that “[d]espite the
mawkish sensibility of the age, practical men are . . . pursuing

the same course; they slay the Indians hip and thigh, as in the
days of Moses and Joshua, and enslave the negroes” (286-7; in
Roediger, 107); Roediger adds: “Enslaving Africans was on this
view the nurturant flipside of the white managerial genius that
killed off the Indians” (ibid.).
3. Marable elaborates: “Underdevelopment is not the absence
of development; it is the inevitable product of an oppressed
population’s integration into the world market economy
and political system. Once ‘freed,’ Black Americans were not
compensated for their 246 years of free labour to this country’s
slave oligarchy. . . . Sharecropping and convict leasing were
followed by industrial labour at low wages. . . . The constant
expropriation of surplus value created by Black labour is the
heart and soul of underdevelopment” (2000: 7).
4. In 1865, the Confederacy surrendered unconditionally. The
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, combined with the 13th
Amendment, theoretically destroyed the “peculiar institution”
of slavery in the US. Taylor has been helpful in demonstrating
the many ways, proximate and remote, that Blacks are still not
free. (Since the very moment that Slaves were de jure liberated
from slavery, the capitalist machine has morphed into less
egregious or overt but equally egregious forms—wage labour
rather than chattel slavery—of exploiting the vulnerable and
disinherited to such an outrageous degree that it constitutes de
facto slavery.)
5. “In reference to you, coloured people, let me [viz. Abraham
Lincoln in Richmond, VA, days after the unconditional surrender
of the Confederacy] say God has made you free. Although you
have been deprived of your God-given rights by your so-called
Masters, you are now free as I am, and if those that claim to be
your superiors do not know that you are free, take the sword
and bayonet and teach them that you are for God created all
men free giving to each the same rights of life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness” (quoted in Taylor, 2016: 192).
6. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/iwma/
See
documents/1864/lincoln-letter.htm
7. In his first message to Congress in December 1861, Lincoln

criticised the “effort to place capital on an equal footing with,
if not above, labor in the structure of government.” Instead, he
insisted, “labour is prior to and independent of capital. Capital
is only the fruit of labour . . . . Labour is the superior of capital
and deserves much the higher consideration” (https://www.

jacobinmag.com/2012/08/lincoln-and-marx).

8. Jim Crow laws were implemented in 1878. Ida B. Wells
documents—in Southern Horrors (1892)—the role of lynching
as a systemic means of keeping African Americans de facto
enslaved, alienated, oppressed, and exploited. Also see Preston
King, CRISSP, “Ida Wells and Nonviolent Resistance in the
South.”
9. Singh writes: “The association of whiteness with wages through
the monopolisation of fields of employment has been widely
discussed. Less fully examined has been how the elevation of
whiteness to the threshold of nationality actively links freedom
with the management of public authority, specific mechanisms
of violence, and an operational notion of (racial) nemesis” (2017:
94-95).
10. David Roediger first published this useful thesis in the Monthly
5HYLHZ, 58 (July-August 2006), 40-51; he republishes and amends
the earlier article as the first chapter of his recent Class, Race, and
Marxism (2017).
11. Eugene Debs, “The Negro in the Class Struggle,” International
6RFLDOLVW5HYLHZ, 4 (November 1903), marxist.org; also see David
Roediger, Class, Race, and Marxism (Verso, 2017), pp. 33 ff.
12. Mr. Anonymous, who identified himself as “a staunch member
of the Socialist Party, allegedly from Elgin, Illinois, advised Debs
to peruse Thomas Dixon’s “The Leopard’s Spots.” As an aside,
Debs wrote a speech in which he praised John Brown, who
was hanged in 1859, for his leading role in the Harper’s Ferry
Massacre, as “history’s greatest hero.”
13. In Democracy’s Prisoner, Ernest Freeberg reminds us that “Debs
was born in the Midwest, and his fight against capitalism
was inspired as much by Tom Paine, Walt Whitman, Wendell
Phillips as it was Karl Marx” (1999: 18). Debs’s fight against
capitalism was widely publicised: “Of course, Socialism is
violently denounced by the capitalist press and by all the
brood of subsidised contributors to magazine literature, but
this only confirms the view that the advance of Socialism is
very properly recognized by the capitalist class as the one
cloud upon the horizon which portends an end to the system
in which they have waxed fat, insolent and despotic through
the exploitation of their countless wage-working slaves” (Debs,
1900, ,QWHUQDWLRQDOLVW6RFLDOLVW5HYLHZ). For more on Thomas Paine
and early American socialism, see Sean Monahan’s “Reading
Paine from the Left” (2015, Jacobin).

14. “The Negro and His Nemesis” in the ,QWHUQDWLRQDO6RFLDOLVW5HYLHZ
(January 1904).
15. For Debs on Marx, see “Karl Marx: An Appreciation” (1918) and
“Marx and the Young People” (1918).
16. In 1968, in a speech titled “Honoring Du Bois,” King wrote:
“Some people would like to ignore the fact that he was a
Communist in his later years. It is worth noting that Abraham
Lincoln warmly welcomed the support of Karl Marx during the
Civil War and corresponded with him freely. In contemporary
life the English-speaking world has no difficulty with the fact
that Sean O’Casey was a literary giant of the twentieth century
and a Communist or that Pablo Neruda is generally considered
the greatest living poet though he also served in the Chilean
Senate as a Communist. It is time to cease muting the fact
that Dr. Du Bois was a genius and chose to be a Communist.
Our irrational, obsessive anti-communism has led us into too
many quagmires to be retained as if it were a mode of scientific
thinking.”
17. As early as 1951, King made so bold as to declare: “I am
convinced that capitalism has seen its best days in America, and
not only in America, but in the entire world. It is a well-known
fact that no social institution can survive when it has outlived
its usefulness. This, capitalism has done. It has failed to meet
the needs of the masses.”
18. Michael Dawson proposes a wide array of recommendations
for restraining what he calls “the voracious maw of capitalism,”
including the case for reparations and something along the lines
of the ‘truth and reconciliation’ process in South Africa, which
is more about agency and recognition than about extracting
revenge in terms of monetary compensation, as well as an
“unlearning attachment to regimes of injustice” (pp. 182 ff.).
Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote an interesting article on reparations for
the Atlantic in 2014.
19. “Now my friends, I am opposed to the system of society in
which we live today, not because I lack the natural equipment
to do for myself, but because I am not satisfied to make myself
comfortable knowing that there are thousands of my fellow
men who suffer for the barest necessities of life. We were taught
under the old ethic that man’s business on this earth was to look
out for himself. That was the ethic of the jungle; the ethic of the
wild beast. Take care of yourself, no matter what may become
of your fellow man. Thousands of years ago the question was

asked: “Am I my brother’s keeper?” That question has never yet
been answered in a way that is satisfactory to civilized society.
Yes, I am my brother’s keeper. I am under a moral obligation to
him that is inspired, not by any maudlin sentimentality, but by
the higher duty I owe to myself. What would you think of me
if I were capable of seating myself at a table and gorging myself
with food and saw about me the children of my fellow beings
starving to death?” (Debs, 1918).
20. “While the overall poverty rate for all Americans is about at the
same level today, at 12.7%, as it was in 1968, “deep poverty,”
defined as having income below half the federal poverty level,
has risen from 3.7% in 1975 (earliest available) to 5.8% in 2016.
And because our population has added more than 122 million
people since 1968, this means that 15 million more people are
poor today than they were 50 years ago.”
21. http://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312
b109-i132/#page/1/mode/1up
22. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/india-trip
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5
From Early Marx to Véquaud’s
Countercultural Indophilia
Similar Aesthetics Founded on Romanticism
and Communitarian Utopia
Hélène Fleury
Damien Ehrhardt
Véquaud was a French writer, a contributor to the Nouvelle

Revue Française (NRF), a translator, a film director, and a curator,
today mostly known for his essays on Mithila paintings.1 In
this paper, we aim to show the indirect impact of Marx’s ideas
on Véquaud as a player of the countercultural Indophilia. We
hypothesise that, in the case of Véquaud, the traces of Marx
go beyond the ideological references of the counterculture.
We will try to assert this hypothesis in particular with the
similarity of vision between both authors concerning the so-
called “communitarian Indian village” as a counter-model
challenging capitalist society, but stemming from a persistent
Western orientalist imaginary and primitivist schema. This
essay deals with, first, an overview of the different stages of
Marx’s aesthetics, presented here with only a little though to
other Marxist theorists, and second, a discussion of different
aspects of Véquaud’s writings connected to Marx’s ideas and
counterculture.
1. Marx’s Aesthetics: An Overview

1.1. Marx as a Romantic Poet (1835-37)
Karl Marx’s first foray into writing goes back to the years
1835-37.2 As a poet, he was marked in particular by E.T.A.
Hoffmann’s and Fichte’s romanticism and his own academic
studies about ancient literature and German classical
aesthetics. The young Marx wrote poems inspired by the love
for his fiancée, Jenny von Westphalen,3 but his poetry treats
also romanticist themes as the primacy of feeling and human
emotions, the situation of artists separated from “normal”
life, the struggle against philistines, or the opposition to
an abstract and dehumanised world. In the poem “An die
Sterne”, the coldness of the shining stars may appear far from
heart-warmth, mildness and soul. In his diatribes against
physicians (among others “An die Mediziner”), he criticises
their approach consisting of understanding human beings
merely through the study of anatomy and physiology. Life
cannot be reduced to the abstraction of science. For Marx
many physicians are philistine because they “exaggerate their
own importance, while ignoring the needs of others.”4 The
poem “Der Spielmann” (The Minstrel) expresses the artist’s
isolation and his diabolical dimension: described as a dealer in
black magic, he lives in the dark-side of the soul.5
1.2. Marx as Early Philosopher: Organic Unity in the
Material and Social Worlds (1837-41)
In 1837, Marx left his vocation of a poet to become a
philosopher. He combines poetry and prose, art and
knowledge, fields that he considered to have been separated
for a too long time.6 Therefore, it is not surprising that he read
Hegel, who aims to reunify everything under the metaphysics
of the Absolute. But Marx was against the abstraction of
Hegel’s philosophy that he wished to escape.
The then widespread notion of organic unity plays a
crucial role in Marx’s oeuvre. In his dissertation on late Greek
philosophy7, the atom is regarded as the material basis of the
FURP(DUO\0DU[WR9pTXDXG·V&RXQWHUFXOWXUDO,QGRSKLOLDв143
world, but it symbolises also individual self-consciousness.

Within a complex body, the atoms cannot be seen isolated
from one another. As a higher unit, this complex body bears
witness to the diversity of the world and its societies. In this
perspective, Marx disapproved the abstract principles of the
French Constitution of 1793 that may lead to a “world of
uniform and independent atom-citizens”8, far from the living
forces of society as an essential entity for human beings.
1.3. Marx’s ‘Not Written Aesthetics’: The Artist Creates
Freely Organic Forms in an Organic Society (1841-42)
After a life-path leading him from poetry to philosophy,
Marx would have been well placed to write on aesthetics,
which is what he did. With Bruno Bauer he worked in 1841
42 on a critique of Hegel’s vision of art and religion. But
the two works written within this continuity in 1842 on
Christian art are not extant9 as well as his later contribution
in 1857 on aesthetics for the 1HZ $PHULFDQ &\FORSDHGLD.10
So, if a “systematic Marxist aesthetics does not exist”,11 it is
understandable that the Marxian aesthetics can be described
as “a not written” one.12 However, art is evoked here and
there in Marx’s oeuvre, and his approach to art is often
integrated into more general considerations. The notebooks of
1842 give a few ideas about the supposed content of his not
extant works on Christian art. Those notebooks introduce the
idea of fetishism applied to religion: the latter worships the
materiality of things. In contrast, art seeks to create organic
forms through the intermediary of imagination. For Marx, this
is how to explain the dryness of religious art.13 The origin of
the organic conception of art lies in a free society which has
to be organic too. Therefore, in 1842, Marx advocates for the
autonomy of literature in his defence of press freedom against
Prussian censorship.14 For him, the fight against censorship is
a precondition for resistance.
Marx distinguished two worlds governed by the same
organic principles, coexisting freely one in relation which each
other: the real and the artistic ones. Isn’t there a similarity with
the early romanticist ]ZHL:HOWHQ0RGHOO?15 In that “two-worlds”

model, both universes are not parallel, but interconnected: the
negation of the real world provides access to the artistic one,
which in turn retroacts onto the real one. The main difference
between the early romanticist vision and the Marxian one is
the fact that the latter did not oppose a poetic world, seen
in positive terms, to a trivial one, judged negatively. Marx is
more and more attached to the reality perceived through our
senses and give less and less importance to idealism.
1.4. The First Political Economical Works: Alienation as an
Emerging Concept (1844-45)
In 1844-45, Marx wrote his first political economical works: the
Parisian Manuscripts and the Holy Family (the latter together
with Engels). The Parisian Manuscripts developed the notion
of “alienated” and “estranged” work (HQWlXHUWH HQWIUHPGHWH
Arbeit), which is constituted by: 1. The estrangement of things:
as working is not belonging to the worker’s intrinsic nature,
the production exercises power over him as an alien object;
2. 6HOIHVWUDQJHPHQW the relation of the worker to his activity
considered as not belonging to him, as an activity turned
against him; 3. 0DQ·VVSHFLHVEHLQJ the worker as a being alien
to him, to his own body, his external nature and human aspect;
4. The estrangement of man from man as a consequence of
the estrangement from his production, his life activity
and his species-being. Marx deplores that narrow-minded
relationships leading to equally narrow-minded senses are
left, after the human being had improved his mastery of the
five senses during a large part of the history of mankind. To
put an end to that situation, different forms of communism
are determined whose highest expression implicates the
abolition of private property as human self-estrangement. In
the Parisian Manuscripts, Marx emphasises a Feuerbachian
critique of Hegel: The negation of the negation is conceived
as a contradiction in itself, and not as a restoration of religion
and theology.16 Indeed, German idealism has been seeking a
new prophet for new times, supposed to found a new religion
as mankind’s last and greatest work. This critique of Hegelian

speculative theory is developed further in The Holy Family or
Critique of Critical Critique, written in opposition to the group
of Young Hegelian around Bruno Bauer. Contrary to their
mysticism, Marx and Engels stress “the natural and human
connection between the world system and world events” and
the “real connection between man and nature”.17
1.5 From the German Ideology: Towards a Re-Aesthetised
Communist Society (1845-)
Althusser regarded the German Ideology: The Theses on Feuerbach
as an “epistemological break” (coupure épistémologique)
between the “ideological” period of the Early Works and
the “scientific” period after 1845.18 Furthermore, the German
Ideology has been canonised in the 1920s-30s as the founding
text of the materialist conception of history. Surely, the
periodisation and canonisation can be easily deconstructed.
Nevertheless, from 1845, Marx and Engels would criticise
the aesthetic visions of the Young Hegelians—including
Feuerbach—and show the interdependence between, on
one hand, the art and the creative spirit of the artist, on the
other hand, the history of economic and political life in
society. They develop less an aesthetics than an analysis and
critique of capitalism as a social system. For both authors,
art and creativity are called upon to play a major role in the
perspective of a new re-aesthetised communist society in a
time of disalienation.
In the ideal society, everybody is engaged in various
day-to-day activities, including the arts. There is no more
division of labour, even between artists and non-artists: “In a
communist society there are no painters but only people who
engage in painting among other activities”.19 As long as this
utopia cannot be achieved, the economic structure of society
may not be isolated from artistic production: hence the need
for a mediation between base and superstructure. Marx posed
this problem in 1859 in the preface to A Contribution to the
Critique of Political Economy:
In the social production of their life, humans enter into

definite, indispensable relations that are independent of their
will, relations of production which correspond to a definite
stage of development of their material productive forces. The
sum of these relations of production constitutes the economic
structure of society, the real base, on which rises a legal and
political superstructure and to which correspond definite forms
of social consciousness. The mode of production of material life
conditions the social, political and intellectual life process in
general. It is not the consciousness of humans that determines
their being, but on the contrary, their social being that determines
their consciousness.20
As shown by Terry Eagleton, “each element of a society’s
superstructure—art, law, politics, religion—has its own tempo
of development, its own internal evolution, which is not
reducible to a mere expression of the class struggle or the state
of the economy”.21 For Marx, the ancient Greeks were able to
produce high art “not in spite of but because of the undeveloped
state of their society”.22 Because of the capitalistic division
of labour, the harmony or ‘measure’ (MaE) between human
beings and Nature is broken. That harmony was possible in
ancient Greece, not yet affected by the bourgeois consumer
society.
Marx and Engels also gave examples of pre-capitalist
societies, among others the guilds’ organisations in the Middle
Ages, and the village community in India. In European
medieval towns, individual guilds are unaffected by a higher
division of labour. Every workman had to master a whole
round of tasks and be able to make all that was to be made
with his tools. He was absorbed in his work and capable of
rising to a “narrow artistic sense” (bornierter Kunstsinn).23 Marx
wrote extensively on India, in particular in his articles for the
1HZ<RUN'DLO\7ULEXQH in the years 1853-58. He examines the
basic mechanics of pre-colonial India, criticises the British rule
and its consequences—he shows in particular how British
actions had been undertaken with the aim of benefiting British
capitalists, and analyses the course of India’s development.
But the most significant for our purpose is Marx’s vision,

influenced by Hegel, of the presumed “idyllic” Indian village
community as a pre-capitalist immutable form of organisation.
In the Capital, he stresses the prevalence of “possession in
common of the land” and the mode of production able to
sustain a “natural economy” through the union of handicrafts
and agriculture. Only the surplus becomes a commodity when
it circulates outside the village.24
Marx and Engels were looking for societies which are
distant in time (Antiquity, Middle Ages) and space (India
and other Asian countries), with a pre-capitalist mode of
production. But for them, these essentialised visions are
neither the reflection of a Golden Age nostalgia nor the
dream of an elsewhere. They consider, in different steps, the
way to break away capitalism, pursuing the ideal vision of
communist society.
2. Véquaud’s Aesthetics and its Similarities with Marx’s
Ideas
2.1. Véquaud, an Agent of the Counterculture
Véquaud was not politically committed, but his anti-
institutional temperament matched the mood of the
counterculture. In a letter to his friend Arland, then the
director of the journal NRF and a recognised and influential
writer in France, Véquaud wonders: “Do you know that I am
a hippie? Some French people, have referred to me as such:
‘Yes, the French hippie with a beard!’ But what is a hippie?”25
Some groups were called hippies as early as 1964 in San
Francisco. Living on the margins of the dominant way of life,
they refuse work as it is imposed, practice non-violence, free
love and spontaneous creation. They dream of being “on the
road” rather than “on the job”. They built a counter-culture,
a concept formed in 1969 by Theodor Roszak.26 This notion
encompasses their anti-establishment dimension, be it political,
social or “existential”, counter to the “bourgeois” ideals. Some
of them, in the wake of their literary precursors of the Beat
Generation, among them Ginsberg or Burroughs, pursue a

quest for holistic experience.27 During the 1960s, groups like
hippies or Kommune 1 saw cultural and art freedom as the key
to political liberation, and infused cultural space with political
meaning.28 For many of them, challenging cultural norms was
a means to confront social and economic inequities.
2.2. Counterculture and “Heterodox” Marxisms
Counterculture had been fed by the neo-Marxism developed
by the Frankfurt School in the intellectual and artistic world
since the 1920s. During the 1960s, the language of protest drew
its ideological references not mainly from the “orthodox”
Marxist-Leninist tradition, but essentially from “heterodox”
Marxisms: Frankfurt School, critical thought, New Left,
(neo)-anarchism, (politically committed) surrealism, Council
communism, and situationism.29
At that time, Marx’s early writings as well as
psychoanalysis, existentialism, feminism, and anti-colonialism
contribute to develop a radical critique of alienation felt by
individuals in everyday life, recreation and family, but also
a fulfilment of human’s essence to be most in conformity
with nature. Marcuse and Lefebvre are bound by the daily
revolution, thought respectively as counter-culture and
revolutionary festival. “Alienation”, as the word of the moment
or PRWPRPHQW,30 embodied the prevailing Freudo-Marxism
in the 1960s. With this critical thought, a transformation in
cultural realms is expected through oppositional subcultures,31
preceding social and political changes. Alternative lifestyles
aim at redistributing leadership.
These critical perspectives had never been central for
theoretical debates among institutionalised Marxism. Within
this context, the critique of exploitation is re-centred on the
one of alienation in the capitalist world, which appeals to
the liberation of anyone’s creativity.32 So, everybody becomes
an artist to a higher stage, that is to say producer-consumer
of a “total cultural creation”.33 Generalised creativity can be
understood as the “essential weapon of the revolutionary
movement”.34 The utopia of generalised creativity follows

Marx’s critique of the social division of labour and its
hierarchies of legitimacy.
2.3. Véquaud’s Indian Enchantment Through the Prism of the
Counterculture
For a brief moment in 1968, a “third way” seemed to have
been a possibility, a new orientation beyond the Cold War
and its Western and Eastern blocs, transcending capitalism
and communism, encompassing the non-Western world.35
The theoretical writings about the critical thought in the
1960s imply a worldwide re-mapping: the “epicentre of the
global politics”36 was located in South East Asia, Africa and
Latin America, rather than in the Western world, situated on
the periphery. The pair South/North tends to replace that of
East/West. In the course of this re-mapping, India personifies
a specific counter dimension.
The revolutionary spirit no longer resided in the
proletariat, but in some “new working class”,37 the young
intelligentsia and the social or gender fringe groups. This
spirit was spreading among non-Western peoples and at the
margins of Western society. Within this context, the desire
to remove oneself from society—Timothy Leary’s “turning
on, tuning in, and dropping out”38—appears to spread
predominantly in Western countercultural movements,
when the battle for representation and inclusion may be
less crucially at stake. Nevertheless, the 1960s’ Indophilia
as a fully-fledged component of counterculture sounded to
be relegated to the fringes; it may be ascribable to intrinsic
aspects, probably presumed to conflict with neo-Marxist
positions as the search for spiritual awakening, the quest of
holistic experience involving “extraordinary” perceptions,
previously evoked.39 Véquaud also developed a neo-tantric
interpretation of Mithila paintings, in line with the hippie
craze for oriental esotericism. His )ORZHU3RZHU tantric version
of Mithila paintings, extols the body and hedonism, presumed
to allow to approach an essential gendered unity expressing
Living Life.40 As underlined by Hugh Urban, neo-tantrism

arose in Western popular culture and the hippie movement
in the form of a cult of ecstasy, presumed to involve higher
consciousness and tantrism.41
2.4. Véquaud’s Early Writings: Traces of Counter-Cultural
Romantic Revolt
From his first writings, Véquaud followed on the heels of anti
bourgeois Romanticism and critical thought:
- The extolling of emotions and body: The hippie movement
called into question the self-control required to maintain
one’s rank or place, such as the body hexis. Emotions
are liberated from the social constraints of daily-life
lived as alienation. Here, the body signifies the rejection
of dominant norms and upper-class reserve.42 For
example, in Le voyage en écriture, a forced hairdressing
session is felt as a traumatic, symbolic amputation.43
An anti-conformist body hexis based on natural body
postures is extolled. Later, his travel books on India are
characterised by a “creative bubbling”44 stemming from
a cult of pleasure and a hedonistic way of life. Exalted
emotions, linked to experiences of transgression, and the
questioning of social points of reference leads to a feeling
that anything is possible. The feeling of festive (party)
liberation and freedom are associated with a spiritual
register. In 1974, the initiation given by the Dalai Lama
was described as “one of the most extraordinary parties
which you could see in life”.45 These literary fantasies
entail colourful sensorial descriptions, allowing to open
the “field of the possibilities” (champ des possibles).46
The prevalence of affects matches with romantic hippie
values, in opposition with cold and abstract knowledge,
identified as stemming from colonisation as an antidote
to romance and imagination.
- The critique of the values of the bourgeoisie: Véquaud
refused the social finiteness and the bourgeois mandate
of remunerated work and family. In Le Voyage en écriture,
life is represented as a train from which we must jump

in order to escape from despondency,47 reminding
Timothy Leary. Véquaud questioned also the function
of education, which socialised children to accept
hierarchy, in particular in a provocative article entitled:
“The parents don’t love their children, the proof is that
they put them in school”.48 This rejection of educational
connections leads him to give up teaching and to invest
in the writing that he considered as a vocation, after
being awarded in 1967 by the Félix Fénéon literary
price. Thus, Véquaud experienced a broke and happy
hippie bohemia.
- The praise of bohemia: If Véquaud was able to accumulate
cultural and artistic capital, his economic one remained
very fragile. But he defied the petty bourgeois way of
life, from which he originated, to seize the liberality
of manners, presumed associated with the aristocracy
and the upper-class, while experiencing precariousness.
So, Véquaud’s semi-autobiographical writings revived
a myth of bohemia, inseparable from a vocational
art definition, whose singularity regime reinforces
the figure of the marginal genius. He evolved in a
Bourdieusian “economic world turned upside down”,49
depending on different modalities:
● Regarding the means for subsistence: He managed
situations which he presumed to be temporary,

without too much concern for saving money;
● Concerning the autonomy of the field of artistic creation,
the narrator of his novels aspire to a freedom

auspicious to creation. In Le Voyage en écriture, he
scoffs at a dreary routine and enjoins to drop out:
“Open your head, wash well your memory, (…) this
story is not yours. Go through, go through”.50
● Finally, as for posterity postponed, <YHV 9pTXDXG
strove for glory and not for gain, contrary to the

bourgeois artist who expects success, in particular a
financial one, and immediate notoriety.
Marx and Véquaud wished at first to make writing

their vocation. Both appropriated common themes of
early Romanticism which are also those of counterculture:
the exaltation of emotions, the critique of philistines or
bourgeoisie, the praise of bohemia or the cursed artist at the
margins of the society. The common denominator between
both authors can be found in the notion of romanticism in the
broader meaning of the sense forged by Löwy and Sayre.51
They define romanticism not only as a literary trend but
more widely as an anti-establishment Weltanschauung against
rationalization and commodification of human relationships.
This opposition to the capitalist modernity aspires to re-
enchant the world, beyond egotistical calculation, machinery
of rationalism and utilitarian approach to the environment.
Thus emerges a religious philosophy of nature, praising in
particular the return to a notion of organic unity.
2.5. Véquaud’s Communitarian Maithil Village Utopia
Started in 1969, his hippy trail took him to India, Nepal and
Ceylon (just before the creation of Sri Lanka). He discovered
Mithila paintings in New Delhi and went to Mithila several
times to meet village painters. Véquaud expressed a canonical
form of the counter-culture: the back-to-the-land-movement
in communitarian utopias within the Maithil village. His
fantasy model shares the suspension of dominant norms like
phalansterie, monachisms or communes, involving widened
households, collective care of children, and egalitarian
rotation of domestic tasks. Gender, patriarchy, and family
are redefined. He notes that men often do nothing else than
keeping their lastborns on the knees.52 In the West, “one can
count on the fingers of one hand the women painters who
shine through their art. Here, (...) two hundred, three hundred
women make marvels”.53 According to him, in India, “the
example is not rare of societies where women are freer and
more powerful than in ours”.54 These projective presumptions,
putting forward a phantasmagorical experience of gender
resocialisation, are reiterated in his writings. Here Mithila
paintings contribute to “undoing gender”,55 emphasising the

impact of the feminist cause. This village utopia serves his
quest of alternative prophecies.
It renews an epitomised unchanging tradition opposed
to mass and technocratic society. The rise of the “information
age” is accompanied by nostalgia for older ways of making
things. As the romantic critics of the Victorian age praised
Indian craftsmanship, Véquaud attributes the perfection of
Maithil art to a timeless village. Folk art is misunderstood
as homogeneous, stable and rural. He champions a return
to a pre-industrial, holistic community. He urges people to
leave towns as Madhubani to find hamlets where the Maithil
civilisation stays alive. From his standpoint, the preserved
culture of Mithila embodies the culture of India. His utopia
expresses a romantic nostalgia for the Heimat embodied
in an elsewhere, through which arise the Sehnsucht of a lost
Eden. He attempts to re-enchant the world. Which he does by
heroizing the women painters.
Yves Véquaud emphasises in his writings a revealing
interpretation of the icons of his utopian counter-society. The
Maithil women painters are presented as prophetic figures of
legend, between holiness and genius. From his standpoint,
“to paint better than her neighbour is to be devout, as it
were to become a priestess”. The artistic success of painters
involves both the personalisation of means as well as the
depersonalisation of the ends of the success, namely the
creation of objects crystallising values recognised beyond the
author. It was traditionally reserved for heroes and saints.
This literary fantasy bears witness to a picturesque vision
of India within an orientalising episteme. Véquaud praises
a sort of Maithil Republic of Arts, through a pastoral myth
and art religion, prevalent during the first Romanticism. His
narratives reflect a male Western style for representing the
painters. They bore less relation to Maithil painters than to a
crisis (in Western) self-representation.
There are many similarities between Marx’s and Véquaud’s
visions of the Indian village: the idyllic and timeless character,
the pre-industrial or pre-capitalist holistic community

based on the union of arts/handicrafts and agriculture. If
counterculture tends to free individuals from collectivity, the
holistic model of the Indian village marks a return to Marx’s
notion of organic unity. Besides, Indophilia prevails at Marx’s
and Véquaud’s time. Marx was living during Raymond
Schwab’s “Oriental Renaissance”. Reading the first published
translations of Sanskrit, artists and intellectuals thought
then to discover an echo of humanity’s origins, nearest of
an harmonious nature and the divine. The Indophilia of the
1960s underlines a similar cultural movement of romantic
contestation, associated to a second “oriental renaissance”, as
underlined by Raphaël Rousseleau.56 At last, these two visions
of the Indian community matches with Löwy’s and Sayre’s
category of “revolutionary and/or utopian romanticism”. The
difference between both is that Véquaud’s literary fantasy
reveals more the nostalgia of an enchanted elsewhere, while
Marx renewed pre-capitalist models—as the Indian village—
in order to lay the groundwork for the communist society of
the future.
For the young Marx and Véquaud, freedom and especially
artistic freedom is crucial. In this sense, socialist realism may
be considered as the negation of the aesthetics of the Early
Marx. On the other hand, countercultural orientalism as
represented by Véquaud can be seen on a more obvious way
as heterodox Marxisms as the negation of socialist realism. So
we are tempted to say that Véquaud’s vision is the “negation
of the negation” of the ideas of the Early Marx. One more
reason to explain the similarity of both, following respectively
a Zeitgeist characterised by romanticism and Indophilia.
NOTES
1. Among others: Yves Véquaud, L ’art du Mithila (Paris: Les
Presses de la Connaissance, 1976); Die Kunst von Mithila, trans.
Cornelia Pechota and Hilde Weber (Genève: Weber, 1977); The
Art of Mithila. Ceremonial Paintings from an Ancient Kingdom,
trans. George Robinson (London: Thames and Hudson, 1977);
The Women Painters of Mithila (New York: Thames and Hudson,

1977). Even though they are controversial, the writings mark
a )ORZHU 3RZHU turn, emphasising a kairos in the international
reception of Mithila paintings. But the posterity of these few
works, which neglects the remainder of his work, is simplistic.
Véquaud published novels, stories, and essays such as Le
monsieur imaginaire (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1961), Le petit
livre avalé (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), Le voyage en écriture (Paris:
Gallimard, 1966), Monarque (Paris: Gallimard, 1967), or the
exhibition catalogue Mithila: Les femmes, leurs peintures et la
faveur des dieux (Paris: musée des arts décoratifs, and Gap: Musée
départemental de Gap, 1977). He edited Victor Hugo’s La Légende
des siècles (Paris: la Différence, 1989) and translated poems of
Federico Garcia Lorca, in La désillusion du monde: choix de poèmes
(Paris: la Différence, 1989). To this might be added the movie
Mithila, a “docu-fiction” directed by Ludovic Segarra, Georges
Luneau, and Yves Véquaud (1974, Capital Films, production.
Broadcasting: LS Productions, ORTF. Paris, Bry-sur-Marne:
INA).
2. Frank Biewer, “Karl Marx (1818-1883) und Friedrich Engels
(1820-1895),” in Klassiker der Soziologie der Künste: Prominente
XQG EHGHXWHQGH $QVlW]H ed. Christian Steuerwald (Wiesbaden:
Springer Fachmedien, 2017), 25-27.

3. Biewer , 25.
4. William M. Johnston, “Karl Marx’s Verse of 1836-1837 as a
Foreshadowing of His Early Philosophy,” Journal of the History
of Ideas 28, No. 2 (April- June 1967), 264.

5. Johnston, 267.
6. Letter to his father, November 10, 1837, Karl Marx, and Friedrich
Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1968), 40: 3-10.
7. Karl Marx, “Differenz der demokritischen und epikureischen
Naturphilosophie nebst einem Anhange”, PhD diss., Universität
Jena, 1841. In Marx/Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1968),
40: 257-373.

8. Mikhail Lifshitz. The Philosophy of Art of Karl Marx, trans. Ralph
B. Winn (London: Pluto Press, 1976), 24.
9. “Über christliche Kunst” and “Über Religion und Kunst mit
besonderer Beziehung auf christliche Kunst”, cf. Frank Biewer,
“Karl Marx (1818-1883) und Friedrich Engels (1820-1895).” In
Klassiker der Soziologie der Künste: Prominente und bedeutende
$QVlW]H ed. Christian Steuerwald (Wiesbaden: Springer
Fachmedien, 2017), 21-22.
10. Margaret A. Rose, Marx’s Lost Aesthetic. Karl Marx and the Visual
Arts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 83.
11. Anil Bhatti, “Some Reflections on Marxism and an Aesthetic of
Resistance. An Essay,” Interpreting the World to Change it. Essays
for Parbhat Patnaik, ed. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh (New
Delhi: Tulika Books, 2017), 238.
12. Hans P. Thurn, Kritik der marxistischen Kunsttheorie (Stuttgart:
Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1976), 17. See also the title of the first
part of Biewer, 21: “Eine nicht geschriebene Ästhetik”.
13. Lifshitz, 32-39.
14. “Debatten über Preßfreiheit und Publikation der Landständischen
Verhandlungen,” in Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Werke
(Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1976), 1: 28-77.
15. Hans Heinrich Eggebrecht, Musik im Abendland: Prozesse und
6WDWLRQHQ YRP 0LWWHODOWHU ELV ]XU *HJHQZDUW (München: Piper,
1996), 595.
16. Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag,
1968), 40: 465-588.
17. Friedrich Engels, and Karl Marx, Die heilige Familie, oder Kritik der
kritischen Kritik: Gegen Bruno Bauer & Consorten (Frankfurt/M.:
Literarische Anstalt [J. Rütten], 1848), 266: “Die kritische Kritik,
welche der ‚romantischen Kunst‘ das ‚Dogma der Einheit‘ zum
Vorwurf macht, setzt, um ein ‚wahrhaft einiges Ganze‘, um eine
‚wirkliche Einheit‘ zu erhalten, an die Stelle des natürlichen
und menschlichen Zusammenhangs zwischen Weltzustand
und Weltbegebenheit, einen phantastischen Zusammenhang,
ein mystisches Subjekt-Objekt, wie Hegel an die Stelle des
wirklichen Zusammenhangs von Mensch und Natur ein
absolutes Subjekt-Objekt, das die ganze Natur und die ganze
Menschheit auf einmal ist, den absoluten Geist setzt”.
18. Louis Althusser, Pour Marx (Paris: Éditions La Découverte,
1965).
19. Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Werke (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1978),
3: 379: “Bei einer kommunistischen Organisation der Gesellschaft
fällt jedenfalls fort die Subsumtion des Künstlers unter die lokale
und nationale Borniertheit, die rein aus der Teilung der Arbeit
hervorgeht, und die Subsumtion des Individuums unter diese
bestimmte Kunst, so daß es ausschließlich Maler, Bildhauer usw.
ist und schon der Name die Borniertheit seiner geschäftlichen
Entwicklung und seine Abhängigkeit von der Teilung der Arbeit
hinlänglich ausdrückt. In einer kommunistischen Gesellschaft
gibt es keine Maler, sondern höchstens Menschen, die unter
Anderm auch malen”.

20. Ibid., 13: 8-9: „In der gesellschaftlichen Produktion ihres Lebens
gehen die Menschen bestimmte, notwendige, von ihrem Willen
unabhängige Verhältnisse ein, Produktionsverhältnisse, die einer
bestimmten Entwicklungsstufe ihrer materiellen Produktivkräfte
entsprechen. Die Gesamtheit dieser Produktionsverhältnisse
bildet die ökonomische Struktur der Gesellschaft, die reale Basis,
worauf sich ein juristischer und politischer Überbau erhebt,
und welcher bestimmte gesellschaftliche Bewußtseinsformen
entsprechen. Die Produktionsweise des materiellen Lebens
bedingt den sozialen, politischen und geistigen Lebensprozeß
überhaupt. Es ist nicht das Bewußtsein der Menschen, das ihr
Sein, sondern umgekehrt ihr gesellschaftliches Sein, das ihr
Bewußtsein bestimmt“.
21. Terry Eagleton, Marxism and Literary Criticism (London: Methuen
& Co., 1976), 13.
22. Eagleton, 11.
23. Die deutsche Ideologie, in Karl Marx, and Friedrich Engels, Werke
(Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1978), 3:52.
24. Ibid., 23:378.
25. Véquaud’s letter to Arland, March 9, 1971: “Savez-vous que je
suis hippie ? Des Français qui ne savaient pas mon nom m’ont
désigné ainsi : ‘Mais si, le hippie français avec la barbe!’ Qu’est
ce qu’un hippie ?”.
26. Theodore Roszak, The Making of a Counter Culture: Reflections
RQWKH7HFKQRFUDWLF6RFLHW\DQGLWV<RXWKIXO2SSRVLWLRQ (Garden
City: Doubleday & Co, 1969).

27. Raphaël Rousseleau, “Introduction: les années 60 comme
seconde renaissance orientale?”, international conference
&RXQWHU&XOWXUH LQ ,QGLDQ $UWV 1HR 7DQWULF 3DLQWLQJ /LWHUDWXUH
0XVLF 'DQFH LQ WKH VV [coordinators: Tiziana Leucci
and Raphaël Rousseleau], Paris, Musée du Quai Branly, May
28, 2015.
28. Samantha Christiansen, and Zachary A. Scarlett, The Third World
LQ WKH *OREDO V (New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books,
2013), 1.

29. Michel Trebitsch, “Voyages autour de la Révolution—Les
circulations de la pensée critique—de 1956 à 1968” in Les années
/H WHPSV GH OD FRQWHVWDWLRQ, ed. Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand,
Robert Frank, Marie-Françoise Lévy, Michelle Zancarini-Fournel,
with the collaboration of Maryvonne Le Puloch (Paris: Editions
Complexe, 2008), 69-89.
30. Pierre Nora, Les idées en France, quoted by Michel Trebitsch,

“Voyages autour de la Révolution: Les circulations de la pensée
critique de 1956 à 1968,” in /HVDQQpHV/HWHPSVGHODFRQWHVWDWLRQ,
ed. Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand et al. (Paris: Editions Complexe,
2008), 86.
31. Carole Fink, Philip Gassert, and Detlef Junker, 7KH:RUOG
Transformed (Washington: German Historical Institute and
Cambridge University Press, 1998), 25.
32. The situationist Raoul Vaneigem claimed in 1967 that “creativity
is the best-shared thing in the world” (“La créativité est la chose
du monde la mieux partagée”), cf. Raoul Vaneigem, Traité de
VDYRLUYLYUH j O·XVDJH GHV MHXQHV JpQpUDWLRQV (Paris: Gallimard,
1992), 253.
33. Tom McDonough, Guy Debord and the Situationist International:
Texts and Documents (Cambridge MA: The MIT Press, 2002), 299.
34. This is the case, within the 1968’s context in France, for some anti-
establishment collectives as in particular the 22 March movement
and numerous Action Committees. “La contre-révolution est
une science qui s’apprend”, Tribune of March 22, June 5, 1968,
reproduced in Alain Schnapp, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, Journal
de la Commune étudiante (Paris: Seuil, 1968), 511-512.
36. Henning Marmulla, “Rethinking the Writer’s Role: Enzensberger
and Cuba—or a Story of Self-Censorship”, in A Revolution of
3HUFHSWLRQ" &RQVHTXHQFHV DQG (FKRHV RI , ed. Ingrid Gilcher-
Holtey, (New York/Oxford: Berghahn, 2014), 17.
38. Timothy Leary quoted by Samantha Christiansen, and Zachary
A. Scarlett, 7KH 7KLUG :RUOG LQ WKH *OREDO V (New York and
Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2013), 9, and Timothy Leary, Turn On,
Tune In, Drop Out (Oakland: Ronin Publishing Inc., 1965).
39. For instance, as soon as 1958, the Situationist International
condemned in radical terms the Beat movement and its literary
precursors of the Flower Power Indophilia by asserting:
“l’odeur d’œufs pourris que répand l’idée de Dieu enveloppe
les crétins mystiques de la beat generation”, in “Le Bruit et la
Fureur”, Internationale Situationniste, no 1 (June 1958), 4, quoted
by Anna Trespeuch-Berthelot, “L’interface situationniste et ses
paradoxes,” in /HV ´DQQpHV µ FLUFXODWLRQV UpYROXWLRQQDLUHV ed.

Ludivine Bantigny, Boris Gobille, and Eugénia Palieraki. Rennes:
Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 161-182.
40. Yves Véquaud, L’art du Mithila (Paris: Les Presses de la
Connaissance, 1976), 16.
41. Hugh Urban, “The Power of the Impure: Transgression, Violence
and Secrecy in Bengali Sakta Tantra and Modern Western Magic”,
Numen No. 50 (2003), 223.
42. Julie Pagis, 0DL XQ SDYp GDQV OHXU KLVWRLUH eYpQHPHQWV HW
socialisation politique (Paris: Presses de Sciences Po, 2014), 108.
43. Yves Véquaud, Le voyage en écriture (Paris: Gallimard, 1966), 67
68: “Les ciseaux cliquettent. Leur nickel glacé donne la chair
de poule. ( ... ) Mais aussitôt vous sentez les mâchoires qui
broutent, les incisives qui rasent, remontant le long de votre
peau, mouton, mouton aux dents serrées qui vous épile.(...)Vous
baissez la tête car les glaces sont agressives et vous lancent à la
face votre haut en forme d’œuf ( ... )”.
44. Pagis, 109.
45. Yves Véquaud, “Lettre de Bodh Gaya: Quand le Dalaï Lama
donne une initiation,” Le Monde, May 12-13, 1974, 12: “l’une des
fêtes les plus extraordinaires qui se puissent voir dans la vie”.
46. Pagis, 110.
47. Yves Véquaud, Le voyage en écriture (Paris: Gallimard, 1966),
15-16: “Rien n’est définitif encore. On pourrait se sauver. (…).
On hésite. (…) C’est trop tard. On remonte déjà (…). Il y a un
moment précis, où le train (…) hésite avant de gravir la pente
(…). Peut-être avez-vous été sensible à ce temps mort? (…). La
prochaine fois, il me sauvera. Je sauterai”.
48. Yves Véquaud, “Les parents n’aiment pas leurs enfants, la
preuve en est qu’ils les mettent à l’école”, Le Monde (February
1980).
49. Pierre Bourdieu, Les Règles de l’art—Genèse et Structure du champ
littéraire (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1992); Nathalie Heinich, Être
artiste: les transformations du statut des peintres et des sculpteurs
(Paris: Klincksieck, 1996).
50. Véquaud, Le voyage en écriture, 159-60: “Ouvrez votre tête, lavez
bien votre mémoire, (…) laissez-la s’apaiser au grand vent. (…).
Cette histoire n’est pas la vôtre. (…). Passez, passez”.

51. Michaël Löwy, and Robert Sayre, Révolte et mélancolie: Le
URPDQWLVPHjFRQWUHFRXUDQWGHODPRGHUQLWp (Paris: Payot, 1992).
52. Yves Véquaud, “The Women-Artists of Mithila,” Atlas, No. 85
(July 1973), 88: “les hommes ne font souvent rien, si ce n’est
garder leurs derniers-nés sur les genoux.”

53. Ibid., 85: “En Occident, on peut compter sur les doigts d’une main
les femmes peintres qui brillèrent par leur art. Ici, dans les deux
hameaux où nous avons vécu, deux cents, trois cents femmes
exécutent des merveilles.”
54. Ibid., 75: “L’exemple n’est pas rare en Inde de ces sociétés où les
femmes sont plus libres et plus puissantes que dans les nôtres.”
55. Judith Butler, Undoing Gender (New York and London: Routledge,
2004).

56. Raphaël Rousseleau, “Introduction: les années 60 comme
seconde renaissance orientale?”, international conference
&RXQWHU&XOWXUH LQ ,QGLDQ $UWV 1HR 7DQWULF 3DLQWLQJ /LWHUDWXUH
0XVLF 'DQFH LQ WKH VV [coordinators: Tiziana Leucci
and Raphaël Rousseleau]. Paris, Musée du Quai Branly, May
28, 2015.
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Doubleday & Co., 1969.
Rousseleau, Raphaël. “Introduction: les années 60 comme seconde
renaissance orientale?”, international conference &RXQWHU
Culture in Indian Arts: Neo Tantric Painting, Literature, Music &
'DQFHLQWKHVV[Coordinators: Tiziana Leucci and Raphaël
Rousseleau]. Paris, Musée du Quai Branly, May 28, 2015.
Schnapp, Alain, and Pierre Vidal-Naquet. Journal de la Commune
étudiante. Paris: Seuil, 1968.
Thurn, Hans P. Kritik der marxistischen Kunsttheorie. Stuttgart:
Ferdinand Enke Verlag, 1976.
Trebitsch, Michel. “Voyages autour de la Révolution: Les circulations
de la pensée critique de 1956 à 1968.” In /HVDQQpHV/HWHPSV
de la contestation, edited by Geneviève Dreyfus-Armand, Robert
Frank, Marie-Françoise Lévy, and Michelle Zancarini-Fournel,
with the collaboration of Maryvonne Le Puloch. Paris: Editions
Complexe, 2008, 69-89.
Trespeuch-Berthelot, Anna. “L’interface situationniste et ses
paradoxes.” In /HV ´DQQpHV µ FLUFXODWLRQV UpYROXWLRQQDLUHV
edited by Bantigny Ludivine, Boris Gobille, and Eugénia
Palieraki. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2017, 161
182.
Urban, Hugh. “The Power of the Impure: Transgression, Violence and
Secrecy in Bengali Sakta Tantra and Modern Western Magic”,
Numen No. 50 (2003), 269-308.
Vaneigem, Raoul. 7UDLWpGHVDYRLUYLYUHjO·XVDJHGHVMHXQHVJpQpUDWLRQV.
Paris: Gallimard, 1992.

Véquaud, Yves. L’art du Mithila [with photographs by Edouard
Boubat]. Paris: Les Presses de la Connaissance, 1976. Die Kunst
von Mithila. Translated by Cornelia Pechota, and Hilde Weber.
Genève: Weber, 1977. The Art of Mithila. Ceremonial Paintings from
an Ancient Kingdom. Translated by George Robinson [Preface
by Ajit Mookerjee]. London: Thames and Hudson, 1977. The
Women Painters of Mithila. [Preface by Ajit Mookerjee]. New
York: Thames and Hudson, 1977.
——. Le monsieur imaginaire. Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1961.
——. Le petit livre avalé. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.
——. “Lettre de Bodh Gaya: Quand le Dalaï Lama donne une
initiation,” Le Monde, May 12-13, 1974, 12.
——. Le voyage en écriture. Paris: Gallimard, 1966.
——. Mithila: Les femmes, leurs peintures et la faveur des dieux [exhibition
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départemental de Gap, 1977.
------. Monarque. Paris: Gallimard, 1967.
------. “The Women-Artists of Mithila,” Atlas, No. 85 (July 1973), 70-92.
Filmography
Mithila, codirected and coproduced by Ludovic Segarra,
Georges Luneau, and Yves Véquaud, assistant director: Surya
Dev, 1974. Duration: 53 min 17s. Capital Films, production.
Broadcasting: LS Productions, ORTF. Paris, Bry-sur-Marne:
INA.
6
Sartre and Alienation
A Marxian Perspective
Kumari Sunitha V.
Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) is one with Parmenides and

Plato in his contention that the chief problem of philosophy
is the problem of ‘Being’. It is mainly due to his plays, stories
and novels that existentialism becomes a popular literary
movement after the Second World War. Following Husserl
and Heidegger, he adopts the phenomenological method and
takes existentialism to its limits. He is the only existentialist
who later on sees the limits of the movement he is leading
and tries to term with Marxism in his later writing, though
unsuccessfully. Sartre claims to have uncovered the reading
of Marxism, yet he takes a diametrically opposed position
with respect to the notion of alienation. He is always an
existentialist, who addresses the fundamental problems of
human existence: death, nothingness, freedom, bad-faith,
anxiety, political commitment, the meaning of existence itself.
He remains an existentialist in his Marxist phase and during
his final overtly anarchist phase.
Sartre considers Man as a person in the world. He wants
to understand Man in his total situation, though he does not
think that Man could be interpreted completely in terms
of material relations. There is, according to Sartre, a conflict
between Man and the world and we cannot ignore it. We try to
point out that Sartre’s basic idea is Being-in-the-world, though
sometimes he is more emphatic on the reality of human
alienation, while at other times he tries to bring to focus the

greater concern for the world. His philosophical investigations
display a series of dialectical relations between man and the
world. His philosophy has been a quest to situate man in the
world, but he has not been quite successful as his dialectics is
more of a dialectics of consciousness than of dialectic proper
between Man and the world.
In Being and Nothingness, Sartre begins with an appreciation
of the phenomenological method, which, according to him has
achieved significant results in philosophical investigation. He
writes, “Modern thought has realized considerable progress
reducing the existent to the series of appearances which
manifest. Its aim was to overcome a certain number of dualism
which embarrassed philosophy and to replace them by the
monism of the phenomena”.1 He not only separates existence
from essence but also does not give any proper definition of
existence. In his phenomenological ontology there is ‘nothing’
concealed behind the appearances, which embody full reality.
Sartre, in his philosophy, separates freedom from necessity,
subject from object and particular from universal. He says, “We
can equally well reject the dualism of appearance and essence.
The appearance does not hide the essence but reveals it”.2
After rejecting dualisms like potential and actual, appearance
and being etc., he himself retains another main dualism, that
of mind and body, which, he says, are “radically separated
regions of being”.3 Whatever is positive and objective is being
in-itself.4 And whatever is subjective and negative is called
being-for-itself.5 Sartre further says that man is a union of
being-in-itself and being-for-itself, or subject and object. The
concrete, he remarks, “is man within the world in that specific
union of man with the world which Heidegger, for example,
calls, Being-in-the-world”.6
Sartre characterises man as a being constituted by non-
being. The action of questioning (interrogation), absence
(negative judgments) and destruction, as elements of the
being of man, show that man’s being is fundamentally the
origin of nothingness. Destruction implies that a thing loses its
6DUWUHDQG$OLHQDWLRQ$0DU[LDQ3HUVSHFWLYHв165
present state. But that change can have meaning only before
a witnessing consciousness. Destruction for Sartre is purely a
human act because “in order for destruction to exist there must
be first a relation of man to being—that is, a transcendence,
and within the limits of this relation, it is necessary that man
apprehends one being as destructible”.7 The act of questioning
or interrogation is performed by dissociation of man from the
causal series of being or the causal order of the world.8 This
is affected by ‘nihiliating withdrawal’. In interrogation, we
ask a question and this pre-supposes ignorance. It is a non-
being. The answer to the question may be either affirmative
or negative. If the answer is negative it is clear that we appear
before some non-being. Sartre, thus, comes to the conclusion
that “Man is the being through whom nothingness comes to
the world….”9 Whenever one raises a question, he argues,
one puts oneself at a distance from the object questioned
and from oneself. The answer, even the affirmation which
involves negation, he calls the non-being of limitation. The
‘non-being of knowing,’ the possibility of ‘non-being of being
in the transcendent being’ and ‘the non-being of limitation’–
this triple non-being’10 characterises every question and the
being of the one who questions. His identification of man
with consciousness (immanence) and with ‘nothingness’ as a
reality of this immanence is stated as follows: “Evidently it is
necessary to find the foundation of all negation in a nihiliation
which is exercised in the very heart of immanence; in desolate
immanence, in the pure subjectivity of the instantaneous
cogito we must discover the original act by which man is to
himself his own ‘nothingness’”.11 Thus, man, defined in terms
of nothingness and pure subjectivity, is first detached from
whatever is determinate, objective and real being. And when
the basic determinations of man’s objective social existence are
nihilated, the subject or consciousness also becomes nothing
because Sartre thinks that consciousness is consciousness
of something which it is not, and the “consciousness as it is
shown in the discussion on the “meaning of question, ‘is a
being’, the nature which is to be conscious of the nothingness
of its being”. Or it arises “in the World as a No.”12
What is it about man that occasions this nothingness?

According to Sartre the answer is freedom. Freedom is
discussed in relation to the will, in relation to facticity and
finally in relation to responsibility. The will can never be
the condition for freedom; it is simply the psychological
manifestation of it. The will pre-supposes the foundation of
an original freedom in order to be able to constitute as will.
Man is free. Freedom in relation to facticity gives rise to a
situation. The situation is impossible to clearly distinguish
the contribution of freedom and the determinants of brute
circumstance. This accounts for the paradox of freedom.
There is freedom only in situation and there is situation only
through freedom. Sartre delineates five structures of situation
in which freedom and facticity interpenetrate each other: my
place, my past, my environment, my fellowmen (the other),
and my death.
In so far as freedom always interpenetrates facticity, man
becomes wholly responsible for himself. To Sartre, freedom is
inseparable from man. There is no difference between being
of man and his being free. Sartre usually has an exaggerated
view of human freedom; no doubt because of the claims in the
existentialism and humanism lecture and later in Being and
Nothingness, that “there is no determinism; we are free, we are
condemned to be free”.13 Condemned because he himself is
thrown into the world. Free because he is responsible for his
own actions or what he does. “I am responsible for everything,
in fact, except for my very responsibility, for I am not the
foundation of my being.”14 His abandonment of freedom is an
expression of facticity. Thus Sartre argues that since man has
no determination, he is completely free and responsible for his
own actions.
In Sartre’s literary work, Iron in the Soul, Mathieu Delarue,
the previously inefficient schoolteacher, acts meaningfully
and decisively for the first time in his life. “Mathieu was in a
hurry. He kept his eye on his man; he had plenty of time. The
German army is vulnerable. He fired. The man gave a funny
little jerk and fell on his stomach, throwing his arms forward
like somebody learning to swim.”15 In the narrative, Mathieu’s

shooting of the German infantryman is a freely chosen and
deliberate act for which he alone is responsible. It is a deeply
significant act—metaphysically, personally and politically.
Metaphysically, it is the determination of life. Personally, it
is Mathieu’s recognition of his freedom; “for years he had
tried, in vain, to act,”16 Sartre reminds us. Politically, it is the
commitment to resist the forces of right-wing totalitarianism.
“Just time enough to fire at the smart officer, at all the Beauty
of the Earth, at the Street, at the Flowers, at the Gardens, at
everything he had loved. Beauty dived downwards like
obscene bind. But Mathieu went on firing. He fired. He was
cleansed. He was all-powerful. He was free.”17
To be man is to be conscious and to be conscious is to be
nothingness and nothingness is freedom. This is what Sartre
means when he says that in man existence precedes essence.
The abandoned and lonely human being has a negative relation
to the being-in-itself (that is, objective being), to others as well
as to itself. The world is an organised instrumental complex,
‘caused’18 by man in order to realise his ends and it is always
‘surpassed,’19 because consciousness cannot be identical with
a certain object, it cannot simply be. One’s body is also one
of the ‘obstacles’ which he nihiliates and surpasses so far as
he is not an object. Sartre writes, “…to have a body is to be
the foundation of one’s own nothingness and not to be the
foundation of one’s being: I am my body to the extent that I
am; I am not my body to the extent that I am not what I am. It
is by my nihiliation that I escape it. But I do not thereby make
an object of it, for what I am is what I perpetually escape. The
body is necessary again as the obstacle is to be surpassed in
order to be in the world; that is, the obstacle which I am to
myself. In this sense it is not different from the absolute order
of the world, this order which I cause to arrive in being by
surpassing it toward a being to come, toward being-beyond
being. We can clearly grasp the unity of these two necessities:
being-for-itself is to surpass the world and to cause there to be
a world by surpassing it….”20
Bad-Faith (Self-Alienation)
According to Sartre Nothingness, freedom and anxiety provide
the conditions, which make possible the movement of bad-
faith. To him bad-faith is a form of self-deception (alienation),
which in making use of freedom denies it. In lying, one
hides the truth from others. But in bad-faith, one hides the
truth from oneself. Bad-faith does not come from outside.
In fact, a freedom founded on nothing cannot help negating
itself. Sartre describes men in bad-faith to substantiate this
very assumption that a freedom may be and is negated by
itself without any external coercion or manipulation. “But
consciousness affects itself with bad-faith.”21
This state of man’s existence arises on the basis of the unity
of facticity (of limited objective presence) and transcendence.22
Man as a facticity is what he is; he is in itself, just as any other
object. But he is at the same time a transcendence, one who
negates his present condition and transcends it towards what
is not. So transcendence or man’s free being projects itself as
a thing of its own and thus nihiliates freedom. In fact, Sartre
conceives man as a being, which is what it is not and which is
not what it is. To put it concretely, man is a consciousness than
he is a thing and not consciousness and not a thing. Because
consciousness is a perpetual negation, it negates itself to be an
object and negates its objectivity (facticity) to be what is not
(transcendence)23 This dualism of man’s being becomes an
ontological basis for bad-faith (self alienation). Let us analyse
the Sartrean concept of bad-faith with his examples. First of
all, we could take his example of a woman who consents to go
out with an amorous suitor. She must decide but she seeks to
postpone the decision. It is at this time that the bad-faith comes
into play. She leaves her hand in his, but does not notice that
she is doing so. She becomes ‘a thing,’ all intellect divorces her
soul from her body and transforms her body into an object
or thing into the mode of ‘being in itself’. Her hand becomes
a ‘thing’; neither consenting nor resisting, she loses her
subjectivity, her freedom and her responsibility for decision.
She exists in bad-faith.24 From this example, Sartre states that
the bad-faith or alienation comes to play through decision or

choice. His conception of bad-faith is one of the better-known
ideas of his philosophy, but it is too often misunderstood as
either a purely ethical notion or as a specific problem which
he employs as a foil against Freud. The woman is deceiving
herself concerning the intentions of her companion, but Sartre
does not want to say that she is simply deceiving herself
about him. She is deceiving herself about her own desires and
intentions as well as about her own sexual nature. The woman
lies to herself, she knows that she is being treated as a sexual
object but will not allow herself to realise this. She knows the
truth, on the one hand, but refuses to disclose it to herself on
the other. Given the thesis of translucency of consciousness,
which has been defended in The Transcendence of the Ego and
Being and Nothingness, the nature of hiding is mysterious, to
say the least. Where in consciousness is thus truth to hide if
there is no content of consciousness? Furthermore, who is
doing the hiding and from whom? Sartre tells us that bad-faith
is a pre-reflective phenomenon. (As evidenced that a person
in bad-faith need not and usually does not know that he is in
bad-faith.) Thus there is no self to ‘possess the truth’ and no
self to hide the truth.
Conversely, Sartre has cited the bad-faith of the woman
who denies her sexuality. He distinguishes two kinds of people
in bad faith. One kind, he calls, ‘cowards’. They hide from
their freedom in a facade of solemnity or with deterministic
excuses. Those who deny not only their freedom but that of
others, Sartre calls, swine. In Nausea, for example, Roquentin
concludes his tour of the portraits of the bourgeois officials
in the city museum with the comment, “You bastards”. They
felt that they had the natural or God-given right to exist and
to occupy their social location of wealth and privilege and
suppress the freedom of others. In fact, it may be plausibly
argued that there is not a single character in his works that
escapes bad-faith. Garcin of No Exit has been accused of
bad-faith for his refusal to face his own cowardice; Mathieu
and Boris of The Age of Reason reject their freedom in spite of
their continuous insistence that they are free men; nearly all
of Sartre’s women (Inez and Estelle of No Exit, Electra of the
Flies, Marcelle of The Age of Reason, Lizzie in The Respectful
Prostitute, Jessica of Dirty Hands) are in bad-faith by virtue of
their sexuality.
Let us see how Sartre exemplifies bad-faith with a waiter
in the café, “…his movement is quick and forward, a little too
precise, a little too rapid. He comes toward the patrons with
a step a little too quick. He bends forward a little too eagerly;
his voice, his eyes express an interest a little too solicitous
for the order of the customer. Finally there he returns, trying
to imitate in his walk the inflexible stiffness of some kind of
automaton while carrying his tray with the recklessness of
a tightrope-walker by putting it in a perpetually unstable,
broken equilibrium, which he perpetually re-establishes by a
light movement of the arm and hand. All his behaviour seems
to us a game. He applies himself to chaining his movements
as if they were mechanisms, the one regulating the other;
his gestures and even his voice seem to be mechanisms; he
gives himself the quickness and pitiless rapidity of things.”25
If the waiter adopts such a regulated behaviour pattern, is it
simply a matter of internal negation of consciousness, or are
there external norms of that society, which condition him to
be an automaton? Of course, Sartre does not deny the fact of
social conditioning,26 but even then asserts that the man in
question is playing at being a waiter. As if there is an abstract
image of a waiter posited beyond the being of the waiter in
question and he is simply trying to represent it. He says, “But
if I represent myself as him, I am not he; I am separated from
him as the object from the subject, separated by nothing, but
this nothing separates me from him, I cannot be he I can only
play at being him, that is imagine to myself that I am he….
What I attempt to realise is being-in-itself of the café-waiter,
as if it were not just in my power to confer their values and
their urgency upon my duties and the rights of my position,
as if it were not my free choice to get up at each morning at
five o’ clock or to remain in bed, even though it meant getting
fired.”27 Thus every state of bad-faith (self-alienation) slavery

becomes a free choice of one who is subject to this state. This
is how in Sartre’s existentialist system being-for-itself becomes
being-in-itself, “subject becomes object and nothing becomes
everything”.28
Being -for-Others: Look as Alienation
The distinction between man and world though mutually
exclusive, is not collectively exhaustive. There is a third
manner of being called being-for-others. One’s relationship
with Others (society) is manifested through ‘look’.29 The other
looking at me as well as me looking at the other apprehend
each other as an object and a subject. Subject is freedom but
when the other looks or is looked at the freedom is suddenly
objectified, subject becomes an object. Sartre invites us to
imagine one listening through a door and looking through
a keyhole, suddenly one sees a footstep behind; one will
be under the gaze of the other. One feels shame. Shame,
however, is shame before another. “I am ashamed of myself
as I appear to the other,” because the Other puts me in the
position of an ‘object”30 His own body is not an object for him.
It is object from the perspective of another, and another’s
body is an object from his perspective. In this situation it is
not a psychological option for him to sincerely doubt that
other people exist or have minds. Under the attempts of
being-for-others, Sartre attempts a refutation of solipsism,
offers a phenomenology of the body and a rather pessimistic
ontology of human relations. Sartre’s refutation is based on
human relations. Paradigmatically, shame. Being-for-others
is, therefore, a kind of bad-faith. In fact, what is realised by
the presence of the other is that I am an object possessing a
‘definite nature’ beyond me and determined by another. This
is what Sartre calls an ‘original fall’. It is a solidification and
alienation of my own possibilities. The other as a look is only
that–my transcendence transcended. Of course I am still my
possibilities in the mode of non-thetic consciousness of these
possibilities. But at the same time, the look alienates them
from me.31 It is Sartre’s view that there is no human encounter

where one party does not psychologically dominate the other:
one is master and one is slave.
Consciously or not, the phenomenology of human
relations that Sartre offers essentially operates within the
parameters of Hegel’s master and slave dialectic in the 1807
Phenomenology of the Spirit.32 There self-conscious beings are
depicted as mutually constituting through a struggle for
recognition—a power struggle where one party may bestow
or withhold psychological identity from another, a complex
dialectic where the freedom of one is sought in the control of
the other.
Sartre concludes his understanding of human relations
as follows: “As a temporal spatial object in the world, as an
essential structure of a temporal spatial situation in the world,
I offer myself to the other’s appraisal. This also apprehend by
the pure exercise of the cogito. To be looked at is to apprehend
one-self as the unknown object of unknowable appraisals—
in particular, of value judgments. But at the same time that
in shame or pride I recognize the justice of these appraisals,
I do not cease to take them for what they are—a free
surpassing of the given toward possibilities. A judgment is the
transcendental act of a free being. Thus being-seen constitutes
me as a defenseless being for a freedom, which is not my
freedom. It is in this sense that we can consider ourselves as
‘slaves’ in so far as we appear to the other. But this slavery
is not historical result—capable of being surmounted—of a
life in the abstract form of consciousness. I am a slave to the
degree that my being is dependent at the centre of a freedom
which is not mine and which is the very condition of my being.
In so far as I am the object of values, which come to qualify me
without my being able to act upon these qualifications or even
to know it I am enslaved. By the same token in so far as I am
the instrument of possibilities, which are not my possibilities,
whose pure presence beyond my being I cannot even glimpse,
and which deny my transcendence in order to constitute me
as a means to ends of which I am ignorant—I am in danger.
This danger is not an accident, but the permanent structure of

being-for-others.”33
Conflict as Perverse Form of Human Alienation
Sartre says that his descriptions of human relations have to
be understood within the perspective of conflict. Conflict is
ultimately a conflict over freedom. The relation between men
thus projected is one of ‘possession,’34 possession of freedom
itself by the other and the meaning of such a relationship is
conflict.35 In trying to define one’s own essence through the
exercise of free choice, he or she tries to repress the freedom
of the other. Simultaneously the other is doing the same. It
follows that the perverse form of bad-faith called ‘being a
swine’ is at the root of human relations.
Why, we might object, should not conflict be overcome
in love? Why should not two human beings, who perhaps
care more for each other than they do for themselves, feel
secure in each other’s freedom and not threaten one another’s
psychological security? Sartre’s reply is that love is conflict.
Even love is desire to possess the freedom of the beloved and it
also involves the ‘alienation of lover’.36 Referring to love, Sartre
says, “The lover’s freedom, in his very efforts to make himself
beloved as an object by the other, is alienated by slipping into
the body-for-others. Here, in fact, we encounter the true ideal
of lover’s enterprise: alienated freedom.”37 Hence, hatred
is co-existent ‘fundamental attitude’ of being-for-others.38
Sartre says that in both these attitudes, love and hate, we fail
because neither of us can possess nor be possessed absolutely
so far as everybody is a consciousness or transcendence.
Man, therefore, has fallen in the circle of love and hate to “be
indefinitely tossed from one to other of the two fundamental
attitudes”.39 Sartre here thinks that the object of love is an in-
itself and that if it becomes a subject the relation is lost. In love
the object of love is both the object and the subject at the same
time. Love is not just a passive relation, but an active-passive
relation in which two persons are involved.
Sartre speaks of the dialectics in human relationships in
which human beings are always in conflict with one another.

This is not something based on the experience of history.
What Sartre says goes against the findings of psychologists
that animals, including human beings, have both a self-
preservative and gregarious instinct. It is not possible to
explain the gregarious instinct on the basis of the self-
preservative instinct. For there are many cases where man
works for a social ideal while sacrificing his own gain. But
we cannot deny that there are ideals of friendship and unity
in which human beings recognise themselves as individuals.
If all men are free, in the Sartrean sense, and each of them
has a need, it is quite possible that they can freely choose an
ideal that would promote social harmony. Conflicts between
individuals may exist, but that is not the whole story.
It is impossible to conceive a communal relationship from
this utterly negative, individualistic standpoint. According
to Sartre, the consciousness of ‘we’ is derived from the fact
that at a time more than two subjects may be objectified
by a Third and in relation to the Third the former two see
themselves as ‘We objects,’40 who are transformed into an
object for the latter. Sartre very easily fits class-consciousness
into this scheme by saying that it is defined by another class.
“The oppressed class can, in fact, affirm as a We-subject at
the latter’s expense….”41 In the same breath he describes the
‘crowd’ whose “monstrous materiality and profound reality
(although only experienced) are fascinating for each of its
members, each one demands to be submerged in the crowd-
instrument by the look of the leader”.42 And what about the
‘we’-consciousness of humanity as a whole? Sartre says that it
is an empty concept, a pure indication of a possible extension
of the ordinary usage of the ‘us’. Each time we use the ‘us’ in
this sense (to designate suffering humanity, sinful humanity,
to determine an objectively historical meaning by considering
man as an object, that is developing its potentialities) we limit
ourselves to indicate a certain concrete experience to be gone
in the presence of the absolute Third; that is, of God. Thus the
limiting concept of humanity (as the totality of the ‘us’ object)
and limiting-concept of God imply one another.43

Sartre concludes his description of collective consciousness
with its supposed two modes of ‘us-object’ and ‘we-subject’
with the assertion that whereas the consciousness of the
‘us-object’ is a proof of his thesis of alienating and alienated
relations of the second kind, the consciousness of ‘we-subject’
or free inter-subjectivity is a secondary and purely subjective
experience Erlibnis.44 And thus negating every possibility of
free human (social) relationship, he transforms the ‘for-itself’
which is supposed to arise as a nihiliation of the being-in-itself
(object) and as a freedom, into its direct opposite, into in-itself.
He says, “We learned first that the for-itself was the nihiliation
and the radical negation of the in-itself, at present we establish
that it is also by the sole fact of meeting with the other and
without any contradiction totally in itself, present in the midst
of in-itself.”45 Though he calls this being-in itself of for-itself
an outer aspect of the latter it seems that whatever freedom
there is it is surrounded by bondage from all sides. It is more
evident in his concept of the fundamental project of human
existence.
In the context of inter-personal relations, we have seen
that Sartre defines man’s basic attitude towards others as that
of possession, which is reflected in love as well as hatred, and
which is the basis of perpetual conflict amongst men. Now
in the context of man’s fundamental project, he discovers
another desire, the desire to be. He writes, “Fundamentally
man is the desire to be, and the existence of this desire is not
to be established by an empirical induction, it is the result of
an a priori description of the for-itself, since desire is a lack
and since for-itself is the being which is to itself its own lack
of being.”46 The desire of the for-itself is to be in-itself, to be
a positive being, just like an objective reality. But, Sartre says
that neither subject nor object is an entity, which has its own
foundation. Consciousness, therefore, desires to be in-itself,
which has its own foundation. The for-itself desires to be in-
itself-for-itself or object-subject with its own foundation. This
entity, Sartre says, is God. “Thus the best way to conceive of
the fundamental project of human reality is to say that man

is the being whose project is to be God.”47 The fundamental
desire to be, in fact, is ultimately produced by the desire to
have. Sartre says that action is a ‘transitional category’ and
what counts is “desire to be or desire to have”.48 To have the
object is to be the object and the basic meaning of having
object is ‘appropriation of the world’.49 This way Sartre
leads to totality as being-for-itself-in-itself and again to God,
which he regards as the fundamental choice of one’s freedom
realised in all being and having. The entity as this God is, the
fundamental project of man to be God falls to pieces. Man is
subject and wants to be substantive an objective subject which
he cannot be because he is a being which is not. Therefore
Sartre says, “… the idea of God is contradictory and we lose
ourselves in vain. Man is a useless passion.”50
Approach to Marxism
Sartre, of course, has seen the limits of the existentialist
philosophy and gravitated towards Marxism in his later
works. But even after accepting the Marxist interpretation
of history as valid, he retains existentialist premises either in
pure or veiled forms. But we can see how he views man and
his estrangement, especially in his later major philosophical
work, The Critique of Dialectical Reason.
Jean Paul Sartre provides a useful summation of the
controversy surrounding proposals to integrate existentialism
with Marxism. It was a major moment of modern intellectual
history. He believes his approach to be a parasitical technique,
a methodology which will be eventually accepted as yet
another aspect of Marxism as a whole. Sartre starts with the
question of dialectic, attacks on the idea of dialectic developed
by Marx and Engels. He claims that the advocates of dialectic
of nature imposed human idea on nature and then attempted
to drive knowledge of man from the laws of nature. Sartre’s
alignment of existentialism with Marxism endeavours to
reveal the point of insertion of individual in the particular
social class. The family is considered to be the vital mediator
between the class and the person, it is within this primary

unit that children unknowingly don the social roles imposed
upon by adults, both parents and significant others.51 Here
the individuals confronted with class values, which in the
uncertain depths of childhood, are internalised as virtual
absolutes.
He observes that for the majority of us, our beliefs and
prejudices are virtually unsurpassable precisely because they
have first have been experienced during childhood. Irrational
responses and resistance to reason are artifacts of these early
years, a period a class interest are interiorised as personal
shackles.52 Thus Sartre cautions that class bias should not
be entirely as ascribed to the individual confrontation with
the means of production as either as capitalist extraction
of surplus value or proletarian victim of that process of
exploitation. He claims that many attitudes and prejudices
are acquired prior to leaving the family itself, i.e. each child
lives the reality of the social class without the confines of the
home. Sartre’s expressed aim is to penetrate the Gramscian
concept of “past”.53 He is intent upon locating those childhood
conditionings which will enable him to discover how a
individuals’ actions are influenced by “not only the present
determinations but also weight of his history”.54 Here Sartre
proposes to classify the intersection of the history, social
structure, and biography.
Unlike Marx, Sartre holds the view that the totalisation
starts with individual. In the process of totalisation, individual
creates different social structures such as group infusion,
pledged group, structured group and sovereign group.
For Sartre scarcity is the mark of our collectivism which
constitutes the history.55 Because of scarcity alienation arises
between human beings. Scarcity is the setting for human in
an alien mode, for the becoming counter final of the finalities
orienting human praxis. “Scarcity … the negative unity of
multiplicity of men”, and this unity is negative in relation
to men because it is transmitted to men by matter in so far
as matter is non-human.56 Counter finality is often taken to
be the expression of material resistance to the individual’s

own praxis. As Sartre himself expressed it, “matter alienates
in itself the action which works it, not because it is itself
a force nor even because it is inertia, but because its inertia
allows it to absorb the labour power of others and turn it back
against everyone.”57 For Sartre human practice comes to be
a counter finality to the finality of free human praxis. Sartre
presents a detailed description of structures created by man
to overcome the obstacles of scarcity and alienation. There
are three necessary conditions for counter finality according
to Sartre: material disposition, becoming the inert of human
praxis and seriality. Human praxis is a struggle to transform
the material world. The world is also passive, or inert on
which man strives in a material world to attain certain goals
such as new social environment, new relations of production
and new social relations. Sartre gives the example of the
Chinese peasants for effectively cutting down trees for fires
and other purposes and expose themselves to the disasters
and floods. Inert human praxis bifurcates into contradictory
condition of being both human (i.e. Active negative) and
non-human (i.e. passive positivity)58. Thus man becomes the
enemy of man (Le contra homme—man becomes anti-man)
tormented by their own inventions in the world of practico
inert. Reforesting is the only way to prevent flood but it would
come in the preview of serial collective. Series is a collection
people who are united only by external proximity not through
any ideological commitment, and it is due the scarcity of
something. It is due to some exterior force of attention and
has no internal structure except that of otherness. Otherness
within a collective form makes the relationship between the
members of the series.ie group. In this serial collective each
member looses individuality and relation of identity. Because
each individual is no longer their own, and each individual
is doing the same thing in collective. That is, each member
is committed to act as the member of the group. As Sartre
puts it “passive unity— is for praxis unity as other and in the
domain of other”.59 Human groups according to Sartre should
be understood with reference to horizontal complexity and

vertical complexity. Horizontal complexity corresponds to the
social structure. It involves the specific relations of the group
to the dominant social institutions. The historical dimension
is accounted from the vertical complexity, which refers to
the group activity surging from the past and the particular
sequence by which the institutions came to be formed. The
integration of these two has three phases. The first phase is
one of situating a person within the social structure; this
involves straightforward analysis of society. The second
phase is the regressive explanation of the personal history.
At this point Sartre introduces his existentialist approach in
order to amplify the conventional Marxist approach. The final
phase entails moving from past to the present in an attempt
to grasp the current situation of the individual. Sartre claims
that these threefold methods will progressively determine
a biography….by examining the period by studying the
biography.60
Sartre is presenting a concrete account of classification
through the detailed analysis of specific individual. He
claims that each person internalises various determinations
such as the family, the relations of production, social
institutions and lived experience and these interiorisations
are revealed in the individual’s beliefs and actions.61 He also
considers “family relationship is primary with respect to
any other relationship.”62 Sartre agrees with Engels that “it
is men themselves who make history, but within in a given
environment which conditions them.”63 To him the individual
is both a product and a producer of history.
Sartre first concerns himself with the process whereby
a person moves beyond the existing situation. It is here he
introduced project and praxis. He regards the project to the
person’s choice of one course of action from among a number
of alternatives. The actions do not remain but are continuously
modified in accordance with the changing circumstances.
Praxis refers to the actual surpassing of the existing situation
in order to realise the particular end outlined in the project
itself. That leads to the formation of a new society. Therefore,

the dialectical process begins with individual praxis towards
totalisation, which is temporal matter. It is through the human
need that the relation between man (human being) and the
world occurred. It is not a social relation, but a natural one, “a
quasi –human status as a passive totality”64 (from the point of
view of an organic being seeking its being in it).
Sartre fails to make a distinction between Marxist
interpretation of objectification and alienation (reification) he
deprived the very meaning of revolutionary theory of Marx, the
overcoming of alienation, transformation of alienated human
relation to genuine human relation through the transformation
of mode of production and social transformation. This
kind of alienation Sartre being considering here belongs to
objectification as such and not identical to exploitation but it
is rather the conditions of the possibility of the latter. Until
and unless we confront these problems, all these conditions
will threaten the finality of human praxis, our capability to
obtain the end, which is the transformation of the society.
Sartre’s notion of project and praxis are not original, they
bear a resemblance to Marxian conception of human labor.
According to Marx, “A spider conducts operations which
resemble those of a weaver, and a bee puts the shame
many architects in the construction of her cells. But what
distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this:
the architect raises his structure in his imagination before he
erects it in reality. At the end of every labor process we get
a result that already existed in the imagination of the laborer
at its commencement. He not only effects a change of form in
the material on which he works, but also realizes a purpose
of his own”.65 In Sartre’s terminology the imagined goal
corresponds to the project, the actual building of the structure
refers to the human praxis. What Sartre outlines is how the
choice of project is also influenced by the particular history of
the individual. He insists that the original childhood project
will really influence his future attitudes and behaviour. It is
at this point he introduces his interpretation of the Marxian
concept of alienation.66 He maintains that in the eyes of most

Marxists “everything seems to happen as if men experienced
their alienation and their reification first in their own work,
wherein actuality each one lives first as child, in his parents
work.67 According to Sartre, people continue to live this
alienation, products of their parents design; they are never
fully able to overcome this early distortion of character
Nevertheless Sartre’s use of alienation is problematic in
this content. It is highly debatable whether his term is in fact
compatible with the Marxian concept. Unfortunately Sartre
himself sheds little light on this controversy. In his career he
employed alienation in various ways. However since becoming
Marxist has been neglected explicitly, Sartre outlines his
current version of the term. Later, in the interview with Benny
Levy, Sartre completely dismissed relations of production as
a primary one. He observes: “I don’t believe that the relations
production is the primary one….. There are neighborhoods of
workers who have settled in the cities….. What unites them
more profoundly beyond the mode of production, is that they
are human beings…. All Marx’s superstructures are fine work,
but it is utterly false, because the primary relationship with
individual to individual is something,….family relationship is
primary with respect to any other relationship”.68 As a result,
we are forced to construct our own interpretation of Sartre’s
alienation on the basis of his earlier writings.
In Sartre’s earlier writings, we have existentialism with
subjectivity, individualism and absolute freedom pushed to its
limits. The limit situation of existentialism is its own negation
and Sartre’s conception of human reality is just based on this
negation. If the individual is taken in isolation from society
and posed against it, if subjectivity is detached from objective
being and if existence is separated from essence then what
remains is either brute unconscious being or void and fantasy.
Sartre realises, like all other existentialists, freedom is the
absolute negation of freedom in bad faith and objectivity, and
the desire to be in a fantasy (God).
For Sartre, freedom naturally tends to be in-itself and thus
it is absurd freedom. It is absurd also because it is a freedom

to choose, but not a freedom of not choosing. Only in the
imperialist phase of capitalist society, on the other hand, even
the bourgeois concept of freedom comes to end with the end
of competition and action and freedom may be suspended
into an absurd fundamental project of ‘private appropriation
of the world’. Private appropriation is, thus, projected as
the essential element of the being of Sartre’s for-itself and as
such it not only mystifies the actual historicity of relations of
production in a capitalist society but lends it an ontological
meaning and justification. In fact, the fundamental problem of
philosophy, the problem of primacy of mind or matter is here
again of primary importance. Sartre is opposed to materialism
and though he tries seriously to give a realist semblance to his
being-for-itself and being-in-itself, he retains the mind-body
dualism and even treats nature and body idealistically as a
relation of bad-faith (alienation).
Hegel is, in this sense, in spite of being an objective
idealist, the leader of all the subjective idealists (existentialists)
so far as they conceive alienation as identical with otherness or
objectivity. All existentialists, without exception, either deny
object as untruth (Kierkegaard, Jaspers), or pose it in absolute
antithesis to subject. Sartre goes one step ahead of them by
devising the theory of desire to be object or to be alienated as
the fundamental project of man’s being.
Even though Sartre does not conceive consciousness as a
substantive being, he gives all being to it, to its nothingness.
Nothingness, on the other hand, posited as absolute freedom
of the individual subject, is conceived as self-nullifying as,
thingness, as bondage, and every social relation is seen as
invariably involving alienation. Thus man’s alienation or
bad-faith or his state of bondage is projected as an eternal
(ahistorical), untranscendable state of existence.
The idealist and false existentialist notion of reality of
man comes to light in its glaring contradictions in Sartre’s
philosophy. He bases his idea of freedom of man on the
negation of the idea of God and then makes man a fundamental
project of becoming God; of becoming a contradictory idea,

an idea which does not allow any freedom for man. He does
not see that the very idea of God is an expression of man’s
self-alienation, as Feuerbach has already proved it. Another
aspect of the idealist notion of freedom has been and remains
with Sartre its interiority as opposed to exteriority. Freedom is
internal negation of freedom. It is so conceived only because
the practical activity of man, the act of labour through which
he objectifies his subjective powers is not seen as an act of
creation of the realm of freedom in the world, as an act of
objectively changing and thus controlling nature.
Sartre, of course, has seen the limits of the existentialist
philosophy and gravitated towards Marxism in his later
works. But even after accepting the Marxist interpretation
of history as valid, he retains existentialist premises either
in pure or veiled forms. We can see how he views man and
his estrangement, especially in his later major philosophical
work, The Critique of Dialectical Reason. While discussing
the alienated objectification of individual and collective
praxis, Sartre writes, “Should we describe this as alienation?
Obviously we should, in that he returns to himself as other.
However, a distinction must be made; alienation in Marxist
sense begins with exploitation. Should we go back to Hegel
who sees alienation as a constant characteristic of all kinds
of objectification? Yes and No. We must realise that original
relation and materiality as passivity oblique man to objectify
himself, in a milieu which is not his own, and to treat an
inorganic totality as his own objective reality. It is this
relation between interiority and exteriority which originally
constituted praxis as a relation of the organism to its material
environment; and there can be no doubt that as soon as man
begins to designate himself not as the mere reproduction of
his life, but as the ensemble of products which reproduce his
life, he discovers himself as Other in the world of objectivity.
Totalized matter, as inert objectification perpetuated by
inertia, is in effect non-human or even anti-human….”69 Here
we are reminded of Marx’s saying that man through his
labour humanises nature. The contrast, which shows forth

between Sartre and Marx’s conception of the act and result
of objectification (labour), originates from his adherence to
Hegel’s idealism. Marx’s criticism of Hegel’s concept of nature
as something defective applies to Sartre also. If man is a
natural being then his freedom can be realised in nature itself,
in realising the necessity and not by nihiliating nature. Sartre’s
alienation may be theoretically sound; it may capture the lived
experience of certain individuals in the capitalist society. Man
evolves out of nature, and if he is alienated from nature, there
should be a way of restoring the original bond of Man with it.
At the same time man is social by nature and the individual is
human only when he is social. Furthermore, existence is never
without essence and if there is any contradiction between
essence (real determinations of man’s being), and his existence
(his particular being), it cannot be overcome by negative
essence, but by transforming the existence, by changing
dehumanising conditions of Man’s being. Marx rightly said,
“the philosophers have interpreted the world, in various
ways, the point, however is to change it.” Unfortunately, even
after adopting the Marxist ideology, Sartre could not change
his own childhood class-bound reification of consciousness.
NOTES
1. Jean Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Trans. Hazel E. Barnes,
(New York, Philosophical Library, 1956), 3.

2. Ibid., 5.

3. Ibid., 3-5.

4. Ibid., 24-25.

5. Ibid., 126.

6. Every page of Sartre's Being and Nothingness analysis is
markedly influenced by the Heideggerian Concept of Being.
Ibid., 34.

7. Ibid., 39.

8. Ibid., 58.

9. Ibid., 59.
10. Ibid., 36.
11. Ibid.,84.
12. Ibid.,86.
13. Ibid.,567 also in Jean Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism,

trans, P. Mairet.( London, Methuen),34.
14. Sartre, Existentialism and, 29.

15. Jean Paul Sartre, Iron in the Soul, Trans. H. Barnes,
(Harmondsworth, Penguin), 216.
16. Ibid.,217.
17. Ibid., 225.
18. Sartre, Being and, 429.
19. Ibid., 429-430.
20. Ibid., 430.
21. Ibid., 89.
22. Ibid., 88.
23. Ibid., 99.
24. Stephen Priest, Jean Paul Sartre: Basic Writings, (London,
Routledge, 2001), 214.
25. Sartre, Being and, (101-22).
26. Ibid., 102.
27. Ibid., 103.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., 340.
30. Ibid., 302.
31. Ibid., 352.
32. George Wilhelm Frederic Hegel, Phenomenology of the Spirit,
(Oxford, Oxford University Press), 112-119. He regards the
struggle between master and slave as a struggle for recognition
but that the same indicates that among these contending sides,
the slave is the one who creates freedom through his labour and
actually the master is free at the cost of the slave’s freedom.
33. Sartre, Being and, 358.
34. Ibid., 475.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., 489.
37. Ibid.
38. Ibid., 532-533.
39. Ibid., 534.
40. Ibid., 536-37.
41. Ibid., 546.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid., 547.
44. Ibid., 555.
45. Ibid.
46. Ibid., 722.
47. Ibid., 724.

48. Ibid.
49. Ibid., 784..
50. Ibid.
51. Jean Paul Sartre, The Search for Method, (New York, Random
House, 1963 (b)), 60-62.
52. Ibid., 62.
53. Carl, Manzani. ed. The Open Marxism of Antonio Gramsci,
(New York: Cameron Associates, 1957), 48. Antonio Gramsci
recognised the necessity for an open Marxism, a vital and
comprehensive view of social reality. Gramsci realises that
if one’s individuality is a totality of scientific relations;
personal changes will modify the overall complex in which
the individual is embedded. In Gramsci’s estimation each
individual is both the synthesis of contemporary relationships
and the summary of the entire past.”
54. Sartre, The Search, 60.
55. Jean Paul Sartre, Critique of Dialectical Reason, Trans. Sheridan
Smith, (London, New Left Books, 1976), 81.
56. Ibid.,127.
57. Ibid.,151.
58. Ibid., 163.
59. Ibid.
60. Michael Weinstein A. Deens, Sartre and Humanist Traditions
in Sociology, in Mary Warnock, ed.,(New York, Doubleday and
co.,1971),.346.
61. Jean Paul Sartre, Itinerary of Thought, (1HZ/HIW5HYLHZ,1969), 45.
62. Jean Paul Sartre, Benny Levy, Hope Now: The 1980 Interviews,
trans Adrian van den Hoven, (Chicago, Chicago University
Press, 1996), 86.
63. Sartre, Search for, 31.
64. Sartre , Critique of,. 81.
65. Karl Marx, Capital, Vol. 1, (New York, International Publishers,
1967), 178.
66. Sartre, Search for, 62.
67. Ibid.
68. Sartre, +RSH1RZ, 86.
69. Sartre, Critique of, 227.
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7
The Untimely Marx
Marx’s Critique of Political Economy and the
Political Dimension of Critical Economics1
Riccardo Bellofiore
Introduction
My generation—I began my studies of economic theories in
1973, but somehow had been introduced to Marxian theory
already in the late 1960s—has been informed by the great
tradition of Maurice Dobb and Paul M. Sweezy.2 To be sure,
we came of age by committing a sort of patricide towards
these figures. I don’t regret my intellectual path, which is
evident in my teaching. My distance from the view about
Marx regarding to economic theory that was dominant in the
1950s and 60s is significant. However, as time goes by, I feel
that my generation has lost something important: personally,
I have always tried to stress not only the discontinuity, but
also the continuity with Dobb and Sweezy. They were giants,
within the larger conversation of economic theory: like Sraffa,
they were respected and quoted by mainstream academics.
More than that, they were able to understand the different
languages of the contrasting theories, an art that seems to
be lost today. With very few exceptions, the Marxists of my
generation became insulated individuals, if not sects, creating
an idiosyncratic world (many incommensurable worlds,
actually), not knowledgeable of other theories, very often
even unable to communicate among themselves.
This Chapter provides a sort of methodological introduc

tion to Das Kapital. I am questioning the meaning of critique
versus criticism, the distinction between fetish-character and
fetishism, the role of dialectics, and the difference between
reading, interpreting and reconstructing. Afterwards, I will
focus especially on some key points of Volume I. At the
centre of the discussion are: the multiple meanings of abstract
labour and socialisation, the role of money as a commodity
for the labour theory of value, the ‘method of comparison’
in grounding valorisation (the emergence of gross profits) as
the constitution of capital from class struggle in production,
the real subsumption of labour to capital, Marx’s two notions
of competition, and the macro-monetary class perspective in
capitalist reproduction. The conclusion looks at the relevance
of the Marxian legacy at the beginning of the 21st century.
The Meaning of Critique
The first issue to be dealt with is to understand the meaning
of the subtitle of Das Kapital: ‘A Critique of Political Economy’.
To begin, we have to understand what Political Economy
means for Marx, and then to understand what Critique means
here. Marx distinguished Vulgar Political Economy, on the
one side, and Classical Political Economy on the other side.
Vulgar economics—a label which applies to a large part
of economic theory since the 1870s until today—stops at
superficial appearances: these appearances are nothing but
an (illusory) semblance. In the Marxian vocabulary they are
instances of Schein. Vulgar economists focus on circulation,
without referring circulation back to production. Classical
Political Economy is altogether a different thing. For Marx, it is
made of true contributions to scientific knowledge of capital.
According to Marx, political economy begins with William
Petty. Afterwards, its long theoretical development, with few
exceptions, takes place under the sign of the labour theory of
value. The main protagonists of this version were François
Quesnay and the Physiocrats, Adam Smith, but especially
David Ricardo. It was science (Wissenschaft).
7KH8QWLPHO\0DU[в191
Though it was marked by a bourgeois imprinting,

Classical Political Economy has provided essential elements
for understanding capitalism. Ricardo especially linked value
to the labour contained in commodities, and he did that in a
way that was attempting to construct a coherent value theory
as price theory, even though, according to Marx, this attempt
ultimately failed. The point here is that Vulgar economics
stops at the “semblance”, the superficial world of circulation,
whereas Classical Political Economy makes it possible to
discern the inner reality of capital, and goes behind circulation,
reaching production. It is, however, an unfinished and limited
scientific project. That is why Marx thinks Political Economy
needs to be developed critically, to fully exploit its scientific
potentiality: political economy, according to Marx, must
become Critical Political Economy. Critical Political Economy,
however, is not on the same conceptual level as the Critique
of Political Economy. But an essential moment in Marx’s
discourse is the consideration that the scientific discourse
of Political Economy must be improved and advanced, and
this continued development is delivered by Marx himself in
his Critical Political Economy, so that a Critique of Political
Economy could be provided: science has to be undertaken,
so that that science itself is put in question. I will show,
however, that it is also true that Critical Political Economy is
possible only from the point of view of the Critique of Political
Economy: the science of capital may be achieved only when
its historical partiality and determination are considered.
Political Economy, as well as Critical Political Economy,
deals with the question: “how does capital produce?” The
question which is more fundamental, and which is the starting
point of the Critique of Political Economy is: “how is capital
produced”? This means that the exposition does not begin
with capital as already constituted but as something yet to
be constituted: the main focus of Volume I is thus exactly that
Konstitution. Classical Political Economy, up to a point, goes
beyond semblance (or Schein), and approaches—although
never quite reaching it fully—appearance as phenomenal
manifestation (or Erscheinung). That is: the theory goes beyond

the mere superficial layer of circulation, towards the layer of
the inner reality; but it is unable to link the two moments in
exposition (or Darstellung).3
This is what is accomplished by the Critique of Political
Economy. As I will show, Marx also argues that hidden within
the Darstellung there is a movement from the inner to the
outer: within the “exposition” of the totality, which appears,
manifests itself phenomenally as circular (capital producing
capital), we have to discover an “expression” (Marx uses the
verb DXVGUFNHQ), which is linear (labour producing capital).
This method is, of course, the debt that Marx owes to Hegel,
however with fundamental transformations which I will
discuss later.
For the moment rather, let me look at a sort of Kantian
moment in the meaning of critique. In Marx, “critique” also
refers to the enquiry about the conditions of possibility of
political economy. It is not Kantian in the full sense, because
in Marx’s critique is not transcendental, is not something
abstract and general. The conditions of possibility to which
he refers have a determinate historical dimension: they are
related to a specific structure, to what Marx following Hegel
refers to as determination of form. The conditions of possibility
have something to do, first of all, with the market, or better
with the universalisation of exchange, commodity exchange, in
what is a monetary economy from the start. This is a point on
which many interpreters of Marx insist and leads directly to
the characterisation of Marx’s value theory as a monetary value
theory (of labour).4
There is, however, a second point about the notion of
critique that must be clarified from the beginning: I have
already hinted at this. The Critique of Political Economy is
not just an “advance” within political economy as a science
(Wissenschaft), nor is it just a synonym for Critical Political
Economy. Critical political economy is only part of the story
in Das Kapital. To be sure, I am not among those who insist
on such a strong separation between the Critique of Political

Economy and Critical Political Economy that there is not
any overlap between them. Rather, I think that these two
moments of critique should be articulated together. Certainly,
one loses all the innovation of Marx if s/he does not see
that the Critique of Political Economy cannot be reduced to
a particular version of political economy as Critical Political
Economy. There is no doubt that we discover here something
very strange for economists and social scientists: the fact that
Marx, while deepening the scientific knowledge of capital, at
the same time, is FULWLTXLQJ WKDW YHU\ VFLHQWLILF NQRZOHGJH LWVHOI;
and through this critique of the theoretical and epistemological
terrain of Political Economy, at the same time he proposes a
critique of its object, and in the last instance a critique of the
reality of capital itself.
Marx is in fact forging a new theoretical continent. From
my point of view, it is important to understand that Marx does
not break altogether with Classical Political Economy and with
Ricardo, and the continuity is important. But the discontinuity
too is important, and in a way even more important, because
the discontinuity sheds light on the same scientific results.
You cannot understand Marx’s continuity with Classical
Political Economy (culminating in Critical Political Economy)
without looking at the latter by considering the discontinuity
that Marx introduces.
A third important qualification: critique is not criticism,
Kritik is not Kritizismus. In a nutshell: for criticism I mean the
pointing out of errors, of category mistakes, of contradictions
in an opponent’s theory. Most of the Marxists, both economists
and philosophers, understand the Critique of Political
Economy in this way. This is wrong. Critique, contrary to
criticism, recognises the inner truth of political economy; it
does not merely criticise its shortcomings. In fact, if one reads
Marx carefully, one sees that even while he was a forceful critic
of Vulgar Political Economists, he also took them seriously,
and was prepared to learn from them (the first names that
come to my mind are Malthus and Samuel Bailey).
After these first three points, let me move on to a more

substantial question: why is a Critique of Political Economy
necessary, what are the fundamental limits that Political
Economy cannot cross? Marx’s reasoning can be put forward
in this way: the Critique of Political Economy has as its pivot
point the duality of labour, concrete labour and abstract labour,
corresponding to the duality of the commodity as use value
and exchange value. Moreover, Marx sees in exchange value
the form of value as such. Classical Political Economy, and
especially Ricardo, hinted (though confusedly) at the notion of
a substance of value, and hence at the notion of the magnitude
of value, but could not develop the notion of the form of
value. Thus, Classical Political Economy and Ricardo himself
did not establish a proper notion of labour, nor of money, as
preliminary to the inquiry of the universal monetary capitalist
exchange of commodities. Behind these two flaws there is a
third basic inadequacy: Classical Political Economy never
adequately grasped the distinction between labour SRZHU
and living labour. This, of course, is well known—in a sense,
familiar territory. What is less understood is that, for Marx,
“labour” refers to three poles: labour power, living labour
and—most crucially—the workers as living bearers of labour
SRZHU. This triad is fundamental in the Critique of Political
Economy as it deals with the constitution of capital as a social
relation.
The fourth failure of Classical Political Economy is
the absence of a theory of crisis as something unavoidable
for capital. In a sense, there is, in fact, the idea that crisis is
conceptually foreign to capital, which is fundamentally an
“equilibrium” reality (this is the perspective of Ricardo and
Jean-Baptiste Say), or alternatively there is the idea that crisis
is so much the essence of capital that it is fundamentally a
“disequilibrium” reality (this is the perspective of Malthus
and Sismondi), such that capitalism itself is actually
impossible in its pure form. Therefore, there is never crisis in
capitalism, properly speaking: capital can experience minor
disturbances, immediately corrected by the market, or cannot
exist altogether without immediately collapsing. If this is, in

fact, the Critique of Political Economy, it is clear why it is a
critique of the science of capital as inherently bourgeois.
Grasping the triad of “labour”—where labour power refers
to workers as the living bearers of labour capacity, and the
subjects who actually work actualise living labour as the use of
labour power—means understanding capital as an historically
specific reality that exists under the sign of alienation, reification
and exploitation.
The Critique of Political Economy is not immediately a
critique of capital itself. Marx thinks that reality can only be
appropriated through theory, as “object of knowledge”. At
the same time, this theoretical/logical Critique of Political
Economy offers the needed conceptual instruments for
understanding capital, and then for practically subverting it.
To be more precise: Marx is neither a traditional materialist
nor an idealist thinker; his approach is that of a practical
materialist (this was a key point in Alfred Schmidt).5 The
term practical takes us back to the Theses on Feuerbach, and
especially the second thesis: “[t]he question whether objective
truth can be attributed to human thinking is not a question
of theory but is a practical question. The human being must
prove the truth, i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness
of his thinking, in practice.”6
This means that the exposition (Darstellung) can be
accomplished critically only from the perspective of an
emancipatory radical transformation of reality. Praxis is not
only the horizon of critique: it is also, in part, its precondition,
since Marx could construct his theoretical Critique of Political
Economy because in practice workers’ struggles had begun to
put in question not only the naturalness of capitalist social
relations, they also put into question capitalist technology
(this point was very well argued by Wal Suchting, and from a
different point of view by Edward P. Thompson).7
I have already outlined that Marx’s exposition (Darstellung)
is dialectical. This dialectical method includes Forschung, an
analytical enquiry, through which Marx arrived at the point
that the whole can be exhibited (dargestellt) as a structural

system, seemingly closed in itself. This method, as I said, goes
back to Hegel.8 In a very different but comparable conceptual
setting, something similar can be found in Lire le Capital.9 The
Althusserians speak however of structure rather than form. In
both cases we have “a process without subject[s]”. The point in
Althusser is epistemological, and somehow ahistorical. In the
Frankfurt constellation of thinkers it is the mark of the specific
capitalist totality, the Whole as the Untrue, and its validity is
limited to that historical reality. In Marx’s use of Hegel, there
is a Subject behind the process without the subjects, and this
Subject is Capital (homologous to Hegel’s Geist).
A few more words are in order here since we are touching
on the deepest meaning of Critique of Political Economy.
According to Marx, capital is a Fetish, but an automatic Fetish,
turning into a dominating Subject that ‘overgrasps’ all the
moments of the totality (das übergreifende Subjekt, in Chapter
4 of Volume 1). A key ingredient to understand Das Kapital
is to comprehend the distinction between )HWLVFK&KDUDNWHU
and Fetischismus: fetish character and fetishism. Capital as a
thing (actually, as the Thing, the automatic Fetish, the Subject),
exactly like value and money, truly possesses social powers.
Hence, the attribution of social powers to capital (to money,
to value) is not illusory: it is an “appearance”, meaning the
phenomenal manifestation (or Erscheinung) of “things as they
are”, but only in the specific capitalist historical determination. The
mystification, the illusion, the fetishism, are the naturalisation
of these social powers, as they refer to things as things: this
is a semblance (or Schein), which is of course produced by the
same fetish-character nature of value, money, capital. From
here, it follows that relations between people appear (that is,
erscheint: manifest phenomenally) as relations between things,
as in fact they are.
This is, however, only half the truth. The Critique of Political
Economy answers not only the question “how capital?”, i.e. its
self-valorising feature, but also the question “why capital?”,
i.e. IURP ZKHUH WKLV YDORULVDWLRQ RULJLQDWHV. Non-human capital
reality is brought back to some kind of human practice hidden

behind capital as a thing: capital as a social relation, which has
at its core class struggle, and more specifically class struggle
in production.10 Most of Das Kapital, Volume I, is devoted to
this idea. Last but not least, systematic dialectics for Marx is
a method which is not universal: it can be properly applied
only to capital: this is what Helmut Reichelt calls the “method
of withdrawal” (Methode auf Wiederruf).11 There is no Diamat
in Marx: no dialectical materialism of the Stalinist/Leninist
variety. There is not even Hegel’s logic of the positing of the
presupposition as a universal ahistorical method. Dialectics
pertains to those quite strange and paradoxical objects—
Hans-Georg Backhaus calls these objects deranged, displaced
and perverted (the Verrückte Formen)—that are capital, money
and value.12 In other words, the reference to dialectics is not
only epistemological, it is also ontological: it is the ontology
of Capital as homologous to Absolute Spirit. Dialectics
disappears when capital disappears.
Reading, Interpreting and Reconstructing
To write about Marx in a proper and useful way, we must
make clear the difference between reading, interpreting and
reconstructing. In relation to “reading” I mean an appraisal of
the text that does not hide the ambivalences and ambiguities, and
sometimes incoherencies, of the book. A more sophisticated stage
is what I call “interpretation”. For “interpretation” I mean the
attempt to rebuild the Marxian system staying close to what
is recognised as its inner logic: UHUHDGLQJ 0DU[ DFFRUGLQJ WR
Marx, to quote the title of an essay by Cesare Luporini.13 In
relation to this, there is an idea that ambivalences, ambiguities,
incoherencies can be solved and overcome ZLWKRXW DQ\ EUHDN
from or revision of Marx. I became convinced long ago that
neither reading nor interpretation are able to dissolve the
difficulties and contradictions of the Critique of Political
Economy as we inherited it.
A third move must be undertaken: “reconstruction”.
Reconstruction very often means—using the relevant
expression by Backhaus—JRLQJ ZLWK 0DU[ DJDLQVW 0DU[.

Ambiguities and ambivalences, difficulties and contradictions
can be overcome only in going against some of Marx’s
propositions, but with Marx in the sense of applying the
method he proposes: exploiting in full, as Marx did not, the
uniqueness of his monetary (labour) theory of value, turning
it into a PDFURPRQHWDU\WKHRU\RIFDSLWDOLVWSURGXFWLRQRIVXUSOXV
value.14 What this actually means will become clearer toward
the end of this article.
My discussion is aimed at the intersection of interpretation
and reconstruction, and it presupposes a careful reading.
In my understanding, going with Marx against Marx is the
contemporary way to be a Marxian, and not a Marxist. This
distinction was originally formulated by Maximilien Rubel,15
who thought that all Marxists were distorting Marx’s message.
The exceptions were Marxians like Rosa Luxemburg, Henryk
Grossmann, Paul Mattick, and Karl Korsch.16
In my view, as I said, being Marxian means to provide
a Critique of political economy after Marx, and to deal with
contemporary capitalism. Hence, Marxians cannot only
confine themselves to what Marx wrote—a conceptual
innovation beyond Marx is needed. Marx was the first to do
something similar, constantly revising the same volume I, and
not publishing the sequel because, as he said, he still had to
learn and digest the lessons of the changes in 1870s capitalism.
I agree with Karl Korsch that Marx’s theory must be
“historicised”—must be read backwards through the questions
of today. I will not go into detail here, but the attentive reader
will recognise that my points of entry for my ‘reconstruction’
are the crisis of the 1960s and 70s (in particular, what I learned
from the workers in the years of the class struggle at FIAT),
i.e. the Social Crisis or the Great Stagflation, and the current
structural crisis, i.e. the so-called Great Recession (or, better,
Lesser Depression). This is actually a very Marxian standpoint:
reading the authors of the past backwards, from their own
questions distilled from assessment of the scientific debate,
in order to go forward, as Marx did in The Theories of Surplus
Value (the same method we find in Schumpeter’s History of

Economic Analysis, in Böhm-Bawerk’s Capital and Interest, and
also in Sraffa’s Lectures on the Advanced Theory of Value). One
does not go to the 1861-63 Manuscripts to know what exactly
Smith or Ricardo actually said. However, in my case, mine is
not an arbitrary reading: it extracts what is already there in the
texts, and this can be shown rigorously.
The paradox is this: in proceeding this way, what I am
able to provide—I am once more paraphrasing Hans-Georg
Backhaus—are just fragments of a systematic reasoning. I think
that the reason for this outcome is that Marx intended to be
systematic, but didn’t actually succeeded. The intention is
important, as is its failure. I have seen the best minds amongst
Hegelian Marxists, some of them my friends, engage in
attempts to “rewrite” Marx in Hegelian fashion, mainly by
mimicking the Science of Logic. One can count, however, just
as many Hegelian readings of Das Kapital as there are authors:
indeed more, as some self-criticise their previous attempts and
produce other and more refined versions of their Hegelian
Marx. Here I part company with them because I feel that we
are forced to remain in a fragmentary reading of Marx. The
point is that this fragment of systematic reasoning is essential
to understanding capital, and to fighting against it.
A Quick Journey Through Das Kapital, Volume I
Value and Money, Ghost and Chrisalys
At the beginning of Das Kapital, Marx looks at the universal
exchange of commodities as the universal exchange of
products of labour to be exchanged on the market. However,
a problem arises: if one takes the single commodity, and
scrutinises it carefully, one cannot detect value anywhere, one
only sees the body of its use value. Value is just a ghost. To put it
bluntly: strictly speaking, at this stage of the exposition, value
does not exist; it is an ethereal entity. But Marx is a materialist:
he argues that, to exist, the ghost must take possession of a body.
We find ourselves precisely in the middle of a gothic novel.
In the first Chapter Marx moves from value as content,
which he discusses in Section one and two of Chapter 1, to

value as form and the form of value, in Chapter 3. If you stop at
Chapters 1 and 2, as many Marxists do, you may be justified
in thinking that value is simply labour contained. Most, if
not all, authors speak of “labour embodied”: but Marx never
used this expression, so widespread in translations all over the
world, for abstract labour. Only concrete labour ends up being
embodied in the use value which is its output (the German
verb here is verkörpern). For abstract labour, Marx rather uses
the expression labour contained (the German verb here is
enthalten). The concrete labour producing money as a commodity
(which exactly is value embodied) mirrors the abstract labour of
the commodities exchanged with gold as money.
Value as a Ghost is now exhibited (darstellt) in the use value
of gold as a commodity. What then is the abstract labour of
commodities? It presents itself at this stage of the argument
as a labour which is not immediately social. As an immediately
private labour, the labour spent by individual producers selling
on the market becomes social in commodity circulation, in the
monetary exchange of commodities. It is a progressive coming
into being of abstract labour and value: abstract labour as QRW
\HWVRFLDO becomes abstract labour as mediately social labour.
Looking EDFNZDUGV, abstract labour is that labour which has
become social on the market through the metamorphosis of
commodities with gold as a use value (embodying value):
that is, through the equalisation in monetary exchange
with the concrete labour producing gold (as the universal
equivalent). This part of Marx’s argument is totally dialectical
and Hegelian. It is important to note that the concrete labour
producing gold, which here is “money as a commodity”, is
the only immediately social labour. Thus we have to carefully
distinguish the abstract labour hidden within the commodities
as not-immediately-social-labour and the concrete labour
producing money as a commodity as an immediately-social
labour.
Marx is referring not to some generic ahistorical exchange,
but to a universal “commodity exchange” (Waren Austausch),
which for him cannot but be immediately monetary. Marx is

putting forward a perspective that was completely new at
the time, and which stays quite unique afterwards: a monetary
analysis distancing itself from real analysis (I borrow this
distinction from Schumpeter’s History of Economic Analysis),
where money is introduced at the very beginning of the
theory, with the universal exchange of commodities being
immediately monetary, and where, most importantly, not
only money is exhibiting value, but also the very category of
YDOXH LV GHILFLHQW ZLWKRXW LQWHJUDWLQJ PRQH\ IURP WKH VWDUW LQ LWV
fuller definition. Let me add that Marx’s argument may give
the impression that the social objectivity of value and abstract
labour exists only in the final circulation of commodities. This
is certainly part of Marx’s argument: what Michael Heinrich
calls the ex-post socialisation, 1DFKWUlJOLFKH9HUJHVHOOVFKDIWXQJ,
of commodities’ abstract labour.17 I’ll return on this later on.
We have witnessed a miracle: the ghost has really taken
possession of a body. This embodiment is also pictured
by Marx as an incarnation (Inkarnation) and even as a
transubstantiation. The theological terminology, exactly like
the gothic novel terminology, is essential to understand Marx
as a social scientist. After Marx the gothic novelist and Marx
the Christian theologian, we meet Marx the entomologist.
Marx defines money as money as a chrysalis. The challenge for
theory is to develop money as money into money as capital, the
chrysalis into a butterfly: money as finance, as capital begetting
more money, value valorising itself begetting surplus value, in
a continuous spiral. But how is this process possible?
A Monetary Value Theory of Labour, Thanks to Money as a
Commodity
Marx in the first part of the volume, and already in the first
chapter, is presenting two arguments at once. The first
argument is that abstract labour and value exist only in the
exchange of commodities. The second argument is that abstract
labour and the value that is materialised in final commodity
circulation, expresses a movement from the inner to the outer.
Here we have an expression (or Ausdruck) in a strong meaning:

the exteriorisation of something internal, and—most important—
something that according to Marx is already commensurable,
at least tentatively social, before final exchange. It is a social
objectivity that somehow must exist as such, not just within
but also before final exchange.
The apparent contradiction disappears when we recognise
that, contrary to most interpreters, money as a commodity must
be seen not as a dispensable assumption due to historical
contingencies (because of the monetary system of his time), but
as an essential moment in his value theory of labour, as a crucial
notion linking value to a determinate social form of labour.
When commodities are produced for universal exchange they
come to the market with a price tag, a PRQH\QDPH: this money-
name already (H[DQWH) socially homogenises commodities. Marx
adds in chapters two and three that this money-name goes
together with an already given value of money: the given value
of money is fixed at the point of production of gold as a commodity.
When gold is sold against all the other commodities—this is
Marx’s position, presented without ambiguity in his book—
the exchange of commodities and gold is not yet monetary,
it is properly speaking barter, because at the hole that is the
point of entrance of gold in the monetary circuit, money is just
a commodity. We are dealing with an XQPLWWHOEDUH 3URGXNWHQ
austausch; yes, it is an exchange, but rigorously speaking it
is an exchange of products, not of commodities: because to be a
commodity means to be exchanged with money, and here the
exchange is not yet mediated by money. It is a sale without a
purchase, which “fixes” the exchange ratios that enables the
price-tag to give a quantitative determination of value before
final exchange.
The great and unique accomplishment by Marx was to
present a monetary value theory. From my point of view, the
weakness is that this monetary value theory is grounded on
original barter (paradoxically, this is a possible point of contact
with Ludwig von Mises: but don’t tell Marxists, they would
not understand).
From the Chrysalis to the Buttefly: The Method of

Comparison and the Constitution of Capital
In the first three Chapters, and actually until Chapter 7, Marx
deals with commodities that are already produced. After
Chapter 7, however, he deals with the (capitalist) process
of production of commodities: hence, we have to consider a
monetary theory of production of (surplus) value, based on the
determinate form of labour, which is historically specific, and
this specificity is also affecting the notion of abstract labour.
Marx, especially in Chapter 4, pictures capital as a gigantic
Fetish which is also a gigantic Subject, or Subjekt. Marx is talking
about capital as a Subject in the same sense that Hegel’s
Geist is a Subjekt.18 The reference to Hegel is ontological, not
just epistemological. Marx uses the expression übergreifenden
Subjekt: an “overgrasping and dominating Subject”.19 This
overgrasping/dominating Subject, as I outlined, is positing
LWV RZQ SUHVXSSRVLWLRQ. In this new reality, emerging but very
different from commodity as such and money as such, the
destination of the production process is not use value (like
in simple circulation) anymore, it is not concrete wealth
(Reichtum) anymore. It is value (Wert): or if you like, abstract
ZHDOWK, the opposite of Reichtum. So value-in-process is
encompassed by the word valorisation (or 9HUZHUWXQJ).
How Butterfly, which is Capital, comes to life, how does
it evolve from the Chrysalis? The answer is in Chapter 7. In
the second section of that chapter the theme is the valorisation
process. Here Marx provides the answer to the question that
Vulgar Political Economy did not pose and that Classical
Political Economy was not able to solve: where does surplus
value, gross profits, spring from? Marx’s is a kind of “genetic”
argument about the origin of surplus value. In my view,
there isn’t a dialectical derivation, nor is Marx’s argument
in continuity with Hegel’s method. In Chapter 7 we rather
have a constitutive process [Konstitution] that breaks the closed
totality and is grounded in class struggle within production:
Marx’s is a method of comparison. He compares two
configurations. The first one seems to be hypothetical, but in fact

it depicts something very important about the actual capitalist
reality. The second introduces a dynamic change. In fact, both
configurations are real and immanent to capitalist reality.
Marx begins from an economy where the ZRXOGEH capitalists
advance money in the hope of getting more money. They buy
labour power, paying the wage (variable capital), and they buy
the means of production (constant capital), but extract from
the workers a living labour equal to necessary labour, i.e. the
labour needed to produce their subsistence. In this situation,
of course, there would be no profits: it is a configuration akin
to Schumpeter’s FLUFXODU IORZ (a simple reproduction where
surplus value is absent). Here prices cannot but be proportional
to values (simple or direct prices). This supposedly hypothetical
situation is in fact depicting something very real: an economic
system able to reproduce the workers according to the necessary
labour, as a definite quantitative magnitude. The second step of
the comparison is based not on a Smithian deduction from the
wages—as actually, in different forms, Croce and even Rubin
thought—but from the actual lengthening of living labour beyond
the configuration imagined in the first step. It may come as a
surprise to most interpreters, and surely to Marxists, but one
of the very few authors who saw quite clearly the nature of
Marx’s method of comparison and its originality was Sraffa, in
1940, in a note on the 8VHRIWKH1RWLRQRI6XUSOXV9DOXH.
According to this perspective, in capitalism production is
nothing but the consumption of workers: the new value within
the period strictly depends on the living labour extracted from
the human bearers of labour power. The only other author I
know putting the same stress on this point as I do today is
Massimiliano Tomba.20 No peanut theory of surplus value is
possible. This, and nothing else, is Marx’s explanation of the
origin of surplus value. This is the ground of the value theory
of labour, tracing back (new) value to (living) labour. The new
value must be exhibited in money, and comes only from the
objectification of living labour. The fluid of living labour, when
it becomes objective and fixed in the commodity, may be
called direct labour (what is, unfortunately, mistaken for living

labour in most of the literature about Marx). Direct labour, of
course, is itself dead labour, and it is given after the production
process: living labour, in Marx, as worker’s activity (Arbeit) is
inherently variable (this is a point raised by Rowthorn).21
This is the first, most important, meaning of exploitation:
the quantitative and qualitative determination of the actual
working time within the working day. Quantitative: how much
(total living) labour time is extorted from workers. Qualitative:
to allow that extortion, capital has to enter into the organisation
and technological determination of the labour process. This is
something which constitutes an absolute historical novelty.
Relative Surplus Value and Dynamic Competition
Chapter 12 is another of my favourite chapters, together
with Chapter 7. In this chapter, Marx provides an answer to
a vital question. As I outlined before, the “microeconomic”
mechanism leading to the “macro” result of the extraction
of absolute surplus value is easy to understand. It is in the
interest of the single capitalist to absolutely lengthen the
working day, because the more he forces on the worker a
surplus labour, the more s/he obtains profits. It is not so
with relative surplus value, because relative surplus value
is something determined only at the systemic level, from the
lowering of the value of labour power. If there is a rise in the
SURGXFWLYHSRZHURIODERXU which is generalised in the economy,
what will follow is a reduction of the prices of wage goods:
when the value of labour power goes down, the surplus value
in the new value goes up relatively. The same can be argued
about a rise in the intensity of labour. This macro result—this
new equilibrium following a technological innovation and/
or an organisational innovation—is not pursued intentionally
by the single capitalist, nor it is driving their individual
behaviour.
Marx originally intended to approach the logic of capital
in two distinct and successive moments. The first step was
the inquiry about capital in general (all that it is common to
capitals); the second step was the inquiry about the many
capitals (competition among capitals). The second step
should have been dealt with only after he had completed
the first. Marx eventually included competition already in
Volume I, Chapter 12. To understand why, let us ask: what
is “competition” for Marx? Competition has two meanings
in Marx, and these two meanings are not well understood
by interpreters, or are conflated. I think they need to be
distinguished, and this distinction may become in some cases
even an opposition. On the one hand, Marx took the notion
of competition prevalent in Ricardo and in the Classicals: it
refers to the tendency of the rate of profit to be equalised among
the different branches of production, because of the mobility of
capital. A similar though not identical notion of competition
can be found in Walras, and even more in Marshall. This kind
of competition gives rise to the discrepancy between simple or
direct prices (the prices proportional to the labour contained
in commodities) and production prices (the capitalist prices
embodying an equal rate of profit). This competition is
discussed in Volume III. In Volume I, we find another notion of
competition altogether: the competition within industries, or
ZLWKLQEUDQFKHVRISURGXFWLRQ, where many capitals are struggling
in a fight to the death through the introduction of innovations.
Prices—also the simple or direct prices—are established as
a social or market value as the monetary expression of the (socially
necessary) labour time, which may well be different from the
individual value determined by the individual labour time
contained. Those who introduce a new machine, a new
organisation of labour, etc., lower their individual labour time
EHORZ the socially necessary labour time: as a consequence,
their individual value drops below the social (or market)
value, and they beget an extra surplus value. The same process
can be replicated for the prices of production. Innovators
can wage a ZDU against the other firms producing the same
use value by beginning to decrease the selling price, and
thereby stealing the market from other capitalists. This kind
of competition is a FXWWKURDW competition. It is a competition
of the many capitals struggling so that they can win an extra

surplus value: and they cannot avoid this competition lest
they be thrown out of the market. As I am going to show, in
Part 7 on reproduction, Marx highlights the PDFURVRFLDO(class
and monetary) foundation of the capitalist process as the
pumping out of new value from the ZRUNLQJ FODVV (and thus
of the extraction of surplus value) by total capital. Here, in
Chapter 12, Marx discusses the micro mechanism grounding
the macro outcome of the extraction of relative surplus value.
Competition within industries provides the rational
individual behaviour leading to the prevalence of what
Marx calls the specific capitalist mode of production, grounded
in the interaction between the “relative” and the “absolute”
extractions of surplus value. There were certainly antecendents
of this in Classicals, but these were asides with respect to the
main line of argumentation, the view of competition as the
equality of the rate of profits between industries. Schumpeter
borrowed this second view of competition from Marx and
made it the founding principle, together with the credit theory
of money, of his own system. His debt to Marx was openly
recognised in the introduction to the Japanese translation of
The Theory of Economic Development, and in Capitalism, Socialism
and Democracy.
The Real Subsumption of Labour to Capital
Chapters 13 to 15 are about simple cooperation, division of labour
in manufacturing, and machinofacture. With machines we have
a real subsumption of labour to capital. Now, the techniques
and the same nature of labour—the actual capitalist labour
processes—are IRUPGHWHUPLQHG. Use value is shaped by value,
and the duality internal to the commodity is recomposed
under the dominance of the valueform. With machinofacture,
workers become the appendage of the material conditions
of production. The commodity is the product of the collective
ZRUNHU: the single worker is a worker whose labour is not
concrete anymore, because the single worker does not produce
a commodity any more. The commodity can only now be the
product of the immediately socialised labour in the immediate

labour process. Abstract labour is now the living labour of the
wage workers within the units of collective labour organised
and planned by firms in competition, that is within the
immediately private labour of capitalist producers who have
to become social on the commodity market. We have here the
SDUDGR[RIDQH[DQWHLPPHGLDWHO\VRFLDOLVHGODERXUZKLFKPXVWVWLOO
EHFRPHVRFLDOODERXUH[SRVW.
Under the real subsumption of labour to capital, Reichtum,
wealth as FRQFUHWHZHDOWKLVDFWXDOO\SURGXFHGRQO\E\FDSLWDODQG
capital alone: not by labour. Capital designs the technology, puts
in action the techniques, builds an organisation of labour: labour
as concrete labour is just a cog of this mechanism.22 But this
Fetish does not produce anything, unless it becomes a vampire,
unless it is able to SXPSLQJ OLYLQJ ODERXU RXW IURP WKH ZRUNHUV.
This living labour, generating abstract wealth, value and
surplus value, is already abstract labour, a labour as generic as
the money and surplus money it produces. While the use value
productivity goes back entirely to capital, the value productivity goes
back entirely to (abstract) living labour: more precisely, to capital’s
success in winning the class struggle in production. Here I
agree with Chris Arthur: capital must incorporate workers
(living labour power), as an internal other. This is actually the
second meaning of the embodiment we find in Marx: not taking
possession of a body (we saw that Marx uses the German
verb verkörpern for this); rather, being made internal as part of
capital’s “body” (the German verb is here einverleiben).
What is this capital’s labouring body, the body of the
collective “immediately socialised worker”? Thanks to the
buying and selling of labour power, capital inserts the workers
as human living labour power bearers into an automatic
“monstrous” machine, and puts them to work. Capitalists
transform value, i.e. past labour, in an objectified and lifeless
form: that is, properly speaking, into capital. Capital is value
SHUIRUPLQJLWVRZQYDORULVDWLRQSURFHVVD6XEMHFWZKLFKRQFHLWKDV
LQWHUQDOLVHGOLYLQJODERXUSRZHUVEHJLQVWR´ZRUNµOLNHDQDQLPDWHG
PRQVWHU´DVLILWZHUHE\ORYHSRVVHVVHGµ
Reproduction
In Section 7 Marx is anticipating the heretical monetary
macroeconomics of the twentieth century. I am referring to
Wicksell, Schumpeter, the Keynes of the Treatise on Money,
and later to the French-Italian contemporary circuit theory of
money. The difference between Marx and these authors being
that, as de Brunhoff insisted, Marx was mostly writing within
the tradition of the monetary theory of credit, and these
“heretics” were and are (like me) committed to the alternative
view of the credit theory of money.23
The similarity is that the reasoning about the class
relation and divide is explicitly set within an initial PDFUR
monetary setting. Total capital advances the money wage-bill
as finance for production in order to buy labour power from the
working class.24 In Chapter 23, Marx writes that to have a clear
understanding of what is really going on we have to abandon
the perspective of the single capitalist and the single worker,
and look instead at the capitalist class and the working class.
The capitalist class advances money drafts to workers, order
notes, that are given back by the latter to the former to get
their share of what they have produced. In this transaction, the
so-called money “veil” performs an essential function: capital
includes in its own mechanism workers as its internal other,
and the means of subsistence (as the variable capital buying
labour power) are the means to get living labour power.
In fact, in the Results of the Immediate Process of Production,
Marx even writes that it is not the workers that acquire the
means of subsistence, but that the means of subsistence buy
the workers. Marx has no ambiguity here in clarifying that
what has to be taken as given is the UHDO ZDJH RI WKH ZRUNLQJ
FODVVDVDZKROH³a point which is lost in most of contemporary
Marxist economics: individual workers may have freedom of
choice about their individual basket of consumption goods,
but that is definitely not true for workers as a class; they have
to buy what the capitalist class leave them as available goods.
This is the same conclusion that the monetary heretics reach,
but also the same conclusion that follows from Keynes’ view
of the investments as the autonomous driving component
in private effective demand; and, even more so, the same
conclusion as Kalecki. It is, without doubt, a PDFURPRQHWDU\
WKHRU\RIWKHFDSLWDOLVWSURGXFWLRQDQGGLVWULEXWLRQRIQHZYDOXHDQG
surplus value.
The Ex Ante Monetary Socialisation of Labour
A quite explicit consequence of Marx’s new viewpoint—a
consequence which, once again, is missed in most readings—
is that the “macro” logic (the logic of the totality)—is not only
different, but unique, prior and opposite to the “micro” logic:
what “appears” from point of view of the “micro” logic, the
logic of “individuals”, what more properly speaking was
a phenomenal manifestation (an Erscheinung) in the earlier
sections, is now revealed as an illusory semblance (a Schein).
We have to look back down the path we have travelled, we
must read Capital I EDFNZDUGV.
Marx began with money and the commodity, then he
moved to capital and how it is produced. The single capitalist
was taken to be an average representative of total capital.
On the labour market, the phenomenal manifestation means
that workers and capitalists are free and equal subjects. This
is not false, at that layer of the inquiry. With reproduction
and now assuming the standpoint of the totality, the inquiry
is transposed into a directly social, macro, monetary, class
perspective. This is a very different outlook than the one
taken by the so-called “macro-monetary approaches” within
Marxism today: their logic is just a logic of aggregation. My
alternative macro foundation leads to opposite conclusions
compared to the micro logic. This is apparent in the fact that
the working class is tied to capital as a whole by a relation of
slavery: the free and equal bargaining of the individual worker
was just a necessary “objective illusion”.
When reading Marx, one must be warned that the meaning
of categories changes along the way in his Darstellung, in
exposition. This does not mean that the previous meaning of
a category is cancelled; it is rather a deeper understanding

leading to a “sublation” (Aufhebung), where the prior sense is
conserved and overcome.
Regarding to the 1HXH0DU[/HNWUH, the point to understand
is that the a posteriori socialisation of labour in capitalism as
universalised monetary exchange of commodities is preceded by
an abstraction of labour already anticipated ZLWKLQ LPPHGLDWH
production. The single worker as producer is substituted by the
collective, associated worker: socialised labour in production as
a technical necessity. This technique is dictated by Technology,
hence by the IRUPGHWHUPLQDWLRQ of the “first world”, the so-
called “real” world. The meaning of Arbeit, labour, in Marx’s
Capital is always human activity expended in production. In
capitalist production there are not two labours, but only one. It
can, however, be regarded from two angles; as concrete labour
producing use values, and as abstract labour (in becoming)
producing value “in potency”.
The inclusion of workers as bearers of labour power
in the capitalist labour process needs to be mediated by a
monetary process of imprinting, that occurs in the buying and
selling of labour power prior to immediate production and the
final circulation of commodities. This DQWHYDOLGDWLRQ through
money-capital is a forward-looking, a priori, socialisation of
labour and production.25
The Untimely Marx
A centenary—and of course even more so a bicentenary—is
the opportunity to draw a sort of balance sheet of an author.
Marx, we all know, has been at the judgement bar since the
fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the USSR. Talk about
a “crisis of Marxism” is recurrent since the end of nineteenth
century. And rightly so: the reason is straightforward, and
it has to do with Marx’s practical materialism.26 Marx is an
instance where the failure(s) of his project of “liberation” and
“exit” from the capital relation puts in question his oeuvre. It
is not Marxism to be in a crisis. It is Marx himself, and since
long.
The reference to Marx is possible only as long as the

Critique of Political Economy is also the critique of the present.
If the above outline of contemporary capitalism is valid, the
challenge to Marxian theory is extreme. Let me put it in this
way. According to Marx, capital—better, Capital—produces
an increasing concentration that goes in tandem with increasing
centralisation. I argue, however, that in current capitalism we
witness FHQWUDOLVDWLRQZLWKRXWFRQFHQWUDWLRQ.
In Marx’s views, concentration with centralisation
meant that, in order to exploit the social productive power
of workers that capital itself generates, it has to coalesce a
collective worker that is immediately socialised in production.
This immediate socialisation not only indicates that capital
is obliged to put workers together to extract living labour,
obtain new value, and gain gross profits; it also reveals that
it is forced to create a possibility of collective resistance,
opposition, and antagonism: a reality where the labour process
becomes a contested terrain (so much so that Paolo Sylos
Labini viewed workers’ struggles and their effects on profits
as a positive force leading to innovation and development).
Only from a point of view such as this one, the pretence of
naturalness and immortality of capitalism can be doubted,
and the interrogation about a different social relation—let us
call it “socialism”—could be advanced. Otherwise, a history
beyond capitalism is just a utopian dream.
Contemporary capitalism seems to break the unity
between these two moments, which are united in Marx: the
productive side and the conflictual side of the “immediate
socialisation” of labour within production. If one wishes
to move toward a serious understanding of this reality, the
newspaper to read is not a Bolshevik or Luxemburghian one:
it is the Financial Times. On September 8, 2016 it published
an article by Sarah O’Connor, titled “When your boss is an
algorythm”.27 According to Jeremias Prassl, a Law Professor
at Oxford University, interviewed by Sarah O’Connor, the
algorithmic management techniques of Uber and Deliveroo,
champions of the so-called gig economy, are “Taylorism 2.0”:
algorithms provide a degree of control and oversight that even

the most hardened Taylorists could never have dreamt of.
Workers are dubbed as self-employed people. The connection
among them is made extremely difficult, exactly as it is in
the reality of LQKRXVHRXWVRXUFLQJ, depicted in movies like The
Navigators, by Ken Loach.
In the new “neoliberal” capitalism, opportunities of
rapacious exploitation, like the ones depicted in the article, are
everywhere. As Sarah O’Connor reports, “[i]t’s hard to spread
the word when you don’t even know who your colleagues
are. But the couriers [of Uber] have an idea. They open their
apps as customers and order food to be delivered to them.
As Uber Eats couriers arrive with pizzas at the place their
app has sent them, the strikers tell them about the protest
and urge them to join in. Algorithmic management, meet
algorithmic rebellion.” In the UK the struggle went to court,
and workers are nowadays again winning battles. In fact, with
the new technologies, we are in a 21st century economic reality,
resembling an early 19th century social configuration. This
is something that is going on also in much more advanced
productive realities, not only in the gig economy. That early
nineteenth century was the period marking the making of
the English working class. This early 21st century marks the
making of the global working class. We are not witnessing the
end of history, we are rather facing a challenge.
No ready-made answer can be found in the complex
layered conceptual architecture of Das Kapital: it has always
been too abstract to provide recipes, exactly the reason for it
can still be useful today, as long as we still live within capital
social relations. But to understand, and struggle against, this
new shape of the “automatic Fetish” and of the “mechanic
Monster”, Marx remains, as French would say, incontournable.
To the question if Marx is timely, the answer can therefore only
be: no. Marx is very untimely, in the meaning attributed to this
term by Friedrich Nietzsche. Untimely: that is, acting counter to
RXURZQWLPHDQGWKHUHE\DFWLQJRQRXUWLPHDQGOHWXVKRSHIRU
the benefit of a time to come.
NOTES
1. The present Chapter is part of a larger paper which was

presented, under different titles, in Warsaw, October 2017, as
well as in other occasions in Roccella Jonica, Rome, Milan,
and Piacenza. The paper originally presented in Patna as the
Maurice Dobb Memorial Lecture at the conference Karl Marx:
Life, Ideas and Influence. A Critical Examination on the Occasion
of the Bicentenary, “Is There Life on Marx? The Critique of
Political Economy as a Macro-Monetary Theory of Capitalist
Production”, was too long to be included in its entirety in this
volume, and it has been published in 36/4XDUWHUO\5HYLHZ, Vol
71, n. 287 (2018), under the title “Forever Young? Marx’s Critique
of Political Economy after 200 years”. The present version is a
slightly amended version of the opening and closure of that
paper. I wish to thank Lord Meghnad Desai for the invitation to
the enlightening conference in Patna: Desai has been one of my
great sources of inspirations for his writings on Marx as well as
on the Austrians.
2. See especially Dobb (1937) and Sweezy ([1942] 1970).
3. In this work I very often refer to the meaning Marx gave to
some German words, most of them already present in Hegel.
Translations quite always lose that meaning. On this, the reader
may consult Bellofiore (2014).
4. Rubin ([1928] 1973, ([1926-1928] 2018), Adorno ([1966] 1990;
[1968] 2002) and the 1HXH 0DU[/HNWUH, Colletti ([1969a] 1972;
[1969b] 1973), Napoleoni ([1973] 1975).
5. Cf. Schmidt ([1962] 1971; [1971] 1981).
6. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/
theses/theses.htm [last consulted, March 29, 2019.
7. See Suchting (1995) and Thompson ([1963] 1991).
8. It is what Finelli (1987) labels the method of positing the
presupposition.
9. Althusser et al. (2016); an essay by Jacques Rancière (2016) in the
first edition of this book is especially important here, and it is a
sort of bridge towards Hegelian terminology. Cf. also Schmidt
([1962] 1971; [1971] 1981).
10. This is a point rightly stressed by Balibar ([1993] 1995).
11. Cf. Helmut Reichelt ([1970] 2001).
12. Cf. Hans-Georg Backhaus (1997).
13. See in particular Luporini (1974).
14. I use the expression in a very different way than Fred Moseley
(2015). For a criticism, see Bellofiore (2004).
15. Cf. Rubel ([1974] 2000).

16. The most representative references are Luxemburg ([1925] 2013),
Grossmann ([1941] 1977), Mattick (1969), Korsch (1938).
17. Cf. Heinrich (1999). On all this, see Bellofiore (2018a). The
argument of this essay is developed in a much longer Italian
book: cf. Bellofiore (2018b).
18. On this point, the interpretations by Arthur (2002), Postone
(1993), and my own converge
19. Overgrasping is the new English term proposed for übergreifen by
T.F. Geraets, W.A. Suchting and H.S. Harris in their translation
of the Encyclopaedia Logic (Hegel, [1830] 1991). It is the Subject
that “comprehends”, “reaches back” and “overgrasps” the
opposition within the moments of the totality.
20. Tomba, M. ([2011], 2012).
21. Cf. Rowthorn, B. (1974).
22. I am here giving my own interpretation of the important book
by Frison (1993).
23. Cf. De Brunhoff ([1967] 2016).
24. My debt here is towards Graziani ([1983] 1997a and [1986]
1997b)
25. In this view, the idea that in the production of knowledge there
are a subject and an object, separate and prior to science, and
that science can be divorced from experimentation, is radically
contested. Science, as Ian Hacking would say, is representing
and intervening. With all their differences, such attack against
the traditional epistemology trap is common to such diverse
authors as Hegel, Marx, Freud, and Wittgenstein.
26. https://www.ft.com/content/88fdc58e-754f-11e6-b60a
de4532d5ea35
27. In the references, the first date refers to the original edition or
the date of the manuscripts, the second date refers to the edition
used.
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8
Guevara and Marx
Critical Remake of an Old Film
Roberto Massari
First Half: OUVERTURE: Scene 1 [La Paz, 1996] Scene 2 [Dar

es Salaam, 1965]—FLASHBACK: Scene 3 [Lima, 1952] Scene 4
[Rome, 1969]
Interval: Scene 5 [Sierra Maestra, 1956-58]
Second Half: ORTHODOXY STORY: Scene 6 [from Havana to
Moscow, 1959-63]—HERESY STORY: Scene 7 [from Moscow to
Havana, 1963-65]—MARXIST STORY: Scene 8 [Prague, 1966]—
FADE-OUT: Scene 9 [Vallegrande, October 9, 2017]—THE END
(WORKS CITED)
First Half
OUVERTURE
Scene 1 [La Paz, 1996]
At 10:30 am on Tuesday, October 1, 1996, five visibly excited
people took the lift down the 30 metres to the Banco Central de
Bolivia basement. Three were journalists, one a photographer
and the fifth a researcher of Guevara: for the first time, the
Bolivian government had given them free access to the “A-73”
safe-deposit box in which the original copy of Che’s Bolivian
diary was and is still kept.
However, the box contained other very important
material, as Carlos Soria Galvarro Terán (1944)—my great
friend, companion in research and leading scholar of Che in
Bolivia [at the time together with Humberto Vázquez Viaña
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в219
(1937-2013)]—was to discover with great emotion In fact, they

found a) the original copy in Spanish of Pombo’s diary, which
was believed to have disappeared after its translation into
English; b) evaluation forms of all the guerrilla members; c) the
red loose-leaf notebook with the diary pages from November
7 to December 31, 1966 (in addition to notes and drafts of press
releases); and d) the German leatherette agenda with the diary
pages from January 1 to October 7, 1967.
But it is exactly at the end of this agenda, in the five final
pages, that Carlos made the most disturbing discovery for we
researchers into Che and where from it starts this reflection
of mine on the relationship between Guevara and Marx: these
five pages contained a list of 109 book titles (15 of which
marked with a red cross), divided by months (to be reduced
in quantity) from November 1966 to September 1967. This was
completely new documentation that showed the deep interest
Che had continued to nurture for study and theoretical
elaboration up to the last hours of his life, despite finding
himself in desperate circumstances and knowing that he was
by then destined to defeat (military).
Carlos let me have the photos of the list and I published
it in colour (to highlight the red crosses) in number 2 of Che
Guevara. Quaderni della Fondazione/Cuadernos de la Fundación
[CGQF], 1999, pp. 261-3.
The titles cited covered a wide range of themes and did
not seem to refer to a particular bibliographic scheme. We
scholars thought that they could be divided roughly into six
categories: 1) philosophy and science; 2) political and military
doctrine; 3) Latin American history and society; 4) Bolivian
history, society and anthropology; 5) novels and world
fiction; and 6) working tools such as dictionaries, statistical
repertoires and medical issues.
The first group is the one of interest here and could
include—besides N. Machiavelli (The Prince and Other Political
Writings), G.W.F. Hegel (Phenomenology of Spirit) and L.
Morgan (Ancient Society)—works on Marxism or of Marxist
inspiration such as the following:
C.D.H. Cole, Political Orgnisation;

B. Croce, [with the title used in Spanish] La historia como
hazaña de la libertad—(The philosophy of History and the Duty of
Freedom)];
M.A. Dinnik, History of Philosophy I;
F. Engels, /XGZLJ)HXHUEDFKDQGWKH(QGRI&ODVVLFDO*HUPDQ
Philosophy, Dialectics of Nature;
M. Djilas, 7KH1HZ&ODVV;
V. Lenin, The Development of Capitalism in Russia,
0DWHULDOLVP DQG (PSLULR&ULWLFLVP &HUWDLQ )HDWXUHV RI WKH
Historical Development of Marxism, Philosophical Notebooks;
Liu Shaoqi, ,QWHUQDWLRQDOLVPDQG1DWLRQDOLVP
G. Lukács, 7KH <RXQJ +HJHO DQG WKH 3UREOHPV RI &DSLWDOLVW
6RFLHW\
Mao Zedong, On Practice;
K. Marx, Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right;
R. Mondolfo, Historical Materialism in F. Engels;
L. Trotsky, The Permanent Revolution, History of the Russian
Revolution I and II;
J. Stalin, Marxism and the National and Colonial Question,
The National Question and Leninism, Problems of Leninism;
C. Wright Mills, The Marxists.
A last name on the list—the only one for the month
of September 1967—was first roughly identified as “F.O.
Nietzsche”, bringing a sparkle to the eyes of those who
were already hoping to write an essay on Che’s potential
“supermanliness”. However, Carlos Soria later better
deciphered the name and established that it was the great
military expert Ferdinand Otto Miksche (1904-1992) and his
work Secret Forces [cf. CGQF. No. 8/2010, p. 273].
For many years we did not know how to interpret that
list of books, so wide but also so apparently disordered as to
make one suspect that instead it must have had its own order,
albeit very hidden. How else could it be explained that it had
been jotted down in a diary that functioned as a military diary
and in a situation that was certainly not conducive to study?
Moreover, the quantity of over a hundred books (some in
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в221
large volumes) would have been too excessive for imagining

that Che could have taken them with him during guerrilla
movements. And if he had left those books in hiding places
built by him in camps prepared in the early months—and
thus confiscated by the army after their discovery—they
would surely have re-emerged in the “clandestine” market of
Guevarian objects run for years by some of the officers who
had taken part in counter-guerrilla operations: the military, in
fact, privately sold everything that belonged to Che, and his
supposed “travelling library” would certainly have had very
high starting bids.
All that remained was to think of a wish list formulated
by a Marxist scholar such as Guevara, who had a wide range
of interests and had already proved to be a great devourer of
books throughout his life. Or, alternatively, to think that it was
a precise reading plan, in which the “Marxological” sector was
of particular importance.
This second hypothesis turned out to be correct, but
we were only able to confirm it some time later, with
the emergence of a new document which had remained
unpublished for a long time despite the importance it would
have had “in the heat of the moment” for a precise definition
of the most authentic Guevarian theoretical dimension. The
wave of nonsense written after his death in books and articles
on Che’s “Marxism-Lenism” and on his presumed orthodoxy
could have been avoided thanks to the letter I am about
to examine and which provides the explanatory key to the
“Bolivian” reading scheme mentioned here.
Scene 2 [Dar es Salaam, 1965]
Holed up in the house of the Cuban ambassador in Tanzania
(Pablo Rivalta, 1925-2005), recovering from the defeat of the
military expedition in Congo (“la historia de un fracaso”, as
Guevara himself called it) and before moving to Prague, Che
wrote an important letter to Armando Hart Dávalos (1930
2017) on December 4, 1965. Armando Hart was a historic
leader of the July 26 Movement [M26-7], husband of the
founder of Casa de la Américas (Haydée Santamaría Cuadrado

[1920-1980]) and father of “Trotskyist-Guevarist” Celia Hart
Santamaría (1963-2008), as she described herself in her last
few years, before dying in a car accident. Armando Hart was
the first Minister of Education in the Cuban government, from
1959 to 1965. He was then to become Minister of Culture from
1976 to 1997 and would leave a series of theoretical works,
among which it is worth mentioning here the essay on Marx,
Engels and the Human Condition (2005). We will see why.
After a premise in which Guevara informed Armando Hart
of his revival of interest in studies on philosophy, the letter
developed two fundamental themes: 1) desolate observation
of the state into which studies on Marxism in Cuba were
falling due to the lack of material except those produced in the
Soviet world; 2) a well-structured study plan to be approved
and implemented as soon as possible.
It should be noted that the premise contained Che’s
admission that he had twice tried to deepen his understanding
of the philosophy of “maestro Hegel”, always ending
up defeated but with the conviction of having to start
philosophical studies from scratch (see point 2).
Regarding the first point, Guevara said that there was no
serious Marxist material in Cuba, excluding “the Soviet bricks
that have the disadvantage of not letting you think, because the party
has done it for you and you have to digest”. A method that Che
defined as “anti-Marxist” and was based on the poor quality
of available books (mostly of Soviet origin). Books that were
published both for editorial convenience (since the USSR
contributed financially, I add) and for “seguidismo ideológico”
[ideological tailism/khvostism] towards “Soviet and French
authors”. By the latter, Guevara intended to refer to the official
Marxists of the PCF—which at that time were the vogue, not
only in France but also in various other Communist parties—
gathered under the supervision of Roger Garaudy (1913-2012),
at the time still a Stalinist, before embarking on the many
turnabouts that were to lead him to convert to Islam in 1982.
Regarding to the second point, it is not difficult to recognise
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в223
an interpretative grid applicable to an important part of the

reading plan that Che was to draw up in Bolivia about a year
later, which has already been mentioned. This previous study
project (which was personal, but which the Ministry should
have also organised for the Cuban people) appeared divided
into eight sections. And for each section some authors were
indicated to be published or gone into further:
History of Philosophy to be set within the work of a
1. The
possibly Marxist scholar (mention was made of Michail
$OHNVDQGURYLĀ'LQQLN>@DXWKRURIDKLVWRU\RI
philosophy in 5 volumes), without obviously neglecting
Hegel.
Great Dialectics and Materialists. To begin with,
2. The
Guevara cited Democritus, Eraclitus and Leucippus, but
the Bolivian notes help us understand that he was also
thinking of the work of Rodolfo Mondolfo (1877-1976),
a well-known Jewish Italian Marxist who emigrated
to Argentina in 1939 to escape the racial laws adopted
by fascism. His history of El Pensamiento Antiguo
(Ancient Thought) had been translated from Italian and
published in various editions, starting in 1942.

3. Modern Philosophers. No names were made in particular,
but Che did not exclude the publication of “idealist
authors”, provided they were accompanied by a critical
apparatus.

4. Classics on Economy and Precursors. Adam Smith, the
Physiocrats, etc.

5. Marx and Marxist Thought. Guevara complained that
some fundamental Marxist texts were non-existent in
Cuba and proposed the publication of works by Marx-
Engels, Kautsky, Hilferding, Luxemburg, Lenin, Stalin
“and many contemporary Marxists who are not totally
scholastic”. This latter opinion was linked to point 7.

6. Construction of Socialism. With particular attention to
rulers of the past and the contributions of philosophers,
economists and statisticians.
odox and Capitalist Theorists (unfortunately

7. Heter
collected under the same section). In addition to Soviet
revisionism (for which Guevara could not but cite
the Khrushchev of the time), among the heterodox
theorists he included Trotsky, accompanied by a cryptic
annotation, almost as if to say that the time had come
to take note that he had also existed and “had written”
things. Among the theorists of capitalism, Marshall,
Keynes and Schumpeter were cited as examples to “be
analysed thoroughly”.

8. Polemics . With the caution that Marxist thought had
advanced precisely thanks to polemics, Guevara
declared that one could not continue to know
Proudhon’s Philosophy of Poverty only through Marx’s
Poverty of Philosophy. It was necessary to go to the
sources. Rodbertus, Dühring, revisionism (here
referring to that of German social democracy), the
controversies of the 1920s in the USSR. This section was
indicated by Che as the most important and the aim of
a polemic directed against rampant conformism in the
Cuban party and in the whole of the pro-Soviet world
was evident. And it is no coincidence that the theme of
“seguidismo” [“tailism”] reappeared in the conclusion
of the letter, with a hint of veiled complicity addressed
fraternally to Armando Hart against “the current
makers of ideological orientation” to whom, according
to Che, it would not have been “prudent” to show that
type of study project.
An invitation to “prudence” that Armando Hart took a little
too literally, deciding to keep such a precious text hidden
for some decades. But in addition to Che’s well-founded
concerns, he had a special reason for not circulating the letter
(and daughter Celia told me [in October 2006] that she could
not forgive him when she came to know about it): the Cuban
Minister of Education had and perhaps still had some special
sympathies for Trotsky and had jealously kept it secret since
it had never emerged in any of his books. But Guevara—the
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в225
only Cuban leader who had occasionally been interested in

the Trotsky question—had somehow learned of it. For this
reason, when he named the famous “heretic” in the letter,
addressing Armando Hart he called him “tu amigo Trotsky”
[“your friend Trotsky”]. In the Cuba of 1965, a month before
the Tricontinental Conference (January 1966), in which the
concluding speech by Fidel Castro (1926-2016) was going to
mark officially and definitively the passage of Cuba into the
Soviet field (which had already occurred in substance some
time earlier), the suspicion of Trotskyist sympathies would
have been incompatible with the government post he held.
This is why the letter “disappeared” for over thirty years.
It would be published for the first time in September 1997
in Contracorriente (Year III, No. 9) and then by Hart himself in
2005, in the book on Marx and Engels cited earlier (pp. XLIII
XLVIII), with photostatic reproduction of the original pages.
It was in this way, only after having seen a text so precious
for establishing the level of reflection on Marxism achieved by
Guevara, that it became possible for those of us interested in
doing so to provide a valid explanation for the reading plan
sketched in the agenda of the Bolivian diary. In the words
taken from Otro Mundo es Posible by Néstor Kohan (b. 1967),
the leading scholar on Che in Argentina:
This letter allows us to grasp the degree of maturity achieved
by Che regarding the need to seek an autonomous philosophical and
ideological alternative to Marxist ‘orthodoxy’, including both the
official culture of the Soviet Union and the officialism existing
at the time in China (Otro mundo es posible, p. 155).
At the time he wrote such an important letter, Guevara was
going through a period of tumultuous transition, perhaps the
most unstable and certainly the most dramatic of his life: he
left Cuba and he had been defeated in the great economic debate;
he resigned from government offices and had no citizenship;
he was deprived of the support of his great friend Ahmed Ben
Bella (1916-2012) who was overturned in June 1965 by the
coup d’état of Houari Boumédiène (1932-1978) with which the
decline of the Algerian revolution began; he had gone through

the Congolese disaster; he was hostile to the Soviet policy of
peaceful coexistence, and a lucid and fierce critic of the model
of construction of socialism in the USSR; he was aware of
the involution that the Cuban revolution was experiencing,
anxious to return to what he considered to be a genuine
revolutionary practice (guerrilla war); and he was wary of
the theoretical certainties touted as “orthodox Marxism” and
“Leninism”.
It was clear that the theoretical reflection he wished to
resume in a systematic and almost “professional” form—and
about which he had first spoken to Armando Hart (perhaps
because he too had the faint smell of heresy...)—was in turn
a product of more recent political delusions. There remained
only the doubt about how ancient in the theoretical field
were the “genetic” roots of those delusions which the new
reflections should have remedied.
FLASHBACK
Scene 3 [Lima, 1952]
To answer, it is necessary to step back in time to the first
encounter with Marxism that the young Ernesto had
personally experienced in Lima, Peru, during a period of his
life in which he had already decided to engage in the search
for his own path outside Argentina. That is, outside a great
country where, in the early 1950s, the ideological alternative
for a young radical who wanted to fight for ideals of social
emancipation risked being crushed between two main poles:
DQWLFRPPXQLVW 3HURQLVP or 6WDOLQLVW DQWLLPSHULDOLVP. There
were certainly no alternatives of the third or fourth type,
“better” but lesser, since the homeland of Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento (1811-1888) and of the continental movement of
University Reform (“el Grito de Córdoba” of 1918) had offered
the main culture broth for heretical or heterodox currents
more than any other Latin American country, perhaps second
only to Mexico. But for some time the young Ernesto had no
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в227
sense of it or did not feel the need for it.

Of some interest in the history of his theoretical training is
the fact that at the end of high school he had begun to compile
a “philosophical dictionary”, of which there are some excerpts
and the description given by his childhood friend in Alta
Gracia, José (Pepe) González Aguilar (b. 1928?).
The Guevara spouses were anti-Peronists but they were
not Marxists, Catholics but not practising. The mother (Celia
de la Serna y Llosa [1906-1965]) was a very independent
woman, radical and endowed with considerable intellectual
interests, which were non-conformist for the time and the
environment in which she lived: her influence was decisive
on Ernesto’s training and this is recognised by many, starting
with the second of the brothers (Roberto Guevara [b. 1932])
who spoke to me about it with great emphasis for the first
time in November 1992.
The group of friends belonged mostly to anti-fascist and
anti-Francoist families, but they were not communist. An
exception was university friend Tita Infante (d. 1976), with
whom Ernesto maintained a long and intense exchange of
letters starting in 1947, which she corresponded with feelings
that went beyond mere friendship. Tita was enrolled in
the Communist Youth of the Faculty of Medicine of Buenos
Aires, and Ernesto sometimes communicated to her the
progress made in reading the first Marxist texts. According
to the testimony of Celia Guevara de la Serna (sister of Che,
b. 1929)—reported by Adys Cupull (b. 1937) and Froilán
González (b. 1943) (in Cálida Presencia, p. 12)—it was she
who introduced him to the reading of Aníbal Ponce (1898
1938), the great Argentine psychologist who died in Mexico,
of whose extensive work the two read in particular the most
properly Marxist works: Education and Class Struggle, The
Wind in the World and above all (and fundamental for the
future development of a Marxist ethics by Che) Bourgeois and
Proletarian Humanism.
In the circle of friends, an exception was represented by
“Petiso”, the companion on the famous motorcycle trip—
Alberto Granado Jiménez (1922-2011)—the biochemist who

since his university years had been linked to the Argentine
Communist Party which was than headed by a notorious
exponent of Stalinism, the Italian Victorio Codovilla (1894
1970).
And it was during the journey with Granado that the
young Ernesto had the opportunity to frequent Dr. Hugo
Pesce (1900-1969), the Italian-trained and internationally
renowned leprologist who was a specialist in physiology,
passionate about philosophy and an intellectual with a
“formidable Marxist culture”—as Ernesto described him in a
letter to his father (Don Ernesto Guevara Lynch [1900-1987]).
Pesce was a member of the Peruvian Communist Party and in
1929, at the Communist Conference of Buenos Aires, he was
one of the two Mariateguian delegates, that is followers of
José Carlos Mariátegui (1894-1930), the main Latin American
Marxist whose thinking from that moment began to have a
considerable influence on the formation of the young Ernesto,
above all in stimulating an early “discovery” of the indigenous
social question, Andean in particular.
It cannot be excluded, in fact, that the theoretical interest
of Ernesto for the indios (born initially from the passion for
pre-Columbian archaeology and only later transformed into
the theme of anti-imperialist struggle) and for the work of
Mariátegui began right in the home of Hugo Pesce. He had
the two young friends lodged in a hospital, but he often had
them as guests at mealtimes. From their diaries we know what
a positive influence the conversations with that direct pupil of
Mariátegui—in turn, a man of Marxist science and dialectics—
had on Ernesto. If Guevara’s Marxism really took off from
there—as the main biographers are inclined to think—it must
be said that it could not have had a better start in the political
and philosophical sense.
“Coming at the right moment in his own quest for a
guiding social philosophy, Pesce’s beliefs and personal
example offered a potential structure to emulate. From then
on, the idea that he should find something similar for himself
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в229
began forming in Ernesto’s mind. As for Marxism-Leninism,

he was interested, but he still had to acquire more knowledge
before committing himself to a particular ideology”
(Anderson, pp. 85-6).
The respect that Guevara was to keep till the end for this
complex and fascinating figure of doctor/militant/Marxist
(a clear reflection of what Ernesto himself aspired to become,
finding a sort of “alter-super-ego” in Pesce), is confirmed by
the words he wrote to him in 1962 as a dedication in the book
La Guerra de Guerrillas (Guerrilla Warfare):
To Doctor Hugo Pesce who will provoke, perhaps unknowingly,
a major change in my attitude towards life and society, with the
usual adventurous enthusiasm, but aimed at ends which are
more harmonious with the needs of America [of the American
continent, ed.]. Fraternally, Che Guevara.
Scene 4 [Rome, 1969]

By pure chance, the second decisive influence on Ernesto
Guevara’s adherence to Marxism was also Peruvian, in
the person of a young economist with unmistakable Inca
traits, a militant of the left wing of Apra (Alianza Popular
Revolucionaria Americana [American Popular Revolutionary
Alliance] founded in 1924 in Mexico by Víctor Raúl Haya de
la Torre [1895-1979]), a refugee in Guatemala and politically
active in the world of the exiles: Hilda Gadea Acosta (1925
1974), Che’s first wife and mother of Hildita (1956-1995). Her
personal story as a woman first long courted, then wife and
mother, as “professor” of Marxism for Che, as a companion
of struggle in Guatemala in 1954 and in Mexico till almost
the launching of Granma in 1956, intertwined with years that
were fundamental for Ernesto’s theoretical itinerary: the years
in which his definitive adherence to Marxism took place,
primarily for ideological reasons but also for political tasks and
those related to struggle. A perfect union of theory and praxis
which was difficult to find exemplified in the “Manuals” or in
other famous exponents of “Marxism-Leninism”.
They were “decisive years” for the birth of this figure
which has now become one of the most emblematic of 20th

century revolutionary Marxism, as the title of the book rightly
recalls (Años Decisivos, 1972): the book that Hilda decided to
write to recount that human and political story. Thanks to that
decision (suffered, as I can personally testify), it has left us
an irreplaceable, theoretically elaborate, sincere and reliable
testimony, enriched by the further merit of describing also
from within, thus in psychological terms, such an important
ideological transformation of Ernesto Guevara.
In addition to the task of recounting the Guatemalan-
Mexican story of Che, Hilda had, however, taken on another
task to be fulfilled, given that her brother Ricardo Gadea
(b. 1939, leader of the Movimiento de izquierda revolucionaria
[Mir]—Revolutionary Left Movement) was in prison in Peru,
together with other famous political prisoners such as Hugo
Blanco (b. 1934), Héctor Béjar (b. 1935) and Elio Portocarrero
Ríos (b. 1941), who were always at risk of their lives. Given
that in Italy there were some well-known personalities from
the world of culture (composer Luigi Nono [1924-1990],
painter Ennio Calabria [b. 1937] and others) willing to engage
in a campaign of denunciation, Hilda chose Italy to give life to
a Committee of Solidarity with Peruvian political prisoners,
spending long periods there between 1969 and 1971. The year
before in Cuba (where I had been a guest of the Government
from July to December 1968) a strong understanding and
beautiful friendship had been created between the two of us,
so she asked me to help her set up and direct the Committee.
All this was made easier by the fact that in Rome Hilda lived
in the house of my sister Rossana (b. 1940), where I also stayed
for a while because I did not yet have a permanent home. And
it was there that she began to write the book of memories on
Che and it was me who, through a fortuitous series of events,
was the first or one of the first “readers” to whom Hilda
recounted what could later be read in her book.
Everything that happened between Guatemala and Mexico
is now a known story, recounted in the main biographies;
but in the late 1960s, Hilda was the only direct and reliable
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в231
source of Che’s Marxist training, given that she had been his
“teacher”: this was able to happen because she was more
prepared than Ernesto, having a degree in economics, and
above all because she had an anti-orthodox Marxist training
with roots in Apra (therefore more genuinely Latin American)
and not Sovietic (that is, Stalinist and dogmatic).
I have already provided an account of those “Roman”
conversations with Hilda in my book of 1987 Che Guevara.
Pensiero e Politica Dell’utopia [Che Guevara. Pensamiento y
Política de la Utopía], and it is not the case to repeat here. It
may be interesting, however, to mention the titles or names of
the authors that the two read, commented on and discussed
(sometimes even animatedly as Che wrote in a letter to the
family): Tolstoy, Gorky, Dostoevsky, Kropotkin (Memoirs of
a revolutionary), Engels (Antidühring, Origins of the Family,
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, etc.), Lenin (What is to be
Done?, Imperialism) and of course various works by Marx, in
addition to The Communist Manifesto and Capital. About the
latter, Hilda wrote:
...and Capital by Marx, with which I was more familiar for my
studies of economics (p. 36)].
Wanting to summarise Hilda Gadea’s point of view regarding
that phase of intense theoretical sharing and fresh and
enthusiastic Guevarian adherence to Marxism, I must say that
in the conversations she had with me she placed the emphasis
on two aspects which were then indeed crucial and which
time has instead dispersed among the mists of the theoretical
divergences that are now surpassed and obsolete.
In the first place, Hilda kept alive and transmitted to
Ernesto the conception that the revolution in the backward,
dependent or developing countries cannot rely on the national
bourgeoisie, neither as such—that is collectively in historical
concretions of certain dependent capitalist classes (those which
when I talked to her I referred to as “sub-imperialistic”)—
nor on their allegedly progressive sectors. These sectors
appeared inevitably marked by class interests that ultimately
would have led them to clash with the processes of real social
emancipation, both in the rural world and with the urban
proletariat. Regarding to Hilda and to the credit of Guevara,
it must be recognised that he never failed in this fundamental
political intuition derived from the best theoretical tradition of
20th century revolutionary Marxism.
Secondly, she tried to win Ernesto over to a radical
critique of Soviet Marxism, both for the responsibilities it
had in the past for the degenerative process of the October
revolution, and for its contemporary policy of convergence
with imperialism in maintenance of the global status quo. It is
true, however, that Hilda harboured illusions about Chinese
communism, and at the time the USSR-China conflict was a
burning topic. We will see that Guevara will not always listen
to her on this double aspect of a single international reality
born in Yalta and will go through oscillations in favour of and
against Soviet Marxism, for and against so-called “Maoism”,
unfortunately losing life before arriving at a superior synthesis
of both these refusals.
But more about that later.
On the commitment Ernesto put into the study of Marxism in

the years of Guatemala and Mexico (1954-56), we also have
three testimonies of his friends or future companions on
the expedition to Cuba. Mario Dalmau de la Cruz, a Cuban
exiled in Guatemala after having participated in the attack
on the Moncada Barracks, talks about it (Ernesto “had read a
whole Marxist library” in Granma of October 29, 1967). Darío
López talks about it and tells us that it was Che who chose
the Marxist works in the library of the training camp for those
taking part in the Granma expedition and that the Mexican
police would seize (in Granma of October 16, 1967).
And it is talked about by Argentine Ricardo Rojo (1923
1996), the travelling companion who wrote the first highly
contested biography of Guevara and who invented the famous
phrase erroneously attributed to Che (“Hay que endurecerse,
pero sin perder la ternura jamás” [“One has to grow hard but
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в233
without ever losing tenderness “]). Rojo informs us that thanks

to the friendship with Arnaldo Orfila Reynal (1897-1998), the
Argentine who ran the largest publishing company in Mexico
(Fondo de Cultura Económica—FCE), Guevara could put
himself to selling books and therefore had access to many
works that otherwise he would not have been able to buy:
The classics of Marxism, the collection of the works of Lenin,
texts relating to the military strategy of the Spanish Civil War
passed before Guevara’s greedy eyes during the night, and in
the morning they returned to the leather folder with which they
visited offices and private houses (Mi Amigo el Che, p. 87).
The director of FCE provided Che with the three volumes of
Capital and—whether he had read them in full or not, given
the limited time available and the difficulties of study that
they involved—he found himself within a few months giving
lessons to Cubans of the 26th July Movement on Marxism and
Marx. The latter now jokingly called by him “San Carlos”,
ironically referring to the “heroes” of the Holy Family.
Ernesto communicates his new commitment in a
somewhat coded letter sent to his mother on June 17, 1955.
And similarly he writes to the beloved aunt Beatriz Guevara
Lynch on January 8, 1956:
... I often read Saint Charles and his disciples, I dream of going to
study the cortisone [the countries beyond the border (ed.)] with
one of these French girls who know everything... .
The theme of “San Carlos” appears in various other letters of
the period sent to loved ones: on April 15, 1956 to his father;
between August and September to his mother; towards
October to Tita Infante (“assiduous reader of Carlitos and
Federiquitos and others ‘itos’”); again in October to his mother
(“Now St Charles is primordial, is the axis, and will be in the
years when the spheroid allows me in to its outermost layer”.
There can be no doubt, therefore, that while adherence to
Marxism was initiated in conversations with Hugo Pesce, it
was actually built with the avalanche of readings carried out
in Guatemala and Mexico, partly under the guidance of Hilda
Gadea, in part under the pressure of events and new political

commitments including the military training given by the
Spanish Civil War general Alberto Bayo y Giroud (1892-1967),
his arrest and Mexican prison, and final preparation for the
Granma expedition.
In between there was also “discovery” of the class struggle,
the real, armed and mass struggle, which was workers in social
composition and demands: it was the Bolivian revolution that
started in 1952 and which Guevara experienced as a direct
witness in the summer of 1953. And this decisive experience
should also be seen as one of the elements that won Guevara
over to Marxism, above all to a characteristic and more
authentic conception, for which the commitment in practice
should never have been separated from the theoretical
elaboration. However, on the importance of the first Bolivian
experience of the young Ernesto, one can only refer to other
works.
The same applies to the experience of the failed revolution
of Jacobo Árbenz (1913-1971) in Guatemala: an event in which
Guevara saw his first true revolutionary dream frustrated and
in which he actively participated in a mass struggle for the
first time. Disillusioned by the conciliatory and submissive
behaviour of the local communist party, the Partido
Guatemalteco del Trabajo (Pgt) [Guatemalan Party of Labour]
he drew up a negative balance of that experience in his first
political article. He also blocked his adherence to the party he
was about to join, having understood that it was not enough
to call oneself “Marxist” to actually be so: his distrust towards
the party form as such began from that moment. In the course
of his intense political life as a fighter for the cause of the
revolution he was not to join any party that was really such.
Instead, he was a member and active member of the M26-7
and of its armed expression (the Exército Rebelde) as long as
this movement survived. In fact, it is known that Guevara left
Cuba before the constitution of the Cuban Communist Party
(PCC) was formalised and the October 1965 designation of its
Central Committee of which Che was never part.
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в235
INTERVAL
Scene 5 [Sierra Maestra, 1956-58]
The interval was real: an authentic “epistemological” break it
could be said with Althusserian irony, since between departure
for the Granma expedition and the victorious conclusion of the
Las Villas campaign—which Guevara ended with the battle
of Santa Clara which gave rise to his “legend»—there was
an interruption in philosophical reflection on Marxism texts
and reading itself of the texts. The interruption lasted a little
more than two years, starting with the departure from Tuxpan
(when the only person with a previous military experience
was the Italian Gino Doné [1924-2008] who had taken part
in the Resistance in Veneto), passing through occupation of
the two main military strongholds in Havana—under the
leadership of Che and Camilo Cienfuegos (1932-1959)—and
ending with the establishment of the new regime headed
by Fidel Castro. They were times of guerrilla warfare on the
mountains and attacks in the cities, strikes, agrarian reform,
expropriation and nationalisation, and the creation of a new
state structure. Certainly not times of theoretical reflection, of
study or of exploring the Marxian message.
Guevara’s Episodes of the Cuban Revolutionary War and the
memoires of various fighters give the perception of a profound
disregard for the problems of political theory by the Castro
leadership—in this very differently from what had happened
in the first period of the Russian Revolution—and one gets the
impression that Che was closed in a sort of theoretical self-
isolation. He admitted this himself in writing to the political
figure that I personally consider to have been the most
representative of the Cuban revolution (commander René
Ramos Latour [«Daniel”, 1932-1958]), who died in combat,
but only after having stood up to Che in a controversy that
deserves the greatest attention and instead, out of political
hypocrisy, is almost always ignored or in any case belittled.
On December 14, 1957, Che wrote him a long letter, very
critical of the positions of the llano (the M26-7 in the cities
where Daniel had been the main leader after the death of
Frank País [1934-1957]), stating:
I am, through my ideological preparation, one of those who believe
that WKHVROXWLRQRIWKHSUREOHPVLQWKHZRUOGLVWREHIRXQGEHKLQGWKH
VRFDOOHG,URQ&XUWDLQ and I consider this movement as one of the
many provoked by the anxiety of the bourgeoisie to free itself
from the economic chains of imperialism.
I have always considered Fidel as an authentic leader of the left
bourgeoisie, even if his personality is characterised by personal
qualities of extraordinary value, which place him far above his
class.
With this spirit I started the struggle: honestly ZLWKRXW
the hope of going beyond liberation of the country, ZLOOLQJWROHDYH
when the conditions of the next struggle turn all the action of
the Movement to the right (towards what you represent” (my
italics)].
It would be too long here to explain the subject of
the polemic that is however of the greatest interest for
understanding the dynamics of the Cuban revolution, and in
any case I have already done so in detail on other occasions.
But at least two aspects must be kept in mind: a) Guevara had
come to consider himself definitively part of the communist
(Soviet) camp and, as a Marxist, he considered himself an
isolated militant within a bourgeois democratic movement
like the M26-7 and, although he was engaged in an armed
struggle, he was willing to trust only up to a certain point
(here Hilda Gadea’s teaching was evident); b) as early as 1957
he believed he could not conclude his revolutionary action
within the Cuban movement and, with authentic prophetic
spirit, announced his intention to leave for “other lands of
the world»—as was to happen less than ten years later—if
his ideological training should become incompatible with the
ongoing revolutionary process. It was unequivocal proof of
the internationalist spirit that animated his recent adherence
to communism, although for the moment it coincided with the
Soviet orientation.
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в237
It was much, but it was also everything. Nothing more of

interest for our reflection on the evolution of his Marxism can
be obtained from the years on the Sierra Maestra and the first
formation of the new Cuban regime.
Second Half
ORTHODOXY STORY
Scene 6 [from Havana to Moscow, 1959-63]
As is well known, the revolutionary government assigned
commander Guevara with tasks of great importance, but
all within the economic sphere as president of the Banco
Nacional de Cuba, in a first phase, and then as Minister of
Industry (at the time unified in a single ministry) till the day
of his resignation became operational between the end of 1964
and the spring of 1965.
He was also entrusted with important missions abroad
which he carried out almost as a real foreign minister—at the
United Nations, the Organisation of American States (Oas),
the Comecon countries, the new African nations and various
national liberation movements—becoming a sort of “itinerant
ambassador” of the Cuban revolution. This very important
part of his government activity goes beyond our reflection.
Practically all biographies of Che speak about it, but for an
overview and a direct testimony, I recommend in particular
Caminos del Che by commander “Papito” Jorge Serguera (1932
2009) who, thanks to his total identification with the secret
directives of the Cuban government, found himself playing
a major role in very “delicate” operations: for example, as
ambassador to Algiers at the time of Ben Bella or in charge
of relations with Juan Domingo Perón (1895-1974) in Spanish
exile.
Che’s years as Minister of Industry are years in which he
takes up his studies of Marxism again, as well as of the various
other subjects necessary for the management of his Ministry: a
field in which he had to learn everything from scratch, but in
which he demonstrated really exceptional learning skills. It is
obvious that the particular nature of the position led him to

deepen his study of Marx and followers, especially in the field
of critique of political economy. But as we shall see in the next
scene, this did not produce economicistic-type derivations in
him. Far from it.
And even his assiduous and hyperactive frequentation
of factories and other production centres did not make him
a “workerist”. From this point of view his anti-dogmatic
and originally unorthodox Marxist training constituted an
effective vaccine against deformations that would have been
“natural” in a neophyte of communist statism, admirer for
a whole first phase of the Soviet model and the works of its
ideologues in the economic field; these began to circulate in
Cuba in Spanish long before the country officially became part
of the Comecon [Cmea] (1972). This part of Guevarian activity
and economic formation has been largely reconstructed by his
former deputy minister, Orlando Borrego (b. 1936) in the 2001
book Che, el Camino Del Fuego (in particular in the first five
chapters).
The best anthology of Che texts devoted to economic
issues was instead published on the occasion of the 20th
anniversary of his death, edited by historian Juan José Soto
Valdespino (Temas Económicos, 1988). Obviously, it could
not contain the Guevarian texts dedicated to the polemics
with Soviet economic conceptions, publication of which was
delayed by the Cuban government until 2006, when the Ussr
had no longer existed for about 15 years (I will talk about
this later). For a more up-to-date study of Che’s economic
ideas, one can resort to Introducción al Pensamiento Marxista
(Introduction to Marxist Thought) edited by Néstor Kohan for
the Cátedra Ernesto Che Guevara of the Madres de la Plaza de
Mayo.
Outside the commitment in the economic field, Che
continued to read as much as possible of Marx and official
Marxism, being totally identified for this phase in the
policy of rapprochement with the Soviets that Fidel Castro
undertook on the island starting from the first months after
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в239
revolutionary victory. On this road Guevara played a leading

role in proposing that the State Publishing Company should
publish theoretical texts produced beyond the “Iron Curtain”,
but above all in the difficult task of “rehabilitating” the local
Communist party (the Partido Socialista Popular [PSP). In
addition to the original hostility towards the M26-7 and the
absence as a ruling group (but not as grassroots militants) from
the revolutionary process, this party had also to be forgiven
for the support given in 1940-44 to the first government of
Fulgencio Batista (1901-1973)—in which it had taken part with
two ministers—and subsequent relationships of ambiguous
collaboration with the second government (after the Batista
coup of 1952), even coming to oppose attempts to overthrow
him such as, for example, the attack on Moncada Barracks.
Did Guevara know about these past collaborationist
episodes of the PSP? It is difficult to say to what extent and
up to which point, also because after the victory of 1959 all the
possible compromising documents about the PSP of Blas Roca
(1908-1987) disappeared from the Havana main library, as I was
able to verify in person in 1968. But after the seizure of power,
Che’s identification with the Soviet model was so strong as to
push him to underestimate these episodes of Cuban Stalinism.
He was to come to regret it bitterly later, when the hardest
attacks on his management of industry were to come precisely
from the former PSP while, after his disappearance, the
apparatus of international Soviet propaganda would launch a
campaign of slander about his alleged loss of reason, so much
so as to have become Trotskyist.
But in the early 1960s, none of this seemed to be on the
horizon for minister Guevara. In fact, these are the years
in which his Marxism is homologous with the dogmatic
and scholastic standards of the Soviet brand of “dialectical
materialism»—the notorious Diamat—pushing him to
formulations imbued with vulgar evolutionism and
mechanicism that only later he would reject.
The basic and most famous text for this “scientistic”
reduction of Marxism is “Notes for the Study of the Ideology of
the Cuban Revolution” (in Verde Olivo, October 1960) in which
the adherence to Marxism in the ambit of the social sciences

is equated with the definition that the scientist self-attributes
in the field of natural, physical or mathematical sciences. The
comparisons that Guevara provides are very significant when
he states that no one will ask a physicist if he is “Newtonian”
or a biologist if he is “Pasteurian” because they are these by
definition and by natural impulse. And even if new research
and new facts lead to changing the initial positions, there will
always remain a background of truth in the tools used to reach
presumed scientific certainties. And this is what happens to
those who consider themselves Marxist and actually are. The
“scientific-naturalistic” comparison with Marxism continues
citing Einstein with relativity and Planck with quantum theory
which, according to Guevara, have taken nothing away from
the greatness of Newton: they have surpassed him but only in
the sense that “the English scientist represents the necessary
passage” for this further development (Escritos y Discursos, IV,
p. 203).
Guevara does not escape from a conclusion definable
as deterministic and evolutionistic at the same time, when
he states that there are “truths so evident, so inherent in the
conscience of peoples, that it is useless to discuss them. One
must be ‘Marxist’ with the same naturalness with which one
is ‘Newtonian’ in physics or ‘Pasteurian’ in biology” (pp. 202
3). This is a not even a refined way of affirming a dogmatic
conception of social science, that is to say, in the case of
Marxism.
Continuing the analogy with the mathematics in which
we have had “a Greek Pythagoras, an Italian Galileo, an
English Newton, a German Gauss, a Russian Lobachevsky, an
Einstein, etc.”, Guevara states that also in the social sciences
the itinerary of a great process of accumulation of knowledge
could be traced from Democritus to Marx—but this, I
add, in total disregard for the discontinuity that Marxism
attributes to the historical dialectic marked by ruptures, leaps,
rearrangements and syntheses. But by now Marx has become
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в241
for Che not only the scholar who “interprets history and
understands its dynamics”, but also he who “foresees future
events”, who “prophesies” (further on he even speaks of the
“predictions of Marx the scientist”), who is “architect of his
own destiny” and, besides interpreting nature, now has the
tools to “transform it”. Hence the obvious reference to the
need for revolutionary action as a logical consequence of so
much scientific knowledge of nature, history and the world
made possible by Marxism, now considered definetely to be
a science.
This flatly materialistic vision was certainly derived from
very simplistic interpretations of works by Engels ($QWL
Dühring, Dialectics of Nature, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific)
and Lenin (0DWHULDOLVP DQG (PSLULR&ULWLFLVP) which are not
cited here, but which Ernesto had read in Guatemala and
Mexico. The equation of Marxism with the mathematical,
physical or biological sciences—which had been a common
currency for Marxology in the Stalinist period—now opens
into the grossest philosophical evolutionism when Guevara
draws a line of continuity between “Marx, Engels, Lenin,
Stalin and Mao Zedong”, even going so far as to include the
“new Soviet and Chinese rulers” in this pyramid scheme of
presumably Marxist thinking (Escritos y Discursos, p. 204]):
of all these, according to Che, one should have followed “the
body of doctrine” and even “the example” (but on Kruschev
he would change his mind shortly thereafter ...).
It would be ungenerous to continue with other quotations
from this naive listing of the presumed scientific-naturalistic
merits of Marxism—which strangely however is never called
here “dialectical materialism” according to what instead
Stalinist tradition would have prescribed—and if anything
we should take it up with how many (many, too many)
have indicated in this article one of the top peaks reached by
Guevara in his re-elaboration of Marxism. Unfortunately, C.
Wright Mills (1916-1962)—who included this unique Che text
in his famous anthology 7KH0DU[LVWV³is one of these.
(Guevara will reciprocate by including in his own Apuntes

(Notes) of 1966—which we will speak of—various passages
taken from The Marxists.)
Regarding to the “Marxism” of Marx there is not much
more, because the rest of the article launches itself into a very
imaginative analysis of the progress of the Cuban revolution
which I leave out here without remorse. In the past, however,
I devoted some attention to the hasty manner in which Che
had dismissed some statements in that text from of the two
founding fathers related to Mexico and Bolivar. Here I limit
myself to mentioning the piece by Guevara, but for my
comment I refer to the detailed analysis I made in Che Guevara.
Pensamiento y Política de la Utopía, pp. 54-9. With a word of
caution: as incredible as it may seem, the piece of criticism
of Marx that I am about to mention was suppressed, in an
evident attempt at censorship, by the editors of Escritos y
Discursos in 9 volumes of Editorial de Ciencias Sociales (which is
the collection that is normally used for the works of Che after
1957): see to believe Vol. IV, p. 203. Moreover, in the past the
Guevara Foundation has identified various other examples
of censure in this “official” collection and in other Cuban
editions of the Works of Che, then making the denunciation of
such a scandalous and ridiculous situation public (see CGQF
No. 6/2006, pp. 73-84).
But since the right hand of bureaucracy often ignores
what the left does, the piece can be found entirely reproduced
in the collection of :RUNV , curated not by chance
by the Casa de las Américas in 1970, when it was directed
by an intelligent and anti-conformist woman like Haydée
Santamaría. From there I report it in full, both because it is a
beautiful piece by Che (which does not seem to have softened
the soul of the censors), and as a humble tribute to Marx on
the occasion of his 200th birthday:
Marx as a thinker, as a scholar of the social sciences and of the
capitalist system in which he lived, can obviously be accused
of some inaccuracies. We Latin Americans, for example, cannot
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в243
agree with his judgment on Bolivar and with the analysis which,
together with Engels, Marx made of Mexicans, taking for granted
certain theories about race or nationality which are inadmissible
today. But great men, discoverers of luminous truths, survive
in spite of their small errors, which serve to make them more
human: they can make mistakes without this damaging our
clear awareness of the level reached by these giants of thought.
And for this reason we say that the essential truths of Marxism
are an integral part of the cultural and scientific community of
peoples and we accept them with the naturalness that comes
from something that needs no further discussion (pp. 93-4).
The criticisms that Guevara addressed to Marx-Engelsian texts
on Latin America could refer to some entries compiled by
Marx and Engels for the 1HZ$PHULFDQ&\FORSDHGLD (published
in New York in 16 volumes between 1858 and 1863, under the
direction of Charles Anderson Dana [1819-1897], also director
for some twenty years of the 1HZ <RUN 'DLO\ 7ULEXQH), but
above all to a letter from Marx to Engels dated December 2,
1854 (in Complete Works, XXXIX, p. 434).
After having reconstructed the complicated story, in my
comment I openly agreed with the two great friends and
disagreed with Guevara. But I added a much more serious
consideration about the fact that, in the essay dedicated
by Che to analysis of the ideology of the Cuban revolution,
there was no mention of the great libertadores (liberators), no
mention of any Latin American thinker or writer involved
in the anti-Spanish ideological struggle, not even José Martí
(1853-1895) himself. Greek philosophers, physicists and
mathematicians from various eras were mentioned, as well
as a lot of Marx, but no one indigenous to Cuba or Latin
America. A foolishness certainly produced by the anxiety of
the neophyte who wanted to show himself more Marxist than
Marx, flaunting an acquired familiarity with his work, but
that cannot fail to leave one taken aback. More than the vulgar
materialist conception of Marxism exhibited therein, it is the
absence of references to Latin American ideologies or political
conceptions which constitutes the most serious deficiency of
that unfortunate text, which was so popular at the time and

may still continue to delight.
This was not, however, an isolated case because in other
texts of the period there were similar reductive and distorted
visions of the Marxist method of analysis, accompanied by
a clear ignorance of the great tradition of debate that had
developed during the entire 20th century starting from the
original Marxian legacy.
See, for example, the most interesting interview ever with
Guevara. I refer of course to my friend Maurice Zeitlin (b. 1935)
who interviewed Che on September 14, 1961, and immediately
published the interview in Root and Branch (photostatic copy
in CGQF No. 9/2014, pp. 219-26), a magazine based at the
University of Berkeley in California, which was repeated on
various occasions (see for example Cuba, an American Tragedy).
For the occasion, despite having touched on political topics of
great theoretical actuality, Guevara repeated in synthesis the
previous materialistic vulgate, including the comparison with
biology which, as a doctor, he was evidently fond of:
We regard Marxism as a science in development, just as, say,
biology is a science. One biologist adds to what others have done,
while working in his own special field. Our specialty is Cuba
(p. 54).
To make the comparison with biology even clearer (and more
serious), in the subsequent answer Guevara extended it also to
Lenin: a “eulogy” that he would have to regret later (in 1964)
when he was to clearly distance himself from fundamental
aspects of the Leninist vulgate:
The value of Lenin is enormous—in the same sense in which
a major biologist’s work is valuable to other biologists. He is
probably the leader who has brought the most to the theory of
revolution. He was able to apply Marxism in a given moment to
the problems of the State, and to emerge with laws of universal
validity.
This is the interview in which Guevara, pressed by Zeitlin
(who in fact offered an exemplary model of behaviour for
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в245
a true “interviewer” who does not want to remain passive

and supine in the face of the answers of the person being
interviewed), had to recognise that he was not familiar with
great figures of socialism like Eugene Debs (1855-1926) or Rosa
Luxemburg (1871-1919). As for the latter, he formulated only
a kind of ungenerous epitaph, saying that “she was a great
revolutionary and she died a revolutionary, as a consequence
of her political mistakes” (p. 54). Six years later, the same
words could have been applied to the Bolivian Guevara, just
as ungenerously.
The use of the formula “dialectical materialism” appears
widely in a speech given by Guevara during a prize-giving
at the Ministry of Industry on January 31, 1962 (Escritos y
Discursos, VI, pp. 79-90). After enthusiastically praising a book
by Blas Roca, Che presents a sort of synthesis of the degree
of understanding of Marxism he had achieved in that phase,
totally unbalanced on the side of the last Engels, as was now
unanimously accepted in Soviet Marxology.
The passage that follows (p. 81) brings together a) the
naively materialistic (and in any case unfounded) theory of the
existence of WZR sciences, the bourgeois and the proletarian; b)
the attribution to Engels even the paternity of theory for the
origin of life on earth; c) the applicability of the dialectical
materialistic method to all aspects of reality (with Stalin we
had reached linguistics and genetics); and d) and the de facto
identification of such a method with non-capitalist science,
thus with “proletarian” science, even if not further specified.
In short, Guevara shows an integral adherence to the
theory of Diamat and its claims of cultural hegemony over
every aspect of individual and social life.
The concept of life that dialectical materialism offers us is
different from the concept of life that capitalism offers us: the
concept of the sciences of dialectical materialism is also different.
Many years ago, Engels had defined life as a way of being of
albuminoid material; it was a new concept, something that at
the time revolutionised ideas [...]. For this reason we must look
for such bases, learn to think correctly through the method
of dialectical materialism in every field, not only in political

discussions or on specific occasions, but for applying it as a
method in every scientific or practical task that we have to fulfil.
All interpretations of the technique, and above all interpretation
of the economy, change enormously if examined in the light
of dialectical materialism or under the false lights of capitalist
conceptions.
Moreover, if the Che Minister of Industry displayed uncritical
adherence to the conceptions of Soviet Marxism in the first
years of the revolution this was due to the fact that those
conceptions were naively imported and accepted in all their
crude and brutal mechanicism by the entire Cuban leadership.
By some passively, by others actively: among these and first
of all Guevara and Raúl Castro (b. 1931), considered from
the beginning the only other “communist” present in the
leadership of M26-7. They were then to be joined by Osmany
Cienfuegos (b. 1931), immediately after the death of his
brother Camilo, coming from the PSP and future leader of the
OrganisationRI6ROLGDULW\ZLWKWKH3HRSOHRI$VLD$IULFDDQG/DWLQ
America (Ospaaal).
These are also the years when ideological work (propa
ganda, cadre schools and publication of the main magazines)
ended up in the hands of the leaders shaped in the old PSP
who in the meantime had been called to be part of the new
Cuban leadership. They were entrusted practically—and for
a few crucial years—with the management of the properly
“cultural” activity of the party in view of a true fact: namely
that they were the only ones to have some sort of theoretical
preparation.
But even this is a page that Che was to rewrite radically
in his ideal testament of March 1965 (Socialism and Man in
Cuba, see the edition edited by Argentine José “Pancho”
Aricó [1931-1991]), denouncing the “socialist realism” and
official culture that, under the pretext of being “within
reach of all”, was in reality “within the reach of officials”
that is, of the bureaucracy. In that text he was also to make
a harsh criticism of “the scholasticism that has held back the
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в247
development of Marxist philosophy” and the fact that “a

formally exact representation of nature” has been converted
into “a mechanical representation of the social reality that was
wanted to be shown”.
On May 30, 1963, Guevara had written a laudatory preface,
which verged on ingenuity and apologetic intent, for a book
published in Cuba by the United Party of the Cuban Socialist
Revolution (PURSC). This was the name of the intermediate
party that existed practically only on paper—from March 1962
to October 1965—in the phase in which Fidel Castro imposed
the unification of a single organisation of the three main
political currents that had survived in Cuba: the pro-Soviet
communists of the PSP, Directorio Revolucionario 13 de Marzo
and M26-7. Those who did not share that choice (the most
famous case was Carlos Franqui [1921-2010], author of Libro de
lo Doce) was excluded or emigrated abroad.
The title was high-sounding ((O3DUWLGR0DU[LVWD/HQLQLVWD),
but in reality it was a question of some of Fidel Castro’s
speeches added to one of the most “celebrated” liturgical
texts in the Soviet world, namely 0DQXDORI0DU[LVP/HQLQLVP
by Otto Wilhelm Kuusinen (1881-1964). He had been the
historic leader of Finnish Stalinism who remained unscathed
through decades of purges and political wrangling, “famous”
for having been placed at the head of the puppet government
created by the Soviets when they had vainly attempted to
occupy Finland (1939-40) according to the clauses of the Secret
Protocol that had accompanied the Pact signed by Stalin
(Molotov) with Hitler (von Ribbentrop).
The preface by Guevara to that pamphlet can be considered
as the lowest point he reached in the exaltation of “naturalistic
materialism”, that is, of Soviet-type Marxism-Leninism. A
date that marks the limit in the theoretical degradation of
his Marxism and after which there began to re-emerge with
difficulty the anti-conformist, lucid and anti-dogmatic Marxist,
who had admired the Mariateguian Hugo Pesce years earlier
and had listened, but not sufficiently, to the theoretical counsels
of young leftist member of Apra Hilda Gadea.
Guevara’s commitment to bringing Cuba closer to the

USSR and identifying the ideological aims of the Cuban
revolution with the Marxist vulgate spread by the Soviet
propaganda apparatus was enthusiastically reconstructed (and
in large part invented) in a book of “Guevarological-Marxist
Paleontology”, published in Russian in 1972 and in Spanish
(Editorial Progreso of Moscow) in 1975. The title was simple—
cUQƸVWR&Ƹ*ƸYDUD(UQHVWRÿH*HYDUD[Ernesto Che Guevara])—
but the background of the author, Iosif P. Lavretskij, was less
simple, being the pseudonym of a Soviet secret police agent,
also hidden behind another name as we have shown in CGQF
No. 4/2001 (see note)*. The pages in which the Kgb emissary
most celebrates the pro-Sovietic commitment of Che are 183
205 of the Russian edition and 178-98 of the Spanish edition.
[* For some time it was believed that Iosif P. Lavretskij
was a Soviet scholar, although there remained the suspicion
that he could be identified with a Lithuanian-Russian author
RI ZRUNV RQ *XHYDUD ,RVLI 5RPXDO·GRYLĀ *ULJXOHYLĀ
$WRQHSRLQWLWZDVFOHDUWKDW*ULJXOHYLĀDQG/DYUHWVNLM
were two different names and surnames of one author: the
first was a physical person, an agent of the NKUD and then
of the KGB (with the name of “Teodoro Castro Bonnefil”),
involved in various important murders (Nin, Trotsky, etc.)
and at some point commissioned to kill also the president of
Yugoslavia Tito; the second was one of his pseudonyms. The
library catalogues of Harvard University in the United States
report that the two names identify the same author. On p. 427
of his book La Vida en Rojo, una Biografía del Che Guevara (1997),
Jorge Castañeda Gutman (b. 1953) wrote that “Lavretskij”
was the pseudonym behind which Soviet historian and KGB
DJHQW -RVHI *ULJXOHYLĀ KLG ,Q -XQH LQ D VSHHFK DW WKH
conference of the Guevara Foundation in Acquapendente,
Zbigniew M. Kowalewski (b. 1943), the leading Polish scholar
of Che, confirmed that “Lavretskij” was the pseudonym of
*ULJXOHYLĀ D IRUPHU 6RYLHW VHFUHW SROLFH RIILFHU$W WKH VDPH
PHHWLQJ&]HFKVFKRODU9ODGLPtU.ORIiĀUHSRUWHGWKDW0LORVODY
Ransdorf (1953-2016), Vice President of the Communist Party
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в249
of Bohemia and Moravia, had indicated the name Lavretskij/

*ULJXOHYLĀ WKXV DVVRFLDWLQJ WKH WZR QDPHV LQ WKH QRWH RQ
p. 50 of the book 0Xç 6YėGRPt (Man of Conscience). Ernesto
Che Guevara, Nakladatelství Futura, Prague 2000. All these
hypotheses were definitively confirmed by the publication of
WKH $UFKLYH RI 9DVLOLM 1LNLWLĀ 0LWURFKLQ LQ
2000 and, posthumously, in 2005. I add a little curiosity: in the
“Reading Plan in Bolivia”, Che included Pancho Villa by the
same I. Lavretskij in the books listed in November 1966.]
HERESY STORY
Scene 7 [from Moscow to Havana, 1963-65]
The starting scene for describing this intellectual revival
of Guevara’s Marxism is set in Moscow and he described it
himself in one of the stenographic recordings of the bi-monthly
conversations he held at the Ministry of Industry from 1962
to 1964. Here we are especially interested in some of the
recordings of Che’s last year in Cuba as a minister. They are
informal but precious materials; even more precious because
they have not been re-elaborated or reviewed thus, reflecting
Che’s immediate—and by no means diplomatic—thoughts.
These recordings were published in 1967 (but Guevara had
already been able to see the drafts in 1966) in Vol. VI of the
first extremely limited edition (around two hundred copies) of
his works, edited by Orlando Borrego (El Che en la Revolución
Cubana). In Cuba they were never republished, nor ever
included in collections of his works and therefore for a long
time they could be read above all in editions and translations
made abroad: the first were in French, edited by Michael Löwy
(b. 1938) and published by Maspero (1932-2015), and in Italian
by il Manifesto in 1969 and then in my collection of Scritti Scelti
[Selected Writings] of Che in 1993. Until they were finally
included in the volume of Apuntes, published in Cuba in 2006.
The scene takes place on December 5, 1964 in the Cuban
embassy in Moscow where Che is listened to by some
fifty Soviet students, but also challenged by some of them
regarding his theory of the priority of moral incentives, based
on the growth of conscience of workers more than the use of

material incentives.
At this point, when (the problems) began to be posed, the
confrontation became violent. The Bible—namely the Manual—
because unfortunately the Bible here was not the Capital but the
Manual. Some points began to be challenged, while things that
were dangerously capitalist were also said: it was then that the
question of revisionism emerged (Apuntes, p. 369).
It is important to point out that the “Manual” ironically
referred to here is the Manual of Political Economy of the
Academy of Sciences of the USSR, to which Guevara was
to dedicate a whole volume of devastating criticism at the
beginning of 1966 and which we will return to.
For now it is important to establish that the atmosphere
changed in Moscow with regard to Commander Guevara
(considered “glorious” above all for his military exploits and
not for his Marxism) and that the criticisms he addressed in
the meantime to Soviet economic conceptions left their mark.
He is no longer the ultra-Soviet apologist, slavish supporter of
the almost metaphysical superiority of dialectical materialism,
but an intellectual in a “revisionist” crisis, as he is accused of in
Moscow, who has now understood that for the emancipation
of the human being “the exact method to do so has not been
found in any country and in some cases people have fallen
into the extremes that today we call ‘Stalinists’” (September
12, 1964, p. 548)].
And since in Moscow no doubt on fundamental questions
of this nature is allowed, one can imagine what reaction
could have been caused by the negative judgements on Soviet
economic management that Che had formulated during the
great economic debate. The verdict could not be anything other
than the classic Damnatio Iudicii, Propaedeutic to Damnatio
Memoriae: it was clearly “Trotskyism”.
But because I am identified with the budgetary financing system,
I get confused with that of Trotskyism. They say that the Chinese
are also fractionists and Trotskyists, and they put the San Benito
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в251
[a penitential garment of the Inquisition (ed.)] even on me (p.

370).
And so it was there, precisely in the Soviet Union, that greater
clarity could be achieved. Does this mean that it is about
revisionism up to Trotskyism, passing through the middle? [...]
Rather, Trotskyism emerges from two sides: one (the one that
least attracts me) comes from the side of the Trotskyists who say
that there is a series of things that Trotsky had already said. I
believe only one thing, and it is that one must have the capacity
to destroy all the contrary ideas on a given subject or let the
ideas express themselves. The opinion according to which they
should be destroyed with blows is not an opinion that brings
benefits (p. 369).
To understand the true Marxist maturation of Che it is
essential to read carefully and go into the ideas that are
scattered among the stenographic recordings, mixed with a
thousand other problems (the operation of factories, problems
of workers, polemics of opponents, negative but not yet
drastic judgements on the economic ideas of the Soviets). It is
not easy to reconstruct the thread running through Guevarian
reflection and it is not even possible to summarise it here. I will
limit myself to pointing out two references to Marx’s works
which have a great qualitative importance for our reflection.
The first concerns the “young Marx”. It was the mid-1960s
and in France the stir produced by the great controversy over
Marxian humanism (which can be reconstructed starting from
the :ULWLQJVRIWKH<RXQJ0DU[RQ3KLORVRSK\ and the Manuscripts
of 1844) had not yet died down, both because of the rigidly
anti-humanist positions of Althusser (1918-1990) and of the
stance taken by Soviet ideologues. Guevara appears clearly
fascinated by the controversy and comes out on the side of the
humanism of the young Marx. He had already done so in the
course of the economic debate, citing it explicitly: he returns
to it in the virtually contemporary conversation of December
21, 1963.
He reconstructs the terms of the controversy, admits
that the “Hegelian” language of the young Marx is not that
of the “mature” Marx (author of Capital), but affirms that the

basic Marxian thesis—according to which the development
of society corresponds to the development of its economic
contradictions in relation to the class struggle—was already
contained in the Marx of 1844.
The reconstruction made by Guevara of this starting point
acquires a particular value because it leads it back to the Marx
of maximum acquired maturity, expressed in the text in which
the philosopher of Trier had given his own conception of
socialist society and of the transition to it: the Critique of the
Gotha Programme. And this is the second important reference
to Marx that flows through various conversations (e.g. pp.
270, 309, 311-12).
The attention given by Che to the Marx of 1844 and to the
Marx of Critique of the Gotha Programme leads him to develop
his own personal hobby-horse, namely the importance
of the subjective element for Marxism not only during the
revolutionary struggle, but also during the transition to
socialism, of the construction of the new society and of the
QHZPDQ. According to Guevara, there cannot be communism
that does not make Marxian “concerns” with respect to the
humanistic nature of revolution its own. Indeed, there can be
no revolution if the right role and the right importance are
not attributed to the subjective commitment—in the ethical
sense—of the worker considered as a class.
This characteristic position of Guevarian Marxism allowed
Michael Löwy to speak first of the revolutionary humanism
of Che (La Pensée de Che Guevara, l970). It was then to be my
turn to take up the concept and develop it extensively in my
frequently cited 1987 monograph: Che’s entire philosophy
or vision of the world can be summed up in this phrase—
revolutionary humanism.
Over time I have become increasingly convinced that
any attempt to place Che’s theoretical heritage outside of
his personal and original revolutionary humanism makes it
practically impossible to explain his behaviour: not only of
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в253
his relationship which was experienced existentially and with

extreme coherence between theory and praxis, but not even
his ethics of socialism and personal commitment. From this
point of view, a commitment that was very Sartre-like, and it
is no coincidence that Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) was able to
recognise great personal and intellectual qualities in him as
early as 1960 (Visit to Cuba).
In conversations and in other texts, Guevara also takes
on the Marxian problem of alienation which, as we know,
was a fundamental element of Marx’s criticism of Hegel and,
in my personal opinion, the main element of philosophical
differentiation from Hegelian statism for an entire initial
phase, and of political differentiation for the rest of Marx’s life.
While it is not part of my reflection, it is interesting to
recall that Guevara contrasts the idea of transition to Marx’s
socialism (starting from the relationship between given
subjective consciousness and the process of self-emancipation
from the mechanisms of capitalist alienation) with the
uncertainties and real turning points that he rightly attributes
to Lenin without, however, giving the question the importance
it deserves.
During the conversations, Guevara talks about his change
of judgement with respect to Lenin. The vulgate of “Marxism-
Leninism” no longer belongs to his baggage of ideas, even if
the process that led him to this view is in a sense historically
reversed: Guevara does not like the Nep, because he does not
like the idea that elements of the market, methods of capitalist
functioning, are reintroduced in an economy of transition to
socialism. He does not accept it for the USSR and Cuba of
his days, and retrospectively does not accept it for the Russia
of the 1920s. Hence a drastic review of the judgement about
Lenin, which is now presented in conflict with the essence of
Critique of the Gotha Programme (pp. 310-12, 316, 324-6), or even
with his State and Revolution, previously admired and cited by
Guevara.
Many of the ideas expressed in the conversations at the
Ministry of Industry are reflected in the articles written almost
simultaneously for the great economic debate. The discussion

took place roughly between the beginning of 1963 and the
end of 1964. The interventions appeared freely in several
Cuban journals and not only the main leaders of each sector
of the economy took part in the discussion—from industry
to banks, with the sole exception of Fidel Castro who did not
take part—but also some famous European economists such
as Charles Bettelheim (1913-2006) and Ernest Mandel (1923
1995) without forgetting the importance attributed to that
discussion by the 0RQWKO\5HYLHZ of Paul Sweezy (1910-2004)
and Leo Huberman (1903-1968). The best presentation of that
historical discussion has been given in O Debate Econômico em
Cuba by Luiz Bernardo Pericás (b. 1969).
An additional note should be added regarding the sources
used by Che to become familiar with the personal story of
Marx and Engels. He certainly read part of the correspondence
between the two which had been available for some time
in Spanish, but his favourite source was The Life of Marx by
Franz Mehring (1846-1919). He cites it expressly on more than
one occasion. For example, in the conversation of October
2, 1964 (p. 325) when he affirms the need to publish the
famous biography (which he describes as “moving”) in Cuba
and emphasises in particular the importance that Mehring
attributed to Marx’s polemic with Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-
1864). Unfortunately Che does not develop the theme and
it is a real pity because we could have better understood his
attitude towards the statist conception of socialism, on which I
have always had doubts that Guevara was a convinced adept.
On the other hand, I have no evidence that Guevara could
have read the monumental biography dedicated to Karl Marx
and Friedrich Engels by Auguste Cornu (1888-1981), the first
half of the Spanish translation of which was published by
the Instituto del Libro in Havana in an enormous volume of
over 700 pages only in 1967, although—I have been told—on
explicit request made by Che before leaving.
But Guevara did something more than simply recommend
Mehring’s biography. He made it a real compendium, which
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в255
can be read as “Síntesis Biográfica de Marx y Engels”,

either in its natural location—within the Notes as a chapter
endowed with a propaedeutic theoretical function with
respect to the subsequent polemic with the Soviets—or as a
banally commercial operation (by Ocean Press), that is as a
separate booklet, devoid of notes and information explaining
the reasons for such an extrapolation: it is a further damage
which is added to the many others done to the possibility of
a scientific edition of Che’s Works. In this case, the Guevarian
project of actualising the heritage of Marx and Engels aimed at
the focus of the controversy with the Soviets has been also hit.
MARXIST STORY
Scene 8 [Prague, 1966]
At this point we must devote attention to this polemic, trying
first of all to imagine the scene: after the lengthy confinement
in the Cuban ambassador’s house in Dar es Salaam, there
is a drastic change of continent—from Africa to the heart of
old Europe; a large villa on the outskirts of Prague; the semi-
clandestine coexistence (Cuban-Czechoslovak “Operation
Manuel”) with some of the closest companions (“Pombo”
[b. 1940] and “Tuma” [1940-1967]); chess games; study and
writing.
Che remained there from March till July 1966, when he
returned to Cuba to prepare for Bolivia, which in the meantime
was definitively decided as a political goal, having abandoned
during summer the previously chosen objective—namely,
Peru. (All of this has been reconstructed and documented in
detail by Humberto Vázquez Viaña, Una Guerrilla Para el Che).
And there Guevara writes the work that is used to define
“The Prague Notebooks” (but published as Apuntes Críticos
a la Economía Política [Critical Notes on Political Economy],
although Che’s target was really the Manual of Political
Economy of the USSR Academy of Sciences). An enormous
work of recompilation of texts (starting from the biographical
compendium of Marx-Engels mentioned above), with long
pieces hand-copied from works especially by Marx-Engels and

Lenin, but also by Mao Zedong. It seems right, however, to
add to this work of anthology recompilation also the passages
that Guevara copies in a separate booklet, in the same months
or in a period somewhat later which, unfortunately, we have
not been able to identify better. This booklet, together with the
“Green Book” with poetic passages, was to reappear among
his personal items sold in Bolivia after his death: in this case
bought by the Feltrinelli Publishing House, but without
further specification.
The booklet was published in a very bad edition by the
same Italian publishing house with errors and a ridiculous
title (Before Dying. Notes and Reading Notes). It should however
be taken seriously because it contains excerpts from The
Marxists by C. Wright Mills, from the Works of Marx-Engels,
of Lenin and Stalin, from Lukács, from the already mentioned
M.A. Dinnik and from various works by Trotsky. From a
quantitative point of view, Trotsky’s passages prevail heavily
over all the other authors mentioned and the passage taken
from his History of the Russian Revolution is accompanied by
the following comment:
It is a fascinating book, but it is impossible to make a criticism
because it is important to consider that the historian is also
protagonist of events. However, it sheds light on a whole series
of events of the great revolution that had been overshadowed
by myth. At the same time, it makes isolated affirmations the
validity of which is still absolute today. Ultimately, if we neglect
the personality of the author and stick to the book, this should
be considered a source of primary importance for study of the
Russian revolution (p. 94).
The Cuban government succeeded in preventing publication
of The Prague Notebooks until 2006 (the Apuntes [the Notes]),
but then had to yield not only to pressure exerted by the
International Guevara Foundation, but also because some
salient parts critical of the USSR had already appeared in
2001 in the book by Orlando Borrego, Che, el Camino del Fuego.
And among the passages reported and commented by the
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в257
former Sugar Minister was the prologue by Che (“Necesidad

de este book” [Necessity of the Book]) in which, in addition
to the many Guevarian statements inspired by Marxism that
dismissed the Soviet claim to march towards socialism, the
following lapidary statement referring to the USSR stood out:
La superestructura capitalista fue influenciando cada vez en
forma más marcada las relaciones de producción y los conflictos
provocados por la hibridación que significó la Nep se están
resolviendo hoy a favor de la superestructura: se está regresando
al capitalismo (Apuntes, p. 27; Borrego, p. 382) [emphasis by
Che (ed.)].
>7KHFDSLWDOLΖVXSHUΖUXFWXUHKDVFRPHWRLQÁXHQFHSURGXFWLRQ
UHODWLRQVLQDQHYHUPRUHPDUNHGIRUPDQGWKHFRQÁLFWVFDXVHG
by hybridisation that Nep meant are being resolved today in
IDYRXURIWKHVXSHUΖUXFWXUHthere is a return to capitalism.]
A similar prophecy formulated in the same months in which
Fidel Castro decided to definitively enter the Soviet bloc
may perhaps leave one indifferent nowadays, since everyone
can see how it has actually come true. At the time, however,
it implied a great intellectual courage by a sort of deputy
head of state, legendary commander for the Soviet military
world, who had matured the second phase of his youthful
adherence to Marxism in prone admiration of the USSR as
the homeland of socialism. Any analysis of Che’s thought
that does not take into account this profound transformation
and instead presents a unilateral and stable vision over time
of his economic conceptions does not deserve the slightest
consideration. But unfortunately, for many years the books
dedicated to Guevara that offer such a monochromatic
and therefore deeply erroneous vision of his thought have
represented almost the rule in the publishing output of Cuba
or by authors related to it. I could mention Cuban, Chilean,
Italian, American [Unitedstatians] etc. examples, but it would
be an ungenerous way of being pitiless with the intellectual
poverty of an entire generation which in the past I called
“Latin-American nomenklatura [nomenclature]” and which is
now finally beginning to die out.
The Notes are a very demanding work from a theoretical

point of view and should be examined piece by piece, given
that each paragraph refers critically to another paragraph of
the notorious Soviet Manual . The language is very technical
and demonstrates a new familiarity with the basic texts of
Marxism: mostly Capital. The references to Lenin also abound,
cited in part positively and in part to challenge certain
decisons taken after the end of war communism (a topic
Guevara does not speak about, even if one might presume
that, generally speaking, he tended to favour it). It is evident,
however, that Che totally ignored the “heretical” literature
dedicated to Soviet Russia since when Lenin himself was
alive. Of this great theoretical laboratory, marked by famous
names of Marxism and beyond, Guevara had no hint and this
was his great theoretical limit.
However, it must also be said that Che lived only 39 years,
many of them travelling or fighting arms in hand for his
ideals.
With regard to Notes, what interests us most is that there
is wide recourse to Critique of the Gotha Programme, both as
direct references, and above all as adherence to its substance.
This work of the last Marx is commonly considered as the
maximum concentration of his utopian vision (as I have
also interpreted it in my introduction to a bilingual Italian
edition of 2008) and there is no doubt that even for Che this
is its most characteristic meaning. Let us not forget that a year
earlier (March 1965), returning from the trip to Africa, he had
delivered to the Marcha magazine in Montevideo his utopian
text par excellence—Socialism and Man in Cuba—in which the
inspiration from that famous text by Marx was clearly felt.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the manuscript of a
study programme is also included in The Prague Notebooks
(“Plan Tentativo” [Draft Plan]). We have already recalled two
other study plans drafted in the same two-year period, and
this is the second in order of time. It is also the most organic
and detailed, given that it has the form of a general index for a
book to be written, a sort of scheme for a great monograph on
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в259
the social history of humanity: from pre-capitalist production

modes to imperialism, passing through slave societies and
feudalism; from the Marxian categories of interpretation
of capitalist development (including a broad summary of
Capital) to a definition of the economy of the transitional phase
(the whole of the third part); to finally arrive at the problem
of building socialism (fourth and last part). Death was to
prevent him from carrying out this ambitious project, about
which he certainly continued to think during the guerrilla war
in Bolivia, as demonstrated by the readings plan mentioned
at the beginning and which is now confirmed as a series of
bibliographic notes drawn up month by month as part of a
ZLVKOLVWRIUHDGLQJV to be completed.
Published too late to have any influence on the theoretical
training of the new generations of Cuban intellectuals, Notes
will remain forever in the history of Marxism as proof of the
highest level of understanding of Marxian theoretical heritage
achieved by Guevara. But they will also be considered as the
most complete testimony of his lucid capacity of analytical
prediction in relation to a political world—his political world—
which shone for dullness of mind if not real blindness with
regard to the imminent fate of the Soviet bureaucratic regime.
FADE-OUT...
Scene 9 [Vallegrande, October 9, 2017]
The scene is composite, polychrome and multiple-sound.
On the large clearing for what in the past was to become the
Vallegrande airport in Bolivia, some thousands of people
convened by the government of President Evo Morales are
gathered to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Che’s fall in
combat. There are many multi-coloured flags, but mostly red
with the silhouette of Korda’s famous photo, Andean and
Caribbean music, and the banners of political, trade union
and cultural associations of various Latin American origins. In
the days that preceded, scholars of Guevarism from various
parts of the world had spoken: the author came from Italy but,
incredibly, was the only one from Europe.
“Che lives” is the slogan most repeated, but the church-

shaped building erected on the site where the bones of Guevara
were found is there to testify to the contrary. And that tomb
is mentally associated with the Cuban Mausoleum of Santa
Clara, inside which the atmosphere is even more strongly
mystical and religious according to a Cuban hagiographic
tradition, already started in October 1967. For those wishing
to deepen or extend the discourse on this evolution of the
figure of Guevara—anti-materialistic (hence anti-Marxian),
mystical and popular-irrational—a fascinating research has
been conducted for years by a professor emeritus of art history
at the University of California (Los Angeles): David Kunzle (b.
1936), Chesucristo. The Fusion in Image and Word of Che Guevara
and Jesus Christ .
Che is dead, of that there is no doubt. But through the
reflection conducted so far what is dead is above all his
UHODWLRQVKLSZLWK0DU[. And this did not happen fifty years after
La Higuera, but while the famous Commander was still alive.
In fact, after the wealth of theoretical references contained in
The Prague Notebooks, no further reflections by Che on issues
related to Marxism can be found. We have the titles of the
works that he would have liked to read or read again at the
end of the Bolivian Diary, but the names of Marx, Lenin or
other famous Marxists are totally absent from that famous
diary. Trotsky is the exception but only because that day (July
31, 1967) Guevara complains of the loss of one of his books.
The reader can easily verify all this because since 1996 there
has also been a name index for the Bolivian Diary: I put it
together for the version I edited of the Illustrated Bolivian Diary
and it is the only one existing in the world. And I have always
wondered whether this incredible shortcoming—namely that
there exists no edition of the Diary (not even in Cuba) with a
proper index of names—is not a symptom of the theoretical
disinterest in the last ideological evolution of Che.
If in the first years after the defeat in Bolivia the lack of
interest could have had political reasons—since Guevara was
totally indigestible for the capitalist countries, but even more
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в261
so for the countries of the alleged “real socialism” (including

China and indeed in pride of place given that there news was
ever even given of his death)—as time passed there were other
reasons that could explain why the Guevara/Marx union lost
much of its potential theoretical attraction.
First, there was the fact that Che’s polemic against the
USSR had lost much of its interest and its subversive potential
after the collapse of the Soviet Empire in 1991 (and yet in
Cuba it had long been forbidden to talk about it ever since the
end of the 1960s). It should also be added that the Guevarian
reflection on the theme of alienation (whether Marxian,
Sartrian or humanist) was soon overwhelmed by the birth
of the myth of his person and the hijacking of it by the mass
society of the spectacle.
This reabsorption of the figure of Che which could not
avoid sweeping away his relationship with Marxism has been
magnificently described in one of the most beautiful books
written on contemporary “Guevarism”, that is, on how the
world of culture and entertainment lives on and exploits his
figure so many years after his death: see Michael Casey (b.
1967), Che’s Afterlife. The Legacy of an Image.
If the communist and internationalist connotation of
his political action, the fascination of his rebellion against
any conformism, the ethical value of his renunciation of the
management of state power (a unique case in the history of the
twentieth century), and his original theorisation of the theory
priaxis relationship that I have defined as “revolutionary
humanism” all have been lost, could his relationship with
Marx have possibly survived?
Of course not.
All that remains is to close our remake of the old film with
a famous aphorism by Woody Allen:
Marx is dead, Guevara is dead ... and I’m not feeling too well
myself.
THE END
(translated by Phil Harris, June 2018)
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Guevara, Ernesto Che, Temas Económicos, edited by Juan José Soto
Valdespino, Ciencias Sociales, Havana 1988.
Guevara, Ernesto Che and others, El Gran Debate Sobre la Economía en
&XEDCiencias Sociales, Havana 2004.
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в263
Hart Dávalos, Armando, Marx, Engels y la Condición Humana. Una

Visión Desde Cuba, Ciencias Sociales, Havana 2005.
Kohan, Néstor, Otro Mundo es Posible, Nuestra América, Buenos Aires
2003
Kunzle, David, Chesucristo. The Fusion in Image and Word of Che Guevara
and Jesus Christ, with a Postface by Roberto Massari, De Gruyter,
Berlin/Boston 2016 [Massari ed., Bolsena 2016].
cUQƸVWR &Ƹ *ƸYDUD Molodaja Gvardija, Moskva
1972 [Lavretski, Iosif, Ernesto Che Guevara, Editorial Progreso,
Moscow 1975].
Löwy, Michael, La Pensée de Che Guevara, Maspero, Paris.
Massari, Roberto, Che Guevara. Pensamiento y Política de la Utopía,
Txalaparta, Tafalla (Navarroa)/Buenos Aires 1992-20048 [Che
Guevara. Pensiero e Politica dell’Utopia, Erre emme (Massari ed.),
Roma (1987) 19945].
Pericás, Luis Bernardo, Che Guevara e o Debate Econômico em Cuba,
Xamã editora, São Paulo 2004 [Che Guevara and the Economic
Debate in Cuba, Atropos Press, New York/Dresden 2009; Che
Guevara y el Debate Económico en Cuba, Corregidor, Buenos Aires
2011].
Rojo, Ricardo, Mi Amigo el Che, (J. Álvarez, Buenos Aires 1968),
Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires 1998 [Mondadori, Milan
1968].
Sartre, Jean-Paul, Sartre Visita a Cuba, Ediciones Revolución, Havana
1961 [Visita a Cuba, Massari ed., Bolsena 2005].
Serguera Riverí, Jorge (“Papito”), Caminos del Che. Datos Inéditos de su
Vida, Plaza y Valdés, Mexico 1997.
Soria Galvarro Terán, Carlos, Andares del Che en Bolivia, Cienflores,
Ituzaingó (Buenos Aires) 2014.
Soria Galvarro T., Carlos (ed.), Campaña del Che en Bolivia, Huellas,
La Paz 1997.
Vázquez Viaña, Humberto, Una Guerrilla Para el Che. Antecedentes,
2a enlarged edition, El País, Santa Cruz de la Sierra 2008 [La
Guerriglia del Che in Bolivia. Antecedenti, Massari ed., Bolsena
2003].
Zeitlin, Maurice-Sheer, Robert, Cuba. Tragedy in Our Hemisphere, Grove
Press, New York 1963 [Cuba, An American Tragedy (enlarged
edition) Harmondsworth, Penguin Books, 1964, pp. 186-95].
Many of the various scholars mentioned in the text are

members of the International Guevara Foundation. To allow
the reader to identify them, the composition of the Editorial

Board of Quaderni/Cuadernos Che Guevara, theoretical body of
the Foundation, is as follows:
Roberto Massari [Dir.], Aldo Garzia [Man. Dir.], Enrica
Matricoti, Roberto Savio, Aldo Zanchetta (Italy), Néstor Kohan
(Argentina), Michael Casey (Australia), Carlos Soria Galvarro
Terán (Bolivia), Luiz Bernardo Pericás (Brazil), Adys Cupull,
Froilán González (Cuba), Michael Löwy (France), Richard
Harris (+DZDLL), Ricardo Gadea Acosta (Peru), Zbigniew
Marcin Kowalewski (Poland), David Kunzle, James Petras,
Margaret Randall, Maurice Zeitlin (USA), Douglas Bravo
(Venezuela), Antonella Marazzi (Editorial Assistant)
In memoriam: Humberto Vázquez Viaña (Bolivia), Celia
Hart Santamaría, Fernando Martínez Heredia (Cuba), Sergio
De Santis, Giulio Girardi (Italy).
SYNOPSIS
The old film refers to the many written and spoken platitudes
about Guevara’s relationship with Marx in the years when
there was the attempt to downscale this relationship within
the canons of the orthodoxy of Soviet-inspired Marxism. In
reality, the history of this relationship was very complicated
and subject to continuous and major changes. The essay by
Massari reconstructs these changes in the form of film scenes
in which the reader jumps from one place to another of the
Planet (La Paz, Dar es Salaam, Lima, Rome, Moscow, Havana,
Prague and finally Bolivia) to follow directly the reflection on
Marx by a man of action who was also a scholar with great
reading and writing skills.
From the examination of almost unknown and ignored
documentary material—such as the notes on books to read in
the Bolivian Diary written during the guerrilla war in Bolivia in
1966-67, preceded by the letter to Armando Hart of December
1965—a totally new view of Guevara’s relationship with
Marxism, and with the social sciences in general, is obtained.
Massari describes the early development of Che’s
*XHYDUDDQG0DU[в265
Marxism (anti-orthodox and culturally vivacious) before

analysing the more intensely pro-Soviet period and thus the
adherence to the principles of Diamat (dialectical materialism).
He then describes the transition phase embodied in the “great
economic debate” in Cuba and concludes with Guevara’s
harsh criticism of the Soviet model of which we can now
speak openly considering that Che’s main book on the subject
was made public in 2006.
Massari is one of the oldest living scholars of Guevara
and since 1998 has been president of the International Che
Guevara Foundation. He has devoted several essays to both
Marx and Che.
9
Historical Process and Gender

Essentialism from a Dialectical
Point of View:
A Contribution to a Marxian Feminist Theory
Edoardo Schinco
1. Introduction: The Marxian Framework

There is no room for doubt that Marxism and feminism have
had a very controversial relation. On the one side, feminists
have deeply criticized Marx’s theory. On the other side,
however, it is true that Marxist thinkers—such as Engels,
with his book on The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
Family—gave to feminists some theoretical tool to address
discrimination- and submission-related issues. In general,
both socialist and Marxist theories played a central role in
feminist debate during the 19th and 20th century because of
their criticism against classic liberalism. This fight indirectly
helped feminists in defining a new understanding of family.
Indeed, one of the main goals Marxist analysis of classic
liberalism tried to achieve was the de-naturalisation of the
capitalist mode of production. In the Economic and Philosophic
Manuscripts of 1844, Karl Marx already attempted to point out
how the eternal economic laws described by liberal thinkers
were rather contingent laws, dependent on capitalism itself:
Die Nationalökonomie geht vom Faktum des Privateigentums
aus. Sie erklärt uns dasselbe nicht. Sie faßt den materiellen Prozeß
des Privateigentums, den es in der Wirklichkeit durchmacht,
+LVWRULFDO3URFHVVDQG*HQGHU(VVHQWLDOLVPIURPD'LDOHFWLFDOв267
in allgemeine, abstrakte Formeln, die ihr dann als Gesetze

gelten. Sie begreift diese Gesetze nicht, d.h., sie zeigt nicht nach,
wie sie aus dem Wesen des Privateigentums hervorgehn. Die
Nationalökonomie gibt uns keinen Aufschluß über den Grund
der Teilung von Arbeit und Kapital, von Kapital und Erde.
Wenn sie z. B. das Verhältnis des Arbeitslohns zum Profit des
Kapitals bestimmt, so gilt ihn als letzter Grund das Interesse der
Kapitalisten; d.h., sie unterstellt, was sie entwickeln soll. (Marx
1968a, 510)
In all his works, he stressed the fallacious circularity
characterising the typical reasoning of economists. That is,
classical economics assumed historical features of the capitalist
mode of production without providing any explanation
about the genesis of them. In this way, those features were
understood as universal and fundamental elements of any
mode of production. In so doing, they were turned into
unchangeable eternal economic laws. Moreover, this move
implicitly produced an apology for capitalist system itself.
If capitalism was just the pure expression of economic laws,
there was no reason to complain about that, nor was it possible
to improve capitalism at all. In his famous 1857 Introduction,
Marx declared apertis verbis:
“Die Bestimmungen, die für die Produktion überhaupt gelten,
müssen grade gesondert werden, damit über der Einheit—die
schon daraus hervorgeht, daß das Subjekt, die Menschheit, und
das Objekt, die Natur, dieselben—die wesentliche Verschiedenheit
nicht vergessen wird. In diesem Vergessen liegt z.B. die ganze
Weisheit der modernen Ökonomen, die die Ewigkeit und
Harmonie der bestehenden sozialen Verhältnisse beweisen. Z.B.
keine Produktion möglich, ohne ein Produktionsinstrument,
wäre dies Instrument auch nur die Hand. Keine möglich ohne
vergangne, aufgehäufte Arbeit, wäre diese Arbeit auch nur
die Fertigkeit, die in der Hand des Wilden durch wiederholte
Übung angesammelt und konzentriert ist. Das Kapital ist
unter andrem auch Produktionsinstrument, auch vergangne,
objektivierte Arbeit. Also ist das Kapital ein allgemeines, ewiges
Naturverhältnis; d.h., wenn ich grade das Spezifische weglasse,
was „Produktionsinstrument“, „aufgehäufte Arbeit“ erst zum
Kapital macht. Die ganze Geschichte der Produktionsverhältnisse

erscheint daher z.B. bei Carey als eine durch die Regierungen
böswillig veranlaßte Verfälschung.” (Marx 1971, 617)
By calling dogmas of classical economics into questions, Marx
rejected that theoretical naturalization of capitalist categories
brought about by liberal thinkers. However, unfortunately
Marx did not deeply address issues connected with women’s
condition within the society. The most important exceptions
were some parts of The Capital and the 1848 Manifesto of the
Communist Party. On the one side, The Capital extensively
described the historical evolution of capitalism, especially in
the chapter regarding the working day (Chapter 8 in the 1867
edition). There, Marx talked about the exploitation of women’s
and children’s labour. In so doing, he partially succeeded in
underlining the different impact of capitalism on different
subjects, according to their own age, class, and—what is more
important here—sex (Marx 1968b, 245-320). On the other side,
the Manifesto sporadically focused its attention on women’s
condition. Nonetheless it was enough to outline an informal
Marxian theory of family as social institution. For example,
Marx drew a significant parallel between the subordination
in the workplace and the subordination within the household.
As the worker was submitted to capitalist’s arbitrary decision,
so the wife was submitted to the husband’s will. In this sense,
Marx tried to underscore that the family had to be understood
as a social institution, a part of the society as a whole (Marx,
Engels 1972). He just sketched this connection. Anyway, all the
suggestions he gave in this regard are still useful to understand
the consistency of Marx’s position on family expressed in
nuce there. Generally speaking, it seems that contact points
between family and mode of production are substantially two.
At first, the mode of production defines the “external”
form of the family. To put it differently, the mode of production
plays a central role in determining what “family” means and,
hence, who legitimately belongs to the family. As we know, the
composition of family changed over time, and—for instance—
the contemporary nuclear family has not so much in common

with Ancient Roman familia, of which servants were also part.
Furthermore, the position of family within the social totality
changed over time as well. Comparing Aristotle’s Politics and
modern contractarian theories, it is evident how family is no
longer the “social cell” in modern age’s perspective. On the
opposite, it was individuals that became both the logic and
historical prius; that is, they became the source of legitimation
for any social institution. In addition, secondarily, the mode
of production also defines the “internal” structure of the
family. It shapes in a certain way the kind of relations existing
among individuals within the household. The absolute power
of pater familias in the Ancient Roman family was replaced
by a different relationship in modern—bourgeois—family.
Clearly, here as elsewhere, features of family institution can be
separately analysed from the social context only in an abstract
way. De facto, society and family are strictly intertwined, and
they condition each other by virtue of their dialectic relation.
Therefore, it is no wonder that Marx found a strong similarity
between submission between worker and capitalist and
submission between wife and husband.
2.a. The Marxian Contribution to Feminism…
At this point, a possible feminist use of the Marxian framework
starts to loom quite clearly. Indeed, Marx’s criticism against
the naturalisation of classic economics’ dogmas could be
easily transferred in other social domains. Thus, following
this path, feminists called into question the illusory eternity
of “traditional” family structure and “traditional” family ties.
The family as a natural institution was turned into a social
construction changing over time. At this time, between the
19th and 20th century, feminists still accepted the existence of
the two sexes—male and female—but they partially restricted
the normative value of sex itself. They denied the possibility
to univocally deduce a specific form of family—the “natural”
family—by simply analysing the inner essence of the two
sexes. On the contrary, they took account of a set of natural
relations between men and women, but at the same time they
stressed the historical evolution of family, that is, the social shell
surrounding and shaping relations between the two sexes.
Moreover, according to a new understanding of equality,
feminists employed Marxist and socialist theory in order to
criticise the concept of formal equality. This liberal equality,
indeed, was a mere equality of opportunity deriving from
individuals’ negative rights. Regarding to feminist issues, it
only implied an equal treatment for all the people regardless
of their sex or gender. Unlike this liberal position, feminists
reframed the concept of equality in order to take one’s sex
into account. The category of “sexual difference” became
central within this framework, and feminists’ efforts reversed
the discriminatory use of sex by employing that category to
develop a broader concept of justice. First feminists harshly
criticised the reasoning of conservative people, who tried to
justify women’s submission to men through an analysis of
biological differences between the two sexes. On the one hand,
conservative people’s discriminatory intent was manifest.
Women were naturally inferior to men, so there was no
possibility for them to compete with their male counterparts.
On the other hand, that intent was hypocritically hidden.
Women were naturally weaker than men. They needed to be
protected and overwatched by men because of their inner
fragility. Therefore—conservative people argued—male
paternalism was not to be understood as male oppression;
on the contrary, such a system of protections and constraints
was established in women’s own interests. It was against this
double conservative perspective that first feminists stressed
formal equality between men and women. They did not
deny the set of biological differences naturally distinguishing
men from women. Still, they denied the relevance of these
differences with regard to any legal and political discourse.
They neutralised conservative people’s strategies by
preventing them from taking sexual differences into account.
Notwithstanding that, the insufficiency of formal equality led
feminists to reframe and improve their concept of equality
later. As conservative people, these second-wave feminists put

at the heart of their reasoning the idea of “sexual difference”,
but they stressed those biological differences only to show how
the abstract, formal equality could not provide an appropriate
protection for sexually different people situated in a different
position within the society.
A brilliant example of this new understanding of justice
was perfectly remarked by the US Court of Appeals, Ninth
Circuit in a 1985 landmark case regarding the 1978 Pregnancy
Discrimination Act. By enacting this act, Congress wanted to
give exceptional protection to pregnant women and, generally,
to prohibit discriminations on the basis of pregnancy.
Previously, indeed, the existing protection offered by the Title
VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 had showed its limits. For
example, in the well-known 1974 Geduldig v. Aiello case the
Court had established that the Equal Protection Clause could
not provide legal protections for cases in which discrimination
was based on pregnancy-related issues. After all, according to
formal equality criteria, if men and women had to be treated
equally, it was impossible to take pregnancy into account since
men could not get pregnant. On the contrary, in California
Federal Savings and Loan Association v. Guerra (the above-
mentioned 1985 case) the Court ruled against pregnancy-
neutral policies and legal blindness to pregnancy. Instead, it
underlined that it was necessary to take account of pregnancy,
even if only in a specific non-discriminatory way: “Congress
intended to reverse Gilbert, to require employers to include
pregnancy disability leave in their otherwise comprehensive
benefit packages, and thus to construct a floor beneath which
pregnancy disability benefits may not drop—not a ceiling
above which they may not rise.” (California Federal Savings and
Loan Association v. Guerra 1985, 393)
2.b. …and its Limits
By briefly describing the influence of Marxian thought on
Western feminism, we did not want to reduce the whole
feminist perspective to a mere development of some of Marx’s
incidental suggestions. Of course, feminist speculation has

gradually embodied multiple theories or it has autonomously
developed its own theory by reformulating previous points
of views. Sometimes, feminism has even devised a theoretical
and practical framework completely ex novo. Nonetheless, it is
true that feminism and Marxism moved at the same pace for
some decades. The radicalism of Marx’s theory and its crucial
idea to drastically transform the contemporary capitalist
society in order to get rid of all its essential inequalities,
strengthened this temporary alliance. Furthermore, the set
of policies enacted by the Soviet government in the matter
of equality between men and women marked an important
step towards a gender-fair society. In a few years, the Soviet
regime legalised abortion and divorce, gave women a broader
range of work opportunities and new labour laws regarding
maternity-leave and insurances. Lenin’s 1920 famous speech
On International Women’s Day on March 4th summarised quite
well the strong and weak points of the Marxist approach to the
woman question. Lenin distinguished two diverse degrees of
equality between the two sexes. The first goal was to achieve a
full legal equality improving bourgeois freedoms. The second
degree was to reform the labour market and create appropriate
conditions in the workplace both to boost women’s agency
and to set them free from “domestic slavery”:
One of the most flagrant manifestations of this inconsistency [of
capitalist promises] is the inferior position of woman compared
with man. Not a single bourgeois state, not even the most
progressive, republican democratic state, has brought about
complete equality of rights. But the Soviet Republic of Russia
promptly wiped out, without any exception, every trace of
inequality in the legal status of women and secured her complete
equality in its laws. […] The working women’s movement has
for its objective the fight for the economic and social, and not
merely formal, equality of woman. The main task is to draw
the women into socially productive labor, extricate them from
“domestic slavery”, free them of their stultifying and humiliating
resignation to the perpetual and exclusive atmosphere of the
kitchen and nursery. (Lenin 1950)
Lenin’s discourse made his well-known political foresight

clear. This discourse perfectly mirrored what Marx expressed
in nuce in relation to women’s emancipation. For this reason,
it was evident the direct connection that Lenin—according
to Marx’s view—established between full emancipation of
women and improvement of material conditions stricto sensu.
As Marxist theory suggested, to improve those conditions
meant to improve women’s general conditions in society as
well. Surely, this assumption has been true for a very long
time. Still, in the long run, this peculiar perspective openly
showed its inner limits.
To better clarify this point, let us start by focusing on the
controversial idea of the imminent coming of the communist
phase within Soviet Russia’s overall development. In his
well-known 1917 pamphlet The State and Revolution, Lenin
used Marx’s and Engels’s various contributions to shed
light on their official position about the death of the state
under communism. Unlike anarchism, Marxism did not
affirm the abolition of the state ex abrupto. Instead, Lenin
suggested that the state would have been employed by the
revolutionary party in order to facilitate the passage from
the capitalist mode of production to the communist one.
This transitory phase would have been characterised by a
“socialist economy”, whose imperfect economic features—
compared to the successive “communist economy”—have
been partially described by Marx in his 1875 Critique of Gotha
Programme, according to the well-known principle “from each
according to one’s ability, to each according to one’s needs”
(Lenin 1974). Lenin’s intents aside, history later showed how
this interpretation of Marx’s and Engels’s thought turned into
a powerful tool of governance into Stalin’s hands. Instead
of being a mere transitory “moment”, this “socialist stage”
of Soviet Russia became eternal and served as an excuse for
Stalin to increase the state power and to procrastinate more
and more the eschatological final coming of a communist
society. Mutatis mutandis, the problematic history of the
relation between Marxism and feminism followed the

same pattern. In general, Marxist thinkers developed a very
interesting framework—consistent with Marx’s assertions, as
Losurdo masterfully explained (Losurdo 2013)—to address
feminist issues, avoiding a shallow theoretical reductionism.
They knew that any actual situation is always made up of a
wide range of factors. Therefore, they found a way to address
all the factors involved by systematising them in a well-
ordered hierarchy. They promptly distinguished between a
social main contradiction (+DXSWZLGHUVSUXFK) and secondary
contradictions (1HEHQVZLGHUVSUFKH). The former was always
the class struggle, that is, the essential antagonism between
opposite social classes, changing according to the mode of
production. The class struggle’s logical priority was due to
the fact that this crucial contradiction shaped all the other
social elements and assigned them a new role within the
social totality. Hence, the latter—that is all the other social
contradictions—were necessarily subordinated to the class
struggle. In light of this, the achievement of new rights for
female workers became the key-word of feminist politics in
Western communist countries.
The history of the German Democratic Republic (DDR)
is a brilliant example of this theoretical trend. There, the
communist government enacted many policies in order
to broaden the set of rights and protections for women. In
addition, official feminist groups certainly played a proactive
role and supported the government’s effort to improve
women’s social standing. However, the government’s main
focus only continued to be on female workers’ conditions.
The government devised many training programmes for
female workers. Indeed, helping women to become skilled
workers was seen as a fundamental step, or even the only
way, to pursue women’s full emancipation. This approach
was perfectly consistent with the official Marxist ideology
since the woman question was understood as a part of the
broader social question. Hence, women’s specific interests
were perceived as less important than class interests. Once
again, communist guidelines on equality between men and

women brought about a very significant improvement of
women’s condition. Still, roughly speaking, the implicit price
to pay for women was the reduction of one’s self-realisation
to self-realisation DVZRUNHU. At the end, the general framework
did not change so much from the above-mentioned Lenin’s
perspective on women’s emancipation. For this reason, when
women’s rights organisations started to highlight different
aspects of the woman question and ask for the deconstruction
of other kinds of gender inequality, this old-fashioned Marxist
position revealed its inner weak points. Compared to many
capitalist Western countries, women’s condition in DDR
improved fast, but mainly in only one direction. Indeed,
communist strategy seemed not to address the whole spectrum
of domestic slavery-related issues insofar as the household
remained a mainly female domain. DDR attempts to introduce
women in the national workforce did not affect widespread
understanding of women’s traditional role. Women were not
either workers or stay-at-home mothers. Rather, they had
to be both workers and mothers. The new social position of
women as workers did not replace their classic role of mother
at all; instead, DDR politics aimed to integrate the alternative
dimensions of work and motherhood (Karl 2011, 203-216).
As soon as the international feminist movement grew and
got increasingly stronger, feminist reaction was not long in
coming.
3. The Feminist Reaction and the Critique of Universalism
a. Sexual Difference
The 1960s and 70s marked a turning point for feminists all
around the world. Feminist thinkers developed more and
more an independent point of view, calling into question their
alliance with socialist and Marxist groups. Investigating those
previously progressive positions, the feminist movement
denounced their partial failures. Even if socialism and
Marxism gave a decisive boost to women’s emancipation once,
they ended up overshadowing the whole range of women’s

interests and rights. Furthermore, they fuelled a paternalistic
approach since they prevented women from thinking about
themselves in a completely autonomous way. Italian feminist
Carla Lonzi openly explained the reasons of this radical
position in some of her crucial writings about feminism, such
as The Manifesto of the Feminine Revolt (1970) or Let’s Spit on
Hegel (1974):
[in questi scritti] prevaleva lo sdegno per essermi accorta che la
cultura maschile in ogni suo aspetto aveva teorizzato l’inferiorità
della donna. Per questo la sua inferiorizzazione appare del tutto
naturale. Le donne stesse accettano di considerarsi “seconde” se
chi le convince sembra loro meritare la stima del genere umano:
Marx, Lenin, Freud e tutti gli altri. Mi sono sentita stimolata a
confutare alcuni tra i principi fondamentali del patriarcato, non
solo di quello passato o presente, ma di quello prospettato dalle
ideologie rivoluzionarie. […] La chiave femminista operava come
una rivelazione. Il bisogno di esprimersi è stato da noi accolto
come sinonimo stesso di liberazione. Sputiamo su Hegel l’ho scritto
perché ero rimasta molto turbata constatando che quasi la totalità
delle femministe italiane dava più credito alla lotta di classe che
alla loro stessa oppressione. […] L’oppressione della donna è
il risultato di millenni: il capitalismo l’ha ereditato piuttosto
che prodotto. Il sorgere della proprietà privata ha espresso uno
squilibrio tra i sessi come bisogno di potere di ciascun uomo su
ciascuna donna, intanto che si definivano i rapporti di potere
tra gli uomini. Interpretare su basi economiche il destino che
ci ha accompagnate fino a oggi significa chiamare in causa un
meccanismo di cui si ignora l’impulso motore. (Lonzi 2010 1-2,
15-16)
This updated version of feminism refused to subsume the
woman question under the different concept of the social
question. Even if those two questions could not be merely
juxtaposed, they could not just overlap. The provocative claim
to spit on “Hegel”—assumed as the metaphor for the entire
Marxist universe—meant to suggest women to think outside
the box with regard to their own oppression. By replacing old
categories, such as the Hegelian master-slave dialectic, with

new ones, it was possible for feminists to shed significant
light on unexplored sides of women’s patriarchal oppression.
Marxism and socialism aside, those years also played a central
role in the evolution of Western feminism since thinkers
further expanded the above-mentioned critique of formal
equality. Born under the sign of “sexual difference”, the
second wave of feminism ended up drastically criticising the
concept of universalism itself. In this regard, many kinds of
influences—theoretical, practical, and historical—converged
in feminist thought and brought about this radical shift.
Surely, the concept of “difference” implied the rejection of a
certain 20th century version of philosophical universalism.
The well-founded suspicion against universalism pushed
feminists to look for an alliance with other minorities, once
again. The risk of any universalism was its possibility to
turn into a power device guaranteeing the hegemony of the
ruling social group over the subaltern ones. As the failure of
human rights’ rhetoric had shown in the past, the “universal”
subject involved in that kind of universal discourses was
surreptitiously defined through the hegemonic group’s typical
features. For example, the 1789 French Declaration of the Rights
of the Man and of the Citizen virtually referred to every human
being. Nonetheless, when Olympe de Gouges challenged
the male authority with her 1791 Declaration of the Rights of
Woman and the Female Citizen, the revolutionary regime did
not hesitate to condemn and executed her by the guillotine.
Here as elsewhere, feminists pointed out the dangers lurking
behind this illusory claim for universal rights. In that context,
it did not take such a long time for that general and abstract
“human being” to show oneself to be the portrait of the white
heterosexual man. Therefore, since Simone de Beauvoir’s
1949 landmark book Le Deuxième Sexe, feminist speculation
gradually decided to re-orient its reflection on the peculiarity
of being-a-woman, compared with being-a-man.
Along with this feminist perspective, the more general
reflection on cultural hegemony and subaltern non-Western
cultures pushed radical thinkers to call European culture’s

presumed superiority into question. Marxist-related
scholars, such as Frantz Fanon, tried to restore the dignity
of colonised and marginalised cultures. In particular, the
main effort—an effort common to all the minorities—was
to fight against the sense of submission and inferiority that
submitted people introjected over the centuries (for example,
see Fanon 1952; Fanon 1961). The progressive re-evaluation
of subaltern cultures against Western hegemony underlined
the philosophical necessity to give minorities the actual
opportunity to develop their own alternative points of view.
Postcolonial studies worked in this direction. They tried to
deconstruct the biased widespread understanding of non-
Western cultures as naïve or barbarian by showing their inner
complex functioning. Because of these common interests,
postcolonial studies and the rising third-wave of feminism
mutually supported each other. Anyway, in relation to the
development of feminism, French post-structuralism also
played a very central role.
b. Michel Foucault and the Third Wave of Feminism
Among the other scholars, Michel Foucault exercised a
great influence on Western feminism because of both his
“genealogical” works regarding the concept of sexuality and
his anti-universalist philosophical perspective. Traces of this
double influence are clear in Judith Butler’s philosophical
framework and deeply affected the third wave of feminism.
For example, Butler’s crucial notion of gender performativity,
expressed in her 1990 landmark book Gender Trouble,
openly mirrored Foucauldian reflection on the process of
subjectivation. It is worth spending a few words more about
the concept of “subjectivation” since French philosophers
Pierre Dardot and Christian Laval already noted the partial
consistency of these considerations with Marx’s classic
framework (Dardot, Laval 2010). Foucault’s idea is that
a subject is not an entity that can be examined abstractly,
separated from the actual context in which that subject comes
into being. Rather, it is necessary to focus on the continuous

process of social construction of subjects. Since there is no
such thing as a pre-social disembodied individual, material
processes of power define different kinds of subjects over
time. Hence, in regard to feminism, Judith Butler broadened
Foucault’s analysis and applied these intuitions to sexuality,
especially denouncing the social construction of gender:
Gender ought not to be construed as a stable identity or locus
of agency from which various acts follow; rather, gender is an
identity tenuously constituted in time, instituted in an exterior
space through a stylized repetition of acts. The effect of gender
is produced through the stylization of the body and, hence, must
be understood as the mundane way in which bodily gestures,
movements, and styles of various kinds constitute the illusion of
an abiding gendered self. This formulation moves the conception
of gender off the ground of a substantial model of identity to
one that requires a conception of gender as a constituted social
temporality. Significantly, if gender is instituted through acts
which are internally discontinuous, then the appearance of
substance is precisely that, a constructed identity, a performative
accomplishment which the mundane social audience, including
the actors themselves, come to believe and to perform in the
mode of belief. (Butler 2002, 179)
Along with other significant consequences, this Foucauldian
position clearly stressed the importance of history. To put
it differently, according to Foucault, it would be nonsense
to think of subjects in previous historical stages without
employing a different theoretical lens. In the same way, Marx
thematised in his works a certain relation between the mode
of production and subjects. We can give two short examples,
here. On the one hand, we could refer to 2Q WKH -HZLVK
Question, and to the description of the kind of subject shaped
by modern society. There, the separation of civil society from
the state brought about the rise of an isolated human being,
focused on one’s self-interest, and for whom the others were
merely understood as limits to one’s own happiness:
Die Freiheit ist also das Recht, alles zu tun und zu treiben,
was keinem andern schadet. Die Grenze, in welcher sich

jeder dem andern unschädlich bewegen kann, ist durch das
Gesetz bestimmt, wie die Grenze zweier Felder durch den
Zaunpfahl bestimmt ist. Es handelt sich um die Freiheit des
Menschen als isolierter auf sich zurückgezogener Monade. […]
Das Menschenrecht des Privateigentums ist also das Recht,
willkürlich (à son gré), ohne Beziehung auf andre Menschen,
unabhängig von der Gesellschaft, sein Vermögen zu genießen
und über dasselbe zu disponieren, das Recht des Eigennutzes.
Jene individuelle Freiheit, wie diese Nutzanwendung derselben,
bilden die Grundlage der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Sie läßt
jeden Menschen im andern Menschen nicht die Verwirklichung,
sondern vielmehr die Schranke seiner Freiheit finden. (Marx
1976, 364-365)
On the other hand, the young Marx dedicated a substantial
part of his 1844 Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts to
depicting the communist revolution, not only as a mere
economic revolution, but also as an anthropological one:
Wie das Privateigentum nur der sinnliche Ausdruck davon ist, daß
der Mensch zugleich gegenständlich für sich wird und zugleich
vielmehr sich als ein fremder und unmenschlicher Gegenstand
wird, daß seine Lebensäußerung seine Lebensentäußerung
ist, seine Verwirklichung seine Entwirklichung, eine fremde
Wirklichkeit ist, so ist die positive Aufhebung des Privateigentums,
d.h. die sinnliche Aneignung des menschlichen Wesens und
Lebens, des gegenständlichen Menschen, der menschlichen
Werke für und durch den Menschen, nicht nur im Sinne des
unmittelbaren, einseitigen Genusses zu fassen, nicht nur im
Sinne des Besitzens, im Sinne des Habens. Der Mensch eignet
sich sein allseitiges Wesen auf eine allseitige Art an, also als ein
totaler Mensch. Jedes seiner menschlichen Verhältnisse zur Welt,
Sehn, Hören, Riechen, Schmecken, Fühlen, Denken, Anschauen,
Empfinden, Wollen, Tätigsein, Lieben, kurz, alle Organe
seiner Individualität, wie die Organe, welche unmittelbar in
ihrer Form als gemeinschaftliche Organe sind, sind in ihrem
gegenständlichen Verhalten oder in ihrem Verhalten zum
Gegenstand die Aneignung desselben. (Marx 1968a, 540)
Here, it is not necessary to distinguish between a young
Marx and an old one—according to Althusser’s useful advice

regarding the Marxian coupure épistémologique—since this kind
of “anthropological” considerations can be easily found in old
Marx’s works as well.
Before reaching the conclusion of this paper, we have to
take account of a last aspect of this question in order to put
Marxian theory and contemporary feminism in connection
once again. This aspect is the post-structuralist rejection of
both universalism and essentialism, and Marx’s dialectic
conception of human essence.
4. The Essence of the Human Being in Marx’s Dialectic
Framework
Marxist tradition furiously struggled on some crucial key
points in Marx’s thought. Along with economic questions
regarding communist society’s actual configuration,
philosophical topics caused a few problems to Marxist
scholars. Two factors came into play, here. On the one side, the
lack of a critical edition of Marx’s collected works prevented
scholars from correctly addressing those issues. The so-called
“transformation problem”—that is, the transformation of
commodities’ values into prices in Marx’s economic theory—
is probably the best example in this regard (Fineschi 2001).
On the other side, both the limited philosophical education
of many Marxist scholars and the dogmatism of a certain
orthodox Marxism prevented those scholars from developing
an in-depth analysis of the dialectic element in Marx’s theory.
In this sense, up-to-date studies, based on the latest edition
of MEGA2, persuasively showed the partial correctness of
Althusser’s claim. There is no room for doubt that Marx’s
theoretical framework underwent an evolutionary process
marking a coupure épistémologique, an epistemological rupture
between different phases of Marx’s speculation. In particular,
as Roberto Fineschi suggests, this gradual movement led
Marx far from a naive starting essentialism (Fineschi 2006).
In the wake of Feuerbach’s critique of religion (1841-1845),
the young Marx explicitly assumed a Feuerbachian point of
view. In so doing, the essence of the human being became a

central element of his theory. By broadening the Feuerbachian
examination of religion, Marx employed human essence
as a theoretical tool to denounce widespread alienation in
the capitalist society. The cure for alienation, this peculiar
“disease” of modern society, was to abolish private property,
and hence the capitalist system, in order to set the human essence
IUHHIURPDOLHQDWLRQE\HVWDEOLVKLQJDQHZVRFLHW\LQKDUPRQ\ZLWK
the human essence itself. Thus, according to what has been
said, in young Marx’s view the human essence is a “given”,
an abstract thing that is defined once and for all. It has to
be restored through social actions since human existence in
modern society has been tainted by capitalism. Therefore,
it is no wonder that young Marx’s philosophical position
presented all the typical weak points of an essentialist theory.
As abstract and eternal, human essence was completely
ahistorical, that is, its fundamental features were not affected
by the historical process at all. Also, the restoration of human
essence took the shape of an eschatological final moment, that
is, of a theological Palingenesis aiming to cleanse the world of
all its evil.
However, the continuous evolution of Marx’s thought
gradually brought him away from his previous essentialist
position. A first criticism to The Holy Family’s evident
essentialism was made by Gustav Julius in his significant
article Der Streit der sichtbaren mit der unsichtbaren Menschkirche
oder Kritik der Kritik der kritischen Kritik, published in the second
volume of the 1845 Wigand’s Vierteljahrschrift. Anyway, it was
the reading of Max Stiner’s one-of-a-kind 1844 book The Ego
DQGLWV2ZQ to represent a pivotal event for Marx’s position. In
his harsh attack against every essentialism, Stirner pointed out
how the Feuerbachian “man” and its “human essence” were
nothing more than a secular translation of previous religious
and metaphysical entities. Even if Marx never admitted the
influence of Stirner’s work on his speculation, the partial
correspondence between Marx and Engels and recent studies
regarding the Entstehungsgeschichte of The German Ideology
made clear the impact of Stirner on Marx. Derrida’s well-

known reflection on this point already stressed this aspect
(Derrida 2006). After reading Stirner, Karl Marx drastically
changed his opinion about Feuerbach’s theoretical limits
and openly affirmed his philosophical distance from all Left
Hegelians, such as Bruno Bauer and Feuerbach, in the first
part of The German Ideology. Incidentally, in this context Marx
also provided a new definition of human essence, showing a
decisive shift towards a more dialectic theory:
Sie zeigt, daß die Geschichte nicht damit endigt, sich ins
“Selbstbewußtsein“ als “Geist vom Geist“ aufzulösen, sondern
daß in ihr auf jeder Stufe ein materielles Resultat, eine Summe
von Produktionskräften, ein historisch geschaffnes Verhältnis
zur Natur und der Individuen zueinander sich vorfindet, die
jeder Generation von ihrer Vorgängerin überliefert wird […].
Diese Summe von Produktionskräften, Kapitalien und sozialen
Verkehrsformen, die jedes Individuum und jede Generation als
etwas Gegebenes vorfindet, ist der reale Grund dessen, was sich
die Philosophen als “Substanz“ und “Wesen des Menschen“
vorgestellt, was sie apotheosiert und bekämpft haben, ein realer
Grund, der dadurch nicht im Mindesten in seinen Wirkungen
und Einflüssen auf die Entwicklung der Menschen gestört wird,
daß diese Philosophen als “Selbstbewußtsein“ und “Einzige“
dagegen rebellieren. (Marx 1969, 38)
At this point, it is evident that human essence was no longer
understood as an abstract, ahistorical entity. Instead, it was
defined as the sum of productive forces and capitals left
by a previous generation for the next one. In this sense, the
human essence became something dynamic and history-
related. There was no such thing as an eternal, unchangeable
human essence. On the contrary, “human essence” could be
only used as a formal expression referring to ever-developing
actual contents. The connection with a specific mode of
production prevented the concept of “human essence” from
having random contents; rather, those contents were always
linked to a certain form of social and economic organisation.
In this way, the human essence expressed a universality that
was never given once and for all. Against every metaphysical
definition of the “human essence”, Marx employed dialectics
to define a reflection taking account of the role of the historical
development without renouncing to the crucial element of
universality.
Strangely, it seems that Marx was not aware of his gradual
convergence with Hegel’s point of view. The interpretation
of Hegelian thought he inherited from Left Hegelians
conditioned his understanding of Hegel’s philosophy for his
whole life. Notwithstanding widespread misunderstandings,
indeed, Hegel never theorised a totalitarian philosophical
system in which all the particularities ended up being
absorbed by an oppressive universality. From his dialectic
perspective, the philosophical system—representing the
full self-comprehension of an age—was in a condition of
precarious balance. On the contrary, the concluded system
had to be reopened every time because of the historical
movement, and hence the philosophical reflection had to start
conceptualising reality over and over again. Therefore, Hegel
rejected metaphysical and pre-historical (hence, ahistorical)
definition of any essence too. In his 1820 Philosophy of Right,
for example, the universal idea of right was exposed in its
actual development since there was no possibility to separate
the essence of right from its historical evolution:
Die Rechtswissenschaft ist ein Teil der Philosophie. Sie hat
daher die Idee als welche die Vernunft eines Gegenstandes
ist, aus dem Begriffe zu entwickeln, oder, was dasselbe ist, der
eigenen immanenten Entwicklung der Sache selbst zuzusehen.
Als Teil hat sie einen bestimmten Anfangspunkt, welcher das
Resultat und die Wahrheit von dem ist, was vorhergeht, und
was den sogenannten Beweis desselben ausmacht. […] Der
Boden des Rechts ist überhaupt das Geistige, und seine nähere
Stelle und Ausgangspunkt der Wille, welcher frei ist, so daß die
Freiheit seine Substanz und Bestimmung ausmacht, und das
Rechtssystem das Reich der verwirklichten Freiheit, die Welt des
Geistes aus ihm selbst hervorgebracht, als eine zweite Natur, ist.
(Hegel 1911, 18, 27)
Esoteric philosophical terminology aside, Hegel also

explained his dialectic conception in the well-known Preface to
the Phenomenology of Spirit, in 1807:
Es kömmt nach meiner Einsicht, welche sich durch die
Darstellung des Systems selbst rechtfertigen muß, alles darauf
an, das Wahre nicht als Substanz, sondern ebensosehr als Subjekt
aufzufassen und auszudrücken. Zugleich ist zu bemerken, daß die
Substantialität sosehr das Allgemeine oder die Unmittelbarkeit
des Wissens als diejenige, welche Sein oder Unmittelbarkeit
für das Wissen ist, in sich schließt. [...] Die lebendige Substanz
ist ferner das Sein, welches in Wahrheit Subjekt, oder, was
dasselbe heißt, welches in Wahrheit wirklich ist, nur insofern
sie die Bewegung des Sich-selbst-setzens, oder die Vermittlung
des Sich-anders-werdens mit sich selbst ist. […] Nur diese sich
wiederherstellende Gleichheit oder die Reflexion im Anderssein
in sich selbst—nicht eine ursprüngliche Einheit als solche, oder
unmittelbare als solche, ist das Wahre. Es ist das Werden seiner
selbst, der Kreis, der sein Ende als seinen Zweck voraussetzt und
zum Anfange hat, und nur durch die Ausführung und sein Ende
wirklich ist. (Hegel 2012)
Hegel’s dialectic reflection ushered in a new way of understand
ing essence and essentialism. Within this framework, the
universal element of essence stopped being a category having
unchangeable contents. Rather, the connection with history
made it dynamic and adaptative. That was the conception of
human essence the old Marx assumed and further developed,
even if he never made it completely explicit. And it is exactly
this conception that seems to show us a way to bridge the
gap between contemporary post-structuralist feminism and
Marxist theory.
5. Marxism and Post-Structuralist Feminism
As said before, contemporary feminism inherited a theoretical
feeling of rejection for universalism from French post
structuralism. Many French PDvWUHVjSHQVHU opposed dialectic
thought, pointing out the risk of dissolving particularities
into universality. By comparing Foucault’s view with Hegel’s
above-mentioned assertions about freedom, it is easy to grasp
the whole range of theoretical differences at play here:

Je n’ai pas voulu dire que la quantité de liberté avait augmenté
entre le début du XVIIIe siècle et, disons, le XIXe. Je ne l’ai pas dit
pour deux raisons. […] C’est qu’il ne faut pas considérer que la
liberté, ce soit un universel qui présenterait, à travers le temps,
un accomplissement progressif ou des variations quantitatives
ou des amputations plus ou moins graves, des occultations
plus ou moins importantes. Ce n’est pas un universel qui se
particulariserait avec le temps et avec la géographie. La liberté,
ce n’est pas une surface blanche avec, ici et là et de temps en
temps, des cases noires plus ou moins nombreuses. La liberté,
ce n’est jamais rien d’autre—mais c’est déjà beaucoup—qu’un
rapport actuel entre gouvernants et gouvernés, un rapport où
la mesure du “trop peu” de liberté qui existe est donnée par le
“encore plus” de liberté qui est demandé. (Foucault 2004, 64)
Hegel attempted to bridge the gap between transcendence
and immanence by assuming a universality always in fieri.
Foucault aimed to reduce every transcendence to an absolute
immanence, instead. One of the most common risks of this
position is the implicit relativism. If there is no such thing
as an absolute concept of freedom, so there is no possibility
to show how freedom increased or decreased in different
societies. To be more precise, we should say that such a
question is rather a misleading one from a Foucauldian point
of view. No wonder, therefore, if a similar accusation has also
been made against the third-wave of feminism because of its
rejection of universalism. Indeed, by using Foucault’s thought,
contemporary feminism deepened the critical analysis of
universalism as a form of hidden cultural hegemony, that is,
a sort of Trojan horse against subaltern cultures. According
to this view, universal concepts mainly work as a tool to
normalise and to discipline, to proclaim who belongs to
a given group and who has to live as an excluded from the
society. For example, it happened that feminists of sexual
difference ended up harshly denigrating transgender people
because of their impossibility to fit the established binary
sexual criteria (to be either male or female). The abstract
definition of both men’s and women’s essence brought about a

reification of men’s and women’s essential features. Therefore,
transgender people were stigmatised by a framework a priori
unable to take them into account. To put it differently, they
were considered to be abnormalities, errors or even direct
products of patriarchy. Third wave of feminism labelled this
kind of feminists as TERFs, that is, trans-exclusionary radical
feminists (Butler 2014).
As Marxists, we should ask here if the “dialectic
essentialism”—that is, a conception understanding the
essence as a historically dynamic universality—is doomed to
produce the same discriminations and to fail in taking account
of the latest feminist and trans issues. Admittedly, this does
not seem to be the case. The example of transgender people is
particularly significant in this regard. After all, to think about
transgender people necessarily implies to refer to overall
social and technological development. Surely transgender
people—that is, people having a gender identity that differs
from the sex assigned at birth—existed before the last century.
However, the actual possibility for them to modify their
“natural” sex is de facto strictly dependent from the evolution
of biomedical technologies. The possibility to undergo
specific medical treatments, such as hormone replacement
therapy or sex reassignment surgery, only became feasible
after a certain historical moment. Since 1930—or maybe some
years before—when the first sex reassignment surgery was
performed in Germany, philosophical dialectic speculation
had to take account of a new element with regard to existing
previous ideas of what “man” and “woman” meant (Stryker
2017, 45-78). Could we not assume this episode as a turning
point for the dialectical evolution of men’s and women’s
essence? Could we not regard this pivotal event as a decisive
moment—maybe, not the first in time—to finally call into
question the long-lasting assumption of gender binary?
According to both Marx and Foucault’s position, we should
not employ anachronistic elements to provide an analysis
of a historical situation, or a certain configuration of power.
Therefore, without being deterministic, it would be possible

to understand the contemporary rise of transgender issues
as a side effect of an unavoidable dissolution of a previous
understanding of what gender and sex are. In turn, this
dissolution could be seen as the last moment of a chain
reaction—both ideal and material at one time—triggered
by a technological development taking place in a specific
environment. In other words, that development could have
worked as a condition of possibility to set free some existing
theoretical possibilities prevented from being fully developed
until that moment. So, the concept of an ever-growing human
essence—and its internal distinction in male and female
essence—has to be repeatedly rethought and broadened,
in order to include what can be “fully” conceptualised only
in the contemporary age. As Foucault suggests, there is no
“neutral” knowledge since every knowledge is always a
product of a certain configuration of power. Therefore, a shift
towards a dialectic feminism—according to the principles
we described—within a Marxian framework could give us
effective theoretical tools to comprehend the meaning of
contemporary feminism itself, included its crucial focus on the
concept of “gender” (Repo 2016).
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10
Revolution, Emancipation and
Social Reproduction
Chirashree Das Gupta
I
While contested opinion(s) on socialist experiences of the
twentieth century is all-pervasive, the academic literature
on this has been relatively thinly spread. The quantum of
views and opinions stand on a knowledge base that is narrow
and the ‘known’ far exceeds the ‘unknown’ in a literature
highly charged by ideological standpoints defined largely
by ‘ways of seeing’. The political economy focus has often
been on questions around the organisation of production
and productive forces—evaluations largely based on a
‘productivist’ paradigm. But, the reorganisation of social
reproduction way beyond the tenets of ZHOIDULVP had been
the greatest promise of revolutionary emancipation from
patriarchy and social oppression—i.e. from the tyranny of
family, private property and the state; and the conscious
political attempt of collectivism rather than individualism
forming the basis of new ‘individualities’ (Tomba 2013).
A radical transition from the capitalist system to socialism
is different from all previous social changes known in history
because it marks the beginning of an entirely different social
organisation—change from a class society to classless society.
This kind of paradigmatic change in human civilisation could
hardly have been peaceful and smooth. Similar episodes of
retrogression had happened when capitalism was replacing
5HYROXWLRQ(PDQFLSDWLRQDQG6RFLDO5HSURGXFWLRQв291
another class-based system, feudalism. The terrain would be

much more contested naturally in the case of transcending the
class system altogether. Retrogression and defeat of socialism
in the erstwhile USSR and East European countries have often
been attributed to planning, state control, over centralisation
and denial of individual choice in the realm of the economy
while on the other hand, arguments or rather ideological
positions would like to condemn socialism as a system that
curbs democratic rights and denies political competition.
There was euphoria around the conclusion that the
collapse of the USSR and the Eastern European socialist
systems served as ‘proof’ of the inherently unviable and
unsustainable nature of the socialist system. But, instead of
explaining why that development occurred such readings
actually dispenses with the need for any rigorous examination
of the history of socialism. The ideological bias underlying
such sweeping conclusions are partly demonstrated in the
fact that it is premised on a historical determinism that is also
simultaneously denied while questioning the ‘inevitability’
of the ultimate demise of capitalism. This contradiction is
even more stark if a fundamental difference between the
two systems is recognised—namely that while capitalism
is a spontaneous system, socialism is not inherently so (Roy,
Mazumdar and Das Gupta, 2015).
Efforts have hardly been made to understand in detail
the contested system of ‘actually existing socialism’, and
understand the conflicts of change. A non-determinist and
non-productivist conceptualising of socialism has to be
adopted as the entry point of reference. This brief paper has
the modest aim of bringing to the fore some observations
derived from commentaries on ‘actually existing socialisms’
that could be taken into account for an informed debate on
the praxis of building socialism (Roy, Mazumdar and Das
Gupta 2015). Based on a Marxist-Feminist framework linking
theory, perspective and method, this paper is an endeavour to
critically survey the methods by which the reorganisation of
social production and reproduction in societies attempting a
socialist transformation had been approached to extend and

add to the contested terrain of the historicisation of socialist
experiences of the twentieth century.
This is a relatively less explored area in the impressionistic
literature around the socialist experiences that have gained
credence especially since the 1990s. The scholarship on actual
socialist transition(s) is thin. Access to works is also limited
given both the political and cultural hegemony and limits of
Anglophone scholarship in a world structured by Anglophone
imperial domination. This forms the premise of the question
on method. The denial of a materialist analysis and of social
class as central objects of study in mainstream social science in
US academia had been evident since the 1950s and 60s in the
shaping of disciplinary imperatives at the height of Cold War
politics. After the intellectual upheaval of the ‘dependency
theory’ and the ‘structuralist school’, mainstream social
science in the USA consistently rejected the idea that social
classes should be objects of study. There was substantial
material and intellectual investment during the Reagan period
in a particular strand of culture and area studies that took
the lead in formulating ideas of ‘hybridity’ and ‘fragmented
forms’ and ‘fluid identities’ rather than ‘structured social
formations’ like race and class as the counter to different
branches of cultural relativism, essentialism and idealism
that emanated as the ‘new’ theory from the mainstream of US
academia (Gendzier 1985; Leys 1996; Roediger 2006). These
intellectual models ran a serious ‘risk that one’s subject would
be deconstructed into fragments united only by the common
experience of an incommunicable identity crisis’. This risk
stems from the emphasis on ‘cultural collisions, confrontations
and dialogues of the deaf ‘and statements ‘devoid of meaning’
rising from the separation of the ‘cultural’ from the ‘material’
in the recasting of ‘social history’ and ‘studies of society’ in
a form where the ambiguity of the ‘narrator’ and the ‘non
specificity’ of ‘subject position’ were premised over earlier
analytical narratives based on the material construction
of social relations that defined the structures of society
(Hobsbawm 1998). The dominant economic paradigm can

«RQO\ GLVWLQJXLVK EHWZHHQ SULYDWH DQG VWDWH SURSHUW\³LW FDQQRW
conceptualize either capitalist private property or socialized property
and thus is incapable of illuminating the process of transition from the
former to the latter. (Roy et al 2015: 6)
The resolution of capitalism’s contradictions involved the
abolition of private property whose fundamental result was
to place the social process of production within the control
of society—the elimination therefore of the anarchy and
spontaneity of capitalism. Engels (1880) argued:
With the seizing of the means of production by society, production
of commodities is done away with, and, simultaneously, the
mastery of the product over the producer. Anarchy in social
production is replaced by systematic, definite organization. The
struggle for individual existence disappears. Then, for the first
time, man, in a certain sense, is finally marked off from the rest of
the animal kingdom, and emerges from mere animal conditions
of existence into really human ones. The whole sphere of the
conditions of life which environ man, and which have hitherto
ruled man, now comes under the dominion and control of man,
who for the first time becomes the real, conscious lord of nature,
because he has now become master of his own social organization.
The laws of his own social action, hitherto standing face-to-face
with man as laws of Nature foreign to, and dominating him,
will then be used with full understanding, and so mastered by
him. Man’s own social organization, hitherto confronting him
as a necessity imposed by Nature and history, now becomes the
result of his own free action. The extraneous objective forces that
have, hitherto, governed history, pass under the control of man
himself. Only from that time will man himself, more and more
consciously, make his own history—only from that time will the
social causes set in movement by him have, in the main and in
a constantly growing measure, the results intended by him. It is
the ascent of man from the kingdom of necessity to the kingdom
of freedom.
However, the subsequent disciplinary divides of power-
knowledge diffused only in its manifestation but entrenched
in structural root of the patriarchal reproduction(s) of social
classes and their institutional units of organization (Poulantzas

1978) has largely bypassed the so-called Marxian economics of
actual socialist transition (Dobb 1969; Kornai 1979; Wilczynski
2017). However, in Marx’s vision of the ‘rich individuality’,
this aspect was central.
Rosa Luxemburg had captured this relationship between
the wage system and patriarchy in 1912 succinctly when she
wrote:
As long as capitalism and the wage system rule, only that kind
of work is considered productive which produces surplus value,
which creates capitalist profit. From this point of view, the music-
hall dancer whose legs sweep profit into her employer’s pocket
is a productive worker, whereas all the toil of the proletarian
women and mothers in the four walls of their homes is considered
unproductive. This sounds brutal and insane, but corresponds
exactly to the brutality and insanity of our present capitalist
economy. And seeing this brutal reality clearly and sharply is
the proletarian woman’s first task. (Luxemburg 2004: 241)
The attempts at ‘theorising’ of the socialist experiences have
largely been based on abstractions informed by fragmented
readings of the developments in China and the erstwhile
USSR. An early attempt of critiquing such expositions led
Dunayevskaya to lament in 1944 in the American Economic
5HYLHZ that ‘theory’ had been replaced by ‘applied’ economics
in the USSR (Dunayevskaya 1944, 1984). Thus apart from the
lack of ‘newness’ in scholarship, the sociological genealogy
of the attempts at ‘Marxist’ theorising in the judgment(s) of
socialist attempts at social transformation is a task at hand in
terms of the implications of the level of abstraction on which
the critique rests and to what extent it helps us to understand
the processes of social transformation towards the creation of
an emancipatory society breaking free of alienation. In doing
so, the attempt is not only to break away from the class basis
of production relations, but also transform the domain of
state-society relationships from the aegis of the nation-state
(Stalin 1913).
Multiple strands of later Marxist interpretations have
tried to locate the conflicts and contests of changing class

relations in the attempts at social transformation. The abstract
conceptualisation of conflict, contest and the dialectics of
transformation have been limited to the sphere of production
in a somewhat direct conflict with Marx’s and earlier Marxist
understanding of the institutional unit(s) of organisation
of society. In doing so, the individual and the collective get
conceived in terms of a conceptualisation of class relations that
abstracts away from the role of the patriarchal family as the
unit of organisation of society in a semi-feudal semi-capitalist
context within a nation-state and the spatio-temporal location
of that nation-state within the hierarchy of nation-states
defined by imperialism. However, the transformative aspects
of actually existing socialism(s) lay in not only the change
in the institutional zone of production and appropriation
of surplus, but the re-conceptualisation of the radical
transformation needed in the sphere of social reproduction
informed by a Marxist understanding of gender, patriarchy
and ‘human nature’ in a context where the transformative
potential of socialist revolution became historically limited to
small pockets of the world (Marx 1959; Lenin 1916; Bebel 1910;
Kollontai 1909; Trotsky 1923; Davis 1981; Bannerji et al. 2001;
Brown 2013)
II
Our point of departure is rooted in two inter-connected
Marxist Feminist paradigmatic premises. First, patriarchy is
endogenous to the construct of the macroeconomy. The actual
macroeconomic construct of patriarchy within which the social
hierarchy of paid and unpaid labour operates is very much a
historical process in its social and economic specificity both
in terms of time and space. Thus the ahistorical abstraction
of homoeconomicus based market systems is inadequate in
its explanatory capacity either as point of entry or as a point
of departure in understanding/analysing attempted socialist
transitions.
Second, the transformative aspects of actually existing
socialism(s) did not lie in the change in the institutional zone

of production and appropriation of surplus and by extension
the potential and limits of ‘growth of productive forces’
which has been the focus of debates on socialist production.
It lay in the re-conceptualisation of the radical transformation
needed in the sphere of social reproduction informed by a
Marxist understanding of social oppression, patriarchy and
exploitation. Based on this Marxist-Feminist conceptualisation
of social transformation, the rest of this paper is an endeavour
to critically survey the methods by which the institutional
reorganisation of reproduction in societies attempting a
revolutionary transformation had been approached through a
brief study of three attempted transformations—the Russian,
Chinese and the Cuban revolutions. In this part of the paper,
we argue that assuming the growth of productive forces as
the focus of extensive transformation rather than egalitarian
institutionalisation of social reproduction can largely undermine
the material dialectics of revolutionary emancipation.
In the socialist transitions of the twentieth century in the
USSR, China, Cuba and Tanzania, attempts to address this
contradiction had been central to the process of transformation
(Croll 1981). In each of these societies, right after the
revolution, the securing of a new and secure material base
had been severe—largely attributable to the isolations and
penalties associated with the breaking away from the imperial
axes of material power. In the ‘conceptualisation of revolution
within a revolution’, collectivisation of production and
abolition of private property rights played an important role
in the Soviet Union, China and Cuba in raising new standards
in food, health-care, housing, education and clothing and
providing women visibility and better remuneration as
workers. Having successfully abolished semi-feudal and semi-
capitalist private property rights, the question of reorgansing
social reproduction and its relationship to organisation of
production became the key question in terms of not only the
quest for emancipation but also the survival of the peoples in
each of these contexts amidst hostile geopolitics.
In Tanzania, on the other hand, ujama after independence

entailed the drawing in of women into the paid labour force in
agriculture through the process of villagization. However the
bulk of the land (70 per cent in 1980) remained under private
ownership. In that sense, while it lasted, the first condition
of reorganisation of property which had been possible in the
USSR, China and Cuba could not be achieved in Tanzania
(Croll 1981). This foreclosed the possibility of an emancipatory
restructuring of social reproduction at the very beginning of
Ujama.
There is of course a significant question that have been
raised about socialist experiments in terms of the creation
of a hierarchical technocracy that had its inherent class logic
that ‘assumes people on the top are the only real subjects of
creating new society and the capitalist objectification of the
worker continues to remain in the process of carrying out
commands down the line’ (Roy, Mazumdar and Das Gupta
2015). But even more fundamental to the process of social
restructuring was the problem that while the old appropriators
of the surplus had been done away with in the course of the
revolution, the producers of the surplus were not the owners
of the surplus (Roy, Mazumdar and Das Gupta 2015). This
production of the surplus while geared towards the end of a
better material life for all, had to fundamentally address the
question of not only the wage-surplus relationship but also
the sexual division of productive and reproductive labour
in the determination of this relationship. The relationship
between the collective enterprise system and the family has
been the twin locus of determination of the wage-surplus
relationship in the organisation of societies attempting
social transformation in which the sexual division of both
productive and reproductive labour has paid a pivotal role in
a. the determination of the wage-surplus relationship itself b.
making the social basis of patriarchy mutable in progressive
ways but reversal of that mutability in the face of crises of
production and/or reproduction.
Cuba is an example where direct attempts to break the

basis of the patriarchal family were muted by the compulsions
of the enterprise based production system. In Cuba, after the
revolution, the emphasis was on employment, distribution
and re-distribution with women and children as the locus
of the system. A shift from material to moral incentives in
the organisation of production was at the centre of socialist
envisioning in Cuba. But by the 1970s, the material conditions
of increasing problems of production given the blockade
(despite Soviet assistance) led to the tying of distribution to
wage and enterprises were expected to generate the surplus
for re-distribution. The Cuban Federation of `Women rallied
thousands of women for ‘volunteer work’ for both productive
and reproductive labour (41 million women in five years)
along with incorporation of women in the paid work-force
(one hundred thousand every year). The proportion of women
opting out of the paid workforce was very high (76 per cent in
a single year). Women’s political participation was also very
low in the early 1970s. This was the context of the adoption of
the Family Code in 1975 which directly addressed inequality
within the home. However, this intervention, coincided with
the compulsions of the reversal from moral incentives to
production to the wage-surplus enterprise system (Nazzari
1983). This undid many of the egalitarian premises of the
Family Code.
In 1948, the greatest problem facing Chinese families
was identified as extreme poverty, very high child and adult
mortality rates and health deprivation even among the more
affluent sections of society. In October and November 1948,
on the eve of the Chinese Revolution, 1492 children were
picked up from the streets and cremated in the Municipal
Crematorium (Osborne 1948). China’s social transformation
after the revolution was contingent on people’s communes
and brigades as the ‘new’ institutional bases of enterprise in
the spheres of both production and reproduction (Dong 2014)
apart from the promulgation of the new family code of 1950.
China’s attempts from the time of introduction of private land
use rights on one hand and despite the Cultural Revolution on

the other is an illustration of the direct relationship between
the relationship between family and private property in
structurally foreclosing any departure of social reproduction
from patriarchy. With the reorganisation of land after
decollectivisation, the structural roots of the patriarchal family
became strengthened with women as daughter in laws taking
on an active role in farming along with fathers-in-law while
the husbands migrated to non-agricultural employment to
‘feed’ the land (van der Pleog et al., 2014). This phenomenon
became more pronounced after the institutionalisation of the
wage-surplus relationship as the basis of enterprise since
1978, the changes in the family code (Marriage Law) of 1980
which formalised the property relationships in marriage and
subsequent formal re-introduction of private property rights
in 2007.
The attempts in the USSR in its early phase started with
the decriminalisation of homosexuality in 1918 (the first
constitution in the world to do so) and the conscious cultural
attempt to create conditions for breaking the basis of the
sexual division of labour through the Family Code of 1918 to
break away from the unit of organisation of society in terms
of the reproduction of the patriarchal monogamous family.
The Code established legalised abortion, facilitated divorce at
the request of either spouse without requiring any ground. It
abolished “illegitimacy” and entitled all children to parental
support. It gave legal credence to ‘collective fatherhood’
But the most important feature was that marriage did not
create joint property between spouses: a woman retained full
control of her earnings after marriage, and neither spouse
had any claim on the property of the other (Goldman 1993).
In the Soviet Union, this was accompanied by more and more
political participation by women in public affairs at the level
of the Soviets within the pyramidal structure of political
power (Lapidus 1975). At the same time, there was a thinning
out of women’s political power at the topmost levels of the
pyramid which was a significant reversal of the conditions
that prevailed in the first few years after the revolution in the
USSR.
Alexandra Kollontai in 1921 outlined the problematic
“in the ‘hypocritical way’ in which ‘sexual problems’ were
relegated to the realm of ‘private matters’ that are not worth
the effort and attention of the collective”. At the same time, she
pointed to the ‘spontaneous wave of new attempts of living
developing from within the social fabric’. Thus Kollontai
captured the contradictions of property relationships, class
contradictions and individualistic morality that was the basis
of alienation even as the new society under the Bolsheviks
was trying to find ways of social organisation to address these
contradictions (Kollontai 2017). Leon Trotsky in 1923 in Pravda
formulated the contradictions emerging within the ‘comunist
family’ due to the larger transformations in the Soviet Union
in the first decade after the revolution. He argued that:
The physical preparations for the conditions of the new life and
the new family, again, cannot fundamentally be separated from
the general work of socialist construction. The workers’ state
must become wealthier in order that it may be possible seriously
to tackle the public education of children and the releasing of
the family from the burden of the kitchen and the laundry.
Socialisation of family housekeeping and public education of
children are unthinkable without a marked improvement in our
economics as a whole. We need more socialist economic forms.
Only under such conditions can we free the family from the
functions and cares that now oppress and disintegrate it. Washing
must be done by a public laundry, catering by a public restaurant,
sewing by a public workshop. Children must be educated by
good public teachers who have a real vocation for the work.
Then the bond between husband and wife would be freed from
everything external and accidental, and the one would cease to
absorb the life of the other. Genuine equality would at last be
established. The bond will depend on mutual attachment. And
on that account particularly, it will acquire inner stability, not
the same, of course, for everyone, but compulsory for no one.
Thus, the way to the new family is twofold: (a) the raising of
the standard of culture and education of the working class and
the individuals composing the class; (b) an improvement in the

material conditions of the class organized by the state. The two
processes are intimately connected with one another. (Trotsky
1923)
This was indeed the understanding that informed the
adoption of the 1918 family code and concomitant changes
to organisation of property rights. But the code became more
and more difficult to operate because of the contradictions
some of which were captured by Kollontai and Trotsky in
their writings. Kollontai traced the adverse consequences from
the time of the adoption of the New Economic Policy of 1922
and the devastating effect it had on the lives of women, some
of which were captured in her works of fiction. She showed
how men in pursuit of aggrandizement as part of the new
technocracy took advantage of egalitarian values nurtured by
the revolution in the reinforcement of patriarchy (Kollontai
1927; Kollontai 1929). By 1926, the new family code did away
with ‘collective paternity’, recognised the need for protection
of women especially after divorce and legalised adoption
into the family after it was clear that ideal arrangements
of ‘collective paternity’ was actually increasing women’s
oppression and strengthening patriarchy (Lapidus 1975). But
it was the 1936 code which undid much of the advances and
shifted the burden of social reproduction back on women
within the patriarchal family (Lapidus 1975), re-criminalised
homosexuality to the point where the Marriage Council of
Philadelphia in the USA in 1948 ironically celebrated aspects
of women’s activities, standards of healthcare and education
in what they perceived as ‘fulfiling the vital function of
strengthening of families in the Soviet Union’ as opposed to
the situation in the USA (Mudd 1948).
What led to this reversal? The usual explanation has been
that the loss of life suffered by the Soviet Union led to this
shift in women’s institutional role in biological reproduction
to maintain the population. Without minimising the impact of
the war that led to many social problems including high levels
of alcoholism and domestic abuse by men, Soviet history

shows that this impetus continued beyond the logic of loss of
life and the horrors of war. Our argument is that the state of
continuous siege of the Soviet Union led to a the continuation
of a productivist paradigm founded on an enterprise system
based on a wage-surplus relationship that necessarily entailed
relegating social reproduction to the realm of the ‘family’. The
nation-state’s project of producing more and more surplus
(which was perceived as necessary under the prevailing
conditions), entailed a shift in the locus of social transformation
from the hidden abode of reproduction to the visible abode of
production. Beyond a well-functioning welfare state, the class
project of transformation of the institutional basis of social
organisation was abandoned to the cause of productivism in
the context of the geopolitical situation that led to this shift.
The wage-surplus relationship that necessarily entails sexual
division of both unpaid reproductive work and unpaid labour
in production constituted the fundamental reason for this
regression in social transformation.
Thus, we can conclude that assuming the growth of
productive forces as the focus of extensive transformation
(irrespective of whether it was historical compulsion or
historical choice) rather than egalitarian institutionalisation of
social reproduction largely undermined the material dialectics
of revolutionary emancipation in each of these transitions.
Irrespective of the ‘ways of seeing’ and the bitter debates on
these socialist transitions, what is common to each transition
is the concrete question of the radical transformation of the
family, private property and the nation-state in sustenance
of the surplus for social reproduction. Even as each such
transformative attempt challenged the global hegemony of
imperialism, it also threw open the questions of the material
limits of socialist emancipation within a system of nation-
states. This paper does not propose definitive answers as there
can be none, but in conclusion makes a plea for a Marxist
Feminist conception of state-society relations which would
help to unravel the institutional linkages between enterprise
and family in the material historical dialectic of production-

reproduction in the specific context of the attempted
revolutionary transformations to socialism in and since the
twentieth century.
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11
Manufacturing Profits:
Modes of Surplus Extraction at the
Lower End of the Global Value Chain
$UFKDQD$JJDUZDO
Global Value Chains (GVCs) are the face of globalised

production now. The last few decades have seen the emergence
of the international division of labour in the form of GVCs.
Firms located in different parts of the world undertake different
aspects of production and distribution of a commodity.
Countries like India are situated at low value adding segments
of the GVC and maintain their competitiveness by providing
cheap labour. India has become a hub for the automobile supply
chain as well as the ‘manufacturer’ of readymade garments
and also consumer electronic goods for global ‘buyers’. Most
recently, it has become an attractive destination for assembly
of mobile phones. The National Capital Region (NCR) of Delhi
and surrounding areas has evolved as an important centre for
various kinds of manufacturing activities, especially in the
last three or four decades. There are more than 50 industrial
clusters in NCR besides a number of micro enterprises
concentrations in the National Capital Territory1 (NCT) Delhi.
Industrialisation in NCR is concentrated in the sub-regions of
Uttar Pradesh (general manufacturing), Haryana (automobile,
electronics, and textiles) and Rajasthan (marble, leather, and
textiles). The textile industry has the largest number of units
and is also the largest employer of workforce (Economic Profile
of NCR 2015).
This paper examines the methods and mechanisms

employed by firms located in the automobile, apparel and
consumer electronics GVCs in the NCR, in order to extract
surplus and profits. The observations are primarily based on
interviews with workers employed in some of these firms.
The analysis uses Marxian theory to understand the modes
of surplus extraction employed by capital in these industries.
Section I discusses the concept of GVC and the distinction
between producer-driven and buyer-driven value chains. It
also gives an overview of the situation in five plants in the
NCR region which provides the basis for analysis in Section
II of the paper. The case studies used for analysis in this
paper are based on the interviews with the workers of the
following factories and industries: 1. Maruti Suzuki India
Limited located in Manesar, Haryana; 2. A vendor company
for automobile OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer)
including Maruti; 3. Garment workers working in the
garment firms in Udyog Vihar, Haryana; 4. A subsidiary of
a global producer of consumer electronics, Greater Noida;
and 5. A mobile manufacturer in Greater Noida and a phone
assembling company at Noida.2
Section I: Global Value Chains
A value chain refers to all the value adding activities in the
production and distribution of a commodity undertaken
by different firms but linked together. Value chains can
exist within and across countries. In the latter case, they are
referred to as Global Value Chains. Various firms in the chain
may be linked together through ‘sub-contracting’ relations or
as ‘buyers and sellers’ of a part or whole of the commodity.
Different firms are located at different levels in the value chain
in correspondence to the level of ‘value addition’ done by
them.
Gereffi (2003) shows how two types of international
economic networks exist; ‘producer-driven’ value chains
and ‘buyer-driven’ value chains. Both these networks are led
by large, usually, transnational corporations. In the case of
0DQXIDFWXULQJ3URILWVв307
‘producer-driven’ value chains, transnational manufacturers

coordinate the production networks and such chains are
common in capital and technology intensive industries such
as automobiles. Buyer-driven GVCs, on the other hand, are
characterised by large retailers and branded manufacturers,
subcontracting to, or buying from, decentralised production
networks spread across the world, especially in the low wage
developing countries. These are visible in labour intensive
industries such as apparel and consumer electronics. Amongst
these firms, the transnational corporations located in the
developed world are the ‘lead firms’ and act as the global
buyers. They are able to capture the major share of profits
by their effective control on high value adding segments
of the value chain such as R&D intensive operations and
also through their monopoly on markets and finances. Take
the example of Apple where the value added in China from
assembly, testing, and packaging is just about three per cent or
less of the output price (Bose and Pratap, 2016).
(A) Producer Driven Chains: Automobiles
The emerging economies saw a rapid spread of the automobile
industry in the 1990s. This was the period where the industry
stagnated in the traditional home for automobiles, i.e. Triad
economies and flourished in the rest of the world. The value
chain in the automobile industry is usually described by
reference to a number of tiers. The supply chain is such that
‘Tier 1 suppliers’ are those selling directly to the car makers
or assemblers and ‘Tier 2’ suppliers are those selling directly
to the ‘Tier 1’ firms, and so on. In India, it was only with the
arrival of Suzuki in partnership with Maruti and the forming
of the Suzuki-Maruti company, that the face of the automobile
industry changed in the early 1990s. In 1992, the Indian
government reduced its share in the publicly owned Maruti
Company and allowed the Suzuki Motor Corporation of Japan
to become the largest shareholder. Maruti went on to capture
70 per cent of passenger car sales of India. By the end of the
1990s, the overwhelming majority of all passenger cars in India
was produced by eight firms of which six were multinational

ventures. The supply chain underwent a transformation with
multinational companies working closely with local suppliers.
Thus the component supply chain developed rapidly and
the value of component trading doubled between 1997 and
2001. At present, India’s automobile industry has global
scale participation mainly in component manufacturing and
assembly.
Maruti Suzuki India Limited, Manesar ( Haryana)
As mentioned above, Maruti-Suzuki India Limited is
practically the synonym for the Indian automobile industry.
The company has a long and eventful history. When the first
Maruti plant was set up in the early 1980s, it was a profitable
public sector enterprise. The enterprise was privatised over
time starting as a joint venture with Suzuki Motor Corporation
of Japan in 1992. By 2002, Suzuki had a controlling stake in
the company. From three plants in Gurgaon, Maruti Suzuki
expanded to set up a plant in Manesar in 2006. Manesar in
Haryana developed as an industrial cluster largely due to
Maruti Suzuki. The company attracted an entire supply chain
of component producers. Some of these were joint ventures,
in which Suzuki-Maruti held a substantial stake, while others
were independent domestic firms (Sutton). In the last few
decades, Maruti has also become a synonym for workers’
struggles and repression on the workers.3
Automobile Vendor Company, Manesar (Haryana )
Manufacturer of Exhaust Maniflod, Case Differential &
Steering Knuckle, this company caters to the needs of
passenger cars and commercial vehicles for a number of
companies including Maruti. This is an example of a Tier 1
company in the supply chain for automobiles. Located in the
automobile cluster of Manesar, the company has a Foundry
and a Machine Shop. The former employs unskilled workers,
whereas the workers in the Machine Shop are often graduates
from ITIs. The Foundry has nearly 350 workers, of which only
a handful is in the category of regular workers, the rest are

employed on a contractual basis through labour contractors.
The Machine Shop, on the other hand, has 180 regular workers
and some contractual workers. Apart from these, there are
10-15 workers employed for packaging, loading, unloading,
cleaning and other miscellaneous tasks.
The conditions of employment are different at the
Foundry and the Machine Plant. The Foundry works on two
shifts of 12 hours each, with shifts changing at 7 am and at 7
pm. The workers employed here are forced to work all seven
days a week. Although they receive overtime (OT) wages for
the work on Sunday, but the overtime rate is the same as non-
overtime, in violation of the law that requires a double rate
for overtime. Even on national holidays like 15th August, the
work continues discreetly in the night shift. The timing of
the salary payment to these workers is delayed and irregular,
with the Foundry workers getting paid later than others. The
Machine Shop has more than 350 workers employed in three
shifts starting at 7 am, 3 pm and 11 pm. Around 50-60 regular
workers and 5-10 contractual workers work in each shift. They
have a half hour break for lunch and are supposed to have a
holiday on Sunday. However, there are times when they have
to report for OT (at single rate even here) on Sundays and
failing to do this, they are not allowed to enter the factory for
the next few days and accordingly, the wages are deducted.
The basic wage for a helper grade worker is Rs. 8,279 per
month (2017) which is the same for a new entrant as well
as experienced workers. However, based on the worker’s
experience and management’s discretion, the experienced
workers get some annual increments. Apart from the basic
wage, the only other component of wage is an Attendance
Bonus of 15 per cent in a situation of full 26-day attendance.
There is no dearness allowance. PF is deducted at 12 per cent
and ESI at 1.75 per cent. A machine operator draws a salary of
Rs. 13,500 after 5 years of experience including the overtime.
According to the workers, the accounting of OT hours of the
workers is often fudged by the management and as a rule,
10-15 hours of overtime remains unpaid. Not only this, but

in case a worker needs to stay back on account of excessive
production targets, it is not treated as OT but is simply part
of that day’s regular work. Apart from this, verbal and even
physical abuse by the management is quite commonplace.
(B) Buyer-Driven Chains: Apparel and Consumer Electronics
i) Garments
Buyer-driven value chains are characterised by the lead firms
being “retailers, marketers and branded manufacturers”
(Gereffi 2003). Apparel and consumer electronics are good
examples of these. In the case of garments, for instance, the
lead firms in the developed countries either subcontract
production to the firms in the developing countries or simply
act as buyers of readymade garments which are produced
by the firms in the developing countries. These lead firms
often act as ‘manufacturers without factories”. The garment
industry has gone through multiple phases of geographical
relocation. Mezzadri and Srivastava (2015) show how the
East Asian economies used the exports of garments to
further their national development. A crucial basis was use
of wage differentials. However with a partial erosion of these
differentials, by the late 1970s, there was a “second, wider
process of industrial relocation.” This included countries
of Latin America, South East Asia, South Asia, especially
China. India’s entry in the above global garment market took
place towards the 1980s. “In Asia, by 2013, the top 5 garment
exporters were, respectively, China, Hong Kong, Bangladesh,
Vietnam, and India” (Mezzadri and Srivastava). India exports
primarily to the US and European Union. Apart from the
ability to provide ‘diversified’ garments, India’s advantage
also lies in low labour costs. According to the World Bank data
of the world’s 25 leading apparel exporters in 1980, 1990 and
2000, quoted by Gereffi (2003); labour costs (wages and fringe
benefits) in India was merely .39 US$/hour in 1998 compared
to 10.12 US$/hour in the United States. Only four countries
had labour costs below India, i.e. Indonesia, Vietnam,

Bangladesh and Pakistan.
ii) New Connections: Mobile Phones
‘Make in India’ initiative by the Indian government, attracted a
host of smart phone manufacturers. This initiative slashed the
tax on locally manufactured handsets to 2 per cent, compared
to 12.5 per cent duty on imported, completely-built handsets.
Given this, and given a huge potential market in India,
manufacturing handsets in India became logical. A number of
Chinese phone manufacturers have relocated or subcontracted
production to India. Chinese smart phone company set up a
manufacturing plant in Greater Noida in December 2015. In
another case, two other phone manufacturers began to get
the handsets made by a company which set up base in Noida
in August, 2016. Both these companies (Greater Noida and
Noida) have used the services of labour contractors to supply
workers as and when they needed them.
Garment Workers in Udyog Vihar (Haryana)4
The Haryana Industrial belt known as Udyog Vihar
developed as a cluster for garment exports in the 1990s
when manufacturing units relocated from parts of Delhi to
Udyog Vihar. This happened both due to mandatory moving
of industrial units from Delhi and in response to heavy tax
concessions provided by the Haryana government. The
garment production in Udyog Vihar takes place in registered
manufacturing units and in fabricator units. Some of the
larger manufacturing units could even employ 1,000 workers
but there are smaller units too, employing 400-500 workers.
These units are registered under the Factories Act and they
take orders directly from the global brands or indirectly via
the buying houses. Fabricator units take orders from the
registered manufacturing units operating within this region,
i.e. the registered units sub-contract a part of their work to the
fabricator units. Fabricator units often work illegally and vary
in size from those employing 10 workers to those with 500
workers. Some part of the work is outsourced to and done by

home-based women workers. A vast majority of the workers
are migrants from Uttar Pradesh and Bihar and many are
Muslims belonging to the ‘julaha’ community. Despite living
in the Delhi-NCR area for as long as 20 years at times, most of
the workers do not have a voter card. Almost all the workers
(95 per cent to 99 per cent) are employed through labour
contractors and not directly by the company. Unlike garment
workers in other parts of the country, the NCR is dominated
by male workers in this sector.
The workers are employed in various departments of the
garment units such as sampling, quality control production
or sewing, finishing, etc. The production takes place under a
‘chain system’ or an assembly line. Here, many workers sit in
a row and the garment passes from one worker to the other
where each of them is responsible for a small part of the work
such as stitching the collar or stitching one arm of the shirt. The
rows or columns of workers are supervised by ‘supervisors’
who are responsible for meeting the production targets and
hence keep urging the workers to work faster and faster. The
monthly wages differ from one kind of worker to another and
are based on an eight-hour working day (9 am to 5:30 pm)
with a half an hour break for lunch. This is in accordance with
the minimum wages stipulated by the Haryana government
but is grossly inadequate to lead a dignified life in Delhi-NCR.
Even these wages have been falling in real terms.
The horribly depressed wages force the workers to work
overtime in order to increase their monthly earnings. With
overtime of at least 3-4 hours every day (and Sundays),
the workers manage to make monthly earnings of around
Rs.10,000. Legally, the wages for overtime work is supposed to
be double the usual wage, however overtime at single rate is
the norm in Udyog Vihar. There is also a continuous pressure
to increase the intensity and pace of work. The workers claim
that they are regularly harassed, not paid adequately and also
verbally and physically abused by the company management
and the bouncer-turned guards. Also, the industry is known
for frequent accidents and injuries.

After putting in long hours of back breaking work,
virtually the entire workforce comes back to dank and
cramped rooms in many villages on the Haryana-Delhi
border such as Kapashera and Dharuhera. The rooms shared
by workers are tiny, overpriced and come with a long list of
conditions imposed by the landlords. The threat of eviction is
also always present. Most of the workers cannot afford to live
with their families who stay back in the native villages.
Subsidiary of an Electronics Major, Greater Noida (Uttar
Pradesh)
India is also emerging as a production hub for the electronics
industry with many global electronics brands, Original
Equipment Manufacturers and Original Design Manufacturers
(OEMs and ODMs) including Foxconn getting production
done in India and Indonesia. A well-known global name in
the field of consumer electronics set up a production plant
in Greater Noida in 1998. This company is a wholly owned
subsidiary of the parent company and undertakes assembling
of consumer electronic goods. The technology intensive
components are imported. The Greater Noida plant is a multi
product plant with a total of 12 assembly lines including two
lines for refrigerators, one for microwave, two for washing
machines and three for air conditioners. On the shop floor,
there are roughly 2,000 workers of whom 850 are permanent.
Of these, about 100-150 are women and only a small number;
i.e. around 50-60 are local. Apart from the permanent workers,
around 1,200 contractual workers also do the same work. The
contract workers are not paid directly by the Company but
by the labour contractors, who incidentally deduct their own
share from the wages of the workers. In 2016, the oldest and
the most senior permanent workers who were employed since
the setting up of the plant in 1998 roughly earned a wage of
Rs. 30,000 per month of which Rs. 18,000 was the basic pay.
Annually, the workers got an increment of Rs. 1,500-2,000 (this
used to be Rs. 1,000 a few years ago). Workers have a 9-hour
working day from 9 am to 6 pm with a half an hour break

for lunch and two tea breaks of 15 minutes each. In case of
overtime, it is supposed to begin after another ten minutes
of tea break once the regular day gets over at 6 pm. As will
be seen later, these breaks have been systematically reduced
in some or the other way. There has also been a continuous
increase in productivity through automation and a rising
intensification of work.
Mobile Phone Manufacturer, Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh)5
All the workers in this plant are ITI graduates and 100 per cent
of the workers are contractual. The workers work in different
shifts; the regular shift is for 9 hours while two other shifts are
8 hours each. The workers are required to work for all 30 days
without any leave for which they are paid Rs. 9,300 per month.
After deducting PF and ESI, each worker gets only about
Rs. 7,100 for 30 days of work. The company has a policy of
deducting Rs. 2,000 from the salary for the absence of a single
day of work and if perfect attendance is met, a reward of an extra
Rs. 2,000 is added to the salary. The award has not really been
given till now but absence for even a day leads to more than 20
per cent deduction in salary. During the entire day’s work, the
workers get half an hour of lunch break and 10 minutes of tea
break. Besides these breaks, if a worker leaves the assembly
line even for going to the washroom, he is penalised. Workers
also complain of regular harassment and verbal abuse by the
supervisors. They work with a target of assembling 160 phones
per hour. Not meeting the target has resulted in termination
of the services of the entire line of workers. The PF amount
can be claimed by a worker only after 6 months of service but
the Company follows a practice of not retaining a worker for
more than 5 months. In the recent months workers have not
been receiving even the stipulated Rs. 7,100. In July 2017, some
workers received less than Rs. 4,000 as salary. Terminations and
dismissals without notice is quite the norm here. The workers
may enter the factory for their shift only to be told that they
are part of “Left” category and they could leave. The word
Left symbolises termination from the job. No explanation is

provided. The land on which the Company stands belongs to
Jaganpur village but the Company has hardly employed even
10 young people from the village. They have a policy of getting
workers from distant areas in a bid to prevent unionisation.
Assembler of Mobile Phones, Noida
Three different labour contractors supply workers to this
company. Like most of the manufacturing units that have come
to India since the 2015 drive, the nature of hiring is purely
contractual with a clause that the workers can be terminated
at any point of their tenure without any prior notice. The
management began laying off workers after Diwali in November
2018. Over 50 workers were laid off in the first three weeks
of November. On November 29, 2018, the company resorted
to mass termination resulting in protests by the workers and
police action against them. The Company only hires ITI and
polytechnic graduates and recruitment is usually on the wage
scale of Rs. 12,000 per month with a PF deduction of 8 per
cent per month. However, they are paid only Rs. 9,200 per
month. Although some workers are given ID cards, these have
the names of contracting companies and not of the company
where they were employed. The cards have an expiry date of 11
months from the day of hiring though, sometimes, the workers
are ousted much earlier, as was the case in November layoff.
The working hours are nine per day with compulsory overtime
(OT) of 3 hours for which they are paid Rs. 100 per hour. An hour
of ‘leisure time’ is given for lunch and tea, which is subtracted
from the total number of working hours which means that
for 12 hours a day that a worker spends in the company, he is
paid only for 11 hours. Since November 2018 with reduction
in production, OT had been scrapped, making it very difficult
for workers to sustain themselves. Most of the workers lived
in rented accommodation nearby which cost them at least
Rs. 4,000 per month.
Section II: Dynamic of Capital Accumulation
This section discusses the dynamic of capital accumulation in
the industries in NCR. As pointed out by Marx, accumulation

of capital or expansion of value is the motivation for production
under capitalism. The capitalist is concerned about profits
and the hidden basis of the profits is surplus value. Surplus
value is created through appropriation of the worker’s labour.
During the course of production, workers add more value
(labour put in) than what they are compensated for (value of
labour power). This gives rise to surplus value which is then
realised by the capitalist by selling the product of labour.6
Let us first focus on the generation of surplus in the course
of production. The working day can be divided into two parts,
necessary labour and surplus labour. The product of necessary
labour time accrues to the worker in the form of wages,
whereas the product of surplus labour time is appropriated
by the capitalist in the form of surplus value. The basis for
valorisation of capital or expansion of the value of capital is
the rate of surplus value which is defined as ratio of surplus
value (s) to variable capital (value of labour power, v) or
s/v. Marx talks about two basic possibilities for increasing
the rate of surplus value and thus the valorisation of capital;
i) production of absolute surplus value and ii) production of
relative surplus value. The former or the absolute surplus value
is increased, when, given the value of labour power v, surplus
value or s is increased (KLJKHU V ZLWK VDPH Y UDLVHV WKH UDWLR
s/v). This can be done by increasing the surplus labour time,
which in turn can be done by various measures. An important
measure is to make the workers work for longer hours or
increasing the length of the working day. With a legally
mandated working day, this can also be achieved by using
the working hours better through reducing the break times
or “by no longer counting certain job preparations as part of
the working time” (Heinrich, 2013, p. 104). Accelerating up
or increasing the intensity of work has a similar effect since
it leads to more surplus labour in the same working hours. It
is not surprising, therefore, that the conflict between capital
and labour is quite often centred on the use of labour time.
Lack of unionisation or repression on existing unions enables
the capitalist to increase the portion of surplus labour time

through one or more of the mechanisms described here.
The rate of surplus value can also be increased by
increasing relative surplus value, when, given the length of the
working day, necessary labour time, v, is reduced (ORZHUYZLWK
same s raises the ratio s/v). This can be done by decrease in the
value of means of subsistence necessary for reproduction of
labourer. For this, there needs to be an increase in productivity
in the sectors producing the means of subsistence. However,
v can also be reduced by reducing the extent of the amount of
means of subsistence necessary for reproduction of labourer.
Just like labour time, the value of labour power or v is also
impacted by the struggle between capital and labour (apart
from other historical and cultural factors). Once again,
weak labour unions can lead to a fall in the extent of means
of subsistence considered necessary for the reproduction of
labour power.
Another method to increase profits is to increase the
productivity so that the same amount of products can be
made with fewer units of labour. This often happens through
introduction of machinery.7 If a shortening of the working day
does not accompany the increase in productivity, it means
that, the innovating capitalist can obtain extra surplus value
and extra profits (even if temporarily so). What is seen in
practice is that a rise in productivity through the introduction
of machines results in longer work hours, multiple shifts
and night shifts in order to avoid ‘idle machine time’. In the
industries under discussion, increase in productivity is rarely
accompanied by a proportionate rise in the workers’ standard
of living or a shortened work day, implying that workers
create a larger sum of value than what they receive as wages.
Thus increase in productivity also leads to an increase in
surplus value and the rate of surplus value.
How the globally integrated industries located in the NCR
employ many of the mechanisms described above, in order to
increase the surplus value and profits.
1. Increasing the Length of Working Day

Whether it is the automobile sector, or electronics or garments,
all of them have long working hours for the worker. The
working day in most industries is usually 9 hours with half an
hour lunch break and one or two tea breaks of 10 minutes each.
There are units where the scheduled work day is 12 hours, for
example, the Foundry unit of auto vendor in Manesar, which
produces components for automobiles. Further, working
beyond the scheduled hours or overtime work is a norm in
most cases. As per law, wages for overtime work should be
double of normal wages, but practically, this was non-existent
in all the industries which were surveyed. On one hand, low
wages lead workers to seek overtime work on a regular basis
but on the other hand, overtime is also forced by the employer
and failing to show up for overtime often leads to dismissal
or threat of dismissal. According to the workers, in Maruti’s
Manesar plant, between 2006 and 2011, workers would be
kept back indiscriminately for long hours but no overtime was
given for staying back. In the vendor company, the workers in
the machine shop are supposed to have a weekly day off on
Sunday. However, there are times when they have to show up
for OT (at single rate) on Sundays and failing to do this, they
are not allowed to enter the factory for the next few days and
accordingly the wages are deducted.
In the units producing readymade garments in Udyog
Vihar, Gurgaon, the norm is overtime of 100 hours per month
(although legal cap on overtime is 50 hours per quarter or
three months) per worker. During the peak months, it is not
uncommon for the workers to be working till after midnight.
Interestingly, although, workers themselves need overtime
work, there are situations where a worker may be asked to
quit if he/she cannot put in the overtime hours when the
employer demands it. The garment producers have devised a
novel mechanism to increase the working day. Many of them
employ a piece rate worker and a time rate worker in the same
‘chain’ or assembly line. The workers who are paid wages
according to the number of pieces produced are interested in

increasing the pieces produced even if it means working more
hours per day. This means that even time rate workers are
forced to work for long hours on account of pressure exerted
by the piece rate workers.
2. Reduction of Breaks
As discussed earlier, reduction of breaks during the course of
the working day result in extracting more labour during the
course of the day. Producer of consumer electronics, subsidiary
of global electronics major, located in Noida, has perfected the
art of extracting extra labour for 35 minutes every day from
each worker. Although the work day is supposed to start at
9 am, the workers are expected to report at 8.30 am, do some
exercises, take instructions and clean up the work station.
Almost as a routine, the production line is started 15 minutes
before the scheduled time and carries on till 10 minutes after
6 pm. Also in order to accommodate 10 minutes of the tea
break before the overtime shift, the scheduled tea breaks have
been reduced to 10 minutes each. In other words, if a worker
(usually women workers) does not stay on for overtime, she
gets only 50 minutes of break during the day instead of an
hour. This means that each worker puts in 25-40 minutes of
extra work almost on a daily basis (15 minutes before 9 am,
10 minutes after 6 pm and 10 minutes of reduced breaks). It
should be noted that workers are not paid for this extra work.
According to the workers, 5-6 refrigerators get assembled in 1
minute which means that 75 lakh extra fridges are assembled
simply in the unpaid extra time extracted in this ‘extra’ 25-40
minutes per worker every day. It generates enough revenues
so as to pay the entire wage bill of the production workers.
In a similar manner, the workers alleged that in Maruti’s
Manesar plant, the already short tea breaks were further
reduced by a minute per break (before 2011). According to
the workers of auto vendor company, Manesar, they are not
provided with any relievers so that in case some worker
needs to use the toilet, he has to request another worker
to take over his task as well. The workers of mobile phone

company in Greater Noida, reported a similar situation—
they are penalised for taking toilet breaks. The attempts to
reduce breaks by a few minutes or the attempts to increase the
working day by a few minutes, show how crucial this labour
time is for generating surplus and profits. In the Noida phone
assembling company, the break hour is deducted before
calculating the hours for which wages are paid.
3. Ensuring Maximal Attendance Through Attendance Bonus
In many industries, attendance is incentivised (or absence is
penalised) through a farcical attendance bonus. This ensures
that workers do not take (or are not allowed to) take any day
off. Let us look at some illustrations: Phone manufacturing
company in Greater Noida expects workers to work for 30
days per month without any day off, in order to be eligible for
attendance bonus. Even this attendance bonus (even though
namesake) was scrapped after August 4, 2017. Similarly, auto
vendor company of Manesar claims to give an attendance
bonus to those workers who are present for 26 days per month
(entire month excluding one off day per week). It is a different
matter that till date, no worker has received this bonus.
4. Acceleration and Intensification of Work
Intensification of work has been a common feature across
industries. The pace of work has increased continuously
leading to intensification of work per unit of time. This means
that more labour is put in per unit of time and is tantamount
to increasing the absolute surplus.
At the Gurgaon plant of Maruti, the index of hours
required to produce cars reduced continuously from 100 in
2001 to 76.15 in 2002, 59.36 in 2003 and 37.95 in 2006 (PUDR
2007). According to some workers of Maruti’s plant at Manesar,
from 2006-11, the work pressure was immense as work at
two stations was combined into one, in effect, doubling the
amount of work for each person. Despite carrying water
bottles, workers did not get enough time to even drink water.
The intensity of work had risen to such high levels that the
time needed to assemble one car had been contracted to 45
46 seconds which forced the workers to work at brutally high
speeds.
The auto vendor company has seen so much intensification
of work that accidents have become fairly common in this
factory. The workers attribute regular accidents to excessive
workload. The workers complain of being fatigued and
overworked and despite this, the production targets have been
going up continuously. For instance, a terminated worker from
VMC (Vertical Machine Control) said that within a span of 5
years, the production target in a single shift almost doubled
from 60 pieces to 110 pieces. And this was done without
changing the machines physically, simply by increasing the
speed of the machines.
In the garment industry, nearly 20 years ago, there
was a transition from a system of ‘full piece tailor’ wherein
each worker was responsible for making the garment in
its entirety, to ‘chain system’ or the assembly line where
each assembly line has many workers, each responsible for
cutting or stitching a small part of the garment. Supervisors
are deployed to ensure that workers meet rising production
targets. More recently, in order to supervise and increase the
work intensity in the garment industry, devices such as stop
watches and magnetic cards were adopted. According to the
workers, production targets had increased three fold within a
span of 5 years. Production targets have become so punishing
that when one worker collapsed on his seat in a factory of
Orient Craft Limited in 2014, other workers realised this only
after some time had elapsed as they did not have the time
to raise their heads from their sewing machines. The pace of
work is also enhanced by keeping a piece rate worker in the
same assembly line as a time rate worker. This ensures that the
piece rate worker, himself puts pressure on other workers to
work faster.
5. Increase in the Productivity

We have already seen how automation and an increase in
productivity enables the capitalist to extract greater surplus
and more profits. In practice, it is often difficult to distinguish
between the effects of increase in productivity, i.e. increase in
output per unit of labour and increase in intensification, i.e.
increase in labour per unit of time. Both show up as increase
in output per labourer. There has been a continuous increase
in the number of cars per unit of ‘direct worker’ in the case
of Maruti or Maruti Suzuki. The cars per direct worker (per
year) increased from 77 in 1995-96 to 107 in 1999-2000 (PUDR
2001). As stated earlier, the index of hours required to produce
cars reduced continuously. To take another example, in the
electronics manufacturing company at Greater Noida, nearly
300 workers at the Greater Noida factory produced 1,000
units of electronic products per day in 2003 whereas ten
to twelve years later, the production rose by 250 per cent to
2,500 units, whereas the number of workers undertaking this
production fell by 40 per cent, to 180. Firstly, the company
has been undertaking continuous automation to increase
productivity. This has resulted in workers having to work
faster. For example, a fridge compressor used to be assembled
in 5 seconds a few years ago but over time, this has been
continuously reduced and today the ‘Takt Time’ is only 3
seconds. (This has created a situation where the worker
cannot even scratch himself/herself or remove a fly from his/
her body during work).
6. Depressed Wages
The workers in most cases are not fully compensated for
the value of their labour power. The wages are supposed to
cover the ‘cost of reproduction of labour power’ and this must
include the means necessary to maintain the worker in his
normal state as a working individual. In other words, wages
should cover the cost of sustenance of the worker’s family and
include the means necessary for the worker’s replacements, i.e.
the livelihood of his/her children. This is not a fixed sum but
depends on historical, cultural factors and, more importantly,

on the balance of power between capital and labour.
In Indian industry in general and the sectors and industries
under discussion specifically, the following observations can
be made:
i) Wages are lower than what is needed for a ‘decent
living’.
ii) Wages are falling in real terms.
iii) Cost of reproduction of industrial worker is partly
being borne by the agricultural sector.
iv) The productivity increases are not resulting in increase
in wages. In other words, the increase in output per
worker is not going to the worker.
Although, the legally stipulated minimum wages are
provided in most cases, but this minimum has become the
maximum possible wage. The workers hardly, if ever, get a
wage higher than the PLQLPXP ZDJH. Virtually none of the
industries pay a Dearness Allowance to the workers.
In fact, the basic pay of the ‘sampling tailor’ (tailors
who makes samples and are most privileged amongst all
tailors in the garment industry) fell continuously in real
terms between 2007 and 2014. In 2015, the basic pay of these
tailors was a meagre Rs. 6,500 per month. Adding various
allowances (house rent allowance, travel allowance and
dearness allowance), the monthly wage became Rs. 8,800. The
production tailors received a monthly wage of Rs. 6,500 in
April 2015 but there were no further allowances. In a similar
manner, the wages paid by mobile phone manufacturers in
2017 was merely Rs. 9,300 per month (and after deduction
of PF and ESI merely Rs. 7,100). None of the workers of this
company have ever managed to get the PF since they were
removed before the completion of the necessary period for
withdrawal of PF, i.e. 6 months. The monthly wage in auto
vendor company was Rs. 8,279 in 2017 which is the legal
minimum wage set by the Haryana government. 7KHVH ORZ
ZDJHVPDNHRYHUWLPHZRUNHVVHQWLDOIRUWKHZRUNHUVLQRUGHUWRPDNH
HQGV PHHW WKXV LQFUHDVLQJ WKH OHQJWK RI WKH ZRUNLQJ GD\. Even
with overtime, the workers in the garment industry were able
to earn merely Rs. 10,000 per month. The workers also face
arbitrary deduction in wages in many industries. In the units
of garment manufacturers in Gurgaon, a 10-minute delay can
lead to deduction of one hour’s wages.
The wages are much lower than the figure of Rs. 18,000
calculated by India’s 7th Central Pay Commission as a need-
based minimum wage (NBMW) for the ORZHVWranked staff in
government (RUPE 2018).8 In fact, if we look at the garment
sector in particular, even with both husband and wife working,
the family wage turns out to be less than this figure. These
low wages have also been falling in real terms. This can be
exemplified by looking at the basic pay of sampling tailors in
the garment industry. The following chart is based on payslips
of the workers and Labour Bureau Statistics.
Basic Pay of a Sampling Tailor Over the Years

Years Basic Pay (Monthly) Price Salary Adjusted for
(Rupees) (Nominal Index Price Change (Basic
terms) (CPIIW) salary in real terms)
2007 3,900 131 2,977.09
2008 3,976 141.6 2,819.85
2009 4,304 157 2,741.4
2010 4,739 175.9 2,708.0
2011 5,031 191.5 2,634.0
2012 5,400 (approx.) 209.3 2,583.7
2013 5,600 (approx.) 232.16 2,413.7
2014 6,030 246.9 2,451.2
2015 6,200
6RXUFH&RPSLOHGE\WKH$XWKRUEDVHGRQSD\VOLSVRIWKHZRUNHUVDQG/DERXU
Bureau Statistics.
The result becomes even starker if we look at the auto
industry for the entire country. This is an industry which
saw considerable growth in the decade of 2000-01 to 2009
10. Despite being one of the better paying industries, real

wages in the auto sector—i.e. after discounting for inflation—
actually fell continuously in the period 2000-01 to 2009-10.
However in nominal terms, annual wages in this industry
rose from Rs. 79,446 in 2000-01 to Rs. 88,671 in 2004-05 to
Rs. 109,575 in 2009-10 (Aspects of Indian Economy, No. 52).
Chart 1: Real Wages of Auto Industry Workers (in 2000–01 Rs.)
Source: Aspects of Indian Economy, 1R
The fact that workers are not even paid the value of labour
power is evident from the fact that they need to supplement
their incomes through multiple sources. In the garment sector,
most of the workers are unable to get their families to live
with them. Also a large majority of the workers get rations
from their native villages. These can be regarded as ‘reverse
remittances’ from the agricultural sector. The workers of phone
manufacturer of Greater Noida choose to commute from their
native villages, which may be as far as 80 kilometres, in order
to save on the living costs by renting a place near the factory.
Thus for the worker households, who have migrated from the
villages, rural connections are retained as a ‘second base of
material provision in the city’ (Aspects of Indian Economy, Nos.
71&72). A portion of consumption of the worker household
is met from the agrarian sector, whether it is in the form of
sustenance of a part of the family in the village or procuring
rations from the village.

Further, the workers have not benefited from productivity
increases in various industries. Productivity increases have
not provided them either shorter working hours or a rise in
real wages. In fact, in some cases, the number of shifts has
increased so that the machine is not left idle. The workers
employed in the Foundry of auto vendor at Manesar reported
that there are two shifts of 12 hours each and the production
is carried out discreetly even during public holidays such as
15th August (Day of Indian Independence). In the automobile
sector as a whole, wages as a share of value added have fallen
from 27.4 per cent in 2000-01 to 15.4 per cent in 2009-10. This
is due to a rise in value added per worker accompanied by a
fall in real wage per worker ($VSHFWVRI,QGLDQ(FRQRP\1R).
Chart 3: Wages as % of Net Value Added in Auto Industry
Source: Behind the Present Wave of Unrest in the Auto Sector

http://www.rupe-india.org/52/auto.html#note1
7. Weakening of Labour and Repression on Workers’ Unions

The degree to which, capital, can employ the various methods
of surplus extraction depends on the relative strength of
capital and labour. For instance, the capitalist tries to lengthen
the work day, whereas labour tries to shorten it. Eventually
the struggle between capital and labour (class of capitalists
and the working class) establishes a work-day which becomes
the norm or to quote Marx, ‘between equal rights, force
decides’ (Heinrich 2012). Hence, it stands to reason that capital

would try to weaken the collective strength of labour through
multiple ways. The globally integrated industries in the NCR
are no exception. As it is, the competitive advantage for these
industries is based on low labour costs. Pervasive use of
contractual labour, migrant labour and a universal unleashing
of repression on trade unions are simply means to weaken
labour and increase surplus extraction.
Contractualisation
About 95 to 99 per cent of the garment workers are hired
through the labour contractors and are contractual workers.
At phone manufacturer in Greater Noida, the workforce is
entirely contractual. In electronics company, only 850 out of
2,000 are permanent workers. The contractual workers do not
get any increments. At auto vendor at Manesar, all workers in
Foundry are contractual workers and 10 per cent of machine
shop workers are contractual. In Maruti Company’s Gurgaon
plant, permanent workers were increasingly replaced by
contractual workers with the company being taken over
by Suzuki. Nearly half of the permanent workers had been
removed by 2007. The Manesar plant started with less
than 40 per cent workers employed as permanent workers.
In this plant, an incident of violence occurred on July 18,
2012, in which a few management officials and workers
were injured and an HR manager was tragically killed. The
company changed the worker composition drastically after
the flashpoint of 2012. The proportion of contract workers has
been increased and these workers are now called Temporary
workers (TW–Type I and Type II). TW-I are hired for 7 months.
After seven months, a few selected amongst TW-I are hired
as TW-II workers but again for only 7 months. It has become
almost impossible for a contract worker to become permanent.
In the case of manufacturing mobile phones, even the pretence
of hiring the workers is given up since it is only their ‘services’
which are bought from the vendors (labour contractors) for a
short period of time. They are not ‘hired’ and hence cannot be
‘fired’ by the parent company.

Attempts to Stop the Unionisation of Workers
In the conflict between capital and labour, the balance is
sought to be tilted in favour of capital by scuttling varied
attempts by the workers to come together and organise
themselves. In this, capital is backed firmly by the Indian
state. The foremost example is of Maruti Suzuki Udyog Ltd.
Prior to 2000, Maruti Udyog Employees’ Union (MUEU) was
one of the largest unions in the organised sector in India. This
union was systematically crushed and several workers were
dismissed or coerced into accepting Voluntary Retirement
Scheme (VRS). The Manesar plant did not have an elected
union till mid-2011 and the workers were represented by the
management controlled union of the Gurgaon plant. In 2011
12, after persistent efforts of the workers to overcome hurdles
created by the management, which even saw termination and
transfer of some of them, the workers’ union at the Maruti
factory was formed. As a consequence of the struggle by
the union, there has been some improvement in the work
conditions. However, the incident of July 2012 became a
flashpoint and what followed was a spate of dismissals
and arrests of workers. After a trial of around five years the
Sessions Court pronounced its judgment in March 2017,
convicting 31 accused workers in the case and acquitting 117
others. Thirteen workers have been awarded life sentences.
Today, the workers have organised themselves as Provisional
Committee of Maruti Suzuki Workers’ Union (MSWU) and
are working in association with MSWU inside the plant.
Even now, the Maruti management is busy devising several
strategies to prevent the workers from joining the union. Some
of these are: carefully hiring workers from a lower economic
background who are sole supporters of their families, not
hiring workers from neighbouring areas, hiring workers on
short-term contracts, purposely keeping a large gap in the
salaries of permanent and contract workers (about three times)
to prevent their unity, etc. Transfers to other plants are also

used to prevent workers from coming together. The attitude
of the Maruti management can be seen even in relation to
vendor companies. Earlier, Maruti would penalise the vendor
companies if they could not deliver on time, on account of a
strike, but now, the Maruti management extends help to the
vendor company for breaking the strike.
The story is not very different in the case of auto vendor
company at Manesar. The workers took the initiative to come
together and form a union in 2016. The ten workers, who
had led the initiative, were all terminated on some pretext or
the other. Terminations, transfers, verbal and physical abuse
became routine since then. Open and direct threats were
given to some workers in a ‘meeting’ with the owner, whereas
others were forced to sign papers stating that they were
not involved in the formation of the union. Besides muscle
power, monetary incentives have been used for buying out
workers and for forcing them to leave the factory premises.
The workers went ahead with applying for registration of the
union and submitted a demand notice to the Assistant Labour
Commissioner’s (ALC) office in Gurgaon. The persistence
on part of the workers and intimidation and harassment on
the part of the management continued till the writing of this
paper. Ever since the workers tried to organise themselves, the
management has been attempting segregation of the workers
on the basis of training—ITI, Polytechnic and BE degree—and
has begun fixing differentiated wages for them.
The story is not very different in the case of electronics
company of Noida. Here too, attempts for formation of
unions were initiated in 2016. Since then, the management
has resorted to assaults, harassment, and intimidation of the
workers. In complicity with the company management, the
Delhi Labour Commissioner also rejected the application for
union formation in July 2016. However, the workers managed
to obtain a certificate of registration for their union in August
2017. Immediately, the management wrote an application to
the Registrar, who cancelled the registration certificate in

January 2018. This is despite the fact that according to the
Trade Unions Act, the Registrar does not have the powers to
cancel registration on an application by a third party.
Conclusion
Use of the Marxian method provides a useful insight into the
methods employed by capital to extract more and more surplus
from labour. This surplus extraction, allows the Indian capital
to compete internationally and also forms the basis of huge
profits for the transnational corporations. An overwhelming
use of non-regular workers, long hours of work, overtime,
reduced breaks, wages lower than the value of labour power,
increasing the productivity of labour without accompanying
wage increases in the same proportion and intensification
of work are common across all sectors and industries in the
area under study. Another universal feature is repression
of organisation and unionisation of workers which tilts the
balance heavily in favour of capital, facilitating the surplus
extraction and capital accumulation. Eventually, the extent of
surplus extraction depends on the relative strength of capital
vs. labour. Hence it is not surprising that both global capital
and the industries in the emerging economies adopt strategies
to weaken labour. It is clearly the ‘low road to flexibility’
which helps to generate profits at the higher ends of GVCs.
NOTES
1. A cluster is defined as an area with a radius of 60 kms with more
than 100 units in related and complementary business (UNIDO).
2. The names of most of the companies are being withheld on
purpose. The interviews with the workers have been conducted
by the author along with voluntary groups such as ‘Perspectives’
and ‘People's Union for Democratic Rights’ over a period of
last five years. Some of the case studies have been published as
booklets.
3. The details of the situation in this plant is given in Section II
along with the analysis.
4. Based on Simmering Rage (Aggarwal, A. 2015) and Tailor–Made
Lives (Perspectives and PUDR 2015).

5. Based on a fact-finding conducted into an incident of large-scale
dismissal of workers in 2017.
6. In Marxian terms, value of any commodity comprises of three
components; constant capital c, i.e. the value of machines and
materials, variable capital; v, i.e. value of labour power and
surplus value s which is appropriated by the capitalist.
7. The capitalist is interested in the rate of profit which is the
surplus as a ratio of total capital outlay on constant and variable
capital (s/v). Although introduction of machinery increases c
but v is reduced due to reduction in labour time. When the costs,
for the individual capitalist, fall below the social average, this
capitalist obtains extra profits.
8. NBMW of Rs. 16,000 does not include any component for skills.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Aggarwal, A. (2015). ‘Piece by Piece’, Himal Sothasian, Labour and its
Discontents, March 2015.
Apex Cluster Development Services Pvt. Ltd. (2015), ‘Final Report
Economic Profile of NCR’, Submitted to National Capital Region
Planning Board.
Bose, A.J.C. and Pratap, S. (2016). ‘Value Chains and Worker Illfare:
Some Comments’, Business Analyst.
Gereffi, G. and Memedovic, O. (2003). ‘The Global Apparel Value
Chain: What Prospects for Upgrading by Developing Countries?’
United Nations Industrial Development Organisation.
Gupta, A. and Choudhury, S. (2016). ‘Global Value Chains: Indian
Automobile Industry’, &&60LGWHUP5HSRUW
Heinrich, M. (2012). An Introduction to the Three Volumes of Karl Marx’s
Capital, Monthly Review Press 2012; Indian edition, Aakar
Books, 2013.
Humphrey, J. and Memedovic, O. (2003). ‘The Global Automotive
Industry Value Chain’, UNIDO, Strategic Research and
Economics Branch.
Mezzadri, A. and Srivastava, R. (2015). ‘Labour Regimes in the Indian
Garment Sector: Capital-Labour Relations, Social Reproduction
and Labour Standards in the National Capital Region’, Centre
for Development Policy and Research.
People’s Union for Democratic Rights: Various reports on Maruti
(2001, 2007, 2013 and 2018).
Perspectives, People’s Union for Democratic Rights (May 2015):
‘Tailor-Made Lives’.
Research Unit for Political Economy (2012). ‘Behind the Present Wave
of Unrest in the Auto Sector’, $VSHFWVRI,QGLD·V(FRQRP\1R
http://www.rupe-india.org/52/auto.html#note1.
Research Unit for Political Economy (2018), ‘India’s Working Class
and Its Prospects Part I’, Aspects of India’s Economy, Nos. 71 & 72.
Smith, J. (2015). ‘ Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century’, Monthly
5HYLHZVol. 67, Issue 03 (July-August, 2015).
Sutton, J. ‘The Globalization Process: Auto-Component Supply
Chains in China and India,’ Project Report (London School of
Economics).
12
From Hegemony to Full Control

Which Kind of Elite, If Any, is Necessary for
the Masters of the Universe?
Reading Antonio Gramsci About the Role of the
Intelligentsia, Yesterday and Tomorrow
Giulietto Chiesa
It is no longer the time for revolutions. At least not in the West,

where the only revolution underway and under development
is the technological one, controlled by the ruling classes. Many
of the original features of capitalism have been swept away
and replaced by a ‘money map’ that is, the map of abstract
corporate finance, designed by the ‘Banking System’. This
bound the ‘State’ to obedience and surrender, after having
been taken over, corrupted and bought.
The Bank System also cancelled the Market and rewrote
the laws of the State. The new laws made the robbery—which
is already the standard procedure for the Banking System—
completely legal. Simultaneously, it set up the army of its
exegetes (the economists), its soldiers (mainstream media)
and its policemen (the secret services).
The process based on transformation and accumulation,
named “commodity-money-commodity”, has been mainly
substituted by that of “production of money by means of
money”, in turn replaced and integrated by the process of
“producing money from nothing”. An increasingly narrow
elite of “Masters of the Universe” has seized, without fighting
—rather through legal procedures—the technological and

legal means to carry out these new processes. As a result,
society as a whole—including the institutions of liberal
democracy—has lost control over the dynamics of money.
This is how our society lost democracy. Whereas the abstract
corporate finance, in an obscure and unpredictable way,
erodes the structure of our collective life.
I will not address here the topic of the fate of this
“revolution from above” against the people. I will only say
that the upheavals underway are, in my opinion, a prelude
to a third world war, something that will challenge the very
existence of life on this planet.
My aim is to find the explanation—or, better, multiple
explanations—of the defeat of the popular forces by such
Masters of Universe’s general offensive. I will try to do so
by introducing a theorem. I will not be able to demonstrate
it here, as it is still awaiting to be fully proved, but I believe
that it should be the starting point for a new, indispensable
theoretical phase.
I think that the Marxian “method” is still a useful tool for
the construction of a new theory. It is my opinion, however, that
we need to start from an observation: the current complexity
is considerably more complex than that of capitalism at its
early stage. Regarding political philosophy, in fact, we still
seem to be living in the days of Marx. His “critique of political
economy” was a fundamental turning point that changed
the face of the world. The ideas and concepts he formulated
have largely affected the thought of all the economists of
the present time, even those who fought it with all their
strength. And yet, his ideas remained, for instance, essentially
“outside” the ecosystem. That is, he did not even attempt (nor
could he have, given the knowledge and the complexity of his
time) to face two issues which are crucial today: the earth’s
limited resources and the ‘singularities’ that the monstrous
and inhuman technological acceleration have produced
within the very nature of capitalism. An acceleration that later
became financial and global. He could not foresee the effects
)URP+HJHPRQ\WR)XOO&RQWUROв335
that capitalist production, by revolutionising itself, could

have produced both on the evolution of the species and on the
relationship between the organic and inorganic world.
It could be said that Marx’s interpretation was the most
effective description of what the Italian eco-physicist Luigi
Sertorio defined as the “transition phase of the heat engine in
the evolutionary history of the human species.”
The empirical data suggests that this “transitional phase”
will not make it to the middle of the 21st century. Only some
of the concepts formulated by Marx will be useful in the
“post-fossil fuel” era. As a result, I believe that the truly
revolutionary task is to set aside the ‘money map’ altogether,
as it imprisons the whole of mankind and forces mankind and
nature into a deadly zero-sum game. We need a conscious
movement of people, of human masses, able to understand
the collective necessity of a struggle for survival. The political
and scientific task of the present moment is to create such a
theory, since “without revolutionary theory there can not be
any revolution”. Again, this theorem is still at the stage of
definition.
Nevertheless, it is a task that requires questioning many
cornerstones of Marxist revolutionary theory. One of those has
been an axiom for over a century: the centrality of the working
class and its nature, which is revolutionary by definition.
It is not like that any more, at least in the West. The crisis of
liberal democracy is visible to the naked eye in Europe today.
In the US the crisis is definitive and characterised by the total
disappearance of “the working-class consciousness”. All of
this takes place in a context in which not only has the working
class been shattered and deprived of self-awareness, but also
all the other social classes have disappeared. Individuals have
not disappeared, but their classification in social classes—
which we have all studied—has been erased.
The figure of the worker as we know it from Taylorism
has long since disappeared, and the very idea of the worker
has almost disappeared even from the minds of those who are
still actual workers, but do not consider themselves as such.
Among the many fragmented and fragmentating jobs, most

of the individual workers have no idea of how to consider
themselves and of which place they take in society. Their
thoughts and goals are led towards patterns of behaviour, that
are at the same time based on ultra-individualism and ultra-
mass culture, reinforced by moral indifference, pathological,
psychic and physical degenerations nourished by morbid
forms of mysticism and sensuality.
Which part of civil society, for example, is the consciousness
of a young Italian man or woman expressing today? The same
question is valid for their peers living near the dam of Aswan,
or in a village in Uttar Pradesh. When they look at the screen
of their cell phone, they are watching things that they cannot
avoid desiring, even though they don’t fully understand
their meaning. The same happens to contemporary Italian or
American youth.
In any case, these situations—along with the objects and
the dynamics involved in them—have nothing to do with
the village in which they live or with the history of their
fathers and ancestors: they all “learn” what is offered to them,
although not by reading (they are quickly unlearning how
to read). An image—and furthermore the moving images of
the videos—is much more easily absorbed than something
written. It is pleasant to see. It is a synthesis of its own. It is
authoritative and definitive. By taking the place of reality
itself, the image affects the mind and transforms it.
There is no logic in the sequence of frames. A story at
the centre of the screen can be told along with other stories,
that are not perceived because they are hidden at the edges.
They might be hidden in the furniture of a house, perhaps
against the background of the main action and apparently
disconnected from it, or embedded in the space between the
music and the landscape, between reason and desire, between
fantasy and nightmare. All the stories though—the main and
the secondary ones—will be perceived simultaneously and
accepted by the unconscious, beyond any rational control.
So, they “watch”, as we all “watch”. But none of the
“watchers” is familiar with the syntax and the grammar of

this language. So you can make them think and believe what
you want, according to the behaviour you wish for them to
develop.
Not even the traditional intellectuals know and speak this
language of motion pictures. Even the “organic intellectuals”,
as Gramsci used to call them, would not be able to organise
the battle. It is astonishing to observe how most of them are
sure to have mastered this language, while in reality they
are controlled by it. It is even worse: the vast majority of
them accept—more or less voluntarily—taking orders from
those who use it against them. They too were, and still are,
illiterate in this new language. Obviously, Gramsci could
not have foreseen that in 25 years television would arrive
(“God save the ugly”, wrote Gore Vidal). Then computers
arrived, followed by the Internet. Eventually mobile phones
appeared and they alone give access to all the TV channels in
the world. He could not foresee that we would have access to
the virtual world, where every image can now be artificially
modified, along with the voices of the speakers and their facial
expressions.
Therefore, he could not foresee that the only world
language now created—the language of motion pictures—
potentially would have become entirely false. Neither Gramsci
nor Marx could ever imagine that one day someone could
accumulate vast amounts of data (metadata), and that such
data would allow him or her to predict—statistically, through
digital algorithms—reactions and preferences of millions or
billions of individuals; or to anticipate their desires, fears, and
elementary urges. “Prepare yourself to desire something, or
somebody” the motto could go.
Neither of them could have predicted that currently there
are sophisticated ways to skip the rational control over what
we see, and what we see is seen through what we might call
the “visual prosthesises”. These sophisticated methods have
been already studied and experimented with for decades
and down to the last detail. In this way, it is possible to get
into each individual’s brain by stimulating his or her sexual

desires, anxieties about food and primordial fears.
Obviously, we cannot blame Antonio Gramsci for failing
in his forecasts. Meanwhile, we can deplore the total stupidity
of those who today—while the enslavement of the masses is
underway—declare that “television is dead” and at the same
time fetishise the Internet, presenting it as an alternative to
manipulation or even as an alternative to democracy. This can
even be done without mentioning that television is still the
centre of power management, no matter whether we are in a
cinema, or the TV is in the traditional position in the home, or
hanging on a wall, or shifted to the Web.
There are so many things it was not possible to foresee.
“Let’s see” (or, better, “let’s watch”). This is exactly the goal
pursued by those who create images. On top of that, by
sitting in front of a PC, the learning processes are increasingly
affected by multitasking and speed, which exclude even the
slightest possibility of “mind concentration” and “discipline”.
The ability of overviewing what has being examined and of
connecting it with its history and with the rest of our knowledge
is ruled out. A project of general lowering of the intellectual
level of billions of individuals is being implemented, to
prevent, in fact, that some critical control function is applied
over the action of the “Universal Masters”. The word “project”
may be misleading and should be used cautiously. It does
not mean that there is a “command centre” or a control room
providing guidelines about its order execution. In reality,
centres like that are numerous. But this is not the point. The
point is that such a “project” is the automatic effect of a radical
technological mutation of human relations. It automatically
depresses individual skills, leverages primordial, asocial
instincts, simplifies and trivialises reality, reduces the range
of languages, eliminates nuances and chiaroscuro, reduces
diversity and modifies human time.
Many are not able to perceive the changes in their depth.
They think it has “always been this way” and bosses have
always been deceiving and manipulating their subjects. This is
nonsense—the truth is exactly the opposite. It has never been

the way that we are experiencing now. Never have the mighty
been able to have such a pervasiveness, such hidden means to
impose their power of manipulation. A power which can and
does exclude any possibility of “democratic” control. A power
which enables them to reach and hit the mark—in a fraction of
a second—over an endless crowd of eyes and ears.
I am talking about what is happening in the West, that
is, in the “highest” peak of current human development,
where the traditional parties are disappearing, together with
the whole conceptual system of liberal democracy. This, in
turn, has succumbed to the technological change that has
been imposed by the Universal Masters and which is called
“American globalisation”. But, if it is true that Facebook now
has over two billion users, then it is clear that the expansion
of the Anglo-Saxon way of life is invading a sizeable chunk of
the rest of the world.
In this context, a special thought on the role that
intellectuals have taken becomes particularly important. It
could be, I believe, one of the “building blocks” of the new
theoretical construction that is needed. In any case: the re
reading, in our time, of Gramsci’s pages on intellectuals and
the organisation of culture causes a sense of estrangement.
There is almost nothing left of what he witnessed.
The admirable Gramscian intellectual education was
entirely developed within the context of the “homo legens”—
that is, the man who reads—of the rational man, of the
conscious subject, who can control his own knowledge. The
meticulous attention with which Gramsci outlined a reform
of the school is there to show the importance that he gave to
the educational process for the formation of a free individual
“as a person capable of thinking, of studying, of ruling—or
controlling those who rule”. The “educational principle” that
he describes is based on rational concepts that implied the
formation of an individual capable of “adapting to the laws
of nature (...) to master them in turn” and who considers
“civil and state laws as (...) established by men and (which)
can to be altered by men in the interests of their collective

development”.
Bearing in mind also that the consciousness of the
individuals who need to be educated “is the result of the
civil society in which (the individual) participates, and the
social relations which are formed within his family, his
neighbourhood, his village”. It almost sounds like a quotation
from Marx, where he defined the individual as “the point of
intersection of his social relations”. It was an apt definition, to
be considered as a flash of genius, and yet largely incomplete.
The human being—as underlined by the whole reasoning
that we are developing here—is something immensely more
complex.
There are more real things beneath the heavens than those
which can be shown. Not only in the sense that the human
being (as fully and completely connected with the whole
ecosystem of which he is a part) is not “solely” the point of
intersection of all his social relations. And therefore the topic
addressed here—as part of the complexity—is not purely social
and it is not purely rational. It must be addressed on multiple
dimensions, on different depths, which have nothing to do
with rationality. Human education cannot disregard these
dimensions. Historical materialism has played a foul trick not
so much on its creator, as on its imitators. Having grasped the
end of the skein, they ended up thinking that there was only
one tangle in the skein, while, instead, they were countless.
“One of the most important characteristics of any group
that is developing towards dominance”, Gramsci wrote, “is
its struggle to assimilate and to conquer “ideologically” the
traditional intellectuals, but this assimilation and conquest
is made quicker and more efficacious the more the group in
question succeeds in simultaneously elaborating its own
organic intellectuals.”
Here Gramsci talks about intellectuals as “clerks” working
for the dominant group, i.e. those exercising the subordinate
functions of “social hegemony and political government”. As
to say, as tools for “hegemony”.
But it is a positive, creative hegemony. The exact opposite

of the “single thought”. And it is exactly here that a clear
fracture was created between today’s reality and the reality
described and analysed by Gramsci.
In the context offered here, the very idea of forming an
intellectual elite performing the function of social control
has changed its meaning. Today there is a huge army of
propagandists which depict the “present time reality” as the
best of all possible worlds, a system working automatically and
reproducing itself automatically, in the absence of any critical
alternative. According to the inhuman spirit characterising
the contemporary age, there is no longer an urgent need for
addressing these problems specifically, as millions of people—
or billions—eat from the same menu that is handed to them.
There is no alternative option. So, all that’s left is trying to
create a strategy that breaks the monopoly that the Masters of
the Universe have on communication. They now have to face
only one problem: how to continue to hide, from the masses,
the incontrovertible facts that make us foresee the end of their
project. Their “money map” is like the drawing of a big video
game: it has a border, and this border cannot be crossed. As
our civilisation is condemned to stay on this planet for the
length of time that remains before its crisis is completed, the
videogame players are forced to stay in the city where the
inhuman rules of the dog-eat-dog warfare are in force.
The left, in the West, was unable to see the global cultural
revolution, which completely changed even basic vocabulary.
A revolution that changed the way of thinking, of consuming,
of living and one which overturned the concept of time and
affected the way human beings use it, by subjecting it to that
of artificial prostheses, at this point indispensable. It changed
human consciousness and created a virtual reality stronger
than “actual” reality. An anthropological modification took
place. It opened the doors to a completely new universe, one
in which we now find ourselves, whose rules we are incapable
of understanding. In the same way, we are unable to assess
its overwhelming implications, to measure the multiple
speeds of mutation, to interfere in its rules of acceleration, as

it does not accept—indeed, on the contrary, it rejects—all our
intervention, both as individuals and as groups. From that
universe—which has already become a prison—we do not
know how to escape. We do not (yet) have a theory to fight
against it. We do not have the file to saw through the bars.
There is no modern Gramsci who is able to analyse the current
reality. Anyway, this cannot be a task for a single person. It is
urgent to talk about a new figure of “collective intellectual”.
However, in order to create it, we need a theory, which does
not yet exist. These reflections are a humble attempt to lay
the groundwork for an unprecedented and—I recognise—
desperate attempt, to tackle the problem.
The subordination of the “superstructure” to the
“structure”, assumed in a dogmatic and uncritical way,
prevented us from understanding, for example, that the human
being is something more than a “point of intersection”. It was
Sigmund Freud who opened the path of the unconscious. And,
not surprisingly, the understanding of these problems has
been far superior among non-Marxists and non-materialists.
The publication, in the United States, of Propaganda by Edward
Bernays, Freud’s nephew, dates back to 1928. Since that day,
over ninety years, this science has evolved and achieved
extraordinary results. It remained unknown to most but has
turned into a powerful tool for controlling and addressing
the masses. Individuals became “solitary” and deprived of
political representation, orphans of parties and transformed
into an “audience”, spectators. That’s why, in the whole of the
West, over only a couple of decades, the populations have lost
all reactivity and passively suffer the threats imposed by the
power.
As I have already noticed, some personalities understood
and warned about the effects that this type of “reverse
civilisation” would have produced, but they were all
standing—not by chance—outside or on the sidelines of both
historical and dialectical materialism. I will only mention
some names and titles, of different relevance and depth. I refer
to, for example, Giovanni Sartori, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Gregory

Bateson, Karl Popper, Neil Postman, Guy Debord, and almost
all of Noam Chomsky’s work.
You may feel a certain amount of bewilderment in
reading the Gramscian reflections. They belong to a world
that no longer exists. And to reconsider it, it is not enough
to turn off your computer. The superstructure—someone
might say—has overwhelmed the structure. It prevents
people from understanding how the new structure is
made; it prevents us from seeing that its main production is
immaterial, but extremely powerful: it is called “deception”.
This is why the Masters of the Universe need to reduce our
“rate of understanding”. And the issue concerns not only
the large masses who must remain ignorant. The Masters of
the Universe must be surrounded by blinkered scientists (so
intensely specialised to the point of not being able to look
beyond the square centimetre of their knowledge, i.e. not
being able to see the complexity of the crisis) and by ignorant
and dogmatic professors (who learn and teach the rules of
the “Money Map” and stop in horror by the outline of the
drawing). They do not need high level intellectuals.
The “Trilateral Commission” had given the crucial
signal to all the “Masters of the Universe”. A signal that
the subordinate classes could neither read nor understand,
because they were “elsewhere”, fighting a class struggle that
no longer existed. The message from the Trilateral Commission
was the following: it is no longer time to look for ‘consent’ and
to wear velvet gloves. The era of blandishments, consumption,
liberating culture, democracy is about to end.
This is why it is necessary, for them, to disarm the
masses before they become dangerous, having perceived the
deception and the destiny planned for them. The technological
tools already exist for exercising the new “control”. The
intellectual class mediator in charge of this control consists
of the managers of the prefabricated messages. It is a stupid,
uncreative, repetitious class. But this is exactly what has to
be done, otherwise an intellectual class can become, again,
dangerous. Their universities, increasingly restricted to the top

of the social pyramid, will “educate” their children and their
“clerks”, teach their ideology, reproduce their false conscience,
propagate the virtual reality. Further down they should not
go, because there is nowhere to go. Their single thought is
equivalent to the “hic sunt leones” (“here are the lions”) that
the emperors of the declining Roman Empire marked on their
military maps. There is no future in the “Money Map”. So we
have no other task than looking for the way to get out of it.
13
Karl Marx and the Opium War

Eugenio Lo Sardo
Marx was familiar with the history and culture of India. Who
knows if he read the famous travel book written by Ludovico
de Varthema in the 16th century. But he was, like many other
German students of his time, certainly familiar with Sacred text
like the Upanishads, already quoted by the famous philosopher,
Arthur Schopenhauer, in his 1818 preface to the first edition of
Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung. It was not just India’s history
and culture that he knew of, but also its economic situation.
His studies were focused on the development of the British
imperial system in Europe and Asia.
In an article published in the 1HZ<RUN+HUDOG7ULEXQH (on
June 25, 1853), three years before the beginning of the second
opium war, he describes the country as: “An Italy of Asiatic
dimensions. The same rich variety in the products of the soil,
and the same dismemberment in the political configuration”.
A country “which the British, dissolved into as many
independent and conflicting states as it numbered towns, or
even villages”.
“A world”, he adds, “dominated by the religion of the
lingam and juggernaut; the religion of the monk, and of the
bayadere”.
“The misery inflicted by the British on Hindustan” was for
him very different and intensive, because England had broken
down the entire framework of Indian society.
The British in the East had neglected the public works
provoking “the deterioration of an agriculture which is not
capable of being conducted on the British principle of free

competition, of laissez-faire and laissez-aller”.
“From immemorial times”, Marx states, “Europe received
the admirable textures of Indian labour”, sending in return,
”precious metals, and furnishing thereby material to the
goldsmith, that important member of Indian society”, whose
skills were so great “that even the lowest class”, people going
“about nearly naked, have commonly a pair of golden ear
rings and a gold ornament of some kind hung round their
necks”. And he adds, showing his knowledge of Hindus’
habits “Rings on the fingers and toes have also been common”.
It was the British intruder, according to him, who broke
up the Indian handloom and destroyed the spinning-wheel.
They destroyed also the so-called village system, “which gave
to each of these small unions their independent organisation
and distinct life”.
A few lines later he clarifies his idea: “These small
stereotype forms of social organism have been to the greater
part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much through the
brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British
soldier, as to the working of English steam and English free
trade”. Because those family-communities were based on
domestic industry, “in that peculiar combination of hand-
weaving, hand-spinning and hand-tilling agriculture which
gave them self-supporting power”.
In conclusion the cause of the economic decline of India
was the international division of work, the English had placed
the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in Bengal.
“Sweeping away both Hindu spinner and weaver,
dissolved these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilised
communities, by blowing up their economic basis, and thus
produced the greatest, and to speak the truth, the only social
revolution ever heard of in Asia”.
“But, on the other side”, Marx says, “we must not
forget that these little communities were contaminated by
distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they subjugated
man to external circumstances instead of elevating man as
.DUO0DU[DQGWKH2SLXP:DUв347
the sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-

developing social state into never changing natural destiny”.
So, according to Marx, the British were not in India
to improve the wealth of people, like a famous historian,
Macaulay, stated in 1923. But they were answering to a
general law: the general law of profit. Also the opium-war
was answering to the same general law: to make a profit.
Amitav Gosh in a recent interview to an Italian newspaper
shared Marx’s ‘opinion: “Free trade was allowed only to the
Westerners”, he says. “China and India had commercial links
for a very long time, the first had 24 per cent of the world trade
and the second 2 per cent. The British were able to destroy
the local industry. It was an imperialism of pure exploitation,
which introduced drugs. Nothing to do with progress. The
proof? After Independence India recovered” (La Republica
October 21, 2015).
Fernand Braudel too, the well known French historian,
thinks the decline of India had “an external not an internal
explanation, in a word, Britain.”
India was for the British an instrument thanks to which
they gained access to an even larger area, coming to dominate
the Asiatic super-world economy”. India, he added was
“deindustrialised, reduced to a role of a major producer of
raw material”. (The Perspective of the World, 522)
A few years later the quoted article, in the winter between
1857 and 1858, Marx was writing the Grundrisse (Foundation of
the Critique of Political Economy, published only in 1953). They
are for us very important from a theoretical point of view and
extremely interesting for the links suggested between opium
trade and the production of contemporary goods.
In the second chapter, dedicated to the general relation of
production to distribution, exchange and consumption, Marx
writes: “Production creates, produces consumption”, and a
few lines after he adds, “production creates the consumer”,
“not only supplies a material for the need, but it also supplies
a need for the material”. Therefore production is consumption
and consumption is production. For example, an object of art
creates a public which is sensitive to art and enjoys beauty.

Finally production produces consumption by creating the
material for it; by determining the manner of consumption;
by creating the products initially posited as an object of
consumption, the manner of consumption and the motive of
consumption.
Opium too, a dangerous drug, was a perfect product
creating its consumers and consequentially, creating a great
mass of addicted people. For the Sikhs in India the telegraph
cables were the rope to hang subjected people, but it was
anyway a useful tool, opium unless for medical purposes was
useless and created diseases, slavery and death.
When in 1856 the Second Opium War began, Marx‘s
workshop was ready to furnish all the necessary tools for a
sharp analyses of the war. He wrote several articles in the
same American newspaper to show the economic roots of the
conflict and the moral issues.1
The English, for him, were at war without any moral
justification. In England itself people like William Gladstone,
the politician, and James Legge, the famous translator of
Confucius, were, against the decision of the government.2
But why was that war necessary? According to Marx,
the reason was simple, as he explains in Das Kapital: England
“sends silver to India, and buys opium … all of which goes to
China to lay down funds to purchase the silk”. Not only silk
but also tea. China was not interested in English merchandise,
it was a market closed to it. The Chinese had always produced
all they wanted. They were in credit, a huge credit towards the
more industrialised countries.
In the first line of Marx’s article published at the beginning
of September 1858, he posed the following question: “Is it
quite certain that an increase of the Chinese trade must follow
upon the multiplication of its emporiums?” No, he answered,
it was not true. Instead of increasing American and English
exports to China, the war precipitated the commercial crisis
of 1847 by “raising dreams of an inexhaustible market and by
fostering false speculations”.

“The Chinese, therefore, cannot take”, according to Marx,
“both goods and drugs; under actual circumstances, extension
of the Chinese trade resolves into extension of the opium
trade”.
In the same month, he published another article (on
September 25, 1858). “We cannot leave”, he writes this time,
“this part of the subject without singling out one flagrant
self-contradiction of the Christianity-canting and civilisation
mongering British Government. In its imperial capacity it
affects to be a thorough stranger to the contraband opium
trade, and even to enter into treaties proscribing it”. “Yet”, he
adds, “in its Indian capacity, it forces the opium cultivation
upon Bengal, to the great damage of the productive resources
of that country”. The British Government compels also “one
part of the Indian ryots to engage in the poppy culture; entices
another part into the same by dint of money advances”.
The government runs everything. “It keeps the wholesale
manufacture of the deleterious drug a close monopoly in its
hands; watches by a whole army of official spies its growth, its
delivery at appointed places, its inspissation and preparation
for the taste of the Chinese consumers, its formation into
packages especially adapted to the convenience of smuggling,
and finally its conveyance to Calcutta”. There it is “put up at
auction at the government sales, and made over by the state
officers to the speculators thence to pass into the hands” of
the smugglers who land it in China”. Every chest costed
about Rs. 250 and was sold at the Calcutta auction at a price
ranging from Rs. 1,210 to Rs. 1,600. “Not yet satisfied” with
this complicity, the same government, “enters into express
profit and loss accounts with the merchants and shippers, who
embark in the hazardous operation of poisoning an empire”.
Marx offers a perfect description of the opium trade,
which tied the Indians and Chinese in a mortal knot.
“The Indian finances of the British Government”, were
then depending “not only on the opium trade with China,
but on the contraband character of that trade”. If the Chinese
Government had legalised the opium trade, tolerating the

cultivation of the poppy in China, the Anglo-Indian exchequer
would have experienced a serious catastrophe”.
The British Government “openly preaching free trade …
secretly defends the monopoly of its manufacture. Whenever
we look closely into the nature of British free trade, monopoly
is pretty generally found to lie at the bottom of its “freedom.”
Conclusions
In the articles we quoted, Marx offers a very clear picture of
the economic roots of the opium war, studying it like a case in
the expansion of European capitalism. The British had used
the sea power to conquer the world. They were establishing,
as the Portuguese before, outposts at the mouths of the most
important rivers, in order to intercept the trade of a specific
country, in this case India and China (The Greeks did the same
while founding Alexandria in Egypt). But the merchandise
we are speaking of was a peculiar one, since opium addicted
consumers, created by itself its own market. The drug
transformed a subject of an ancient empire into a subject of
drug sellers, opening a wider gap between the government
and people.
The Grundrisse explains to us the typical behaviour of
modern capitalism: it acts in order to create the consumers, to
create the necessity of consumption. These actions are not in
the field of necessity; they are in the field of drive that will be
coercion.
The Indo-Chinese war is an interesting example: the
Indian economic system was destroyed, the internal political
and economic balance of China too. Two big economies were
reduced to peripheral suppliers of raw materials and their
people to endemic poverty.
The Chinese opium dreamers woke up abruptly many
years later. Finally they understood that the problems of
their country derivated also by its economic position in the
international economic system. The Indians and the Chinese,
after a long fight, were able to become independent. Now
India and China are again a gigantic economy in the theatre

of the world.
But people everywhere must obey, still now, the financial
system’s dictat and the mermaid of profit. Now more then
before, Marx can help us to answer the challenges of modern
times.
NOTES
1. And also in Das Kapital he observes that England “sends silver
to India, and buys opium … all of which goes to China to lay
down funds to purchase the silk”.
2. Dona Toor in 1951 (London) collected a selection of Marx’s
articles written in the 1HZ <RUN 'DLO\ 7ULEXQH on the war in a
book entitled 0DU[RQ&KLQD.
14
Marx or Utopia and Ideology
Against Wisdom
-HDQ-RVHSK%RLOORW
Introduction
Marxism, a criticism of nascent capitalism, has long
established itself as the hegemonic alternative system of
thought in revolutionary movements. It has clearly forced
capitalism to adapt and it has channelled a large number
of national liberation struggles into the world, including
China and Africa, where it has long represented the only real
alternative to the domination of the Western world.
But certain theoretical weaknesses of the Marxist system,
its quick evolution into ideology, even into religion for the
Orthodox Marxist movement, transformed the utopian project
of Marxist communism into a true 20th century dystopia and
marginalised Karl Marx’s thought as rational thought and
political project.
Understanding Marx’s thought trajectory, his theoretical
and practical weaknesses as well as his strengths are far from
being useless scientific work. Time has done its work and the
dispassionate critique of Marxist thought and its utopia can
usefully contribute to increasing the wisdom of the world in
the search for more humane economies, more just societies
and better harmony among humans and with nature.
0DU[RU8WRSLDDQG,GHRORJ\$JDLQVW:LVGRPв353
1. The Historical Genesis of Marx’s Thought
1.2. Marx’s Marxism in Three Parts and the Five Great

Thesis of the Original Marxism
The Marxism of Marx himself can be broken down into three
parts: the philosophical Marx, the political Marx and finally
the economist Marx, and it is important to understand how
they form a global analytical and practical system.
1.2.1. The philosophical Marx first, whose essence, to keep
it short, is an opposition to metaphysics and idealism with
the central concept of “historical and dialectical materialism”
which interprets the entire history of societies and of the world
to that of the forms of production from which social classes
and class struggles derive as the driving force of History.
This largely explains the central place given by Marx to the
economy in explaining the evolution of societies.
Without denying the importance of production relations
and material life in the determination of social relations or
individuals, the mechanistic vision of the determination
of superstructure by material infrastructure seems not
only simplistic but strongly reductionist to the point that
Marx himself was often obliged to broaden his theoretical
framework to analyse concrete situations as in “Les Luttes
de classes en France” or for the treatment of the caste system
in India. In his correspondence with Engels, he also made
numerous references to the concept of the “Asiatic mode of
production or despotism” in an attempt to understand the
Eastern countries.
The result on a theoretical level is the absence of a fine
analysis of societies in the Marxist corpus, of their real social
differentiation beyond the social classes, of concepts as
essential as morality, human nature, violence, nation, etc., in
short, of everything that makes the human being, in favour
of a central place brought to the economy and in this case the
mythical “capitalist system” which was becoming dominant
in the West. In his numerous texts as a journalist or columnist
of political and social events all over the world, Marx himself,
however, testified to a finesse of practical analysis that goes
far beyond the dialectical materialist philosophy of history.
1.2.2. Marx as an economist and political scientist is
better known. In these two economic and political fields,
Marx’s essential ideas can be summarised with five thesis
as suggested by Erik Olin Wright (2010) in his seminal book
Envisioning Real Utopias”.
Thesis 1: The long-term unsustainability of capitalism
under the effect of its own internal contradictions and in
particular the law of falling rate of profit. Yet the obsession
with his “labour theory of value”, actually originating from
the English Classical School theorists such as Adam Smith or
David Ricardo, has led economic Marxism into a deadlock: not
seeing capitalist competition as the very spur of innovation,
of permanent revolution in production methods as well as in
modes of consumption and commercial exchange, including
in the financial sphere, to the point that profit rates have
never been as high as they are today, for example. Moreover,
Karl Marx himself demonstrates in certain texts that with
machinism and technology, the creation of wealth depends
less on work than on the mechanical power associated with
the general scientific and technological level, what is called
the “general intellect” hypothesis which would invalidate
the whole theory of labour value at the heart of Marxism for
decades and thus the theory of exploitation which is associated
with the historical role of the proletariat.
That crises, then, are intimately linked to capitalism
is not false in itself, but all forms of production have also
experienced economic crises, including in Antiquity. And the
French Marxist School of Regulation has shown precisely how
capitalism has learned to regulate itself and to adapt to the
specific conditions of each country more or less willingly or
forcefully. The paradox of Marxism is that it may have allowed
capitalism, under the pressure of its critics, to constantly
adapt, whether defensively or offensively.
Thesis 2: Intensification of the anti-capitalist class struggle
by increasing proletarianisation of the entire world population

and polarisation into two blocks of a wealthy elite and others.
The least that can be said is that this thesis also appears
erroneous in the light of history. By economicism no doubt,
but above all by refusing to consider the complexification of
societies into classes, sub-classes, sub-sub-classes, etc. on a
vertical level, but also horizontally between ethnic, national,
religious and other barriers, so many divisions which have
their own autonomy with regard to economics. Not to
mention that pure capitalism has never enveloped the totality
of production relations. Families as economic units, small and
medium-sized enterprises, often non-capitalist, and finally
states, which have themselves become increasingly important
in modern economic life, play a major role in any modern
economy.
But here again, let us recognise in the Marxist critique
the paradox of having undoubtedly facilitated the end of
the proletariat by integrating it in a differentiated way into
the sharing of wealth and even power. This differentiation is
partly due to the social struggles against capitalism, but it has
largely been possible because of the successive adaptations
of capitalism, particularly at the international level, as for
example during the colonial phase, then more recently with
the great globalisation at the end of the 20th century. These
internal and external transformations allowed the emergence
of mass consumption in the countries at the heart of capitalism,
including the United States and Western Europe, then its
extension to the emerging world such as China, India or Brazil
and recently to Africa.
This reality, finally developed by Lenin for the imperialist
phase of the early 20th century, justified the idea that
communist revolutions could therefore finally take place in
the “peripheral” countries. It seems to have worked in the case
of Russia and China, but not really in connection with their
economic exploitation. The most exploited colony, India, on
the other hand, did not experience a communist revolution,
like many other colonies, such as Brazil, where a very specific
form of corporatist national capitalism appeared with Gétulio

Varga in 1930.
Above all, the example of the globalisation that followed
the intensive and Keynesian capitalism of the “thirty
glorious” post-war years shows the paradox of an extension
of world capitalism thanks to China which, as well argued by
the Marxist Giovanni Arrighi (Adam Smith in Beijing, 2007),
pushed Adam Smith’s capitalist logic to a level never equalled
in the economic history of the world. However, China is
not the place of the intensification of the anti-capitalist class
struggle with a proletarianisation of the whole Chinese society.
Here again, despite a formidable rise in inequality, social (and
regional) differentiation is at the heart of the complexification
of modern production with new Chinese middle classes and
the emergence of a mass consumer society since the refocusing
on the domestic market in the early 2000s.
Thesis 3: The ineluctable revolutionary transformation
following the Thesis 1 and 2 where capitalism will not
collapse alone but will be overthrown by the oppressed classes
including the proletariat and its communist vanguard party.
Yet it is precisely where capitalism was dominant that it has
adapted best, certainly under the action of social struggles,
but largely within the framework of the parliamentary system
in general and with a determining role for reformist parties
and trade unions. It is indeed in the most capitalist countries
that people are most attached to the democratic political
framework.
Thesis 4: The transition to socialism, i.e. a production
system based on collective ownership and control by
democratic and egalitarian institutions. In reality, this aspect
of the socialist transition was not described much by Marx,
whose main text remains the Manifesto of the Communist
Party of 1847 with two ideas that were repeated till the end
of his days in numerous writings, articles or letters: the
crucial roles of the state and of collective planning during
the transition period. On a practical level, it was the really
existing countries of socialism that had the task of inventing
the transition, the purest of which was Soviet Russia,

whose outcome or performance has been undoubtedly less
catastrophic than some propagandists had wanted to make
people believe, but which collapsed on its own in 1989 with
the fall of the Berlin Wall and the discovery of a totalitarian,
bureaucratic and economically inefficient system very well
described by the Hungarian economist Janos Kornaï in
particular.
As for the thesis 5 of the advent of communism under the
double dynamic of the reinforcement of community solidarity
and the erosion of inequalities, it foresaw the natural decline
of the state and social classes with the utopian affirmation (in
the literal sense of imagined future) of a normative ideal of
radical egalitarianism and material abundance for all. Let us
recognise the Chinese leader Mao Zedong for having broken
with the first thesis with the critical foundation of his “Great
Proletarian Cultural Revolution” launched in 1966: the need
for a permanent revolution but also a cultural revolution to
avoid the traps that he had well anticipated in the transition to
socialism, namely the seizure of power by a new conservative
bourgeoisie. His only problem is that he himself failed in his
project in favour of the pragmatic reformer Deng Xiaoping,
known in China by the formula: “Turn the indicator to the left
and turn to the right”.
2. Marx: Science and Ideology, Utopia and Dystopia

Despite these harsh observations on Marx’s five great theses,
no one can deny that he was one of the greatest thinkers of
the 19th century. His critical work on the capitalist mode of
production at a key moment when it would assert itself as the
dominant economic system in Western countries and beyond
extending to the entire planet has provided essential keys to
understanding the economic, social and political mechanisms
that explained both the performance and the pathologies
of a system lived with immense pain by the exploited and
oppressed of the “Great Transformation” well described by
Karl Polanyi. Orthodox transition theorists such as Adam
Smith, Stuart Mill or David Ricardo merely described

its positive effects in terms of economic progress, or like
Malthus, accused overpopulation of being at the origin of the
pathologies observed when poverty was exploding in all the
major urban centres of the industrial revolution.
But it is here that the essential distinction made by a great
philosopher, Paul Ricoeur, between science, ideology and
utopia must be made.
2.1. Marx Between Science and Ideology
Marx’s approach was actually aiming at criticising the liberal
ideology behind the work of those who claimed to follow a
purely empirical and descriptive scientific method without
questioning the implicit assumptions of their science. But in
so doing Marx himself fell into the Mannheim paradox, i.e.
produce an ideology to criticise another ideology, in this case
liberal.
Ideology intervenes because no system of domination
governs by force alone. Each system of domination
requires not only physical submission but also consent and
cooperation, or in other terms, a form of legitimacy whose
ideology provides codes of interpretation that ensure the
integration of individuals by justifying the present system of
authority. The same is true for the alternative forces who wish
to replace the old power system.
This approach is essential to understand how Marx moved
from a critique that he wished to be as rational as possible,
i.e. based on reason, on a scientific approach of causal links
and experimental tests, to an ideology that aimed to produce a
legitimisation of his alternative vision to capitalism, of which
the Manifesto of the Communist Party is probably the key
book. However, this work was published when Marx was
not yet thirty years old and it has obviously influenced all his
subsequent work, which ultimately aimed more at supporting
his political approach than being part of a purely scientific
approach.
The second aspect, did Marx’s ideology impose itself
by its scientific or rational relevance? No. This alternative

ideology was actually competing with a whole range of other
ideologies offering alternatives to liberal capitalism like other
socialist movements or anarchism. But History will remember
that it is the Marxist communist parties that will gradually
impose themselves as the dominant force in the anti-capitalist
elite. They undoubtedly succeeded thanks to the intellectual
power of Marx’s work, but undoubtedly more so thanks to the
organisational strength of the Marxist communist movement
resulting from Marx’s theory of revolution led by an avant
garde party organised in an almost military manner. Lenin
with his Bolshevik party, but also Mao with his political and
military writings—alas not well known—would develop this
theory of the revolution of a so-called proletarian avant-garde
party with the practical success we know. In this sense, Marx’s
ideology will became hegemonic for a long period within
the alternative movements to capitalism less because of its
scientific basis than because of its praxis on the ground of the
seizure of political power.
From this probably comes the importance of the
communist utopia both during Marx’s life, but even more
among those who would win revolutions in the name of
Marxist ideology, especially in Russia, China and Africa.
Indeed, for the same philosopher Paul Ricoeur, ideology and
utopia have the same link with reality: a social imaginary
function capable of mobilising human energies and passions.
But where ideology has the function of legitimising authority,
of justifying it, “Utopia has the function of stimulating the
imagination on the field of possibilities beyond the existing
by making it possible to envisage radically different ways of
living without worrying about their feasibility”.
In this sense, Marx’s communist utopia played an essential
role in bringing together masses of people or intellectuals who
did not share Marxist theories or his communist ideology in
particular because of its violent or elitist practice of power, but
who accepted it for its practical effectiveness in overthrowing
capitalist regimes and because of their dream of another society.
2.2. Marx and the Long History of Utopia

Utopia, or in fact Utopias, can be characterised as imaginary
creations, morally inspired conceptions aiming at a world of
peace and harmony, satisfaction of basic needs or material
prosperity, and not constrained by realistic considerations that
touch on human psychology and the question of economic,
social and political feasibility. In this sense, Utopia defines a
genre, not a thematic unity. On the major subjects of society,
including economic organisation, there are as many projects as
there are utopias, such as for the family that some would like
to see disappear or, on the contrary, reinforce for the former,
or for consumption with frugal ascetism for some or, on the
contrary, abundance for others. In this sense it is necessary to
specify what is called Marx’s communist utopia.
The utopian tradition can be traced back to Antiquity with
Homer’s Odyssey in the 8th century BC, and on the political
field to the 5th century with the Republic of Diogenes and then
with Plato and Aristotle who imagined the ideal city. Probably
the most finished work remains at this time Iambule’s “The
Sun Island” which became the main source for Thomas
More and Campinella in the 15th century when the epic and
utopian style reappeared. It is actually to Thomas More that
we owe the word Utopia, title of his book of 1516 which
describes a perfect country, without private property, without
war, without social antagonism, egalitarian, democratic,
frugal certainly but guaranteeing the satisfaction of all basic
needs, social protection, a retirement and an optimal balance
between leisure and social or political activities. The utopian
genre made a fortune since then with several hundred books
that described ideal societies and marked the philosophers of
the Enlightenment in Europe and many social reformers at the
time of the Industrial Revolution.
However, if Marx quoted Thomas More, Mably, Morelly,
Cabet, Villegardelle or Weitling, it was to take up their
criticism of feudal society but not really for the meticulous
description of their “communist” project, the actual word
often used to describe in detail the ideal city of More and most
social reformers. In fact, it would have been to his advantage
to focus and analyse in detail the political, social and economic
organisation proposed since they actually almost always bore
totalitarian visions in terms of freedom, were frugal to the
extreme and without proper History. He would have seen then
that they were not only unrealistic but leading to “dystopia”,
i.e. the transformation of an ideal into a dark world, even a
human nightmare.
On the contrary, Marx’s critic of utopias focused on the
socialist visions of Saint-Simon, Fourier, Lasalle, Owen, and
others, including his own son-in-law Joseph Proudhon, all of
whom were treated rather harshly, notably in a famous book
signed by Engels, as “utopian socialists” as opposed to the
“scientific socialism” attributed to Marx. These great social
reformers of the 19th century were accused by Marx and Engels
of proposing “immature theoretical forms compared to the
degree of development of the proletariat and the productive
forces”. They were also accused of pursuing “chimeras” such
as the projects of “Phalansteres” or worker cooperatives, while
“scientific socialism” was predicting the collapse of capitalism
and therefore the priority to organise the proletariat with a
view to its overthrow by revolution. For the rest, in fact, Marx
was content with a vague goal that was communism without
property, without class and without state.
In doing so, Marx fell into the same traps as idealistic
utopia with its two principles: “Want is power”, implying,
everything is possible; and “Necessity is the mother of
invention”, implying, solutions will always be found.
2.3. From Utopia to Dystopia
The paradox of economists is that we owe the description of
the mechanisms of this dystopic metamorphosis to two great
writers: George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
2.3.1 The “Animal Farm” Model
On the revolutionary rupture envisaged by Marx, George
Orwell’s “Animal Farm” model perfectly describes the

political and economic mechanisms that not only made most
Marxist revolutions fail, but above all transformed them into a
rejection of any revolutionary perspective of this kind.
Written in 1945, three years before his world-famous
novel 1984, Orwell’s Animal Farm offers an explanatory model
based in fact on the historical experiences of the French and
Russian revolutions. Its essential mechanism is the cynical use
of popular aspirations to free themselves from an oppressive
system of exploitation and the dream of a New Man to set
up an economy of war and dictatorial mobilisation of the
labour force that legitimises the seizure of power by a dictator
and a new aristocratic class to the detriment of a proletariat
more exploited than ever but now deprived of any means
of resistance or opposition. The system obtained ultimately
proved to be much less effective than that which was fought.
The new bourgeoisie in power then negotiated a compromise
with the adversary in exchange for which it retained power
thanks to a totalitarian system which played on the fibre of
nationalism to maintain any semblance of legitimacy.
It is difficult to deny the relevance of the model whose
historical examples have multiplied since the French
Revolution. George Orwell also had direct experience of it
during the Spanish Civil War in 1936 where he experienced
the cynicism with which the Spanish libertarian anarchists of
the CNT were massacred and abandoned by the Communists
of the Spanish Communist Party supported by Moscow.
The case of Leninism-Stalinism in the USSR and China is
well known, but Cuba can also be mentioned in Latin America,
or in Africa, the experience of Kwame Nkrumah in Ghana,
whose two key works reproduce Orwell’s novel almost word
for word. It is The Class Struggle in Africa published in 1970
and even more Africa Must Unite published in 1963. In the
middle of the turmoil of his socialist experience of Ghana,
Nkrumah tried to justify the end of political freedoms, the
establishment of a single party and the experience of socialist
planning directly inspired by Marx’s work but which failed
dramatically.
Less commented upon, the case of India is also instructive.
The Indian experience is a kind of attempt by Jawaharlal Nehru
of a synthesis inspired by English reformist fabianism between
a democratic political system avoiding totalitarian drift and
a Marxist-style economic model, notably on the pattern of
planification and socialist accumulation. The development
strategy set out in the early 1950s by the Planning Commission
led by the USSR inspired Marxist economist, P.C. Mahalabonis,
turns out in reality to be a significant failure since the growth
rate would not exceed 4 per cent during the First Plan of 1951
1956 and hardly more than 4 per cent during the Second Plan
between 1956 and 1961. After the 1962 war against China,
India entered an infernal spiral of agricultural and balance of
payment crises so that its average post-independence growth
rate—nicknamed the ‘Hindu rate of growth’—was barely
higher than population growth till the early 1980s. India owes
its democratic political model to the exiting impasses of the
Marxist economic model without too many difficulties, even
if the transition lasted almost twenty years, which include the
meanderings of Indira Gandhi during her State of Emergency
from 1975 to 1977, recalling the prognostics of George Orwell
on the totalitarian drifts in this kind of situation where the
ideal deviates too much from the realities and the intensive
use of scapegoats to explain the failure of its own policy.
2.3.2 China and the “Brave New World”
One could say however: what about Post-Mao China? His
resounding success since the pragmatic turn of 1978 could
well constitute a tangible proof of the relevance of Marx’s
theories concerning the Revolution and the transition phase
from socialism to communism, this time well conducted after
several unfortunate but ultimately acceptable experiments
under any experience curve.
(a) On the one hand, the Chinese revolution was a success
in the sense of the overthrow of the ancient feudal-capitalist
order by a communist party inspired by Marx’s thought. But
inspired intelligently in the sense of a specific adaptation to

China by Mao Zedong whose philosophical and practical
writings are explicitly in the continuity of those of Marx.
Even today, the most recent reference to the sources of the
Chinese regime—Xi Jinping’s book The Governance of China—
is unambiguous: “The theoretical system of Chinese socialism
is the fruit of the sinisation of Marxism. This theoretical
system is the continuation, development, legacy and
innovation of Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong’s thinking.
We absolutely cannot abandon Marxism-Leninism or Mao
Zedong’s thought, otherwise we will lose our foundations...
To pursue the theoretical system of Chinese socialism in China
today is to rightly pursue Marxism.”
The current doctrine simply speaks of the “historical
contribution to Chinese socialism made by the central
leadership team of three generations, including Mao for
the first, Ding Xiaoping for the second, and finally the third
led by Jiang Zemin who set the case for 21st century China.
Finally, Marx’s communist ideal is simply put in brackets in
the name of the argument that China is in “the primary phase
of socialism marked by a still low level of development”
justifying the continuation of the socialist transition as
described by Marx. That is to say “under the leadership (read
“dictatorship”) of the Communist Party which must exercise
all power to rebuild the country, develop productive forces,
focus priorities on economic construction and on this basis
only, promote in a coordinated manner the political, cultural,
social and ecological construction of the country.” (All these
references appear in the same book by Xi Jinping)
Nevertheless, Marx’s communist ideals are already present
in a rhetoric typical of the “Manifesto of the Communist
Party” of 1857: “The aspiration of the people to live a better
life must always be the focus of our efforts (...) All happiness
on earth is created by work (...) It is necessary to promote in
harmony, equity and social justice, and to ensure a happy and
peaceful life for a people.”
(b) On the other hand, most economic and social
indicators, but also technological and what are more broadly

called “human development indexes” as measured by the
United Nations, all show China’s rather fascinating progress.
It has become the world’s leading economy in terms of GDP
calculated in purchasing power parity; it has one of the longest
life expectancies in the world (76 years); finally, its Human
Development Index rose from 0.50 to 0.74 between 1990 and
2017, even if its 90th place in the world still shows a significant
gap with its competitors in the capitalist countries. But for
now, the catch-up trajectory remains striking with growth
continuing to exceed 6-7 per cent per year, and a growing
mastery of technological innovations that brings China closer
to the technical frontier of the most advanced countries. On
the negative side, wealth and power inequalities, corruption
and environmental degradation place China at the bottom of
the list of developed countries. But these are now priorities of
the transition led by the team of President Xi who took the
reins of power in 2012 and the 19th Congress at the end of 2017
has decided to extend his mandate for an infinite duration and
to give his thought the same status as those of Mao Zedong
and Deng Xiaoping.
(c) The Chinese Way of the “Brave New World”?
Although the Mass is not said (over), one can propose the
reading of the Chinese model through the second model of
utopia-dystopia existing on the market: that of the famous
novel %UDYH 1HZ :RUOG written in 1932 by Aldous Huxley,
long enough to judge the maturity of a work. Unlike Orwell’s
models of the Animal Farm and 1984, Huxley describes a
modern totalitarianism in which leaders became aware that
the use of terror, artificial famines, imprisonment of the
masses and deportation of opponents are not only inhuman
but ineffective : “In an era of advanced technology, a truly
efficient totalitarian state would be one in which an almighty
executive committee of political leaders and their army of
directors have control over a population of slaves but whom
it would be useless to coerce because they would have the
choice of love of their bondage.”

In particular, mass manipulation methods are increasingly
scientific, mixing sophisticated police control with the use
of media and manipulation techniques, including chemical
drugs. In return, a highly efficient economic system offers
all the ingredients for mass prosperity and consumerism,
including leisure, supported by massive investments in
technical progress and productivity gains. The political system
is that of an omnipresent state-party that promises happiness,
social stability and the protection of individuals in exchange
for renouncing political freedom and thinking.
All the information available on China today, its
increasingly sophisticated surveillance system, and the
description of the “Chinese way to happiness” is actually very
similar to Huxley’s model and the analyses of opponents of
the regime, such as the economist Zhang (reference?) who left
the country after the Tian’anmen massacre, converge towards
this totalitarian society of mass prosperity.
2.3.3 The “End and the Means” Model
Undoubtedly, Marx cannot be blamed for having sinned
for insufficient analysis of the political conditions of the
transition, nor for having envisaged these pathological
excesses of real socialism. But many thinkers of his century
had clearly conjecturised the potential drifts of the Orwell
type, and in particular the libertarians and all those which one
groups today under the term of the thinkers of “Degrowth”,
among which John Ruskin, David Thoreau and Léon Tolstoï
who greatly influenced Gandhi. All shared also a utopian path
of political and economic rupture with capitalism in the name
ultimately of the same ideals of Marx in terms of the end of
man’s exploitation by man and class oppression. Simply, the
means of rupture are directly posed in relation to the ends
sought.
In fact, the probable trajectory of the current Chinese model
is due to the fundamental error of Marx’s theory of dialectical
materialism, which completely subordinates superstructure—
broadly speaking, politics, social and culture that do not exist

in their own right—to the material infrastructure, that is, to his
theory of modes of production. The paradox, well highlighted
by Huxley, is that to sustainably establish its power, the
Communist Party that wants to escape the economy of scarcity
and therefore totalitarian physical repression is obliged
to engage in a race for growth, for scientific and technical
progress to legitimise its domination, and to follow a de facto
capitalist path.
In so doing, the inversion of the end and the means leads
to the disappearance of Marx’s very human goal, namely
freedom and equality, i.e. the human development well
defined by Amartya Sen not by the accumulation of wealth
but as the fulfilment and expansion of the capabilities of each
individual.
3. Conclusion: The Economy of Wisdom
In conclusion, I would like to offer some positive perspectives
from this theoretical journey on the evolution of Marx’s works,
which I recall to what extent they are rich and constituted
one of the main criticisms and alternatives to capitalism
throughout the 20th century before the collapse of the Marxist
communist dream almost everywhere in the world.
This perspective has a name: Wisdom, as a rational,
balanced approach but also capable of transforming
proposals. It includes philosophical wisdom, political wisdom
and economic wisdom. Despite the two words are rarely
used together and may even appear antinomic, some great
economists like Jean-Baptiste Say have precisely defined
economics as the very science of wisdom.
Let us content ourselves with a simple definition of
Wisdom as: “Behaviour in conformity with an ethic which
combines the conscience of oneself and others, which
cultivates temperance, prudence, sincerity, discernment and
justice by relying on one or more reasoned knowledge.”
From this point of view, Karl Marx has not been a “Wise
One” in all the qualifiers quoted, with the exception of sincerity.
Beyond the use of reasoned knowledge in a completely partial

way, Marx lacked at least two other essential qualifiers: ethics
and caution in judgement.
Indeed, ethics is Marx’s poor relation, to the point of having
even had to develop the notion of a “proletarian morality” to
justify his key thesis of the dictatorship of the proletariat as
a method of transforming societies. The questions of violence
or some basic universal principles indispensable in any life in
society are especially poorly represented in Marx’s writings.
Secondly, prudence in analysis is a second great absence in
Marx’s intellectual approach who never doubts his analyses,
quite the contrary. However, the evolution of capitalism
has, for example, proved the resilience of the system thanks
to more or less sudden but also voluntary adaptations, as
shown by a very large part of the so-called orthodox economic
research, i.e. that is favourable to capitalism.
We can suggest here three ways to overcome these
weaknesses and offer a critical or even alternative perspective
to capitalism for those who think that its pathologies outweigh
the undeniable progress it generates.
3.1. The Realities of Human Nature
First, that of a judgment on man, on human nature, which
goes far beyond the very restrictive framework granted by
Marx on this subject: his over-determination by the economic
system. In reality, as both the evolution of capitalism and of
real socialism show, any economic system obeys certain laws
of human nature which are neither good nor bad, but which
possess intrinsic, even genetic, characteristics capable of
perverting even the best economic system. I am referring in
particular to the infinite quest for “power” over others, the
greed to amass, to be richer than the other, anger, violence,
jealousy, etc. As the philosophers Hannah Arendt and Paul
Ricoeur say, the problem of power is the “most fascinating
structure of existence” but it remains a sort of blind spot in
our existence. The same is true in economics, where the
notion has become indispensable in the analysis of markets
and competition (see Joseph Stiglitz, Georges Akerlof or Paul

Krugman) without, however, leading to institutional reforms
capable of guaranteeing satisfactory market balances or
regulation.
From this point of view, the famous Indian Panchatantra
fables attributed to Vishnu Sharma and written in antiquity
have long offered a fairly exhaustive vision of this human
nature, in its best and worst, with behavioural models
worthy of inclusion in the best economics textbooks. In fact,
contemporary economic science sometimes merely repeats
these fables with increasingly sophisticated behavioural or
structural models of markets and institutions, whether we
think of the Game or the Information theories, or behavioural
analysis recently awarded to two Nobel prizes: David
Kahneman and Richard H. Thaler.
I retain this essential lesson that Wisdom consists in
postulating that Homo Economicus does not exist, any more
than Homo Sapiens, and that it is vain to pursue utopia (even
if one can and even must know how to dream about it), or
to believe that one could transform all the individuals of the
planet into Homo sapiens, prudent, reasoned, altruistic, etc....
One only has to work on Game theory or Daniel Kahneman’s
famous “Thinking Fast and Slow” model, for example, to
realise that we cannot transform every human into an Einstein
or Vishnu Sharma, if only because of the economic cost of each
enlightened decision and the reality of information or market
asymmetries.
3.2. Institutions are Always Imperfect
Which leads me to a second perspective. Any necessary
progress of human wisdom, thanks in particular to education,
presupposes a progress of collective institutions towards
more wisdom, if only to deal here again with the mechanisms
brought to light by the Game theory or that of asymmetries,
including those developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb in his
theory of the unpredictable or hidden asymmetries (“Skin in
the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life”). From this
point of view, Albert O. Hirschman’s social science approach

seems to me to provide a powerful framework for analysis.
Let us not expect perfect, ideal institutions. Let us try at
least to better integrate into our scientific approach the famous
“tricks of History” where when we have barely concluded
the rationality of our explanatory model and its conclusions,
they in reality are already exceeded (Trespassing) by a whole
set of mechanisms related to the dynamics of open systems:
perverse effects, linkage effects, permanent shift from the
fields of economics towards the social one, then towards
politics and vice versa.
This is quite simply because of the permeability between
the different fields of social sciences that we tend to close, to
compartmentalise for relatively legitimate reasons of rigorous
analysis but at the cost of a poorly accepted loss of explanatory
capacity. Marx and Marxism are a very good example of
Albert Hirschman’s legendary caution never to conclude
definitively, especially in the social sciences, where one never
has the ideal laboratory conditions to test his theory. On the
other hand, Hirschman’s approach to Marxism deserves
to be better known with his concept of “micromarxism”,
i.e. the transposition of the Marxian scheme to small-scale
economic and political development processes (“A Biais for
Hope, Essays on Development and Latin America”, 1971).
Conversely, Hirschman never adhered to the claim of the vast
encompassing frescoes of Marxist analysis and preferred the
notions of “possibilityism” and “unintended consequences
of human action” to that of probability of abstract theoretical
models.
3.3. Economic Models and Limited Rationality
Hence my third line of inquiry, recently opened by the
economist Dani Rodrik (Economics Rules, 2015), which cannot
be accused of basic anti-Marxism: the modesty necessary
in Economics, on the model of the Fables, which he himself
says have generally produced better results than all economic
models with scientific pretensions. Marx in particular has
developed an all-encompassing, general theory of history,

taking everything back to the concept of Materialism.
However, such models are in reality unverifiable. Hence the
rapid drift towards ideology and utopia according to his
own relationship to the seizure of power. In reality, we must
abandon the claim to make economics a normative science of
“happiness” (welfare) and limit ourselves to a set of partial
models based on realistic assumptions and thus corresponding
to an imperfect world. The difference with the Fables is that
partial economic models can indeed claim greater scientific
rigour thanks to a set of transparent hypotheses, causal
reasoning based on abstractions and the use of mathematical
tools, and finally to verification tests.
In doing so, the models are multiple, specific to each
subject and diverse as is the reality of the social world, and
economists must abandon the very idea of a model with a
universal or general vocation.
We can regret this disappearance of an all-encompassing
vision of history which is quite convenient in the end, because
very economical apparently in mental and time resources.
Marxism, like all “isms,” however, has shown that their costs
were probably greater than their benefits. Human progress
therefore depends on abandonment and evolution towards
greater methodological and ethical wisdom.
***
Finally, Marx will have been very useful, not only for his very
serious leads on a set of subjects related to the sources and
effects of capitalism, but just as much for the lessons we can
learn from them on what not to do if we wish to improve our
understanding of our economic and social systems and guide
us in an effective way on how to improve them.
15
Exploitation and Oppression
Under Bourgeoisdom
C. Saratchand
1. Introduction
Traditional statements of historical materialism such as (Lange,
1963) are couched in terms of Marxist concepts of productive
forces, production relations, mode of production, exploitation
(private appropriation of surplus labour), etc. However it has
long been recognised that historical materialism has to deal
with phenomena such as gender, race, caste, communalism,
etc., in other words with social oppression (Callinicos, 2002).
The relation between exploitation and oppression is the
subject of this paper.
It is proposed that social oppression is associated
with heterogeneity within social classes1 besides struggle
between classes. Marxist writing often recognised the
heterogeneity amongst the bourgeoisie. For instance (Patnaik,
Chandrasekhar, and Sen, 1996; Patnaik, Chandrasekhar, and
Ghosh, 2004), argued that there were two processes at play here
namely, monopolisation and proliferation of the bourgeoisie.
Monopolisation involves centralisation and concentration of
capital. Proliferation involves the process through which new
entrants make it into the ranks of the bourgeoisie.2 The role of
caste, gender, race, communalism, etc. in these processes has
been significant since they were associated, for instance, with
contradictions between different sections of the bourgeoisie.
([SORLWDWLRQDQG2SSUHVVLRQ8QGHU%RXUJHRLVGRPв373
However in (Marx, 2010 [1858], 2010 [1867], 2010 [1884],

2010 [1894]) it was assumed that the rate of surplus value
was equal in each branch of production. This is generally
equivalent to the assumption that the rate of exploitation of all
workers is equal. Some of Marx’s writings may be construed
to imply that there is a tendency towards the creation of a
homogeneous proletariat.3 (Marx, 2010 [1867]) had pointed out
that “...reproduction on a progressive scale, i.e. accumulation,
reproduces the capital relation on a progressive scale,
more capitalists or larger capitalists at this pole, more wage
workers at that.” Earlier it was argued according to (Marx
and Engels, 2010 [1848]) that “Of all the classes that stand face
to face with the bourgeoisie today, the proletariat alone is a
really revolutionary class. The other classes decay and finally
disappear in the face of Modern Industry; the proletariat
is its special and essential product.” However it does not
follow from either of these propositions that the proletariat is
homogeneous or will become so.
However this assumption that the rate of exploitation
of different types of workers is unequal is neither necessary
logically nor is it necessarily tenable historically.4 Once it
is admitted that the rate of exploitation of different types of
workers is unequal, the factors that give rise to this inequality
need to be examined. It is proposed that social oppression is
associated with this phenomenon.
In order to examine the other phenomenon associated
with social oppression it may be apposite to consider (Stalin,
1953 [1926])’s discussion on the heterogeneity amongst the
proletariat: “....The proletariat, as a class, can be divided into
three strata...One stratum is the main mass of the proletariat,
its core, its permanent part, the mass of ‘pure-blooded’
proletarians, who have long broken off connection with the
capitalist class. This stratum of the proletariat is the most
reliable bulwark of Marxism...The second stratum consists of
newcomers from non-proletarian classes—from the peasantry,
the petty bourgeoisie or the intelligentsia. These are former
members of other classes who have only recently merged with
the proletariat and have brought with them into the working
class their customs, their habits, their waverings and their
vacillations. This stratum constitutes the most favourable
soil for all sorts of anarchist, semi-anarchist and ‘ultra-Left’
groups...The third stratum, lastly, consists of the labour
aristocracy, the upper stratum of the working class, the most
well-to-do portion of the proletariat, with its propensity for
compromise with the bourgeoisie, its predominant inclination
to adapt itself to the powers that be, and its anxiety to “get on
in life.” This stratum constitutes the most favourable soil for
outright reformists and opportunists.”
Postponing commentary about the first and third stratum
(as well as on this formulation as such) to the later sections
of this paper, it may be pointed out that the existence of the
second stratum of the proletariat presupposes the existence
of other modes of production. But it cannot be ruled out that
the persistence of other modes of production is only a matter
of time if the capitalist mode of production has a tendency
to eliminate other modes of production. But (Patnaik, 2009)
points out that the historical experience has demonstrated
that: “While retaining the concept of the mode of production,
however, we must recognise that the capitalist mode of
production is always located within a cluster, surrounded
by pre-capitalist modes of production that are hegemonised
but are nonetheless very clearly extant and by no means
obliterated.” The implications of this argument are examined
later but it is proposed that social oppression is also associated
with the existence of different modes of production.
The rest of this paper is organised as follows: Section 2
examines the implications of unequal rates of exploitation
for historical materialism, Section 3 examines the relations
between the mode of production and the social formation with
special reference to the phenomenon of social oppression.
Section 4 seeks to tie together the arguments of Sections 2 and
3 while Section 5 concludes the paper.
2. Unequal Rates of Exploitation of Workers and Social

Oppression
It was assumed in (Marx, 2010 [1884], 2010 [1894]) that the rate
of surplus value was the same in each branch (sector, industry)
of production. If the types of concrete labour differ from the
number of commodities then the sectoral rates of surplus value
may be derived from the rates of exploitation of different types
of workers. However besides simplicity there seems to be no
reason to stick to this assumption.5
There is no tendency in the capitalist mode of production
to overcome unequal rates of exploitation of different workers.
(Marx, 2010 [1867]) did say that: “The distinction between
skilled and unskilled labour rests in part on pure illusion, or,
to say the least, on distinctions that have long since ceased
to be real, and that survive only by virtue of a traditional
convention; in part on the helpless condition of some groups
of the working class, a condition that prevents them from
exacting equally with the rest the value of their labour power.
Accidental circumstances here play so great a part, that these
two forms of labour sometimes change places. Where, for
instance, the physique of the working class has deteriorated,
and is, relatively speaking exhausted, which is the case in all
countries with a well developed capitalist production, the
lower forms of labour, which demand great expenditure of
muscle, are in general considered as skilled, compared with
much more delicate forms of labour; the latter sink down to
the level of unskilled labour. Take as an example the labour of
a brick-layer, which in England occupies a much higher level
than that of a damask-weaver”. In this quotation there is a
reference to skilled and unskilled labour. The conversion of a
given magnitude of concrete labour to abstract labour would
depend on reduction ratios (Krause, 1982). The reduction
ratios involve both skill and other aspects of the bargaining
power among different types of workers and the balance of
bargaining power between workers and capitalists. In other
words, reduction ratios involve both skill differences and
unequal rates of exploitation.
For the same type of concrete labour, it may be possible to

an extent to speak of a more or less skilled worker such as a
more skilled weaver as opposed to a less skilled weaver. But
beyond a point even for the same type of concrete labour and
certainly across different types of concrete labour the degree
of skill cannot be determined independently of the ensemble
of social relations within which the production process is
carried out.
Therefore it would be the case that unequal rates of
exploitation may be influenced by factors such as race, caste,
gender, etc. For such a state of affairs to persist a whole host of
social practices that reproduce the social differences between
the two or more types of workers must prevail. This is one
way of formalising the insight of (Wolpe, 1986) about the
interiorisation of race (or any other type of social oppression)
in the class struggle.6
Intersectionality is another framework that seeks to
examine the relation between class, gender, race, etc (Hancock,
2016). Marxist critiques of intersectionality have included the
following:
1. Intersectionality has abandoned the primacy of class but
there is a need to examine how capitalist development
interacts with gender, race, etc. (Eisenstein, 2018).
2. (Gimenez, 2018), in a critique of intersectionality, argues
that: “When examining class at the level of analysis of
the capitalist mode of production, it would make no
sense to take into account gender, race or other forms
of oppression. Class is identity blind. Far from being an
error, or a problem in need of correction, this “blindness”
indicates that the logic of class relations, exploitation
and capital accumulation is indifferent to the actual
individual characteristics of capitalists and workers. At
this level of analysis, what matters for capitalists is that
surplus labor can be extracted from workers whatever
their imputed or acknowledged identities may be;
capitalists themselves, these identities notwithstanding,
ought to behave as capitalists, rationally making

decisions about the use of technology, automation,
location of investments, outsourcing, locking workers
out, and so on, in order to maintain the profitability of
their enterprises.”
Since this paper is not concerned with intersectionality or its
critique in detail, the above mentioned observations were
selected with a view to evaluate Marxist views that were
sought to be established in the light of the formulation on
unequal rates of exploitation are set out here. Let us consider
them seriatim.
Once it is acknowledged that race, gender, caste etc.
are capable of influencing the rates of exploitation, the
understanding of the relation between class and social
oppression becomes more concrete once additional
considerations about how class may impact social oppression
are taken into account. A specific response to the issue of
primacy of class (Eisenstein, 2018) will be advanced later.
For workers as a whole the rate of surplus value and the
rate of exploitation are identically equal but when the rate of
exploitation of different workers are unequal it is no longer
necessary to argue along the lines of (Gimenez, 2018) that
an analysis of the capitalist mode of production must ignore
social oppression.
Two issues remain that need to be addressed. It has
long been recognised that the commodity labour power is
not produced by capitalists. The social reproduction theory
(Bhattacharya, 2017) represents one attempt to explore the
relation between the reproduction of labour power and the
accumulation of capital. In terms of the formulation set out
in this paper, labour expended on reproducing labour power
contributes to the determination of the number of workers
(new entrants) as well as part of the cost of reproducing all
workers.7
The second issue in this context is that some have argued
that the accumulation of capital requires the existence of at
least some workers whose share in output may be compressed

(Patnaik, 1997). If money is not based on a commodity then
the existence of such workers restrains acceleration of inflation
while if money is based on a commodity then the existence
of such workers reduces price volatility.8 In terms of the
formulation of this section of the paper this implies that there
are at least some workers who are unable to defend (almost)
any level of real wages (or share of wages if the productivity
of their labour is rising over time). This is the case, it has
been argued because they live amidst a larger reserve army
of labour as compared to other workers who are able to
defend at least partially their real wages. The existence of such
workers it may be argued is on account of their being socially
separated from other workers. This would be associated with
unequal rates of exploitation or the existence of more than one
mode of production. While the former was partly examined in
this section, the latter is examined in the next section.9
3. Capitalist Mode of Production and Social Formation
Before proceeding to a discussion of the relation between the
existence of multiple modes of production in social formations
and social oppression it may not be inappropriate to briefly
survey the relevant literature on modes of production in social
formations (Küttler, 2011). A non-exhaustive list of works
which discuss these concepts include (Lange, 1963; Althusser,
2014 [1969]; Hirst and Hindess, 1975; Wolpe, 1980; Banerjee,
1985; Richards, 2013 [1986]; Patnaik, 1990; Patnaik, 2009;
Jessop, 1990; Habib, 2010; Farooqui, 2010; Banaji, 2012; Graca
and Zingarelli, 2015).
(Lange, 1963) defines a mode of production as follows:
“The social productive forces and the production relations
connected with them and based on a given type of the
ownership of the means of production are jointly termed the
mode of production.” According to (Lange, 1963), a social
formation is defined in the following passage: “We call the
superstructure of a given mode of production that part of
social relations (outside production relations) and of social
consciousness which is indispensable for the existence of

that particular mode of production. The mode of production,
together with its superstructure is called the social formation
or social system, and the production relations proper to a given
social formation are called its economic base.” Apart from
many formulations which are eminently debatable, it may be
noted that the possibility of a social formation encompassing
several modes of production is absent in this formulation of
(Lange, 1963).
However (Althusser, 2014 [1969]) provides a clear
statement of this possibility: “Every concrete social formation
is based on a dominant mode of production. The immediate
implication is that, in every social formation, there exists more
than one mode of production: at least two and often many
more.” This formulation was critically evaluated by many
including (Hirst and Hindess, 1975).
(Wolpe, 1980) provides an extended discussion of the
articulation of modes of production production in social
formations.10 In doing so, (Wolpe, 1980) distinguishes
conceptually between the features of a mode of production and
factors which bring about its reproduction which may involve
other modes of production in a social formation. (Wolpe, 1980)
distinguishes between the restricted and extended concepts of
the mode of production wherein the former involves only the
specification of the relations of production and the productive
forces while the latter involves the relations of production,
the productive forces and the factors that bring about its
reproduction. On this basis, (Wolpe, 1980) argues that there
are three possibilities:
1. A social formation involves two or more modes of
production defined restrictively while the factors
that reproduce them are external to each restrictively
defined mode of production.
2. A social formation involves two or more extended
modes of production while the relation between them is
not necessary for the reproduction of any of them.
3. A social formation involves one dominant extended

mode of production and one or more subordinate
restricted modes of production. Here dominance of
an extended mode of production is its ability to self-
reproduce and that other modes of production are
dependent on it for their reproduction.
Once a sharp conceptual distinction between the restricted
and extended definition of modes of production is overcome11
it is possible to consider the argument of (Patnaik, 2009)
who points out that a capitalist mode of production is not
self-contained. This proposition is based on the following
argument: if both capitalists and workers are organised then
steady growth and steady inflation are not possible for high
rates of activity, i.e. the rate of employment and the degree of
capacity utilisation. The solution to this problem lies in the
fact that in the capitalist periphery there exist a set of workers
whose share in output can be squeezed since they live amidst
a reserve army of labour that is larger than that in the capitalist
metropolis. These workers could be primary commodity
producers and workers employed by metropolitan capital in
the periphery. A third possibility is of workers of the periphery
(or emigrants or their descendants) working in the metropolis
has been implicitly considered in the previous section. Thus
the capitalist mode of production does not/cannot eliminate
some of the other modes of production. In other words, the
capitalist mode of production is not self-reproducing. Further,
colonialism was historically necessary in the making of this
system (i.e. imperialism according to Patnaik, 1997; Patnaik,
2009; Patnaik and Patnaik 2016)12 but is not necessary for its
persistence.
This also implies that a key difference between the
capitalist metropolis and periphery, namely the large ratio
of the reserve army to the active army of the labour in the
latter never attains that which prevails in the former. In
different historical periods other factors that have contributed
to this dichotomy between the capitalist metropolis and the
periphery include the relative immobility of labour between

the two, the relative immobility of productive capital between
the two, the limited role of exports of the capitalist periphery to
the metropolis and the price inelastic preference of the elite in
the periphery for the commodities produced by metropolitan
capital (Patnaik, 1997).
Though some of these factors no longer hold good at
present or have become less relevant and even if the rate
of growth of output is large in some parts of the capitalist
periphery in the last few decades, the rate of growth of
the productivity of labour is often higher resulting in the
phenomenon of jobless growth, i.e. the share of workers
employed in the organised sector of the capitalist periphery is
declining (Patnaik, 2007b, 2007a).
The argument of (Patnaik, 2009) that pertains to this
paper may be summarised in the following passage: “The
capitalist mode, it follows, is both revolutionary and yet not
quite revolutionary enough. It does break down the insulation
of existing pre-capitalist societies; it does ruthlessly draw
them into the vortex of its own accumulation process, but
not necessarily by creating within them, in a dominant form,
the structures of the bourgeois mode of production itself.
They are transformed and hegemonised by metropolitan
capitalism, but they themselves are never transformed into
predominantly bourgeois societies. They may replicate within
them the dichotomy characterising the system as a whole,
by having an enclave of capitalism, but this is very different
from their transformation into bourgeois societies.” This
formulation is possible since a sharp distinction between the
restricted and extended definition of modes of production has
been overcome.
It follows that the existence of other (including pre-
capitalist) modes of production in the capitalist periphery13 is
a perennial feature of the social formation where the capitalist
mode of production is dominant. Here dominance14 of a mode
of production may be defined (differently from that proposed
in (Wolpe, 1980)) as following from its greater share in the
surplus product.15 Undoubtedly, this formulation could be

made more concrete through historical investigation.
The persistence of some types of social oppression such
as caste in India is connected to the coexistence of some pre-
capitalist modes of production in a social formation where
the capitalist mode of production is dominant. (Patnaik,
2017) argues that: “The experience of post-independent India,
however, shows that constitutional measures meant to end
caste oppression cannot do so, as long as the caste-system,
i.e. the division of people into different caste-groups within
a hierarchical order, remains. It is this hierarchical order
itself that is oppressive. Even if through such measures, for
argument’s sake, WKHFDVWHGLVWULEXWLRQRISHUVRQVHPSOR\HGZLWKLQ
HDFKRFFXSDWLRQEHFRPHVWKHVDPHDVWKDWRIWKHSRSXODWLRQDVDZKROH
ZKLFK LV D QHFHVVDU\ FRQGLWLRQ IRU HQGLQJ FDVWH RSSUHVVLRQ, given
the enormously long history of the system and the ideology
sustaining it, to which both its perpetrators and victims have
subscribed in the past, such oppression will still continue
in society.” (emphasis added). What would be necessary
for overcoming caste is not only that the caste composition
of occupation be the same as the caste composition of the
population but also that the caste composition of all classes
(capitalists, workers, etc.) must be the same as that of the caste
composition of the population. If caste (and other types of
social oppression) is part of the ensemble of social relations
that contingently reproduce the capitalist mode of production
then it follows that the overthrow of caste cannot be merely an
economic process.16
Discussions of caste which do not take into account its
material dimension whereby many members of deprived
castes are situated in non-capitalist or pre-capitalist modes
of production will necessarily be incomplete (Patnaik, 2000).
Likewise many members of the Muslim community in India
who undergo social oppression through communalism are
also situated in non-capitalist or pre-capitalist modes of
production.17 Further many women in India either expend
family labour or are situated in non-capitalist or pre-capitalist
modes of production.18
Within such a social formation, members of socially

oppressed strata even when they are incorporated within
the capitalist mode of production are often subject to greater
exploitation which is associated with a host of socially
oppressive practices which are facilitated by the bourgeoisie.
The discussion about unequal rates of exploitation in the
previous section now may be linked to that of the current
section. Workers of oppressed strata are subject to greater
exploitation and the bourgeoisie have a material interest in
furthering social oppression in ways which are explored in the
next section.
Some of the arguments of this paper have drawn on the
following observations set out in (Marx, 2010 [1870]):
Ireland is the bulwark of the English landed aristocracy. The
exploitation of that country is not only one of the main sources
of their material wealth; it is their greatest moral strength. They,
in fact, represent the domination over Ireland. Ireland is therefore
the cardinal means by which the English aristocracy maintain
their domination in England itself...If, on the other hand, the
English army and police were to be withdrawn from Ireland
tomorrow, you would at once have an agrarian revolution in
Ireland. But the downfall of the English aristocracy in Ireland
implies and has as a necessary consequence its downfall in
England. And this would provide the preliminary condition
for the proletarian revolution in England. The destruction of
the English landed aristocracy in Ireland is an infinitely easier
operation than in England herself, because in Ireland the land
question has been up to now the exclusive form of the social
question because it is a question of existence, of life and death,
for the immense majority of the Irish people, and because it is
at the same time inseparable from the national question. Quite
apart from the fact that the Irish character is more passionate
and revolutionary than that of the English...As for the English
bourgeoisie, it has in the first place a common interest with the
English aristocracy in turning Ireland into mere pasture land
which provides the English market with meat and wool at the
cheapest possible prices. It is likewise interested in reducing the
Irish population by eviction and forcible emigration, to such
a small number that English capital (capital invested in land

leased for farming) can function there with “security”. It has the
same interest in clearing the estates of Ireland as it had in the
clearing of the agricultural districts of England and Scotland.
The £6,000-10,000 absentee-landlord and other Irish revenues
which at present flow annually to London have also to be taken
into account...But the English bourgeoisie has also much more
important interests in the present economy of Ireland. Owing
to the constantly increasing concentration of leaseholds, Ireland
constantly sends her own surplus to the English labour market,
and thus forces down wages and lowers the material and moral
position of the English working class...And most important of
all! Every industrial and commercial centre in England now
possesses a working class divided into two hostile camps,
English proletarians and Irish proletarians. The ordinary English
worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers his
standard of life. In relation to the Irish worker he regards himself
as a member of the ruling nation and consequently he becomes
a tool of the English aristocrats and capitalists against Ireland,
thus strengthening their domination over himself. He cherishes
religious, social, and national prejudices against the Irish worker.
His attitude towards him is much the same as that of the “poor
whites” to the Negroes in the former slave states of the USA. The
Irishman pays him back with interest in his own money. He sees
in the English worker both the accomplice and the stupid tool of
the English rulers in Ireland...This antagonism is artificially kept
alive and intensified by the press, the pulpit, the comic papers,
in short, by all the means at the disposal of the ruling classes.
This antagonism is the secret of the impotence of the English
working class, despite its organisation. It is the secret by which
the capitalist class maintains its power. And the latter is quite
aware of this.
In other words, the hegemony of the English bourgeoisie even
over the English workers was tied up with English colonialism
in Ireland. English colonialism in Ireland was a necessary
condition for the differences between Irish immigrant workers
in England and English workers and this was promoted by
the English bourgeoisie and involved social oppression of the
Irish in both Ireland and England.
4. Bourgeoisdom, Exploitation and Oppression

It is proposed that the social formation where the capitalist
mode of production is dominant may be termed as
bourgeoisdom.19 Bourgeoisdom rather than capitalism has
been proposed as a moniker for this process since it allows
one to engage with propositions such as the following:
The capitalist system is much more than the capitalist mode of
production analyzed by Marx.” (Patnaik, 2009).
Likewise (Marx, 2010 [1867]) had said, “As capitalist, he is
only capital personified.” But the bourgeoisie is the product of
a historical process and is not merely capital personified.
How a concrete instance of bourgeoisdom is reproduced
(both locally and globally) (i.e. to what extent is it an organic
system20) can only be uncovered by historical investigation.
However some theoretical reflections on this theme are set out
in this section.
Bourgeoisdom involves among other things two
processes: oppression is necessary for the reproduction
of exploitation. To begin with, a homogeneous proletariat
would also have more bargaining power than a differentiated
proletariat resulting in a decline in the economy wide rate of
surplus value. The bourgeoisie, after all has a material interest
in greater extraction of surplus value (due to unequal rates of
exploitation and differential exploitation in different modes of
production) as long as it can be realised in the form of money.
Further if there was a tendency towards homogenisation of
the proletariat then the likelihood of their struggles involving
economic resistance developing into a political struggle to
overcome bourgeoisdom would have been higher.21
(Patnaik, 2009) had pointed out that:
Exploitation within this totality is of diverse forms: there is
above all the exploitation of workers directly employed by
capital through the appropriation of surplus value; there is the
exploitation of the metropolitan reserve army, which is kept in
depressed living conditions and has the role of keeping down
the bargaining strength of the trade unions in the metropolis;
then there are the unorganised workers in the periphery, who

are exploited through unequal exchange and made to act as
price takers so as to sustain the stability of the value of money;
finally, there is the vast pauperised mass amidst whom these
unorganised workers are placed which is also exploited, through
even more depressed living conditions than the metropolitan
reserve army, and upon whom the system rests ultimately for
its stability. In addition to these, there are of course the different
forms of exploitation by the pre-capitalist hegemonic classes.”
This diversity of exploitation would not have been possible
if the workers involved were not socially separated through
oppression involving race, gender, caste, communalism, etc.
The hegemony of the bourgeoisie is strengthened by social
oppression. (Marx, 2010 [1861-63]) had asserted that:
Bourgeois society reproduces in its own form everything against
which it had fought in feudal or absolutist form.”22
Likewise and as mentioned before the differential exploitation
of the proletariat and articulation of different modes of
production is a necessary condition for the reproduction of
social oppression. For the purposes of this paper oppression
may be defined as the ensemble of differentiated unfreedom23
and is necessarily linked to exploitation. This formulation
on oppression suggests that different types of oppression
are necessarily linked and that oppression does not impinge
on all oppressed in an identical manner. In other words, an
individual worker may be subject to exploitation and multiple
types of oppression. Further members of oppressed strata may
be confronted with the hurdles created by social oppression
when they seek to take advantage of the process of proliferation
of the bourgeoisie. In other words, social oppression may also
be to the advantage of bourgeois incumbents against their
upstart rivals from oppressed strata.24 In other words, for
instance, there is no necessary tendency for the bourgeoisie
or other exploiting classes in India to have the same caste
composition as the caste composition of Indian society.
More generally, we assume a social formation is
composed of two non-class social groups. It is asserted that

there is no tendency for the two non-class social groups to be
proportionally represented among the exploiters (bourgeoisie,
etc.) and the exploited (proletariat, etc.). The more oppressed
non-class social group is likely to be over represented
amongst the exploited. For example, the Dalits are over
represented amongst the proletariat in India.25 Neither is there
any spontaneous tendency in bourgeoisdom to overcome
this asymmetry (Harriss-White, 2003; Harriss-White, 2015;
Harriss-White and Heyer 2014) nor is the bourgeoisie going
to willingly accede to any such effort.26 In other words, there
is an objective material basis for the bourgeoisie and other
exploiting classes under bourgeoisdom to facilitate social
oppression.
Thus while one may endorse the proposition advanced
by (Wolpe, 1990) that Apartheid is not necessary for the
persistence of capitalism (bourgeoisdom) in South Africa, it
is asserted that social oppression along racial lines or along
other social grounds is necessary for the reproduction of
bourgeoisdom both in South Africa and elsewhere. Therefore
attempts at a consistent social process of inclusion are
unrealisable under bourgeoisdom.
The spontaneous tendency under bourgeoisdom is for
the reproduction of the proletariat as an exploited but partly
fragmented class along with other exploited social classes and
socially oppressed strata. In (Marx and Engels, 2010 [1848]) it
is pointed out that:
“The essential condition for the existence, and for the sway of
the bourgeois class, is the formation and augmentation of capital;
the condition for capital is wage-labour. Wage-labour rests
exclusively on competition between the labourers. The advance
of industry, whose involuntary promoter is the bourgeoisie,
replaces the isolation of the labourers, due to competition, by their
revolutionary combination, due to association. The development
of Modern Industry, therefore, cuts from under its feet the very
foundation on which the bourgeoisie produces and appropriates
products. What the bourgeoisie, therefore, produces, above all, is
its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat
are equally inevitable.”
However the revolutionary combination due to association
of the proletariat, i.e. the formation of the revolutionary
proletariat is not spontaneously accomplished by
bourgeoisdom.
When (Stalin, 1953 [1926]) discussed the three strata
amongst the working class, the first he said “is the main mass
of the proletariat, its core, its permanent part, the mass of ‘pure
blooded’ proletarians, who have long broken off connection
with the capitalist class. This stratum of the proletariat is
the most reliable bulwark of Marxism.” This section of the
proletariat, i.e. the revolutionary proletariat, as mentioned
before, is not produced by bourgeoisdom. The revolutionary
proletariat constitutes itself through an authentic democratic
social process of struggle that can combat exploitation and
oppression under bourgeoisdom.
Without combating oppression and exploitation in its
struggles the revolutionary proletariat cannot come into
existence. Since exploitation and oppression are linked
under bourgeoisdom it is not possible to combat one while
disregarding the other.27 Likewise an inability to sustain the
combined struggle against oppression and exploitation will
result in an unravelling of the revolutionary proletariat.
A successful transcending of bourgeoisdom may be more
complex than previously conceived (due to factors such as
those discussed in this paper), but the struggle for it remains
historically relevant and significant.
5. Conclusion
This paper has been concerned with setting out in outline a
framework to examine the relation between oppression and
exploitation under bourgeoisdom. Two factors have been
identified in this regard, namely unequal rates of exploitation
of different types of workers and the coexistence of different
modes of production with one dominant mode of production
in a social formation. Under bourgeoisdom, which is the

social formation where the capitalist mode of production is
dominant, there is no tendency for social oppression to be
overcome since exploitation are oppression are organically
interrelated.
A certain analogy may be drawn between the link
between surplus value and profit, interest and rent and the
link between class and caste, gender, race etc. A strand of
writing that sought to advance the work set out in (Marx, 2010
[1867], 2010 [1884], 2010 [1894]) argued that values (or value
magnitudes) and surplus value are determined independently
of prices of production and profit. However, subsequent work
has increasingly come over to the position that both processes
are jointly determined. Likewise class, caste, gender and
race are organically interrelated. This does not involve a de
prioritisation of class but a more concrete understanding of the
role of class within the framework of historical materialism.
No specific formulation on the concrete link between
class, race, gender, caste, etc. in any concrete social formation
has been advanced in this paper. That process can only follow
from historical enquiry into concrete social formations such as
Indian bourgeoisdom (Currie, 1992). Some questions that may
be motivated by this paper include:
Concrete investigations of the relation between oppression
and exploitation in different social formations and how they
may have changed over time may be undertaken (Bannerji,
2005; Velaskar, 2016).
What were the modes of production in the social formation
that existed in pre-colonial India and how was the relation
between exploitation and oppression structured therein
(Habib, 2010; Farooqui, 2010)?
Development of formal models of interaction of gender,
caste, race, etc. within the framework of the critique of political
economy undertaken in (Marx, 2010 [1867], 2010 [1884],
2010 [1894]) and as developed by many others subsequently
(Bhattacharya, 2017).
NOTES
1. (Lenin, 1974 [1919]) had asserted that: “Classes are large groups
of people differing from each other by the place they occupy
in a historically determined system of social production, by
their relation (in most cases fixed and formulated in law) to
the means of production, by their role in the social organisation
of labour, and, consequently, by the dimensions of the share of
social wealth of which they dispose and the mode of acquiring
it. Classes are groups of people one of which can appropriate
the labour of another owing to the different places they occupy
in a definite system of social economy.”
2. (Damodaran, 2008) examines this process in the Indian context.
(Patnaik, Chandrasekhar, and Ghosh, 2004) seeks to explain
the role of the Indian bourgeoisie in the transition from a
dirigiste regime to a neoliberal set up wherein changes in the
monopolisation and proliferation of the bourgeoisie play a key
role.
3. An equal rate of exploitation of all workers is one aspect of a
homogeneous proletariat.
4. Further it may be noted that Marx has discussed the case of
unequal rates of surplus value in one of his manuscripts which
is contained in (Marx, 2012 [1863-68]).
5. A mathematical statement of the implications of unequal rates
of exploitation will be examined in subsequent work.
6. However (Wolpe, 1986) goes on to add that “...it also does not
follow that because race, under certain conditions, may be
interiorised in the class struggle, all conflicts which centre on
race are, therefore, to be conceived of as class struggles. On the
contrary, it will be argued that struggles focusing on race may
take on a form in which class is not interiorised within them.”
Thus the interaction between exploitation and oppression in
each case must be concretely examined.
7. (Kotz, 1994) advances a mathematical model of the relation
between wage labour and family labour.
8. Excessive price volatility may hamper the ability of the state to
sustain a system of commodity money.
9. There remains one other related issue that needs to be addressed.
It has been argued that values (or value magnitudes) are
irrelevant to the process of determination of the general rate of
profit and prices of production (Steedman, 1977). However if
there exists at least one section of workers whose real wage can
be squeezed then the two equalities of (Marx, 2010 [1894]): “...the

sum of the profits in all spheres of production must equal the sum
of the surplus values, and the sum of the prices of production
of the total social product equal the sum of its value” will be
relevant for the determination of the general rate of profit and
the prices of production. If money is not based on a commodity
then the condition that “the sum of the prices of production of
the total social product equal the sum of its value” may act as a
price numeraire while the condition that “the sum of the profits
in all spheres of production must equal the sum of the surplus
values” will contribute to the determination of the general rate
of profit and the prices of production. If money is based on a
commodity then there will be a hoard of money (Patnaik, 2009).
As a result, both the equalities of (Marx, 2010 [1894]) mentioned
above will be required to ensure the just determination of the
system of equations that determine the general rate of profit and
prices of production. The mathematical details of this process
are not set out in this paper. This approach to the transformation
problem of (Marx, 2010 [1894]) is related to the diversity among
workers (and primary commodity producers) either in the
capitalist metropolis or between the capitalist metropolis and
the periphery. In either case more than one mode of production
is involved.
10. Both (Wolpe, 1980; Jessop, 1990) point out that modes of
production involve the production of commodities and ideas
but as (Wolpe, 1990) points out this does not involve a lapse
into subjectivism.
11. This may be the case because on the one hand, the conditions
that bring about the reproduction of a mode of production may
influence the character of the productive forces and the relations
of production and on the other hand, the character of the
productive forces and the relations of production may contribute
to the process of reproduction of the mode of production.
12. In a theory of imperialism, the capitalist mode of production
in both the capitalist metropolis and periphery are unequally
interdependent, apart from the interdependence between
capitalist and non-capitalist modes of production.
13. The petty mode of production may exist also in the capitalist
metropolis as long as production units in it are not subject to the
tendential process of profit rate equalisation vis-à-vis production
units in the capitalist mode of production.
14. (Marx, 2010 [1894]) had argued that: “The specific economic
form, in which unpaid surplus labour is pumped out of direct

producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as
it grows directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts
upon it as a determining element. Upon this, however, is
founded the entire formation of the economic community which
grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby
simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct
relationship of the owners of the conditions of production to the
direct producers—a relation always naturally corresponding to
a definite stage in the development of the methods of labour and
thereby its social productivity—which reveals the innermost
secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure, and with it
the political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence,
in short, the corresponding specific form of the state.” Thus
it may be argued that the dominant mode of production in a
social formation is one whose share in the surplus product is the
greatest and therefore the appropriators of the surplus product
of the dominant mode of production constitute the ruling class.
15. (Croix, 1989) had argued that though the share of peasants in
the population in ancient Greece and related areas was larger
than that of slaves, the share of the surplus product extracted
from the latter in the total surplus product was greater than that
extracted from the former.
16. The question whether social oppression can be eliminated
without transcending exploitation is dealt with in the following.
17. (Khalidi, 2006) examines the economic conditions of Muslims in
the Indian economy.
18. Thus from the perspective of this paper (Vogel, 2018)’s critique
of intersectionality where she says that: “...let me offer some
thoughts about the utility of such concepts as race/class/gender
and intersectionality. I view them as primarily descriptive. That
is, they provide a conceptual framework for describing and
investigating 'diversity', but by themselves they do not explain
anything. Strictly speaking, then, they are imprecise and some
would argue against using them.” will hold good. Likewise
when (Foley 2018) points out that “To assert the priority of a
class analysis is not to claim that a worker is more important
than a homemaker, or even that the worker primarily thinks of
herself as a worker; indeed, based on her personal experience
with spousal abuse or police brutality, she may well think of
herself more as a woman, or a black person. It is to propose,
however, that the ways in which productive human activity
is organised—and, in class-based society, compels the mass

of the population to be divided up into various categories in
order to insure that the many will labor for the benefit of the
few–this class-based organisation constitutes the principal issue
requiring investigation if we wish to understand the roots of
social inequality,” there is substantial agreement except where
the category of priority is employed. The arguments of (Vogel,
2018; Foley, 2018) may be examined in the light of the arguments
set out in both this section regarding the social formation as well
as the previous one regarding unequal rates of exploitation of
different workers.
19. The term bourgeoisdom was introduced in (Marx, 2010 [1867]).
20. “If in the fully developed bourgeois system each economic
relationship presupposes the other in a bourgeois-economic
form, and everything posited is thus also a premiss, that is the
case with every organic system. This organic system itself has its
premises as a totality, and its development into a totality consists
precisely in subordinating all elements of society to itself, or in
creating out of it the organs it still lacks.” (Marx, 2010 [1858]).
Thus an organic system reproduces its premises.
21. Revolutionary breakthroughs have often involved a meaningful
incorporation of issues concerning social oppression into the
class struggle thereby rendering the latter more concrete.
22. In (Marx, 2010 [1861-64]) it was argued that “But capital is in
and for itself indifferent towards the specificity of every sphere
of production, and where it is invested, how it is invested,
and to what extent it passes from one sphere of production
into another, or its distribution between the various spheres of
production alters, is determined solely by the greater or lesser
difficulty experienced in selling the commodities produced by
one or the other sphere of production. In reality, this fluidity
of capital is slowed down by frictions, which we do not need
to consider here any further. But on the one hand, as we shall
see later, it creates means of overcoming these frictions, in
so far as they arise solely from the nature of the relation of
production itself, and on the other hand, the development of
the mode of production peculiar to capital removes all legal and
extra-economic obstacles to its free movement in the various
spheres of production. Above all it overturns all the legal or
traditional barriers preventing it from buying whatever kind
of labour capacity it thinks fit, or appropriating any kind of
labour at all at its good pleasure. Furthermore, although labour
capacity possesses a particular shape in every particular sphere

of production, as the capacity for spinning, shoemaking,
blacksmithing, etc., although, in short, every particular sphere
of production requires a labour capacity which has developed in
a particular direction, a specialised labour capacity, that fluidity
of capital, its indifference towards the particular character of the
labour process it is appropriating, presupposes the same fluidity
or versatility in labour, hence in the ability of the worker to
employ his labour capacity. We shall see that the capitalist mode
of production itself creates these economic obstacles to its own
tendency, but it removes all legal and extra-economic obstacles
to the versatility we are discussing.” (emphasis added). In
subsequent work, Marx replaced the term labour capacity with
labour power.
efore oppression unlike exploitation is ab initio
23. Ther
heterogeneous (caste, gender, race, etc.) but linked and therefore
must be concretely investigated as an ensemble.
24. (Messer 2011) discusses the attack on the black bourgeoisie in
Tulsa, Greenwood district of Oklahoma, USA by white mobs
that was aided and abetted by the government.
25. (Heyer, 2010) discusses the conditions of Dalits in neoliberal
India.
26. In this light, it is instructive to compare the formulation on
caste in the 1964 programme of the Communist Party of India
(Marxist) (CPI(M), 1964) and its updated version that was
adopted in 2000 (CPI(M), 2000). In (CPI(M), 1964), it is stated
that “Capitalist development in India, however, is not of the
type which took place in Western Europe and other advanced
capitalist countries. Even though developing in the capitalist
way Indian society still contains within itself strong elements
of pre-capitalist society. Unlike in the advanced capitalist
countries where capitalism grew on the ashes of pre-capitalist
society, destroyed by the rising bourgeoisie, capitalism in India
was superimposed on pre-capitalist society. Neither the British
FRORQLDOLVWV ZKRVH UXOH FRQWLQXHG IRU RYHU D FHQWXU\ QRU WKH ,QGLDQ
ERXUJHRLVLH LQWR ZKRVH KDQGV SRZHU SDVVHG LQ GHOLYHUHG WKRVH
VPDVKLQJ EORZV DJDLQVW SUHFDSLWDOLVW VRFLHW\ which are necessary
for the free development of capitalist society and its replacement
by socialist society. The present Indian society, therefore, is a
peculiar combination of monopoly capitalist domination with
the caste, communal and tribal institutions.” (emphasis added).
In other words, it is presumed in (CPI(M), 1964) that the abolition
of social institutions such as caste will allow a freer development

of capitalist society. However in (CPI(M), 2000) it is stated that
“The problem of caste oppression and discrimination has a
long history and is deeply rooted in the pre-capitalist social
system. The society under capitalist development has compromised
ZLWK WKH H[LVWLQJ FDVWH V\VWHP 7KH ,QGLDQ ERXUJHRLVLH LWVHOI IRVWHUV
caste prejudices. Working class unity presupposes unity against
the caste system and the oppression of Dalits, since the vast
majority of the Dalit population are part of the labouring classes.
To fight for the abolition of the caste system and all forms of social
oppression through a social reform movement is an important part
of the democratic revolution. The fight against caste oppression is
LQWHUOLQNHGZLWKWKHVWUXJJOHDJDLQVWFODVVH[SORLWDWLRQµ (emphasis
added). It is possible to interpret this formulation in (CPI(M),
2000) as follows: institutions such as caste are a necessary part
of bourgeoisdom.
27. In other words, under bourgeoisdom it is not possible to
overcome any type of oppression tout court. (Patnaik, 2000) had
argued that “...any significant advance in the context of any of the
multifarious struggles occurring in society necessarily requires
a change in the nature of ownership of assets, a proposition
which I think can be demonstrated. It must unleash therefore a
fierce social struggle around the question of ownership, which is
nothing else but class-struggle, since classes are defined precisely
in relation to the ownership over the means of production.
Putting it differently, successful class-struggle constitutes an
enabling condition for success in all other terrains of struggle.”
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Contributors
Archana Aggarwal teaches Economics at Hindu College,

University of Delhi, India. Her areas of interest are
Macroeconomics and Marxian Political Economy. She founded
a group called Perspectives in 2007. As part of that group, she
has undertaken field visits, both inside and outside Delhi,
in order to understand issues such as agrarian distress and
condition of industrial workers. Many of the findings have
been published as booklets.
C. Saratchand is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Satyawati
College, University of Delhi, India. His areas of specialisation
are Macroeconomics and Political Economy. He has co-edited
the book Analytical Perspectives on the Indian Economy (Aakar
Books, 2019). His articles have appeared in journals such as
Social Scientist, Economic and Political Weekly, Metroeconomica,
Journal of Post Keynesian Economics, ,QWHUQDWLRQDO 5HYLHZ RI
Applied Economics, International Critical Thought, etc.
Chirashree Das Gupta is an Associate Professor at the Centre
for the Study of Law and Governance at Jawaharlal Nehru
University, New Delhi, India. Her research and teaching have
been focused on different dimensions of the political economy
of institutions with a focus on patriarchy, race, caste and class
and the role of law in the political economy of accumulation
in trade, finance and industrialization and public policy. She
has worked on the relationship between personal laws, tax
and corporate governance in India. Her recent work focuses
on gender, labour and social reproduction.Her major journal
publications have been in the Cambridge Journal of Economics,
Rivista di Politica Economica, South Asia Multidisciplinary
&RQWULEXWRUVв401
Academic Journal, and Economic and Political Weekly. Her book

titled State and Capital in Independent India: Institutions and
Accumulation has been published by Cambridge University
Press in 2016.
Craig Brandist is a Professor of Cultural Theory and Intellectual
History, and the Director of the Bakhtin Centre at the
University of Sheffield, UK. He has published extensively
on the work of the Bakhtin Circle, Antonio Gramsci’s
relationship to Russian Marxist thought and the development
of sociological linguistics in the USSR. Among his major
publications are: The Bakhtin Circle: Philosophy, Culture and
Politics (Pluto Press, 2002), Politics and the Theory of Language in
WKH8665 (Anthem Press, 2010) and The Dimensions
of Hegemony: Language, Culture and Politics in Revolutionary
Russia (Brill, 2015). He is currently working with Peter Thomas
on a collection of archival documents and commentary on
Gramsci’s time in the USSR in the early 1920s.
Damien Ehrhardt is a tenured Associate Professor at the
University of Paris-Saclay in Evry, where he is responsible
for the research axe “Intercultural Mixes”, part of the SLAM
laboratory. Collaborator of the Schumann New Edition of
Complete Works, his research concerns musicology and arts,
especially 19th century German aesthetics, and intercultural
communication, including works on area and transfer
studies as well as transnational cultural fields. Three stays in
Mithila allowed him to discover the paintings in situ and to
analyze them with Helene Fleury in light of new theories on
transnational cultural fields.
Edoardo Schinco has edited a new translation of Feuerbach’s
Principles of the Philosophy of the Future (2016) and published
a detailed philosophical introduction to Marx’s thought
(Clinamen, 2019). Over the last years, he has also focused his
attention on the connection between feminism and Marxism,
and has delivered lectures on this subject at international
conferences (2017, 2018). Currently, he is editing a new
translation of Marx’s and Engels’s The Holy Family and Simone
Weil’s The Need for Roots.
Eugenio Lo Sardo directed the Italian National Archives in
Rome. He co-founded a magazine entitled Marxiana with Enzo

Modugno in 1976, published by Dedaloeditore, with translated
articles written by Jean-Paul Sartre, Max Horkeimer, Herbert
Marcuse and others. He studied the economic relationships
between England and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, which
was published by Iovine, Naples in 1993. He has published
many books on the history of civilization, with particular
focus on the relationships between the European countries and
China and India between 1500 and 1800.
Giulietto Chiesa was in the Scientific (Physics) formation at the
University of Genoa. He was a Correspondent in Moscow for
20 years for two big Italian newspapers: O·8QLWj, then an organ
of the Italian Communist Party (1980-1990), and La Stampa
(2000-1991). In 2017 in Moscow, he received the Bunin Prize for
his outstanding work in journalism and literature.
Hélène Fleury is a Lecturer in Visual and Heritage Studies at the
University of Evry and a PhD candidate at the University of
Paris-Saclay in cooperation with the Center for South Asian
Studies (EHESS). Her research concerns mostly the reception
and globalization of Mithila paintings (worldwide exhibitions,
transcultural mediators and the construction of a transnational
cultural field), and more widely interculturality and transfer
studies. She made four fieldworks in Mithila in 2002 and 2017
19. She has published extensively and spoken on her subject at
several international conferences.
Jean-Joseph Boillot is a Professor in Economics and Social
Sciences. He is an Associate Researcher at the French Institute
of International Relations IRIS where he follows the Indian
economy as well as the emerging world, in particular the China
India-Africa triangle, seen as a structuring pole of the new
global economy in the making. He is a Co-founder of the Euro-
India Group (EIEBG), and a Member of the Cyclope Expert
Group and the ISEG Scientific Council. He writes monthly
columns for Alternatives Economiques and Market Express. He
is the author of more than 20 books, including L’Indeancienne
au chevet de nos politiques (Félin Publishing House, Paris 2017),
L’Economie de l’Inde (La Découverte 3e éd. 2016, translated in
English with Gyan Books), L’Afrique pour les nuls (First 2015),
L’Inde pour les nuls (First 2014), L’Innovation Jugaad (translation
&RQWULEXWRUVв403
et adaptation, Diateino 2013) and Chindiafrique (Odile Jacob

2013).
Julio Boltvinik is a Professor at El Colegio de México in México
City. He has published, in English, as co-editor (with Susan
A. Mann), Peasant Poverty and Persistence in the 21st Century
(Zed Books, London, 2016) and as co-author (with Meghnad
Desai and Amartya Sen), Social Progress Index: A Proposal (1992,
UNDP). In Spanish, his books, articles and book chapters
are more than 200 in number. His two more recent books in
Spanish are (in translated titles): 1. (in co-authorship with
Araceli Damián), Measurement of the Poverty of México. Critical
Comparative Analysis of the Methods Applied. Recommendations
of Good Practices for Poverty Measurement in Mexico and Latin
America, ECLAC, United Nations, Mexico, Serie Estudios
y Perspectivas, No. 183, 2020; and, 2. Poverty and Human
Flourishing. A Radical Perspective, University of Zacatecas
and ÍtacaEditores, Mexico City, 2020. He writes, since 1995,
a weekly column called Moral Economy in the national
newspaper La Jornada.
Kipton E. Jensen is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and
the Director of the Leadership Studies Program at the Andrew
Young Centre for Global Leadership at Morehouse College,
Atlanta, USA. His most recent publications include a collection
of Howard Thurman’s Sermons on the Parables (Orbis Books,
2018) and +RZDUG 7KXUPDQ 3KLORVRSK\ &LYLO 5LJKWV DQG WKH
Search for Common Ground (University of South Carolina Press,
2019). His research in Botswana on the role of traditional
healers and faith communities in public health was published
as Parallel Discourses: Religious Identity and HIV Prevention in
%RWVZDQD (2012). He also published Hegel: Hovering over the
Corpse of Faith and Reason (2011). Jensen’s scholarly essays deal
with the philosophy of religion, social philosophy, pragmatism,
nonviolence, and the philosophy of education.
Kumari Sunitha V. teaches philosophy at the Madras Christian
College, Chennai, India. She is a recipient of the Nehru
Fellowship from the Nehru Memorial Fund, Teen Murti
House, New Delhi. She also received the General Fellowship
from the Indian Council of Philosophical Research (ICPR)
for the project entitled “Time and History in Heidegger’s
Philosophy: A Critique”. She was a Co-investigator of the

research project (2014-2016) “Ethical, Legal and Medical
Implications of Surrogacy in Tamil Nadu” funded by the
United Board of Christian Higher Education in South Asia
(UBCHEA). Her research interests include Phenomenology,
Hermeneutics, Critical Theory, Philosophy of Science, and
Philosophy of Gender Studies. She is the author of Anatomy
of Alienation: A Critical Study of Heidegger and Sartre (2014),
Heidegger’s Hermeneutics: A Metaplay of Polysemous Language
(2017), Gender and Globalization: Making of a Universal Woman
(2013), and Heidegger and Degeneration of Art (2011).
Riccardo Bellofiore is a Full Professor of Political Economy at
the University of Bergamo, Italy. He has published or edited
many books, among which, in English: The Great Recession
and the Contradictions of Contemporary Capitalism (Elgar 2014,
with Giovanna Vertova), 7RZDUGV D 1HZ 8QGHUVWDQGLQJ RI
Sraffa: Insights from Archival Research (Palgrave 2014, with Scott
Carter), Rosa Luxemburg and the Critique to Political Economy
(Routledge, 2009). His last book is in Italian: Smith Ricardo
Marx Sraffa (Rosenberg & Sellier, 2020).
Roberto Massari has worked in the field of Industrial Sociology
in France and Italy. In 1989 he founded a publishing house,
which has around 350 titles in its catalogue. He is the author
of essays in various fields (sociology, politics, theology,
etruscology, history of music, etc.), of three novels and a
documentary movie on Che Guevara. President of the Guevara
International Foundation since 1998, he is moderator of the
International Red Utopia Blog.
Shannon Brincat is a Senior Lecturer in Politics and International
Relations at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Australia.
His most recent project, The Spiral World, traces dialectical
thinking in the Axial Age. He has been the editor of a number
of collections, most recently From International Relations to World
Civilizations: The Contributions of Robert W. Cox and Dialectics
and World Politics. He is also a co-editor of Global Discourse. He
has articles published in the European Journal of International
Relations, Constellations, and the5HYLHZRI,QWHUQDWLRQDO6WXGLHV,
amongst others.

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Essays in Marxian Reawakening

First published 2022

9. Historical Process and Gender Essentialism from a

Marxism may not be as ‘alive’ in 2018, his bicentenary, as it

on the Bicentenary’, was published by Palgrave in 2019,

internationally, to sustain the system. This phenomenon was

This publication on Marx is based on papers presented at

scholars of Marx, like Dr. Alessandra Mezzadri from SOAS

Milton Friedman, looked up to Marx’s Capital. Bookstores

profound technological, productive, and social growth,” he

with ‘four kinds of dialectical relations, the most unique of

working instruments created by the STR go beyond the limits

profound agony: “Some of the most sophisticated, talented

to the exclusion of other forms of oppression and other ways of

Aesthetics Founded on Romanticism and Communitarian

in his parents’ work”, while he thinks ‘people continue to

common to capitals); the second step was the inquiry about

with the diary pages from November 7 to December 31,

positions of Althusser. He was more inclined to Lenin than

Foucault’s thought helped deepening of the critical analysis

attempts at ‘Marxist’ theorizing in the judgment(s) of socialist

interviews with workers employed in some of these firms, a

collective structurally. The task, he strongly believes, is return

to Calcutta.” All this was to generate fabulous profits. ‘Every

blocks of a wealthy elite and others, leading to ‘communist

However, his claim that the term ‘bourgeoisdom’ was

Ancient Indian Dialectics and Marx

and perhaps even guide this process of change toward desired

that is more inclusionary of the many different strands of

lost to the domination of the Brahmins); that Budhist dialectics

dialectics is that it places reality as flux at the forefront of its

because it overturns the commonsensical and superficial view

penetration of polar opposites (or contradiction), and the

questioning of all previously accepted ideas, customs, and

breakthrough allowed these societies to engage with new

200 BCE)—a timeline that fits within Jasper’s Axial Age—was

numerous cosmogonies and no single or standard cosmogony

than being solved by conceptual distinction or terminological

Dialectical thinking also held great practical utility. An

scepticism deployed with dialectical thought remained a key

intersubjective nature of persuasion and the possible inferences

The second component relates to the four kinds of

one naya (individual character) is, for a Jainist, to become like

speculation meant that all sects, ascetics, and philosophers—

Mutakallim and Falasifa; in a word, dialectician and non-

13. Milinda-pañho, 2.6. For details account of these various forms of

Marx’s Theory of Prehistory

Master Whom I Never Met

theory of human prehistory. The following two quotations show

objective limits of capitalism (OLC) are met by the application

and that the more he/she broadens the objects of her/his

as well. “But man is not only a natural being; he is a human

satisfaction of needs, “but in the useful transformation of the

labour products, but also human needs. Work, however, changes

Márkus includes in the concept of human essence. (This is

beyond any limitation, as an end in itself. (M&A, p. 58)

conclusion if we examine the specific (and above analysed)

made in the social spheres of intellectual production, i.e. in

the development of social wealth, just as WKHQRQODERXU

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