Manifesto. Karl Marx

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СКАЧАТЬ The Portable Karl Marx, Eugene Kamenka, ed., (New York: Penguin USA, 1983), p151.

      20. “Resources of Hope: A Reflection on Our Times,” in Frontline (India) Vol. 18 #10, May 15–25, 2001.

INTRODUCTION

      armando hart

      José Martí spoke of the invisible threads linking human beings across history. The publication of these three texts together: The Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels, Reform or Revolution by Rosa Luxemburg and Socialism and Man in Cuba by Ernesto Che Guevara — all written in vastly different eras: 1848, 1899 and 1965 — will direct the reader to these invisible threads that bring together socialist ideas of the 19th and 20th centuries.

      If we were capable of publishing and studying the fundamental texts on the nature of socialism, by a range of authors, we would discover increasingly profound answers to the real causes of the failure of the left in the 20th century. This has become a need that can no longer be postponed, because in the 20th century, following Lenin’s death, the essential principles of Marx and Lenin have been adulterated, whittled away. Humanity cannot advance toward a new type of thinking in the 21st century if the essence of the works of these geniuses is not clarified.

      The common essence of these three texts, brought together in this book, is the aspiration of human redemption in “the kingdom of this world,” and achieving this redemption with the aid of science, by raising consciousness and by mobilizing the poor and exploited in the world. These texts represent an indictment of human alienation born out of the exploitation of human by human. Likewise, they have in common the idea that the capitalist system leads, as a result of its own development, to the need to find ways of socializing wealth.

      A detailed analysis of these texts allows us to understand in greater depth that, after Lenin’s death, the political importance of culture was not integrated into socialist practice. It was not taken into account by Engels when… he pointed out:

      …Civilization has achieved things of which gentile society was not even remotely capable. But it achieved them by setting in motion the lowest instincts and passions in man and developing them at the expense of all his other abilities. From its first day to this, sheer greed was the driving spirit of civilization; wealth and again wealth and once more wealth, wealth, not of society, but of the single miserable individual — here was its one and final aim. If at the same time the progressive development of science and a repeated flowering of supreme art dropped into its lap, it was only because without them modern wealth could not have completely realized its achievements.¹

      Socialism therefore demands the promotion of the best in human nature, and to this end it is essential to find and utilize the ideas of key cultural figures. It is crucial to select the ideas and thoughts of all the greatest cultural figures from the era of the mythical Prometheus to contemporary times. This can be done using the selective methods of Cuban cultural traditions — methods chosen precisely to find the paths to justice.

      We continue to insist that the thoughts of a wise person are not enough on their own to find the path to socialism. Moreover, the infinite wisdom of great socialist thinkers is not enough to open the gateway to these redemptory ideas that, say what you might, are the most profound and sophisticated to emerge from Europe and have acquired the greatest significance over the last two centuries. As we have mentioned to the publishers, we see this book only as a first endeavor toward something more ambitious. We must continue to seek the invisible threads in order to articulate contemporary fragmented culture, or the process of the dissolution of what is known as western civilization.

      It is essential to clear away the mysteries of current neoliberal fragmentation — of the anarchy and chaos prevailing in the world — an argument dramatically expressed by Fidel Castro on the 45th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution: “Either the course of events must change or our species will not be able to survive.”²

      As Cubans we can grasp the essence of universal culture expressed in these texts because we have been able to perceive what has transcended from them. This is fundamental for humanity today. That we are able to interpret it within a contemporary context, on the basis of the teachings and traditions of major figures from our history, of whom José Martí is the most outstanding, is due to our experience of the revolution of January 1, 1959. In other words, we have 45 years of practice in confrontation and struggle against the most powerful empire in the world.

      Moving in chronological order, I want to set out what I consider to be the key aspects of the documents we are presenting to the reader.

      The first of these is, naturally, The Communist Manifesto, written, as is well known, by Marx and Engels in 1848. It begins with the famous words, “A spectre is haunting Europe…,” to which I might add: this spectre has remained at the center of history for 150 years. We could also state that since 1848 no political event has been without direct or indirect relation to the fire of ideas and feelings which this text evoked. In one way or another, the text has been present in the historical subconscious of western civilization, either to support or to undermine it. Of even greater importance is that it has been present, over the past 150 years, in the interweaving of redemptory ideas and aspirations that have been at the heart of western civilization. What we have to ask ourselves is whether humanity is capable of forgetting, of pushing to the side, the hopes and emancipatory aspirations that are framed by the communist ideal.

      The Manifesto was written to describe and denounce the capitalist social regime in mid-19th century Europe. No political document written since has achieved this with such depth and clarity, or so faithfully expressed the revolutionary needs of its historical period. It described with scientific depth and literary quality the essence of social and economic history since remote antiquity up to its time; and no other document of its kind has improved on its analysis. Without the lessons it provides, the subsequent development of history in the second half of the 19th century and the whole of the 20th century could not be understood.

      During the trial of those involved in the July 26, 1953, attack on the Moncada garrison, the state prosecutor accused Fidel Castro of being criminal for the fact of keeping books by Lenin in the apartment of Haydée and Abel Santamaría.³ Fidel responded: “Those interested in politics who have not read and studied Lenin are ignorant.” Moved by Fidel’s words, I resolved to embark upon an in-depth study of Marx, Engels and Lenin. After more than 50 years, I can say that those interested in politics who have not read The Communist Manifesto of 1848 are also ignorant. Those who, like Fidel, study it and learn from its teachings, and at the same time embrace the cause of the poor, will find the path to revolution.

      Reading The Communist Manifesto, with the benefit of experience acquired through events of the past century and a half, we can see that the authors not only described profoundly and concisely the historical period in which the text was written, they also provided invaluable teachings for the world in which we live today.

      The reader, by viewing humanity’s development since then through the key lines in the Manifesto, will see that capitalism has continued to march toward taking control of the surplus value created by human labor, which it still extracts from workers. The theft has continued, it is more widespread and has been carried out in a more dramatic fashion. To the extent that we are capable of making an abstraction without prejudice, it enables us to interpret the concrete facts we have within sight and confirm that capitalist society is jeopardizing the relations of production that the system itself has created.

      It is clear that modern bourgeois society, which has emerged from the ruins of feudal society, has continued to march forward amid the contradictions and antagonisms that it generated and never abolished. Instead, all it has done is to continue substituting the old conditions of oppression; СКАЧАТЬ