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Posted by Peter Van der Biest on December 30, 19101 at 10:49:31:
In Reply to: on the difference between Marxism and utopian communism and socialism posted by Peter Van der Biest on December 30, 19101 at 10:46:33:
: It is true that Marx diffenciated his thoughts from the utopian scholars and workers leaders of his time...
: But there is an important difference between Marx's evaluation of utopian socialism on one hand and his appraisal of utopian communism on the other.
: The utopian socialists St.Simon and Fourier for example based their systems on abstract intuitive moral thinking...for them it was a question of good against evil.Parting from there they constructed an ideal society, planning it sometimes into the most bizarre detail. Marx criticized their views as utopian because they did not deduct their vision on future society directly from the reality and the inward social forces of bourgeois society, but just counterposed their ideal society to the existing one. A second point of criticism was directed against the fact that a lot of the utopian socialists (up to Proudhon)rejected the social struggle of the spontaneously arising workers organizations and looked to the bourgeoisie, to their "good will" to accept their utopia as "the most reasonable society". Fourier for example went as far as writing in his main work that he would be home every day at noon (no kidding)to receive possible sponsors for his Phalanx-based society.
: The utopian communists on the other hand rejected the utopianism of the socialists and believed in the importance of the cl struggle.
: But their thoughts were not yet riped in the concrete experience of the cl struggle itself. Blanqui believed that a coup d'etat by a small minority would give the starting signal for a general uprising of the toiling mes...but in 1839 he "found out" that a revolution cannot be maid over the heads of the mes, that the mes do not make revolutions on the fingerknips of the vanguard...it is a spontaneous process in which the revolutionary parties can play a leading role and must play a leading role in order to avoid defeat...but the revolution itself does not occur on the orders of the party or parties.(Blanqui never gave up this tactique, which cost him over thirty years of emprisonment). Another communist, the German Wilhelm Weitling, the real spokesman of "crude egalitarian communism" also recognized the role of the cl struggle but his views were indeed very "crude". He refused every scientific study of society as "bourgeois intellectual", which brought him into collision with Marx. Their discussion in 1846 in Brussels, at Marx's home, ended in sharp conflict and in the parting of both ideologists. Marx is said to have shouted in anger: "Ignorance never helped anyone!". Weitlings vision on the revolution was that of a spontanuous uprising, unorderly and chaotic, including looting of the homes of the rich, burning down their estates, killings...but no serious reflection on political tactics and strategy.
: Marx criticism on utopian communism mainly concerned their lack of tactic...while his criticism on utopian socialism mainly concerned their unscietific moralistic views, their rejection of the workers movement and their reformist illusions in the good will of the bourgeoisie or at least a fraction of it...