The Myth of the Inevitability of Socialism.

The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.

Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, 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 society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels (1848).

Manifest der Kommunistischen
Partei. [A].

That quote – particularly its first sentence – is rather well known. So much so that compilations of famous quotes seldom fail to include it (three such examples).

But why should that quote, extracted from a work spanning at least 50 thick tomes, be so well-known?

I can think of at least two reasons. The first is that those are the first two sentences in the first chapter of Marx and Engels’ arguably most widely read work: The Communist Manifesto. Provided they opened it, even those who never read any other of their works – even those who never even finished that pamphlet! – could not have failed to read it.

(When the Communist League commissioned Marx with writing The Manifesto – in 1847 – the winds of revolution were blowing over Central and Western Europe. The Manifesto was meant as both an introduction to Marx and Engels’ ideas as they were at the time and as a rallying cry for revolution. The Manifesto appeared in German just as the 1848 Revolutions were starting).

The second reason is that that quote is key in Marxist thought, as it sketches Marx’s theory of history – historical materialism.

Read it. Don’t be afraid. It’s only 71 words.

That quote describes two contingent outcomes of the class struggle: (1) “a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large”, and (2) “the common ruin of the contending classes”. In other words, historical materialism does not guarantee one predetermined outcome of the class struggle.

Makes sense?

To me, by itself  that puts to rest the notion – allegedly accepted universally by Marxists as revealed dogma – that a workers’ victory in their struggle against capitalists is inevitable. There’s always the possibility of defeat: “the common ruin”.

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Does that make of me an exception among Marxists? A “Marxian” (not to be confused with “Martian”😁), instead of an orthodox Marxist?

I doubt it.

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Allow me a digression.

Although the reasons are irrelevant here, the origin of Rosa Luxemburg’s often repeated “socialism or barbarism” battle cry had puzzled Marxists for a while. Among them, Ian Angus.

One of the most interesting ecosocialist popular writers, Angus adapted Luxemburg’s line. In his rendition, “socialism or barbarism” becomes Ecosocialism or barbarism: There is no third way.

Understandably, Angus was interested in the origin of that slogan. He researched and discovered it. But it was the material he reviewed that’s of interest here.

Luxemburg’s slogan comes from this passage (The Junius Pamphlet, published in 1916):

Friedrich Engels once said: “Bourgeois society stands at the crossroads, either transition to socialism or regression into barbarism.” … Until now, we have all probably read and repeated these words thoughtlessly, without suspecting their fearsome seriousness. … Today, we face the choice exactly as Friedrich Engels foresaw it a generation ago: either the triumph of imperialism and the collapse of all civilization as in ancient Rome – depopulation, desolation, degeneration, a great cemetery. Or the victory of socialism.

It’s not an overly optimistic assessment, is it?

Engels had expressed similar thoughts in his well-known Anti-Dühring (published in 1877):

Both the productive forces created by the modern capitalist mode of production and the system of distribution of goods established by it have come into crying contradiction with that mode of production itself, and in fact to such a degree that, if the whole of modern society is not to perish, a revolution in the mode of production and distribution must take place.

Neither was Engels’ opinion particularly bullish, was it? Engels, of course, is only second to Marx in the estimation of orthodox Marxists (consequently often the target of choice for the scornful wrath of heretic Marxists).

Although they both share a similar sober outlook, Luxemburg’s attribution of origin to Engels was ultimately mistaken. Even though expressing similar ideas, Engels’ passage is an unlikely inspiration for her “socialism or barbarism”.

Angus argues persuasively that the real origin is instead to be found here:

If indeed the socialist commonwealth were an impossibility, then mankind would be cut off from all further economic development. In that event modern society would decay, as did the Roman empire nearly two thousand years ago, and finally relapse into barbarism.

As things stand today capitalist civilization cannot continue; we must either move forward into socialism or fall back into barbarism.

That text comes from The Class Struggle, a book published in 1892. Its author, during his lifetime regarded even by those who would become his fiercest political opponents as the greatest living Marxist theoretician after Engels’ death, was Karl (aka Renegade) Kautsky.

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I trust the point of that digression is clear: all those Marxist thinkers – writing from the beginning of Marxism down to our own times – agree that socialism is not the only possible outcome of history: there is another, much more fearsome, outcome.

If I am an exception among orthodox Marxists, then I am one among many other, much more notable than me, “exceptions”.

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I would like to claim that as my independent theoretical achievement, even if I cannot claim priority or if it is only a discouraging insight. In a sense, that would put me on a kind of parity with some towering intellects. 

But in truth “my” insight is available to any lowly activist or indeed any observer, however humble, with even the faintest interest in the workers’ movement or socialism. To put this tactfully, history gives us, socialists, little reason for blind optimism.

That is why socialists write things like this:

The only kinds of fights worth fighting are those you are going to lose, because somebody has to fight them and lose and lose and lose until someday, somebody who believes as you do wins. In order for somebody to win an important, major fight 100 years hence, a lot of other people have got to be willing – for the sheer fun and joy of it – to go right ahead and fight, knowing they’re going to lose.

You mustn’t feel like a martyr. You’ve got to enjoy it. (I.F. Stone)

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Ironically, the myth of the Marxist faith in the inevitability of socialism seems particularly entrenched in the English-speaking world, among two categories of commentators.

Anti-Marxists go in the first category. For them that myth is an indisputable article of their own faith in Marxism’s intellectual bankruptcy, which they use as a cudgel to hit their opponents:

Your exposition, and the practical justification for a continued analysis of Marxism, depends on the validity of his prophecy that capitalism will eventually collapse of its own weight. As crude, anti-intellectual and grating as what I am about to write may seem to the devout adherents of Marxism, including Prof. Wolff, I highly doubt that this prophecy is going to come to pass in the near future, in the distant future, or ever, and I have several reasons for believing this.

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But I suggest working class readers judge those characters less harshly than their intellectual verbal sparring partners in the liberal/Left – the second category of believers in the myth of the inevitability of socialism. The latter, who claim to understand Marxism, not only accept the former’s false framing, but invent excuses for their own more nominal than real adherence to Marxism.

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That said, I do not presume to speak for other Marxists. So, I suppose it is possible some comrades indeed believe socialism is literally inevitable. After all, there must be a reason for Daniel Little to launch a long – as in really, really long – crusade to moderate socialist’s blind faith in the inevitability of socialism. He wouldn’t be tilting at windmills, would he?

But I find it suggestive that I have never heard any Marxist ever attempting to defend the “inevitability” idea (if readers have, by all means, let me know).

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So the question, at least as “exceptional” Marxists (from Mars!) see it, was never about the “inevitability” of socialism, but about its likelihood.

And, of course, what happens if the enemies of socialism ultimately win. How do “the common ruin of the contending classes”/“barbarism” look like? If those writers mentioned above are right, the children of the victors may come to regret bitterly their parents’ victory and curse their memory.

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But there’s more to the subject of “inevitability”. If the first chapter of The Manifesto began with the twin possibilities (“revolutionary reconstitution of society at large” and “common ruin of the contending classes”, that is), it concluded with:

What the bourgeoisie therefore produces, above all, are its own grave-diggers. Its fall and the victory of the proletariat are equally inevitable.

Isn’t that an evident contradiction?

Yes. Yes, it is. Frankly, I regret Marx and Engels included that, particularly because I doubt they believed it. It proved to be a big mistake, for – to the best of my knowledge – it’s around this particular quote – more precisely, the second sentence – that the whole “inevitability” myth was built. 

I could be mistaken. I do not claim to have memorised every single line Marx and Engels ever wrote. Maybe there are similar instances of triumphalist rhetoric elsewhere. But if I am right, to base the “inevitability” myth on just that sentence seems to be too much. (As always, if I am mistaken, readers are welcome to set me straight.)

At any event, I certainly don’t believe it’s literally true, and as shown, I ain’t alone. So, why did Marx and Engels write that?

We’ll never know for sure. My guess is that, given that The Manifesto was also a rallying cry for revolution, that was merely motivational rhetoric, much like a surgeon encouraging a patient before a risky surgery, or the prep talk a coach delivers before the big final match. Good to give confidence, maybe even to get the adrenaline pumping, but not to be taken as literally true.

That’s all I’ve got and all I can give you.

Image Credits:
[A] “Cover of the Communist Manifesto’s initial publication in February 1848 in London”. Source: WikiMedia. File used with permission granted by www.marxists.org, under Free Documentation License, and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. The additional disclaimer applies: my usage of the file does not indicate anybody (chiefly Marx, Engels, Luxemburg, Kautsky or Angus) supports me or the use I make of said file.