Ask Prof Wolff: The Many Interpretations of Marx

A Patron of Democracy at Work asks: "I wrote an email response to someone who had a lot of strange ideas about Marx and all of the purported evil done in his name. He and others seem to hold Marx personally responsible for the crimes of Pol Pot, Stalin, Mao, et al. I've read a bit by and about Marx and listened to many lectures of those who hold him in high regard. Am I missing something?"

This is Professor Richard Wolff's video response.

_________________________________________________________________________
_________________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________________

“Marxism always was the critical shadow of capitalism. Their interactions changed them both. Now Marxism is once again stepping into the light as capitalism shakes from its own excesses and confronts decline.”

_________________________________________________________________________
Follow Wolff ONLINE:

[Gilgadu]

0:23 On Pol Pot & the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, lemme say the U.S. gov. voted at the UN for it to retain its seat until as late as 1993, long after Vietnam had overthrown the Khmer Rouge from Cambodia in 1979.. The U.S. encouraged China & Thailand to provide military support to the Khmer Rouge. It was socialist Vietnam who put an end to Pol Pot’s reign of terror.
7:25 Indeed, all the countries that went to war in WW1 were Christian, but they were also capitalists & imperialists.. But yet the official western line goes that Stalin later on was the worst ogre of them all…
So context is important.

[michaelhanson]

That was an excellent analogy Prof Wolff. Thank you DaW for this.

[michaelfeeney]

Brilliant as always professor wolff love your work from a fan from Dublin Ireland 🇮🇪

[Glenintheden]

The founders of the US were also by and large Christian, and yet they still found a need to codify in the Constitution the right to choose one's own religions, have freedom of speech and the press and to assemble peaceably. The founders insisted on those unequivocal rights be put into the Constitution because they were well aware of the manifold examples in history of the violations of inalienable rights of the people done in the name of Christian churches and in other names. The Founders realized it was an absolute necessity to codify those inalienable rights into the Constitution. But Marx was around after the US Founding, so he should have been well aware of all the acts of tyranny the US Founders knew of, and more. And yet, nowhere in the vast prolific writings of Marx and Engels is anything remotely resembling a concern for protecting the inalienable rights of citizens that the Founders had.

Did Marx and Engels ever address the rights of citizens outside of labor? I'm not aware of any such addressment. It's even questionable whether 'rights' would even be an accurate term to describe the relationship, in the sense and context Marx discussed it, between the worker and the raw material being worked on by the laborer; that is, mixing his labor with, and the synthesis of that relationship between labor and raw material; the end product. It seems to be more of an interpretation of Hegelian philosophy, an interpretation known as dialectical materialism. But even if, for the sake of argument, we take as a given that relationship can be described as a right, there doesn't seem to be any discussion by Marx or Engels of the rights of the citizens before or after they leave the workplace.

There is an old expression: "give them an inch and they'll take a mile"; that goes double for those in positions of political power. And yet Marx and Engels didn't seem to given any consideration to ensuring that inalienable rights of citizens outside the workplace aren't violated by those in positions of political power, despite the manifold examples in history of their tendency to do so.

It is thus a fundamental flaw of Marxism that there is no recognition of the inherent dangers of tyranny from political power; as result, Stalin and the Soviet Gulag political prison system, East Germany where one third of the population were citizen spies turning their own friends and relatives into the brutal Stasi forces, Chairman Mao and the cultural revolution forcing regular citizens into wearing uniforms, then the 'great leap forward' starving millions, Pol Pot and the killing fields... Instead of a concern for individual rights and measuring the inevitable megalomaniacs that weasel their way into power, there only seems to be a religious devotion in Marxism of focusing on fitting society as it moves through history into a form that fits with how Marx thought it should fit in accordance with Hegel's religious philosophy of history. As though achieving the Hegelian universal history will solve everything; so why would there be any need to protect individual rights? It all seems so naïve and cultish. A naivete the US Founders thankfully did not have.

[edwinvargas]

Two things: Everything people like Stalin or Mao did was for the working class, there is no other motivations there. Also, anyone who criticizes communism but fails to criticize capitalism with the same framework they used to criticize communism, is very ignorant and dishonest.

[boombot]

Thank❤🌹🙏 you professor Wolff excellent💯👍👏 explanations!

[doesandroidguitaristdreamo]

Remember Marx pointed out in 18th Brunaire of Louis Bonaparte? Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.
So there is a simple way to understand 'horrific acts' from Stalin and Mao ( excluded from Western propaganda) that just because Russian and China itself was in a horrific situation (look at the history of Russian and China in 19th century)

[joethestack]

Certain people like to point out that the word "democracy" never appears in the US constitution, and that the USA is a "republic". I've read the definitions of those two words and found them somewhat vague. In the USA today, the word "democracy" usually refers to our representative system of government, whereas the founders used it to refer to a "direct democracy", wherein every decision is put to a popular vote, something the founders were opposed to. So I'm a bit confused. But more importantly, I feel that perhaps we've been deprived of the vocabulary necessary to have a productive argument about our system of government and alternatives to it. Is a "republic" necessarily "democratic"? To the wealthy, anything more pluralistic than a monarchy seems to be sufficiently democratic for their purposes. Sorry if this is a bit off-topic. These questions are important, but the meanings of the words needed to discuss them have been destroyed for the majority, possibly within the last 5 decades. Is an oligarchy a republic? It would seem so. What is the difference between socialism and a social democracy? Can an undemocratic system be socialist? Communist? What will it take to restore or create a democracy when the entire nation is controlled by the mega-propaganda machine? If our goal is democratic socialism and worker-managed enterprises, should we even use the word "socialism" to describe any of it?

[MrDXRamirez]

Good summary: When people read Vol 1 of Capital bear this in mind the first three chapters are skipped over in many Marxists circles that consequently, the whole economic thought of Marx, his investigation and presentation of the subject matter, is lost when the initial building block of his theory is ignored...so in a sense, Marxists who fail to understand the Labor Theory of Value are, frankly, not good Marxists, subsequently, invent new concepts to substitute for shortcomings in understanding. My advise to new readers is to map out in a diagram or chart the first three chapters, maybe the professor can highlight it in a special video.

[kontankarite]

Until the lions have their own historians; the hunters will tell you what lions were and are.

[animefurry]

Great video, more need to understand the nuances of interpretation and praxis, and how they develop, differ and interact with each other!
Thank you!

[carmenlajoie]

CGTN The Point-Hub-Heat, documentaries Century of shame etc.. The more you know😢

[earlviney]

5 weeks vacation why am I living here?

[johnwilsonwsws]

Professor Wolff tacitly, but not explicitly (!), allows the viewer to think that Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot just have different "interpretations" of Marx.
He also tacitly, but not explicitly (!), agrees with all the right wing critics that Marxism is the same as a religion.
This shows, again, why Wolff is not a Marxist.

The Stalinists (and their offshoot Maoists) followed the anti-Marxist reactionary utopian ideology of socialism-in-one-country which corresponded with the material interests of the bureaucracy that emerged as a workers' state was built in a backward economy. Lenin always insisted the fate of the USSR depended on its extension to a more advanced industrialised economy and called for unity of the international working class. Stalin said socialism would be built within the national boundary and sought to use the Third international to achieve "peaceful coexistence".

The rhetoric of Marxism allowed the Stalinists an ideological cover for their nationalism. The Stalinists became openly counter-revolutionary when they allowed the Nazis to come to power in Germany and consolidate a dictatorship without any organised opposition in 1933, said the policy of the KPD (German Communist Party) allowing this catastrophe had been entirely correct, suppressed discussion of this in the Third International and then no section opposed them.* The Moscow Trials from 1936-1939 was a political-genocide of those who wanted to defend Leninism and internationalism. Stalinism and Maoism have both restored capitalism.

Marx insisted socialism rested on a high productivity of labour which had been created by capitalism. Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge's rejection of Marxism was embodied in the turn against the cities and towards village life and agrarian production.

---
Lenin said in "State and Revolution", written in 1917 between the two revolutions: "... All the social-chauvinists are now “Marxists” (don’t laugh!). ..."
Social democracy in 1914 had voted for the imperialist capitalist war because their leadership put "their" nation (i.e. their capitalist class) ahead of the international working class. This was despite their votes against war made congresses of the Second International at Stuttgart (1907), Copenhagen (1910), and Basle (1912).

The greatest threat to the working class is political opportunism in the working class. Marx and Engels knew this. Lenin knew this. Trotsky knew this. Professor Wolff conceals the danger. Those serious about the crisis of capitalism and socialism as an alternative should read the WSWS.
--
Note: at 7:10 Prof Wolff says WWI was the "worst war in human history". In WWI less that 20 million died. WWII was far worse with between 50 million and 80 million dead and of these 27-30 million were Soviet soldiers and citizens. Draw your own conclusions about Wolff's rigour.

* - I have tried to find comment by Prof Wolff on the role of Stalinism in allowing the Nazi to come to power but there is nothing online. There seems to be something in his book "About Socialism" about Hitler but google only shows half a sentence. He doesn't seem to think it is important.

[DearProfessorRF]

The challenge is making people who have made capitalism their indisputable “God” and religion, accept any of the facts as laid out here and very clearly, and reject any criticism or condemnation of a proven anti-democratic and anti-humane economic system. That is the attitude of true fanaticism and where the seeds of many wars are found.

[georgefurman]

As simple as defining the true meaning of Marxism as a science of history and change. Not as a sociopathic ideology of a few individuals highjacking the name Marxist in order to justify their use of political power. In other words....calling Marxist one self doesn't mean I am a real Marxist. I first have to be an honest interpreter of Marx. And others deciding Marxist is what they say doesn't guarantee is correct.

[Многоанализипарализи]

Greetings from the Russian channel Len Ru!

[savxgestevenlestrom]

Awesome, thank you Prof Wolff . Every single time I learn more, I personally don’t follow any religious belief and I don’t mean that I’m atheist cause there’s a force or a high spiritual being in this universe that made all possible to exist, people call it “ GOD “ ok, whatever the term it’s actually us causing trouble in this planet . We need to get along each other and stop the BS that’s harming everyone of us to live better . 👍🏻✌🏻👋🏻👏🙏😁❤️.

[清宮孝治]

The way of thinking as philosophy changes itself according to the development of production, which brings a new form of the productive relationship, among those ideologies such as religions always reflect the temporally problems to solve. That's why Prof.Wolff is explaining. I completely agree to what he said. I think Marxism in general can dispute the capitalist ideas with the would-be the eternal thought of dialectical materialism as well as the theory of surplus value. A labor value is not exchanged as a commodity so that there seems to be no equal nor fair trade between the two classes, which many Marxists may not explain at present.

[markallebon]

Read his introductory book on Marxism. Very interesting. As he is basically saying here talking about the Bolsheviks and Mao is a strawman argument. What then is the steelman argument? If I understand him right it is every business operating as a co op is the steelman that one has to argue against. Well if your business is a co op your working life should be a little better as things will not be imposed on you from above. However what about social issues like the environment? When people vote on issues such as whether they should make their products and or the process by which they are manufactured less polluting at the expense of their profits which they now stand to share in will they be any less greedy than their old bosses? Even if they are more ethical though as the professor points out in his book business are compelled to look after their self interest because they are in competition with each other. The ethical ones may just go out of business. Or did I make a mistake in what I defined as the steelman? Is there still some role for government in this society of co ops? If so what? Because if the role of the government is expanded we may stray back into Bolshevism.