In Praise of Marx

Terry Eagleton writes In Praise of Marx.

The truth is that Marx was no more responsible for the monstrous oppression of the communist world than Jesus was responsible for the Inquisition. For one thing, Marx would have scorned the idea that socialism could take root in desperately impoverished, chronically backward societies like Russia and China.

This is not strictly true. My understanding of Marx is that he appreciated that the rapid industrialisation of Russia under foreign capital may give rise to a socialist revolution. This ambiguity crippled the Bolshevik ideology prior to the April Theses of Lenin in 1917.

Eagleton goes on to write that:

It is not a program by which nations bereft of material resources, a flourishing civic culture, a democratic heritage, a well-evolved technology, enlightened liberal traditions, and a skilled, educated work force might catapult themselves into the modern age.

My understanding is that Lenin hoped that the October Revolution would inspire a successful revolution in a modern Capitalist economy such as Germany. The despair of the failure of the 1918-1919 revolution in Germany eventually led to the theory of Socialism in One Country. This essentially stopped the world-wide communist revolution until 1949.

Eagleton correctly suggests that Marx was an enthusiast of Capitalism:

On the contrary, he was extravagant in his praise for the class that created it, a fact that both his critics and his disciples have conveniently suppressed. No other social system in history, he wrote, had proved so revolutionary. In a mere handful of centuries, the capitalist middle classes had erased almost every trace of their feudal foes from the face of the earth. They had piled up cultural and material treasures, invented human rights, emancipated slaves, toppled autocrats, dismantled empires, fought and died for human freedom, and laid the basis for a truly global civilization. No document lavishes such florid compliments on this mighty historical achievement as The Communist Manifesto, not even The Wall Street Journal.

Emphasis in Original

Eagleton continues:

Socialism, then, does not depend on some miraculous change in human nature. Some of those who defended feudalism against capitalist values in the late Middle Ages preached that capitalism would never work because it was contrary to human nature. Some capitalists now say the same about socialism.

Eagleton concludes:

Why might Marx be back on the agenda? The answer, ironically, is because of capitalism. Whenever you hear capitalists talking about capitalism, you know the system is in trouble.

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