Was Communist Historiography Right?

[Romano-Dacis]

Communist historiography is the belief that human history is no more than the cyclical class struggle, one which finally reached its apex in the industrial era. It this sense, it is the projection of morals and values of today, as well as today's ideology of socialism, into the past. To what extent is communist historiography correct in stating that there was a class struggle in the past? To what extent can we speak of acts motivated by class and the establishment of a socialist state? As an example, in Romanian historiography in the 60's and 70's it was common to focus on the social implications of Roman rule. Before the Romans, the Dacians were largely freemen, and allegiances between nobles (tarabostes) were almost feudal in nature. Most people owned large properties and were self-sufficient in food. After Roman rule was brought in this period is called "Epoca Sclavagista Romana" (The Era of Roman Slavery). Properties diminished except for a few nobles who had massive latifundae. Slave labor was common, and great emphasis is placed on the master-slave relationship and slave rebellion. At first I did not pay much heed to this, labelling it "communist mumbo-jumbo" but then I watched a British documentary (I forget the host's name but he's fat and has graying hair and is very eccentric) where they discussed the introduction of Roman culture in Istria. Apperantly before the Romans people there lived with medium-sized self-sufficient properties and it was a relatively free society. After the Romans came, many people were crammed into smaller abodes while some gained huge villae, often formed from 4 former houses. In this sense a real urban society developed and social stratification was amplified. This made me reconsider "could the communists have been right?" at least partially.

I'll provide another example in the Middle Ages. Many peasant wars and peasant rebellions are treated as symptoms the class struggle and an attempt to establish a classless society. One event that recieves particular treatment in Romanian communist historiography is the rebellion of Gyorgy Dozsa (Gheorghe Doja) in 1514. A peasant army had gathered to fight a crusade against the Ottomans, but when the nobles ordered the army to disband, Dozsa turned the army into a "revolutionary army" (according to marxist historian Engels). The history book I use manages to make a fairly convincing argument that Dozsa really wanted to change the social order of his country but providing quotes from contemporary documents. For instance, in Commentariorum de temporibus suis libri, XI, p, 289-291 Dozsa is quoted as saying: "Many bad things have been placed upon us up until now... The cause was more our pasivity and ease of appeasement, rather than the power of the enemy... But now things will change. Finally, we will have the chance to wipe off the unjust tyranny of the nobles; have courage and use this chance. At lest the bell tolls; you can attain anything you want, you can punish those who have done such bad things to you."
The argument for it being a socialist revolution is strengthened by the fact that the revolting army consisted of many different social strata: serfs, land-holding peasants, city-dwellers, outlaws, shepherds etc. and were from a variety of ethnic groups.

Anyway, the argumentation continues but let's not get carried away. The question is if such socialist historiography is correct. IMO I believe it is in many ways more correct back than it is of modern times. After all, what distinctions existed in the Middle Ages? There was no nationalism and peasants from country to country largely faced the same circumstances. In this sense religion and class were the dominant aspects of society, so is it wrong to believe class could be a motive for struggle? Would it be wrong to treat Spartacus as a socialist revolutionary, given that his revolt was one based on class and not on ethnicity or nationality? Furthermore, isn't it wrong to just gloss over class-based struggles and treat them as individual events rather than to analyze them holistically? Peasant revolts don't happen "by chance" after all.

"The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it."
-Karl Marx

Discuss.

[Frankie88]

Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto suggested that the class struggle would eventually create an equal world. In short bull history does not evolve to a certain point. Cyclical and teleological history is generally considered wrong because evolving history means prodictable history and assumes you can learn the future from studing history. History never repeats itself if you take a closer look to possible simularities you will always find the historical context to be very different in each situation, history can allow us to experience situations and face alternatives and in that sense it serves a useful purpose but I do not belive we can learn any useful lessons for the future from history.

[Romano-Dacis]

Marx and Engels Communist Manifesto suggested that the class struggle would eventually create an equal world. In short bull history does not evolve to a certain point. Cyclical and teleological history is generally considered wrong because evolving history means prodictable history and assumes you can learn the future from studing history. History never repeats itself if you take a closer look to possible simularities you will always find the historical context to be very different in each situation, history can allow us to experience situations and face alternatives and in that sense it serves a useful purpose but I do not belive we can learn any useful lessons for the future from history.

Marx only made seven claims:
1) Reality is not a state of affairs but an onogoing process of history.
2) The key to understanding reality is to understand historical change.
3) That historical change is not random but obeys a discoverable law.
4) This law is the dialectic, the triadic movement of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.
5) This law works due to alienation caused by class stratification.
6) This is not under the control of human beings.
7) This process will continue until all the internal contradictions have been resolved.

Now, the irony of your own argument is that it proves Marx right. By your own admittance there is a "cyclical pattern which can be derived" but you believe it's false because "there were different circumstances in all of those times." However, while the circumstances were different, the differences were only superficial compared to the ideological circumstances (I assume you're not going to tell me there's ever been a time of class equality in written history), which were all the same. Therefore, even with vastly different technologies, societies, justice systems, and governments the same results were achieved by keeping one thing constant (the class struggle). That is enough to prove a scientific theory IMO. He was right, and you just proved it.

On a personal level I used to believe Marx's theories were of not much use, but I've come to revalue them. Humans are still judged by the laws of nature at an abstract level. All this stuff which inflates our ego to believe we are no longer a part of nature: technology, society, written history, justice systems; are just an appedage growing off the same basal organism. We can no more escape these laws than we can escape reality. Since the interaction of biological and chemical systems can be predicted, it should equally be possible to predict the development of social systems and political history.

[Odovacar]

Marx only made seven claims:

Let's see.

1) Reality is not a state of affairs but an onogoing process of history.


True. Marx inherited it from Hegel.

2) The key to understanding reality is to understand historical change.

True. Thats really Marx.

3) That historical change is not random but obeys a discoverable law.

4) This law is the dialectic, the triadic movement of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis.

Marx tried to expose the dialetic as primarily historical process and not ontological as it is by Hegel. However the concept of the "triade" attributed to Hegel is wrong, in Hegel's system every thesis is already an anithesis and a synthesis, furthermore the laws of existence are not limited to the principle of dialectical contradiction...for example, the following rules really matter

clear Existence (Sein) is clear Nothing -thus only a mental concept

Real existing is a process described by the logical categories of transition between Nothingness and Existence. Furthermore the relation between quantity and quality etc.
Dialectics is essentially an ontological concept. Marx and Engels failed to transfer it to materialistic grounds. Thus their social-historical dialectic remained unfinished too.

5) This law works due to alienation caused by class stratification.

The alienation caused by the alienation of work process and thus human essential qualities.

6) This is not under the control of human beings.


Ho ho..Marx thought it no so...history is somewhat determind but then what makes bad and good different? Why taking a stand in these matters? marcuse argued that concept of class consiousness was a moral concept too. Which I don't know.

7) This process will continue until all the internal contradictions have been resolved.

But then new problems arise..Marx though the dialectics could end though...which would be quite suprising.

[Romano-Dacis]

But then new problems arise..Marx though the dialectics could end though...which would be quite suprising.

Does this mean that the theory is flawed or that it is simply impractical? Or is there even a difference in this cae?

[Odovacar]

Does this mean that the theory is flawed or that it is simply impractical? Or is there even a difference in this cae?

Does mean a difference because practically undermines all conclusions even though doesn't deny the theory...

[Frankie88]

Now, the irony of your own argument is that it proves Marx right. By your own admittance there is a "cyclical pattern which can be derived" but you believe it's false because "there were different circumstances in all of those times." However, while the circumstances were different, the differences were only superficial compared to the ideological circumstances (I assume you're not going to tell me there's ever been a time of class equality in written history), which were all the same. Therefore, even with vastly different technologies, societies, justice systems, and governments the same results were achieved by keeping one thing constant (the class struggle). That is enough to prove a scientific theory IMO. He was right, and you just proved it.

Ofcourse there are cyclical patterns that can be derived from history if you are looking for them. You can't proof though that in every revolt, rebellion or revolution in history the ''ideological circumstances were all the same''. You could argue that there has always been a class struggle and you could even say the same results were achieved(rebellion --> more equality) but this does not proof anything exept maybe that people like to smash each others heads in every once in a while. The historical context and motivations in each conflict where never the same so in that sense history is random and does not obey any discovarable laws.

[Heathen Hammer]

Yes, it was. Every country has a history of class rebelions.

[Odovacar]

This is marxist philosophy of history not historiography really.
To be short: marxism misintepreted history for ancient societies were not class societies and "class struggles" were not simply deterministic for the whole. "Class struggle" in marxist sense existed in Rome (plebeians and patricians) but later this struggle did not continue as such.
Basically most people fights for his own interests not for his class.
Spartacus fought for his own slave band, although this was fight was essentially for all slaves who could join them and benefit from their fight.

However, we dont know whether he could or wanted to abolish all forms of slavery in the ancient world.

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

It is completely wrong to deny the existance of class struggles, but so it is to think the whole history is centered around them.

[gaius valerius]

It is completely wrong to deny the existance of class struggles, but so it is to think the whole history is centered around them.

I'd completely agree with this, marxism and marxist historiography emphasize critical points, but the point is that if you follow this road and fall prey to 'vulgar' interpretations, then you have strayed far from what marxism really is. One can discern classes prior to Marx, but history - and this is the beauty of it - is unimaginably complex, so are class struggles and everything related to it.

[dragonsign]

I agree with Marx in that the basic, if I can call it that, mechanism in history has been class conflicts. Since the invention by private property, some people has been above others, their material lead gave them power and position in society the remaining people without such material wealth could not achieve. The ruling class will always try to shape the society so that radical tensions are suppressed.

The peasant rebellions in the middle ages was sparked by the bad living and working conditions for the peasants, in opposition to the extravagance of the Kings and the nobility. As pointed out already, these medieval rebellions lacked an ideology and class unity to archive anything near a classless society. It would usually boil down to the leaders if the rebellion taking over the position of the former ruling class. This caused a re-distribution of land and a certain change in the country.

[2CV]

Depends on how you frame your discourse on conflicts (Hello IPE!). There's always a difference in wealth, position and power. But I think he's wrong, there has not always been a bourgeouis class/state, even while there was conflict. For example, Indians in America. There was no bourgeouis society, no proletarians (even no surrogate, due to the structure of communities) and no capitalist way of production. Yet they made war at times.

Does this mean that the theory is flawed or that it is simply impractical? Or is there even a difference in this cae?

I think what it says is, that paradoxes are limited. There could be thousands of paradoxes/problems that have to be solved through dialectics, untill the last one is solved and a socialist state is formed. Just an idea, any comment?

[Marie Louise von Preussen]

There could be thousands of paradoxes/problems that have to be solved through dialectics, untill the last one is solved and a socialist state is formed.

Which never, ever, shall be solved. As long as there is life, there are problems. Be they practical trivialities to highly intellectualized intricacies, the mere existance of a state with a self proclaimed goal for the "end of history" as the Marxist construct postulates lives in the sheer fantasy that somehow human condition can transcend itself through a series of rational steps. It is naive, and baseless down to the root.

A "Class" is more often than not a social construct. Nomadic hunter societies lack this notion, and more often than not even agricultural societies with a degree of private property lack the essential elements of "class consciousness", even among the highest (who would otherwise identify themselves as nobility). Neither is necessarily the presence of classes the causer of class, or social conflict; many early Medieval societies were highly flexible, and marriage between peasants and nobles was still commonplace way into the XIV century. For the conditions between class conflict to exist, namely there need to be several artificial causes first, which are:

1. The rise of a class perceived as more privileged than other.
2. The restrictive nature of such class.

However, this by itself is simply not enough. Feudal Japan was not an enternal struggle between the nobility and the peasantry; what causes "class conflict" by its own strict definition is often an external event or a disturbance to the natural balance of order in society. This can trigger a situation whereas the otherwise non-contentious, and even amiable relation between sects of society breaks down, as in a massive strike or an unprising. Most of the time, this does not happen.

Also, it is important to notice that class, being a social construct above all, is a flexible notion. One is not born "perpetually" into a class, even into a nobility, which can otherwise be attained or bought. Similarly, the notion of 3 classes present in Marxist dogma fails to take consideration of the traditional division of labour into guild affiliation and craft, eg. the "Smiths", the "Warriors", and so on. Much of this was an integral part of life way up to the advent of industrial production, and people fell along these lines, identifying themselves more as within their craft, community et all than vaguely as a "burgeois", "noble" and so on.

The class, then, is by definition an extension of old tribal, local and family identities into the world of civilized society. Where this "class sense" was lacking, social condition ultimately did not matter and there was no mutual identification based on social condition as much as there was none associated with individual crafts.