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Marx against Moscow [1]
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Date: 2025-01-16
I am neither a Marxist nor a Marx expert, even though I had to deal with his (very materialistic and one-dimensional) theories in my sociology studies.
However, the interview cited in the left-wing Berlin newspaper TAZ is so interesting that I would like to quote excerpts from it here. In Europe, but also in South America, many people who call themselves left-wing and progressive cling to historically and morally completely false ideas and ideology, with regard to foreign policy, Russia and Marx.
The Marx expert Timm Graßmann clears this up in his book “Marx gegen Moskau, Zur Außenpolitik der Arbeiterklasse”.
Graßmann explains why Karl Marx was an outspoken enemy of Russian foreign policy and also of the underlying Russian society.
taz: Mr. Graßmann, what did Karl Marx have against Moscow? Timm Graßmann: Marx saw two constants in the history of Russian politics, namely autocracy and a foreign policy of systematic encroachment, which could be described as imperialist or expansionist - conquering territories as an expression of national greatness, which is always accompanied by the destruction of existing political units. One moment that links these two constants is that Russia is wiping out democracies or republics in an attempt to get this spirit of freedom, which has escaped the bottle somewhere outside Russia, back in there - to prevent it from ever appearing in Russia . In a speech at a London Polish Congress in 1867, a solidarity event with the then divided Poland, Marx therefore literally said that Europe had only one choice: restore Poland or barbarism.
Poland played an important role for him in containing Russian aggression.
taz: In your book, you write extensively about Marx's commitment to Poland. Why was he so interested in Poland? Graßmann: He actually spent his whole life agitating for the restoration of an independent Polish state. Poland-Lithuania, a politically rather advanced country with a modern constitution and a certain separation of powers, had been divided between three autocracies - Russia, Prussia and Austria - from 1772 onwards. At the time when Marx was writing the “Manifesto of the Communist Party” with Engels, he took part in Polish congresses for the first time. At the latest after the revolution of 1848/49 failed, he became even more involved in this area because he recognized Poland as an effective means of containing Russia. (...)
Left-wingers and progressives have always liked to misunderstand him, but they also usually had incomplete information.
taz: So is the fundamental problem that many leftists read their Marx badly? Graßmann: At best, being “Marxist” today probably means reading “Capital” up and down. Marx is the great economist, the theorist of class, crisis and capital. But Marx is not taken seriously as a political theorist - for example, the fact that he was also a great analyst and opponent of authoritarian forms of government and defended democracy, which he called political emancipation, is often ignored. It is symptomatic that the 140-page series of articles that Marx dedicated to the origins of the Russian autocracy was deliberately not included in the edition of the Marx-Engels Werke (MEW) that was dependent on Soviet Moscow. But then it is only half a Marx, an amputated Marx. (...) taz: Why is political Marx ignored by Marxists? Graßmann: Well, Marx's political theory is at odds with what many leftists spontaneously assume. That leads to a short circuit: We study “Capital”, so the main enemy in the world is the leading capitalist power, the USA. But we must not forget that there are all these reactionary, authoritarian forces in the world. And Marx's foreign policy priority was to take action against them.
Marx was a friend of Ukrainian self-determination and Ukrainian democracy very early on.
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