Under the Marxist leader Pol Pot, the Khmer Rouge tried to take Cambodia back to the Middle Ages, forcing millions of people from the cities to work on communal farms in the countryside. But this dramatic attempt at social engineering had a terrible cost, and whole families died from execution, starvation, disease and overwork.
The Cambodian genocide, of course, is merely one episode in Communism’s dark history. And yet almost two decades since the fall of the USSR, Marxian ideologies and regimes are in resurgent mode. The Communist philosopher Alain Badiou is certainly convinced that the “Communist hypothesis” will have its day yet:
In many respects we are closer today to the questions of the 19th century than to the revolutionary history of the 20th. A wide variety of 19th-century phenomena are reappearing: vast zones of poverty, widening inequalities, politics dissolved into the ‘service of wealth’, the nihilism of large sections of the young, the servility of much of the intelligentsia; the cramped, besieged experimentalism of a few groups seeking ways to express the communist hypothesis . . . Which is no doubt why, as in the 19th century, it is not the victory of the hypothesis which is at stake today, but the conditions of its existence. This is our task, during the reactionary interlude that now prevails: through the combination of thought processes—always global, or universal, in character—and political experience, always local or singular, yet transmissible, to renew the existence of the communist hypothesis, in our consciousness and on the ground.
Far from inspiring, Badiou’s assertions here stand as an insult to the millions of victims of Communist misrule. They also highlight one of the most disgusting aspects of Communism: for Communist politics to truly bear fruit, Communists must actively work to intensify the “internal contradictions” of the societies they are engaged in. For Communists, the misery of workers (who form their nominal constituency) is even more valuable than, say, a successful industrial action that may lead to better standards of living for the workers. According to the Marxist logic, defeat within the status quo can help enhance workers’ “consciousness” by allowing them to realize that the social order itself is “rigged” against them and that only a revolution can help them achieve their true goals, while any attempt to address social problems within established frameworks is to be seen as meant to hoodwink the oppressed.
In other words, the “Communist hypothesis” is predicated on bad faith. And if democratic societies don’t take proactive steps to address the dramatic challenges of the 21st century, then opportunistic Communists will rely on this very form of bad faith to draw another generation towards this failed hypothesis.
10 Comments
March 31, 2008 at 9:52 pm
Sohrab,
Your explanation of Marxist logic (after the quote by Badiou) is entirely wrong. It just seems as if your explanation simply (and falsely) compliments the presuppositions you already espouse.
If the socio-economic conditions that gave birth to Marxist ideology never existed, then Marx’s ideology itself would have never existed! So the perverse idea that Marxists have to fabricate those conditions in order for the worker to become acutely “conscience” of his “rigged” existence is fanciful, anti-communist propaganda.
It’s been nearly 200 years since Marx wrote his Communist Manifesto, and the very fact that we are still discussing it today as something that you hope will never be proposed again should let you know that it will indeed be proposed again - not to mention that communist states exist at the moment as well.
Here is the main point I want to get across - communism never failed; the Khmer Rouge did, the Soviet Union did, but communism did not.
These regimes only masqueraded around as communists/socialists as an expedient way to garner power - their regimes were not based on communist/socialist principles, but on elite power-politics instead.
There is no government today that doesn’t have a degree of socialist economic principles ingrained in them, including the U.S. It is precisely capitalist, free-market principles that give rise to socialist policies, like they did in the U.S. (the original bastion of the free-market). Now we have the Fed Reserve, welfare, medicaid, agricultural subsidies, social security, corporate regulation, taxes, etc..)
And we can’t forget your beloved Israel - a socialist country that prides itself on the Kibbutz. I can’t believe I almost forgot about Israel
The Kibuttzim movement is nothing less than communism with a religion, i.e. Zionism.
And of course, there is Sweden! I’m sure I don’t have to inform you of Swedish socialism
Cheers,
barmakid
March 31, 2008 at 9:59 pm
I just read what I wrote, and I realized it makes me sound like a total commi
I am not a communist! I have no allegiance to any ideology, for allegiances simply inhibit objective thought and elicit prejudiced sentiments.
barmakid
March 31, 2008 at 11:54 pm
Barmakid,
I did not convey my thesis clearly enough. I wasn’t suggesting that Marxist cadres or politicians deliberately and in conspiratorial fashion fabricate or manufacture the social crises that draw masses to their ideas. In fact, I am willing to accept the Marxist notion that ideology, including political beliefs, generally reflects and/or distorts actual social practice, and not the other way around.
But, I was hoping to point out the fundamental bad faith involved in the Marxist enterprise: Badiou’s assertion that “what is at stake is not the victory of the hypothesis but the conditions of its existence” smacks of the same mode of apocalyptic idealism that seems to drive Christian Evangelicals or Twelver Shi’ites to perversely celebrate social disintegration, environmental degradation, chaos in the international arena, etc. all to usher the birth of a new, truly peaceful cosmic order.
To me the two modes of thought are eerily homologous.
March 31, 2008 at 11:57 pm
By the way, a true Marxist would immediately call you on your disavowal of ideology. After all, that very disavowal is the ideological act par excellence since it shows that you are so comfortable in the false consciousness of the ideological cloud that surrounds you that you don’t even notice it anymore.
April 1, 2008 at 2:49 am
Sohrab,
Once again your presuppositions have clouded your ability to analyze objectively, and thus, you have been led to misinterpret Badiou’s statement.
When communism emerged in doctrinal form in the 19th century, it was intended to be a theoretical panacea for all the conditions that inspired its formulation. And once capitalism/mercantilism fully engenders the conditions that would allow the communist doctrine to be fully realized, it would emerge from its chrysalis in practical from (according to Marxist philosophy). And that form wasn’t embodied in the Khmer Rouge or Soviet Russia!
What Badiou means when he says, “what is at stake is not the victory of the hypothesis but the conditions of its existence,” is not cynical or conspiratorial, he is simply saying that the same conditions that originally gave birth to the communist doctrine exist more potently now in the 21st century than they did in the 19th, thus, it is the communists’ task to revive communism (as a solution) in the consciousness of the downtrodden masses.
Unlike you say, no one is “celebrating” these conditions - they simply see these pertinent conditions as an incubator for the ideologies they espouse. And for other people to realize their ideology, they’re going to have to talk about those conditions (albeit with propagandistic tactics) in order to arouse the people’s cognizance of them.
I take it you haven’t read the Communist Manifesto by Marx, otherwise you wouldn’t refer to Marxist ideology and Christian evangelism as homologous. Marx explicitly denounces religion as the “opiate of the masses”; so if, as you say, anyone were “celebrating” particular conditions, it would be Twelver Shiism, Christian evangelism, or just religion in general - not the apolitical Marxist (as Badiou is).
Maybe your perception of communism has been formed by capitalist propaganda - just as the communist’s perception of capitalism is shaped by communist propaganda. Fore indeed, you are a part of the Cold War generation and have been inordinately exposed to such propaganda. Blah!
Cheers,
barmakid
p.s. You should know: I am not a communist or a capitalist, nor am I a Christian or a Muslim; I am simply a student who realizes the limited nature of human consciousness. Thus, I am adhering to a principle that one of my favorite philosophers implored me to do so; that “Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect.”
April 1, 2008 at 2:59 am
Sorry for writing so much, seriously - I get carried away sometimes
April 3, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Barmakid,
I have to say I don’t like debates that devolve into “I bet you haven’t read x.” Needless to say - and I hate making this explicit - I’ve read a great many texts in the Marxist canon.
April 6, 2008 at 8:19 am
This ideology is not going to make a come back; its had its run, and it failed—even the Chinese recognize this fact.
August 6, 2008 at 2:54 am
Like most reactionaries, you conveniently ignore the millions of lives lost due to capitalist imperialism over the several decades that it has scourged our planet, and ignore the fact that the societies endeavoring to build socialism had to do so with considerable external pressure. That they managed to survive at all is a terrific accomplishment. They were certainly not without their failures. The Soviet Union had a constitution that its leadership frequently ignored. It could be said that the real failure of the Soviet Union was its lack of adherence to its own laws. Properly, a socialist social order should be–ideally–a republican one with a constitution outlining such features as elected recallable officials, the role of police, courts, reasonable checks & balances (with executive, legislative, and judicial branches of govt.). It would constitute the application of republican principles of governance to the economic sector of society, rather than leaving it to a small, unaccountable coterie of wealthy elites. It would be dishonest to suggest that the Soviet Union, the PRC, or the DPRK achieved this, but that notwithstanding, who’s to say that it won’t ever be achieved? The conditions which drive people to wage revolutionary struggle have by no means been obviated.
August 6, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Comrade Rev. Uncle Banana Head,
The “ideal” socialist republic you describe is predicated on the imposition of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In order to make the transition to fully democratic, truly classless society, we must first set the stage by exterminating those segments of society (intellectuals, petty-bourgeois farmers, etc.) who are unprepared for the glorious socialist future in our heads, right?
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