Marxism versus Liberalism – Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis

 

By August H. Nimtz

Palgrave-Macillan – 2019

When we think of the politics of the United States government during the twentieth century, a central priority has been a literal crusade against the idea of communism. We can start with the U.S. invasion of the Soviet Union after the First World War. Then, there was the prison sentence for the socialist Eugene Debs for giving a speech against that war. Then, after the Red Army of the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany, the U.S. government conducted their cold war. Members of socialist organizations in this country found themselves blacklisted or in prison merely because of their political views. President Kennedy threatened the world with nuclear weapons because of the Cuban Revolution. Then, there were the wars against Korea and Vietnam.  The primary idea used to support this crusade has been that capitalism represents democracy, while Marxism is nothing more than a philosophy representing ruthless dictatorships.

This crusade has had its results. While the government spent literally trillions of dollars in their wars, about 42 million people in this country do not have enough food to eat. Six million are homeless. In the world, about 30,000 children die every day of easily preventable diseases.

While the government claims we live in a democracy, the reality tells a different story. We are born into an environment where we need to find an employer who will purchase our labor for money. On the job, we have no control over our work environment. 

Several years ago, a boss I was working for told me to stop listening to the radio. When I protested, he declared, “This is not democracy.” That sentence might be news to government officials, corporate executives, as well and many who work in academia.  

In August Nimtz’ book, Marxism versus Liberalism – Comparative Real-Time Political Analysis, he gives a history of the words and actions of liberals, versus the words and actions of those who have supported Marxist politics. By doing this, he presented the actual record of the difference between the liberal and communist approaches so the word democracy.

Alexis de Tocqueville versus Karl Marx and Frederick Engels

Alexis de Tocqueville agreed with Marx and Engels on the idea that a parliamentary democracy is better than the rule of a feudal monarch. Tocqueville made that argument in his famous book Democracy in America. In that book, Tocqueville understood that chattel slavery continued to be a serious problem in this country. However, he also believed that the parliamentary system in the United States was the best in the world.

While Marx felt that parliamentary democracy was better than feudalism, he also argued that because of the flow of capital, that system would always be about the accumulation of vast amounts of capital by a tiny minority. The majority would only have enough to sustain themselves so they would be able to work for an employer. 

In January of 1848 Karl Marx and Frederick Engels authored their Manifesto of the Communist Party. In that pamphlet, they argued that in the capitalist system crisis is inevitable. In the following passage they explained what happens when there is a capitalist economic crisis.

“In these crises a great part not only of existing products, but also of previously created productive forces are periodically destroyed. In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all other earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly finds itself put back in a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation, had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.”

Marx and Engels only had to wait about one month for the reality they wrote about to spark rebellions throughout Europe. Some of the largest uprisings took place in France where Tocqueville was a minister in the government. So, both Marx and Tocqueville had to figure out how to orient to rebellions where workers were demanding jobs because they were facing starvation.

Tocqueville argued that the workers of France were advancing “socialist ideas” that he didn’t agree with. For that reason, he worked to mobilize the French armed forces to crush that rebellion. Ultimately the French armed forces murdered about 3,000 workers to defeat that rebellion.

Marx and Engels didn’t feel that these rebellions were about “socialist ideas.” They felt the rebellion was due to the conditions of starvation that thousands of workers faced. For that reason, they took the side of the workers against the repression. They argued that the uprising failed because it was premature, and didn’t have a leadership capable of organizing an effective resistance.

Because of the repression of this uprising, the French government wasn’t very popular. As a result, Louis Napoléon Bonaparte, a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte, won an election to head up the French government. Because the French government had become so odious, Bonaparte argued for universal male suffrage. At that time, the right to vote was limited to a minority of the male French population.

Tocqueville argued against the right to vote for the entire male population. He understood that the capitalist system that he supported meant that a tiny minority would have enormous wealth while the majority would live in poverty. Tocqueville believed that if all men could vote, this would undermine capitalism. This point of view further isolated Tocqueville from the majority of the electorate. Marx and Engels favored the right to vote for all men and women, and felt that universal male suffrage was an advance.

Bonaparte would eventually crown himself as emperor. Although Tocqueville dedicated himself to the idea that parliamentary democracy was better than feudalism, his actions paved the way for a new French monarchy. Tocqueville would actually work for the administration of Bonaparte before Bonaparte made himself emperor. 

Marx and Engels understood that the only way to prevent a monarchy from regaining power would be with a mobilization of the working class in alliance with the peasantry. That was a perspective that Tocqueville found to be inconceivable. 

Karl Marx and John Stewart Mill

Marx and John Stewart Mill were both supporters of the Union Army in the Civil War of the United States. Their support of the North came from their adamant opposition of the chattel slavery. However, August Nimtz documented how Marx and Mill supported the Union Army in completely different ways.

John Stewart Mill might have been the most prominent British political analyst of his day. For the most part, Mill limited his activity to his writings. For Mill, the Civil War in the United States was only one of his interests and he didn’t write much about it.

Karl Marx and Frederick Engels both viewed the Civil War in the United States as the most important political event, perhaps in the 19th century. Marx postponed his writing of his major work Capital to devote himself to understanding the background of the Civil War.

Unlike Mill, Marx had supporters in the United States. Those supporters felt that Abraham Lincoln had the capacity to become an ardent opponent to the slave owning interests. For that reason, they campaigned for Lincoln to become President.

Joseph Weydemeyer was the leader in the United States of the International Workingmen’s Association that supported the politics of Marx. After campaigning for Lincoln, Weydemeyer joined the Union Army and became a colonel. 

Karl Marx also wrote many articles in support of the Union Army for the New York Daly Tribune. Abraham Lincoln was a reader of the Tribune and no doubt appreciated Marx’s articles. 

After Lincoln won reelection, Marx sent a congratulatory letter to the U.S. President as a representative of the International Workingmen’s Association. Lincoln responded with a warm letter in appreciation of the support of the IWA. Lincoln’s letter responding to John Stewart Mill’s congratulations was clearly more formal. 

After the Civil War, Mill, like Tocqueville opposed universal male suffrage. Marx and Engels both argued in support of giving everyone the right to vote.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Max Weber

Just as John Stewart Mill was a prominent theorist in Britain, Max Weber was one of the most prominent theorists in Germany. During much of his life, Germany was ruled by a monarchy. Like Tocqueville and Mill, Weber argued that a parliamentary democracy was better than a monarchy.

In the year 1905 there was a profound uprising in Tzarist Russia. Weber developed an interest in this uprising because he felt it had the potential to throw the tzar out of power and establish a constitutional parliament. To better acquaint himself with what was happening, Webber learned the Russian language. 

Eventually Weber wrote a book about the 1905 uprising. He felt that the future of Russia depended on the Kadet Party. That party billed itself as a liberal opponent to the tzar. In actuality, the Kadets proved that they in no way were serious opponents to the tzar. 

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a supporter of the politics of Marx and Engels. Just as Marx and Engels supported the workers in 1848, Lenin supported the working class uprising in Russia in 1905.Just as in the repression of the 1848 uprising in France, the repressive forces supporting the tzar murdered hundreds of workers when they demonstrated in Saint Petersburg. 

Lenin would later argue that the 1905 uprising was a “dress rehearsal” for the 1917 Russian Revolution. In fact, the Russian Soviets or workers councils were established because of the 1905 rebellion.

The Tzar made a concession to the 1905 uprising by allowing for the formation of a parliament known as the Duma. While Weber favored the Kadets in the Duma, Lenin advanced the Bolshevik program. That program called for “all power to the Soviets.”

The reality that workers, peasants, and soldiers faced during the First World War is difficult to even imagine. Literally millions of Russian soldiers lost their lives in the war. Those who survived had inadequate clothing, food, or ammunition. Many Russian civilians faced starvation. Yet the tzar, and then the provisional government demanded that the soldiers continue to fight the war.

Lenin wrote his pamphlet Imperialism—The highest stage of capitalism in the midst of the Russian Revolution. Lenin argued that the horrors of this war were about carving up the wealth of the world for the owners of capital. He would also argue that armaments manufacturers amassed huge fortunes, while the Russian people experienced the horrors of the war. 

These were some of the reasons why the Bolsheviks won the support of the working class, large sections of the peasantry, as well as significant sections of the military. These were the reasons why there were very few deaths during the October 1917 Revolution. The new name for the nation became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. This name reflected the fact that while in the past Russia had been a prison-house of many nations, the new nation would be an alliance of those same nations.

Max Weber found nothing progressive about that development and believed it was a tragedy that the Kadets weren’t in power. In fact, the Kadets refused to support the basic demand of the Bolsheviks, peace, bread, and land.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and Woodrow Wilson.

Woodrow Wilson was perhaps the only president who had an academic career before taking office. Wilson had a Ph.D. degree, he was President of Princeton University, and had written several books. However, Wilson was born at a time when slavery was legal in this country. His family supported the confederacy in the Civil War. Wilson never spoke in support of the Union victory against the confederacy. The Democratic Party that he represented ran the Jim Crow system that denied Black people basic democratic rights in this country.

Initially, Wilson ran for President on a ticket where he opposed U.S. involvement in the First World War. Wilson’s point of view was that all nations needed to determine their own destiny. He actually supported the February Russian Revolution in the following quotation.

“Does not every American feel that assurance has been added to our hope for the future peace of the world by the wonderful and heartening things that have been happening within the last few weeks in Russia?”

However, shortly after Wilson was elected, he organized one of the most vicious pro-war campaigns in the history of this country. Alice Paul and the suffragettes ridiculed Wilson’s “war for democracy” in a demonstration in front of the White House. They questioned how there could be a war for democracy when women didn’t have the right to vote. Wilson ordered the demonstrators arrested and they served time in prison as common criminals.

Wilson also ordered the prosecution of Eugene Debs for giving a speech against the war in Canton, Ohio in 1918. Debs ran for President while he was in prison and received close to one million votes.

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin understood that there could be no democracy in Russia unless the working class and the peasantry held power. The first things he initiated when the Bolsheviks came to power were to end Russian participation in the First World War, and to distribute land to the peasantry. 

After the Revolution, the Bolshevik government made public the Sykes-Picot agreement where the dominant capitalist powers agreed to carve up the Middle East for their own benefit. The horrendous reality of the Second World War was clear evidence that Lenin was absolutely right that there could be no genuine peace as long as capitalism continued to exist.

Lenin also argued that there was only one way for a genuine peace to emerge from the war. That was for the working classes of the world to replace capitalist governments with governments controlled by the working class.

When the Bolsheviks made a peace agreement with the German government, many German soldiers didn’t see why they needed to continue the war. That anti-war sentiment was one reason why the German government began negotiations for an end to the war.

 

In the discussions at the end of the war at Versailles, Woodrow Wilson issued his 14-point program that he believed would bring peace to the world. It is useful to look at Wilson’s sixth point in detail. 

“The evacuation of all Russian territory, and such settlement of all questions affecting Russian will secure the best and freest cooperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and assure her sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good-will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.”

Months after arguing for his 14 points, Wilson ordered the U.S. military to join a fourteen-nation invasion of the Soviet Union. Well, that action doesn’t seem to me to be an example of “unhampered…independent determination of her own political development and national policy.” So, while the Bolsheviks did everything in their power to end their participation in the WWI, Wilson failed his “acid test” and made a clear decision that the First World War would not be the “war to end all wars.”

Eugene Debs summarized Woodrow Wilson’s years as President, perhaps from his jail cell. “No man in public life in American history ever retired so thoroughly discredited, so scathingly rebuked, so overwhelmingly impeached and repudiated as Woodrow Wilson.”

On the other hand, the Russian people under the leadership of the Bolsheviks managed to defeat the invasion of their country. They did this with no aid from the outside world. That military action was clear evidence that the Bolsheviks won the popular support of the overwhelming majority of the people of the Soviet Union.   

Conclusion

Reading August Numtz’ book will provoke a legitimate question. How and why was the democratic system that Lenin promoted reversed when Joseph Stalin took power in the Soviet Union?

Marx, Engels, and Lenin all understood that because of the relative underdevelopment in Russia, the Russian Revolution would need to be joined by other nations. Nimtz found evidence that both Marx and Engels anticipated the Russian Revolution. Germany seemed to be the most likely nation that might have a proletarian revolution. However, the German Revolution did not manage to bring a worker’s government to power.

The people of the Soviet Union experienced a world war, famine, and then a civil war. Under those conditions Joseph Stalin managed to betray and reverse most of the conquests of the Russian Revolution. In my opinion, that in no way compromises the political cause that Marx, Engels, and Lenin dedicated their lives to.

August Nimtz gave us a different perspective on how to look at this. The revolutions of 1848 were defeated. The Paris Commune only lasted a few months before it was defeated in 1871. The Russian Revolution endured for about ten years before it was betrayed by Stalin. The Cuban revolutionary government has managed to stay in power for over sixty years.

Growing up in this country, I’ve listened to people who argue: Get an education, or, Get involved in politics to make a change. Well, Tocqueville, Mill, Weber, and Wilson all were highly educated, and they all were involved in politics. Their political careers led to in unmitigated disasters.

This book teaches us that it isn’t enough to become educated or to get involved in politics. We also need to learn from history.

In the year 2020, millions of people from around the world joined in demonstrations protesting murders by the police. I believe that most of those who demonstrated were under thirty years of age. This younger generation is beginning to understand that they will not have the opportunities of their parents. They have joined in demonstrations and many are becoming critical of the capitalist system.

Of those who are critical of capitalism today, August Nimtz offers a unique perspective. He argues that the only way to get rid of capitalism is with a proletarian internationalist perspective.

Marx and Engels lived in Britain when they wrote and organized support for the Union Army in the Civil War. As the Russian Revolution was erupting, Lenin wrote his pamphlet about imperialism. He pursued a political course arguing that the Russian Revolution was a part of an international struggle to liberate humanity. After the Cuban Revolution, the new Cuban government issued the Second Declaration of Havana. This document linked the Cuban Revolution to the history of workers struggles in the world.

Clearly all those who would support the interests of the working class would like the movement supporting our rights to be more advanced. However, Karl Marx spent a considerable amount of time explaining why horrendous catastrophes are unavoidable in the capitalist system. 

In the year 1950, the world economy was worth about five trillion dollars. Today the world economy is worth over eighty trillion dollars. Sooner or later capitalists will have serious problems finding places where they can profit off of a dramatically increasing world economy. This is what Marx and Engels were talking about when wrote about the “disease of overproduction.”

Understanding this, we can say that sooner or later there will be a generalized fightback by the working class of the world. When this happens, I believe workers will not only be demanding lower costs for health care and education. They won’t just be protesting against abuse by the police. 

They will be demanding lifetime rights to top quality health care and education. They will be demanding a government that will make it their fundamental priority to do away with all forms of racist and sexist discrimination. Yes, with an international struggle by the working class, that kind of world is indeed possible.