"Let the ruling classes tremble at a communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Workingmen of all countries, unite!"
"From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."
"History repeats itself, first as tragedy, second as farce."
"The theory of Communism may be summed up in one sentence: Abolish all private property." -Karl Marx
Communism, anyone?
Alongside with the misconceptions is the interchanging with the concept of socialism, meaning the transitions stage from capitalism to full communism, communism per se refers is the final historical development stage, if we refer to the Marxist perspective.
If we are going to delve deeper into the Marxist perspective, the dictatorship of the proletariat is the immediate stage after capitalism and before communism, wherein the government is supposed to transcend this stage and move onto the destruction and abolition of private property.
These are but the general conceptions of Communism. Because when we attempt to get more specific with terms we will surely encounter and get entangled with various strains of it - there is Marxism, Maoism, Trostkyism, Stalinism, Leninism, Marxist-Leninism and many more.
Communism, especially from the POV of a Marxist like me, almost all forces (be it economic, political or social) exist in [Hegelian] dialectics. There will always be three main ingredients for this: a thesis (creates a reaction) and anti-thesis (a new reaction) which will then result into a synthesis (resolution), though Hegel often call this scheme as the Abstract-Negative-Concrete.
Is it true that Marxism or Communism in this sense is just for the books? Of course not. That's one of the most blatant and glaring errors of judgement to ever exist.
If we will take the Communist Manifest (by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels) as our guide, Marx and Engels are not fans of the ideal, the ethereal but rather they both constructed their idea of communism atop a very pragmatic foundation. This is where the twin of dialectic comes into the scenario, materialism. Combined, dialectical materialism, (term coined by Joseph Dietzgen, 1887) are actually faced with the most real and pragmatic aspects of communism which involves economics. Basically under the economics aspect, dialectical materialism is (theoretically) ever present whenever an economic order reaches its maximum capacity up until to the point of creating internal contradictions leading to the destabilization of its own order (the synthesis).
Marxism through time
When people say Marxism is already obsolete, indeed they are deeply at the wrong side of the coin. Marxism (as well as communism) has adapted to the changing times. What people refer to as "obsolete" is probably classical Marxism. But Marxist scholars found fault in the original writings that they adapted it to contemporary times, thus actually diversifying it.
For this part of my blog, I will be discussing Western/Cultural Marxism as a western form theorizing. When we were told to report about these western theories, I immediately grab onto communism, Marxism. It is something close to my heart. I am not only a fan in words or books, I attempt to live by it every single day of my life. I am a communist and will forever be.
Western/Cultural Marxism
So this is the PowerPoint that I have made for Cultural/Western Marxism. It details C/W (Cultural/Western) Marxism's basic and common tenets. But of course, this western concept will better be understood if we are going to dig into the roots of the revolutionary movement, so that's where I planned to begin to discussions. Basically, C/W Marxism is the translation and adaptation of hardcore Marxism into something more abstract, more "cultural". Marx and Engels did not place much emphasis on the abstract such as culture believing that there are more important, "more real" phenomena that should be accounted for when one is about to wage a massive revolution and I don't blame them!
To my brothers and sisters [in arms] and to all others
However, when I deeply studied C/W Marxism, I realized all the more how capitalism was so great in infiltrating ALL institutions of society, even culture. It's not a mortal offense to patronize the economic side of things more (like what Marx and Engels did). But what I am trying to point out is simple: sometimes, the enemies (in my case, inequality is really one evil piece of hell) we perceive to be great at a focus can sometimes be working its way just below our feet.So what's my personal take on this? We should remain vigilant. What Marx said several centuries before still stands [in my heart], "Doubt everything". We may be fighting against the wrong enemies in the wrong fronts.What is important to remember is that the world has changed so much that everything had evolved beyond recognition - even the ills in society. To be vigilant is to take the first step into coming up with solutions, even to the world's most posing problems.
For me, C/W Marxism is fighting a war that cannot be seen. It's like a Cold War, if you may. We do not see it, but when you hear of their contentions you would definitely say, "these beard-boys actually make sense!". In this new age, war frontiers have been changed dramatically. What we see, what we behold with our own eyes may not be the truth, in its entirety. Even if I believe that it is impossible for us to grasp a truth as massive as this, we could try to target a large part of it. Indeed, we have to be vigilant. Because the fight that we used to wage at the level of the physical several centuries back, has now definitely turned into an invisible power play that we must battle not only with our eyes [and ICBMs and patriot missiles and drone strikes and many more deadly stuff].
The new frontier has dawned upon us with a few tricks that could baffle our conventional sensibilities. We must always be on guard.✻
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