{"id":436,"date":"2026-10-01T06:57:11","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:57:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=436"},"modified":"2026-10-01T06:57:11","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T06:57:11","slug":"praxis-lacking-on-the-communist-manifesto-and-its-historical-context","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/praxis-lacking-on-the-communist-manifesto-and-its-historical-context\/","title":{"rendered":"Praxis, lacking: On The Communist Manifesto and its historical context"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This review of China Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s book on the Communist Manifesto<\/em> was written for the Marxist group Platypus. I was asked due to my speech The 1848 Revolutions: An Anarchist Perspective<\/em><\/a>. Suffice to say, more could have been written but that speech plus the few links I\u2019ve added to the text should help flesh out the arguments made.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Praxis, lacking:
On The Communist Manifesto<\/em> and its historical context<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n

The commentary on the Manifesto of the Communist Party<\/em> must exceed the word count of that little pamphlet by a factor of thousands, if not more. To this grand number is added another, A Spectre, Haunting: On The Communist Manifesto<\/strong><\/em> (London: Head of Zeus, 2022) by British Marxist fantasy writer China Mi\u00e9ville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As would be expected from his novels, this is a well written book but it is also marred by a tendency towards fantasy, for Mi\u00e9ville projects his<\/em> politics backwards onto Marx. Yet there is over 150 years separating this book from the pamphlet it seeks to explain and yet, ironically given Marxist claims on the importance of praxis, Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s account singularly fails to discuss what activity the Manifesto<\/em> contributed to during that time. He also fails to place it into its historical context and rather than discovering what was almost certainly meant, he projects backwards more appealing notions (usually honoured in the breach by Marxists) whose origins are to be found in another socialist school, anarchism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To start with an obvious example, the question of democracy. Mi\u00e9ville writes:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u2018[T]he first step in the revolution by the working class is to raise the proletariat to the position of the ruling class, to win the battle of democracy\u2019\u2026 The traditional counterposing of democracy and communism is the result of decades of anticommunist propaganda. But in fact the problem for communists has, rather, been that the parliamentary democracy which is the only version on offer is not nearly democratic enough\u2026 communism [would be] a new kind of collaborative collectivity, more empowering and more democratic<\/em>, at all levels, than any form of democracy hitherto seen<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

A few words \u2013 \u201cto win the battle of democracy\u201d \u2013 are doing a lot of heavy lifting here. It is simply assumed that Marx and Engels had this vision of \u201cdemocracy\u201d but there is nothing in the Manifesto<\/em> to support it. After all, the \u201cPrinciples of Communism\u201d, written by Engels and which served as a draft for the Manifesto<\/em>, states that a revolution \u201cwill inaugurate a democratic constitution<\/em> and thereby, directly or indirectly, the political rule of the proletariat\u201d and notes that \u201ca democratic constitution has been introduced\u201d in America. This is repeated in 1891:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

If one thing is certain it is that our party and the working class can only come to power under the form of a democratic republic. This is even the specific form for the dictatorship of the proletariat, as the Great French Revolution has already shown\u2026 the proletariat can only use the form of the one and indivisible republic\u2026 How self-government is to be organised and how we can manage without a bureaucracy has been shown to us by America and the First French Republic\u2026<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

In short, by \u201cdemocracy\u201d they simply did not mean Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s vision at all. As Engels noted in 1895, it meant simply \u201cthe winning of universal suffrage\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The root cause of this is undoubtedly that Marx and Engels do \u201coutline the bourgeoisie\u2019s capturing of political power and eulogise its political, economic and spiritual impact on the world\u201d, which is a problem as Communism is seen as the next stage from capitalism which builds upon \u2013 and utilises \u2013 what the bourgeoisie creates. It does not ponder whether the structures created by the bourgeoisie (a minority) to secure its position as the ruling class can<\/em> be used by the people (the majority) nor the fundamental difference that the bourgeoisie had economic power before taking over political power, while the proletariat secures political power to have economic power. Neither does Mi\u00e9ville.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor does Mi\u00e9ville query whether concentrating political power into a few hands as the State does really mean popular power. Ironically, in 1891 Engels indicated the reality of America\u2019s \u201cdemocratic constitution\u201d and how it failed to stop societal organs like \u201cthe state power\u2026, in pursuance of their own special interests, transform[ing] themselves from the servants of society into the masters of society\u2026 in America\u2026 there exists\u2026 no bureaucracy with permanent posts or the right to pensions, and nevertheless\u2026 the nation is powerless against these two great cartels of politicians, who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality exploit and plunder it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mi\u00e9ville himself laments the reality of the American system in undermining democracy, such as \u201cthe extraordinary anti-democratic power of the Senate\u201d and the \u201cavowedly antidemocratic\u201d Constitution. And yet this is the model Engels had in mind when the Manifesto<\/em> was penned and in 1891 \u2013 even after admitting its reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that democracy is used to refer to a wide-range of possibilities \u2013 from the nominally democratic (whereby a few leaders are elected to administer a centralised and bureaucratic top-down structure every few years) to that based on meaningful participation and self-government (a self-managed bottom-up federation) \u2013 and Marxists have favoured the former and disparaged the latter despite at times recognising the realities of these hierarchical systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What of the relationship between socialists (\u201cparty\u201d) and class? True, there is an admission of \u201cthe unedifying elitism of some activists\u201d but this is not allowed to stop the conclusion that \u201ca party model doesn\u2019t imply a hierarchical top-down model of persuasion\u201d even though it always has.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This flows from the Manifesto<\/em>, which proclaims that the Communists are \u201cthe most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties\u201d and have \u201ctheoretically\u2026 over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.\u201d What happens if the \u201cthe great mass of the proletariat\u201d disagree with the policies of the party? Given that there is a State modelled on the bourgeois republic which invests the party leadership with substantial power, this is an important question \u2013 and we have the answer as Marxist regimes have<\/em> repressed the proletariat because of the \u201cadvantage of clearly understanding\u201d what is really<\/em> in its interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus class consciousness is equated with how much the class agrees with the party leadership \u2013 who appear to be non-proletarians for, lest we forget, \u201ca small section of the ruling class cuts itself adrift, and joins the revolutionary class\u201d and this \u201cportion of the bourgeois ideologists\u201d have \u201craised themselves to the level of comprehending theoretically the historical movement as a whole.\u201d Sadly, Mi\u00e9ville does not discuss whether this could not<\/em> produce the \u201celitism\u201d and \u201chierarchical top-down model\u201d which he bemoans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nor can economic transformation solve the problem for the economic vision of the Manifesto<\/em> is limited. There is no mention of workers\u2019 management of production: nationalisation is the demand, not socialisation. Mi\u00e9ville does not mention this, saying that it \u201cis committed to some model of communal democratic ownership, in place of the existing system of individual private property, profit and competitive accumulation.\u201d But what model is being advocated? Not \u201ccommunal ownership of productive capacity\u201d nor \u201cdemocratic grassroots control of society\u2019s productive capacity\u201d, but centralised State<\/em> ownership and control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The famous ten demands of the Manifesto<\/em> are paraphrased and sanitised \u2013 no \u201cindustrial armies\u201d (so avoiding having to mention Trotsky\u2019s ideas in 1920) and no \u201ccommon plan\u201d (so avoiding having to discuss its practicality whether then or now) while \u201cthe abolition of children\u2019s factory labour in its present form\u201d becomes \u201cabolition of child labour\u201d. The demands urging the \u201ccentralisation\u201d of economic activity \u201cinto the hands of the State\u201d are not discussed. It is, rightly, noted that \u201c[s]ome of these now read as remarkably mild\u201d which \u201chardly necessitate the overturning of capitalism. Others\u2026 even if in the abstract compatible with capitalism in some form, seem highly unlikely ever to be permitted by actually existing capitalists.\u201d Yet, most of them can be \u2013 and have been \u2013 applied under capitalism. State ownership and control is compatible with capitalism and is in no way socialist (nor even has to have socialists in office to be achieved).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Strangely, there is no discussion on how the Manifesto<\/em>\u2019s measures produce state-capitalism, the state as boss employing wage-workers, organising their labour, keeping their products and allocating both as it sees fit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That this is what was intended is justified by the historical context. In late 1886 Marx\u2019s daughter and her husband were touring America and as well as urging using the ballot-box to \u201cconquer political power\u201d in order to then \u201cconquer economic power\u201d, they gave the telling example of the \u201cpost-office, a great and immense institution is worked\u2026 [b]y the community, for the benefit of the community. That is socialism\u2026 you have already a socialistic institution, the post-office.\u201d Lenin later gave the same example. Yet there is no workers\u2019 control in the post office and whatever democracy exists is simply that the representatives elected to govern the people also overview its activities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mi\u00e9ville does mention that in the 1872 German preface the authors \u201cdiscouraged excessive focus on those \u2018revolutionary measures\u2019\u201d and suggests that \u201cnone of these particular measures were shibboleths even as stepping stones\u201d, yet this is disingenuous given that every<\/em> Marxist party and regime has used them as a template for what it considered \u201csocialism\u201d and as policies precisely because<\/em> of their place in the Manifesto<\/em> (and lack of alternatives elsewhere).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is a complete lack of concern about adding economic power to political power. This blindness flows from the Manifesto <\/em>which nowhere suggests that the State itself \u2013 and the bureaucracy which any such centralised and hierarchical social organisation produces\u2013 has interests of its own, is a class in itself. It is relegated to simply a machine utilised by whatever class happens to \u201cwin the battle of democracy\u201d (elect the executive). Given this perspective, it is unproblematic to centralise into its hands more and more functions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Significantly, Engels\u2019 analysis in 1891 of America\u2019s woes failed see that the American State then lacked a large bureaucracy simply because it did little beyond protect property and repress proletarian and indigenous rebellions. As its activities increased, so has its bureaucracy. And by recommending that we centralise economic activities into the hands of the State, the Manifesto<\/em> hands them over to the bureaucracy and creates state-capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given that Mi\u00e9ville was a member of the British SWP which prided itself in recognising Stalinism as state-capitalism (ignoring both the belatedness as well as the weakness of that specific analysis), it seems strange that there is no mention how the demands of the Manifesto<\/em> mirror the reality of Stalinist Russia, that they simply changed who the workers are exploited and oppressed by, from the boss to the bureaucrat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may be objected that Marx and Engels hated bureaucracy and sought to destroy it. Indeed, but their policies made a growth in its size and power inevitable \u2013 as shown by the Bolsheviks who likewise railed against bureaucrats while their number, power and privileges grew. Reality will always overcome rhetoric.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows the fallacy in the Manifesto<\/em>\u2019s notion that after \u201call production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character\u201d for this \u201cis merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.\u201d Yet the \u201cpublic power\u201d itself remains, after all it has centralised and is managing the whole economic life of the nation (or world). Given this, any change is merely a change of words for it is based on class being defined by ownership of the means of production by individuals rather than by a collective body like a State.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thus we have the structural and ideological preconditions for the rule of an ever-reducing minority \u2013 of the proletariat over the peasant and artisan majority, of the elected party over the proletariat, of the (non-proletariat) leadership over the party. This \u201cone and indivisible republic\u201d which combines political and economic remits (and so power) would inevitably spawn around it a bureaucracy in its attempts to make and implement its decisions and so a new ruling class would be forged proclaiming it knows what is best for the masses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This, of course, summarises Bakunin\u2019s prophetic critique of Marx but unfortunately the chapter \u201cCriticisms of the Manifesto<\/em>\u201d looks elsewhere at more easily refutable critics from the right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an ideology which claims to stress praxis, Marxists seem less than keen to discuss Marxism\u2019s legacy. This work is no exception. It is noted that \u201cthe 1870s began the turnaround for the text in earnest\u201d and \u201cthere commenced then forty years of the rise of social-democratic labour parties\u201d while \u201c1917, the Russian Revolution, was a key turning point\u201d when \u201cthe leaders of the massive and powerful state\u2026 declare[d] their fidelity to the text\u201d. Sadly, he does not mention how both these developments had a distinctly negative impact on socialism \u2013 the former degenerated into reformism, the latter produced state-capitalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So while the \u201cunhappy history of many self-styled Marxist parties in and out of power\u201d is mentioned, this does not dent the \u201cconviction of the necessity of a revolutionary party for a ruptural politic\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Taking the path of \u201cpolitical action\u201d, given the failure of Social Democracy, the Greens, SYRIZA (imposing the austerity it was elected to stop) and so many others, can we really<\/em> say \u201cthe relationship of the socialist movement to the state is open to debate\u201d? How many times are we to go down the same path and expect to end up somewhere else? Can it still be hoped that rhetoric will defeat reality?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet there is no contradiction \u2013 as is implied \u2013 between the Manifesto<\/em> and its authors \u201crepeatedly moot[ing] the possibility of non-violent social transformation in certain circumstances\u201d. These circumstances were twofold \u2013 universal suffrage (in the Manifesto<\/em>) and the lack of a bureaucracy inherited from absolutism (post-Manifesto<\/em>). Yet the first factor seemed to outweigh the second, as can be seen when Engels proclaimed France as joining America, Britain and Holland as countries suitable for a purely ballot-box revolution. As such, the Manifesto<\/em> was \u201cblind\u201d \u2013 to use Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s words \u2013 \u201cto the structural opposition to meaningful reform, let alone rupture, baked into bourgeois states\u201d which are also \u201cvery often overtly anti-democratic, too, constraining ruptural or even reformist possibilities from without and within.\u201d Sadly, the strategy recommended did nothing to cure that blindness and in fact maintains it \u2013 as can be seen by this passing attempt to engage with the anti-parliamentarian position:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cExcepting certain left anarchists and so-called \u2018ultraleftists\u2019, for whom any involvement at all with the existing state is to be shunned, most revolutionary communists, including Marx, consider the push for reforms by whatever means are available to be crucial to the process of gaining strength towards the ultimate aim.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Ignoring the pointless placing of \u201cleft\u201d before anarchist (it is like saying Marxists are \u201cleft socialists\u201d and Nazis are \u201cright socialists\u201d), shunning the State does not<\/em> preclude \u201cthe push for reforms\u201d as anarchists have always argued that these should be won by collective direct action rather than be left to politicians acting on our behalf. This does involve \u201cgaining strength\u201d in a way which electioneering does not, indeed undermines (compare the response of the German labour movement in 1933 with that of the Spanish in 1936). Anti-parliamentarianism does not mean ignoring the State but rather fighting it with the same weapons used to fight capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is the admission that \u201cthe struggle may be considerably harder than Marx and Engels imagined\u201d but no acknowledgement that the tactics they advocated (\u201cpolitical action\u201d, electioneering) contributed immensely to that. That said, it is right to say that \u201cthis doesn\u2019t in and of itself invalidate their view of the working class as the \u2018agent of history\u2019 capable of overturning oppression and exploitation.\u201d The question is learning the lessons of that struggle, something this book avoids \u2013 for obvious reasons. True, in the short-term votes and parties may grow, but in the long-term, socialism \u2013 which is the point! \u2013 grows ever distant. Rather than socialists conquering power, power conquers the socialists; rather than the State withering away, socialism does.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The underlying fallacy is clear: \u201cby whatever means are available\u201d ignores that what is relevant are means which result in the objective desired<\/em>. If we wish socialism, we need means which take us towards that rather than away from it. Drawing of (elements) of the labour movement into parliamentarianism may have been inevitable (and far easier than organising militant unions), what was not inevitable was spinning this activity as somehow revolutionary. In this, the Manifesto<\/em> provided a radical camouflage under which reformism grew and constructive socialism withered \u2013 as Bakunin predicted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What of the revolutionary path? If the \u201cdictatorship of the proletariat\u201d refers to a multi-party democratic system then it has only existed for a brief period from November 1917 to around July 1918, a period also marked \u2013 in the political sphere \u2013 by centralisation of power into fewer and fewer hands, the side-lining of soviet assemblies, bureaucratisation, popular alienation and the creation of armed forces separate from the people (a secret police and an undemocratic Red Army) to repress any expression of that alienation in the shape of protests, strikes and electing the wrong people to soviets. In the economic sphere, the party implemented policies which centralised economic activity and power into the hands of the State, so building a state-capitalism based on state-appointed managers armed with \u201cdictatorial\u201d authority (to use Lenin\u2019s word). The vision of \u201csocialism\u201d inherited from the Manifesto<\/em> was used to combat the genuine<\/em> socialistic attempts made by workers to exercise economic power (such as the factory committees) as not being socialist (usually dismissed as \u201canarchist dreams\u201d). Significantly, this authoritarianism began well before civil war started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet Mi\u00e9ville is right to lament that \u201cstrain of showboating machismo within the Left that treats consideration of any revolutionary parameters other than more or less precisely those of St Petersburg October 1917\u2026 as effete perfidy\u201d, particularly as those who do so fail to understand the reality of that event and its aftermath. This applies to Mi\u00e9ville himself as he believes that \u201ctop-down and authoritarian politics diametrically opposed to the grassroots democracy of socialism\u201d only \u201cemerged\u201d in Russia when \u201cSocialism in One Country\u201d was raised\u2026 in 1925!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So like most Marxists, he seems unaware how quickly the Bolshevik regime became a State in the usual sense and then a de facto<\/em> one-party state-capitalist dictatorship. Significantly, the ideology of the ruling party quickly and easily adapted itself to this reality, proclaiming to the world the necessity of party dictatorship to ensure a \u201csuccessful\u201d revolution and urging socialists across the globe to follow their example. Sadly, many did \u2013 and we are still suffering the consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The issue of praxis also applies to the 1848 Revolution. While the Manifesto<\/em> played no role in events, Germany saw contradictions between rhetoric and reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is suggested that its authors were \u201c[u]tterly committed to the cause of the working class as the far-left edge of the democratic revolution, they held that, as a bourgeois revolution, this democratic republic had to be ushered in by the bourgeoisie as part of a class alliance against the old rulers\u201d, yet in reality they completely subordinated the workers to the bourgeoisie and hid the politics of the Manifesto<\/em>. As Mi\u00e9ville notes, this position eventually changed, and they argued that workers should press their own demands (but still in response to the demands of the bourgeoisie) but then argued workers had to \u201cstrive for a single and indivisible German republic, but also within this republic for the most determined centralisation of power in the hands of the state authority\u201d, failing to see that this not only allowed the bourgeoisie to abolish the \u201cremnants of the Middle Ages\u201d but also to crush the proletariat for strengthening the bourgeois State would make the overthrow of capitalism harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Likewise, it is strange to read that, \u201c[f]or the Manifesto<\/em>, internationalism is a sine qua non of the workers\u2019 movement, and of any successful revolution\u201d but no mention that there was not a war in which Marx and Engels did not take sides, nor of their warmongering during the 1848 Revolutions \u2013 war with Russia and Denmark, wars to \u201ccivilise\u201d or \u201cwipe out\u201d non-historic peoples<\/em> \u2013 nor their casual racism (mostly against Slavs but Engels also found time to be happy \u201cthat magnificent California was snatched from the lazy Mexicans, who did not know what to do with it\u201d by \u201cthe energetic Yankees\u201d). As well as a rejection of Internationalism in practice, there was also an opposition to the right of national self-determination as advocated by Bakunin.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given this, in spite of its many merits which Mi\u00e9ville ably summarises, perhaps if the Manifesto<\/em> had gone \u201cthe way of all the hundreds of other angry radical documents of the nineteenth century\u201d, then we would be closer to socialism now. After all, why something which should be self-contained \u2013 a pamphlet \u2013 needs such clarification is an indictment in itself. That there is a whole series of books explaining \u201cwhat Marx really meant\u201d is significant. Indeed, this review will be met with complaints that some obscure passage in a text published long after both Marx and Engels were in the grave has gone unmentioned \u2013 for some, anarchist critiques of Marxism fail because they do not take into account such writings (this does not stop the likes of Lenin and Trotsky, equally unaware of these texts, from being true Marxists). However, we need to look at what was written in the text and determine what it would mean then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which is why it is important to understand what readers at the time would understand by the words used. Terms like \u201cassociation\u201d or \u201cdemocracy\u201d have a wide meaning. It can mean a federation of self-managed workers\u2019 associations in which managers are elected and decisions made by workplace assemblies. It can also mean a situation in which everyone amongst millions or billions get to elect a central body once every few years which then creates a \u201ccommon plan\u201d which its appointed managers tell the workers to execute. One is obviously more appealing than the other, but both do fit the same term. That the Manifesto<\/em> does not indicate what it means suggests that we need to take the most likely meaning, the second vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another complaint may be the lack of discussion of the Paris Commune. Indeed, it is true that the Commune is \u201ccrucial for later readings of the Manifesto<\/em>\u201d but that does not mean failing to understand what was meant in 1848 \u2013 particularly as this work rather than The Civil War in France<\/em> informed the actual practice of Marxists. Nor should we forget that if the Parisian workers had listened to Marx then the Commune would never have happened and so he would never have enlightened us on what he \u201creally\u201d had in mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even that is not quite right, given that most of The Civil War in France<\/em> is simply reporting<\/em> on events by people with other ideas. That many of the Communards were influenced by Proudhon should go without saying \u2013 and his rival\u2019s influence does<\/em> go unmentioned by Marx while its manifestations are praised. It may have \u201cinaugurated radical innovations to maintain organic links between the administrative apparatus and the working class\u201d but it did so by applying libertarian ideas which had been circulating within the French working class for years. Moreover, the robustness of any \u201corganic link\u201d simply cannot be asserted \u2013 Marx can be forgiven as he was writing in London based on limited knowledge but anarchists have been exploring the limitations of the Commune<\/a> since Kropotkin\u2019s earliest articles, limitations relevant to subsequent revolutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What of the political and economic forms praised in 1871? Is it unfair to Marx and Engels to expect them to anticipate in 1848 such future developments? No, for Proudhon\u2019s election manifesto<\/a> of the same year included calls for mandates and recall, the fusion of executive and legislative functions as well as democratic associations to run industry. This also shows why any suggestion that ideas like workers\u2019 control were a given for Marx and so did not need to be stated is unconvincing, given for that Proudhon publicly raised such ideas in order to differentiate his ideas from what passed for socialism then.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for the lesson \u201cthat \u2018the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes\u2019, but must transform it\u201d, this does not address how<\/em> that transforming would take place \u2013 social democrats like Kautsky and Martov considered it obvious that this would be done in-line with the Manifesto<\/em>, by electoral means. Nor can it really be said that these much-quoted words from The Civil War in France <\/em>really present \u201ca new focus on questions of politics and political form, by which economic change might be attempted\u201d for the means<\/em> suggested to secure political power are not mentioned at all. In this, Mi\u00e9ville \u2013 like Lenin in The State and Revolution<\/em><\/a> \u2013 ignores or misreads far too many comments by the Manifesto<\/em>\u2019s authors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether in the degeneration of social democracy or the transformation of the hope of the Russian Revolution into the reality of state-capitalist party dictatorship, the Manifesto<\/em> looms large \u2013 for it paved the way for both. Yet its vision of \u201cthe fulfilment of human need and the flowering of human potential, on the basis of communal, democratically controlled social property\u201d is<\/em> appealing. The question is whether the Manifesto<\/em> can secure that or not. The evidence of over 150 years of praxis inspired by it is clear \u2013 it did not, for it cannot<\/em>. To make that vision a reality, we need to turn to another socialist tradition, that of anarchism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anarchism is<\/em> mentioned when Mi\u00e9ville discusses the Manifesto<\/em>\u2019s bizarre labelling of Proudhon\u2019s Philosophy of Poverty<\/em> as \u201can example\u201d of \u201cbourgeois socialism\u201d. Indeed, he is right to say that this \u201cis questionable. Proudhon was and is famous as an anarchist thinker committed to fundamental social change, and profoundly opposed to the bourgeois state.\u201d Not only that, Marx had suggested in The Poverty of Philosophy<\/em> (when not seriously distorting<\/a> what Proudhon had argued) that he was a \u201cpetit bourgeois\u201d \u2013 why this insult was changed just for the Manifesto<\/em> has never been explained and Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s suggestion (that it \u201cwas designed as much as anything to troll Proudhon\u201d) is as good as any. Of course, Marx being \u201cdeeply opposed to anarchism in general and Proudhon in particular\u201d never stopped him from borrowing, without acknowledgement, many of his ideas (albeit placing them in an alien context which nullifies their benefits, like the \u201cinfallible\u201d recall Engels pointed to in 1891). This can be seen from the Manifesto<\/em>\u2019s discussion of property \u2013 ably summarised by Mi\u00e9ville \u2013 which is a straight lift from Proudhon\u2019s What is Property?<\/em>. This can be seen from the reporting in The Civil War in France<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For an anarchist, it comes as no surprise that a serious engagement with anarchism is missing from the book \u2013 after all, the critiques of Bakunin and other anarchists were proven right and mentioning this would be hard to square with positively evaluating the Manifesto<\/em>. Sadly, space excludes further discussion but hopefully this review will prompt an investigation of what anarchism stands for based on what anarchists \u2013 rather than Marxists \u2013 have written about it. An Anarchist FAQ<\/em><\/a> would be a good starting point, particularly as it discusses in Section H<\/a> all the issues raised here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This review of China Mi\u00e9ville\u2019s book on the Communist Manifesto was written for the Marxist group Platypus. I was asked due to my speech The 1848 Revolutions: An Anarchist Perspective. Suffice to say, more could have been written but that speech plus the few links I\u2019ve added to the text should help flesh out the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,19,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-karl-marx","category-marxism","category-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":437,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436\/revisions\/437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}