Validity of Marxist Interpretation and Prediction of Western History
C. Cheng, March, 2002
Validity of Marx's Prediction of History
Karl Marx claimed to have devised the universal laws of social evolution. Through the use of Hegelian dialectic materialism, Marx sees history as a series of events propelled by forces of class struggle. Yet, by early twentieth century, it is clear that Marxist theories and predictions are false. The failure of Marxism must be traced back to the claims Marx had made. By examining events of early twentieth century, especially Russian revolution and British-German socialist developments, it is apparent that Marxism is invalid in its fundamental assumption: that history is propelled by class tensions and working class interests coincides with those of the socialist movements.
Marx claimed that history of “all existing society is the history of class struggles”. Observing the rise of despotism followed by constitutional monarchy, which in turn transformed into liberal governments, Marx dialectically claimed that each class has sown the seeds of its own destruction. For the liberal stage of social evolution, Marx claimed that the bourgeoisie class creates its own “antithesis” (using Hegelian terms), the working class, in the process of prospering themselves. Through price competition and lowering production cost, Marx noted, the bourgeoisie will inevitably exploit proletariats in an increasing and expanding scale. As the working class group together in urban industrial districts, unions would form; hitherto, a class consciousness will develop. When the class tensions are large enough, the proletariat will overtake the state. Marx proposed that this proletarian communard is the ultimate purpose of sociological evolution. Upon the rise of a proletarian state, a brief proletarian dictatorship would redistribute wealth and consolidate means of production. And then, the government would slowly wither away.
Reality, however, was far from the ideal Marxist prediction. First of all, Marx fails to analyze history in a wider context: his sole emphasis on class struggle proves to be inadequate. Secondly, he mistakes that the working class equals the socialist movement. In reality, twentieth century history is propelled by imperialism, nationalism as well as class tensions. Also, the interest of the working class, which was in bitter tension with the middle class, deviated greatly from the aims of the intellectual socialists. These two inadequacies of his original proposition would lead to the invalidity of the entire doctrine of socialism.
Twentieth century witnessed the first global imperial war, a phenomenon that traditional Marxism failed to explain. According to traditional Marxism, a war is nothing but working class of different nationalities shooting each other. It is hence silly to destroy the unity of the working class for an essentially capitalistic cause. Yet, the outbreak of the First World War followed by the immediate collapse of the Second International blatantly indicated that class consciousness falls inferior to the call of nationalism. The reason for the death of the International is the split of socialist towards the Great War. The war splits socialists into pacifists (traditional Marxists, including Zenoviov and Kamenev), defensists (“nationalistic socialism” including Plekhanov, the father of Russian socialism, and many loyal Germany socialists), and defeatists (revolutionaries like Lenin hoping to gain ground amidst chaos). The International’s failure of achieving international peace and putting a stop to the imperial war is a good sign that history is not primarily driven by class tension. The fact that the Second International collapsed and even intellectual socialists have opposite views means that Marxist sociological explanations are inadequate. And hence, Marx’s prediction on class development and class consciousness that follows from this “unity of working class” would also prove invalid.
Marxist predictions on the development of socialist state also proved invalid. This is mainly because of the truncation of intellectual socialist movements from the working class. Socialists see Marxism as a sociological progress, where proletariats were to be exploited, angered, and eventually overthrow the ruling class. Hence, the intellectual socialists would naturally hope for the worst for the working class. Welfare, medical care, sanitary projects and pensions are therefore seen as obstructions to this social evolution. The working class, on the other hand, would embrace these positive changes; for they would only resort to violent revolution as the last resort: no one would risk being shot in a revolution unless his life is in considerable threat to begin with. Marx is folly to assume that the liberals would exploit the workers at all cost for maximizing the profit margin. Yet, either out of fear for a revolution or out of pure humanitarian charity, the ruling state would often pass legislations to improve the conditions for the working class. This directly pits the interests of the socialists against the interests of the working class.
The problem of socialist truncation from the working class accounts for the actual development of the communist state in backward Russia, rather than the highly industrialized Germany or Britain as Marx had anticipated. In liberal Britain and Bismarck Germany, governments saw the imminent threat of the growing working class, and worked to appease them. Britain passed the Factory Act and Ten-hour Act; Germany executed the first welfare plan with pension. As living conditions improved, the working class representatives in the parliaments were content, and socialist movement turned democratic and collaborated with the liberal government: even for the War. But for backward Russia where industrialization had just begun, such promises for better working conditions could not be realized. And hence, for a while, socialist movements and working class had common interest. This is why the “dress rehearsal” of 1905 was initially a huge success, and failed as the Tsar made concessions to the working class and the liberals. This is also why Lenin was successful in rallying support within the Soviets in 1917. The development of socialist states in backward country, rather than industrialized ones, is certainly not in the Marxist gospel. This is another harsh evident proving Marxist sociology invalid.
It is also noteworthy that socialist state not only failed to occur in advanced countries, but it developed in backward Russia - through a forced coup d’etat. Russia experienced a wide revolution in 1905 that fizzled. In November 1917, on the eve of an election that would end the dual power between Kerensky and the Soviet, Lenin and Trotsky led the armed Bolshevik insurrection: not a wide-spread, spontaneous proletarian revolution as Marx had anticipated, but a coup d’etat by an elite, disciplined group of political dissidents. This is clearly not inspired by class consciousness; nor is it a class movement in itself, for the Bolsheviks had minor support even within the Soviets by then. Prominent leaders such as Zinoviov and Kamenev even condemned the insurrection. If the only socialist state was founded perforce, rather than spontaneously springing up from class-conscious workers, then it is safe to conclude that the Marxist doctrine of sociological evolution is a total failure.
In brief, socialist states failed to develop as Marx had foreseen, for Marx stressed the importance of union movement under capitalism and the growth of class consciousness as prerequisites for a socialist state. The two latter prerequisites are never met. The liberals were not folly enough to anger the workers, and the backward countries failed to develop a class consciousness. These failures are due to the Marxist mistake that class struggle is the sole driving force of history, and that socialist movements will necessarily and fully represent the interests of the working class. Therefore, Marxism should not be regarded as a sociological evolutionary theory, but rather, as a speculative theory based on what could possibly happen if and only if pure capitalism were adopted in the first place - which is not the case in the course of western history, as governments soon find out its own destructive powers.