Engeldust

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Marx thought he had a theory of economics and politics - casting sidelights on history, society and psychology.

It's an impressively wide ranging theory - indeed, if only half of it turns out to be true, it would still be one of the great theories humanity has ever produced.

But that kind of reach wasn't enough for Engels - he thought he had a theory of everything. Atoms, societies, galaxies, emotions, reason and everything in between.

Lenin followed Engels instead of Marx. Trotsky and Mao followed Lenin. Luxembourg followed Trotsky, and now whenever we read Marx, we read him through the lens of Engels.

Seeing as Engels was wrong - both about the need for a totalising theory and about the theory itself - this is a problem.

So the questions are:

* Is this problem fatal to the marxist project of political change if it's unresolved? And,

* If there's a solution - a way to get marxism back on track - what is it?

I haven't found answers to these questions yet - these little essays are partly an ongoing attempt to find them - but here's an oblique stab at them.

Believing in a false (or meaningless) theory - if you act on it - is obviously not a recipe for success. If, like any major church, you kind of believe in it, and justify your actions in terms of it, but don't actually act on it, then adherence becomes an empty ritual.

A lot of people like their rituals empty, but are there any positive effects of the influence of engelsism (to coin a term) on marxism?

I'd say there is at least one positive effect, namely that marxism as a theory of everything is much more attractive to potential recruits than marxism as a theory of economics and politics - or even as a theory of world revolution.

The percentage of revolutionaries who want to make a revolution, as opposed to struggle for one, must be quite small.

But there's a flipside to this. Many are attracted to marxism because it provides a social support network for them - and depending on the stripe, this may extend to it being a closed cult, which of course is exactly what many disaffected people want.

Others are attracted to the liberal progressive campaigning that some groups do - as a way to hold the party together until a revolutionary situation presents itself.

Some like bloodcurdling rhetoric of violent overthrow, or the opportunity to walk in the road with a banner shouting abuse at the police.

These desires are obviously not mutually exclusive or fully conscious, but another one would be the desire to have a totalising theory of absolutely everything. They're attracted, not really to the theory itself, but to the fact that there is one.

Most marxists don't understand dialectics, and aren't sufficiently troubled by their lack of understanding to read the standard works about it - which is of course one reason why they don't realise how vacuous it is.

Indeed, most marxists haven't read Marx, or any of his followers. Some books are for reading, some are for quoting, and some are for owning. But it doesn't seem to impair (or improve) their effectiveness as marxists, so long as the cell, branch or party has a resident intellectual or two to set the line for others to follow.

So, the mysticism of Engels may - or may not - be a factor in the failure of marxism as a political project. But it's also probably a reason why there are so many marxists.

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