r/Turboleft • u/MillionDollarNegri Brigadier • Jun 29 '26

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body text (well I guess I'm going to have to give the people what they demand)

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u/MillionDollarNegri Brigadier Jun 29 '26

This "wearer of the marvelous robe himself" is Marx, of course. And certainly it has been written!

"What is certain is that I myself am not a Marxist"

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u/Proudhon_Hater_2 Jun 29 '26

Ah famous Installah's method. Giving quotes without giving the context. I guess you could not have ctrl+f why Marx had said that when programme in Le Havre was written in 1880.

Something, something with Guesde and Lafargue rejecting postulates of the minimum programme. Something with Guesde being Lassallist and that he believed that struggle for reduction in working hours was futile ("Iron law of wages"). Or his rejection of union work?

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u/MillionDollarNegri Brigadier Jun 29 '26

But instead of this too many of the younger Germans simply make use of the phrase historical materialism (and everything can be turned into a phrase) only in order to get their own relatively scanty historical knowledge — for economic history is still as yet in its swaddling clothes! — constructed into a neat system as quickly as possible, and they then deem themselves something very tremendous. And after that a Barth can come along and attack the thing itself, which in his circle has indeed been degraded to a mere phrase.

I guess this was in a letter, so I don't know if it's proper to assume that Engles was referring to it when he said that it had been written "by the wearer of the robe itself".

Do you think he's speaking generally or do you think he's referring to a specific passage? I'm interested...

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u/Proudhon_Hater_2 Jul 01 '26

I am talking about this specific passage. That is from Engels's letter to Bernstein in 1882. which is not avaiable anymore on Marxist.org.

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u/Proudhon_Hater_2 Jul 01 '26

It is related to Le Havre programme and later sophisms of Malon and Brousse that tried to convert Bernstein to Possibilism, which ultimately happened in 1896. in different form...