Ljubodrag SimonovićBelgrade, Serbia, May 2008E-mail:

On the occasion of the 160th anniversary of the

"Manifesto of the Communist Party"

)

Today’s importance of Marx’s “

Manifesto of theCommunist Party

”

Can it be said that the “

Manifesto of the Communist Party

” is the“

Bible

” of the working class? It can, but only figuratively. Engels’ forewordto the English edition of the “

Manifesto of the Communist Party

” from 1888clearly indicates an antidogmatic relation of Marx and Engels to their own“

Manifesto

”. A literal interpretation of the “

Manifesto

” turns Marx’s criticismof capitalism into a dogmatic thought, and the communist movement into asectarian movement.A contemporary analysis of the “

Manifesto

” poses the followingquestion: does the development of capitalism open a possibility for thedevelopment of Marxist thought, or does it more and more radically question it?The development of capitalism as a destructive order sheds new lighton Marx’s criticism of capitalism, questioning its foundation and relevancetoday. Starting from Marx’s principal methodological postulate, according towhich the “anatomy of man is the key to understanding the anatomy of amonkey”, it seems justifiable to develop a criticism of capitalism whichwould take into account monopolistic capitalism in its final “consumer” stage of development, in which the contradictions of capitalism as a destructive order dramatically threatening the survival of humanity have been developed to thefull. It is only in light of the modern criticism of capitalism that Marx’s main postulates acquire a concrete historical relevance and political significance.Without that, they are reduced to an abstract humanistic rhetoric which dragsthe critical and changing mind further away from the basic existential issues.Bearing in mind that capitalism has brought humanity to the verge of the abyss, the question is whether Marx, with his criticism of capitalism based onHegel’s dialectic of history, did a disservice to mankind? The biggest flaw inMarx’s theory is, at the same time, its biggest asset: the convincing argumentthat springs from its social, historical and visionary foundations. It“covers” the totality of man’s life, as a social and historical being, and offers a possibility of finding answers to almost all questions posed by modern man.However, it does not contain the most important thing: an analysis of thedevelopment of capitalism as a destructive order, and in that context, a possible

future for humanity.Marx’s thought moved the criticism of capitalism from the existential(Fourier) to the essential sphere, and thus contributed to the mutilation of thecriticism of capitalism, as well as to the crippling of the class (self)consciousnessof workers and, consequently, to the crippling of their political struggle againstcapitalism. In his criticism of capitalism Marx “overlooked” the most importantmoment: the struggle for man’s freedom is at the same time the struggle for thesurvival of mankind.The true nature of Marx’s criticism of capitalism can be seen in thethought of those who blindly followed him. Up to this day the capitalistdestruction of life and man as a biological and human being has not becomethe “subject” of a serious discussion by Marxist theorists. Even the most radicalMarxist critics of capitalism overlook the truth that capitalism is essentially adestructive order. If Marx in his own time “could not see” the destructivetendencies in the development of capitalism, why have his followers not perceived this – especially when it became obvious that capitalism, particularly in its “consumer” phase, became a totalitarian destructive order?The answer is simple: they have not developed a criticism of capitalismstarting from the tendencies of its development, they have instead concernedthemselves with the interpretation of Marx’s criticism of capitalism.At this point we can pose a hypothetical question: had the strugglefor man’s emancipation in the XIX and XX centuries proceeded with theawareness that capitalism destroys nature and man as a biological and human being, would mankind today be on the verge of the abyss?One of the central ideas of the “

Manifesto

” questioned by moderncapitalism is that capitalism is a “revolutionary” order and, accordingly, the bourgeosie is a “revolutionary” class. According to Marx, the basic historical“task” of the bourgeosie is to enable mankind to gain control over natural lawsand thus enable man’s emancipation from his dependance on nature andinhuman labour – in order to develop his authentic human qualities as auniversal creative and libertarian being. The “revolutionary role” of the bourgeosie is to create the conditions for a “leap from the realm of necessityto the realm of freedom” (Engels). This is the main reason why Marx attached paramount importance to the development of productive forces. As far as theworking class is concerned, its main historical task, according to Marx, is toliberate mankind from oppression and to create a society in which people will be able to develop their universal creative potentials – as emancipated naturaland social beings.The fact that capitalism has become a totalitarian destructive order,while capitalist development of productive forces has turned into a systematicdestruction of both nature and man, poses a fateful question: can the working

class, which acquires its historical authenticity from its relation to the bourgeosie, fulfill its historical task if the bourgeosie has not fulfilled its ownhistorical task, that is, if the bourgeosie has turned from a “revolutionary”into a destructive class?This question is all the more justified in view of the fact that capitalismincreasingly threatens the biological survival of the European (and other)nations and thus the biological survival of the working class of the mostdeveloped European capitalist countries which is the carrier of the emancipatoryheritage of civil society and thus the most mature part of the internationalworkers movement. In this context, one more question can be asked: can a

Gastarbeiter

population become an authentic revolutionary force capable of creating a new world? This question applies also to national-liberationmovements in undeveloped capitalist countries in the world. Can the strugglefor national freedom turn into the struggle for a new world, if the working classin those countries has not reached an appropriate emancipatory and visionaryconsciousness, which can be attained only in the struggle against the capitalistorder and the bourgeoisie as its carrier? A possible answer lies in thequestion: can the very consciousness of the destructive nature of capitalismserve as a generator of such a political practice by the world proletariat,regardless of its concrete historical heritage, that could lead to the destruction of capitalism?The crisis of today’s world is at the same time the crisis of the proletariat as the revolutionary agent. In its “consumer phase”, capitalism,through the development of a “consumer standard”, has managed to reduceworkers to the instruments for resolving the crisis of over-production, and, thus,to its collaborators in the destruction of the world. Starting from the present position of the working class, the ideologues of capitalism seek to “redefine”the nature of the working class in contemporary capitalism by depriving it of itslibertarian class self-consciousness. The conformist behaviour of a large partof the working class in the developed capitalist societies is not theconsequence of the “disappearance of the working class”, but rather theconsequence of the integration of workers into capitalism as a working-consuming “mass”, and of the bourgeoisie's systematic subversion andsuppression of working class organization, class self-consciousness and classstruggle. The conforming behaviour of workers is, in fact, the consequence of the class domination of the bourgeoisie, and not a process which proceeds byitself, with a fatalistic character. That we are not dealing here with the finalintegration of workers into the capitalist order, but with a temporary situation,can be seen from the fact that capitalists seek to keep the workers under theideological «bell jar» of capitalism, and, at the same time, seek to do awaywith communist thought, which calls for struggle against capitalism and offers a possibility of creating a humane world. The capitalist propaganda machinery