Nestor wrote-- well, Nestor wrote what he always writes: "won't break a
promise to the moderator," "too busy," "ultra-left," "telescoping of
history..." Nestor really should set that up in his email as his automatic
"out of office" response. Save him some time in his busy day.
But.... the issues aren't exactly explored when Nestor's phones in his usual
response.
The issues are: exactly what were Marx and Engels supporting in their
support of Prussia; how strong, unequivocal was this support; what
constitutes "progressiveness;" and how does "national unity" manifest its
"progressiveness." Certainly volumes can, and have been written, on these
subjects.
Nestor in a second piece provides extensive quotes from Mehring on the
situation to bolster his argument of Marx's and Engels' wholehearted
endorsement of Prussia, and support for Prussia's war as a war of national
unity. Except... the sections provided don't include the public statements
of Marx which were clearly much less "wholehearted" than Nestor would like
us all to believe-- I think that is evident even in the Marx's statement
that "we must take the mess as it is," and "it's pleasant to be at a
distance..."; except the sections provided counterpose Marx's and
Schweitzer's views to Liebknecht and his liberal romance with the princes
and electors, as if anything other than wholehearted endorsement of Prussia
is endorsement of Vienna, princes, and electors.; except the excerpts do not
identify exactly what and how national unity manifests itself as and in
progressiveness.
I think it's clear that Marx continually cautions against "wholehearted"
endorsement of Prussia And I think we need to provide some sort of measure
for the "progressiveness" of national unity as accomplished by-- an emerging
bourgeoisie, or its military and even landlord substitutes.
I'd like to concentrate here on the US Civil War, because-- full
disclosure--.. well first, it's something Nestor repeatedly and frequently
uses to bolster his arguments about "national fronts" [and by the way, he is
reverse telescoping of the issue of national fronts-- taking struggles from
1860-1870 and advancing them one hundred, one hundred plus years as if those
conditions and relations were still dominant in the countries of Latin
America, Asia, Africa]; secondly, it's something, along with Reconstruction,
I study pretty much continuously; and thirdly, I need to buy some time to go
back and review not just Marx's position on Prussia, but the actual
developments after Prussia's victory.
We can saying-- the US Civil War was "progressive" in that it created the
fundamental national unity that allowed for the development of the
productive forces, and the expansion of US capitalism. That's one way to
look at it, but that's an incomplete picture as it abstracts national unity
from precisely the social relations of production, and the conflict between
those means and relations of production that precipitated conflict.
"National unity" is fetishized as "progressive," as "developmental," just
as the expansion of capitalist production is fetishized as "development."
This leads to historical over-valuation of the bourgeoisie, and
mis-identification of both what the progress is, and how ANTAGONISTIC that
progress really is.
Regarding the US Civil War--it's not the national unity that is the
progressive component; it is not uniting the nation under capitalism that is
progressive; it is not the expansion of capitalist production relations that
is unantagonistically progressive. It is the destruction of the slave
relations of production that is, and is solely, the progressive feature.
That capitalism is compelled to do this to clear the field is a necessity of
capitalism, but we don't need to make a virtue of capitalism from its
necessity-- a necessity that it embraces reluctantly. While some would like
to give wholehearted support to the bourgeoisie in this task, the
bourgeoisie themselves only gave half-hearted support to this-- temporizing,
equivocating throughout, seeking to limit the commercial damage from the war
be sitting on this side, then that side of the fence. I'm pretty sure that
if the Confederacy hadn't destroyed so much of the property of the B&O
railroad, the B&O would have been an even more reluctant "supporter" of the
Union than it was-- if that was possible.
No matter, it was what is was, AND what it wasn't. We know that it wasn't
the bourgeoisie who demanded an end to slavery-- it was the free soil
farmers, workers
and some of the urban petty bourgeoisie [as was my personal favorite,
Benjamin F. Butler] that drove forward the struggle for the union to become
the struggle against slavery. There are those who want to abstract from the
struggle against slavery a "national front," a joint project of "national
unity," of "progressive" "development" of productive forces and make the
abstraction the CAUSE to which wholehearted support must be given. History
however doesn't support that. Lincoln begins and maintains for sometime
that the struggle is for union and union alone-- and that if he could
maintain the union without changing a thing about slavery he would. He does
not attack slavery in the border states. He prohibits, initially, Union
generals in reconquered territory from declaring emancipation. Lincoln's
greatness, and he is a great figure, resides in his recognition that more
was at stake than simply national unity, than creating a national market,
than curbing the South's claims on Cuba, California, Kansas--, that at stake
was the need to destroy an organization of property and labor that prevented
not just the "progressive" "development" of "productive" "forces," but also
prevented any prospect of human emancipation, and so Lincoln embraces that
emancipation of slaves as the necessary condition for victory.
The "progressive" moment for the Republican party, for the bourgeoisie,
for Northern capitalism is not contained solely in the Civil War-- which is
one of the reasons that arguing for "wholehearted" support for the
bourgeoisie on the bourgeoisie's terms is so fruitless. That moment extends
into, and is most critical in, the aftermath of victory-- in Reconstruction.
And what is the bourgeoisie's record in that? Is it worthy of wholehearted
support? How in fact is it possible to give the bourgeoisie wholehearted
support in anything when they themselves support nothing, except their own
possessions, wholeheartedly? How do you support the US bourgeoisie in the
Civil War on the basis of "national unity," "national front," "national
market," "progressive" "development" of the "productive forces," when in
fact it is precisely that national unity the makes the bourgeoisie restore
the Southern plantation system, when it is precisely that national front
that bourgeoisie establish by incorporating the Southern white ruling class
as its partner in creating the national market, in "developing the
productive forces"?
Look at the period of the Civil War and Reconstruction-- actually look at
the "career path" of one man, Thomas Scott of the Pennsylvania Railroad.
Scott, holding at one time the rank of colonel in the US Military Railroad
Administration, works diligently, actually brilliantly, as the field
officer overseeing the
movement of the Army of the Potomac west by rail to relieve Rosencrans, and
develop the logistical support-- the "lift" capacity-- that ensures the
Union victory. The same Scott, envisioning a national rail network
penetrating the South after the war, works closely with Reconstruction
governors to gain control of railroad properties, and where he can't, he
leases from the Reconstruction governments, convict labor, chain-gang
African-American labor to build and extend his railroads-- Scott leases
entire prison populations in Georgia; the same Scott in 1870-1871 cuts a
deal with the Redemptionist [and KKK] forces in the South, withdrawing his
"financial" support from Reconstruction governments in exchange for
guarantees regarding access and ownership of rail properties. The same
Scott is the man who, in the brokered compromise after the election of 1876,
delivers the necessary Congressional votes to elect Hayes in return for the
withdrawal of Federal troops; the same Scott received approximately
$30,000,000 in Federal guarantees on the bonds of his bankrupt Texas and
Pacific Railroad. This same Scott during the great railroad strike of 1877
was quoted as urging Hayes to "feed" the strikers a "lead diet for a couple
of days" to break the strike. And it's the same Hayes who withdrew the
Federal troops from the South who now dispatches Federal troops from city to
city to arrest and shoot the strikers.
There exists a critical point of transition for the bourgeoisie-- a point
when they move from being simply timid, treacherous, cowardly as they were
in the revolutions of 1848 to being more than incapable of "progress," but
rather direct opponents of "progress," forced and eager to restore the
modified forms and relations of "uncapitalist" property and labor to power
in order to secure accumulation. Now I think that point is clearly reached
for the bourgeoisie in 1869. And that point of transition is always present
during the bourgeoisie's "emancipatory" "progressive" "national front"
manifestation.
So... so our wholehearted support is not for the bourgeoisie, for the
development of the productive forces abstracted from their social relations
of production, for "national unity," but rather for the emancipation of
labor. We recognize a moment when the development of capitalism may [but
not necessarily] allow, create an opening for the struggle for that
emancipation; we recognize also, that the emergence of a struggle as one
for "national unity" a "national front," "national self-determination,"
is itself but a moment, an initial manifestation of class struggle, of the
need for the emancipation of labor; and that the emancipation of labor must
supercede, overcome, notions of a national front, of a national struggle.
In a later post, Mark cautions Tod Cod against comparing US apples to
Prussian oranges [or vice-versa]. I quite agree, but it is truly Nestor is
trying to equate apples and oranges without examining what actually
transpires in the cultivation of both, or either.
----- Original Message -----
From: "N?stor Gorojovsky" <nmgoro at gmail.com>