AMERICAN LEFT HISTORY

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Wednesday, July 10, 2013

From The Marxist Archives-On the Historical Materialist View of Society

	Workers Vanguard No. 882	8 December 2006

TROTSKY

LENIN

On the Historical Materialist View of Society

(Quote of the Week)

The works of Georgi Plekhanov, founder of Russian Marxism, were crucial in educating Bolshevik leader V.I. Lenin and others of his generation. In polemicizing against both philosophical idealism and revisionist conceptions of Marxism, Plekhanov expounded the materialist view of class society, which is the core of the Marxist worldview.

Man makes history in striving to satisfy his needs. These needs, of course, are originally imposed by nature; but they are later considerably modified quantitatively and qualitatively by the character of the artificial environment. The productive forces at man’s disposal determine all his social relations. First of all, the state of the productive forces determines the relations in which men stand towards each other in the social process of production, that is, their economic relations. These relations naturally give rise to definite interests, which are expressed in law.... The development of productive forces divides society into classes, whose interests are not only different, but in many—and, moreover, essential—aspects are diametrically antagonistic. This antagonism of interests gives rise to conflicts, to a struggle among the social classes. The struggle results in the replacement of the tribal organization by the state organization, the purpose of which is to protect the dominant interests. Lastly, social relations, determined by the given state of productive forces, give rise to common morality, the morality, that is, that guides people in their common, everyday life.

Thus the law, the state system and the morality of any given people are determined directly and immediately by its characteristic economic relations. These economic relations also determine—but indirectly and mediately—all the creations of the mind and imagination: art, science, etc.

—Georgi Plekhanov, The Materialist Conception of History (1897)

*****************

G.V. Plekhanov

The Materialist Conception of History

(1891)

Written: 1897.
Source: Essays in Historical Materialism (Approx. the first half of the essay reproduced here)-
Publisher: International Publishers.
Transcribed: Andy Blunden.
HTML Markup: Andy Blunden.

I

We must confess that it was with no little prejudice that we took up the book of this Roman professor. We had been rather frightened by certain works of some of his compatriots – A. Loria, for example (see, in particular, La teoria economica della constituzione politica). But a perusal of the very first pages was enough to convince us that we had been mistaken, and that Achille Loria is one thing and Antonio Labriola another. And when we reached the end of the book we felt that we would like to discuss it with the Russian reader. We hope that he will not be annoyed with us. For after all, “So rare are books that are not banal!”

Labriola’s book first appeared in Italian. The French translation is clumsy, and in places positively infelicitous. We say this without hesitation, although we have not the Italian original before us. But the Italian author cannot be held responsible for the French translator. At any rate, Labriola’s ideas are clear even in the clumsy French translation. Let us examine them.
Mr. Kareyev, who, as we know, very zealously reads and most successfully manages to distort every “work” having any relation at all to the materialist conception of history, would probably inscribe our author in the list of “economic materialists.” But that would be wrong. Labriola firmly, and fairly consistently, adheres to the materialist conception of history, but he does not regard himself as an “economic materialist.” He is of the opinion that this title applies more fittingly to writers like Thorold Rogers than to himself and those who think like him. And that is perfectly true, although at a first glance it may not seem quite clear.
Ask any Narodnik or subjectivists what is an economic materialist, and he will answer that an economic materialist is one who attributes predominant importance to the economic factor in social life. That is how our Narodniks and subjectivists understand economic materialism. And it must be confessed that there undoubtedly are people who attribute to the economic “factor” a predominant role in the life of human society. Mr. Mikhailovsky has more than once cited Louis Blanc as one who had spoken of the predominance of this factor long before a certain master of certain Russian disciples. But one thing we do not understand: Why did our venerable subjective sociologist pick on Louis Blanc? He should have known that in this respect Louis Blanc had many predecessors. Guizot, Minier, Augustin Thierry and Toqueville all recognised the predominant role of the economic “factor,” at least in the history of the Middle Ages and of modern times. Consequently, all these historians were economic materialists. In our days, the said Thorold Rogers, in his Economic Interpretation of History, also revealed himself as a convinced economic materialist; he too recognised the predominant importance of the economic “factor.”
It is not to be concluded from this, of course, that Thorold Rogers’ social and political views were identical with those, say, of Louis Blanc: Rogers held the view of the bourgeois economists, whereas Louis Blanc was at one time an exponent of Utopian Socialism. If Rogers had been asked what he thought of the bourgeois economic system, he would have said that at the basis of this system lie the fundamental attributes of human nature, and that, consequently, the history of its rise is the history of the gradual removal of obstacles that at one time hindered, and even totally precluded, the manifestation of these attributes. Louis Blanc, on the other hand, would have declared that capitalism itself was one of the obstacles raised by ignorance and violence to the creation of an economic system which would at last really correspond to human nature. This, as you see, is a very material difference.
Who would be nearer to the truth? To be frank, we think that both these writers were almost equally remote from it, but we have neither the wish nor the opportunity to dwell on this point here. What is important to us just now is something else. We would request the reader to observe that in the opinion of both Louis Blanc and Thorold Rogers the economic factor, which predominates in social life, was itself, as the mathematicians put it, a function of human nature, and chiefly of the human mind and human knowledge. The same must be said of the above-mentioned French historians of the Restoration period. Well, and what name shall we give to the views on history of people who, although they assert that the economic factor predominates in social life, yet are convinced that this factor – the economics of society – is in its turn the fruit of human knowledge and ideas? Such views can only be called idealistic.
We thus find that economic materialism does not necessarily preclude historical idealism. And even that is not quite accurate; we say that it does not necessarily preclude idealism but what we should say is that perhaps – as it has been mostly hitherto – it is nothing but a variety of idealism. After this, it will be clear why men like Antonio Labriola do not regard themselves as economic materialists: it is because they are consistent materialists and because, as regards history, their views are the direct opposite of historical idealism.

II

“However,” Mr. Kudrin will probably tell us, “you, with the habit common to many of the ‘disciples,’ are resorting to paradoxes, are juggling with words, deceiving the eye and sword-swallowing. As you put it, it is the idealists who are economic materialists. But in that case, what would you have us understand by genuine and consistent materialists? Do they reject the idea of the predominance of the economic factor? Do they believe that side by side with this factor there are other factors operating in history, and that it would be vain for us to investigate which of them predominates over all the others? We can only rejoice at the genuine and consistent materialists if they really are averse to dragging in the economic factor everywhere.”

Our reply to Mr. Kudrin is that, indeed, the genuine and consistent materialists really are averse to dragging in the economic factor everywhere. What is more, even to ask which factor predominates in social life seems to them pointless. But Mr. Kudrin need not hurry to rejoice. It was by no means under the influence of Messrs. the Narodniks and subjectivists that the genuine and consistent materialists arrived at this conviction. The objections these gentlemen raise to the domination of the economic factor are only calculated to evoke hilarity among the genuine and consistent materialists. What is more, these objections of our friends, the Narodniks and subjectivists, are rather belated. The inappropriateness of asking which factor predominates in social life became very noticeable even in the time of Hegel. Hegelian idealism precluded the very possibility of such questions. All the more is precluded by modern dialectical materialism. Since the appearance of the Critique of Critical Criticism, and especially since the publication of Marx’s well known Critique of Political Economy, only people backward in theory are capable of wrangling about the relative importance of the various historico-social factors. We are quite aware that Mr. Kudrin is not the only one who will be surprised at this, and so we hasten to explain.
What are the historico-social factors? How does the idea of them originate?
Let us take an example. The Gracchi tried to check the process of appropriation of the public domain by the wealthy Romans which was so fatal to Rome. The wealthy Romans resisted the Gracchi. A struggle ensued. Each of the contending sides passionately pursued its own aims. If I wanted to describe this struggle, I might depict it as a conflict of human passions. Passions would thus appear as “factors” in the internal history of Rome. But in this struggle both the Gracchi and their adversaries took advantage of the weapons furnished them by Roman public law. I would not fail, of course, to speak of this in my narrative, and thus Roman public law would also appear as a factor in the internal development of the Roman republic.
Further, the people who opposed the Gracchi had a material interest in preserving a deep-rooted abuse. The people who supported the Gracchi had a material interest in abolishing it. I would mention this circumstance, too, and as a result the struggle I am describing would appear as a conflict of material interests, as a conflict of classes, a conflict of the poor and the rich. And so I already have a third factor, and this time the most interesting of all: the famous economic factor. If you have the time and inclination, dear reader, you may discuss at length which of the factors in the internal development of Rome predominated over the rest; you will find in my historical narrative sufficient data to support any opinion on this subject.
As for myself, as long as I stick to the role of simple narrator, I shall not worry much about the factors. Their relative importance does not interest me. As a narrator my one task is to depict the given events in as accurate and lively a manner as possible. For this purpose I have to establish a certain, even if only outward, connection between them, and to arrange them in a certain perspective. If I mention the passions that stirred the contending parties, or the system prevailing in Rome at the time or lastly , the inequality of property that existed there, I do so with the sole purpose of presenting a connected and lively account of the events. If I achieve this purpose, I shall be quite satisfied, and shall unconcernedly leave it to the philosophers to decide whether passions predominate over economics, or economics over passions, or, lastly, maybe, that nothing predominates over anything, each “factor” following the golden rule: Live and let live!
All this will be so as long as I stick to the role of simple narrator to whom all inclination to “subtle speculation” is foreign. But what if I do not stick to this role, and start philosophising about the events I am describing? I shall then not be satisfied with a mere outward connection of events; I shall want to disclose their inherent causes; and those same factors – human passions, public law and economics – which I formerly stressed and gave prominence to, guided almost exclusively by artistic instinct, will now acquire a new and vast importance in my eyes. They will appear to me to be those sought-for inherent causes, those “latent forces,” to whose influence events are to be attributed. I shall create a theory of factors.
And, indeed, one or another variety of such a theory is bound to arise whenever people who are interested in social phenomena pass from simply contemplating and describing them to investigating the connections that exist between them.
The theory of factors, moreover, grows with the growing division of labor in social science. All the branches of this science – ethics, politics, jurisprudence, political economy, etc investigate one and the same thing: the activity of social man. But each investigates it from its own special angle. Mr. Mikhailovsky would say that each of them “controls” a special “chord.” Each of the “chords” may be regarded as a factor of social development. And, in fact, we may now count almost as many factors as there are distinct “disciplines” in social science.
We hope that what is meant by the historico-social factors and how the idea of them originates will now be clear.
A historico-social factor is an abstraction, and the idea of it originates as the result of a process of abstraction. Thanks to the process of abstraction, various sides of the social complex assume the form of separate categories, and the various manifestations and expressions of the activity of social man – morals, law, economic forms, etc. – are converted in our minds into separate forces which appear to give rise to and determine this activity and to be its ultimate causes.
Once the theory of factors had come into being, disputes were bound to arise as to which factor was to be considered the predominant one.

III

The “factors” are subject to reciprocal action: each influences the rest and is in its turn influenced by the rest. The result is such an intricate web of reciprocal influences, of direct actions and reflected reactions, that whoever sets out to elucidate the course of social development begins to feel his head swim and experiences an unconquerable necessity to find at least some sort of clue out of the labyrinth. Since bitter experience has taught him that the view of reciprocal action only leads to dizziness, he begins to seek for another view: he tries to simplify his task. He asks himself whether one of the historico-social factors is not the prime and basic cause of all the rest. If he succeeded in finding an affirmative answer to this basic question, his task would indeed be immeasurably simplified. Let us suppose that he reaches the conviction that the rise and development of all the social relations of any particular country are determined by the course of its intellectual development, which, in its turn, is determined by the attributes of human nature (the idealist view). He will then easily escape from the vicious circle of reciprocal action and create a more or less harmonious and consistent theory of social development. Subsequently, as a result of a further stud of the subject he may perhaps perceive that he was mistaken, and that man’s intellectual development cannot be regarded as the prime cause of all social movement. Admitting his mistake, he will probably at the same time observe that his temporary conviction that the intellectual factor dominates over all the rest was after all of some use to him, for without it he could never have escaped from the blind alley of reciprocal action and would not have advanced a single step to. wards an understanding of social phenomena.

It would be unfair to condemn such attempts to establish some hierarchy among the factors of historico-social development. They were just as indispensable in their time as the appearance of the theory of factors itself was inevitable. Antonio Labriola, who has given a fuller and better analysis of this theory than any other materialist writer, quite rightly remarks that “the historic factors indicate something which is much less than the truth, but much more than a simple error.” The theory of factors has contributed its mite to the benefit of science. “The separate study of the historico-social factors has served, like any other empirical study which does not transcend the apparent movement of things, to improve the instrument of observation and to permit us to find again in the facts themselves, which have been artificially abstracted, the keystones which bind them into the social complexus.” Today a knowledge of the special social sciences is indispensable to anyone who would reconstruct any portion of man’s past life. Historical science would not have got very far without philology. And the one-sided Romanists – who believed that Roman law was dictated by Reason itself – was it any mean service they rendered to science?
But however legitimate and useful the theory of factors may have been in its time, today it will not stand the light of criticism. It dismembers the activity of social man and converts its various aspects and manifestations into separate forces, which are supposed to determine the historical movement of society. In the development of social science this theory has played a part similar to that played by the theory of separate physical forces in natural science. The progress of natural science has led to the theory of the unity of these forces, to the modern theory of energy. In just the same way, the progress of social science was bound to lead to the replacement of the theory of factors, that fruit of social analysis, by a synthetic view of social life.
This synthetic view of social life is not peculiar to modern dialectical materialism. We already find it in Hegel, who conceived the task to be to find a scientific explanation of the entire historico-social process in its totality, that is, among other things, including all those aspects and manifestations of the activity of social man which people with an abstract cast of thought pictured as separate factors. But as an “absolute idealist,” Hegel explained the activities of social man by the attributes of the Universal Spirit. Given these attributes, the whole history of mankind is given an sich, and its ultimate results as well. Hegel’s synthetic view was at the same time a teleological view. Modern dialectical materialism has completely eliminated teleology from social science.
It has shown that man makes his history not in order to march along a line of predetermined progress, and not because he must obey the laws of some abstract (metaphysical, Labriola calls it) evolution. He does so in the endeavour to satisfy his own needs, and it is for science to explain how the various methods of satisfying these needs influence man’s social relations and spiritual activity.
The methods by which social man satisfies his needs, and to a large extent these needs themselves, are determined by the nature of the implements with which he subjugates nature in one degree or another; in other words, they are determined by the state of his productive forces. Every considerable change in the state of these forces is reflected in man’s social relations, and, therefore, in his economic relations, as part of these social relations. The idealists of all species and varieties held that economic relations were functions of human nature; the dialectical materialists hold that these relations are functions of the social productive forces.
It therefore follows that if the dialectical materialists thought it permissible to speak of factors of social development with any other purpose than to criticise these antiquated fictions, they would first of all have to rebuke the so-called economic materialists for the inconstancy of their “predominant” factor; the modern materialists do not know of any economic system that would be alone conformable to human nature, all other social economic systems being the result of one or another degree of violence to human nature. The modern materialists teach that any economic system that is conformable to the state of the productive forces at the given time is conformable to human nature. And, conversely, any economic system begins to contradict the demands of human nature as soon as it comes into contradiction with the state of the productive forces. The “predominant” factor is thus found to be itself subordinate to another “factor.” And that being the case, how can it be called “predominant”?
If that is so, then it is evident that a veritable gulf divides the dialectical materialists from those who not without justification may be called economic materialists. And to what trend do those altogether unpleasant disciples of a not altogether pleasant teacher belong whom Messrs. Kareyev, N. Mikhailovsky, S. Krivenko and other clever and learned people quite recently attacked so vehemently, if not so happily? If we are not mistaken, the “disciples” fully adhered to the view of dialectical materialism. Why then did Messrs. Kareyev, N. Mikhailovsky, S. Krivenko and the other clever and learned people father on them the views of the economic materialists and fulminate against them for supposedly attaching exaggerated importance to the economic factor? It may be presumed that these clever and learned people did so because the arguments of the late lamented economic materialists are easier to refute than the arguments of the dialectical materialists. Again, it may be presumed that our learned opponents of the “disciples” have but poorly grasped the latter’s views. This presumption is even the more probable one.
It may be objected that the “disciples” themselves sometimes called themselves economic materialists, and that the term it “economic materialism” was first used by one of the French “disciples.” That is so. But neither the French nor the Russian “disciples” ever associated with the term “economic materialism” the idea which our Narodniks and the subjectivists associate with it. We have only to recall that in the opinion of Mr. N. Mikhailovsky, Louis Blanc and Mr. Y. Zhukovsky were “economic materialists” just like our present-day supporters of the materialist view of history. Confusion of concepts could go no further.

IV

By entirely eliminating teleology from social science and explaining the activity of social man by his needs and by the means and methods of satisfying them, prevailing at the given time, dialectical materialism for the first time imparts to this science the “strictness” of which her sister – the science of nature – would often boast over her. It may be said that the science of society is itself becoming a natural science: “notre doctrine naturaliste d’histoire,” as Labriola justly says. But this does not mean that he merges the sphere of biology with the sphere of social science. Labriola is an ardent opponent of “Darwinism, political and social,” which “has, like an epidemic, for many years invaded the mind of more than one thinker, and many more of the advocates and declaimers of sociology,” and as a fashionable habit has even influenced the language of practical men of politics.

Man is without doubt an animal connected by ties of affinity to other animals. He has no privileges of origin; his organism is nothing more than a particular case of general physiology. Originally, like all other animals, he was completely under the sway of his natural environment, which was not yet subject to his modifying action; he had to adapt himself to it in his struggle for existence. In Labriola’s opinion races are a result of such – direct – adaptation to natural environment, in so far as they differ in physical features – as, for example, the white, black and yellow races – and do not represent secondary historico-social formations, that is to say, nations and peoples. The primitive instincts of sociability and the first rudiments of sexual selection similarly arose as a consequence of adaptation to natural environment in the struggle for existence.
But our ideas of “primitive man” are merely conjectures. All men who inhabit the earth today, like all who in the past were observed by trustworthy investigators, are found, and were found, already quite a long way removed from the moment when man ceased to live a purely animal life. The Iroquois Indians, for example, with their maternal gens studied and described by Morgan had already made a comparatively big advance along the road of social development. Even the present-day Australians not only have a language which may be called a condition and instrument, a cause and effect of social life – are not only acquainted with the use of fire, but live in societies possessing a definite structure, with definite customs and institutions. The Australian tribes have their own territory and their art of hunting; they have certain weapons of defence and attack, certain utensils for the preservation of supplies, certain methods of ornamenting the body; in a word, the Australian already lives in a definite, although to be sure, very elementary, artificial environment, to which he accordingly adapts himself from earliest childhood. This artificial social environment is an essential condition for all further progress. The degree of its development serves as a measure of the degree of savagery or barbarism of all other tribes.
This primary social formation corresponds to what is called the prehistory of man. The beginning of historical life presumes an even greater development of the artificial environment and a far greater power of man over nature. The complex internal relations of societies entering on the path of historical development are by no means due to the immediate influence of natural environment. They presuppose the invention of certain implements of labor, the domestication of certain animals, the ability to extract certain metals, and the like. These implements and means of production changed in very different ways in different circumstances; they showed signs of progress, stagnation, or even retrogression, but never have these changes returned man to a purely animal life, that is, to a life directly influenced by the natural environment.

“Historical science has, then, as its first and principal object the determination and investigation of this artificial foundation, its origin, its composition, its changes and its transformations. To say that all this is only a part and prolongation of nature is to say a thing which by its too abstract and too generic character has no longer any meaning.”

Critical as he is of “political and social Darwinism,” Labriola is no less critical of the efforts of certain “amiable dilettantes” to combine the materialist conception of history with the theory of universal evolution, which, as he harshly but justly remarks, many have converted into a mere metaphysical metaphor. He also scoffs at the naivete of “amiable dilettantes” in trying to place the materialist conception of history under the patronage of the philosophy of Auguste Comte or Spencer: “which is to say that they wish to give us for our allies our most open adversaries,” he says.

The remark about dilettantes evidently refers, among others, to Professor Enrico Ferri, the author of a very superficial book entitled Spencer, Darwin and Marx, which has been published in a French translation under the title Socialisme et science positive.

V

Thus, man makes history in striving to satisfy his needs. These needs, of course, are originally imposed by nature; but they are later considerably modified quantitatively and qualitatively by the character of the artificial environment. The productive forces at man’s disposal determine all his social relations. First of all, the state of the productive forces determines the relations in which men stand towards each other in the social process of production, that is, their economic relations. These relations naturally give rise to definite interests, which are expressed in Law. “Every system of law protects a definite interest,” Labriola says. The development of productive forces divides society into classes, whose interests are not only different, but in many – and, moreover, essential – aspects are diametrically antagonistic. This antagonism of interests gives rise to conflicts, to a struggle among the social classes. The struggle results in the replacement of the tribal organisation by the state organisation, the purpose of which is to protect the dominant interests. Lastly, social relations, determined by the given state of productive forces, give rise to common morality, the morality, that is, that guides people in their common, everyday life.

Thus the law, the state system and the morality of any given people are determined directly and immediately by its characteristic economic relations. These economic relations also determine – but indirectly and mediately – all the creations of the mind and imagination: art, science, etc.
To understand the history of scientific thought or the history of art in any particular country, it is not enough to be acquainted with its economics. One must know how to proceed from economics to social psychology, without a careful study and grasp of which a materialist explanation of the history of ideologies is impossible.
That does not mean, of course, that there is a social soul or a collective national “spirit,” developing in accordance with its own special laws and manifesting itself in social life. “That is pure mysticism,” Labriola says. All that the materialist can speak of in this case is the prevailing state of sentiment and thought in the particular social class of the particular country at the particular time. This state of sentiment and thought is the result of social relations. Labriola is firmly persuaded that it is not the forms of man’s consciousness that determine the forms of his social being, but, on the contrary, the forms of his social being that determine the forms of his consciousness. But once the forms of his consciousness have sprung from the soil of social being, they become a part of history. Historical science cannot limit itself to the mere anatomy of society; it embraces the totality of phenomena that are directly or indirectly determined by social economics, including the work of the imagination. There is no historical fact that did not owe its origin to social economics; but it is no less true to say that there is no historical fact that was not preceded, not accompanied, and not succeeded by a definite state of consciousness. Hence the tremendous importance of social psychology. For if it has to be reckoned with even in the history of law and of political institutions, in the history of literature, art, philosophy, and so forth, not a single step can be taken without it.
When we say that a given work is fully in the spirit of, let us say, the Renaissance, it means that it completely corresponds with the then prevailing sentiments of the classes which set the tone in social life. So long as the social relations do not change, the psychology of society does not change either. People get accustomed to the prevailing beliefs, concepts, modes of thought and means of satisfying given aesthetic requirements. But should the development of productive forces lead to any substantial change in the economic structure of society, and, as a consequence, in the reciprocal relations of the social classes, the psychology of these classes will also change, and with it the “spirit of the times” and the “national character.” This change is manifested in the appearance of new religious beliefs or new philosophical concepts, of new trends in art or new aesthetic requirements.
Another thing to be borne in mind, in Labriola’s opinion, is that in ideologies a very important part is often played by the survivals of concepts and trends inherited from earlier generations and preserved only by tradition. Furthermore, ideologies are also influenced by nature.
As we already know, the artificial environment very powerfully modifies the influence of nature on social man. From a direct influence, it becomes an indirect influence. But it does not cease to exist for that. The temperament of every nation preserves certain peculiarities, induced by the influence of the natural environment, which are to a certain extent modified, but never completely destroyed, by adaptation to the social environment. These peculiarities of national temperament constitute what is known as race. Race exercises an undoubted influence on the history of some ideologies – art, for example; and this still further complicates the already far from easy task of explaining it scientifically.

Chapter Six

We have set forth in fair detail, and, we hope, accuracy, Labriola’s view that social phenomena depend on the economic structure of society, which, in its turn, is determined by the state of its productive forces. For the most part, we are in full agreement with him. But in places his views give rise to certain doubts, concerning which we would like to make a few remarks.
To take the following point to begin with. According to Labriola, the state is an organisation for the rule of one social class over another or others. That is so. But it scarcely expresses the whole truth. In states like China or ancient Egypt, where civilised life was impossible without highly complex and extensive works for the regulation of the flow and overflow of big rivers and for irrigation purposes, the rise of the state may be largely explained by the direct influence of the needs of the social productive process. There can be no doubt that inequality, in one or another degree, existed in these countries even in prehistoric times, both within the tribes that went to constitute the state – which often differed completely in ethnographical origin – and among the tribes. But the ruling classes we meet with in the history of these countries held their more or less exalted social position owing to the state organisation called into being by the needs of the social productive process. There is scarcely room for doubt that the Egyptian priestly caste owed their supremacy to the highly important part which their rudimentary scientific knowledge played in the system of Egyptian agriculture. (One of the Chaldean kings says “I have mastered the secrets of the rivers for the benefit of man…I have led the waters of the rivers into the wilderness; I have filled the parched ditches with them…I have watered the desert plains; I have brought them fertility and abundance. I have turned them into habitations of joy.” For all its boastfulness, this is a fairly accurate description of the role of the oriental state in organising the social process of production.) In the West – where Greece, of course, must be included – we do not observe that the direct needs of the social process of production, which there did not entail any extensive social organisation, had any influence on the rise of the state. But even there the appearance of the state must in a large measure be attributed to the need for a social division of labour called forth by the development of the social productive forces. This, of course, did not prevent the state from being at the same time an organisation of the rule of a privileged minority over a more or less enslaved majority. (Just as in certain cases it did not prevent it from being an outcome of the conquest of one people by another. Force plays a big part in the replacement of old institutions by new. But force can in no way explain either the possibility of such a replacement or its social consequences.) But it must not be lost sight of under any circumstances, if an incorrect and one-sided idea of the historical role of the state is to be avoided.
And now let us examine Labriola’s views on the historical development of ideologies. We have seen that in his opinion this development is complicated by the action of racial peculiarities and by the influence exercised on man by his natural environment generally. It is a great pity that our author did not think it necessary to support and explain this opinion by any illustrations; it would have made it easier for us to understand him. At any rate, it is clear that it cannot be accepted in the form in which he expounds it.
The American redskin tribes do not, of course, belong to the same race as the tribes which in prehistoric times inhabited the Greek archipelago or the Baltic coast. It is beyond question that in these different localities primitive man experienced the influences of the natural environment in very different ways. It might have been expected that these different influences would be reflected in the rudimentary art of the primitive inhabitants of the localities mentioned. Yet we do not observe this to be the case. In all parts of the earth, however much they may differ from each other, we find similar stages in the development of art corresponding to similar stages in the development of primitive man. We know of the art of the Stone Age and of the art of the Iron Age; but we do not know of any distinctive arts of the different races: white, yellow, etc. The state of the productive forces is reflected even in details. For example, in pottery ornamentations we first meet only with straight and broken lines: squares, crosses, zigzags, etc. This form of ornamentation was borrowed by primitive art from the even more primitive handicrafts: weaving and plaiting. In the Bronze Age, with the appearance of the art of working metals, which are capable of assuming all sorts of geometrical shapes, we observe the appearance of curved ornamentations. And, lastly, with the domestication of animals, their figures, and especially the figure of the horse, make their appearance.
To be sure, in the depictions of human beings, the influence of racial features was bound to affect the “ideals of beauty” peculiar to the primitive artists. We know that every race, especially in its early stages of social development, considers itself the most beautiful, and rates very highly the features that distinguish it from other races. But, firstly, the influence of these peculiarities of racial aesthetics – as far as they have any permanency at all – cannot alter the course of development of art; and, secondly, these peculiarities themselves have only a temporary durability, lasting, that is, only as long as certain definite conditions prevail. When a tribe is forced to admit the superiority of another, more developed, tribe, its racial complacency tends to disappear and gives place to an imitation of alien tastes which were formerly considered ridiculous or even shameful and disgusting. Here we find occurring to the savage what occurs to the peasant in civilised society, who at first scoffs at the manners and dress of the town-dweller, and then, with the growing supremacy of the town over the country, tries to copy them to the best of his ability.
Passing to historical nations, we must first point out that in relation to them the word race cannot and should not be used at all. We do not know of any historical nation that can be regarded as racially pure; each of them is the product of an extremely lengthy and intense process of interbreeding and intermingling of different ethnic elements.
Now try, after this, to determine the influence of “race” on the history of the ideologies of any nation! At a first glance it seems that nothing could be simpler and more correct than the idea that natural environment influences national temperament and, through temperament, the history of the nation’s intellectual and aesthetic development. But if Labriola had only recalled the history of his own country, he would have been convinced of the erroneousness of this idea. The modern Italians are surrounded by the same natural environment as that in which the ancient Romans lived, yet how unlike is the “temperament” of our modern tributaries of Menelik to the temperament of the stern conquerors of Carthage! If we were to undertake to explain the history of Italian art, for example, by the Italian temperament, we should very soon be confronted by the baffling question why this temperament, for its part, varied so profoundly at different times and in different parts of the Apennine Peninsula.

VII

The author of the “Essays on the Gogol Period in Russian Literature” says in one of his commentaries to the first volume of J. S. Mill’s work on political economy: “We would not say that race has no significance whatever; the development of the natural and historical sciences has not yet reached such perfection of analysis as to enable us in most cases to say unreservedly: here that element is absolutely lacking. For all we know, this steel pen may contain a particle of platinum; it cannot be denied absolutely. All we can say is that chemical analysis shows that this pen contains such a quantity of undoubtedly steel particles that the portion of its composition that might consist of platinum is perfectly negligible; and even if such a portion did exist, it could be ignored for all practical purposes.... As far as practical action is concerned, you may treat this pen as you would steel pens in general. In just the same way, pay no attention in practical affairs to people’s race; treat them simply as people.... It may be that the race of a nation did have some influence in determining that its state today is what it is, and no other; it cannot be denied absolutely, historical analysis has not yet achieved mathematical and absolute accuracy; like present-day chemical analysis, it still leaves a small, a very small, residuum, which demands more subtle methods of investigation, methods that are still unavailable in the present state of science. But this residium is very small. In the determination of the present state of any nation, such a large part was due to the action of circumstances that are in no way dependent on inherent tribal characteristics, that even if such peculiar qualities differing from general human nature do exist, the place left for their action is very small, immeasurably, microscopically small.”
We were reminded of these words when reading Labriola’s views on the influence of race on the history of man’s spiritual development. The author of the “Essays on the Gogol Period” was interested in the significance of race chiefly from the practical standpoint, but what he says should likewise be constantly borne in mind by those who are engaged in purely theoretical inquiries. Social science will gain greatly if we at last abandon the bad habit of attributing to race everything that seems incomprehensible in the spiritual history of a given nation. It may be that racial characteristics did have some influence on its history. But this hypothetical influence was probably so minute that it were better in the interests of the inquiry to regard it as nonexistent and to consider the peculiarities observed in the development of the given nation as the product of the special historical conditions in which that development took place, and not as a result of the influence of race. Needless to say, in quite a number of cases we shall be unable to indicate what exactly were the conditions that gave rise to the peculiarities in which we are interested. But what does not yield to the methods of scientific investigation to-day may well yield to them tomorrow. As to references to racial characteristics, they are inconvenient because they terminate the investigation just at the point where it should begin. Why is the history of French poetry unlike the history of German poetry? For a very simple reason: the temperament of the French nation was such as not to permit of the rise of a Lessing, or a Schiller, or a Goethe. Well, thanks for the explanation; now it’s all perfectly clear.
Labriola, of course, would have said that nothing was further from his mind than explanations of this sort, which explain nothing. And that would be true. Generally speaking, he is fully aware of their utter futility, and he also knows very well from what side a problem like the one we have instanced should be approached. But by granting that the spiritual development of nations is complicated by their racial characteristics, he ran the risk of leading his readers gravely astray and betrayed a readiness to make, even if only in minor particulars, certain concessions to the old way of thinking that are prejudicial to social science. It is against such concessions that our remarks are directed.
When we say that the view we are contesting as to the influence of race on the history of ideologies is an old one, it is not without good reason. It is nothing but a variation of a theory which was very prevalent in the last century, and which endeavoured to explain the whole course of history by the characteristics of human nature. This theory is absolutely incompatible with the materialist conception of history. According to the new view, the nature of social man changes as social relations change. Consequently, the general characteristics of human nature can offer no explanation of history. But although an ardent and convinced believer in the materialist conception of history, Labriola also granted – if only in a very small degree – some truth to the old view. But it is not for nothing that the Germans say: “Wer A sagt, muss auch B sagen.” Having granted truth to the old view in one instance, Labriola had to grant it in others too. Need it be said that this combination of two diametrically opposite views was bound to impair the harmony of his world outlook?

VIII

The organisation of any given society is determined by the state of its productive forces. As this state changes, the social organisation is bound sooner or later to change too. Consequently, it is in a state of unstable equilibrium wherever the social productive forces are developing. Labriola quite rightly remarks that it is this instability, together with the social movements and the struggle of social classes to which it gives rise, that preserves man from mental stagnation. Antagonism is the principal cause of progress, he says, repeating the thought of a very well-known German economist. But right away he makes a reservation. It would be a great mistake, in his opinion, to suppose that men always and in all cases have a proper understanding of their situation and clearly perceive the social tasks with which it confronts them. “To suppose that,” he says, “is to suppose the improbable and, indeed, the unreal.”
We would request the reader to pay careful attention to this reservation. Labriola develops his thought as follows:

“Forms of law, political acts and attempts at social organisation were, and they still are, sometimes fortunate, sometimes mistaken, that is to say, disproportionate and unsuitable. History is full of errors; and this means that if all were necessary, granted the relative intelligence of those who have to solve a difficulty or to find a solution for a given problem, if everything in it had a sufficient reason, yet everything in it is not reasonable, in the sense which the optimists give to this word. To state it more fully, the determining causes of all changes, that is to say the modified economic conditions, have ended, and end, by causing to be found, sometimes through tortuous ways, the suitable forms of law, the appropriate political orders and the more or less perfect means of social adjustment. But it must not be thought that the instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal has been manifested, or is manifested, definitely and simply, in the complete and clear understanding of all situations, and that we have left only the very simple task of following the deductive road from the economic situation to all the rest. Ignorance – which, in its turn, may be explained – is an important reason for the manner in which history has proceeded; and, to ignorance we must add the brutishness which is never completely subdued, and all the passions, and all the injustices, and the various forms of corruption, which were and are the necessary product of a society organised in such a way that, in it, the domination of man over man is inevitable.

From this domination falsehood, hypocrisy, presumption and baseness were and are inseparable. We may, without being utopians, foresee as we do in fact foresee, the coming of a society which, developing from the present society and from its very contrasts by the laws inherent in its historic development, will end in an association without class antagonisms...But that is the future and it is neither the present nor the past... Regulated production will eliminate from life the element of chance which, thus far, has been revealed in history as a multiform cause of accidents and incidents.”There is a good deal of truth in all this. But, fantastically interwoven with error, truth itself here assumes the form of a not altogether felicitous paradox.
Labriola is undoubtedly right when he says that men do not always by far have a clear understanding of their social situation and are not always properly aware of the social tasks to which it gives rise. But when, on this basis, he talks of ignorance or superstition as being the historical cause of many forms of social life and many customs, be himself unwittingly reverts to the view point of the enlighteners of the eighteenth century.
Before speaking of ignorance as an important reason “for the manner in which history has proceeded,” he should have defined the precise sense in which this word may here be used. It would be a great mistake to think that this is self-evident. No, it is far from being as evident or as simple as it seems. Take France of the eighteenth century as an example. All intelligent representatives of the third estate had a burning desire for liberty and equality. In furtherance of this aim they demanded the abolition of many antiquated social institutions. But the abolition of these institutions implied the triumph of capitalism, which, as we now know very well, can scarcely be called the kingdom of liberty and equality. It may therefore be said that the lofty aim of the philosophers of the last century was not attained. It may likewise be said that the philosophers were unable to indicate the means for its attainment; and they may therefore be accused of ignorance, as they actually were by many utopian socialists.
Labriola himself is astonished at the contradiction between the real economic tendencies in France in those days and the ideals of its thinkers. “A singular spectacle and a singular contrast!” he exclaims. But what is there singular in it? And wherein lay the “ignorance” of the French enlighteners? Was it in the fact that their idea of the means of achieving universal happiness was not the same as ours today? But, after all, there could be no question of such means in those days – they had not yet been created by man’s historical movement, or, more correctly by the development of his productive forces. Read Malby’s “Doutes, proposes aux philosophies economistes,” read Morelli’s “Code de la nature,” and you will find that in so far as these writers differed with the great majority of the enlighteners as to the conditions of human happiness, and in so far as they dreamed of the abolition of private property, they, firstly, came into obvious and crying contradiction with the most vital and general needs of the people of their times, and, secondly, vaguely conscious of this, they themselves regarded their dreams as utterly unrealisable. And, therefore, we once more ask – wherein lay the ignorance of the enlighteners? Was it in the fact that, while realising the social needs of their times and indicating the proper means of satisfying them (abolition of the old privileges, etc.), they attached an entirely exaggerated significance to these means, that is, as a way towards universal happiness? That is not such a preposterous ignorance; and, taking the practical view, it must even be admitted that it had its uses, for the more the enlighteners believed in the universal value of the reforms they demanded, the more energetically they were bound to fight for them.
Undoubtedly, the enlighteners betrayed ignorance in not being able to find the thread connecting their views and aspirations with the economic condition of France at that period, and not even suspecting that such a thread existed. They looked upon themselves as exponents of absolute truth. We know today that there is no such thing as absolute truth, that everything is relative, that everything is dependent on the conditions of time and place; but precisely for that reason, we should be very cautious in judging the “ignorance” of various historical periods. Their ignorance, to the extent that it is manifested in their characteristic social movements, aspirations and ideals, is also relative.

IX

How does law arise? It may be said that all law represents the supersession or modification of an older law or custom. Why are old customs superseded? Because they cease to conform to the new “conditions,” that is, to the new actual relations in which men stand towards each other in the social process of production. Primitive communism disappeared owing to the development of productive forces. However, productive forces develop but gradually. Hence the new actual relations of man to man in the social process of production also develop but gradually. And hence, too, the restrictiveness of the old laws or customs, and, consequently, the need to provide a corresponding legal expression of the new actual (economic) relations of men, also develop but gradually. The instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal usually follows in the wake of these actual changes. If old laws hamper a section of society in attaining its material aims, in satisfying its urgent wants, it will infallibly, and with the greatest ease, become conscious of their restrictiveness: this requires very little more intelligence than is necessary for the consciousness that tight shoes or heavy weapons are uncomfortable. But, of course, from being conscious of the restrictiveness of an existing law to consciously striving to abolish it is a very far cry. At first men simply try to get round it in each particular case. Let us recall what used to happen in our country in large peasant families, when, under the influence of nascent capitalism, new sources of earnings arose which were not equal for all members of the family. The customary family code thereupon became restrictive for the lucky ones who earned more than the others. But it was not so easy for these lucky ones to make up their minds to revolt against the old custom, and they did not do so all at once. For a long time they simply resorted to subterfuge, concealing part of their earnings from the elders. But the new economic system grew gradually stronger, and the old family life more and more shaken: those members of the family who were interested in its abolition grew bolder and bolder; sons more and more frequently separated off from the common household, and in the end the old custom disappeared and was replaced by a new custom, arising out of the new conditions, the new actual relations, the new economics of society.
Man’s cognition of his situation more or less lags as a rule behind the development of the new actual relations which cause that situation to change. But it does keep in the wake of the actual relations. Where man’s conscious striving for the abolition of old institutions and the establishment of a new legal system is weak, there the way for the new system has not yet been properly paved by the economics of the society. In other words, in history, lack of clear cognition – “the blunders of immature thought,” “ignorance” – not infrequently signifies only one thing, namely, that the object to be cognised, that is, the new, nascent things, is still but poorly developed. And obviously, ignorance of this kind – lack of knowledge or understanding of what does not yet exist, of what is still in process of becoming – is only relative ignorance.
There is another kind of ignorance – ignorance of nature. That may be called absolute ignorance. Its criterion is nature’s power over man. And as the development of productive forces signifies the increasing power of man over nature, it is clear that any increase in productive forces implies a diminution in absolute ignorance. Natural phenomena which man does not understand and therefore cannot control give rise to various kinds of superstition. At a certain stage of social development, superstitions become closely interwoven with man’s moral and legal ideas, to which they then lend a peculiar hue. (Mr. M. Kovalevsky, in his “Law and Custom in the Caucasus,” says: “An examination of the religious beliefs and superstitions of the Ishavs leads us to conclude that, beneath the official cover of Orthodox religion, this people is still at the stage of development which Tylor has so happily called animism. This stage, as we know, is usually marked by the decided subordination of both social morality and law to religion.” (Vol. II, p. 82.) But the fact of the matter is that, according to Tylor, primitive animism has no influence either on morals or on law. At this stage of development “there is no reciprocal relation between morality and law, or else this relation is only embryonic... The animism of the savage is almost completely exempt from that moral element which in the eyes of civilised man is the essence of every practical religion.... Moral laws have their own special foundation, etc.” Hence it would be more correct to say that religious superstitions become interwoven with moral and legal ideas only at a certain, and relatively high, stage of social development. We very much regret that we are unable from considerations of space to show here how this is explained by modern materialism.) In the process of the struggle – called forth by the development of the new actual relations of men in the social process of production – religious views often play a very important part. Both the innovators and the conservatives invoke the aid of the gods, placing various institutions under their protection or even claiming that they are an expression of divine will. It goes without saying that the Eumenides, whom the ancient Greeks regarded as the upholders of the mother right, did as little in its defence as Minerva did for the triumph of the power of the father, which was supposedly so dear to her heart. Men simply wasted their time and effort in calling upon the aid of gods and fetishes; but the ignorance which made belief in the Eumenides possible did not prevent the Greek conservatives of the time from realising that the old legal system (or, more precisely, the old customary law) was a better guarantee of their interests. Similarly, the superstition that permitted the innovators to base their hopes on Minerva did not prevent them from realising the inconvenience of the old order of life.
The use of the wedge in the cutting of wood was unknown to the Dayaks of Borneo. When the Europeans introduced it, the native authorities solemnly banned its use. That evidently was a proof of their ignorance, for what could be more senseless than refusing to use a tool that helps to lighten labour? But just think a little, and you win perhaps grant that there may have been extenuating circumstances. The ban on the employment of European tools was probably one manifestation of the struggle against European influences, which were beginning to undermine the old aboriginal order. The native authorities had a vague apprehension that if European customs were introduced, not a single stone of that order would be left standing. For some reason the wedge was more suggestive in their minds of the destructive power of European influences than any other European implement. And so we find them solemnly prohibiting its use. Why precisely was it the wedge that came to be the symbol of dangerous innovations in their eyes ? To that question we may furnish a sufficient answer; we do not know why the wedge associated itself in the minds of the natives with the idea of the danger that menaced their old form of life; but we can say with certainty that the natives were perfectly right in fearing for the stability of their old order. European influences do very rapidly and very seriously impair – if not altogether destroy – the customs of the savages and barbarians who fall beneath their sway.
Tylor tells us that while the Dayaks publicly condemned the use of the wedge, they nevertheless used it when they could do so in secret. Here you have “hypocrisy” added to ignorance. But why? It was evidently due to a recognition of the advantages of the new method of cutting wood, accompanied, however, by a fear of public opinion, or of prosecution by the authorities. Thus we find the instinctive wisdom of the reasoning animal criticising the very measure for which it itself was responsible. And it was right in its criticism, for prohibiting the use of European tools by no means meant eliminating European influences.
We might borrow Labriola’s expression and say that in this instance the Dayaks adopted a measure which was unsuitable and disproportionate to their situation. We would be perfectly right. And we might add to Labriola’s remark that people very often devise measures that are disproportionate and unsuitable to their situation. But what follows? Only that we must try to discover whether some sort of dependence does not exist between this kind of mistake and the character or degree of development of man’s social relations. Such a dependence undoubtedly does exist. Labriola says that ignorance may be explained in its turn. We say: not only can it be explained, but it should be explained, if social science is capable of becoming a strict science at all. If “ignorance” may be attributed to social causes, then there is no point in citing it, there is no point in saying that it explains the enigma why history proceeded thus and not otherwise. The answer lies not there, but in the social causes that gave rise to it and lent it one form rather than another, one character rather than another. Why restrict your investigation by simply talking about ignorance, which explains nothing?
Where a scientific conception of history is concerned, for the investigator to talk of ignorance only testifies to his own ignorance.

X

All positive law is a defence of some definite interest. How do these interests arise? Are they a product of human will and human consciousness? No, they are created by man’s economic relations. Once they have arisen, interests are reflected in one way or another in man’s consciousness. In order to defend an interest, there must be consciousness of it. Hence every system of positive law may and should be regarded as a product of consciousness. It is not man’s consciousness that calls into being the interests that the law protects, and, consequently, it is not man’s consciousness that determines the content of law; but the state of social consciousness (social psychology) in the given era does determine the form which the reflection of the given interest takes in the mind of man. Unless we take the state of the social consciousness into account we shall be absolutely unable to explain the history of law.
In this history, it is always essential to draw a careful distinction between form and content. in its formal aspect, law, like every ideology, is subject to the influence of all, or at least of some of, the other ideologies: religious beliefs, philosophical concepts, and so on. This in itself hinders to some extent – and sometimes to a very large extent – the disclosure of the dependence between men’s legal concepts and their mutual relations in the social process of production. But that is only half the trouble.
The real trouble is that at different stages of social development a given ideology is subject to the influences of other ideologies in very unequal degrees. For example, ancient Egyptian, and partly Roman, law was under the sway of religion; in more recent history law has developed (we repeat, and request it to be noted, that we are here speaking of the formal aspect) under the strong influence of philosophy. Philosophy had to put up a big fight before it succeeded in eliminating the influence of religion on law and substituting its own influence. This fight was nothing but a reflection in the realm of ideas of the social struggle between the third estate and the clergy, but, nevertheless it greatly hampered the formation of a correct view of the origin of legal institutions, for, thanks to it, these institutions seemed to be the obvious and indubitable product of a struggle between abstract ideas. It goes without saying that, generally speaking, Labriola perfectly realises what kind of actual relations are concealed behind such a conflict of concepts. But when he comes to particulars, he lays down his materialist weapons in the face of the difficulties of the problem and considers it possible, as we have seen, to confine oneself to adducing ignorance or the power of tradition as an explanation. What is more, he speaks of “symbolism” as the final cause of many customs.
It is true that symbolism has been a factor of no little importance in the history of certain ideologies. But as the final cause of customs it will not do at all. Let us take an example like the following. Among the Ishavs of the Caucasus it is the custom for a woman to cut off her braid of hair on the death of a brother, but not on the death of her husband. This is a symbolical act; it is a substitution for the older custom of self-immolation on the grave of the dead man. But why does the woman perform this symbolical act on the grave of a brother and not on the grave of her husband? Mr. Kovalevsky says that this feature “can only be regarded as a survival from those remote times when the chief of the clan – which was united by its real or imaginary descent from a woman, the foremother of the clan – was the oldest descendant on the mother’s side, the nearest cognate.” It therefore follows that symbolical acts are comprehensible only when we understand the meaning and origin of the relations they symbolise. How do these relations arise? The answer to this question must not be sought, of course, in symbolical acts, although they may sometimes furnish useful clues. The origin of the symbolical custom by which a woman cuts off her braid on the grave of a brother is to be explained by the history of the family; and the explanation of the history of the family is to be sought in the history of economic development.
In the case with which we are concerned – when the woman cuts off her braid on the grave of a brother – this rite has survived the form of kinship to which it owed its origin. There you have an example of that influence of tradition of which Labriola speaks. But tradition can only preserve what already exists. It not only fails to explain the origin of the given rite or of the given form in general, but even fails to explain its preservation. Force of tradition is a force of inertia. When examining the history of ideologies we are often constrained to ask ourselves why a particular rite or custom should have survived when not only the relations to which it owed its origin, but other cognate customs or rites which originated in the same relations, disappeared. That is equivalent to asking why the destructive effect of the new relations spared just this particular rite or custom while eliminating others. To answer this question by talking about the force of tradition is nothing more than reiterating the question in an affirmative form. How are we to get out of the difficulty? By turning to social psychology.
Old customs begin to disappear and old rites to break down when men enter into new reciprocal relations. The conflict of social interests finds expression in a conflict between the new customs and rites and the old. No symbolical rite or custom, taken by itself, can influence the development of the new relations either positively or negatively. If the conservatives passionately uphold the old customs, it is because in their minds the idea of an advantageous, precious and customary social system is firmly associated with the idea of these customs. If the innovators detest and scoff at these customs, it is because in their minds the idea of these customs is associated with the idea of restrictive, disadvantageous and objectionable social relations. Consequently, the whole point lies in an association of ideas. When we find that a particular rite has survived not only the relations which gave rise to it, but also cognate rites that arose from these same relations, we have to conclude that in the minds of the innovators it was not so strongly associated with the idea of the old, detested order as other customs were. Why so? To answer this question is sometimes easy, but at others it is quite impossible for lack of the necessary psychological data. But even when we are constrained to admit that the question is unanswerable – at least, in the existing state of our knowledge – we must nevertheless remember that the point does not lie in the force of tradition, but in definite associations of ideas produced by definite actual relations of men in society.
The history of ideologies is to a large extent to be explained by the rise, modification and breakdown of associations of ideas under the influence of the rise, modification and breakdown of definite combinations of social forces. Labriola has not given this side of the question all the attention it deserves. This is clearly shown in his view of philosophy.

XI

According to Labriola, in its historical development, philosophy partly merges with theology and partly represents the development of human thought in relation to the objects which come within the field of our experience. In so far as it is distinct from theology, it is occupied with the same problems as scientific investigation, in the proper sense of the term. In doing so, it either strives to anticipate science, by offering its own conjectural solutions, or simply summarises and submits to further logical elaboration the solutions already found by science. That, of course, is true. But it is not the whole truth. Take modern philosophy. Descartes and Bacon held that it was one of the most important functions of philosophy to multiply our scientific knowledge in order to increase man’s power over nature. We accordingly find that in their time philosophy was occupied with the same problems as formed the theme of the natural silences. It might, therefore, be thought that the solutions it furnished were determined by the state of natural science. But that is not quite the case. Descartes’ attitude to certain philosophical questions, as, for example, the question of the soul, cannot be explained by the state of the natural sciences in those days; but this attitude can be well explained by the social state of France at the time.
Descartes made a strict distinction between the sphere of faith and the sphere of reason. His philosophy did not contradict Catholicism; on the contrary, it endeavoured to confirm some of its dogmas by new arguments. In this respect it was a good reflection of the sentiments of Frenchmen at that period. After the prolonged and sanguinary conflicts of the sixteenth century, a universal desire for peace and order arose in France. In the realm of politics, this desire was expressed in a sympathy for the absolute monarchy; in the realm of thought, it was expressed in a certain religious tolerance and an anxiety to avoid all controversial questions that might recall the recent civil war. These were religious questions. So that they might be avoided, a line of demarcation had to be drawn between the realm of faith and the realm of reason. That, as we have said, was what Descartes did. But this demarcation was not enough. social peace demanded that philosophy solemnly admit the truth of religious dogma. And through Descartes this, too, was done. That is why the system of this thinker, although at least three-quarters materialistic, was sympathetically greeted by many ecclesiastics.
A logical sequel to the philosophy of Descartes was the materialism of La Mettrie. But idealistic conclusions might have been drawn from it just as readily. And if the French did not do so, there was a very definite social reason for it, namely the hostility of the third estate to the clergy of eighteenth-century France. Whereas the philosophy of Descartes sprang from a desire for social peace, the materialism of the eighteenth century was the herald of new social upheavals.
It will be seen from this alone that the development of philosophical thought in France is to be explained not only by the development of natural science, but also by the direct influence of developing social relations. This is revealed even more clearly when the history of French philosophy is carefully examined from another angle.
Descartes, as we already know, held that the chief purpose of philosophy was to increase man’s power over nature. The French materialists of the eighteenth century held that their prime duty was to replace certain old concepts by new ones, on which normal social relations might be erected. The French materialists made practically no mention of increasing the social forces of production. That is a highly important difference. What was it due to?
The development of productive forces in France in the eighteenth century was being severely hampered by the antiquated social relations of production, by archaic social institutions. The abolition of these institutions was absolutely essential for the further development of the productive forces. And it was in their abolition that the whole meaning of the social movement in France of that period lay. In philosophy, the necessity for this abolition found expression in a struggle against antiquated abstract concepts which had sprung from the antiquated relations of production.
In the time of Descartes these relations were still by no means antiquated; like the social institutions which had sprung from them, they were not hindering but facilitating the development of productive forces. Hence it never occurred to anybody to abolish them. That is why philosophy set itself the direct task of increasing productive forces, this being the prime practical task of the nascent bourgeois society.
We say this in objection to Labriola. But it may be that our objection is superfluous, that he merely expressed himself inaccurately, while at bottom being in agreement with us. We should be very glad if it were so; it is pleasant to have intelligent people agree with you.
And if he did not agree with us, we would regretfully repeat that this intelligent man is mistaken. In doing so we might be furnishing our subjectivist old gentlemen with an excuse for one more jibe to the effect that it is difficult to distinguish the “authentic” adherents of the materialist conception of history from the “unauthentic.” But our reply to the subjectivist old gentlemen would be: “they are jeering at themselves.” Anybody who has properly grasped the meaning of a philosophical system can easily distinguish its true adherents from the false. If our friends the subjectivists had taken the trouble to ponder over the materialist explanation of history, they would have known themselves who are the authentic “disciples,” and who are the impostors that take the great name in vain. But since they have not taken that trouble and never will, they must of necessity remain in perplexity. That is the common fate of all who fall behind and drop out of the marching army of progress.
Incidentally, a word about progress. Do you recall, dear reader, the days when the “metaphysicians” were abused, when the textbooks of philosophy were “Lewes” and partly Mr. Spasovich’s “manual of criminal law,” and when, for the benefit of “progressive” readers, special “formulas” were invented, so simple that even a child of tender age might understand them? What glorious days those were! But they are gone, they have vanished like smoke. “ Metaphysics “ is again beginning to attract Russian minds, “Lewes” is going out of use, and the celebrated formulas of progress are being universally forgotten. Today it is very rare even for the subjectivist sociologists themselves – now grown so “venerable “ and “hoary” – to recall these formulas. It is noteworthy, for instance, that nobody recalled them even when there was apparently a most urgent need for them, namely when the argument was raging whether we could turn from the path of capitalism to the path of utopia.
Our utopians used to hide behind the skirts of a man who, while advocating his fantastic “popular industry,” at the same time claimed to be an adherent of modern dialectical materialism. Dialectical materialism, turned into a sophistry, thus proved to be the only weapon in the hands of the utopians worthy of any attention. In view of this, it would be very useful to discuss how “progress” is regarded by the adherents of the materialist conception of history. To be sure, this question has been repeatedly discussed in our press. But, firstly, the modem materialist view of progress is still not clear to many, and, secondly, in Labriola’s book it is illustrated by some very happy examples and explained by some very correct arguments, although, unfortunately, ft is not expounded systematically and fully. Labriola’s arguments should be supplemented. We hope to do so at a more convenient opportunity. Meanwhile it is time to draw to a close.
But before laying down our pen, we would once more request the reader to remember that what is known as economic materialism, against which the objections – and very unconvincing ones at that – of our friends the Narodniks and subjectivists are directed, has very little in common with the modern materialist conception of history. From the standpoint of the theory of factors, human society is a heavy load which various “forces” – morality, law, economics, etc – drag each in its own way along the path of history. From the standpoint of the modem materialist conception of history, the whole thing assumes a different aspect. It turns out that the historical “factors” are mere abstractions, and when the mist surrounding them is dispelled, it becomes clear that men do not make several distinct histories – the history of law, the history of morals, the history of philosophy, etc. – but only one history, the history of their own social relations, which are determined by the state of the productive forces in each particular period. What is known as the ideologies is nothing but a multiform reflection in the minds of men of this single and indivisible history.

***American Pyscho #247 –With Dial 1119 In Mind

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Yah the kid, Marshall Lloyd to give him a name, a name that you might recognize if you were from Los Gatos out on the coast during World War II, the big one, the one where lots of guys did lots of things, screwy and heroic, some before they were able to shave. Marshall drew the screwy card, no, the crazy-ass pyscho card, the card drawn by a long line of guys in the great American night, especially the western no more land to move on from night where everything got bottled up and a spring got sprung sometimes. And I, Guy Lowe, should know since I covered more than my fair share of these wacko deeds as a stringer reporter for the Los Gatos Gazette in my time including Marshall’s first episode, his first bid to be the king hell king of the bizarre western edged night. I was there when they finally did him in, the cops bringing in the whole damn force to take him down, and keep him down.

This Lloyd kid maybe started out like a million other kids, no worse, no better, when his number came up in the big human tide that was World War II. But somehow they, the guys down at the induction center walked very gingerly around this kid and told him no way that this man’s army needed a kid who was as unhinged as Marshall although they never told him that in so many words. He might have flipped out right there and then on them. But Marshall was a guy, an over-focused guy to be kind, who did not take lightly the notion that he was not fit for military service and so he went out to prove the point by killing about six good citizens of Los Gatos figuring in his own twisted mind that action would show his ability as a stone-cold killer. So, yah, I was there when old Doc Levine of all people, the cop shrink, at trial, pleaded for the kid’s life, saying he was too mixed to be responsible for his actions. Now Doc didn’t want him sprung, ever probably, but he also didn’t want him up in Q either. He got the judge to send him up to Santa Lora, the big insane asylum for serious crazy criminal guys to see if he could get straightened out even if he never could get out again.

But see that is where guys like Doc, do-gooders really although they usually mess more stuff up than they correct in the end, was not wise to what this Marshall kid was all about. He didn’t have a clue that the army rejection triggered a lot of stuff in Marshall, a lot of resentment, against the world, Los Gatos, and eventually especially Doc. Doc, the guy that saved his damn neck. So Marshall spent a couple, maybe three years, letting that army stuff fester inside him, diluted himself that instead of an average psycho he was some kind of military hero, some kind of guy who should be feted not locked up. In short he wanted a word with Doc about stuff. And so in the course of things he escaped from that mental institution and headed back to Los Gatos to do, do whatever.

Here’s where I blame the coppers though. They never figured once they got word that Marshall had flown the coop that the kid would just take a convenient bus back to town. They had it all figure that he was going to blow up north somewhere, maybe Frisco and melt into the crowd, so they were blindsided when the word got out that Marshall had killed the bus driver at the Los Gatos bus station for the gun he carried on board in case things got dicey. He, the bus driver, never knew what hit him as Marshall walked away, clear away without any muss or bother, no regrets. Yah, it was starting again, the stone-cold killer doing what he did best, or maybe the only thing he did.

See he was searching back for Doc, first at his office where he got a “no go” and then at his apartment, again a “no go.” Then the kid spied the old Oasis bar, a place where he had been humiliated one night during that last spree when a soldier who knew what Marshall had been talking about concerning his efforts with the troops over in Europe was hooey and drew a couple of slugs out in the back alley for his efforts. That same night, at that same bar, that the serviceman was wasted with no remorse and left out back, some girl, a girl that Marshall had known over at the high school and was performing barmaid services there, laughed at him when he asked her, maybe innocently, for a date. She soon learned as we all did that laughing at Marshall was not good for one’s health. After the joint closed down he followed her up the street, dragged her into an alley, waited for some passing cars to make enough noise going by to mute the sound and put a couple in her as well.

So Marshall knew the joint, knew that he needed to go there to wait for Doc and see what was going on, keeping off the prying eye cops streets until he could talk to his man. Of course staking out a corner seat, alone, in a sparely populated on an off night presented its own problems. Especially when Jimmy Jacks, the hustling shuffling bartender trying to hustle a few drinks, and a few tips, to keep the landlady off his back tried to pitch a few whiskey sours Marshall’s way. Worse the joint as a draw particularly for the Friday night fight crowd had a big screen television set on for the patrons. Old Jimmy Jacks made the mistake of turning the channels to the local news periodically while Marshall was doing his waiting. In one segment the damn thing blasted Marshall’s escape and murder of the bus driver all over the screen so Marshall did what any self-respecting psycho would do-take some hostages against the inevitable police onslaught.

It had been a light night, the usual slow Monday night after the blizzard of business on the weekend, but there were five bar-flies there that night, five patrons who wished maybe they had stayed home or been elsewhere that night. See Jimmy Jack, after a while, recognized the kid and was ready to call the cops, maybe with the idea of some reward in his head, when Marshall came up behind him, turned him around, and placed a pair of slugs between his eyes. No more land lady troubles for one ex-bartender James Jacks, and no reward either. Needless to say the bar-flies panicked when Jimmy went down trying to flee the place like rats on a sinking ship But Marshall had the situation well in hand, as well as having that little gun with a goodly supply of ammo and Jimmy face down on the floor and so they succumbed to Marshall’s very pointed argument .

With the hostages in hand he called the coppers looking for Doc, looking for him and threatening if Doc was a no show then the hostages were done for, one by one. Given Marshall’s history who wanted to argue the finer points of that premise, certainly no the cowering almost hysterical men and women being held hostage. One of the guys, an older guy who remembered Marshall’s last spree, asked to go to the restroom to relieve himself and Marshall just laughed at him

The head of the hostage rescue operation, Inspector Grant, called Doc, called Doc to get him to talk to Marshall and maybe let the hostages go after it became apparent that Marshall was not going to come out alone, was not going to do anything but kill each patron in turn, and was more than willing to take a cop or two down in the process. And so, and I will give it to old Doc that he had some courage, some courage to his convictions, because he went right into the Oasis and talked to Marshall, or tried to. See Marshall couldn’t see where Doc wanted him to go about his army fantasy, to confess that he was a reject, he just wouldn’t let the military hero thing go. Doc was determined that he wouldn’t let him keep his illusions. But we know already, already know by heart, that Marshall was stone-cold on that issue and so Doc bought a pair of slugs right in the heart.

And with that last gasp effort the cops decided the only way to deal with Marshall was blast him out, literally with dynamite, and to try to save as many hostages as possible. The cops drew a break in their efforts because one of the bar patron’s, a middle- aged woman, a regular, knew that Jimmy Jack had a gun behind the counter that the kid never checked for. So between the blast and the bravery of one patron they finally, mercifully, got one Marshall Lloyd dead six ways to Sunday. And I got a king hell of a story. See I was one those hostages, one of those not brave hostages, the guy that asked to go to the toilet because he was scared witless and I ain’t afraid to admit it. But what a story about the life and times of another American psycho bursting into flames I wrote for the Gazette.

Tuesday, July 09, 2013

***The Gas Wars, Circa 1964-When The Souped-Up Car Ruled The North Adamsville Night-With The “Boss Man’s” ’57 Chevy In Mind

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class of 1964, comment and question:
How much did it cost for a gallon of gasoline in 1964? In the interest of "speaking" to the wider North Adamsville Graduate audience that might pick this comment up on Facebook just pick your year of graduation and guess from there.

Oil at $100 a barrel. Gasoline over three dollars per gallon at the pump (this was originally written in September, 2011 in case you pick this up later). No, do not worry, this is not intended to be the start of a political screed about the need to bring the “Seven Sisters” oil monopolists to heel or to break up the international oil cartels, although those are very good ideas. At the beginning of this series of commentaries about the old days in North Adamsville I promised that I would not be political, at least not overtly so. So that is political aspect is no help here. All I want to ask today is whether, through the mist of time, you remember how much gasoline cost when you went to "fill 'er up" in high school.

Now this question requires some honesty on your part. Please, no Googling the Adamsville Ledger or The Boston Globe to search their archives of the time. Nor should you use a graphic calculator to factor back the effect of the rate of inflation on oil since 1964 to come up with an answer. Dear readers, this is not some torturous calculus problem. What you basically need to do is to remember some numbers from when you were daydreaming out the window in study hall at old North Adamsville High. Maybe in between thinking away the hours about that certain she (or he) a couple of rows over and how, well, how you would like to get acquainted with her (or him) or what was up for Saturday when your true corner boy “boss man,” Sid Hemmings, came by to pick you up in his “boss” (hence the Boss Man nickname) ’57 Chevy and you went “cruising” into the great teenage Adamsville Beach night. Or maybe you spotted those numbers when you went out the door, assuming you survived opening that fortress-like door while still thinking about that certain she (or he) whom you almost had enough courage to talk to after class today but only got to a meaningful look, onto North Main Street after school.

What is this guy talking about with all these study hall and looking out the window references? Just this. Unless you were a total grind and always had your nose in a book then the answer merely requires that you had looked out the window. Directly across the street, across North Main Street, from the school were two gas stations (I believe somewhere near the mass transportation depot parking lot and the MacDonald's are now if you have been in the old town recently) that were always in competition with each other. They, and I am not making this up for I do not have such a vivid imagination, actually were having very public price wars to bring in customers by REDUCING the price of their gas. But enough hints. Your answers, please?

No comment on the 1964 North Adamsville gas wars night would be complete without reference to the manner in which we got the dough to pay for said gas. A lot of kids then got it from mom or pop reflecting the more affluence post-World War II times when the old parents has enough dough to spare for a kid to own his or her own car, and have a gas money allowance to boot. Even in working class North Adamsville. Others, like me and most of my corner boys, my Salducci’s Pizza Parlor night corner boys, walked, hitchhiked or borrowed the “old man’s” car (or that of an older brother) for a be-bop Saturday night romp. That is until I met up with the “Boss Man” mentioned above. Sid Hemming’s, who lived just down the end of my dead-end street, had a ’57 Chevy that he was always working on (and when he wasn’t working on it was riding around, usually with a bevy of girls before the night was over, down that now famous Adamsville Beach night).

For a couple of years he took me in tow. The price, well the price was that I was “in charge” of filling up his tank when it was empty. In short, paying for gas to be “cool.” Since I was poorer than a church mouse and never heard of such a thing as an allowance until somebody told me about them that meant taking my hard-earned money from caddying up at the local private golf course to fill the damn thing. And those golfer guys whether they had dough or not, and they usually did, were cheap when it came caddie pay-off time. A primer in capitalist economics, I guess. So you know, roughly, that gas could not have cost too much. Still, you are duty-bound to guess.

Of course, buying the gas got me nothing when it came to the girls that filled the other seats of Sid’s souped-up car. Well usually got me nothing, that is. See they, most of them prime A-one foxes, only had eyes for Sid, or more correctly Sid’s ’57 Chevy. Hell they were one in the same. Now Sid, whatever his mechanical wizard abilities with an automobile motor were, and I will be kind here, had nothing for looks. Even “cute” was a stretch. And even more of a stretch was that “cute” when Sid was seriously into his auto repair work and smelled of oils, cigarettes and whiskey. Still the girls (read: young women) actually came up to him looking for a ride and, well, just leave it as "and." The way it worked is that once the car filled up with girls I was out the door. No problem, well no problem on those few occasions when he left me down at the beach (Adamsville Beach, if you didn’t know), with one of his “cast-offs.” A cast-off being something like some older girl’s sister whom she was kind stuck baby-sitting for and wanted to ditch to have a minute’s passion with Sid, or so that is what I heard they were doing. All I know is that I could hear that old Chevy roaring down the end of the street with Sid at the wheel and one last “pick of the evening” sitting tight next to him. Yah, that was Sid’s way, always Sid’s way.

Bradley Manning Trial-Day 16

Col. Morris Davis: GITMO Files could not harm the U.S., info was publicly available: trial report, day 16

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By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. July 9, 2013.

Col. Morris Davis (drawn by Clark Stoeckley — click for his upcoming book)

Col. Morris Davis (ret.), the former Guantanamo Bay chief prosecutor whom the defense qualified as an expert yesterday, testified about the Detainee Assessment Briefs (DABs) that Bradley Manning released and that WikiLeaks published as the GITMO Files.
In preparation for this case, Col. Davis reviewed the DABs alongside open-source information, including government-released Assessment Review Board (ARB) and Combatant Status Review Board (CSRT) documents, movies such as The Road to Guantanamo, articles, legal litigation, books, and interviews with the detainees.
Col. Davis found almost all of the significant information in the DABs elsewhere, testifying that without the DAB he could construct a nearly verbatim copy based solely on the open-source information. Therefore, he doesn’t see how their release could the harm the United States. He said that more complete information was released by the Pentagon itself, and if the enemy wanted a strategic or tactical advantage, the DABs were not the documents to look at.
Other than causing embarrassment to the country that it was released,” he said, “I don’t see the enemy could gain anything of value from reading the detainee assessment.”
This testimony is important for the Espionage Act charges, the 18 U.S.C 793(e) offenses, in which the government claims Manning released documents that he had “reason to believe … could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation.”
As a prosecutor, Col. Davis and others referred to the DABs dismissively as “baseball cards,” as they only included biographical data. The government challenged the analogy, saying the DABs included detainees’ terrorist-organization affiliations and other important information. But Col. Davis replied that the analogy was merely intended to connote the DABs’ minimal value.
Were the Guantanamo Files “closely held”?
Whether these DABs were “closely held” is another key point of contention for the Espionage Act charges, in which the government claims Manning released “information relating to the national defense.” Prosecutors must prove the DABs were closely held in order to meet that threshold. The defense argued that because so much of the information was publicly available before the release, including information made available by the government, the judge cannot consider them to be closely held.
But prosecutors said that under military justice, the judge should be allowed to consider only government-released information – i.e., none of the movies, books, or articles, and only the ARBs and CSRTs – when determining whether documents were closely held.
The defense countered that since prosecutors used the nongovernmental publicly released information in their cross-examination, it should be considered under a military exception.
The government claimed that a D.C. circuit ruling issued this morning in U.S. vs. Stephen Kim is directly relevant to this issue, but hasn’t yet provided it to the court.

Cassius Hall (left) and Charles Ganiel (drawn by Clark Stoeckley — click for upcoming book)

Defense security expert reviews War Logs
Cassius Hall, defense security expert and former intelligence analyst, testified about Significant Action reports (SigActs) and how Manning would have used them in his work. The defense qualified Hall as an expert on intelligence analysts and handling of classified information.
Hall examined the 102 charged SigActs in this case and found related information in open sources (e.g., news reports) for 62 of them.
Update: 2nd security expert reviews State Department Cables
Similarly, the defense’s other security expert, Charles Ganiel, reviewed the State Department cables released by WikiLeaks as Cablegate, drawing on his nearly 28 years of military experience as a security specialist. He compared the 125 charged cables with open source material, and found that all but 2 of them had corresponding data. He felt generally that “lot of information was already in the public domain.”
Recessed
The court is now in recess for the night, so the government can examine the reviewed cables, in lieu of a classified session. Ganiel will return to the stand tomorrow. Next on the witness list are one stipulated witness and Harvard professor Yochai Benkler.

Help Free Bradley Manning- Bid On Artwork

Courtroom art auction to raise funds for Bradley’s defense

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The Bradley Manning Support Network is pleased to announce that courtroom artists Kay Rudin, Clark Stoeckley, and Debra Van Poolen are auctioning off artwork which they have produced while observing the court martial of Pfc. Bradley Manning. This week features art from Debra. New items will be added each week so check back often as we lead into the July 27 worldwide call to action!
The online auction will last three weeks, beginning July 9 and ending July 29. Each week new pieces will be added. The auction is timed to lead up to and encompass an International Day of Action on July 27 when people around the globe will demonstrate their support for Bradley. The majority of the money raised in the online auction will be donated to the Bradley Manning Support Network legal defense and publicity funds, as well as promote awareness of the trial for all of the viewers of the auction items. The items in the auction are all pictured below, with links to the ebay sites where bidders can place their bids on and keep track of the artwork for sale.

Original Watercolor Portrait of Private Bradley Manning by Court Artist Debra Van Poolen. Medium: WatercolorBid on me!

Debra Van Poolen

Debra Van Poolen, 44, is an artist, permaculturist and activist. Currently, Debra is taking on the role of courtroom artist, covering each day of the court martial of Bradley Manning for three main purposes. First, due to the mainstream media near blackout of the trial, leaving very few artists to cover the trial, Debra sought to supply the need for more courtroom artists daily recording the important events of this unprecedented occasion in US history. Second, Debra is hoping her drawings will highlight the humanity of each person involved with the trial, especially the vulnerability of the 25-year old Bradley Manning who could face the extreme sentence of life in prison or even the death penalty. Third, Debra intends that each of her drawings and paintings serve as yet another motivation for their viewers and purchasers to promote justice in this court martial.
80 percent of the profits made from the sales in this auction will be donated to the Bradley Manning Support Network to be used for the legal defense fund and publicity of Bradley’s case.

: Original Painting of Ft. Meade Courtrooom Proceedings in US vs. Bradley Manning
Bid on me!

: Manning Court Martial: Def. Atty. Tooman Questions Witness David Shafer
Bid on me!

: Portrait of Pfc. Bradley Manning, Whistleblower and American Hero speaking truth
Bid on me!

: Drawing of Bradley Manning in Pre-trial Hearing by Court Artist Debra Van Poolen
Bid on me!

: Courtroom Drawing of Witness Mark Mander Testifying about Wikileaks Tweet
Bid on me!

: Original Drawing of Judge Col. Denise Lind, presiding in US vs. Bradley Manning
Bid on me!

: Original Portrait Drawing of Bradley Manning in Courtroom by Debra Van Poolen
Bid on me!

: Original Painting of Ft. Meade Courtrooom Proceedings in US vs. Bradley Manning
Bid on me!

***Out In The 1950s Film Noir Night-With Douglas Sirk’s Shockproof In Mind -Take Two

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

Jenny Marsh grew up on the wrong side of the tracks, the 1930s Great Depression wrong side of the tracks that made it a very wrong side, made it much worse wrong side for the ninth child of a drunken father and a hard-pressed mother trying to keep nine growing hungry mouths fed. The drunken father, a carpenter and a good one when sober, had a nasty little habit of spending an inordinate amount of his hard work paycheck, meaning any, at his local Dublin Grille thus creating that hard-pressed mother. Mainly though Jenny’s father by the time she came of age was blur, a ship passing in the night, someone who never hit or abused but also one who never showed any kindness either. The hard-pressed mother, given the circumstances, did not move very far out of that hard-pressed range. And how could she trying to raise nine kids in a small one room cold- water flat in expansive Westminster just outside Los Angeles, learning to dispense some kind of justice and sense of order with the materials at hand. Not succeeding, just flat-out not succeeding and let’s leave that part as is.

So all Jenny knew was wants, all she knew was nots, not this not that, all she knew was cramped spaces and not room to breathe, no room to do anything but claw her way out, claw her way out just as fast as she could. Any way she could. With anybody she could, knowing that if there was a role call count at the Marsh household one child more or less would not be missed. She would not be missed especially since Jenny as the last child was the end of the road on the hand-me-downs. That was the way her sweet young life had played out, kind of the child left behind of the lot and while she never spoke of it one way or the other, never expressed any bitterness about it publicly; she early on saw the writing on the wall and acted accordingly. She kept her thoughts, her emotions, and her angers in check, from the rest of the brood. But any outsider could see, any observant outsider could see, she was holding some flames, some burning desires inside.

At thirteen, not being much of a student, and not having anybody at home looking over her shoulder to see that she attended school one truant day Jenny met Soldier Johnson down at the arcade, down at the Santa Monica pier. Soldier the well-known and feared leader of the biker corner boy gang in Westminster saw her budding womanly figure, her dark blue eyes, her long brown hair and grabbed her up without a second thought (although he was married, very married as she found out later, too much later) and staked his claim to her. Now Soldier liked them young (he married his wife at sixteen, a close shave sixteen), and he liked them exclusive. Unlike some of the other guys on his corner, his low-riders, he did not share his women (and those other women, to be honest, were as likely to like to be shared as not). What was important though is that Soldier could enforce his law, enforce it with a whip-chain if necessary. All it took was one incident to impose his rule. One night he waylaid Spanish Johnny the leader of the tough Mex low-riders just for riding on Fourth Street, Soldier’s turf. And the bloodied and bandaged Spanish Johnny was one tough hombre. So like the man says he was the king hell king of the Westminster night.

All this by way of pointing out Jenny’s initial naïve school- girlish attraction to the Soldier.

Needless to say she lost her virginity to him quickly, practically begged him to make her a women, to make her feel she belonged to someone, some thing. But she also lost, lost in the shuffle of being paid attention too, of the thrilling thought of being some man’s girl, of being a small time boss man’s girl, her moral compass. While Soldier never abused her, never hit her like some of the gang members did with their women, or anything like that he had an evil hold on her, an evil sense of her needs and of her naïve in this wicked old world. After a couple of years of her undying devotion to him he felt no compulsion about pimping her to the squares a few times when he was strapped for cash. Low-rider corner boys have an automatic distaste for nine to five work, actually any work outside of some midnight rip-off so when it is time too cool out when the cop heat is on money is scarce and so out in the streets the women go. In that Soldier universe the exclusive clause is held in abeyance, is let go as an exception. Jenny in love, or just tired of thinking about those home wanting she fled from obliged him as her walking daddy, no questions asked, and while hustling for tricks at the bars in Westminster and later along Hollywood Boulevard, accumulated a few thirty day stays in county for her efforts.

That arrangement went on periodically until Soldier Johnson drew to an inside straight one night, got caught in a jam with some rival chieftain of the Inglewood bikers, a big tough black guy, Midnight Slim, picked up a dime for manslaughter and flew the coop to the Q (San Quentin, if you didn’t know). He left Jenny, who said she would wait for him, wait for as long as it took (that was when she found out he was married, married with two kids, when the prison refused to put her on Soldier’s visitor list) stranded, stranded walking the streets picking up an odd trick or two without the benefit of her walking daddy to protect her. Thus she was picked a couple more times for the thirty day cure. So times were no question tough, although not as tough as hanging around some nine to a room cold water flat at least that is how Jenny scoped the scene. Then Harry came along.

Yes, for the record, Harry picked her up one night on the streets when he had a manly urge and she was walking, walking from hunger, so their romance, and whether you or I see it that way, it was a romance, was not something built from watching some melodramatic movie. But for Jenny Harry had something, had a certain something to hold onto now that Soldier was in the can, and off her radar with that wife thing. See Harry was a college guy, a guy who came from some blueblood family back east that had fallen on hard times and so Harry was left to do the best that he could do. And for Harry the best that he could do, the best that he wanted to do, was to be a gentleman gambler. And for the most part he was good at it. Jenny was enthralled by his manner and be his attentions after that first paid-up night, since her idea, with her narrow experience of men, her low-rider Soldier education, of a good man turned out to be a guy like Harry.

Harry who moreover taught her how to dress, taught her some gentle manners, and taught her how to talk without swearing out every other word. And took serious pains to do what he could so he could be proud to have her on his arm when he was doing his business. Harry was a regular Professor Higgins. Well almost. See Harry took his gentleman gambler job seriously, seriously enough to scorn the idea of working when times were tough, times when lady luck was against him. So now well-dressed, well-mannered, well-spoken from time to time Jenny had to work in some high-end whorehouse, Miss Millie’s over in the Hollywood Hills, that Harry knew of until his luck changed. She didn’t mind, not after all Harry had for done for her, not after he had proven that he was the first man who cared for her, really cared for her. She would do anything for Harry, anything.

And as luck, bad luck, would have it she was taken up on that pledge one night when the other shoe dropped, Harry’s other shoe. It seemed some guy, another gentleman gambler, Frank Little, was spreading the word that Harry’s luck was, well, enhanced, was helped along by a little manipulation. Jenny who couldn’t stand to hear anything like that about her walking daddy in a fit of anger blasted him with a couple of shots in the heart that night, the night he sat at the card table and made his allegations. (A person, who shall remain nameless, who was at the table that night and lost a bundle, later, after all the dust had settled in, told Jenny that Harry actual was dealing from the bottom of the deck that night. That person was not shot for his honestly. By then Jenny was a little cooler in the head). As so for protecting her walking daddy, for protecting her man’s reputation, Jenny drew a dime up at the Women’s Prison in Los Gatos. Harry said her would get her help, get her out somehow, and stand by her. And here‘s the funny thing he did, did stand by her, and did grease enough palms to get her paroled after five years. So it must have been some kind of love Harry carried for Jenny, although you and I might not appreciate the finer points of that love.

But this California parole stuff is a drag. Jenny couldn’t, couldn’t do a million things, including being seen with the likes of Harry. What she could do was get a legitimate job, one approved of by her parole officer, a time-server, John Howard. (That did not stop him, knowing her street-walking past, from grabbing a piece every now and again under threat of shipping her back for no reason, the bastard.) That job, since she had no other known legit skills, had turned out to be serving them off the arm working for Jeff, Jeff Morse, who owned a hash house on the Pacific Coast Highway above Malibu. Jeff, a friend of Howard’s, was supposed to enforce the parole regulations to the letter, to act as Howard’s agent. So for a while, a fairly long while, about a year, there was a tug of war between Jenny and Jeff over her relationship with Harry since she was seeing him on the sly. At one point Jeff, fed up with covering for Jenny, getting pressure from Howard too, had her down at the station all ready to be sent back to Los Gatos so things were dicey. But here is the funny part throughout these tussles Jeff and Jenny were kind of falling for each other, falling hard once Jenny started to see that Harry was all about Harry (with Jeff egging that idea on by reminding her that she did the time for Harry not the other way around). After a few months (and more than a few nights under the sheets over at Jeff’s apartment) they were married.

So Jenny tried to break it off with Harry. But guys like Harry don’t get to be guys like Harry by taking a hit to their pride and pocketbook so Harry threatened to expose, publicly expose, what he knew about her and her whoring days. Jeff would not like that, for sure. That would not fit comfortably in his little white picket fence house with dog and children that he had convinced Jenny they should dream of. So one night, a night very much like the night Frank Little went to his just rewards Jenny put a couple of random slugs in Harry. And that action started a whole cascade of madness once Jenny explained to Jeff what Harry was trying to do. And Jeff bought her story, bought it without rancor. He knew that Jenny could not face another rap, could not expect to do anything but a long stretch if she turned herself in. So he cast his fate with hers, decided they had to flee. So Jeff too became an outlaw, grabbing as much dough from the diner till as he could, as they fled town not sure whether Harry was dead or alive but also not wanting to stay around to find out if he wasn’t.

So they, the pair of them, bummed around up and down the coast, Jeff working odd jobs, and Jenny keeping house, keeping on the move though, waiting, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. And somehow through this entire trauma, maybe seeing how a man actually put himself on the line for her and reacting accordingly, Jenny developed a moral compass, or the one she always had hidden showed up, because she was the one who said they had to go back and face the music. And they did.

Here is how things get a little crazy in human existence though. It turned out that Harry had not died, although for a while it was a close thing. When it came time for Harry to press charges he passed, passed on the chance when he saw the Jeff-Jenny set-up as real. When he saw he was the odd man out. Yes, that Jenny finally drew a break, even if she did come from the wrong side of the tracks.

***On “The Long March” From North Adamsville High School

For Linda, Class of 1964-With Ernesto “Che” Guevara In Mind

Peter Paul Markin, North Adamsville Class Of 1964, comment:

No, this will not be one of those everlasting screeds about the meaning of existent, the plight of modern humankind, or our personal and public trials and tribulations since leaving the friendly confines of North Adamsville High lo those many years ago. My excuse previously was that the class committee officers badgered me into writing that stuff (and one in particular who is, to be honest, obsessive about our opinions and comments. And honestly, as well, I am afraid of retribution so I will not mention her name, or maybe that she is a she, under penalty of death, okay). I have already done that “heavy meaning” road before in this space and, moreover, this class website is a lite-user site and cannot stand that kind of weighty matter. I can hear the collective sighs of relief already. Thanks, fellow classmates.

Nor is this to be an exegesis on the heroic “long march” of the Chinese Red Army in the 1930s, although that is an interesting story. For that you can turn to the old-time journalist Edgar Snow’s eye-witness account, Red Star Over China. Nor will it be about Fidel and "Che's" struggles in the Cuban Sierras that animated some of us in our youth. Today’s entry is much more mundane, although come to think it, in its own way it may have historic significance. The “long march’ in question is the one that some members of the class of 1964 (and 1963) took from North Adamsville High School over to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) in the 7th grade. Those were the days, the post- World War II “baby-boomer” days when the then current facilities at the high school were not enough for the overflow. Older readers from other high schools during that period may have their own stories to tell on this over-crowding subject.

Recently I have sent out a blizzard of e-mails to virtually anyone on the various North Adamsville Alumni class lists that I could, by any stretch of the imagination, call upon to help me out with a problem that I am having. So some of you already know the gist of this entry and can move on. For the rest, here is the “skinny”:

"... I will get right to the point, although I feel a little awkward writing to classmates that I did not know at school or have not seen for a long time. I, moreover, do not want to get tough with senior citizens, particularly those grandmothers and grandfathers out there, but I need your help. And I intend to get it by any means necessary. As you may, or may not, know over the past couple of years I have, episodically, placed entries about the old days at North on our classof 1964 -related Internet site. Some of the entries have come from a perusal of the 1964 Magnet, but, mainly from memory, my memory, and that is the problem. I need to hear other voices, other takes on our experience. Recently I have been reduced to dragging out elementary school daydreams and writing in the third person just to keep things moving. So there is our dilemma.

The question of the “inner demons” that have driven me to this work we will leave aside for now. What I need is ideas, and that is where you come in. In 2010, as you are painfully aware, those of us who went to North Adamsville Junior High (now Middle School) we marked our 50th anniversary since graduation from that august institution. Ouch! So what I am looking for is junior high memories, especially of the “long march” from the high school over to North Adamsville Junior High when we were in 7th grade that I remember hearing much about at the time. I was not at the school at that time, having moved back to North Adamsville in the spring of 1959, so I need to be filled in again. However any story will do. If this is too painful then tell me your hopes and dreams. Hell, I will listen to your frustrations. From back then. I already ‘know’ your nicks and bruises since graduation; we will leave that for another day. Better still write them up and place them on the comment boards on your own.

And what if you decide not to cooperate? Well, then we will go back to that “any means necessary” statement above. Do you really want it broadcast all over the Internet about what you did, or did not do, at Adamsville Beach, Squaw Rock, or wherever I decide to place you, and with whom, on that hot, sultry July night in the summer of 1963? No, I thought not. So come on, let us show future generations of cyberspace-fixated North Adamsville graduates that the Class of 1964 knew the stuff of dreams, and how to write about them. And seek immortality. Friendly regards, Peter Paul Markin.

Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On Lyrics

Sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, 1957
(from the 1957 Sun release)

Come along my baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on
Yes, I said come along my baby, baby you can't go wrong
We ain't fakin', while lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the corn
Woo-huh, come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Well, I said shake, baby, shake,
I said shake, baby, shake
I said shake it, baby, shake it
I said shake, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Oh, let's go . . .(Piano break, guitar rift)

Well, I said come along my baby, we got chicken in the barn,
Whose barn, what barn, my barn
Come along my baby, really got the bull by the horn
We ain't fakin', whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

(Talking break) Easy now. Shake.
Ah, shake it baby
Yeah, you can shake it one time for me

Yeah-huh-huh-ha-ha, Come along my baby,
Whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

(Talking break) Now let's get down real low one time now
Shake, baby, shake
All you gotta do, honey, is kinda stand in one spot
Wiggle around just a little bit, that's what you got
Yeah, come on baby, whole lotta shakin' goin' on.

Now let's go one time
Shake it baby, shake, shake it baby, shake
Woo, shake baby, come on baby, shake it, baby, shake
Come on over, whole lot-ta sha-kin' go-in' on.

The Latest From The Private Bradley Manning Support Network-Free Bradley Manning Now!

Click on the headline to link to the Private Bradley Manning Support Network for the latest information on his case and activities on his behalf .

We of the anti-war movement were not able to do much to affect the Bush- Obama Iraq war timetable but we can save the one hero of that war, Bradley Manning.

From the American Left History Blog, March 28, 2012

Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Fort Meade Maryland On Wednesday April 25th At 8:00 AM - A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner

Markin comment:

Last year I wrote a little entry in this space in order to motivate my reasons for standing in solidarity with a March 20th rally in support of Private Bradley Manning at the Quantico Marine Base in Virginia where he was then being held. I have subsequently repeatedly used that entry, Why I Will Be Standing In Solidarity With Private Bradley Manning At Quantico, Virginia On Sunday March 20th At 2:00 PM- A Personal Note From An Ex-Soldier Political Prisoner, as a I have tried to publicize his case in blogs and other Internet sources, at various rallies, and at marches, most recently at the Veterans For Peace Saint Patrick’s Day Peace Parade in South Boston on March 18th.

After I received information from the Bradley Manning Support Network about the latest efforts on Private Manning’s behalf scheduled for April 24th and 25th in Washington and Fort Meade respectively I decided that I would travel south to stand once again in proximate solidarity with Brother Manning at Fort Meade on April 25th. In that spirit I have updated, a little, that earlier entry to reflect the changed circumstances over the past year. As one would expect when the cause is still the same, Bradley Manning's freedom, unfortunately most of the entry is still in the same key. And will be until the day he is freed by his jailers. And I will continue to stand in proud solidarity with Brother Manning until that great day.
*****
Of course I will be standing at the front gate to the Fort Meade , Maryland on April 25th because I stand in solidarity with the actions of Private Bradley Manning in bringing to light, just a little light, some of the nefarious doings of this government, Bush-like or Obamian. If he did such acts they are no crime. No crime at all in my eyes or in the eyes of the vast majority of people who know of the case and of its importance as an individual act of resistance to the unjust and barbaric American-led war in Iraq. I sleep just a shade bit easier these days knowing that Private Manning (or someone) exposed what we all knew, or should have known- the Iraq war and the Afghan war justification rested on a house of cards. American imperialism’s gun-toting house of cards, but cards nevertheless.

Of course I will also be standing at the front gate of Fort Meade, Maryland on April 25th because I am outraged by the treatment meted out to Private Manning, presumably an innocent man, by a government who alleges itself to be some “beacon” of the civilized world. Bradley Manning had been held in solidarity at Quantico and other locales for over 500 days, and has been held without trial for much longer, as the government and its military try to glue a case together. The military, and its henchmen in the Justice Department, have gotten more devious although not smarter since I was a soldier in their crosshairs over forty years ago.

Now the two reasons above are more than sufficient for my standing at the front gate at Fort Meade on April 25th although they, in themselves, are only the appropriate reasons that any progressive thinking person would need to show up and shout to the high heavens for Private Manning’s freedom. I have an additional reason though, a very pressing personal reason. As mentioned above I too was in the military’s crosshairs as a citizen-soldier during the height of the Vietnam War. I will not go into the details of that episode, this comment after all is about brother soldier Manning, other than that I spent my own time in an Army stockade for, let’s put it this way, working on the principle of “what if they gave a war and nobody came”.

Forty years later I am still working off that principle, and gladly. But here is the real point. During that time I had outside support, outside civilian support, that rallied on several occasions outside the military base where I was confined. Believe me that knowledge helped me get through the tough days inside. So on April 25th I will be just, once again, as I have been able to on too few other occasions over years, paying my dues for that long ago support. You, Brother Manning, are a true winter soldier. We were not able to do much about the course of the Iraq War (and little thus far on Afghanistan) but we can move might and main to save the one real hero of that whole mess.

Private Manning I hope that you will hear us and hear about our rally in your defense outside the gates. Better yet, everybody who reads this piece join us and make sure that he can hear us loud and clear. And let us shout to high heaven against this gross injustice-Free Private Bradley Manning Now!