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1                       P. Govinda pillai Among the finger-numbered young Marxist thinkers of Kerala, p.p. sathyan is in the front-line. His approach towards the problems that Marxism encountered in the new era is explicit even at the outset of his new book, Althusser and the Future of Marxism. The conviction that the author holds throughout the book can be described as follows; The gigantic Tree that is Communism has not been uprooted. But, instead it has only dropped out its sapless branches. The enormous trunk of the Tree is not decaying. It only gave out its dry leaves. Communism has involved in a staunch battle with the present era to regain a further fair and alluring spring. Just as an organic species absorbing the bio-energy for its survival, Marxism is fighting for the resurrection of the emancipation struggles.This struggles, though seem to be silent, are powerful and specifically philosophical. The rays of the red are seen in the day-break of the new millenium of 21st century show that Marxism has been rejuvenating as a robust and transperent philosophy and its symptoms are explicit in different continents of the world. Whoever it may be, remarked that Marxism is the Youth of the time, it is an apt identification of it. There were a lot of instances available for it. The vistas of rising emancipatory forces directly and indirectly are visible to all optimists except the egotists who hold the conviction that everything dies with Me and the vulgar materialists, interpret Marxism as prophetic words. But in order to see those spectacles of the regaining of Marxism, one has to be popped out his cave of darkness. In the 19th century Marxism rose as a revolutionary machine of proletariat. In the 20th century it was rising as a revolutionary spirit of peasants and all working class people. Within the circle of distinctive nationalities, it obliterated the regime of capital and thus beautified the walls of history with the amazing colours of liberation movements. By the late evening of 20th century, the decline of socialist nations became a crucial issue. But the crises can be redeemed. The severity of so called crises shall be receded by reconstructing Marxism with the changing historic contexts and social situations. The same was the potential view that inspired Althusser in his historic interventions. Marxism is not merely a philosophy of practice but the practice of a new philosophy. Lenin said, “without revolutionary theory, there is no revolutionary practice” the philosophy which aims at the revolotionary change of the world should be corrected continually to induce the revolutionary practice. The reconstruction of philosophy is nothing but the reconstruction of revolutionary practice. Both philosophy and practice are to be reconstructed. In order to retain an emancipatory world view it is essential to be transperent, open and creative in the realm of philosophy. Marxism is not a one-way road. Neither it is an icon built of monolithic and immobile rock. Just as Marx and Engels repeatedly emphasized, everything is subjected to change except change. This approach is applicable to Marxism also. Marxism, shall not remain a motionless stone, where Marx and Engels had written. V I Lenin realized it fairely and in order to specify his contribution to Marxism, we call it Marxism-Leninism. What Lenin did was not scrutinizing the limit of the philosophy of Marx or correcting the shortcomings of him. Since the period of Marx and Engels and the publication of their main works, the world capitalism underwent gravious changes. Lenin regarded capitalism as an international and imperialist phenomenon, an offshoot of the expansion of financial capital. By considering all these he formulated the new strategy and tactics of the proletariat. After Lenin, Mao tried to reconstruct Marxism.His version of Marxism,it is said, the synthesis of internationally applicable ideas of Marxism and his own ideas related to the specific conditions of China. But Marxism had not stoodstill there. Ho chi Minh, Antonio Gramsci, Fidel Castro and Che guvera also followed the path of Lenin and Mao to contribute and thereby enliven Marxism which resulted in the growth of Marxism in the world scenario. The Communist parties of India and other nations those are fighting as the oppositional parties to overthrow the bourgeois states and to build up democratic-socialist rule with the leadership of working class and farmers. All these movements shall enrich Marxism. Among these thinkers who facilitated the re-thinking or re-constructing of Marxism, 2 Louis Althusser (1918-1990) and his thoughts and contraversies that he evoked are utmost important. Althusser, had been the member of the central committee of the paramount body of the Communist party of France. It does not mean that he was the official ideologue of the Communist party of France. The contraversies apropos of his thoughts were there when he remained a member of the party. Those contraversies, the French Communist party believed should only strengthen Marxism. When Althusser joined the party in 1948, Morris Thoreau, the General secretary of the Communist party and other leaders expressed magnanimity, tolerance and open- mindedness to the different opinions in the party. At that time the family of Althusser was at Algeria, then a French colony. It was there Althusser was born and completed his school education. From the Ikkol Normal Superior, the outstanding centre of higher education in France Althusser secured graduation and post graduation and he continued to be a lecturer there. At the begining he worked in the youth movement of the catholic religion. But gradually, he bade farewel to the movement. The thoughts of Althusser are not so simple and intelligible to the common class peole. But the gravity of the issues that he raises and the logic behind it fascinated many schollers. Etienne Balibar, Pierre Macherey and other prominent thinkers were also spellbound by him. In this book, sathyan attempts at familarizing the ever-renewing and complex thoughts of Althusser, to the readers of Malayalam. It is a hard mission that he undertook. For Marx, Reading Capital, Montesque, Rousseau, and Hegel are the works of Althusser. There was a political background that inspirited the thoughts of hm. After the demise of Stalin Nikita Crushchev introduced the secret report at the 20th Soviet Communist party Congress in 1956 (It is believed that Crushchev, after announcing it as secret, cunningly publicised it. Copies of the speech of Crushchev were mailed through out Soviet Union and soon reached the West and publicised in the New York Times of US). Consequently, there were mixed responses and immense chaois in the International Communist Movement. Althusser strictly criticized the dogmatism of Stalin. At the same time he publicly expressed his dissent in denouncing Stalin without taking into consideration the constructive elements of the latter. I do not endeavor here to illucidate all stand-points of Althusser. Such things, to some extent, are fulfilled by sathyan himself. But as a writer of foreword one or two points may be given. Some writers differentiate marxism as young marxism and matured marxism. Some argue that matured marxism was the continuation of young marxism, while others claim that matured marxism was the break from young marxism. Some writers flatter the greatness of young marxism and some others denounce the matured marxism as mechanic. Among these two sects Althusser remained at the side of matured marxism. Though there are many works of Marx that exemplify the thoughts of his youth, the keynote one is economic and philosophical manuscript. Marx had not intended to publish it. It consists of the reflections and doubts that crept in to his mind while reading books. It was neither published during the period of him nor in the period of Lenin. It was in the begining of 1930’s when Riassanov, the editor of “Pravda” who confiscated and published it. It is in this manuscript that Marx’s humanism is abundantly unearthed. His commitment to individual freedom, democracy,etc is also explicit in the manuscript. Althusser was against humanism. He held the view that elevating man at the central point of history is incompatible with the scientific logic of social progress. Another question was related to the relationship of Hegelian thought with the Marxian thought. It is generally viewed that the sources of Marxism are German Classical Philosophy, English Political Economy and the French Socialist Ideas. Immanuel Kant, Hegel and Feuer Bach were the classical philosophers. Both Marx and Engels say that they gave birth to the dialectical meterialism as a higher philosophy by assimilating dialectics from Hegel and meterialism from Feuer Bach. In the primary works of Marx, the ‘formula- model eleven ideas’ related to the philosophy of Feuer Bach are explained. Marx did not wish to publish that book. Feuer Bach theses was published only as a supplementary to the book of Engels, entitled, “Feuer Bach and the end of German Classical Philosophy”. It was also published after the death of Marx. Althusser raises the question that if the Feuer Bach theses and the economic and philosophical manuscript are essential in Marxian thought why Marx not published those. 3 Marx once stated that Hegel’s dialectics was distorted and what Marx doing was putting the Hegalian dialectics in the right place. But Althusser points out that it was not so and the philosophy of Hegel represents both Idealism and human-centerd ideas. Consequently Althusser argues Marxism has detachment rather than affinity with Hegelianism. Though there are some ambiguities, felt it, the book authored by pp sathyan fill the void where there is no a complete study on Althusser in Malayalam, except some essays. My congratualtions to the praise-worthy work. translated into english by pp sathyan ppsathyan ppsathyartha@gmail.com 9846488631
 * Marxism is not One-Way Road