I've been interested in the discussions regarding cultural criticism and the role of a united consciousness in Marxist thought.
We all know Marx himself decried the proto-Marxism that began to flourish with the convening of the Internationale. Similarly, we may appropriate this revolutionary emancipatory perspective – not adhering directly to Marx as the figurehead of Marxism, as Marxism itself is a human project first and foremost; something to be contributed to through the actions, work, and thought of the revolutionary class struggle along the course of history. It exists not simply as a materialist view of the world, it is a conscious expansion of self-awareness, of the ability of workers, historically the most exploited class within the capitalist system, to form their own path through history and create something concrete, something revolutionary that will stand out as a node within the fabric of time, but will never, under any circumstances, exist on the premise of perpetually reinforcing the old order. It is revolutionary, not only politically, but in abstraction before it is formed into creation. Thus, revolutionary failure is integral to the revolutionary struggle and cannot simply be pushed aside, but examined and celebrated as a path to further development in itself
>(i.e., the Hatian revolution, the betrayal [and subsequent quelling] of the Sparticist revolutionists in Bavaria, the French revolution of May '68, the Chinese Cultural Revolution, the revolutions in Africa during the latter half of the twentieth century, etc). It cannot be argued that the revolution as a whole has failed. We look to the February Bourgeois Revolution in Imperial Russia and the mass suicides of Communists following the July Days. Beyond the failures of the present lie the potential for class struggle later.
Communism, therefore, is not simply an aesthetic – this is why Stalinism and Juche are inherently opposed to Marxism, and why Socialist Realism (the aesthetic fetishism of Stalinist ideology) is similarly counter-revolutionary. This is because of its sharp constraints of free thought behind conception, and its extreme fetishism of a particular, rigid conception of history. This is why Constructivism was revolutionary, with Russian artists playing an integral role in the revolution, in the molding of early Soviet society alongside Lenin's revolutionary theories – constraints were lessened in ord
Post too long. Click here to view the full text.