Marxist Literary Criticism - History

History

Karl Marx is often heralded as a founder of socialism and his studies have provided a basis for much in socialist theory and research. Marx and Friedrich Engels collaborated to produce a range of publications based on capitalism, class struggles and socialist movements.

These theories and ideologies can be found within three published works:

• The Communist Manifesto (* Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859)
• Das Kapital or Capital (1867)

The first publication Communist Manifesto (1848) argues that ‘the history of all hitherto existing societies is the history of class struggle’. As class struggle is the engine room of history, to understand the course of history, one must analyse the class relations that typify different historical epochs, the antagonisms and forms of class struggle embodied in such class relations. This involves the development of class consciousness and follows the revolutionary movements that challenge the dominant classes. It extends to rating the success of these revolutions in developing new modes of production and forms of social organization.

In contrast to the Manifesto, Preface to the Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1859), and Capital (1867) focus on the unfolding logic of a system, rather than class struggle. These provide an alternative account of historical development and emphasize the self-destructive contradictions and law of motion of specific modes of production. The Preface argues that society’s economic organization consists of a distinctive pattern of forces and relations of productions. From this foundation arises a complex political and ideological superstructure, where economic development impacts upon societal progress.

Capital was more concerned with the genesis and dynamic of capitalism. As Mclellan (1971) states, ‘it refers to class struggle mainly in the context of the struggle between capital and labour, within capitalism, rather than over its suppression’. Capital was less concerned with forecasting how capitalism would be overthrown, than considering how it had developed and how it functioned. The key to understanding this logic was the ‘commodity’ form of social relations – a form that was most fully developed only in capitalism.