“The first division of labor is that between man and woman for the propagation of children.” – Marx and Engels in the German Ideology
I have been looking at the text of “Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State” wherein it states in the preamble: “After Marx’s death, in rumaging through Marx’s manuscripts, Engels came upon Marx’s precis of Ancient Society – a book by progressive US scholar Lewis Henry Morgan, published in London 1877. The precis was written between 1880-81 and contained Marx’s numerous remarks on Morgan as well as passages from other sources.”
According to Engels, “Morgan spent a great part of his life among the Iroquois Indians – settled to this day in New York State – and was adopted into one of their tribes (the Senecas)…”
Morgan’s views on the family are peppered throughout Engels treatise on the Family. It is interesting to read what Morgan said about the ‘savages’ with whom he co-habited for so long: “Upon their skill in this direction, the whole question of human supremacy on the earth depended. Mankind are the only beings who may be said to have gained an absolute control over the production of food…. It is accordingly probable that the great epochs of human progress have been identified, more or less directly, with the enlargement of the sources of subsistence.”
Morgan, upon whom Engels relied so heavily, does not sound like a racist (as claimed by some). Despite a number of references to aboriginal people he knew next to nothing about the Australian Race as Edward M Curr referred to aboriginal people in his 4 volumes on their Origin, Languages, Customs, Place of Landing in Australia, and the routes by which they Spread over that continent.
Whatever their European biases and failings both Marx and Engels sound like products of their age. Engels was a toff and managed his father’s factory in Manchester. He gave up ” ‘dinner-parties … and champagne of the middle classes’ and instead spent time talking to the workers. However Engels was horrified by the child labour, environmental damage, low wages, bad conditions, poor health, death rates – and the ‘social and political power of your oppressors.”
The central thesis of the book of how capitalism has brought about the oppression of women through marriage remains relevant today.
Ian Curr
16 Jan 2023
Here is Humphrey McQueen on Engels and same sex marriage:
There is no skating around the fact that on the question of same-sex love, Engels was as much a product of his time as he accused the German Philistines of being in regard to all sexual matters. Here he is on the Ancient Greeks: “But the degradation of the women recoiled on the men themselves and degraded them too, until they sank into the perversion of boy-love, degrading both themselves and their gods by the myth of Ganymede.“
Thus, what we can conjecture at present about the regulation of sex relationship after the impeding effacement of capitalist production is, in the main, of a negative character, limited mostly to what will vanish. But what will be added? That will be settled after a new generation has grown up: a generation of men who never in all their lives have had occasion to purchase a woman’s surrender either with money or with any other means of social power, and of women who have never been obliged to surrender to any man out of any consideration other than that of real love, or to refrain from giving themselves to their beloved for fear of the economic consequences. Once such people appear, they will not care a rap about what we today think they should do. They will establish their own practice and their own public opinion, comfortable therewith, on the practice of each individual – and that’s the end to it.
Humphrey McQueen,
30 May 2015
[For extracts from Engel’s ‘Origin of the family…’ see https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1884/origin-family/ch02d.htm ]
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Engels and “The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
17 January 2-23
TUESDAY AT 6 PM
Common House, 74B Wickham Street, Fortitude Valley
Can we live in a world without classes and oppression? Some argue no; that war, competition and the subordination of women is natural and it’s been that way since the beginning of time.
Frederick Engels, challenged this view in his book, “The Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State”. Written in 1884 Engels drew on the new science of anthropology and argued that the rise of class society and the oppression of women was a relatively recent event and that for the vast bulk of humanity’s 150,000 year history we lived in classless societies and enjoyed egalitarian relationships. Engels called it “primitive communism” and it reinforced his and Marx’s vision for a future communist society.
This meeting will evaluate Engels’ ideas drawing anthropological and archaeological research done since. Please join us in this discussion.
Event by Solidarity Brisbane and Solidarity
Historically-materialistically speaking, all these revolutions arose out of the objective conditions not the theories of European intellectuals.
Quick trawl – Franz Fannon on Vietnam – ‘It is not because the Indo-Chinese discovered a culture of their own that they revolted. Quite simply it was because it became impossible for them to breathe in more than one sense of the word.”
Fanon, Mao, Fidel/Che, etc had to radically adapt Marxism to their own historical conditions to the point that Marxism became a general symbol of socialism with no relationship to Marxist theory, I doubt if many revolutionary peasants, slaves and indigenous people had read much Marx and Engels. Bolivar and Zapata had much more influence in the Americas than Marx and Lenin did.
Secondary trawl – Marx on Bolivar https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1858/01/bolivar.htm
A parable –
While I have strong sympathies for Rastafarianism, I acknowledge that Haile Selassie’s annexation of Eritrea was colonization so even though his is king of kings he is still a king. That issue aside, Selassie manifested and represented pan-African power and economic independence against European colonization. He was overthrown and assassinated in a Marxist coup that formed a government that committed Ethiopia to foreign development loans and global trade and it remains dominated by the global economic elite. But at least they don’t have a king anymore.
Careful, John, you are doing so much trawling you may end up following the parable of Jesus and the fisherman: “Follow me, and I will make you become fishers of men.”
seek and ye shall find
Dear John,
As you are aware, you are trawling through territory where many have gone before. Searching through works and letters by Marx and Engels to find proof that both were racists. There is little doubt that your quotes from Marx and Engels are racist (if translated correctly and placed in the proper context) . People who come from the Marxist tradition need to acknowledge that.
I draw your and our readers attention to one of the principles of WBT:
“We will not publish racist or anti-worker sentiments.”
I think we should seek a world free of the obscene competition for weapons of mass destruction and free of poverty, illiteracy and inhuman living conditions; a world where the word solidarity is not just an empty phrase but is an animated thing given flesh and breath with new economic and political structures which eliminate human misery and alienation.
Although written more than 170 years ago, the Communist Manifesto by Marx and Engels remains a valid tool of criticism and source of inspiration.
In solidarity,
Ian Curr
Workers of all countries unite!
21 Jan 2023
The central theme of the Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State is racist, no trawling required. This racist theme is the basis for so-called scientific socialism which is reflected in the communist manifesto – “The history of all hitherto existing society [2] is the history of class struggles”.
Engel’s footnote [2] – “ That is, all written history. In 1847, the pre-history of society, the social organisation existing previous to recorded history, all but unknown. Since then, August von Haxthausen (1792-1866) discovered common ownership of land in Russia, Georg Ludwig von Maurer proved it to be the social foundation from which all Teutonic races started in history, and, by and by, village communities were found to be, or to have been, the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organisation of this primitive communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Lewis Henry Morgan’s (1818-1881) crowning discovery of the true nature of the gens and its relation to the tribe. With the dissolution of the primeval communities, society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this dissolution in The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State.
(Didn’t have to trawl too far into the manifesto to get that)
The white workers’ perceptions of their own liberation does not align with black slaves and peasants’ perceptions of their own liberation. This is the racist blindness of Marxism up until today that can only see colonised people as fellow workers and not as the traditional owners of the means of production.
To the oppressed,
and to those who suffer with them
and fight at their side
– Paulo Freire’s dedication in PEDAGOGY of the OPPRESSED
Hello John,
Over a quarter of the people living on the planet were part of revolutions inspired by Marxism:
People’s Republic of China in 1949
February Revolution in 1917 in Russia
26th of July Movement 1959 in Cuba
Allende government in Chile 1970-1973
Just look at this footage of Palmiro Togliatti’s funeral in 1964 in Italy to see workers and peasants ‘perceptions of liberation’.
Communist Parties were influential in the politics of countries like India, Iraq, Lebanon, South Africa and Zimbabwe not to mention these Africans influenced by Marx and Engels:
Kwame Nkrumah (1909-1972)
Govan Mbeki (1910-2001)
Julius Nyerere (1922-1999)
Amilcar Cabral (1924-1973)
Frantz Fanon (1925-1961)
Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961)
Joe Slovo (1926-1995)
Samora Machel (1933-1986)
Chris Hani (1942-1993)
Thomas Sankara (1949-1987)
Walter Rodney (1942-1980).
At first WBT sought to interview Leon Trotsky about John Tracey’s arguments in favour of historical materialism (a big surprise coming from once-was-anarchist, John Nobody, one-of-three gathered together in his name).
John Nobody on the cover of Ciaron’s book
As Leon was busy with the current energy crisis and market failure, we managed to get through to Fred Engels who was on a chance visit to Engelsberg (aka Kalbar, 1 hour west of Ipswich) to see what light he could shine on John’s comments. This is what Fred had to say:
“Since civilization is founded on the exploitation of one class by another class, its whole development proceeds in a constant contradiction. Every step forward in production is at the same time a step backwards in the position of the oppressed class, that is, of the great majority.
Whatever benefits some necessarily injures the others; every fresh emancipation of one class is necessarily a new oppression for another class. The most striking proof of this is provided by the introduction of machinery, the effects of which are now known to the whole world.
And if among the barbarians, as we saw, the distinction between rights and duties could hardly be drawn, civilization makes the difference and antagonism between them clear even to the dullest intelligence by giving one class practically all the rights and the other class practically all the duties.”
When you run into Fred again, ask him what were the dialectical classes on the Australian continent in the last 150,000 years?
p.s. Jesus was a historical materialist.
Dear John,
In the interest of full disclosure, Fred Engels has confessed he had little, if any, knowledge of Australia prior to European colonisation. I received this news overnight through an intermediary* and local resident of Engelsberg (Kalbar)** where Fred is staying with an old uncle.
My informant* is a keen reader and tells me that Marx and Engels wrote a lot about the colonisation of the Americas, the Indian subcontinent and China between 1850 and 1888 but little about Australia. Of course, both Marx and Engels knew about the discovery of gold in Australia in 1851. For example, in 1853, Marx wrote a series of articles on India for the progressive American New-York Daily Tribune. In them he exposed “the profound hypocrisy and inherent-barbarism of bourgeois civilization” [See ‘On Colonialism’ by K. Marx and F. Engels].
Marx and Engels were focussed on the workings of capital in industrial society – not societies in Australia that were based on land. There was no bourgeiosie or working class prior to colonisation in Australia.
Your statement (above) “Engels knew a lot about Australian Aborigines …” is simply incorrect. When Engels was looking after his father’s factory in Manchester in the mid-19th century and learning about class and industrial labour, little, if anything, had been written about Australian civilisation.
My own ancestor Edward M Curr, upon whom the High Court relied upon to deny the Yorta Yorta people native title, did not publish his book The Australian Race – until 1886. Edward M Curr was little more than an amateur anthropologist. For Australian courts to rely upon such material to say that aboriginal people around Echuca lost connection with the land is absurd.
NB: *My informant in Engelsberg who has now retired to Ipswich was formerly an interstate truck driver.
** Engelsberg, situated on Yugambeh land, was once known as Fassifern Scrub. The town was developed in the 1890s. As the name implies Engelsberg has a very rich German history, having been established “almost exclusively” by German settlers, reflected today in the many Anglo-German road and street names as well as the many local German settler descendant surnames.
Prior to the Second World War, in 1937, the German Navy marched through the town to the welcoming applause of its residents. After the war the town did not build an RSL hall preferring to call it a community hall. This was a reaction to suspicions harboured by neighbouring districts about the sympathies of the residents during the war. The town is now called Kalbar and is part of the Scenic Rim shire.
BTW my informant was once a share farmer and potato picker who knew a number of the aboriginal people in the district. They too were potato pickers on farms in the district. It was hard work and a meagre existence. From what I know, his aboriginal friends a well developed political consciousness.
Ian Curr
19 Jan 2023
Yes it was hyperbolic for me to say Fred Knew a lot about Australian Aborigines, please pass on my apology. The point is he knew no less about Australian Aborigines than he knew of people in the Americas which he describes on Morgan’s authority as being in the lower stages of savagery. The issue is not the amount of information that is significant, it is the world view by which the information is interpreted.
I have not read Karl’s writings about the Americas but I assume it aligns with what Fred said Karl would have thought. A mutual friend has discreetly mentioned Karl was a bit rude to Mexicans –
.
“Is it a misfortune that the wonderful California was wrested from the lazy Mexicans, who did not know what to do with it?… All impotent nations must, in the final analysis, be grateful to those who, obeying historical necessities, attach them to a great empire, thus allowing them participation in a historical development which would otherwise be unknown to them. It is self-evident that such a result could not be obtained without crushing some sweet little flowers. Without violence, nothing can be accomplished in history…”
(Marx and Engels, Gesamtausgabe (published by the Institute for Marxism-Leninism of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1959), Vol. 6, pp. 273-271 (Quoted in: Gustavo Beyhaut, Raices de America Latina [Eudeba Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1964], Chapter II, p. 74,
What Fred said – “…we have been spectators of the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced in it. It is progress that a country which, up till now, was concerned exclusively with itself, torn asunder by eternal civil wars and alien to any form of development…should have been propelled, through violence, to historical development. It is in the interest of its own development that it shall, in the future, be placed under the tutelage of the United States. It is in the interest of the whole of America that the United States, thanks to the conquest of California, should achieve mastery over the Pacific Ocean.”
(Deutsche-Brüsseler Zeitung from January 23 1848 (republished in the same source as the above)
Fred said – “My dear Laura, My congratulations to Paul le candidat du Jardin des Plantes—et des animaux. Being, in his quality as a nigger, a degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate representative of that district. Let us hope the animaux will have the best of it in this struggle against the bêtes.” (Marx/Engels Collected Works. Vol. 48. Letters 1887-90. [Engels to Laura Lafargue in Paris. London, 26 April 1887]. pp. 52-54).
The essence of Marxism is historical materialism. To that extent it is correct but its correctness is not a matter of science or ideology, it is a matter of consciousness and ways of seeing – the realization of objective conditions as distinct from the belief in ideation which is the mode of religion and bourgeois liberalism. Marx and Engels betray historical materialism in their belief in the epochs of human evolution which was never anything more than an idea for which European anthropologists scrambled for evidence in the colonies, clutching any straw within their reach to prove their idiosyncratic hypotheses and grossly misinterpreting what they saw to conform to what they thought – they believed in ideation rather than realized objective conditions and called it science, and so did Marx and Engels.
So there!
Interesting comment on facebook about this by John Tracey:
“Engels did not speak of primitive communism pre-existing hierarchy in the Origin of the Family Private Property and the State. He spoke of savagery and barbarism in as racist a way as was common to all Social Darwinists of his time, the so-called new anthropologists. Engels spoke of tribal communism as the next evolution after the socialist state, following the white supremacist social Darwinist myth of evolution from savagery to barbarism to capitalism to socialism and on to tribal communism. The whole framework is inherently racist and dismissive of the evolution of society beyond European cities.
Engels on Australian Aboriginal people, the oldest culture on the planet, in the Origin of the Family Private Property and the State –
“With the invention of the first weapons, club and spear, game could sometimes be added to the fare. But the tribes which figure in books as living entirely, that is, exclusively, by hunting never existed in reality; the yield of the hunt was far too precarious. At this stage, owing to the continual uncertainty of food supplies, cannibalism seems to have arisen, and was practiced from now onwards for a long time. The Australian aborigines and many of the Polynesians are still in this middle stage of savagery today.”
And further on …
Engels knew a lot about Australian Aborigines and other savages around the world including the American ones which he said were more primitively savage than in Australia. Colonial anthropologists had been in America for centuries by that stage. Marx and Engels had for years studied the leading anthropologists of Europe that had conducted first hand field studies of the savages. Marx and Engels based the whole notion of “scientific socialism” on social Darwinism – the evolution through the epochs from savagery to barbarianism to the pinnacle of human society – European urban civilization which Marx and Engels described as the working class and claimed it as the midwife of history to take us to the next evolutionary epoch – socialism. Why weren’t indigenous people the midwifes of history?, they were the bulk of the global population at the time but they were irrelevant to Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin until they had transformed into workers under capitalism It was Marxism’s inherent racism that motivated Lenin to describe peasant ancestral land rights as anachronistic bourgeois propertarianism and seize their land, and motivated Stalin to steal food from and starve to death millions of Ukrainian peasants to feed urban workers and soldiers, even though many of the Ukrainian peasants including the anarchist Makhnovist communes supported the Bolshevik revolution. (in my opinon, Stalin’s betrayal of Makhno is the root cause of the war in Ukraine today, but that is another story).
I think Bruce Pascoe got it wrong by trying to define Aboriginal modes of production by European definitions. He creates a false dichotomy between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalist and even considers hunter-gatherers to be less-evolved than Aboriginal agriculturalists, the racist baggage is there too. Aboriginal attitude to land and Aboriginal modes of production and distribution do not fit any European template.