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p Dear Comrades  

p Allow us first of all to thank our Indian comrades for organising such an important gathering on the occassion of the 175th anniversary of the birth of Karl Marx, the great teacher of the workers and toilers of the world.

p We celeberate the birth of an individual who firstly recognised the world and then decided to change it. Karl Marx’s views and the immence theoretical work carried out by him, changed our world and it will not be an exaggeration to claim that his doctrine have greatly influenced the present generation and will continue to influence generations to come.

p In the turbulent middle of the last century the young Karl Marx was just finishing his doctorate in philosophy (1841). He was greatly influenced by the Bourgeoise revolutions which swept and crushed the feudal system. He was drawn to the, emerging social forces and classes, in particular the industrial workers, the “ Proletariat”.

p In such an atmosphere Karl Marx and his life long companion, Fredrick Engels, whom he met during these years, embarked upon developing a collection of ideas and theses, that has been discused, by philosophers, economists, and social scientists the world over, ever since.

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p Capitalism, that was extending its reign throughout Europe and the world,soon realised the dangers of such a doctrine campaigned against it relentlessly.

p Marx and Engels, influenced by the social upheavals attA relaying on the scientific achievements in the field of phfloSdplty 274 and economy by other materialist philosophers of their era, particularly Hegel, Ludwig Feuerbach and British economists Adam Smith and David Ricardo, were able to overcome the inconsistencies and the weaknesses in these theories and opened a new chapter in the history of human thinking and action.

p In short the overall conditions, objective and historic motivations that existed in Europe in the middle of the last century, demanded a new outlook to life and human history. Marx, by breaking with the "German Philosophy" particularly with Hegel’s approach which was mainly concerned: "not real interests or even political interests but with unique and abstract views...” (1) and developed a new philosophy of history, in which real human beings were the subject matter and was able to make such important conclusions as: "We only recognise one science, the science of history. History could be analaysed from two different aspects; history of nature and human history. But these two aspects have an unbreakable link together and as long as the human race exists the history of the nature and the human history will be dependent on each other..."(2)

p Strong disagreements with Marx’s view were expressed from the early days from various quarters, from Hegel’s students to supporters of Capitalism. Each from its own standpoint declared Marx’s views as “incorrect”, “simplistic” and deemed it to be a failure. In recent years, specially following the process of “ Perestroika” and the eventual downfall of the socialist system in the former Soviet Union and other countries in Eastern Europe, once again the bandwagon against Marx’s teachings, have been on the move. The bourgeois mass media, declared that the end of the Soviet Union signalled the death of “Marxism” and the historic defeat of "Communism." Some others declared that these developments indicated the defeat of “Marxism-Leninism” and the death of "Russian Marxism”, i.e. Leninism. Such views, clearly lack scientific, objective and even logical reasoning and as such are limited to the vast propaganda machinary of the monopoly capital and could not be taken seriously as scientific views.

p In our judgment, the views that Karl Marx and Engels expressed and then later on developed by Lenin, are so encompassing and important, that no one could declare them void or un-scientif ic on the basis of a handful of political events or developments.

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p People who choose such an approach do not explain, which major principle discovered or expressed by Marx is proven wrong by events.

p The main principles of the overall theoretical work carried out by Marx and Engels and later on developed by Lenin, into what we call “Marxism-leninism”, are still correct and in line with the world’ssdentificprogress_/andnoneof the presentsdentific achievement contradicts these theories.

p Our approach towards Marx’s doctrine, at the same time is/not a dogmatic and idealistic or a “religious” type of approach but based on our evaluation of current objective and subjective of the world. We have always tried to adhere to the fact that Marxism without dynamism, evolution and without development will not be able to survive as a true scientific approach and fulfill its historic task of of changing the presents world. Engels in his important work—" Anti-Duhring" clearly stated : "We know fully how comic it will be if we were to claim absolute values for our current views... (3).

p Lenin also frequently emphasised the importance of a scientific approach to Marx’s teachings. He believed : "our world outlook is not a dogma but a guide to our work...”. In his view : "Marx and Engels clearly rejected the methodology which repeats formulas that best defined very ‘general’ aims (aims that are changed under different political and economic conditions). . ."(4).

p A scientific and dynamic approach is of paramount importance to the followers of Marx’s teachings if we are to avoid relegating these teachings to some sort of a "holy book" whose words are not to be changed through out the centuries. As Lenin clearly indicated : "If it is true that everything evolves, then should we not apply this law to the most general meanings of human thinking? If we answer no, then we should also believe that human thinking itself is not related to life. . . "(5).

p In contradiction to the idealist approach and those who believe in “absolute” values, we have always distanced ourselves from it and have tried hard to avoid such an approach. Ai wlfr previously, at the same time we could not accept the those who without any in-depth knowledge of the Marxist * trine, dedde to put a cross on it and declare it as null and vdH’.Ti avoid being accused of making hollow claims, it is rrfcessary6/fe 276 briefly discuss some of the most important aspects of Marx’s teachings and gauge its validity against todays’ scientific findings.

p Lenin in one of his most important writtings—"The Three Sources and Three Component parts of Marxism" clearly defined the most important of Marx’s doctorine. He wrote: "The Marxist doctrine is omnipoint because it is true. It is comprehensive and harmonious and provides people with an integral world outlook irreconcilable with any from of superstition, reaction, or defence of bourgeois oppression. It is the legitimate successor to the best that man produced in the nineteenth century, as represented by German philosophy, English political economy and French socialism...’^).

p In other words Lenin correctly divided Marx’s work in three important areas of philosophy, political economy and scientific socialism.

p The philosophical part of Marx’s work which includes dialectical materialism and historic materialism, is an indication of an immense development on previous type of materialism which was chained by mechanical and metaphysical approaches. Marx expanded on the views of materialists before him, particularly the views of Hegel and Feurbach and then used dialectics as the methodology that explains the development of humanity, the perpetual development of matter and as the science of the cognition of the material world, a science that explains the most general laws ruling the movement of matter. Thus Marx succeeded in developing a new philosophical system. Marxist philosophy, as the culmination of the philosophical thinking preceding Marx, succeeded in answering some of the most fundamental questions regarding the living world, its coming into being and its laws and development. All subsequent discoveries in the natural sciences, physics and chemistry helped prove the correctness of his views or have completed them.

p By superimposing dialectical materialism on the human society, Marx discovered and explained the most general laws governing the human society. Recognition and definition of social formations from the coming to existence of the human society, the process of the social formation and development of social life and the laws governing these processes and formations, are the only scientific view explaining the development of various societies and 277 the laws governing these changes. Historical materialism, based on the long experience of human history which goes back to millions of years, studies the formation of social systems, starting from the communes to slavery, feudalism and capitalism. It concludes that this long and uneven road will lead to more advanced formations aiming towards the elimination of injustice, towards socialism and finally communism. None of Marx’s critics have so far been able to explain the process of the development of the human society as conclusively as he did. They have also been unable to claim that the development of human society is halted at the stage of capitalism and further development will occur.

p It was following the discovery that economy is an infra- structure upon which the political superstructure is based that Marx directed his attentions to political economy and the Capital was created.

p The work of Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels in this field was the continuation of the work that classical economists such as Adam smith and David .Ricardo had started in England. Ricardo and Smith were the first economists to study and develop political economy as a science with objective laws, independent of the human will but comprehensible to the human mind. Lenin writes on these British economists : "Classical political economy before Marx arrived in England, the most developed of the capitalist countries. Adam Smith and David Ricardo by their investigations of the economic system, laid the foundations of the Labour Theory of Value. Marx continued their work; he provided a proof of the theory and developed it consistently. He showed that the value of every commodity is determined by the quantity of socially necessary labour time spent on its production."(7)

p This view continues to retain its scientific value and with the progress of political economy, it has developed further in the 20th century. Marxist political economy and the work carried out by Lenin later in explaining the higher stages of capitalism, in the thesis "Imperialism, the highest stage of capitalism,” continue to given an accurate picture of the development of capitalism and its various stages, the developments which naturally neither Marx and Engels, nor Lenin could comment on were the algorithmic advances in technology, the revolution in Information technology throughout the world, the effects of this development in the 278 capitalist system, the intensification or the “reduction” of exploitation and finally some changes in the class structure in capitalist societies and the changes in the classical definition of the “ proletariat” etc. in advanced capitalist systems. It is important to see and understand these changes and take a stance with regard to their effect on the struggle of the working class; this is the task of the communist and international working class movement and unfortunately it must be said that we have in many instances hesitated and fallen short of searching for answers to these pressing political and philosophical questions.

p Another part of the viewsof Marx and Engels called for an end to the exploitation of the capitalist system that is to replace capitalism. Socialist thought before Marx and engels was in the “ primitive” or "Utopian socialism”. It criticised the capitalist society, wished its collapse and hoped for a better system, yet it tried to persuade capitalists that exploitation is immoral. Marx and Engels developed this kind of socialism by learning from the painful defeats of the time. Marx criticlly analyed the events of 1848-1851 in the "18th of Brumer of Louis Bonaparte”; he came to important conclusions regarding social developments, the relationship between the infrastructure and superstructure and the relationship of various social classes and strata with eadh other and in relation to the downfall of the capitalist system. He created a complete picture of the way toward a better social system. Important conclusions such as "the peasants see the proletariat as their natural ally and leader who h^ve the historic task of overthrowing the bourgebp system..."(8) and the conlusion regarding the relationship between subjective conditions and their effect on the society: "Old beliefs and traditions of dead generations are havey burden on our generation.. ."(9) have been implemented to date as a major principle.

p The work of Karl Marx and Engels, followed by the works of Lenin on the definition of the state and later in the portrayal of the role of the state in the socialist system, is another crucial contribution of these thinkers, clearly these views have been formulated in very general frameworks, and after more than seventy years since the start of the process of making of the socialist society, these ideas must be developed or even amended. Neither Marx nor Engels was able to provide an accurate picture of the creation and development 279 of the socialist society especially in the form they took in reality. Their original views regarding the adventof socialist revolutions in advanced capitalist countries was not relevant to the experience of the building of socialism started form a backward European country in one of the most critical times in the history of Europe, immediately after World War I and in the throes of the coming into being of a second world war. This experience contains many lessons and the international communist and working class movement must carefully study it free from dogmatism and prejudice, and learn lessons from it in order to take correct steps when a new opportunity arises.

p During the short time in which Lenin was in a position to be practically involved in the building of the socialist system, drawing from the lessons of the early years he formulated very important views regarding the economic, social and political composition of the socialist system. Unfortunately, these views were later forgotten, leading to negative results for the this initial attempt at building a better social system. In 1921, in his analysis of four years of Bolshevik government, Lenin wrote: this first victory is not yet the final victory and this victory of our October revolution has been achieved with great hardships, difficulties and a numerous number of mistakes and errors that we have committed.. .We are afraid to admit to our mistakes, we will analyse them carefully to learn the ways of overcoming them. We were calculating and have accurately and properly calculated that we would, with the directives of a proletariat government we could implement a communist mode of production and distribution of the state products in a semipeasantry society. Life showed the incorrectness of our approach... (10).

p In understanding and applying Marxism, there are diverse views in the workers and communist movement. But this entire movement and sections of the scientific community (those who approach the issues without political bias) are united in believing that the philosophical, economic and social findings of Marx are of paramount importance inour era. It must be also stated that from a number of aspects these findings are not dearly understood. Some key issues such as the role of ’objective aria subjective" conditions in determining the process of social development and the understanding of this process have often been defined and often analaysed for short term political aims and thitehave thus lost 280 some of their importances as scientific findings. Engels detecting the dangers of such approaches wrote in his imporatant letter to Joseph Bluch in 1890: "Based on historic materialism, the motive force which in the end determines the course of history is production and the reproduction of real life. More than this neither Marx and nor me have stated anything. If somebody misrepresent this fact that the only motive force is economy, this person has changed our view to a menaningless statement It is dear that economy forms the infrastructure, but various aspects of...various forms of political struggle and its effects, the new state machinery which replace an old one after a successful class struggle etc, civil, philosophical and religious forms and their appliance in the forms of dogmas, also leave their marks and in many cases a determine and shape these events...”. Engels correctly emphasised "The fact many people attach more importance to economic factors then its Marx and me are partly to blame. In the need to forcefully state the principles that they were mostly against and in doing so we did not always find the time to emphsise other important factors.. .It is unfortunate but it often happens that people as soonas they learn the general prionciples of a doctrine, and sometimes not even correctly, they believed that they have understood and are able apply it in its entirety...(11).

p In short, Marx’s teachings and the immense theoretical work carried out by him, Engels and Lenin have changed our world greatly and have formed the basis for the advancement of human society, towards a more humane socio-economic formation, a formation where exploitationof man by man will disappear. These important teachings are part of the development and evolution of human thinking in its long search for “Utopia”, but present a more accurate path towards this goal and as such become a powerful weapon in the hand of those forces in the first line of the struggle against the unjust and inhumane capitalist society, towards achieving socialism. From this stand point we value the works and teaching of Karl Marx and reiterate its importance today.

p Dear Comrades!

p Marx’s doctrine, rejected the view that humanity is condemned to an unjust society and opened the path to the future. As Engels said:" Marxism is not a set of ready-made dogmas, but the path and the methodology to research and development...”.

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p Our era demands immense theoritical efforts to develop, adopt and even correct the work done put to now. The present world disorder and the need to free humanity from the chains of wars, poverty and injustice which are the fruits of a capitalist society demand such reponsiblities more than ever before. The world working class and communist movement, as the force at the helm of such a struggle, carries a historic responsobility, to learn from its 7 decades of experience in humanity’s first attempt to build a socialist state, and open the path to future. Left us conclude the discussion with these word from Karl Marx: "Up to now philosophers had the answers in their table drawers...But we will not appear in front of the world, as the founders of a new principle and state that here is the truth! so abide by it! but we apply and develop the new principles for the sake of the world.. ."(12).

p References

p 1. German Philosophy (Collected Work—3rd book P. 39)

p 2. Ibid (Collected Work—3rd book P. 18)

p 3. Engels-Anti Duhring (P. 143)

p 4. Lenin (Collected work—24 P. 33)

p 5. Lenin (Collected work—book 38 P. 241)

p 6. Lenin (Selected Writings—P. 21)

p 7. Lenin (Selected writings—P. 22)

p 8. The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte P. 23

p 9. The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte P. 23

p 10. Prada 18th October 1921

p 11. Engels letter to Joseph Bluch 21-22 September 1890

12. Marx Collected Works 1st book P. 381