The stories of Lincoln Brigade veterans have inspired me, and I hope to live with a fraction of their courage. I envy their defense of civil, social and political rights. However, I have thus far been unable to grapple with the Communist idealogy so many of the volunteers believed in. Communism has negative, radical connotations to me despite the fact that I know little about the ideas behind the word. During my research, I pushed the Communist political views of the volunteers to the back of my mind; I tried my best to ignore them. However, Communism played such a major role in the lives of ALB veterans that I have decided to read the Communist Manifesto to gain insight as to what the ideology meant to them, why it seemed attractive at the time, and whether or not it merits consideration as a political philosophy.
Part 1: Bourgeois and Proletarians
This chapter outlined the basic flaws of capitalism: The exploitation of the worker and the inability of the worker to advance himself and escape poverty; the cutthroat attitude that pits neighbor against neighbor in a competition for financial survival; the exploitation of non-industrialized nations by industrialized ones. These problems all still exist in one form or another today. On a positive note, union action has greatly improved working conditions, raised the minimum wage, and made employers offer more comprehensive benefits such as health insurance and severance pay. On the other hand, now more than ever small, independent businesses struggle to survive amid the domination of chain stores that use their resources to lower prices and run their competition out of business. Also, US companies like Walmart and KFC exploit workers and resources from China, Africa and other parts of the world in order to make their products as cheap as possible. The concerns of Marx and Engels still apply to today's world.
I was struck by the military imagery that comes up time and time again in the text. Take for example the following paragraph:
"Masses of labourers, crowded into the factory, are organized like soldiers. As privates of the industrial army they are placed under the command of a perfect heirarchy of officers and sergeants."
I do not yet know why the authors chose such a militaristic tone.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I like that you brought up the manifesto's ideology being relevant today, because it surely is. I feel like it was easy to see communism as a comforting, uniting and motivating ideology of a time like the Depression, when it was apparent that many people were suffering. Today, we don't have as apparent a view of those lacking workers rights- like the exploitation you talk about, many people aren't aware of - and so it seems we don't hear as much about this ideology. It's interesting.
ReplyDelete