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Do you wonder if this would become a pilgrimage spot for communists in the West? 😮Karl Marx monument resurrected in Leipzig Despite concern over the monument, one person in the article had this to say:
But he added that rather than serving as a propaganda piece, the work would now be accompanied by a plaque explaining Marx's huge impact on political thought, for both good and bad.
But couldn't this also be said in regard to Hitler, Stalin, etc.?
Yes these things could be said. However, the urge to commemorate seems particularly strong in the last twenty years or so. I sometimes wonder if Fukuyama was right and we have reached the end of history. We do not seem to commemorate recent history so much as dredging up things farther away and trying to remember the impact we thought they had.
Marx was not an evil sadistic man like Hitler or Stalin. His ideas were corrupted by Lenin, Stalin, and Mao to a greater extremity of evil. Marx should not be villified in their company, so a statue in his honor/memory is justified because he did impact history with his intellectual contributions. If you are going to villify Marx, then you would have to villify Hegel as well because Marx was a student of Hegel and employed some of Hegel's ideas in the construction of his own or as a reaction to them.
I would vilify both, while individually they did not perpetrate the outrages of Marxism, the death and misery of the Communist regimes of the twentieth century is a result of the intellectual heritage they bequeathed the western world. Without them, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and innumerable others would not have had the intellectual capacity to commit such monstrous acts in the name of the PEOPLE. So yes, Hegel and Marx are indirectly responsible for the legacy of their intellectual endeavours.
I would say Hegel much less so than Marx. By ending with a call to action (“Workers of the world, unite!”), Marx's The Communist Manifesto goes much beyond anything that Hegel wrote (as far as I'm aware) which was a systematic explanation of historical progression. Whereas Hegel was concerned with examination of the past, Marx wanted to change the future. I think that separates the two of them.
I would vilify both, while individually they did not perpetrate the outrages of Marxism, the death and misery of the Communist regimes of the twentieth century is a result of the intellectual heritage they bequeathed the western world. Without them, Lenin, Stalin, Mao and innumerable others would not have had the intellectual capacity to commit such monstrous acts in the name of the PEOPLE. So yes, Hegel and Marx are indirectly responsible for the legacy of their intellectual endeavours.
It's worth pointing out that Marx was talking about the potential triumph of the working class in advanced capitalist countries where that class was in the vast majority. Lenin made a revolution in a peasant country where the working class was a tiny minority, but, in fairness, only to spread that revolution into the area originally intended. Stalin took power in a country where that working class had been destroyed/disintegrated as a result of the wars of intervention: he was going entirely against Marx, as was Mao, who was leading peasants from the start. As well blame Hegel for the doings of Hitler, surely, because he saw the Prussian State as the high point of history? And what about a statue for old Engels, while we're at it?
Well then if you guys really feel that way, we must complete our unholy trinity with Friederich Nietzsche who was also an influence on the Nazis and was influenced himself by Hegel.
There has never been a successful Marxist / Communist revolution in an industrialized country (to date)… only agriculturally based societies; the redistribution of the land is the hook. Too bad it is that the land is taken from the rich and given to the new gov't… not the peasants as promised.
Re another thread, The chinese seem to be making a pretty good stab at modifying communism to fit an industrial society. I will admit that China remains predominantly agrarian though.
There was a book by Thomas Friedman from a few years ago in which he talks about the difficulties China will face with its communist government as the economy heads more and more capitalistic. Because it's becoming so heavily enmeshed in international trade, startling or “scary” moves by the Chinese government will retard trade and therefore affect the nation (companies don't like to invest capital in nations which are unstable). Reading between the lines – China's communism won't really work with its capitalism and something might ultimately have to “give”.
I think the Chinese have done a remarkably good job of providing minimal freedoms while still harvesting the industrial and creative talents of their population. I have said it before and I think it still holds true that the Chinese have essentially done what Gorbachev could not. They have maintained control while allowing the economy to grow and giving some of this largesse back to the people. The recently concluded Olympics should leave no doubt about the level of control the Chinese maintain over their own people as well as foreign visitors. The Tibetan troubles in the spring and the Chinese reaction prove that they are still fully capable of doing another Tienamen Square if they think the situation reuires it for them to maintain control. At the heart, the Chinese are Communists and Reagan had it right when he called communism evil, the chinese have taken up the mantle of leader of world communism since the demise of the Soviet reunion. Their support for outlaw nations proves they cannot be trusted to treat with free nations on equal terms.
Communism always resorts to capitialism when the economy flounders, but once things are rosy again, it resorts back to its old ways. After awhile of this hypocracy, communism eventually disintegrates….the only thing preventing this from happening in China is that culturally the Chinese people are meek and dutiful in obedience. Their Buddhist and imperial past perpetuates this cultural domicility.
Don, I don't agree about the meekness of Chinese culture. In America exceptionalism, we think our way is best for the world (personally, I KNOW it is, not think it is) and it's why we take a more missionary approach (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc), and capitalism fits us better. The Sinocentric attitude is more isolationist because they think the rest of the world is just too “barbaric” to understand the Chinese way of life. And if we or anyone else introduces another way to them, such as real global capitalism or start questioning their human rights violations, they feel it is imposing on their already perfect culture. There are exceptions, and I don't think the Chinese completely shun global trade or imperialism, but in general, their culture is theirs and theirs only. Yes, in Africa we're in it for the money and resources, but we're also trying to create democratic forms of government, China is just there to exploit the resources and make money. They don't care about the peoples' well-being.
Don, I don't agree about the meekness of Chinese culture. In America exceptionalism, we think our way is best for the world (personally, I KNOW it is, not think it is) and it's why we take a more missionary approach (Iraq, Afghanistan, etc), and capitalism fits us better. The Sinocentric attitude is more isolationist because they think the rest of the world is just too “barbaric” to understand the Chinese way of life. And if we or anyone else introduces another way to them, such as real global capitalism or start questioning their human rights violations, they feel it is imposing on their already perfect culture. There are exceptions, and I don't think the Chinese completely shun global trade or imperialism, but in general, their culture is theirs and theirs only. Yes, in Africa we're in it for the money and resources, but we're also trying to create democratic forms of government, China is just there to exploit the resources and make money. They don't care about the peoples' well-being.
I could be wrong but it sounds like you and Donnie are saying essentially the same thing in regard to the Chinese people. I would say in general that the Chinese people (or culture that traditionally belongs to them) are “domicile” in the sense that they hold things like personal reflection, balance with nature, and social structure in high regard. Along with their Buddhist past they have a long history with Confucianism and Taoism, which at least from an outsider's perspective appear rather peaceful and tame….almost “Greek-like”. As far as the current Chinese government – well, that's another story, and I think that's what you, Ski, are referring to when you refer to “exploitation”. Having studied an aspect of Chinese history over the summer, I came to realize just how different the country's historical culture is compared to the human rights beast that we hear about in the news these days.
