‘True Democracy’ as a Prelude to Communism: The Marx of Democracy

255 Pages·2018·3.37 MB·English

by  Alexandros Chrysis (auth.)

Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
‘ T r u e D e m o c r a c y ’
a s a P r e l u d e
t o C o m m u n i s m
THE MARX OF DEMOCRACY
ALEXANDROS CHRYSIS
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
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William Paterson University
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Alexandros Chrysis
‘True Democracy’
as a Prelude to
Communism
The Marx of Democracy
Alexandros Chrysis
Panteion University
Athens, Greece
Political Philosophy and Public Purpose
ISBN 978-3-319-57540-7 ISBN 978-3-319-57541-4 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-57541-4
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To the memory of my mother Zoe and my dearest always
missed Anaxagoras.
To my wife Eugenia and my daughter Zoe.
S e ’ F
erieS ditor S oreword
‘True Democracy’ as a Prelude to Communism:
The Marx of Democracy
The relationship between Marxism and democracy has caused much ink
to be spilt. What is at stake is nothing less than the political dimensions
of Marxist theory and its prospects to serve as a valid and compelling
political theory in present times. Marx’s own ideas about democracy
were complex and were never the subject of prolonged theoretical reflec-
tion. But there is little question that his admiration for the democratic
experiments in France, in his philosophic and historical affinities with
Athenian democracy, and his persistent support for working class par-
ties in parliamentary democracies of his own time attest to his continued
engagement with questions of concrete political relevance. But per-
haps even more, examining Marx’s relation to democracy and his ideas
about the political shape that human society should adopt could show
us ways to overcome the alienation and fragmentation of modernity and
to equip politics with a renewed sense of purpose in an age when lib-
eralism is waning and few progressive alternatives present themselves.
Marx’s youthful ideas about democracy and politics, however, evince a
humanism and emancipatory potential that has received scant scholarly
attention.
Indeed, one reason for this has been the legacy of Soviet Marxism, of
Leninism, Stalinism and the antipathy to ideas about democratic politics
and democracy itself that this tradition has had on Marx’s original ideas.
The traces of this legacy have severely distorted Marx’s nascent ideas on
these questions and they still mark Marxist theory with an anti-political
tinge. But in this important study, Alexandros Chrysis has provided us
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viii SErIES EDITor’S ForEWorD
with an important corrective to this theoretical straightjacket. His basic
claim is that we should see Marx’s ideas about democracy as an out-
growth of his early writings on politics. rejecting Althusser’s coupure
épistémologique and insisting that we see Marx’s mature idea as an out-
growth of his youthful ideas about the ethical aims of human self-devel-
opment, Chrysis argues that Marx’s argument for democratic politics is
a creation of active citizenship that forms a way of life, a vita politica,
for members of the political community. rejecting the liberal separation
between the individual, civil society and the state, Marx instead seeks to
understand the political as constituted by active members of as associa-
tion that promote the common interests of the social whole. This view
of democracy is therefore a thicker one than an Arendtian community of
opinion just as it is more than a participatory mode of politics.
Chrysis sees Marx’s novel ideas about politics as rooted in his youth-
ful republicanism and an insistence on the “rational state” as opposed to
the actually existing state which is a mere instrument for elite economic
interests. This republican idea is one that emphasizes the common good
and interest over the particular interests of the bourgeoisie. In so doing,
Chrysis makes a contribution to seeing Marx and his ideas as integrated
within a radical republican tradition stemming back to Machiavelli and
running through rousseau and Hegel, among others. But he then goes
on to claim that Marx’s ideas evolve into a self-contained political theory,
moving beyond this republican tradition. What concerns the youthful
Marx, even before his turn to communism, is the fragmented and instru-
mental conception of politics that allows for the wealth-defense and its
counter position to a society where politics has been allowed to penetrate
all aspects of life.
The solution becomes the breaking down of the state-civil society
barrier, a true democracy where the state breaks down and the politi-
cal becomes a concern of all members of the association and for the
common end of that association and the individuals that compose it.
No longer will there be a separate state, alienated from the community,
which can be used as a tool for the interests of any segment of the asso-
ciation. What Chrysis proposes is that we see Marx’s idea of democ-
racy as non-reducible to the state form, but instead as woven into the
praxis of engaged solidaristic citizenship. The end of this kind of true
democracy would be the flourishing and development of a free associa-
tion of equals. It would be the realization of politics as an end in itself,
of politics as constituting the shape of this free association of cooperative
SErIES EDITor’S ForEWorD ix
equals that dialectically also develops the individual even as it develops
and shapes the social whole. Chrysis therefore brings us to the political
and philosophical horizon where Marx will come to adopt communism
as his life-long political project. In so doing, Chrysis animates what has
been locked away from view in much of twentieth-century Marxology.
He has revived Marx’s humanistic, democratic and political ideas, giv-
ing a potency and relevance much needed in an age where our collective
political imagination has withered.
New York City Michael J. Thompson
Spring 2017
A
cknowledgementS
I feel deeply indebted to all my friends, colleagues and students with
whom I share theoretical research and practical action for our common
cause.
My special gratitude is due to Vassilis Fouskas, a good friend during
our unclouded student years of the 1980s and a devoted scholar in the
hard times we are living in now. Without his help this book could hardly
have reached publication.
Last but not least, I would like to thank from the bottom of my heart
my wife Eugenia and my daughter Zoe; their permanent support and
patience allowed me to accomplish my task.
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