Reviews and Views
Volume Two
Nasser Paydar
A number of prominent academic “Marxists” and “Marxologists” have announced that they will publish a book on the 150th anniversary of the publication of the first volume of Marx’s Capital, in which they will examine the different editions of the various volumes of Capital around the world, the story of the publication of these volumes, the scope of their reception, and other issues related to this field. How, when, and through what process Marx will be freed from the captivity of the distinguished and famous Marxists and will return to the heart of the struggle of the working masses without any name in the world against capital is a question that only the global labour movement will answer, but before that, something must be said and done. “Hassan Mortazavi,” the translator of Marx’s works, including the first and second volumes of “Capital,” has written an article in collaboration with and on their recommendation, as a researcher in the Iranian field of this group. This article has been published on the website “Critique of Political Economy” under the name [“Capital” in Iran]. “Capital” refers to the book Capital, and the aim of the article is to explain the extent and manner of the confrontation that has taken place in Iranian society, in different periods, by different political forces and circles with Marx’s works, and in particular the book Capital. The most prominent indicator of Mortazavi’s discussion in this article, and at the same time the most obvious aspect of his work in common and homogeneity with the well-known “Marxists,” or basically the relatively flourishing profession of international “Marxist Studies,” is their view of Marx’s dissection of the mode of production of capitalism and history and class struggle, as an idea, school, ideology, and religion. A kind of attitude that is in radical opposition to the Marxist understanding and consciousness of class struggle. Let’s look at Mortazavi’s writing.
1.The author of “Capital in Iran” begins his speech with this paragraph. “The history of the arrival of socialist and Marxist ideas in Iran, which has been going on for almost a hundred years, has unique characteristics. The arrival of these ideas in their style and context was neither a reflection and reaction to the formation of modern capitalism in Iran, nor a spontaneous expression of the worn-out and degraded intellectual systems that had preceded them into a coherent system to respond to the spirit of its time, nor a manifestation of the viewpoint of an elevated and organized working class. The arrival of these ideas in Iran, and that too in an advanced form, almost coincides with the growth of the primary origins of capitalism and modern commodity relations in Iran through a complex process of coexistence of pre-capitalist relations, monopoly capitalism, and the imperialist influence of Tsarist Russia and Britain; More or less coincided with the laying of the first foundations of modern industry and economy during the reign of Reza Shah; and undoubtedly coincided with the first sparks of modern ideas that came into being in the form of the constitutional movement and revolution.
Marx’s radical anatomy of the history of human societies, and specifically capital and capitalist society, what he has said about class struggle, and all the other works he has done, are all in accordance with our dear friend Mortazavi’s observation of a system of thought, a theoretical system, and in general, an ideology!! It is clear that he considers himself a diligent follower of this “ideology”!!! And in this regard, he is trying to make at least the Persian-speaking population of the world aware of the importance of the school and Sharia called “Marxism” by translating Marx’s works to the best of his ability!! I will do my best not to make any interpretation or interpretation of any of the formulations used by him. I think that the explicit text of the article is the best evidence of the correctness of my inference from his views in this specific area. If he thinks otherwise, I am ready to withdraw my understandings without any insistence. For the time being, I will take the very clear sentences and phrases of the article as the basis for judgment and continue the discussion. Mortazavi’s article, up to this point and in the first paragraph, contains a multitude of distortions and absurdities.
The history of human life is not the history of ideas and beliefs. Ideas have no history, and to talk about them as if they were ideas, beliefs, chains of principles and concepts, or something like that, is utterly meaningless, metaphysical, reactionary, and profoundly misleading. What is real, decisive, and worthy of investigation is not ideas and ideologies, but, on the contrary, thinking humans with beliefs, thoughts, and opinions. Earthly and completely real humans who, from a certain historical period onwards, in the process of working and producing their livelihoods, and simultaneously and homogeneously with it, producing their own thoughts, concepts, and beliefs, have been divided into classes, leaving behind the primary forms of division of labour and primitive coexistence, and under the pressure of the objective conditions of their social life. There is no pure thought or ideology beyond these humans divided into different and contradictory social classes. When we label Marx’s radical dissection of history, society, the capitalist mode of production, classes, and class struggle with the names “Marxism” and “socialist ideas,” we first and foremost plunge the foundation of the materialist and Marxian’s narrative of history straight into the abyss of the worst distortions and deviations. This is what the article “Capital in Iran” has done with great care in its very first sentence. Let us pay attention to this statement of Marx.
“… Just as German philosophy descends from heaven to earth, here it is a question of ascending from earth to heaven. In other words, in order to reach real human beings with flesh and blood, the starting point is not what human beings say, imagine, imagine, nor what is narrated, thought, imagined, or imagined about human beings. Rather, the starting point is real active human beings and the development of their ideological reactions and reflections based on the real course of their lives.” (German Ideology)
Marx then continues here: “Morality, religion, metaphysics and the other aspects of ideology, as well as the forms of consciousness corresponding to them, no longer lose their apparent independence. They have no history, no evolution, but rather men, men who develop their material production and their material relations, change with it their real world, their thinking and the products of this thinking…”
Marx is not the creator of any intellectual religion or the founder of any ideology or law. As a thinking man, from a specific social class in a specific historical period, he has, with the highest possible level of in-depth analysis and narration specific to this class, submitted to the masses of this class and all of humanity with a thoughtful expression the history of the development of human societies, capital, capitalism and all issues related to class struggle. What Marx has said and put forward, contrary to the idea of Mortazavi and the vast majority of internationally renowned “Marx scholars”, is not an ideology founded by him but a charter of struggle and a manifesto of the war of the world working class against the barbarity of wage slavery and against any form of class exploitation or the existence of any type of society consisting of classes. When Marx’s words become “Marxism”!! When his dissection of history or capital and the mode of production and capitalist relations becomes a line of thought, “socialist ideas”!!, then he suffers exactly the same calamity that has befallen him since his own time until today. Who and what social forces do this? The answer is very clear. These groups and individuals or movements can be the collective heads of any class, they can be the intellectual representatives of various layers of the bourgeoisie, they can be considered among the most outspoken activists and theorists of the world labour movement, they can be the leaders of the commanding bodies of the parties that carry the banner of communism and human liberation. They may be Engels, leaders of the Second International, Lenin’s, other dignitaries of “Marxism” or Marxism-Leninism” and hundreds of other such religions. In all these cases, one thing is undeniable. Regardless of what the class identity card and political activities of these people indicate, in any case they speak neither with a Marxist head nor with the wisdom and awareness of the anti-capitalist proletariat, which certainly speaks with the intelligence and knowledge of this or that opposition to the capitalist class. Let us explain the issue a little further.
The custom of the bourgeoisie, like all previous social classes, is to present its interests, horizons, and expectations as the interests, demands, and ideals of all mankind. In this regard, it needs to clothe its thoughts in rational ideas that have general acceptance and credibility. Why does the bourgeoisie do this? For the obvious reason that in this way it crushes any opposition to the productive, political, and social order that protects its interests, under the banner of defending the interests of all!! The bourgeoisie separates these interests or interests from their material, class, social, and historical foundations, and hangs them on the noose of concepts, categories, schools, conventions, values, general and universal principles and foundations. It forges the names of political freedoms, human rights, divine law, public welfare, the order of human life, republic, democracy, free elections, liberalism, socialism, conservatism, and all kinds of other names for them. It makes the sanctity and dominance of these concepts or ideas and beliefs a decisive and significant part of the basis of its rule and class domination. This is the usual way of working and tradition of the bourgeoisie in general. All oppositions of the bourgeoisie do exactly this, and in doing so, they even surpass their rivals and ruling partners. But the work does not end there. Reformism within the labour movement, left or right, militant or peaceful, has also historically done this. The misleading packaging of Marx’s critique of political economy or Marx’s materialist account of history, in terms of words like “Marxism,” “socialist ideas,” “scientific communism,” “the science of class struggle,” and the like of these doctrinal and ideological clichés is precisely what has been done by the various oppositions of the bourgeoisie and, to the same extent or much more, by the wide spectrum of right and left reformism within the international labour movement, and finally by a coalition of all these forces.
In all these cases, separating the radical Marxian’s dissection of capitalism from its real class foundations, from the real conditions of life and work, exploitation, disenfranchisement, subordination, and the struggle of the working masses against capital, completely emptying this dissection of its real class, movement, and anti-capitalist nature and content, attaching it to “Marxism,” “socialist ideas,” “the science of class struggle,” and the titles we mentioned above, determined the entire goal. This was exactly what these classes, forces, and approaches needed. Everything that Marx did as a conscious, thoughtful, and intellectual worker was supposed to be a beacon and a weapon in the hands of the working masses in the war against all forms of capital’s expression and the bulwark of capitalist existence. It was supposed to be the brain, consciousness, and understanding of people captured by the process of selling labour power and forced into a radical campaign against capital, against capital as a social relationship, at the very bottom of this very process of struggle and in the course of events, every moment of this war would be decisive. Marx’s teachings on class struggle and, above all, his critique of political economy were intended to make the global working class the consciousness of its current movement. With this consciousness, the movement would destroy the relationship between buying and selling labour power, the relationship between its separation from labour and the product of labour, the relationship between its catastrophic separation from the process of determining the fate of its work and life, the relationship between its objectification and the personification of the commodity or capital that is the product of its labour, the relationship between its dissolution into the machine, the relationship between the ascension of the product of its labour in the form of capital to the throne of divine power in Cairo, and the relationship between its endless fall to the abyss of humiliation and ruin. With this consciousness and awareness, it would consider law, rights, civilization, morality, politics, the state, education, and dominant culture, all of them as fortresses of power and arsenals of capital’s violence, or iron chains of capital’s power on its hands and feet. With this consciousness, insight, and knowledge, what capital calls freedom, it should see the absolute deprivation of the lowest level of its human freedom, what the bourgeoisie considers right, it should see its absolute injustice, what the capitalist class calls democracy, the inhuman order of hell, filth, blood, and the terror of capital, and the sinister iron lock of its captivity, what capital proclaims the right to vote, it should consider the brutal shooting of its free human right to vote, and what the bourgeoisie calls the security and order of people’s lives, it should evaluate the bombing of the Shiraz of any kind of comfort and tranquillity of its class. Marx’s critique of political economy should become the consciousness of the broad masses of the working class to consciously recognize the position of themselves and their class under the control of the existence of capital, and its effective weapon for the organized struggle of the council against this whole relationship and against the existence of capital. Becoming “Marxism”, becoming “socialist thought” and dressing up as “scientific socialism” on Marx’s dissection of capitalism or Marx’s narrative of the history of the development of human societies is a distortion and inversion of the aforementioned teachings as dynamic cells of the proletariat’s consciousness and knowledge in the class struggle against capitalism. This is the transformation of all these teachings and teachings into an intellectual apparatus of the bourgeoisie to push the labour movement into all kinds of wastelands and defilements. This is what the bourgeoisie and reformism within the labour movement have done hand in hand throughout the 20th century and are doing more and more every day now. When Marx’s words became “Marxism”, then they were no longer the current consciousness of the working class in the field of class struggle, but only a school, a system of thought and an ideology, and their only use would be for every opportunist and deceitful representative of the bourgeoisie to interpret this and that sentence as a means of business, fame-seeking and reactionary nation-building. When Marx’s critique of political economy and Marx’s materialist narrative of history became “Marxism”!! They were no longer the torch of the path and weapon of the proletariat’s struggle against capital, which was the thriving shop of “Marx scholars”.
2. Mortazavi adds in the very first paragraph that the entry of what he calls “socialist ideas” into Iran “has unique characteristics”. These “ideas” were not a reaction to the development of modern capitalism in Iran.!!! It neither represented a spontaneous transition from the worn-out and degraded intellectual systems that preceded it to a coherent system in keeping with the spirit of the times, nor did it reflect the vision of a mature and organized working class…
These words are unrealistic and misleading in every way. What these sentences scream in their entirety is that our friend considers what he claims to be “Marxism” or “socialist ideas” to be a commodity like all other commodities of the capitalist market, a commodity of thought, idea, and belief. A commodity that the merchants who imported were people who lacked the common sense of livelihood. They did not know the market. Since they did not know the quality or lack of quality of this commodity as they should, they had no proper understanding of marketing. They have very rashly and irrationally brought a handful of good goods into a wasteland and wasted it!!! It must be said to the author’s friend that all these assumptions are baseless. What he said “imported” into Iran was the only thing that had no resemblance to it: the consciousness, knowledge, and education of Marxism, the class struggle against capitalism of the proletariat, and what was deeply and broadly related to it are exactly the same things that our friend denies their connection to. The “imported” “communism” and “socialism” cited in the article [“Capital” in Iran] were a specific packaging of the same “Marxism” emphasized, clarified, accepted and referred to by the author. A specific version or model that was called “Leninism” and “Marxism-Leninism” on a global level. The fact is that years before that date, Marx’s materialist narrative of the history of the development of human societies, the vast world of his anti-capitalist dissection of the capitalist mode of production and relations or his critique of political economy and his entire anti-capitalist labour strategies, had been disguised and dressed up as the ideology of “Marxism” by various circles of the bourgeoisie and, above all, by reformism within the global labour movement. Each group and part of this broad spectrum interpreted and packaged it in whatever form their interests, interests, dreams, and expectations required. The leaders of the Second International and Kautsky’s neighbouring clique, within the scope of the current conditions of Western Europe and, of course, in the context of the current situation of the capitalist world, made it the architectural theme of peaceful reformism of social democracy. Something that was also accepted in the early days, the foundation of the work and the foundation of the belief of the Russian “Marxists”. A slightly more extreme trend of these “Marxists”, in other words, the capitalist but militant reformism on the fringes of the Russian labour movement, did not find this model and narrative a solution to their problems. This spectrum demanded the fastest and widest possible development of capitalism in their country. The establishment and comprehensive domination of capitalism with state ownership of all social capital was called socialism. It saw the Russian big bourgeoisie and the Tsarist regime as obstacles to this transformation and the achievement of that prospect. In this regard, it found the carrying out of a “bourgeois democratic revolution”, the seizure of political power by a strong party and the solution of the land question as ways to achieve its goal. A party that called itself the party of the proletariat, lined up the workers and peasants behind it, made the entire power of the struggle of these classes the basis for its own rise to power and rule, and established its desired state capitalism under the red banner of socialism and communism. This approach had a plan and a blueprint for following this path and achieving that vision step by step, and it considered all these programming and blueprints to be the purest and most complete “Marxism” of the time. There was no discussion of trickery and conspiracy. In describing the social existence of the proletariat, it had a narrative, and of course a narrative borrowed from the greats of the Second International. A narrative that, exactly like the author of the article [“Capital” in Iran], saw communism as a bunch of “ideas” and naturally the ideas of the wealthy classes with the famous “three sources and three components”, considered the labour movement to lack the germ of understanding socialism. In this regard, the “Party of Professional Revolutionaries” possessed “socialist ideas” and advanced the workers. It insisted on developing the European form of capitalism, not the “Junker” form. It formulated the theory of bourgeois democratic revolution. So that the eyes could work, and the mind could fly in socialist purity!! Without any doubt, the ownership of social capital by the state, the greatness of the Taylor system, the dictatorship and the garrison obedience of thousands of workers to a boss, the dignity of the management and administration of the entire society and the economic and political order of the entire country by a 19-member party organ and a 6-member political bureau, or hundreds of such issues, spoke as mechanisms and strategies for the complete and total establishment of socialism.
The above-mentioned “Marxism” flourished and flourished in the “Country of Soviets” and was ready to be globalized!! Just at a time when, by chance, a certain section of the bourgeoisie in most parts of the world, including in Iranian society, had a very vital need for this “Marxism” which had now become “Marxism-Leninism”. In Iran, for many years, the capitalist mode of production had begun and was advancing its development and expansion process. This process, however, faced specific historical and international conditions. The imperialist conditions of capitalist production, a period in which the export of capital from advanced countries to all corners of the world constituted a very decisive factor in the formation and expansion of capitalism in this part of the world. In the context of these conditions, the various layers of the bourgeoisie in the widest part of the world were at an important crossroads. Should they become partners with Western capital and thereby realize the ideal of capitalizing their society, or, conversely, use the model of Lenin and Leninists as their guiding light. Both paths led to the establishment of capitalism. But one was of the Western type and the other in the form and image of a Soviet camp that, of course, also held the glorious banner of socialism high and from all its powerful tribunes, the voice of “communism” and the liberation of mankind could be heard!!! Each of these two different options had rebellious material and social foundations for the two sections of the Iranian bourgeoisie. The big bourgeoisie of Iran saw its task clearly in all respects. For this sector, it was not only ridiculous, but a matter of life and death if it took the path of the north and the “country of the Soviets”!!! According to “Tabibzadeh”, it would have to become completely Western from head to toe. This layer shared all its capital and wealth with the great imperialist trusts. It not only shared in the political power of the day, but also played the role of a shipwright, and it owed this entire role to the alliance, collusion, and partnership with Western governments. This section of the bourgeoisie found all its accounts and books transparent and went its own way. We will ignore the pan-Islamist reactionary forces within the nascent capitalist class. Because the twists and turns of their path do not require much mention. We will turn to the other middle and lower layers of this class. A very wide range of this section of the Iranian and world bourgeoisie hung all its ideals, expectations, solutions, strategies, and paths for the capitalist development of its society on the “Leninist” model of capitalism called socialism!! On the miraculous twists and turns of the Comintern!!, on the Soviet camp, on the obedient instructions issued by the Communist Party of the “Country of Soviets”!! and on the glorious roles played by the Red Army.
In any party and any organization that is formed anywhere in the world, some workers may also find their way into it, or, as a rule, be selected for window dressing. All the social democratic parties of the world and all the camp and non-camp “communist parties” of the twentieth century were full of workers. All these parties, if they were in the government, formed the dominant force or a partner in the political power structure of capital, and if they were in the opposition, they tried to assume the same role. All of them, without exception, were playing or wanting to play a role in planning, policymaking, implementing, and brutally enforcing the economic, political, civil, legal, and social order of capitalism on the working masses. This is not something that needs explanation. What was formed in Iran under the name of the “Communist Party” was also independent of all its factions and internal disputes, without any more or less of the same kind and substance. Their top and bottom lines, strategies, and solutions were summed up in determining signs and preparing signposts on the path to capitalist development of society, and it is clear that ultimately the same signs and green lights, yellow and red lights were chosen that Lenin, the Comintern, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union recommended and approved. What disasters the dominant current of the party brought about and what hellish desolations and desolations it placed before the working masses is not a subject that needs to be mentioned here. Fondness for Reza Khan the executioner, as the “proud face of the national bourgeoisie”!!! and the standard-bearer of the progressive and national development of capitalism!!!, aligning the working masses and peasants of the day of society behind Kuchuk Khan, the reactionary pan-Islamist representative of the bourgeoisie under the banner of “anti-colonialism” and the struggle with the British government, removing the working masses from the orbit of the anti-capitalist class struggle and striving to transform them into the infantry of the anti-imperialist nationalist strata of the capitalist class, misleading rhetoric and fuss about the bourgeois-democratic revolution with the alignment of workers, peasants, “national bourgeoisie” and “liberal landlords” or many other disastrous misguided things, all of which were carried out according to the advice of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Lenin and the Comintern, and their sole purpose was to strengthen the power bases of one pole of world capital against the other. Issues and events that constitute only a fragment of the Communist Party’s record. The statement that there was a radical faction in the party that represented an approach contrary to the above orientations, although it has a glimmer of truth, is also mixed with a lot of distortion. It is clear that there was a minority faction, not a majority and dominant (as you have stated) in the party. Sultan Zadeh was the most radical figure of this faction and even the most radical figure of the left wing of the Comintern and in some cases a radical critic of some of Lenin’s views, but he also did not represent the Marxist and anti-capitalist approach of the working class in any way. Despite his extensive reference to Marx’s works, in various places, including in his analysis of the capitalist development process of that time in Iran, Soltan Zadeh falls short of a true commitment to Marx’s critique of political economy, and under the pressure of these shortcomings, even in the course of exposing Reza Khani’s criminal reaction, he clings to issues that later became a source of firewood for some of the bourgeoisie. This discussion is certainly not the place here. But I have dealt with it to the extent necessary elsewhere. (Volume One of the History of the Iranian Labor Movement)
I return to the essence of the discussion and the very first paragraph [“Capital” in Iran]. What our friend calls “socialist ideas”!! or “Marxism”!! and the like in Iran, contrary to his inferences and imaginations, in terms of their stature, content, message, and specific orientation, first of all, had no unique characteristics in this specific geographical region. It was a phenomenon everywhere in the world, and especially in a very large part of it. Secondly, these “ideas”!! were precisely the strategy, model, prescription, apparatus, and everything of the Iranian bourgeoisie under the name of the left to respond to a kind of development and during the process of gaining dominance of capitalist production in Iran. If this part of the bourgeoisie under the banner of communism and socialism filled the space of workers’ thought and struggle with the words of “Comrade Lenin, Comrade Stalin, and later Comrade Mao” and the like, but threw away Capital and Marx’s texts on the critique of political economy, it would have come from precisely this place. They had no problem finding Capital. Marx’s works did not find relevance in the political preoccupations of their day. Marx was relevant to them to the extent that it was “Marxism” and became the sanctity of the ideology of “Marxism-Leninism”. This “Marxism”, “Marxism-Leninism” or these “socialist ideas” in this regard played the role of a “modern and coherent intellectual system” for this bourgeois section. Just as our friend Mortazavi’s expectation of the “Marxism” he believed in is the same and does not go beyond this. The root problem of his article is that he considers the entire Marxist consciousness, knowledge and teachings of class struggle to be a profession, a law, an ideology and a religion. A law that anyone can believe in and follow. Become a “Marxist” and a “communist” and call themselves the people of Marx and “Marxism”. In this system of thought or in the observation of the author of the article [“Capital” in Iran], whoever is more educated, whoever has more effort and scholarship, whoever has a deeper command of the German and English languages, whoever has a higher power of investigation and research ability, naturally understands Marx’s words better and more accurately!! He applies them more carefully!! He propagates and promotes them more consciously!! And plays a more active and conscious role in their dissemination and spread!! Just as a faithful priest, the more deeply he reads the Bible, the more valuable and worthy services he performs in spreading the teachings of Christ!!! When the top and bottom of all of Marx’s works become “socialist thought” and “Marxism”, there is no other choice left but these thoughts. Here I would like to emphasize and emphasize again that what Marx brought into the global labour movement and Marxist communism in general, the abolition of wage labour, was and is definitely not a manifesto addressed to the workers of the world, but a manifesto addressed to all of humanity. There is no doubt about this. But if this humanity is to adhere to the Marxian knowledge, consciousness, understanding and perceptions of class struggle, there is only one way. To be an effective, aware and active participant in advancing the struggle of the working masses of the world against capital, against the foundation of the existence of capitalism with the consciousness and understanding of Marxian anti-capitalism. By setting up flashy academic “Marxist studies” booths, one cannot patch up and make oneself a sore spot in this campaign.
Up to this point, our entire discussion has been about the first paragraph of our friend’s article. In the remaining pages and sections, based on his own understanding of what he calls “Marxism,” he searches house to house and neighbourhood by neighbourhood for interests or disinterest, attention or inattention, study or indifference in studying, and use or non-use of the book Capital and other Marx works throughout the twentieth century, before and after it, in Iranian society, and among the political forces of the left spectrum!! This is part of the tradition of “Marx studies” and the subject of the recommendation of famous Marx scholars around the world to the author of the article. That in a certain year, a person named Hassani taught several people the chapter on commodities from the book Capital. A few years later, another person named Hosseini intended to teach the second volume in a group of several people, but he encountered a problem. A third person in Germany had attempted to do this but was not welcomed!! And this is the entire research and informative report that the comrade who prepared the article has submitted to the readers about the fate of Marx’s book “Capital” in our society!! I wish a word had been said about what these Marx readers, Marx students, Marx scholars, Marxologists and enthusiasts of Marx’s teaching of Capital did with what Marx had handed over to the world labour movement and what dirt they brought on the working masses of the world. Such a look at Marx and his works and words and his dissection of history and society and the method of production of capitalism and class struggle without any introduction and with all the respect I have for the author of the article, is in any case pathetic. From the beginning to the end of this article, he shouts that our friend sees the reading or not reading or at best learning or not learning the book Capital by some people as the criterion of influence and the fundamental indicator of the extent of socialization and movement of Marx’s works!! In this regard, he laments the dictatorship that has been an obstacle to the expansion of the influence of Marx’s teachings and the influence of forces from what they call “Marxism”.
They know very well that throughout Northern and Western Europe, all of Marx’s works are available in sufficient quantities in bookstores in the official languages of each country, and no worker faces any police arrest or detention for buying and reading these works. In addition, some of these books, especially Capital, are included in the curriculum and are taught in a significant number of universities in these countries. The rabid dictatorship of capital is certainly a great calamity and a very terrible disaster for the labour movement, but what has kept Capital or any other book of Marx from being immersed in this movement, from becoming a stream of knowledge and consciousness of the workers, is not only dictatorship. Nor are it only the governments and parties that constitute the political power of capital. Leninists, all the parties of the Comintern, the former Soviet camp, all the camp parties, Maoists, Trotskyists, the vast population of Marxists and Marx scholars, have all done the same thing. Hassan Mortazavi’s article does the same thing. If someone were to ask whether it is possible to turn Marx’s critique of capitalism, Marx’s materialist narrative of history and the whole of consciousness, Marx’s understanding and teaching of class struggle against wage slavery into a frozen and fossilized law, it would be very difficult to answer in the affirmative. Translating Capital or any other work of Marx is a very great and valuable work. For my part, I praise all of Hassan Mortazavi’s efforts in this transition. The establishment of a Capital classroom and textbook is also very important. He does this work too, but one thing is more important than all of this. So important that without it, teaching the book Capital could become its own opposite. All of Marx’s works, and much more than all of them, all of his texts on the critique of political economy, are the consciousness, awareness, insight, and class knowledge, and the guiding light and weapon of the proletariat’s war against capitalism. Its application, efficiency, and uses are solely the radical anti-capitalist movement of the working masses of the world and the true companions and sympathizers of this movement. Marx’s writings reveal their clarity, nature, greatness, and historical role only in the intelligence, knowledge, and power of analysis, solution-seeking, strategy-seeking, and solution-finding of this movement, its individuals, and its activists. Marx himself prepared and published all of these with this in mind and in line with this goal. Any other use and application of these teachings, dissections and understandings is merely to distort, petrify and destroy it. This has been done excessively for decades by parties, high-ranking professors and scholars of the upper classes and is done every day. That “Capital” should be read is a very fundamental and vital matter, and how Capital should be studied, from which class perspective, in response to which problems, or the problems of which social class, from which class observation, with what expectations and goals, with what kind of view of society, the world, man and history, and finally with what application, is another very fundamental issue that “Marxism’s and “Marxists”!! are covering up. If simply reading Capital was the solution, then Kautsky, whose brain, according to Lenin, resembled the archive of Marx’s works, should have been the most anti-capitalist of all and understood all of Marx’s words more than anyone!! But it turned against it. If reading Capital alone would have worked wonders. Lenin should have become the second Marx of the proletariat, but he didn’t. If reading Capital alone made people active in the anti-capitalist labour movement, even Iraj Eskandari should have played a part in this! But he turned against it. The basis of Marx’s critique of political economy and Marx’s understanding of history, society, and class struggle is only in the course of current events that the global labour movement against capital, against all manifestations of the existence of capital, and against the foundation of the existence of capitalism is rising. In other places, it is mostly unreal, distorted, and a tool for deception by various parties and factions of the bourgeoisie.
Nasser Paydar
December 2016