A Man for all Socialists Michael Harrington on Man \ Santa Cruz Socialism- 4 Report from Nicaragua- s ~- ' this or that teaching of the church, but rather deal with your outright rejection. I suspect LETTERS not many members of DSA would make such a rejection in such explicit terms, but I also suspect that a more diluted and hidden state­ Mixed Review "God," "Spirit," and other superstitions con­ tnent would be fairly common. It has often nected with religion. To tM Ediw: been remarked that anti-Catholicism is the The materialism/idealism question The enclosed $8 is for renewal. Harry anti-Semitism of the intelligentsia. aside, do we really want to support an organi­ Boyte's article Oanuary) did what none of Catholicism has many, many problems, zation which excludes women from its lead­ your other articles have done for me: given about which I could probably write much ership, prevents members from having abor­ me a "feel" for socialist philosophy. Harry longer and more eloquently than you. But it tions, and perhaps worst of all, forbids the Fleischman's dig at In TMse Times for their has also carried a genius for understanding practice of birth control, thus causing untold broad coverage of Citizen Party races is-­ popular culture, which unfortunately the Left suffering in large families in poor third world flat out-stupid. It's akin to one union criti­ often does not. Something very new and countries like those Mr. Holland writes cizing another for getting a good contract. powerful is happening among the poorer na­ about? I don't think so, and I hope I do not Richard Virdone tions where the Catholic Church is strong. read another article in DEMOCRATIC LEFT Littlehm, N.H. This Catholic awakening in the Third World portraying the Roman Catholic Church in will have a powerful influence on the next such a favorable light. A Plague·on Papistry? stage of civilization. By the end of this cen­ Jeffrey Hawk tury, approximately 80 percent of the To tM Edi/or: Mercervilk, NJ. world's Catholics will live in Asia, Africa, and I would like you to know how disturbed I Latin America. The church they create will was by Joe Holland's article in the Novem­ Joe Holland replies: Materialism versus ide­ be very different indeed. ber-December issue. alism is a polarization which is misguided at Catholicism was around for a long time I recognize that DSA is a "multi-tenden­ both extremes. An idealism or spirituality before socialism, and I suspect it will be cy" organization, and given the current state which is uprooted from this world is danger­ around for a long time after socialism. But in of the American Left this is no doubt desir­ ous indeed. But so too is a materialism which the interim. there could be some fruitful in­ able. However, we must stand for some­ has lost the spiritual energy which lives in teraction, if both sides are not too dogmatic. thing, and I did not appreciate reading a pae­ and through matter. It was classical Greek God bless you, Mr. Hawk! an to the Roman Catholic Church in our offi­ philosophers who separated the two and put cial organ. them into opposition. It was the pre-modem New Yor k Conscience For me, philosophical materialism is an tragedy of Western Cluistianity that it built To the Ediw: absolutely essential ingredient of socialist its whole religious thrust on this false dichot­ Thanks for your coverage of our March theory, and it should inform socialist practice omy and created an uprooted spirituality. 25 supper honoring New York City Council­ as well. It is materialism, relying upon empir­ But it was the modem tragedy of the socialist member Ruth Messinger (On the Left, Feb­ ical evidence to establish its goals and meth­ tradition not to return to the pre-socratic ruary 1983). She has indeed been the tireless ods, which distinguishes scientific socialism sense of holism, but rather simply to shift Conscience of New York. from pie in the sky utopian socialism based sides.. .. I'd like to correct one inadvertent im­ upon unprovable assumptions concerning I don't want to enter into a quarrel over pression that the item gave. New York City DSA publishes the New York Dmwcratic So­ EDITORIAL BoARD cialist. It is of course our comrades to the Leo Casey Gordon Haskell north, the Westchester County DSA, who Field Dirrctor Political Dinctor publish the Westchester Socialist. Maxine Phillips Gretchen Donart Orgmrizational Dirrctor Ediw, NY Dmwcratic Socialist Formerly NtlllSktln' of IM DmiomJtic Left and MooitrgOn. P.S. We still have tickets available to the ADVISORY BoARD supper. Mike Harrington and Representa­ Joanne Barkan David Bensman tive Major Owens are among the speakers, M ICHAEL HARRINGTON Jim Chapin Jack Clark with entertainment by Holly Near and Danny Edi/or Gretchen Donart Kate Ellis Kalb. Readers can call us at (212) 260-3270 Patrick Lacefield Ricardo Otheguy for tickets and info. MAxlNE PHILLIPS Jan Rosenberg Bernard Stephens Mtl1flllfoigEdilur Peter Steinfels Thomas Centennial DEMOCRATIC LEFT is published nine times a year (monthly except July, August and October) by To IM E diw: Democratic Socialists of America. formerly DSOC/NAM. The editorial office is located at 853 For a documentary film about Norman Broadway, Suite 801, New York, N. Y. 10003, Telephone (212) 260-3270. Other national offices are Thomas. to be produced for the centennial of located at 1300 West Behnont Ave., Chicago, IL 60657, (312) 871-7700 and at 29 29th Street, San his birth. ~ovember 20, 1984, I would ap­ Francisco, CA 94110, (415) 550-1849. Subscriptions: $15 sustaining and institutional; $8 regular. preciate films, videotapes, recordings, pho­ Signed articles express the opinions of the authors and not of the organization. ISSN 0164-3207. Microfihn, Wisconsin State Historical Society, 816 State St.. Madison, WI 53703. Indexed in the tos. illustrations and reminiscences. Alternative Press Index, P. 0. Box 7229, Baltimore, MD 21218. Second Class Permit paid at New Harry Fkisdmran York, N.Y. 11 Wedgewood Lane ,Wantagh, NY 11'193 DEMOCRATIC LEFT 2 MARCH 1983 \ CENTENNIAL YEAR STANDING UP FOR MARX by Michael Harrington n March 13, 1883, Karl Marx emancipation of the working class is the task died in his sleep after a long, KARLMARX of the workers alone." On one of the handful lingering illness. So one hun­ b.Trier,1818 of occasions that he used the miserable dred years later, why not let d. London, 1883 phrase, "dictatorship of the proletariat," he him remain dead and buried? made it clear that he was not using it in our After0 all, he has been more abused by his sense of the word. Under the dictatorship of proclaimed disciples than by his open ene­ • the proletariat, he wrote in his analysis of the mies, to the point that the former sometimes When asked iif I'm a marxist Paris Commune, all officials would be paid agree with the latter that he was indeed a the same wage as workers and would be simple-minded detenninist and a principled permanently subject to recall by the consti­ totalitarian. If Joseph Stalin and J. Edgar tuenoes that placed them in office. Hoover could cooperate so effectively in dis­ Sometimes, of course, he was purely honoring his memory, why bother with him and simply wrong. In 1848, he mistook the on this centenary of his death? Microbiolo­ rise of capitalism for its collapse. He never gists do not go around calling themselves understood the power of nationalism. With "Darwinists"; why should a democratic so­ the exception of his writings on Ireland, his cialist take up the burden of misunderstand­ concept of imperialism (and for seventy ing, of calumny and contempt, that goes with years that of every Marxist after him, includ­ the term, "Marxist"? ing Lenin) was soft on capitalism, thinking Because Marx remains a Himalaya of that it would actually develop the Titird the human spirit, a fallible man who made World. some astounding mistakes, a towering man who still teaches, not truths chiseled in mar­ Rich Legacy ble, but a way of thinking that allows lesser What, then were his accomplishments? folk to stand on his shoulders and see farther Simply to have rigorously thought through than he did. Because the analysis of society is the economic, social, and political precondi­ inextricably bound up with values in a way tions of human emancipation and thereby to that the natural sciences (which are far from have made of socialism not a dream but a being "value-free'') are not. Because if Marx possibility linked to the class struggle. He was not the discoverer of the socialist truth, if developed a self-critical method that allows Marxism is but one of the ways to come to the Marxist, as Lukacs once said, to disa­ socialism, every socialist movement must Karel Kosik, the Czech Marxist, has gree with any, or every, specific judgment of learn from Marx and Marxism because Marx put it well. For Marx, a medieval cathedral Karl Marx and to remain a Marxist. He in­ identified socialism with the actual workers does not merely "express" feudalism; it cre­ sisted, from the time he first became a Marx­ movement, warts and all. ates feudalism as well. The economic, Kosik ist in 1844-5 to his death in 1883, that social­ First, though, a few words about some wrote, functions in Marxism like the God of ism would be the self-creation of the masses. of the most commonplace lies told of this Deist philosophy: as an indispensable first But in a brief article one can only hint at man.