Their Morals and Ours

[Henk Elegeert]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Je zit hier (duidelijk) verkeerd, Oto: kijk hier eens ...

Communistische Partij van Nederland - NCPN
http://www.ncpn.nl/

Henk Elegeert



2010/2/8 Antid Oto <aorta at home.nl>:
> REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl
>
> Fragment uit een belangrijk essay van L.T. over de communistische
> moraal. Ik sluit me aan bij de strekking van dit essay. Er kunnen geen
>  automatische antwoorden gegeven worden mbt wat moreel toelaatbaar is
> in de klassestrijd.
>
>
> Dialectic Interdependence of End and Means
>
> A means can be justified only by its end. But the end in its turn
> needs to be justified, From the Marxist point of view, which expresses
> the historical interests of the proletariat, the end is justified if
> it leads to increasing the power of man over nature and to the
> abolition of the power of man over man.
>
> “We are to understand then that in achieving this end anything is
> permissible?” sarcastically demands the Philistine, demonstrating that
> he understood nothing. That is permissible, we answer, which really
> leads to the liberation of mankind. Since this end can be achieved
> only through revolution, the liberating morality of the proletariat of
> necessity is endowed with a revolutionary character. It irreconcilably
> counteracts not only religious dogma but every kind of idealistic
> fetish, these philosophic gendarmes of the ruling class. It deduces a
> rule for conduct from the laws of the development of society, thus
> primarily from the class struggle, this law of all laws.
>
> “Just the same,” the moralist continues to insist, “does it mean that
> in the class struggle against capitalists all means are permissible:
> lying, frame-up, betrayal, murder, and so on?” Permissible and
> obligatory are those and only those means, we answer, which unite the
> revolutionary proletariat, fill their hearts with irreconcilable
> hostility to oppression, teach them contempt for official morality and
> its democratic echoers, imbue them with consciousness of their own
> historic mission, raise their courage and spirit of self-sacrifice in
> the struggle. Precisely from this it flows that not all means are
> permissible. When we say that the end justifies the means, then for us
> the conclusion follows that the great revolutionary end spurns those
> base means and ways which set one part of the working class against
> other parts, or attempt to make the masses happy without their
> participation; or lower the faith of the masses in themselves and
> their organization, replacing it by worship for the “leaders”.
> Primarily and irreconcilably, revolutionary morality rejects servility
> in relation to the bourgeoisie and haughtiness in relation to the
> toilers, that is, those characteristics in which petty bourgeois
> pedants and moralists are thoroughly steeped.
>
> These criteria do not, of course, give a ready answer to the question
> as to what is permissible and what is not permissible in each separate
> case. There can be no such automatic answers. Problems of
> revolutionary morality are fused with the problems of revolutionary
> strategy and tactics. The living experience of the movement under the
> clarification of theory provides the correct answer to these problems.
>
> Dialectic materialism does not know dualism between means and end. The
> end flows naturally from the historical movement. Organically the
> means are subordinated to the end. The immediate end becomes the means
> for a further end. In his play, Franz von Sickingen, Ferdinand
> Lassalle puts the following words into the mouth of one of the heroes:
>
> ... “Show not the goal
> But show also the path. So closely interwoven
> Are path and goal that each with other
> Ever changes, and other paths forthwith
> Another goal set up.”
>
> Lassalle’s lines are not at all perfect. Still worse is the fact that
> in practical politics Lassalle himself diverged from the above
> expressed precept – it is sufficient to recall that he went as far as
> secret agreements with Bismark! But the dialectic interdependence
> between means and end is expressed entirely correctly in the
> above-quoted sentences. Seeds of wheat must be sown in order to yield
> an ear of wheat.
>
> Volledig:
>
> http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1938/morals/morals.htm
>
> **********
> Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
> Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
> Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
> Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
> **********
>

**********
Dit bericht is verzonden via de informele D66 discussielijst (D66 at nic.surfnet.nl).
Aanmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SUBSCRIBE D66 uwvoornaam uwachternaam
Afmelden: stuur een email naar LISTSERV at nic.surfnet.nl met in het tekstveld alleen: SIGNOFF D66
Het on-line archief is te vinden op: http://listserv.surfnet.nl/archives/d66.html
**********