Why Arnold Petersen isn't a Marxist

"Daniel De Leon: Social Architect" is a pamphlet originally published in 1941 by the Socialist Labor Party (SLP). It contains three articles written by Arnold Petersen, the then-National Secretary of the SLP. De Leon was the leader of the SLP from about 1890 until his death in 1914. At one point, the SLP was a relatively important socialist organization in the United States, but they were eventually eclipsed by the Socialist Party, the IWW and (later) the Communists. The reasons are not hard to find: rejection of most reform proposals as hidden measures of "reaction", inefficient dual unionism, sectarianism, etc. During Petersen's weirdly long tenure as party secretary (1914-69), the SLP was definitely transformed into a bizarre cultic group, a kind of Jehovah's Witnesses of the left, preaching their exotic interpretation of Marxism to largely empty pews. I'm not a Marxist, but I think Marxists, including Marx himself, could (quite seriously!) accuse Petersen of having an un-Marxist, utopian and idealist view of world history. Especially after reading "Daniel De Leon: Social Architect".

Petersen created a kind of personality cult around the deceased SLP leader, which is highly suspicious in itself, since classical Marxism eschews a "great man" view of history. (Uncle Joe, Chairman Mao and Kim Il Sung were therefore decidedly un-Marxist on this point, and arguably on many others, too!) In "Social Architect", Petersen portrays De Leon as a lonely genius, towering high over a world who simply couldn't understand him. Worse, De Leon was betrayed by the very men who pretended to pay him obeisance at his funeral. Thus, he was rejected even by his own (except Petersen, who inserts himself in the story here). This, however, is *not* a Marxist view at all. To Marx, his own philosophy was (at least indirectly) a product of the movement of history itself, more specifically the movement of the working class. Marx would have been deeply worried if his ideas hadn't caught on anywhere! A lone genius centuries before his time simply cannot exist in the materialist schema of history envisaged by Marx. That would be idealism, even fideism. Where did the lone genius get his ideas from, if not a product of the historical movement itself? Revelation? And why was he betrayed by *everyone* á la Caesar, including his closest aides? That can only mean that the "genius" is a historical miscarriage, either too early for his time (like a Spartacus or a Robespierre), or a hopeless utopian who isn't even interesting. Petersen clearly has a problem here - while Marx of course believed in the possibility of setbacks for the labour movement, the complete failure of the SLP simply cannot be squared with Marx' ultimately Hegelian view of historical development, where success really is the measure of "truth".

Another problem: Petersen calls De Leon "social architect" since he discovered the form of a future socialist society, the Industrial Union Government. This was De Leon's greatest discovery, and one of his original contributions to Marxism. Marx and Engels had left the question unanswered, even being locked in a contradiction. How can a political state administer a society in transition to socialism, if the goal is to abolish the state? De Leon's idea that the administration of society should be in the hands of "socialist industrial unions" supposedly solves the problem. However, this was *not* how Marx and Engels solved the problems of the future. In a very real sense, they didn't bother "solving" them at all, leaving them for the historical process itself to solve. This explains why Marx and Engels changed their revolutionary program under the influence of the Paris Commune. It was the Commune which made Marx and Engels realize (or "realize") that the working class can't take over the existing state apparatus, but has to smash it and replace it with a very different state power. De Leon, by contrast, simply sucked out an abstract ideal from his thumb. Are there any examples of "socialist industrial unions" taking over production, dispensing with the political state and establishing Industrial Union Government? Of course not. Marx and Engels would have regarded the idea as a specimen of utopian socialism, especially if coupled with Petersen's cult of the lone genius betrayed by his Brutuses mentioned above. Finally, Marx would have regarded the "contradiction" seen by Petersen between abolishing the state and creating a new state as entirely abstract and undialectical.

OK, but enough of this "devil's advocate" stuff for this week.