Category: Paul Robeson – Socialist Revolutionary

Having assessed this difference over a number of days – I developed the dialectical understanding that whereas ‘The German Ideology’ was a free expression of the unhindered thought of Marx and Engels regarding their Scientific Socialist understanding (and an open attack upon the capitalist system) – his newspaper article (for which he was being ‘paid’) – had to conform to the general ideas that prevailed throughout the (Federalist) ‘Union’ of Northern States! Marx had to cleverly compromise by moulding his opinions into those acceptable to the thinking of those who were ‘paying’ him for his journalistic services! If he was writing for newspapers based in Charleston or Richmond (lying within the ‘Confederate’ Southern States) – then I think we would have seen Marx formulate a very different take on events (not only reflecting the views of his audience – but also a more specific statement of the dialectical reality of the time)! Whatever the case, The German Ideology was written by Marx and Engels in 1845 – some sixteen years BEFORE Marx penned his 1861 article – and yet it contains a much deeper and far more thorough understanding of the human condition and the concept and reality of ‘slavery’! This example demonstrates why the working-class must be literate – we must be able to read and write – and in so doing ‘educate’ our own way out of the quagmire of Bourgeois branwashing, disinformation and deliberate misrepresentation!