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Editorial Note
The Communist Manifesto is not only one of the most significant documents ever
written; it has generated commentaries about itself by some of the most significant
thinkers since it was written. Documents about the Manifesto written over the
years have themselves become a rich legacy in their own right, which unfortunately
is not easily accessible in our country. When the occasion for commemorating 150
years of the Manifesto arose, we thought it would be a good idea if we could bring
to our readers two classic pieces on the Manifesto written by two of the
outstanding adherents of the socialist doctrine since it began, along with a
contemporary assessment. The current number of Social Scientist is the result of
this endeavour.
The role of Antonio Labriola (1843-1904) in disseminating, clarifying and
developing the ideas of Marx and Engels is comparable only to that of G.V
Plekhanov. Like Plekhanov who was often referred to as the "father of Russian
Marxism", Labriola was truly the father of Italian Marxism. Both of course took
positions late in life which were justly criticised by Lenin as constituting, in
different ways, departures from revolutionary Marxism: Plekhanov by adopting a
social-chauvinist position during the war and Labriola who died much earlier by
moving closer to revolutionary syndicalism (what Lenin called "revisionism from
the Left"); but the immense theoretical toils of both these stalwarts are a part of
socialism's rich heritage. A Professor of Philosophy at the University of Rome,
Labriola was a brilliant scholar and teacher who got attracted to socialism in 1885,
lectured on Marxism, for the first time in Italy, in 1889, began a correspondence
with Engels in 1890, and worked for the formation of a workers' party in Italy. The
first to translate the Communist Manifesto into Italian, Labriola wrote his
celebrated piece "In Memory of the Communist Manifesto" in 1895, which we
republish in the present issue of Social Scientist.
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Harold Laski (1893-1950), outstanding political scientist, who taught at the
London School of Economics for much of his life, was a member of the British
Labour Party, and was elected its Chairman in 1945. Laski, who early in life came
to see the state as functioning in the interests of the ruling classes, was an advocate
of extensive social and economic reforms, until the crisis of the 1930s and the
subsequent rise of fascism made him embrace Marxism. Despairing of the
possibility of reforms within the system he came to view socialism as the only
possible and available alternative to rising fascism. During the Spanish Civil War
he was a strong advocate of a popular front of all the forces opposed to fascism.
His Introduction to the English edition of the Communist Manifesto on the
occasion of its centenary was a justly-celebrated piece and we publish it in the
current number.
Together with these two classics we publish a contemporary reaction from
Utsa Patnaik which introduces a much-needed third world perspective. The
completion of 150 years by the Communist Manifesto is not an occasion for ritual
celebration. To make it so by merely lauding the genius of its young authors would
be an insult to their legacy, since both their world view as well as the rugged
greatness of their personalities abhorred all ritual. They themselves would have
wanted it to be an occasion for assessment, for a checking of theoretical bearings,
for an unflinching appraisal, inspired not by scholasticism but by praxis, of the
doctrine they set out in the Manifesto. The three pieces published in the current
number, which are separated from one another by roughly 50 year intervals, which
mark approximately the 50th, the 100th, and the 150th anniversaries of the
Manifesto, and which are informed by very substantial differences in perspective,
would we hope contribute towards this task of theoretical engagement with the
Manifesto.
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