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The legend according to which Marx was an anti-Semite swings on the projection of the late-twentieth century understanding of “political correctness” onto 19th century writing, and in particular on Marx’s review of Bruno Bauer’s article “On the Jewish Question.” The work has been circulated in grossly edited form by right-wingers with the specific aim of slandering Marx’s character. In fact the article is a defence of the civil rights of Jews, as well as being a profound study of the relation between social and political rights in bourgeois society more generally.
Critiques & Rejoinders for
"Marx and the Economic-Jew
Stereotype"
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a rejoinder
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Source: Hal Draper,
Karl Marx’s Theory of
Revolution, Vol.1: State
and Bureaucracy, Monthly Review,
New York 1977, pp.591-608. ©
Hal Draper 1977, © Center
for Socialist History (Berkeley).
Reproduced by Marxists Internet
Archive with permission from the
REDS
– Die Roten Website. This
text is a duplicate of the marxists.org
version marked up by Einde O’Callaghan.
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"Dictatorship of the proletariat" has been used to label Marx as an enemy of
democracy. In this article, Hal Draper demonstrates that not only Marx, but
also the conservatives of his time, identified the most thoroughgoing democracy
as a "dictatorship" - i.e., dictatorship of the people over the propertied
classes. Draper shows how the meaning of the word "dictatorship" changed over
the decades, eventually coming to be seen as a form of government antithetical
to democracy, and how via Plekhanov, "dictatorship of the proletariat" came to
be understood in this way in Russia.
Critiques & Rejoinders for
"The ‘Dictatorship of the Proletariat’
in Marx and Engels"
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a rejoinder
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Source: Chapter
1 of The ‘Dictatorship of the
Proletariat’ from Marx to Lenin,
by Hal Draper, Monthly Review Press,
1987. Reproduced with permission
of Hal Draper’s estate at the Center
for Socialist History. All rights
remain with the author’s estate.
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Biographical information
The son of immigrant
garment workers, Hal Draper was
a prolific Marxist writer and socialist
activist. He joined the US socialist
movement in 1932 and continued to
write and agitate for socialist
ideas throughout what were very
difficult times for socialism in
the US. In the 1950s, he edited
the weekly Labor Action,
rejecting both the slavish defence
of “real existing socialism”
in the Soviet Union and New Deal
welfare capitalism.
Much of Draper’s work was
dedicated to defending the ideas
of Marx and Lenin from distortion
by friends and enemies alike, such
as The Myth of ‘Lenin’s
Concept of the Party’,
written shortly before his death
in 1990.
See also: The
Hal Draper Archive at marxists.org
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