Essay
August-September 2000
On the 100th anniversary of his birth: Erich Fromm's Marxist dimension
By Kevin Anderson, author of LENIN, HEGEL, AND WESTERN MARXISM
This year, the 100th anniversary of Erich Fromm's birth, we have witnessed
a number of publications and symposia devoted to the life and work of this
great psychologist and socialist humanist. Notable among the new
publications is Fromm archivist Rainer Funk's ERICH FROMM: HIS LIFE AND
IDEAS, AN ILLUSTRATED BIOGRAPHY (Continuum Books, 2000, $29.95). Funk
covers all aspects of Fromm's development, from his early interest in
Jewish theology to his discovery of Marx and Freud in crisis-ridden
pre-Hitler Germany.
Funk offers a new account of the disputes between Fromm and the other
leading members of the Frankfurt School, especially Theodor Adorno, who
opposed the type of critique Fromm was making of Freud's biologism. When
Fromm wrote in the late 1930s that "Freud has wrongly based psychology
totally on natural factors" (p. 94), Adorno countered: "This time I did not
like Fromm at all--he put me into the paradoxical situation of defending
Freud" (p. 97). While Funk is clearly partial to Fromm, one does not need
to accept the former's entire argument to recognize that the frequent
attempts by Adorno, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and many of their
followers to portray Fromm as somehow more conservative have distorted the
history of the Left.
MARX AND FREUD
None deny, however, that it was Fromm who first introduced the Frankfurt
School to a form of Freudian Marxism that was at the root of all of their
subsequent efforts to theorize the types of "authoritarian personalities"
drawn most frequently from the lower middle classes and who--from Hitler's
recruits to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to the typical foreman in
a capitalist factory--combine masochistic reverence and obedience to higher
authority with sadistic urges to dominate those less powerful. (Recall that
Sergeant McVeigh had been a model and compliant soldier in the eyes of his
superiors, while those under his command, especially Blacks, reported that
he was cruel and vindictive.) Fromm summed up these issues in ESCAPE FROM
FREEDOM (1941), a pioneering analysis of the appeal of fascism to those
living under the uncertainties of capitalism.
Few are aware that Fromm began his attempt to unite Marxian class analysis
with psychoanalysis not in the study of fascism but in a critique of the
criminal justice system. Writing in Germany in 1930, he noted in one of his
earliest published articles that the criminal justice system continues its
harsh, punitive practices despite numerous studies by liberal reformers
proving that prison and capital punishment are completely ineffective in
protecting society from crime.
Pointing to "hidden functions" of the criminal justice system, Fromm wrote
that whether in punishing or in showing mercy, "the state imposes itself as
a father image on the unconscious of the masses," working to bind them to
the rulers, even against their own economic interests. A second hidden
function of the system is to divert the anger of the masses over their own
oppressive social conditions away from the rulers and onto the criminal.
This allows the masses to express their pent-up anger "in a manner that is
harmless for the state." Fromm added: "Part of the function of war lies in
the same direction." (See Fromm, "The State as Educator," in ERICH FROMM AND
CRITICAL CRIMINOLOGY, edited by Kevin Anderson and Richard Quinney,
University of Illinois Press, 2000, p. 126.) One need not accept Fromm's
Freudian framework to recognize that he had put his finger on how the whole
issue of crime has ideological dimensions that legitimate the capitalist
order.
Most commentators regard Fromm's early writings as more steeped in Marx
than his later ones. This is another indication of the extent to which the
pro-Adorno interpretation has become dominant on the Left. In fact, the
opposite is true. Fromm's most important contributions to Marxism came
after World War II, when he championed a specifically Marxist humanist
standpoint. As the radical psychologist Joel Kovel has noted, Fromm's move
away from orthodox Freudianism led to "the introduction of Marx's
humanism--the humanism of the 1844 Manuscripts--in place of Freudian instinct
theory," something that "distinguishes him from the other psychoanalytic
Marxists of the time." (See Kovel's introduction to THE ERICH FROMM READER,
New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1994.)
THE UNPUBLISHED DISCUSSION OF TROTSKY
One indication of Fromm's renewed interest in Marxism during the 1950s is
his decision to write a review of TROTSKY'S DIARY IN EXILE, published in
1958 by Harvard University Press. (Fromm's review was never published, but
it can be found in the ERICH FROMM ARCHIVES in Tübingen, Germany.) In his
review, Fromm deplored the "general habit of considering Stalinism and
present-day Communism as identical with, or at least a continuation of
revolutionary Marxism," especially the attempt to link "Marx, Engels, Lenin
and Trotsky" to "the vengeful killer Stalin, and to the opportunistic
conservative Khrushchev." He added:
"They were men with an uncompromising sense of truth, penetrating to the
very essence of reality, and never taken in by the deceptive surface; of an
unquenchable courage and integrity; of deep concern and devotion to man and
his future; unselfish and with little vanity or lust for power."
Fromm concluded that "just as was the case with Marx..., the concern,
understanding and sharing of a deeply loving man...shines through Trotsky's
diary." Fromm strongly objected to one aspect of the publication of
Trotsky's diary, however, a passage in the publicity copy from Harvard
referring to Trotsky's alleged "underlying fanaticism and selfishness." I
am aware of no similar defense of the life and work of the great
revolutionaries Lenin and Trotsky in the writings of other members of the
Frankfurt School.
MARX'S HUMANISM
With his book MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN (1961), Fromm probably did more than
any other individual to introduce Marx's now famous 1844 ESSAYS to the
American public. Marcuse had discussed them more profoundly in his REASON
AND REVOLUTION (1941) and Raya Dunayevskaya had deepened the discussion in
her MARXISM AND FREEDOM (1958), a volume that also included the first
published English translation of two of the most important of Marx's 1844
ESSAYS, "Private Property and Communism" and "Critique of the Hegelian
Dialectic." MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN consisted of a 90-page discussion by
Fromm, Tom Bottomore's translation of 110 pages from Marx's 1844 ESSAYS,
plus 60 pages of other texts by Marx and those who knew him.
Fromm's stature as a public intellectual helped to spark a far wider
discussion of the 1844 ESSAYS, not only within the broad intellectual
public, but also in mass media. NEWSWEEK, for example, was forced to
concede that "Marxian scholars have long known that there is an amazing
world of difference between the mythical Marx and the real man."
The best part of Fromm's contribution to MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN was his
attack on what he termed "the falsification of Marx's concepts" in the mass
media and even among intellectuals. He added that "this ignorance and
distortion of Marx are more to be found in the United States than in any
other Western country" (p. 1). Too often, Marx was portrayed as a crude
materialist who "neglected the importance of the individual" (p. 2). Fromm
set the record straight, writing that "the very aim of Marx is to liberate
man from the pressure of economic needs, so that he can be fully human" (p.
5).
A second falsification of Marx, this one carried out by both Western
intellectuals AND Communist ideologues, was the forced identification of
Marx with the single-party totalitarianism of the Soviet Union and Maoist
China. During the Cold War, this had led intellectuals to take sides with
either the West (for example, Sidney Hook) or Communism (for example,
Jean-Paul Sartre) as the lesser evil. Fromm would have none of this.
Instead, he posed a sharp diremption between "Marxist humanist socialism,"
on the one hand, and "totalitarian socialism" on the other (p. viii),
writing that the latter was really "a system of conservative state
capitalism" (p. vii).
However, Fromm sometimes erred by imposing his own more eclectic form of
humanism on Marx himself. For example, he wrote that "Marx's philosophy
constitutes a spiritual existentialism in secular language" or that Marx's
concept of socialism is rooted in "prophetic Messianism" (p. 5). Cold War
American liberals seized upon these weaknesses to attack Fromm, whom they
already resented for his critiques of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. They tried
to counter the whole new view of Marx as a revolutionary humanist that he
had presented, with both the 1844 ESSAYS and later works such as CAPITAL as
expressions of that underlying humanism.
In a review of MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN, the young philosopher Richard
Bernstein, later a follower of Jürgen Habermas, referred dismissively to
the 1844 MANUSCRIPTS as "a series of jottings." In language prefiguring
later postmodernist attacks on Marx and the dialectic, Bernstein also
warned that Fromm's talk of human "self-realization" in Marx was a
"dangerous" form of "absolute humanism" that "as history has taught us...
can by subtle gradations turn into an absolute totalitarianism" (NEW
LEADER, Oct. 2, 1961).
The ex-Marxist Sidney Hook, an originator of the "Hegel and fascism" school
who had virtually ignored Marx's 1844 ESSAYS in his supposed masterpiece
FROM HEGEL TO MARX (1936), seemed to feel the ground shifting under him. He
pontificated: "To seek what was distinctive and characteristic about Marx
in a period when he was still in Hegelian swaddling clothes... is to
violate every accepted and tested canon of historical scholarship" (NEW
LEADER, Dec. 11, 1961). Such attacks from intellectuals who also ridiculed
student protesters as spoiled brats only served to increase the interest of
radical youth in Marx's humanism.
DUNAYEVSKAYA--FROMM CORRESPONDENCE
It was while putting together MARX'S CONCEPT OF MAN that Fromm began his 30
years of correspondence with Dunayevskaya. In his book, Fromm called
Dunayevskaya's MARXISM AND FREEDOM "a significant addition to
Marxist-humanist thought" (p. 74). Their correspondence documents the
process by which Dunayevskaya contributed an essay to SOCIALIST HUMANISM,
the 1965 international symposium which Fromm edited, and Fromm's assistance
in obtaining publishers for her 1973 book, PHILOSOPHY AND REVOLUTION. He
did so not only for the American edition, but also for the Spanish and the
German translations of that work, contributing a preface for the latter.
(Dunayevskaya placed much of their correspondence in THE RAYA DUNAYEVSKAYA
COLLECTION, while the remainder is held by the Raya Dunayevskaya Memorial
Fund in Chicago. A full set can also be found in the Erich Fromm Archives
in Germany.)
Although Fromm had praised her MARXISM AND FREEDOM, this did not deter
Dunayevskaya from offering some criticisms of Fromm's book in her next
letter to him (RD to EF 10/11/61). Her main criticism was that Fromm's
discussion of Marx's humanist essays lacked the concreteness "of what Marx
called the 'abolition' of philosophy through its 'realization,' that is to
say by putting an end to the division between life and philosophy, work and
life." Fromm responded politely that he "cannot offer any argument" against
her critique of the abstract character of his essay.
On the issue of Hegel, however, the correspondence is more one-sided, with
Dunayevskaya sometimes writing to Fromm on Hegel, but getting little direct
response. However, it was in a letter apologizing for not being able to
respond directly on Hegel that Fromm invited her to contribute to SOCIALIST
HUMANISM.
Once Dunayevskaya submitted her essay, "Marx's Humanism Today," she and
Fromm had an extended dialogue, mainly over his desire for her to avoid
"expressions which are aggressive" (EF to RD 4/15/64) toward existing
Communist regimes so as not to endanger the East European participants. But
Fromm also asked her to expand her points on commodity fetishism and on the
relationship of the Paris Commune to Marx's CAPITAL.
Later, in 1974, Fromm asked Dunayevskaya for source material from Marx for
his book-in-progress TO HAVE OR TO BE?, published in 1976. They exchanged a
number of letters on this issue. While the book as a whole attempted a
synthesis comprising such disparate elements as Marx, Christian mysticism,
and Zen Buddhism, there are also passages that show some affinity to
Dunayevskaya's Marxist-Humanism. For example, the longest quote from Marx
that Fromm includes in this book (almost a full page) is none other than
the one from Vol. III of CAPITAL where Marx writes of the new society as
one where there exists a "human power which is its own end," also quoted on
the masthead of this newspaper (p. 156).
Other letters include some pungent critiques by both Dunayevskaya and Fromm
of Frankfurt School members Marcuse, Adorno, and Max Horkheimer, but I
cannot go into them here.
LUXEMBURG AND WOMEN'S LIBERATION
Dunayevskaya first brought up women's liberation in their correspondence in
1974, when she sent Fromm an article of hers on this topic. Fromm responded
most enthusiastically, writing that if the Women's Liberation Movement
"would know Marx they would find that they had their greatest ally in him"
(EF to RD 3/26/74). Some of these letters trace the early stages of the
development of ROSA LUXEMBURG, WOMEN'S LIBERATION, AND MARX'S PHILOSOPHY OF
REVOLUTION, published two and half years after Fromm's death, in 1982.
In a letter of July 15, 1976, Dunayevskaya referred to the "lack of
camaraderie between Luxemburg, Lenin, and Trotsky." She asked: "Could there
have been, if not outright male chauvinism, at least some looking down on
her theoretical work, because she was a woman?"
On October 27, 1977, Fromm responds to these and other points raised by
Dunayevskaya: "I feel that the male Social Democrats never could understand
Rosa Luxemburg, nor could she acquire the influence for which she had the
potential because she was a woman; and the men could not become full
revolutionaries because they did not emancipate themselves from their male,
patriarchal, and hence dominating, character structure." This moving letter
was his last to Dunayevskaya, who published it in her WOMEN'S LIBERATION
AND THE DIALECTICS OF REVOLUTION (1985).
Fromm's life and work centered on the problem of how people could realize
their full humanity, not only in psychological terms, but also politically
and philosophically. Always searching for a pathway out of the alienated
world of capitalism, he played a major role in creating awareness that
Marx's humanism could be the foundation for a new human society.
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