Answers to Correspondents: Boudin and Marx. (1930)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1930 issue of the Socialist Standard

A correspondent draws our attention to the first paragraph on page 17 of Boudin’s “Theoretical System of Karl Marx,” which lays it down that the class which owns the new means of production is always victorious in its conflict with the older ruling class. Our correspondent points out that if this is true then the working class— not being property owners—will never achieve their emancipation. He also assumes that the passage in question is a quotation from Marx.

In the first place, the paragraph referred to is not a quotation from Marx and is not offered by Boudin as a quotation. The paragraph before this one and the paragraph after it are presented as quotations, and are taken from Marx’s preface to his “Critique of Political Economy,” but the quotation marks end with the paragraph before the one dealt with by our correspondent, and only begin again with the paragraph following.

The view put forward is certainly not that of Marx. It is also extremely improbable that it represents Boudin’s considered view. The probable explanation is that Boudin here intended only to state as a fact in relation to past class struggles that the victory was with the class which owned the new means of production. That it should read as if it were intended to refer to all class struggles and to be an essential feature of class struggles can only have been a slip on the part of Boudin.

Editorial Committee