Post-Marxism with substance: Beilharz circles Marx

Circling Marx is both a window on to the forces and concerns that have shaped Thesis Eleven over four decades and an intellectual portrait of the singular post-Marxism of one of its leading thinkers. Beilharz emphasises the existence of multiple Marxes but leans towards a Marx who suggests an expanded materialism, a non-Bolshevik Marx, and a Marx of motion, rather than laws. Addressing Marxism and socialism more widely, Beilharz again underscores multiplicity, favouring those thinkers and currents that acknowledged complexity and limits, that staged something of a conversation between Marx and Weber, and that took distance from the teleology, vanguardism, and hubris that has marked parts of the Marxist tradition. Moving into more clearly post-Marxist territory, through important encounters with Heller and Feher, Bauman, Smith, and Castoriadis, Beilharz’s optic prioritises place, cultural traffic, and ambivalence, combining categories of ambitious scope with epistemological and normative circumspection, criticism with world affirmation.

Hegemonic Formation in Post-Javanese Indonesian Society

In society, there are various structured power relations that connect individuals who share certain interests and objectives. In these power relations, hegemony plays a significant role. Hegemony is the most important notion in the Marxist tradition, especially as it is conceptualized by Gramsci. This paper tries to re-read the issue of hegemony in the context of ideological contestation in Javanese society in Indonesia. The problem will be examined based on post-Marxist theory, especially as it relates to the demolition of the strong order of capitalism. Based on the results of the study, it can be concluded that hegemony forms itself in layers. The layers influence each other so that there is one area of hegemonic intersection. In Javanese society these days, there is a “competition,” especially in Yogyakarta, to return, feel, and become more Javanese than others. The implication is that there are parties who feel more Javanese than others. This case in this study is referred to as the post-Javanese society. However, in the intersection area, there are all-powerful puppeteers.

The Christian Question

Roland Boer’s five-volume work, On Marxism and Theology (2007–2013), explores the connections between Marxism and Christianity. In this interview, Boer speaks about some of the pressing issues and knotty questions raised in the series. Beginning with questions of Boer’s intellectual and political formation, of previous work on the Marxism–Christianity link, and contemporary claims about the return of religion, the discussion moves to the treatment of religion by Marx and Engels, by key Second International thinkers, and within Russian Marxism. The interview then turns to the Western Marxist tradition and the importance of Ernst Bloch and Theodor Adorno in Boer’s work. Responding to a final set of questions, Boer reflects on post-secularism and the new atheism, ethics and grace, and the contemporary struggle over the Christian legacy.

O CAMINHO BRASILEIRO PARA O FASCISMO

<p>O artigo analisa a natureza do governo Bolsonaro, da sua base social de apoio mais ativa e da crise política que lhe deu origem. Polemiza com a bibliografia clássica e atual sobre o fascismo e, operando com um conceito de fascismo inserido na tradição marxista, caracteriza o governo e sua base social como (neo)fascistas. Sustenta a necessidade de construir uma tipologia das crises políticas nas sociedades capitalistas e procura mostrar que a natureza e a dinâmica da crise política brasileira de 2015-2018 são típicas da crise política que dá origem ao fascismo. Insere o bolsonarismo no contexto da democracia ainda existente no Brasil, que caracteriza como uma democracia burguesa em crise.</p><p><strong>THE BRAZILIAN PATH TO FASCISM</strong><br /><br />The article analyzes the nature of the Bolsonaro Government, its most active social base of support, and the political crisis that gave rise to it. It polemizes with the classical and current bibliography on fascism and, operating with a concept of fascism embedded in the Marxist tradition, characterizes the government and its social base as (neo)fascists. It argues for the need to develop a typology of political crises in capitalist societies, showing that the nature and dynamics of the 2015-2018 Brazilian political crisis are typical of the political crisis that gives rise to fascism. Finally, it places bolsonarismo in the context of the democracy still existing in Brazil, which it characterizes as a bourgeois democracy in crisis.</p><p>Keywords: Brazilian Politics. Bolsonaro Government.Neo-fascism. Political Crisis.</p><p><strong>LE CHEMIN BRÉSILIEN VERS LE FACISME</strong></p><p>L’article analyse la nature du gouvernement Bolsonaro, sa base sociale de soutien la plus active et la crise politique qui les a engendrés. Il polémique avec la bibliographie classique et actuelle sur le fascisme et, opérant avec un concept de fascisme ancré dans la tradition marxiste, caractérise le gouvernement et sa base sociale comme (néo) fascistes. Il soutient le besoin de développer une typologie des crises politiques dans les sociétés capitalistes et entend montrer que la nature at dynamique de la crise politique brésilienne de 2015-2018 sont typiques de celle qui donne naissance au fascisme. Il place le bolsonarisme dans le contexte de la démocratie existant encore au Brésil, qu’il caractérise comme une démocratie bourgeoise en crise.</p><p>Mots-clés: Politique Brésilienne. Gouvernement Bolsonaro. Néofascisme. Crise Politique.</p>

The army and the collapse of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1918

The process of disorganization of the armed forces of Austria-Hungary in 1918 is considered through the prism of the national issue and the prospects for the further preservation of the Habsburg Monarchy. It is concluded that the military and diplomatic victories won in the early 1918 by Austria-Hungary were illusory and only put off the inevitable defeat of its army. Investigation of the first cases of mass withdrawal from obedience of military units in the spring and summer of 1918, showed that they were an interweaving of social, national-political and military reasons proper. At the same time, a serious discrepancy was revealed between Slovenian and Italian researchers in the interpretation of the reasons for the uprising in the 97th infantry regiment stationed in the Slovenian Radkersburg (Radgon). If for the former it was typical, following the Marxist tradition, to emphasize the social contradictions that led to the revolutionization of the army according to the “Russian model”, the latter praised the participants in the uprising from the Italian side as genuine national patriots. It is shown that the “shock force” of all the soldiers’ uprisings that broke out in the spring and summer of 1918 in the Austro-Hungarian army were servicemen who returned from Russian captivity in the spring of 1918, where some of them were imbued with revolutionary ideas. The conclusion is drawn about the extreme severity of military justice, which condemned many of the insurgents to death, which became the reason for deputy inquiries.

Moral Assessment of War in Russian Marxist Thought in the 1910–1930s

This article precedes a large-scale study of the ethics of war in the USSR. The text deals with the problem of finding moral argumentation in the Russian Marxist tradition of under­standing of war in 1910–1930s. Lenin, developing the ideas of Marx and Clausewitz, formu­lated that war is continuation of politics, which in turn is an expression of the class struggle. This thesis was sometimes taken as evidence of a rejection of the ethical consideration of war. However, a closer study of the literature and comparative research of the Bolsheviks theorists’ attitudes to militarism and pacifism, can lead to the conclusion that the ethical view on war was not completely alien to the Soviet authors. The typology of war, peculiar to the Russian Marxism of the specified period, is given, and the main strategies of moral legit­imization of war are also designated. At the end of the article, the question of the complexity of studying the soviet ethics of war in the context of the homogenization of philosophical and military discourses in the USSR is considered. However, it is concluded that this institu­tional feature of Soviet science and philosophy manifested itself over time, that the reduc­tion in the possibility of free thought and discussion gradually increased. Accordingly, in the writings of the 1920s and 1930s, we can try to discover the original Soviet ethics of war and fix various points of view and positions on the issues of the moral limitation of war. The ar­ticle ends with the definition of the directions of further develop­ment of the subject. These tasks are: differentiation of the generalized views on the moral dimension of war presented in this article, clarification the dynamics and forms of the Soviet moral theory of war canon, and identification the differences between Lenin’s and Stalin’s approaches to understanding the war.

On Populist Illusion

Amplifying the distinction between ‘politics’ and ‘the political’, Ernesto Laclau crowns his examination of the blind spots of the Marxist tradition with an encomium of populism. His project to re-centre ‘the political’ does not postulate a beginning marked by a great event. Instead, Laclau celebrates ontological foundation as the abyss of all politicity. This chapter critically assesses how Laclau invests the body of the populist leader with an extra-quotidian character. I will also show how the assumption that the body of the leader animates political beginnings and primordially channels them restrains Laclau’s previous ‘deepening of the materialist project’.

The Marxist Tradition Against the Grain Anna Yegorova. Rethinking the Category of Class: Tempora Multa of the Plural Subject

The author develops the concept of plural temporality as a tool for revising the Marxist tradition. This concept was not explicitly formulated by Marx, but the author maintains that it takes a latent form in those of his works which expose the inadequacy of understanding historical development through a linear model or as unfolding in stages. The author finds traces of plural temporality in the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right where Marx contrasts the modernity of German philosophy with the anachronistic nature of the German state. The article outlines the concept’s growing influence over a series of works from the Manifesto of the Communist Party to The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. However, it is most distinct in two later texts by Marx devoted to the Russian rural commune (obshchina). Marx notes its unprecedented historical character as a product of pre-capitalist social relations that is nevertheless contemporary with capitalism. Therefore, it is not so a hindrance to the development of capitalism in Russia, but more a model of the type of collective labor and collective property that are an alternative to capitalism. Marx thought that the future revolution, if it happens at the “appropriate time,” would necessarily establish the free development of the rural community and the superiority of Russian society over those countries in which capitalism dominates. The author analyzes the works of Marx’s followers who already consciously use the concept and metaphors of plural temporality in their works such as Ernest Bloch, Antonio Gramsci and Louis Althusser. In conclusion, the concept of plural temporality is not meant to completely refute the idea of a continuous course for history, but instead to elucidate its complex and contingent nature.

Chingiz Aitmatov's Grand Narrative

Beyond political and cultural criticisms, grand narratives have the authority to disclose real facts. This authority is most effective in the field of culture. Grand narratives are the universal presentation of local culture. In a culture dominated by grand narratives, the dominant ideology of the regime is to control knowledge. Grand narratives play a role in generalizing and transferring information skillfully while describing the contemporary situation. A novelist was defined as a mirror reflecting the period and society in which he lived. Likewise, Chingiz Aitmatov tried to depict the political, social, and cultural structure of his period, and accordingly, formed his own grand narrative. The author skillfully revealed the facts of the period regarding the Marxist tradition and described the social, cultural, and political structure of the period using a tentative language in parallel with the facts such as analogy, myth, and legend.