Middle Marx: Historical, Political, Sociological
Middle Marx is the most sociological. It deals with the messy details of history or
current events, guided by the radical philosophy and dialectical economic theory. Marx
analyzed the world of the mid nineteenth century, including the Civil War in North
America, British Imperialism in India (another case of failing to anticipate Lenin), and,
most important, revolutionary Europe, particularly France, 1848-1871 (see Marx
document with outline of French history).
Marx's middle writings allow to ask the following questions:
What is a class?
How does Marx use the term?
How many classes are there? Where do their borders begin and end?
When and how and why do classes act?
What is a state?
Who governs, how, where, and when?
What difference does it make?
How do ruling classes rule?
We might also consider these questions:
How does Marx's philosophical and economic theory inform his journalism? His
political writings?
Why do Marx and Engels defend private property in the Communist Manifesto?
What does Marx suggest that the Russians do with their communal peasant communities?
(see Russian introducation to Communist Manifesto)
Is their a lesson here for Mao? For Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky?
Does Marx view the Communards as the revolutionary proletariat? (in Civil Wars in
France)
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