Marxism as a subjectifying device

Remarks from the empirical

inquiry into the mobilizing power of Marxism

Russian Poland, before and after 1905.

Wiktor MarzecCentral European University, Budapest

Marzec_Wiktor@ceu-budapest.edu

Introduction

Preliminary theoretical

considerations

Preliminary theoretical

considerations● Subjectivation or subjectification ● Polemicization● Intellectual emancipation● Political induction of intellectual activity● Uses of literacy and autodidactism● Vernacular Marxism

Political life materialized: reading practice and

circulation

The project

● Intelligentsia discourses directed to the workers-receivers

● Three types of reading material: leaflets, brochures/booklets, Marxist books

● Corpus of leaflets – QDA-aided analysis● Biographical testimonies – politics of

writing● Performative aspect of deployed language

– what does the material do with the readers?

Politics of rememberance

● Brochures and leaflets as factor shaping political identity

● Remembered as crucial material correlates of subjective change

In 1887 a blacksmith from Gadomski Mill, Biały [propably the party pseudonim or a surname], brought to me a brochure “Father Simon”, we went together to the attic, we have read it and till late at night we were resonating about the socialists and what they want. Soon a Liebknecht's brochure, “In defense of truth” and later Młot's “Who is who and what he profits from”. So, from 1888 on, I and Biały have been already socialists

LeafletsProclamations

● Dissolution of the old regime of legitimization

● Concepts as narrative devices

Cognitive mapping

Cognitive mapping

Leaflet of the PPSThe Muscovite tsarat is full of anxiety over the poor’s revolt; thus it tracks them down diligently and with its brutal paw suppresses any striving of workers for a better living. Police, gendarmes, snoopers and troops – here are the physicians that the tsarat gives us to heal the crisis!

Testimony of socialist workerWe faced unknown issues, begging for explanation, inducing anxiety and the exciting threat of danger. Not always were all the terms known, but the crucial content remained clear among the proletarian children and left no doubt. It was understandable. The proclamations were a call for a struggle against harm and exploitation, poverty and degradation.

Interpellation of subjects

SDKPiL ______ “comrades” “workers” “proletarians” _____ class identity, bridging the gap between a writing and reading subject

PPS ______“comrades” [also in the feminine] _____ the socialist tradition and solidarity, albeit not of a class-exclusionary kind

NZR _____ “compatriots” [Rodacy!], “brothers and countrymen” [Bracia Rodacy] _____ national identification with an ethnic component and organic division of labour inside the national unity (“Bothers workers”), paternal distance between writer and reader

Interpellation of subjects

The proclamation, copied on huge sheets of paper, started with words: “Comrades, bakers”. I have seen old bakers wiping tears away from their drunken faces while reading this. So we were not working cattle, not two-legged animals, but “comrades”, we – comrades... This feeling could be understood and shared only by these comrades-workers, who were themselves severely beaten up and kicked, and for whom the word “comrade” and “strike” were not usual or technical terms, but an acclamation of their belonging to the grand Workers Family. (…) I am firmly convinced, and I claim, that this moment has had a huge, if not decisive, significance for us, bakers, to become people.

Brochures

● Narrative structure – personified concepts and attitudes;

● Knowing, “wise” subject as narrator and authority;

● Topics: surplus value! Core of Marxism from top to bottom, explained via analogy to secondary serfdom, now mystified in the working-day loan;

● Also tax burden and antifiscalism, democratic state institutions, FAQs and common misunderstandings about socialism

Books

.He had no profession, he used to work as an assistant and earned one rubel per day. He spoke in peasant manner, however he was very experienced politically [wyrobiony], he was the only worker from the Czeladzka district, who studied Marxism (from Kautsky's books). He had a small library and was learning diligently every evening after hard work and poor supper.

I began to grasp anything only while reading chapters about buying and selling labour power, as these matters were practically familiar to me. I remembered the calculations of profit of my entrepreneur which I had made before the strike in 1897 and I easily understood, that profit of the entrepreneur consisted of our unpaid labour. It's hard to describe how pleasant this simple discovery was for me, along with the conviction that finally I will be able to read the Capital too.

Vernacular Marxism

● Cognitive-theoretical aspect – cognitive mapping and awareness of collective power (workers as creators of the world, crucial role in production process and the entire modern change, very strong shift in self estimation)

● Practical aspect of socialist activity – phenomenology of strike, gaining the political voice and ability to collectively act for a better future.

Wiktor MarzecDepartment of Sociology and Anthropology

Central European University, Budapest

wiktormarzec@gmail.com

www.wiktormarzec.pl

https://ceu.academia.edu/WiktorMarzec

Polish National Science Centre, research grant Preludium 3 2012/05/N/HS3/01158