Orthodox Marxism
(Marxism for the Orthodox)
by Tom Milstein
Karl
Marx, whose entire theory of history revolved notoriously around the concept of
class, distinguished between two types of class identity, or consciousness: a
class “in itself,” and a class “for itself.”
A
“class in itself” was simply a social group whose objective circumstances rendered
it a class as Marx defined classes – for example peasants in feudal society, or workers
in industrial capitalist society. According to Marx, a class occupied a fixed,
objective relationship to the “means of production,” whatever that happened to
be in a given historical epoch – the land
in feudalism’s rural agrarian economy, factories
in capitalism’s urban industrial system.
A
“class for itself” introduced a subjective dimension into Marx’s historical
analysis, the dimension of consciousness.
A class for itself was simply a class in itself that had become aware of itself
as an historical actor. For example, the embryonic bourgeoisie of early and
middle feudalism in Europe was a class in itself, because it clustered together
in trading towns in the interstices of feudal society, occupied a fixed
position in relationship to the means of production (trading the products of
feudalism for profit), and developed a culture and way of life unique to
itself. But this bourgeoisie did not become a class for itself until after the
Protestant Reformation, and especially the Enlightenment, which caused members
of this class to begin thinking of themselves as the representatives of
society’s general interest. Soon the bourgeoisie was plotting to overthrow the
twin pillars of feudalism: the Roman Catholic Church and the monarchy-aristocracy.
In
other words, the European (and American) bourgeoisie transformed itself from a
mere “class in itself” into a “class for itself” – but only after it had
managed to transmute the other-worldly ascetic dream of Calvinism into a
secular call to revolutionary arms, so to speak (of course, this
reinterpretation process was helped along by such unpleasant historical events
as the St. Bartholomew’s Day massacre of the French Protestants).
A
recent column on the Op-Ed page of the New
York Sun by Meyrav Wurmser entitled “The New Focal Point of Israel’s
Schisms” (attached) got me to thinking about these arcane Marxian notions. Ms.
Wurmser is described in her bio as “a neoconservative scholar
of the Arab world. She is married to David Wurmser, Middle East Adviser to US
Vice President Dick Cheney. She is also a member of the conservative US think tank,
the Hudson Institute.” Be all that as it may, the focus point of her “New Focal
Point” column is the Israeli Army, and in particular, the great prominence of kippah seruga – “knit-cap” religious
Orthodox – in the IDF, especially in the elite combat units which make up the
backbone of its fighting forces, and in the middle and upper (although not the
topmost) tiers of the officer corps.
Ms. Wurmser notes that membership in these military
units has traditionally been identified with “’ownership’ of the nation,” a
Zionist property title which arose when left-wing secular Kibbutz
youth supplied the army’s elite cadres. Now of course these committed youth
have ceased to exist or have other interests. Their place has been filled by
young people from the religious nationalist milieu in Israel. And
therein, says Ms. Wurmser, lies the problem – a problem, as her article title
suggests, of schism.
She implies, without quite saying so, that the
reason – or at least, a reason – for
Israel’s military debacle in Prime Minister Olmert’s 2006 War in Lebanon, was
rabbinical disapproval of the war, rooted in fear of the consequences of
victory: “…after
Prime Minister Olmert stated that a victory in Lebanon would provide the
impetus for another disengagement in the West Bank, leaders of the religious
national settlement movement, rabbis, and thousands of settlers, sent word to
their sons in the military telling them to disobey military orders that would
take them to war.”
From
this insinuation, she proceeds to the main point of her article, which is that
if the Annapolis Conference and its aftermath lead to peace agreements
requiring extensive Israeli territorial concessions to a Palestinian
State, “future withdrawals may turn Israel’s
defense forces into the focal point of the country’s schisms.” In other words,
the new Zionist title-holders in the IDF cannot be trusted to carry out the
orders of the duly constituted civilian authorities of Israel. They
will place their loyalty to “the Scroll” over their duty to the State.
Personally,
I came away from this piece with the sinister feeling that Ms. Wurmser is hiding
behind the role of Cassandra in order to proffer strategic advice to Israel’s
American Jewish enemies about how to take apart the Zionist entity. Given her
sterling credentials (she is after all an associate of Richard Perle!), I hope
I’m wrong about that. But right or wrong as I may be about her motivations, she
has laid out a blueprint for the demolition of Israeli society. And that blueprint
takes me right back to Karl Marx’s observations about class.
If
we strip out of Marx’s ideas about class his “means of production”
gobbledegook, we are left with some very cogent political sociology. For the
religious Zionist segment of Israeli
society fits perfectly the definition of a class “in itself” that has not
achieved the level of consciousness necessary to become a class “for itself.”
It has stumbled into possession of the keys to the Israeli Kingdom
in a fit of utter absent-mindedness, filling the ideological vacuum left by the
implosion of secular Left-wing Zionism without the slightest intention of using
this power politically in order to
become the new masters of the State.
This
ambiguous role, the role of a class in itself which has been propelled by blind
historical forces into the position of having
power without any corresponding will
to power, is a prescription for political and social suicide. To possess power
unconsciously, with no corresponding program for using power in order to transform society and thereby legitimate
that power, is to stimulate in the minds of one’s enemies morbid fear and fierce
hatred. Shy protestations of political innocence and disinterest do not appease
these enemies, they only aggravate their fear and hatred.
The
religious Zionist community in Israel
finds itself in the potentially tragic role of a class in itself which has
unconsciously ascended to an extremely dangerous and exposed position of power.
In order to survive, it must negotiate the difficult but feasible ascent to
true power – the power which is conferred upon a class for itself, a class
which understands and accepts its historical mission and embraces its political
destiny. If religious Zionism shrinks from this challenge, Ms. Wurmser has accurately
presented the consequences – the schismatic disintegration of the central
institution of the State of Israel, which is not the laughing-stock government,
but the IDF. Such a disintegration will not be bloodless. And most of the blood
will be ours.
