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PARTISAN REVIEW
holding such a view. Therefore , I will present a summary of other solutions
to
the same problem of Marxist theory . I offer five of the main versions.
First version : psychoanalytical
(the author is an East European Jew,
anti-Communist , practicing psychoanalysis in Los Angeles) :
Marx 's theory ofalienation , his theory of value, and his Communism are
all to be explained by his anti-Semitism resulting, in its turn , from his hatred
of his father. Marx hated his father; that the documents seem to prove the
opposite can mislead only shallow minds (in fact, each man hates his father
and if he thinks he loves him this proves that he hates him ; and his love is
merely an attempt , under the pressure of his superego , to thrust out this
feeling of hatred from the conscious level , and to assuage his sense of guilt by
an exaggerated love) . Marx's father was aJewish convert and , in his son's eyes,
the symbol of Jewishness. Now, Marx identified Jewishness with money
(several quotations available), and he considered money to be the extreme
form of the alienation of labor. As a result of this equation (father
=
Jewish–
ness
=
money
=
alienation) his hatred of the father took the shape of an
anti-Semitic theory holding that alienation is the source of all social evil and
demanding a Communist society , which means a society where alienation
(that is, money, that is,Jews , that is , father) is destroyed . Consequently, the
anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union , far from being a denial ofMarxist legacy, is
its perfect fulfillment . QED.
Second version: structuralist
(the author is an American Jew , vaguely
sympathizing with Chinese Communism, teaching general semiotics in New
York City) :
We have two different structures in Marxism. One of them corresponds,
naively speaking, to the young Marx, the other to the old one (in fact , to use
words like young or old is to make allowances for the general public's
ignorance ; scientifically speaking, Marx's theory cannot be explained by his
life ; on the contrary , his life should be inferred from the structure of the
theory) . Historical relations of these two structures are scientifically irrelevant
as the science is about structures , not about origin) and that is that. Let us call
them conventionally the structure of alienation (concept A) and the structure
of value (concept B) . Here are structural definitions:
Concept A: a field of tension generated by the shift of a minimum social
unit from the pole of immobile identity toward the pole of self-propelling
forward-facing identity along the periphery of the obliquely directed non–
identity .
Concept B: centripetally directed unified repository of the multiformly
applied energy in pseudo-self-stabilizing translocation on the growth-vector
in discontinuous time-rhythmicity . (Diagrams with many arrows available for
both definitions .)
