Hello, this is AnarchoSonic and today we are talking about Anime about Marx(!) and Engels(!). When I heard that it existed, I decided that I had no right to miss it. Here, however, nuances surfaced – it was produced not by a Japanese studio, but by a Chinese studio, so in fact this is not an anime. Plus, the animation here is more 3D than hand-drawn, and even though the year of release is 2019, the “tridishness” is very noticeable, at least at first. The Chinese Communist Party ordered the release of the anime. Then they also released a manhwa with key events.
By the way, while I was looking for a manhwa based on this anime, I came across a manga that talks about Marx, a misfit. Like Marx, from the table in the cafe where he was sitting with Engels, enters a fantasy world, meets a bunch of heroes, tells them that they are lumpen and they should not fight the “Dark Lord” for the king’s gold, but with the unjust structure of society. There are still only a couple of dozen pages, and the art is not phenomenal, but firstly, it is clear that they write with knowledge of the matter, as far as I can tell, and secondly, it is easy to read, with a little humor, you can feel the Japanese style. In general, if you have time, find it and read it, I advise you.
Let’s return to Chinese. The plot of the anime tells about the reference points of Marx’s biography and outlines the vector of movement of his philosophical thought. In short: Here Marx graduates from the gymnasium, here he is at a ball with Jenny, here he is already at the University of Bonn, where he is still an associate of Kant’s ideas, and now he is transferred to Berlin where he is imbued with the philosophy of Hegel and joins the Young Hegelian atheists. He immediately graduated from the university as an external student, having defended his dissertation “The difference between the natural philosophy of Democritus and the natural philosophy of Epicurus” at the University of Jena. Then he writes to a Rhine newspaper, gets fame and problems with the authorities. Breaks ties with the Young Hegelians. Meets Engels for the first time.
Then the leapfrog begins with Marx’s relocations. First to France, where he reacquainted himself and became friends with Engels, then he moved to Brussels, together with his family and Engels, where the two of them wrote the work “German Ideology” criticizing the Young Hegelians and Hegel. During the same period, Marx and Engels joined the League of the Just, which was renamed the Union of Communists, for which the two of them wrote the Manifesto of the Communist Party in 1847. During the February French Revolution of 1848, Marx was expelled from Belgium, he travels to France, where he is finally disillusioned with bourgeois democracy. There, if anything, in the end the elected president of the republic carried out a coup and became the new emperor of France.
Marx goes back to Germany, opens a revolutionary “new Rhine newspaper”, editors are members of the Communist League. As a result, he is forced to close the Rhine newspaper again due to problems with the authorities and move first to France, and soon after that to England, Engels at this time travels to the USA, this is 1849.
Here the anime authors crammed almost 18 years of Marx’s work into 10 minutes of screen time. They showed his plight, the death of his son, amid the cries of the apartment owner demanding payment of the rent debt. Two other deceased children were mentioned. They showed how Marx goes to the British library to immerse himself in scientific works. And then time was sped up and hop-hop-hop and already in 1867 the first volume of Capital was released.
Immediately after this, some parts of this “Working Class Bible” were quoted.When quoting Capital, there is a kind of motion slide show, which is made in 2D and, in my opinion, looks much more interesting than the main tri-dash picture, but the truth is only in comparison.
In the sixth episode, we rolled back a little, talked about the creation of the first international in 1864, about the Paris commune, how it appeared. By the way, the Paris commune is a vivid example of class confrontation. That’s how it happened – France was at war with Germany, the French army was essentially defeated, but the Parisian workers organized resistance to the German army, defended the city and at the same time created self-government bodies, equalized the rights of all citizens, officials were given salaries equal to workers’ salaries, and other transformations that at that time were considered to bring socialism closer.
So what happened in nokyccasinos.org.uk the end? The French rulers agreed with the German government and the Paris commune was attacked not only by the Germans, but also by the new French army. This shows that bourgeois states can fight with each other as much as they want and call each other enemies, their main enemies are the proletarians. And it doesn’t matter whether they are proletarians of foreign countries or their own, the main thing is the interests of their class. Capitalists understand this, but proletarians have already forgotten this over the course of a century.
So the Paris Commune fell on May 28, 1871, having existed for 72 days. Against the backdrop of these events, fierce disputes between anarchists and Marxists unfolded. In the anime, only one side is shown, everything is presented in such a way that Bakunin, a representative of the anarchists who was part of the international, was preparing a conspiratorial group, for which he was eventually expelled from the international in 1872. True, they did not mention that at the same time some of the “anti-authoritarians” broke away, creating their own anarchist international, which lasted until 1877, outliving the main first international by a year.
And in general, Bakunin was presented as some kind of villain, although he was not a villain. As for me, he simply did not have an understanding of dialectics. What do I mean. Bakunin and Marx had the same goal – communism. But they had different visions of the path to achieving this goal. Bakunin believed that the immediate overthrow of any government was necessary, the destruction of the institution of power as such, and called any compromises a betrayal of the proletariat. Whereas Marx and Engels believed that a dictatorship of the proletariat is required, which first of all will seize power and institutions of power, factories and factories, putting them in their service.
And through the strengthening of such power, the power of workers, the state as an instrument of violence will gradually wither away. Lenin would later develop and deepen this topic in his work “State and Revolution”. This seems like a paradoxical statement: “let’s strengthen the state so that it withers away,” but for that we have such a tool as the dialectical method. I’m not Popov or Zhukov, but I’ll describe it as I understand it.
Firstly, it is the state with the dictatorship of the proletariat, the progressive class, that is strengthening, and not any existing state, therefore progress, both technological and social, is increasing. Secondly, at a certain stage of technological progress, automation reaches such a level that the very need to sell one’s labor dies out, i.e.e. the proletariat as a class and, accordingly, other classes are dying out. There is a transition from quantitative changes to qualitative ones, the negation of the negation, and this is all according to the laws of dialectics.
In general, I probably said everything wrong, I didn’t understand anything, I simplified everything too much and everything like that. So correct me with your wise advice in the comments.
So, in my opinion, Bakunin did not understand the dialectical method and therefore believed that this was some kind of misleading of the workers and delaying the onset of communism, so to beat around the bush, you need to cut this Gordian knot with one blow and that’s it. Point A – capitalism, point B – communism, it’s simple. But “simply” does not happen in reality, of course. I won’t go into the jungle of criticism of anarchism myself (with my nickname), but the topic is good, I’ll probably return to it a little later.
In the last episode they mentioned that Engels was going to write Anti-Dühring, and devoted most of the time to Marx’s relationship with his wife Jenny. Jenny dies in 1881, 15 months later her daughter, Jenny the Younger, dies, and soon in 1883 Karl Marx himself dies, leaving volumes 2 and 3 of capital unfinished. Which Engels has been putting in order for 11 years.
And then the Chinese propaganda begins. It said that in 1917 there was a revolution in Russia, in 1921 the Communist Party of China was organized, and we, they say, developed Marxism-Leninism into Maoism, then into Den Xiaopism, socialism with Chinese characteristics, triple representation, XiJinpingism. Like let’s carry the banner of Marxism and so on and so forth.
I would like to say something about China and socialism in it, but I am an amateur, I know little about the history and development of China. The only thing I would like to note is a couple of points that came to me through the media. (Again, if something is wrong, write comments). Triple Representation is a principle adopted in 2001 by which China ceases to be a purely proletarian state and becomes a state of the entire people. And this means that? That’s right, representatives of medium and large businesses have begun to be accepted into the government and party.
They will probably immediately object to me – “no, but what, the USSR also had NEP”. Only this happened at the beginning of the construction of the state and at the end of the twenties the NEP began to be curtailed, when the disadvantages had already begun to cover the advantages. And here the NEP dates back to the early 1980s and is only getting stronger – Chinese billionaires are competing with American ones, a crisis of overproduction in the construction sector (at least), youth unemployment above 20% and other joys of capitalist realities.
By the way, in 1961 in the USSR at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU they adopted approximately the same course, and then amendments to the country’s constitution in 1977, supposedly we are no longer a proletarian government, but a national government. Why did the Chinese comrades, even after the 20th Congress, begin to criticize the CPSU, saying that this path will lead you to counter-revolution and the restoration of capitalism?. Tellingly, they turned out to be right – we are now living in this counter-revolution. Only the Chinese comrades did not preserve their socialism and their 91st has already successfully arrived.
Okay, let’s not talk about sad things. The anime turned out good, but not particularly spectacular. Well, that is, completely. But overall I can recommend it. It reflects the main moments of Marx’s life, remotely shows the context of life at that time in Europe, a couple of strokes indicate the milestones of the labor movement and, most importantly, voice key quotes from the works of Marx. And once they even showed Marx talking about surplus value and overproduction to the son of a laid-off worker. And in general, Karl Marx is shown here as a person, and not just as the leader of the proletariat, which also adds facets to his image for those who are not familiar with the biography of such an outstanding person.
All in all. For those who are new to the biography of Karl Marx, I definitely recommend watching it. Maybe this will at least awaken the desire to read more about him and about the labor movement. I also advise haters of socialism to take a look so that you can at least understand what you hate. And maybe you will realize that you are actually much closer to the left than you think.
Don’t forget to unite. And that’s all for me. Love, good bye.
Surprisingly, there are essentially no cosplays of Marx, Engels, or even Jenny.
BUT, so that there is at least something here, then here. Young Nadezhda Krupskaya. This is the wife of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.
I hope next time I take a game/anime that has enough cosplay. Perhaps it is precisely by this criterion that I will choose the next topic.
