József Attila 1931
Source: Originally published in Hungarian in "Társadalmi szemle", September 1931.
Translated by: László Molnárfi, 2025.
The class-conscious base of the German proletariat, which organized itself during the course of theoretical and important practical struggle against opportunism and revisionism, has been growing ever since the war. Its immediate practical lessons attract ever-growing crowds under the banner of pure Marxism, and concurrently with the recognition of these lessons, the desire of receiving a Marxist education awakens in the masses, so that their political consciousness need not rest purely on individual experience, but gain its strength from the entire proletariat’s collective experiences, from the scientific critique of the capitalist mode of production and the objective understanding of history’s progression. As such, the insights gained from immediate practice brought about the German proletariat’s need for theory, and theory became a necessity for broader and broader layers of the masses.
To satisfy this need, schools for workers were formed, one after the other, where workers could study Marxism. However, these schools proved to be insufficient, partially because of the great demand by workers, and partially because some workers were not in a position to attend these Marxist schools. Yet, with the creation of schools for workers, the need for theory only grew. The students of these schools themselves became teachers, but nevertheless, they were in need of theoretical crutches. As such, a tool had to be created, with which they could teach outside of school and the method with which they could learn outside of school. This tool is the Marxistische Arbeiterschulung, published in Verlag für Literatur und Politik, the editors of which are: Hermann Duncker, Alfons Goldschmidt és K. A. Wittfogel.
The Marxistische Arbeiterschulung is a series of four handbooks. The first series concerns itself with political economy (Politische Ökonomie), which serves as a guide to Marx’s analysis of capitalist production. At the same time, it sharply and necessarily criticises the idea that the capitalist mode of production results in perpetual growth, the peaceful transition from capitalism to socialism and the revisionist and bourgeois theories which followed Marx concerning organized capitalism and economic democracy. In its discourse, it inserts, amongst others, the situation of Russia’s new relations of production, its class analysis and the economy it calls forth, therefore consistently dealing with the questions which in Marx’s life were not posed, or could not be posed at all, and to which Marx could therefore not provide an answer. The second educational handbook series concerns itself with the history of the workers’ movement, and so far four handbooks have been produced. The third handbook series acquaints with the work of societal reorganisation carried out by the Soviet Union. Naturally, the handbook of the history of the workers’ movement is split into two: the first about the class struggle fought by the proletariat from below directed above, and the second about the class struggle of the proletariat from above directed below, both of which possess the same aim, that is power, to destroy the capitalist mode of production. The fourth handbook series summarises the worldview of Marxism, historical materialism and dialectical materialism, two aspects which are the most neglected in discourse, and seeks to illuminate them.
In Hungary too, there is a great need for such educational writings. This is proven by the popularity of the German handbooks, as well as the crowdedness of workers’ educational seminars, the shortage of speakers and daily theoretical debates arising between workers. At the same time, it is characteristic of our situation that the publication of the most important works within our sparse Marxist literature (the selected works of Marx and Engels, the first (!) volume of Capital, the few writings of Szabó Ervin) was made possible either due to the sacrifice of a few individuals, or by some private publisher.