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Charles Darwin
Source: Thinking Sideways Podcast 


Lewis Henry Morgan
Source: Wikipedia 


de | Thema: Entwicklung in Natur und Gesellschaft
en | Theme: Development in Nature and Society
fr | Thème: Développement en nature et société
nl | Thema: Ontwikkeling in natuur en maatschappij


Introduction

Ever since the 16th Century (and even earlier), capitalists have made an incredible ‘progres’ in the development of productive forces. But only at the expense of looting nature and exploiting labour power, while troubling the minds of humans.

Within the Stalinist ideology (pretending to be ‘Marxist’) Darwinism was rejected in favor of Lysenkoïsm, and in anthropology the determinist and mechanical theses of the unilinear “five stages” of development was maintained (apparently based on Lewis Henry Morgan), there has been an alternative developped within the Communist Left. Here we aim to present these contributions, as well as a few directions to move forward.

It is difficult to study biology without studying anthropology, and even more the other way around; there are too many analogies, and comparing the two learns a lot on method, classification, perspectives, and most of all prejudices. The two have too much in common, but they are also clearly distinct: the one applies to nature, the other to human society.

Here we do not pretend to provide definite answers, only to give some orientation to the subjects, and materials which are often hard to find.


I. Two great thinkers of the 19th Century

Marx and Engels were much inspired by two liberals: Charles Darwin and Lewis Henry Morgan. While the theory of Charles Darwin, in the British empiricist tradition, still stands in its general outlines, the unilinear evolutionary classification by the lawyer Henry Lewis Morgan, however innovative and inspiring it was, is outdated for both its method and classification; his work remains however a highlight in the history of anthropology, a bit like the speculative and outdated works of Linnaeus and Lamarck for biology.
And it does not imply that a classification of societies and an evolutionary theory of human societies would be impossible (we need to implicate production forces and -relations).


Charles Darwin’s biology

  • en | Darwin Online , everything Darwin wrote, in many languages.
  • en | The Talk Origins Archive , Exploring the Creation/Evolution Controversy (deceased in 2015); although “anti-creationist” (a non-discussion), yet a valuable source of information (1).

Lewis Henry Morgan’s anthropology

 Ancient Society / Lewis H. Morgan 
Source pdf: archive.org .

Other pdf’s:   (Google Books) ,   (Global Grey eBooks) .
Other transcription: Gutenberg.org 


Marx and Engels on Charles Darwin

de | Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels über Charles Darwin


Friedrich Engels on Lewis Henry Morgan


II. Contributions from within the Communist Left


The devastation of nature / Anton Pannekoek, 1909

de | Naturverwüstung / Anton Pannekoek
en | The Devastation of Nature / Anton Pannekoek
es | La devastación de la naturaleza / Anton Pannekoek
fr | La dévastation de la nature / Anton Pannekoek
nl | Verwoesting van de natuur / Anton Pannekoek
pt | A Devastação da Natureza / Anton Pannekoek, 2019 (1909)


Marxism and Darwinism / Anton Pannekoek, 1909

The German and Dutch versions are to be considered as the original texts, translations in Estonian, Spanish, Rumanian and Ukrainien also exist.

Some articles were published before this pamphlet appeared:


Anthropogenesis / Anton Pannekoek, 1945

The English and Dutch version are to be considered as the original text. Only the English version is annotated.

Related:

Ben Karlsberg and Pierre Bessaignet

Two more noteworthy contributions (2):


III. 20th Century controverses


fr | ru | Nikolai Bukharin’s Darwinism

ru |  It would be false to identify Russian biology with Stalinist dogmatism. As late as 1932, Nikolai Bukharin  (Н. И. Бухарин) published a pamphlet, in which he plagiarized quite a lot from Pannekoek, without refering to him, as Pannekoek already was a ‘persona non grata’. He defended Darwinism as wel as genetics, and he was the first to coin the term “synthetic theory”. He was murdered in 1938. For as far as known, this text has never been translated, (source pdf: Smena ), with thanks to Ph.B.

fr |  Darwinisme et marxisme (1932) / Nicolas Boukharine, translated from Russian by Philippe Bourrinet. – Paris : Moto proprio (我的出版社摩托车), octobre 2019


Lysenko’s biological pseudo-science

When Pannekoek’s Marxisme and Darwinism was published, Trofim Lysenko was just 20 years old. The latter doesn’t refer to the first, but claims a very different thesis of his own, combining arrogance with ignorance. Under the protection of Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, in the name of Marxism, he developed a theory which proofed not only scientifically ridiculous, but also catastrophic in agriculture.

In 1949 Trofim Lysenko (3) states:

“The appearance of Darwins’s teaching, expounded in his book, The Origin of Species, marked the beginning of scientific biology.”

Then he attacks Darwin on his presumed Malthusianism (4), he quotes Friedrich Engels’ critic of “Darwinism” (meant social-Darwinism, which was rejected by Darwin himself, something Friedrich Engels couldn’t know), then he rejects Weismann (5), Mendel (6) and Morgan (7), the founders of modern genetics. And then he turns to:

“The materialist theory of the evolution of living nature necessarily presupposes the recognition of hereditary transmission of individual characteristics acquired by the organism under definite conditions of its life; it is unthinkable without recognition of the inheritance of acquired characters.”

Thus he replaces Darwinism by Lamarckism. Moreover, he states:

“Weissmann [=Weismann], as we see, speaks of having declared war against Lamarck’s principle; but it is easy enough to see that he declared war against that without which there is no materialist theory of evolution, that under the guise of “Neo-Darwinism” he declared war against the materialist foundations of Darwinism.”

With such twisting of words, he declares that Darwin was in fact a Lamarckist; that genetics (the explanation for variability) is opposed to Darwinism, and that selection is insignificant. Thus we end up with a Darwinism without variability and selection, but with inheritence of acquired characteristics. It is a pervert reasoning, typical of cynical Stalinism, where everything, very “dialectical”, becomes its own opposite.

For further reference, see:

  • Trofim Denisovich Lysenko  (marxists.org)
  • Trofim Lysenko  (Wikipedia)
  •  Proletarian Science? : The Case of Lysenko / Dominique Lecourt : Introduction by Louis Althuser, translated by Ben Brewster. – London : nlb, 1977. – 165 p.
    Source: From Marx to Mao 

Stephen Jay Gould versus Richard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins developed an neo-idealist theory (going hand in hand with neo-liberalism) in which transmitters of informations (genes and ‘memes’) became independant subjects of history. It was Stephen Jay Gould who attacked this moreover atheist ideology, yet with a lot of difficulty.


The unilinear five stages theory in anthropology

See: Mode of production 


Sociobiology and evolutionary psychology


IV. Four more theses on human origins and development


Elaine Morgan and the aquatic ape theory

A great lady, who, at the end of her life, got some respect from some “academics”, but, until then, mainly scorn as she was a woman, moreover denounced as a feminist.


Frans de Waal’s primatologic psychology

Without relations with the Communist Left, and not even pretending to be ‘marxist’ or even ‘marxian’, Frans de Waal nevertheless has the attention of the Communist Left for his empirical studies, much less however for the more general conclusions.


Alain Testart’s classificatory and evolutionary anthropology

Alain Testart ; an exceptional “academic” white dove in modern anthropology, to be critically evaluated.

  • fr | Eléments de classification des sociétés / Alain Testart. – Paris : Errance, 2005. – 160 p.
  • fr | Avant l’histoire : L’évolution des sociétés, de Lascaux à Carnac. – Paris : Gallimard, 2012. – 549 p.

Chris Knight’s Blood Relations

Blood Relations : Menstruation and the Origins of Culture / Chris Knight. – New Haven, London : Yale University Press, 1991. – 581 p.

“This highly original book presents a new theory of the origins of human culture integrating perspectives of evolutionary biology and social anthropology within a Marxist framework. Chris Knight rejects the common assumption that human culture was a modified extension of primate behaviour and argues instead that it was the product of an immense social, sexual, and political revolution initiated by women.” (Back cover).

A fascinating thesis based on an encyclopædic background, distributed within the Communist Left (8), but one that didn’t hold water, as the author himself admits (9).

There is no synchronisation of menstrual cycli to the moon to create solidarity of women. Since the idea was launced in 1984 by P.W. Turke it has remained a purely theoretical construct without empirical confirmation. And while Chris Knight claims to be marxist (he has a trotskyist background), not a word about productionforces and -relations.


V. Psychoanalysis

en | The Political Implications of Psychoanalysis 

Introduction
Questions on Psychoanalysis posed to the Internationalist Communist Left
The Origins of Psychoanalysis
The pretences of Psychoanalysis
Sigmund Freud’s Integrity
Psychoanalysis, the Workers’ Movement and the Bourgeois Left
18 September 2009, Vico.

en | Psychoanalysis and its political implictions, II

Disappeared from the site

fr | Les implications politiques de la psychanalyse 

Introduction
Questions sur la psychanalyse posées à la Gauche communiste internationaliste
Les origines de la psychanalyse
Les prétentions de la psychanalyse
L’intégrité de Sigmund Freud
La psychanalyse, le mouvement ouvrier et la gauche bourgeoise
18 septembre 2009, Vico
(Traduit de l’anglais par OP, le 28 septembre 2009)

fr | La psychanalyse et ses implications politiques, II 

Les origines de l’« inconscient »
De l’« esprit » absolu au « vouloir » absolu
L’aliénation est sociale, pas naturelle
Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Nietzsche, Freud
Vico, 13.12.2009
Traduit de l’anglais par OP.
Publié dans Controverses, n°4, Novembre 2010

nl | Wat politiek voortvloeit uit de psychoanalyse 

Inleiding
Vragen over psychoanalyse gesteld aan de Internationalistische Communistische Linkerzijde
De oorsprong van de psychoanalyse
De aanspraken van de psychoanalyse
De integriteit van Sigmund Freud
Psychoanalyse, de arbeidersbeweging en burgerlijk links
18 september 2009, Vico.
(Vertaald uit het Engels door de schrijver, 3 november 2009.)

de | Die politischen Implikationen der Psychoanalyse (I) 

Einleitung
Fragen zur Psychoanalyse an die Internationalistische Kommunistische Linke
Die Ursprünge der Psychoanalyse
Die Täuschungen der Psychoanalyse
Sigmund Freuds Integrität
Psychoanalyse, die Arbeiterbewegung und die bürgerliche Linke

de | Die Psychoanalyse und ihre politischen Implikationen (II) 

Die Ursprünge des »Unbewussten«
Vom absoluten »Geist« zum absoluten »Wollen«
Entfremdung ist sozial, nicht natürlich
Schopenhauer, Hartmann, Nietzsche, Freud
Anmerkungen
Source


VI. Related materials

fr |  Socialisme et science positive (Darwin-Spencer-Marx) / par Enrico Ferri . – Paris : V. Giard & E. Brière, 1896. – 217 p.– Original title: Socialismo e scienza positive, 1894
Source: Internet Archive 


en | The complete mess in the academic world becomes quite evident in the controversy around the thesis of Richard Weikart , very present on the web.


Notes

1. For the never ending sterile debate on “creationism” and “intelligent design”, see: Rocks of Ages : Relationship between religion and science / Stephen Jay Gould. – New York : Ballantine Books, 1999. – 256 p.; a book which can be read as a defense of science against religion, but also as a defense of religion against science; it makes however an end to many myths; and: The God Delusion / Richard Dawkins. – London : Bantam Press, 2006. – 463 p., in which Darwinism is expanded beyond biology into an all embracing atheist ideology in which humans are dominated by “genes” and “memes”, the modern secular “Saints” (“with a probability close to certainty that God does not exist”; can it get worse than such typically british empiricist stupedity?). The agnostic Thomas Huxley thought that the question whether or not God existed couldn’t be answered; for Charles Darwin the question was beyond our understanding: “one might just as well ask a dog to understand Newton”. For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels the whole question needed to be criticised: why is such an imaginary question being posed? Historically, it could be unposed only through social relations solving social problems, gradually eliminating all ideas about the ‘supernatural’.

2. Compare: Aux origines de la monnaie / Sous la direction d’Alain Testart. – Paris : Errance, 2001. – 144 p.

3.  The situation in biological science : Addres delivered at the Session of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences of the u.s.s.r., July 31, 1948. – Moscow : Foreign Language Publishing House, 1949. – 72 p. The back-cover is missing; it is a rare copy, found in a second-hand bookshop in Alkmaar, accompanied by a curious creationist reply to Lysenko:  Geloof en Wetenschap bij Lysenko / door Dr. J. Lever. – Overdruk uit “Geloof en wetenschap”, Orgaan Christelijke Vereniging van Natuur- en Geneeskundigen in Nederland, Jrg. 48, nr. 6, 1950. Uitgave Kleywegt, Loosduinen.

4. See: Darwin without Malthus  : The Struggle for Existence in Russian Evolutionary Thought / Daniel P. Todes. – New York, Oxford : Oxford University Press, 1989. – 221 p.

5. August Weismann  (1834-1914), German evolutionary biologist, who advocated that evolution only took place in germ cells (gametes); precursor of modern genetics. In order to disprove Lamarck’s inheritance of acquired characteristics he cut off the tails of mice, which wasn’t reproduced in the next generation; lysenkoïst cynics said that he had only proven that mutilations were not inherited. He preceeded the rediscovery of Mendel’s work, and was reluctant to accept it. He also preceeded the mutation-theory of Hugo de Vries  (1848-1935).

6. Gregor Mendel  (1822-1884), Moravian Augustinian abbot who worked on inheritance, and who’s works remained in obscurity for decades until 1900.

7. Thomas Hunt Morgan  (1866-1945), american evolutionary biologist, one of more who rediscovered the forgotten Mendelian laws around 1900, he became famous for his work on fruit flies, which was ridiculized by the populist Lysenkoists who wanted immediate results for agriculture.

8. Review of Chris Knight’s “Blood Relations : Menstruation and the Origins of Culture”  / Amos (i.c.c.), 12 October 2008.

9. Notably in Chapter VII. Chris Knight refers positively to Alain Testart and Elaine Morgan, but neither of those accepted his thesis. For an alternative understanding of the “ideology of blood” (Lévy-Strauss): L’amazone et la cuisinière : Anthropologie de la division sexuelle du travail / Alain Testart. – Paris : Gallimard, 2014. – 188 p.


Compiled by Vico, 26 June 2018, latest additions 13 July 2022



























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