Max Raphael

Max Raphael and a Marxist perspective on art (Part 1)

The main purpose of this article is to bring the work of Max Raphael into the field of contemporary marxist attention and discussion where it belongs. The bourgeoisie calls many of its intellectuals “marxist”, which not only serves to give them a sheen of credibility but usually helps to debase genuine marxist contributions. Many learned individuals have important things to say around the various ideological spheres that have grown up around society and this is to be expected. But unlike the bourgeois “marxists” who pronounce on the ideologies of the ruling class, the views of Max Raphael are very clear on the necessity of the revolutionary overthrow of a corrupt and destructive capitalism by independent working class action, and this fact alone leads us to express an interest in trying to understand his works. Raphael wrote dozens of books and many more papers on art, mostly in French and German with a few in English. He said that if one wanted to understand his views on art then all of them should be read. We can’t do that or even approach it, but we can draw out some elements in order to give us a deeper perspective on art within a framework of the workers’ movement.

Prehistory: a contribution to the discussion

Following the publication of the two part article on women's role in the emergence of culture and human solidarity as a result of the evolution of the human species, the aptly named comrade "Baboon", who has made frequent contributions to (for example) the forum discussions on this site, has sent us this critical article. We are very glad to publish it on this site because it provides both an unusually well-documented investigation of the evolution of homo erectus in particular, and because we hope that its critical viewpoint will stimulate debate on the emergence of primitive communist, human, society.

At the end of Baboon's article, we also publish a reply from the author of the original articles on the subject.

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