Schlagwortarchiv: Friedrich Engels

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching (complete text and download)

by Andreas Peglau

Download as pdf: AP People as puppets – How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching

Please note that this text has a continuation as of March 20, 2026: People are NO puppets! A utopia that goes beyond Karl Marx—and whose realization can begin tonight

On June 23, 2026, I also published an „Addendum to my critique of Marx“: No socialism without slavery, war as a great communal work.

This is a DeepL translation I have not checked.
I apologize for any errors and inaccuracies that are sure to occur.
Please use the original German text, written in 2024, for comparison:
https://andreas-peglau-psychoanalyse.de/menschen-als-marionetten-wie-marx-und-engels-die-reale-psyche-in-ihrer-lehre-verdraengten/).
A.P.

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People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 1: Starting points, Max Stirner and „German Ideology“

by Andreas Peglau

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Starting points

Today, as the US-led „West“ accepts the destruction of the entire planet in order to maintain its „rules-based“ hegemony, there is a greater need than ever to find alternatives to irresponsible greed for profit and power, warmongering and hostility towards life.

Socialism, which had been tried out in practice, at least to some extent, in several countries, was seen as such an alternative. Its most important theoretical starting point was the teachings of Karl Marx (1818–1883) and Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), which were often distorted in the context of ‚Marxism-Leninism‘. „Real socialism“ was massively discredited early on, particularly by state terror under Stalin and later under Mao Tse Tung and Pol Pot, and collapsed around 1990. Since then, such concepts have generally been considered permanently discredited, and capitalism has been regarded as without alternative. Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 2: Character masks

by Andreas Peglau

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No definitive solutions

The old Engels would certainly have agreed that Marx’s teachings should be critically revisited. In 1895, six months before his death, he recapitulated in a letter: „But Marx’s whole approach is not a doctrine, but a method. It does not provide ready-made dogmas, but points of reference for further investigation.“[1] Five years earlier, he had said that the „conception of history“ developed by him and Marx was „above all a guide to study“.[2] As early as 1886, he described it as a „great fundamental idea“ of materialist dialectics „that the world should not be understood as a complex of finished things, but as a complex of processes in which the seemingly stable things undergo no less than their mental images in our heads, the concepts, a continuous change of becoming and passing away.“ Therefore, „the demand for definitive solutions and eternal truths must cease once and for all; one must always be aware of the necessary limitations of all knowledge gained.“[3]
However, anyone who consistently applied this to the concept of Marxism quickly found themselves labelled a dissident in „real socialism“ and ran the risk of being persecuted or – under Stalin – murdered.

Why should anything be further developed that Lenin had defined in 1913 as follows: „Marx’s doctrine is all-powerful because it is true. It is self-contained and harmonious; it gives people a unified world view.“[4] Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 3: Individual scope, Friedrich Engels, Robert Owen

by Andreas Peglau

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Individual scope

For those who, in the second half of the 19th century, still mostly worked more than 10 hours a day for little money, there was indeed little energy and opportunity left to rise above their circumstances. For this reason alone, and because of the power imbalance, the responsibility of an individual proletarian for the capitalist economic system was minimal.
But throughout history, people have broken out of their circumstances. In 73 BCE, for example, the slaves who liberated themselves in the Spartacus uprising did so – an example that Marx was familiar with.[1] Since then, countless people have committed themselves to other people, to a wide variety of goals and ideas, even when they knew that they were putting their physical integrity or their very existence at risk. During the lifetimes of Marx and Engels, this was already happening in the struggle for liberation from capitalist oppression, as in the Paris Commune uprising of 1871. During its suppression, up to 35,000 people were massacred and thousands more were later deported.[2]

In the same year, Marx commemorated the „self-sacrificing pioneers of a new and better society“ in his work The Civil War in France.[3] Had these pioneers not cast off their „character masks“? Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 4: Condition of the working class, empty heads and human-creating work

by Andreas Peglau

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The condition of the working class

After spending 21 months in Great Britain researching industrial development and its consequences, Engels published his book The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1845. It contains harrowing accounts of the living conditions of the English proletariat. Engels writes of the dwellings in the London district of St. Giles, saying that

„the filth and dilapidation exceed all imagination – there is hardly a window pane intact, the walls are crumbling, the doorposts and window frames are broken and loose, the doors are nailed together from old boards or do not exist at all – here in this thieves‘ quarter, doors are not even necessary because there is nothing to steal. Piles of dirt and ashes lie everywhere, and the dirty liquids poured out in front of the doors collect in stinking puddles. This is where the poorest of the poor live, the lowest-paid workers […]“.[1]

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People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 5: What is „capital“?/ The animated monster

by Andreas Peglau

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What is „capital“?

Marx’s three-volume work of the same name does not provide a definition of the subject referred to in the title, but rather a multitude of sometimes contradictory statements on the subject. [1]
A small selection: Capital is what becomes of a value that is ‚exploited‘ and turns into ’surplus value‘.[2] „Every new capital enters the stage for the first time […] still as money, […] which is to be transformed into capital through certain processes.“[3] „Capital is money, capital is commodity.“[4] In the third volume of Capital, it then states:

„But capital is not a thing, but a specific social relation of production belonging to a specific historical social formation, which is represented by a thing. Capital is not the sum of the material and produced means of production. Capital is the means of production transformed into capital, which in themselves are as little capital as gold and silver are money in themselves. It is the means of production monopolised by a certain section of society, which have become independent of living labour and the conditions under which this labour is performed.“[5]

According to Marx, capital is therefore simultaneously surplus value, money, commodities, products and means of production. But he believes that it is nevertheless „not a thing“ – rather, it is a production relationship, and thus, in his understanding, an extremely comprehensive category that includes raw materials, means of production and human labour, as well as the processes that take place between them and the existing „conditions of activity“.[6] Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 6: Strange beings and „social laws of nature“

by Andreas Peglau

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Strange beings

In 1843, Marx wrote that „money“ had „deprived the whole world, humanity as well as nature, of its peculiar value,“ „this alien being dominates him, and he worships it.“[1]

In 1844, he attested that labour „produces itself and the worker as a commodity.“[2] In Capital, we then learned that „commodity“ „loves money,“[3] is „a very complicated thing […], full of metaphysical subtleties and theological quirks“ as well as internal communication possibilities. The commodity „canvas,“ for example, reveals „as soon as it comes into contact with another commodity, the skirt,“ „its thoughts in the language familiar only to it, the language of commodities.“[4] We hear that „value“ becomes „the subject [!] of a process, in which it […] changes its own size, […] exploits itself. […] It gives birth to living young or at least lays golden eggs,“ transforming itself into an „automatic subject.“[5]

Marx endowed the relations of production with the same power and vitality as capital by equating the two: „capital is“ a „relation of production belonging to a particular historical formation of society“.[6] He proceeded in the same way with the means of production („Capital is the means of production transformed into capital“)[7] and money: „Every new capital enters the stage for the first time […] still as money.“[8] Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 7: Doubtful pre- and review, wishful thinking

by Andreas Peglau

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Questionable foresight

Wikipedia tells us that there is no „precise, uniform and conclusive definition of the term“ natural law and that this word is used „in natural sciences and scientific theory to describe the regularity of natural phenomena that is independent of place and time and based on natural constants“. Because of the latter characteristics, natural laws allowed „observable events to be explained and predicted“.[1] However, many of the predictions made by Marx and Engels did not come true, especially with regard to political upheavals. Weiterlesen →

People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 8: From Immanuel Kant to child labour

by Andreas Peglau

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Manufactured immaturity

In 1784, the 60-year-old philosopher Immanuel Kant published his essay Answering the Question: What is Enlightenment? Kant begins with a bang:

„Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity. Immaturity is the inability to use one’s understanding without the guidance of another . This immaturity is self-imposed when its cause lies not in a lack of understanding, but in a lack of resolve and courage to use it without the guidance of another. Sapere aude! Have the courage to use your own understanding! is therefore the motto of enlightenment.“[1]

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People as puppets? How Marx and Engels suppressed the real psyche in their teaching, Part 9: Vulgar psychology, half-hearted mitigations and conclusion

by Andreas Peglau

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Vulgar psychology

In his 1933 book Massenpsychologie des Faschismus, Wilhelm Reich dealt with „vulgar Marxism“ – which he understood as the opposite of the teachings of Marx and Engels. According to Reich, vulgar Marxists „schematically separated social, mostly economic existence from existence itself,“[1] claimed that ideology and consciousness were „determined solely and directly by economic existence,“[2] and dismissed the study of drives, needs and mental processes as idealistic.

However, these accusations could also have been levelled at Marx and Engels in a milder form. They contradicted the idea that ideological processes were solely and directly determined by economics, albeit rarely. Although they viewed social existence in the context of „existence in general,“ they gave undue priority to economic existence. They did not deny the existence of psychological processes, but rather their real significance and momentum. Weiterlesen →