I have a radical left Cuban-American family heritage that goes back well before not only the most recent Cuban Revolution but even before the Russian Revolution. My great-great uncle Francisco Milian was perhaps the most significant leader of the Tampa Bay cigarworkers, who were pivotal in freeing Cuba from Spain. He suffered greatly for standing up for what he believed in, including for having the courage to read about Marx and other anti-capitalist writers to the workers at the same time he was the mayor of West Tampa where he and many of the workers lived. (Online sources referencing Francisco Milian and the semi-famous Milian incident can be found
here,
here, and
here.)
I am also a half-white child of the south who has been graced by matters of life and death to develop a fairly keen view on race, considering I am not an African-American.
I was raised by Republicans and, hearing nothing but that point of view while growing up, for the first 10 years of my adult life I remained one. But gradually over time I came back to my ancestral roots on the left based on my own adult analyses and life experiences, including the remembrance of my dear Cuban-American grandmother's picture of JFK hung in her tiny Hialeah dining room. Telling my dear father I was now a Democrat was perhaps nearly as hard as my dear little sister telling him she was a lesbian. He acted like he was going to have a heart attack. And when I told him and my dear brother that I was appreciative of the socialist points of view too, my brother called me a loser, but we are all still dear to each other. My relatives and friends on the right are still my loved ones and friends, but they regularly are befuddled and disgraced by my outgoing lefty facebook posts. But speak out I feel I must. I will not hide whatever light I have under a bushel, and to the extent what I have is not light, I will trust life and others to correct me. I try to be humble about this journey called life and know I still make many mistakes.
I am no scholar of Marxism or any other political or economic theory, nor do I care to be. I am simply trying my best to live in the world in a constructive and integrated fashion of the heart and mind, uniting contemplation with action. I consider myself to be a deep democrat as described by Cornel West, and also a lay Christian contemplative who believes that action should be grounded in contemplation but contemplation without considered action is a copout. Not being a political expert (I am an environmental lawyer who has worked extensively with the poor, and also a conscientious parent and well-meaning soil science graduate student), but being sincerely devoted to my planet and my fellow humans, I hope that I am able to channel basic political and economic theory questions.
I am not into propaganda. Passionate about the poetry and life of Pablo Neruda, I have been willing to analyze the poet's own memoir to critique anyone not protecting human rights. Ultimately as a sincere follower of Jesus the liberator of the oppressed, I believe that we all should be working to build a better world on earth, as it is in heaven, and that this is never easy. If Uncle Francisco were still around, I would want to ask him the following questions about Marx. He has not been around since 1907 to answer questions, so I am hoping some of the Marxist scholars whose diaries (e.g., this one, inspired by a Time magazine article) I have had the pleasure of reading lately can stand in for him. I am no expert and just trying to articulate plain but important questions the best way I can.
Please find the questions below the squiggly thing.
1. What would Marx actually DO? I.e., what would he replace capitalism WITH?
Background: I have read some excellent diaries lately explaining how Marx made correct criticisms of much of capitalism. I have learned a lot from the diaries and the comments and replies coming from all angles. To me, however, criticism is only part of the journey of life for humans as individuals and as a species, an important part but not all of the journey. (From my viewpoint as a contemplative, this to me is akin to having only the Via Negativa and not thinking about other parts of the journey of life, such as the Via Positiva, Via Creativa and Via Transformativa.) Here I find on the one hand Marx and the Marxists quite lacking, and on the other hand, the capitalists selfishly not even willing to question themselves at all. One can therefore be quick and right to blast the capitalists, but in the real world, what would we substitute for capitalism? Not many believe in bureaucratic Stalinist-style socialism anymore, and I think for good reason. Che' came to economic authority then in my mind did not what the heck to do with his authority. I am not bashing here, and I am well-familiar with economic boycotts, etc., but I wonder if the Cuban economic system is what Marx would have wanted in your minds. I see references to anarcho-syndicates, referencing Barcelona. As a person with partly Spanish roots and some familiarity with the Spanish Civil War, I can appreciate that. I am also familiar with Ivan Turgenev's wonderful "Virgin Soil," where in the end the quiet competent socialist engineer Solomin is referenced as going off to experiment with his factory worker comrades in running a factory using a cooperative model. Great I say, but how many people would find work using this model, and when, and in the meantime, how would everyone eat? It seems like dreamland to me. Which is not to say we should not work toward it, but it hardly seems like a complete picture. In the second chapter of Acts in the bible, everyone is trying to live with socialist principles for a while, but it quickly ends. Aren't thoughtful people willing to acknowledge that some mix of capitalism and socialism might be best? Does it have to be one or the other? Let's get real here. What could be called socialism has been demonstrated to be useful in certain settings, such as conservative North Dakota, but labels can be unnecessarily distracting and even self-defeating.
2. Was Marx fixated on violent revolution? I.e., did he rule out democratic processes as being potentially effective?
Background: This one really worries me, as youth sometimes see pictures of Che', and see his example and that of other military revolutionaries, and think that guns are the necessary way forward. I do not agree. I think that Eugene Debs was right that using force to establish socialism is a bad idea. Similarly, I think that Ghandi and Dr. King knew a lot about how to move forward in a non-violent way. Or, to put it another way: "Any possible transition to socialism would necessitate mass mobilization and the democratic legitimacy garnered by having demonstrated majority support. Only a strong majority movement that affected the consciousness of the army rank-and-file could forestall an armed coup by the right. Even when a repressive regime necessitates a minority road to revolution, democratic socialists stand with Rosa Luxemburg—revolutionary Marxist leader in Germany a century ago—in her advocacy of the restoration of civil rights and liberties once the authoritarian regime has been overthrown."
3. Didn't Marx make a huge error in ostracizing religion from his view of the acceptable future for humankind?
Background: Was Dorothy Day not a worthy comrade? Am not I? Socialism can arguably find its roots in earliest human behavior, when humans learned to care for each other and share. At the same time, they were looking up into the sky and at the world around them and trying to figure out their spirituality. They are still trying to do that. It is part of being human.
A friend passed on to me and asked me to comment upon this thought-provoking video by the brilliant and compassionate atheist Sam Harris. I was captivated by the issues it raised. A few hours of missed sleep later, these were my comments. Because I don't want to be one person at DailyKos and another on Facebook with my friends, I am putting them here unedited:
"If I understand it correctly, I like how Sam concludes with the serious suggestions: (1) that mindfulness, such as can be experienced through meditation, has serious potential benefits for all, including atheists; but (2) that mindfulness practices nonetheless should not displace action, and indeed that these practices properly are not about escapism from dealing with the world but about recognizing that much of our thoughts are bound up in inefficient, wasteful and counterproductive tension and misuse of our limited and precious time on earth. I think that Sam wants humans to make the most of their limited and precious time on earth, and I applaud this notion completely.
However, I do not accept Sam's blanket premise that religion necessarily leads to the opposite result. I do not know Sam's leanings, if any, but I read this from atheists on the left all the time who are otherwise generally my political allies. They write not without logic but based only on a partial look at religion around the world. True, religion is sometimes prone to hatred, condescension, division, and undercutting of the human prospects for cooperation. I think we are all pretty well aware of the failures and imperfections of religious people, and the atrocities that have been and are committed in the name(s) of god(s).
But I know that religion need not be predominately about navel-gazing, much less synonymous with fundamentalism, intolerance, and other meanness. To me it is supposed to be about bringing "heavenly" ways to down here on planet earth. And when I look at Ayn Rand on the right criticizing my religion precisely because it calls for charity and kindness to the weak, well, let's just say that I wear her criticism as a badge of honor, so much so that my Daily Kos nom de plume is "Galtisalie," not because I am afraid to blog in my own name but because I never want to miss an opportunity to say that Galt, as in Ayn Rand's fictional capitalist uberstud John Galt, is a lie, and a despicable one at that.
Moreover, I know a great many religious fundamentalists who are very kind and good people. Just because they choose to believe writings I do not believe, or interpret them literally or even unlovingly and intolerably, does not necessarily mean that on balance religion does not make them better persons than they otherwise would be. I think that Marx was wrong when he concluded that the religious "opiate of the masses" was necessarily a bad thing. I know that it is generally a lot better for the individual "taking it" than many other things humans use to fill the void, including alcohol and drugs. I agree with William James that "born again" experiences, which have zero attraction to me personally, nonetheless can in some circumstances lead to positive benefits, including sobriety.
Who am I to say how another human being can best navigate the stormy seas of his or her life? Who is Sam Harris or Christopher Hitchens to say so? Atheistic intolerance to me is just as wrong as intolerance by one who is religious. Hubris can easily set in among both atheists and religious alike. Out in the backroads and fields of wilderness America not every Bible-believin', God-fearin' preacher was spewing rightwing hatred and paranoia like the preacher in Matewan. For every stupid snake handler, poison drinker, or Westboro Baptist hater there were and are thousands of people learning that "God is love." Good seeds sometimes were and are planted even when mistakes were and are made. Money is stolen by preachers of prosperity gospel, but freedom of religion includes the ability to get duped, and it does not follow that all ministers, priests, or rabbis are wolves in sheep's clothing any more than all would commit or countenance sexual impropriety toward children. And just because a conservative political party virtually took over my childhood denomination, banishing Jimmy and others with viewpoints inconvenient to it, does not mean all religious dimensions of even the most stalwart self-serving hypocrite's life (cough, Ralph Reed) are evil.
And for me, on the left and non-fundamental wing of Christianity, I absolutely do not accept Sam's assumption that all religious persons believe in God because of unwillingness to accept the possibility of the finality of death or wishful thinking that heaven awaits the believer or the good, or will allow harm or suffering, including death and finality, to be avoided. I may "wish," hope, or pray on some level more than anything for there to be a heaven so I can see my dear deceased relatives again, but I am sadly not able to bank on it. Nor will I manage my beliefs or earthly conduct on the assumption that they may give me an entry pass through the pearly gates.
Nor does my religion involve either fear of going to hell or relief that I will not be going there if I somehow "believe" the right things. Hell on earth is the only hell I really believe in. There are a lot of selfish people that need to catch hell, but again, this is not about the afterlife to me. I would gladly have God punish Hitler and any number of evil humans in a lake of eternal fire, and I would volunteer to run the blow torches on them in the afterlife, but I don't believe it will happen. Hitler's carcass reverted to carbon and other elements in a fire, but that was on earth. Osama Bin Laden has become fish bait. Their souls have disappeared, and while they may come out on the other side of a cosmic wormhole or be reincarnated, I doubt it.
There was a time when I was caught up in the "constant doubting of the initial salvation experience" but I personally rejected this enthusiasm-based version of Christianity long ago. A great load lifted from my shoulders when I decided to no longer live in fear of a God who might send me to hell if I fail to internalize someone's definition of belief or faith written up on a bible tract. I do not believe in anyone's cookbook recipe of "the plan of salvation," and I will leave all the hereafter and judgment, if any, up to God. If God wants to damn me for exercising free thought then he/she/it is not a God I would ever bow down to, much less love. I am not "born again" and am dying a little more each millisecond, but hopefully becoming sanctified by grace to some extent. I believe in the periodic table and do not believe in magic except when I do, such as everytime I see a recovering addict or alcoholic sober, or a child or old person smile.
I certainly do not believe in God as an "escape notion" from facing head-on the present turmoil here on earth, as Sam Harris perhaps suggests I do. God does for me mysteriously fill an existential void, and Jesus is my mysterious comforter. So fine, call me irrational, but I do not agree that these are bad things, in part because my version of God cares about his creation and my shepherd Jesus is constantly not only comforting me but also in a still small voice nurturing me to be a slightly better and more loving person here on earth.
Like Sam Harris, I certainly cannot believe, nor do I want to believe, in an Easter Bunny Jesus, in a Santa Claus in the Sky, in a Great Lottery Number Picker in the sky. And I certainly do not believe in a Supply-side Jesus. When children die, I do not believe that this is God's will but a matter of biochemistry, physics, fear, or greed, and yes sometimes, fundamentalist stupidity or any number of other forms of human stupidity or failure to be all that we can be. Alas, I am agnostic not about God, but about the alleged accoutrements of God, including heaven and him/her/it answering prayer if only I pray hard enough or impress him with my subservient attitude or my refusal to cuss when I stub my toe.
I want more than anything for all those who have suffered and died to be in a better place, but I do not know if they are and certainly think that if they are it is not likely a realm of crystal highways, golden ceilings, gemstones, multi-headed snakes, and singing gargoyles as written about in the book of Revelations and other apocalyptic literature. Yes I do wish we could have a world united in peace, food, water, and justice for all and do not think that marks me with the sign of the beast. If you are hoping for Armageddon or storing up assault weapons you are probably part of the problem, but that does not make your idiocy that of all religious people or even the full embodiment of your own religion.
The only suffering of persons I am confident I can try to do something about is the suffering of persons on earth."
3:22 PM PT: As the saying goes, "Whereever two or three are gathered ...." I do sincerely thank those of you who read this diary, and especially the helpful detailed comment below from a true scholar, litho. I approach this subject socratically but hopefully lovingly. This obscure little diary in a tiny corner of Daily Kos means a lot to me, because it synthesizes a lot of what matters to me most and which I have struggled to learn and articulate for my whole life in a sometimes subconscious Emersonian effort of self-definition, as Cornel West might say. I intentionally put it out immediately when I finished it, and I did not try to time it in such a way that many people would read it. And it is on a busy, and frankly terrible, news day, because of the horrendous bombings in Boston. I sort of do these pieces when the "spirit" of life moves me, and hopefully out of a sense of duty to that spirit and to my fellow humans, both those presently around and posterity. So I leave the results up to ... in my case a trinitarian conception of a leftist godhead which loves its creation and hates like hell oppression. Peace to you always my sisters and brothers.
SECOND/DETAILED UPDATE:
Ah, the emotional challenge of doing a detailed update to an obscure diary that is off the Daily Kos recent list. But charge on I will, in appreciation to the prior readers and to the commentators below as well as to complete my attempt to bring my thoughts together in one place. I write this in the confidence that one day at least one person will read this. Here goes:
Issues One and Two: Marx's View of a Justly Functional Society and the Role of Democracy
I am going to merge my response on these topics together, because they seem to overlap, in part due to Marx being much more interested in tearing down than building up, IMHO.
I must confess that I need to do a lot more research to feel comfortable understanding what little Marx may have had to say about what he would DO in terms of specific social institutions that he would think would work. There seems to be a lot of complex disagreement on this subject, even among experts in Marxist theory. I got some good ideas for further reading from litho below, which I will check into. But so far, I am not seeing much specific from a positive point of view. And therefore, I continue to question the emphasis on someone who could criticize like a banshee, but perhaps could not run trains on time, or produce food for the bowls of hungry people in the best way.
Nothing I have read so far leads me to believe that a mix of capitalist and socialist mechanisms is not only one intelligent option but also probably on some level necessary in most instances. On this Marx and his doctrinaire devotees seem simply out-of-touch with reality to me. We should ideally use socialism where it works best, which is a challenge to democracy as Marx correctly observed, if it gores a reactionary ox. But not every vegetable producer or hotdog peddler is the enemy of the revolution for goodness sake. They are probably just working people trying to survive. While in many instances, such as management of public property and natural resources, capitalism is ill-suited, this need not mean that it can have no role in a just society.
It also would seem like, while Marx may have left some room for democracy when the proletariat was getting its way when it wanted to, that overall he was completely ruthless in his willingness to explore shortcuts to intense forms of social re-engineering. Bearing in mind that I need to read more, let me start with Turgenev, who was himself writing at the time when many of these disputes were still hanging fresh in the air. In the opening to "Virgin Soil" he writes: "To turn over virgin soil it is necessary to use a deep plough going well into the earth, not a surface plough gliding lightly over the top."
I recognize the feeling of many that the deep plough of dramatic changes to social structures is needed, now more than ever. The world is in bad shape, and now billions, whereas it was once merely hundreds of millions, live in completely horrible circumstances.
I mentioned the Solomin example Turgenev gave. Ironically, as a fledgling soil scientist in my spare time, I am not sure that even a surface plough, or indeed any plough, is always the only or best strategy for the land or society. I believe that slowly building up the social soil, even with a social version of what might be called a no-till or conservation tillage, sometimes will have to do.
For starters let me be clear that I could never ever endorse the view attributed by a commentator below to Marx of supporting the "elimination" of any human beings or categories thereof, including "the bourgeois themselves." [Note: a question was raised below about the possibility that I took this comment too literally; perhaps, but I was not taking the chance in distancing myself from eliminationist approaches.] Marx perhaps seemed to think the Paris Commune potentially should have done this. I am in the "love thy enemies" camp. This is not to say that I am an absolute pacifist when it comes to tyrants, but rather that I believe that where democratic processes are available or reasonably can be put in place, that is the appropriate and just recourse for participatory change. Moreover, even the "elimination" of a tyrant should be metaphorical and political [as much as possible, that is, leaving out exceptions, of course, for things like knocking off Hitler, as some bravely attempted to do]. Whose stomach has not turned to know that the Czar and his family, including children, were shot? It simply was a cruel and terrible act. No thanks. I would never, ever, ever go one step in that direction. [Which is not to say that rightwing goons have not generally been horrendous and at fault in reactionary regimes in suppressing people's movements, democracy, and human rights--they have been, ad nauseum (for thousands of years in fact), as discussed in a comment below. I had mentioned the brutal killings by the French reactionaries in eliminating the Paris Commune participants, which was of course germane to Marx when he was talking about the failure to strike bolder in that very situation. One can perhaps understand his sensitivity in that regard, and I am not going to primary sources and able to parse his words on point. I think of those Maryknoll Sisters too, to give just one poignant additional example.]
It seems, based on the information below, that Marx can either be viewed as authoritative or not. It becomes analgous to fundamentalism/inerrancy as held by some religious folk. I would never give to another human being, including Marx, or to any writing of a human being, whether the Communist Manifesto or the Holy Bible, my responsibility to think for myself. While Marx seems to have gotten many things right in terms of historical criticism, and I agree with much of his pessimistic outlook (e.g., "History repeats itself: the first time as a tragedy, the second time as a farce."), he cannot be viewed to me as having some special quasi-divine knowledge of the solutions for humankind.
I know that he was frustrated with "divide and conquer." So am I. So are you. But the solution to frustration is never enemy elimination in a literal sense. I don't know if "love" or indeed anything is the solution, but I would never adopt elimination as a strategy or tactic. Never.
Even anger has to be very carefully managed. I happened to be in San Francisco in 2004 when in my mind some needed anti-Bush/Iraq War protests were going on. A wide cross-section of left viewpoints were visible on the streets. I was absolutely disgusted when I saw anarcho-communists going up to working class San Francisco policemen and trying to bait them into some sort of provocative response. It was not putting flowers into their guns but rather virtually spitting in their faces. It is one thing to do a protest and even civil disobedience, and it is another to disrespect the sanctity of another human being. No thanks on that one either.
When Turgenev was writing "Virgin Soil," published in 1877, he was well aware of the Paris Commune of 1871. One probably should read his Solomin character, as well as the book's heroine of Solomin's wife Mariana, as being endorsement of an incrementalist and peaceful approach to building socialist enterprises from the ground up.
This seems in some ways to be a much more incremental, modest, and non-governmental version of the 1848 French "National Workshop" approach of Louis Blanc. As Blanc anticipated, inevitably conflicts arise when funding of the "Right to Work" occurs. But to me, these funding issues need to be approached democratically. From my quick reading, Blanc had hoped to fund the workshops from railroad revenues but they ended up being funded by land taxes, which were not well-received in the countryside. Unfortunately, another Napoleon demagogue soon took over and reactionary forces disbanded the workshops before society could try to better adjust to this concept. 165 years later, it seems farfetched that a democratic society such as the U.S. would recognize a "right to work" that truly gave people jobs, as opposed to cutting off unions at the knees, but it seems to me that this is one place where a democratic society should be focused. We did a version of this in "the Depression." And for the unemployed, it is always a Depression.
Meanwhile, Turgenev predicted through the character of Markelov, who wanted to wage armed socialist revolt, that armed revolt would often end in defeat, and even when successful (as occurred later in the Russian Revolution) was a product of necessity and the time being right. In other words, the idea of forcing change through violent means as a primary model was highly questionable to Turgenev. Again, I agree.
It is also worth noting that anarcho-syndicalists, be they in Barcelona in the Spanish Civil War, or in the Paris Commune of 1871, may fight hard and give their lives, but they do not necessarily wage mass war very effectively. Marx would probably be glad that into that void might step the "Marxists." They in turn may very well, as occurred in Russia, impose a state elitist bourgeoisie that seems antithetical to the preferred anarchist system of the commentators below.
Again, I read a little about the 1848 Revolution in France, followed fairly soon by a Napoleonic emperor for decades, and then eventually by the Paris Commune and its aftermath. It seems that Louis Blanc did not support the Paris Commune, but then I think around 1880, working through those highly imperfect systems of democracy existing at the time, eventually got amnesty for participants who had not been slaughtered by the reactionaries.
There was a lot in flux in 1848, prior, and subsequent, about the right to vote and who got it, and that is not even getting into the subject of women's suffrage. I recognize, and know quite a lot about, efforts to disenfranchise in the U.S. However, the fact remains that we do have a pretty good overall enfranchisement in the U.S. It has major problems such as ex-convict disenfranchisement and immigrant disenfranchisement, but again, it is nothing like Europe before the mass enfranchisement of men, and then eventually women.
Democracy, the more participatory the better, however imperfect, is to me a pretty fantastic way to govern, and I cannot think of a better one. When as seems to have been the case in Paris of 1848, the petty bourgeoisie turn their backs on the working class, they can still be faced with betrayal by the upper class and eventually realize they need to cooperate with the working class more. I remember hearing that in Cuba in the last days of Battista, lawyers were driving cabs. Well in the U.S., they are driving cabs too right now as I write. Moreover, across the world little vendors of chicklets, etc., or even insurance or credit cards, are not always stable satisfied members of the petty bourgeoisie just because they happen to be on some small subsistence level capitalists. And every farmer in the world is not the enemy, for goodness sake, even if they happen to own their own land and equipment. They in fact already may be dependent upon a "socialist"-lite program to stay in business, despite the fact that many might view them as reactionary, sometimes validly.
If, as I and I think Marx believe to be the case, the greatest problem capitalist countries have economically is a continual crisis of demand, this is not going away. I wish all around us people were not getting foreclosed upon and going bankrupt. Many of those folks are hardly contented with the social status quo. And it can, as occurred in the U.S. during the Depression, initiate democratically-driven responses. Meanwhile, I referenced the North Dakota example of a situation where conservatives can support populist measures that are arguably socialist, at least if they get desperate enough.
A real risk though, ever the case, whether in a developed nation or any other place, is that hard times bring out the worst in people, not the best. The brown shirts/fascists are experts at using hard times to build resentment against "the other." How to have "national workshops" and also make these fair places where every race and tribe is equally protected will ever be a challenge.
Meanwhile, again, there are so many important things that can be worked on and even accomplished using plain old imperfect but marvelous democratic means Marx would have apparently shunned. These include women's and minority rights and population control/access to family planning. And, since Marx is correct in my mind that wage dependence makes most of humanity vulnerable, the less wage dependence the working poor have the better, so things like learning how to grow your own food and recycle nutrients which I work on as a soil scientist are also potentially useful, if not dramatic.
Finally, I agree that when we broaden the outlook to international relations worker cooperation is made even more difficult. Workers in Norway may benefit from exploitation in many places around the world. This is a tough issue. But it is not resolved by taking democracy away from Norwegians. We do need much stronger international governance, but I do not think we can undemocratically consign responsibility to some select few wise men or women. In any event, it is not happening. Exploitation of the weak across national boundaries is terrible. Chinese princelings getting fat and happy while Chinese workers die miserable deaths in sweatshops or jumping off buildings is not a good thing, I readily agree. But I do not see it withering away any time soon via the Chinese ruling elite. On the contrary, even in China democracy may one day enable ordinary Chinese to throw the bums out. That logically calls for implementing more democracy, not less. We shall see what happens in China on that issue, and I do not have a crystal ball, but it seems like neither did Marx, because he would not have anticipated "communism" turning out so poorly.
Issue Three: Religion
I guess that maybe Marx would allow ME to worship the way I choose, but I am not very sure. It seems that his antipathy to religion was at least in part based on a contextual paradigm. And maybe in America we are not quite like "the Church" in mid-18th Century Europe or Russia in terms of religion being tied to reactionary forces, but this seems to be a pretty slim degree of comfort.
I will retreat into saying that on this one Marx is simply wrong on many levels. It was divisive to force atheism on folk. It was counter-productive. It failed to take into account many emerging religious-based movements for social good. It would, for instance, have prevented Dr. King from inspiring himself and millions of others with a love-based ethic of self-sacrifice. In my mind, ultimately, whether it is in a socialist system or a capitalist system, or, in reality, some mix of the two, positive change always results from sacrificial love.
In "Virgin Soil," in the final chapter the devoted self-sacrificing socialist revolutionary courier Mashurina asks for a letter or a photograph, something, that she can carry with her of the comrade she loved who did himself in. She is handed a photograph, quickly puts it in her pocket, and heads out the door to her next anonymous assignment. "Anonymous Russia!" And there we are all left, anonymously to some degree, to choose our paths of human betterment and self-sacrifice. I choose love through deep democracy. I don't care if Marx would disapprove. And I think Uncle Francisco would be proud of me.