Fear of a spectre is the beginning of whole communism. 1st sentence, in 'The Communist Manifesto' Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels have written, "A spectre is haunting Europe - the spectre of communism (p.3)."
As a philosopher always comes
'Y' did they use the spectre word as a symbol? What is the genesis of the spectre ? They never and nowhere have given answer of genesis of the spectre.
Answer of question is fear and genesis of the spectre is given in genesis of meaning article.
What and whose fear was there in industrial revolution time?
There was fear of exploitation, oppression, torture and domination of bourgeois to proletariat. (It was hypothetical concept of authors)
Why did they begin manifesto from the spectre symbol. Why did not use other symbols? It is a reason, fear was with them because the spectre is the best synonym of the fear. It is always happening to the life of philosophy and philosopher. They first pick up a word or sentece then elaborate as much as they can. So, it is the first step of whole communism.
But they (Marx n Engels) charged all Europe, "All the powers of old Europe have entered into a holy alliance to exorcise this spectre (p.3) pope and tsar, Metternich and Guizot, French Radiclas and German police-spies." in contrast, they entered themselves in many alliances.
The bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its own elements of political and general education, in other words, it furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the bourgeoisie (p.11)
"Wage labor rests exclusively on competition between the labors." (p.13)
"The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggle." ( p.3)
We can see above three struggles. There is no class struggle but struggle in same profession.
Competition and fighting are a synonym of struggle. The struggle is always happening in the same profession (professor have struggle with professor), rarely happens to other professions. It is the reason, I say, "the History of all hitherto existing society is the History of fear struggle."
Marxism says, "before men do anything else, they must first produce the means of their subsistence. Everything else follows from the necessity to produce material means of our subsistence."
So, I (Philosophy of Fearism) say/s, "Existence of fear precedes essence." History of materialism has begun from the material of subsistence. Why subsistence was primary, was because they had a fear of death.
Note; It can be more described. I am trying to write in coming book 2021. It is some noted point from The Communist Manifesto.
Ref.
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels The Communist Manifesto, 1848
Comments
Congratulations to Subba's ongoing research and writing to unravel aspects of history via his philosophy of fearism, his fearist lens, and his methodology of dephilosophy. I have not followed all his new arguments for some years, but I know he has worked on a book ms. analyzing the Bible, and now he is analyzing the secular 'bible' of historical economic and political revolution--that is, The Communist Manifest. As a philosopher he studies literary and historical texts, and he founded the idea of fearism in 1999 for such purposes as a way to add a dimension to literary criticism (especially, in Nepalese literature). With these ventures, we have a model for new critical analysis, which has applications of endless examples.
Another way I look at the Subbaian philosophical turn is that it is a path to a deconstruction and reconstruction of history as we typically know it (especially, W. history of Europe in this case with his new book)--and, he is thus always moving towards a new affective register for analyzing, some might call it an emotional or intimate history. Subba is not the only one to have gone down this road, as new historians are appearing all the time and tracking the unfolding of history along these more emotionally-based ways of discovering what has happened in terms of deeper human emotions in shaping human beings and their societies, that is, their histories. To posit that history is not merely or even primarily based upon "class struggle" --is to invoke a revisionist history as Subba is very interested in (and so am I)--and, his uniqueness is that he is not merely interested in emotions but one particular emotion--Fear. He makes this his iconic platform for critical analysis and revisioning who we are as humans and in the long run his work is an attempt to help us be more accurate in our assessment of ourselves, of history, of civilization. With this new revisioning he then guides us as a species to study fear itself and its role and that applies to all individuals as well as collectives. Fear is so much more than merely a biological emotional fact, as it is often ascribed in philosophy, psychology and sociology etc. Subba stretches in his analysis also the very conceptualization of Fear, a project in itself which I highly support in my own work (see Fisher & Subba, 2016).
I for one, look forward to this new book by Subba in the next year. It will be an important historical and philosophical work and it deserves 'a voice' in history, political economy, and generally our thinking in the West which has continued to be so influenced by Marx & Engels. It will be interesting to see if Subba offers some new prescriptions for 'the struggle' overall which is real, he claims. He is merely saying it is a "fear struggle" and from that foundation we can perhaps stuggle more effectively for emancipation, and thus implicitly communism and Marxism (much of the Left political wing) has and will fail to provide the analysis and results for true liberation. Subba offers a corrective much needed today--as, clearly we see Fear is growing everywhere at a rapid rate and having damaging effects on much of the world. How will we turn that increasing Fear and devastation around? Subba says, we will only turn it around when we admit the true nature and role of Fear in history and evolution itself. I have to agree with his theory and philosophy on that basis alone.
To take another angle: I think it would be really valuable to have several fear(ism) researchers take on the project of analyzing all books and articles and talks on fear in history and to find out what these authors-educators-researchers writing about fear say about communism and Marxism--and/or to see if they even make a linkage. Yes, there's a lot of exciting work to be done.
Reference
Fisher, R. M., & Subba, D. (2016). Philosophy of fearism: A first East-West dialogue. Xlibris.