History and Marxism

"How is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?"

This has become my all time favorite quote. I remember the first time I noticed it. Watching 'Motorcycle Diaries' in spanish with english subtitles, around 3 am in the night almost a week before my History exam.

Now, this was around 2 years ago, in class 11th, when I was seventeen (ha) and I still managed to get a 91/100 ... because the movie was a repetition of history itself (onscreen) and I have a strange way of linking two things together which seem to have no correlation whatsoever.  

Ernesto che Guevara reaches Machu Pichhu and looks at the beautiful ruins of the great Incas civilization.

Standing and witnessing the beauty he sees around him, he wonders aloud- 'how can I feel nostalgia for a world I never knew?' The world he is referring to is the lost days of the Incas people (12th-13th CE) who lived in the Antilles, Barbados, Mexico, Parts of present South America & who were killed by the thousands by the spaniards and europeans who eventually won the 'survival of the fittest' in their long-term aim to settle there (in S. America). And of course, 'nostalgia' refers to a sentimental longing for the past. Now, why the hell did he feel nostalgia for them?

Explanation- A majority of the people were killed, and their ancestors (Incas) are now a minority population in south america, the true inhabitors of the region are subdued by the overwhelming european-american-mixed population residing there as locals. When 'Che' took his road trip around many countries during the 1950's he becomes extremely averse to 'Capitalism', correctly citing it as the reason behind poverty and misery of the poor people (why I agree with this viewpoint will need another entire blogpost)... What he saw around him was very similar to the south-american history- the real people of their own country lived as petty laborers doing odd-jobs to ensure a meal a day whereas the capitalists lived on these souls. He wanted to go back to the days where things were still being done in the world on the basis of justice, fairness and equality. He was feeling nostalgia for that world... a world that he never knew, because it had ceased to exist.

It is rather important to note that the Incas people where highly intelligent. They could successfully perform skull surgery, built beautiful monuments, where brilliant at mathematics and astronomy. So, why exactly did they perish? Because they were behind their spanish counterparts who knew of military tactics and gunpowder and of course, smallpox.

I have, until now been against the use of violence and killing. But my perspective is changing after reading through about Ernesto's biography. He was a marxist revolutionary. Who wanted an equal economic world order, even if this required him to take up arms. He was also involved with Fidel Castro (Cuba's President) during the cuban missile crisis- which eventually led to his death by the CIA- which was covered up for many years. He was not like Castro (by which I mean, not hungry for power), although he enjoyed political support from many countries. He believed in an ideal. An ideal world, one where capitalists where not superior to other citizens but equal.

Marxism is a dialectical view of social change, and an analysis-critique of the development of capitalism. It is an economic and socio-political worldview centred upon materialistic intrepretation of history. I have never accepted or rejected a theory whenever I've discussed it in conversations with friends and family. I do not have a grey- approach. It is more black and white (although that does have its repercussions)- If it is true for me, it is true for everyone and vice versa. So far, in debates in classrooms, in discussions with liberal capitalist friends and even with that one friend who is the socialist- I find the answers are fluid, flexible. That sometimes things are answered depending on the situation. Therefore, I have developed a coping mechanism which does not learn or look at the present or future. But rather looks at the past. The beauty and brutality of the past is the real reminder of the truth (Incas civilization for instance).

I think nothing is inexplicable. Everything can be explained. Like a process. Like maths. Like statistics. Like bar diagrams. Like language and grammar. And therein lies history, because it has lessons to offer (although it is advisable to read history for its own sake!). Right now I am reading A History of the Soviet Union from the beginning to the end by Peter Kenez. True it may not teach me how to build a car, or aerodynamic laws or human anthropology, I will go ahead and read it because I may have a chance of understanding why communism failed (although I may know this already) and also because I understand the question-

 'how is it possible to feel nostalgia for a world i never knew?'

a clip from Motorcycle diaries, 2004 academy award winning movie-

And one of the seven wonders of the world- The Incan civilization's Machu Pichhu, Peru -