“The ability to observe has greatly progressed – not so much from the optical, but from the social point of view. It is true that we can see today thousands of kilometres away with new instruments and improved mathematics. The true vision, however, is that of Marx: Marx who saw that capitalism would be destroyed.” J. Posadas.
The Posadiststoday.com give importance to the recent discovery of Kepler-452b. This is the name of an exceptional ‘exoplanet’ in the constellation of Cygnus, with an Earth-like year and a Sun-like star. This discovery took place around the time of the publication of the new NASA photos of Pluto and its Moons. And on 2nd of July 2015, the Russian PROGRESS spacecraft M-28M cargo ship had safely reached the International Space Station.
Encouraged by those capital events, we have chosen to summarise (immediately below) an extract from the journal LE MONDE of 21.7.2015 about the human quest for intelligence in the universe. We give importance to this article because J Posadas wrote many fundamental Marxist texts on this subject – texts which represent a unique and historic contribution to the Marxist method. To illustrate the point, we reproduce further below two texts by him entitled: “Flying Saucers, the Process of Matter and Energy, Science and Socialism”, J Posadas, 26.6.1968 – and “Childbearing in space, the confidence of humanity, and Socialism”, J Posadas, 12.8.1978.
Posadiststoday.com
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Extract from Le Monde:
Intelligence extraterrestre, Le Monde.fr avec AFP | 20.07.2015 à 22h50 • Mis à jour le 21.07.2015 à 09h40 –
Le Monde of 21.7.2015 quotes Neil Hall of Reuters, who reports that the famous British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking launched on Monday 20 July 2015, in London, a project aimed at the observation of the confines of space in search of intelligent extraterrestrial life.
Supported by the Russian physicist and entrepreneur Youri Miliner, this project has been 10 years in the preparing. It has been baptized BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN, with a budget of 100 million dollars. It is thought to be the most ambitious such project ever undertaken in the quest to find a sign of extraterrestrial intelligence.
“In an infinite universe, there must be traces of life. Somewhere in the cosmos, perhaps, some intelligent life is watching”, declared Stephen Hawking on the occasion of the launch at the Royal Society Science Academy in London. He added that “In any case, there is no bigger question. Time has come to get started, find the answers and seek out life beyond Earth. We need to know”. Stephen Hawking has produced works about the expansion of the universe, black holes, and the theory of relativity.
To put everything on its side, the project will use the means offered by the most powerful telescopes. The idea is to search for whatever can testify to intelligent activity, a radio frequency or a laser ray. Youri Miliner said that BREAKTHROUGH LISTEN is taking to a completely new level the search for intelligent life in the universe. He asserted that this project should be able to gather in one day more facts than were collected in one year during preceding searches.
This project will be led in partnership with the other project BREAKTHROUGH MESSAGE, to create the messages – through an international competition – best able to give an idea of our humanity to an extraterrestrial intelligence.
Stephen Hawking reckons that: “A civilisation that reads our messages could be billions of years in advance of ourselves”.
http://www.lemonde.fr/cosmos/article/2015/07/20/stephen-hawking-lance-un-programme-pour-detecter-une-intelligence-extraterrestre_4691582_1650695.html#g6asOCp5haF0BJeB.99 (End of the summary of the LE MONDE article).
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Flying saucers, the process of matter and energy, Science and Socialism
J. POSADAS, 26.6.1968
The title and subtitles in this document are from the Editorial Board. The full title of the original text in Spanish (which was a taped speech subsequently transcribed) is: “Flying saucers, the process of matter and energy, science, the class and revolutionary struggle and the socialist future of humanity”.
This English translation contains modifications made by the Editors of the Scientific, Cultural and Political Editions. Highlights and square-bracketed items are from the Editorial board. Editorial, August 2015.
Additional information: On 24.7.2017, the BBC Overseas News referred to an article produced in the publication ‘SCIENCE’ on 11.8.2016, relating to the age of some Greenland Sharks. According to Michael Oellermann, physiologist in Viborg (Denmark) and the science writer Elizabeth Pennisi, Greenland sharks may live 400 years; this information is based on the studies of physiologists, biologists, archeologists, geneticists, microbiologists and others. Editorial, July 2017.
Life can exist on other planets, in other solar systems, in other galaxies and universes. The passage of matter from its inorganic state to the organic can have happened there differently from Earth, allowing for energy to be used in a superior way. Here, we barely know how to make best use of oil, and in a very limited way the nuclear energy we dispose of. Other beings, on the contrary, may be on the way to exploiting all the energy existing in matter – all the energy that we still do not know how to use on Earth – and turn it into light. It may be that on other planetary systems or galaxies, matter organises itself differently, in infinite combinations or in forms totally different to what we know on Earth. We cannot imagine how this may be, but we imagine very well that a way to organise energy may exist infinitely superior to those known on Earth.
In the Soviet Union, studies are conducted on the possibility to surpass the speed of light. This ability may have been acquired on other planets several millions years ago, and be already in use. Whilst it takes us X time to get from one continent to another, other beings may be doing it in a half-second. Such are the factors that enter, in the end, the concept of life and of the organisation of matter. The energy used [by those beings] must have a property and a force infinitely superior to anything we know. One can perfectly conceive of a being that, by just raising a hand, produces light, attracts, rejects or organises energy.
We are used to seeing and assessing life on Earth in the commercial sense of private property; up to the Workers State, we do this with the feeling of possession upon which the development of capitalist society is based, and such reasons explain capitalism’s view of existence and of other worlds. Science being submitted to those who pay, it is only to see how to exploit and dominate that our society plans trips to other planets.
Science is not independent. It is not comparable to the activity of growing a plant, because when we do, we can still decide what we will reap in spite of being subject to nature. Things are different when it comes to science because it is subject to those who pay. How can astronomers or physicists find the means to practice and research? They cannot do it without money, and they have not the individual financial means to pay for this and to live as well. They end up being financed by some capitalist State, or by the Soviet State[1]. These can raise the scientific teams, but the scientific capabilities of those teams must work within the confines of what is interesting to the capitalist State, or to the bureaucratic leaderships of the Workers State.
This is why our knowledge of matter, physics or astronomy is still so embryonic. As yet, we do not have a real knowledge of our surroundings. We constantly revise the bases of the discoveries around Newton, Einstein and all the other scientists. But the forms and combinations of matter are infinite, and there are forces that we do not use, even within ourselves. We must discover the power of what it is possible to do. The force that enables us to raise an arm, for example, is called ‘kinetic energy’. Why this energy? What drives the activity of the cells? Since there is no external impulsion, and the movement of the arm is triggered from within, what is this force? It is a source of energy that has developed with anteriority, because what permits us to conceive that the arm must be raised already exists beforehand in the mind.
A Japanese scholar advanced a conclusion rather like our own concerning earthquakes: he said that it was criminal to waste the energy of earthquakes. And that it is possible to inject into the Earth systems somewhat like radars, to measure all the movements and gases below, and the internal displacements still unknown to scientists due to gases or movements caused by the Sun and the rotation of the Earth. The Japanese scholar also said that we can predict, contain, deviate and indeed make use of this energy. The Posadists said the same thing at the time of the 1961 Chilean earthquake.
We do not have enough scientific knowledge to grasp how the organisation of matter could have led to the form of life and reproduction particular to Earth. Our scientific capacity is curbed by the lack of possibilities and economic means dedicated to this study. Those with the means are the capitalists, and their capitalist interests signify an immense limitation.
Because capitalism views the world through appropriation and the utilisation of property, observation is without ability and audacity, and knowledge is bounded by particular interests and social prejudices. This shows clearly in the instance of the problems raised by heart-transplants. The capitalist mentality of the bourgeois [researchers] leaves them perspective-less. They take no interest in anything, and there is no daring in their observation of the world. If they had any audacity and resolve, they would realise that they are not needed, that their existence is no longer justified. Limited and hampered as they are by their interests, they slap the same limits on science, physics, chemistry or medicine.
There is no reason for this to be happening on other planets. The class struggle does not have to exist. It is on Earth that the process of history has played out like this, but there is no reason why it should be the same elsewhere. Social organisation can have forms infinitely superior, without struggle, without antagonism. There is no reason at all to fight. The beings of those places may be looking at us in astonishment, and say: ‘Oh! They fight over a car, shooting and killing each other!’ It may even be that death does not exist for them as it does on Earth. The notion of death, the notion of the extinction of matter, or of cells, cannot be identical everywhere.
The longest human life-span reported is 160 years although it is between 70 and 80 on average (*). It is the organisation of matter under this form that allows this life duration. Our memory and life duration correspond to the particular way matter is organised on Earth. Can’t we imagine living as long as we do, but in a different form? We do not know if beings exist in other systems or galaxies, or how they are constituted. But we believe that they can exist. Beings that may have left their homes one million years ago might be coming to study the Earth, to see how life on Earth is like. It is possible. We say: ‘one million years’, but for those beings, this may be a number without importance, a normal measure. They couldn’t have the same notion of time as we do. For us, time has been, and remains, a notion that we have learnt from a society divided into classes. It was to exploit nature that our society needed to measure time. This gave rise to a division of time that has no reason to exist.
There are time-lags certainly, weathers and seasons like spring, summer, autumn and winter – although there may be planets without rain or seasons. Outside such things, however, time has no significance. Our interest in measuring time is relative to nature, to its impact on life, to the effects of its energy upon the organism. But for those who live on other planets, there is no reason why this should be so. Why should they have deadlines and billings, debts to pay by due-dates, or the need for heart-transplants?
A being from another planet watching a heart-transplant on Earth might ask: ‘What could they possibly be making?’ Our notion of the origins of life is a learnt notion, and corrections are being made to it every passing year. Take the example of how long ago we think human beings appeared on Earth: at first, people spoke of 500,000 years, then a million years. Now the first anthropoid is thought to have appeared some 17 million years ago.
The dialectical conception of history
From various parts of the world, much information regarding UFOs (unidentified flying objects) coincides. The many coincidences cannot all be exaggerations; and people who do not believe in ghosts or spirits say that they have seen extra-terrestrials. We believe and admit that these beings exist. The majority of those who have seen them say that they are normal beings, and many people have already seen UFOs.
About an aeroplane that disappeared after having struck a strange object, the General MacArthur, this Yankee murderer, said: ‘perhaps we and the Soviets will have to make war against an enemy external to Earth’. But this guy’s conciliation has its limits! Capitalism has nothing invested in UFOs, so it does not research the subject. Its interest disengages from where it cannot see anything profitable or useful to it. But in the matter of UFOs, people see a possibility to advance and progress. In this, the bourgeoisie displays its complete uselessness, accelerating therefore the approach of its demise.
All those who report having met extra-terrestrials or UFOs concur in not having been afraid. Without any audible exchange, the witnesses were made to understand that the visitors meant no harm. The latter arouse no feeling of alarm but a feeling of serenity. They communicate gentleness, flexibility, harmony and reassurance. They inspire no fear. Perhaps it is their movements that reassure, their facial aspects or some other elements. But no witness has said: ‘I was scared, they spooked me’. The visitors induce a positive sentiment, one of respect. They must emit some sort of rays that causes this sensation – if they exist. No-one has reported having been attacked. There are no reports of any wish to attack, rape, steal or possess on the part of the visitors. Just to observe.
Starting from the fact that extra-terrestrial beings can exist, one can admit that UFOs can exist too. It is possible that they come to Earth, although there may be much fantasising and exaggeration going on, and mystical conclusions being drawn. We need to await further proofs, but some testimonies are from people who seem sensible.
Neither the capitalist system nor the bureaucracy has an interest in researching this subject because they have no commercial, political or military benefit to draw from it. But Socialism is interested, and the masses too! In the face of a system it sees as superior, capitalism feels cut down to size. People say to it: ‘Look here, what is the good of you?’ But however much the ruling class feels inferior, only the hope of some military gain will get it researching this. Meanwhile, it passes the matter off as fantasy, to stop people thinking that there are superior forms of relations beyond the reach of capitalism. The Workers State will not act like this because it has an objective interest in the development of socialism.
There have been many UFOs reported sightings, and testimonies come to light in spite of all the camouflages. The ruling capitalist class, scientists and the military hide the facts, but information still gets published in the whirlwind of all the current preoccupations: Preoccupations about war and revolutions, preparations for the final settlement of accounts between capitalism and the world revolution, constant strikes and anger against the capitalist system, the occupation of factories and universities, land occupations, etc. Our world is in the grip of those problems, but people still take an interest in UFOs in spite of all their other concerns.
About the extra-terrestrials, we do not know what form they have, or their numbers. But they must exist – else they would not appear like this. There are enough reasons why the capitalists could not be inventing it all. They wish to distract attention, certainly, but this goes against them. They can divert attention by using a concrete fact, but this makes it even more obvious to everyone that capitalism is useless – whilst none of it stops the strikes, the factory occupations, the revolutions, the leaps towards socialism.
The preoccupation to study the UFO phenomenon has not yet taken off in the Workers States. The latter still have to concentrate on the necessity to live; but it is also because the bureaucracy conceals things. It definitely hides a lot of findings otherwise the people of the Workers States would be experiencing forms of life superior to the present ones.
Far from all this, Socialism has no fear of being compared with, or integrated into any higher form of progress. Indeed it yearns for them! ‘We have nothing to lose but our chains’. This phrase of Marx’ can be applied to everything.
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The way some people keep on discussing the UFOs topic is absurd, considering that millions others are dying of hunger. Those who preside over this division of the world are capitalism and the bureaucracy of the Workers States. Our society is incapable of employing the possibilities that wait to be used within matter. Capitalism is aware of this inferiority, and so does the bureaucracy of the Workers States. But in the Workers States, researchers already exist for whom this is not a matter of inferiority or superiority; they reason that there may be galaxies, planetary systems or universes where matter is fully utilised, and where the mayhem of hunger and class struggle has ended. They know that ruling classes can be eliminated. And they know also that the system is superior where this has been done.
Those who come to Earth from other planets must think that we are all barking mad. There is surely no notion of fight and violence where they come from.
The historic depth of what makes capitalism and the bureaucracy turn away from the study of UFOs – and the existence of living beings in other worlds – is the reading they get there of their pending elimination. This is why they take no interest in the continuity of existence, the continuity of life, the continuity of the human being. They have no time for matters devoid of commercial use, or unnecessary to the existence and perpetuation of capitalist power. But society keeps going regardless. The proletariat and Socialism keep advancing. People open up to the idea of life on other planets, and this idea exists in the Workers States too.
The existence of flying saucers and of beings coming to Earth is a phenomenon admissible by the dialectical conception of history. The most immediate conclusion that we are able to draw is that these beings, if they exist, possess a social organisation superior to our own. Since their appearance is not bellicose or aggressive, this means that they have no need for war, and that they come to Earth with no conquering aim. In the history of the Earth, when populations have felt superior to others, they have invaded, with a view to conquering, by means of war. The class struggle on Earth is the result of the organisation of society into classes, owners against exploited, bourgeoisie against proletariat – and now, the latter wanting to overthrow the bourgeoisie and build socialism.
The behaviour of those extra-terrestrials, if they exist, does not seem aggressive. All the witnesses confirm having seen no aggressive attitude. They all say that they felt no fear and that their curiosity was aroused. If these creatures were like those of our own terrestrial history, they would have come with sabres, harquebuses, cannons, stones, rocks – or other means of conquest. On Earth, aggressive behaviour arouses fear. But by the descriptions we get, these beings have come to observe and try to signify that they mean no harm. Such behaviour testifies to a superior form of organisation by non-aggressive beings that do not need to kill in order to live.
One can admit to the existence of such beings beyond the fancifulness in the reports, stories, observations and statements. If they exist, we must call on them to intervene and help resolve the problems of the Earth. They have come to study the people of the Earth? Let them intervene and help us resolve the problems of the Earth! The essential task on Earth is to put an end to misery, hunger, unemployment and war; to give to everyone access to a dignified life and lay the bases for human fraternity. But for this to happen, the capitalist system must be eliminated – along with the bureaucracy of the Workers States and of the Communist Parties that refuses to take power. But the fundamental obstacle is the capitalist system. We must destroy the military force it has today. Destroy all the atomic weapons. Destroy all the military power of the capitalist system, of Yankee, British, French imperialism. Appeal to the masses! Give them the means to destroy capitalism immediately, overcome the Workers States’ bureaucracy and build the new society of socialism. When beings from other planets come along, we must call on them to intervene and collaborate with us for the suppression of misery. It will be possible to make ourselves understood by them. One must not rely on being immediately understood, of course, but if we think that they can exist, we must appeal to them anyway.
Those of us who may have the possibility to contact such beings should not yield to an individual kind of scientific curiosity based on the wish to see where they are from and to visit their worlds. We want to unite with them instead – they who seem more powerful than the humans – so that they come and help resolve the problems of the Earth. When faced with beings from other worlds, one’s behaviour should be along those lines. The essential factor in any contact with them is that they could be immediately useful on Earth. After that, we will be concerned to go and see how the other planets are like, how life and matter are organised, and what corresponds to nature over there.
For the time being, the most important task is to resolve the problem of humanity on Earth. Our position regarding flying saucers is neither fantasist nor idealist. Since we admit that they can exist, we want all possible means to be used, from outside the Earth included. When we reach serious scientific conclusions, we must try and make them serve humanity.
Scientific capacity can develop without limits
The fact that we can keep our full mental faculties up to 80 or 90 means that memory extends. It could be that there are extra-terrestrial beings more than one million-year old. Hasn’t the human being existed for over one million years? Has it not reproduced incessantly without having to self-destroy or deconstruct before reproducing? With man’s reproduction, not only matter does not disappear, but it persists [as organised]. And when a human life ends, it is only one form in the organisation of matter that disappears. For it transforms itself and takes part in the transformation of other things.
Hence it may be that, on other planets, matter changes form without having to abolish the state it is in, or itself as a living being. That kind of matter may be feeding into something else without having to start from ashes. For indeed, what is the significance of a seed? A seed is matter in a primary state that stimulates other elements in order to reappear in another form. Beings may therefore exist for whom there is no need to die, because they re-produce in this way. We are not affirming this, but it is entirely possible.
The way we use energy on Earth is still very mechanical and rudimentary. What we use today is the transformation of matter into energy, but we do not use energy as already exists naturally. We should be able to do that – suppressing for example all the refining necessary to turn petrol into energy. One day, energy will come from the air. Electricity is one part of the structure and behaviour of matter; we use it because we have discovered it, but it is very limited. Tomorrow we will not need electricity because energy is all around. The condition for the existence of any object is that it contains energy.
The organisation of the human body – brain, senses and other organs – is proper to our Earth. It can be different on other planets. We eat because the human organism is constituted in a way that forces it to feed. This is to the partial advantage of capitalism because otherwise, there would be no reason to live submitted to its regime. It is social organisation that determines the scientific capacity of the human being. In private property, social organisation is very limited because the élan, the courage and the audacity it allows are governed by interests linked to individual appropriation. This kind of audacity is very limited because it stops when those interests are satisfied. Those human beings who go farther than this feel cast out. They come under social limitations that restrain their social capabilities. In the socialist society, social capability will be unlimited.
The notions of life, existence and society are measures of the objective need to live and progress. In socialism, existence and progress will become one, and there will be no notion of conservatism, parasitism or passivity. As with matter itself, existence will mean progress, because matter does not exist if it does not transform and progress. The same goes for life in society: it cannot exist without progress. The social condition for human existence is progress. Progress [when it rules] will immediately give to human audacity and capacity an expansion a million times greater than in the system of private property. These qualities will no longer be hindered or determined by the interests of the individual. The whole of society will be engaged, giving confidence and reassurance. When social thought is entirely held in common, it will change the modes of living. We will not want more time to travel millions of light-years away, for instance, than we need now to go to the Moon. A million years for us today will not signify the same length of time tomorrow.
Simple solutions are going to be found to all the problems we face now because of the way we are tied to the Earth, to gravity, to atmospheric pressure, etc. We will find the answer to these essential problems, because all it needs is social capacity completely at one with the thought that society can resolve everything. There are some universities, some faculties and some guys doing the thinking today – but this will not always be so. Universities exist today because, in being separate from the rest of society, they serve to exploit society for the benefit of capitalism. We will not need them tomorrow. Tomorrow progress will be for all, and shared between everyone. Here you have human audacity! Audacity in the face of nature!
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All this is important to Marxist formation and knowledge. Marxist knowledge is boundless because it does not stop just at the problems of the social, economic and political struggle. On any question, the comprehension of existence gives the confidence to look the solution in the face. There is no problem beyond the reach of humanity and all the problems of humanity overlap: About the history of humanity, of society and of matter, the more one knows and dominates, the more confidence one gains to face the facts resolutely and audaciously. With hardly any previous knowledge or preparation, a person scientifically equipped with Marxism and the dialectics can tackle any problem in any specialty. This is one vital aspect, and the other is socialist audacity, also to be found in the objectivity of Marxism.
We are neither submitted to, nor dependent upon what exists, or what is coming. We are objective, and our thought knows no limits. The only limit comes from our lack of human capacity to understand more. For human capacity, too, is a product of the social relations. This is why knowledge and ability will be the norm in the socialist society. Some scientific findings will surpass Marx’ and this removes nothing from his historic importance. The development of history has brought to us conditions that did not exist in Marx’s time. Soon, it will be scientific knowledge and social confidence that develop the social capability [of humanity]. For the present moment, we are not yet living out socialism! We are still in this capitalist society …
The critical mind is inherent to Marxism and its historic and inexhaustible power. It will remain paramount until a new form of interpretation is found, with a better grasp of the process of nature and the dialectics still one of its aspects. The critical mind is moved by the constant urge to revise, analyse, observe and examine – curious to see what effects and conclusions arise from the development of nature and society.
Marxism is irreplaceable as a method to understand the history of the world. When forms of interpretation superior to Marxism are found, it will not be because Marxism is incorrect but because humanity has reached a superior understanding. The dialectics will still be a part of that superior instrument.
Scientists are studying the possibility of a ray that moves quicker than light. Such a possibility challenges all our present views about the structure of matter. This [could] explain why it is possible to find forms of life apparently inconceivable until now. About the forms of life, there are infinities of possible combinations, from the primary to all the superior ones.
None of the people who admit to the existence of flying saucers has shown the disposition to build any scientific knowledge upon it. They only feel compelled by a genuine fact. They do not have the systematic turn of mind, or the objectivity, to apply their knowledge in the social field. But if life exists on other planets [and visits us] for example, it means that superior forms of social organisation exist, where life is not plagued by war, as it is here. Those who accept the existence of flying saucers today are simply reporting; they act like someone who projects a light on the wall and says: ‘this is light’. They draw no conclusions.
As opposed to this, we see in these problems a means to contribute to the understanding of history which enhances the quality of audacity. Historic audacity rests on a pillar made of confidence. The Vietnamese masses highlight the point. It is Marxism that provides this sort of confidence. It is very important to study these questions, although we have so little time to do it. We must concentrate on the problems facing us, but these other questions do not leave us indifferent, and we do not lose sight of them.
We admit to the existence of extra-terrestrials as a conclusion of dialectical thought. The latter fills us with the certainty that we can master any existing phenomenon, and that we shall not be caught off-guard. Matters of extra-terrestrials and flying saucers do not put the dialectical method in any doubt whatsoever. Indeed they confirm it! The dialectical method gets re-confirmed at every turn.
We consider that extra-terrestrials and flying saucers can exist precisely because of what the dialectics teaches us about the organisation of matter. Matter can take infinite forms. For example, there is no reason why reproduction should always involve coupling. There may be self-reproduction, as is the case for the amoeba. And why shouldn’t this become the case for the human being in the future?
About these beings from other planets that come here to observe life: how they must be laughing at humans fighting to see who will have the most cannons, cars and wealth! The possession of riches is a distortion in the social organisation of the human sentiment. The human sentiment is fraternal and collective, but the possession of wealth causes degeneration in it. Why do the bourgeois want twenty cars, a hundred factories, and a rank of general – why? What does that give them? Power over others, yes, and after? It does not give them any capacity to elevate and develop their intelligence. The opposite is the case, since this is precisely what limits their intelligence. The bourgeois class can have neither the inclination nor the perspective to develop society objectively. Indeed it does exactly the reverse, and prevents society from developing. It only wants to know about profitable material goods, along with the perpetuation and extension of private property. This limits its ability to understand and prevents it from thinking.
Even when the reports about flying saucers are fantasist, as they mostly are, the historical basis for them is correct. Neither capitalism nor the Workers States’ bureaucracy can give explanations regarding this matter, nor can any bourgeois thinker. They are outflanked and outplayed, whilst those who could do it do not have the means, because they depend on the major scientific and research-institutions – themselves dependent on capitalism.
To try and understand these phenomena must serve not just the goal of knowing more, but to extend the application of Marxism to all branches of knowledge – like thought, for example. [..] The speed of thought is still very limited today. Tomorrow it will be infinitely more powerful and rapid. When the class struggle is eliminated, when harmony is a requisite of life, thought will have an infinitely superior field of action and possibilities to develop. For deeper conclusions regarding those problems, one must follow them attentively, take a close interest, discuss, learn and study them.
Other phenomena like those about UFOs will occur, but a series of fact are already calling for attention. Can’t there be another universe where matter has developed similarly to Earth? If it is different, what form might it have? There is surely a superior utilisation of matter somewhere! What creates organisms is not arbitrary; they emerge from the specific compositions and internal relations within matter itself. The structure of the organisms [that we know] came about when inorganic matter took on organic forms, and then evolved in particular environments.
About the beings from other planets with a physiognomy reportedly similar to that of man, they may come from a process where the organisation of matter is similar to our own; or they may have manipulated matter in order to adopt this form. If they are really around, their mastery of science can have enabled them to do this as well – in the same way as we can move mountains on Earth. Where Mao Zedong proposes to do this [in China] with a pickaxe and a spade, those beings may be already using the energy contained in the mountains. Who knows? It is not a problem we can resolve just now. There are neither the time nor the means, as yet.
We are already able to engineer the reproduction of life. No doubt the same is done on other planets, and beings like those who can visit us can surely do this too. If we can transplant fundamental human organs like hearts and kidneys on Earth, then others can elaborate life in their own way where they live. Engels told us that already in his time it was possible to produce artificial protoplasm, essential basis of the cell, a pillar of existence.
The discussion of these problems will soon become more generalised, because it is part of the progress of humanity in its integration with nature and the universe.
J. Posadas, 26.6.1968
[1] This refers to the Soviet Workers State (Edit).
(*) – At this point, J Posadas had mentioned how elephants can live up to 160 years. This text having been published before it could be edited, J Posadas may have meant tortoises, and not elephants. Indeed Daniel Engber, Columnist for ‘Slate’, reports about a tortoise that lived 255 years. See The Telegaph, 23.3.2006 [Editorial, Posadiststoday.com, 9.2.2017].
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Childbearing in space, the confidence of humanity, and Socialism
J. Posadas,12 August 1978
The Soviets are setting out to experiment with the gestation of a child in space. This could be one of the forms that love will take in the future. It marks a very important step in the field of reproduction and in the field of science. Only a Workers State can actually do this. This initiative proves that the Soviet Workers State is not strictly determined by bureaucracy, for all the bureaucracy which it has. The bureaucracy still moves the tail-end of the Workers State, but not its limbs. Having now justified its existence, and demonstrated its superiority, the Workers State moves its own limbs. This superiority is not just of an economic order [1] because at a given stage of human development, the social relation takes over from the determinisms of the economy.
Very important matters such as childbearing in Space are already being debated. This is not done in a programmed way, but initiatives like that of trying to create a child in space pose the need for a programmed discussion. This experiment is going to have an immense effect in biology, for the study of reproduction on Earth and in space. See how the human spirit[2] projects itself hundreds of millions of kilometres outwards. Gone has the fear of space and the awe of distance. There is no more vacuum!
A similar vision stands behind the wish to procreate in space. This wish can only arise in a Workers State when humanity has already reached a high degree of social self-confidence. If this were not the case, you would hear nothing of this; you would simply observe a people wanting to live better, cohabit better – and defend itself better. Instead of this, you see the Soviet leaders envisaging this experiment. It is the Workers State that inspires them to do so, because this kind of initiative pushes against the bureaucratic restrictions put the way by the Workers State having to coexist with capitalism.
The notion of creating a child in space is consistent with the experience that the Soviets are making in Siberia where they build towns in temperatures of 60[3] below zero. Isn’t this a proof of great audacity and human confidence? The pioneers of Siberia see no problem with life – only with social class. Indeed social class is our last problem, and it is going to be resolved by liquidating capitalism.
Humanity has become absolutely certain that the human relations must be based on human love. The intention behind the Soviets’ experiments has a profoundly human character. It is capitalism, on the other hand, that experiments in laboratories to see how better to sell goods, eliminate human beings and dispatch the proletariat. Capitalism would wipe out most of the proletariat, if it could, because it has no more use for surpluses of manpower. Once again it would hurl one mass of proletarians against the other, if it thought it could get away with it. Even the church clashes with capitalism because the church wants people alive and capitalism wants them eliminated.
The forms under which human love ends up being expressed are not governed by sex relations. They are governed by the objective love for humanity; that is to say love for humankind as an integral part of nature and of the universe.
Much time elapsed before this level of consciousness could be reached. With the rise of private property, people developed the fear of shortage, and this fear created egoism. The lack of food in sufficient quantity and for everybody provokes the sentiments of egoism, possession and envy. It is not true that these sentiments are innate. The church says that they are, but the upholding of this falsehood is not even in its interests, for how come god created such a being? You see the stamp of private property in every church notion, like hell and the devil.
The historic process advances through forms straining towards Socialism. They do not follow the pattern of local or partial needs, but that of a logical movement which itself responds to the logical necessity of humanity. Humanity feels pressed and oppressed by the straightjacket that imprisons science. For science is oppressed! The capitalists oppress science by using it to kill people. When science is liberated – it will not be long, in only a few years – we will wipe out all the problems, floods, hunger and misery. All this could already be done, and it will not be long before we do. And when we do, everyone will be an architect, an engineer, a doctor, and the like.
The Soviets’ idea of childbearing in space is a rich one. It will bring new measurements in the fields of procreation and birth so far from Earth, and it will tighten our relationship with the universe. This audacious project shows that humanity already embraces the idea of less dependency upon the Earth and improved relations with other worlds. No society composed of classes or led by bureaucrats will carry this out, because only the harmony of Socialism can do it. The point we are at was not reached through calculations and programmes, but through the actions of the whole of society.
The economy and science developed within the production methods of systems steadily concentrating and centralising. Every passing day sees all these factors more narrowly dependent upon mathematics, programmes and electronic brains. So much so that the human being can only wonder at the absurdity of having to live as we do, just to work, just to survive, just to make wars; the absurdity of living in conditions where the idea of being useful to nature needs not enter. Such conclusions must be drawn from the Soviets’ disposition to create a child in space. It shows that humanity is secure. Secure in the notion that every problem can be solved, absolutely! And easily!
The consciousness of humanity could only reach this peak because the proletariat is the class, the only class in history that can think as humankind. The historic future of the proletariat is not as a proletariat, but as humankind. The proletariat can only develop further as a class by disappearing as class. Such is the Permanent Revolution today. In fulfilling the superior phase of its development, the proletariat must disappear, which is the construction of the new society.
It is important to win strikes and wars, but it is still more important to build the new society. This is where the historic role of the proletariat comes to its own. As the proletariat unfolds its class role – through its own way of thinking and of programming – it imparts to the economy, to society and science its preoccupation for the universalisation of human kind. Observe how the proletariat grows in the disposition to think in the name of humanity, and not just as a class. This is what it started doing when it built the Soviet Union.
Proletarian internationalism must not be seen as an aim in itself but as a start in the process of the universalisation of humankind. Proletarian internationalism helps to spread worldwide the logical and necessary objective of human progress. Its other facet consists in intervening directly to help others struggle and win; but is this not what one does, really, when one sends a rocket to Mars? What is the difference between boosting a rocket towards Mars and boosting the winning ability of Mozambique, Angola and Ethiopia? One impulse goes towards Angola and the other goes towards Mars; two separate initiatives, but one single objective; two separate modes of organisation, but one single aim. Tomorrow, all the different human initiatives and modes of organisation will fuse in the common objective.
In the future, the technical means will be a thousand times superior to what they are today. We are going to find electronic means, or equivalent, capable of sending and receiving not only human thought, but the specific weight of each thought.
The number of those employed in today’s military HQs keeps dwindling. Where thousands used to be involved, you may find only 15 now. The aim is war and massacre, of course. But it demonstrates that it is not necessary to work as brutally as we do today. If we have already the audacity to envisage childbearing in space, it is because we feel part of a quest that transcends life on Earth.
The Workers State has no need to reproduce or expand capital. Those who feel sorry for “the poor little Czechoslovakia”[4] are very mistaken. If the Soviet Workers State had an interest in reproducing and accumulating capital, it would act accordingly in Czechoslovakia. But it doesn’t act in that way. Far from it, it supports the revolutions in the world, and it seeks the liberation of humankind. It is capitalism that constantly suppresses and crushes people, again and again, in order to live. The need of the Workers State, on the other hand, is to eliminate every form of oppression.
J Posadas – 12 August 1970
[1] The nationalised economy, planned production and the State Monopoly of Foreign Trade. (Edit)
[2] By ‘spirit’, the author generally refers to something like the motivating force of human love. (Edit)
[3] Celcius
[4] For years after 1968, the world capitalist class attacked the Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia, denouncing it as an invasion, although all that the Soviet Union sought to do, and succeeded in doing for a time, was to stop the return of Czechoslovakia to capitalism. (Edit)
