You do not have permission to edit this page, for the following reasons:

This IP address has been blocked from editing Wikipedia.
This does not affect your ability to read Wikipedia pages.
Most people who see this message have done nothing wrong. Some kinds of blocks restrict editing from specific service providers or telecom companies in response to recent abuse or vandalism, and can sometimes affect other users who are unrelated to that abuse. Review the information below for assistance if you do not believe that you have done anything wrong.

The IP address or range 54.163.0.0/16 has been blocked (disabled) by ‪Blablubbs‬ for the following reason(s):

The IP address that you are currently using has been blocked because it is believed to be a web host provider or colocation provider. To prevent abuse, web hosts and colocation providers may be blocked from editing Wikipedia.
You will not be able to edit Wikipedia using a web host or colocation provider because it hides your IP address, much like a proxy or VPN.
We recommend that you attempt to use another connection to edit. For example, if you use a proxy or VPN to connect to the internet, turn it off when editing Wikipedia. If you edit using a mobile connection, try using a Wi-Fi connection, and vice versa. If you are using a corporate internet connection, switch to a different Wi-Fi network. If you have a Wikipedia account, please log in.
If you do not have any other way to edit Wikipedia, you will need to request an IP block exemption.

How to appeal if you are confident that your connection does not use a colocation provider's IP address:
If you are confident that you are not using a web host, you may appeal this block by adding the following text on your talk page: ((unblock|reason=Caught by a colocation web host block but this host or IP is not a web host. My IP address is _______. Place any further information here. ~~~~)). You must fill in the blank with your IP address for this block to be investigated. Your IP address can be determined here. Alternatively, if you wish to keep your IP address private you can use the unblock ticket request system. There are several reasons you might be editing using the IP address of a web host or colocation provider (such as if you are using VPN software or a business network); please use this method of appeal only if you think your IP address is in fact not a web host or colocation provider.

Administrators: The IP block exemption user right should only be applied to allow users to edit using web host in exceptional circumstances, and requests should usually be directed to the functionaries team via email. If you intend to give the IPBE user right, a CheckUser needs to take a look at the account. This can be requested most easily at SPI Quick Checkuser Requests. Unblocking an IP or IP range with this template is highly discouraged without at least contacting the blocking administrator.

This block will expire on 17:28, 10 March 2024.

Even when blocked, you will usually still be able to edit your user talk page, as well as email administrators and other editors.

For information on how to proceed, please read the FAQ for blocked users and the guideline on block appeals. The guide to appealing blocks may also be helpful.

Other useful links: Blocking policy · Help:I have been blocked
Your IP address is in a range that has been blocked on all Wikimedia Foundation wikis. The block was made by ‪Jon Kolbert‬. The reason given is Open proxy/Webhost: See the help page if you are affected .
- Start of block: 18:27, 12 November 2023
- Expiry of block: 18:27, 12 November 2028
Your current IP address is 54.163.179.242. The blocked range is 54.163.0.0/16. Please include all above details in any queries you make. If you believe you were blocked by mistake, you can find additional information and instructions in the No open proxies global policy. Otherwise, to discuss the block please post a request for review on Meta-Wiki. You could also send an email to the stewards VRT queue at stewards@wikimedia.org including all above details.

You can view and copy the source of this page:

((Short description|British lecturer of statistics))
((Use dmy dates|date=April 2022))
'''Cyril Smith''' (1929-2008)<ref>((Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/obituary.htm|title=Marking the death of Cyril Smith, by John Plant 2008|website=www.marxists.org|access-date=2019-09-19))</ref> was a British lecturer of statistics at the London School of Economics, socialist, and [[Marxist humanism|revolutionary humanist]].<ref>((Cite book|title=Karl Marx and the Future of the Human|last=Smith|first=Cryil|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2005|isbn=0-7391-1026-8|location=|pages=ix))</ref>

== Political beginnings ==
Smith began attending [[Communist Party of Great Britain|Communist Party]] meetings at [[University College London]] in 1947.<ref>((Cite book|title=Marx at the Millennium|last=Smith|first=Cyril|publisher=Pluto Press|year=1996|isbn=0-7453-1001-X|location=Chicago, Illinois|pages=7))</ref> By his own admission, he was attracted to the "systematic way [of] understand[ing] the world" that [[Stalinism]] provided. He quickly became disillusioned, however, during the [[Lysenko affair]], which led to him turning his attention towards the works of [[Leon Trotsky]].<ref name=":0" />

== Break with "Leninist Marxism" ==
((unreferenced section|date=September 2019))
Starting in 1987, Smith began to examine what he was beginning to feel was the distortion of Marx's ideas by his own followers. This project first manifested itself in a small booklet titled ''Communist Society and Marxist Theory''. While well aware of its limitations, Smith hoped that the work would begin a dialogue on the subject rather than be the final word. To his dismay, rather than beginning a discussion, the work ended communication entirely with many in his organization. This inspired Smith to probe deeper and work on a more complete account of the matter, a project that Smith would dedicate the remainder of his academic career to in one way or another.

Later in life, Smith would look back on his years as a Trotskyist as necessary for his political trajectory, but years that he put behind himself happily.<blockquote>...it [was] important to have seriously participated in the attempt to build the Fourth International and to grasp its ideas; it was also vital to have subsequently and equally seriously ceased to hold to those ideas.<ref name=":0">((Cite web|url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/works/articles/trotskyist.htm|title=Articles by Cyril Smith|website=www.marxists.org|access-date=2019-09-20))</ref></blockquote>

== ''Marx at the Millennium''==
In 1996, Smith published the results of years of study and examination, the book ''Marx at the Millennium''. Described by Smith as an attempt to discover "what Marx was trying to do," it is as much a critique of how others have attempted to answer that question as it is a presentation of Smith's own answer. Setting his work apart from others of its type, however, is that Smith's critiques were aimed at the views of Marx's followers themselves. For Smith, the degeneration of Marxist thought he believed to have come about was as much, if not more so, the fault of Marxists as it was Marx's right-wing and liberal detractors.<blockquote>Many people these days will tell you ‘Marxism is dead’, usually with the collapse of the USSR in mind. There are still several varieties of ‘Marxist’ who deny it, of course. However, neither side shows much inclination to talk about the actual ideas whose death or survival are being disputed.<ref>((Cite book|last=Smith|first=Cyril|title=Marx at the Millennium|publisher=Pluto Press|year=1996|isbn=0-7453-1001-X|location=Chicago, Illinois, USA|pages=25))</ref></blockquote>In his studies, Smith came to the conclusion that there was no basis in the writings of Karl Marx for a "Leninist party" or a "workers' state," putting him sharply at odds with the views of his former comrades and those that he had earlier himself held. In contrast, Smith understood the dictatorship of the proletariat to be the result of "the ability of the proletariat to form itself into a subject." This state, then, was not something apart and above the working-class, directing its revolutionary movement from afar, but instead the organized mass of individuals carrying out the process of unified self-liberation. It was not to be a state of transition, but rather one of transformation.

Most controversially, Smith argued that Marx was "not a sociologist or an economist, nor a social scientist or political scientist of any kind... ."<ref>((Cite book|title=Marx at the Millennium|last=Smith|first=Cyril|publisher=Pluto Press|year=1996|isbn=0-7453-1001-X|location=Chicago, Illinois|pages=72))</ref> This position led to a years long debate with the Marxist-Humanist journal Hobgoblin.<ref>((Cite web|url=http://www.thehobgoblin.co.uk/journal/2008_12_DB_CyrilSmith.htm|title=Cyril Smith 1929-2008|website=www.thehobgoblin.co.uk|access-date=2019-09-19))</ref>

== ''Karl Marx and the Future of the Human'' ==
((refimprove section|date=September 2019))
Smith's second book, ''Karl Marx and the Future of the Human'', was an attempt to continue his project of examining the differences he found between views commonly held by Marxists and those expressed by Marx himself. Smith described the work as being his second attempt at "rereading" Marx. Namely, he attempted here to fix what he believed was his earlier mistake of attempting to "absolve Engels of all blame for the distortion of Marx," as well as sharpen his critique of the "old orthodoxy."

In this work, Smith puts forward his most direct summary of what he believed the general "outlook" of Marx's work to have been:<blockquote>(1) In class society, individual humans are governed by social forms that are alien to their humanity. This is insane.

(2) These forms condition the way that they think about themselves and about their social life.

(3) When science theorizes social problems, its categories give the alien forms their highest expression.

(4) The critique of these categories breaks up their appearance of being ‘natural’, and so opens the way for conscious social practice to release their human content.<ref>((Cite book|title=Karl Marx and the Future of the Human|last=Smith|first=Cyril|publisher=Lexington Books|year=2005|isbn=|location=|pages=45))</ref></blockquote>

==References==
((reflist))

==External links==
* [https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/smith-cyril/index.htm Cyril Smith Archive] at [[marxists.org]]

((authority control))

((DEFAULTSORT:Smith, Cyril))
[[Category:British Marxists]]
[[Category:British Marxist historians]]
[[Category:British statisticians]]
[[Category:Academics of the London School of Economics]]
[[Category:1929 births]]
[[Category:2008 deaths]]
[[Category:Date of birth missing]]
[[Category:Date of death missing]]
[[Category:Place of birth missing]]
[[Category:Place of death missing]]
[[Category:Marxist theorists]]

Pages transcluded onto the current version of this page (help):

Cyril Smith (Marxist) (edit)
Template:Ambox (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Authority control (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Cite book (view source) (protected)
Template:Cite web (view source) (protected)
Template:DMCA (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Dated maintenance category (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Dated maintenance category (articles) (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:FULLROOTPAGENAME (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Hlist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:Main other (view source) (protected)
Template:More citations needed (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:More citations needed section (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Ns has subpages (view source) (protected)
Template:Pagetype (view source) (protected)
Template:Refimprove section (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Reflist (view source) (protected)
Template:Reflist/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Template:SDcat (view source) (protected)
Template:Short description (view source) (protected)
Template:Short description/lowercasecheck (view source) (protected)
Template:Sp (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Unreferenced (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Unreferenced section (view source) (template editor protected)
Template:Use dmy dates (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Arguments (view source) (protected)
Module:Authority control (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Authority control/auxiliary (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Authority control/config (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Category handler (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/blacklist (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Category handler/shared (view source) (protected)
Module:Check for unknown parameters (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1 (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/COinS (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Date validation (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Identifiers (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Utilities (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/Whitelist (view source) (protected)
Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Disambiguation/templates (view source) (protected)
Module:EditAtWikidata (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/ambox.css (view source) (protected)
Module:Message box/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Namespace detect/data (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbar/configuration (view source) (protected)
Module:Navbox (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/configuration (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Navbox/styles.css (view source) (template editor protected)
Module:Ns has subpages (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/config (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/disambiguation (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/setindex (view source) (protected)
Module:Pagetype/softredirect (view source) (protected)
Module:SDcat (view source) (protected)
Module:String (view source) (protected)
Module:Unsubst (view source) (protected)
Module:Wikitext Parsing (view source) (protected)
Module:Yesno (view source) (protected)

Return to Cyril Smith (Marxist).

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyril_Smith_(Marxist)"