Over fifty years after World Crisis was published how does it stand up? Is it worth reading? I would argue that it is worth reading, and that it has much to offer beyond just historical curisosity for those interested in the history of the British left and the origins of the SWP. While some chapters are necessarily dated, there are others that are fascinating and retain their use today.
In the introduction Jim Higgins and John Palmer restate some orthodox Marxist ideas. The main reason for this is to highlight how much of the left, under the pressure of the existence of the Soviet Union, had abandoned central tenets of Marx's concept of workers' self-emancipation. They write:
And implicit in the struggle of a group of workers against a single employer is the struggle of all labour aginst all capital. The rise of working-class parties based on trade unions, directly or indirectly, is not accidental. Nor is it an accident that in times of fierce economic struggle workers are more receptive to political ideas. It is because of these structural and necessary features of capitalism that Marxists have identified the working class as the revolutionary class par excellence; not because it has some mystical quality of goodness, but because the nature of capitalist production and the relations within it make it so.
Writing this in 1971 is also a polemic directed at new layers of radicals, aiming to win them to a Marxist view that places working class self-activity at the heart of organisation. This book certainly does this. But the book also asks, what is changing in the world. The opening chapter is "A Day in the Life of the 'Fifties" by Peter Sedgwick and is an amusing, and insightful look at a demonstration "against German rearmament" in Parliament square. The protest is attacked by the police, and Sedgwick uses it as a way to contrast the staid life of the old left: "Almost without exception all the elements which came togehter so hopefully on that late day in January [1955], a decade and a half ago, have been probed, stripped, revealed as nothing by the merciless challenge of the years." Later however Sedgewick notes that at the time of writing workers were less likely to be on the streets, and protests are more often by groups of middle-class radicals in their "brief hour of rebellion". The workers he points out "cannot graduate... but its consciousness is slower to ignite tha that of the Instant Left." Written in a time before student life became something that masses of workers engaged in, this comes across as somewhat sectarian, especially in the aftermath of 1968. But there is a point. The workers did need to link up and develop their struggles. The limitations of this in Britain in 1968 was the weakeness of the whole movement.
Chapter two is somewhat depressingly called "The Decline of the Welfare State". Reading it one is tempted to shout out to the author Jim Kincaid, "you ain't seen nothing yet!". But Kincaid does trace the way that attacks on welfare are rooted in a capitalist approach to the economy. It's must have been a depressing read then. Now it feels like fortune telling. But Marxism as a tool is nothing if insightful, and some of the chapters here give a real sense of debates to come. Here, for instance, is Nigel Harris pointing out that capitalist development does not benefit everyone, and early discussion of topics that would become central to degrowth theory in the 21st century:
But 'growth' may not mean 'development'. The statistics may show a rising national income, even a rising average income per head, at the same time as unemployment is increasing, there is no change int he distribution of the occupied population between agricultural and non-agricultural employment and in the distribution of non-agricultural employment between manufactuing and other sectors. In human terms nothing very much may have happened, and things for the majority may even have got worse.
Paul Foot's chapter on the origins and limitations of the Labour Party is fascinating, beginning as it does with the early betrayals. Written at a time when Labour still had mass membership and considered itself a socialist organisation it is clearly a polemic designed to arm readers for individuals breaking from Labour. But it has some fascinating material that readers today who want to argue against a Parliamentary Road to Socialism will find useful. Similarly Chris Harman's brilliant essay traces the limitations of these countries as "socialist" and puts a clear argument for the importance of State Capitalism as a theory. Its importance, as Harman writes, is in clarifying the left's politics:
A clear analysis of these regimes is a necessary precondition for renewed growth of the Left in the West. Only a theory which centres on the basic problem for the rulers of these countries - that of accumulating capital - and sees this as forcing them into collision with each other and with the working class can comprehend the forms their rule takes and the policies they pursue at each historical point.
Such an analysis proved important for both building a new revolutionary left in the 1970s and developing a critique of the limitations of Stalinist parties in the same period. It also helped ensure that the SWP survived the collapse of State Capitalism in 1989. Characteristically, Tony Cliff's chapter "The Class Struggle in Britain" is an argument about what socialists should do. A couple of things stand out. One is his comment that "a declining interest in the traditional reformist organisations (the Labour Party, Communist Party, etc) does not mean the overcoming of reformist ideology." This is true, though while Cliff probably overestimated the declining interest, he was right that even when this comes, it does not necessarily mean reformism is also dispensed with. However one part of his chapter could very well be written today for socialists in Britain:
The weakness of revolutionaries in Britain at present is quite obvious. Small in number, often isolated because of their social composition - white collar and student - from the main sections of the working class, split into a number of groups, and above all lacking experience in leading mass struggles. But these weaknesses can be overcome. Readiness to learn, readiness to experiment systematically, above all readiness to try and translate the general theories into practical activities - this is what is necessary. In a complex and rapidly changing situation, readiness to move from simple tasks to more difficult ones, above all readiness to overcome one's own mistakes is crucial.
For some socialists reading World Crisis would be an act of navel gazing. Dreaming of past battles. I'm not sure of the value of that. But the clarity of the theory its authors have, their determination to root this theory in struggles, and learn and develop the theory offers much. Some of the chapters are reminders of central revolutionary ideas. Michael Kidron's article on Imperialism and the permanent arms economy is perhaps the most useful in this regard. Foot's chapter on Labour and Harman's on East Europe also offer insights and ideas that remain useful. But standing out all of them display a Marxist method essential to furthering the basis of our theory today. As Cliff reminds us:
The greatest defect of revolutionaries who have been isolated for years from the mass movement is their inclination to make a virtue out of necessity, and concentrate on theories to the exclusion of practice, forgetting that above all the duty of a revolutionary is to raise theory to the level of practice.Related Reviews
Birchall - Tony Cliff: A Marxist for His Time
Harman - The Fire Last Time: 1968 and After
Harman - Selected Writings
Harman - Class Struggles in Eastern Europe 1945-83
No comments:
Post a Comment