John Rees (ed) Essays on Historical Materialism

This book is a product of a particular moment in history. I purchased it after attending the conference at which most of the essays were given as papers. It was organised in 1998 by the International Socialism Journal, and reflected a number of ideological dynamics that were engaging the Marxist left. The first was the legacy of the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the Eastern European states. While the Socialist Workers Party, the tradition to which most of the contributors in this book, were undemoralised by this as they had theorised those regimes as State Capitalist, much of the rest of the left was. In addition the iedological right was riding high and confident. One consequence of this was attempts to undermine totalising approaches to history, and in academia particularly this meant the rise of post-modernism. The other, linked, consequence was a right wing assault on approaches to history that were based on Marxist, or even "history from below". 

The essays take up this ideological challenges in a number of ways. The first two probably stand the test of time the best. They are by Chris Harman on History, Myth and Marxism and the other is by Alex Callinicos and considers Post-modernism and its encroachment into the field of history. Callinicos' essay is perhaps one of the best short introductions to post-modernism I've read and repays a read, even if the immediate target of his writing is not as important as it was nearly thirty years ago. Another essay, by Mark O'Brien, on post-modernism and British history is also very useful - a solid defence of the importance of class through a study of the class forces and tensions within the Charist movement. In doing so O'Brien shows how the centrality of class undermines the post-modern rejection of continuity in history and the any sense of radical change. 

I was also particularly taken by Mike Haynes's article on Social History and the Russian Revolution. Here he traced the way that the collapse of Stalinism was leading to a retreat by left historians of the Revolution, and an assault of Marxist histories. One thing that struck me here, was that Haynes is more explicitly critical of "Western socialists" in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution than other writings. He writes: Western intervention [against Revolutionary Russia] was only able to have the effect it did because the revolution did not spread to the West as the Bolsheviks hoped and expected and because too little opposition was developed by  western socialists to the actions of their own governments in Russia."

But perhaps the best historical essay in the collection is Brian Manning's on Labour and the English Revolution, which defends a Marxist approach to the Civil War period, by closely studying the class dynamics of the revolutionary movement. He draws out who was arguing and fighting for what, and why, to demonstrate the importance of class. The question of the diverging intersts of "small producers" and "wage workers" within the Revolution is surprisingly important. He concludes:

In a bourgeois revolution, wrote Trotsky, 'that class which sacrifices most for the success of the revolution and hopes the most from it, receives the least of all... The disappointment of the masses follows quickly' and could lead to a second revolution, but 'more than once in history' this disappointment has 'become the starting point of a victorious counter-revolution'. The latter happened in the English Revolution. The disillusionment of plebeians with the immediate results of the revolution did not provoke them to further revolutionary acvitity but to the abandonment of revolutionary activity. The counter-revolution, however, was only partly successful.

Mannings article demonstrates how, and why this happened - relating the different interests of the participatory classes, to their struggles and actions and the failure to unite to move forward. Its an exemplary piece of writing, and one that many students could benefit from emulating. 

John Rees' concluding article on the differences between academic and revolutionary Marxism points out that the defeats of the left and the working class movement from the 1980s onward and opened the door to a generation of Marxists who divorved their Marxism from the struggle. This, Rees points out, undermines the basis of Marxism itself and weakens the approach of the Marxists to their history. But it also makes for a Marxism that is unable to deal with new challenges and ideas. There is much food for thought here for those Marxists who both restrict themselves to academia and refuse to soil themselves by engaging in the struggle, as well as those Marxists whose ideas are ossified and are no longer developing in engagement with new and emerging struggles from below. 

Related Reviews

Harman - Marxism and History
Harman - Selected Writings
Callinicos - Imperialism and Global Political Economy
Callinicos - The New Age of Catastrophe
Perry - Marxism and History