Frederick Engels - The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State

Frederick Engels' book, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State was an incredible achievement. It shows Engels' and Marx's fascination by every aspect of human life and history. Engels shows a deep knowledge of his subject, which while dated by today's understanding, must have meant he was at the forefront of contemporary anthropological work.

Origin is an attempt to demonstrate that the way in which human society is organised has radically changed through the years. Human's haven't always lived in a society that is based on competition, earlier societies, particularly those we would now call hunter-gathering communities, were Engels argued based on primitive communism. In these there was no private property of land or materials and this meant that human relationships were based on eglatarian principles.

Engels' starting point for much of his work are the writings of Lewis Morgan, who was the first person to propose a stagiest history for humans, arguing, based on his understanding of langugages around the world, that people tended to follow a particular set of social organisations through the centuries. These three stages, savagery, barbarism and civilisation had with them a particular set of social organisations, particular those to do with the family and marriage.

Engels is particularly keen to show that the subjagated position of women under capitalism, was not something that was always true. He writes "That woman was the slave of man at the commencement of society is one of the most absurd notions that have come down to us from the Enlightenment".

Engels, following Morgan, writes that the modern family arises as part and parcel of the development of private property relations. Because in the first instance, material objects (such as tools) and the produce of agriculture end up in the hands of males in society (due to the division of labour that takes place as women take on the primary role of bringing up children) this leads to the male lineage becoming important for the inheritance of wealth. This then, for Engels is the world historic defeat of the female sex. It is also a defeat for males to, as it creates a situation were no one can be happy. Engels is at his best when he demonstrates, that we live in a world were monogamy is held up to be the ideal, but is not the reality (particularly for men) and this situation will continue until the means of production are once again held in common - and the individual family ceases to be the basic economic unit in society.

Much of the central arguments of Engels work, on the social relationships between people in ancient societies and their languages can be shown to be flawed. But this doesn't invalidate the central themes of his book, that the rise of class societies and the associated move towards private property leads to radically different family relations.

The section on the state is the most useful here. Engels shows how the state machinary develops as classes arise, with the needs of one group (the ruling class) to protect its interests and its wealth. Engels contrasts the complex machinary of the state, with its police and judges and so on, with the "child like simplicity" of earlier societies that needed no such armed bodies of men. This state, Engels argues needs to be smashed and placed in a musuem alongside the "spinning wheel and the bronze axe". This will require a revolution in property relations, and the creation of a world which holds the means of production in common.

This new world would bring with it the emancipation of women. Only when women are able to take a full part in production within society will they truely hold an equal position in society - in other words, when women are free to do what they want, because of socialised childcare, because of full access to abortion and contraception and because they are not held back by artificial social constructs like the family under capitalism.

Engels work is still inspirational, if a little complex at times. It's worth perservering with, because it is the first real attempt by a Marxist to grapple with some of the complex questions thrown up by human history. If you get a copy, it's worth finding an edition that has an introduction that takes up some of the anthropological questions and develops these. The Marxist anthropologist Eleanor Burke Leacock wrote an introduction that did this, though I am not aware that it is in print. Part of it was reprinted in her collection Myths of Male Dominance, which I will review shortly. It is also mostly available here at Google Books.

Related Reviews

Engels - Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
Marx and Engels on the Population Bomb
Engels - The Condition of the Working Class in England
Dee - The Red in the Rainbow - Sexuality, Socialism & LGBT Liberation

Hunt - The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels

Keith Miller - St Peter's

The church of St Peter's is surely one of the most awe inspiring pieces of architecture in the world. Whether or not you find it beautiful, or whether you yourself inspired into religious excitement by it is a different question. It's a powerful statement of strength by the Catholic Church, perhaps summed up by one visitor, Florence Nightingale who wrote that:

"No event in my life except my death can ever be greater than that first entrance into St Peter's, the concenrtated spirit of the Christianity of so many years, the great image of our faith which is the worship of grief."

Keith Miller explores the buildings history and its links with the growing power of the Popes and the Church. The building itself is a strange amalgam, being built on the site (and incorporating some of the walls of a much older St. Peters). Miller points out that this may in part be deliberate - by re-using ancient materials, we get a sort of concrete (excuse the pun) statement about the triumph of the Christian church over paganism. Its architects seem inumerable and its inspirations are many. Fashion comes and goes in the world of bricks and mortar as much as in that of fashion, and the changes of style and design over the centuries are well documented here.

For the non architectural expert, some of the book is daunting. Like all experts there is a private language which, even in books that are attempting to be accessible can only serve to mask what is being said. What are pilasters for instance, and how do windows "snarl" as Michelangelos are supposed to? The book is perhaps also a little incomprehensible to those who haven't visited St Peters, unlike some of the others in this series, you really have to have been there. And perhaps this is the real aim of the book - it is a trawl through the history that frames St Peters - the stories of the ruling classes who have used the building, or sought to use its image to strengthen their own social position, rather than a blow by blow account of the building itself.

St Peter's continues to inspire - many buildings have borrowed its dome in particular - the Bank of England and St Paul's for instance. Though I was interested to learn that while a recent church in the Ivory Coast has done the same, their dome is bigger!

So if you're going to Rome, and plan to visit St Peter's this is a great guide book. It is fascinating and amusing and doesn't simply fall into the trap of listing sculpture after sculpture with some meaningless dates.

Related Reviews in the Wonders of the World series
Watkin - The Roman Forum
Fenlon - Piazza San Marco
Tillotson – Taj Mahal
Goldhill - The Temple of Jerusalem
Gere - The Tomb of Agamemnon
Ray - The Rosetta Stone
Hopkins & Beard - The Colosseum

J.G. Farrell - The Siege of Krishnapur

The Indian Rebellion against British Rule in 1857 has had a number of interesting treatments in novel form, I think in particular of Fraser's Flashman novel, Flashman In the Great Game. Both Fraser's book and this one use the comic form to great effect, though Farrell's book is, it must be said, far better.

Concentrating on the fictional town of Krishnapur, Farrell examines the lives of the upper-class English residents there. Years of peaceful rule has left them bored and remote from the locals. Diverted by hunting and dinner parties, as well as the endless search for a marriage partner there are few among them even aware of the changing world around them. Farrell's characters each represent a particular strand of thought, or ideals (though they are never wooden). The central character, The Collector, epitomises the sense of industrial progress at the heart of the Victorian colonial dream. Having been inspired by the Great Exhibition, he has learnt it's catalogue of by heart, and many of the exhibits have made their way to his home. He dreams of the civilising powers of British capitalism, railroads across India and the like.

The Magistrate is his foil, a Chartist in his youth, he cynically notes the excesses of colonialism, but finds his ideals gradually undermined by events, mostly because the rich and pampered people around him cannot comprehend breaking from their lives of luxury. Two different doctors represent the old and the new, their endless debates about how to deal with a Cholera epidemic that strikes the besieged town, highlighting different traditions - the old irrational and the new scientific. The worst though are the women, endlessly fanning themselves and worrying about the servants. Gossiping and shunning those who've broken the complex and rigid social codes that maintain themselves even in a state of war.

And here's where the comedy at the heart of the novel comes from. It stems from the inability of those trapped in the siege to break with their rigid class structures as society breaks down. As the dead and wounded pile up, as food runs out and the poshest of ladies are reduced to eating horses, then dogs and eventually insects, they still argue about who should sit where given their social positions.

By concentrating in this way on this tiny group of individuals, all trying to reshape India in their own way, with their own prejudices, Farrell highlights the racism and arrogance that allowed the British rulers to be so shocked by the great Mutiny. We don't hear the voices of the Indian people themselves often, though occasionally we see how shallow the support amongst event the most loyal of servants is (I particularly liked the servants who gradually put up the prices for cleaning clothes as the siege continues, till even The Collector must wash his own shirts, adjacent to the lowest of the servants).

There is much to this novel - Victorian attitudes to sex, marriage and technology all come under the darkly comic scrutiny of the author. It's a fabulous novel, that will keep you gripped till the end. Farrell does such a good job of painting the central characters as the most annoying, obnoxious colonial representatives you can imagine, I kept hoping the rebels would wipe out every last one of them - but you'll have to see for yourself what does actually happen.

Related Reviews

Ward - Our Bones Are Scattered
Farrell - Troubles
Farrell - Singapore Grip 
Macrory - Signal Catastrophe; The Story of the Disastrous Retreat from Kabul 1842 

Karl Kautsky - The Agrarian Question - Volume 1

Karl Kautsky 1854 - 1938

Karl Kautsky was the foremost intellectual leader of the Marxist movement internationally at the end of the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th. His betrayal of the workers movement with his support for the First World War is an important story, rooted in his flawed  understanding of the process of social change. That particular tale is out of the remit of this review.

However Kautsky did have an excellent knowledge of Marxist economics, he was a popular and extensive writer though, according to the biographical sketch at the start of this volume, he wasn't a particularly good public speaker and didn't enjoy taking a political lead.

This extensive inquest into the history and politics of agriculture was certainly one of the first of its kind. Kautsky wrote it to get to grips with the politics of the peasantry and farmers at a time when most of the countries of Europe still had significant rural populations. The book arises out of an attempt by the German Social Democratic Party to get to grips with the subject as they developed their program.

It was hugely influential. Lenin, who went on to write a number of works on the question agrarian question as well as the peasantry was enthusiastic, it was the "most important event in present-day economic literature since the third volume of [Marx's] Capital" he said. The role of the peasantry and the rural masses was significant during the Russian Revolution. The policy of the Bolsheviks towards them, was in no small way influenced by some of the ideas at the heart of Kautsky's book.

So what are the ideas? There are many, and again, they can't all be covered in this review. But I think the key question is that of large and small farms. Kautsky challenged the idea that there would be a tendency towards larger and larger farms. Marxists have shown how under capitalism, there is a tendency towards monopolies - larger and larger blocks of capital, as firms swallow up competitors etc. That this was inevitable in agriculture too, was directly challenged by Kautsky's systematic work. The evidence he piles up, shows that this is not the case.

This has important ramifications for revolutionaries - if the farms become larger, there is an increasing tendency towards proletarianisation amongst the peasants and it makes question of collectivism flows then from the actual experience of the farmers (See Tony Cliff article at end of this review for more on this discussion).

Kautsky's detail of the particular situation and changing circumstances of agricultural workers in various countries is fascinating. He shows how farming practices are slow to change - using a US report that showed French peasants still using the Roman plough in the 19th century. He also expands in detail on the value of individual farms versus their larger competitors. The later are more efficient and better at utilising technology, though often suffer from being run by wage labourers rather than individuals with a personal interest in the farm's well being.

The question of the life of the peasant is important to Kautsky - he details their suffering, their hard work, pointing out that their dependency on the market is a weight around their neck - a good harvest, once a blessing under earlier economic systems, becomes a curses under capitalism if the price of corn collapses.

Kautsky also looks at important technical questions - the role of synthetic fertilisers, the separation of town and country, the size of fields and so on. This is an investigation of great depth and thought.

The second volume deals with the more political questions of the role of the peasantry, though Kautsky argues that "Agriculture's political significance is in inverse proportion to its economic significance". This is plainly wrong for many countries even today, and had Lenin followed this line, the outcome of the Russian Revolution would not have been such an initial success for the Bolsheviks.

He also displays a particularly mechanical method in his application of the Marxist method. At one point, he argues that "the effects of climate, topography and other natural circumstances represent a vanishing term when set against the specific impact of the mode of production". While this might be strictly true in some circumstances, I am not sure that in an period of environmental crisis such as the one we now live in, this is a helpful counterposing of ideas.

Finally, Kautsky is particularly good at clarifying the question of the Marxist theory of Ground Rent, which is far too much to go into here, but students reading this in the hope of cribbing for an essay are well advised too look into the explanation in Kautsky's book.

I will return to the second volume of the Agrarian Question later.

Related Information

In 1964, the Marxist Tony Cliff took a look at the question of agriculture and built on some of the ideas of Kautsky and Lenin, developing and critiquing some aspects of what they said. This short article is well worth a read for the student of Agrarian issues. It can be read online here.

Joseph Choonara & Charlie Kimber - Arguments for Revolution

Subtitled, "The Case for the Socialist Workers Party", this is a shamelessly partisan book. It's a book that argues the case for the radical, revolutionary change in society and puts the case that to do so socialists must be organised into a revolutionary organisation capable of shaping and leading that struggle.

Joseph Choonara and Charlie Kimber are both leading activists in the British SWP. This short book by them is a clear and basic introduction to the Marxist ideas that inform the politics and practice of that organisation. There a facts and figures to arm readers for arguments against capitalism, but more than this, it is an introduction to a wealth of ideas that can shape the world.

Capitalism they argue is a system that creates immense wealth, but that wealth is concentrated in the hands of a tiny number of individuals (1011 billionaires) who have spent the last few years doing very well out of the economic crisis. This wealth could provide for the needs of everyone on the planet, yet is used not in the collective interests of people, but in the interests of that tiny elite and the system they represent.

Starting from the nature of the very system, the authors show how capitalism isn't the usual way for humans to organise society. The exploitation at it's core, the systematic extraction of surplus value from the mass of workers, simply didn't exist in earlier societies. The drive for profits, the accumulation of wealth that is the motor of the dynamics of capitalism is also the cause of its periodic economic crises (on average every 6.3 years in the US) and what drives the capitalists to constantly seek to cut pay and conditions and undermine the welfare state.

The authors show however the way in which capitalism creates in the words of Karl Marx, its own "gravediggers". The working class who have the power both to overthrow capitalism and create a new socialist society based on collective democratic society. But the workers don't simply have this importance because of their economic power, they quote Engels; who pointed out that the working class "cannot emancipate itself without abolishing the conditions of its own life. It cannot abolish the conditions of its own life without abolishing all the inhuman conditions of life of society today which are summed up in its own situation".

The working class, through the revolutionary struggle throws off the muck of ages and creates the democratic bodies that can form the basis of a new society. The capitalists don't however roll over, they have a myriad of ways to protect their interests, the authors again tackle the question of the state who protect class rule and explain how the Marxist attitude to the state differs from that of say the Anarchists. The look critically at the historic role of the British Labour Party - a reformist organisation that whenever it has been tested has propped up the system rather than side with the interests of the workers. They also look at the way the working class is divided by sexism, homophobia and racism.

Finally the sections on revolution look at the Russian Revolution and how it was distorted and defeated by the rise of Stalin, rescuing as they do so, the sense that socialism has to have the concept of the "self emancipation of the working class" at its heart.

This short book covers a tremendous amout of ground. There will be many socialists who think they know it all and have heard it all before. In a sense this is true but refreshing old arguments in the context of new, emerging struggles is always important. But this book is one to be read, passed on and distributed far and wide. At the beginning of 2011 capitalism offers millions of ordinary workers a bleak future. The only hope is the struggle of working people to challenge the power of capital. This short book with its extensive further reading list is a guide to new activists, young and old, about how to do that.

(Find out more via the Facebook group or purchase online here)

Related Reviews

Choonara - Unravelling Capitalism: A Guide to Marxist Political Economy
Harman - Revolution in the 21st Century
Engels - Socialism, Utopian and Scientific

Edgar Rice Burroughs - The Caspak Trilogy

The Caspak Trilogy comprises three of Edgar Rice Burroughs less famous novels - The Land That Time Forgot, The People That Time Forgot and the oddly named Out of Time's Abyss.

If I am going to be honest, all of these novels read like spoof 1920s adventure tales. Of course this isn't high literature, this is pulp fiction and that's a particularly generous description. That's not to say that mass market novels don't have any merit, even when they are swamped in the prejudices of their time - see for instance this review of a Jules Verne novel I did recently.

However these three novels are in a class of their own. If you've seen the film that carries the same title as volume one, you'll know the rough plot line. Heroic, square-jawed types get captured by cowardly Germans in a submarine and get taken to a uncharted island that turns out to be populated by prehistoric people and animals. Lots of shooting of ancient dinosaurs occurs and there is some love interest. Frankly if you've seen the film and not the book, leave it at that.

The book is truely awful. Even at the time of printing, people must have read it and though, "he's taking the piss isn't he? He's trying to see how awful a book he can get away with?" Let me give you an example of what I mean, by exploring the use of coincidence in the first couple of chapters of book one.

One of our American heroes is on a transatlantic liner (a neutral one) for this is the early days of World War One. His ship is torpedoed by a submarine which, being a submarine designer he both recognises as one he built and also knows how to control. Finding an empty rowing boat in the ocean following the ship's sinking, he rescues a young woman on her way to Germany to get married to a German Naval officer. Hero is in turn rescued (along with his dog) by a English tug, which then is attacked several days later by the same U-boot. The heroic English captain tries to ram the U-boot, which our heros manage to capture and because they have the knowledge to pilot now, they can take to England. One board the U-boot is a nasty, evil German officer. Guess what? Yes, he is the person that beautiful maiden intended to marry.

Frankly it doesn't get better than that and we haven't even met the dinosaurs. I jest.

Oddly enough, Burroughs doesn't simply have prejudices, he is also a downright nasty rightwinger. One of the traitors who does over our heroes is, guess what? Not a German spy, but a member of the IWW who "hates America". Shades of Mcarthy there.

The only other fascinating bit here, apart from the endless shooting of dinosaurs, traitors, wild men and Germans, is the evolution that the prehistoric island of Caspak has. Burroughs realised that he couldn't have a snapshot of time, otherwise Tyrannosaurus Rex couldn't chase Cro Magnon. Rather oddly he invents a new evolutionary method - everyone and everything passes through every stage of their evoution on the island, from small tadpole to primitive then older creature. It's fascinating for a while, then you spot the plot holes.

Anyway. Read this if you are a sucker for really bad novels or like dinosaurs being shot. But avoid it if you really want to try and read Dickens.

Robert Roberts - A Ragged Schooling

Robert Roberts wrote one of the all time great studies of working class life, The Classic Slum, but this short book is a truly wonderful account of his boyhood growing up in the slums of Salford in the early years of the 20th Century.

Salford then was a city dominated by industry. Roberts' father works in a light engineering factory, where it turns out he is a leading trade unionist. He also drinks to deal with the pain and poverty of working class life. Very early on in his life he persuades his wife that they should purchase and run a small grocery shop.

Roberts' life is difficult. There are moments of real pain and suffering. Schooling was minimal and even then what they had was driven by his mother's desire for them to become educated - this passion makes her the real hero of the tale. She is the one that dresses their wounds and helps them with the problems of everyday childhood. But she slaves and works to make this possible.

One of the interesting points raised, is that the shop enables Robert's family to have a better life than most of those on the estates around them. But it still requires backbreaking work. One Christmas day, Robert's mother lies in till 10am. Because it is the only whole day a year that the shop is closed. She then gets up and makes a Christmas dinner for eight.

As the children grow older, the tensions between his parents grow - on Robert's journey to the world of adulthood and work, he tells us of the theatres and the music, the children's games, their explorations (I'd love to know more about the history of Salford's "poisoned wood" that they try and find), sexual awakenings. There are stories of strikes and protests against the Duke of Wellington, the burning out of a Jewish shopkeeper by a local man, the dreams of Roberts' father who buys a second rate piano for his children.

These fascinating tales make for fine reading. But Robert's lyrical writing is also beautiful. The poignant suicide of a woman who can't take one more day in the mill is particularly moving, but the description of the river Irwell then will stick with me, every time I cross the local bridges, there

"tumbled a river on whose purling waters the very rainbows appeared, at times to melt, though basically it ran the colour of plain chocolate. But catch the stream in happy mood and under one's eyes brown would dissolve into Mediterranean blue, azure slide into rich crimson.... standing entranced upon a bridge, we threw quantities of rubbish over to mix the creeping palettes".

Stories that bricks would float near Victoria station are dismissed by the author as "libel", but the output of the dye factories around the river meant that Roberts thought it would be 2040 before salmon swam the Irwell again.

This is a lovely little book for anyone who wants to understand working class life in Salford 100 years ago. There are still those around who will recognise from their parents the place names and descriptions, but it is a vanishing world, and every time they erect another block of identity kit yuppie flats that will remain empty for years, they wipe away an important bit of history that should not be forgotten - the struggle of ordinary people simply to live in dignity in the face of the ever hungry capitalist system.

Elaheh Rostami-Povey - Iran's Influence

Despite the rhetoric you hear from many of the leading politicians of the western world, and even from sections of the more liberal establishment, Iran is not the monolithic Islamic state that they would have us believe.

Elaheh Rostami-Povey's multi-layered book explores in detail the country's history, its part in the wider economic, political and cultural history of the Middle East as well as the role of various political forces, religions and external influences in shaping it, to give us a rounded and useful understanding of the country today.

Quite rightly, Rostami-Povey argues that no country is monolithic. In particular she demonstrates that despite the view of some, the Islamic regime that consolidated its power following the 1979 revolution against the Shah, was one that had immense popular support, and hence helped introduce a huge variety of popular reforms that made a real difference to the lives of ordinary people in Iran.

Again, contrary to the view that today's Iran is a conservative country dominated by those who would restrict women to wear full body coverings and stone those who commit adultery, she shows an Iran were there are competing political and ideological forces, many of whom are lead by women and trying to resist the further strengthening of conservative forces.

But in terms of the forces shaping modern Iran, the biggest factors are external - the existence of Israel and its continued assault on the Palestinians and the US's imperialist ventures in the region. This has a historical importance because the 1979 revolution against the Shah was as much against his role in supporting Israel and backing Western interests as against his internal repression. The support for the regime post 1979 hence also stems from the perception of it as anti-Imperialist and anti-Zionist.

This causes problems for those inside Iran who want to change the country. The pro-democracy movement that burst onto the streets of Iran in 2009 following the election there, is often viewed with suspicion because of the Wests support for it. Even though those involved are very clear that they reject the vision the West (particularly the US) has for the Middle East, the actions of the US etc in the Middle East have the effect of strengthening the conservative position in Iran. The real threat of US attack leads to a strengthening of the existing government.

Rostami-Povey is particularly strong on two aspects of the history of Iran and the region - firstly the role of women in the various anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and pro-democracy movements that exist today and have existed in the past. This is essential because often we are presented an image that all Islamists are against women's participation in society, and this is clearly untrue even in Iran.

She is also very strong when she writes about how other forces in the Middle East are influenced by Iran's anti-imperialism and its political support, but don't necessarily follow its line or instructions. Most importantly the role of Hezbollah and Hamas in resisting Israel in Lebanon and Palestine. Both these movements enjoy Iran's support, but economically they are far more dependent on international and local donations from those impressed by their ability to stand up to the Zionists and to provide the basic needs for the people whose lives have been destroyed by war and imperialism. Rostami-Povey is particularly impressive when she traces the way in which Hezbollah for instance has be so central to providing basic healthcare and food, that it receives the support of people (rich and poor) from across the religious spectrum, including substantial numbers of non-Muslims.

Rostami-Povey is firmly on the side of those who want to see more democracy, more rights for women, more involvement of minorities and less sectarianism. She shows how the simple demonisation of Iran will make this worse, as in the past when the destruction of secular, nationalist and leftist movements by the US helped to create the Taliban and Al-Qqaeda. In her conclusion she says

"The impact of sending more ships and missiles to the Persian Gulf by Obama has been negative for the democracy movement in Iran, as the conservatives within the regime have used the pressure from outside as an additional protect to clamp down even more fiercly. In this context, history is repeating itself: the West in the past destroyed the secular and nationalist movements that were fighting for democracy and independence in Iran and the wider region; now they are destroying the Islamist modernists through the constant threat of military intervention."

The wider support for Iran across the Middle East comes because it is seen precisely as a country that has stood up to the US and western intervention. Iran's own history shows however, that the ordinary people of the wider Middle East are the force best positioned to overthrow dictators and right-wing leaders. Rostami-Povey also shows how these people want solutions that mean those from different cultures, religions and communities can live together. To do this means changing the power relations in the Middle East and that means uniting against oppression and foreign intervention.

For those wanting to get a good understanding of the current situation in the Middle East, this is an essential read. Sadly the price of £18.99 for a 264 page book (including references and index) will put many off. I hope that should it get republished, the publishers will consider that such high prices limit readership.

Related Reviews

Marshall - Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Iran
Rose - The Myths of Zionism

A useful short introduction to the current political situation in Iran can be found in this article here.

Tim O'Brien - If I Die In A Combat Zone

This Vietnam memoir follows Tim O'Brien from his basic training to his time on the front line in Vietnam. It finishes with his time in a safer post, behind the lines working in the administration. By the time he got there, he'd seen several friends killed and injured and dodged sniper fire in the places that became infamous for the massacre at Mai Lai.

While the storyline has become a fairly standard structure for the Vietnam film or novel (or indeed many other war stories), here it works because of the authors brutal honesty. He documents his plans to run to Sweden - researched in detail and planned in depth, because of his terror at going. He talks about the ineptness of one of his commanders and he admits to barely seeing the enemy during his tour of duty.

The power of the book, apart from its honesty, is the way in which we see reflected the greater struggles that take place. Hindsight gives us a particular set of images when we hear the name Mai Lai, but for Tim as he moved around there it was simply another place.

Definitely one of the classics that came out of that war, it'll help clarify the fears and emotions of those soldiers who went to Vietnam but also fueled the struggles against the war and against Imperialism.

Related Reviews

Marlantes - Matterhorn

Jules Verne - Five Weeks in a Balloon

Jules Verne was rather a prolific writer. Many of his novels have gone down in history as representing the hopes for a technological future. One in which nothing was beyond the realms of human achievement so long as the technology could be invented. In doing this he created incredible adventures, often populated with tremendous machines and larger than life heroes.

Five Weeks in a Balloon was Verne's first novel. It's rather more sedate then some of the others, and the specific nature of the voyage described inside means that the story line is mostly a collection of experiences of observations from a hot air balloon as it crosses the African continent. Verne was writing in the era of Livingstone and Stanley and other great explorers. Africa was one of the few places that Europeans hadn't quite got their heads around yet. Important discoveries remained - the exact route of the Nile, the origin of other cities and what places like Timbuktu were really like. It was fertile ground for an adventure novel, and by placing his explorers in a balloon, Verne doesn't have to explore in great detail what life was really like on the ground below.

Though the Africa Verne does describe is very much that of the Victorian fantasy. Africa is populated by savages and cannibals and all sort of other prejudices against the people who live there. Here is Verne describing a battle between two tribes that the balloon passes over;

"The mutual massacre continued with axe and assegai. As soon as an enemy fell... his adversary would at once cut off his head. The women, mingling with the tumult, picked up these bleeding heads and piled them up at either end of the battlefield, often fighting among themselves for possession of the hideous trophy".

Here we have combined the vision of the African as a savage, so savage that African women actually take to the battlefield and fight over the human remains. Why might they do this? Verne continues;

"The chief of one of these savage armies was distinguishable by his athletic build.. once he hurled away his blood-stained assegai, threw himself upon a wounded man, cut of his arm with a single blow, picked it up and, raising it to his mouth, bit into it with his teeth".

Such cannibal behaviour is too much for our heroes, who shoot the chief with a rifle from their vantage point above the battle.

The heroes themselves are cut from singular cloth. The organiser and chief explorer, Dr. Fergusson, who invents the new type of balloon capable of making the trip and is destined for scientific greatness, is the archetypal hero. So much so, that as a boy he "never appears to have known fear, quickly displayed a bright intelligence, an inquiring mind, a remarkable propensity for scientific work. In addition he displayed unusual skill in getting out of difficulties. Nothing ever perplexed him, not even the handling of his first fork, with which children are not as a rule very successful."

With such children in their midst, how could Europeans fail to bend the rest of their world to their will?

The storyline itself is mostly the observations from the balloon. One of the travellers, Fergusson's manservant, displays ample self knowledge when he sacrifices himself to avoid the balloon being destroyed. But Fergusson, ever the Victorian gentleman, rescues his servant in reward for his selfishness. Rescue features again later, when a European explorer is rescued from the hands of a murderous tribe.

Verne puts moral codes at the heart of the story. The servant who always knows his place and will do whatever his master wants. The loyal friends who never give up searching for their lost companions, the difficult choices faced by those who find great wealth in the desert, but can't carry it in an over-laden balloon.

The novel itself probably found a great audience on it's first publication, catering to the mass audience that was fascinated by newspaper tales of exploration. It should be read today, chiefly for it's insights into the moral codes and prejudices of Victorian society.

Hassan Mahamdallie - Crossing The River Of Fire: The Socialism Of William Morris

One of the central arguments of Hassan Mahamdallie's introduction to the life and politics of William Morris, is that all to often he is reduced to an artist, a poet, or simply a lover of nice things. Even when Morris' politics are considered, they are described as a strange mix of abstract socialism with a hoped for return to some sort of medieval utopia. This no doubt lies behind Tony Blair's declaration that William Morris had been a "inspiration" while he was a student. Morris' socialism isn't seen as being challenging today, indeed it can be used to give a red veneer to those who want to be on the right, but need to look left.

Hassan Mahamdallie smashes this nonsense. For him, William Morris was a dedicated revolutionist who spent his life fighting for a better world and dreaming of a time when the workers would seize power. In perhaps his most famous work, News from Nowhere, one of Morris' characters describes the social change that lead to the creation of the future socialist society. "Did the change... come peacefully?" he is asked;

"Peacefully?"..."What peace was there amongst those poor confused wretches of the 19th century? It was war from beginning to end: bitter war, till hope and pleasure put an end to it."

Mahamdallie traces William Morris' development as a political activist and Marxist. From his earliest days in the radical movements, his disillusionment with the parliamentary activity he saw around him and the formation of the Socialist League that Morris remained loyal to for most of his life. Morris spent much of his life touring the country, lecturing, speaking and inspiring workers. News from Nowhere was apparently written on the train to and from meetings. He published huge numbers of articles in the League's newspaper Commonweal, even when the newspaper was no longer representative of Morris' own socialist ideas.

One of the best parts of this short book is the section where the author looks at Morris' environmental outlook. Many have argued that Marx and his followers have shown little interest in this subject, but as John Bellamy Foster writes, William Morris' ecology is very much "in the spirit of Marx". Morris understood that people's "alienation from the earth" was the "ultimate foundation/pre-condition for capitalism".

It's for this reason that the sections of his writings that mention the natural world - especially News from Nowhere - are so important - the belief that socialism wouldn't simply be an economic change, but would involve a fundamental change in human relationships with the natural world.

Morris wasn't without fault. Many of his errors and in particular his sectarianism towards parliamentary struggles and the Leagues refusal to be involved in many of the mass industrial struggles stem from the weaknesses of the earliest socialist movements in Britain. But Mahamdallie points out that rather than Morris stepping back from revolution towards the end of his life, his Marxist understanding was developing and growing.

Unfortunately it was too late for Morris to be part of those later struggles that shaped the early part of the 20th Century. His death in 1893 was the occasion for outpourings of grief from the working class movement. But already his socialism was being denigrated and denied in the obituaries. The simpler and easier story of Morris the Middle Class wallpaper designer was being written. Hassan Mahamdallie's book rescues the far greater and more inspiring story of the all-round socialist who wanted to see beauty and art for everyone, in a society that was free of oppression and exploitation.

Related Reviews

Behrman -  Shostakovich: Socialism, Stalin & Symphonies

Chris Harman - Marxism and History

These two essays from Chris Harman form one of the clearest and most accessible introductions to the question of history in Marxist thought that it's possible to find. The first essay deals with the oft confused concepts of Base and Superstructure that Karl Marx refers to in one of his articles. The base - the economic organisation at the bottom of different societies allows the creation of a superstructure - the political, legal and cultural structures at the top of society. Different, or changing societies, organised along different economic lines allow different types of superstructures. Both of these react back and forth of each other, depending on the changing balance of forces in society.

Harman makes the point, that what is important for Marxists is how societies change - how do we move from one historical epoch, or mode of production to another. How does feudalism change to form capitalism for instance? Harman picks apart Marx's theory of history, to look at how the economic forces of production produce "relations of production", between people and between classes. But the forces of production rarely remain static in society. Things change - new tools are invented, new methods of organising production or agriculture, and these in turn create new relations of production. These develop and grow and produce new interests in society that may clash with the existing order, producing a period of social revolution.

Into this mix, Marx puts class struggle. Historical change is driven by class struggle at periods when the development of productive forces have made other change possible. He explores this in greater depth in the second essay which is a detailed look at the process of change from feudalism to capitalism. Harman is both taking on those particular Marxists, such as Robert Brenner who have, in his view, over simplified the argument or misunderstood the processes at work.

What's fascinating about both works, is that Harman picks from a deep knowledge of history to give many concrete examples to back up his explanations (something he does on an even greater scale with his fabulous "People's History of the World"). This has the effect of illuminating what are, in actual fact, slightly obscure academic debates.

But for Harman, these debates are crucial. The first essay in particular concludes with a look at how revolutionary processes happen and the role of ideology and political organisation. For Marxists, the question isn't simply to study history for the sake of it, but to understand history to learn from it, in order to strengthen our ability to change the world today.

Related Reviews

Harman - Revolution in the 21st Century

Sheila Rowbotham - Hidden from History

This is no doubt one of the classic books of working class history. First published in the early 1970s though, it's groundbreaking aspect was too look at the "hidden history" of the struggle of women for equality and rights, in the context of the broader working class struggles and movement.

As such it takes on some uncomfortable truths. Despite the fact that at least on the surface the labour movement in the UK (and one hopes much wider afield) supports the notion of women's equality, the right for women to play a full role within the labour movement and wider society, as well as equal pay, maternity rights and access to childcare etc, this wasn't always true. Indeed, it's not always true now.

Rowbotham shows how early pioneers of the notion of women's rights didn't always meet with a friendly reception from their male contemporaries. Often for instance, this was from organised workers who were worried that women would undermine male pay levels or workplace organisation.

But also it was true within personal relationships - Rowbotham shows how women often found their socialist partners would, once married, revert to the same expectations of the role of women in the family as their bourgeois contemporaries.

But the author doesn't try to find some natural antagonism between men and women, she places such relations firmly in the context of a system that saw both the need to divide and rule, and to place the burden of raising the next generation of workers on the woman.

The struggle for the right to vote for women forms the backdrop to most of the book, though the turning point comes with the first world war, with women entering the workplaces in large numbers for the first time. Even though this ended to a certain extent with the return of peace, the fact that women had taken on jobs seen as being exclusively male fundamentally shifted social attitudes. This even survived the mass unemployment of the 1930s. Further struggles were ahead, ones that weren't simply about economic equality, though these were important. But struggles over childcare, the right to abortion and access to contraception were ones that eventually became those of the whole movement.

Rowbotham's book finishes in the 1930s. The later struggles are no less important, and this early work of hers has made me keen to search out her more recent work.

Related Reviews

Barnsley - Breaking Their Chains

Orr - Sexism and the System - A Rebel's Guide to Women's Liberation

Dee - The Red in the Rainbow - Sexuality, Socialism & LGBT Liberation

Barbara W. Tuchman - The Proud Tower: A Portrait of the World Before the War: 1890 - 1914

The "Proud Tower" of Barbara Tuchman's title belongs to Edgar Allan Poe and from it "Death looks gigantically down". Any writing about the period covered in this work is of course coloured by the knowledge that it ends with the slaughter of the First World War.

Tuchman's history of the "world before the war" however is often at great pains to avoid discussing this. She wants to understand the period without its ending. Though she cannot but help herself occasionally, mentioning for instance, without comment, that a follow up to the Hague peace conference is scheduled to take place in 1916.

And because of this position it is hard at first to understand the author's theme. The first chapters (all of which originate as separate essays) seem at first to be simply about individuals - British "patricians" in the first, leading Anarchists in the second are followed by chapters on the political establishment of the United States and so on. But gradually what is exposed is a world in intense crisis - ripe it would seem for explosion or rift. So the chapter on Britain paints a portrait of a political world dominated by the old aristocratic order, heavy with tradition, individuals who are self-interested, bored by politics and economics. These Patricians increasingly clashing with a newer order, more professional men with wider interests.

This crisis at the top of society is best explored in Tuchman's chapter on the Dreyfus Affair. Dreyfus, a Jewish soldier is wrongly accused of being a German spy. Despite a lack of evidence, lies and forgeries from the military high-command result in a prosecution that rapidly becomes a cause celebre. France is riven by a huge debate, engulfing everyone. This much we know. But what Tuchman argues is that the affair, and the eventual release and pardon of Dreyfus marks the end of an era for France. The older order, a France dominated by an aristocratic military is no more, the world changes and new forces come on to the scene.

This sense of social crisis is nicely summed up in her chapter on Germany, which deals in depth with cultural changes in music and the arts, "A restlessness fermenting under the superabundant materialism was producing in artists a desire to shock; to rip and slash the thick quilt of bourgeois comfort."

The problem with the book isn't with the writing or the history. Well researched, and eminently readable, Tuchman has a fantastic prose that brings to life the characters she describes. Often her brief portraits can both capture and skewer an individual.  Lord Salisbury the British Prime Minister "cared nothing for sport and little for people. His aloofness was enhanced by shortsightedness so intense that he once failed to recognize a member of his own Cabinet, and once, his own butler". Tuchman does not fail to point out Salisbury's hatred of the lower orders and his fear of popular democracy.

The problem comes because Tuchman starts with the individuals. Any attempt to give a narrative to the history other than the most simplistic one of a society in crisis, is thus lost. Even though the build up to war, the growing economic and industrial power of the future belligerents and the potential for international clashes are there through out the book, Tuchman doesn't put this at the heart of the story, so the reader is left high and dry when trying to understand why war began in August 1914.

The problem becomes worse when you look at what is missing. Tuchman doesn't deal with the world beyond Europe and North America much - with barely a mention of South America, Asia or Africa, except as the arenas for Great Power clashes. And while the mass of the population is referred to obliquely (in terms of numbers of votes for instance) they don't really enter the story except very occasionally. Tuchman is only interested in the majority when they have some impact upon on the few individuals she is discussing.

This becomes almost distressing in her two chapters on the radicals. We are again treated to a long list of pen portraits of famous Anarchists and Socialists, some of which are frankly insulting - Rosa Luxemburg is described as "not good-looking". Yet the radical ideas of these individuals exist in a vacuum for Tuchman - there is no sense that some of these individuals commanded mass organisations, with the allegiance of millions of workers.

It is true to an extent that the leading members of the Social Democratic parties in the early 20th Century did become detached from those of the mass of workers. But to believe that millions of working people did not oppose the coming war, even if they felt unable to act against it, flies in the face of the evidence that she herself quotes.

Of course, this doesn't mean the book is without value. There is much to learn from Tuchman's wide reading and accessible language. Some obscure but fascinating moments in western history are brought out that illuminate the wider period. The chapter on Dreyfus is a fantastic summary of that complex and eventful time. The chapter that deals with Richard Strauss' radical and challenging music which caused shock and debate across Europe in a way that seems incredible today is fascinating, especially if you want to understand later developments in music, and the hopes for the international peace conferences convened by the great powers seem naive with hindsight, but clearly carried the aspirations of millions.

Tuchman writes wonderful history. But it is history from above even if she didn't want it to be. Her works illuminate some of the darkest times of human history and are best seen I think as giving a framework for the wider study of the historical forces that shaped our modern world.

Philip Pullman - The Ruby In The Smoke

The sheer brilliance of Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials series for young adults has unjustly hidden his excellent other works. His series of novels about Sally Lockhart, that begins with The Ruby in the Smoke, contains no fantasy, though at times they are fantastical and amazing. Ruby is at times a deeply disconcerting novel, even for the adult reader. The plot begins with Sally trying to find out about her missing father, by enquiring at his former place of work. Anonymous letters and brief allusions, as well as the sudden death of one of her fathers colleagues when she mentions an unknown phrase, spur her to dig deeper into a growing mystery.

This is a novel for young adults. So the structure and plot is not as complex as adults might expect. It is however deeply descriptive and for those who know East London, it certainly feels real. Indeed I wouldn't have been surprised if Pullman had tramped the streets of London to get the descriptions right. There are shocks, and Pullman doesn't hide any of the nastiness of Victorian poverty. In fact he highlights it, partly I think to underline the horrible future that Sally faces, should she fail in her adventure.

As in so many other novels aimed at this age group, most of the people who Sally meets are kind, and she falls on her feet many times. Though at one point late in her adventure, the expected rescue is nothing of the kind. Sally travels back and forth across London, eventually facing down her evil enemy, who is a brilliantly realised nemesis aimed particularly to frighten, or at least un-nerve younger readers.

Pullman has created a brilliantly realised world. It evokes a time of poverty, hunger and unemployment, when women were expected to know their place, but were people were already questioning the social setup. Later novels in the series develop this further, exposing and challenging other aspects of Victorian society (anti-Semitism for instance).

In many ways Ruby is a precurssor to the Dark Materials, not by content but by structure and emotion. It's a great read for an adult, it'd be amazing for younger readers.

Paul Theroux - The Great Railway Bazaar

Paul Theroux's rail journeys are never less than epic. In this trip from the early 1970s, he leaves London one day, famously stating that he has "seldom heard a train go by and not wished I was on it". He evokes a desire to see the remote and unusual, to meet new people and explore a world that isn't yours.

But, increasingly I found that Theroux's descriptions were less those of an awe inspired traveller conveying the excitement of new places and more those of a cynic, coloured by not a little with belief in western superiority.

But the journey itself is amazing, London, Paris, Milan to Belgrade is epic enough. But then on to Ankara, Teheran, skipping Afghanistan by plane, he visits India from top to bottom, Burma, and Thailand (using planes to travel between countries) then a fascinating journey on a vanished railway through a Vietnam still torn by war. Plane to Japan allows Theroux to riff rather to much on the strangeness he perceives in the Japanese, finally he takes the long road home, the Trans Siberian Express through a northern USSR, strangely open and inviting to Western visitors.

But it is Theroux's style that is painful. His wonderful descriptions often lapse into some comment that seems deliberately designed to denigrate an entire people:

The Japanese are marvellous packagers of merchandise. These souvenirs are crammed in  the plastic shopping bags that form the basis of the Japanese traveller's luggage. And there are other parcels, for the nobori-san, not trusting the food on Japanese National Railways, brings his own lunch pail. When he wakes, he rummages at his feet and discovers a sealed tin of rice and fish that, without stretching or rising from his padded armchair, he eats, blowing and smacking.

When not dismissing entire cultures, there are moments of genuine passion and interest. I was taken by the number of times that Vietnamese women offered Theroux their young blond haired children, one of the legacy's of the US's ongoing presence in the country. But all in all, this enormous journey cannot really be comprehended in such a short trip. Towards the end of his journey in Japan, Theroux himself becomes exhausted by the changing places and times, entering a brief depression fueled by alcohol, he meditates on how aimless it seems. But that is not surprising, train travel is inevitably punctuated by destinations, but if your business is travel, the destinations become less important and a book written about them, will have the feel of a disjointed collection of anecdotes. Which is, perhaps, a fitting summary of these early writings.

Related Reviews

Theroux - Riding the Red Rooster (China)
Theroux - Dark Star Safari (Africa)
Theroux - The Old Patagonian Express (The Americas)

Margaret Dewar - The Quiet Revolutionary

People make history but the people who do so are often forgotten. Everyone learns the names of generals or kings in history, or even those of dictators. But their soldiers, subjects and victims remain anonymous.

Margaret Dewar played barely a small role in history, yet her life charts some of the greatest events of the 20th century. If it wasn't for this autobiography, she would literally remain a footnote in a book. Yet her life was shaped by the forces of history and her documentation of them is worthy of re-reading. Born early in the 20th century in Russia, she came of a well to do German family. The first chapters are a fascinating story of a forgotten life in rural Russia - the warm memories of Christmas and Easter, the old traditions that seem quaint, yet have resonances today.

But there were great events on the horizon. Margaret lives through the Russian Revolution, moving to Moscow in the aftermath of the Civil War that was launched against the early Soviet power. Her recollections of hunger and rationing are her chief memories of those times. But she wasn't particularly political, though discussions about contemporary events were part of her life. She was more interested in music and learning the piano. What is fascinating are how the little events of life illuminate the wider situation - how trains would delay for days, or passengers would have to get off to cut firewood for fuel.

Seeking a better life, her stepfather flies with his family to Berlin in the early 1920s. With the hindsight we have, this is folly, but it must have seen an opportunity to good to miss, given their German nationality. Of course Germany in those years was seething with revolutionary struggle and the growth of counter-revolutionary fascist forces. Again concentrating on her dancing and music, most events are a backdrop, yet Margaret cannot avoid the politics - she comes across the Communist Party and becomes an activist. Admitting to finding it hard, she finds herself leading meetings and demonstrations.

Those of us active in left wing politics will recognise much of what she describes of those years - the meetings and debates, though she paints a picture of an organisation already stale with the grip of Stalinism. Members rarely read anything beyond official communist papers for instance and she doesn't feel she really can understand what is going on in the world, limited as her view is by the constraints of the needs of the party. There doesn't seem anything in the way of independent thought and action, rather the slavish following of a line. She and her comrades learn by rote to argue against Leon Trotsky's politics, even though none have them have read a word by him.

With the coming to power of Hitler the Communist Party melts away almost overnight. Margaret by then has visited Russia again as part of a delegation and has started to see through some of the rose-tinted images that have been painted. Eventually, questioned by the Gestapo, she flees overland (skiing some of the way) to the Czech Republic where she becomes deeper involved Trotskyist movement. From then, she travels to France and eventually Britain, meeting and marrying the Trotskyist activist Hugo Dewar (who wrote a history of the British Communist Party that I reviewed here). For the rest of her long life she and him work tirelessly to rebuild revolutionary organisation, becoming involved in the organisation that eventually becomes today's SWP.

Margaret Dewar's life is fascinating, not least because of the people she met - Clara Zetkin and Jan Frankel (Trotsky's secretary) for instance. But also for her descriptions of radical organisations and underground work. But mostly it is inspiring because it is the story of an ordinary woman caught up in extraordinary events who continues to struggle for a better world for her whole life.

Philip José Farmer - To Your Scattered Bodies Go

First published in 1971, this novel must rapidly have become a classic of the Science Fiction genre. Despite some rather clunky dialogue in places, the author has created a strange, fantastical world that allows him to explore a multitude of ideas and experiences. It's also believable, which give the world's nature might sound strange, but the characters and places work well and hang together.

So what is this world? There isn't really a way of telling from the story itself. It is a planet that is encircled from top to bottom by a river, along the banks of which every human being that has ever lived is regenerated simultaneously at some unknown point in the future. Naked with only a small pot that allows them to create food from mysterious artifacts, the humans find themselves reincarnated with a variety of people from different eras. Our hero, the famous writer, explorer and adverntuer, Richard Burton is reincarnated with a rather prim woman from the 19th Century, a Neanderthal, a collector (and Burton obsessive) and an alien who in Burton's future has destroyed most of humanity. Their travels mean they meet people from every era of human existence, all united in their arrival on a world with limited resources.

The story of exploration has been detailed elsewhere - though I'd recommend exploring the book. More interestingly for the purposes of this review is the way that Farmer explores topics such as anti-semitism. Richard Burton's alleged anti-semitic writings are mentioned, though Burton is angered to be described like this. But anti-semitism in the era that comes after the Nazi holocaust evokes a stronger response than it might have done in the past.

When people die on this new planet, they are again reincarnated, naked and whole in a random location. Burton discovers then that you can explore this world by suicide. But are you the same person if you do this, everytime you awake. Your memories indicate your are, but you clearer are different physically. Burton meets and travels with the Nazi Goering, from Burton's own future. Goering himself dies multiple times, often, and rather gratifyingly at the hands of people who understand his historical role. But Goering changes. Never seeming to give up on his past, he at least recognises that he is destroyed and repents of sorts.

So we have a planetary setup that allows the author to explore multiple ideas - add in the obiligitary 1970s sex and drugs and the stage is set for some interesting tales and explorations.

There are some annoying bits. The writing can, as I said, clunk. The author places himself into the novel as a collector and potential biographer of Burton. Their reincarnated proxmity may be coincidence, though it makes the novel work. Yet the author has such an autobiographical knowledge of Burton and other contemporaries (reminding them in places as what they did on such-and-such a day, or where they trained or married) that you can't help but feel jared by such obvious plot devices.

Nevertheless, this is fun and different. I'll hunt down the sequels.

Tony Cliff - Trotsky, The Sword of the Revolution, 1917 - 1923

This, the second part of Tony Cliff's four volume biography of  Leon Trotsky deals with the period that would be most disputed perhaps by Joseph Stalin and his followers at home and abroad. This is the aftermath of the October revolution - the workers and soldiers have seized power in Russia. Soviet power is a reality across a huge swathe of the globe. The seizure of power itself had be masterminded in many ways by Trotsky, and the book starts with the discussions that took place immediately - how to form a government and so on.

But the meat of this book deals with the fallout of the revolution. Russia was an immensely backward nation, dominated by a peasantry which had only recently broken from its serfdom. The working class, though powerful, was small. It had lead a mass revolution that had the loyalty and backing of the majority of the population, but no-body believed that Soviet Russia, alone could survive.

Of course, the seizure of power by the working class wasn't something that could be allowed to go unchecked - almost immediately the foreign nations intervened. Invading armies from those nations that had being battering each other months before in the trenches of World War One, were turned on the new revolutionary nation.

Trotsky was, perhaps after Lenin, one of the most well known and respected revolutionaries. He was at the heart of the debates, and indeed the action that took place in the aftermath of October 1917. He wasn't always right, and despite the authors obvious respect for Trotsky, he isn't afraid to criticise and disagree. This is most obvious with the political battles that took place immediately after Lenin's death when Trotsky could and should have moved to isolate and remove Stalin and his clique from power. This is what he had agreed he would do with Lenin, and Cliff sees Trotsky as betraying that agreement;

"That Trotsky was later very embarrassed by his behaviour at the Twelfth Congress is clear from the fact that no reference at all to the congress can be found in his autobiography, while four pages are devoted to describing duck hunting in precisely the place where a description of the congress would be expected."

Perhaps the most important and inspiring parts of the book are those that deal with Trotsky's forging of the Red Army. One of the central planks of the revolution had been the desire for peace. To have to create a new army from scratch, when the old Tsarist one had melted away during the revolutionary year of 1917 was difficult enough. To inspire and lead this army to defeat first the counter-revolutionary "white" armies and then the invading imperialist ones, was nothing short of miraculous.

But because the army was motivated by more than conscription or mercenary interests, it was far better than its opponents. Time and again they won battles (at least once with Trotsky leading on horseback) they should have lost. As Cliff says, "The Red Army men knew what they were fighting for, and believed in it passionately". Something that couldn't be said of those they were fighting.

But the gradual degeneration of working class power is always there in this story. The Red Army is part of this. The most able workers, the best communists joined the civil war, undermining the very heart of Bolshevik power in the factories of Petrograd and Moscow. Alongside this, the growing bureaucracy starts to become a force for itself. Interestingly, Cliff argues that Trotsky's success in forming the Red Army helped to undermine himself as it created a bloc of individuals who had their own interests and ideas. Debates on tactics helped this process:

"The strong influence of guerrillaism among the party cadres led to the formation of a Military Opposition, which continued throughout the civil war and which later became the core of the Stalinist faction."

Trotsky's preoccupation with the civil war, meant that he was absent for some of the most important post-revolution debates, though an enormous outpouring of writings from the period show that he was constantly thinking, reading and writing. The debates on the role of Trade Unions, military strategy, international questions are important, and show that even as the revolution declined the spirit of discussion and debate still existed at its core.

But it is with the final fight with Stalin that the book ends. Trotsky comes across as naive about the factional fight that he must fight. He is Lenin's favoured successor, yet seems unwilling to use this to defeat Stalin. Yet I was left with the feeling that even had Trotsky won this factional battle there would seem to have been little that could have been done to turn the tide of revolutionary degeneration. Russia was isolated, the expected international revolution hadn't occurred. Industry was decimated, and the working class tired, exhausted and far reduced.

Cliff understands though that hindsight is important and sums up by arguing;

"Lack of theoretical and political clarity led Trotsky to make a number of concessions and compromises, above all to Zinoviev and Kamenev, who were to become his new allies in the United Opposition of 1926-7. Nothing was more alien to Trotsky’s character than hesitation and fudging. When by 1927 he grasped the enormity of Stalin’s crimes, and called Stalin ‘the gravedigger of the revolution’, he became completely uncompromising."

When the next stage of the fight was on, Trotsky carried the flame of international socialism and helped to keep it alive. That he had played such a central role in the revolution was something that Stalin tried to write from history, yet couldn't quite destroy.

If you can't get hold of a copy of this volume second hand, you can find it at the Marxist Internet Archive here.

Related Reviews

Cliff - Trotsky; Towards October. Volume one of this biography.
Choonara - A Rebel's Guide to Trotsky
Hallas - Trotsky's Marxism

Karl Marlantes - Matterhorn

America's imperialist adventure in Vietnam shaped the world we live in today in many ways. The injustice of the most powerful nation in the world bombing one of the poorest "back to the stone age" led to a radical questioning of the status quo, and put anti-imperialism at the heart of the radical movements of 1968 and beyond.

But the internal dynamics of the American system shaped the conflict, which in turn shaped the experience back at home. The racist nature of American society, combined with the rigid class divide between rich and poor was even more acute in the jungles of Vietnam.

Karl Marlantes' book on Vietnam has rightly become a huge bestseller. On one level, the story is identical to a million other Vietnam war novels and films. A young, inexperienced, arrogant young Lieutenant, Mellas, reaches Vietnam, determined that his military experience (and his natural leadership skills learnt at a good college) will stand him well for a political career post war. Leading a company of 200 men in Vietnam would look good on his resume. There's a great little moment in the novel when one of the other soldiers, a black marine, asks what a resume is. Then laughs at the notion that a bit of paper would help you get a job.

This gulf between worlds is quickly overcome for Mellas and the other newbies on the front line. Living in soaking wet foxholes, constantly plagued by leeches, enemy fire and a shortage of food, while being expected to follow the most insane of orders quickly teaches you something about your own army, and your fellow troops. But the Gulf between officers and grunts isn't easily overcome, particularly when those officers rarely leave the home comforts of their command sites, way behind the lines.

The racial tensions, exacerbated by military policy, stupidity and racism from the top link in with the differences between leaders and led to create a toxic mix for the marines. Soldiers quickly question their orders, conflicts develop between their instinct for self-preservation and their training that almost forces them to follow commands. While assaulting a hill they themselves had reinforced only weeks before, Mellas' force looses many of its men. Believing they are poorely led cowards, the Colonel behind the lines orders them to assault a different hill, with barely a moment to recover their losses. The novel builds to a climax were all the contradictions, tensions and racism come together rather explosively.

One noticeable thing about the book is how little the other side figures. Vietnam exists merely as a backdrop to the story. The enemy are anonymous figures, barely seen close up. What the war is in aid of isn't mentioned ("Show we were the gold is... or the oil" complains one marine"). This is a novel about internal relations, external ones are almost, and ironically, unimportant.

The fact that Marlantes book is a best seller no doubt has something to do with the war that the Vietnam war has impacted on the US psyche. But it must also be because there are some enormous parallels between that unwinable conflict and more contemporary wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The tensions that existed amongst the soldiers in Vietnam are no-doubt there in the Middle East today, though on a much smaller scale. The incredible racial and class differences that dominate US society remain as much of a problem for the establishment today, as they were in the 1960s.

If I was part of the US establishment, I'd be very worried indeed.