Marxism in Our Time 0878670068

Citation preview

marxism our time

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Isaac Deutscher edited by Tamara.Deutscher

The Ramparts Press Berkeley, California

All rights reserved including the right of reprodu ction in whole or in part in any form. Copyright © 1971 by Ramparts Press, Inc. Published by Ramparts Press, Inc., Berkeley, California ISBN 0~8786'7-006-8 Library of Congress catalog card number 79-158915 Trade distribution by Simon and Schuster, Inc., New York Order number 20966 Manufactured in the United States of America

contents

Introduction Marxism in Our Time Trotsky in Our Time Marxism and the New Left Marxism and Nonviolence On Internationals and Internationalism The Tragedy of the Polish Communist Party An Open Letter to Wiadysiaw Gomuika and the Central Committee of the Polish Workers Party

7 15 31 63 79 93 113

161

Germany and Marxism The Roots of Bureaucracy Ideological Trends in the USSR

181

On Socialist Man

227

Discovering Das Kapital

255

167 209

Was the Revolution Betrayed?

265

The February Regime

273

Georg Lukaics and "Critical Realism"

283

The Poet and the Revolution

295

introduction

The essays collected and published posthumously in this volume have various origins. Some-"Marxism in Our Time," "Roots of Bureaucracy" and "On Internationals and Internationalism"-were lectures, or rather talks, given to young student audiences engaged in an eager search for theoretical and historical argumentation which would lend support to their socialist yearnings. These were informal talks insofar as

Isaac Deutscher avoided the procedure of reading a "prepared paper": although subject and framework were clearly defined in his own mind, he modulated the approach and manner of presentation according to the public he faced-and while he faced it. He liked to "feel his audience" and to carry it with him, he was anxious not to sound condescending when his listeners disappointed him by a level of knowledge that was perhaps lower than he expected, nor did he want to sound didactic. But he was just as anxious not to overwhelm by the display of his erudition, when he resorted to a metaphor or a historical parallel, it was not in order to impress or dazzle, but to clarify the issue and explain it in terms which he

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Marxism in Our Time

thought might be more familiar to his listeners. He wished, above all, that his arguments should be understood, not that he should be admired. Whenever he felt that the link of understanding between him and his audience had snapped, he returned-from a different angle-to the same problem until he sensed that the cooperation between the speaker and the listener had again been established. The three lectures referred to above were left among Isaac's papers in very rough and incomplete transcripts put together from poor quality recordings. Some gaps had to be filled, some stylistically sharp edges rounded off, but everywhere I have tried as far as possible to preserve the "spoken" tone and the spontaneity of the delivery that was so eharac~ eristic of Isaac as a speaker. The lecture "Marxism in Our Time," given at the London School of Economics, was recorded without Isaac's knowledge by an anonymous American student. I am grateful to him for letting me have the tape, which reached me only at the end of 1968. This recording, made at the back of the hall, is all the more valuable because it conveys the general atmosphere of the meeting and the lively reaction of the public.* The essay on bureaucracy (which appears here in a condensed form and which Isaac had planned to expand and elaborate further) consisted originally of a series of lectures. It was an attempt to lay bare the initial causes of this "evil of

human civilization" which grew to such terrifying proportions and which no revolution-no matter what the character of the ancient regime-has so far been able to eradicate. Current clichés about the "managerial society" and semantic exercises in defining bureaucracy, a phenomenon as old as civilization, as a new class were explaining nothing- The lecturer, steeped in the tradition of classical Marxism, saw the "withering away of the State" as the only guarantee of the

*

The British Broadcasting Corporation, having improved considerably

on the level of voice and the quality of the recording, transmitted the lecture in its Third Programme on 29 July 1969 and 16 May 1970.

Introduction

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9

"withering away of bureaucracy." To this theme Isaac returned in his Unfinished Reuolutiory* where he analyzed the social structure of Russia half a century after the revolution. To the more controversial pieces in this volume belongs without doubt the essay dealing with the irrelevance of the Internationals and the relevance of internationalism. A1though no Marxist (indeed no socialist) will quarrel with the historical survey of the role, the achievements, and the fortunes (or the misfortunes) of the first three Internationals, voices of protest are likely to be raised against the summary treatment of the Fourth International. The author's critical views will not, however, come as a surprise, because right from the beginning he was opposed to the whole venture, considering it untimely and futile. At the founding conference of the organization, in 1938, the two delegates representing the Polish section of the Trotskyist movement expressed their uotum separatum and advanced arguments formulated by Isaac against the proclamation of the International.t An internationalist by instinct and temperament as well as by deep conviction, Isaac attached far greater importance to the spirit animating the workers' movement than to the organizational forms which the movement was to adopt. To him the very hallmark of socialism and one of its most vital elements was internationalism, and he saw that a new Intern ational, conceived among the rising waves of national-

ism, would remain stillborn, largely, as he said, "because no international revolutionary movement was there to breathe life into it."

*

The Unfinished Reuolu son-Russia / 9 1 7-1967, G . M. Trevelyan Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge (Oxford University Press, London, 1967).

T The

older of the two delegates was "Karl" (Hersch Mendel), a heroic fighter of boundless courage who knew tsarist prisons as well as Pilsudskist jails. He was sentenced to death but escaped the guards leading him to the place of execution and died in 1968 in Israel, an embittered and tired man, half»reconciled to Zionism. See The

Prophet Outcast (Oxford University Press, London, 1963).

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Marxism fro Our Time

The hostility of some (but by no means all) adherents of the Fourth International toward Isaac had its source not only in this initial divergence of views. Over the years there have been added differences in the assessment of most major con~ temporary events, from the appearance of "Titoism" to the Chinese Revolution and down to the evaluation of the role of Malcolm X.* There might have been other reasons for the coolness of many of Trotsky 's former collaborators towards a critical outsider who, single~handedly and without the support or blessing of the organization, produced in his outstanding biography a worthy monumentum acre perennius to the memory of their great teacher, leader, and idol. Polemics of quite a different kind followed the speech "On Socialist Man." This was the address given by Isaac to the second annual Socialist Scholars Conference held in New York in 1966. To quote George Novack: "Deutscher had come from London as the principal invited guest. . . . His speech, which opened the proceedings . . . elicited a thunderous ovation from the overflow audience. It likewise provoked lively controversy during the meeting and since." Isaac's main antagonist was Professor Herbert Marcuse, who was unable to attend in person but submitted some theses relevant to the theme of the conference. Unfortunately, he did not allow his theses to be published and so we have on record only Isaac's rather vehement reaction to them-t

"The Tragedy of the Polish Communist Party," reproduced here for the first time in English, dates from 1957 , when a young French journalist of Polish origin asked Isaac for a brief outline of the history of communism in Poland. It might be worth recalling that shortly after the dramatic * Isaac was not a little amused at seeing the detailed information which the Militant, the organ of the American Socialist Workers Party, pro-

vided for the benefit of its readers on the progress of Malcolm X's widow's pilgrimage to Mecca.

T See George Novack's introduction to Isaac Deutscher, On Socialist Man (pamphlet, Merit Publishers, New York, 1967)-

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In troductiorz

Twentieth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, in February 1956 (at which Khrushchev in his famous "secret speech" revealed for the first time to a Russian audience some of Stalin's crimes and misdeeds), a communiqué from Moscow announced the "rehabilitation of the Polish Party and its leaders," who, it was stated, had fallen victims to "provocations and slanders" during the period of the '?n . . . of personality." This short announcer the West, was in fact a strange epilogue to one of the greatest tragedies of communism, in which a whole party had been annihilated. In 1938 the Comintern announced the dissolution of the Polish Party under the pretext that it was corroded by "Trotskyist and Pilsudskist influences" and had become merely an agency of fascism and the Polish political police. Yet all the members of the Central Committee, threatened by the very same police, escaped from Poland to seek refuge in Moscow. On Stalin's orders they were imprisoned and executed as traitors. Among them were Adolf Warski (Warszawski), the founder of the party and friend of Rosa Luxemburg; Lenski (Leszczynski), a veteran of the October Revolution and a former member of the Executive of the Cornintern; Wera Kostrzewa (Koszutska), a most militant woman revolutionary. At the time not much was known about the fate of the victims: Stalin did not bother to stage ..

even a mock trial and at the height of the terror his dealings

with the "fraternal party" were enveloped in murky silence. In Poland the remnants of the illegal party, persecuted by the police, led a precarious existence.

Isaac, himself a former member of the party-he was expelled in 1932 for "exaggerating the danger of Nazism" assist sowing panic"'"= Communist ranks-traced the circumstances of its wholesale destruction. He was fully aware that "the views expressed here must . provoke opposition." "I do not pretend," he wrote, "that what I have to say is a revelation of infallible truth. I would be quite satisfied if my work were to bring new elements into a discussion about the history of the Polish Party and if it helped to a more

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Marxism in Our Time

thorough understanding of its tragic fate." This wish was fulfilled in a rather unusual manner. The interview, which was recorded, was translated from Polish into French and appeared in Les Temps Modernes in March 1958.* Soon afterwards the editors of the Warsaw Polityka, the official organ of Gomulka's party, planned to reproduce it, but had to abandon the idea after protracted negotiations with the censors. Then the more esoteric theoretical quarterly Zeszyty Teoretyczno-pofztyczne intended to publish it, but did not succeed either. The problem "to publish or not to publish" came before the Polish Politburo. There was no clear majority either for or against, so a compromise was reached: it was decided not to publish the text, but to duplicate it and distribute it among party cells. Nicknamed "Isaac Deutscher's secret speech," it soon became the subject of passionate debate. I hesitate to describe the last section of the book as "literary" essays, because intrinsically they are as Marxist and as "literary" as all the other writings. They all express the same philosophical Weltanschauung, make consistently the same approach to social, political and aesthetic problems, and show the same concern with language and form--all of which are inseparable from genuine Marxist analysis. In the essay "Georg Lukacs and 'Critical Realism' " the author subjects one of the foremost exponents of Marxist aesthetics to realis-

tic criticism and exposes the degree to which the erudite philosopher became dependent ideologically on Stalinism and

on the counterfeit Marxism that was holding sway over Russia's cultural life by Zhdanovist decree. essay-"The Poet and the RevoluFinally, the tion"~-~was one of the first pieces of literary criticism which Isaac wrote in English. He still struggled with the tongue that was foreign to him, but then he always struggled to achieve a lucidity of style to match the lucidity of his thought. Maya* I have translated the interview into English for this volume, using both the Polish version and the French one, which had been checked by the au.Lhor llimseIfI

Introduction

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kovsky, Le poéte maudit of the revolution, committed suicide because he could not by reasoning resolve the dilemmas which were to face him at the end of the heroic phase of the revolution, nor could he bear the vision of the new orthodoxy. Not so the historian. The historian took it upon himself to fight that orthodoxy. And indeed right through his

life, from early adolescence, Isaac Deutscher remained the most militant of heretics fighting against all canons, old and new, all do8inas, and all orthodoxies. TAMARA IDEUTSCHER

London, August 1970

marxism in our time

What is our time, for a Marxist and for Marxism? Is it a time of the ascendancy of Marxism@ is H an o h of the decline of Marxism? In those countries where Marxism is supposed to be the ruling doctrine, the official answer is, of

course, that this is a time of an unseen, unheard of, unprecedented flourishing of Marxism in theory and practice. Here in the West, especially in our Anglo-Saxon countries, we are

told day in and day out, goodness knows from how many academic and other platforms, that Marxism has not only declined, but that it is irrelevant-that it bears no relation to the problems of our epoch. From my native country, Poland, comes the voice of a brilliant young philosopher, but a very poor political analyst, who tells us that it is no use discussing Marxism any longer because Marxism has already gained and won and conquered the human mind to such an extent that it

has become an organic part of contemporary thinking, and This is an edited transcript of a lecture given in February 1965 at the London School of Economics.

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Marxism in Our Time

this marks the end of every great doctrine-when it becomes the organic part of human thought. This young philosopher lived in Warsaw after an epoch of Stalinism during which he and people of his generation identified Stalinism and Marxism. They knew Marxism only in the Stalinist form; they were served, and they accepted, the official Marxism as Stalinism and Stalinism as Marxism. Now they want to get away from Stalinism, and this-as they equated Stalinism and Marxism-means for them getting away from Marxism. It seems to me~such is the bitter dialectic of our epoch-that Marxism is in ascendancy and decline simultaneously . Since the beginning of my adult life (that is, over forty years ago), I have been a Marxist, and I have never for a moment hesitated in my-I wouldrl't say allegiance because it is not a matter of "allegiance"-I have never hesitated in my Marxist Weltanschauung. I cannot think otherwise than in Marxist terms. Kill me, I cannot do it. I may try, I just cannot. Marxism has become part of my existence. As someone who owes this kind of "allegiance" to Marxism, I would not like to give any of you, who perhaps only recently made an acquaintance with Marxism, the idea that this is one of the golden ages of the Marxist doctrine. Far from it. This is a time of triumph for Marxism only insofar as this is an age of revolution which develops an anticapitalist, a postcapitalist kind of society. But it is also an age of degeneration of Marxist thought and of intellectual decline for the labor movement at large. Precisely because the modern labor movement cannot find another creative and fertile doctrine except Marxism, all its intellectual standards decline catastrophically whenever and wherever Marxism becomes ossified. We have an expansion in Marxist practice and a shrinkage and degeneration in Marxist thinking. There is a deep divorce between the practical experience of revolution and the whole Marxist theoretical framework within which that revolution has been anticipated, within which that revolution has been justified on philosophical, historical, economic, political, cultural, and, if you like, even moral grounds-

Marxism in Our Time

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For a student of philosophical or historical schools of thought and doctrines this is not an extraordinary statement. Almost every really great school of thought that dominated the thinking of generations has known its periods of great expansion, awakening and development, and its periods of decadence and decline. In this respect the only other school of thought that comes to mind is the Aristotelian school, which dominated human intellect for nearly two thousand years. In the course of this series of epochs it went through various phases of great creative interpretation and creative influence, and also epochs in which it found its triumph in a

parody of itself, in the medieval Catholic scholasticism which, although based on Aristotelian philIoso_p-hyz. yet bore to it the same relationship which caricature bears to the real picture of an original object. This did not deprive the Aristotelian philosophy even in the Middle Ages WAS raison d'étre, of its creative phases, of its stimuli which still existed and later helped medieval Europe to overcome the scholastical degeneration. In this respect Marxism stands comparison with the Aristotelian philosophy as a way of thinking that epitomizes and generalizes the entire social, economic, to some extent, the political experience of the world under capitalism and exposes the inner dynamism of the historical development which is bound to lead from capitalism to some other postcapitalist order, which we have agreed to describe

as a socialist order. Marxism is not an intellectual, aesthetic, or philosophical fashion ., no matter what the fashion-mongers imagine. After having been infatuated with it for a season or two it to be obsolete. Marxism is a . .

mmsa-315421.12

way of thinking, a generalization growing out of an immense

historical development, and as long as this historic phase in behind us, the doctrine . . *m : may prove to be mistaken on points of detail or secondary points, but in its essence nothing has deprived it, and nothing looks like depriving it, of its relevance, validity, and im=