Lukacs: Lenin, NLB 1970 (first published Vienna 1924). 30/-.
The full title of this work, Lenin, A Study on the Unity of his Thought, sums up what Lukacs was attempting to accomplish when he wrote this work. It does not aim to deal exhaustively [illegible] show the [illegible] two, written in the belief that it is precisely this relationship which is not clearly enough in evidence, even in the minds of many Communists”. Following this [illegible] the Actuality of the Revolution, in the first chapter of the book.
What this extremely useful concept, central to Lenin's world vision, implied was that “the actuality of the proletarian revolution is no longer only a world historical horizon arching above the self-liberating working class, but that revolution is already on the agenda”. Here was the essential historical step forward from Marx to Lenin and the touchstone which differentiated Lenin from the opportunists and dogmatists, from the Kautskys and the Bernsteins. The revolution was not something appearing from the sky at a distant future date. Rather, it was an on-going process, presenting a series of tasks to the class. The course of the revolution would depend on just how successful the class was in facing these objective requirements.
Lenin's theory centres on this belief in the revolution as a present reality, a belief founded on a profound social and economic analysis.
His differences [illegible] to the proletariat’s role, be it vanguard class or agent to push the bourgeoisie to power [illegible] opposite is Chapter 3, “The Vanguard Party of the Proletariat”. He explains Lenin's concept of the Party not as an agent to make the revolution, which would be an absurdity, for the existence of the revolution is the raison d'etre of the Party. The Party must rather be the soul of the proletariat, it must always reflect the essential and not the ephemeral features of the class. The Party’s task is not to replace the spontaneity of the class but (to paraphrase the Communist Manifesto) “to point out and bring to the fore the common interests of the entire proletariat independent of all nationality...(to) always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole ...(to be) that section which pushes forward all the others; on the other hand they (the Communists) have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement.” This description of the role of the Communists gained fresh importance with the development of a labour aristocracy in the west, which increased the dangers of partial interests gaining ascendancy.
The Party had to prepare the revolution. It must attempt to prepare the proletariat for the “ideological tactical material and organisational tasks that necessarily arise in an acutely revolutionary situation”.
Lukacs points to Lenin's genius as lying in his ability to transform theory into the point where it breaks into practice. His economic analysis, Lukacs considers, may not measure up to that of Luxemburg in sophistication. His superiority, however, lies in his ability to concretise his theoretically correct assessment, to realise the tasks of the proletariat from the general analysis. Lukacs details the collapse of the Second International as an inevitable consequence of its past development, just as Lenin's ability to maintain a principled line sprang from his theoretical grasp of the revolution as an actuality, and of the tasks of the proletariat to make civil war against their respective bourgeoisies.
[illegible] publishers, NLB, have chosen to issue it (30/- for 104 pages). Its description of the Leninist concept of the Party implicitly provides a critique of degenerated Communist Parties which masquerade as the heirs of the Marxist tradition.
Some criticisms, however, must be made of the work. Lukacs sees quite correctly that the actuality of the proletarian revolution means that the bourgeoisie cannot play a progressive role and that it must abandon the realisation of its former revolutionary demands to the proletariat, preferring instead to seek the safety of compromise with the old ruling powers. He approaches the Theory of Permanent Revolution, but what he does not do is to provide a real analysis of the development of Lenin's position on this question. This failing is again evidenced in the thinness of the section on the International, which he mentions as “The Bolshevik Party—on a world scale”. Nowhere does he come to grips with the evolution of thought on the question of uneven and combined development, which would involve a mention of Trotsky as well as Lenin's role in the struggle for theoretical clarity. So that, while very far from being a Stalinist work, Lukacs’ book nevertheless does implicitly distort the picture in a similar manner, by highlighting Lenin’s theoretical contribution in isolation. Although Lukacs explicitly does not lay claim to giving an exhaustive account of Lenin's theory and practice, these omissions are very significant ones, and do much to elucidate Lukacs’ later development and the postscript to the book.
In his postscript, which is far inferior to the remainder of the book, Lukacs cites as understandable the present interest in the oppositional theories of the ‘20s. However, he goes on to say that “there is no question that anyone else at that time could have provided an analysis or perspective which could have given a [illegible]” [illegible] although Lukacs believes that the Marxist critique of Stalin has now become available, he has not achieved a true negation of Stalinism and that failure lies in his inability to come to grips with the tasks presented by the international movement in the ‘20s and later, the roots of which can be seen in this book. Lukacs has in fact fallen foul of his own concept—for him, the revolution has ceased to be an actuality. However, all this is perhaps more interesting in the context of the development of Lukacs himself, and we should not let these failings distract us from the objective role of the book in the class struggle which is undoubtedly a positive one.
To conclude on a lighter note, in an otherwise uninspired postscript there is one quotation which makes it well worth reading. It is Gorky's [illegible] of Lenin['s] comments [illegible] “The [illegible] most beautiful thing I know; I could listen to it every day. What wonderful, almost superhuman music! I always think with pride—perhaps it is naive of me—what marvellous things human beings can do.” Then he screwed up his eyes, smiled and added regretfully, “But I can’t listen to music too often. It works on my nerves so that I would rather talk foolishness and stroke the heads of people who live in this filthy hell and can still create such beauty. But now is not the time to stroke heads—you might get your hand bitten off. We must hit people mercilessly on the head, even when we are ideally against any violence between men. Oh! our work is hellishly difficult.”
D.R. O'Connor Lysaght: The Republic of Ireland. [illegible] Press, 21/-.
[illegible] book satisfies a long-[illegible] a historical background to the events in Ireland. Read together with the Making of Northern Ireland and the basis of its undoing, or Liam de Paor's Divided Ulster (Penguin, 5/-), it should allow most revolutionaries to [illegible] twisted thread of Irish politics.
[illegible] the main emphasis is placed on the events of the twentieth century, with [illegible] book [illegible] period after 1938; i.e. after the de facto collapse of De Valera’s economic war with Britain. This period tends to be a blank to most British socialists, who often appear to be under the delusion that nothing of note occurred between the time of the collapse of the radical bourgeois attempt to solve the national question and the beginning of the present struggle in Northern Ireland. Lysaght on the other hand clearly shows that it was a period of great, if missed, opportunity. The failure of the left to capitalise on the 1943 electoral successes of Clann na Talmhan (1) and the Irish Labour Party is discussed in a very illuminating way. The main criticism one might make of this section of the book is that it would have been useful to have seen this failure related to the inability of revolutionaries to capitalise on the leftward shifts which occurred before the election of Fianna Fail.
Where we might have some more important disagreement with Lysaght is on his views on the bourgeois revolution in Ireland. Lysaght holds that the settlement of 1921 marked the consummation of the bourgeois revolution. Thus he [illegible] fulfilled the Irish bourgeois revolution.” (2)
Assessment of this statement depends upon first defining the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. [illegible] abolition of pre-capitalist property forms. In this sense, of course, the bourgeois revolution has been consummated [illegible] 1922. (See [illegible] views on the sources and motive forces of the Irish struggle). However, the mere abolition of the pre-[illegible] content. The content of the bourgeois revolution is the taking of state power by the bourgeoisie and the shaping of the country’s social and economic structure in the interests of that class. This revolution is not consummated until [the] process has been [illegible] economy. This is necessary because such domination prevents the re-moulding of the country’s social structure in the interests of the native bourgeoisie, thereby placing constraints on this class forcing it into policies and measures not in accord with its class interest. This prevents the development of the social structure along “classic” capitalist lines. In this sense the bourgeois revolution in Ireland has not been consummated. More importantly, it cannot be consummated, for in an epoch of imperialism the bourgeoisie is no longer capable of solving the tasks of the bourgeois revolution. (This is clearly revealed in the failure of De Valera’s policies of the 1930s). In turn this affects the consciousness of the peasantry.
In a country in which the bourgeois revolution has been accomplished the peasantry is a reactionary class concerned with safeguarding its rights of private property. Therefore if it were the case that the bourgeois revolution had been consummated, the peasantry would be an entirely reactionary class. However, the failure to consummate the bourgeois revolution and establish the basis for the development of an independent capitalism and the social structure that would result from this leaves the peasantry in a different situation. It is capable of potentially revolutionary upsurges and moods corresponding to the period before the bourgeois revolution and not after it. This is shown in, for example, the peasant agitation about the land annuity payments before 1932. This development was of great significance as the left wing of the IRA, in the person of Peadar O'Donnell, approached the Labour Party with proposals of a campaign against these payments. As the land annuity payments were the main economic oppression which led the peasants to support the policy of Fianna Fail, if there had been a revolutionary force in the working class capable of taking up O'Donnell's approach, a working class/peasant bloc might have been created which would have prevented Fianna Fail achieving the hegemony it had over the peasantry from 1932 onwards. Following from the great rural depopulation of the period since the Second World War, it may be that the role of the peasantry may have changed in line with its decreasing social weight. Certainly Lysaght holds this position, feeling that the peasantry can now only play a reactionary role. Thus he states that “...in a revolutionary situation they must be neutralised. That is all that can be expected from them immediately.”
It is, however, by no means certain that this estimate is correct. The long history of struggle against British imperialism is certainly likely to affect the consciousness of this class as the struggle in the North intensifies and this may open the door for more revolutionary politics to gain a foothold. The acid test here would probably be if Sinn Fein were to put into practice its formal decision to run candidates with the intention of their taking up their seats. The support they would gain would be an indicator of the consciousness and revolutionary potentiality of the small farmers.
On this question Lysaght also appears at times to have a rather mechanical conception of the relationship between social position and consciousness. He says for example that “Their best hope lies in their increasing proletarianisation: in the fact, revealed by the Irish Times Agricultural Correspondent (30-5-68) that increasing numbers of small farmers are taking part-time jobs, For the rest, in a revolutionary situation they must be neutralised.” However, in general Lysaght is perfectly correct in attacking the romantic view that simply because it has a “peasantry”, the case of Ireland is somehow assimilable to that of Vietnam, or Cuba, or China. On the contrary, [illegible] points out, the precise peculiarity of Ireland is that although it is economically a neo-colony, in terms of social structure it is closer to an advanced capitalist state than it is to a classic imperialist-dominated state. (Although for reasons already gone into, it cannot [illegible] resulting from this combination have only been avoided by dint of massive emigration.) With this social structure, these romantic analogies can only prove disastrous, as multi-class parties of the Stalinist type would have worse consequences for the struggle in Ireland than they have had in China or Vietnam.
The tactics flowing from Trotsky's formula of “The dictatorship of the proletariat leading the small farmers” [illegible]. However, any disagreements of the type discussed above, although not unimportant, are secondary compared to the mass of empirical and theoretical work contained in this book. Any British revolutionary interested in the Irish struggle will find this book indispensable reading. (And any revolutionary not interested in the 900-year long struggle of the Irish for independence doesn't merit [illegible].)
A. Jones
Footnotes
(1) Clann na Talmhan—a peasant-based “left” party which was significant in the 1940s. In 1943 it scored a notable electoral victory, gaining more seats than the Labour Party. After the 1943 election it and the Labour Party were a major force against the traditional bourgeois parties.
(2) P. 413.
Anthony Coughlan: The Northern Crisis—Which Way Forward.
It is now almost fifty years since Stalin invented the theory of Socialism in one country. It is almost twenty since the foreign “communist” parties “discovered” the Peaceful Road to Socialism. Stalinists and those influenced by them haven't learnt a thing in all that time, in fact they have got worse. If anyone wanted a confirmation of that simple truth, it is in this pamphlet.
The core of Coughlan’s argument is the belief that it is possible to achieve “a democratic community—or at least as near to such as is possible even in a divided Ireland—in which free and full political debate can occur, a community in which some people no longer benefit from discrimination against their neighbours, in which the great mass of Protestants can learn that Nationalists, Republicans and Socialists are not all votaries of the Great Beast of Babylon, and in which some of them can gradually be won to accepting the ideal of national unity”. Or in other words “If pigs could fly...” This miracle is apparently to be achieved in order to make possible “free and peaceful argument among the people of Northern Ireland” and is to be achieved by a “broadly-based struggle for democracy and civil rights”. One of the main weapons in this broadly-based struggle is the “Northern Ireland (Civil Rights) Association [illegible] has launched for mass signature throughout the North”. One of the main tasks of this campaign is to keep the “working class struggle for socialism” separate from the struggle of the “forces of democracy and progress”.
Having dealt with Mr. Coughlan's fantasy world we may now turn to reality. The most important reality in Ireland is that the division of the working class along religious lines was systematically created and is systematically maintained by the Northern Irish bourgeoisie (1). Any analysis which does not start from this simple fact is doomed to pointlessness. The entire power of this class rests on this point and it knows it. In order to maintain this division of the working class, the bourgeoisie relies on its control of the press, of broadcasting, of education, etc. As long as it has this control, any talk of “free and full political debate” is just utopian dreaming. But to take control of these away from the bourgeoisie requires the ending of capitalism in Northern Ireland, and that, even Mr. Coughlan has to admit, requires rather more than the efforts of the forces of “democracy and progress”.
The second reality is that neither the Stormont nor the British Government is in the slightest bit interested in whether a Bill of Rights is passed for Northern Ireland or not. They would ignore any such Bill whenever and however it suited them just as ruling classes or castes do in S. Africa, USA or the USSR.
The third reality is that the problems which create the crisis in Northern Ireland are not merely political but are fundamental social questions connected with housing, unemployment, wages, etc. These Coughlan deals with when he says that the south must “put its house in order by dropping plans to resist trade union rights, by developing the social services, by opposing the pressures of economic imperialism and creating full employment.” We agree entirely with Coughlan that all these things are desirable and furthermore we think that people are prepared to struggle for them. But there is no point going around saying “wouldn't it be nice to have so and so”, the question is how to get them, and the fact is that none of these things is attainable under capitalism. The plans to restrict trade union rights are not the product of the peculiarly reactionary nature of Jack Lynch’s government, but to the fact that Irish capitalism is finding it increasingly hard to pay for the wage increases which a strong independent trade union movement can win. Furthermore, any capitalist Irish government would be forced to take the same measures, no matter how much it was based on the mythical “forces of progress and democracy”. Exactly the same applies to the developing of the social services. As for “opposing the forces of economic imperialism”, this is a complete utopia as long as capitalism exists in Ireland, for it is precisely the capitalist market which results in the economic, and therefore political, domination of Ireland by Britain. Therefore to break the links which bind Ireland to Britain, it is necessary to destroy this market and for this a working class revolution leading to the nationalisation of the economy and a state monopoly of foreign trade is necessary.
We could go on and on in the same fashion. Just to give the tone of the rest of the argument, we will therefore only include one more gem. This is Coughlan's statement that “In the conditions of Northern Ireland today it is clearly unrealistic to demand ‘workers’ control’ from a Government which is reluctant to introduce One-Man-One-Vote”. Well, we have news for Mr. Coughlan, and that is that it is not merely “unrealistic in Northern Ireland today” to demand workers control from the Unionists, but that it is “unrealistic” at any-time, at any-place and in any-manner to demand workers’ control from a capitalist government. Unless Mr. Coughlan realises that, he has less political sense than even this pamphlet would indicate. As for the subject of workers’ control, the beginnings of what workers’ control of the state would look like was seen in “Free” Derry and “Free” Belfast, and this was not demanded from the government but taken, just as workers control of production and of the state will be taken. The job of socialists is to spread the examples of Derry and Belfast and to convince the people of Ireland that if they are prepared to fight, they can get those things which they want. And the things which they want, housing, jobs, wages, social services, cannot be obtained by the forces of “progress and democracy” but only by the struggle of the working class for socialism, which Coughlan wants us to forget about so that his precious businessmen and “progressive” priests do not collapse quivering with fear! The task of the moment is patiently explaining and showing to people that the things which they want can only be achieved by the overthrowing of capitalism, not going around spreading confusion by urging people to sign pathetically useless petitions for Bills of Rights which would be meaningless even if achieved. The only effect of the type of politics that Coughlan advocates would be the demoralisation of people as soon as the futility of their efforts became apparent.
Footnotes
(1) Anyone who doubts that at this stage should read Rayner Lysaght’s pamphlet, The Making of Northern Ireland and the Basis of Its Undoing. (Available from Red Books, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1.)
(All books reviewed are obtainable through Red Books, 182 Pentonville Road, London N.1. Tel. 01-837 9987. Enclose 12½% postage.)