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'In Lieu of an Editorial' - a reply Carol Riddell's central thesis* can be summarised as follows:
Women's oppression is intimately linked to the reproduction on social relations. Marxist analysis has in the past concentrated on the relations of production and on the "material, technological aspects of the reproduction of the relations of production.' Since Marxists have been predominately men and have, therefore, had no experience of the way in which the reproduction of the relations of production affects women, Marxism has failed to understand the significance of this process at the level of identity - it makes them believe that they are inferior and it makes them accept false values (diffused through the media, education, morality, culture in general) as real ones. Women live in bad faith as a result. The WLM is of crucial importance, not only because it signals women's liberation in production and the family, but also because it struggles for personal re-definition. This total struggle compels women to organise on their own.
While much of what Carol says is perfectly correct, there is a basic confusion in her argument stemming from her failure to give any theoretical elaboration of what she calls the mode of reproduction of social relations. At places her argument implies that the mode of reproduction comprises all social relations outside the factory: the state, culture centres, education, the family, ete. Elsewhere she implies that it is the set of social relationships centred on the family, in particular the socialisation of children. Her argument, however, challenges classical Marxism on two fundamental aspects: 1. that it is the way in which man (the generic man, not the male) produces which determines, if only in the final instance, his life. This is no mere metaphor (as she suggests) but a fundanicial thesis of scientific Marxism. In fact, her argument here should not be with Marxism at all, but with "vulgar Marxism' which reduces all other aspects of social relations to production and relations of production. She is very much influenced here by Mariarose Dalla Costa's 'Women and the Subversion of the Community. Dalla Costa's major weakness is to give the family as much importance as the mode of production in the social formation, and not to see that the family is determined by the mode of production. When Dalla Costa writes that 'this family is the very pillar of the capitalist organisation of work' she says nothing more than that the division of labour, of which the division of labour between men and women is an instance, is a precondition for the development of capitalism. She certainly does not seem to understand that the very development of capitalism in fact challenges the existing division of labour between men and women. We hope to come back to Dalla Costa's theses in the next numbet-of Socialist Woman, since her pamphlet is the first important breakthrough for a long time on the connection between women's oppression and capitalism and the questions she raises require the fullest discussion.
The other equally fundamental thesis of Marxism that Carol Riddell challenges is that the working class is the only true revolutionary force capable of overthrowing capitalism and that the conquest of political power by the proletariat requires a revolutionary party. Her theoretical division of society into two spheres, the world of production and the world of reproduction, one based on class oppression and the other on oppression of women, leads her to distinguish two revolutionary social forces: the working class and women. That is, instead of a scientific category "class" she introduces a non-scientific category 'sex' in the following schema:
- world of production and material, technical aspects of the relations of production = men = classical Marxism = class-based revolutionary party - world of reproduction = social relations based on the family = women = revolutionary feminism = WLM "WOMEN'S POLITICS In Carol's view, the WLM provides the way for revolutionary women 'to play an equal and unhumiliated part in creating the permanent revolution." Essential to this, she argues, is 'our right to self-organisation, to decide and lead our own political campaigns. But what are our own political campaigns' that are different from the political campaigns of the proletariat in its quest for the revolutionary transformation of capitalist society? The struggles in Ireland and Vietnam, the domestic working class struggle, the dissolution of the Communist League in France, the persecution of immigrant labour in the capitalist metropolises, etc., ete. — are not all these as relevant for women's political campaigns as are specific aspects of women's oppression? And if capitalism has to be seen as a whole and can be overthrown only as a whole, is not the revolutionary party central to this strategy. There are many points that Carol has raised in her article which could and should be challenged. For example, one would question such things as the "non-material' aspect of the reproduction of social relations. Unfortunately, space only permits us to raise one more point here. Carol writes that the WLM challenges a deep-seated axiom of the Marxist revolutionary movement: that personal redefinition is peripheral to the pre-revolutionary situation. This is quite incorrect, for the Leninist party, by demanding of its members that they become professional militants, imposes upon them a certain style of living and a certain ethics. For this reason, it is painful for a middle-class intellectual to become a working class militant, since to do so involves challenging many of his/her deepest notions, for example, the right to a private life, etc. Some never make it at all and in the end leave the party, bitter and disappointed These criticisms of Caroll Riddell's positions do not imply that we do not think the WLM has got an important role to play. On the contrary, a revolutionary movement of women is a precondition for their political and social emancipation. What we do question is that this movement can be autonomous from the class struggle or from the revolutionary heritage of Marxism-Leninism. Tessa van Gelderen * See last issue of Socialist Woman.
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theory. The way in which the reproduction of social rela- tions is organised is closely linked with women's sense of