[page 29]
Book reviews:
Book Reviews
OF
LUT
By Wolfgang Leonhard Published by Ink Links,
price £5.95
Reviewed by John Pickard
social policies of the Communist Parties, and, later the dissolution of the Comintern itself.
The regime of the school was arrang ed so that nothing could divert the students' attention from their tasks: character-building was as much a part of training as the political line. From time to time the students were subjected to the humiliation of public "self-criticism" when long-forgotten remarks or Jokes were brougnt up analysed and deemed to be some sort of profound political deviation that had to be corrected. The students were strictly forbidden any alcohol or association with the opposite sex: even the students' own 'free time' was organised so that they all sat round stiffly and seriously singing German folk songs. (It reminded me of the Flash Gordon film when the wicked Ming exorted, "all my subjects will rejoice and be merry...on pain of death"). Failure or expulsion from the school meant a total loss of position and prospects, indeed one of the expellees is later seen as a beggar.
The lectures, essays and not least the "self-criticism" sessions taught the students to say as little as possible to anyone, and when it was necessary to speak, to carefully weigh and measure the significance of each word, so as not to transgress the line.
Even in this cosy bureaucratic haven the spectre of Trotskyism loomed large. On the day of Trotsky's death a popular festival was suddenly announced. A worker told Leonhard.
"Do you know what some of the workers in the factory are saying? They say that this festival has been announced now just because of Trotsky's death.
'I did not reply. In spite of the end of the purges, it was still too dangerous to talk about Trotsky. I thought it interesting, however, that in August 1940, thirteen years after Trotsky's expulsion from the party and eleven years after he had been exiled from the Soviet Union, there were still a few workers who did not believe the official version of Trotsky's death and considered Stalin capable of celebrating the death of a revolutionary by a popular festival."
It was quite clear that the students and the Komsomol members played no part whatsoever in determining exactly what the line was: there was not one iota of what could be called free debate and discussion. Even hard facts and information were restricted to those 'above' . Leonhard noted how the circulation of information was restricted
'I BEGAN to realise that I was now released from all the burdensome difficulties and adversities which I had experienced before. No more sleepless nights at railway stations. No more struggling to find a niche. No more trotting around offices. No more starvation. " Thus Wolfgang Leonhard entered the Russian bureaucrat's world of special shops, chauffeurdriven cars, private hotel suites and all the other perks and privileges.
His book, , "Child of the Revolution" is an autobiography of his own move from Germany to Russia in 1935, his rise through the Stalinist bureaucracy and his subsequent defection to Yugoslavia in 1949. It is a fascinating account of the workings of the system and well worth reading. Leonhard's book is not a dry political analysis of Eastern European Stalinism: on the contrary, it gives the reader a life-like description of the training of important functionaries; we see the system through the eyes of one who was involved in it.
When he went to Russia as a 13 year old, Leonhard had enormous illusions in the 'Soviet' system, fostered by his own family's involvement in the German KPD. Despite all the insecurities of the purges-his own mother disappeared in 1937—he remained a loyal supporter of the Communist Party and the Young Communist League (Komsomol). The attitude of many young emigrés was similar to his: the struggle against "Trotskyism, Zinovievism" and various other forms of 'sabotage' was absolutely justified, even if one or two individual cases of imprisonment seemed to be rather difficult to understand. Leonhard's years at school and college were years of unstinted faith in the Party line.
It was later in the Comintern School that the workings of the system
Wollengieonhard
became more apparent to Leonhard and he realised that there was a 'niche' for him. At the school, émigrés of various nationalities were trainea for about a year in the political line of the Comintern, in order to do politica work in their home countries. Ihe political line of the Comintern was hammered into the students day l and day out. Every single word had its significance, whether from Pravda or from the lectures. Like today's 'Kremlin-watchers" , the students soon learned that the change of one word could spell an important change in the party line. For example, Leonhard describes how the lectures and the line of Pravda during the war concentrated on the anti-fascist alliance of the USSR, USA and Britain. This theme was repeated ad nauseam. Then in one lecture there was a mention of the struggle against "sectarianism" , without any further elaboration. The students pricked up their ears—here was a new line!—and listened carefully while for days on end the lectures were punctuated with the references to "sectarianism" . Finally, a special lecture on the subjeco was arranged. It was now the duty of the students to be absolutely familiar with the struggle against "sectarianism": how to identify it, analyse it and condemn it. "It was hammered into us again and again, that nothing could be more dangerous than presenting excessive demands or isolating oneself from potential allies." Behind the change in the line (although Leonhard does not mention it) it is clear that the price the Allies are demanding for assistance to the USSR includes the toning down of all the economic and
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and the students were only given what they were supposed to know. "We were given the literature on the Trotskyist argument, which consisted of a cyclostyled document, carefully put together out of Lenin's statements against Trotsky (naturally omitting his far more numerous statements in favour of Trotsky), together with extracts of Stalin's writings. The document contained not a single line written by Trotsky or any of his followers... there was no risk whatsoever involved in putting into our hands speeches by Hitler or Goebbels, or manifestos from the bourgeois parties, or encyclicals from the Pope, because it was certain from the first that none of them would have the slightest influence on us. On the other hand, books by Trotsky and manifestos by anti-Stalinist organisations... would at least have made some impression on us."
"Our instructor, Klassner, became quite unrecognisable when he was dealing with the subject (of Trotskyism). Uncontrollable hatred filled his voice, and instead of expounding the relevant arguments his lecture became a flood of abuse-something unique in our lectures at the school"
Later on, by accident, Leonhard came across some articles by Trotsky in the American 'Militant' and he discovered that the Trotskyites "wrote in our own language" , although his reading of Trotsky and his opinions on the matter do not seem to have gone too far. Leonhard explains the electric effect of this discovery. "I could not have been more startled if I had found a pack of dynamite." From that day on he hurried through his filing so that he could devote three or four minutes to reading Trotskyist publications, looking over his shoulder to see nobody was watching.
Later, Leonhard went to the part of Germany occupied by the Red Army and took part in establishing a government. He illustrates in a variety of ways the contrast between the aspirations of the workers who had fought in the underground-they wanted a socialist transformation-and, on the other hand, the emigré bureaucrats key positions in a "people's government". The German workers often set up their own anti-Nazi committees after liberation, but according Leonhard, "every initiative from below was nipped in the bud." Ulbricht, later to become head of the East German regime, justified the 'line' of the KPD before a meeting of members: the new KPD charter "did not go beyond a general anti-fascist programme. Marx and Engels were not even mentioned: -he term 'Socialism' did not oc-
there were one or two surprises,
as when Ulbricht read out the phrase, 'Complete and unrestricted development of free commerce and private enterprise on the basis of private property"'
When Ulbricht was asked how this was different from any democratic programme he answered with a wink, "You'll soon see, comrade! Just wait a bit"
"When Ulbricht had finished his speech and the International had been sung, many of those present raised their fists in the old salute of the Red Front, which Party members had used before 1933. Ulbricht, together with his collegues on the Presidium did not do so. Many others thereupon lowered their arms again. It was a small but typical example of the change which had taken place in the KPD since 1933" • In reality it was the outward showing of changes that had been taking place since 1923.
The line of the new KPD-for a "bourgeois-democratic revolution to complete the tasks of the 1848 revolution"-overcame any independent movement of the workers themselves, alongside the important fact that the bureaucracy patronised by the Red Army had the effective control of the new state. The control over the levers of state power were later the means of overcoming the very bourgeois leaders and political figures that they had installed themselves in 1945, as the bureaucracy, balancing, Bonapartiststyle, between the classes, moved to take over industry and the economy. East Germany became a model of Stalinist Russia.
The value of Leonhard's account is that it confirms from the inside the analysis outlined at the time by Ted Grant in the "Marxist theory of the State"
"The Stalinists proceeded to make an agreement with the shadow of the bourgeoisie... But the difference with Spain (in 1936) was that here the key positions in this so-called coalition, where the shadow of the bourgeoisie possessed no power, remained firmly in Stalinist hands."
Compare Leonhard. 'In the early days of May, the Russian Commandants had established Mayors and local administrations of their own. Their appointments were often entirely capricious... One Commandant, on receiving the order to establish local Mayors in office. Simply went out into the street and seized by the arm the first passer-by whose face he liked for some reason, saying: "Come here! You are now Mayor!"
Ulbricht insisted on at least half the administrative posts being filled by "anti-fascist bourgeois" '. He said "it's
29
quite clear-it's got to democratic, but we must everything in our control."
Yet they could find nothing but Communists! Leonhard describes hilariously his hunt to fill the quota of "anti-fascist bourgeois", who in 1945 were as rare as the holy grail, to fill the administrative apparatus.
Leonhard eventually broke with the East German regime, but despite misgivings about the privileges and perks of the bureacracy, he does not really explain why and how the bureaucracy arose and even less how it could be overcome. His break could be said to have been made from the standpoint of a 'reforming bureaucrat'-he seemed to have had illusions about Yugoslavia, as if Tito's break with Stalin somehow represented a fundamental difference between the two states, and he sought after East German independence from the USSR. He does not suggest at any stage that the workers themselves will ever settle accounts with the bureaucracy-but then the lack of confidence in the workers is itself part of the make-up of the bureaucrat. All in all, a book well worth reading to fit together more pieces in the puzzle, to complete, from a bureaucrat's point of view, the picture of how Stalinism operates.
look have
MARX:
d figh
By Nicolaievsky and Maenchen-Helfen
Pelican: Price £3.95
Man and fighter
Reviewed Mick Broo
by KS
Penguin Books republished Nicolaievsky's biography of Marx on the centenary of his death. It seems a useful account concentrating on the life of Marx as a practical revolutionary rather than his theoretical works. But Nicolaievsky was a Menshevik. He misinterprets Marx's position on the 1848 revolutions in the spirit of class compromise.
Marxism developed in preparation for the revolutions which broke out in 1848. The "Red Year" in its turn provided the inspiration for the Russiar Marxists, who were faced with a very similar situation at the turn of the cer• tury. The old order was crumbling
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MIR June 1984; Book reviews
away. Who would carry through the revolution against Tsarism? What would that revolution achieve?
The Mensheviks believed that the coming Russian revolution would be bourgeois. It would install a democratic republic and clear the way for capitalist development. It would be led by liberal capitalists, whom the workers should support!
The Bolsheviks, led by Lenin, believed that for the fullest and most rapid achievement of the tasks of the revolution, the peasantry, led by the working class, would have to be the vanguard fighters for democracy.
This position was developed further by Trotsky. The workers would indeed lead the struggle against Tsarism. However, having achieved power they would not stop at land reform and political democracy but make the revolution "permanent" by moving on to socialist tasks. This is, of course, exactly what happened in 1917.
Nicolaievsky attempts to justify his position by asserting that Marx held a Menshevik position in 1848. He speaks repeatedly of the "coalition of
and revolutionary
" The Communist Manifesto too refers to Germany as "on the eve of a bourgeois revolution" and says that Communists "fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way."
This is a cautious "algebraic" formulation. How far the capitalist class would in fact "act in revolutionary way" was to be tested in the fire of events. But in no sense was a "coalition" between the workers and their natural enemies the capitalists advocated. The Manifesto goes on, to say, "But they (the Communists) never cease for a single instant to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that... after the fall of the reactionary classes in Germany, the fight against the bourgeoisie itself may immediately begin" , and again "the bourgeois revolution in Germany will be but the prelude to an immediately following proletarian revolution"
According to Nicolaievsky as soon as he became editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung Marx dissolved the Communist League. The implication is clear-once a democratic paper was set up all independent working class action was superfluous.
The only evidence to this assertion is from a Communist later arrested and threatened with hard labour for his political activities. It was certainly in his interests to deny the existence of the League! Even the editors are forced to step in at this point and ex-
plain that Marx simply did not have the power to dissolve the League.
As for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Nicolaievsky asserts that "there was not a word about the special interest of the working classes or of the workers' special tasks in the German revolution" up to the end of 1848. Evidently in this key revolutionary year Marx behaved like a simple revolutionary democrat!
A few pages later, however, we find that half the wealthy shareholders of the paper defected after 'articles about the June fighting". '. What was this "June fighting" to which this is the sole reference in the book?
In June 1848 the French working class rose against the capitalists and were bloodily put down. The democratic petty-bourgeois vacillated and stood to one side. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was the only paper in Germany to support the French workers.
At the end of 1848 Marx and Engels drew a balance sheet of the revolution. In articles such as "The Bourgeoisie and the Counter-revolution" they explained how the rising capitalist class, so far from destroying the reaction. were attempting to hide behind it for fear of the people. In practice, as Nicolaievsky has to recognise, "the revolution could only be accomplished against the bourgeoisie.
In Germany, particularly, the working class was a small minority. Marx looked at developments in France to reinvigorate the revolution-and understood that the petty-bourgeoisie would first be thrust forward by the new movement. The petty-bourgeois
30
Heule Wheinifde Britung.
Ergan der Ermotratir.
ig. 1194
31225 žèvers
22200
republicans in France allowed themselves to be out-manoeuvred in 1849, eternally vacillating between capitalists and workers, and their German equivalents too were defeated and dispersed!
The lessons of the revolution were drawn by Marx and Engels in their 'Address to the Communist League' of March 1850. For Nicolaievsky, however, this period "proves better than anything else the extent to which his judgement had been affected by the break-down of his immeasurable hopes." But it is Nicolaievsky's judgement which has been affected by the clear revolutionary line struck by the "Address". He asserts, "whether the document in all its detail really represents Marx's ideas is difficult to decide". No shred of evidence is provided for this.
What were the lessons of the 1848 revolutions? Precisely that 'the independence of the workers must be restored." Secondly, the "Address" goes on to say, 'this so treacherous role which the German liberal bourgeois played in 1848 against the people, will in the impending revolution be taken over by the democratic petty bourgeois, who at present occupy the same position in the opposition as the liberal bourgeois before 1848."
"While the democratic petty bourgeois wish to bring revolution to a conclusion as quickly as possible... it is our interest and our task to make the revolution permanent, until all more or less possessing classes have been forced out of their position of dominance, until the proletariat has conquered state power" . This is necessary "not only in one country but in all the dominant countries of the world."
It was from this appraisal that Trotsky applied the theory of permanent revolution to bring the Russian working class to power in 1917—despite the desperate resistance of the Menshevik co-thinkers of Nicolaievsky. Permanent revolution remains the only hope for the workers and peasants of the under-developed countries, and the foundations for that perspective were laid down in Marx's revolutionary activity in the 1840's.
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OLETARIAN
OSOPHERS'
Jonathan Ree ford University Press 1984).
Price £15
PHILOSOPHERS"
(Review by udley Edwards)
'He will be a smart policeman who can arrest the spread of ideas". (Quotation from the old Plebs magazine which was published by the National Council of Labour Colleges during the 1920s.
This book gives a valuable picture of those more thoughtful working men and women, who during the first quarter of the century, strove to grasp the principles of scientific socialism as it was followed by Marx and Engels, eloborated by Lenin, Trotsky and others and skillfully expounded in Britain by the Scottish Marxist John Maclean, and the great Irish workers' leader James Connolly.
In drawing attention to these early worker students of Marx, the author has done the labour movement a service.
Unfortunately this long essay at no point sets out in a clear way the main principals of Marxism considered as a 'guide to action' which if properly used by the working-class can bring about the transformation of society and the carrying forward of mankind to the next necessary stage in the organisation of civilization. Where the author commits himself to any expression of view about the science of Marxism, he reveals those prejudices frequent among university lecturers on philosophy who see Marxism as a threat to their own trade of teaching various philosophic systems, from which their students may pick the one most suited to their taste. ('If you Choie our money, you takes your
Here is an example of how that prejudice comes out in print:-"Who, might it be asked, could trust a social theory which is affiliated to the recondite, sectarian and implausible dogmas of Dialectical Materialism?'
Yet nowhere does he attempt to set out what this theory is; contenting himself with a priori condemnations of the above kind. Neither he, nor any of his professional colleagues can explain why this allegedly "implausible
Scottish Marxist Pioneer, John MacLean.
dogma" has been more successful in predicting the course of historical events over the last 100 years than any other social theory produced by university professors—nor why the influence of Marxism has steadily increased in all parts of the globe, even though government spokesmen and their university allies have presented a false, cut or dried, version of Marxism to the masses of workers.
This book does give a useful historical outline of two sections of proletarian would-be Marxists--those that supported the versions of Marxist philosophy conceived by the old National Council of Labour Colleges in the early '20s, and the ever-changing versions developed by the Communist Party theoreticians, constantly forced to adapt their theoretical positions to fit the ever-growing political zigs-zags of the Stalinist dominated Communist International of those years.
The early NCLC versions of Marxist philosophy suffered from the lack of any serious knowledge of the writings of Lenin, the most successful revolutionary leader of the 20th century, who adhered to the materialist philosophy of Marx, exactly defined as dialectical materialism. He found it a guide to successful action.
The school of Communist cians lambasted this early
31
theoretischool of
working men and women because they did not acknowledge the completely incorrect additions to Marxist philosophy made by Stalin. Nor would they adapt their theoretical notions to the opportunist political tactics of Stalinism which sprang from Stalin's theory of 'Socialism in one country'the idea of building a socialist society alone without the assistance of working-class governments in other lands.
Because this controversy between two distorted versions of Marxism ended in confusion we are told that the whole materialist philosophy of Marxism "collapsed" , when in fact a new generation of working-class Marxists are now coming into being, many of whom are gathering around the Militant paper. Young workers in particular are learning to apply Marxism as a guide to action.
Since this review charges the author with nowhere attempting to define what he means by dialectical materialism, although he abuses it, it would be well to conclude with such a definition. Two quotations are taken from Engels, who formulated this materialist theory, and Trotsky, who brilliantly continued to express those ideas in the 20th century.
Engels tells us that » ...Dialectics is nothing more than the science of the general laws of motion of nature, human society, and thought. (Engels'-Anti-Duhring.) This scientific method came to be known as dialectical materialism because Marx and Engels saw that universal matter preceded the appearance of Man and therefore man and his ideas are the product of material change.
The brief definition given by Engels is rounded off by a more detailed explanation from Trotsky written 60 years later.
''The essence of Marxism consists in this; that it approaches society concretely, as a subject for objective research, and analyses human history as one would a colossal laboratory record. Marxism appraises ideology as a subordinate integral element of the class structure of society, as a historically conditioned form of the development of the productive forces. Marxism deduces from the productive forces of society the inter-relations between human society and surrounding nature, and these in turn are determined at each historical stage by man's technology, his instruments and weapons, his capacities and methods for struggle with nature. Precisely this objective approach arms Marxism with the insuperable power of historical foresight." (Leon Trotskyaddress to Mendeleyer Congress Sept. 1925 in USSR)
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